- Federal Judges Take Note: This site is rated "G" for God. Even if you don't believe in God, you are still welcome to visit this site. But you should be warned that I will use His name respectfully from time to time.
June
28- "Impress on the mind of an
opponent that he is at a disadvantage." B. H. Liddell
Hart, authority on military strategyNOT TO RUSH YOU, BUT... I AM GOING TO BE OUT OF THE COUNTRY FROM APPROXIMATELY JULY 15 TO AUGUST 1. DURING THAT TIME, IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE TO FILL ORDERS. IF THERE IS A CHANCE YOU WILL BE NEEDING MATERIALS BY AUGUST 1, I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO GET YOUR ORDER IN NOW.
SCENES FROM 2002 CLINICS- ATLANTA - CHICAGO - SOUTHERN CALIF - BALTIMORE - DURHAM - TWIN CITIES - PROVIDENCE - DETROIT - DENVER - SACRAMENTO - PACIFIC NORTHWEST - BUFFALO
THIS WEEK, RATHER THAN A QUESTION, I HONOR THE LEGACY OF DON HOLLEDER...
While
in Buffalo last week, I found the time to make a side trip -
for me, a pilgrimage, really - to Aquinas Institute in
Rochester. Rochester is a little more than an hour's drive
east of Buffalo, and Aquinas Institute was Don Holleder's
high school.
As most of you probably know, I am a great admirer of Don Holleder and the things he stood for. If you haven't read about him, be sure to do so. (Don Holleder) I was overcome with the urge to see where he came from, and to find out what he must have been like when he was at the age of the kids many of us deal with every day.
Fortunately, Rochester - although one of the original NBA cities - isn't that large, and I was able to locate the school fairly easily. It is in the city, in an older neighborhood that reflects the sort of middle-class prosperity that Rochester's many industries once provided. Unlike so many similar neighborhoods in other old cities, though, it has not surrendered to decay, and is still nicely kept-up.
Aquinas
is a classic old three-story school; a cross surmounting the
front entrance is a subtle but constant reminder that one is
entering a Catholic school. Once inside, though, except
possibly for the boys wearing "uniforms" - maroon "Aquinas
Institute" polo shirts - a visitor might think he was in any
school building anyplace in the United States. (The girls
didn't seem to be similarly uniformed.)
The people I met couldn't possibly have been more hospitable or helpful, especially considering that I just waltzed in off the street unannounced, with some story about paying a brief visit from the West Coast and wanting to know more about a son of Aquinas.
They
took me to the chapel, where a large portrait of Major Don
Holleder in his army uniform was waiting to be hung in a
prominent spot in their auditorium; they took me to the
trophy case - a rather modest-sized one, I noted, in view of
Aquinas' illustrious sports history; they showed me programs
from his high school days.
To the left is a photo of Don Holleder from a game program his sophomore year. His name, as it would often be throughout his football career, is misspelled as "Hollender." General Jim Shelton, who played against him in college and served with him in Vietnam, noted that he is undoubtedly posing as an end, not as a quarterback, as he was left-handed.
The President of the school, Patrick Hanley, took me into his office and showed me the yearbook from Don Holleder's senior year.
It was 1952 - 50 years ago perhaps to the very day I sat there and looked at the yearbook - that Don Holleder graduated from high school.
Flipping
through the pages of the book, I got a Cliff's Notes tour of
Don Holleder's high school career, seeing him posing in his
football uniform; seeing him race for a touchdown against
Fork Union Military Academy (far left), wearing number 64,
back in the days before numbers were specific to positions
(Otto Graham was still wearing number 60 as the Cleveland
Browns' quarterback).
I saw pictures of Don Holleder sitting in the team photos of the football, basketball and baseball teams; loaded down with trophies as he posed with his coach at the awards banquet (near left). I looked at his senior mug shot and read the activities - Perpetual Mass Club, indicating that he was a young man of faith; football, basketball and baseball; and "Mission Bouts."
I had an inkling of what the "Mission Bouts" were all about, and I was right. It was once a Catholic school tradition, back in those days of long ago, to stage intramural boxing tournaments as fundraisers for various projects. Aquinas' beneficiary was church missions, and it was such a huge event that the finals were held in Rochester's downtown auditorium, where the NBA Rochester Royals also played at that time. The major cost was the "talent," which was all donated by the young men who volunteered. Naturally, Don Holleder boxed in the Mission Bouts.
