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clinics 2009
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JACK KEMP, A GREAT AMERICAN, IS GONE !

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MORE ON THE DEATH OF RED SANDERS!

 

 

"Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it." (Proverbs, Chapter 8, Verses 10-11)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hyaks DVD
ALL NEW!!! Late last July (the 23rd, to be exact), I took the job as head coach at North Beach High School, in Ocean Shores, Washington. North Beach had not had much success in recent years, and finished 1-9 in 2007. Long story short - The North Beach Hyaks finished 2008 with a 7-3 record, and the three losses were all close, by a total of just 11 points. Why were we successful? I applied all the lessons I've learned (many of them the hard way) over the years, and had the help of some very good assistants and a small but hard-working group of kids who really bought in. And also my Double-Wing system: we rushed 504 times for 3670 yards (7.28 yards per play) and outscored opponents 353-172. Not bad for a group of kids running it for the first time. And although we were pretty basic in sticking to a solid core of plays, we didn't stick to just one formation. True to the versatility that I've been advocating for several years now, we ran only 32 per cent of the time from plain old double tight-double wing - and that was in the early going, before we took off the training wheels. We wound up running more than 10 per cent of the time from unbalanced, 22 per cent of the time from slot, 22 per cent of the time from Stack. We passed pretty well, too. This highlight video shows it all- and it's available FREE to all coaches attending my 2009 clinics. In order to make sure that we have enough on hand for clinic attendees, it will NOT be available for sale until after the Providence clinic

 

flagTUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2009- "Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages." Michel de Montaigne

passback

HOT and new! Maybe you've noticed, as I have, that not enough kids come to us with the ability to throw and catch a football. Maybe it's because they don't play catch the way they used to - maybe because even when they do play baseball they're not taught to catch with two hands. Whatever, as football coaches we've just had to live with it. Until now. Now, though, we can do something about it. Better still, the kids themselves can do something about it!

Now, for the first time ever, there's a training device that looks, feels, throws and catches just like a real football - and a player can use it by himself. No having to find someone to throw to!

It's the Passback. It's not a toy. A patented nose is fused onto a real football and it throws just like any other football - but it bounces back to the thrower! Watch a young QB demonstrate or Check out some receiver and DB drills

The Passback is NEW and I predict it will revolutionize coaching the skill positions. I was so sold on it that I worked out an agreement with the US licensee to become a Passback dealer. I took a quantity with me to my recent Providence and Philadelphia clinics and sold all I had!

I'm now selling them for $19.95 + $3 shipping ($22.95) for the youth-size ball or $29.95 + $4 shipping ($33.95 total) for the regulation size. Trust me - you're not just going to want one for each of your quarterbacks - you're going to want enough for your receivers and backs. DB's, too.
Size
PAYPAL

 

*********** I was speaking with a friend of mine whose team just got waxed by a physically superior team, and I did my best to try to salve his feelings. I pointed out that none of us is immune to it, and noted three Hall of Fame coaches who went through bad first years:

Bud Grant 3-8-3

Chuck Noll 1-13

Tom Landry 0-11-1

Noll didn't have a winning record until his fourth year, and Landry didn't have a winning record until his SEVENTH!  Of course, once they got the players they needed to play their systems, they won six Super Bowls between them.

But you can't tell me that they didn't become better coaches as a result of having gone through those losing seasons.

*********** In 2004, Rolling Rock sold nearly 11 million cases. A-B bought the brand in 2006. Thanks to A-B's marketing genius - and its decision to brew Rolling Rock in Newark, New Jersey rather than in its long-time home of Latrobe, Pennsylvania - Rolling Rock sales in 2008 were 7.4 million cases. (Source- Beverage Information Group, Norwalk, CT)

Hell, as long as we're pissing away all that money on General Motors, I'd rather see some of my millions go to reopen the Latrobe brewery and put those brewery workers back on the job filling those famous green 7-ounce pony bottles with REAL Rolling Rock Beer.

*********** Did anybody else look at the three USC linebackers on the cover of SI and think they looked like what you'll get if Vince McMahon ever acquires the Chippendales?

*********** High school athletes in Florida will play fewer games for the next two years under a new rule approved by the Florida High School Athletic Association that is designed to save money during tough economic times.

The group’s board of directors voted 9-6 Monday to cut the number of varsity games by 20 percent and all other play by 40 percent through the 2010-11 school year. The policy applies to all sports except for football.

*********** In case you were one of those who still thought any line remained between pro football and entertainment, did you catch how heavily made-up Matthew Stafford was on the draft show?

*********** The best steal in the NFL draft could turn out to be Rhett Bomar, formerly of Oklahoma. He was good enough to start at OU, and if he hadn't been bounced as a result of an incident that doesn't indicate any character flaw other than going for the kind of no-work-for-pay deal that any college kid dreams of, he might have become a Heisman winner. Come to think of it, in terms of making it in the NFL, he might be better off without the Heisman.

*********** And if Rhett Bomar isn't a good pick, then what about Graham Harrell of Texas Tech?

*********** I make no secret of my devotion to Army football, but sometimes you have to give your archrival some credit. The motto of the Navy football team is,

"No Excuses. Nobody Cares."

Oh, Lord - if only we could elect a politician with that platform.

*********** Hugh,
 
I just finished reading your NEWS column and really enjoyed your responses to the various inquiries.  Your reply to the tackling question was very insightful and confirms why we teach blocking and tackling in virtually the same way every day.  Neither blocking nor tackling is about making the big hit, and the big hits take care of the themselves when kids do things the right way. 
 
I also enjoyed your reply to the aspiring offensive coordinator.  Sticking to the basics and getting really good at them is the foundation for success.
 
Thanks again for helping so many coaches by sharing your wisdom and insight.  Keep coaching!
 
Greg Koenig
Beloit, Kansas

*********** Hello Coach Wyatt. Not sure if you remember me- this is Coach Greg Bonner from the Northwest Raiders here in Phila PA. I purchased your materials last year the playbook with the dvd's. I have to give you credit - everything you said that would happen did. I had a ton of coaches doubting at first but now I have two other teams in our organization that would also like to adopt the offense. I still have my dvd's but one of my other coaches borrowed my playbook and have misplaced it. How much would you charge just for the playbook. Thanks Coach Wyatt for everything. You definitetly changed the thinking of a lot of people over here and have definitely led our organization in a new direction.

Thanks in advance for your Time

Coach Greg Bonner
Northwest Raiders
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

somali pirate hat

*********** Writes BILL KING in Sports Business Weekly

The most marketable soccer property in the United States often draws upward of 50,000 to its games, attracts television audiences of between 2 million and 5 million, and connects square in the heart of a demographic that brands covet.

We are speaking, of course, of the national team.

The Mexican national team.

Known as “El Tri” by its tens of millions of devotees, the Mexican team has built a profitable export business north of its border, where an annual tour regularly outdraws games played by the U.S. national team, and millions of Latinos from across multiple generations tune in for games from Spanish-language broadcasters Telemundo and Univision.

That following has attracted a sponsor roster that reads like a sports marketing executive’s bucket list. There’s Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. AT&T, Visa and Chase. Home Depot, Allstate and Adidas. NAPA and Makita. And there’s Jose Cuervo, quintessentially Mexican and hot for a connection with Mexican-American adults.

About 29 million of the 45 million Latinos in the U.S., roughly 65 percent, are of Mexican origin. The next largest group, Puerto Ricans, make up about 9 percent. The remainder is a mix of Cubans, Salvadorans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Ecuadoreans, Peruvians, etc.

*********** Mike Penner writes in the Los Angeles Times...

Don Garber, commissioner of Major League Soccer, learned a lesson last week: Those with half-filled stadiums should not throw stones at the New York Yankees.

Speaking last Thursday at the Associated Press Sports Editors meeting, Garber commented on the empty premium seats at recent Yankees home games.

"It's incomprehensible that you watch a game and there will be front-row seats empty," Garber said.

That prompted Yankees President Randy Levine to shoot back.

"Don Garber discussing Yankee attendance must be a joke," Levine said. "We draw more people in a year than his entire league does in a year. If he ever gets Major League Soccer into the same time zone as the Yankees, we might take him seriously.

"Hey Don, worry about Beckham, not the Yankees. Even he wants out of your league."

Levine was accurate in his comparison of MLS and Yankee attendance. Last year, MLS averaged 16,460 for 210 regular-season games for a total of 3.46 million. The Yankees averaged 53,070 last year in the final season at the old Yankee Stadium, a total of 4.3 million.

*********** DETROIT News flash: General Motors Corp. would cut 21,000 and phase out the storied Pontiac brand, under a massive restructuring plan released today. And the federal government and the United Auto Workers would become the majority owners of the car company.

Hahahahaha. And you thought the US taxpayers were through throwing money down the GM rathole. Wait'll the same people who run Amtrak and the US Postal Service start trying to make cars...

*********** Hugh,
 
I am facing a quandary. Over the weekend Coach ----- and I were given the blessing by the JV head coach to run the DW, which is fine. The head varsity coach, however, does not want us running it, which is also fine as it is his program. I serve at the discretion of the head coach and I will coach whatever system and at whatever position he desires. I would gladly run the varsity system - except they do not have a system or a play book.

They describe their plays as power, counter, sweep, trap, and option, plus assorted passing plays. which we are allowed to run - just not from the DW formation. We can run all these from the "I" formation and from split backs. We can also run a "Jumbo" package with two tight ends and we can even have one wing back, we just cannot run the double wing. Of course you have already figured out by my description that not a single member of the coaching staff understands what a DW is other than a formation with two wings aligned off of the tight ends. They have no problem running all our plays, just not from double tight, double wing. In the end the irony of our success in a different system will be lost on them.
 
So here is my quandary. I know I can run much of our offense without necessarily having two wings. We can keep all our blocking rules for traps, etc. I thought I could use the FB (B back) for much of the counter stuff and run the 47 XX with a receiver coming across like a conventional reverse play. I was also thinking I could compensate for the one missing wing by using a split out receiver to crack down on the DE or LBer.
 
The head JV coach has no problem with whatever offense we put together as long as we do not run the DW from a double tight DW formation. The varsity coaches do not even come to our games, but even if they did the most they would notice would be the tight splits.
 
It is all very strange to me as I grew up running the same system on JV as the varsity ran, but in this case the varsity has no defined system or playbook and no defined blocking rules. After 8 years of coaching, I believe I could coach just about any system as long as it is sound and defined.
 
Essentially I would be running the system much like I did when I ran it in the 8 man format, using one wing and a full back. We could also do almost everything out of the "I". I can handle the passing game and screens out of the formations that are "acceptable".
 
My other option is to stay on defense, which I have no problem with. The only problem then becomes turning the offense over to another 23 year old OC like we had last year and suffer from one folly to the next (we had over 30 turnovers in 8 games last season and still finished 6-2). I know I can put together a decent package within the limits prescribed and I know the defense will still be taken care of by the other coaches.
 
Coach ----- was very upset and a few years ago, I would have been also. If I have ever learned a single thing from you it is that I must be able to remain loyal to my head coach. The only option I have is to do his wishes or leave the team. I love the school, the JV coaches are excellent and a great group of guys to coach with, and a bad day on a ball field is better than a good day sitting at home watching tv. We will do fine even if I have to run a "conventional" offense, not that I am quite sure I know what that means. I know how to teach kids how to block until the whistle, not turn over a football, and how to pay attention to all the minor details.
 
I almost can't wait to run a slight variation just so the varsity coaches can tell me that their system works better than the DW.
 
I would be interested in your thoughts on the matter.
 
Thanks Coach,

You may be surprised at my answer, but here it is---

I think for the sake of your own sanity you should run something that is at least CLOSE to what you would REALLY like to run, and something that you know something about.

If the head coach does not want you running the Double Wing, don't defy him.  But I think that if your problem is simply the identifiability of the Double Wing, then run the Double Wing without running the Double Wing - if you get my drift.

I do not consider that to be disloyal. 

Running the "Octagonal" as I once called the 8-man Double-Wing offense (with 3 receivers), you will lose a lot of the benefits of running the double wing with two wings and two tight ends, but compared with running no system at all,  you will at least have some of the benefits.

I would suggest at least one TE and wingback, and from there you know how to do it.  Split the other end and put one of the running backs out there as a twin. Or set him to the wing side, giving you trips to that side.

And who's to say that as you go down the line a little, you can't slip in a little "Red Zone" Package (Double Wing)?

Another thought is incorporating some of- or a lot of - Wildcat and simply calling it that.  The pros have given you all the cover you need if you want to do that!

Let me know what you think.

*********** In the hierarchy of California higher education, the nine-campus University of California system is at the top in prestige. The competition to get admitted to the UC system can be fierce, and in a state that is 12 per cent Asian, Asian students make up 40 per cent of the UC system's enrollment. At the two most selective campuses, Asians make up 43 per cent of the student body at UC Berkeley, and 40 per cent at UCLA. At UC Irvine and UC San Diego, it's 54 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively.

This "imbalance", which happens to be based totally on merit, apparently bothers someone, so the state has seen fit to monkey with the UC admissions policies in a way that would lower the number of Asians admitted while increasing the numbers of whites. Blacks and Latinos would be minimally affected.

As a life-long white person who opposes racial discrimination for any reason - including for purposes of achieving the wonders of "diversity" - I speak only for myself in saying, "No thanks" to such gifts. Sorry, my fellow whiteys - if the most-qualified applicants for every single place on every single UC campus are Asian, then so be it. They earned it.

Time for everybody else to find out what those Asian kids (and their parents) are doing and then get off their asses and do the same.

*********** Business people often hire football coaches to inspire their sales forces, but do football coaches realize how much they can learn from business leaders? In the belief that there's a lot we can learn from people who are playing with more and bigger chips than most of us will ever have on the table, I reprint the following New York Times interview with Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson, conducted and condensed for publication by Adam Bryant...

Q. What was the most important leadership lesson you learned?

A. I’ve learned to be patient and not lose my temper. And the reason that’s important is everything you do is an example, and people look at everything you do and take a signal from everything you do. And when you lose your temper, it really squelches debate and sends the wrong signal about how you want your organization to run. And it was a good lesson. It was a long time ago. And I had a C.E.O. who I was very close to, and he just took me aside and gave me a really short instruction about it. And it was a really important instruction.
We have a tendency in these jobs to push really, really hard and want to go really, really fast. Change can’t ever be fast enough. But you do have to be patient enough and make sure that you always remain calm.

Q. Are there other things that you’ve learned to do more of, or less?

A. You’ve got to be thankful to the people who get the work done, and you’ve got to be thankful to your customers. So, I find myself, more and more, writing hand-written notes to people. I must write a half a dozen a day.

Q. Looking back over your career, even to the early years, do you recall an insight that set you on a different trajectory?

A. Yes, and it was actually at my first job while I went to night law school at South Texas College of Law. And I had a good full-time job as the administrative assistant to the D.A. And what you understood was you really needed to be a problem-solver, not a problem-creator. You know, don’t bring a Rubik’s cube to the table, unless you have an idea on how you’re going to try to get an answer. And always try to be a leader that comes up with the creative answers to the hard problems.

Q. And what about advice on your career?

A. If you just focus on getting your job done and being a good colleague and a team player in an organization, and not focused about being overly ambitious and wanting pay raises and promotions and the like, and just doing your job and being a part of a team, the rest of it all takes care of itself.

Q. Did somebody give you that advice, or was that something that you came to understand yourself?

A. My mother and father died from cancer when I was 20, and so I was working full time, and I was pretty fortunate to be around a lot of good people that had that kind of culture and approach to things. It was just by osmosis that I came to those kinds of conclusions.

Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What are you looking for in job candidates?

A. Typically, when you’re hiring a vice president of a company, they already have the résumé and they already have the experience base. And so what you’re trying to find out about are the intangibles of leadership, communication style and the ability to, today, really adapt to change.

And there are a lot of ways to go at that. I like to ask people what they’ve read, what are the last three or four books they’ve read, and what did they enjoy about those. And to really understand them as individuals because, you know, the résumés you get are wonderful résumés. Wonderful education, great work history. So you have to probe a little bit deeper into the human intangibles, because we’ve all seen many instances where people had perfect résumés, but weren’t effective in an organization.

