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BACK ISSUES - JUNE 2001

June 29 - "The right to speak must be earned by having something to say." Winston Churchill   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Frank Leahy coached some of the greatest teams - and greatest football players - of all time. He is smiling here, but he was not noted as being particularly jovial. He was a dour, driven perfectionist whose teams could never perform well enough to satisfy him. To many detractors, he was a crybaby, famous for claiming before a game that his players - always numerous and highly-talented - would have to play the games of their lives, if they were to beat their opponent - often a 35-point underdog. Frank Leahy was head coach at Notre Dame from1941 through 43, and after time out for service during World War II, from 1946 through 53. A Nebraska native, he was a tackle on Knute Rockne's last three Notre Dame teams, and graduated from Notre Dame in 1931. Following graduation, he worked at Georgetown as line coach and after one year moved to Michigan State to serve in the same capacity. After a year at Michigan State, he moved to Fordham to coach the line under former Notre Dame great - and one of Rockne's famous Four Horsemen - Sleepy Jim Crowley. While at Fordham, he gained a measure of fame as the line coach of the famed Seven Blocks of Granite, during a three-year span (1935-1937) in which the Rams lost only two games. In 1939, he was hired as head coach at Boston College, taking the Eagles to a 20-2 record and a Sugar Bowl victory in his two years there. But in 1941, Alma Mater called, and, with two years off for military service, Leahy coached the Fighting Irish through the 1953 season. During his time as head coach at Notre Dame - what many people would consider America's premier football school - he was often referred to by other coaches as "The Master," and considered by many to be the finest coach in the game. He coached four national champions, three Heisman Trophy winners, and All-Americans too numerous to count. He had six undefeated seasons, and had a winning streak that last 39 games. Leahy's career record at Notre Dame puts him on a level as an Irish coach with only Rockne and a man who would come along some 15 years after him to shake down a little thunder himself, Ara Parseghian. Coach Leahy was elected in 1970 to the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame.   Correctly identifying Frank Leahy: Mike O'Donnell- Pine City, Minnesota... Adam Wesoloski- DePere, Wisconsin... Ted Seay- US Embassy, Ljubljana, Slovenia ("Why, 'tis Frank Leahy! The man who helped produce, directly and indirectly, two perfectionists who even surpassed the Master: Lombardi (directly at Fordham), and Bill Walsh (indirectly, through Bob Bronzan (sp.?) at San Jose State). The Lombardi Sweep and 22 Z In both show the hallmarks of the eternal pursuit of excellence...I have all the respect in the world for Frank Leahy, not only for his still-excellent books on the T formation and 5-3 defense, but for the outstanding biography written by the late Wells Twombly of the San Francisco Examiner, "Shake Down the Thunder". I mean, how could you NOT read a book with that title?")... Kevin McCullough- Lakeville, Indiana ("the picture is of frank leahy of notre dame.....i have walked by his statue many times on the notre dame campus.....being close to south bend makes it easy to be a fan of the irish.....when coach holtz was there i was able to go to almost all of the spring practices.....there is nothing better on a spring day than to stand next to coach joe moore for a couple of hours and watch young men learn how to excel at playing offensive line.....the practices have been closed under coach davie.....since i am still unemployed for the upcoming season i plan on spending as many saturday afternoons as possible watching the irish in person.....thanks for providing a great web site.....")... Whit Snyder- Baytown, Texas... John Urbaniak- Hanover Park, Illinois ("He used to do the sports broadcast with Johnny Morris on Sunday nights. He also had a grandson that was an outstanding athlete that went to the same high school I did. Played QB and kicker on my older brother's team.")...Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois ("The picture is of Frank Leahy who coached Notre Dame to national championships in 1943, 1946, 1947, and 1949. He had some great quotes, some of which I've listed: "A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall." "Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pains of stupidity." (my favorite) "There are no shortcuts in life -- only those we imagine." "When the going gets tough, let the tough get going." "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." (So that's where Coach Lombardi got it !")... David Crump- Owensboro, Kentucky ("I am currently reading a book called When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss. It was a Christmas present that I am just now getting to read. I am going to quote a paragraph from page 63: " From his playing days at Fordham, Lombardi learned lessons that he carried with him into a file of football. His inner steel, he later said, was forged in those bloody college games, especially the scoreless ties with Pitt. "I can't put my finger on just what I learned playing...in those scoreless games, but it was something. A certain toughness." While he discarded the sarcasm of Sleepy Jim Crowley and the dourness of Frank Leahy, he came to understand from those coaches the importance of precision blocking, fierce tackling and the larger truths of the game: conditioning, spartainism, defense and violence as distinct from brutality."..... I thought that was an interesting paragraph. I am really enjoying this book.")... John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa ("I just returned from the ND football camp as an instructor. It is always an inspiring week.")... Scott Russell- Sterling, Virginia... *********** Take a bunch of guys away from their wives and girlfriends and house them in all-male dormitories. Work their tails off all day in the heat, then turn them loose for a couple of hours and see what happens. Anybody wanna bet that some of them will find strong drink? Maybe women, too? This story could easily be about pro football players at training camp, or even college football players at pre-season camp, but it's not. It's about men in South Africa, brought by the thousands from their remote villages to work in gold mines, and housed, far from their families, with other men. They work underground in unbelievably difficult conditions, in 90-degree temperatures and stifling humidity, in places where the ceiling is three to four feet high and the noise of the drills is constant and ear-shattering. It is not unusual for workers to have to walk three miles to and from the work site. So when the work is through, asks a local doctor, "What would you want when you came up? Beer, food, women and sleep." The women are available - at a price, of course, because these guys are not pro football players - and the sex is random and careless. And so, it is now estimated by one company employing thousands of men, the HIV rate among its workers is around 30 per cent. Another doctor, an AIDS researcher with an agency of the South African government, told the Wall Street Journal, "If you wanted to spread a sexually-transmitted disease, you'd take thousands of young men away from their families, isolate them in single-sex hostels, and give them easy access to alcohol and commercial sex. Then, to spread the disease around the country, you'd send them home every once in a while to their wives and girlfriends." *********** Did I tell you about my career as offensive coordinator with the Packers? You mean you didn't know I coached with Lombardi? Well, I did. Now will you buy my tapes and come to my clinics? Joseph Ellis, a professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, has taught a very popular course on Vietnam and American culture, in which he attacks the American role in the Vietnam War. He has certainly stood on firm ground in his criticism of our efforts, having served in Vietnam himself. Uh-oh. Turns out he didn't serve there after all, despite having used the lie over and over to strengthen his credentials as a critic. He was exposed as a phony by a recent Boston Globe article. He has lied, over and over and yet amazingly, many of the creeps in academia, the same ones who give our kids the old liberal brainwash, are rallying to his defense. He stole. He took for his own the honor that can belong only to those who served, and yet his publisher, Knopf, says that this is a "personal crisis" that doesn't "bleed over" into his believability. A historian who wrote to the New York Times actually had the gall to try the Clinton startegy of turning the attack against the attacker, calling it "the politics of personal destruction." A Boston Globe editorial cartoon nailed the imposter good, showing a guy at a lunch counter reading a newspaper with a headline "Professor Fabricates Vietnam Service," and remarking, "Thirty years ago, guys were lying to get out of the war!" *********** For whatever reason, the Minnesota Gophers will not be playing their season opener against Toledo on Friday, August 31 as originally announced, as part of ESPN's opening shot at high school football. Instead, the game will be played the night before, on Thursday, and it probably will not be televised because ESPN already has UNLV-Arkansas scheduled for Thursday night, and ESPN2 follows with Arizona-San Diego State. It appears that credit for the move belongs to Gophers' coach Glen Mason, who recognized that Friday the 31st is opening night for most Minnesota high school football teams, and sent a letter to every high school coach in the state saying that he objected to college games being played on Friday night and would do everything he could to move the game. *********** "I'm a OC from Québec , Canada and I plan to use the double-wing. We have 12 men on the field - how can I use the extra player? as an extra slotback on the right side? or as a Wide Receiver? or in the Backfield as a tailback? What would be the best for 12-15 years old players who know almost nothing about football? It was our first year at this level last fall and we lost the final . All our players were rookies . This year we can count on a all-second year OL . Last season we did not pull any OL. Is it a good idea to pull OL in their second season in football? Last things first: if you do not pull linemen you might as well not run the (at least my) Double-Wing. Much of what we do is based on angle blocking and outnumbering defenses at the point of attack, both of which require you to move linemen from one place to another (pulling). As to the extra man, I have seen three different approaches by Canadian teams, all of them successful. All of the teams employ the basic 11-man offense exactly as I have shown it, using the 12th man in one of three ways: (1) As a wide flanker; (2) As a deep tailback; (3) As an extra lineman to one side or the other. *********** If parity is what NFL Europe was hoping for, they've got it.. Only two of the six teams - Barcelona and Berlin - have winning records, Berlin just barely at 6-4. The team with the poorest record, Frankfurt, is 3-7. *********** "Greetings Coach -- If it feels good do it -- try it you'll like it -- I wonder how many lives have been ruined and graves have been filled by those that bought into this rhetoric of selfish desire? Respect is hard to give to others when one doesn't respect him/herself. Take Care, Doug Gibson - Naperville, Illinois" *********** "Coach, The Mayor of Toronto is an IDIOT. I have no idea how the people of Toronto ever voted this guy in. This is not the first time he has done something stupid like this. Now, you have been to our city and so has this mayor, he refered to Edmonton as the "outhouse of Canada". What a dumbass. Kyle Wagner, Edmonton Alberta (Now you Americans see why westerners want to secede from the rest of Canada. Of course, if Minnesota, one of our more enlightened states, can elect Jesse Ventura...) *********** At a recent interview, when asked about my expectations for my assistant coaches, I handed out my list, starting with the statement that I don't want them to be the players' buddies - I want them to be "Alpha Males." The AD asked, "what if somebody objects to that?" I said, "Then I guess I'm in the wrong place." I explained that more and more boys are growing up in a world in which they have no exposure to strong male figures - not at home, not in school, not on the streets. Church is not even in the picture. If people disagree with that observation, they can't possibly appreciate the role football can play in a kid's life. And if you're a football coach, you're in the wrong place. *********** A few weeks ago, I was visiting the school where my wife teaches, and I observed a young teacher who was clearly upset with a couple of young boys. She ordered them into the school off cie and told them to sit down, and informed them that there wouold be no play day (whatever that is) for them. I took a minute to tell her that I admired the way she handled the little miscreants. My wife told me of the follow-up, in which the little lads did, indeed, miss their play day, but the teacher did not receive the same support from their parents that she'd received from me. The gist of the parents' argument - this is the approach we hear more and more - was that maybe they did do wrong, but keeping them from play day was "too harsh." Every football coach who tries to discipline a kid nowadays can bet on hearing, "Maybe he does deserve to be punished, but this is too harsh.") So a 24-year-old California woman surprised her 17-year-old foster daughter - STOP! Before going any further - can somebody please tell me what a 24-year-old is doing as a parent of a 17-year-old? - with male strippers, hired to help her celebrate her birthday. "Mom" supplied alcohol and participated in some of the party games, which don't sound a lot like pin the tail on the donkey, since she was videotaped wearing lingerie. She was given six to eight years in prison for her unusual parenting, which resulted in charges of unlawful sex with minors (15-year-olds) on the part of one of the strippers, a 26-year-old guy, and charges of lewd acts with a child against the other, a 35-year-old. Now listen to this B-S. Remember "Maybe he does deserve to be punished, but this is too harsh?" The daughter, who certainly is in a position to decide what the punishment should be, said, "I'm not saying that she should go scot-free, because she did something wrong, but six to eight years is too much in my eyes." Well, of course she'd say that. After all, she's 17, and in eight years, she'd be... 25. The defense attorney is another great one. Listen to him: "I think what you're dealing with is not a bad person, but a good person who did a bad thing." My question: at what point is it safe to say that someone is a bad person? Meantime, in the Columbus, Ohio area, a guy was given 35 years for a rather nasty assault on his former girlfriend and her new, uh, fiance. Out on bail after having been charged with raping her last October, he broke into her house this past February and surprised her and the new bridegroom-to-be in bed. He began beating the boyfriend about the head with a hammer, but after being disarmed, seemed to calm down, and offered to help the boyfriend clean up. But while the boyfriend was in the shower, our guy slit the boyfriend's throat, then returned to the bedroom to rape and beat his former lady friend. He then led police on a merry chase, which ended only when he crashed his car. The new boyfriend needed 48 stitches to the throat and another 18 to the face. Our lady suffered fractured cheekbones and a fractured eye socket. Now, here's the best. Since the second attack, the woman had resumed seeing the attacker. I think I know why: he's not a bad person. He's a good person who did a bad thing. *********** Coach; Thought you might be interested to know that former UT Wishbone quarterback (1972-75) Marty Ray Akins is running for the Democrat Party's nominantion for governor here in Texas. As I'm sure you know, Marty is the son of legendary former Gregory-Portland Coach Ray Akins whose Wildcat teams just dominated 3A and 4A football in the Coastal Bend region (Corpus Christi) through the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Marty might better be known these days as the uncle of former Purdue QB Drew Breese. I think Akins is one of the most underrated Wishbone operators in history. Even with guys like Earl Campbell and Rosey Leaks in the backfield, Marty was the catalyst. I idolized him. I still remember going to the Astrodome and watching him play with a brace on his busted knee in the 1975 Bluebonnet Bowl and lead UT to a 38-21 victory over an absoloutely gigantic Colorado team. Marty injured his knee in a blowout win over TCU that year. He tried to play against A&M a couple of weeks later but the Ags, who said they'd be going for his bad hinge, took him out in the first quarter at Kyle Field. I will never forget the way those Aggies cheered as they carried Akins off the turf (a photo of him, slumped between two trainers as they lifted him to the sidelines, Ags in the stands hooting, had a prominant place in the 1976 Aggieland Yearbook). The Longhorn offense went to hell without him and UT lost to A&M for the first time in seven seasons. It took a tub of guts for Marty to come back and play in the Bluebonnet a few weeks later. If Akins gets the nomination, he'll go head-to-head with GOP Gov. Rick Perry, a former Aggie yell leader. Man, what an interesting race THAT would be. Was at the Astros-Rangers baseball game a couple of weeks ago and Gov. Perry was in attendance. They had the nerve to play the Aggie War Hymn that night (" Goodbye to Texas Uni-versity; So long to the orange and the whi-eye-eye-ite..."). Man, did my Orange blood get up. For the first time in my life, I'll probably be voting for a Democrat for governor. Whit Snyder, Baytown, Texas (I guess by now you've figured out that Whit is a Texas Longhorn.) *********** Maurice "Mo" Cheeks is the latest man in the barrel. He is the new coach of the Portland Trail Blazers. He seems to be well-liked and well-respected, and according to NBA people is certainly worthy of a head coaching job. But coaching those guys? Get this - one of the things in his favor, supposedly, is that he has the respect of Rasheed Wallace. This I gotta see - the world's tallest infant, who respects no one in a position to tell him to do something he doesn't want to do - and there are many, many things he doesn't want to do - respecting a coach.