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Aquinas
is still a very good football school - they've scheduled a
game this fall at Ohio powerhouse Canton McKinley - but
Aquinas football was really, really big in earlier
days.
Aquinas had its own large, horseshoe-shaped stadium (left), and routinely packed it as the "Little Irish" took on powerhouses of the day from far and wide, playing home-and-home games against the likes of Pittsburgh Central Catholic, Detroit Catholic Central and Boys Town, Nebraska. (The stadium was later sold to the city of Rochester, which made a big production of renaming it for Don Holleder. and then, for reasons of its own, tore it down and used the land for something which is now called the Holleder Industrial Park. Scarcely, in my estimation, a fitting tribute to one of Rochester's greatest sons.)
The class of 1952 - 50 years ago this month! I marveled at how excited that young high school graduate must have been at the thought an appointment to West Point and what might lie ahead. And what a career he had! four years of major-college football combined with the already-strict regimen of military training and studies... All-America honors... playing quarterback at the highest level without any prior experience, and leading Army to a win over Navy... graduation and a commission as an officer... marriage and the birth of four daughters... a promising military career... Vietnam and the fate that awaited him there.
Think about that the next time you look at your seniors. Who knows where life will take them?
(And think about honoring Don Holleder and the men who died with him - and doing what you can to help build young men like him - sign your team up to take part in the Black Lion Award program. The cost is nothing. The payoff is priceless. coachwyatt@aol.com)
*********** Is there anything worse than fighting people in Afghanistan who have vowed to destroy our way of life, and then, while our rear in unguarded, having two federal judges in San Francisco beat them to the punch?
*********** Okay, okay - it's not the game of soccer. It's soccer people...
In Southern California, as nearly everywhere else in the country, there is a lack of sportsmanship and discipline among soccer players uncharacteristic of other sports.
In the CIF-Southern Section, there were 646 player ejections from soccer games during the 2001-2002 school year, the most of any sport. Most of the ejections resulted from violent behavior, threatening and physical contact with officials or dangerous play.
And, I might add, from spoiled brats whose coaches can't - or won't - control them.
"Is soccer out of control?" commissioner Jim Staunton asked. Not necessarily. But the management of it is.
*********** It sounded like just another nut case out on the street. But it ended with a suburban Seattle deputy being shot and killed Saturday.
The officer responded to a report of a naked man disturbing traffic. They struggled. The officer used pepper spray to try to subdue the guy. The officer wound up being shot several times with his own gun, and died at the scene.
Notice how it happened. There was a time when the officer would have held the guy at gunpoint and threatened to shoot him if he so much as moved a muscle - or whatever - but this is America in the twenty-first century, and that officer knew what would happen to him if he had to shoot the guy. So instead he tried using pepper spray, and for some reason unknown to me it wasn't as effective in stopping the guy as a bullet would have been.
And now he's dead. He leaves behind a wife and an 18-year-old daughter.
Another police officer sacrificed to those who cry "police brutality." Another police officer whose life is not as valuable as that of the screwball he tried to subdue.
*********** Wrote John Torres, of Manteca, California, "Just what we need - Title X."
He sent me an article from the L.A. Times in which a reporter whined about the further challenge faced by non-white women. See, in the effort to provide sports for women, college athletic directors have completely overlooked diversity.
They've added equestrian sports, and created a lot of opportunities for women, but mostly for relatively affluent white women. They've also added rowing, which requires absolutely no high school experience, and certainly shouldn't exclude black or hispanic women - unless, by some chance, the sport just doesn't appeal to them.
There are plenty of college scholarships available in sports such as volleyball, softball and soccer, too. Practically every high school offers those sports nowadays, and they're certainly not closed to minorities, but when I take an occasional look at one of those sports at the college level, I don't see an awful lot of black girls playing.
Perhaps there is some insidious discrimination at work here, but since colleges are willing to recruit players from other countries, I rather doubt it.
It may have something to do with the fact that those sports are not seen as cool by minority girls.
