Published continually since 1998, "NEWS YOU CAN USE" was a Blog before "Blog" was even a word! Its intention has been to help inform the football coach and the interested football observer on a wide variety of topics, usually - but not always - related in some way to coaching or leadership. It contains news and views often (trigger alert!) highly opinionated but intended to be thought-provoking. Subjects cover but aren't limited to coaching, leadership, character, football history and current football happenings, education, parenting, citizenship and patriotism, other sports, and even, sometimes, my offense.
FRIDAY, JULY 4, 2025 “Our country won't go on
forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't be any America -
because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and
breed a hardier race.” General Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, USMC
 "THANK YOU FOR WATCHING OVER OUR COUNTRY" |
We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right
of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
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powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Goverments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But
when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and
to provide new Guards for their future security. |
NEXT ZOOM CLINIC - NUMBER 181 TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2025 at 5 PM PACIFIC TIME, 8 PM EASTERN
TO GET ON THE INVITE LIST: coachhw@mac.com
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Don made no effort to be buddy-buddy with the players. He was a strong disciplinarian. It took many of those who played for Don James a little time and some perspective to fully appreciate him as a coach. The players often felt, until after they graduated, that he was a little on the aloof side. Maybe that word is a bit strong, but he wasn't trying to be the players’ pal, not at all. And the athletes’ reaction was confirmed by the distance of his tower from the practice field. There was no hint that Don was trying to tell his team, “Hey, fellas! I'm a good guy, I want to be loved.” He wasn't that way.
If a player got a message from Don saying, "I want to see you in my office,” it was like a summons to the guillotine.
Discipline is important in life, and I think every player who played for Don James will at some point agree there's nothing wrong with discipline. Don didn't make a lot of speeches or demands, but they knew that you played by the rules: the playing rules, the academic rules, and the social rules. If anything, he was a master of presenting the image of a head coach who was respected from every angle.
One of the greatest things about Don was that he never blew his own horn. That was not his style. He let his success and accomplishments stand on the record. One of the things every successful coach I've been around preached was paying attention to detail. And don't ever forget what got you where you are after becoming successful.
His presence and the strength of character and faith in what he did and how he prepared – from the start of his coaching career and as a head coach – was a significant example for the University of Washington and the Seattle area.
The concepts and philosophies James used so successfully to prepare for being a head coach came about through a series of mentors, including Bill Peterson at Florida State, Eddie Crowder at Colorado, Bump Elliott at Michigan and a couple of disciples of Bear Bryant and Paul Dietzel.
IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW HIM… Mike Lude grew up on a farm near Kalamazoo, Michigan. He played football at Hillsdale College before and after World War II service in the Marine Corps, then became an assistant to Dave Nelson, first at Hillsdale and then at Maine. It was at Maine that as line coach he helped Nelson devise what came to be called (after he moved with Nelson to Delaware) the Delaware Wing-T. From there, Mike went on to become head coach at Colorado State, then AD at Kent State, Washington, and Auburn. Mike had a remarkable career and lived a full life. He was a very impressive man, and it was my great privilege to know him for the last 20 years of his life. Since his passing (at 101) in March, 2024, I have tried to do my part in keeping his memory alive by reprinting segments of his autobiography, “Walking the Line.”
*********** I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
A Yankee Doodle do or die!
A real-live nephew of my Uncle Sam,
Born on the Fourth of July…
NFLers, past and present, born on the Fourth of July…
Erich Barnes
Emerson Boozer
Bob Breunig
Rick Casares
Floyd Little
Josh McCown
Roosevelt Taylor
*********** From the Los Angeles Times: In 2024, almost 15,000 Americans were treated for firework-related injuries — a jump of more than 50% from the year prior, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
So what’s the problem with “firework-related injuries”…vets who suffer from PTSD… brush fires… dogs who panic and escape and run away… explosions at 1 in the morning?
Let freedom ring.
*********** With SMU in Dallas and Texas State in San Marcos, the Atlantic and the Pacific are now less than a four hours’ drive apart.
*********** The late Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, died recently.
He said that of all the people he learned about, the one whose example meant the most to him was General George C. Marshall.
As Army Chief of Staff during World War II, he reported to the President. He was Eisenhower’s boss and MacArthur’s boss, and more than any one individual (including President Roosevevelt) he was responsible for the success of our overall war effort.
After the War, as Secretary of State under President Truman, he was responsible for the planning and execution of what came to be called the Marshall Plan - the effort to help Europe recover economically from the War.
He was highly respected as a man of courage, dignity, strength and integrity, and a man interested only in getting results, regardless of who received the credit.
Said Mr. Smith, “My father died when I was four. As I grew up, I searched for role models, in all the history I read. And I’ve tried to model my life on Marshall’s leadership.”
*********** The more I see of the CFL, the less respect I have for the quality of play. With the exception of one guy - Saskatchewan’s 5-9, 210 A. J, Ouellette - the overall CFL running game is pathetic. And the passing game suffers, too - probably because I think I have yet to see a game in which both teams’ number one QBs are playing.
*********** It’s rare that you’ll see a play of more than 100 yards. It’s even rarer that you’ll see two of them in the same game. And it’s unprecedented (for me) to see one guy do it - go more than 100 yards twice - in the same game.
But that’s what Toronto defensive back Derek Slywka (pronounced SLEW-kuh), a rookie from Ithaca College, did last weekend against Ottawa.
Bear in mind that the Canadian field is 110 yards long, but still…
In the first period, with Ottawa driving, an Ottawa receiver fighting for extra yardage forgot to protect the ball. The ball was knocked loose and Slywka alertly scooped it up on his own five. Untouched, he raced 105 yards (110 yard field, remember) for a touchdown. It was, we were informed, the fourth-longest such play in CFL history.
Early in the second half, Ottawa attempted a fairly short field goal. The CFL end zones are 20 yards deep, and even a missed field goal will be worth a point to the kicking team if it can’t bring the ball out of the end zone, so Slywka was waiting in the end zone, just in case. Well, damned if the field goal wasn’t blocked, and Slywka, fielding it in the end zone, took off to his left. Seeing no chance for success in that direction, he abruptly reversed field and headed to the right, and catching the entire Ottawa team flatfooted, he crossed the goal line into the field of play and suddenly found himself with a clear field in front of him. When he crossed the goal line, he was credited with a 120-yard return.
*********** I have an issue with the young women on the University of Pennsylvania swim team who had a male-posing-as-a-female foisted on them - and appeared to do nothing about it.
These Ivy League women are supposedly leaders of tomorrow - proud, strong young women, capable of doing any “man’s job.” Capable of coaching a man’s football team, if given the chance… capable of leading men into battle.
You’ll just have to believe that’s true in the case of the Penn swimmers, for lack of evidence. Because it appears that not a single one of them had the - okay, balls - to tell that poseur to put that thing back in his pants and get the hell out of their locker room. Were they waiting for a man to do it?
*********** Fewer sports figures in the Pacific Northwest are more respected - revered, even - than Lenny Wilkens.
He was the coach of the Trail Blazers when I was with the WFL Portland Thunder. I met him on a couple of occasions and was very impressed with how nice and friendly a guy he was.
It was his only year as coach (after serving one season as player-coach) and he didn’t have great success in Portland and he moved on. (Jack Ramsay came in right behind him and in his first season won the NBA title - Portland’s only one.)
After a year off, Lenny was hired as head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics. He coached the Sonics for eight seasons - earlier, before taking the Portland job, he had been Seattle’s player coach - and in 1979 he won his (and their) only title.
While Seattleites were mourning Oklahoma City’s NBA title win with what many of them still consider “their" team, they were honoring Lenny Wilkens with a statue - outside their arena, which still lacks an NBA team.
I write this as part of my complaint about the realism of the statue, depicting as it supposedly does a player who was famously left-handed.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45605975/lenny-wilkens-1st-statue-climate-pledge-arena
*********** John Canzano says…
The Pac-12 has now pivoted its focus to adding a football-only member, sources tell JohnCanzano.com. Adding a ninth football-playing member would create an eight-game conference football schedule, relieving the burden of finding one more non-conference game. It would also add tonnage and value to the Pac-12’s TV deal.
Who are the candidates? Is the University of Memphis still a target?
How about another Texas-based football member? UTSA? Rice University? Someone else?
*********** Jealousy is a cancerous thing.
Caitlin Clark’s popularity has meant great gains for the WNBA and its players, and it is no surprise that she has received more All-Star votes from fans than any other WNBA player.
But in a vote of the WNBA players, Clark was rated ninth. WTF?
I can’t say it’s a feminine thing, so I won’t, but I have heard enough stories about small-thinking women’s sports coaches, whose very livelihood depended on revenues from football, whining about the attention football gets.
The only parallel I can draw to Caitlin Clark is Red Grange in the early days of the NFL. People all over the country wanted to see him (television did not yet exist) and when his eligibility at Illinois was up and the Chicago Bears signed him and went on a barnstorming tour, crowds packed stadiums wherever they went. The NFL at the time was, to say the least, shaky, and the crowds that Grange drew meant the difference between many a team’s continued existence and its folding. I have never, in any of my research, found stories about players who didn’t appreciate Grange’s importance to them.
*********** It is really disgusting to see what passes so often for tackling nowadays, and it’s totally attributable to coaching. Tacklers leave their feet and aim at the runners’ feet and wind up lying on the ground. Tacklers go for the knockout blow but fail to use their arms. Tacklers hold on and go to the ground before the runner does. And so it goes. There’s at least one missed tackle on nearly every play.
At different places I'll watch what passes for tackling practice and seldom see anyone corrected. A kid does a halfass job and then goes to the back of the line until it’s his turn again to do another halfass job.
And then after the game, as if reading from a script, the head coach will say something about having to do a better job of tackling.
So it was a real pick-me-up to see some film of an Iowa Hawkeyes practice, because I’ll be damned if they weren’t practicing chest-to-chest tackling. Head up, locking up, feet driving, the whole deal.
Go Hawkeyes.
*********** John Trisciani and I go back a ways, to when he was an early adopter of my Double Wing and was knocking them dead as a youth coach in Manchester, New Hampshire.
I don’t think he missed many of my Providence, Rhode Island clinics, and we’d often go out to dinner afterward.
Coach Trish has gone on to coach at different Manchester area high schools, including a time as head coach at Manchester’s Trinity High School, and he’s been an assistant coach at Assumption College.
I was flattered when he sent me a copy of a message he sent out, referring to my “Safer and Surer Tackling.”
I don't teach rugby tackling nor will I. I don't coach Rugby. I coach football. I teach football tackling. I have taught the safest most effective football tackling since 1999. When I find a safer, more effective way to teach football tackling I will. I'll teach you for free.
*********** This guy Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary for Mayor in New York City… among his crazy-ass proposals: city-owned and operated grocery stores.
I was in Estonia, before the Iron Curtain came down. I saw the lines outside a “grocery store” whenever word got out that it hadn’t run out of meat. Or butter. Or milk. Or, more often, vodka.