June 27 "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." President John Adams, 1798     A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He coached some of the greatest teams - and greatest football players - of all time. During his time as head coach at Notre Dame - what many people would consider America's premier football school - he was often referred to by other coaches as "The Master," and considered by many to be the finest coach in the game. He coached five national champions, three Heisman Trophy winners, and All-Americans too numerous to count. He had six undefeated seasons, and had a winning streak that last 39 games. A native of Nebraska, he was Vince Lombardi's line coach at Fordham, and then spent two years as head coach at Boston College, going 20-2, before returning to Notre Dame. He is smiling here, but he was not noted as being particularly jovial. He was a dour, driven perfectionist whose teams could never perform well enough to satisfy him. To many detractors, he was a crybaby, famous for claiming before a game that his players - always numerous and highly-talented - would have to play the games of their lives, if they were to beat their opponent - often a 35-point underdog. *********** "About Ken Hall (subject of a coach's question on Monday): Sports Illustrated did a great story on Hall's college and pro career (he played in the CFL, in the AFL with the Oilers and in the NFL with St. Louis). The story is in one of SI's college football issues from the early 1980s, I think. If you're ever in Fredricksburg, TX you can stop in and partake of Hall's BBQ in the restaurant he runs... "As a kid, I used to buy a copy of Bill McMurray's Greater Houston Football magazine every year and look in the record section where Ken Hall's numbers were and just shake my head: 11,332 career rushing yards; 4,045 yards in his senior season (1953) alone; 520 yards rushing in a single game against Houston Lutheran High (his TOTAL yardage in that game was 687). He scored 899 points in high school and 57 TDs in his senior year. In that same Houston Lutheran game he scored 49 points (He also kicked PATs, 137 of his points were point afters). I mean, there are more numbers I could quote you straight out of McMurray's book on Texas high school ball but it starts to seem like Texas braggin' after awhile. "Hall was the real deal. He was a 6'-1", 205 pounder with 9.6 speed and often competed in as many as seven individual track events. Bryant later called his mishandling of Hall (whom he tried to make into a fullback and linebacker at A&M) his greatest mistake in football. He also admitted that, with Hall and Crow in the backfield, he'd have won a national title at A&M. "Gee, whatta shame, ole Bear never really did much after that, did he?"Whit Snyder, Baytown, Texas (I should have thought to ask Whit about Ken Hall sooner. He is a font of knowledge about Texas sports.) *********** "Coach Wyatt, The MHSAA and the Mississippi Private School Association have agreed to allow public schools to play private schools that meet the Southern Association of Schools standards (About 31 schools). Many private schools have closed in Mississippi over the last decade. The private school association consists of about 60 schools in 4 states (Ms,TN, LA. ARK.). "The first football game will be played on Aug. 31 when Jackson Prep (private-largest in their association) plays George County. ( We beat GC 21-0 in our spring Jam at Gulfport) George County is the second largest AAAA in the state with 1050 students. This game should draw a lot of interest in these parts. By the way, many of the Private schools have black players on their squads. So it is not about that! Hopefully our two associations will merge in the near future. We have been playing each other in summer competition for years. "Practice begins Aug. 6 here in Mississippi! Can't wait!!!" Steve Jones, Florence, Mississippi   *********** "Coach Wyatt, how are you doing? We are getting ready for football here in Alta, Iowa. I wanted to check and see if it would be OK to use your DW formation that you have on your shirts that we got at the Denver football clinic. We would likje to use them for our camp shirts this year. Get back with me ASAP and let me know. I talked with Coach Capaldo at Keokuk, Iowa and he said that they did that one year and the kids really liked them." Kevin Hammer, Alta, Iowa...Permission granted. Tnank you for asking. (The logo is copyrighted. Coaches wishing to use it in this manner should contact me for permission, which will not normally be withheld.)  *********** The Indy cars and drivers were in town (Portland) for the GI Joe's 200 Sunday. It rained. Average speed was 74 miles and hour. *********** (A coaching friend who is shopping for a camera asked me what model I use.) Mine is a Sony DCR TRV-7. I have had it for three years now. If you had told me when I bought it that I would have kept it that long I'd havesaid you were nuts because typically something new comes along the day after you buy a piece of electronic gear and it's vastly improved. But to be honest with you, I have had no reason to buy another. There are only two things I would change: I would want to make sure that it had RCA inputs, so I could more easily convert other formats to digital; The gate for inserting the tape is on the bottom of the camera, which means I can't change tape while it is attached to a tripod. It is quite small and portable, compared to the Hi8 cameras I had been using, but it has a 4" diagonal screen, which is about as good as it gets. The bad news is that Sony no longer makes the camera, and from what I have seen, Sony seems to have devoted far more energy to developing the Digital-8 line (which has greater consumer potential) than to improving its MiniDV line. When I have to replace it, I have no idea what I'm going to do. I would like to go to a higher-end camera, but they are bigger, and with my travels, the portability issue is important to me. *********** Is this a great country, or what? That's my grandson, Matt Love, visiting us from North Carolina, proudly wearing a Vikings' jersey I brought back from Minnesota - #11, with the name of Daunte Culpepper - a black quarterback - on the back. *********** Monday, I wrote about Woodbury, Minnesota, fully aware that I could have given the impression I was working for the Woodbury Chamber of Commerce. It was important to lay the groundwork, because a friend of mine, Paul Herzog, just took the Woodbury head football coaching job, and I wanted people to understand why a guy like Paul, who put a lot of effort and enthusiasm into his former job at North St. Paul, who had good facilities, a great staff, good kids and good support, who had built a program that had things just the way he wanted, would make such a move. And a move it is. The Woodbury folks are so proud of their community and so insistent that the people who coach their kids live in it that they persuaded Paul and his wife, Barb, to move to Woodbury, and - in a town that has few places advertised for sale - helped them find a home. Paul and Barb will be moving during pre-season practices. ("Okay fellas, for this next drill, we're going to pick up these cartons...") One long-time assistant, Barry Dillard, will accompany Paul to Woodbury, but otherwise, Paul inherits a knowledgeable, veteran staff from a program that won the state championship as recently as 1998. They are positive in accepting the change Paul is bringing to the program: counting school staff, volunteers and youth coaches from the community, there were nearly 30 coaches in attendance at an evening clinic I put on prior to the first day of camp. Once on the field, the kids proved to be good learners. Instruction went fast, as we'd explain and demonstrate a play, then break into several teams, with Woodbury coaches in charge, to go off and practice that particular play. To cap off an evening session, we introduced the kids to "Touch Footy," my adaptation of Australian Rules Football, which they enjoyed. By the time I'd left, after four sessions (one of them indoors in the "bubble"), here are the plays the Woodbury kids had run and repped: 88-99 Power and Super-Power...Red-Red/Blue-Blue... QB Reverse Right/Left... 6-G/7-G... 6-G Pass/7-G Pass... 47-C/56-C... 47-Brown/56-Black... 7-C/6-C... XX 47-C/XX 56-C... 3 Trap 2/2 Trap 3... 3 Trap 4/2 Trap 5... Option 8/9... 58 Black-O/49-Brown-O... 58 Black Throwback... 58 Black Throwback Post... Red/Blue... Thunder/Lightning... Plus assorted special plays. (That list was for the benefit of those of you who write to ask if you can get in a basic set of five or six plays with only three weeks of practice before your first game.) They ran many of the plays from unbalanced, and because they do have a lot of quick kids with good hands and a good-looking quarterback, we made it a point to run most plays from Spread formation as well as Tight. Obviously, they couldn't possibly remember all those plays, nor will the Woodbury staff necessarily use them all. But they were exposed to the ease of learning the system and to its versatility and flexibility, and by the end of two days they were fully-armed; if they had had to scrimmage anyone on the third day, I think they'd have kicked some serious ass. I finally had a chance to meet Paul's dad, Bill, a former high school coach himself, who now lives in Florida during those months when Minnesotans sit on their cold car seats and pray that their cars will start. Bill is a former Big Ten basketball official who still keeps active officiating high school games in Florida. Even with all that Woodbury has to offer, it was not an easy decision for Paul and Barb. Paul and I discussed it a few times, and it is obvious that it has been painful to leave North St. Paul. But as a detached observer, now that I've spent three days with Paul and his new staff and new team, I would have to say that as much as I liked North St. Paul, as good a situation as it is, I would have made the move Paul did. *********** After disappointing ratings because of their decision to show the Sydney Olympics on tape delay, rather than letting Americans see events when they really happened, NBC (the official network of the XFL) is about to do it again. To folks on the West Coast, anyhow. Not that I give a big rat's rear end about the fou-fou Winter Olympics ("When doctors told Muriel and Todd Kenworthy that their newborn son had no feet, they refused to believe that he would never skate..."), but the prime time telecast to the East Coast , starting at 7 or 7:30, translates to 4 or 4:30 Pacific, which wipes out the early local news shows. Not only that, but unlike the East Coast, where the Olympics go off at 11, followed immediately by the local news, the West Coast stattions, whose live Olympics telecast would end at 8, would get no such lead-in. (The local news shows are the main moneymakers of most TV stations) ************ And the folks in Parsippany were worried about being called Redskins... Trajan Langdon of the Cleveland Cavaliers is the only player in the NBA to come from Alaska, so needless to say, he is a big, big name in a state that has few other sports heroes and is passionate about its basketball. So it was a big thing in the little town of Aniak when the former Duke star flew in to put on a clinic for its kids, and talk to them about the importance of education. Aniak is far from his hometown of Anchorage, but not only in distance. It is also at least 20 years away, judging by its school's nickname - the Half-breeds. Honest to God. I'm sure the irony was not lost on Langdon, himself the son of a white man and a black woman. He went on to tell USA Today, "They have a two-headed mascot, with a white man looking at a native, and a spear and a gun crossed." *********** You know major league baseball is not as financially sound as it would like to be when the Phillies are leading the National League East, but averaging a puny 19,447 a game, trailed only among major league clubs by teams in places where baseball wishes it hadn't gone - Florida, Tampa Bay and Montreal.   *********** A coach who has been hearing the term "7 on 7" but wasn't sure exactly what it meant, wrote me recently to ask: It is a passing competition, with the linemen removed. No doubt some people still refer to it as "passing skeleton" or some such term. It is played on a full-width field, but since only half the length of the field is needed, it is possible to play two games simultaneously, back-to-back, going toward opposite goal lines on the same field. The term "7-on-7" is actually a misnomer, because nobody I know of bothers with a center on offense. That leaves six - a QB and the 5 eligibles - against a defense consisting of seven men, deployed as the defense wishes. Without dragging out the various rules people use, there are two basic ways of doing it: (1) a fixed number of downs for each team, in which the offensive team gets points for a completion, additional points for additional yardage, and, of course, points for a TD. The defense scores points for an incompletion, more for a bat, more still for an interception. Some people award a touchdown if an interception is returned all the way. And, of course, there are points for a "sack." There is no rushing, but from the snap of the ball, it must be thrown by the time someone is able count to "thousand one... thousand two... thousand three" (You've got to get someone to count) (2) each team starts out at the 40 or 50 and drives until it scores or until stopped by failing to make yardage or by turnover. Three downs until you get inside the 10, then you get four downs. A first down is awarded for gaining 10 yards, and after getting a first down, for ease in measuring, the ball is spotted at the nearest yard stripe. It is usually two-hand touch and there is no running, although I would like to be able to use just one running play. The wedge.   *********** They won't be selling quite so many "Hang Up and Drive" bumper stickers in New York, now that the Empire State has become the first to outlaw the use of handheld phones while driving. Of course, the maximum fine is only $100, and people whose main goal seems to be showing others that they are so important they have to conduct business or personal affairs while driving, will probably want to push the envelope a little more by showing that they aren't frightened by a piddly-ass $100 fine.   MAKE SURE A PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM RECEIVES THE BLACK LION AWARD! (ALL TEAMS, FROM THE YOUTH LEVEL ON UP, ARE ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE)   COACHES! E-MAIL ME NOW TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM ! coachwyatt@aol.com CLICK To find out more about the Black Lion Award..

June 25 - "I feel the most important factor in winning football games is how well the journeymen play." Eddie Crowder, former coach at Colorado   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He coached some of the greatest teams - and greatest football players - of all time. During his time as head coach at his alma mater - what many people would consider America's premier football school - he was often referred to by other coaches as "The Master," and considered by many to be the finest coach in the game. He coached four national champions, three Heisman Trophy winners, and All-Americans too numerous to count. A native of Nebraska, he was Vince Lombardi's line coach, and then spent two years as head coach at a Catholic school in the east, going 20-2, before returning to his alma mater. He is smiling here, but he was not noted as being particularly jovial. He was a dour, driven perfectionist whose teams could never perform well enough to satisfy him. To many detractors, he was a crybaby, famous for claiming before a game that his players - always numerous and highly-talented - would have to play the games of their lives, if they were to beat their opponent - often a 35-point underdog. ************ "Coach I was looking at NFL.com website and they list the high school records for various things. I was interested in the all time rushing record by a kid who played at Sugarland High School in Texas. I'm sure there must be a great story in his success. Do you know anything about the player and his team? I think he played in the 1950's, but I can't remember. Do you know where there are any books or other material related to his team or him?" Dan King Evans Ga. (The player Coach King has in mind is Ken Hall, of Sugar Land, Texas, whose records no one has been able to touch. I hadn't heard of him in years until I read "The Junction Boys," the story of Bear Bryant's first Texas A & M team, which he bused to the small town of Junction, northwest of San Antonio, for pre-season practice. I won't ruin the book for you other than to say that for sheer brutality, it is hard to imagine the armed force - at their worst - conducting basic training that could compare with the time in Junction. Ken Hall went to A & M but he was not the Bear's sort of player, and he had a disappointing career at A & M before finally quitting the squad. I know that Coach Bryant was one great football coach, and I have nothing but respect for the men who survived what he put them through, but I do resent any implication that the young men who couldn't hack the mental and physical abuse of Junction are somehow less than men for it. I did read someplace where John David Crow, all-time great and Heisman Trophy winner from those days at Texas A & M, said that if Ken Hall had played for any other coach but Bryant, no one would ever have heard of John David Crow.) *********** How can you become mayor of a large, diverse North American city and be as stupid as the mayor of Toronto, whose city is attempting to land the 2008 Olympics. He was asked about a trip to Mombasa, Kenya, and he said something about not particularly relishing the prospect of being bitten by a poisonous snake, or being cooked in a pot of boiling water. While I defend his right to say what he wants about any place, we all have to be prepared to deal with the consequences of what we say - he might have remembered that there are a lot of African delegates on the International Olympic Committee. *********** Forbes Magazine recently announced its list of the wealthiest people in the world. Washington's own Bill Gates is at the top of the list, but the Portland Trail Blazers' (and Seattle Seahawks') owner Paul Allen, Mr. Gates' partner in starting Microsoft, has fallen from second to third place, nosed out by Omaha's Warren Buffett by the narrowest of margins, $32.3 billion to $30.4 billion (I would like to have the difference.) Positions number seven through eleven (actually, there is a two-way tie for tenth) all owe their fortunes to the success of Wal-Mart. *********** "Hugh: My mother, of all people, was recently making fun of how stupid and ridiculous this whole craze of "post prom, drug/alchohol-free parties had become. My youngest brother, and her fourth son, just graduated and she was in awe of how the parents association can raise $25,000 for an all night cruise around Lake Michigan, but they had to cut the 4:15 activity bus due to lack of funds!!! My brothers and I were brought up with three rules, B average or no sports, if you drink, don't drive and if you run into problems, call them immediately. This comes from parents who were raised in Bronx, NY and in an environment of an 18 year old drinking age. The funny thing is in my parents' senior prom picture, there are bottles of scotch and vodka on the tables that, oh my god......their high school supplied!!!!!! What would those righteous moms on the PTA say about that??? Alcohol was never taboo in my house, hence, I never felt the need to go drink myself into oblivion. These must be the same parents that force their kids to wear a helmet and body armor when riding their bike with training wheels." Bill Lawlor, Hanover Park, Illinois *********** Hey, all you wranglers out there - Cowboy Up! Time to head on down to the feed store and throw a few bales of fencing wire and a couple of bags of feed into the back of your new pickup. Your new Lincoln Blackwood. Yeah, you heard me - your new Lincoln, this one an adaptation of the Navigator, the ride made famous by that noted rap cowboy Sean "Puffy" Combs. The Lincoln Blackwood carries a suggested base price of $51,785. It comes with a climate-controlled driver's seat, which quickly heats or cools the rear end on demand. For those farm kids who drive at age 12 or so, there are power adjustable pedals. I suppose Leer will be making a camper cap for the Blackwood. Snuff can holder, gun rack and hound in the bed are optional. WHILE THEY LAST... 2001 Clinic Tee Shirts (gray), $15 each, including shipping. Specify sizes (L, XL, XXL, XXX) *********** Hugh, I just finished reading today's web page. First of all, happy birthday a little late! My mothers birthday was last Friday. She was 75. She will be glad to know that you are a Gemini. This is to the coach who is upset about not being called back about the head coaching job and the cheesy explanation when he finally talked to someone other than the principal. It has been my experience over the last 15 or so years that none of these modern principals ever call you back if you didn't get the job!! You either wait or call yourself and get the bad news from someone other than the principal. Sometimes you see it in the paper first (that has happened to me). Sometimes a friend calls that has the scoop from a source on the scene(ditto on this one for me also). I even once had a local reporter call me at home to tell me who did get a job and want my reaction about not getting the job!!!! I gave him a few quotes about his journalistic ethics that he could not print! On the same line of thinking about offense and defense. I was once told in an interview for a top football job in our state that I would have to run the wishbone on offense and a 52 monster on defense! I asked the superintendent and the AD why that offense and defense.(Both of these guys were former basketball coaches and didn't give a crap if football ever won a game). They said that in years past when the school had been successful that was the offense and defense that was very successful. I then asked the following question: If you were hiring a basketball coach would you tell him that he had to run the Oglethorp Wheel offense and non-switching man to man defense all the time? Or would you allow him to look at his talent and determine the best offense and defense for his talent level? Their answer was no and they would let him determine his own offense and defense. I then said, "Then why do you feel that you can tell a football coach what he can do on offense and defense?" Cheesy answer coming up! "Basketball is different from football and since you have more boys it is easier to fit them into a fixed football system than a basketball system!!!" I replied that football and basketball are the same as far as fitting kids into a system that they can win with on a consistent basis. It's the coach's job to decide the systems and you can't tell the football coach what offense to run and not the basketball coach. I also pointed out that it was easier to coach basketball than football(I have coached both). Most basketball coaches only play 6 to 8 kids in a varsity game and it is not hard to find them a system and mold them into it. Football is more complex and takes more skill as a coach to get alot of kids in the right places to have a good program. I finished by saying that I run the wing-t on offense(pre double wing days) and the split 4 or 6 depending on my talent level. I didn't get a call back for that job as promised. I really wasn't expecting one! Yes, they did hire a wishbone and 52 monster man for the job! Hugh, tell your friend that it is the same in Kentucky! David Crump, Owensboro, Kentucky *********** I am playing defensive tackle and i keep on getting double teamed and then dragged back. How can I prevent this from happening? The simplest way is (1) stay low in your charge and (2) recognize ASAP that you are being double-teamed. Once you do, you must hit the deck - a good coaching point is, "grab grass." Technically, once you're good, I would teach "caving in the knee" on the side the down block is coming from, hitting the ground and turning your shoulder blades to the blocker. Mainly, though, make yourself immovable. If they have to devote two people to you and they can't move you, someone on your defense is going to be unblocked, and you won't be blocking his way. *********** I spent three days last week in Woodbury, Minnesota, a suburb of Saint Paul. According to the 2000 census, Woodbury is now home to 46,000 people, up from 20,000 in 1990, making it the fastest-growing city in the state. I happen to live in the fastest-growing county in my state, and I can attest to the degradation of living quality that rapid growth is causing in terms of traffic, strip-mall ugliness, pollution, school crowding, crime and a general lack of a sense of community. This has not happened in Woodbury. I am not normally a great proponent of government regulation of our lives, but Woodbury, which not too long ago was 36 square miles of mostly cornfields, shows what a community can look like when its people have the foresight - and guts - to manage its growth. One example of that foresight is a law requiring developers to donate 10 per cent of the land of their development to the city for parks and trails, and as a result, as you drive around this "city" there is a sense of openness - of not being in a city - as homes are set far back from the roads, and separated from them by grassy berms and trees. And then there are the trails - bike trails in warm weather, cross-country ski trails in smowy weather, which Minnesota has been known to have. There are 21 miles of uninterrupted trails through the city of Woodbury. They are not the "bike trails" of our supposedly bike-friendly towns in the Northwest, consisting mainly of four-foot-wide curb lanes created by the wishful thinking of local parks and recreation people and the striping paint of city road crews. They thread their way through the lush greenways of grass and trees that edge the city's roads. Woodbury is what every town in America would like to look like if it could only go back and start over. Another example of Woodbury's foresight is the Bielenberg Sports Center (LEFT), named for a former mayor, and probably the finest example I have yet seen of what a community can do for its kids if it decides to make them a priority. It is a concentration of baseball and softball, football and soccer fields, many of them lighted, on well over 100 acres of prime land; in the middle of the complex is a building containing two year-round hockey rinks and, attached to that building, an air-supported "bubble" containing an 80-yard-long football/soccer field with a field-turf floor, surrounded by a walking track for less-strenuous exercizers. (The field is only 80 yards long - although wider than a normal soccer field - because a resident objected to the height of a dome necessary to go the full 120 yards.)   Much of the vision and follow-through necessary to bring a project of this scope to fruition have come from Bill Hargis, now in his tenth year as Mayor of Woodbury, and John Norris, who works tirelessly as head of the Woodbury Sports Authority, which oversees all youth sports in the city. (Bill - on the left in the photo - and John are both strong supporters of the Woodbury High sports program.) Bill and John told me of plans already drawn for an expansion of the facility onto an adjoining 60 acres which the city owns. (The new area will also contain a dome, but this one will be 120 yards long - the lone objector to the original dome has since moved.) Add all this together and you find a highly-liveable community that people want to be a part of - so much so that you simply don't see a "For Sale" sign in Woodbury. Homes sell that fast. (The census showed a 98.6 per cent home occupancy rate.) With typical foresight, though, Woodbury High School is preparing to absorb the effects of the rapid growth by adding 24 new classrooms this summer. (In Washington, they would merely haul in those architectural warts called portables.) A new field house is part of the expansion. *********** "Coach- I was reading your news column (a continually excellent job by the way) and saw your piece on the "3 R's " used in your classroom. As a college student within sight of a history/english degree and already subbing off and on, I am quite curious what the other 2 were. I am in complete agreement with your assessment of the importance of respect. As a 22 year old youth coach and part time HS assistant, you would be amazed what my players think is an acceptable manner in which to speak to me. This took me aback, but as soon as I spoke to some of the parents, I knew exactly where the kids got it from. I can correct and instruct players, but when a parent views it as acceptable to speak to me in a condescending and unsatisfactory manner, I get a little upset. Fact of the matter is this....i am a young coach, but a coach nonetheless, and I believe that I should be afforded the respect that would be given to any man in my position, and if not that, the respect deserved another human being. As a football coach, and a student, I would be grateful if you would outline the other 2 R's that you have used....im positive that not only myself, but many others would be interested. Sincerely- Brian Rochon, Livonia, Michigan" Coach-I am sorry to hear that you run into disrespect, but if you look at it as though the glass is half full, that means somebody's got to teach them, and it might as well be you and me. I think that respect - the desire for it or the lack of it - is driving our society today. People blow enormous sums on trophy houses, expensive cars, $5,000 watches and trophy wives in the expectation that it will gain them what they perceive to be respect. People who won't give respect nevertheless crave it themselves and demand it from others. The proliferation of lawsuits by people who claim to have been harassed, insulted, defamed and discriminated against very often has, at its roots, the perception that someone has been disrespected - "dissed", to use popular jargon. Inner-city kids have killed to avenge what you and I would consider meaningless slights. Flip your headlights at the guy in front of you at your own risk. I believe that the erosion of respect for one's fellows pretty much started with "if it feels good, do it," which basically put gratifying your own desires ahead of respecting the guy next to you, and "question authority," which made people think they had the right to decide which laws they'd obey and which ones they'd flout. "Respect," for any team of mine, means respecting teammates and coaches - and coches respecting players - but also respecting team rules and the rules of football, officials and opponents, people in authority, teachers and school officials, and, yes, parents. Respect for others is what stands between us and anarchy. *********** "We need people who will simply meet the intrusion of socially moronic parents into our children's games head on and tell them as forcefully and as embarrassingly as possible to get a life and let everyone's child, including their own, have lives of their own. " Jerry Izenberg, Newark Star-Ledger (Mr. Izenberg and I have never met, but he is saying we need people with "Stones.")