If I could offer a bit of unsolicited advice to those girls, it would be to get over it. Get over the idea that it's "white" to play those sports. Get out and beat the white girls at their own games. Or else shut up and stop crying "discrimination."
The fact is, there just aren't any more sports they can add.
*********** Hugh, While in California this weekend I watched a sports magazine program called "Outside the Lines" that interviewed the Tulane AD, the wrestling coach at Chicago U, and Donna Lopiano. From the start Lopiano tried to persuade the listeners to believe that college football is to blame for minor men's sports being cut. However, the wrestling coach had a comeback for her which she didn't have an answer for. "Why are you picking on football? Marquette, Providence, Creighton, and other major division one schools that don't have football are still cutting men's sports!" He then went on to add that even in division three where there are NO scholarships schools are eliminating men's sports, including football, to satisfy Title IX. Hugh, I have to say, these wrestling guys are quickly becoming my idols. J Robinson, the wrestling coach at the U of Minnesota is another guy willing to take these "women" on toe to toe. These guys truly have a set of stones!!
The other part of the program profiled the University of Maryland and the successes its athletic department has had in the last few years. They've done it WITHOUT cutting anything, and what makes it more impressive is that a WOMAN is the athletic director!! Just goes to show you gender has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with commitment, hard work, and loyalty. Donna Lopiano is just another one of those people who think they deserve a handout "just because", and THAT is why our society is in the shape it's in today. I'm all for the girls having equal opportunity, and that was Title IX's original intent, but NOT at the expense of others because then it takes opportunity away and THAT is in direct opposition to what Title IX stands for.You certainly have my permission to print any of it.Yours truly,Joe Gutilla, Minneapolis.
*********** The absolute latest on Title IX, from a former women's swimming coach:
"Many who have supported Title IX for 30 years wonder what changes the administration wants to make in enforcement when the law is already being sensibly enforced. I hope the administration doesn't try to fix what isn't broken." Senator Edward "Teddy" Kennedy, who back in the days before Title IX served briefly - and unsuccessfully - as a women's swimming coach in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts.
*********** All Aboard!
Caltrain, which serves San Francisco from the south, announced that it will add extra cars to trains to accommodate people heading north for the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebration the weekend of June 29 and 30 and will run a special train for the parade on Sunday.
The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebration includes "entertainment and other festivities."
Think of it. Extra cars. A special train, even. Could this be the idea that saves Amtrak?
NOT TO RUSH YOU, BUT...
I AM GOING TO BE OUT OF THE COUNTRY FROM
APPROXIMATELY JULY 15 TO AUGUST 1. DURING THAT
TIME, IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE TO FILL ORDERS. IF
THERE IS A CHANCE YOU WILL BE NEEDING MATERIALS BY
AUGUST 1, I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO GET YOUR ORDER IN
NOW. I am now taking orders for "PRACTICE WITHOUT
PADS," my latest video production. It is geared
primarily to the youth coach, but it will be useful
to high school coaches as well. It deals with
subjects ranging from the organizational details
that you must cover before you even start to
practice, to pre-season workouts, and takes you all
the way through a practice to the sort of things
you might want to cover when you're wrapping things
up at the end. In between are drills dealing with
flexibility, strength, form-running and agility, as
well as the basics of proper blocking, tackling and
ball-handling. It ends with numerous fun-type
drills that you can use to build competitiveness
and morale among your kids, and send them home
wanting more. And the best part of it is, although
you might see players on the tape performing some
of the drills while wearing helmets and pads,
and
although these drills are still plenty useful once
you're allowed to hit, they are drills that you can
do in the off-season, or in pre-season before
you're allowed to have any contact! The
tape runs approximately 1-1/2 hours in length and
sells for $49.95 - mail check or money order to
Coach Hugh Wyatt - 1503 NE 6th Avenue - Camas, WA
98607 WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT
"PRACTICE WITHOUT PADS" - Coach, I
viewed your tape last night and I want to commend
you on another fine production. It was great from
the onset and got better as it went along. There is