*********** An executive order issued Wednesday by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek (yes, that’s really her name) gives each of the state’s public school districts until October 31 to come up with a policy that prohibits cellphone use for the entire school day (including passing periods and lunch).
This makes Oregon the 27th state to regulate the use of phones during the school day, prompted by concerns over not only academic distraction but also the effects on adolescents’ still-developing brains of constant exposure to social media.
*********** Hugh,
The Fred Smith quote at the opening of your blog today is so accurate. After 11 years at Beloit, mediocrity is offensive to me. Anyhow, that was a great selection.
Next, the passage from Coach Mike Lude about the legendary Don James is full of coaching wisdom. There is no detail too small for a coach who wants to create a top notch program. Further, the "tower coach" explanation from Coach James is incredibly insightful.
Great 7 on 7 report from the anonymous coach. Your passing game is far ahead of most DW schemes, and it made me look much smarter than I actually am.
In response to Coach Gutilla's query, I miss coaching in Kansas more than I care to admit. I was so blessed to spend 15 years in Kansas high school football. It reminds me of the scene in "Field of Dreams" when when a character asks, "Is this heaven?"
I had a very enjoyable lunch with Cole Shaffer today. He's doing very well. (Cole Shaffer, a former player and assistant of mine, now lives in Colorado and spent two years assisting Coach Koenig before taking another assistant’s job closer to his home and work. HW)
Rhonda and I will be in my hometown of New Rockford, ND, for a few days this weekend. New Rockford has always had outstanding celebrations for Independence Day, and that tradition continues. I'll also get together with a dozen or so of my high school classmates to celebrate our 40th class reunion.
My best to you and Connie. God bless you and God bless the USA.
Greg Koenig
Colorado Springs, Colorado
*********** Coach Lude followed by Coach James was great stuff. A HC who gives greater attention to coaching his assistants, I think, is rarer than generally believed. It's the same in most walks of life. The boss might know that's his job, but he would rather mess with what is rightly in the purview of a subordinate. I'm sure many coaches reach the tail end of their career before wishing they could take a mulligan relative to this point.
If Molly Lines reports from Philly is she supposed to say 'abeets'? Just kidding. I must admit I was pretty far along in life before I knew the correct pronunciation of Spokane...I learned because of Gonzaga U. basketball. I'm not alone in learning geography and place names because of a sports connection. Immediately after noting the preceding thought, I go back and read about Robustelli, only to note that Tusculum College, near Bull's Gap, TN, is another place I know through sports.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
If you’re ever in Spokane, don’t ask how to get to Gon-ZOGG-a!
*********** Coach,
Do you think us D'Wingers would have been "tower" coaches?
I think ESPN should have contacted one Hugh Wyatt to get a "history" lesson on the history of the Wishbone offense.
According to the "Sporting News" (yes, they're still around), potential landing spots for Jake Retzlaff are Tennessee, Alabama, or Maryland. Of the three Tennessee and Alabama have the most $$. In today's college football world money talks.
The Supreme Court's "reaction" to the NCAA is the same as most college football fans over the last few years...Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!
Regarding the DW coach's 7 on 7 experience...I had two reasons. Defense first. Invaluable for our defenders get good work against teams that throw the ball. Offense second. It was fun to watch opposing coaches scream and complain about playing us.
It was great to read the letter from Mike Burchett. Brought back a flood of memories for me growing up in the Central Valley. His mention of Robert Dougherty, the Fresno State win over USC, and his own Woodlake-Exeter rivalry. He was likely being modest, but his Woodlake Tigers had a legendary coach in Leo Robinson. Coach Robinson's son Ron is a former MLB pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, and who was also a very talented high school QB. Yes, those were the days my friend.
https://www.woodlakefoundation.org/hof-past-inductees/blog-post-title-one-6nx32-cljdn-sscfa
Have a blessed week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
In my entire career, I haven't had a half dozen assistants that I could count on to do the job that had to be done so that I could go up in the tower.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Ron Mix grew up in Los Angeles, and went to Hawthorne High School there.
In his own words,
Midway through the fifth grade, I was walking to school through one of the many undeveloped spaces of land between my home and the school. I and a friend were smoking cigarettes because, I don’t know, we thought we were cool. The school bus went by with the faces of many kids pasted to the windows watching us, surprised to see two students smoking. I recall being pleased that so many students saw me smoking, because they surely would think I was hot stuff.
That feeling evaporated that morning when my teacher told me the school principal wanted to speak to me and that I needed to go to his office. I was certain that someone, maybe the bus driver, had told him I was smoking and that I was going to be on after–school detention for a month.
But, no, that was not the reason the principal wanted to speak to me. A few weeks earlier, the school had administered a long series of tests measuring student proficiency in math, grammar and IQ. The principal told me I had performed very well on the recent tests, and that he and my teacher believed I should be promoted to the sixth grade. He asked me if I would like to do that.
A bunch of thoughts raced through my mind: I’m only the fourth-best athlete in the fifth grade; if I move to the sixth grade, I will be way down the list. Most of the girls in the sixth grade were taller than me, so there was no chance any would like me. A lot of those sixth-grade boys were not only bigger than me, they had muscles; my tough guy ranking would likely go way down. I couldn’t tell the principal what really bothered me about being promoted a grade, so I told him I would rather stay in the fifth grade with my friends. He said that would be OK.
That decision turned out to be the most important decision I made in my life. Without it, I would not have received a football scholarship to the University of Southern California, played professional football, met my wife, or had the three children we had.
You see, I was late to mature. As a freshman in high school, I was five feet, five inches tall and weighed 125 pounds; as a sophomore: 5-8 and 140 pounds and a member of the B football team, then the high school team for undersized players; as a junior: 5-11 and 155, in my first year on the varsity and, how to put it kindly, a bench-warmer; then, finally, as a senior, a starting end on the varsity … but only because the better player ahead of me got injured.
By then, I was 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds, and easily one of the least talented players on our starting lineup. Want proof? Well, Hawthorne High School was in a league that had only six teams. At the end of the season, the only recognition I received was honorable mention; somewhat akin to a participation certificate in Little League baseball.
But I had something going for me: I loved the sport. Every now and then during my senior year on the team, I would have an instant when I would do something good. That encouraged me to believe that if I worked harder, I could become better. My dream was to play at El Camino Junior College in Torrance, California, for two years and then transfer to UCLA and try to make its team.
So, when the season ended, I decided to incorporate weightlifting as part of my training. I know you readers are thinking that would be the natural thing to do, but it was not in those days. At that time, throughout the country, coaches at all levels, from high school, college, and professional ranks, instructed players not to lift weights, believing it caused muscles to tighten up. They said it made players less athletic.
I thought two things: One, the game requires strength, so doing something that increases strength would be good. Two, I had nothing to lose, because if I did not get bigger I would not make the El Camino team. My high school did not have a weight room. Later, when I attended USC, it did not have a weight room. I began lifting at Redpath Gym in Inglewood, a city adjacent to Hawthorne.
By the end of the school year in 1956, I had grown a couple more inches and my weight had increased to 190 pounds. I was stronger and faster than I had ever been. In addition, I did sprint and agility drills and had friends throw passes to me.
Here is where good fortune entered. That year my school’s league, the Pioneer League, had agreed to play an all-star game for senior class members in July following my senior year against another group of all-stars from another league. My high school coaches, Hal Chauncey and Dave Capelouto, were named coaches for the Pioneer League. They were literally stuck with me as one of the all-star ends because, that year, the best ends in our league were two juniors who were not eligible to play in the game, and a senior who decided not to play in the game.
There were two weeks of practice before the game and, to my absolute surprise, I had become everything I ever dreamed of being as an athlete and was clearly one of the best players on our team. At that time, in both high school and college, players were required to stay in the game, playing offense and defense and special teams.
My strength, skill, and conditioning training before the two–week camp began made me stand out as a player to such an extent that one of our players from another high school in our league, who was highly recruited — including by USC — took me aside one day after practice and told me that he told USC about me. It was possible USC might send a coach to watch me in practice or in the game. I could hardly get my mind around that because, at that point, no college had expressed an interest in me ... and now USC!
The USC end coach, Bill Fisk, watched a practice and the all-star game. A week later, he contacted me and invited me to the USC campus for a lunch meeting with him and the offensive line coach, Mel Hein, the former New York Giants center and linebacker who, in 1963, was part of the inaugural class of enshrinees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Both Bill and Mel were tall and thick-bodied, both appearing to be about 50% larger than my high school coaches. It’s funny how the young mind works, but I took that to mean I was about to enter a level of football that was beyond anything I could imagine.
After Bill ordered lunch for the three of us, he said they wanted to get right to the point, that they wanted to offer me a scholarship to play football at USC and would I accept. Yes, sir, I said, hardly believing what I had heard.
I said a lot of yes sirs: I could gain more weight; I liked to block; I understood that the team ran the ball far more than passing the ball and that was all right with me.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Driving home in the black 1941 Ford coupe I had bought from my brother for $75, I made a promise to myself that was perhaps just as impactful on my life as my decision not to be promoted to the sixth grade. Whereas that earlier decision was motivated by a childish desire to not have anything interfere with my standing among classmates, the promise I made to myself, the new recruit to USC, was more altruistic.
I decided that, in return for the football scholarship, I owed USC my complete commitment to do everything possible to become the best player I could become. That meant regulating my life on and off the field. I vowed to work out year–round and not have any alcohol or sweets or soft drinks during my entire four years at USC.
I kept that promise. It wasn’t that I had an alcohol problem, but in high school, I did drink after games. The truth was that the first two days after that were wasted; instead of being able to practice effectively and improve, the days were spent recovering from the drinking. Now, as to total abstinence from alcohol and sweets for four years: Had I indulged moderately in either, it is unlikely that there would have been many adverse physical effects, but each time I declined the temptation, I was reminded of my allegiance to my school, to the football program, to my goal of proving to USC that it made the right decision when it gave me a scholarship.
In his senior year he was an All-American offensive tackle, and with a war going on between the NFL and the all-new American Football League, he was drafted in the first round of the NFL draft (10th player overall) by the Baltimore Colts. He was also taken in the first round of the AFL draft by the Boston Patriots, but his rights were traded to the Los Angeles Chargers, on the assumption that they had a better chance of signing him.
As he explained in “Going Long,” by Jeff Miller…
The Colts’ initial offer was a $1000 bonus and a $7,500 salary. The Chargers offered a two-year guaranteed contract at $12,000 each year plus a $5000 bonus. I told Don Kellett of the Colts (the GM) that I would prefer to play in the NFL if they would give me a $2000 bonus and a $10,000 contract. He said, “— , that would totally disrupt our salary structure. That is more money than most of the veterans are making. To tell you the truth, we think this league is going to fold after one year. Then we'll get you with a year’s experience, and it'll all work out.’