June 22 "There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide" John Adams   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Red Grange was one of the greatest running backs in football history. They called him the Galloping Ghost. More than any other individual, he is personally responsible for modern-day pro football being the giant among sports that it is today. He wore number 77, and his college career at Illinois was enough to rank his name among the other greats of the 1920's such as Ruth and Dempsey. But his appearance in a Chicago Bears' uniform gave the sport of pro football a legitimacy it had never had before. Enormous crowds showed up to see him perform. Single-handedly, his appearance in New York meant the difference between a profitable year and financial disaster for the Giants. He was probably the first player to employ an agent, and the first to play pro football before his college class graduated.   He played 10 seasons of pro ball, nine on the NFL and eight with the Bears. The one non-NFL season was spent in an entire new league, formed around him to oppose the NFL. He was born in Pennsylvania but was brought up in Wheaton, Illinois, where his father was the police chief, and where earned sixteen varsity letters and scored 75 touchdowns in his high school career. His summertime job earned him the nickname, "The Wheaton Ice Man." (His real name was Harold, but no one called him that; everyone knew him by the nickname given him because of the color of his hair.)   One final note on Mr. Grange: My wife is a graduate of Abington High School in Abington, Pennsylvania. Ever since I have known of Abington, and well before that, its teams have been known as the Galloping Ghosts. I have heard a few stories about the naming, one of them having to do with an Abington coach who had played football at Illinois, but there is no question that the nickname pays homage to the immortal Red Grange. (How many of you went to a high school whose nickname honors a great football player? How many football players do you know of who lent their nicknames to a high school's teams? Imagine - He-e-e-e-ere they come!!! Let's hear it for your Neon Deions!)   Red Grange- Keith Babb - Northbrook, Illinois ("Well after a few toughies you gave us an easy one this week. That picture is of the "Wheaton Iceman", the "Galloping Ghost", the most famous football player in the history of the University of Illinois, Red Grange. Not to be a wise guy, but I hope you have enough room on your page to print all of the names of those who'll get the answer this week.")... Adam Wesoloski- DePere, Wisconsin... Bill Lawlor- Hanover Park, Illinois ("It is Harold "Red" Grange, "The Wheaton Ice Man" and "The Galloping Ghost" and an alum of my alma mater - University of Illinois. An old timer I met at an Illini homecoming once told me that the only reason Grange went out for Freshman football at U of I was that he was a fraternity pledge and the fraternity upperclassmen required that all pledges be a part of an academic association or a sport team....so he went out for football even though he thought he was too small.")... Mike O'Donnell- Pine City, Minnesota... Dave Potter- Durham, North Carolina... David Crump- Owensboro, Kentucky ("I recognize that famous picture. I still remember his days of calling the Chicago Bear games when I was a youngster. He had such a distinctive voice and he certainly could describe what was going on down on the field! I don't think that anyone mentions what a great broadcaster he was. I have always been a Cleveland fan, but in western Kentucky at that time we got Bears games every week. Red was a joy to listen to describing the plays. To this day thanks to him, the Bears are my second favorite team in the NFL.")... Kevin McCullough- Lakeville, Indiana... Mike Benton- Colfax, Illinois... Greg Stout- Thompsons Stations, Tennessee ("I wasn't sure about this one until you mentioned #77. I went to a Major Leauge Baseball Umpire school back in the mid-70's. I had a jersey I wore with the number 77 on it. With 120 umpires in the school, names were hard to remember and a couple of the instructors were from Chicago and they nicknamed me Grange because of the jersey.")... Whit Snyder- Baytown, Texas... Mike Foristiere- Boise, Idaho... Scott Lovell- Cherokee, Iowa ("I'm not a fan of Illinois football by any means "I'm an Iowa Hawkeye all the way", but one of the first players I was ever told about by my grandfather was of the Galloping Ghost. My grandfather was a HUGE Bears fan. Thanks for helping me remember this fond memory.")... John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... Kevin Thurman- Tigard, Oregon ( "I just got done watching a football documentary a few weeks ago on the history of the sport and they spent a good portion of the show on this one guy. Incredible talent this man had.")... Jeff Maeder- Durant, Iowa     Below is an excerpt from something that I started working on in the summer of 1994, when I began doing research on a history of the World Football League and similar challengers to the NFL.     RED GRANGE GIVES THE PRO GAME RECOGNITION AND RESPECTABILITY   by Hugh Wyatt Pro football invaded the big cities of the East - and captured the attention of its media - in late 1925, when the most famous college football player with the most famous number ever to play the game was enticed to turn professional. His name was Harold "Red" Grange. He wore number 77, and as a college player at the University of Illinois his feats as a runner had made him the talk of the nation. In his junior year, 67,000 people - then the largest crowd ever to watch a sporting event in the midwest - celebrated the dedication of Illinois' new stadium against Michigan, and saw Grange score four touchdowns, on runs of 96, 65, 54 and 48 yards - in the first quarter! (He later added a fifth, and threw for a sixth.) But until his senior season, the speedy and elusive Grange, nicknamed the Galloping Ghost, was known outside the Midwest only through newspaper stories and the short, jerky black-and-white newsreel footage shown in movie theatres. Colleges then rarely played intersectional games, so most fans and sports writers were ignorant of the brand of football played outside their area. So when the Fighting Illini travelled to Philadelphia to play Penn, a major eastern power (Penn State was then considered the state's Cow College, playing in the shadow of its big city cousin), parochial eastern writers built up the game as Grange's first real test, implying that he hadn't been facing the toughest of opposition. But this game, they wrote, would tell once and for all how good he really was. Grange wasted no time converting the eastern skeptics, dashing 55 yards for a touchdown on the opening play from scrimmage, and despite a muddy field, rushing for an astonishing 363 yards. No longer could there be doubt in any quarter about Grange's greatness. In Grange's final game, 85,200 people, at that time the largest crowd ever to see an American sporting event, turned out at Ohio State to see him. Red Grange was a firmly established legend - a star of the same magnitude as Ruth and Dempsey - in the Golden Age of Sport, an age that worshipped celebrities. And, in those days before television, the only way to see a sports hero - other than in newsreels - was to see him in person. In the case of Grange, his college career was at an end, and millions of people had yet to see him. And would be willing to pay to do so. That fact had not escaped the notice of a promoter named C.C. (jokingly said to stand for "Cash and Carry") Pyle. As Grange's college career drew to a close, Pyle, owner of a string of movie theatres, had persuaded Grange to allow him to act as his "personal manager" - as his agent, in today's terms. Next, Pyle approached the Chicago Bears, whose owner, George Halas, had tried without success to contact Grange about playing professionally, and secretly negotiated a deal to deliver Grange to the Bears. Without waiting for his class to graduate, as was then the accepted practice, Grange would join the Bears immediately following his final college game, finishing out the Bears' 1925 league season, then accompanying the team on a post-season barnstorming tour. Because Halas as owner and coach was busy in the middle of his season, Pyle offered to handle all the arrangements necessary in setting up the tour. In return, Pyle worked out a deal in which Bears guaranteed Grange - and Pyle - $3,000 a game, plus half the gate at every game. The Bears would pay expenses and provide the teams, and Pyle would furnish Grange. It seemed like a great deal all around: fans were clamoring to see Grange, the Bears needed help at the gate, and Grange had an opportunity to cash in on his fame. "I see nothing wrong in playing pro football," he said. "It's the same as playing professional baseball, it seems to me." How wrong he was! He was ripped in the news media. Modern-day radio sports-talk shows would have feasted on the controversy. In those days, it was by no means a given that a renowned college football player would turn professional. Pro football's reputation among the better sorts was only slightly better than that of boxing. Large numbers of football - that is to say college football - fans deplored what they considered to be Grange's crass commercialism in selling out to the professionals. The battle raged in the sports pages and even spilled onto the editorial pages, but Grange, expressing an opportunism more befitting our times, had the last word. "I have to get the money now," he said, "because people will forget all about me in a few years." After a pair of big gates in Chicago, the Bears hit the road for a swing through the East and South, playing eight games in a twelve day period - five of them league games, three of them hastily-arranged exhibitions. One game, on Saturday against the Frankford Yellow Jackets on in Philadelphia, the Bears drew 35,000. The next day, uniforms still wet and muddy from the Philadelphia game, Grange and the Bears played the New York Giants in the Polo Grounds. The Giants, in their first year, had gone largely unnoticed by New York fans and newspapers, and Giants' owner Tim Mara - who had paid $500 for his franchise - was by then thousands of dollars in the red; but the 73,000 people who turned out to see Grange bailed Mara out of the hole in one Sunday afternoon, and won for pro football a new respect among New Yorkers. The Bears won their first four games. The Bears' agreement, in exchange for a share of the gate, was that Grange would play at least 25 minutes of every game. But in every game, Grange was a marked man: professional jealousy is a powerful motivator, and opposing players, who couldn't be expected to see the big picture and appreciate Grange's importance to the future of professional football, seemed all too eager to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. To them, stopping Grange was a professional challenge. The target of numerous cheap shots which the hometown referees seemed willing to overlook, Grange absorbed a ferocious beating, but continued to play with the pain because he felt a great sense of obligation to the fans he knew had paid to see him. Finally, though, Grange was too hurt to play against the Detroit Panthers, and the Detroit management had to refund 9,000 of the 15,000 advance tickets sold. The Bears limped back to Chicago 4-4, losers of their last four games. After a brief rest over the Christmas holidays, the Bears and Grange were on the road again, headed south and west for ten more games. On this tour, they were much more successful, thumping a succession of hurriedly-thrown-together "all-star" teams. The highlight was a stop in Los Angeles, where the Bears drew 75,000 people. In less than three months, after 18 games, Grange had earned more than $200,000, a fortune at the time, and pro football had arrived as a sport. In the words of George Halas, "Red came to the Bears famous. Ten weeks later, he was rich." Along the way, the Bears had created a problem that the NFL has yet to deal with satisfactorily - America's colleges, and many prominent sports writers, had decried the Bears' signing of Grange before his graduation. Other college players had followed Grange's example, and the college football people were upset. The pros knew that if they should hurt the college game, in the process they could wind up destroying themselves. And despite the smashing success of Grange's tour, pro football was in no position to take on the colleges. College football's following was far too strong and influential. Technically, the Bears had violated League rules, which stated "No man is eligible as a member of a League team while a student in any academic institution in which he holds amateur standing." But since Grange had already dropped out of Illinois and signed with the Bears, which meant he was no longer either a student or an amateur, the rule no longer applied to him,; nevertheless at its meeting in Detroit that February, the NFL attempted to pacify the colleges by clarifying its position "It is the unanimous decision of this meeting," the League declared, "that every member of the National Football League be positively prohibited from inducing or attempting to induce any college player to engage in professional football until his class at college shall have graduated..." The penalty for any transgressor, it said, would be a fine of "not less than One Thousand Dollars, or loss of its franchise or both." (That policy, incidentally, would govern the NFL's conduct for almost 60 years.) And so the NFL, having the newly-won respect of much of the American public, and with Grange on board, looked forward to a period of hard-earned prosperity. But the league's owners ran into a problem they hadn't foreseen. At the NFL's 1926 winter meeting meeting, Pyle had a surprise for the League. C.C. Pyle, not the Chicago Bears, owned Red Grange's contract. Earlier, Pyle had approached Bears' owner George Halas, demanding for Grange a generous salary - and for himself one-third ownership of the Bears. He has asked the wrong man. Halas, who had known lean years in his efforts to keep the Bears alive and now saw himself on the verge of financial security, had refused. "No, no, no," he recalled thinking. No, first, last and always! The matter was not negotiable! A percentage of earnings, yes, that was negotiable, but a share of ownership? No." So now, Pyle went to the other owners, informing them that in return for delivering Grange's services - and his proven value at the gate - he wanted nothing less than an NFL franchise of his own - in New York. In Yankee Stadium. Anything less and he'd start a rival league. But the Giants' Mara held the exclusive NFL rights to play in New York. (A professional bookmaker by trade, he had paid $500 for his franchise, contending that the exclusive right to do anything in New York was worth $500.) Mara had just struggled through his first year, saved from financial disaster only by Grange's post-season appearance. And having seen Grange's drawing power first-hand , he didn't relish the idea of having to compete with him in his own city. New York was his exclusive territory, Mara argued, and the other owners backed him, but - afraid of losing Grange - only up to a point. They proposed a compromise. Pyle could have his "New York" franchise - but he'd have to play in Brooklyn. But Pyle, who had already gone so far as to rent Yankee Stadium, rejected their offer, and set out to put together a league of his own. It was called the American Football League, and besides Pyle's New York Yankees, it consisted of the Boston Bulldogs, Brooklyn Horsemen, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Panthers, Newark Bears, Philadelphia Quakers and Rock Island, Illinois, Independents. Rock Island had jumped from the NFL. A ninth team, the Los Angeles Wildcats, represented Los Angeles in name only. It was a to be a "road team," playing only away games. (In those pre-jet transport days, regular coast-to-coast sports travel was unheard of. ) The NFL itself actually fielded two such road teams that same year, representing Los Angeles and Louisville in name only. Grange and the Yankees drew well wherever they played: 22,000 turned out in Philadelphia to watch the Yankees play the Quakers, while a week later, in the same stadium, an NFL game between the Frankford Yellow Jackets and the Giants drew only 10,000. But not even the magic of Grange's name could save the new league. By season's end, only four teams remained - the Yankees, the Quakers, the Bulls and the itinerant Wildcats. The Quakers won the one and only American Football League championship by winning a pair of games over Pyle's Yankees, then played a post-season exhibition against the NFL New York Giants. The first inter-league game on record, it revealed a lot about the relative strengths of the two leagues. The Quakers, the American Football League's champions, lost to the Giants, the NFL's seventh-place team, 31-0. (The 1926 NFL title, incidentally, was won by the Frankford Yellow Jackets, marking the only time in pro football history that the champions of two different leagues represented the same city.) Pyle's American Football League closed up shop after just one year, at the end of which Pyle was given the NFL franchise he had asked for in the first place. The NFL owners might have saved themselves a lot of trouble, because the AFL had hurt the NFL financially, but in supporting Mara, they had struck a strong blow for the integrity of an NFL franchise. No NFL club escaped the financial bath caused by the war. In Chicago, where the NFL already had two teams - the Bears and the Cardinals - locked in a struggle, the Bulls had complicated matters further by, among other things, renting Comiskey Park and evicting the Cardinals. In New York, the two competing leagues had played their games in stadiums literally within sight of each other. Reeling from the effects of the costly one-year war, the NFL dealt with its economic problems by downsizing - long before American industry coined the word. Where there had been 31 pro teams in two leagues at the start of 1926, through pruning and consolidation there were just 12 NFL teams to open the 1927 season. Over the next five years teams came and went, until by 1931 the league was down to 10 teams. The number of teams would dip as low as eight during World War II - when able-bodied players were scarce - and it would be almost 30 years before the NFL once again had more than 10 teams. *********** A coaching friend recently went through the pain of losing one of his players. The young man committed suicide, and the coach was upset that the kid hadn't come to him. That really is too bad. His coach might possibly have been the only person in the kid's life who could have talked to him in terms of sucking it up, dealing with it, and looking ahead to all the games left to play in life. I can't help thinking that a lot of the rash of teen suicides results from the fact that we make so many non-tragic things seem so tragic that kids can come to feel that they're at the end of the line, when you and I know, from our greater perspective, that all they've done is hit a speed bump. I think another problem may be that we have so glorified teen culture that many kids really do live in a little world of their own, and the importance of what happens in it is grossly exaggerated. I am sorry for the pain that the coach must feel. He is fortunate in being a football coach, sometimes the one person in a position to show the rest of the kids that life goes on without any of us. *********** "Once upon a time, there were very few structured youth leagues. In those days, the kids went out without uniforms, without well-manicured Little League and Pop Warner League fields. All they did was play. Sometimes they played with worn baseballs that had been rewrapped by the kids themselves with electricians' tape. Sometimes they shared gloves and always they shared bats. "They laid down their jackets or scratched squares in the dirt to serve as bases. They chose up sides. If the worst player was picked last, it didn't matter. He knew he was the worst. They knew he was the worst. And everybody knew that he would get to play. "They learned a lot about life that way. For openers, they learned to settle their own arguments. It was their first lesson in the art of compromise. This is not a knock at youth leagues that can be terrific and usually are. But you wonder with better facilities, better coaching, better organization, what has gone wrong?" Jerry Izenberg, Newark Star-Ledger *********** A youth coach wrote me recently, asking what I thought would be the ideal relationship between the local high school and youth coaches: I have seen situations where the youth program is pretty much under the control and direction of the high school head coach, and if that is what that community wants, it can be a great situation. But it is more typical for there to be little coordination between a community's high school staff and its youth program. Often, there is no communication whatsoever between them, and in some extreme cases, there is open antagonism. I personally think that the best situation is one in which the sides respect each other and each other's needs, and understand the ways in which they can be helpful to each other, without stepping on each other's toes. I think the criteria by which the high school coach ought to judge a youth coach should be whether he teaches sound fundamentals, teaches kids to be coachable, instills good work habits, helps kids to be competitive, and leaves them wanting to play again the next year. Notice I did not specify what offense or defense the youth coach runs. Assuming he is knowledgeable, he is entitled, I think, to make that decision. That is his reward for making sure he gets the job done with the other criteria. Speaking as a former high school coach who for years coached in a three-year high school, I didn't get to work with kids until they arrived as sophomores. We drew kids from as many as five different junior high schools, so coordinating what we did with any of the junior high coaches was out of the question. It really didn't matter. The system they ran was immaterial to me. I felt we could teach them our system fast enough. It was in the area of the criteria I outlined above that some kids immediately stood out from others; it was obvious which ones had come from a good program. In fact, we often found that kids who had been back-ups in a strong junior high program were far better prepared than kids who'd been starters in a weak one. On the part of the high school coach, it should mean offering assistance without insistence. That means being available for clinics or camps, and showing up at kids' games. It means inviting the kids and coaches to attend high school practices and games. But it should also mean not getting overworked about whether the youth teams run a particular offense or defense.   *********** I have believed for some time that the recent tradition of the "Drug-and-Alcohol-Free Senior Party" has become a costly, time-consuming exercize in ostentation - one last chance for parents to spoil their kids.   At least in our part of the country, parents work all year, raising money for these things. It's money that could be put to good use in all sorts of school activities, but this money is all going to provide a Big Night for the seniors following their graduation. And the justification - as God is my witness - is not to give the kids a good time, but to keep them drug-and-alcohol free. FOR ONE NIGHT!!!   Typically, they are transported directly from graduation to waiting buses. They are not given a lot of time before boarding, and I assume that they are frisked as they get on. From there, they are whisked to a secret place that's been rented for the night - a swim club, for example. There are games to play and there is music to dance to. But there are no drugs and there is no alcohol.   The cost of these productions is said to approach $20,000. One local high school's parent group wouldn't settle for school buses. They chartered - I am not making this up - 200 stretch limos to transport the graduating seniors to their drug-and-alcohol-free event.   *********** Ohio University has designated 30 on-campus rest rooms as unisex, in order to make the campus more "welcoming" to students who have undergone sex changes.   *********** They have taken "zero tolerance" to new heights - literally. A Portland man who lives under one of the approaches to the airport complained to the FAA, saying that cargo jets were flying so low over his house that you could hit one with a slingshot. The FAA, concerned about cargo jets being attacked by anti-aircraft slingshots, reported the man to the proper authorities, and he received a personal call from the FBI. If he'd had his car stolen, the Portland police, much too busy dressing up as prostitutes and conducting stings to make personal calls, would have mailed him a form to fill out and mail back in.   ************ If you hadn't noticed, one group that isn't protected - one group that it is all right to gang up on - is the Boy Scouts.   Senator Jesse Helms, of North Carolina, attempting to deal with growing discrimination against the Scouts, proposed an amendment as part of the Senate education bill: schools that ban Boy Scouts from meeting on school property (because the Scouts still believe that for some strange reason, parents don't like the idea of their little boys having openly-gay scoutmasters) would be barred from receiving federal funds.   Forty-two Democratic senators and six Republicans (the Northeast kind, the ones who like to call themselves "moderates") all voted against the amendment. Think of it - 48 members of the United States Senate putting so-called "Gay Rights" ahead of the Boy Scouts!   As the Wall Street Journal noted Wednesday, "homosexuals now have the clout nearly to defeat a group that has historically done as much as any other to turn unruly boys into responsible men."   *********** I can't wait to tell you more about the camp I am in the middle of in Minnesota. This town is so hot for football that - let me put it this way - I just left a bunch of coaches and the mayor of the town at a local watering hole because I'm getting too old to stay up with the young guys any more (and still do the job on the field the next day).   MAKE SURE A PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM RECEIVES THE BLACK LION AWARD! (ALL TEAMS, FROM THE YOUTH LEVEL ON UP, ARE ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE)   COACHES! E-MAIL ME NOW TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM ! coachwyatt@aol.com CLICK To find out more about the Black Lion Award..