So it’s not just education and experience. It’s education, experience and the human factor. The situational awareness that a person has and their ability to fit into an organization and then be successful in the organization. It’s a whole series of intangibles that are almost gut instincts about people.

Q. What other questions do you ask?

A. You want to know about their family. Where they grew up. What their parents did. Where they went to high school. What their avocations were. How many kids they had in their family. You know, what their whole background and history is.

I learned that from a C.E.O. I worked for. The C.E.O. wouldn’t really spend that much time on the résumé, but spent most of the time wanting to know everything about the person’s life, family, what they liked, where they liked to go on vacation, what their kids were like. And it gave you a really good perspective about who they were as people.

You spend more of your waking time with your colleagues at the office than you do with your family and when you bring someone into that family — we have 50 senior leaders at our company and 70,000 employees — you need to make sure that they’re a fit to the culture. And that they’re going to be part of that group of people in a healthy functioning way.

Q. What are you listening for as somebody describes their family, where they’re from, etc.?

A. You’re looking for a really strong set of values. You’re looking for a really good work ethic. Really good communication skills. More and more, the ability to speak well and write is important. You know, writing is not something that is taught as strongly as it should be in the educational curriculum. So you’re looking for communication skills.

You’re looking for adaptability to change. You’re looking at, do you get along well with people? And are you the sort of person that can be a part of a team and motivate people? You know, do you have the emotional I.Q.?

It’s not just enough to be able to just do a nice PowerPoint presentation. You’ve got to have the ability to pick people. You’ve got to have the ability to communicate. When you find really capable people, it’s amazing how they proliferate capable people all through your organization. So that’s what you’re hunting for.

Q. And is there any change in the kind of qualities you’re looking for compared with 5, 10 years ago?

A. I think this communication point is getting more and more important. People really have to be able to handle the written and spoken word. And when I say written word, I don’t mean PowerPoints. I don’t think PowerPoints help people think as clearly as they should because you don’t have to put a complete thought in place. You can just put a phrase with a bullet in front of it. And it doesn’t have a subject, a verb and an object, so you aren’t expressing complete thoughts.

And a lot of what we do in communication, when you write e-mail, you need to express yourself very clearly so people understand whether we’re going to L.A. today or we’re going to Boston today.

The second thing is, I think you’ve got to have what our pilots call operational awareness. You’ve got to have your head up. You know, when you’re flying an airplane, you’ve got to have your head up and you’ve got to have situational awareness of everything that’s going on around you. There is so much going on in the world today, you’ve got to know what’s going on globally, what’s going on around you, particularly today with what’s going on in this economy.

And, third, you’ve got to have not just the business skills, you’ve got to have the emotional intelligence. It’s not just enough to be the best person operating an H.P. calculator. You have to have the emotional intelligence to understand what’s right culturally, both in your company and outside your company.

Q. Any good management or leadership books that you’ve read?

A. I think good history books are the best books on management. And particularly autobiographies and biographies. Right now, I’m reading “Theodore Rex.”

Q. What about time management?

A. Only touch paper once. No. 2, always have your homework done. No. 3, return your calls very promptly. No. 4, stick to your schedule. I keep my watch about 10 minutes ahead. It’s important to run on time, particularly at an airline. And use your time wisely. And then, once a month, take the rest of the calendar year, or the next six months and re-review how you are using your time and reprioritize what you’re doing.

Q. How do you run meetings?

A. One, get the materials out ahead of time and make sure they are succinct and to the point. Second, start the meeting on time. Third, I tend to be a stoic going into the meeting. I want the debate. I want to hear everybody’s perspective, so you want to try to ask more questions than make statements.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to use BlackBerrys in meetings. You might as well have the newspaper and open the newspaper up in the middle of the meeting. So let’s stay focused on what we’re doing. Let’s have a really good debate, but it can’t get uncollegial. If it gets uncollegial, we actually have a bell you can ring, in the conference room.

Q. Tell me more about this.

A. If you are in a really hard debate and somebody veers off the subject and goes after you in a way that isn’t fair, you get to ring the bell. It’s a violation of the rules of the road. So you ring the bell if something wasn’t a fair shot, and we all laugh.

Q. If you had to choose another profession, what would it be?

A. Probably a public defender. I enjoyed doing criminal trial work. Teach law school or go back into health care. You know, I spent three years at UnitedHealth Group, and the health care problems we face as a country are so daunting that it would be interesting, particularly given the focus on our government today, on trying to solve that set of problems.

Q. Are you a list keeper?

A. I use Moleskines. It’s just lists of things. Sometimes I’ll just sit down and write what I’m thinking about things, because I’m not a PowerPoint person. I’ll start at the upper left corner of the page and start writing, in complete thoughts, what I think. I have a long paper that I’m writing about our marketing strategy.

Q. What would you like to see business schools teach more?

A. When you’re managing as much change as corporations globally must deal with today, the ability to communicate and communicate effectively is so important that it ought to be a core capability in a business school curriculum. We measure, study, quantify, analyze every single piece of our business. Business schools in the United States have done a phenomenal job of creating that capability. But then you’ve got to be able to take all that data and information and transform it into change in the organization and improvement in the organization and the formulation of the business strategy.

You’ve got to execute, and that human factor part is important. I know it’s intangible and it’s not like finance where 2 plus 2 is 4. I don’t know whether it can be taught, but it can certainly be studied.

***********I'm old enough to remember when...

Canadian Football League teams were actually outbidding NFL teams for star players.

Coaching staffs - pro or college - consisted of a head coach, a line coach and a backfield coach. And maybe an end coach. And, of course, for colleges, a freshman coach, since freshmen weren't eligible to play varsity football. But that was all, unless there were a few volunteers.

The NFL used white footballs (with black stripes) for night games.

flagFRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009- "Free advice is worth the price." Robert Half

*********** For a great tribute to the late DocBlanchard...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=schlabach_mark&id=4083530&campaign=rss&source=NCFHeadlines

*********** Do you have a list of specific drills that you do with your backs?  I feel comfortable with what needs to be down with the QBs and OL.  I just was wondering if you had any suggestions for that position as well.  

I just do the same old drills that everyone else does.  But other than ball-handling, I don't spend a lot of time on that stuff.  I spend far more time on the footwork and mechanics and assignments of the plays themselves.  And, of course, on the blocking, which everybody gets every day in our blocking/tackling period. 

*********** Wanna see a real stud? - take a look at Greg Gadson, former Army football player who lost both legs to an Iraqi bomb , as he tries out his new "Power Knees," the very latest in prosthetics technology!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2009/04/16/VI2009041604733.html

*********** “I’m excited to get to know and to learn and work with the coaches,” said new Southeastern (Massachusetts) Regional head football coach Dan Tripp less than a month ago - after he was hired as AD, but before he decided (as AD) to apply for the football coaching job, a job already being conducted satisfactorily by a guy who'd been Southeastern's coach for seven years. He went on, “I hope to be a part of the team that they have in place here and maybe help each program to do a little better than it has in the past.”

Yeah, "help each program." Does that include the football program, whose head coach you came in and replaced?

What a creep.

Turns out that this guy just finished his sixth season as a head hockey coach, and his third as a head golf coach. Oh - and he's been an assistant softball coach for the last nine years.

Did you get that? For at least the last three years, he's been coaching three sports a year - but not football!

Why not? How could a guy who coached three different sports - none of them football - love football enough to apply to be a head football coach? How can a guy be a head coach if football isn't his passion?

How dare a guy who doesn't love football enough to be coaching it for the last three years apply for a head coaching job that's been held down by a real pro?

How dare those people so disrespect their kids as to dump their coach and hire an unqualified person to replace him?

*********** Coach,

Please could I just confirm a point regarding tackling...

If we get a match up during a game where the ball carrier is significantly larger than the tackler, the tackler's job is to tackle with correct form just like they would on any tackle (as per your tape on tackling), wrap up and keep hold until his team-mates catch up and gang tackle...

I just wanted to confirm this is the correct approach because last week our senior team played a team with a very big running back, who was breaking a lot of tackles... Unfortunately the senior team's coaches still teach 'get low, take his legs!' tackling, especially against bigger running backs...

I know our approach is correct, but I just wanted verification because we will inevitably get questions on this down the stretch...

Thanks

Ben Armstrong

Berskhire Renegades Youth, UK

Ben,

I can tell you that it's only in a teaching drill that one of my tacklers takes on a runner head-on.

The reality of a game is that a tackler should NEVER be waiting in place for a runner to run right over him.

The reality is that a good tackler is ALWAYS moving - not squatting and waiting - and  video will show that the good tackler ALWAYS approaches from an angle, however slight, and he is in motion so that he can deliver a blow as part of tackle. There is no reason for a tackler ever to squat motionless in place and  be run over.

Not only is a low tackle dangerous to the tackler, but there is a strong likelihood that he will miss, assuring that he will land on the ground and out of the play.

The point that most people miss is that we teach that effective blocking and tackling are both done from the "waist down" -  by driving with our legs. Blocking or tackling, we stress defeating the opponent by staying stuck to him and keeping our feet moving - which we can't do if we don't stay on our feet.

A major reason for missed tackles is tacklers "hanging on" - going limp from the waist down and trying to do the job with their upper bodies.

Hope that helps you!

*********** Hi, my name is Aaron, and I'm an aspiring Coach/Offensive Co-ordinator.  when i first got into football, my middle school fed into Clovis East, where Coach Tim Murphy is a great fan of the double wing.  From there I found your website, which is fascinating.

What would be the disadvantages of taking your wildcat formation and splitting the eligible linemen wide? it seems like this would take two corners and at least one safety out of the box to deal with the passing threat, while the offense would only lose 2 blockers.  

Your thinking that we can split our ends (eligible linemen) and be as effective is sound.

There certainly are advantages to be gained by splitting one or both ends, and we will do so as part of our overall package.

There are a couple of reasons, though,  why I believe it is generally advantageous for us to have at least one tight end, and preferably two:

(1) Some modern defenses are set up against spread offenses with no tight ends. Defenses seldom see two tight ends, much less two wingbacks as well, and that creates preparation and adjustment problems for them

(2) Our deal is to run off-tackle.  We are a power-misdirection-play action system.  We are much better running off-tackle when we have a tight end there.

(3) Uncovered tackles have to be better athletes than when they have tight ends next to them, and we can't always depend on having good offensive tackles

(4) If you don't have exceptional receivers and a decent passer, defenses will ignore the threat of the pass. They will not see any need to commit 3 men to cover 2.

Good luck to you.  Let me know if I can ever be of help.

***********  Can you please provide some more info on your functional training methods?  I'm looking for ways to improve our jr. high lifting program.  They are very limited with equipment at the middle school and it's difficult to schedule time for them at the high school's weight room.  

Here's a clip of a  typical circuit workout at a school where I coached (in Portland, Oregon).  

http://www.coachwyatt.com/circuitconditioning.mp4

Wherever I go, I make use of whatever equipment is available and set up a circuit of 30-35 stations.  We'll start doing these 2-3 weeks before the official start of practice. As you can see, in this case instead of weights I used heavy bags and plastic  gas and oil cans filled with water. The idea is to work every part of the body and do so fairly rapidly.  It is definitely not bench/squat/dead lift/power clean stuff.  Don't get me wrong - I'm for strength training. But at this point we're getting close to football time, and my concern is getting kids in condition and ready for what football is going to require of their bodies.

I don't see many kids throw up after a weight-training session, but I do expect some of them to lose it after their first circuit session.  It's a good way for newcomers to learn that they can handle it.

And, of course, it means that we don't have kids throwing up out on the field when we start practice.  I can't stand even thinking of a kid that far out of condition being on our practice field.

It takes maybe 45 minutes to run the kids through one of them.  Then we go outside and run sprints.

If we have a lot of kids, we set up two shifts.  

I let the kids know well ahead of time how many circuits they're going to have to complete in order to be issued equipment.  To give them every opportunity to get their workouts in I have AM and PM workouts during the week plus Saturday AM.

*********** NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says that although Michael Vick has paid an enormous price for the "egregious" (really, really bad) thing he did, he will have to show "genuine" remorse if he expects Big Football to accept him back.

COMMISSIONER GOODELL: "Before I allow you to play again, I need you to show genuine remorse..."

MICHAEL VICK'S AGENT: "If anybody was offended by anything Michael said or did, Michael is sorry..."

COMMISSIONER GOODELL: "That's not genuine enough."

MICHAEL VICK'S AGENT: "If anybody was offended by anything Michael said or did, Michael is really, really sorry..."

COMMISSIONER GOODELL: "Now, that's what I call genuine remorse."

*********** A Lake Wales, Florida High football coach was charged with battery this week after investigators say he bit a player on the nose last season.

Investigators say the coach bit the player during halftime of a game.

A witness explained that the coach was upset with the player because he was late to the game. The coach said he was trying to motivate the team, but denied biting the player.

"I have placed my teeth over a child's nose but I did not bite because if you are talking you can't bite," he said, according to a State Attorney's Office report.

Witnesses offered conflicting testimony, saying they saw the bite take place and saw the boy's nose bleeding afterwards.

Added the coach, in a statement, "… I was there in a coaching position, and that was a motivating factor for a group of young men who were whining, who were loosing [sic] a football game 21-7 at half time. And we went out and won the game when everybody stopped whining and started playing."

Did you get that? They stopped whining and started playing - and won the game! So what's your problem? Isn't that what coaching's all about? Now quit your whining about coaching tactics, before I...

*********** I need some advice on how to approach this upcoming year as it pertains to offensive play calling and more of a concern is which plays to install this spring.  i have an idea how to approach it from a head coaches position in reguards to last season's outcome and the foundation that was established. I also know what must be done to motivate the athletes to continue to build on the foundation which was established. So I ask you for input regarding what to introduce this spring from the offense to continue our success.

I would introduce - in this order...

(1) 88/99 Super Power
(2) 47-C/56-C
(3) 88 Brown/99 Black 
(4) 3T2&4/2T3&5
(5) 6G/7G
(6) 88 G-reach/99 G-reach
(7) 2-Wedge

I would not vary from this core of plays.  I would not assume that the next step is to add plays. The next step is to run those plays as well as they can be run.

I would drill and drill and drill on assignments so that there is no question in anyone's mind what their job is.

And depending on how well things went, I might look at running a few of those plays from stack, from unbalanced from slot.

*********** Hugh, yesterday's Idaho Statesman sports page had an article on the front"WILD ABOUT THE WILDCAT" they gave credit to the head coach and OC for Miami for coming up with it on a plane flight back from Arizonia..
Go figure
Mike Foristiere,
Boise, Idaho (The less I say about this the better. Fortunately, there's no money at stake here. Imagine what it was like to be the guy who invented intermittent windshield wipers and then spent years trying to prove that the big guys stole his idea. HW)

*********** I'm old enough to remember when...

Every football player in America wore white sweat sox, at practices and games

College football was much, much bigger than pro football.

There were several All-American teams, and fans paid far more attention to them than to draft projections.

 

flagTUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009- "When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." Eric Hoffer

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Atlanta Clinic was held Sat Feb 28

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Chicago Clinic was held Sat Mar 21

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Philadelphia Clinic was held Sat Apr 4

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Providence Clinic was held Sat Apr 11

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Carolinas Clinic will be held Sat May 2 at the Kestrel Heights Charter School, 4700 South Alston Avenue, Durham

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Southern California Clinic will be held Sat May 16 at West Ranch HS, 26255 West Valencia Blvd., Valencia

Every registrant at 2009 Coach Wyatt Clinics will receive a complimentary copy of my 2008 North Beach Highlights

passbackHOT! Maybe you've noticed, as I have, that not enough kids come to us with the ability to throw and catch the ball. Maybe it's because they don't play catch the way they used to - maybe because even when they play baseball they're not taught to catch with two hands. Whatever, as football coaches we've just had to live with it. Until now. Now, though, we can do something about it. Better still, the kids themselves can do something about it!

For the first time, there's a training device that looks, feels, throws and catches just like a real football - and a player can use it by himself. It's the Passback! Watch a young QB demonstrate

It's not a toy. It starts out as a real football made by Baden, and then a patented nose is fused onto it so that it bounces back to the thrower!

