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BACK ISSUES - MAY-JUNE 2000

June 30 - "Plan. Nothing is going to happen by accident." Bear Bryant

***********TRIVIA ANSWER: The only current professional head coach to have won professional championships with three different clubs is Don Matthews. Matthews, head coach of the Canadian Football League's Edmonton Eskimos, has won the Grey Cup, Canadian Football's "Big One", four times - at British Columbia in 1985, at Baltimore (remember when the CFL played in the US and the Baltimore Stallions averaged 38,000 a game?) in 1995, and at Toronto (with a guy named Flutie playing quarterback) in 1996 and 1997. With 148 regular-season wins in 13 years as a Canadian Football League head coach, he leads all other coaches in CFL history; when playoff wins are added in, his 162 career wins are second only to Frank Clair's 174, compiled over 19 seasons. Matthews was a high school coach at Beaverton, Oregon's Sunset High when I first arrived in the Portland area 25 years ago, and was brought north by Hugh Campbell as an assistant at Edmonton. His first head coaching job was at B.C. in 1983, and he is now with his fifth CFL team (he also coached Saskatchewan for three years). I can only figure there must be something about him that frightens NFL owners or GM's, because otherwise he would seem to be a slam-dunk choice for an NFL team looking for a coach with the winning touch. Guessed - after I let them know they were warm - by Adam Wesoloski, dePere, Wisconsin... Ken Brierly, Carolina, Rhode Island... Greg LaBoissonniere, Coventry, Rhode Island... Steve Staker, Fredericksburg, Iowa
***********Two rather significant Supreme Court decisions this week - one on partial-birth abortions and one dealing with homosexuals serving as Boy Scout leaders - were decided by 5-4 votes. However you may have felt about those decisions, the vote of only one justice changing his or her mind would have tipped the balance in the other direction. The makeup of the Supreme Court is crucial to our future as a nation, and that makeup is determined by the President. The President has few powers as significant as the power to appoint Supreme Court justices and, with several of the present justices getting up there in years, it is not inconceivable that the guy who gets elected this November could wind up naming three, four or even five new justices during his term. Think about who you want selecting Supreme Court Justices, the next time somebody tells you it doesn't matter who wins - they're both just a couple of bums.
***********Uh-oh. "In terms of just reporting what goes on on the sidelines, there probably isn't enough work for two," says Don Ohlmeyer produced of Monday Night Football, who has decided, nevertheless, to have two people on the sidelines anyhow. "We will have reporters focusing on different insights with a sense of immediacy from the field.They will come to each telecast with a certain number of pieces we have prepared... " Uh-oh. Sounds to me like we'd better brace ourselves for plenty of those unforgettable Olympic Moments. In hopes of making a few bucks on the side, I hereby submit the following "pieces" I have "prepared," just in case the people at ABC can use them. They tell us about the human side of those big guys out there, and are certain to appeal to the type of audience ABC seems to be after. Just fill in the blanks as needed: "Life wasn't easy for (fill in the name), growing up on the mean streets of (fill in the name)" ... "When (fill in the name) was (fill in the age), (fill in the professionals) said he'd never (fill in the verb) again" ... "(Fill in the name) never knew his father, and his (fill in the relative) died of (fill in the cause of death) when he was only (fill in the age)" ... "(Fill in the name)'s (fill in the relative) died when he was (fill in the age), but he knows (he/she)'s up in heaven watching him" ... "The initials (fill in the initials) on (fill in the name)'s (fill in the piece of equipment) stand for his (fill in the relative and name), who would have been (fill in the age) today, if it hadn't been for a (name of tragedy) which took (his/her) life" ... "(Fill in player's name) is so happy with his new contract, that he's pledged to donate (fill in dollar amount) to (fill in charity) for every (tackle/touchdown/sack/touchdown pass/interception) he (makes/scores/throws) this year" ... "It used to sting (fill in the name) when his young (son/daughter) would come home crying because other kids said (his/her) daddy was a (rapist/murderer/thief/druggie)" ... "(Player's name) is a real family man, who in the off-season loves playing with his kids in (city #1), (city #2), (city #3), (city #4), and (city #5)"
***********Last winter, a woman in Edmonton was attending a youth hockey game with her husband, and happened to be looking through the program (Or is it programme?) when something caught her eye. "Roger," she remembers telling her husband, "most of these players were born in February and March!" Now, most guys would have said, "Hmmm," or something like that, and continued watching the game. Except the woman was an Edmonton psychologist, and "Roger" was Roger Barnsley, also a psychologist. Her observation piqued his interest. Further research, conducted along with two other Alberta psychologists, Jim Battle and Gus Thompson, showed the birthdate phenomenon to be typical: with the cutoff date for eligibility for entry-level hockey set at January 1, those players who were older in their first year of hockey tended to have an advantage in size, concentration and coordination. And, shockingly, research showed that that early edge could hold up for years: 40 per cent of elite players, they found, are born in the first three months of the year, while only 10 per cent are born in the last three months. Dr. Battle, a former linebacker for the Edmonton Eskimos who now works for Edmonton city schools, extended the research to school performance, and found that in a study of 1200 kids in Edmonton schools, on average the older kids had better grades and lower dropout rates. Considering the intense involvement of hockey parents in furthering their youngsters' careers, how can they not take this research into account in planning their families? ("Uh, I know you have a headache, Dear - but it's April already, and if we're gonna have a hockey player around the house, we'd better get started, eh?")
*********** The PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals People) crowd - you know, the ones who don't want you eating meat and using leather wallets - would have loved this: in Canada - which in many ways is a whole lot more liberal and socially conscious than we are about most things - I was strolling through an arcade in a mall, amused by families gathered happily around the "Whack-a-Mole" game: every time a "mole" popped his head up out of one of the "holes," Dad would bop him with a mallet while the kiddies squealed with delight.
***********"The mercenary is a simplistic fellow. Not for him the strutting parades of West Point, the medals on the steps of the White House or perhaps a place at Arlington. He simply says, 'Pay me my wage and I'll kill the bastards for you.'" Frederick Forsyth, author of "The Dogs of War"

June 29 - "Once a guy starts wearing silk pajames, it's hard to get up early." Eddie Arcaro, all-time great jockey

***********The recent Supreme Court pre-game prayer ruling called to mind an incident of long ago. In the summer of 1974, we were in Soldier Field to play the Chicago Fire. We were the Philadelphia Bell, and we were five games into the World Football League's first season. Our head coach was a somewhat eccentric former NFL running back who after knocking around football's minor leagues as a coach had spent the latter part of the 1973 season as the interim head coach of the San Diego Chargers. He would best be characterized as a vulgar individual. As the Bell's Player Personnel Director, I can personally attest to that. Somewhere, he must have learned that no sentence was complete unless it was marked by at least one appearance of the compound noun that nowadays describes a certain Monica Lewinsky. I don't think he was ever better - or worse - than he was in our locker room that August night in the bowels of Soldier Field, as our team took a knee and bowed heads. For some reason, this most profane of individuals had ordained himself to deliver the pre-game prayer, and it very quickly became obvious that he wasn't used to addressing the Almighty. His prayer moved very quickly from a plea to the Almighty to give us a break because we'd been working so hard - "No (Monica Lewinskys) have worked as hard as these guys..." - to a series of declarations about the manner in which we would dismember our opponents: among other things, we would go out there and perform penisectomies on them (he was much more descriptive), chasing them off the field with sanitary napkins (he used a brand name) between their legs. George Carey, an assistant equipment manager, knelt next to me. I remember turning my head to look at him, and finding him looking at me. Shaking his head with a "can you believe this?" smile on his face, he whispered to me, "Man, this prayer isn't gettin' past the ceiling!"
***********"I grew up thinking about being a pro, but how legitimate is that? You don't know when you're 10 years old if you can play at the pro level. I took it one season at a time, concentrating on what I was doing every day - every game - every practice." Curt Warner (Not Kurt Warner - Curt Warner. Now the owner of Curt Warner Chevrolet in Vancouver, Washington, he played running back for the Seahawks and Rams, and before that, played on Penn State's 1982 National Championship team, finishing in the top ten in that year's Heisman Trophy balloting. At Pineville, West Virginia High he was all-state two years in a row in football, basketball and baseball. He told me that he is opposed to the idea of specializing in one sport, and thinks that in high school kids should play all the sports they can; college, he believes, is time enough to decide which sport to concentrate on.
*********** From my crack Australian correspondent, Ed Wyatt: "Essendon Football Club player Dean Rioli took a break from footy (Australian Rules Football) to go home to his Aboriginal people on the Cape York Peninsula. He came back overweight. The cause? Too much turtle meat, which is high in fat content. Said Rioli, "Everybody who goes back home and gets on the turtle comes back fat." Can't you just hear some NFL offensive lineman trying to pull that when he reports to camp overweight?
***********A great example of applying today's thinking to yesterday's culture: The Toronto Globe and Mail, in a story about Hamilton, Canada's Steel City, mentioned a popular 1950's song about a more famous steel city entitled "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." In the song, singer Guy Mitchell sang about needing some money in a hurry and walking around outside "a pawn shop on a corner." Something like "I walked up and down 'neath the clock... I ain't got a thing left to hock." Trouble is, the Globe and Mail writer said it was a porn shop. Consider it a mark of how far our culture has declined when I assure you that in the 1950's, there was no such thing as "a porn shop on a corner" - or anywhere else in Pittsburgh or, for that matter, the entire United States. The term was then unknown. Pornography, to the extent it existed at all, was smuggled into the US past customs inspectors in the suitcases of visitors to Europe. Had there been such a thing then as a porn shop, though, there still would not have been a popular song written about it. It is sad that people knowing only the sordidness of much of today's America - in which teenage girls will proudly wear tee-shirts saying "Porn Star" - think it was always thus.
***********Call this "scouting the opposition." A Letter to the editor of the Portland Oregonian by one Rick Marcus, from Eugene, Oregon puts a whole new slant on things. Ricky informs us that "terrorism is a euphemism for righteous reprisal." In other words, when some Third World bozo blows up an airplane, we had it coming, because corporate America is so greedy and relies on the slave labor of Third World Countries. (Uh-oh - Eugene is the home base of America's anarchists. Why do I think that ole Ricky dresses in black and wears a mask?)