June 20 - "Do not treat all players the same. Treat them the way they deserve to be treated." John Wooden   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He was one of the greatest running backs in football history. They called him the Galloping Ghost. More than any other individual, he is personally responsible for modern-day pro football being the giant among sports that it is today. He wore number 77, and his college career at Illinois was enough to rank his name among the other greats of the 1920's such as Ruth and Dempsey. But his appearance in a Chicago Bears' uniform gave the sport of pro football a legitimacy it had never had before. Enormous crowds showed up to see him perform. Single-handedly, his appearance in New York meant the difference between a profitable year and financial disaster for the Giants. He was probably the first player to employ an agent, and the first to play pro football before his college class graduated.   He played 10 seasons of pro ball, nine on the NFL and eight with the Bears. The one non-NFL season was spent in an entire new league, formed around him to oppose the NFL. He was born in Pennsylvania but was brought up in Wheaton, Illinois, where his father was the police chief, and where earned sixteen varsity letters and scored 75 touchdowns in his high school career. His summertime job earned him the nickname, "The Wheaton Ice Man." (His real name was Harold, but no one called him that; everyone knew him by the nickname given him because of the color of his hair.) *********** Wanna do something about dropout rates? Only 73 per cent of children of never-married mothers graduate from high school, compared with a 96 per cent rate for those raised by both biological parents. In 1999, 33 per cent of births took place out of wedlock. Do you see where this is headed? Instead of blaming schools for what they have to deal with, let's do what the liberal media types wanted President Bush to do, and listen to our European friends in high government offices. They would know what to do. They are great at controlling their citizens' lives. Some of them require people to get a license before they can buy a TV set. I am not kidding). Here, for example, is how certain European governments might attack our dropout problem: First, a contraceptive would be added to the water supply of every municipality in the United States. Then, upon approval of a couple's application to have children - including submittal of a packet of evidence of their suitability to be parents and their commitment to look after their kids, antidotes would be provided them. The application would have to be filled out on the scene by the couple, who would have to appear together, in person, and it would have to be accompanied by: (1) a high school diploma or GED; (2) a marriage certificate; (3) payroll stubs for the last 12 consecutive months (military service may be substituted) (4) evidence of a home mortgage or a one-year lease (4) proof of clean drug tests, administered at random, for the last year (for the last three years, in the event of a previous test failure); (5) physical exam showing no evidence of any STD; (6) background check showing no less-than-honorable discharge from the service, no felony convictions ever and no arrests for any reason within the past 24 months (7) signed pledge to support kids' teachers, coaches and others in authority acting in their kids' best interests. I realize that there are certain problems inherent in my grand scheme, not least of which is that it there will be those who will see in it a resemblance to Nazi Germany, but it is important to understand that no groups would be targeted. There would be no racial, religious or ethnic qualifications. Hmmm... Come to think of it, maybe those Europeans are on to something. *********** Speaking of Europeans... "Hello Coach Wyatt! We won the first two games of the new season (55-7 against Kiel Hurricanes and 52-14 against Saarland Hurricanes. The Double Wing still works great for us - and we still play without American Players on Offense ! Our Junior Team is in the Final of the German Youth Football Championship - also playing double wing ! Hope you are well! Michael Krause, Stuttgart Scorpions - Stuttgart, Germany"   WHILE THEY LAST... 2001 Clinic Tee Shirts (gray), $15 each, including shipping. Specify sizes (L, XL, XXL, XXX) *********** The rating of the Sugar Ray concert at halftime of the final Sixers-Lakers game last Friday: NetZero. Oh. NetZero was the sponsor? Never mind. *********** From a coaching friend whom I can't identify... I was one of the finalists for a great job at -----------.. Over a period of 3 weeks a paper screening, an interview of 10, and a 1-1/2 hour interview with the Principal on Wednesday, I was told by her that she would call me on Thursday. She never did. I called her this morning (Friday). No call back .At 12 noon I called the assistant principal (who was my contact).. and he gave me the explaination below: "Bear in mind, I have had numerous conversations with the former Head Coach, and he was very successful throwing the ball but he told me himself that they would not have the talent to do it again this year - their stud QB had put in for a transfer.. I never was asked too much about X's and O's during this process but I did have a few sample pages of my playbook in my portfolio - some runs and some passes, even out of spread! "But they hired the other of the 2 finalists.. Out of 14 applications it came down to 2. They hired an assistant at ----- .. The reason they told me was that "he did his homework and understood our system - our Offense and our Defense! - and was going to continue and improve on it. " "I could not believe that they would expect a new Head Coach to run what the former Coach was running! Just goes to show how narrow minded they were. "My philosophy was to run what I thought the players would be most successful with! I am a passing guy and have done well with it! But I have run the DW with better success vs. more talented teams.. "I'm pretty crushed, not so much about the cheesy explaination as by the fact that they kept me hanging on for 14 hours waiting by the phone! If anyone has ever done that they know how it sucks.. the Principal was acting like I was her best friend during our interview, and then she could not even call me.. These are our Educators! OUR Administrators ! Our whole interview was about how important we both feel about treating students with respect and care.Wow - her true colors came through! "I really feel bad for my wife - all that she was going through, and my assistants, who were loyal and always there for me. I am working right now to get my DC on at -------.. "Just goes to show you how NFLized HS administrators. can be." *********** I was over at the Portland Airport Saturday, and a guy a couple of places ahead of me in line was p-o'd about something. He was a really seedy-looking dude, who could easily have passed for homeless, except what was a homeless dude doing with nice-looking luggage that included a golf clubs, and what was he dooing flying first class? They finally got him staightened out, and as he trudged off to the gate, the woman in front of me turned and said, "that's Alice Cooper." I guess I should have been impressed, but all I could say was, "Oh."   *********** Listen, I had never heard of the lady before Monday night, when my son in law, Rob, called from Houston to tell me that Mama Ninfa had passed away. You never heard of her either? You should. She ranks right up there with Samuel F. B. Morse, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. She invented the fajita! That's right - one of the most popular of our "Mexican" dishes was invented by a little lady from Houston.   ***********In writing about Chris Davidson's hiring by Columbia High, in Columbia, North Carolina, I happened to mention that one of the players Chris coached as tight ends coach at Abington, Pennsylvania was Marcus Hoover. Marcus was a great high school tight end and linebacker, and an excellent student and citizen, too. Chris is justifiably proud of Marcus, now a standout linebacker at Stanford and sent me the photo at left. I do remember, as a Stanford dad myself, putting in a good word or two for Stanford on my many visits back tto Abington. *********** According to Mike Vaccaro of the Newark Star-Ledger, as golfer Mark Brooks went from contender to loser to tied for the lead at the U.S. Open Sunday, his wife, Cynthia, crouched in front of her two daughters, blocking their view of the television set in the clubhouse while she gave them a lesson in sportsmanship. "No matter what happens here," Mrs. Brooks told them, "don't say anything. Don't do anything. Other families are here, too. So don't act too happy, or too sad. We'll wait until later to figure out what we should feel." The girls looked at each other, then at her. "We know," they both said. They are 15 and 12, and they are wise young ladies. All kids should have parents like that. Most wouldn't think twice before chanting, "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, go-od-bye..."   *********** My birthday was Monday, and my dear wife was kind enough to give me a card saying, "Happy Birthday! You're almost old enough to be discussing bowel movements with perfect strangers."   *********** I write so often about parents who are horses' asses that it is only fair to admit that by far the greatest number of parents I have dealt with - especially the dads, back when most kids had one - have been great people. One of the greatest was Bill Chronis, who died last Saturday doing one of the things he loved best - he had a heart attack while fishing for sturgeon in the Columbia River with a lifelong friend. It was my sad duty Tuesday afternoon to say goodbye to him.   Bill was a big, strong guy who spent 30 years as a beer salesman, and he had the sort of personality that made you feel that you were the most important person in his life.   He was a man's man. He married his wife, Donna, when she was trying to raise three little boys. Between them, they hard a fourth, Chris, and they were good enough to entrust me with coaching him for three years at Hudson's Bay High in Vancouver, Washington. Bill supported me at all times, and never failed to let me know it. We stayed in touch over the years since Chris played, and I used to look forward to the parties at the Chronises, featuring the Greek delicacies that Bill and Donna prepared.   Last year, Bill returned to Greece, to visit relatives and friends he'd only heard about, and just two weeks ago he and Donna returned from a trip to China.   Bill and Donna did a wonderful job raising Chris, who adored his dad and loved to hunt and fish with him. Chris was an excellent student, one of the best I've had, and so it's been a thrill for me to have stayed in touch with him through college, through ROTC and helicopter school, to the point where now he is Captain Christopher Chronis, USA.   His wife, Christy, is an Air Force Academy grad, and flies transport jets for the Air Force.   Believe me, America is in good hands with those two working for us. Bill Chronis has left us a wonderful legacy.

June 18 "We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst." C. S. Lewis, English writer   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He is known as one of the greatest running backs in football history. As you may have guessed by the helmet, you are looking at a player from football's distant past; but this player, more than any other individual, is personally responsible for modern-day pro football being the giant it is today. He was a college football legend; his feats are still talked about with awe. But his appearance in a pro football uniform gave the sport a legitimacy it had never had before. Enormous crowds showed up to see him perform. Single-handedly, his appearance in New York meant the difference between a profitable year and financial disaster for the Giants. He was probably the first player to employ an agent, and the first to play pro football before his college class graduated. With him as the star attraction, an entire new league was formed around him to oppose the NFL. *********** Saturday, I drove over to McMinnville, Oregon, about 50 miles southwest of us, to take in the Oregon 8-Man All-Star game, held at Linfield College. From beginning to end, it was great. The final score was 28-26, West over the East, and until an East pass fell incomplete on the West 25 with 19 seconds to play, it was anybody's game. The coaching staffs, which had had just a week to put their teams together, did a great job. The West team featured a power running game, with an unbalanced line (one lineman on on side of center and three on the other - it looked like half-line) and split backs, and a 6-5, 245-pound tight end who would be a player at any level. The East team alternated between a no-back, double-twins passing attack and a double-tight, split-back veer option. One of the teams actually ran two or three plays out of "lonesome polecat." Practically every kickoff was an onside kick, with some very unpredictable results, and I came away impressed with how exciting a mandatory onside kick would be - a far more exciting way to start a game than than lame deal that the XFL tried. May be some day the NFL will say that no kick may go beyond 20 yards without bouncing first. These were 40 (20 per team) of the best senior football players from tiny towns all over Oregon, from towns with names like Powder Valley, Ione, Echo, Cove, Days Creek and Triangle Lake, from high schools far too small to field 11-man football teams. The event had a decidedly small-town flavor. Most of the men in the crowd wore hats. Some wore cowboy hats, but most wore baseball caps. I actually saw one guy with his turned backwards. The program was full of the sort of ads you wouldn't see in Sports Illustrated: Ed Anderson Logging, Seven Feathers Gaming Center (an Indian casino), Morrow County Grain Growers, Wildland Forest Management, Shorb Brothers Big Lake Cattle Company, Powder River Livestock Handling Company. I'm not sure who sold the ad to Secret Desires Lingerie in Hermiston, Oregon, They sold 50-50 raffle tickets and the winner took half of $309. I have no idea where the house share went. *********** I was listening to Steve (Dream) Weaver, an old friend who's a talk show host in Portland, and I heard him mention Gene Conley. He said that Gene Conley probably played with or against more Hall-of-Fame athletes than any man who ever lived. Figure it out: he played 11 years as a pitcher in both major leagues, for the Boston/Milwaukee Braves, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox. Those Milwaukee teams of the mid-50's were good - very good - with the likes of Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, Johnny Sain, Warren Spahn and Lou Burdette. So he played in both major leagues, and he played with - and against a lot of all-time greats. But there's more: Did I tell you that he also did double-duty for six seasons, going straight from baseball to the NBA? He played four years with the Boston Celtics in the 1950's - some of the greatest basketball teams ever assembled - and finished up his career with two years with the New York Knicks.   *********** How thoughtful of all the homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transvestites in Portland, Los Angeles and other cities to schedule Gay Pride Day or whatever the hell they call it to coincide, for the second year in a row, with Father's Day. *********** "From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard to the riot-torn slums of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations about the future - that community asks for and gets chaos... And it is richly deserved." Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democratic Senator from new York, 1965     WHILE THEY LAST... 2001 Clinic Tee Shirts (gray), $15 each, including shipping. Specify sizes (L, XL, XXL, XXX) *********** Our local Southwest Washington football officials' association honors a former member, now deceased, by annually awarding a $750 scholarship in his name to a local high schooler. This year's winner plans to attend a small college in Portland, where he will play soccer. *********** Coach Donnie Hayes, youth coach in Farmington Hills, Michigan, dropped me a line to tell me how excited he was about this year's signups. P.S. I do want to sign my team up for the Black Lion Award this year. I went to a military college (Norwich University in Vermont) and learned a few things about leadership from some great men (soldiers) who still teach there. Having been brought up the way I was by my parents, I learned the importance of duty, honor, courage, and teamwork. It sure would be nice if more of today's kids got that kind of up-bringing. *********** Hi Coach, Just finished reading your news. I agree with you on your points about the demonstrations in Europe but I think it is more than just against the US. I think that there is a group of idiots who believe that since it is their "right" they will protest anything anywhere, just for the sake of protesting. In Vancouver last year the Mounties used pepper spray to keep protesters away from the dignitaries for the G7 conference(I think). Then the RCMP had to apologize later for using too much force. Are you kidding me? In many countries they would have been cuffed and stuffed in some whole somewhere. These same people appeared in Quebec City for the Free Trade talks. Now I am not saying that people should not be able to protest but when I see what kind of people are there protesting and more important WHY they are protesting it makes me sick. They live in one of the best countries in the world and they are protesting for something most of them know little about. They even travel around to all these conferences looking for trouble. The right to protest seems to me has become more of a "cool thing to do" rather than fighting for democracy or equal rights. If our countries freedom where challenged by another nation I wonder where they would be. I'll bet not signing up for military service. Now about the president's defence plan. I have to disagree with you on this one. Where will these missiles fall if they are shot down? Most of the time not in the US. I prefer that they not fall on my head thank-you very much. Kyle Wagner, Edmonton, Alberta (Actually, I have always assumed that they would fall on Canada. HW) *********** The elite media types scoffed when Vice-President Dan Quayle deplored the example set by TV's Murphy Brown and her having a baby without benefit of wedlock. We should have stuffed their newspapers into their mouths, because he was right. Now, years later, thanks to TV characters such as Murphy Brown and assorted Hollywood wenches, our young women have been brainwashed to the point where 60 per cent of a large group of 20 year-old women surveyed by the Gallup organization said that if they failed to find the man of their dreams, they wouldn't let that stop them from having a baby. Controlling for such factors as race and family income, a boy growing up outside an intact marriage is twice as likely to wind up in jail.   *********** "It is morally confused for a society to allow 16- and 17-year olds to drive a car; 18-year-olds to kill and be killed in the armed forces; 18-year-olds to disfigure themselves permanently with tattoos; children of any age, with a guardian's permisson, to attend films that feature the most innocence-robbing raunch and sadism; 18-year-olds who usually know nothing about life or about public policy to choose our nation's leaders; and 15-year-olds to have an abortion without a parent's permisson - but not to allow 20-year-olds to have a margarita." Dennis Prager, radio talk show host   What Mr. Prager says makes a lot of sense, but I personally would attack the problem from the other angle: instead of letting them have their maragaritas, I say take away most of the rights of adults that we have conveyed, using spurious reasoning, on 18-year-olds. Back when when the issus of the 18-year-old vote was being debated, I can remember the monotonous refrain: "if they're old enough to fight for their country, they're old enough to vote..."   No one has yet demonstrated any correlation between the ability to fight and the ability to make a wise democratic decision, or, for that matter, the ability to use good judgment while drinking. Or driving.   Young people do tend to make excellent fighters: it is estimated that in the Civil War, in the Federal Army alone, there were 800,000 soldiers seventeen or younger. No telling how many young guys fought on the other side. They had only to follow orders and pray they'd return home safely. There wasn't a lot of wisdom or good judgment involved in what they had to do, but in view of the responsibilities that certain young people take on for their country, in view of the sacrifices that they pledge to make, if necessary, for the good of the rest of us, it is only reasonable to confer the full rights of citizenship on them.   Others their age, who do not serve, are another matter. Which brings me to this: now that we have no draft, and far too many of our young people think of military service as beneath them, it is time to raise once again the same point I raised when the 26th Amendment - giving 18-year-olds the right to vote - was being proposed: why not first let them prove that they are willing to fight for their country- and then give them the vote? And the right to drink legally?   Frankly, I am growing weary of seeing our nation being turned over to teenagers. It is scary to read of 16- and 17-year-old "activists," many of them already veterans of street demonstrations, who evidently intend to spend the rest of their lives as protesters. Soon enough, they will be 18, and they will be voting. Aargh.   Why isn't it reasonable to ration the right to vote, and to drink legally, to those minors who show that they are old enough to fight - who elect to serve in our armed forces?   It would do wonders for recruiting. I feel safer already.   *********** We all believe - or should - in repetition of plays. But what about repetition of your beliefs - of your team's rules? Some coaches think that it is enough to spell them out once, and then forget about them. "One of the most effective tools of teaching is repetition, and as you know, it is the primary method used by us coaches. It is through repetition in as many situations as possible that our athletes and our teams gain the confidence to handle the numerous situations that arise during the course of a game. As coaches, we have all been taught and believe in some basic principles that I have mentioned. Time after time, we find ourselves forgetting, and time after time, we have to remind ourselves and go back to the basics. As many times as we forget, think how many times we need to reinforce time after time after time those principles to the players and to the team." Vince Dooley, former great coach at Georgia, on the importance of repetition - not just of plays, but of the things we believe in   *********** As the Australian Football League season reached the halfway mark last weekend, check these crowds: Friday night, Essendon and St.Kilda drew 40,000; Saturday, Geelong and Hawthorn drew 37,500; Sunday, Richmind and Carlton drew 71,700; Monday, Collingwood and Melbourne drew 62,700.   That's a total of 211,900 paid admissions on one weekend. Bear in mind that these games were all played in one metro area (Melbourne).   MAKE SURE A PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM RECEIVES THE BLACK LION AWARD! (ALL TEAMS, FROM THE YOUTH LEVEL ON UP, ARE ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE) COACHES! E-MAIL ME NOW TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM ! coachwyatt@aol.com CLICK To find out more about the Black Lion Award..