The Passback is NEW and I predict it will revolutionize our game. I was so sold on it that I worked out an agreement with the US licensee to become a Passback dealer. I took a quantity with me to my recent Providence and Philadelphia clinics and sold all I had!

I'm now shipping them for $19.95 + $3 shipping ($22.95) for the youth-size ball or $29.95 + $4 shipping ($33.95 total) for the regulation size. Trust me - you're not just going to want one for each of your quarterbacks - you're going to want enough for your receivers and backs. DB's, too.

(Those of you who've bought Passback Footballs from me at my Philadelphia and Providence clinics... I'd love to hear your reactions when you've had a chance to work with them. Coach Dave DeNapoli, of Dunellen, New Jersey, writes that the passbacks are "a huge hit with the QBs and everyone else that tries them.")

LIFE mag*********** ARMY ALL-TIME GREAT BLANCHARD DIES

From the Associated Press -- Felix "Doc" Blanchard, the 1945 Heisman Trophy winner and Army's Mr. Inside in one of college football's most famous backfields, died Sunday at his daughter's home in Bulverde, Texas, where he had lived for the last 20 years. He was 84.

At the time of his death he was the oldest living Heisman Trophy winner. He was the first football player to win the Sullivan Award, given to the nation's top amateur athlete.

Blanchard, listed at 6 feet, 210 pounds, was extremely fast and Glenn Davis, quite a bit smaller, was even faster. Nicknamed Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, they helped lead Army to back-to-back national titles in 1944-45, and a disputed claim to the title in 1946. Davis died in 2005 at the age of 80. (Davis (41) and Blanchard (35) are shown at left on the cover of "LIFE" Magazine, recognition unmatched by anything in today's media.)

The year after Blanchard became the first junior to win the Heisman Trophy, Davis won it and Army went undefeated for a second straight year.

In 1944, after Army ended its season with a big win over Navy, General Douglas MacArthur wired Army coach Earl Blaik: "The greatest of all Army teams ... We have stopped the war to celebrate your magnificent success. MacArthur."

Blanchard, who also played linebacker and handled Army's place-kicking and punting, scored three touchdowns in the 32-13 Army win.

Said Notre Dame coach Ed McKeever Notre Dame coach Ed McKeever after Army had beaten the Irish, 59-0 earlier that season, "I've just seen Superman in the flesh. He wears No. 35 and goes by the name of Blanchard."

In his three seasons at in his three seasons at West Point, Blanchard scored 38 touchdowns and gained 1,908 yards, and Army went 27-0-1. Only a scoreless tie with Notre Dame kept the Cadets from winning their third straight title.

Although drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers with the third overall pick, Blanchard never played professional football. Instead, he chose a career as a pilot in the Air Force, flying in the Korean and Vietnam wars and retiring with the rank of Brigadier General.

He was inducted into the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1959.

Blanchard was born in Bishopville, S.C. and attended St. Stanislaus School in Bay Saint Louis, Miss. After leading St. Stanislaus to an undefeated season in 1941, he was recruited by Army and Notre Dame, among others.

"They had contacted me about going to West Point when I was in high school," he told the Associated Press in 1995. "At that point in time, I really wasn't interested. Academically, I never was too hot, so I never had any idea I would pass the entrance examination and go to West Point."

He enrolled at North Carolina, but after his freshman year he tried to enlist in the Navy's V-12 program. Rejected because at 6 feet tall and weighing 210 pounds, he was considered overweight for his height, he decided to enlist in the Army, but his father was able to get him an appointment to West Point.

With Blanchard and Davis, the speedy Californian, in the backfield Army coach Earl Blaik led Army to a 9-0 record and its first national title. Blaik called Blanchard "the best athlete I ever saw," high praise indeed when you realize that his backfield mate, Davis, was an outstanding football, baseball and track performer, and set physical training records at West Point that still stand.

Click here for a look at an old West Point training film showing Blanchard and Davis. For the purposes of the film, the Army team is running a single-wing offense - and doing a very good job of it, considering that the real Army offense was a full-house T. Allow some time to load. It's a big file. Note also that Blanchard was a decent place-kicker

*********** Hugh, Hope all is well, I am still at Potomac HS in Oxon Hill, MD.  Potomac is a wild place, but what a great collection of athletes.

The reason I am emailing you is: I was looking around the internet and came across this Coach Thurman who was proclaiming the Double Wing is King... well anyway he has some playbooks and videos for sale and as I was looking at the sample clips.... 

It is just repackaging your stuff,   I am outraged.  These clowns think they are so clever and have reinvented the wheel. 

Yours In Wolverine Pride,
Chris Davidson
Head Football Coach
Potomac High School
Oxon Hill, Maryland (Coach Davidson and I go way back, to 1996 when he was on the staff at Abington, Pennsylvania, the first place I helped install my Double Wing as an outside consultant, and then later whn he got his first head coaching job in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania. I will have something to say on his subject soon enough. HW)

*********** A friend who is still in the service and chooses not to be named writes,

This is a leftist hit piece on veterans returning to school.  Penn State University's Office of Student Affairs, in partnership with President Graham Spanier, produced this vignette on "Worrisome Student Behaviors" featuring a stereotypical "aggressive" veteran who threatens his professors. The "Worrisome Student Behaviors" video series is designed to provide faculty and students the ability to "minimize risk" when encountering problematic students on campus.  Penn State removed the video from the website on Fri., Feb. 27, but left the others online -- all but declaring their awareness of its inappropriateness. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhLq9NPLv0M&fmt=18

This video was originally online at: http://studentaffairs.psu.edu/caps/wsb/index.html

All teachers have had to deal with fools who believe they "deserve" high grades.  It does piss me off that they had to label this guy a "veteran", probably  in order to make him more threatening. And, of course, to take a shot at testosterone-crazed males.

Interesting how people are taking test shots at veterans, to see how the public will react. And if we don't fire back, they'll be emboldened to step up their attacks.

I've heard people talk about how "overnight" we succombed to Big Brother government. But actually, it's been going on for some time. It took a generation or two for  the dumbing down - and the indoctrinating - of our young people and the opening of our borders and the creation of a large dependent class, combined, of course, with restrictions on our rights to comment on any of the things held sacred by the High Priests of Government, for all the stars to be aligned

And there we frogs sat, in the pot of cool water, as they slowly, imperceptibly turned up the heat.  And now we are just about cooked.

***********Perhaps the way President Obama will reduce the deficit is by making more presidential appointments of people who will pay the back taxes they owe, in order to get confirmed by the Senate." Professor Thomas Sowell

*********** Scary stuff from "Drunken Nation" by Nicholas Eberstadt in World Affairs

...in the last sixteen years of the Communist era, births exceeded deaths in Russia by 11.4 million; in the first sixteen years of the post-Soviet era, deaths exceeded births by 12.4 million.

Unlike drinking patterns prevalent in, say, Mediterranean regions—where wine is regarded as an elixir for enhancing conversation over meals and other social gatherings, and where public drunkenness carries an embarrassing stigma—mind-numbing, stupefying binge drinking of hard spirits is an accepted norm in Russia and greatly increases the danger of fatal injury through falls, traffic accidents, violent confrontations, homicide, suicide, and so on. Further, extreme binge drinking (especially of hard spirits) is associated with stress on the cardiovascular system and heightened risk of CVD mortality.

How many Russians are actually drinkers, and how heavily do they actually drink? Officially, Russia classifies some 7 million out of roughly 120 million persons over 15 years of age, or roughly 6 percent of its adult population, as heavy drinkers. But the numbers are surely higher than this. According to data compiled by the World Health Organization, as of 2003 Russia was Europe’s heaviest per capita spirits consumer; its reported hard liquor consumption was over four times as high as Portugal’s, three times that of Germany or Spain, and over two and a half times higher than that of France.

Yet even these numbers may substantially understate hard spirit use in Russia, since the WHO figures follow only the retail sale of hard liquor. But samogon—home-brew, or “moonshine”—is, according to some Russian researchers, a huge component of the country’s overall intake. Professor Alexander Nemstov, perhaps Russia’s leading specialist in this area, argues that Russia’s adult population—women as well as men—puts down the equivalent of a bottle of vodka per week.

From the epidemiological standpoint, local-level studies have offered fairly chilling proof that alcohol is a direct factor in premature mortality. One forensic investigation of blood alcohol content by a medical examiner’s office in a city in the Urals, for example, indicated that over 40 percent of the younger male decedents evaluated had probably been alcohol-impaired or severely intoxicated at the time of death—including one quarter of the deaths from heart disease and over half of those from accidents or injuries. But medical and epidemiological studies have also demonstrated that, in addition to its many deaths from consumption of ordinary alcohol, Russia also suffers a grisly toll from alcohol poisoning, as the country’s drinkers, in their desperate quest for intoxication, down not only sometimes severely impure samogon, but also perfumes, alcohol-based medicines, cleaning solutions, and other deadly liquids. Death rates from such alcohol poisoning appear to be at least one hundred times higher in Russia than the United States—this despite the fact that the retail price in Russia today is lower for a liter of vodka than a liter of milk.

*********** Hugh,
 
I just finished reading your most recent “News” articles and found them highly interesting once again. One story I found intriguing had to do with your identifying Coach Bill Mignault – the winningest coach in Connecticut high school football history and coach of four state champion football teams. In your posting from Tuesday, April 14th, you printed a note from Coach Mignault who asked for the materials you give to parents at one of your early coaching meetings so he could discuss/share them with the people in a coaching certification class he teaches.
 
How special would that class be? To learn some of the most important information regarding working with and coaching kids from a person who is THE WINNINGEST COACH IN STATE HISTORY and coach of FOUR STATE TITLE WINNING TEAMS would be unbelievable. Just think of all the timeless stories he would have and how he could apply them to his curriculum; all the lessons (many of which were probably learned the hard way) he could impart to his audience; and all the grand memories he could share with his listeners. That class would be something tremendously special for all his students. What an honor it would be to enroll in that class and know that you are going to have an educational experience that might rival anything you have ever had.
 
Keep up the great work.
 
Mike O’Donnell
Grantsburg, Wisconsin
(Hi Mike-

What a guy Bill is.  He started the program at Ledyard High - and then stayed there for 42 years!

What a teacher he's got to be - he's teaching from experience.  From what he's seen and done. No dreamt-up theory stuff with him.

Here's a nice web site Bill's admirers put together---

http://www.coachmignault.com/

*********** Merle Harmon was the play-by-play voice for numerous Super Bowls and hundreds of college and pro football games, and was the recipient of the 1993 Graham McNamee National Sportscaster of the Year Award. He died last week and there was so little written about his death that I just found out about it on Monday.

On the other hand, John Madden, who couldn't carry Merle Harmon's microphone, announced his retirement last week and the earth stopped rotating on its axis.

Dick Ebersol, head of NBC sports, called John Madden "the absolute best sports brodcaster who ever lived."

Gimme a break. Mr. Ebersol has spent way too much time in an industry given to excess.

First of all, John Madden didn't do play-by-play. He did entertainment. Second of all, his refusal to fly (and, of course, his knowledge of just one sport) confined his work to once-a-week football games and ruled out baseball or basketball.

To me, if you can't do baseball, you aren't a sports broadcaster.

There is no way Madden can be put in a class with the likes of Mel Allen... Red Barber... Vin Scully... Johnny Most... Chuck Thompson... Curt Gowdy. And too many others to name.

One thing they all had over John Madden is that we never grew tired of them. They never reached the point where they sounded like self-imitators.

Besides, we haven't really seen the last of John Madden. Not by a long stretch. Not so long as there's Ace Hardware and Fast-Actin' Tinactin.

*********** Let the fools at the liberal cable networks take all the shots they want at Fox, but numbers don't lie - Prime time viewership at Fox exceeds that of the other three "major" cable news networks combined. (Source: TV by the numbers)

FNC – 3,226,000 viewers
CNN—1,161,000 viewers
MSNBC –1,014,000 viewers
CNBC – 186,000 viewers

*********** A friend told me about being introduced at a track meet to the defnsive coordinator of the host school...

He asked what we did on offense, and I told him we ran the DW. His response:

"Oh man, I hate the double wing. We can never prepare enough to be ready to stop it when we play those teams!"

Then he went on to ask me this question - "But as the offensive coordinator, don't you get bored with it? It's like you run the same play right, then the same play left, then the first play right again...it's got to be boring calling the plays in that offense."

Me: "Until you figure out how to stop that play, I am going to keep running it. As soon as you do figure it out, I will run something else for you to try to figure out! Isn't that what your OC does?"

Turns out that --- runs the Spread/West Coast offense and has 70-80 plays in their playbook - over 50 of them are pass plays! And their OC "prides" himself on not running the same play more than twice in a game, unless it's a blowout and they are trying to eat up the clock.

Absolutely blew me away! Makes no sense to me at all.

I asked him why – if a play is successful – they wouldn’t run it again, and his response was “Well, we have lots of receivers and we need to spread the ball around.”

Hahahaha.  

He talks about an offense as if it's a set of toy trains designed to amuse the operator.

Is it about entertaining the offensive coordinator, or about helping the kids to be successful?

*********** Coach, This season I will have a quarterback that has run your system for 4 years. I wanted to put in a system to call the plays at the line of scrimmage depending on the defense. I have never done this before. Do you have a system?

Coach, I don't find that defenses change much from play to play, and if they did, and they knew that my quarterback was actually changing plays at the line, it wouldn't take much for them to confuse him.

I don't have the time to teach my QB anything more complex than, say, changing from 88 Super Power to 99 Super Power, or automaticking to throw to an uncovered receiver.

This is not just about your quarterback. It is about the other 10 kids.

I do everything possible to eliminate confusion among my linemen, and I think I do a decent job of it, but I can always do better. The last thing I want to do is take a step backward and introduce a new reason for confusion.

I can't coach your team, but this is not something I would spend a lot of time on with my team.

*********** Some disappointing news.  I talked with my coaching buddies at ----- and found out they have abandoned the DW and have succumbed to start playing basketball on grass.  I didn't want to get into a pissing contest with them, after all it is their program now.  They were concerned that the DW no longer gave them an edge vs. the top two teams in the conference, and that since they have way more athletes now than they used to they wanted to get those kids more involved.  I couldn't help but ask them if they thought they would still hold an edge over the other teams in the conference now.  They didn't seem concerned so I wished them well.  Anyway, my gut tells me it might be the start to the end of an era.

Too bad about your old school.  It really does take discipline to stay with something, even when it's been proved to work.

My suspicion is that "beating the top two teams" is the good reason,  but the real reason is that they were getting bored.

I believe it's harder to coach - and stay with - something like the Double Wing in an age in which people are easily bored, they exchange thoughts in text messages or tweets, they watch music videos in which the average cut is less than a second, they play video games in which they are in complete control, and they expect instant gratification.  And they expect to win the lottery. Oh, well.  You can only coach one team at a time.

*********** You have got to read this...

By Vicki-Ann Dowling - Brockton, Mass. Enterprise

EASTON, Mass. Ned Scaduto, football coach at Southeastern Regional Technical Vocational High School for the past seven seasons, has lost his job to the school’s new athletic director, Dan Tripp.

Southeastern Superintendent Luis G. Lopes said Tuesday the school advertises internally for a head football coach every spring and this year both Scaduto and Tripp applied.

The candidates were interviewed by Lopes, Vice Principal David Degan and Athletic Director Jim Carini, who is retiring in June. Lopes said the unanimous choice was Tripp, who had already been hired to become the school’s new athletic director beginning July 1.

“Both would be wonderful coaches,” said Lopes. “Dan’s got tough shoes to fill. Ned really elevated the program ... Nothing negative about Ned. He’s a great guy and we hope he continues as head baseball coach.”

Scaduto began as head football coach at Southeastern in 2002 and built a successful team that won the Division 4 Eastern Massachusetts Super Bowl twice, in 2004 and 2005. He was coach of the year in the Mayflower League both seasons.

Scaduto has also been involved in the Apponequet Pop Warner program. In June 2007, he retired as an HVAC teacher in the Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical Institute.

Tripp was hired as a mathematics teacher at Southeastern in January and was named athletic director in February. The position is part-time, paying $7,714.

At Taunton High School, where he worked for 13 years, Tripp had been assistant football coach, assistant softball coach, head hockey coach and head golf coach. He helped lead the softball team to two state championships and the hockey team to a tournament berth.