June 28 - "What really makes the difference is morale, spirit and determination. And the coach can't provide that. The players do." Dr. Ken Keuffel, dean of Single-Wing coaches, recently retired after 31 years at Lawrenceville School

* * * * * * * * * * * As I mentioned, last week, Dr. Ken Keuffel has decided to retire, at 76, after 31 years at New Jersey's Lawrenceville School, running the unbalanced Single-Wing every offensive play along the way. Interestingly, his career at Lawrenceville was a three-act performance: from 1956 to 1960, from 1967 to 1982, and from 1990 until his recent retirement. Ken attended prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he was captain of the football team. (The captain of Andover's soccer team was his classmate, future President George W. Bush, with whom Ken has remained in touch over the years.) After service in World War II, Ken attended Princeton, where his most notable feat was kicking a last-second 29-yard field goal in 1946 that gave the Tigers an upset win over third-ranked Penn before 72,000 people in Philadelphia's Franklin Field. Angry fans poured onto the field and mounted policemen had to be called in to put down the ensuing riot.
Ken got his start in the Single Wing offense at Princeton, playing for Charlie Caldwell, and following graduation, he did advanced studies in two fields at Penn: in English, as he earned his Ph.D. and in the Single Wing, serving as an assistant under George Munger, one of the most unsung great coaches ever. He signed on at Lawrenceville in 1956 as head coach and English teacher - he has always taught academic classes along with his coaching duties - and coached there through 1960, when he left to become head coach at Wabash College, in Indiana.
At Wabash, it was said that the administration liked to boast of having the only football coach in America with an academic Ph.D. While at Wabash, Ken wrote "Simplified Single Wing Football", which I consider to be one of the best "how-to" football books I've ever read. (No doubt attributable partly to his writing ability.) But he grew tired of recruiting, even at that level, and after six seasons in which his Wabash teams were 28-20-8, he returned to Lawrenceville in 1967, coaching until his retirement, in 1982. He did continue to teach English, but that was it for coaching. Until, that is, Lawrenceville's headmaster came to him in 1990, asking him, at age 66, to consider returning as head coach. Ken agreed, and Lawrenceville and those of us who love the game of football are grateful he did.
To me, he epitomized everything a football coach should aspire to be. He was a gentleman and a scholar, and he coached winning football. In 31 years, his record was 151-89-8. He coached four undefeated teams, and five teams that lost only once. "Some seasons were better than others," he said, "because you have different levels of talent each year. But wins and losses are not what coaching football is really about." He explained, "coaching football is about the game and what it teaches. Players learn things about themselves and teamwork that stay with them for the rest of their lives. They learn to be selfless and how to give their best effort all the time. They discover that they can do more than they ever dreamed possible." He is realist enough to concede, though, that most coaches won't be around to teach all those wonderful lessons if we don't get it done on the field: "I guess we did have to win a fair number of games or I wouldn't have been able to keep on coaching all this time."
* * * * * * * * * * * Canadian Football is not all that different from American football, but what few differences there are make it a more exciting game, in my judgment, than that played by the NFL. It is played by teams of 12 players, and it is played on a larger field than the American game. The field of play is longer by 10 yards - freaking out most Americans the first time they notice that there are two 50-yard lines - and it is 35 feet (almost 12 yards) wider. And the Canadian end zone is 25 yards deep. The offensive team has only three downs to gain 10 yards. Defensive linemen must line up at least one yard back off the line of scrimmage. Offensive linemen must line up "on the ball" - up on the line of scrimmage. The 12th man can be on the line of scrimmage, but most often he lines up in the backfield, giving the offensive team six eligible receivers beside the quarterback (the two ends, just as in American football, plus the four running backs). What makes the Canadian game look most different from American football is the rule permitting all backs to be in motion in any direction - even forward - before or at the snap of the ball. (Just as in American football, though, only the two end men on the line of scrimmage are eligible, so on pass plays, backs going in motion forward have to be careful to be back of the line at the snap.) All punts must be fielded and returned. Scoring is the same as in American football, except for the "rouge" or "single," a point scored by the punting team when its punt goes past the end line or when the opponent is unable to return the kick out of its end zone.
* * * * * * * * * * * The Florida state legislature is actually spending time and taxpayers' money on a bill that would require all state colleges to have identical penalties for athletes' violations of the same rule. It is designed primarily to apply to those athletes who are arrested, but it seems to me it's only a matter of time before the lawmakers fine-tune it to where Bobby Bowden at Florida State can't make his players do pushups for jumping offside in practice if Steve Spurrier at Florida doesn't do the same.
* * * * * * * * * * * Philadelphia's schools have instituted a new policy requiring its students to wear unforms. The mayor is in favor, and so are many teachers and parents. Not, as you might imagine, students. After all, they will tell anyone who will listen to them, they have some "right" to "express themselves." (Hey, kids - heard of speaking and writing?) So in order to make the new policy more palatable to them, the policy allows students at each school to have some say in their school's design and colors. Each school, then, would end up with its own distinctive uniform. Uh-oh. Bad idea, say some experts. In an age in which Crips and Bloods kill each other over the wearing of a color, "It creates a walking billboard as to which school you attend," says Susan Fiske, a research psychologist at the University of Massachusetts. Says Scott Plous, another researcher at Connecticut's Wesleyan University, "It takes very little to trigger prejudices within people. Anything that accentuates differences, including uniforms, will have that effect."