June 15 "You can't sell a man who isn't listening." Bill Bernbach, advertising industry pioneer     A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Jim Swink came out of the small town of Rusk, in East Texas to attain national stardom at TCU, where his incredible broken-field running led to his nickname, "Rusk Rambler." Not overly big, he was fast and quick, and became one of the most dangerous runners the Southwest Conference has ever seen. He was a high school legend in Rusk. "I was originally from Sacul, a small town between Nacogdoches and Rusk," he told Knight-Ridders newspapers' Whit Canning, "and my real father was a logger. But my parents got sick, and I fell in with a couple that had no kids - Obie and Grace Walker - and lived with them." He was recruited by TCU's legendary Abe Martin, an easy-going, country sort of guy whose players absolutely loved him. "He came down to talk to me," Swink recalled for Canning, " and we went for a walk out in the pasture on a small ranch we had down there, kinda out in the middle of nowhere. I knew right off that he was a smart man because he knew which cow patties to kick. You don't want to go trying to kick the fresh ones." In Swink's sophomore year, Martin took his heavily-sophomore team to Los Angeles early in the season to play USC. A week before, it had given mighty Oklahoma, then in the process of winning 47 games in a row, a scare, before falling, 21-16. In the Coliseum, the Horned Frogs beat a USC team that would make it to the Rose Bowl that season, 20-7. A few weeks later, the Frogs beat a Penn State team with the likes of future pro stars Lenny Moore and Roosevelt Grier by the same score. TCU finished 4-6 in Swink's sophomore year, but in 1955, the Frogs had a great year, finishing 9-1 in the regular season with a number 5 ranking nationally despite losing, 14-13 to Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl. Swink had a pretty good year, too. He rushed for 1,283 yards on 157 carries - averaging 8.2 yards per carry - and scored 20 touchdowns and 125 points overall. He was a consensus All-American and finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting. In his career at TCU, he had three great performances against Texas. (Perhaps he saved his best for the Longhorns because they hadn't recruited him.) In TCU's 47-20 trouncing of Texas in 1955, he carried 15 times for 235 yards and four touchdowns. The night before, thousands of Texas fans had gathered for a candle-light vigil, hoping to put a hex on the Frogs. "Heck," said Coach Martin, "if a candle can beat us, we ain't very good." The highlight of the game was a 62-yard touchdown run in which he swept to the left, cut back to the right, cut back again to the left, then come to a dead stop as Texas' pursuers overran him, finally running the last 15 yards with two confused Longhorn defenders seemingly running interference for him. "Don Cooper and I were supposed to be blocking," Vernon Uecker recalled for Whit Canning, "but Jim ran by us so many times we finally just stayed on the ground and watched the show." When George Sauer, whose Baylor team had lost to both TCU and number one-ranked Maryland, was asked to compare the two teams, he said, "Maryland does not have Jim Swink." Coach Sauer would know. Against Baylor, TCU had had a third-and-25 on their own one-yard line. Coach Martin sent a substitute into the game with a message for quarterback Chuck Curtis - "Abe says punt." "Did he say when?" asked Curtis somewhat of a free spirit, and the messenger shook his head. So Curtis called for Swink off left tackle. He went for 33 yards. Two plays later, he went 65 yards for the score, capping a 99-yard, three-play "drive." In the final game of his career, a historic Cotton Bowl matchup with Syracuse and the great Jim Brown, Swink scored the winning touchdown in a 28-27 victory. (Brown scored 21 points himself, but missed the extra point that became the margin of victory.) Great football writer Dan Jenkins thought enough of him to include him as a halfback on his "Team of the Century," along with the likes of Tony Dorsett, Glenn Davis, Billy Cannon, Billy Sims, Billy Vessels and Barry Sanders."Just a little ol' rubber-legged outfit that nobody can catch," was how Abe Martin described him. "I feel I was just fortunate to be a part of it," he told Whit Canning. "I enjoyed playing both ways, and I enjoyed my whole four years at TCU. It was a great place with a real friendly atmosphere, where you pretty much knew everyone on campus. And, at that time, there were a lot of very talented players on that campus, because of Abe. He was sort of like a father to me, and everyone else. His style was to get you aside and tell you how good you were." He had no pro career to speak of. "The Bears drafted me, and it was tempting," he recalled. "George Halas used to call me up and talk for an hour. He'd say, `I need someone up here who doesn't fumble the ball.' But I just couldn't fit it into my schedule." The "schedule" at that point involved medical school, then internship, then residency, then service in the Army, before Dr. Jim Swink finally went into practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Fort Worth. He did try briefly to fit pro football into his busy schedule in 1960, with the Dallas Texans of the AFL, but, as he recalled, "I was at Parkland (Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where President Kennedy was pronounced dead in 1963) then, and the Texans signed me, and for a while I played with Cotton Davidson and Abner Haynes, But I just couldn't do it full time. I probably would have played longer if it were possible, but it just wouldn't work." Upon completion of his medical training, he served a tour of duty in Vietnam, where, in the words of medical corpsman Tom Hinger, he was "a hell of a Batallion Surgeon!" "Just a matter of trying to make the best of a bad situation," he said of his service in Vietnam, "and there were times I had to question my parents' advice about being patriotic. We had a few medics, but I was the only doctor in the battalion, and often there wasn't much you could do for people out in the field. I made 25 helicopter flights and every one was bad. I finally got hit by shrapnel, just trying to dodge bullets." He was being overly modest. He won the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. General Jim Shelton, a Black Lion and a former football player himself, tells, in a book he has been writing, of his first meeting with Jim Swink, in the heat of battle: I received a report that one man had been killed and several others wounded, and I called back to Dagger and asked them to send a dustoff (aeromedical evacuation chopper) to our location ASAP. As I looked from my hole I saw someone about 50 meters away holding up a large flashlight. I didn't think that was very smart. I ran over to the light and shouted, "Hey, you dumb bastard! Shut that light out!" The reply came back, "F--k you. Who the hell are you?" I replied, "I'm Major Shelton, Dauntless 3 -who are you?" He said, "I'm Captain Swink, the battalion surgeon, and I need the light." I said, "OK" and went back to the radio. (I had never met the battalion surgeon, Jim Swink. After this battle I was to learn that he was the same Jim Swink who was an All American tailback at Texas Christian University in the early 50's when I was playing in college at Delaware. His picture had been on the cover of every football magazine in the country. He had gone to medical school after TCU and was serving his time in the Army when he was sent to Vietnam. He had gone immediately to treat the wounded that night and had been shot in the shoulder himself. He continued to treat the wounded, although when I had called to him he was bleeding from a wound of his own. He received a Silver Star for his cool actions that night, working with the wounded though wounded himself. )   Dr. Jim Swink, first a football hero and then a decorated war hero, exemplifies the sort of man who is able to put football into proper perspective in life - who uses football, rather than letting it use him.   With typical modesty, he dismissed his football glory, telling Whit Canning, "All that stuff was the work of the 10 guys out there on the field with me. I just happened to play a position where you got a lot of the credit."   Oh- and one thing more... Dr. Jim Swink is a Black Lion     Correctly Identifying Dr. Jim Swink - Tom Hinger- Auburndale, Florida ("Doctor Swink is most deserving, and a good man to boot...And more important, he was a hell of a Batallion Surgeon!")... Adam Wesoloski - DePere, Wisconsin... Mark Kaczmarek - Davenport, Iowa ("I seem to remember a great SI reunion article about that '55 TCU team and their game against Syracuse.")... Scott Barnes- Rockwall, Texas... Chris Canning... Scott Russell, Sterling, Virginia... Mike O'Donnell- Pine City, Minnesota... Kevin McCullough- Lakeville, Indiana... Keith Babb - Northbrook, Illinois ( "I look forward to reading about him because he was highly decorated for his service in Vietnam. Also, he's currently an orthopedic surgeon in Texas.")... Greg Stout- Thompsons Station, Tennessee... Mike Benton- Colfax, Illinois... Whit Snyder- Baytown, Texas ("Kern Tips, who broadcast SWC games on the radio from the 1930s to the 1960s and narrated the conference's annual highlight films, loved to play with Swink's name: 'Swink and sway ...' was one; another was 'The Horned Frogs light a skyrocket called Jim Swink and watch him go!' Folks, even here in Texas, have forgotten what a great back Swink was. Thanks for remembering him.")... David Crump- Owensboro, Kentucky... John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... Donnie Hayes- Farmington Hills, Michigan...   (I thought Jim Swink was special because he was one of the first players I really noticed who wore "low cuts" - low-top shoes. Naturally, after seeing him on TV, I had to wear low cuts, too. No problem in high school, but in college, where they insisted we all wear school-issued high tops, I must have been viewed as kind of a rebel when I'd wear my own - low-cut - shoes.)   *********** A story in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday caught my eye. It was about a guy named Lindley DeGarmo, who'd spent the better part of 17 years as an investment banker in New York when he "got the call." And now, 18 months later, he is a Presbyterian minister. He said that at his recent 25th class reunion at Princeton, a lot of interested classmates were pumping him for details about his enormous mid-life career switch. I thought right away about numerous guys with successful business careers who tell me from time to time how much they'd like to be teachers and coaches, but... Having made a move from business to teaching myself, I think they'd be naturals, but... Mr. (or should I say Reverend?) DeGarmo noted that many of the skills he learned in business are transferrable to the ministry - such as writing a sermon? "A big part of being an investment banker is communicating to others and making complex ideas simple." I would add that that's the essence of good coaching and good teaching. as well. When he says that what he finds most satisfying as a minister is being brought "into people's lives at moments of great joy and great sadness, during crises and transitions," he could just as easily be talking about coaching. "There are times when that is emotionally exhausting," he says, "but it is also an incredible honor." *********** Hi coach, Just a couple of things to note. We installed the DW this past week at Benilde-St. Margaret's School in Minneapolis. I was thrilled at our turnout, (over 60 players grades 7 through 12) but more importantly, the players picked it up quickly and they're really fired-up about it. The coaching staff can't wait to get going! Your installation tape, and attending the Chicago clinic made the installation that much easier. I'll be in touch with you periodically to let you know how things are going for the "Red Knights".  Also, I'm very interested in the "no-huddle" and "new play" information you described on your website "news" and would greatly appreciate anything you can send. Look forward to hearing from you, and again, thanks for all your help. Joe Gutilla Head Football Coach P.S. By the way, my "star" TB I told you about when I first contacted you about running the offense (he was very skeptical about the change) watched the Dynamics video and took part in the installation. He's now convinced there isn't anyone we'll face that will be able to stop him at B back. I may have created a monster.   *********** More than 80 cents of every dollar that's spent on public education goes to pay for the salary or benefits of a school employee; of those school employees, only 52 per cent are classroom teachers. In 12 states, more school employees are non-teachers than teachers. *********** Those of you in the Southern California area might want to mark your calendar. The Los Angeles Gay Pride Festival and Parade is this weekend, June 16 and 17. *********** Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you McDonald's. Thank you for the commercial where the young mom takes her young son to McDonald's, and after prepping the clerk by telling him, "it's his first time, " turns the little guy loose to place his own order. The kid says, "May I have a Happy Meal..." and then, after a little prompting from Mom, adds, "...please?" *********** Three cheers for Philadelphia's fans. Yes, they may have booed Santa Claus once, but that's because his landing at the Vet didn't live up to their high standards. Philadelphia fans are demanding. They pay to watch a game, and if anything extraneous is foisted on them, it had better be worth their time. So what else could they be expected to do but boo at Wednesday night's Sixers-Lakers game, when Destiny's Child wrapped up its halftime "entertainment?" *********** Writes humorist Joe Lavin (http://joelavin.com): Many studies have also shown that a man's testosterone level will rise and fall during a game depending on how his team is performing. Charles Hillman of the University of Illinois even discovered that fans often experience some type of physical arousal during a game. Dr. Hillman studied the reactions of football fans at the University of Florida. As the New York Times explained in an article last year: "Among zealous male and female fans, Dr. Hillman's study found, the level of arousal -- measured by heart rate, brain waves and perspiration -- was comparable to what the fans registered when shown erotic photos or pictures of animal attacks." So, basically, if Fox were to bring back When Animals Attack with a naked woman in a Red Sox cap hosting, they might really be onto something. At the very least, Dr. Hillman must have been popular at the football games. "Hey, look, everyone, the doctor with all the porn is back!" *********** Hmmm... As clever as these guys are, imagine what they'd be like if they worked for a living? The night before the earthquake hit, 75 homeless men slept in the Compass Center in downtown Seattle. Compass Center was severely damaged by the quake, and the men who had stayed there the night before had to find new places to stay. Most of them wound up temporarily in the basement of a nearby church. While there, one of them mentioned having seen a toll-free number on TV for people displaced by the quake to call. One of them called, and sure enough, the folks from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) stopped by to meet with the men from the Compass Center and get their estimates of the losses they had experienced. Claims adjusters listened to their stories, and within days, checks began arriving, mostly to cover a couple of months' rent - at Seattle rates, which are high. That quickly, word got out on the street that there was government money being handed out, free for the asking, and claimants began telling government guys that they'd lost such personal items - from their homeless shelter, yet - as laptop computers and aquariums. Some of the recipients spent their checks - some for as much as $10,000 - on shelter. At least two of them bought used cars. But many, according to the Seattle Times, spent most of their money on drugs, alcohol and sex. They squandered the rest. *********** From my son Ed, up to his ears in sports Down Under, "Good article in the latest NZ (New Zealand) Rugby magazine about Pacific Islander rugby...I particularly liked the Samoan proverb that says 'A mana'o ile pe'a, talia tiga.' (translated) 'If you want a tattoo, handle the pain.'" *********** Watching the European wussies on TV, demonstrating against President Bush, makes me think of the Miller High Life guy. You know - the guy who's raiding the refrigerator at night, making a sandwich. He says something like, "The French - we bail 'em out twice in the same century... but nice job on the mayonnaise, Pierre." He says it with a sneer. Yet there are the French, whose peace and freedom - including the right to ridicule our president - were bought with the blood of Americans, telling us not to erect a missile defense, for fear we might anger the Russians or the Chinese. They lecture us on the way we are poisoning the atmosphere, when it is reported that an everage of two people a day are hospitalized in Paris from injuries sustained from slipping on, uh, dog doo on the sidewalks. C'mon, - clean up after FiFi. And there are the Germans, who gave us two world wars and the Holocaust, and who are so paranoid they ban Nazi propaganda, lecturing us on the cruelty of euthanizing a guy who blows up a government building and kills a couple hundred people inside. And there is the pompous, overstuffed European Union. No wonder the British didn't want to join. Its nations have been notably reluctant to sign something called the Kyoto Treaty, but that hasn't stopped them from giving President Bush grief because he, like me and a few others like me, doesn't think it's a particularly bright idea for us to "reduce our emissions" (curtail our energy use) just so that the lights can burn 24 hours a day in Chinese sneaker factories and Chinese steel mills. Hey, over there - you guys ever heard of D-Day? The Marshall Plan? The Berlin Airlift? Guys - just because we come over and bail your butts out every 20 years or so, that doesn't mean we are interested in being like you or being lectured to by you. Read your history. Our country was built by people who wanted to get away from you and your version of football. *********** Ever stop for a minute to think that one of the reasons we have school shootings is that we have tried so hard to be diverse - to be tolerant and "non-judgmental" of other cultures - that we have been sucked into a civilian arms race? When we were kids, it was considered a mark of cowardice for a guy to fight with anything other than his hands. Yes, there were certain groups back then known for their predilection to fight with weapons, but in the general run of American society, it was agreed that a real man fought with his hands. (Of course, it was also important back then to be thought of as a real man.) Only "yellow-bellies" (sorry - I never gave any thought to, I never heard any reference to, any association with any ethnic group) broke the rules. Or people who were considered effeminate. Unmanly. Take the French. Does anybody remember the poem that began, "The French they are a funny race; they fight with their feet and..." (ask Grandpa, if he served overseas, to finish it for you). I don't know when our taboo against unconventional fighting began to crumble. Maybe it started with martial-arts movies. But once it became okay to fight with something other than the fists, an arms-race started. You know judo? I know karate. You know karate? I know kung-fu. (Understand, I don't know squat about any of these things. I just know that back in the mid-80's when I hung a heavy bag outside our weight room for guys to punch, a couple of the class weenies asked me if I could hang it sideways so they could practice kicking it.) It was judgmental of us to call that wrong. Who were we, after all, to try to impose our thinking on others? All cultures are equal, right? We needed to be more acccepting of other cultures, we were told, even places where unconventional fighting was the norm. Along came throwing stars. And num-chucks, or however the hell you spell them. And dogs. You got a german shepherd? I got a doberman. You got a doberman? I got a pit bull. You got a pit bull? I got a rottweiler. You got a rottweiler? I got a komodo dragon. Just kidding. No offense, Ms. Stone. So, once the rules of civilized fighting had been breached, why wouldn't it have occured to some bright guy to bypass all the time and effort needed to learn a martial art or train an attack animal? Why not just cut right to the chase and get a gun? You got a zip gun? I got a revolver. You got a revolver? I got an automatic. You got a sawed-off shotgun? I got a fully-automatic assault rifle.   But we wouldn't want kids boxing in school, now, would we?   MAKE SURE A PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM RECEIVES THE BLACK LION AWARD! (ALL TEAMS, FROM THE YOUTH LEVEL ON UP, ARE ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE) COACHES! E-MAIL ME NOW TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM ! coachwyatt@aol.com CLICK To find out more about the Black Lion Award..