Tripp was also a football captain at Plymouth State College, where he graduated in 1989, Lopes said.

According to the Southeastern teacher contract, the head football coach is paid between $3,707 and $7,413 a season, depending on years in the position.

“Dan really impressed us at the interview and we have high expectations for him,” Lopes said.

Lopes said Scaduto was “a great coach. He took the team to the Super Bowl and won, he is head baseball coach, and the kids have the utmost respect for him.”

WTF? That is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard of.  No reason at all - just throw a guy overboard who's won two Super Bowls, and give his job to a newcomer (the AD at that) who's never been a head coach of a football team.

What kind of man takes a job as AD at a place where the football coach is a proven winner, and applies for his football coach's job???

What kind of a place allows/encourages that to happen???

For your info - Ned Scaduto won back-to-back Super Bowls in 2004 and 2005, and was 2007 runner-up. Wrote his OC Jeff Cziska,

"You would think that winning back-to-back State Championships would give you a little job security.  The coaches, players and parents are in awe.  We are all attending the school committee meeting to have our say, but it is said to be a done deal.  Players started a petition and brought the signatures to the principal.  They were told that it did not matter how many signatures they got and that the signatures could not be authenticated."

I had planned on spending my coaching career at Southeastern and running the DW until I retired.  What does the future hold?

Just to let everyone know what the Double Wing did at Southeastern in five seasons:
2004 Division 4 EMass Super Bowl Champions
2004 Mayflower League Division II Champions
2005 Division 4 EMass Super Bowl Champions
2005 Mayflower League Division II Champions
2007 Vocational Super Bowl Runner-Up

This upcoming season we were looking at a Vocational Bowl berth at the least and and another Super Bowl berth within the next two years.

Thank you for your help in turning the program around and getting us some nice rings for our fingers.

Forever grateful,
Jeff Cziska
former Assistant Coach
Southeastern Regional Hawks

*********** Diva in the making.

Gainesville, Georgia High School star Tai-ler Jones committed to Stanford during a Thursday afternoon press conference at his school. He chose Stanford from among his six finalists, which included Georgia, Cal, UCLA, Notre Dame and North Carolina. Said to be a lifelong Georgia fan, he said he probably would have chosen the Bulldogs had they offered a scholarship a little sooner. Alas, Georgia waited until late March.

The kid is a junior. Holding a press conference.

Do I have to tell you what position he plays?

*********** Coach, Read your news and saw the note that Paul Herzog sent you.  Couldn't agree with you guys more!  We have been, and are witnessing, the steady decline of American public education.  Its demise is inevitable.  Thankfully we are in the twilight of our careers.  I pity the poor bastards coming out of the colleges!

Joe Gutilla, Toledo, Ohio

*********** Coach Wyatt,
 
It was great seeing you again in Philadelphia!  I just wanted to let you know that as always I took a lot of useful info home from the clinic. I'll be trying out the 'Hockey Stick" steps with my QBs this year. The Baden balls are a huge hit with the QBs and everyone else that tries them.  The video playbook will be a great teaching tool with the team and coaches.  I really appreciate the highlight dvd. I'm always up late after putting the little ones down watching tape and your dvd will keep me going for a while.
 
My favorite part of your presentation was the material covering players, coaches, and parents.  I would be very grateful if you could send me the material on that. 
 
Thanks again for a great clinic and I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Dave De Napoli
Dunellen HS
Dunellen, New Jersey

*********** Good Morning Hugh--

What a great job you did on Saturday (at Providence) before a full house of DW coaches. Many times one gets a lot of clinic talk but having worked and coached with you least season the information you shared was exactly what we did it. I felt a little like one of those Evangelist siting in the congregation wanting to jump up and yell amen brother. Discipline, attention to detail, fundamentals, communication, small number of plays and multiple formations to gain advantage, solid practice organization and team work were all the things we did to turn the North Beech program around. It really was quite interesting listening to you share the information of what we did and why we did it.

You also did a great job on the passing game and how we did it. This information alone is worth  going to the clinic. We practiced the passing game every day, working on running precise routes, protection, play action roll out passing game, and generally providing those in attendance with a great system for improving their passing game. I suspect our passing efficiency would rival any NFL team. But I think your best advice was throw the ball to someone who can catch it--great stuff. 

I had a wonderful day seeing everyone and enjoyed every minute of the clinic.

On a personal note I am very sorry about not coming back to North Beach and I will miss you and Connie very much. We really did do a good job and I wonder if they appreciate how hard you worked and what you were able to accomplish. I suspect in some ways returning will be more of challenge then the first year. I wished we had more time to talk about it and those challenges and wonder if either of us returning is the right thing to do considering those hurldes. Anyway you will always have my full support and loyalty. It would be my fondest wish to work with you again!! 

Fondly,
Jack Tourtillotte,
Boothbay, Maine ( I sure hope that you can connect with a program closer-by that can take full advantage of all that you can offer.  If you need me to attest to your value to them, just let me know and I'll give them a call or write them.

I think you're right about returning to North Beach being at least as tough as it was coming in new.  There's always the chance that the kids won't take as well to the same old, same old as they did to our fresh approach. And, of course, there will be elevated community expectations.  It won't be easy, especially without you there, but I think if I can just convince myself that last year was unique and can never be duplicated I might be able to deal with it!

In the meantime, let's be sure to stay in touch, and if you find yourself getting the itch again... HW)

*********** In an era with few real heroes, we often apply the term "hero" to a rock star. Or a quarterback. Or a teacher, or a coach.

Give me a break. We must never confuse "hero" with "celebrity." Or "role model."

A true hero is someone who selflessly risks everything in order to save others.

"I'm not the hero," said Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama, the man who surrendered himself to barbarians in order to save his crew.

I wanted to tell him, "With all due respect, Captain Phillips - you sure as hell are."

********** After taking a pass on a 2008 season, the Arena Football League has announced that it will not compete in 2009, either. As one who has twice been on the scene at the collapse of a pro football league, I'm very sad at the loss of opportunities for all those coaches and players, none of whom was making a fraction of what their NFL counterparts make.

*********** Coach,
 
I definitely have opinions regarding the reassignment of teachers based on their “performance.”  As a teacher, I do not agree with the involuntary reassignments or for that matter the whole “pay for performance” idea.  There is a lot to be said regarding the effectiveness of a teacher as it relates to the quality of student they are charged with teaching.  As you may remember, when I was at Belleview HS in Florida, I was teaching ESE (Exceptional Student Education) Math (trust me, there was nothing really "exceptional" about these students).  During my 2 years teaching those kids, I think the highest grade earned by a student in my classes was a “C”, with the majority of the grades being either D’s or F’s.  Keep in mind that the reason for such low “performance” was not, in my assessment, due to a lack of intelligence on the students’ part or a lack of effort/skill or whatever on my part.  It was simply that the kids were almost completely apathetic when it came to school.  They did not want to be there and they had no qualms about letting that be known.  I had one girl get a perfect (for lack of a better term) ZERO for the entire school year.  She did not turn in a single assignment or answer a single question on any quiz or test.  E-mails and phone calls home had no effect and Mom and/or Dad never requested a parent/teacher conference nor did they respond when said conferences were requested by me. 
 
According to the geniuses that propose these ideas, I would have been classified as an ineffective teacher.  I would definitely not have qualified for any performance bonuses; however, a positive effect may have been that I would have been reassigned to a different school (possibly to a school where the students/parents gave a s**t), where I would have most likely miraculously become a much more “effective” teacher.
 
In contrast, since being here a Cannon School, I have been much more of an “effective” teacher in that the performance of my students on assignments and tests/quizzes has improved markedly.  I guess I finally figured out how to teach. ; )

I wanted to know if you could put a job listing on your site.  I am looking for a Middle School Head Football Coach here at Cannon School.  It would be a plus if he were familiar with the DW but, it is not a requirement.  We do not currently have a teaching position available at the school.  Please ask that any interested candidate contact Donnie Hayes at dhayes@cannonschool.org  
 
I loved your comments on the new DHS “radical extremists”.  I was just telling Tami last night that she should expect trouble in the coming months because according to the latest reports, I was now considered to be a radical.  I, like you, am only missing the military veteran status; however, I did attend a Military College. 
 
I love reading your “News” each week.  I am working on trying to get some more coaches to the Durham clinic.  Talk to you soon.
 
Donnie Hayes
6th Grade Science
Head Football Coach
Cannon School

(Wow. Nailed the "effective teacher" nonsense. HW)

*********** George W. Bush is said to be placing his trust in historians to be kinder to him and his legacy than present-day journalists have been. I only hope for his sake that in their research they don't come across the TSA. Thanks a lot for that one, Mr. Bush.

The TSA (please don't tell anyone I said this, because we all know that if President Bush listened to all our phone calls and read all our e-mail, then President Obama can, too, and if this gets back to the TSA...) has to be the most f--ked-up of all government organizations. And that's saying something.

There are airports where they're fast, airports where they're slow. Airports where they seem to hire old retirees who still have the work ethic of their generation and airports populated by young dolts who go through the motions, biding their time until they hit it big on American Idol. There are airports where the workers seem really interested in making your travel experience as pleasant as possible, and those where the attitude seems to be a sneering "We have ways of dealing with people like you." Every time you fly there's a new surprise - you now have to remove this article of clothing, or that item from your briefcase.

Strangely, the busiest airports - Atlanta, O'Hare, Denver, Minneapolis-St Paul - seem to move people through security most efficiently. They have discovered that the people who fly a lot know the drill by heart, and so it's possible to set up a separate line for them so they don't have to wait in line behind the family of six flying for the first time.

Then there's Portland International Airport, where security is in the hands of a bunch of government employees that make the Department of Motor Vehicles seem competent and friendly by comparison.

Not long ago, I got in line at the security checkpoint. It was the "Express Line," set aside for those fliers traveling first class and heavy-duty frequent fliers, of which I am one. I got in line, but instead of "expressing," I waited. And waited. And watched as the people in the other, non-express, lines moved along faster than I was moving.

Not to worry, I figured. They've got some slowpoke checking our boarding passes and IDs, but once we're past her, we'll feed into our own x-ray machine line, and then things will speed up.

No such luck. Once through the initial checkpoint, we actually found ourselves merging with all the other passengers from all the other lines, and on top of that, airline personnel were being allowed to cut in front of us. There was, to say the least, a bit of grumbling, and I have to confess that I was among the grumblers.

Uh-oh. From out of nowhere stepped a big TSA guy who asked me, "What's the problem?"

I couldn't tell for sure whether he had a length of rubber hose in his hand, but I wasn't taking any chances, so I diplomatically said, "I thought it said this was an express line."

"It is," he snapped. "Until they check your boarding pass."

I told him that a real express system seemed to work just fine at larger airports than Portland, but he informed me that they'd tried it here, and "it didn't work."

"That's a crock of sh--!" I screamed, as they handcuffed me and dragged me down a long hall and into a dark room where they applied electrodes to sensitive body parts.

No, actually, I rolled my eyes and shut my mouth and stoically resigned myself to Life in a More Secure America.

And thought of an old story about a street vendor in Boston who sold "Meat Pies."

A guy bought one and took a bite. And then another. And then another, after which he shouted, "Hey! There's no meat in this pie!"

The vendor said, "Yeah. I know."

And the guy said, "Then why's it called a meat pie?"

And the vendor replied, "Because that's its name!"

(Hmmm. "So why do you call it an express line?"

"Because that's it's name.")

*********** Failed radio talk-show hostess Janeane Garofalo, on the recent tea parties: "You know, there's nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying. It sounds right and then it doesn't make sense. Which, let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that."

*********** I'm old enough to remember when...

Shoulder pads were made of a type of vulcanized fibreboard, an advance on the leather from which they were originally made. (Hence the term, "popping leather.")

Most offensive linemen had scabs on their foreheads or the bridges of their noses from pass-blocking.

Practice jerseys were wool, and contributed to heat exhaustion. Pants - at least practice pants - were canvas.

flagFRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2009- "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." Groucho Marx

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Atlanta Clinic was held Sat Feb 28

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Chicago Clinic was held Sat Mar 21

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Philadelphia Clinic was held Sat Apr 4

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Providence Clinic was held Sat Apr 11

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Carolinas Clinic will be held Sat May 2 at the Kestrel Heights Charter School, 4700 South Alston Avenue, Durham

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Southern California Clinic will be held Sat May 16 at West Ranch HS, 26255 West Valencia Blvd., Valencia

Every registrant at 2009 Coach Wyatt Clinics will receive a complimentary copy of my 2008 North Beach Highlights

AT LAST SATURDAY'S PROVIDENCE CLINIC...

Lower left, I'm with Bill Mignault, winner of more games than any high school coach in Connecticut history, including four state titles Between me and Bill Mignault is Mike Pucko, super-bowl-winning coach of Worcester, Mass. Holy Name Academy

*********** I was in flight and missed the finish to the Master's, but I did manage to catch a replay of the winner's acceptance speech. Completely in Spanish.

Look, I know the guy's from Argentina, but I find it hard to believe I can't believe he's played golf as long as he has and at the level he has without gaining enough English proficiency to give even a tiny little speech in the language of his hosts.

Unless he's spent most of his time in those parts of the US where you have to press "2" for English.

*********** Bruce Snyder dies last week at the age of 69. You might not remember him, but as head coach of Cal from 1987-1991 he took the Golden Bears to their first bowl win since 1938.

At Arizona State he led the SunDevils to an 11-0 regular season in 1996 and their first-ever Rose Bowl berth. The Sun Devils, featuring Jake Plummer at quarterback and Pat Tillman at linebacker, lost to Ohio State in the last minute of play. For his efforts he was named national Coach of the Year.

Diagnosed last June with cancer, he told the Arizona Republic, "If all of a sudden I'm gone in a year, it's been a damn good life," he told the Arizona Republic in the fall. "I've lived a healthier, longer life than most. ... I'm as healthy as a horse, I swear. I just have some cells that we have to get rid of."

*********** Just think - not so very long ago, we came within a whisker of doing away with the Department of Education. But we didn't, and now we're paying the price. It's become the spearhead of the federal government's effort to seize control of functions long considered to belong to the states.

First, it was No Child Left Behind. Now this...

Key provisions in the recent stimulus bill require governors to sign four so-called "assurances" before receiving billions in emergency education aid.

In one of the assurances, governors must promise to enforce a requirement of the education law that their state’s most effective teachers will be assigned equitably to all students, rich and poor.

Here's the paradox: By "effective teachers" they're no doubt referring to those whose students score highest on standardized tests. Only one problem, one that educrats still don't get - just as in football the "best coaches" tend to have the best talent, so do the "most effective teachers." It's no secret that kids from stable, upwardly-mobile families, kids who get to school on time every day (with full bellies) and do their homework every evening, kids whose parents attend teachers' conferences, do better in school, and thus their teachers are seen as "more effective."

Meantime, in inner-city schools, teachers get hammered for not being able to do the job - with kids who do not generally have the advantages of coming from stable families and for the most part can be described as "reluctant learners."

So now, as part of our President's vaunted vision of "sharing the wealth," effective teachers are to be reassigned to the tougher schools, where, I will bet the farm, they will no longer be "effective."

Then just watch, as those once-effective teachers bail out of the business.

*********** Are these NFL people f--ked, or what? The 49ers seem to have lost interest in Georgia QB Matthew Stafford. Reason? While being interviewed by a psychologist at the combine, the subject of his parents' divorce, while he was still in high school, came up. Stafford says he told the guy that things were cool, that he'd adjusted, but the shrink told him he "sounded if he might have unfinished business."

Said 49ers coach Mike Singletary, in a radio interview with KNBR in San Francisco, "If you're going to look at drafting a guy in the first round," he told host Ralph Barbieri, "and you're going to pay him millions of dollars, and asking him about a divorce about his parents, if that's going to be an issue, then you know what? Maybe he doesn't belong here."

Whoa. Wouldn't want to touch that guy, would you? He's liable to go out to some nightclub and shoot himself in the leg. Or throw a handful of $100 bills at hookers.

Maybe they should be asking similar questions about wide receivers who've made babies that they have no intention of supporting.