June 27 - "I think family is the center and cornerstone of society" Steve Young
* * * * * * * * * * * I spent the past weekend doing a clinic in the Great White North - in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Edmonton, home to over 500,000 people, in a metro area considerably larger, is one of the world's northernmost big cities, some 400 miles north of the Canadian-US border. It is so far north that it proudly calls its professional football team the Eskimos (a name becoming increasingly politically-incorrect as Canada's arctic people prefer to be called Inuit). Ever heard John Facenda on NFL films refer to "The Frozen tundra of Green Bay?" Edmontonians laugh when they hear Yanks talk about how cold it is at Packers' games; Edmonton's average wintertime temperature is 12 degrees Fahrenheit (although, along with everything else metric, they use the Celsius scale). The Canadian Football League season starts in early July and goes until around (our) Thanksgiving, when the annual Grey Cup title game is played. By then, the NHL season is already underway, and Edmontonians have rallied behind their beloved Oilers, so named because Edmonton's economy depends heavily on Alberta's enormous oil and gas reserves. I was pleasantly suprised to find Edmonton to be bright and clean, with wide streets relatively unchoked by traffic; it is bisected for miles by the deep, wooded valley of the North Saskatchewan River, which serves Edmonton as a park and then some: it is, Edmontonians like to say, an "urban forest", running right through downtown.
Truthfully, Edmonton reminded me a lot of a Scandinavian city. It is summer now, and the Great White North is nowhere to be seen. Finally free from the grasp of the long winter, people take special pleasure when summer comes in sitting outside on restaurant terraces. And because the days are long, with sundown around 10 PM, evening fun tends to start late.
Edmonton is the home of West Edmonton Mall, the world's largest (sorry, Mall of America). Naturally, it has well over 20 movie screens, including one theatre lobby with a huge, fire-breathing (every half-hour) dragon suspended from the ceiling. So far, no one's eyebrows have been singed by the jet of fire spewing out of its mouth, but then, it's only been up there a short time. Like the mall near you, it has an indoor amusement park with 16 rides, including a full-size roller coaster. As you might expect it has several food courts and restaurants, serving every type of food on the globe in fast-food or sit-down fashion. Just like every other mall you've ever been too, it also has an indoor water sports area, featuring a huge wave pool and beach and giant water slides. Oh, yes - and a roof-top driving range, heated for year-round play. Did I mention the full-size replica of the Santa Maria (you know- Columbus?) in a pool in which dolphins swim? And a submarine, to travel around the pool, the better to watch the dolphins? This mall is so big that some retailers have two stores- one on each end.
Edmonton is also the home of my host for the clinic, Jasper Place High School and its more than 2,000 students in three grades. "JP" as it is known, won seven city titles in various sports this past year, and was a finalist in two others. Its senior football team - what in the states would be called its varsity - won not only the city title but the Alberta Provincial Championship as well. (Running the Double-Wing, I might add.) The head coach, Elwin Worobec, delegated total offensive responsibility to coordinator Bryan Buchkowsky, who, along with junior team (JV) head coach Kyle Wagner, was the driving force behind adapting and installing the Double-Wing to their 12-man Canadian Football attack. The Jasper Place Rebels and their "crazy" offense, paced by the hard running of 6-2, 215-pound B-Back Duane Gladden, were the talk of the province, as they swept unbeaten through their 9-game schedule.
Now, here's the kicker: just like other high school coaches all over Canada, Jasper Place's work for no stipend. Canadian coaches are truly dedicated. They care about the kids. They work hard and they compete to win. Losing bothers them. But service is completely voluntary. I spoke with Jasper Place principal Bruce Coggles, who told me that there is absolutely nothing he can do to assure that the people he hires as teachers will then volunteer their time to coach youngsters; the teacher's union expressly forbids tying a coaching position to a teaching position. Yet at a time when some American schools struggle to find even one paid assistant in the building, Jasper Place manages to have eight full-time faculty members on its coaching staff. Teachers like Elwin Worobec, Bryan Buchkowsky, Kyle Wagner, Dave Brown and Rob Simpson are joined by local volunteers such as Dennis Fehr, who spent years working with local youth programs before coming on board at the high school. (Somehow, based on the high esteem in which principal Coggles is held by the JP coaches, I suspect that he does a lot of things to at least let his coaches know they are appreciated and supported. I also suspect that there may be a few of you reading this who would consider giving up your meager coaching stipends in return for a stud principal like Bruce Coggles.)
JP Provincial Championship Ring Coach Buchkowsky in the JP Wt Room First One of These I've Ever Seen!
Canadian Football in its structure is somewhat like hockey. There are the youth programs which feed the high schools, and then, after high school, there is "junior football," operated independent of any school, not unlike American semi-pro teams but better organized, and serving somewhat the same role as our junior colleges or post-grad prep programs. The Edmonton area has two such programs, the Huskies and the Wildcats, which compete fiercely to sign those graduating seniors who don't go directly to college ("to university" as they say in Canada). Such players can then play two years of junior football without affecting their college eligibility - in Canada or the U.S., I might add.
More about the Canadian Football League later, but it is important to point out that, with every CFL team required to carry 15 Canadian citizens on its roster, there is some incentive to young Canadian men to remain active in the game.
* * * * * * * * * * * Like irony? The Wall Street Journal noted that despite the Sports Illustrated feature of two years ago on the army of illegitimate children fathered by several overpaid goats in the NBA, Kobe Bryant is now the bad guy because he will probably pass up a chance to play on the U.S. Olympic team - so he can get married.
* * * * * * * * * * * A book entitled "The Death of Common Sense - How Law is Suffocating America," gave out prizes for the most absurd examples of how our fear of lawsuits has trumped our common sense. First Prize went to a warning label: "Never Iron Clothes While They Are Being Worn." Guess where the warning appeared? Right. On an iron. Why? Well, obviously, some idiot scorched himself and then sued the manufacturer of the iron. And, knowing American juries, he probably won
* * * * * * * * * * * Narragansett in New England; Rheingold, Ballantine, Ruppert, Piels and Schaefer in New York; Schmidts and Ortlieb's in Philadelphia; Duquesne in Pittsburgh; Falstaff in St. Louis; Hudepohl and Schoenling in Cincinnati; Hamm's and Grain Belt in the Twin Cities; Blatz in Milwaukee - all were once leading brands of beers in their areas. All are essentially gone. Years ago, I worked for a large Baltimore brewer. With our leading brand, National Bohemian Beer, we practically owned our market, but research began to show that among younger drinkers, we were losing market share. Of course, this was happening to other local brewers just like us - the Narragansetts, the Schmidts, the Falstaffs. There were all kinds of reasons: professional sports was beginning to be televised nationally rather than locally, and local brands couldn't afford the cost of network advertising - but Anheuser-Busch, whose Budweiser was sold nationwide, could; that lousy nickel-a-bottle difference in price between Bud and the local beers was a cheap way for kids to buy a little prestige, but at the same time, multiplied by millions and millions of bottles sold, it generated a lot of extra advertising dollars for Anheuser-Busch; and this was, after all, the 60's, with its motto of "don't trust anyone over 30", and anything that was good enough for an old geezer like Dad was automatically suspect. The dilemma we faced as marketers was whether to ignore the young drinkers and stay with what had built our brand, until it died along with all our loyal drinkers, or to ignore our loyal, case-a-week drinkers and make a bald-faced appeal for the younger drinkers. My boss and I advocated a totally new product, aimed entirely at the young drinkers and unrelated in any way to our banner brand. We lost. The advertising guys never could quite figure out which way they wanted to go with our flagship brand, and in a story repeated at local breweries in nearly every part of the U.S., our company eventually vanished. I drove past the old brewery a couple of months ago and it still stood, the red-brick brewhouse still the largest building on the East Baltimore skyline but now an abandoned shell. I being all this up because the NFL faces the same kind of dilemma we did. Does it keep its game pure so as not to alienate its core of viewers, and just take the high road, trying to ride out the threat of the XFL? Or does it adapt to meet the challenge of the XFL, and in so doing pervert its game to the point that real football fans begin to tune out? My suggestion to the NFL (they have been pestering me for it for the past several months, but I've just been so busy...) is that they come out with a new league of their own: NFL Lite, or NFL-X, or whatever they want to call it. It could serve as a sort of developmental league - a place for NCAA non-qualifiers, among others - but its primary purpose would be to provide all the vulgarity, antics and poor sportsmanship ("fun," I think ABC's Don Ohlmeyer might call it) needed to counter the XFL. In the long run, it might be less expensive than allowing the XFL to grow into a competitor able to drive salaries up. And if, in fact, that turns out to be a sport with real growth potential, the NFL would be positioned to take advantage of it. It certainly would be preferable in my mind to taking the NFL itself down the low road to crotch-grabbing and chair-throwing.

* * * * * * * * * * * "With their cell phones, pagers, Game Boys and other high-tech toys...these arrested-development 13-year-olds do not distinguish between being in private and being in public." Sound like pro athletes? Actually, it's today's filthy-rich young business whizzes, as described by columnist George Will, and their resemblance to professional athletes is scary: like pro athletes, they are young, they are fantastically rich, and they are completely full of themselves and their importance. They have little patience and little respect for others and, like professional athletes, they are responsible for spreading a lack of manners and civility - a "coarsening of our culture" - through their boorish behavior in airports, in restaurants, in movie theatres and in their cars. "Wherever they are" writes Will, "they are the center of the universe." As Nancy Ann Jeffrey wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, their core belief seems to be, "they can have whatever they want when they want it."
* * * * * * * * * * * "I'd knock on their office door and say, 'What do you have to do with education in the classroom?' or 'When was the last time you were in a classroom?' or 'When was the last time you taught a kid?' and if they couldn't answer me, I'd fire 'em." Rush Limbaugh, on the way he'd weed out the educational bureaucrats in the central offices - the non-teaching supernumeraries (excess people) sucking up taxpayers' dollars everywhere.