a ton of great information on the tape for youth
coaches such as myself who are always looking to
improve. My wife caught the tail-end of it, and
commented a number of times on how much fun the
drills looked (in the fun-time section). I'm always
looking for new ideas to add fun (with
conditioning) to the practices, and the tape has
loads of ideas. Plus, although you don't coach to
make the moms happy, it was nice that my wife could
look at it and recognize that the kids were having
fun (and that our kids will have fun with these
competitive drills this coming season). It never
hurts to keep the moms happy, since they are often
the ones who are unsure about whether their boys
should play or not, and are often the ones who have
to schlep the kids to/from practice, so I think
that it's great for them the see that the kids are
having fun (as well as learning and getting
fitter). If we get enough of a sign-up, I'll be
coaching a 7th grade team, and will finally get to
run the double-wing as it should be run. If I'm
fortunate enough to be able to be a head coach, I'm
determined to make the season a hugely successful
one for the kids in terms of learning the game,
gaining some skills, and having some fun. I'm
hoping that it will have a positive effect on the
program as well. Your tape will go a long way in
helping me achieve these goals. Thanks again for
your efforts, and I'll see you in Providence. Rick
Davis, Duxbury, Mass *********** Coach, Great job
on the "Practice Without Pads" video. I would
recommend it for any youth coach. It doesn't matter
if you are just beginning or have been around for
awhile, you can learn something from it. There are
several things that I will be implementing this
year. Thanks. L. E. "Stew" Stewart, Yuma,
Arizona *********** Coach Wyatt, I
received your videos today on "Safer & Surer
Tackling" & "Practice without
Pads". They complement each other. I
heartily recommend them both to any coach on any
level. The practice video explained the how and why
of drills that teach fundamental football. It
explained how they related to situations players
would see in competition. It expanded one drill to
the next, to the next, until a compete base of
knowledge was taught to players! I laughed watching the
pulling drill with the tubes!!!! I think I would
have LOVED to have been able to participate in that
drill during my youth. What a fun
workout!!!! The tackling video taught me
some tackling teaching skills that I am ashamed to
admit that I had not learned in 8 years of coaching
football. I think I taught tackling "ok" before.
Now I know how to teach tackling in a safer, but
more fun, more physical and more exciting
manner. In 2 hours of watching video,
I feel I have increased my ability to coach WINNING
football by 300%. Wait until I can review it
several times again! I feel like I have received a
BF (Bachelor's of Football) from the U of W
(University of Wyatt). Sincerely, Marlowe Aldrich,
Youth Coach, Billings, Montana *********** Coach Wyatt,I
just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your
video, "Practice Without Pads." It is informative,
extremely well-done and professionally made. I
received a great deal of useful information and
ideas from your tape and look forward to
implementing them into our upcoming season. Going
into my sixth season of coaching, watching
"Practice Without Pads" reminded me of how much I
still didn't know. Thank you.Sincerely,Dave Potter,
Head Coach, Durham Fighting Eagles, Durham, North
Carolina *********** Coach - Just got
finished viewing the video -- another great
instructional tape!! Thanks for all you do for us
coaches. Joe Bremer - West Seneca, New
York *********** Hi coach, I got
your ("Practice Without Pads") tape yesterday and
had the time to sit down and watch
it. What a boon to coaches
everywhere! Especially in a situation such as mine.
We have no chance for contact with players before
August 1st. At the end of August we have our
jamboree and then the season starts. In that time
we have to have 10 hours of conditioning without
pads (5 days) and (10 hrs) in pads, another 5
days. Only after these first 20
hours can we even think about contact vs. another
team. ( Usually my association is able to field at
least 2 teams in each division so we do have the
possibility of scrimmages amongst ourselves!
) I'm sure you recognize Pop
Warner rules. There have been times when I have
felt that we have not progressed enough with our
blocking and tackling skills that we have had no
contact with any other team until the
jamboree. Being able to use drills that
actually teach real football skills, as opposed to
generic "conditioning" exercises during those first
5 days, is going to be of "immeasurable" value to
our program. We still may not be scrimmaging before
the jamboree but at least we will be doing the
right things from the start! Thank you, coach, for helping
to further the learning of another coach. You see!