Ah, what the hell difference does it make, anyhow? Fewer than half the starting quarterbacks in the NFL are still playing for the teams that drafted them.

*********** Mississippi offensive tackle Michael Oher, whose recruitment was featured in "The Blind Side," is likely to go in the first round of the NFL draft. He's already on his second agent.

*********** I printed this five years ago, around draft time...

It will be interesting to see how the Maurice Clarett decision turns out, assuming that the NFL loses on appeal.

I really don't see kids going from high school to the NFL - and certainly not making an impact - in anywhere close to the way they've done in the NBA. Pro football's physical maturity requirements being what they are (and the fact, you will have to admit, that for the most part football requires more brains and discipline than basketball or baseball), it is unusual enough for a "true freshman" to make a contribution at the college level. It is hard to believe that such a kid could go from a high school playoff game to an NFL camp in seven months.

People forget that long before Clarett revealed his character and scholarship deficiencies, he was having durability problems as a college freshman. And while playing tailback at Ohio State is certainly a high-profile, high-risk proposition as it is, it can't compare to playing running back in the NFL.

I don't see the NFL tying up much salary cap money signing kids right out of high school and then sitting them on the bench for two or three years the way the NBA does. In fact, I can't imagine NFL personnel people, notoriously inaccurate as they are with their projections even after having seen guys play college ball for three or four years, sticking their necks out to draft many high school kids.

It's not so easy projecting the value of a football player - for one thing, there are no opportunities for high school football players to play in pickup games with pros, as is often the case with high-profile high school basketball players.

The reality is a lot different from the nightmare vision of kids flocking to the pros. Rather than going straight to the pros, most college freshmen spend a red-shirt year, during which they learn the system and mature, both mentally and physically. In fact, there is a growing trend among many high school players to spend an extra year at a prep school to better prepare for the jump to college.

I do see it becoming a problem with guys dropping out of college after their first or second years.

And I do see a problem with the sort of kids we see more and more of these days, kids whose self-assessment of their pro potential is at variance with the facts. They will be happy to take a couple of hundred bucks from the neighborhood Pro Pimp, the street agent who's getting a head start at building his stable. That kind of money goes a long way when you're a high school junior.

College recruiting, whorish at it already is, will have a new cast of characters at play. High school kids will be recruited as hard by agents as they are by college coaches. And I see a huge problem for college coaches, having to deal with players who've been relentlessly hounded by agents from the time they were juniors in high school.

The NCAA is going to go nuts checking out cases where kids are offered "items of value" while still in high school.

Who knows? Maybe there's a college coach out there somewhere willing to throw in with one of these sleazy street agents. (You don't suppose there's really a college coach anywhere who would do that, do you?)

*********** The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement agencies that recent news is helping "right-wing extremist groups" recruit new members and could lead to violence, and warns about the possible recruitment and radicalization of returning veterans. 

The report, issued last week, is part of an ongoing review of extremists on both ends of the political spectrum.

The latest assessment by DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis found no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but right-wing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on fears about the recession and the election of the first African American president. The office called them "unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment."

"Right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning," the assessment reads. 

"The current economic and political climate has some similarities to the 1990s when right-wing extremism experienced a resurgence fueled largely by an economic recession, criticism about the outsourcing of jobs and the perceived threat to U.S. power and sovereignty by other foreign powers.," it continues.

The report also suggests that returning veterans are attractive recruits for right-wing groups looking for "combat skills and experience" so as to boost their "violent capabilities." It adds that new restrictions on gun ownership and the difficulty of veterans to reintegrate into their communities "could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

"Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans likely would attract new members into the ranks of right-wing extremist groups ... The high volume of purchases and stockpiling of weapons and ammunition by right-wing extremists in anticipation of restrictions and bans in some parts of the country continue to be a primary concern to law enforcement," the report says.

Me, I didn't go to any tea parties because I didn't want to be caught on Big Brother's cameras. I figure that since I am opposed to abortion, illegal immigration, expansion of the powers of the federal government (not to mention a stimulus bill that no one bothered to read) and restrictions on my right to bear arms, I am already near the top of the DHS "right wing radical" Hit List. Oh - and I voted Republican. Man - If I were a recently-discharged vet, I'd be right at the top.

*********** Thanks to Todd Bross for sending me this great tribute to the late Harry Kalas. It was worth it to me to see scenes of "Whitey" - the late Richie Ashburn, long-time Phillies' outfielder and rthen radio guy, possibly the most beloved of all athletes ever to play in Philadelphia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oX8oNc6sX0

One final sad note about Harry Kalas' passing - his was the voice of Puppy Bowl.

*********** Think of the gas we'd save if it were illegal to park within a quarter mile of a high school, and high school kids all rode the buses that we're already sending around the countryside nearly empty.

The only exemptions would be for kids who are playing sports and need to get home after practice.

*********** New Army coach Rich Ellerson on the challenge of coaching at a service academy...

"I only have them for a certain amount of time. When I got them, I try to do my best job I can distracting them with football. But before we leave when we have dinner up here after practice, the last thing we do is work on an academic planner with our guys. We make sure when they leave here they are focused on their next task. That's one of things a cadet in general and an Army football player in particular, needs to be great at. Staying in the moment and focusing on the next task. So when they get here, they have to be able to turn off what just happened down in the barracks or in class and focus on football. When we are done here, we turn another switch and refocus ourselves.

"One of the great things that I'm excited about is the way we have found our guys some time. We demand so much from these guys both in the classroom and physically, both in the barracks, their military training and what we do in football and to take advantage of all that hard work they got to be able to recover and rest. The trick is time. We've been efficient with our time. We are getting our work done in a timely fashion and we are getting them out of here so they can refocus on their academic work and get to bed at a reasonable hour. I know I sound like Mom. That's one of the great challenges. If you read Col. Blaik's book, if you hear Jim Young talk, the challenge hasn't really changed. Certainly there are some things that have changed around it. The challenge remains essentially the same and that's a big part of it.

"I'm excited about the progress we've made from a program standpoint. Our system is working. The guys are improving. They are growing by leaps and bounds both physically and in terms of our offense and defense. They are doing it in a way that gives them a chance to excel in the classroom. I haven't been around here long enough to have a sense to see the direction but I know the arrow is up. It comes from enthusiasm. I think winning is contagious. You can't just be a winner or a competitor in one phase of your life. You have to compete in every phase and we do."

*********** The strong survive, the weak are eliminated. Call it Darwinism...

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that crash dummies in mini-cars did poorly in 80 mph head-on collisions with midsize cars.

The institute concludes that while driving smaller and lighter cars may save fuel, “downsizing and down-weighting is also associated with an increase in deaths on the highway,” said Adrian Lund, the institute’s president. “It’s a big effect - it’s not small."

Meantime, I will continue to drive my Ford Expedition until the Feds give me my $50,000 bailout to switch to a Vespa.

*********** (A coach writes) the way things usually go for us is that we spend about 20-30 minutes a day (the last half of the season anyway) running our plays against our defense. Just ends up with lots of kids getting beat up.

We don't get kids beat up and I know it's because we don't allow contact below the waist - blocking or tackling - and we don't allow anyone to be taken to the ground. I've done it this way for years and we don't get kids hurt.

(And I might spend 45-50 minutes a day running my offense against a scout defense.)

I like the no contact below the waist and no taking to the ground. That is where our kids get beat up. Is that in all aspects of practice - as in tackling drills, blocking drills, etc.? Or is that just in the time when you are running your plays against the scout defense?

Even in tackling drills, we NEVER take a kid to the ground. I go ballistic over that.

That's where kids get hurt in even the most seemingly harmless of drills.

We hit plenty hard in practice, even without taking runners down, and once the game comes we never have any problem understanding that now it's okay to take runners to the ground.

*********** Duke basketball player Greg Paulus may have used up his four years of basketball eligibility, but he has one year of eligibility remaining in any other sport, and since he was a high school All-American QB and 2004 Gatorade National Football Player of the Year at Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse, New York, he's exploring the possibility of playing a year of football somewhere. Michigan is one of the schools where he's investigating doing that.

Why MIchigan and why not Duke?

Duke already has Thad Lewis, a three-year starter, set to go at QB. Michigan, on the other hand, is still looking for the answer.

"He and I talked extensively," Duke coach David Cutcliffe told the Durham Herald-Sun. "He's a quarterback at heart, but there was no way he was going to be able to compete and play quarterback for us. I think that was the deciding factor.

"Prior to our last six practices, I was going to try to get him out, give him a chance to work at slot receiver."

Playing at the highest level of college ball is no sure thing as it is. First of all, Paulus hasn't played in over four years.

And then there's some question as to whether he'd be allowed to transfer and be eligible.

The NCAA will have to grant him a waiver if he decides to go that route to the rule that athletes have to sit out an academic year when they transfer. One exception that would seem to apply in Paulus' case is that athletes don't have to sit out if they haven't participated in the sport for two or more years prior to the transfer.

*********** I'm old enough to remember when...

Only Army wore plastic (Riddell) suspension helmets. Other teams' helmets were leather and close-fitting. For padding and sweat absorption, they were lined with thick felt.

Mouth pieces hadn't been invented, and "nose guards" were seldom seen. Missing teeth were common. So were broken noses. So, too, were brush-burns (abrasions) on players' faces from rubbing against opponents' jerseys.

Players were taught to tackle low, ducking their heads to protect their faces.

 

flagTUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2009- "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow, famous criminal attorney

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Atlanta Clinic was held Sat Feb 28

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Chicago Clinic was held Sat Mar 21

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Philadelphia Clinic was held Sat Apr 4

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Providence Clinic was held Sat Apr 11

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Carolinas Clinic will be held Sat May 2 at the Kestrel Heights Charter School, 4700 South Alston Avenue, Durham

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Southern California Clinic will be held Sat May 16 at West Ranch HS, 26255 West Valencia Blvd., Valencia

Every registrant at 2009 Coach Wyatt Clinics will receive a complimentary copy of my 2008 North Beach Highlights

A STOP AT WEST POINT ON MY RECENT VISIT EAST...

foley center
keys to victory
Army's great indoor facility, the Foley Center
The "Keys to Victory" are posted everywhere!
joe ross
coach ellerson
Joe Ross, 1994 Army Football Captain and newest staff member
New Army head coach Rich Ellerson
army pat
army punt
Where special teams are concerned...
Coach Ellerson is definitely hands-on!

*********** Without going into any detail, suffice it to say that I am really excited by what I saw on my recent visit to West Point.

New Army head coach Rich Ellerson, fresh on post from Cal Poly, impresses you as a man with a plan - everything he does has been very carefully thought out. Nothing in his program happens by accident.

I'm especially excited because the Northwest is well-represented on the coaching staff - offensive coordinator Ian Shields was a (wishbone) QB and football captain at Oregon State and head football coach at Eastern Oregon, and co-defensive coordinator Payam Saadat played at Washington State and coached at Western Washington.

Both of them come to West Point with considerable experience coaching Coach Ellerson's system (spread triple-option on offense, "Desert Swarm" on defense).

*********** Boy, those people in the Heartland just don't get it, do they?

Now it's wildfires. Or was it tornadoes?

Not that it matters. Whether it's a wildfire or a tornado, a blizzard or a flood - they just don't get it.

There they are, digging their way out from under a huge snowstorm or helping each other get along without power for weeks or building improvised levees with sand bags, or hosing down their neighbors' houses to keep them from catching fire.

Don't they know the American Way is to sit on your ass and complain that the government isn't taking care of you?

*********** Harry Kalas died Monday. Beloved in Philadelphia as the long-time voice of the Phillies, he was also known to football fans by voice if not by name as the successor to John Facenda, the legendary "Voice of Doom," as the voice-over on dozens of NFL Films productions. He also did the voice-over for Notre Dame films for many years, and in the early 1980s did the play-by-play on the Irish delayed telecasts.

*********** It's a damn shame that the NCAA basketball Tournament gets all the nation's attention, because it doesn't come close to living up to its reputation as an all-comers, everyone-has-chance-to-win event. Who's kidding who? By the time you get to the Final Four (trademark), the survivors are the elite. This year, Villanova was the closest they could come to a dark horse. Villanova, for God's sake. Villanova - a member of the Big East, with a storied basketball tradition including an NCAA title-game win.

Hockey is where the action really is. Three members of the "Frozen Four" - Bemidji State, Miami (Ohio) and Vermont - were nonmembers of college hockey's elite.

The fourth team, Boston University, is. The Terriers came in with four national championships to their credit, and went out with a fifth.

They defeated Miami, 4-3, to win the title, but what a game it was.

Apart from the fact that I find college hockey much, much better to watch without all the goonish play of the NHL, this game was even more exciting than most because of its incredible ending.

Miami broke a 1-1 ties with two third-period goals and took a seemingly commanding lead. And although BU in desperation pulled its goalie with just over three minutes to play, Miami repeatedly beat off persistent BU attacks on its goal.

But finally Boston - playing without a goalie - scored with 59 seconds left to come within a score, and then with 17 seconds to play - still playing without a goalie - scored again to tie the game and send it into overtime.

That was two BU goals in the final minute of play, while holding Miami scoreless for over three minutes without a goalie!

The BU overtime win gave the Terriers their fifth national title, and cost Miami its first national title in any sport.

So - considering the way the big guys dominate college basketball - when was the last time a team in the men's basketball final was playing for its school's first national title in anything?

*********** Hi Hugh, (Regarding the article on losing teachers at both ends of the experience scale)

I thought this was really interesting.  I know that there are many just taking advantage of the retirement systems but what I hear most often from people that I respect is that they still like teaching but can’t stand the B.S. – as you know, most of the things going on in schools today have nothing to do with kids, teaching or learning.  There are way too many people making decisions that have never been in a classroom or couldn’t wait to get out.

Hope you’re having fun with the clinics and that everything else is going well; I sure enjoyed your Chicago clinic. 

Paul Herzog,
Woodbury, Minnesota (It is scary to contemplate where the teachers are going to come from.

And as you allude to, it's not all about the money.

It's definitely about the BS you refer to, but also to the fact that we have a very large number of ungovernable kids.  And these are not just the classic inner-city kids.  These are also kids from very nice places just like Woodbury whose parents have never told them "no." HW)

*********** There's been at least one Miami Hurricane taken in the first round of each of the last 14 NFL drafts.

But according to most draft experts, it's gonna end this year.

*********** At my Providence clinic I noted how many coaches had been attending for 10 years or so, and I asked how many of them had been to their state final game at least once. I was shocked at the hands that shot up - at least ten coaches from five different states.

Another regular, one that I can't really include as one of my guys, has won four state titles.

That's Bill Mignault, who retired a year ago as winningest coach in Connecticut state high school football history. Bill is a wing-T coach, but over the years I've gotten some ideas from him, and I'd like to think he's gotten some from me and the other double-wingers in Providence, too. I call it cross-pollination.

Bill wrote me after the clinic to say,

Hi Coach!
 
Great clinic at Providence.  You do a great job.  The coaches that come each year are very nice people.
 
It is my pleasure to spend time with you Connie and good football people.  I have been to a lot of clinics over the years.  Your clinic is the best.  Thank you for taking the time to look at the tape of my last team at Ledyard. That was a special group of players that worked smart and hard for success.
 
Your enthusiasm and attention to details and teaching that you and your staff did with your new team made them learn how to play the game right and become winners. 
 
I would really appreciate the materials and information you provide to the players and parents at the beginning of the season including the players contract.  I will use it in the coaching certification class I teach each year.  I will give you full credit and also introduce them to your web site.

********** Coach, I just read your NEWS section.  Great stuff as always.  You wrote, "I wonder if President Obama realizes what an opportunity this Somali Pirate incident is providing him - if he were to order US special forces to hit the bastards where they live (and yes, it will almost certainly mean the loss of the captain's life), he would solidify his role as our nation's leader, estabish himself as a Commander-in-Chief, and silence those who question whether he really wants a strong America. He would definitely show that he has a set."
 
You are right on.  I told Rhonda yesterday that we should have sent someone in there and blown those pirates away immediately.  I can't believe how soft our nation has become.  Al Quaida and other terrorist groups must be drooling.
 
The sports bar/museum sounds great.  I have long wanted to visit New York, and now I have another reason to plan that vacation.
 