He signed with the Chargers. But as he said in his interview with Miller…
There's another funny story about all this. My dad came over from Russia by himself at age 13. The family name was a Russian-Jewish name – Rubinewicz. He went to work on a farm in Georgia. He took the name of the family that owned the farm. Several years later, I was told that Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner of the Colts then, remarked, “My God. If I’d have known Ron Mix was Jewish, I’d have signed him.” They had a big Jewish population. If my father hadn't taken that family’s name, I’d have been a Baltimore Colt.
He became part of a powerhouse team put together by legendary coach Sid Gillman, who by coincidence was also Jewish.
Thanks to his dedication to weight training, his strength, speed and agility - unusual in a man his size - meant that in addition to his pass blocking, Gillman was able to make great use of him in the Chargers’ running game. And that meant that he got recognition that most offensive linemen didn’t, as he told Ken Rappaport in “The Little League That Could.”
"What was great from my perspective was that I was very fast for an offensive lineman, and so Sid Gilman designed some players that were kind of unique… Tackle-pull plays. Usually an offensive lineman labors in the middle where nobody sees him but I got to pull out and lead Keith Lincoln and Paul Lowe on sweeps. It brought me some attention.”
He played in five of the first six AFL Championship games, and helped the Chargers (who had moved to San Diego) to the 1963 AFL title.
He played ten seasons with the Chargers during which time he was named All-AFL nine times, then retired. But after a year out of the game, he returned, and after a trade, played an eleventh season with the Chargers.
In all, he played in 142 games, and in his entire eleven-year career was called for holding only TWICE. (Are you listening, any of today’s offensive linemen?)
He is one of only 20 players to have played the entire ten years of the AFL’s existence, and he is a named of the All-time AFL first team.
He was the second AFL player (after Chargers’ teammate Lance Alworth) and the first Raider to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In his final year with the Raiders, he played in 12 games, on the only offensive line in NFL history to consist entirely of future Hall-of-Famers: (besides himself) Bob Brown, Jim Otto, Art Shell and Gene Upshaw.
Sid Gillman called him “the best offensive lineman I’ve ever seen.”
He was held in high regard by his fellow players, as evidenced by the role he played in the 1965 AFL All-Star game episode.
The game was scheduled to be played in New Orleans, which at the time was hopeful of getting a franchise in one of the two pro leagues. 30,000 tickets had already been sold, with an expected gate of 60,000 or more.
And then, as he tells it, from a player’s perspective…
We were sitting on the bus to go to our first practice. Sid Gilman, the West coach, was taking roll. "Bobby Bell!” No answer. "Earl Faison!” No answer. Somebody said, “Hey, all the black guys are missing!” And somebody from the back of the bus said, “They're all meeting back at the hotel.” Sid said, “What about?” “When they arrived at the airport, they couldn't get cabs. Then they wanted to go out to eat and were turned away at restaurants. They’re thinking about boycotting the game.”
So I got off the bus and went to where they were meeting.
(At the meeting) I said, "I've heard what's happened and that you're thinking of boycotting the game. Maybe it would be more important if you stayed and we played the game but we talk about what has happened to you all week and bring national attention to it.” But the consensus was it was really time to take a stand about treatment like that and that they were going to leave. I said, "Okay, then count me with you. "
The players dispersed and returned to their homes, but on short notice very quickly reassembled in Houston, where a game was in fact held - but in front of just 15,000.
In addition to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Ron Mix is a member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
He attended law school at the University of San Diego in the off-season and in 1974 was General Manager of the World Football League’s Portland Storm.
He took great pride in his role as a pioneer for the benefits of strength training, as he told Ken Rappaport:
I didn't miss a game until my 10th year when I had a knee sprain and missed six weeks. There was a reason I stayed free of injuries – I worked out, year- round.CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING RON MIX
It was a huge advantage. Gigantic advantage. I could lift 325 pounds above my head. What confidence that is when you know the guy you're playing against is 250, 260, but you could lift him over your head if you needed to.
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Mike Burchett - Woodlake, California
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** QUIZ: He was captain of the Notre Dame football team his senior year. He coached at seven different colleges - five of them as head coach. He coached three pro teams - one of them as head coach. But he’s best known for a pair of one-year stints at Notre Dame, in which he had a combined record of 9-9-1.
In the first instance, he stood in for Frank Leahy and went 7-2-1 while Leahy served in the Navy during World War II. In the second, he stepped up following the disastrous era of Joe Kuharich, and although the Irish went 2-7 and he was replaced following the season, he held the fort, and he left things better for his successor, Irish-legend-to-be Ara Parseghian.
(Our guy) was the last in a long line of Notre Dame graduates to coach the Irish, dating back 45 years to Knute Rockne in 1918.
I think his story is best told by noted football writer Francis Wallace in “Notre Dame - from Rockne to Parseghian,” and I’ve taken the liberty of lifting most of this from the book.
There are wives and wives, but none are more worthy of whatever prizes go to the more faithful and devoted wives than the spouses of assistant football coaches. Of these, none had made more housing changes while bringing up a big family than (our guy’s wife). She had married a gypsy, as the record will attest. (Our guy) , born November 25, 1910 in Newark, New Jersey, was himself the youngest of nine. He attended Saint Benedict’s Prep in Newark, captained the baseball, basketball, and football teams and enrolled at Notre Dame in 1930 as a protégé of that bluest of all the Notre Dame Old Blues, Joe Byrne. He was first string right end for three years, played alongside Moose Krause, captained the team in his senior year and majored in economics. (Moose Krause would go on to be the long-time AD at Notre Dame.)In Wallace’s words, “It was a 2–7 season, but if the games had all ended after three periods, it could have been a 7–2 season.”
He graduated in ’34, served one year under (Frank) Layden as an assistant coach, moved to Fordham in ’35 as end coach for Jim Crawley, and, with Frank Leahy, was one of the fashioners of the Seven Blocks of Granite. In 1938, he was head coach at Providence. In 1942, he was end coach at Holy Cross, and, in 1943, he returned to Notre Dame as end coach under Leahy. He was head coach in 1945, with a 7-2-1 record, and after Leahy’s return from service moved to St. Bonaventure as head coach. Three years there and it was on to New York University as top man for three more years - until the violent Violet gave up football. He tried the pros for one season, as an assistant at Green Bay, then came back to the colleges for three years at Dayton U. In 1956, he became head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, and, in 1958, it was home to Notre Dame to become freshman coach for (Terry) Brennan and (Joe) Kuharich.
Do you wonder if (Our guy’s wife) was a bit startled? Four years in one place – and now head coach – at Notre Dame? (Our guy) said, “I don't know why they picked me but I'm going to make it the best football season I've ever had.” They had picked him for many reasons. He was on the job; he knew the material; he had coached all the varsity men as freshmen; he had met all the incoming freshmen while on the recruiting trail. He was a thoroughly seasoned coach, a completely dedicated Notre Dame man, certainly one of the most popular, not only among alumni but among the press. As you use the word to describe masculine affection, (our guy) was beloved. I doubt if any coach ever was greeted or supported by warmer feeling.
A head coach in Rockne’s time had to know all about his squad because he had little help. He could do a good job of knowing all he needed to know because the game was simpler. But in these days of highly specialized recruiting, television, offensive and defensive unit, electronic devices, and fancy gimmickry, the head coach depends on a large staff for personnel evaluation. Our guy had inherited a staff associated with failure and at least one member thought he should have succeeded Kuharich. The administration had been marking time, hoping as everybody in football was hoping, that Old Reliable would make it. When it became apparent that he would not make it, the search was resumed.
Cautious candidates hesitated, canny men used the possibility of going to Notre Dame as levers with which to pry long-term, better-terms contracts from current employers. Upon invitation, I passed on a name that seemed to have come from an inspired source. This man might very well have had the job, but his athletic director objected vigorously and his alumni came up with one of those comprehensive insurance policies that seem to take care of all future contingencies. All this stopped when an impatient Armenian-Presbyterian (Ara Parseghian), whom nobody had thought of, applied for the most challenging coaching job - and got it.
(Our guy) became assistant athletic director and went to work on his first assignment of easing the way of the Outsider into the Irish clan. He had, in fact, been doing just that during his tenure as head coach. Though he hadn't featured a passing game, (he) left the new man a passer (John Huarte) and a bunch of guys who were eager to become winners. He had improved the defense and the morale; the flesh might have weakened in the final periods, but never the spirit. (His) boys had managed a major upset over USC, and had come close to a bigger one over Michigan State. He had reestablished relations with alumni Bird Dogs. He had left the shelves stocked with just about everything the new man would need, including immediate loyal service from (him).
After the 1963 Coach of the Year dinner at the Waldorf in New York, I sat with him in a corridor as the coaches streamed out. He had been mentioned for the honor after his first four games. I told him that with a break here or there, a few more lineman, if (Daryle) Lamonica had had another year, the coaches might have been honoring him instead of Darrell Royal of Texas. “Yep,” said the gallant old war horse, “That's the way it goes. Have you seen Ara?”
With Moose Krause out pumping funds for a badly needed field house, (our guy) assumed many administrative duties. He had earned a lifetime job at the school he loved, but he preferred the excitement and satisfaction of coaching. Early in 1966, when the call came to join the staff of the Houston Oilers of the American Football League, the gridiron gypsy was off and running.
He spent five years coaching at Houston, then another 15 years as director of promotions for the Houston Sports Authority.
He died on December 8, 1992. Ironically, Moose Krause died three days later.
If you know who this is, send your answer to coachwyatt@aol.com - be sure to type QUIZ on the subject line
TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2025 “If you brook mediocrity,
eventually you will become mediocre.” Fred Smith, FedEx founder********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: The success Don James' teams had on the playing field was critical in everything I did to make the intercollegiate athletic program financially healthy at a time it could have lapsed into a death spiral. Washington consistently has led the Pac-10 schools in football attendance, despite head-to-head competition from three major league professional franchises in the Seattle market – for both ticket sales and media attention.
In my years in sports, I've been around some great, great coaches, and as far as I'm concerned Don James is the best. There are many reasons I believe this, encompassing a wide range of qualities.
Nobody was ever better organized. He put a premium on Precision organization and on coaching his coaches. There was no standing around or wasted moments on the practice field. He made sure his staff and his players paid attention to detail. He was relentless about going back over all the things that got his teams to the point that they were when they were successful. He put a premium on not accepting mistakes; he was obsessed with corrective mistakes, fixing the things that didn’t work.
The attention James demonstrated to all three parts of the game created a national reputation for teams featuring disciplined offenses, tough, aggressive defenses, and well-schooled special teams.
He never forgot the importance of the last thirty-six hours before a game, the fine-tuning of reviewing with the staff every possible situation and being ready for it. He went over details of the substitution plan so there never could be too many men on the field.
He knew how to set priorities and set goals and how to work to take care of those priorities and achieve the goals.
There was some joking about him being a “tower” coach, a reference to the twenty-foot-high platform he often used during practices in Husky Stadium. But it worked well for him. The tower was a great vantage point from which to watch his assistants and his players and he didn't miss a thing. He made extensive notes and later he would critique each practice at staff meetings.