You can teach an old dawg new
tricks. Always, JC Brink, Jupiter,
Florida *********** Hey Coach, Just wanted to drop a
quick line to let you know what I found out about
the inner tubes. I ended up using bicycle tire
inner tubes for the tire drag and the tractor pull
(shown on the Practice Without Pads tape). I tried
both out at another coach's house with his son and
a few of his friends. The bicycle tire tubes work
just fine with the tire drag but, the bicycle tubes
tend to be too stretchy for the tractor pull (even
for 11-13 year olds). Regardless, all of the boys
had a blast in the short time we tested the
gadgets. They thought the tire drag was fun but
they really enjoyed the tractor pull (the tire drag
probably involved too much running for them). They
quickly learned that the only that you have a
chance to win is to stay low, very low. I was still unable to locate a convenient
source for truck or car tire inner tubes so I got
to thinking and came up with the idea of motorcycle
tire inner tubes. You know, the ones used in dirt
bikes. They are much thicker than the bicycle tubes
and are available at almost any motorcycle shop. I
haven't tried them yet but I will let you know how
it goes when I do. Regards, Donnie Hayes,
Farmington Hills, Michigan NOT TO RUSH YOU, BUT...
I AM GOING TO BE OUT OF THE COUNTRY FROM
APPROXIMATELY JULY 15 TO AUGUST 1. DURING THAT
TIME, IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE TO FILL ORDERS. IF
THERE IS A CHANCE YOU WILL BE NEEDING MATERIALS BY
AUGUST 1, I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO GET YOUR ORDER IN
NOW.
*********** President Bush is proposing a
doubling of aid to "education in Africa." Not that it's all
that much money - hell, we're only talking $200 million.
No doubt, the federal aid will be just as effective in raising educational standards there as it has been in American public schools.
It sounds as if lot of it will probably go to provide "teacher training" in areas such as AIDS awareness and diversity. Based on my experiences with dreaded "teacher inservice workshops," my sympathies go out to the African teachers who will have to sit through those sessions.
(Although, come to think of it, a little diversity training wouldn't hurt any in Zimbabwe, where the government has sanctioned the murder of white farmers.)
Sounding more and more like a Democrat every day, the President also proposes to provide scholarships for 250,000 African girls. Not boys. Girls.
He didn't say anything about requiring proportionality in athletic opportunities in African universities, but as long as he's pandering to the feminists, that's probably next.
*********** Chew on this a minute- an American reporter was interviewing a Pakistani religious leader, a Mullah, and asked him about the current inquisition going on there, in which several hundred "non-believers" are in prison, facing execution.
Members of religious minorities have been sentenced to death just for saying "as-salaam aleikum," the standard greeting throughout the Islamic world. It means merely "peace be with you," but see- Islamic militants insist only Muslims may say it.
The Mullah answered with a question of his own - "who is America to be talking about killing infidels?"- and, opening a book, began to read aloud about the Clinton administration burning scores of Americans for blaspheming Jesus.
"The leader of the heretics," he said, "was named David Koresh."
*********** In a move sure to strike fear into the hearts of the big-time cheaters in college football, the NCAA informed the University of California, perennial Pac-10 bottom feeder, that it will be ineligible to play in a bowl game this year. Of course, with 28 bowl games planned, and 56 spots to fill, the NCAA may have to reconsider.
*********** Lawrence Phillips (aka "the troubled running back") is back with the Montreal Alouettes. Reportedly, he wears a sweatband at practice with an obscenity printed on it, he does not speak with teammates. When it was announced that he was not starting in the first exhibition game, he left the team, accusing management of lying to him, and made disparaging remarks about starter Mike Pringle. But for some reason - perhaps because the INS finally did its job and kept him from re-entering the US - the Alouettes have taken him back.
This is probably it for Phillips, the last stop after being released by three NFL clubs.
His contract for this season calls for about $43,000 - roughly the salary of an average schoolteacher with 10 years' experience. The team holds an option for a second year.
He was the sixth overall player chosen in the 1996 draft, but was released by the Rams halfway through the '97 season, by Miami in the 1998 training camp and by San Francisco during the 1999 campaign. In two of the three cases, teams cited insubordination (unwillingness to take orders) as the reason for his release.
*********** I have taken a shot or two at Nike from time to time, primarily over their attempts to inject professionalism into high school sports by designating certain high-profile schools to be Nike teams, giving them huge recruiting advantages, and by running meat-market basketball camps where elite high schoolers from around the country gather to discuss which college they'll attend for a year or two, should they decide not to declare themselves eligible for the NBA draft.