Greg Koenig, Beloit, Kansas

*********** Boy, am I pissed at those Navy Seals. They went and took it upon themselves to act as judge, jury and executioner of those poor pirates. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?

Did anybody inform those pirates of their Miranda rights? Wouldn't you think that at least one of those Seals would know that you no longer have to be an American citizen to enjoy all the rights of an American citizen?

I wonder how many Washington lawyers are pissed because now they won't be hired - at taxpayer expense - to defend the three who were killed.

I wonder how this will go down in a nation that's been brainwashed into believing that making imprisoned combatants wear women's panties is torture.

I wonder if we'd have to apologize to the "global community" if we'd had a Republican president.

*********** I also wonder how many of those Navy snipers grew up owning and using a gun, in a place (red state, or at least in a red county) where gun ownership is not automatically viewed as the first step in the making of a mass murderer.

*********** "Obviously, if the United States Navy hanged some eyepatched peglegged blackguard from the yardarm or made him walk the plank, pious senators would rise to denounce an America that no longer lived up to its highest ideals, and the network talking-heads would argue that Plankgate was recruiting more and more young men to the pirates’ cause, and judges would rule that pirates were entitled to the protections of the U.S. constitution and that their peglegs had to be replaced by high-tech prosthetic limbs at taxpayer expense." Mark Steyn, National Review Online

*********** Question: What do Jeff Komlo, Eric Hipple, Mike Machurek, John Witkowski, Chuck Long, Rodney Peete, Andre Ware, Charlie Batch, Mike McMahon, Joey Harrington, Dan Orlovsky and Drew Stanton have in common?

Answer: All were quarterbacks, and all were drafted by the Detroit Lions in the last 30 years.

Long, Ware and Harrington were all first-rounders.

Stanton, from Michigan State, and Batch, from Eastern Michigan, were second rounders.

rob dickson 1rob dickson 2*********** Several years ago, while on a visit to Australia, I was shown how to kick and dribble an Aussie Rules football by Rob Dickson of the Hawthorn Hawks. (Actually, in the photo at far left, Rob's showing my wife, not me, how to punt.)

Tragically, last week Rob, 45, and his five-year-old son were killed in an automobile accident in South Africa. His wife and their eight-year-old son were in the hospital, their condition unreported.

Following his retirement from Footy, Rob produced a widely-acclaimed documentary of the sport called The Essence of the Game.

Rob became famous beyond football as the winner of the Australian version of Survivor, and he used a portion of his $500,000 prize winnings to bring his wife's family to Australia from her native Zimbabwe.

*********** Although overall sales of beer in American are flat, there is one category of brews - admittedly a small one - that continues to show growth. It's microbrews, also known as "Craft Beers." The phenomenon got its start in the Northwest.

There are still places, usually far from the coasts, where you ask what's on tap and they'll say "Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Lite, Coors, Coors Light. And Sam Adams, " (aargh!) but in Portland and Seattle it's common to go into a workingman's bar and see a dozen spigots of draft beer. If you're an outsider, all but one of them will likely be unknown to you. That one will be the lone Wonder-Bread "industrial beer" that they keep on tap just for folks like you.

Hell, Portland's so quirky that the evil duo of Bud and Bud Lite don't even dominate the white-bread market. Nope. Portland is the nation's top market for... Pabst Blue Ribbon!

Portland has earned the nickname "Beervana." Maybe it's the Ireland-like winters that make its pubs so inviting. Or the huge number of creative types who've moved here, willing to try the off-beat, either as consumers or producers. Or the fact that most of the US hops are grown here. Or maybe its' because now that tough drinking-and-driving laws are a part of our culture, it simple isn't feasible for sensible people to sit down and drink as much beer as we might like and then drive home. So as long as we're going to have just one or two beers, we might as well splurge and pay a little more for something that actually has some taste. Whatever it is, though, Portland has more breweries than any other American city.

Wherever I travel, enjoy seeing what plucky, entrepreneurial types in other parts of the country are doing. And I'm pleased to report that they're doing some great things in some unexpected places.

The success of the little guys has not gone unnoticed by Big Beer, which is trying to muscle its way in with what I'd call "Crafty Beer." Coors, with its "Blue Moon," and Budweiser with its "American Ale" are combining deception and marketing muscle in an attempt to fool gullible consumers into thinking they're buying something put out by a couple of guys who make beer in the back of their tavern.

So widespread is the craft-brewing phenomenon that they're even brewing it in Utah. There's one brew called Polygamy Porter. Slogan: “Why Have Just One?”

*********** In 2004, Rolling Rock Beer, produced as it had been since Repeal in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, sold nearly 11 million cases.

But in 2006, Rolling Rock was acquired by Anheuser-Busch, which didn't waste much time closing down the Latrobe brewery and moving Rolling Rock's production elsewhere. The shutdown put a couple hundred people - all union - out of work.

In 2008, A-B, now making Rolling Rock Beer (former ad slogan: "From the mountain springs to you") in Newark New Jersey, sold 7.4 million cases, down 13 per cent from 2007.

Now, I know the people at Anheuser-Busch are marketing geniuses and all that, but for some reason they couldn't quite figure out that (1) regardless of the formula, a beer made using water from the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania is likely to taste better than a beer made with the water of Newark, New Jersey; (2) when you piss off the union people in Western Pennsylvania, heavily-union and once your largest market, you are going to lose a lot of sales.

*********** I am old enough to remember when...

All players had to play both ways. Even quarterbacks. Typically, coaches would first determine their starting lineup based on who their best 11 defensive players were (first prevent losing, right?), which meant that offenses were based on what those 11 could do.

Coaching from the sidelines was illegal, and limited substitution rules made it impossible to shuttle plays into the quarterback, so the quarterback had to be trained to call his own plays.

Without unlimited substitution, there were no kicking specialists. Kickers all played positions, offensive and defensive.

flagFRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2009- "What does 'economic justice' mean except you want something that someone else produced without having to produce anything yourself in return ?" Prof Thomas Sowell

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Atlanta Clinic was held Sat Feb 28

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Chicago Clinic was held Sat Mar 21

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Philadelphia Clinic was held Sat Apr 4

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Providence Clinic was held Sat Apr 11

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Carolinas Clinic will be held Sat May 2 at the Kestrel Heights Charter School, 4700 South Alston Avenue, Durham

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Southern California Clinic will be held Sat May 16 at West Ranch HS, 26255 West Valencia Blvd., Valencia

Every registrant at 2009 Coach Wyatt Clinics will receive a complimentary copy of my 2008 North Beach Highlights

AT LAST SATURDAY'S PHILADELPHIA CLINIC

PHILA 01
PHILA 02
PHILA 04
PHILA 05
PHILA 06
PHILA 07
PHILA 08
PHILA 09
PHILA 10

*********** North Carolina's blowout win Monday night cost CBS millions of viewers.

From a high of 19 million viewers at 9:30 (Eastern) Monday night, people began see the handwriting on the wall and started tuning out, so that by 10:30, about midway between the second half, they had lost four million viewers.

The UConn-Louisville women's game the next night was just as big a blowout - no telling how many people turned that one off and went to bed.

*********** Still on basketball - I'm betting someone must have tricked the great John Wooden into reciting that wonderful poem "A Little Fellow Follows Me" as the voice-over while we see players demonstrating the kind of flamboyant basketball that he has long deplored - all in order to sell The Product Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned.

That would be "G" (The Thirst Quencher Formerly Known as Gatorade.)

*********** Not that the death of pitcher NIck Adenhart isn't sad enough as it is, but for our family it hits pretty close, because he played his high school ball at Williamsport, Maryland, where our kids went to school before we moved to the Northwest.

*********** Coach Wyatt,
The Pop Warner Academic All-American list was released on April 1.  My team has nine Pop Warner Academic All-Americans.  Less than 3% of the Pop Warner participants nationwide receive Academic All-American honors.  25% of my team made the list (9 of my 35 players).  For the second year in a row, we also had a First-Team Academic All-American (1 of only 41 kids in the nation).   This gives us 32 Academic All-Americans in the past 4 years.
Dave Potter, Durham, North Carolina

*********** Yes, given the lousy job prospects of most younger people, armed forces recruiters are finding it easier to meet their quotas. But you wanna hear something scary?

Only three of ten Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 can meet the Army's "Three M" (mental, medical, moral) requirements.

*********** Dad...check this vehicle out.  

http://www.campagnamotors.com/T-REX/intro.html

The guy we sat next to on the plane has one.  I think I mentioned, he was paralyzed after a motorcycle crash, then got another bike and broke his feet.  Now he drives this thing ON THE ROADS of Georgia!  Unreal.

Love, Ed (Melbourne, Australia)

*********** We had dinner Wednesday night at what has to be the ULTIMATE sports bar. Actually, it is a lot classier than the term "sports bar" implies.  

It's The Stadium Bar and Restaurant in Garrison, New York, across the Hudson River from West Point, and about an hour north of New York City.

http://www.stadiumbarrest.com/

It features sports memorabilia including - get this - two Heisman Trophies (Larry Kelley's and Paul Hornung's).  The bar itself is a display case, glass-topped with an amazing assortment of sports stuff inside, including the hurly sticks used by the owner's Irish father.

Wrote one reviewer, "The Stadium isn't so much a sports bar as it is a museum of memorabilia masquerading as a sports bar and restaurant."

kelleys heisman
hornung heisman
Larry Kelley's Heisman
Paul Hornung's Heisman

 

*********** The Detroit Pistons, struggling to make the NBA playoffs, will be struggling without Alan Iverson. His season is over. Officially, they're saying that it's because of some sort of injury, but the reality seems to be that Iverson isn't seen as a team player. ("Does not play well with others.")

Iverson? Not a team player? Who knew?

You don't suppose there are guys like that on other NBA teams, do you?

*********** To a coach who generously volunteered to coach a team that's hopelessly outmanned, I wrote...

So long as you hang in there and give it your best shot, it will not reflect badly on you as a coach. The best in the business have been in situations like this.   It can't be anything other than a great learning experience for you.  There will be times in the future when others will complain about how tough things are and you'll be able to laugh because you'll have been through times as tough as they get!  It may not be pretty at times, but it's going to make you a better coach!

*********** A dad with nothing but the best of intentions wondered about the proper way to approach his son's high school coach about providing him with some of my materials - "without pissing him off."

I wrote back,

I suspect that the task of presenting anything to the coach without "pissing him off" will be a monumental undertaking.  It is not a reflection on your coach.  It is part of every head coach's makeup to have a built-in resistance to advice from an outsider, however well-meaning it might be.

I have known other dads to do the same thing you propose, and although I was grateful for the business they gave me, I can't say that they were successful in getting their point across.

One purchased nearly $300 worth of materials and I doubt that the coach ever opened them.  He even offered to pay the coach's way to one of my clinics.  No use.

Perhaps one approach might be to discuss it with the coach before spending the money, saying something along the lines of "Coach - understand that I'm not in any way attempting to interfere with your program - but I have a chance to get my hands on some double-wing materials, and if I were to do so, I wonder if you'd be interested in looking at them."

*********** Coach,

How do you introduce your expectations for assistant coaches?  Do you pass out the form and review it at a staff meeting?  Do you review it individually?  Any advice is much appreciated.  Hope your other clinics are going well.  

Coach,

I do it individually.  I want each coach to be free to say that he can't go along with one of the points.

And in a group there is always the chance that one dissident might want to try to turn it into a debate.

Needless to say, if I already know a guy very well or if he is already on my staff and has been performing satisfactorily, that means he already measures up, and I don't have to spend a lot of time on it.

If he happens to be on staff and he has been a bit of a problem in the past, I emphasize that these are the points I'm going be using to evaluate the coaches.

Hope that helps.

*********** Hi Coach,

I was wondering what the logic/background is behind having the Tackle block Down (all the way to the Center) and having the TE block down on the DT, rather than having the Tackle+TE double the DT as in the Powers?

Thank you,

Coach,

This was all reasoned out long ago by the people at Delaware, whose rules I use, for the most part.

It's actually very simple: If your tackle blocks a man on him, who will get the man over the guard?  And if there isn't a man over the guard, that space still needs protection against a blitzing LBer.  Believe me, that is a tough lesson to have to learn the hard way.

In addition, the down block of the tackle should influence the TE's man and make him easier for the TE to block. if that man to the inside of the TE isn't closing down when the tackle blocks down, it means we can get our tackle onto a backer and trap that man.

*********** The Philly papers carried the story of an FBI wiretap on a certain, uh, "businessman" named Anthony Nicodemo, who was trying to explain to a small-time bookie why he might benefit from Mr. Nicodemo's, uh, "protective services."

Mr. Nicodemo was trying to get across the idea that things were tough even in organized crime, and tough times for the big guys were going to mean tough times for little guys like our bookie, and to get his point across he told a little story...

"Like I always say, the lions are on top of the hill and the lambs are down in the valley. When the lions got meat and the lambs got meat, everything's fine and dandy. When the lambs got meat and the lion's up there on the hill and he don't have nothin', what's gonna happen?

"Back 30 years ago, all the lions were fully fed. They didn't care about the lambs, you know what I mean? Today, the lions are starving."

*********** I wonder if President Obama realizes what an opportunity this Somali Pirate incident is providing him - if he were to order US special forces to hit the bastards where they live (and yes, it will almost certainly mean the loss of the captain's life), he would solidify his role as our nation's leader, estabish himself as a Commander-in-Chief, and silence those who question whether he really wants a strong America. He would definitely show that he has a set.

Unfortunately, up speaks Hillary, saying that we need an international resolution, followed by John Kerry threatening a Senate investigation.

*********** Thanks for defending us boys from the South. (Mississippi)

I have 17 coaches on my staff and only one dips and never around the kids. Only 1 has a problem with vocabulary(Cursing)

We all love football 365 days a year.

Steve Jones, Biloxi, Mississippi (There have been times when my staff has had cursing problems - even when I was coaching overseas and didn't have any assistants. HW)

*********** In the oh-so enlightened United States, Iowa and Vermont joined the growing number of states permitting same-sex "marriage."

Meantime, in Iraq, the nation we "liberated," gays are beginning to come out. It is fair to say that they are not being readily accepted by the general population, which is showing its disapproval by killing them. The families of the gays are frequently so ashamed that they rarely claim the bodies. In fact, many of the murders have been committed by family members.

The police aren't much help. “Homosexuality is against the law,” said a police officer in a neighborhood that has become popular with gay men. “And it’s disgusting.”

I think we should send more troops back in there to teach them they can't talk like that about homosexuality.

*********** A letter in the Australian Shooter Magazine:   "If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers. The firearm death rate in Washington, DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 percent more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US, than you are in Iraq. Conclusion? The US should pull out of Washington."

*********** “The traditional teaching career is collapsing at both ends,” says a report by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a nonprofit research advocacy group.
It isn't bad enough that we're going to lose a lot of experienced teachers who, most of them in their 50s, are still young enough and vital enough to still teach. Add to that the high attrition rate among beginning teachers - one of every three new teachers leaves the profession in their first five years - and our schools could be facing a serious crisis.

It's predicted that over the next four years, more than a third of the nation’s 3.2 million teachers could retire.

“Beginners are being driven away” by low pay and frustrating working conditions, and “accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems” that encourage teachers to leave teaching when they are still in their mid-50s, the report says.

“In the ’60s we recruited many baby-boom women and men, and the deal we made was, ‘You’ll have a rewarding career and at the end, pension and health benefits,’ ” Tom Carroll, the commission’s president told Sam Dillon of The New York Times. “They signed up in large numbers and stayed, and now 53 percent of our teaching work force is getting ready to collect. If all those boomers walk into retirement, our teacher pension systems will be under severe strain, with the same problems as the auto industry.”

zach trainor

While at West Point this week, I was able to meet one of the local Black Lion Award winners and his dad. Zach Trainor is in the middle of the photo. A fullback and linebacker last year for the Junior Black Knights of HIghland Falls, New York, Zach will be a freshman this fall at Highland Falls' James I. O'Neill High School. On the right is his dad, Colonel Tim Trainor, who's a member of the faculty at the US Military Academy.