June 30 was Mike's 103rd birthday!
IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW HIM… Mike Lude grew up on a farm near Kalamazoo, Michigan. He played football at Hillsdale College before and after World War II service in the Marine Corps, then became an assistant to Dave Nelson, first at Hillsdale and then at Maine. It was at Maine that as line coach he helped Nelson devise what came to be called (after he moved with Nelson to Delaware) the Delaware Wing-T. From there, Mike went on to become head coach at Colorado State, then AD at Kent State, Washington, and Auburn. Mike had a remarkable career and lived a full life. He was a very impressive man, and it was my great privilege to know him for the last 20 years of his life. Since his passing (at 101) in March, 2024, I have tried to do my part in keeping his memory alive by reprinting segments of his autobiography, “Walking the Line.”
*********** Mike Lude referred to Don James as a “tower coach.” In his autobiography, “James,” Coach James explained why that was.
I was the defensive coordinator at Florida State, Michigan and Colorado. Yet, the first thing I did when I became a head coach was to go out and hire a defensive coordinator.
I feel my job is to coach the coaches, who in turn coach the players. In my opinion, the number one role of the head coach is to tie the whole package together. Get the coaches and the players going. Get the coordinators going. It's a matter of being the manager of the managers.
Many head coaches at the major college level take on a specific coaching responsibility. If the head coach is to coach a position or try to coordinate either the offense or defense, he will lose something that I don't want to lose in the overall scheme. How does he know what's going on at the other end of the field during practice?
Most of the head coaches I worked with were offensive coaches. As their defensive coordinator I had much of the responsibility to run the defense without interference or input from the head coach. But I didn't want it to work that way when I was the head coach. I didn't have an attitude that I had to coordinate anything, but I want to know what's going on with the offense, defense and the kicking game.
I had a full complement of coaches when I was at Kent State. I didn't want to be on one end of the field and have a coach at the other end of the field swearing at a player or putting hands aggressively on a player or anything like that. Or making decisions on personnel that I didn't happen to see. Where I am, I can see everything that is going on. I can settle all the debates on personnel at the next morning’s staff meeting and I can help make good decisions because I have seen the complete practice.
If I were involved with the offense or the defense, I could have a weak coach making bad decisions with the special teams and never know it.
That's why I wanted to be a tower coach. I wanted to be involved in everything, but not run everything with a hands-on approach.
I had known some coaches who were tower coaches. Bear Bryant, of course, is the best known for having used that method. There were two things about being a tower coach that made it feel right for me.
First, if you are down on the field with either the offense or the defense, you can't know what is going on with the other side of the ball. Secondly, if an assistant coach is working with his position players, it would be easy to step in and say, "No, that's not the way I want it done. I want it done this way.“
That could be perceived by the players as putting the assistant down. I want the players to have a total respect for the position coach.
When up in the tower observing, I take lots of notes. Then in our daily staff meetings, I'll coach the coaches on what I want done. Then the assistants will coach the players.
We always film or video the practices. At the coaches meeting the next morning, when we critique the practice, everybody has input. That's when I can say to an assistant, "I don't want it done that way,” or "That's not the way to coach that guy.”
Once in a while although it's rare I might get mad and come down from the tower to straighten out something during a practice. But in most cases I try to put it in writing. I also try to avoid getting on a coach right after practice.
I've learned how not to say anything until after I've slept on it. It might not seem so serious the next day. And I can be more constructive in my criticism. I just do a better job. You can correct it in a way that the assistant can get something out of it.
Our practices are well planned in advance and very detailed. Everything is scripted from start to finish. At any moment during the practice I can tell by the play being run down on the field exactly where we are.
I don't just sit up in the tower and say nothing. If things aren't going as well as I think they should, I can either come down or use a megaphone to get a point across.
I suppose some of my players, particularly the younger ones, may have been intimidated by my being up in the tower during practice. But it allows me to make objective decisions without personal involvement. More importantly, it gives me a clear view of the entire field and everything that is going on.
*********** If you’d asked me to name ten places where I’d least expect some a$$hole to shoot at police or firefighters, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho would be high on the list for sure.
In fact, it would also be high on any list of places where I’d figure the sheriff could just sit back and let the locals deal with the shooter.
Most people seem to say “CORE duh LANE.” Most people around here say “KERR duh LANE.” It’s a nice little city of about 60,000 on the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene, one of the most beautiful bodies of water in the United States. As people around the country continue to learn of the beauty of Coeur d’Alene, its population continues to explode.
Despite what you might think, it’s not exactly in the sticks. It’s on a major Interstate only about 30 miles east of Spokane, Washington, and the land between them continues to develop (and the traffic along with it). During the Scamdemic, when Washington’s far left government attempted a complete shutdown of the state, restaurants and bars in Idaho, just 20 minutes away, did a booming business.
One thing that the story of the shooter did was reveal a remarkable lack of quality control at Fox News, where a reporter named Molly Lines continually mispronounced “Spokane.” Did it four different times. No, Fox, it’s not Spo-CANE. It’s Spo-CAN, as in can of corn. It was the name of the Spokane tribe who originally inhabited the area.
Any time you’re doing a story on the air, it’s expected that when you come across a word you’ve never spoken before, you’ll check on its pronunciation.
And you’d think that Fox would have someone watching the news, alert for any such mistakes. You know - the same way newspapers have proofreaders who check every bit of writing for correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. Oh, wait -
*********** I’ve heard quite a bit about an upcoming ESPN History of the Wishbone, kicking off July 17 on the SEC Network.
It sounds good in concept but it will surprise me if they do it really well.
It's a longer story than they suggest. To tell it right, they'd have to go back and trace the wishbone’s roots in Split-T, Belly and Veer.
But they’re doing it for the fans of today - not for coaches or serious football historians.
They’ll interview former players because the audience will know them but WTF do players know about what was going on in coaches’ meetings? Most of the people they needed to interview are gone now. I’d want to hear from the mouths of Royal, Bellard, Fairbanks, Bryant, Mal Moore, Homer Smith, Pepper Rodgers.
Only Barry Switzer and Ken Hatfield are still alive from the past, and who knows how sharp they still are? From the more recent past, Paul Johnson definitely ought to be interviewed, and I’d like to hear from Jerry Pettibone, who ran it at Oregon State in the 80s.
Actually, I doubt that there's anyone alive who could knit it all together and tell it in a way that it would be historically and technically accurate and thorough, while at the same time entertaining to the mass public (which is, after all, ESPN's purpose).
I’ll be very surprised if they ponder why no one runs it today and mention that even if someone had the stones to do it, there’s almost no one left in America who knows how to teach blocking with shoulder pads.
*********** I came across a great interview of George Chaump in which he tells how, as a new coach on Woody Hayes’ Ohio State staff, he had the cojones to suggest that Woody consider a change from his “robust” (full-house T) offense.
I’m going to show it on tonight’s Zoom clinic.
*********** Anybody need a quarterback?
Jake Retzlaff was a great story last year when he burst on the scene as BYU’s quarterback - imagine, a Jewish kid leading the football team of the LDS church school.
Now, though, it appears he may be about to become BYU’s ex-quarterback.
Not so long ago he was accused of rape, a rape that supposedly occurred over a year ago. (As in almost all such cases, the accuser was able to go by “Jane Doe,” hiding her identity in order to protect her reputation. The irony of what a false accusation by an unnamed accuser can do to a man’s reputation evidently hasn’t occurred to our justice system.)
His defense - that the sex between them was consensual - was apparently enough to get the lawsuit dropped, but his admission of having had sex with her put him in violation of BYU’s school-wide honor code, which prohibits extramarital sex.
Now, he’s facing a seven-game suspension, and as a result he’s expected to enter the transfer portal.
Hmmm. Not in any way to condone rape, but with the suit now dropped, I have to wonder if “Jane” would have started all this if she didn’t have expectations of a payday once Jake Retzlaff made it to the NFL - and if she hadn’t had the shield of anonymity.
*********** The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay, commenting on the recent House decision allowing colleges to “distribute” up to $20 million of revenue every year to their athletes…
When college sports started indulging in the $10 million coach, the billion dollar television deal, the megabuck locker rooms, and the assistant to the assistant strength coach making more than a surgeon, the hypocrisy was easy to see.
Everyone was making a buck, except the talent on the field.
It’s why the Supreme Court more or less reacted to the NCAA claims of amateur status with the following: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
*********** Three NBA players - Jayson Tatum of the Celtics, Damian Lillard of the Bucks, and Tyrese Halliburton of the Pacers - suffered Achilles injuries during the playoffs.
WTF is going on?
*********** After I received four different calls (all from the 636 area code) and a text from CarShield within an hour Monday, I hope that you now work for CarShield and you hate working there and my wish for you is that tonight you will win the lottery so you can go in tomorrow and tell the boss I told him to go f—k himself.
*********** When a Saskatchewan receiver named “Robustelli” caught a pass against the BC Lions on Saturday, I had to go right to my phone to check him out.
Robustelli? I’d seen the name only nce before, and that was a long time ago. It was back in the 1950s and early 60s, but anyone who knew anything about the great New York Giants teams of the 1950s knew their captain and All-Pro defensive end, Andy Robustelli.
Sure enough, Saskatchewan wide receiver Joe Robustelli was from Stamford, Connecticut - Andy Robustelli’s hometown - and he’s Andy’s grandson.
Young Joe has quite a story.
https://northeastnow.com/2025/05/16/improbable-road-leads-joe-robustelli-to-massive-opportunity-with-riders/
*********** John Canzano writes…
Petros Papadakis, who co-hosts a radio show in Los Angeles, compared Ohtani’s impact on the LA sports market to engine combustion. The Dodgers have long been a hot ticket, with a wildly diverse fan base. The organization seized on Fernandomania in the 1980s, and is now hitting Japan and Korea hard, with Ohtani as the face of the franchise.
“It’s like you’ve hit a nitrous button,” Papadakis told me. “It’s like Taylor Swift and the NFL — you didn’t think it could get bigger. Two or three tourist buses a day show up at the Dodger Clubhouse store, with or without there being a game, and they all buy a $500 Ohtani jersey. It’s crazy the level it’s become. The Japanese advertising, the sushi, and all the things they have available at Dodger Stadium.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
*********** Get out your pencil and paper and start to diagram...
Coach Wyatt,
We had our first summer 7 on 7 yesterday evening with other teams in our area, going against teams one and two classifications above us, and one of the teams is a returning state champion. We stayed in Tight formation, ran our base passing offense, and it was a lot of fun. We ran Brown/Black Smash, Out, C/A Post, and XY/YX Cross. I didn't use motion, so I ran Post/Dig and Corner/Dig with the backside WB and TE. Most of our big plays came off the backside Post/Corner routes. I offset the FB, making a tight bunch, and I released the FB into a Curl or Flat. I would never do those thing in "real" football because I like 7-man protection, but since there is no pass rush, I sent all five receivers out into the pattern.