But in all fairness to a company which has taken some serious hits from the world's do-gooders, I should make mention of an extremely community-minded company policy I just learned of last week, one that isn't aimed at just the talented elite.
While working at a camp in suburban Portland, Oregon, I struck up a conversation with one of the coaches, a volunteer coach. He is a Nike employee. For every hour he spends as a volunteer coach, Nike donates $10 to the school's football program.
*********** Another one bites the dust...
In Meadville, Pennsylvania, Allegheny College head coach Blair Hrovat resigned last week, after admitting that reports that he had not completed all the requirements for his claimed bachelors degree from Edinboro University were true.
"He did not graduate from Edinboro University," an Edinboro spokesman told the Meadville Tribune. "He attended classes from the fall of 1981 to the spring of 1986. He took classes as late as 1990."
"I regret that a talented coach has made a serious mistake," said Allegheny president Richard J. Cook in a statement. "I wish Blair Hrovat and his family every success.
"We will act as promptly as we can to fill the head coaching position, " he continued. "I feel an obligation ... to develop a well-conceived plan of succession for the head football coach. It is simply too soon to announce today what that plan will be."
Hrovat was 26-14 at the Allegheny, going 8-2, 6-4, 7-3 and 5-5 in his four seasons there.
*********** "Coach --- Maybe you'd like to pass this on. My son will be a H. S. sophomore next year and has decided not to play football. When I asked him why he said his Coaches took all the fun out of the game for him. The reason, with 2 freshman teams at his school the coaches manipulated the rosters and a lot of kids played both ways or moved up and down from the A and B squads to insure more playing time. The players lower down on the B team depth chart barely played.
"Now I always told my son one earns playing time by hard work at practice and in the weight room and I have no illusions about him being an All - American, he is rather slow but with quick feet, overweight but strong and with a lot of muscle hidden under his pudge, and a lot of football heart. Having coached him at the youth level I know he can be a very effective player. I've seen him move a pile and stuff a run but he doesn't look athletic, same problem with other players, practice hard everyday but lucky to get in on 3 plays a game.
"The Freshman Coaches were so concerned with winning they forgot about developing players, in my 47 years I've seen many ugly duckling freshmen that were great athletes by Junior or Senior year. Did my son and others deserve to start? No, but they should have gotten more playing time with game experience. The Freshman teams did win, so did the Sophomore squad, but J. V. and Varsity didn't. The best rule in Youth Football is that all kids play." NAME WITHHELD
(Damn! I hate to hear a story like that. Here we are bitching about soccer stealing kids from us, and we have football coaches acting like fifth-columnists, working against us on the inside by running off kids who want to play football! I hate to break this to those freshman coaches, but the won-loss record is not a measurement of their ability as a freshman coach. I don't think that the Chicago Bears are going to hire anybody on the strength of his record as a freshman coach. Freshman year is way too early to begin culling kids out - especially when you have a district that is farsighted enough to provide two freshman teams. MORAL: Don't try to build your coaching rep at the expense of our game. Or our kids. HW)
*********** I wrote on Friday about the passing of Gino Merli, a great American, and winner of the Medal of Honor.
Just how great? Listen to this. The guy left high school in Peckville, a small coal-mining town in Northeastern Pennsylvania, after his junior year. To make it brief, he fought in Europe, was wounded three times, and on one fateful night displayed bravery of the sort that earns a person the highest award our nation can bestow on a member of our armed forces. And then he returned to Peckville. And to high school.
One of his high school classmates, Peggy Skiver, now lives in Portland, Oregon. "It was a special time for Peckville," she told the Portland Oregonian's Steve Duin. "A high school of 400 kids, and out of that we had a hero. Who was still a boy."
"We idolized him," she told Duin. "He was so down-to-earth."
Not long before Mr. Merli's death, a former high school classmate visited his wife in Peckville, and asked for a copy of his Medal of Honor citation, and was given a copy of a letter Mr. Merli had sent to an admirer who had written him. The classmate passed the letter along to Ms. Skiver, who shared it with Steve Duin, who shared it with his readers. It would make a graduation speech anyone could be proud of:
"Herewith is a reproduction of my citation," he wrote, " and as you will note, it is more than 50 years since I did that honorable deed."I had a choice - as you can clearly see - I could have done nothing instead of what I did. Maybe I was motivated by my dead buddies or by my hatred of war. I just know that I had a decision to make and I made it.