In nominating Zach at the end of last season, his coach, Kevin Barnes, wrote "As a player on the field, Zach’s contributions to the team on both sides of the ball were tremendous.  He was clearly our toughest player, battling through several minor injuries while playing both ways in every game of our 9-game season.  More important than his contributions during the game was Zach’s leadership by example.  Though we only won 2 games during the season, and lost most of our others by fairly large margins, Zach’s enthusiasm and 100% effort on every play never wavered-and he could often be heard cheering our other younger players on and encouraging them to continue to play hard despite the score.   For these reasons, every younger player on our team looks up to Zach-and wants to play the game like he does."

As part of the close cooperation between the Military Academy and the youth football program, many of whose players are the sons of military people, Zach's Black Lion Award was presented to him by Army's 2008 Black Lion Award winner, John Plumstead.

*********** Coach, don't know it you ever watch The Colbert Report starring Stephen Colbert (the man who coined Truthiness: "The quality by which one purports to know something emotionally or instinctively, without regard to evidence or intellectual examination".)  He took on Wikipedia on July 31, 2006 when he created the word "Wikiality": "together we can create a reality that we all agree on—the reality we just agreed on."  He then single handedly saved elephants by tripling their population...well, he told his viewers to edit the "elephant" article to say "Elephant population in Africa has tripled over the past six months."  They did, and temporarily crashed the site.

Chad Beermann
Valley Community HS
Elgin, Iowa

*********** You think you've got it tough? Times are tough on NFL owners, too.

Philadelphia Eagles' owner Jeffrey Lurie and his wife have put their five-bedroom home in suburban Haverford, Pennsylvania up for sale. Described in the listing as "understated elegance," it is a "handsome 1928 stone Normandy nestled on 2.31 acres on a private lane." It has a pool, spa, cabana and clay tennis court, and it's "landscaped in the European tradition with elegant front and rear coutryards, flagstone terraces and spectacular park-like grounds."

The Luries paid $14 million for the crib in 2007, but they're offering it now for $8.5 million.

Now, none of us likes to lose $5.5 million on the sale of anything- but somehow I don't think this means Mr. and Mrs. Lurie will be joining the ranks of Haverford's homeless any time soon.

*********** I'm old enough to remember when...

What we now call a corner back was either a "defensive halfback" or, in some places, a "side back."

A few teams in the Southwest Conference actually split their ends and threw the ball more than they ran.

Oklahoma was killing people running the Split-T.

Teams that ran the option pitched the ball underhanded.

Michigan State under Biggie Munn was putting up big scores with its "multiple offense" that combined single wing with t-formation and direct-snap double-wing with "T-Double Wing."

 

flagTUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2009- "A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall." Vince Lombardi

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Atlanta Clinic was held Sat Feb 28

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Chicago Clinic was held Sat Mar 21

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Philadelphia Clinic was held Sat Apr 4

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Providence Clinic will be held Sat Apr 11 at the Sheraton Providence Airport

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Carolinas Clinic will be held Sat May 2 at the Kestrel Heights Charter School, 4700 South Alston Avenue, Durham

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Southern California Clinic will be held Sat May 16 at West Ranch HS, 26255 West Valencia Blvd., Valencia

Every registrant at 2009 Coach Wyatt Clinics will receive a complimentary copy of my 2008 North Beach Highlights

united plates

The things you see on the walls of pubs... "United Plates of America" - K.C.'s Alley, Ambler, Pennsylvania (photo by Christopher Anderson)

*********** The Philadelphia clinic was a resounding success. The most encouraging thing to me continues to be the large number of coaches at all my clinics this year who are approaching or have already surpassed the ten-year mark in clinic attendance.

This is rewarding to me professionally because it affirms that these outstanding coaches have had extensive experience with my system and keep wanting to improve. To a great extent, we've grown together as coaches.

But it's even more rewarding personally because these are coaches whose friendship I've come to cherish. As an example, there's Coach Jason Clarke, of Millersville, Maryland. He's been coming to my clinics for at least ten years, and for the past seven years we've had breakfast together the Saturday morning of the Philadelphia clinic. And then there's Coach Chris Galloway, of Elverson, Pennsylvania, who unfailingly brings me lunch - a hoagie, of course - and sends me home with a "Pennsylvania Care Package" (scrapple, Lebanon bologna, pretzels) after having a couple of cold Yuengling's with me at the conclusion of the clinic.

*********** Soft pretzels are a Philadelphia invention. Also a staple. A Philadelphian doesn't wait until he goes to a ball game or a carnival to eat one. It's not unusual to see a businessman or businesswoman downtown buying one (or two, or three - they come linked together) from a street vendor and eating it for lunch. I think soft pretzels are best when bought hot from a vendor on Broad Street or Market Street (whose intersection at City Hall is considered "Center City"), but there are those who seem to think they're best when bought from one of the unshaven, unsanitary near-derelicts selling them to motorists at busy intersections. Real Philadelphia soft pretzels have to have lots of salt on them - large chunks of salt. Most pretzel connoisseurs put French's mustard on theirs.

*********** In Eastern Pennsylvania, they're called hoagies. Across the Delaware River in South Jersey, they're called subs. (Which is probably where the name "Subway" originates, except that the Jersey version was originally called a "submarine sandwich" because of its shape.) They're pretty much the same thing, and they're pretty much confined to an area maybe 50 miles in diameter. You can't find anything close in New York to the north or Baltimore to the south.

The locals use only long loaves of a chewy Italian bread that no place else in the country seems able to duplicate, first slicing the loaf lengthwise and then opening it up and scooping out the doughy inner-part to make room for the fixings (cheese and Italian cold cuts, and thinly-sliced onions, the more pungent the better). They finish off with a little lettuce and juicy sliced tomatoes, then sprinkle on a little oil - NO MAYONAISE!!! NEVER!!! GRRRR!!! - before taking a knife and deftly folding everything into the loaf.

Until someone can prove to me otherwise, the best in the world - well, in the Philly area or South Jersey, anyhow - come either from the White House in Atlantic City or from Sacco's Sack o' Subs in Ventnor, New Jersey.

*********** The World Champion Phillies opened their season Monday night against the Braves. The opening pitch was thrown at 8:10 and the first boos were heard at 8:27.

*********** On my way from Philadelphia to Providence, I plan to visit West Point and catch at least one Army practice. Monday's New York Times had a very nice article about new Army coach Rich Ellerson

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/sports/ncaafootball/05army.html?_r=2&ref=ncaafootball

*********** Courtney Paris, explaining what she was doing when she called her Oklahoma teammates together following the Sooner's two-point loss to Louisville... "We pray after every game."

*********** The NCAA, which in terms of money hunger is at least as bad as the NFL, goes the pros one better in terms of what it pays the people who really make the money, the athletes. (Actually, they insist on calling their servants "student-athletes," least anyone get the idea that they're actually employees, and entitled to at least a small percentage of what the NCAA (or their coaches) rake in.

For example, players' likenesses can't be used to promote products. Unless the NCAA uses players' likenesses to promote products.

NCAA Hypocrisy, Exhibit A: I mentioned earlier that "The Pontiac Game Changing Performance," featuring highlights of actual college players, is not, in the eyes of the NCAA, a Pontiac promotion. Oh, no. That would be using images of amateur college athletes to promote a product, and that would be wrong. What it is, see, is a series of game-changing performances sponsored by Pontiac. (Now do you understand?)

Exhibit B: EA Sports NCAA Football 09

EA Sports, as you may know, is not permitted by the NCAA to use current players' names in its games.

Well no, but as Chicago Attorney Pete Rush points out in Sports Business Review, "The quarterback for the Florida Gators is left handed... and wears Tim Tebow's number... and runs many of the same plays that Tim Tebow runs."

Well yes, but - the NCAA will be sure to tell you - that is not Tim Tebow!!!

*********** When you're the NFL and cable systems aren't interested in carrying the NFL Network except as a premium channel, what do you do? Why, you offer them another channel that they don't want to carry.

Enter NFL Red Zone.

It appears to be the NFL's lame response to the cable operators' anger at the fact that the NFL's Sunday Ticket "out-of-market" package is available only through DirecTV. The cable systems would like to be able to carry it, but after the NFL just announced a $4 billion extension that will keep Sunday Ticket on DirecTV through 2014, that isn't going to happen. (Every other professional sports league sells its out-of-market package to both cable and satellite.)

So along comes the NFL with its Red Zone network (see why announcers have kept on using that cliche?), which proposes to show highlights and selected live action from games around the league every Sunday. And good new, cable operators! You can have it - if you also sign up for NFL Network.

But cable operators aren't buying. Among themselves, they jokingly refer to Red Zone as "Sunday Ticket Lite."

“It’s an interesting idea,” said Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen. “But I don’t think that it’s a fully baked idea. And we certainly don’t know or understand exactly what the NFL wants to do with it.”

“It’s unfortunate that this issue with the NFL Network has been taken to the level it’s been taken to,” said Bob Wilson, senior vice president of programming for Cox, one of the few big cable operators to have a deal with NFL Network.

The NFL Network wouldn't be having the problems it's having if the NFL hadn't contracted exclusively with DirecTV and to carry Sunday Tickey, and cut out cable systems.

Comcast’s Cohen told Sports Business Weekly that Comcast “made it crystal clear” to the NFL that it was interested in bidding for the Sunday Ticket package on a nonexclusive basis, but was turned down.

“They have made it quite clear in every conversation where we have brought this up that we should stop focusing on their out-of-market package because they’re not going to make it available to cable,” he said.

Meantime, I still continue to predict that the NFL Network will not survive the next NFL season in its present form.

*********** Will somebody please tell the NBA - a league that's paying nearly a dozen different guys $15 million a year or more - that it's f--ked up? The owners don't seem to know that, and if they want me to tell them they'll have to pay me a healthy consulting fee.

Latest evidence that it's truly f--ked up is the fact that this league, which throws big sums of money at immature high school seniors and then endures three or four years of their juvenile antics just to see if they'll pan out, is downrating North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough because he stayed in school and actually played four seasons of college basketball. (And won a national championship his senior season, for what it's worth.)

Whereas last year he was seen as a first round selection, somewhere between number 18 and number 28, now he's seen as falling between 25 and 35, which could put him in the second round. Needless to say, it's going to cost him money, which in NBA-think is the worst possible thing that could happen to a human being.

ESPN draft analyst Chad Ford said it's the price a college kid pays for doing what used to be the expected thing - staying in college. "The longer you stay, the more your draft position begins to slip, because people draft in part on upside," he said. "Right now, the thing about Tyler is they don't see any upside to him. He is what he is. He'll play hard. He'll be strong and an aggressive player in the league, but the upside isn't there."

Well, maybe not, Chad, but for what it's worth, I'd say the downside isn't there, either.

Not unless Hansbrough spends his spare time smoking weed and hanging with his homies at "gentlemen's clubs." (Between fathering illegitimate kids, of course.)

Oh, well. While Tyler Hansbrough's attending his class' 25th reunion at UNC, accepting his everlasting classmates' thanks for a great four years and enjoying the company of the teammates with whom he won a national championship, the dolts who went straight from the playground to the NBA, now in their 40s, will be on the run from the many lawyers of the many mothers of their many children.

*********** South Alabama plays football for the first time this season. They might be new to the game, but somebody in the Athletic Department knows what he's doing - they've got seven home games!

*********** I told you Lou Saban was a tough guy to pin down...

Coach, I just read an article about Lou which states he coached at Canton Tech in upstate NY.  I grew up in a town 40 miles from Canton-it's a 2 year school and has never had a football team. 
 
Dave Petrie
Pinehurst, North Carolina

*********** Hi Coach. Hope Philadelphia clinic went well. That is a good group up there sorry I missed it. Interesting fact about the coaches. You always provide good things in the news section. Even an old timer like me still enjoys it greatly. Good article about  Coach Saban. The talk around the U (That's Miami - HW) was always that he is good at what he does but won't be around long. But he certainly helped things there.

He got a lot of heat over the players throwing the head of the Student Jewish Association in  the lagoon in the middle of campus. A lot of heat. The anti Semitic thing took off. Not too long after that he left - unknown if that was the direct cause or just his style. But he certainly lit the fuse down there.

Armando Castro, Roanoke, Virginia (Congratulations to Coach Castro and his son, Alan, a QB from Roanoke's Hidden Valley HS, who has just agreed to walk on at Louisville. HW)

*********** Hugh: That guy who sent you the "Old Guy" stuff might be Jack LaLanne, but if he saw the combat loads these guys carry he might change his tune. Can you imagine the pain which would exist in the body of a 60 year old doing the little maneuvers required of a soldier in combat? I'm 73 and I'm pretty good on the golf course when I have my electric cart, but I'm pooped after 18 holes, even when I'm doing it 4 times a week. GET REAL! I know the guy was just trying to give us a laugh but "for real", stay home and read exciting books, and walk a mile a day. You'll feel better.  Black Lions  Jim Shelton, Englewood, Florida (I knew that would get the goat of an old soldier like Gen. Shelton.  It was probably composed while the guy sat on a stool at the Legion Hall after finishing his third beer! HW)

*********** From the Internet - Why Men Don't Write Advice Columns:

Dear Walter:
     I hope you can help me here. The other day, I set off for work in my Volvo 1800 leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn't gone more than a mile down the road when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband's help. When I got home I couldn't believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbor lady. I am 32, my husband is 34, and we have been married for twelve years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that they had been having an affair for the past six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him. He was let go from his job six months ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. He won't go to counseling and I'm afraid I can't get through to him anymore. Can you please help? Sincerely, Sheila

Dear Sheila: An 1800 stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the vacuum lines and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber. I hope this helps. -Walter

*********** After my snide comment about the believability of certain Wikipedia entries, a coach wrote,

If you disagree or think the Wikipedia entry is bunk, you should submit an alternative or edit the entry.  That's how "wikis" work.  100 people working an hour on an article is as good or better than 1 person working 100 hours on an article.  The intent is for people who have a clue (Hugh Wyatt, et. al.) to correct the imbeciles out there rather than leave it to the reader to determine the veracity of the article.

I answered,

I do not think it is my obligation to correct anything on Wikipedia.  I know how to do research, and the poor schlubs who don't are at its mercy.  As I said, things like this just undermine Wikipedia's credibility.

I disagree about the 100-to-1. Not if the one person is the only person who truly knows a subject.  They used to call such people "teachers" and kids used to learn things from them, back before someone thought it was cool for kids to get into groups and teach each other.

This is what we get when we devalue true education and what passes for "education" becomes little more than a quest for grades.

*********** Coach Wyatt, It seems to me I read in one of your coaching tips (or somewhere) that you were not opposed to having your wings facing straight down field as opposed to angling them in.  I still have mine angled in, but looking at the Oakfield 88 and 99 superpower clips posted on your homepage, I really like the depth wings facing forward have when they receive the ball.  Have you experimented with this, and how do you currently position them?  Any insight you have to offer would be appreciated.

Thanks, Paul Hansch, Clarion-Goldfield High School, Clarion, Iowa

Coach,

My wings have been squared-up (facing forward) for at least five years now.  This past year was the first year I had them down (in a 3-point) and I will stay with that because sometimes my ends and backs are interchangeable and now I teach just one stance.  My wings are legal depth, one full man (one yard) outside a tight end.

We do not motion on Super Power.  The runner's initial course (as it is on RIP or LIZ motion) is direcrly at the B-Back's heels.  We don't want him ever to be any deeper than that when running Super Power.

Hope that helps.

*********** Where's this story been hiding for the last two weeks?

By James Fanelli, in the New York Post

At least this time Plaxico Burress was only shooting from the lip.

The pistol-packing punk fired a string of profanities at a deputy sheriff two weeks ago after he was stopped for erratic driving in Florida, police said.

"(Expletive) you! You're going to be in a lot of trouble. I know the sheriff personally," the receiver raged at Broward County Deputy Sheriff Donald Harris during the March 18 traffic stop, police said.

The embattled gridder -- who was released by the Giants on Friday and faces 3½ years in prison on a gun-possession charge after shooting himself in the leg at a Manhattan nightclub on Nov. 29 -- followed every question and command with a "(Expletive) you," according to the citation.

It appears Burress' driving is as wild as his shooting; the ticket was his fifth driving infraction in Florida in the past month alone.