June 26 - "A champion is one who gets up when he can't." Jack Dempsey
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I just got back from a great weekend with some great people in Northern Canada. More about it tomorrow, eh?
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I KNOW IT'S SHAMELESS HUCKSTERING- BUT WITH SUMMER HERE, AND FOOTBALL STARTING SOON, IT'S TIME TO THINK ABOUT TEACHING TACKING - SO I HAD TO PASS ALONG THIS NOTE
"Been meaning to tell you something about your tackling video. I think I told you that several months ago, we got a coach who retired from the public school system and is now coming with us. 30+ years experience, 1 state championship, tons of district championships, etc. He was a DB at the university of Ky, and is now our DC. I was interested to see what he thought of your tape.
"He brought it back and said, 'You know, for YEARS I've been trying to find effective ways to drill tackling before we
ever put the pads on! I love what this guy is doing. It's the closest thing I've seen to what they taught us in college many years ago.' As soon as the dead period ends, we're going to start those drills every day! Well worth the investment, coach." Coach Billy Bosworth, Louisville Christian, Louisville, Kentucky START TO TEACH TACKLING-BEFORE YOU EVEN PUT THE PADS ON!
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It used to bug the crap out of me whenever Howard Cosell would say, "at the top of the show," in referring to the start of a Monday Night Football broadcast. It bugged me because it wasn't a "show," doggone it. It was a football game! But now, I must admit, I was wrong. I'm sorry, Howard. You were right. It was a show. And more than ever, it still is. Which is why Don Ohlmeyer , producer of Monday Night Football, chose a comedian - a comedian! - to be the "third man in the booth" on this fall's Monday Night Football broadcasts. So much for any pretense about the game down on the field being more important than all the extraneous garbage that the network dresses it up with. (Hey - I've got it! Let's get rid of Lynn Swann, who people liked, and Leslie Visser, who served no apparent purpose anyhow, and we'll go with two people on the sidelines this year! No, only one of them has to be a woman. That way, we can find work for another ex-player that none of our target audience even remembers. I've got it - get me Eric Dickerson. Think of it - Five people, all paid to talk. I'd like to see them sneak a football game past that!): Ohlmeyer finally admitted publicly that he doesn't see football the way real football fans see the game. He views it
in the same way as the people who'll be watching Vince McMahon's XFL . "Football is a serious game on the field," Ohlmeyer said. "But it's not played in St. Patrick's Cathedral. People watch it to have fun." Hey, Mr. Ohlmeyer - if by "fun" you mean all the things that detract from the game itself, maybe that's why your Monday Night ratings suck. Maybe the NFL and ABC ought to be asking themselves if their failing Monday Night numbers are due less to Boomer Esiason and more to the fact that in their thinking the game itself is no longer in the center ring. I mean, it's not played in St. Patrick's Cathedral, right? People watch it to have fun, right? "I am trying to put on a telecast as if I was at home and I'd want to watch no matter which teams were playing and no matter what the score was," Mr. Ohlmeyer says. Well, Don, if you can really do that, without getting the NFL to change their boring product (remember all my reasons why HS football is better than pro football?), no losing coach need ever again fear being fired. But what's scary to me is that your statement is a clear admission that to you, the game itself is irrelevant. I do believe that to you and others like you, football is just entertainment, interchangeable with "Survivor." And maybe that's all it is to those "people" you refer to who just "watch it to have fun." People like those shirtless bozos in the stands at NFL games, who look and act that way because they know that Mr. Ohlmeyer's TV cameras love showing them to us.: The problem with the Don Ohlmeyers and the NFL suits is that they try to pretend that theirs is the only football there is.
And they are willing to trash it for the sake of a little "fun." (Sound like Vince McMahon to you?) Thank the Lord there are plenty of places where football is still a serious game on the field - and in the stands, too. Places like Tuscaloosa. Or Ann Arbor. Or Baton Rouge. Or Lincoln. Or Knoxville. Or State College. Or St. Patrick's Cathedral (just kidding). Or Columbus. Or Austin. I could go on, but wait - can't forget Columbia, South Carolina. Next time you visit, ask the people there how much fun they had last year, watching their Gamecocks go 0-11.
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See if you can find anything strange here: "I want to cut your heart out. I want to eat your children. Praise be to Allah." Mike Tyson, Saturday night in his post-fight speech, directed at Lennox Lewis.
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Walt Disney Company is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it wants to break out of its goody two-shoes image and go after a larger, more mature audience. But on the other, it doesn't want to throw away its hard-earned reputation for producing wholesome entertainment you can take kiddies to. Bruce Schneider, new Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, has found out how difficult that can be. In a soon-to-be-released movie called "Remember the Titans," set in the 1970's, Denzel Washington stars as the football coach of a recently-desegregated (in the 1970s?) high school in which blacks and whites find themselves playing together for the first time. Mr. Schneider told the Wall Street Journal's Bruce Orwall that when the script was brought to him, he read it and said, "Take out all the swear words." He recalls, "In the script as written, every third word was the 'N' word, every fourth word was the 'F' word, and every sixth word was the 'S' word." Evidently, the language is what makes it an "adult" film. But with the words removed, Mr. Orwall describes the effect as "initially jarring - a bunch of jocks in a locker room, simmering over racial differences, who never swear or bait each other with epithets." Now, I don't know how many locker rooms Mr. Orwall has been in - I suspect his experience is mostly with movie versions - to consider it "jarring" not to hear the "F" or "S" words. But excuse me? "N" word? Listen - I've heard - and used - my share of "F" words, "S" words, and "M-F" compound words, but in racially-mixed locker rooms going back to 1968, in high school, semi-pro and pro, on both coasts, I have yet to hear the "N" word uttered. In 1968 and 1969, I played on a racially-mixed semi-pro team in a southern town, and from 1970 to 1973 I coached such a team. On both teams, there were numerous instances of blacks and whites associating for the first time with people of the other race. One of my fondest sports memories is of the way those men, whites and blacks, came together in an atmosphere of mutual respect, when few other people in our towns had such an opportunity. We practiced together, played together, partied together. Perhaps inspired by the message of Dr. King, young people really did seem back then to be committed to making an effort to live together in an integrated society - much more so, I often think, than now. I can't even say whether we had any racist whites or blacks on our team, although I suppose we must have. But I never knew it, because there never was an occasion for anyone to reveal a racist thought, and if anyone had such thoughts, he had the good sense to keep them to himself. We were men on a mission. I certainly have a hard time imagining even the most racist of white guys ever using the "N" word in a racially-mixed locker room. It was simply taboo. In towns that were still shaking off the remnants of Jim Crow, there were too many of us - whites and blacks - on those teams who really believed we were making a difference, that we were showing others the way it was supposed to work. We wouldn't have tolerated such talk. Nowadays, though, the Magic Word, as offensive as it is, sure does seem sometimes to be thrown around rather casually by rappers and black youngsters, perhaps leading white youngsters - and Disney's screenwriters - to think that that's way it was in the locker rooms of the 1970's. It wasn't.
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Just in case the IRS was watching... The owner of the Redskins, interviewed during the World Bowl or whatever they called that game yesterday, told the guy interviewing him that he was over in Germany "watching our punter." Now, we all know how important it is that the owner personally check on players, and we all know how crucial it is to the team's success that he be on hand to see his punter punt. But it's not important that we know. It's far more important - absolutely essential, actually - that the IRS knows how necessary it was for him to be there, or he won't be able to deduct the expenses of his trip. (And I guarantee you he ain't stayin' in no youth hostels.)
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The answer to the TRIVIA QUESTION: Dave Kreig was an undrafted free agent from tiny Milton College, in Wisconsin, (which, to the best of my knowledge, no longer exists). He played 19 years in the NFL and ranks eighth in all-time passing yards and seventh in touchdown passes. He never played on a great team, yet his record as a starter was 98-77. He played in three Pro Bowls and had a passer rating of 81.5, higher than far better-known QB's such as Boomer Esiason and Warren Moon. Correct reponses, in the order received: Cole Shaffer- La Center, Washington... Joe Daniels- Sacramento, California... Adam Wesoloski- DePere, Wisconsin... Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois... Frank Cassidy- Chicago, Illinois... Bill Lawlor- Hanover Park, Illinois... Greg Laboissonniere- Coventry, Rhode Island... Kevin McCullough- Lakeville, Indiana... Brian Leair- Cedarburg Wisconsin... Kevin Thurman- Tigard, Oregon... Steve Arnold - Greensboro, Noth Carolina... Ken Brierly- Carolina, Rhode Island... Glade Hall, Seattle, Washington... Best answer: Steve Staker, Fredericksburg, Iowa: "Back in 1966 I played my last college football game for Upper Iowa University out of Fayette, Iowa against Milton College. In fact I still have a record at Upper Iowa set in that game: the longest run from scrimmage for a touchdown - 95 yds from the fullback position . It was a 2@3 (that's a trap, for those of you who don't know our system) from the wing-t offense."
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In 1945, Americans drank four times as much milk as they did soft drinks. Now, they drink 2-1/2 times as much soda as milk."Soda is especially popular with the 6-to-11 crowd," says Eileen Kennedy, Deputy Undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture. "And once a child switches from mile or juice to soda, they rarely go back."
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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: What currently active pro football coach has won The Big One with three different teams?

June 23 - "Don't be a bad loser, but don't lose."Knute Rockne
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I received a letter in yesterday's mail from Dr. Ken Keuffel at Lawrenceville School, in New Jersey, and I eagerly opened it. And then wished I hadn't. I don't think he'd object to sharing it with you. He wrote, "Hugh: Just a note to say that I had to give up coaching because of a serious back operation (8 hours on the table). Now, I'm working hard to walk normally again. Our new coach, a fine young man, will not run the single wing (my underline- HW). Best of luck with your imaginative double wing. You're a top football man. Best wishes always, Ken Keuffel" I am deeply saddened. More about this great man - this living legend - on Monday.
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Thanks to Walter S. Mossberg's weekly column in the Wall Street Journal, I have come upon one slick site. It is called "Quickbrowse" (www.quickbrowse.com) and you are going to want to take a look at it. It is what is known as a "metabrowser," and without going into any detail (mainly because I'm technologically incapable of doing so), it enables you to hook up several of your bookmarked sites - your really "Favorite Places" - into one browsable "metasite." If you're like me, you have bookmarked a zillion sites, but you really visit just a handful of them on a regular basis. Let's say they're your favorite five or six football sites (including this one, of course). Instead of doing what you normally do, which means opening a site, then closing it then opening the next one, and so forth, or opening all of them at once and jumping back and forth between them, Quickbrowse enables you to open them all at once - as one interconnected site. Think of it as one long window, made up of the first pages of all your favorite sites, connected, end-to-end, just as if you had Scotch-taped them together. Once everything's loaded, you can scroll right through the whole bunch - no opening and closing, opening and closing, no jumping around from site to site. If you want to go deeper into one of the sites, or pursue a link to an "outside" site, you can do so and still return to your metasite. This is so cool! In return for this convenience, you will find a banner ad inserted between each of the interconnected sites - the friendly folks at Quickbrowse aren't stupid. They're trying to make money, which is not an easy thing to do with a web site. Now, maybe I'm easy, but until they start advertising porn sites, I think it's a small price to pay. Check it out and let me know what you think!