We were the only team that was not in some type of Shotgun Spread. Considering completions and TD's, we did just as well as any of the spread teams there, lol.
What you have been saying about throwing out of compressed formations was true for us last night. Tight gave us a lot of open space to make their coverage have to run around in, and since we have a lot of speed with this group, they had a difficult time chasing us around in space.
When you spread the formation, you spread the coverage. Against Tight, they had to run and chase us everywhere. Your passing concepts just work, and they adapt to multiple coverages. One thing we did that was fun, and we were able to score a couple of times on, was offsetting our FB Left on Brown Smash, and running the FB on a Rail "wheel" off the backside in combination with the backside Post/Dig from the A and X.
It was tough for the backside corner to try to cover the Post and the Wheel, and when we looked off the FS, he was on his own. Thank you again for you coaching materials, and all of your support. I continue to have a lot of fun exploring the mysteries of your offense.
Name Withheld
*********** The word is out that the UFL has laid off a bunch of its marketing and ticket sales people. Dumb me. Considering the almost total lack of people in the stands, I never even suspected that they had such people on their payroll.
*********** Former Pittsburgh Pirates’ star Dave Parker died, just a month before he was to be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame.
Parker was a seven-time All-Star, a two-time World Series champion, a two-time National League batting champion, and a three-time winner of the Golden Glove and Silver Slugger awards.
As all the stories of his death related, he was nicknamed “The Cobra,” and, as they went on to say, he was given the nickname by longtime Pirates’ broadcaster Bob Prince because of his “poised and powerful hitting style, likening him to a striking cobra.”
Well, yeah, but you had to know a little more about Bob Prince, who was quite the character. I read somewhere - wouldn’t you know I can’t find it now - that the nickname came about when Prince was standing at a urinal when in came Parker to use the urinal next to him. Prince looked over, the story goes, and said, in astonishment, “That’s a COBRA!”
Let’s see them mention THAT in the Hall of Fame.
*********** Coach -
These are totally random thoughts that you may or may not be interested in.
I'm a sucker for traditions. It's probably why I love high school football and college football (aso opposed to NFL) so much. Being in the stands when Robert Dougherty (now a HC) fumbled into the end zone (fallen on by a WR) to beat crosstown rival Redwood to win the Cowhide for Mt. Whitney (and finishing a 10-0 regular season) and being in the stands to watch Dilfer and Lorenzo Neal's Fresno St. team defeat USC in the Freedom Bowl in 1992 while out drawing them 2-1 in their home territory are defining moments of my life. They helped shaped who I became because they decided who I wanted to be,
So, I always look for traditions. And if they are cool, I take note Two stand out for me. One is "The Ashes" that has to do with England vs. Australia cricket, but that's probably for another day. The second has a connection to football in that rugby has a close relationship with the history of football. Every four years, four of the top rugby nations (England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales) make a combined team called the "British and Irish Lions" and tour a southern hemisphere team in the southern winter. This year, they tour Australia.
Apparently, it is a BFD. Enough that it entered my YouTube sports feeds en masse as the sports nerd I am. It is a huge deal to them (who is going to make the team, etc).. Now, while the composite ranks for the teams making up the Lions are mostly higher (Ireland - 3rd, England - 6th, Scotland - 7th, Wales - 12th) with Australia being ranked 8th, the hosts are considered the favorites, even though they've struggled recently. A combination of it being hard to consolidate what is effectively an all-star team in a short period of time and home field advantage makes it where if the Lions win the 3 test series, it's an upset. But it's intriguing. And the people involved really care. There's serious crap talking between the Aussie coaches and the Lions staff over Aussie players being available/not available for the warmup tour matches. It's comical and awesome. This all-star tour shouldn't matter. BUT IT DOES.
I'm only bringing this up in those traditions and what matters is not something that can be decided and can't be faked. Our 100 year+ rivalry with Exeter is real and tangible and will outlive us. So should Army/Navy, USC/Notre Dame, Texas/A7M, Florida/UGA, etc Some in society are too quick to jettison what has been built over time. The current CFB climate worries me. I might be screaming into the wind, but I will fight against the move away from tradition until my dying breath regardless.
Hope you're enjoying your summer. Our first week of 100 degree heat starts this week.
It's a great day in the valley!
Thanks,
Mike Burchett
Principal, Woodlake High School
Woodlake, California
Coach, I enjoyed reading your email and I’m with you on the subjects of tradition and of caring.
My son lives in Australia – in fact he’s now an Australian citizen – so I know about the Ashes and I am certainly familiar with the British (and Irish) Lions tour of Australia.
One of the things that bothers me the most about football is the increasing professionalism at the college level. The professionalism dilutes both the traditions and the caring. I seldom enjoy watching NFL games because there’s so little tradition, and while I know that they may sometimes care about something, it’s rarely about their team.
I’m afraid that the day isn’t far off when I will also know that college athletes don’t care, either – as witness the way they now blow off bowl games. When that day comes, I guess I’m finished.
Again, thanks for writing. I enjoyed it.
*********** Good day, Coach:
Every now and then I have to say how much I enjoy reading about Coach Lude's life work. Thanks for bringing his thoughts to us.
Ellen Manning was probably the dominant reason Arch has stayed at Texas this long.
Coach Hugh O'Brien Wyatt Earp, thanks for bringing us the best in sports every week times two.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
I appreciate your letting me know about Coach Lude. As long as just one person enjoys it, I plan to continue!
*********** Coach,
A number of videos on the Smith Center Redmen on Youtube. Watched a number of them. Coach Barta's teams executed the offense flawlessly, the defense was relentless, and the team was extremely well-disciplined. Also, it was refreshing to see some of the football players singing the national anthem before the game, with fans removing their hats with hands over hearts, and students quiet and standing at attention. I wonder if Greg misses coaching in Kansas.
It doesn't matter whether the parents are Mannings, or Murphys, good parents set the bar high.
How long before 7 on 7 becomes "football" at the HS level?
Tom Pagna's mom was right.
Even if there was no football you could find me on a golf course before I ever attend a soccer game.
The countdown begins for real football. Looking for my Street and Smith's, Dave Campbell's Texas Football, and Athlon mags.
As a red-blooded Sicilian my elders ALWAYS called for "abeets!"
Wasn't the recent NBA champion formerly known as the Seattle Supersonics? I wonder if Seattle fans celebrated?
Ah, Beef on Weck. Good stuff. Unfortunately you won't find any of those types of foods down here. Here it's BBQ, BBQ, and more BBQ.
Some better than others. As far as international cuisine is concerned it's Southwestern, Mexican, Italian, and a little German. Local fare includes more BBQ, Cajun, and Kolaches (a stuffed pastry either savory or sweet) usually eaten for breakfast.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, If Diogenes were walking the streets of Seattle, he would have better luck finding one honest man than finding a Seattleite who wanted Oklahoma City to win. Seattle people are still VERY bitter about the loss of their SuperSonics, and they blame a lot of it on Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, for selling the team to a guy from OKC.
Food? I’m not sure that many states can rival the Keystone State (that would be P-A) for distinctive local cuisine. When I used to do a Philly clinic, a coach from Pottstown named Chris Galloway would make me homesick by bringing me a Pennsylvania CARE package, containing such unique Pennsylvania delicacies as Lebanon (pronounced “LEB-nin”) bologna, maybe my favorite cold cut.
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Los Angeles, and went to Hawthorne High School there.
In his own words,
Midway through the fifth grade, I was walking to school through one of the many undeveloped spaces of land between my home and the school. I and a friend were smoking cigarettes because, I don’t know, we thought we were cool. The school bus went by with the faces of many kids pasted to the windows watching us, surprised to see two students smoking. I recall being pleased that so many students saw me smoking, because they surely would think I was hot stuff.
That feeling evaporated that morning when my teacher told me the school principal wanted to speak to me and that I needed to go to his office. I was certain that someone, maybe the bus driver, had told him I was smoking and that I was going to be on after–school detention for a month.
But, no, that was not the reason the principal wanted to speak to me. A few weeks earlier, the school had administered a long series of tests measuring student proficiency in math, grammar and IQ. The principal told me I had performed very well on the recent tests, and that he and my teacher believed I should be promoted to the sixth grade. He asked me if I would like to do that.
A bunch of thoughts raced through my mind: I’m only the fourth-best athlete in the fifth grade; if I move to the sixth grade, I will be way down the list. Most of the girls in the sixth grade were taller than me, so there was no chance any would like me. A lot of those sixth-grade boys were not only bigger than me, they had muscles; my tough guy ranking would likely go way down. I couldn’t tell the principal what really bothered me about being promoted a grade, so I told him I would rather stay in the fifth grade with my friends. He said that would be OK.
That decision turned out to be the most important decision I made in my life. Without it, I would not have received a football scholarship to the University of Southern California, played professional football, met my wife, or had the three children we had.
You see, I was late to mature. As a freshman in high school, I was five feet, five inches tall and weighed 125 pounds; as a sophomore: 5-8 and 140 pounds and a member of the B football team, then the high school team for undersized players; as a junior: 5-11 and 155, in my first year on the varsity and, how to put it kindly, a bench-warmer; then, finally, as a senior, a starting end on the varsity … but only because the better player ahead of me got injured.
By then, I was 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds, and easily one of the least talented players on our starting lineup. Want proof? Well, Hawthorne High School was in a league that had only six teams. At the end of the season, the only recognition I received was honorable mention; somewhat akin to a participation certificate in Little League baseball.
But I had something going for me: I loved the sport. Every now and then during my senior year on the team, I would have an instant when I would do something good. That encouraged me to believe that if I worked harder, I could become better. My dream was to play at El Camino Junior College in Torrance, California, for two years and then transfer to UCLA and try to make its team.
So, when the season ended, I decided to incorporate weightlifting as part of my training. I know you readers are thinking that would be the natural thing to do, but it was not in those days. At that time, throughout the country, coaches at all levels, from high school, college, and professional ranks, instructed players not to lift weights, believing it caused muscles to tighten up. They said it made players less athletic.
I thought two things: One, the game requires strength, so doing something that increases strength would be good. Two, I had nothing to lose, because if I did not get bigger I would not make the El Camino team. My high school did not have a weight room. Later, when I attended USC, it did not have a weight room. I began lifting at Redpath Gym in Inglewood, a city adjacent to Hawthorne.
By the end of the school year in 1956, I had grown a couple more inches and my weight had increased to 190 pounds. I was stronger and faster than I had ever been. In addition, I did sprint and agility drills and had friends throw passes to me.
Here is where good fortune entered. That year my school’s league, the Pioneer League, had agreed to play an all-star game for senior class members in July following my senior year against another group of all-stars from another league. My high school coaches, Hal Chauncey and Dave Capelouto, were named coaches for the Pioneer League. They were literally stuck with me as one of the all-star ends because, that year, the best ends in our league were two juniors who were not eligible to play in the game, and a senior who decided not to play in the game.