In the March 18 incident near Fort Lauderdale, Burress, 31, was speeding south on I-95 in his black 2008 Toyota Sequoia at 10:30 a.m. when he crossed several lanes of traffic, cutting off vehicles to get on I-595's westbound ramp, police said.

Harris pulled over the car because Burress was driving like "he was going to kill somebody," according to police.

When Officer Harris approached, he couldn't see inside the tinted windows of Burress' SUV, so he opened a door and found the ex-Giant talking on his cellphone.

"(Expletive) you! You can't open my (expletive) door!" Burress barked, police said. That's when Burress issued his boastful threat about knowing Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti.

At one point, Harris asked Burress to get out of his car because of his "violent and aggressive" attitude, police said. The deputy wanted to see if the fuming, 6-foot-5 footballer was carrying a gun. Burress, who wasn't packing, complied. But he wasn't happy about it.

Eventually, Burress, who has a home in nearby Lighthouse Point, returned to his car, snarling, "You're going to hear about this by the end of your shift!"

But Burress was bluffing about his connections. The sheriff has "never met him," a police spokeswoman said.

Burress was hit with a $150 moving violation.

Two weeks earlier, on March 1, Burress was slapped with four violations for driving 60 mph in a 45-mph zone, improper tags, improper lane change and improper window tinting.

Burress' gun-possession case has been adjourned until June 15.

Damn! Why couldn't Plaxico Burress have been the NFL player who ran the red light in Dallas? Police mighta shot his worthless ass.

*********** I'm old enough to remember when...

If a team lined up with a quarterback under center, there was a decent chance that they'd throw the ball. And if they lined up with a guy five or six yards deep taking a direct snap from center, they were not in the "shotgun." They were a single wing team, which meant there was very little chance they'd pass.

That guy taking the direct snap in the single wing was NOT called a quarterback. He was called a tailback. (The I-formation hadn't yet come along, years later, and at a time when nobody was left playing the single-wing, to appropriate the term "tailback.")

The term "running back" was not yet in use. Aside from quarterbacks in the split-T, the people who ran the ball (if you were a T-formation team), were the halfbacks and the fullback or (if you ran the single wing), the tailback, wingback or fullback .

There was no such thing as a wide receiver. Or a split end. Or a flanker. An end was an end was an end.

flagFRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2009- "Man has never developed a weapon he didn't eventually use." Ronald Reagan

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Atlanta Clinic was held Sat Feb 28

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Chicago Clinic was held Sat Mar 21

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Philadelphia Clinic was held Sat Apr 4

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Providence Clinic will be held Sat Apr 11 at the Sheraton Providence Airport

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Carolinas Clinic will be held Sat May 2 at the Kestrel Heights Charter School, 4700 South Alston Avenue, Durham

The 2009 Coach Wyatt Southern California Clinic will be held Sat May 16 at West Ranch HS, 26255 West Valencia Blvd., Valencia

Every registrant at 2009 Coach Wyatt Clinics will receive a complimentary copy of my 2008 North Beach Highlights

*********** A Canadian coach writes...

I just finished my last ever Canadian football clinic.  I have only been to one American one (at Michigan State) and it was run like clockwork.  Everything went on schedule.  Here, we have a bad habit of letting coaches who were scheduled for one hour ramble for 90 minutes, especially if they are American ('We paid for him to be here, so let him go on!')  I can't support such disorganization any more.  Too many guys go to clinics to get away from their families; I spent the bulk of the day lamenting the loss of a spring day with mine.
 
The kicker for me was a gentleman who happened to graduate here and spend some time in Mississippi as a GA at a DIII school and then coach high school there before returning.  Before his talk, he proclaimed that his time in Mississippi left him with two bad habits. 

The first was swearing. Personally, I find it coarsens one's attitude, nor do I find it necessary in common discourse about football tactics and techniques.  I can overlook that. 

The second bad habit was dipping.  He proceeded to fill his mouth with a wad of tobacco immediately before his presentation, pausing every once in a while to spit in a cup.  My Lord! Not the behaviour I would expect from a mentor to young men, nor is it a shining indictment of the state. 

He ended his profanity-laced discussion of blocking technique with a great thanks to God.  At least his time in the Bible Belt left him with some admirable quality.
 
He tried to encourage us to be creative in football, referring to the A-11 offense.  That was the last straw.  I felt like a bit of a jerk, but I had to burst his bubble and tell him that it was outlawed. (More like the loophole was closed.)
 
I have to go and teach now.  I don't know what my point is; I just hope that Mississippi has more to offer than swearing and spitting.

Coach- Sorry you had to have your time weasted by people like that.

The guy from Mississippi sounds like a poseur. A wannabe. A guy who thinks it's very important that he impress on you how southern he became in his short time there. He is a caricature.

I certainly don't know every coach in Mississippi, but I have met a lot of them, and my impression is that they are very professional in their approach to coaching.  I haven't known any of them to be foul-mouthed. Perhaps some of them chew when they're out on the field, but I haven't been made aware of it. Besides, in most states  there are now strict prohibitions against use of tobacco of any form  on school grounds.

I definitely can't imagine a guy so unprofessional that he would address his fellow coaches while using snoose (as the old loggers call it out here).  I can't imagine one of the guys who've spoken at my clinics to be so crude and disrespectful of the coaches in the audience.

I would urge you not to judge Mississippi coaches by this one loutish character. Based on my experience, Mississippi - and Mississippi football coaches - have a lot more to offer than chewing and swearing!

*********** Washington Post sportswriter Dan Steinberg called the women’s Maryland basketball team battle cry “the most ruthless slogan I’ve ever heard, in any sport, at any level.”

The Lady Terrapins got themselves motivated during the season by putting their fists together and shouting “We eat kids!”

"a statement of empowerment,”one player called it . “It’s a metaphor.”

“We’re not actually eating kids,” forward Demauria Liles added. (Well, duh.) “We’re just dominating. We’re stomping them to the ground.”

Head coach Brenda Frese just shook her head. “What they come up with nowadays.”

It all started in the fall when forward Emery Wallace tried to pump up the players during dance rehearsals for Midnight Madness by shouting out catch phrases. Mike Tyson’s infamous threat to opponents popped into her mind: “I want your heart…I want to eat his children.”

Once the motto caught on, the players turned it into a feeding frenzy. Center Yemi Oyefuwa chose which “child” to wolf down each game. “Sometimes it’s one from back home [England], sometimes it’s someone from this country. You try to pick the juicy ones, the ones with nice hair, delicious ones, pretty eyes. The eyes are the best.”

At halftime, after the coaches wrote instructions on the white board, the players would jot down their goals for the second-half menu:

“We’re halfway through the kid’s body now – keep going!”

“You already had the head, you already had the hair!”

“Get to the feet!”

Tasteful ladies, tasteful.

*********** From my friend, Coach Richard Cropp, who coaches at Tallahassee's Leon High School, comes the sad word of the passing of Gene Cox, long-time Leon coach and a Florida coaching legend...

Tallahassee, the State of Florida, and high school football in general lost a great coach and a mentor yesterday with the passing of Coach Cox. Here is the story from the paper. I did not play for the man, but I met him and saw him at every game Leon played last season. By all accounts he was a great man in addition to being a coach of coaches. I could only hope one day to coach on a staff with a mentor like him.
 
Gene Cox, the legendary football coach who mentored a generation of Tallahassee's young men, died Monday evening. He was 74.
 
Cox coached at four high schools in a storied career that saw him become the state of Florida's all-time winningest coach in the fall of 1987. He spent a combined five seasons at Jefferson County and at Suwannee County before beginning a remarkable 28-year run at Leon that saw him build the Lions into a regional — and national — power.
His Leon teams won two state championships (1969, 1974) and were state runners-up twice. Cox also saw no fewer than 114 of his former Leon players sign college scholarships.
 
"If you think of Leon High School, you can't help but think of Gene Cox," said Leon principal Rocky Hanna, who played for Cox at Leon.
 
Cox's second oldest son, Alan, said his father suffered a heart attack around 6:45 p.m. after completing his daily workout on a treadmill. Gene Cox, Alan said, didn't drink or smoke.
 
"He never missed a day of school, mainly because of football. He had no vices — well, his only vice is he liked to win. And he made no beans about that," Alan Cox said.

*********** The Gamesmanship Trap in Sports and Law

There are many similarities between playing sports and practicing law, especially between ideals and realities. Sports embodies sportsmanship, fair play, and respect for opponents in the pursuit of athletic excellence. Law embraces much the same in the pursuit of truth and justice.

Yet the reality is that too many athletes and attorneys disregard these ideals in the blind and ambitious pursuit of victory. Wanting to win, striving mightily to win, is not the problem. It’s wanting to win so badly that principles of decency, ethics, and honor are ignored. It’s brazenly adopting gamesmanship strategies and a “whatever it takes to win” attitude. It’s valuing cleverness so highly that those who get away with breaking or bending rules are admired.

As a result, athletes fake fouls, taunt, or illegally hold opponents. Lawyers assert groundless claims, confuse honest witnesses, and use delay tactics.

Gamesmanship is so prevalent that some find it hard to imagine anyone being effective without it. That’s self-serving nonsense. Many people in both fields believe no victory is real or worthy if it’s achieved without honor.

Sports is about playing by the rules, not fooling referees, and not intimidating opponents. Law isn’t a game at all. The high road isn’t the easier road, but it’s the only road for a person of character.

Michael Josephson http://CharacterCounts.org/

*********** Coach -
As always, I love your "News".  Although I have not been in direct contact with you for quite a while, your web site is "required reading" for me every Tuesday and Friday.

Regarding Lou Saban's "lost coaching years" from 1995 - 2000, he was head football coach at Canton Tech in New York state. Although it does not say in the article from the Buffalo News that the stadium at Canton was named in his honor, I recall reading about it in one of the many "tribute" articles in t\he Buffalo paper.

Here is the link to this story in the Buffalo News:

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/623389.html

All the best to you, Coach!!!

Joe Bremer
West Seneca, New York

********** I always find stories of high school coaches 'matriculating' up to the college or pro level interesting. The impression that Jack Harbaugh gave me is that it was once de rigeur for coaches, but the ladders have sort of compartmentalized recently and it is less common.

There are four fairly distinct levels of football - youth/middle school, high school, college and pro - all requiring some distinctly different talents, and movement between the levels is not nearly as common as it once was. And typically when one makes a move it's from the top of his current level to the bottom of the next level in some sort of intern position.

For example, a high school coach who wants to move to the college level should expect to serve time as a GA, and a former college coach might first become a volunteer or an "assistant's assistant" (assistant defensive line coach) in the NFL.

*********** Coach,
 
If you're in need of a good laugh and haven't seen this I saw it on a coaching forum and found it quite funny. 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_wing_formation

Gabe McCown, Piedmont, Oklahoma

It's kind of funny.

From a serious standpoint, though, it does call into question the credibility of Wikipedia, which appears to allow anyone to post and as a result is becoming abotu as authoritative and trustworthy as your typical online forum.

*********** From the Internet...

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35..

For starters: Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry' We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.

An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up b efore 10 a.m.. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell. Besides, like I said, 'I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up killing fanatical s-o-b's....

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser...

Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.An 18 year old has the whole world ahead of him..He's still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brin to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.

*********** Global Warming, Al Boy?

Greg Koenig sends along Wednesday night's weather forecast (and it's no April Fool's joke) for Beloit, Kansas

Issued by The National Weather Service
Hastings, NE
5:35 pm CDT, Wed., Apr. 1, 2009
... WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 7 AM CDT THURSDAY...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN HASTINGS HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 7 AM CDT THURSDAY.
A MIX OF RAIN AND SNOW IS EXPECTED TO CHANGE TO ALL SNOW AFTER MIDNIGHT. SNOWFALL AMOUNTS OF 2 TO 4 INCHES ARE EXPECTED BY THE TIME THE SNOW ENDS EARLY THURSDAY MORNING. IN ADDITION... NORTH WINDS WILL INCREASE TO 25 TO 30 MPH... WITH GUSTS TO NEAR 35 MPH. THIS WILL CREATE AREAS OF BLOWING SNOW AND REDUCED VISIBLITY LATE TONIGHT.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW MEANS THAT VISIBILITIES WILL BE LIMITED DUE TO A COMBINATION OF FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW. USE CAUTION WHEN TRAVELING... ESPECIALLY IN OPEN AREAS.

*********** *********** Tony Dungy's second book is entitled Uncommon. It's a tribute to Cal Stoll his college coach at Minnesota who Coach Dungy remembers saying, "Success is uncommon, therefore not to be enjoyed by the common man."

*********** Bob Sansevere, St Paul Pioneer Press writes...

On behalf of the Twin Cities media, I am making a public plea to the Vikings to acquire Jay Cutler.

It has nothig to do with Cutler's on-field abilities as a quarterback.

It has everything to do with Cutler's personality. He whines. He sulks. He has the temperament of a toddler.

In other words, he's great copy.

*********** Despite all the March Madness hoopla, in terms of haves dominating  have-nots the NCAA tournament is a joke. By the time we reach the finals, they're dominated by the elites. Yes, that includes Villanova, too. The Wildcats are decidedly not have-not.

Hockey's Frozen Four is what the Final Four claims to be. In it this year is Bemidji State, a bona fide 16th seed.

*********** "Character Counts" claims that in the US, more than 40,000 soccer referees quit every year. In Germany the figure is 10,000 and in England it's 7,000 in England. Reasons given are usually fan, parent, and/or player abuse.

*********** Just think - Kentucky would still be looking for a coach if Temple's John Chaney had really killed John Calipari, as he threatened to do several years ago.

*********** Asked about whether the "Pontiac Game-Changing Performance" unfairly uses images of college players for commercial purposes without compensating them, the NCAA chooses to tap dance, saying that it's not a Pontiac promotion, but a big play promotion that just happens to be sponsored by Pontiac. Whatever.

*********** Tony Bennett leaves Washington State for Virginia. Can't blame a guy for wanting to improve his lot in life. But the ugly side of it is the four WSU signees - high school kids, who haven't even enrolled in college yet. They're stuck. They'll have to sit out a year if they want to transfer

*********** Oregon's talking about increasing the tax on beer (headline writers still think that the weary old pun "sin tax" is clever) with the revenue going to fund drug-and-alcohol abuse programs. (Which have proven to be such an effective use of taxpayers' money.)

Oregon beer drinkers are really going to have to get busy, if the Beaver State has guys like these...

In Austin, Texas, just nine people made a total of 2678 visits to the Emergency Room in the last six years. At an average cost per visit of of visit $1000, that's $2,678,000 they cost the taxpayers. Eight of the nine have drug abuse problems and seven are homeless.

*********** Think how much electricity we'd save and how many kids we'd get into shape if we could require all video games to be shut off for one hour every afternoon.

*********** Note to weasel blogger, who got a trifle off-topic at a UConn post-game press conference and got on Jim Calhoun about making too much money:  Coach Calhoun does make $1.6 mil, as you so loudly proclaimed. But a study done after all your grandstanding shows that last year UConn basketball, after bringing in $14.1 million in revenues, showed a profit of $6.3 million. How much you making with that blog of yours?

*********** Ralph Swearngin, executice director of the Georgia High School Association, the state ruling body for high school sports, is challenging member schools to improve the behavior of student-fans at sporting events.

It's a dollars-and -cents issue. Attendance is down, and he says it's because fans are reluctant to go to games.

"One of the things we are interested in," he said, "is bringing back people who don't have kids in high school who want to come and watch high school athletics. We're losing a lot of that because they don't like the atmosphere of our events. We have a lot of negative models of sportsmanship and of course it filters into our games."

*********** On 88/99 Super Power, I want to run it from Slot. What would be the best way? With Rip/Liz motion and pull the guard and tackle, or use the "O" blocking and not motion?

With slot, no motion.  (Actually, I don't use motion with Super Power no matter what formation)

But you will have trouble at some point with pulling the backside tackle because you have no backside TE to shoeshine (cut off), so I always strongly recommend 88 Super O and 99 Super O

I like slot formation a lot. We ran a fair amount of it in our last three games this past season.

As an example, we ran 88 Super O  15 times for 98 yards, and  99 Super O  16 times for 140 yards.

(The reason for the difference in yardage was one 99 Super-O that went for 55-yard yards.)