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Someday, you will tell this to your grandchildren and they won't understand it. Years ago, a guy named Putt Powell told a story in Texas Coach about a guy leading a pre-game prayer, when someone in the crowd yelled, "Louder!" Our man replied, "I wasn't talking to you!"
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What a beautiful thing a class action lawsuit is. If you're a lawyer, that is. See, what they do is get a whole group of people who think they've been shafted by a company. Individually, nobody's been hurt that much, and it's not worth any lawyer's time to try to sue the company. But combined into one group - or class - of people with basically the same gripes, who agree to let one lawyer, or law firm, or group of law firms represent them, the individual claims can be stuck together to create one big claim. Take all the frequent fliers of American Airlines, and all their piddly little compalints. American Airlines just settled such a class action lawsuit filed against it by a bunch of lawyers on their behalf. Seems many the frequent fliers were ticked because of the lack of availability of seats when they wanted to use their frequent flier miles. Others were upset because American increased the number of miles needed for a free flight. So the lawyers rounded 'em up into a class and sued. American settled, agreeing to give each person in the class action suit their choice of either a free voucher, worth $25 to $75 on any American flight, or 1,000 to 5,000 frequent flier miles. The value of the settlement, depending on whether people go more for the vouchers or for the miles, is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $50 million. A lot of money, if you're American Airlines. A lot of money if you're a lawyer. (Figure upwards of 30 per cent of $50 million.) And if you're one of the ones who made it all possible? Twenty-five bucks toward your next flight on an American.
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Gotcha! The latest Newsweek magazine reveals that, under pressure to show higher scores for their classes in state tests, some teachers have taken to cheating. I think the instances they cite are just the tip of the iceberg, and I predict a nationwide scandal and standardized testing spreads. But I can see some good resulting from it: members of the community may come to appreciate that at least on the football field, kids are not being encouraged to cheat; some members of the faculty who like to look down their noses at football coaches may get a good dose of professional ethics - of having to live within a firm set of rules, and having to pay a price when they break them. (Not to mention serving as a model of good conduct for kids.) And principals may think a little longer the next time they have a choice between a job applicant who coaches football and one who doesn't, and their instincts tell them to hire the non-coach, thinking that, being non-athletic, he/she must therefore be a better teacher.
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From Jeff Huseth in the Twin Cities, who keeps me up to date on the creations of St. Paul newspaper columnist and radio talk-show host Joe Soucheray, comes this creation, one "Morghanne Q. E. Wolfe-Slattery" President of the "Euphorian Wellness Council." Mr. Soucheray knows how to skewer liberals, as he makes clear with this list of Ms. Wolfe-Slattery's "Euphorian Issues:" Love and cherish our Mother the Earth and all the friends of the forest floor. The out-of-doors is a dangerous place . . . sun, wind and rain can all cause terrible damage to Euphorians. Always wear SPF 50 or higher sunscreen. A helmet for every head - that's our motto - life is dangerous! Competition is not fair! Multi-cultural awareness - promote gender neutrality. Tolerance of all behaviors - appropriate and inappropriate - and we embrace mediocrity. Urban sprawl and SUV's are ruining our Mother the Earth. Exploring our consciousness - place no boundaries. Guaranteed equal opportunity. Outcome-based psychological education - focusing on drug ed, refusal skills and self-esteem instead of academics. Diversity in community and the workplace. Government involvement in every aspect of our lives. We believe in animal rights often over human rights. Drink only chemical-free bottled water and herbal tea. The three R's . . . recycle, recycle recycle. Ginko Biloba chips and other herbal remedies can make it all better. And everything we do is . . . for the children.
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I'm off to Canada this weekend, to Edmonton, Alberta to be precise, to spend tonight and tomorrow with the staff and kids from Jasper Place High. I'm sure I will learn at least as much from them as they will from me, since they adapted our Double-Wing to the Canadian game last year and won the Alberta Provincial Championship with it. I have seen some tape on them. You think you run misdirection - wait till you see it with three guuys in motion at the snap!
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TRIVIA QUESTION: Several people have already nailed it. If you're still interested: He ranks eighth in all-time passing yards and seventh in touchdown passes, and played in three Pro Bowls.

June 22 - "If you get into a war, you stay until you get killed or until you win." Bum Phillips
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Two weeks ago, Ralph Balducci was getting ready for next season at Portland, Oregon's Cleveland High. Cleveland High is one tough place to win. But Ralph Balducci is one tough son of a gun. I coached him briefly years ago when he played for a semi-pro team in Portland. He was fresh out of Oregon Tech, a big offensive lineman who didn't take any crap off the sometimes-mouthy defensive linemen on the club, and totally dominated them in our one-on-one sessions. We've stayed in constant touch through the years, as Ralph worked his way up in manufacturing for a large paper company, but also started to coach several youth teams on the side. Finally, his coaching talent was recognized by the new head coach at the high school being fed by one of his teams, and when the head job came open at Cleveland High School, in whose area Ralph had also coached youngsters, he was offered the position. Heck, there was no one else qualified, and no one else who wanted the job. You would have to go back 12 years to find the last winning Cleveland team. That was back when they were still called the Cleveland Indians. (Now, in politically-correct Portland, they are the Warriors.) Cleveland's teams not only lost games, they were undisciplined and disorganized as well. Ralph got the discipline and organization taken care of, and his kids were competitive. I wish I could say he got them on the winning track, but I'm not sure that any man on earth could. Ralph inherited a staff with few strong spots. Cleveland has no on-campus football facilities for practices or games. The student body and community seem frozen in the 60's - apathetic about life in general, not to mention football. Cleveland is the type of school the local newspaper goes to whenever it needs to interview a real high school lesbian, or get a couple of pictures for a feature on teen smokers or body piercing. And the administration is unsupportive. Still, Ralph has persevered for four years. But Lord, it's been tough, balancing his full-time job as a production supervisor with that of a head football coach, and sometimes the frustrations of coaching a rock-bottom school have come close to being too much. I've listened to him pour out his soul, and on more than one occasion I've said, "Screw it, Ralph. Let 'em get somebody else." The most recent occasion was three weeks ago, when he told me, "I can't. I owe it to these kids." But shortly after that, he received a phone call from a sporting-goods salesman who thought Ralph might like to know that one of the athletic directors he'd just called on told him he'd been speaking with someone who said he'd met with the Cleveland A.D. about the Cleveland football job. Wait a minute, thought Ralph. What's going on? That's my job. Now, Ralph is not a guy to beat around the bush, so he contacted the A.D. the next morning, and arranged to meet that day - Monday - with her and the Vice-Principal. There, he was told by his A.D. that she had, indeed, spoken to this person, but only about a PE job that had just come open through retirement. And the V-P, a former coach himself but now on the climb up the administrative ladder, assured Ralph that there wasn't anyone out there qualified to be a head coach anyhow; that what they hoped to do was find a young, enthusiastic PE teacher who would be able to assist Ralph and take charge of the weight program. Somehow, though, Ralph came away from the meeting unconvinced that the A.D. and V.P. were shooting straight - he told me he had the feeling that he'd just finished talking with the North Vietnamese at the Paris Peace Talks - so he asked for a meeting with the principal. At the meeting, on Thursday, the principal led off with one of these, "we appreciate everything you've done, Ralph..." setups (hard to prove otherwise: in his four years at Cleveland High School Ralph has never had a formal job review), and then proceeded to inform him that since there was, indeed, a vacant PE position in the building, they intended to use it to try to hire a football coach, and in the event they were to find one, Ralph would be asked to step aside. Until then, though, he could remain as Cleveland's football coach. Ralph told them, in essence, to take their job and shove it. And no one tried to talk him out of resigning. Could there be any doubt in anyone's mind that they already had someone ready to step in?- The very next day, Friday, the new head coach was being shown around the locker room. ( Bear in mind that all this time, the football job couldn't possibly have been advertised publicly as open, since Ralph had not been fired and had not yet resigned; yet what would the odds be of finding someone qualified to serve as a head coach by simply advertising PE position without mentioning that the head football coaching job went with it? You don't suppose those school administrators would have done anything so sneaky as to tell another coach on the sly that they planned to remove Ralph to create a position for him, do you?) The question of when and how Ralph would ever have learned of this treachery had he not forced the issue - on June 15 - will never be answered. Now, when all is said and done - there are only two possible ways that this whole assassination could have come off: one, the administration lied about Ralph's status to the guy now being introduced as their "new head coach," leading him to think that the football job was open. (I know, I know- these are the very "educators" who are supposed to be teaching "character" to our kids.) But if they didn't lie, then that leaves only one other possible explanation: a sorry, unethical pretender was willing to take part in a conspiracy to take a real coach's job away from him.
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You used to hear college athletes talking about what they'd do when they signed their big-bucks contract with the pros. More often than not, you'd hear one say something about wanting to "go back home and help my people." (Actually, come to think of it, I don't hear much of that anymore.) Anyhow, Stephon Marbury is from New York, and he was back there, and he may have gone there intending to help somebody, and he did in fact sort of "help" two New Yorkers recently, but somehow I doubt that they were "his people": while stopped at a traffic light in New York, Mr. Marbury was robbed by two men who reached into his car and stole a diamond necklace supposedly worth $150,000 (at least that is what he will be claiming for insurance purposes). Several questions immediately come to mind: What is anyone on earth doing with a $150,000 diamond necklace? Why did he have the car unlocked, or the windows open? Why did stop for the red light? (He didn't have to, you know - he's a pro basketball player.)
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Just think: it only takes one of their votes to cancel yours out. Just in case you wondered whether our democratic form of government is in good hands, consider this: a recent Oregon Lottery commercial was followed by a disclaimer saying, "Should not be used for investment purposes."