There were two weeks of practice before the game and, to my absolute surprise, I had become everything I ever dreamed of being as an athlete and was clearly one of the best players on our team. At that time, in both high school and college, players were required to stay in the game, playing offense and defense and special teams.
My strength, skill, and conditioning training before the two–week camp began made me stand out as a player to such an extent that one of our players from another high school in our league, who was highly recruited — including by USC — took me aside one day after practice and told me that he told USC about me. It was possible USC might send a coach to watch me in practice or in the game. I could hardly get my mind around that because, at that point, no college had expressed an interest in me ... and now USC!
The USC end coach, Bill Fisk, watched a practice and the all-star game. A week later, he contacted me and invited me to the USC campus for a lunch meeting with him and the offensive line coach, Mel Hein, the former New York Giants center and linebacker who, in 1963, was part of the inaugural class of enshrinees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Both Bill and Mel were tall and thick-bodied, both appearing to be about 50% larger than my high school coaches. It’s funny how the young mind works, but I took that to mean I was about to enter a level of football that was beyond anything I could imagine.
After Bill ordered lunch for the three of us, he said they wanted to get right to the point, that they wanted to offer me a scholarship to play football at USC and would I accept. Yes, sir, I said, hardly believing what I had heard.
I said a lot of yes sirs: I could gain more weight; I liked to block; I understood that the team ran the ball far more than passing the ball and that was all right with me.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Driving home in the black 1941 Ford coupe I had bought from my brother for $75, I made a promise to myself that was perhaps just as impactful on my life as my decision not to be promoted to the sixth grade. Whereas that earlier decision was motivated by a childish desire to not have anything interfere with my standing among classmates, the promise I made to myself, the new recruit to USC, was more altruistic.
I decided that, in return for the football scholarship, I owed USC my complete commitment to do everything possible to become the best player I could become. That meant regulating my life on and off the field. I vowed to work out year–round and not have any alcohol or sweets or soft drinks during my entire four years at USC.
I kept that promise. It wasn’t that I had an alcohol problem, but in high school, I did drink after games. The truth was that the first two days after that were wasted; instead of being able to practice effectively and improve, the days were spent recovering from the drinking. Now, as to total abstinence from alcohol and sweets for four years: Had I indulged moderately in either, it is unlikely that there would have been many adverse physical effects, but each time I declined the temptation, I was reminded of my allegiance to my school, to the football program, to my goal of proving to USC that it made the right decision when it gave me a scholarship.
In his senior year he was an All-American offensive tackle, and with a war going on between the NFL and the all-new American Football League, he was drafted in the first round of the NFL draft (10th player overall) by the Baltimore Colts. He was also taken in the first round of the AFL draft by the Boston Patriots, but his rights were traded to the Los Angeles Chargers, on the assumption that they had a better chance of signing him.
As he explained in “Going Long,” by Jeff Miller…
The Colts’ initial offer was a $1000 bonus and a $7,500 salary. The Chargers offered a two-year guaranteed contract at $12,000 each year plus a $5000 bonus. I told Don Kellett of the Colts (the GM) that I would prefer to play in the NFL if they would give me a $2000 bonus and a $10,000 contract. He said, “— , that would totally disrupt our salary structure. That is more money than most of the veterans are making. To tell you the truth, we think this league is going to fold after one year. Then we'll get you with a year’s experience, and it'll all work out.’
He signed with the Chargers. But as he said in his interview with Miller…
There's another funny story about all this. My dad came over from Russia by himself at age 13. The family name was a Russian-Jewish name – Rubinewicz. He went to work on a farm in Georgia. He took the name of the family that owned the farm. Several years later, I was told that Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner of the Colts then, remarked, “My God. If I’d have known (he) was Jewish, I’d have signed him.” They had a big Jewish population. If my father hadn't taken that family’s name, I’d have been a Baltimore Colt.
He became part of a powerhouse team put together by legendary coach Sid Gillman, who by coincidence was also Jewish.
Thanks to his dedication to weight training, his strength, speed and agility - unusual in a man his size - meant that in addition to his pass blocking, Gillman was able to make great use of him in the Chargers’ running game. And that meant that he got recognition that most offensive linemen didn’t, as he told Ken Rappaport in “The Little League That Could.”
"What was great from my perspective was that I was very fast for an offensive lineman, and so Sid Gilman designed some players that were kind of unique… Tackle-pull plays. Usually an offensive lineman labors in the middle where nobody sees him but I got to pull out and lead Keith Lincoln and Paul Lowe on sweeps. It brought me some attention.”
He played in five of the first six AFL Championship games, and helped the Chargers (who had moved to San Diego) to the 1963 AFL title.
He played ten seasons with the Chargers during which time he was named All-AFL nine times, then retired. But after a year out of the game, he returned, and after a trade, played an eleventh season with the Chargers.
In all, he played in 142 games, and in his entire eleven-year career was called for holding only TWICE. (Are you listening, any of today’s offensive linemen?)
He is one of only 20 players to have played the entire ten years of the AFL’s existence, and he is a named of the All-time AFL first team.
He was the second AFL player (after Chargers’ teammate Lance Alworth) and the first Raider to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In his final year with the Raiders, he played in 12 games, on the only offensive line in NFL history to consist entirely of future Hall-of-Famers: (besides himself) Bob Brown, Jim Otto, Art Shell and Gene Upshaw.
Sid Gillman called him “the best offensive lineman I’ve ever seen.”
He was held in high regard by his fellow players, as evidenced by the role he played in the 1965 AFL All-Star game episode.
The game was scheduled to be played in New Orleans, which at the time was hopeful of getting a franchise in one of the two pro leagues. 30,000 tickets had already been sold, with an expected gate of 60,000 or more.
And then, as he tells it, from a player’s perspective…
We were sitting on the bus to go to our first practice. Sid Gilman, the West coach, was taking roll. "Bobby Bell!” No answer. "Earl Faison!” No answer. Somebody said, “Hey, all the black guys are missing!” And somebody from the back of the bus said, “They're all meeting back at the hotel.” Sid said, “What about?” “When they arrived at the airport, they couldn't get cabs. Then they wanted to go out to eat and were turned away at restaurants. They’re thinking about boycotting the game.”
So I got off the bus and went to where they were meeting.
(At the meeting) I said, "I've heard what's happened and that you're thinking of boycotting the game. Maybe it would be more important if you stayed and we played the game but we talk about what has happened to you all week and bring national attention to it.” But the consensus was it was really time to take a stand about treatment like that and that they were going to leave. I said, "Okay, then count me with you. "
The players dispersed and returned to their homes, but on short notice very quickly reassembled in Houston, where a game was in fact held - but in front of just 15,000.
In addition to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he is a member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
He attended law school at the University of San Diego in the off-season and in 1974 was General Manager of the World Football League’s Portland Storm.
He took great pride in his role as a pioneer for the benefits of strength training, as he told Ken Rappaport:
I didn't miss a game until my 10th year when I had a knee sprain and missed six weeks. There was a reason I stayed free of injuries – I worked out, year- round.If you know who this is, send your answer to coachwyatt@aol.com - be sure to type QUIZ on the subject line
It was a huge advantage. Gigantic advantage. I could lift 325 pounds above my head. What confidence that is when you know the guy you're playing against is 250, 260, but you could lift him over your head if you needed to.
FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 “Prior
to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting,
plundering and enslaving their fellow man.” Dr. Walter E. Williams********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: (On Don James) By his second season at Kent State, he was taking what had been a rundown, woebegone program to a bowl game. By his third season at Washington, he was winning the conference championship, capped by an upset victory in the first of six Rose Bowl appearances. It was the start of what soon became a routine series of post-season games that created a national power. Once dominated by the traditional West Coast juggernauts in Los Angeles - USC and UCLA - the Huskies went head-to-head in the recruiting war for the top talent in Southern California and became a major force in West Coast football.
You may have noticed I have a tendency to lapse into superlatives when I talk about Don James. But let's look at the record over his eighteen seasons at Washington:
James won more games (153) than any coach in UW history. He won more conference games (99) than any coach in Pac-10 play. Among Washington coaches on the job for at least five seasons, James is second behind Gil Dobie in winning percentage (.726, 153 wins, 57 losses and 2 ties). Dobie’s mark of 58-0-3 (1908-1916) likely will never be broken.
James led Washington to a national championship in 1991 with a 12–0 record.
James took the Huskies to the ultimate Big Game, the Rose Bowl, six times and won four of those national showcase contests in Pasadena.
James-coached Husky teams went to 14 bowl games in eighteen seasons, winning 10 of those post-season appearances.
He was named national Coach of the Year in 1984 and 1991.
Against traditional Northwest rivals, Washington state, Oregon, and Oregon State, James' record was an overwhelming 43–9. Dominating the region became a strong selling point in recruiting, keeping top players from straying elsewhere.
In the decade of the 1980s, the Huskies won more games than any other conference school, 84. Four of those UW teams were ranked number one at some point of the season by at least one major poll or publication.
IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW HIM… Mike Lude grew up on a farm near Kalamazoo, Michigan. He played football at Hillsdale College before and after World War II service in the Marine Corps, then became an assistant to Dave Nelson, first at Hillsdale and then at Maine. It was at Maine that as line coach he helped Nelson devise what came to be called (after he moved with Nelson to Delaware) the Delaware Wing-T. From there, Mike went on to become head coach at Colorado State, then AD at Kent State, Washington, and Auburn. Mike had a remarkable career and lived a full life. He was a very impressive man, and it was my great privilege to know him for the last 20 years of his life. Since his passing (at 101) in March, 2024, I have tried to do my part in keeping his memory alive by reprinting segments of his autobiography, “Walking the Line.”
*********** Greg Koenig texted to inform me of the recent death of the great Roger Barta. It’s rare for a coach of a small school in the heart of Kansas to gain any type of national renown, but in the small town of Smith Center, Coach Barta built a football program whose sustained success prompted Joe Drape, a reporter from the New York Times, to spend a season there. The result was Drape’s book, “Our Boys,” a great story of a season spent with a great small-town team. Greg called Roger Barta “a true gentleman and a great coach.” Greg knew him well. When Greg was coaching in Beloit, Kansas and Smith Center began showing up on Beloit’s schedule, Greg made it a point to design his defense specifically to stop the “Barta Bone,” Coach Barta’s adaptation of the full-house T. (For the record, Greg did enjoy at least one win over Smith Center. Maybe more.)
*********** Bruce Feldman in The Athletic wrote about Arch Manning and how well-grounded he was, almost certainly the result of the way he’s been raised by his parents, Cooper and Ellen Manning:
Cooper and Ellen, who is an attorney, set up ground rules raising their three children, May, Arch and Heid. When it came to cellphones and curfews, the Manning kids had a lot less flexibility than most of their friends did. They didn’t get cellphones until middle school. Even then, cellphones couldn’t be used at dinner. And until they were in the 11th grade, they had to charge their phones at night in their parents’ bedroom.