June 13 - "Coach with everything that's in you. If you have a bad temper, employ it for a purpose." Vince Lombardi   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He came out of the small town of Rusk, in East Texas to attain national stardom at TCU, where his incredible broken-field running led to his nickname, "Rusk Rambler." Not overly big, he was fast and quick, and became one of the most dangerous runners the Southwest Conference has ever seen.   In 1955, he rushed for 1,283 yards on 157 carries - averaging 8.2 yards per carry - and scored 20 touchdowns and 125 points overall. He led the Horned Frogs to a 9-2 record and a No. 5 ranking nationally. He was a consensus All-American and finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting.   Included in that great season was a 235-yard rushing performance in a 47-20 trouncing of Texas. In a historic Cotton Bowl matchup with Syracuse and the great Jim Brown, he scored the winning touchdown in a 28-27 victory. (Brown scored 21 points himself, but missed the extra point that became the margin of victory.)   Great football writer Dan Jenkins thought enough of him to include him as a halfback on his "Team of the Century," along with the likes of Tony Dorsett, Glenn Davis, Billy Cannon, Billy Sims, Billy Vessels and Barry Sanders."Just a little ol' rubber-legged outfit that nobody can catch," was how his coach, Abe Martin, described him.   He played pro football briefly, with the Dallas Texans of the AFL, but by that time he was fully committed to medical school, and medicine came first. He served in Vietnam as a combat surgeon, and after his return to the states entered into practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Fort Worth.   *********** More than 10,000 rugby-mad and free-spending British and Irish fans are expected to follow the British Lions rugby union team around Australia when they arrive next month. An Australian government tourism official said that will be more visitors from the United Kingdom coming to Australia to support the Lions than were in Australia for the Sydney Olympics. And, much to the relief of Australians everywhere, these rugby blokes are of a higher evolutionary order than the pillage-plunder-and-burn British soccer hooligans, whose visits are dreaded world-wide.   *********** POP QUIZ: When Galway beat Kerry, 17-10, what sport were they playing? (ANSWER BELOW)   *********** Not so long ago, I came across something entitled "Cognitive Dissonance and God," by  Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmith. Rabbi Coopersmith says many people deny the existence of God because "many of us view God in ways that can make Him a real turn-off." He cites a few "common negative associations people may have with God": 1.. God, the Killjoy. (The existence of God presents an unbearably high standard of morality which snuffs out freedom and unadulterated fun.) 2.. God, the Tyrant. (With so much pain and suffering in the world, it seems that God sure has a lot of explaining to do. War, starvation, domestic violence, natural disasters -- what kind of God is this?) 3.. God, the Unknowable. (There's something out there that I can't understand!? I'm supposed to relate to a dimension that is beyond me? We have free will and yet God knows everything? How can I live with paradox? I give up.) 4.. God, the Unfashionable. (Take a leap of faith and have everyone think I flipped my lid? Actually pray and take this religion stuff seriously? No, thank you.   *********** "As coaches, we all have a tendency to do too much. We will have more plays than we will ever use in a game. It's always interesting how much time we practice new plays, maybe use them a few times, and then come back to the basic plays we have run for years." LaVell Edwards   WHILE THEY LAST... 2001 Clinic Tee Shirts (gray), $15 each, including shipping. Specify sizes (L, XL, XXL, XXX) *********** I studied Latin for five years. Homework every night consisted of translating several pages of the writing of some famous guy - Caesar, Cicero, Vergil - from the original Latin into English. And the next day, we could count on being called on in class at some point to read aloud from various places in the assigned work, as the teacher, Mr. Truesdale, listened. He'd appear to be dozing off - he was a World War I vet, up there in years, and he'd probably heard the same translations hundreds of times - yet the instant someone screwed up, he was right there with some sarcastic comment: "Well, now that we've heard what Wyatt said, anybody want to read what Caesar said?" Laughs all around, at Wyatt's expense. What I couldn't figure out at first was how some of the upperclassmen in our classes did so well, based on the fact that those particular guys had never distinguished themselves academically anyplace else in the school, and didn't seem to be putting in the work the rest of us did. And then would come the day of reckoning, when one of these guys would read something that would send Mr. Truesdale into a laughing fit; turns out they'd read a passage so worded that he recognized it instantly as something that could only have come from a "pony." A "pony," in this case a book known as a "Handy-Dandy Home Companion," was a store-bought translation, a schoolboy-Latin version of Cliff's notes. Mr. Truesdale had heard its translations so many times over the years that he was alert to key words and phrases that betrayed a user. Busted. Modern-day teachers face their own, higher-tech versions of the pony. One such is a website called Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com) that translates from English into one of five European languages - French, German, Italian, Portugese, Spanish - or from one of those languages back into English. You type in the passage that needs translation, and - voila! ("vwah-lah" - French for "there you are!") - back it comes. Trouble is, just as with the old "ponies," there are giveaways. Fist (you'll see what I mean in a minute), you'd better spell correctly. One kid's French translation started off with the French word poing (fist) followed by a comma. Fist? the teacher wondered. Turned out, the kid meant "first." The machine translators also have trouble with the idiom - the spoken words and phrases of a language that don't mean exactly what they appear to mean to someone who merely looks up the words in the dictionary. A Boston kid wrote that Nomar Garciaparra "wears number five," but when it came back, translated into Spanish, it meant, literally, that he "wears out" number five. The Wall Street Journal illustrated the perils of depending on machine translation by taking a short line from a movie, translating it into Spanish, and then translating the Spanish back into English. For those of you who are not familiar with the movie, it was "On the Waterfront," in which Marlon Brando plays Terry Malloy, a boxer from a tough waterfront town in New Jersey who has come to the realization that his once-promising career is headed nowhere: (In the original script): "You don't understand! I coulda had class! I coulda been a contender! I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let's face it." (Translated by Babelfish, first into Spanish then back into English): "You do not understand! Could've I had class! It could not be a competitor. Could've I be somebody, instead of a bum, what is which I am. Let us do to him in front.") When you go strictly by the book, you often wind up sounding like one of my outside linebackers in Finland, when he asked me whether to chase the play or stay home: "Coach - stay I home?" *********** THIS FROM THE AFCA CONVENTION PROCEEDINGS: "SMASH MOUTH" FOOTBALL, SIMILAR TERMS, SHOULD NOT BE IN A COACH'S VOCABULARY Hard-nosed, maybe, but "smash-mouth" football is not how competent football coaches refer to their game. Football is a contact game, but terms that reflect brutality and violence do not belong in a coach's vocabulary. Image is one reason to clean up slange terms like smash-mouth that have become popular in the media, but a more compelling reason comes from a legal standpoint. In a courtroom, dewscriptive terms are used against coaches and the game. Don't hesistate to ask your fellow coaches, student-athletes and especially the media who cover your team to cooperate and refrain from using overly-descriptive terms that reflect poorly on the game and your profession. (Personally, I think that "smash-mouth" stops short of the sort of brutality that we need to eliminate from our vocabulary, but in a society in which a jury can be persuaded to award $3 billion to a 56-year-old guy who's been smoking since he was a teenager, I can already hear the gasps in the courtroom when Mr. Slick, the plaintiff's attorney, tells the jury that you told your players to play - are you ready for this? - smash-mouth football.) *********** "Coach - My son, Austin, and I have started attending a session on Wed. nights together called "True Warriors". It's a Christian-based group that is utilizing some of the material put out by Focus on the Family. The concept is pretty cool..Its focus is on 5th/6th grade boys and the fact that they are "becoming a man" (kind of following Jewish thoughts here)...and the role that dads have in mentoring their son to manhood. Basically, we will be walking thru the steps to "manhood" together. The point is that you can let the outside influences determine how your son learns chivalry (I know, it's old fashion - but we think "True Warriors" still treat a lady like a princess) - or what choices they make regarding sex, alcohol, education, etc...OR.. we, as fathers, can take a stand and teach them these things on a formal basis. We have homework that forces to spend time alone and face tough issues together, and of course, there are "fun" things like camping, Ranger games, paintball, skeet shooting - "We focus on the fact that a "True Warrior" isn't the bully or the guy that treats a girl like sh--...just the opposite...tough guys, like their dads (and the dads in this program are mostly "real men") treat their wives with respect, aren't afraid to show emotion, honor God, and aren't ashamed of their religious beliefs, respect the laws of the land, etc...it's the "True Wussies" that follow the Mtv way, and we make no bones about it..we focus on accountability and in our mind, anyone that isn't willing to stand up and be accountable is a "True Wussie".... Anyway, thought I'd let you know that there are still some men out there that are willing to step up and be MEN in regards to parental leadership. You'd LOVE this group of guys..they are guys I'd want next to me in a foxhole or a streetfight, but are all Godly men with strong values/ethics. Getting hooked up with these guys makes the move to Texas worth it.. "By the way..the leader of the group is my Pastor - former High School QB here in Rockwall..a real "hero" to all the boys because they still hear stories about the way he played QB - let's just say his son played QB for me this year running the DW. I didn't even know his dad had been a QB..no kidding, and he kept telling me, "I wish we could have run something like that so I could have had a chance to HIT someone!" my kind of guy!" Scott Barnes- Rockwall, Texas *********** "Coach, I hate to do this to you for the second straight week, but the first boxer to hold world championships in three different weight classes at the same time was Henry Armstrong, who held the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight titles at the same time briefly in the 1930s. No other man has accomplished that feat and it is doubtful that anyone else ever will. Even though there are twice as many weight classes now (and God knows how many different sanctioning bodies) just about all of the alphabet organizations require a fighter to vacate a title when he wins another one at a different weight. take care, Steve Tobey, Malden, Mass. "Oh, in case you were wondering, one of the current heavyweight champions, John Ruiz, has been known to do a little coaching with the Pop Warner program in his hometown of Chelsea, Mass. He was a decent football and basketball player at Chelsea High." *********** "Hi Coach, I was just reading your thoughts on NBA half time shows. I heard the next 2 half time shows will be Destiny's Child and Sugar Ray. (not the boxer, the group). Set your VCR now. Hopefully the remaining games will not start at 9:00 e.d.t. Don't want to fall asleep before the concert." John Signs, Prospect Park, Pennsylvania *********** Bob Stoops said that in his first two weeks as Oklahoma's head coach, one particular player was late to practice three times. The third time, the coach sent him over to sit on the pole vault porta-pit, telling him "you sit over there, and the entire team is going to run for you." The team, needless to say, was ticked to be running while the problem child sat and watched. While this was going on, Coach Stoops told the player that there wasn't going to be any getting up at 6 AM to make him run - he wasn't going to ask one of his assistant coaches to do that. He told the player what he was going to have to do, and said, "you're either going to quit or you're going to become one of these guys. It's one or the other." He said from that day on, the player - who will not be named here - was never late again and was a major factor in OU's winning the national championship this past season. *********** "I read your piece on Digital filming and was wondering: I have one of the earlier Sony Hi8 camcorders, and we have a bunch of tapes with the family, etc. on that format. It is a good recorder but is a little tough to operate in addition to not having an LCD...for whatever reason after a year or so we bought a recorder with the VHS-C format (I think my in-laws and my parents couldn't view the Hi8mm tapes if we sent them to them, so we made the switch). We had a couple of parents film our games last season and a couple were in Hi8, a couple in VHS and as you can imagine the difference in quality was very very noticeable. Anyway, without wasting too much of your time, I'm thinking about getting one of the newer cameras and was wondering what format you'd suggest. I've read that most of the Digital 8 cameras are "backward compatible", which means that I can play my older Hi8 on it.. Do you think the difference between the Digital 8mm and Mini DV is that appreciable? I really trying to avoid having 4 formats (VHS,VHS-C, Hi8, and Mini DV) laying around the house, but I also want to get good, clear quality." Since you already have a lot of tapes you've shot in Hi8 format, a good Digital-8 camera would do a number of things for you: (1) It would record everything you shoot with it in digital format (using conventional Hi8 tapes); (2) It would play the Hi8 tapes you already have (3) It would allow you to convert footage that you now have in other formats onto digital tape (provided, of course, that you have the ability to play those other formats) (4) It would convert footage that you now have into digital signals useable for computer editing by "playing through" the digital-8 camera and into the computer (make sure the camera has "FireWire," although it is almost certain to). (5) It would serve as a play deck for your digital-8 tapes when you wish to make VHS copies of them; The VHS copy from digital-8 will be almost as good as an original first-generation VHS tape. For what it is worth, it will NOT be able to play mini-DV tapes. I personally would prefer a decent-sized swing-out screen, which means nothing smaller than 3 inches. Four inches is best, but screens that size are hard to find. Make sure that you have a good remote, because it is a lot easier controlling the camera with the remote than trying to press those tiny little control buttons on the camera.   ANSWER: Galway beat Kerry in Gaelic football

June 11 "One man and the truth is a majority." Milton Friedman, economist   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He came out of the small town of Rusk, in East Texas, and his incredible broken-field running led to his nickname, "Rusk Rambler." Not overly big, he was fast and quick, and became one of the most dangerous runners the Southwest Conference has ever seen. In 1955, he rushed for 1,283 yards on 157 carries - averaging 8.2 yards per carry - and scored 20 touchdowns and 125 points overall. He led his team to a 9-2 record and a No. 5 ranking nationally. He was a consensus All-American and finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Included in that great season was a 235-yard rushing performance in a 47-20 trouncing of Texas. In a historic Cotton Bowl matchup with Syracuse and the great Jim Brown, he scored the winning touchdown in a 28-27 victory. (Brown scored 21 points himself, but missed the extra point that became the margin of victory.) Great football writer Dan Jenkins thought enough of him to include him on his "Team of the Century," along with the likes of Tony Dorsett, Glenn Davis, Billy Cannon, Billy Sims, Billy Vessels and Barry Sanders."Just a little ol' rubber-legged outfit that nobody can catch," was how his coach, Abe Martin, described him.   *********** I heard him say it:. I really did. Timothy McVeigh's lawyer actually had the chutzpah to tell a TV audience why his client decided not to continue appealling his death sentence, "Once the judge denied the stay, it took his spirit away." *********** Is nothing sacred? Can you believe a pro sports league would sign an agreement allowing a television network to cut away at halftime of the first game of its championship series to show a concert? Yes, I know. It was U2 - and it was live. Thrill me. Worse still, can you believe they'd use the halftimes of games two and three to run a quiz show which just happens to be coming up following the game on the same network? I mean, isn't the game able to stand on its own? I can't wait to see what they have for halftime of game four. *********** Allen Iverson may not be the best player in the NBA (but since he's a former HS football player, he gets my vote) but you have to admit that he wins the "pound-for-pound" award easily. That was the tag constantly applied to the great Sugar Ray Robinson ("pound-for-pound, the greatest fightah in the world").   I was reminded of Sugar Ray when I read last week that Joey Maxim had died. His real name was Giuseppe Antonio Bernardinelli, but he took the name "Maxim" when someone compared the speed of his fists to a Maxim gun. He was light-heavyweight champion of the world in 1952 when Robinson went after him and his championship belt. Robinson was already welterweight and middleweight champion, and he was attempting to be the first man to hold three titles simultaneously. (At that time, there were only eight divisions: bantamweight, flyweight, featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight.) When Maxim and Robinson (seen at left) fought for the light-heavy title, it was Yankee Stadium, June 25th, and under the ring lights it was 104 degrees with humidity to match. It was so tough that famed referee Ruby Goldstein, suffering from heat exhaustion, had to be replaced in the tenth round (championship fights went 15 in those days). After 13 rounds, Robinson was way ahead on all cards, but he was suffering from heat exhaustion himself, and was unable to answer the bell for the fourteenth. It was the only time in 201 fights over a 25-year career that he failed to finish a fight.   One of my history professors in college used the Robinson-Maxim fight as an illustration of how an army can win battles but still lose the war, spending its resources and figuratively punching itself out while its opponent gives ground but conserves strength. *********** It was a heckuva sports weekend, if you didn't mind having to look at William Jefferson Clinton, who made an appearance Thursday at the French Open, Saturday at the Belmont Stakes, and Sunday at the Sixers-Lakers game. Guess without Air Force One he couldn't make it to Denver and back, or he'd have been out there on the ice skating the Stanley Cup. *********** The football world lost a great coach with the death Sunday of John McKay. In his 16 season at USC, the Trojans were 127-40-8, and lost only 17 conference games. He coached nine Pac-8 champions, and finished second four times. The Trojans won five Rose Bowls and won national championships in 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1974. He left USC after the 1975 season to become first head coach (and general manager) of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. NFL or not, hig contract or not, it had to be quite a comedown from being the toast of Los Angeles to being the coach of an NFL team that lost a leaue-record 26 games before it finally won. In his tenure at Tampa, he took the Buccaneers to three playoff appearances, and a record of 44-88. A native of Shinnston, W.Va., McKay served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, then enrolled at Oregon wher he played with Norm Van Brocklin on a team that went 9-1 in 1948 and earned a trip to the Cotton Bowl. He began his coaching career as an assistant at Oregon, in 1950, and moved to Southern California as an assistant in 1959. He became head coach at Troy a year later, and in just his third year, the 1962 Trojans went unbeaten and won the national title, the first of four they would win under him. McKay was famous for his I-formation. His "student-body right" and "student body left" sweeps, a lethal combination of large, mobile lineman and tailbacks on the order of Garrett, Simpson, Clarence Davis, Anthony Davis and Ricky Bell, were feared throughout football. At USC, he coached 40 All-Americans, including Heisman Trophy winners Mike Garrett and O.J. Simpson. One of his All-Americans was his second-easiest recruit. That was quarterback Pat Haden, his son J.K.'s pal, who lived with the McKays during his senior year of high school. His easiest was his son, J.K., an excellent receiver. ("All I had to do was sleep with the kid's mother," Coach McKay once joked.) "I think he was the best evaluator of talent that I've ever seen," Haden said. "He would have some high school kid who was an All-American linebacker, and the first day he'd watch him practice and say, 'You're a tight end.' Two years later, that kid was an All-American tight end."   WHILE THEY LAST... 2001 Clinic Tee Shirts (gray), $15 each, including shipping. Specify sizes (L, XL, XXL, XXX) *********** Education is increasingly becoming a female-dominated profession, but there are still a few men left. One of them is a principal at an alternative high school in New England. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, an alternative high school is a school for kids who for various reasons aren't making it at their conventional high school. One of the reasons, often, is a severe lack of social skills, which sometimes means attempting to settle disputes violently. This particular principal is now in a bit of hot water because when he caught two boys fighting, he did what any old-time principal would have done - he took the two guys into a room, shut the door behind him, and refereed while they boxed each other, bare-knuckle, for three rounds. No one was hurt (although, having boxed a few times myself, I would imagine they were both totally exhausted), and the two boys shook hands afterwards. But now, the nannies are stepping into the ring. I actually heard some female professor of something-or-other at Fordham University say, on national television, that it was wrong because "It tells people that fighting is okay under certain circumstances." Well, duh, professor. And if you were being attacked, what would you expect your husband - uh, never mind. Even the mayor of his town has weighed in against the principal. But this particular mayor might regret shooting off his mouth. It could cost him votes in that town. The town happens to be Brockton, Massachusetts, a town dedicated to the belief that fighting is okay under certain circumstances. Brockton is the home of Rocky Marciano, undefeated heavyweight champ and one of the toughest men to ever lace on gloves, and of another great fighter, Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Brockton High's teams are nicknamed the Boxers. Good luck, Mr. Mayor. *********** I was thinking of running an unbalanced line because I don't think that my guard and tackle will be able to pull effectively at that age (7-8). My reasoning is that I can go with the unbalanced line and already have my extra manpower on the strong side for blocking. I dont know if I should use the weakside wing back in my sweep or power plays to the strong side or leave him there for blocking when I run the counter or bootleg. Or use him on those plays but keep him there when I run the bootleg or counter. I hope that's not too confusing. Please give me your opinion or if I need to clarify it for you I will be glad to. I'm very interested in your input. I will also fax you a diagram to show you what I'm thinking. I am afraid that the further you get from the basic design, the less good I'm able to do you, because I really can't compare things that I know, that are proven, with things that might or might not work. There is always room for innovation, but it is important to understand that what we are doing now is the distillation of years and years of trying different things - keeping some but rejecting lots more - and once you start to stray from the basic formula, you begin to give up the things that have been proven to work. Unbalanced in my scheme of things is meant to provide a momentary advantage over a defense. I would not advise anyone to go unbalanced as a steady diet, because defenses will become highly unpredictable and it will take you years to get a handle on all the things that they can do to you. *********** I think most of the stuff I hear about bullying is just so much garbage, and once the zero-tolerance crew is finished, kids will be bounced out of school for looking crosseyed at a someone. I believe it goes to the fact that teachers and coaches all have a responsibility in our classrooms and on our teams to establish an atmosphere of respect, right from day one. But based on what I have observed, there is a shocking lack of common sense among a great many teachers and a fair number of coaches. I am taken aback by the signs of disrespect for teachers that I see teachers tolerate, because I don't see how teachers can allow kids to be disrespectful to them and at the same expect them to be respectful toward one another. For years, I have made that the focal point of the "Three R's" that I have drilled into any team I've coached, any class I've taught. I think that before you can start to get serious about teaching lessons or coaching plays, you first have to establish the ground rules of behavior, and so I have customarily spent the first couple of days of school every year - and a minimum of the first couple of hours of practice every season - going over what it is that I expect from kids. I do believe that for the most part kids will give us what we want, but I think too few kids have been taught it at home or by previous teachers, and too few teachers are willing to stand up and state what that is. The first of my Three R's is Respect. I believe in telling kids that in my classroom they are in a "no put-down zone" - in my classroom, no one will make any show of disrespect to anyone else. There will be no snickers, no unwanted nicknames, no rude gestures, no disparaging remarks, no rolling of the eyes - nothing that might in any way make a kid feel unwelcome in my room. I tell kids that it is my classroom - it's where I work - that I am the one who will decide how I want it to be in there, and I have decided that everyone is welcome there as my guest, and none of them has the right to mess with my working conditions. We talk about my respecting them and their respecting me. About their respecting each other. About how we can show respect for one another in simple ways, by such seemingly-little things as using peoples' names when we speak to them (you'd be surprised at how many kids don't even know it's impolite to walk into a room and not say "hello" to you), using courtesy titles such as "Mister" and "Coach", and saying "thank you," and "please," "excuse me" and "I'm sorry." A lot of fights break out, I believe, that could have been avoided if someone hadn't neglected to teach the little courtesies, the little signs of civility, that once used to be commonplace. As a result, we have failed to apply the veneer of civility that used to serve as a cushion in our dealings with one another. Now, without that surface layer, that buffer, kids are a full step closer to violent action. I have always made it a point to let my players know that we are trying to build a sense of brotherhood on our team, and that means respect flowing in both directions. I expect seniors to lead, and I tell them that I will do everything in my power to support them, but in return I demand that they not haze or harass underclassmen; at the same time, I make sure that the underclassmen understand that in return for protection from hazing, in return for being treated with respect, they had better show deference and respect to the seniors. I tell them that if I hear of one of them giving some lip to a senior, I will be quick to deal with it. It is well worth my time to make a big deal of establishing an atmosphere of respect in the classroom and on the field. *********** Hi Coach, I found your 2 cents on kid's clothing interesting. My plan for when (hopefully if) it happens with my boy is this: "So, let me understand this. You are expressing your individuality by dressing like everyone else?" Todd Bross, Sharon, Pennsylvania  *********** Final Standings of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Senior Flag Football League: Gastro Boys (8-0), Bananas In Pyjamas (6-1-1) G.O.A.T.S (5-2-1), Vikings (4-4), Buck Rogers (4-4), UC Shooters (4-4), Bar Knights (3-5), Vibrating Chickens (1-7), Spares (0-8). *********** A youth coach who attended my Sacramento clinic and encounters all sorts of grumbling about his enthusiasm for the Double-Wing from his I-formation mates back home writes, " I had my 'It Takes a Set' shirt on at the All-Star meeting, and sure as sh-- as soon as I walked in the eyes all went "Oh Lord"...just as expected. I didn't even have to utter a word for the audience to start grumbling....Funny as hell when people do what you expect them to do. I just smiled and poured myself a glass of Diet Pepsi. *********** It's my thinking that we should emulate the concept of the MIRV- the MUltiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle --- it's a series of independent missiles that starts out as one missile, one launch, and then, after it's gone a distance down the line, the several different missiles break off and go their separate, independent ways. With a football series, it's the idea that every play - power, trap, counter, g, play-action - looks the same for as long as possible, forcing the defense to delay its response. *********** I laugh at the commercial in which the construction worker falls, and when he gets up, he finds he's been impaled on a piece of re-bar. It's run clean through him, sticking out of his chest and his back. A fellow worker sees him and says, "Maybe we should get that looked at." But our guy says, "Maybe we should go get a Mike's Hard Lemonade." And off they go. I can hear the complaints already: "Hey, I don't appreciate that! My brother-in-law fell on a steel reinforcing bar and..." *********** "I enjoyed your talk about the belly series. I ran the straight t belly series one year. That's why I had the belly series in my wing-I set (at Mclean County High) that I sent you a tape of the other year. I never liked the wing t version of the belly. It was too slow and the footwork for the fullback was tough for a kid to learn. When I ran my wing t, I ran the belly series like you have it drawn on your web page except from a wing t set. It worked very well!" David Crump- Owensboro, Kentucky (Coach Crump, who coaches the Middle School at Daviess County, outside Owensboro, ran a wing-I and wing-T and the same Double-Tilt that I like to run defensively when he was head coach at Mclean County High     MAKE SURE A PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM RECEIVES THE BLACK LION AWARD! (ALL TEAMS, FROM THE YOUTH LEVEL ON UP, ARE ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE) COACHES! E-MAIL ME NOW TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM ! coachwyatt@aol.com CLICK To find out more about the Black Lion Award..