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Don Liddle died recently, in Mount Carmel, Illinois. You probably never heard of him. He was a major league pitcher who played a role in one of the most memorable plays in baseball history. He also came up with one of the funniest lines in baseball history. In fact, I don't know why it's not as immortal as the play itself. Pitching for the Giants in the 1954 World Series, Liddle served up a ball that the Indians' Vic Wertz crushed, driving it to dead center. Any other ball park in the majors and it was a home run easily, but this was the Polo Grounds, a football field ill-suited as a baseball field, with short right- and left-field lines (giving rise to the politically incorrect term "Chinese Home Run") and a center field wall that not even Tiger Woods could clear. Well, maybe he could. But anyhow, it was deep. And the Giants did have one of the best ever to play the game out in center field. A guy named Willie Mays. Mays took off, turned his back to the play, and, at a dead sprint managed somehow, more than 400 feet from home plate, to arch his back, look back and locate a speeding white baseball - and make the catch. You've seen the play, I'm sure. Or at least the picture. At some point Willie's hat flies off as he whirls and throws the ball back to the infield. No hot-dogging. No "look at me" garbage. The Giants' manager, Leo Durocher, meanwhile, had seen enough, and called for another pitcher. Liddle, who had just given up an enormous shot and been bailed out by one of the greatest catches in baseball history, handed the ball over to the reliever, telling him, "I got my man."
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And you wonder why they're screwed up: the NFL's incoming class of rookies must attend a mandatory "rookie symposium" in San Diego beginning this Sunday and running until Wednesday. The purpose is to give the rookies tips on such topics as conduct, finances and media relations. One of the guest speakers will be noted author Keyshawn Johnson, whose masterpiece, "Just Give Me the Damn Ball!" is best remembered for the way he used his literary talents to promote himself and rip his teammates.
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TRIVIA QUESTION (Submitted by my official Melbourne, Australia correspondent, Ed Wyatt): How about this candidate for the Underrated Hall of Fame? He was an undrafted free agent but he played 19 years as an NFL quarterback. He came from a small Midwestern college so obscure that it no longer plays football (in fact, near as I can tell, the school itself no longer exists - how's that for obscure?)

June 21 - "We do too many things for no other reason than somebody else does it." Jake Gaither, legendary Florida A & M coach
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The next time you think that it really doesn't make any difference who gets elected President, just remember that Supreme Court justices are appointed by the President - and they serve for life. You would do well to remember that if it bothers you that the United States Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, essentially outlawed student-led public prayer before high school football games. (We're talking Texas, where football and religion come together briefly - and some people say you can't tell the difference, anyhow.) Seems those pre-game prayers made a tiny minority of people in the stands feel uncomfortable. So rather than listen passively, or leave, or wear a Walkman, or arrive late, that tiny minority sued. Ever heard of martyrs? Most religions have had them - people willing to die for their beliefs. In the America of today, the only people willing to die for their beliefs are the old guys in Appalachia handling rattlesnakes, but we do have a whole new class of martyrs. These modern-day martyrs don't exactly defy the Emperor, though - instead, they get the Emperor to do their dirty work, using the good ole American judicial system to shut down those religious zealots all around them. In Texas, they came to watch a football game and didn't like what was going on there before the kickoff, so they sued to make 'em stop. And the Supreme Court, naturally, agreed with them. Said those poor folks were made to feel like "outsiders." Well, this may come as a surprise to the ladies and gentlemen on the court, but that's because that's what they undoubtedly were. Now, though, despite a centuries-old tradition of newcomers having to adjust to the ways of the community, this is America in the year 2000, where the community has to make accomodations for the newcomer - where ballots are printed in foreign languages, and cityfolk buy tract homes in agricultural communities, then sue farmers because they don't like the smell of the fertilizer. Just once, I'd like to see a judge lean forward and say to someone whining about being made to feel uncomfortable, "Get over it." Oh, and back to that presidential election bit: Said George W. Bush, ''I support the constitutionally guaranteed right of all students to express their faith freely and participate in voluntary student-led prayer.'' Said a spokesman for Albert "Alpha Male" Gore, ''He feels ... in this case that the prayer was found to be government-sponsored and participation was not truly voluntary.'' In other words, he feels very strongly whatever the polls at the moment tell him he should feel. The three dissenters to the decision were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Rehnquist wrote that the court's decision ''bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life.'' (Knowing the way the Reno Justice Department operates, I'm not sure about continuing to ask my players to join me in prayer. I can just see the Feds busting down our locker room door, assault rifles at the ready...

SCENE: Twilight in the small town of Tyrone, Texas. The tallest structure in town, the water tank, reads "Tyrone Tornadoes. State Champs, 1987" It's Friday night, which in Texas means high school football, and the lights are on at the football stadium. It's getting close to kickoff, and a large crowd sits in the stands, waiting for the teams to come onto the field.

CUT TO LOCKER ROOM: A small group of high school players and their coaches mill around nervously in the locker room; the clock on the wall reads five minutes to eight. One man, obviously the head coach, steps to the center of the room.

HEAD COACH: "Okay, men. Five minutes to kickoff. Let's all take a knee. (Players and coaches all kneel, heads bowed)

CUT TO OUTSIDE THE DOOR: A man, dressed in Department of Justice coveralls, kneels and presses his ear against the locker room door, listening to what's going on inside. When he's heard enough, he turns to a stout woman standing nearby and says, "They're getting ready to pray, Ma'am"

STOUT WOMAN (WHO ON CLOSER INSPECTION TURNS OUT TO BE JANET RENO), TURNING TO THE ARMED MEN WHO SURROUND HER: "Lock and load!"

CUT TO LOCKER ROOM: HEAD COACH: "Dear Heavenly Father..."

SUDDENLY, THE PRAYER IS INTERRUPTED BY SHOUTING FROM OUTSIDE THE DOOR. IT IS THE VOICE OF A WOMAN - CLEARLY ONE USED TO WIELDING POWER. IT IS THE VOICE OF JANET RENO: "Federal Agents! We know you're praying in there! We're coming in!"

SMASH! CRASH! (Sound of locker room door being smashed by battering ram!) A TEAR GAS BOMB EXPLODES

TEAR GAS PERVADES THE LOCKER ROOM AS FEDERAL AGENTS, DRESSED FOR ARMED COMBAT, GAS MASKS ON AND ASSAULT RIFLES AT THE READY, POUR THROUGH THE DOOR

JANET RENO: (Enters room last, holding riding crop, which she slaps into her hand as she surveys the scene) "All right - Get 'em up off their knees an get 'em on the buses! I don't want to see any heads bowed either! And if you see any lips moving, slap 'em shut. 'Dear Heavenly Father' huh? Give us any trouble, and you'll be meeting up with Him sooner than you think! Hahahahahahahaha!"(Cackles fiendishly at her own joke!)

THE AGENTS GRAB THE PLAYERS BY THEIR ARMS, JERKING THEM, COUGHING, TO THEIR FEET, AND SHOVING THEM IN THE DIRECTION OF THE DOOR. THE PLAYERS STAGGER OUT, STILL COUGHING.

OUTSIDE, NATIONAL GUARDSMEN HERD THE PLAYERS AND COACHES ONTO TWO WAITING YELLOW BUSES, IDENTICAL TO NORMAL SCHOOL BUSES EXCEPT FOR THE IRON GRATING OVER THEIR WINDOWS. THE SPORTS REPORTER/PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE LOCAL WEEKLY NEWSPAPER TRIES TO PHOTOGRAPH THE SCENE BUT IS PICKED UP AND BODY-SLAMMED TO THE GROUND. HIS CAMERA AND NOTE PAD ARE CONFISCATED. THE BUSES, "UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT - DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE" STENCILED ON THE SIDE, PULL OUT OF THE PARKING LOT, AS FEDERAL AGENTS AND NATIONAL GUARDSMEN WITH FIXED BAYONETS KEEP ANGRY TOWNSPEOPLE BACK. ARMY TANKS CAN BE SEEN IN THE BACKGROUND. HELICOPTERS HOVER OVERHEAD, ILLUMINATING THE AREA WITH THEIR POWERFUL LIGHTS.