“Did they bitch and complain about it? Sure, they did,” Ellen said. “But I mention that to other people and they say, ‘Oh, I can’t get my kid’s face out of the screen,’ and my response is, ‘Well, take it away from ’em! It’s like they’re scared to do that.
“We never were scared to enforce the rules that we put in place for them because we believed in them.”
They had seen how social media had come into vogue and didn’t love where some of that could be headed. Though their kids complained about restrictions, Ellen said, they’ve come to look back and appreciate it.
“It was all a distraction,” Cooper said. “I just saw too many people taking their kids to dinner and everybody else was talking and the kids are on their phones. I thought, we’re not having this junk. I was a little old-school, kind of copying my dad. We’re not playing video games. Get outside and go play. I don’t care, you’re not hanging around here just swiping and thumbing through some useless, endless stuff.”
*********** After the bombing of Iran, I’ve heard this Democrat or that say that what the President did was “illegal,” a word that always seems to come out of them sounding like “uh-legal.”
Come on. Everybody born and raised in Philly knows it's pronounced “ee-liggle.”
*********** As one sports tradition after another goes down the drain, I can only hope that a few of those traditions that were killed by the NCAA will brought back as soon as that useless gaggle of bureaucrats becomes history.
One of those traditions I refer to is Illinois’ Chief Illiniwek, whose pregame dance, dating back to the 1920s, was outlawed by the NCAA, which found it easier to virtue signal than to punish cheaters.
“The Chief’s Last Dance” took place in February, 2007. It was a very emotional time for Illinois people. Granted, I am not an American Indian (although I am a “native American”), but I don’t see anything about the Chief disrespectful of American Indians, and it saddens me every time I see it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7tyfQu4QJo
*********** I just finished reading “Petals From a Rose,” by Tom Pagna and I really enjoyed it. Tom Pagna - Coach Pagna - was Ara Parseghian’s offensive backfield guy his entire time at Notre Dame. (I don’t believe they used the term “coordinator” then, but Coach Pagna coached the quarterbacks and the running backs, which means he coached such standouts as Heisman Trophy winner John Huarte, Terry Hanratty, Bob Gladieux, Rocky Bleier, Joe Theismann and Tom Clements.)
The “Rose” in the title is his mother, born Rosalia Crimaldi, who came to the US from Sicily as an infant, and married his father, Tony Pagna, who came from Sicily as a teenager. She is the chief protagonist in the story, but it’s mostly a story of her family and their amazing dedication and loyalty to another.
But written as it is by her son, Tom, it also contains an awful lot of autobiographical stuff, including this passage. (Notre Dame had just won the 1973 national title with a spectacular Sugar Bowl win over Alabama.)
Though 1974 started on a very high note, it witnessed staggering changes for Mom, me, and many others. Ara Parseghian was showing the wear of intensity, and his health took a poor turn. There were personal heartbreaks for Ara as three of his close friends had passed on through heart ailments. Mounted on top of his demanding schedule as head coach were fund raising chores for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. He was their national chairman and reacted to it with full energy, since his oldest daughter Karan had been diagnosed positive. During the spring of 1974, six athletes were charged with a dormitory rape incident. Though each made major contributions to our national champion year the University expelled them for the next year. In 1974, the Irish lost two games, the last one a sound beating from Southern Cal. Many rumors spoke of dissension. The bitter end of the season, Ara’s dwindling health, and many hidden factors prompted him to resign from coaching. He announced it as we were preparing for a rematch with Alabama in the Orange Bowl.
"I don't want to be maudlin about this,” he spoke to his staff, "but I tendered my resignation. The university has already named my successor!” It was obvious that he was disappointed that not one of his own staff had been considered. "They've gone outside!”
The football world knew that Dan Devine would be fired as the Green Bay coach by the week’s end. To avoid the stigma of hiring a newly fired coach, word of his hiring at Notre Dame was leaked to the press. No one ever knew the source of the leak.
Each of the assistants were told that we could have an interview to maintain our position. I was so thoroughly shocked and felt such hurt, I refused. I was in disbelief over the entire scenario. Over the years, I had declined moves, knowing this day would come. I was certain I would at least be considered, interviewed, and well received. It never dawned on me to leave Notre Dame, though the offers were real and good ones. I also vowed never to be an assistant to anyone in college football again. I was more than ready to assume a head coaching status. My loyalty and energy plus my youth, had been spent in the Notre Dame dream. Had Ara stayed, I would have been perfectly happy to remain an assistant coach.
Having heard Devine speak at various coaching clinics, I did not hold the man in high regard. Sure that I would not place myself in the situation of being turned down by Devine, I cleaned out my desk and worked only for preparation of our last bowl game.
After hearing him vent his frustration, his mother said to him, “Who the hell told you, and where is it written, life is fair?”
*********** I’ve read a lot of bad-mouthing of some soccer tournament that’s evidently taking place around the US, but you know me - I’ve never been one to pile on when someone’s disparaging soccer.
But here’s something to consider the next time you’re tempted to pooh-pooh soccer in the US:
Last week - on a weekday - the Seattle Sounders of the MLS played Paris-St. Germain, and drew a crowd announced at 50,628.
Hey, listen - we're going to have to have something to watch once the NFL has every kid in America playing flag.
*********** In New Haven, Connecticut, they call it “apizza.” And in New Haven, which once had the highest percentage of Italian-born people in any American city, the old-timers pronounce it “ah-BEETS.”
It’s all because of a guy named Frank Pepe, who arrived in New Haven in 1909. He retuned to Italy to fight in World War I, but after the War came back to New Haven and on June 16, 1925, opened Frank Pepe’s Apizza with his wife, Filomena.
So famous did Pepe’s New Haven pizza - sorry, apizza - become that it now has 17 locations on the East Coast, and last week, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the business, its location - the corner of Wooster and Brown Streets - officially became “Frank and Filomena Pepe Corner.”
*********** I think the NBA sucks, so I’m not the best one to critique the NBA draft. Normally, I wouldn’t watch it, but it happened to be on the big TV at the bar where we were having dinner, so what the hell.
To my eyes, it seemed like a hastily thrown-together event, but then, how could it have been otherwise? How much time could they have spent in preparation, when the final game of the NBA playoffs was played just three days earlier?
Perhaps they actually think they can emulate the success of the NFL draft show, but have they ever looked at the TV ratings of NFL games compared to those of NBA games?
There was no lead-up. Where was the NBA combine? Where were all the draftniks with their mock drafts? Surely the NBA and ESPN realize how much hype goes into the NFL draft before it actually goes live?
Do they really think that the American public can get that excited about the draft prospects of a kid - any kid- that they’ve seen play in college for only one season?
Quick: name me one player besides Cooper Flagg who went in the first round?
*********** John Canzano was writing not so long ago about the attachment of people to “their” team, and he happened to mention his dad, a native of Western Pennsylvania, and his devotion to the Steelers. He told how proud Dad was of his commemorative Iron City can, the one put out in 1976 to honor the Super Steelers.
I’m proud of mine.
I have a collection of several hundred beer cans, most of which I picked up in the years when I was traveling around the country in my position with a Baltimore brewer, and this is one of my very favorites.
(If you look closely, in the front row you’ll see #12 Terry Bradshaw and #20 Rocky Bleier. In between them is #17, Joe Gilliam. And in the very top row, right smack in the middle, is #75, the great Joe Greene.)
*********** I know that there's a Steelers bar in every NFL city. Partly it’s because of the devotion of Steelers’ fans, but it’s also, sadly, because after the way people left the Pittsburgh area when the steel mills closed, there are Pittsburgh expats in every NFL city.
For the same reasons, I’m willing to bet that the same thing holds true for Buffalo Bills bars.
In search of wings and beef on weck, I found one in Portland and it wasn’t that far away - about a half hour in light traffic (pick your time carefully).
It’s called Tinker Tavern, and last night, my wife and I gave it a look.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=tinker+tavern
It’s hard for me to imagine Buffalo Meets Portland, but there it was: the wings and the beef on weck and $4 bottles of Labatts Blue. And Bills flags everywhere. But it was definitely a Portland crowd. With all that that entails. The people flowed in and out through the open doors between the inside venue and the tables out on the sidewalk. (No need for screens in bug-free Portland.) So did their dogs, well-mannered pooches who obviously had been there before. Attire was optional and eclectic. In Portland NO ONE dresses up FOR ANYTHING. The wings and the beef on weck were excellent. The waitress told me that the place is packed whenever the Bills are playing. Her tee shirt read WORSHIP SATAN and RESPECT WOMEN. Do I have to do both? Is it okay if I do just one?
*********** I believe part of the reason Coach Darlington left for Enterprise at the time was for similar reasons that Coach Rolson is stepping down.
Congratulations to your 50 years living in the Northwest. Glad your road trip went so well. Another grandchild married. Congratulations to all of you!
My wife and I just returned from our 10-day trip to Italy celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. We had a great time. Our son is engaged to be married next summer so we're excited for that as well.
Take care!
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
*********** Which is of more significant impact since the turn of this century? AI or the breakdown of our legal system? If you're a big name with a high-priced legal team (probably excluding DJT), my first reaction is to ask why we're going to the trouble of a trial. I'm equally sick of sports owners who rake off nine billion in profit yet demand the community foot the bill for the stadium or arena. Maybe someone's thought of this, but if so, I haven't read it: at the moment, the Tampa Bay Rays are 2 games, and in second place, behind the Yankees in the AL East.The Rays have the majors' best record since 20 May. For those who don't follow MLB much, the back-to-back hurricanes last September tore up Tropicana Field, home of the Rays. MLB at last decided they would play this season in Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. It seats 10,048. Now, can you imagine the reaction at MLB HQ if the Rays make the playoffs and/or the WS? Were I the Rays owner, I'd say, "You put us on that field, and that's where we're going to play, even in a WS." I think that would be the coolest sports story of the year. Go Rays.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Damn shame the A's are in the AL, too. A World Series between them and the Rays would break a record for low attendance set before World War I.
*********** Coach,
I enjoy reading those excerpts from Mike Lude's book. Keep 'em coming!
A few of those UFL names being picked up by NFL teams are familiar, but should be a few more coming to add to that list.
On my 2008 Fresno State Bulldogs National Baseball Champions t-shirt you don't see MCWS written anywhere. And who did we beat?… the Georgia Bulldogs of the...SEC! To say the least, I was pulling for Coastal all the way.
I'm wondering if the Browns will have off-field issues with Dillon Gabriel, or Shedeur Sanders. Never mind.
At least in Finland the scale of justice is still balanced.
Watched a little of the CFL game this past weekend. Meh. Like 6-man football at least there's still blocking and tackling up north! Which qualifies it to still be considered "football."
I also caught a glimpse of the WNFC football game. Just a glimpse. Even with blocking and tackling (occasionally), and fully clothed, it's NOT like watching the Lingerie League! (More than just a glimpse with those ladies). Apparently physical contact also takes place on the sidelines?