June 8 - If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings." Dave Barry   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Although you may not have known Charlie Powell, you will be glad you learned about him. He is the only pro football player who was also an outstanding professional boxer. He did not wait to take up boxing after he'd made a name for himself as a football player. He was not a Mark Gastineau or an Ed "Too Tall" Jones, a creature of promotion, thrown into a ring in the hope that people would buy tickets to see whether he could actually box. He could. He was not a freak. He was a true heavyweight contender. Charlie Powell fought Muhammad Ali (when he was still Cassius Clay), Floyd Patterson and Roy Harris. He was ranked among the top ten in the heavyweight division, at a time when that really meant something. And he earned his ranking while playing NFL football and boxing in the off-season. He was one of the greatest schoolboy athletes ever to come out of Southern California. At San Diego High School, he won 12 varsity letters. He was 6-3, 230, strong and fast. He set a school shotput record and ran the 100-yard dash in a blazing 9.6. Charlie Powell was the youngest man ever to play pro football in the modern age, starting at defensive end for the 49ers when he was only 19. In his first NFL game, he sacked Detroit Lions' quarterback Bobby Layne for 67 yards in losses. The oldest of nine children, he decided to bypass college - he had his choice of any one he wanted to go to - to play professional sports. The summer following high school graduation, he played minor league baseball in the St. Louis Browns' farm system, but he was persuaded by San Francisco coach Buck Shaw to cast his lot with the 49ers. Shaw had heard about young Powell from Glenn Davis of the Rams and Frankie Albert of the 49ers, and after tracking him down, signed him for a $2,000 bonus and a salary of $5,500. "When he pulled up to the house, I was on the front porch, playing 'Sentimental Journey' on my saxophone," Powell told Earl Gustkey of the Los Angeles Times. "He was impressed." He is one of only three modern-day players (along with Cookie Gilchrist and Eric Swann) who made it to the NFL without playing college football. Boxing was his first love. He learned to box at the age of 12, and by 13 he was sparring with much older boys and holding his own. His inspiration was the great Archie Moore, a San Diego neighbor. After playing two seasons with the 49ers, he took a season off to pursue his boxing dreams. Many boxing experts thought that he had the potential to be the next Rocky Marciano, but after the one year off, he returned to the 49ers, and for the next four years tried to balance his two careers.   Because he kept going back and forth between football and boxing, he never did achieve the greatness predicted for him in the ring. Playing football at 260 and then having to get down to 215 pounds fighting weight was one problem; the other was the vastly different skills required by the two sports. Former Sports Illustrated boxing writer Mort Sharnik recalled, "I got him hooked up with Cus D'Amato (famous trainer, who once worked with Mike Tyson) when he had Patterson. Cus worked with Charlie at Catskill, N.Y. I remember him telling me, 'This is a kid with great ability and a tremendous punch, but with a lot of bad habits. If only you'd brought him to me five years ago." Nevertheless, after knocking out number 2-ranked Nino Valdez of Cuba on national TV, he rose to number four in the heavyweight rankings. "I was supposed to have a rematch in Cuba with Valdez and get $350,000, but Castro killed it," Powell told Gustkey of the LA Times. Shown in the bottom photo as a 49er, Charlie Powell played a total of five seasons in the NFL. (By the way, the 49ers were really ahead of the curve in uniform design, with drop-shadowed numerals, way back in the 50's.) With the formation of the AFL in 1960, he came out of retirement and played two seasons with the Oakland Raiders. He retired from boxing in 1961, but came back for a big payday against young contender Cassius Clay in 1963. Clay knocked him out in three, but he earned $12,000, more than he'd ever been paid for an entire season as a pro football player. In 1964 he was paid $10,000 to fight Floyd Patterson, losing to the ex-champion in six. He fought his last professional fight in 1965. His fondest NFL memories, he told the LA Times' Gustkey, were of the road trips. He and Joe "The Jet" Perry were the only black players on the 49ers, and "there were some integration problems then." He and Perry sometimes had to stay in different hotels from their teammates. "I wasn't bitter about it then," he recalls. "It's just the way it was. But there was an upside - no bed checks." He recalled reunions with black players on other teams. "I loved the trips to New York," he told Gustkey. "going to Harlem and hooking up with guys like (the Giants') Roosevelt Grier, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown and going to clubs to hear people like Count Basie and Duke Ellington." Likewise, Baltimore, and Big Daddy Lipscomb and Lenny Moore. All in all, Charlie Powell's has been a good life. He owns a business in South-Central LA, and remembers what it was like growing up. "We weren't rich," he recalled, "but we had all the love and attention in the world. There were times when we had to pour water instead of milk on our Post Toasties, but there were never any dope arrests in our family and no one ever had a child out of wedlock." A younger brother, Art, played 10 years in the NFL. Charlie and his wife, Irma, first met in elementary school, and they've lived in the same house in Altadena, California for the last 31 years. "In my whole life," he told Gustkey, I've had three telephone numbers - my family home in San Diego, the five years I lived in West L.A., and now." He would, he said, like to see more kids boxing. "When I was a kid," he says, "you couldn't get me ouot of a gym. Now, you can't get kids in a gym. I wish I could think of a way to get kids in gyms instead of drifting toward guns and drugs. Burn up that energy in a gym. Boxing's great that way."   Congratulations to the handful of guys who discovered the great Charlie Powell: Adam Wesoloski- DePere, Wisconsin... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa... Kevin McCullough- Lakeville, Indiana... Alan Goodwin- Warwick, Rhode Island... John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... Whit Snyder- Baytown, Texas... Keith Babb - Northbrook, Illinois...   HINT: Adam Wesoloski and Keith Babb are two of the better researchers I've run into. They discovered Charlie Powell by running Web searches on Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali.   WHILE THEY LAST... 2001 Clinic Tee Shirts (gray), $15 each, including shipping. Specify sizes (L, XL, XXL, XXXL)   *********** Julius Peppers and Ronald Curry have evidently decided to cast their lot with football. The two North Carolina Tarheels have been football starters, Curry at quarterback and Peppers at defensive end. Curry has been a starting point guard for the Tar Hells' basketball team, and Peppers has been one of the first men off the bench. I can't help thinking that basketball coach Matt Doherty, his job on the line (at Carolinia, if you ain't Dean Smith, it's always going to be a week-to-week thing), issued an ultimatum to do one sport or the other, figuring that the worst that would happen would be they'd do what they did, and leave him with a scholarship or two to give. *********** "Demeaning, negative and/or belittling..." "degrading..." "demoralizing..." "heavy-handed..." "vindictive..." "angry..." "emotionally and verbally abusive..." Sound like the kind of coach you'd pay $520,010 to get rid of? Those descriptions of deposed University of Oregon women's basketball coach Jody Runge come from the testimony of players, assistants and athletic department co-workers, given to a law firm hired by the University to investigate her program. I was asked recently by an athletic administrator if I knew any coaches that those terms would apply to, and I had to confess that of the hundreds of coaches I have come in contact with, I couldn't think of one. So why wasn't Jody Runge fired long ago? It should have been a slam dunk. Was it because she built a winning program? Well, partly. But it is instructive to know that part of the way she built the program was by threatening to sue the University for discrimination whenever she felt she wasn't given what she asked for. That's why, despite all the player discontent because of her abrasive, abusive manner, the Oregon officials trod lightly in getting rid of her. And that's why, when they finally did get rid of her, they sent her off with a settlement package amounting to $520,010. *********** Coach Wyatt, I just read your section about the middle school dancers and couldn't agree with you more! Since we're dishing out the beatings, let's not forget to smack the producers of Mtv! After all this is where adolescents learn most of the stuff. I don't watch Mtv, but what little I have seen is 100% garbage. Mike Lane, Avon Grove, Pennsylvania *********** TIMBERS PLAY THUNDER TONIGHT read the headline of a soccer story in Wednesday's Portland Oregonian. There was a time, more than 25 years ago, when I prayed to see that headline. I was new to Portland, and working for a World Football League team that, like the rest of the league, was trying to get up off the mat after a first-season knockdown and come back for a second season. Our team was called the Portland Thunder. Portland's entry the year before had been called the Portland Storm, but our new owners, understandably, were unwilling to pay the unpaid bills left behind by the Storm, hence the name change. Our whole management team, led by GM Bob Brodhead, was new to Portland, and we thought that getting up and running was a matter of applying the same marketing formula that worked every place in sports. Boy, were we wrong. Portland was - is - a different city. It has heavy industry, and it has hard-working people, but it is not a lunch pail town. It is not a shot-and-a-beer town. What it is is a boutique town, in love with quaint little shops and cozy little pubs where a person can sit all day at a table by the window and read newspapers. It is almost European in feel, and "European" can mean only one thing - SOCCER! Arriving on the scene a short time before us, back in the spring of 1975, was a startup soccer team called the Portland Timbers. For some reason - possibly due in part to the lively, personable group of players brought over from the British Isles to play for the Timbers, probably because they began to win right from the outset, and undoubtedly because their tickets were cheap - the Timbers became Portland's darlings. And, we soon found out, we were Portland's dirt. True, the Storm had badly screwed things up and screwed people over, but we were trying to build a legitimate professional sports enterprise. They, on the other hand, were running what amounted to a semi-pro operation, bringing English soccer players over here during their off-season (and second-rate English soccer players at that), but they hogged the headlines. Following our opening game, the Oregonian showed a shot of our quarterback, Don Horn, getting ready to take the snap. It was taken with a telephoto lens, the better to display right over Horn's shoulders, a large banner left on the outfield wall from the soccer game the day before that read "SOCCER CITY, USA." (Tell me about media bias - it had to be deliberate) Portland wasn't - isn't - a sophisticated sports town, and everywhere we went, we had the Timbers thrown in our faces. "How come you guys charge so much for your tickets?" (We charged $7. The Timbers charged $1.50. We thought it would be a nice idea to try to pay our players a living wage. ). "How come the Timbers are winning and you're not?" (Uh, we were going up against some decent teams. We struggled at first, while the Timbers continued to win). We managed to stay afloat financially, and with the arrival, partway into the season, of a new coach named Joe Gardi, got things going on the field, but it was to no avail. We went under when they whole league did, 13 games into the season. But, oh, before we gave the players the news, would I have liked to see that headline, TIMBERS PLAY THUNDER TONIGHT. Actually, I wanted to see it twice. Once before we played them in soccer, and once before they played us in football. *********** It all started with the story of how Giordano Olivari became Jordan Olivar, but I told Adam Wesoloski, of DePere, Wisconsin, that it was possible, the way immigration officials sometimes aribitrarily changed peoples' names when they entered the United States, that Billy Vessels' name could at one time have been something like Wesoloski (in Polish, the "W" is pronounced like a "V"). So, being the good researcher that he is, he dug into it. He found a book called "Gridiron Greats: A Century of Polish Americans in College Football," by Ben Chestochowski, 1997. He didn't find Billy Vessels, the Oklahoma Heisman Trophy winner in there, but he did find the author's All-Time Polish-American team. There were a lot of Pennsylvanians on it - Ted Kwalick, Johnny Lujack, Leon Hart, Dick Modzelewski, Lou Michaels, Jack Ham - which made me proud, but there was one old-timer - a giant of the game, from International Falls, Minnesota, whose omission requires some sort an explanation: His name was Bronko Nagurski. Are you kidding me? Old-timer or not, he belongs on anybody's All-Anything team. Years ago, Tom Gola, a great college basketball player at LaSalle and one of the greatest basketball players ever to play in Philadephia, was named to the Italian-American All-American team. He had to respectfully decline the honor, on the grounds that he was Polish. *********** The proponents of dysfunctional familes seemed to gloat as they informed us that the "Ozzie and Harriet Family" was becoming obsolete, disappearing from the American scene. "Why the Traditional Family is Fading Fast" ran a Newsweek headline. The media types rolled out the stats to show us that only 25 per cent of all American households now contain conventional Mom-and-Dad, Junior and Sis families. Hey! Not so fast! I've heard it said that statistics are like a bikini - what they reveal is important, but what they conceal is vital. Yes, we have some strange families. Yes, Heather sometimes has two mommies, and Daddy sometimes has a new boyfriend. Yes, in-vitro fertilization has created some weird arrangements. But most of the 25-per cent statistic is explained by the simple fact that there is a growing number of people who no longer have kids in their home. One reason is that the population of people 50 and over is growing rapidly. If you hadn't noticed, those people don't have too many little kids of their own running around the house. In addition, our affluence is making it possible for many younger Americans to move out of the house and live on their own. Every time one of them moves out and rents an apartment, chalk up another "non-Ozzie and Harriet" family. And more and more young adults are postponing marriage - and children. But - of the households in which there are children... The vast majority contain two parents - one male and one female. The fact is that 71 per cent of all American kids live in two-parent, male-female families. Don't let the media libs beat you down. Don't let them promote the single-parent (what they really mean is "single mom") family as the norm in trying to trivialize fathers. Don't let people browbeat you with their phony statistics and spin into thinking that you are not an important majority of families. Taking the same statistics they throw at you, and taking what those statistics say about the far greater risk of growing up without a father in the home, it is easy to demonstrate that there is little to be said for promoting the single-mom household. *********** The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again! My daughter Julia, who lives in North Carolina, told me she'd been speaking with a doctor friend, who told her an amazing story about the unintended consequences of our present-day emphasis on tolerance - of making sure we never hurt anyone's feelings. A speech therapist she knew told her that it has become very difficult for her nowadays to get kids motivated to improve their speech, because now that it's no longer acceptable to make fun of the way they speak, there's no incentive for them to learn to speak properly. She said that if you had ever told her that this would be the result of a more tolerant society, she would never have believed you. Trophies for everybody! *********** Headed for soccer practice? Be sure to leave a little early. Load all the little girls into the mini-van and stop off at Wal-Mart on the way. Head for the special on Title IX schoolwork folders and pick up one for every little girl you know. You know which folders I'm talking about - the ones with the track athletes (female, of course) on the front and the martial-arts viragos (vi-RAY-go= a strong, mannish woman) on the back; the ones with the words of Title IX printed on the inside for quick reference (because these days, a girl never knows when those evil old boys will try to discriminate against her). Next, ask the girls to stand at attention, hold their hands over their hearts and repeat after you: "No person in the United States... shall, on the basis of sex... be excluded from participation in... be denied the benefits of... or be subjected to discrimination under... any program or activity... receiving Federal financial assistance." Excellent. Indoctrination complete. Now, go find the manager and thank the good folks at Wal-Mart for all they're doing on behalf of Title IX. PS: The folders are made in China

June 1 - "All great changes are irksome to the human mind." John Adams, 2nd President of the U.S.     A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Alan Ameche (born Lino Dante Amici) was a native of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and a nephew of actor Don Ameche. Nicknamed "The Horse," he was a big, hard runner who became Wisconsin's first Heisman Trophy winner. It would be 45 years before Ron Dayne would win it another one. At Wisconsin, he played in all 37 games in his four years, including the Badgers' first-ever appearance in the Rose Bowl. He led the Big Ten in rushing all four years, and when he graduated (on time), he was the NCAA's all-time leading rusher. His last two years, when the rules changed to require two-way play, he played linebacker on defense and made All-America both his junior and senior years. In additon to winning the Heisman, he also won the Walter Camp Trophy, and was named MVP of the Big Ten. In 1975 was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. He is a member of the Academic All-America Hall of Fame, and is one of only four Wisconsin players to have had his jersey retired. Ameche was a first-round NFL draft pick, and had a 6-year pro career that started out with a 79-yard run for a touchdown the first time he ever touched the ball. Known just as much for the solid protection he provided John Unitas as for his running, he played on two NFL championship teams and in five pro bowls. He scored the winning touchdown in the NFL's first-ever sudden-death overtime game, ending what is usually called "The Greatest Game Ever Played."   In his six professional seasons, Ameche carried the ball 964 times for 4,045 yards, a 4.2 average, and scored 44 touchdowns. He also caught 101 passes.     His career ended in 1960 when he suffered a torn achilles tendon blocking the Lions' Alex Karras. But he had prepared well for retirement. He and teammates Joe Campanella and Gino Marchetti, with financial help from an Ohio State alum named Lou Fisher, started A-G Foods, which built a chain of Gino's fast-food restaurants and Rustler Steakhouses (now known as Sizzlers) that they eventually sold to Marriott Corporation.   Active in community affairs with the Colts following retirement, he moved to Philadelphia when the corporate headquarters were relocated, and became active in a number of community activities there. He was a great lover of classical music, and served as Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was active on behalf of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and was the Corporations Chairman for the United Negro College Fund.   He never forgot his Kenosha roots, and remained active in supporting the Christian Youth Center there.   Mr. Ameche also remained a strong University of Wisconsin supporter and in 1984, donated his Heisman Trophy to the University.   Mr. Ameche died in Houston on August 8, 1988, from complications following open-heart surgery. He left his wife and high school sweetheart, the former Yvonne Molinaro, whom he married while in college, and five children.   Today, June 1, 2001, would have been his 68th birthday.   In 1996, Mrs. Ameche married Glenn Davis, 1946 Heisman Trophy winner.     Correctly identifying Alan "The Horse" Ameche - Dennis Metzger- Connersville, Indiana... David Crump- Owensboro, Kentucky... Adam Wesoloski- De Pere, Wisconsin... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa ("Easy for a Cheese Head")... John Bothe- Oregon, Illinois... Dave Petrie- Wappingers Falls, New York... Scott Russell- Sterling, Virginia... Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois ("As soon as I read that the player's nickname was "the Horse", I knew you were referring to Alan Ameche. (I guess I've lived in the midwest too long.) I was wondering... do you think that "The Greatest Game Ever Played" would still have that moniker if the Colts had kicked a field goal instead of going for the TD when they got within range?")... Mike O'Donnell - Pine City, Minnesota... Kevin McCullough- Lakeville, Indiana... John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... Tom Compton- Durant, Iowa... John Urbaniak- Hanover Park, Illinois ("I remember him and blocking for Johnny U. So did everyone in my neighborhood. What a game that was, in the dirt at Yankee Stadium. After the game all the kids came streaming out of our houses and had a quick pick-up game in the vacant lot next next to our church. Although he scored the winning touchdown in the game, the real hero in that game was Johnny U. Everyone wanted to play quarterback after that game, in my neighborhood. ")... Dave Potter- Durham, North Carolina ( "He was the Colts' all-time leading rusher until Lydell Mitchell - I think")... Mike Benton- Colfax, Illinois... *********** "Your Memorial Day News page is a classic. I encouraged my kids to read it and they were moved. We all will be reading Mr. Moore's book this summer. You'll be hard-pressed to top this effort, but I suspect you'll find a way." Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois *********** "Coach Wyatt, I just read the May 28th 2001 news of your website. I thought it was beautiful and a job well done." Jim Kuhn, Greeley, Colorado *********** Coach: Thank you, thank you, thank you for printing "In Flanders Fields" and the preface to "We Were Soldiers Once And Young" and giving the excellent background information for both. Having spoken a few words of introduction last night at the European premiere of "Pearl Harbor", I very much had the themes of duty, honor and country on my mind. I gave the Slovenian audience an introduction to Memorial Day which was remarkably similar to yours, then explained why "Pearl Harbor" gave vivid meaning to Jefferson's statement (or restatement) that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Noting that Slovenia celebrated its tenth anniversary as an independent nation in a few weeks (June 25th), I concluded by asking one and all to be grateful that others are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice that we might enjoy the blessings of liberty. It went over very well." Ted Seay, United States Embassy, Ljubljana, Slovenia   *********** Dear Coach Wyatt; Just thought I'd drop you a note and tell you how much I appreciated your taking time out to observe memorial day by calling peoples' attention to America's fallen. As a military member, grandson, and son of former soldiers, Memorial Day strikes in a quite special place in my heart. My grandfather, Richard "Bud" Kundert (Koon-DIRT), was a baker from Monroe, Wisconsin, who had the unwelcome responsibility of providing for a large family. His father, not to put too fine a point on it, was a drunk, and "Buddy" was the one responsible for the family income. In order to provide for them, he joined the reserves and was called up for Korea.   After being wounded, he elected to complete his tour of duty. More than that, he realized that the Army offered him the best possible chance to make a life for his new bride and baby girl: my mother, who was born in 1953, the year we officially entered the Korean War.   He switched to active duty, and became a paratrooper, serving in the elite 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. He was such an invaluable training asset that he was sent in 1965 to a small Southeast Asian country no one had ever heard of before. I'm sure you know the one.   He served two complete combate tours in Viet Nam, and was wounded on each tour. The first time, a mortar landed directly behind him, and blew him face down in a ditch. The impact fractured his spine, and left him partially paralyzed (temporarily). He was picked up on the last sweep for survivers through that area, when one of the searchers wandered off the path to urinate and happened to look down into the ditch. I was one canteen of water and a fragile bladder away from never knowing my grandfather.   The second time my grandfather was wounded in Viet Nam, it was a rifle bullet that remained in his shoulder for the rest of his life. At times the lead would seep through his skin and discolor his shirts.   My grandfather earned a number of decorations, but none were more richly deserved than three purple hearts. As long as I knew him he was barely able to turn his head, because the broken back had left him with permanent arthritus.   If I seem to have more than the usual respect and admiration for my grandfather, it's because my mom was a single parent, who worked three jobs and went to college full time. Her iron will, inherited honorably from my grandfather, resulted in a graduation GPA of 4.0, and Cum Laude honors. Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, her schedule meant that I spent most of my younger years with my grandparents.   In 1986, he suffered a heart attack that destroyed all but 28% of his heart. With his typical bluntness, he replied to the doctor's diagnosis with, "I don't have time for a heart attack. I have to give a presentation in Vancouver (WA) tomorrow. Can I come back on Thursday?" They said no.   In 1987, AFTER that heart attack, my grandfather fulfilled one of his wishes. My grandmother and I discovered his jump log of paratrooper training drops in 1995. Reading it, we realized that he made his last two jumps to become Jumpmaster qualified in August of 1987, thirteen months AFTER his heart attack. He was that type of man, the type to sneak into his Commanding Officer's office and place himself back on active duty status after a colostomy, so he could take place in a training jump, a jump he made with his intestines in a baggy under his uniform.   He was the first, the very first, CW05 in the history of the United States Army. He was advanced to that rank 45 minutes after he died from congestive heart failure following surgery to place a mini pacemaker in his chest. He was 56. The year was 1989. I was in ninth grade. I am now 27, and despite the decade and a third, I still think of him every day.   I remember him as a large, gentle man who never missed a single football game or wrestling meet. As a private joke, he always made sure to ask me how many runs I scored after every football game. It made me mad at the time, but looking back I realize now that it made our 45-0 drubbings more bearable, and he knew that. He had played football, coincidently at my position and wearing the number I would wear forty years later, until he had to get a job and support his family.   The only time I ever saw him angry was when I had the temerity to bad mouth my mother in front of him.   Why am I writing this to you? Because Sonoma County in California doesn't care. I ran four miles through my neighborhood on Monday, and counted five flags. The town square of Santa Rosa, usually filled on weekends with grunge bands, Gay Pride rallies, and environmentalist protests, was silent. I live in a state where a woman lived in a tree for a year and was called a hero, while true heros are ignored and forgotten.   I am ashamed of where I live.   Monday at 1500, three pm for civilians, our President called for a moment of silence. On hiway 101, my car was the only one to pull over. As I sat with my head bowed, thinking about my grandfather, about my father, and about the veterans of WWII that were proudly wearing their old unit covers (hats) when I went to see "Pearl Harbor" on Sunday, three people blared their horns as they roared past my parked vehicle.   I'd like to think they were saying, "I can't stop now, but I'm with you in spirit," but I just can't make myself believe it.   Oh, and the beaches were packed Monday. Bodega Bay had the largest turnout of surfers and picknickers so far this year. Guess everyone had higher priorities. I hope that nice tan they got was worth it.   Pearl Harbor made $75 million last weekend. At an average of $5.00 per ticket (matinee's and such) that's 1.5 MILLION people that got a 60 foot screen view of the horror of combat. Hollywood-ized or not, the movie was frighteningly real enough to bring tears to my eyes- and I wasn't at Pearl Harbor, like the elderly gentlemen I saluted at the door were.   So, I wrote this book to you to thank you. I want you to know how much your words meant to me, and how much I appreciate your willingness to, like my grandfather, stand up for what is right.   Very Respectfully, Derek Wade, Electronics Technician 2nd Class, United States Coast Guard (Coach Wade is an assistant coach at Tomales High, a Double-Wing school) *********** I heard from a fellow coach who respectfully took exception to my shots at Senator Jim Jeffords and the little weasel named Steve Tyler, who desecrated our national anthem at the Indianapolis 500. He is, I assured him, certainly entitled to his opinion. We all come at our opinions from different experiences and different perspectives. As I pointed out, the major difference between his opinion and mine is that I happen to have a web site on which I can express mine. Two of mine are (1) that when you change from the party that helped you get elected - and you do so for personal gain, at the most opportune time (just after being elected as a Republican, and before Strom Thurmond dies or someone else beats you to it) - you risk being seen by many as an opportunist, and (2) when you decide to alter the star-spangled banner for entertainment purposes, you are dishonoring people who don't remember it that way. Both of those gentlemen had the right to do what they did - neither will be legally punished for doing so. On the other hand, nowhere in the Constitution is there a right not to be criticized - even harshly. Every football coach knows that. *********** On Monday night - Memorial Day - PBS ran a documentary entitled "Return With Honor." It was a two-hour special dealing with the imprisonment - sometimes for years - of American fliers shot down over North Vietnam, and the incredible courage and faith - and honor - they displayed during their ordeal. They were tortured and they were starved. They were kept in isolation in the most gruesome of conditions. They were shown film of anti-war demonstrations taking place back home. They were driven to the point where, in the words of one of them, "the only thing you had left was honor." They were determined to return. But they would return with honor. They refused to cooperate with their captors. They refused to accept release until others ahead of them in the prescribed order were released. And when they finally made it home and were honored, they thought immediately of the millions of others who returned from Vietnam and weren't similarly honored. They fought a constant battle to maintain their wits. They occupied their minds memorizing the names of every prisoner they knew of, in the event that they might one day be released. Every Sunday, even for those in isolation, there was "church." At a pre-arranged sound made by their senior ranking officer, they would all rise and, each in his own cell, say the Lord's Prayer, following which they would all stand and face the East, in the approximate direction of the United States, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. When they finally were brought together, for security purposes, they amused one another in highly innovative ways. There were "movies" at night: one former prisoner, a great fan of John Wayne, remembered narrating the plots of various of Duke's films. Other prisoners conducted school, teaching lessons in topics in which they were knwledgeable, such as foreign languages and engineering. One of them, an expert golfer, gave lessons, using the only thing resembling a gold club, the "sh-- stick" with which they stirred the latrine. When release finally came, they talked of the thrill they felt when the wheel of their plan left the ground in Vietnam; a video camera caught them in the cabin, shouting, cheering and shaking hands. They told of how it felt, after years of imprisonment, to arrive at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, and experience soft mattresses, hot showers and "real soap." They recalled eating foods they'd only dreamed of - as much as they wanted. Of pitchers of water in their rooms - with ice cubes in them! Of finally having a dentist looking at the tooth that had been bothering them for years. The senior officer speaking for all of them, said, "We're profoundly grateful to our Commander in Chief," (President Nixon) for having made their release possible, and then spontaneously ended his comments with, "God Bless America!" Back home, though, the return was not always easy. Their wives, brave women who would have made Penelope proud, had had to run their households by themselves, and there was often a struggle for power within the family as Dad tried to regain what he thought was his rightful role. But most of them made it, and judging from the way they spoke in the show, they are better men for having survived the experience. "We got through these day-to-day ordeals, these so-called crises, and they're not crises," said one of them. "They're nothing." Summed up another, "It beats the heck out of being killed in action." *********** If you were a defensive back and you knew the opposing quarterback had completed 12 straight passes and was only one pass short of the all-time league record for consecutive completions, would you intercept or bat down his next pass, if you could? If you knew a runner on the other team needed one more yard to break a single-game rushing record, would you tackle him for a loss, if you could? If the other team was beating you by 21 points and you were on their one-yard line with time for one last play, would you try to score, even if it meant ruining their shutout? If you answered "yes," to all of those questions, you are probably a football guy. If you started to answer, "well...", you are probably a baseball guy. On Saturday night, Arizona pitcher Curt Schilling had a perfect game going against San Diego, when the Padres' Ben Davis broke it up in the eighth inning by laying down a bunt and making it to first safely. Arizona manager Bob Brenly atributed it to Davis' inexperience. "He's got a lot to learn about how the game is played," Brenly said of Davis. "For him to bunt in the eighth inning of a no-hit game is uncalled-for." Huh? The score was 2-0 at the time. Uh, it was still possible for the Padres to win, Brenly! But then, I guess that's baseball. Give me hockey. Tuesday night, Patrick Roy of the Colorado Avalanche was exactly one minute and 41 seconds shy of the all-time NHL record for the longest time without allowing a goal in Stanley Cup finals play, when the New Jersey Devils scored on him. Nobody said it was "uncalled-for." The Devils went on to win, 2-1. *********** "Unfortunately too few of us share your views about discipline and patriotism. Yale students, faculty and administration have nothing on those at my former college-Dartmouth." Dave Petrie, Wappingers Falls, New York *********** "From Gueydan, Louisiana, where he ran the Double-Wing and took Gueydan to its first-even state playoff berth, Coach Ward Courville has moved to Ville Place, a larger school. he writes, "We started putting in the Double-Wing last week. My B-back weighs 245 and runs a 4.8 40. My two wings both run 4.5 or better. My center weighs in at 365. This is really going to be fun running the Double-Wing with this group." *********** "You want a possible future topic of discussion? Get this, our VP for Fundraising ran off with about $4000 from our coffers. B-----! I hate to say this but out of 5 ball clubs I have been with in the last 15 years, this is the THIRD time this has happened. We are a new ball club and need to get some equipment purchased, and now this. Just venting a bit. We have filed a police report but we will NEVER see that money again." It is astounding to me how frequently I read about this happening in the Portland-Vancouver area alone. I'm sure that we don't have a corner on embezzlers out here, so I am beginning to get the idea that nationwide, running off with funds belonging to youth sports organizations must be as easy as stealing candy from babies. Literally. *********** Hi Coach, I enjoyed (if that is the correct sentiment) your Memorial Day news. It really put things in perspective. I'll have to find that book (We Were Soldiers Once, And Young," Hal Moore's book about Vietnam). Speaking of books, I just read cover to cover in one sitting "Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger... wow. I had wanted to read it for years, and was lucky enough to get a hard back 1st edition w/ dust jacket on eBay for $5.00. You recently discussed some good books on coaching. I wouldn't hesitate to add this one, especially if you coach football in some of the cradles like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, etc. Although it was pretty fanatical, I have seen first hand here in Western PA. communities live and die with the high school team. Boosters and former players relive their 3 years in the spotlight and don't see the forest through those trees in their memory. Players who were once icons and idols are now everyday working class people who blend into day-to-day life like the star quarterback or tailback before them. They spend a lot of time downing a few and at the local watering hole and seem to always think that their team would have beaten this current team. Unfortunately very few rarely escape (or ever desire to) the constraints of the local economy. They marry the cheerleader, get a mild (or severe) case of Dunlap's Disease, have some kids, and wait for that boy of theirs to not make the mistakes the old man did...with his "help". Now not all former players are like this. I could name towns and teams that seem to be far worse than others. Not every former 2nd team all -league player has Heisman hopes for Junior. But it is still alive and kicking and sad to see, primarily for the kids. Just because they are stuck in the "eternal huddle" is no reason for build false expectations about the abilities of Junior, his teammates, and especially the coaches who often work for way below minimum wage by the time you count the hours put in. As for the book, I still can't believe that in Texas AAAAA a coin toss is the 1st tiebreaker, but one passage grabbed me by the throat: "It was the sound of teenage boys weeping uncontrollably over a segment of their lives that they knew had just ended forever" My senior year, not only was it our last game, but that week our coach announced it was his last game. We were playing a team our coach had never beaten. All of the emotion of that last week, the last practice, the Senior Lap, it all came to a head when it was time to take the field that Saturday afternoon. The seniors gathered rather spontaneously and unplanned before the game for a picture that to me is priceless. I had been playing alongside (and against) most of these guys since I was 11. All that time in the sun, snow, rain and mud, all the sweat and pain, untold hours in the weightroom and hitting a sled and each other, the doubles (and triples) of August, where the feel of cold dew seeping through your pants at 6 AM while you stretched woke you up. The practice jersey standing by itself, stiff with sweat. The time I lost 12 pounds in a 2 hour practice. The thousands and thousands of practiced techniques and plays. The time where I Iooked up on defense and saw 2 Division 1 signees line up across from me guard to tackle to tight end... and then hitting them again and again and again when running into a cement wall would have been as constructive. The nights with ice bags of my knees, enough cuts, bruises and bumps to last a lifetime. The time I reached to make a tackle in a JV game and 2 helmets collided on my hand, breaking my thumb right before halftime. My dad ran over to the concession stand, bought a Klondike (had the presence to eat it quickly and got a brain freeze) and then busting the stick to use as a makeshift splint which we taped up and I played the 2nd half...all coming down to this. To say we wanted our last game is an understatement. We gathered in our field house for the last time before a game, a very special moment coach and player share. Coach told us to buckle up. We gathered like sardines at the exit to the field house. He paused at the door, and slowly turned to address us one last time. The faint echo of fans milling, kids yelling, the band playing lingered in the air, muted by bricks and mortar and tempered by a thunderous silence as our helmeted eyes met his. Tears rolled down his face and he quietly said, "Let's do it." If he hadn't opened the door at that moment, we would have made a new one. We beat that team 14-13 with a late 4th quarter touchdown and a 2 point conversion out of a Hollywood script. I am not ashamed to say a close friend and I walked the length of our field after that last game, our senior year, still in uniform, arms around one another, crying like those boys in Texas. Todd Bross, Sharon, Pennsylvania (I am not a great fan of Friday Night Lights and what I thought was the author's betrayal of a community whose hospitality he accepted, but I am impressed by the effect it had on Coach Bross, and undoubtedly there are many others like him.) *********** Nine-year-old Nathan Walters, on a field trip with his third-grade classmates from Logan Elementary School in Spokane, Washington, carefully picked through the sack lunch he'd been given. He gave away his peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. He gave away the trail mix. Then he took a bite of his cookie - and within hours, he was dead. Unbeknownst to him, the cookie contained peanut butter, and he was allergic to peanuts. Like more than six million adults and children in the United States, Nathan had a severe allergy to a food, and his single bite of a peanut butter cookie brought on anaphylaxis, a rapidly-progressing reaction in persons allergic to certain foods, medications - usually injected - and insect stings that in his case killed him. It is estimated that 30,000 people every year receive emergency treatment for anaphylaxis, and that hundreds of them die. I happen to love peanuts, and like most people, I eat them without any problems. Americans consume an average of seven pounds of peanuts per person every year. But for a person with a peanut allergy, danger can lurk on a carelessly wiped-off cafeteria table. People who are in danger of an anaphylactic reaction to something are normally aware of the danger as a result of a previous allergic response, usually mild, and may even carry an emergency supply of epinephrine, in a special syringe called an epi-pen, in case of an attack. (I have coached, and carried the epi-pens of, kids who were extremely allergic to insect stings. That can be a scary thing in those warm days of early fall when yellow jackets start stoking up on protein for the winter.) The majority of cases in which ingestion of food allergens has resulted in death occur away from home. Schools take precautions to see to it that allergic children are kept away from dangerous foods, and food-sharing is often discouraged. Even so, it is difficult to ensure total safety. Says Amie Rappoport, Administrative Director, Food Allergy Initiative, "the only way to avoid an allerguc reaction is to avoid the food." According to Ms. Rappoport, the eight most common allergens, in order, are: peanuts, nuts from trees, shellfish, eggs, fish, milk, soy, and wheat. *********** When Anna Aoki runs in the 10,000 at the NCAA track and field championships at Eugene, Oregon Saturday, it will be her 10th NCAA championship meet (indoor, outdoor and cross-country) since entering the University of Washington four years ago. Anna has done a lot of running since starting as a third-grader at Vancouver, Washington's Lieser Elementary School, where my wife and my daughter, Cathy, first coached her.

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