JANET RENO, SURROUNDED BY BODYGUARDS, STANDS OFF TO THE SIDE TALKING ON HER CELL PHONE: "Mister President- Secretary Reno Here. What's that? Reno. Janet Reno. You know - the Attorney General? Yes, I'm still the Attorney General. Where am I? I'm in Texas. Tyrone. No, sir. It's not near Waco. What am I doing here? Sir, you'll be happy to know we just nailed our first high school football team. What's that? You bet they were praying. They're a Texas high school football team aren't they? Right there in the locker room, too. Public property. Near as we can tell, the coach was leading them. Right - a public official. Got 'em dead to rights. They're on their way to Huntsville Penitentiary right now. I know it's just one school, Mr. President, but it's a start. Yes, sir. I know how important this is to your legacy, sir. I figure there are some1,400 schools in Texas playing football, 10 games a year each - but if you'll agree to pull the troops out of Kosovo and bring them to Texas, between my people and the Army we can put this Prayer Insurrection thing down and have the troops home for the bowl games. Yes, sir. Maybe some strategic bombing will change a few minds. Yes, sir. We can lick this thing. Sorry. I meant win this thing. Good-bye, sir."
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I applaud anybody who takes shots at today's outrageously behaved athletes the way www.cracksmoker.com does. Nonetheless, it is a sad commentary on today's sport scene that there is more than enough material to keep it going. The creators of the site are not necessarily accusing anyone of using controlled substances, defining a Cracksmoker as "A professional or collegiate athlete who exhibits behavior not fit for society." Here are the "Cracksmoker Criteria": $ Must be a professional or collegiate athlete $ Must have been in the news for something noteworthy other than an athletic accomplishment $ Have a tendency to put themselves ahead of their team $ Often demand more money or playing time than they deserve $ Regularly participate in excessive celebrations and taunting of other players $ Probably have referred to themselves in the third person at one time or another $ May have one or more illegitimate children $ Actions are generally not premeditated The site recognizes a "Cracksmoker of the Month" (for May, it was Penn State QB Rashard Casey), and sorts its reports according to category: NFL, NHL, NBA, Major League Baseball and - Fresno State.
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Puh-leeze. Have you ever had to listen to all the bellyaching that goes on because supposedly "football players get all the recognition," while "nobody ever recognizes the students for what they accomplish in the classroom." Well, the Portland Oregonian tried to do something about the supposed problem recently, recognizing all the 4.0 seniors in the metro area with a front page story on what it called "Academic All-Stars." Not so fast, Oregonian. Not everyone was happy with your noble gesture. The name "Academic All-Stars", it seems, happens to be the property of the Multnomah County (Portland) Educational Service District, and it has been registered with the state of Oregon as the name of one of the ESD's own programs. Nyaa, nyaa. So much for life among the academic types. Now can we get back to recognizing football players? (Provided, that is, the Good Hands People will let us continue to call them All-State teams.)
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The next time you hit a less-than-ideal golf shot (as I'm told some of you do occasionally), and then in your rage grab the club and prepare to throw it - or smash it on something - you really ought to pause in your backswing and take a look at page 31 of the July issue of Golf Digest. But just in case you won't have a copy handy at the time and you'd like to save yourself a lot of trouble, I'll tell you what's there: it's an X-ray of a golfer whose partner, in his frustration at something or other, smashed his putter against their cart. Actually, it's an X-ray of a golfer whose partner's broken-off puttershaft is stuck deep in his neck. As our frustrated golfer slammed his putter against the cart, the club snapped in two and the head went flying, its shaft impaling his partner and barely missing the spine and the carotid artery. The victim survived. "A fraction of an inch one way or the other," said the trauma surgeon who operated, "and it could have paralyzed him, or even killed him." The doctor had two pieces of advice for golfers: (1) if it ever happens to someone you know, don't remove the shaft yourself; (2) don't throw clubs.

June 20 - "No great play was ever made at a jog." General Robert Neyland, legendary Tennessee coach
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A MYSTERY COACH NO LONGER:

(Above) Ben Schwartzwalder as a HS player in Huntington, WV; (Rt) Major Floyd Schwartzwalder, 82nd Airborne, World War II; (Far Rt) Head Coach Floyd "Ben" Schwatzwalder at Syracuse University, 1971

Floyd "Ben" Schwartzwalder was a native of Point Pleasant, West Virginia who graduated from Huntington High in 1929 and went on to play for the West Virginia University Mountaineers under the legendary Greasy Neale as a 152-pound center. After graduation, he spent eight years as a high school football and wrestling coach at Sistersville, Weston and Parkersburg, West Virginia, and had just finished his first year at Canton (Ohio) McKinley High, one of the most prestigious high school jobs in America, when World War II broke out. He enlisted in the army shortly after Pearl Harbor and served in Europe as a paratrooper in the famed 82nd Airborne, jumping into combat three times, including a D-Day jump behind enemy lines. He received the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart, and four battle stars, and rose to the rank of major. After his discharge, he spent three years as coach at Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, Pennsylvania where he was 25-5-0, and was hired in 1949 by Syracuse, where he remained until his retirement 25 years later. As he built his program from regional to national power, his teams reflected his personal toughness, and were famous for their bruising, hard-nosed play. He was noted for his emphasis on the ground attack (his teams outrushed the opposition over his career by more than 22,000 yards), and the great running backs it produced, several of them going on to become outstanding pros. Included in that list are Jim Brown, Larry Csonka, Jim Nance and Floyd Little. Ernie Davis, the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy, might possibly have become the best of them all, but he was diagnosed with leukemia before his rookie season, and died without ever playing a down of NFL football. Another Syracuse running back, John Mackey, was switched to tight end upon his arrival in the NFL, and became one of the greatest in the history of the game at that position. (Anyone who ever watched Mackey run with the ball after a pass reception can only imagine what a great pro running back he'd have made.) Coach Schwartzwalder's 10-0 1959 team finished with a Cotton Bowl win over Texas and won the national championship. Few college teams ever manhandled opponents the way that team did: running Coach Schwartzwalder's unbalanced line wing-T to perfection, the Orange outgained opponents - get this - 4,515 yards to 962. The Syracuse line that year, nicknamed the "Sizeable Seven," featured such future professionals as Al Bemiller, John Brown, Roger Davis, Bob Yates and Maury Youmans. Coach Schwartzwalder was named National Coach of the Year, and served a term as President of the American Football Coaches Association.When he retired, he had more career wins than such better-known coaches as Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Earl Blaik and Bud Wilkinson, and among active coaches he was third in wins behind only Bear Bryant and Woody Hayes. He is one of very few men to have coached at the same major college for 25 years or more, and held what at the time of his retirement was a record 22 straight non-losing seasons. It was during Coach Schwartzwalder's tenure that the number 44 became associated with great Syracuse running backs, as Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little all wore the number. So much does Syracuse honor the number that it is more than mere coincidence that it is part of the university's telephone exchange - 443 - and its zip code -13244.
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Anybody want to coach football in Texas? For anybody who is sick of soccer, year-round basketball and fall baseball, it could really be rejuvenating to work in a place where football matters. Really matters. Because of a last-minute loss of an assistant to a college position, Coach Don Davis, in Danbury, Texas is looking for a coach and science teacher. He is headed into the second year of a rebuilding program, and adds, "it would be nice to get another double wing guy, if we can." Here's part of the information I received from Coach Davis: "We are a small public school (260 in 9-12) about 45 minutes south of Houston. Tons of recreational opportunities for those so interested. We can be in the Gulf in about 20 minutes. State certification should not be a problem if certified in another state, as one can get emergency certification in Texas good for a year until state hurdles are jumped." Don Davis - Athletic Director - Danbury ISD - Box 377 - Danbury, Tx 77534 - phone: 979-922-1611 or e-mail ddavis@danbury.isd.esc4.net