"Throughout a lifetime, we are faced with decisions that could take us either way. You probably have had many, and because we love ourselves and our fellow man, we do the right thing. We do not always receive a medal of honor, but we do get a medal of love, self-respect, and an honorable life.
"Not everyone can be a Medal of Honor recipient... but everyone can have pride in himself - have pride in his heritage. This great land of ours - America - it takes every single person to make our nation operate. No matter how small a part you think you play, always remember that it is necessary...
"What you must never forget... in each phase, you must do your very best... you must excel - again, each one cannot be a genius, just do your very best, and the best will return to you...
"Because if everyone pulls his weight, the job will become lighter and easier. We must keep the wheels turning. We must keep our ship of State afloat. We must always keep trying to better ourselves, our surroundings, and our country, and we must never quit."
(General Jim Shelton, Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions, has given me some idea of the difficulty of earning the Medal of Honor - or of trying to convince others that someone's valorous conduct merits our highest award. He has been a strong advocate of the candidacy of First Lieutenant Clark Welch, a Black Lion whose gallantry would seem to most of us to be worthy of the Medal of Honor. And yet it has been 35 years since Clark Welch's act of bravery, and still the Department of the Army debates the issue. Read General Shelton's recommendation and see what I mean: CLARK WELCH)
*********** I have since received this note from Jim Shelton:
The Department of Army has determined that Clark Welch"s recommendation for the Medal of Honor be "downgraded" to award of the Distinguished Service Cross.The Distinguished Service Cross is the second highest award which the nation can bestow, but it is not the Medal of Honor. Clark Welch deserves the highest honor--he deserves to go to the White House and have the President of the United States drape the beautiful blue ribbon with white stars and the medal around his neck. He should become a member of that distinguished group of Americans so honored. Those of us who feel it should be so will continue to press for the top award for valor to this humble and unassuming warrior.
*********** Click on the story about Gino Merli. The Big Red One lost a true hero with his passing. Nice tribute to him on your page. http://www.bigredone.org/ Black Lions Sir! Tom Hinger, Auburndale, Florida
HAVE YOU SIGNED THE PETITION ASKING THAT RICK RESCORLA BE AWARDED THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF HONOR? DO IT NOW, AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO DO IT, TOO! I was #3533. Bill Livingstone, of Troy, Michigan, wrote to tell me he was #4290. Mick Yanke, of Cokato, Minnesota was #4268; Greg Koenig, of Las Animas, Colorado, was #8192 - Doug Gibson, of Naperville, Illinois was #10,413 - as of April 28 the total was 10,430 - on May 30, it was 11,751. Come on, guys - how tough is it to go to a web site and do what little we can for a great American?
GO TO THE SITE AND READ WHAT SOME OF THE SIGNERS HAVE TO SAY, AND YOU'LL FEEL A GREAT SENSE OF PRIDE WHEN YOU JOIN THEM- http://www.petitiononline.com/pmfrick/petition.html
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(IF YOU WERE ENROLLED IN 2001, YOU MUST RE-ENROLL) BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME - coachwyatt@aol.com - AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM FOR 2002! |
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TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT REAL HEROES -
AND HONOR THE PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM WHO MOST REPRESENTS THE VALUES OF OUR REAL HEROES (ALL TEAMS, FROM THE YOUTH LEVEL ON UP, ARE ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE)
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NOT TO RUSH YOU, BUT... I AM GOING TO BE OUT OF THE COUNTRY FROM APPROXIMATELY JULY 15 TO AUGUST 1. DURING THAT TIME, IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE TO FILL ORDERS. IF THERE IS A CHANCE YOU WILL BE NEEDING MATERIALS BY AUGUST 1, I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO GET YOUR ORDER IN NOW. |
By
any measure, Bob Matthias is one of the greatest of American
athletes. He is the only person to have played in the Rose
Bowl and competed in the Olympics in the same year. While
still a high school student, he became the youngest person
ever to win an Olympic gold medal in the decathlon. He is
the first person to win decathlon gold medals in two
consecutive Olympics.