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What "Greatest Generation?" Step aside, folks. You may have hauled yourselves through the Depression, won World War II, rebuilt Europe and Japan, built the peace and prosperity we all enjoy today, and then gone back and fought in Korea five years later, but you sure came up short in the brains department. Must have. How else can you explain the fact that none of you could come up with more than one valedictorian at your high school graduations? One! Why, this current generation would whip your butts. One Oregon high school, Beaverton's Westview High, had 19 valedictorians this year! Did you hear that, Gramps? Nineteen! I figure that makes them 19 times as smart as you old guys, right? Hey- seven other Portland-area high schools had a dozen or more! What's that? Did I hear somebody say "grade inflation"? It figured somebody would bring that up. What is this College Board, anyhow, saying that while the number of straight-A students continues to grow, the average SAT score of those straight-A students continues to fall. This College Board bunch really wants to rain on the parade. They're saying that they can't even find any C's on anyone's transcript any more. And listen to this professor complain: "When I was in college, getting a C was a perfectly acceptable thing to do," says Ulric Neisser, a professor of psychology at Cornell. "If I were to hand out C's like that today, I would have all kinds of students screaming bloody murder." So you might as well give them all A's, right, professor? I mean, who gets hurt? As "educators like to say," this is win-win. They get the A's and you get them - and, increasingly, their parents and their lawyers - off your case. And talk about helping the students' self-esteem: as one of the 19 valedictorians at Westview says, "We all get to say we're Number One on our transcripts." Hey! A trophy for everybody! Put it right up there next to Grandpa's silver star. (He got it for, like, something he did in some stupid war.).
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Wrote the Denver Post's Woody Paige, disappointed to learn that Steve Young's announced retirement means he won't be coming to Denver (at least to play): "Griese may be young, but he's not Young."
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There is a relatively new form of "literature" in which the author of a supposedly non-fiction piece acts like a tennis player who continually aims for the back line and occasionally misses. The ball goes over the line and the player loses the point. But when our writer crosses the line and wanders into the area of fiction, there is no umpire to call "Out!" Nor does the author make his own line calls, telling us "I'm just making this up," or "this is what I suppose might have happened." He just plays on, spinning his yarn, and we, poor stupes that we are, assume that we are reading what has actually happened, rather than a product of the author's fertile imagination. You see, he wants you to believe that this is the true story, exactly as it happened. He has witnesses. If a conversation is put in quotes, it's because the author heard it. If it's second-hand information, the author tells us the source. It's not just something "based on a true story" (as the TV people like to say) that the writer has, um, embellished. Which is no doubt why a certain Larry Guest, golf writer for the Orlando Sentinel, called his latest work "The Payne Stewart Story," and not "Death in the Sky - a Novel Loosely Based on the Life and Tragic Death of Payne Stewart."
Here's an illustration of how Mr. Guest occasionally hits the ball over the line between fiction and non-fiction:
"During the next three hours on Monday, October 25, 1999, it became apparent that what had happened over north Florida was that the plane, for whatever reason, had lost cabin pressure, and the pilots, for whatever reason, were unable to correct that rapidly fatal circumstance. Payne Stewart and the five others quickly succumbed to hypoxia, or oxygen starvation."
That much is fact. That can be proved. But the author doesn't stop there. Listen to this:
"An alarm sounded when the air pressure level inside the cabin plunged. Stewart and the others were startled by their eyes watering and popping out of their sockets. Dust swirled about the little cabin, and the temperature plunged quickly to well below freezing. Within a matter of seconds, water vapor inside the cabin condensed as fog, and windows began frosting over. The passengers began experiencing hot and cold flashes and the feeling of ants crawling across their skin."
Oh, I see. Then not everyone on board was killed in the crash, as we've all been led to believe. Evidently a certain reporter from Orlando was in the plane, too, but he survived to tell us exactly what happened. How else could he have given us an eyewitness account? Now, we know that there was practically nothing left of the plane when it nose dived into a cornfield and buried itself, so he must have parachuted out at the very last possible moment. At the first sign of an ant. How else would he have been able to describe the other passengers' final moments in such graphic - and gruesome - detail? Well, I suppose he could have received a phone call from someone in the plane, describing their last moments. But if he knew all this, why wouldn't he have told the Federal investigators before now? Why would he have waited so long to tell everybody? He couldn't possibly have made that up - that eyes-popping-out-of-their-sockets-stuff - and then still tried to pass off his book as non-fiction, do you think?
Well, actually, yes. I think. And I think it sucks. Yes, I know, we've accepted this from Hollywood for years. But nobody expects any different; Hollywood, after all, trades in fantasy. No one expects Hollywood to stick to the facts. Anyone old enough to have seen "The Babe Ruth Story" or "Jim Thorpe, All-American" knows what I mean. Hollywood casts blue-eyed guys like Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. And on TV the so-called "docudrama", which plays fast and loose with the facts, is becoming standard stuff. And now, readers of "non-fiction" are increasingly being fed a sort of fuzzy fiction/non-fiction until they can't tell the soy from the grouond meat, and no one says a word. No one calls "Out!" Can the day be far off when students writing term papers on airplane disasters will cite "The Payne Stewart Story" as primary source material?
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I heard a government guy on the radio saying that 17 kids were killed in playground accidents last year. I knew exactly where he was headed. Safety belts on swings. Sandpaper on the slides. Port-a-pits under the jungle gyms. Mandatory helmets. I say shut down all the playgrounds. Now! I mean, if we can save just one life...

June 19 - "I tell him, 'Son, I'll make every effort to understand you, and I think I can, because I was eighteen once, but you've never been sixty-two.'" Woody Hayes, talking about "relating" to a player.
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ANSWER TO "WHO IS THIS GREAT COACH?" The mystery coach is Floyd "Ben" Schwartzwalder of Syracuse: Correct answers were submitted by: Steve Arnold - student and football player from Greensboro (North Carolina) College....Glade Hall, Seattle, Washington... Keith Babb, Northbrook, Illinois,... Bert Ford, Karlskoga, Sweden... Steve Staker, Fredericksburg, Iowa... Ken Brierly, Carolina, Rhode Island... John Reardon, LaSalle, Illinois... L.P. Warner, Riverside, California... Dennis Metzger, Connersville, Indiana... Jim Kuhn, Greeley, Colorado... Kevin McCullough, Lakeville, Indiana...

TOMORROW: More than you ever knew about Coach Schwartzwalder, a guy you should know more about.

Best answer to the Mystery Coach question was submitted by Keith Babb, a Tennessee alum who now lives in Northbrook, Illinois: "Coach Wyatt: I believe that's Ben Schwaltzwalder of Syracuse University. The Heisman Trophy winner was Ernie Davis. This brings back fond memories of the first college football game I saw in person - the 1965 Gator Bowl which featured the University of Tennesse vs. Syracuse. Syracuse had a sophomore fullback by the name of Larry Czonka and a junior halfback by the name of Floyd Little. Tennessee had an outstanding defense led by Jack "Hacksaw" Reynolds. Tennessee won the game on the strength of their defense and the passing combination of Dewey Warren to Austin Denny. Dewey Warren was the first "T" formation quarterback Tennessee had recruited since they had recently changed from the single wing attack. Mr. Warren was from Savannah, Georgia and his nickname was the Swamp Fox. He had one of the great quotes of all time when ABC interviewed him after the game. When asked about his passing success that day he said in that great southern drawl, "I just hum that 'tator."
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The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender "communities" nag us about tolerance and acceptance and "celebrating multiculturalism" and "honoring diversity," and then they go and hold their "Pride Northwest 2000" parade on Father's Day. They call Dr. Laura Schlesinger a bigot because she refers to a certain of their activities as "deviant sex," yet the theme of yesterday's "festival" was "Celebrating Queer Art and Culture."
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According to the news accounts, there were over 50,000 gays, lesbians and other such parading through the streets of Portland yesterday, and figuring that I wouldn't be missed, and deciding that it's too late in the game for me to join the gang of anarchists to the south of us, I drove east of the mountains to Yakima, Washington. There, on Saturday, ttwo of my former players, Dan Steinback (#11) and Teddy Bakken (#51) played in the state 2-A All-Star game. As with most All-Star games, this one was not a thing of beauty. But nobody got hurt and nobody keeled over in the 90-degree heat. I do know that the coaches placed a lot of stress in the selection process on character, and the proof of their wisdom came afterward, when both of my guys said what a great week they'd had, getting to know 31 teammates, not one of whom was a jerk, and working for coaches who made it a wonderful experience for everyone. --------
On the front page of yesterday's Yakima Herald-Republic was a story about a biker rally in nearby Zillah, Washington that started out mellow, then erupted in gunshots. When police finally ended the gunfight, one biker had been shot dead and two were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Surprisingly, that didn't stop the party, but according to Brandi Kelly, of Hood River, Oregon, things just weren't the same after the killing. "It blew the whole rally," she told the Herald-Republic. "Now everyone's angry and drunk." (That's always been my experience, too, whenever someone's been shot at a party.)
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Jack Reed, good friend and author of numerous football books, will be conducting a youth football clinic in the L.A. area. For more info, check http://www.johntreed.com/CYFclinic.html
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Florida State got to the semi-finals of last week's College World Series thanks in large part to a guy named Mike Futrell. Futrell, who was 0-for-3 and had struck out twice previously, stood in there with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and drove in the winning run as the Seminoles beat USC, 3-2. Now, think about this, before complaining too much about some of your football players' not getting into the weight room as often as they should this summer because they're playing baseball: provided that they're playing in a structured, disciplined baseball program and their coach doesn't discourage them from taking part in football workouts whenever they can, what's it worth to your football program to have a guy who knows how to compete - who can handle the pressure of being at the plate in the bottom of the ninth, with everything resting on his shoulders? (Notice my disclaimer about making sure the play for a coach who "doesn't discourage them from taking part in football workouts." I specifically excluded the $%#@%&'s who run fall high school baseball programs, the better to lock their kids up year-round.)
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Back in mid-season 1982, the Washington Huskies of Don James, defending Pac-10 champions, were ranked Number One in the country. But on this particular Saturday, they were not playing like the Number One team, much to the consternation of the assistant coaches up in the press box., whose cursing of their own players, although not loud enough to be heard down on the field, was plainly audible to reporters in the press box. This was brought to Coach James' attention after the game, and he immediately took two steps. First, he chewed out his assistants, making sure they understood it was never to happen again; and then, just to show how thorough he was, he ordered the coaches' booth soundproofed - insulated on all sides. The floor, too.

June 16 - Happy Father's Day - "I could never act like a punk. He'd let me have it." Shaquille O'Neal, referring to his stepfather, Phil Harrison, a career Army man ----- "I really feel that he bailed out on us." Larry Bird, discussing his father's having committed suicide and leaving his wife and six kids.

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WHO IS THIS GREAT COACH? He played his college football at West Virginia, and after graduation spent eight years as a high school football and wrestling coach until the outbreak of World War II. Following the war, after seeing combat as a paratrooper, he spent three years as coach of a small eastern college before being hired by the school where he would coach for the next 25 years. He is one of very few men to have coached at the same major college for 25 years or more, and set what was at the time a record with 22 straight non-losing seasons. His teams were famous for their hard-nosed play, and for great running backs, several of whom went on to become outstanding pros. He coached the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy. He coached a national championship team, was named National Coach of the Year, and served a term as President of the American Football Coaches Association.When he retired, he was third, behind only Bear Bryant and Woody Hayes, in career wins among active coaches.

FULL FRONTAL NUDITY! That got your attention. I probably shouldn't tell you this, because this is a family-oriented web site, and we're trying to run a clean operation here and I'll probably start getting a bunch of cancel-my-subscription e-mails, but as a combination Father's Day/birthday gift, my son sent me a nude calendar from Australia. He also