Have a great week.
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: John Hannah has often been called the best offensive lineman in the history of the NFL.
Born in Canton, Georgia, he grew up in Albertville, Alabama. For three years he attended the prestigious Baylor School in Chattanooga - where he participated in football, wrestling and track - and he played his final year at Albertville High School.
At Alabama, he was twice named first-team All-America as a guard, and in his senior year he was a consensus choice. That year, he won the Jacobs Award as the nation's best blocker, was named Conference MVP, and was named Lineman of the Year by the Birmingham Quarterback Club, the Atlanta Touchdown Club, and the Miami Touchdown Club.
In his three years at Alabama the Tide went 27-8-1 and won two SEC championships.
He is on Alabama’s All-Century Team and on the SEC’s 50-year (1933-1982) Team.
Hannah’s coach, Bear Bryant, called him the finest offensive lineman I've ever been around."
Sports Illustrated called Hannah “the best offensive lineman of all time.”
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Drafted fourth overall by the New England Patriots, he quickly made the transition from college wishbone lineman to NFL pass-protector, starting the first 13 games of his career. (He missed the final game of his rookie season because of an injury, the first of just five such missed games in what would be a 13-year career.)
He was named All-Pro for 10 straight years, and won the NFLPA Offensive Lineman of the Year award (voted on by his peers) four straight years (1978 through 1981). He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
In his final season, the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl (XX) and he was named All-Pro.
His number (73) has been retired by the Patriots.
He was the first Patriot inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was named to the 75th Anniversary All-Time NFL Team, as well as to the 1970s and 1980s All-Decade Teams, and he was ranked in the Top 20 of the “100 Greatest NFL Players.”
As for missing just five games to injury in 13 seasons (he did miss three others because of a contract dispute) he said, "To be great, you have to forget about pain. If it’s not going to hurt you permanently, it’s cheating your teammates if you don’t play.”
Yes, Hannah is a palindrome.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOHN HANNAH
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
John Irion - Argyle, New York
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Los Angeles, and went to Hawthorne High School there.
In his own words,
Midway through the fifth grade, I was walking to school through one of the many undeveloped spaces of land between my home and the school. I and a friend were smoking cigarettes because, I don’t know, we thought we were cool. The school bus went by with the faces of many kids pasted to the windows watching us, surprised to see two students smoking. I recall being pleased that so many students saw me smoking, because they surely would think I was hot stuff.
That feeling evaporated that morning when my teacher told me the school principal wanted to speak to me and that I needed to go to his office. I was certain that someone, maybe the bus driver, had told him I was smoking and that I was going to be on after–school detention for a month.
But, no, that was not the reason the principal wanted to speak to me. A few weeks earlier, the school had administered a long series of tests measuring student proficiency in math, grammar and IQ. The principal told me I had performed very well on the recent tests, and that he and my teacher believed I should be promoted to the sixth grade. He asked me if I would like to do that.
A bunch of thoughts raced through my mind: I’m only the fourth-best athlete in the fifth grade; if I move to the sixth grade, I will be way down the list. Most of the girls in the sixth grade were taller than me, so there was no chance any would like me. A lot of those sixth-grade boys were not only bigger than me, they had muscles; my tough guy ranking would likely go way down. I couldn’t tell the principal what really bothered me about being promoted a grade, so I told him I would rather stay in the fifth grade with my friends. He said that would be OK.
That decision turned out to be the most important decision I made in my life. Without it, I would not have received a football scholarship to the University of Southern California, played professional football, met my wife, or had the three children we had.
You see, I was late to mature. As a freshman in high school, I was five feet, five inches tall and weighed 125 pounds; as a sophomore: 5-8 and 140 pounds and a member of the B football team, then the high school team for undersized players; as a junior: 5-11 and 155, in my first year on the varsity and, how to put it kindly, a bench-warmer; then, finally, as a senior, a starting end on the varsity … but only because the better player ahead of me got injured.
By then, I was 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds, and easily one of the least talented players on our starting lineup. Want proof? Well, Hawthorne High School was in a league that had only six teams. At the end of the season, the only recognition I received was honorable mention; somewhat akin to a participation certificate in Little League baseball.
But I had something going for me: I loved the sport. Every now and then during my senior year on the team, I would have an instant when I would do something good. That encouraged me to believe that if I worked harder, I could become better. My dream was to play at El Camino Junior College in Torrance, California, for two years and then transfer to UCLA and try to make its team.
So, when the season ended, I decided to incorporate weightlifting as part of my training. I know you readers are thinking that would be the natural thing to do, but it was not in those days. At that time, throughout the country, coaches at all levels, from high school, college, and professional ranks, instructed players not to lift weights, believing it caused muscles to tighten up. They said it made players less athletic.
I thought two things: One, the game requires strength, so doing something that increases strength would be good. Two, I had nothing to lose, because if I did not get bigger I would not make the El Camino team. My high school did not have a weight room. Later, when I attended USC, it did not have a weight room. I began lifting at Redpath Gym in Inglewood, a city adjacent to Hawthorne.
By the end of the school year in 1956, I had grown a couple more inches and my weight had increased to 190 pounds. I was stronger and faster than I had ever been. In addition, I did sprint and agility drills and had friends throw passes to me.
Here is where good fortune entered. That year my school’s league, the Pioneer League, had agreed to play an all-star game for senior class members in July following my senior year against another group of all-stars from another league. My high school coaches, Hal Chauncey and Dave Capelouto, were named coaches for the Pioneer League. They were literally stuck with me as one of the all-star ends because, that year, the best ends in our league were two juniors who were not eligible to play in the game, and a senior who decided not to play in the game.
There were two weeks of practice before the game and, to my absolute surprise, I had become everything I ever dreamed of being as an athlete and was clearly one of the best players on our team. At that time, in both high school and college, players were required to stay in the game, playing offense and defense and special teams.
My strength, skill, and conditioning training before the two–week camp began made me stand out as a player to such an extent that one of our players from another high school in our league, who was highly recruited — including by USC — took me aside one day after practice and told me that he told USC about me. It was possible USC might send a coach to watch me in practice or in the game. I could hardly get my mind around that because, at that point, no college had expressed an interest in me ... and now USC!
The USC end coach, Bill Fisk, watched a practice and the all-star game. A week later, he contacted me and invited me to the USC campus for a lunch meeting with him and the offensive line coach, Mel Hein, the former New York Giants center and linebacker who, in 1963, was part of the inaugural class of enshrinees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Both Bill and Mel were tall and thick-bodied, both appearing to be about 50% larger than my high school coaches. It’s funny how the young mind works, but I took that to mean I was about to enter a level of football that was beyond anything I could imagine.
After Bill ordered lunch for the three of us, he said they wanted to get right to the point, that they wanted to offer me a scholarship to play football at USC and would I accept. Yes, sir, I said, hardly believing what I had heard.
I said a lot of yes sirs: I could gain more weight; I liked to block; I understood that the team ran the ball far more than passing the ball and that was all right with me.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Driving home in the black 1941 Ford coupe I had bought from my brother for $75, I made a promise to myself that was perhaps just as impactful on my life as my decision not to be promoted to the sixth grade. Whereas that earlier decision was motivated by a childish desire to not have anything interfere with my standing among classmates, the promise I made to myself, the new recruit to USC, was more altruistic.
I decided that, in return for the football scholarship, I owed USC my complete commitment to do everything possible to become the best player I could become. That meant regulating my life on and off the field. I vowed to work out year–round and not have any alcohol or sweets or soft drinks during my entire four years at USC.
I kept that promise. It wasn’t that I had an alcohol problem, but in high school, I did drink after games. The truth was that the first two days after that were wasted; instead of being able to practice effectively and improve, the days were spent recovering from the drinking. Now, as to total abstinence from alcohol and sweets for four years: Had I indulged moderately in either, it is unlikely that there would have been many adverse physical effects, but each time I declined the temptation, I was reminded of my allegiance to my school, to the football program, to my goal of proving to USC that it made the right decision when it gave me a scholarship.
In his senior year he was an All-American offensive tackle, and with a war going on between the NFL and the all-new American Football League, he was drafted in the first round of the NFL draft (10th player overall) by the Baltimore Colts. He was also taken in the first round of the AFL draft by the Boston Patriots, but his rights were traded to the Los Angeles Chargers, on the assumption that they had a better chance of signing him.
As he explained in “Going Long,” by Jeff Miller…
The Colts’ initial offer was a $1000 bonus and a $7,500 salary. The Chargers offered a two-year guaranteed contract at $12,000 each year plus a $5000 bonus. I told Don Kellett of the Colts (the GM) that I would prefer to play in the NFL if they would give me a $2000 bonus and a $10,000 contract. He said, “— , that would totally disrupt our salary structure. That is more money than most of the veterans are making. To tell you the truth, we think this league is going to fold after one year. Then we'll get you with a year’s experience, and it'll all work out.’
He signed with the Chargers. But as he said in his interview with Miller…
There's another funny story about all this. My dad came over from Russia by himself at age 13. The family name was a Russian-Jewish name – Rubinewicz. He went to work on a farm in Georgia. He took the name of the family that owned the farm. Several years later, I was told that Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner of the Colts then, remarked, “My God. If I’d have known (he) was Jewish, I’d have signed him.” They had a big Jewish population. If my father hadn't taken that family’s name, I’d have been a Baltimore Colt.
He became part of a powerhouse team put together by legendary coach Sid Gillman, who by coincidence was also Jewish.
Thanks to his dedication to weight training, his strength, speed and agility - unusual in a man his size - meant that in addition to his pass blocking, Gillman was able to make great use of him in the Chargers’ running game. And that meant that he got recognition that most offensive linemen didn’t, as he told Ken Rappaport in “The Little League That Could.”
"What was great from my perspective was that I was very fast for an offensive lineman, and so Sid Gilman designed some players that were kind of unique… Tackle-pull plays. Usually an offensive lineman labors in the middle where nobody sees him but I got to pull out and lead Keith Lincoln and Paul Lowe on sweeps. It brought me some attention.”
He played in five of the first six AFL Championship games, and helped the Chargers (who had moved to San Diego) to the 1963 AFL title.
He played ten seasons with the Chargers during which time he was named All-AFL nine times, then retired. But after a year out of the game, he returned, and after a trade, played an eleventh season with the Chargers.
In all, he played in 142 games, and in his entire eleven-year career was called for holding only TWICE. (Are you listening, any of today’s offensive linemen?)
He is one of only 20 players to have played the entire ten years of the AFL’s existence, and he is a named of the All-time AFL first team.
He was the second AFL player (after Chargers’ teammate Lance Alworth) and the first Raider to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In his final year with the Raiders, he played in 12 games, on the only offensive line in NFL history to consist entirely of future Hall-of-Famers: (besides himself) Bob Brown, Jim Otto, Art Shell and Gene Upshaw.
Sid Gillman called him “the best offensive lineman I’ve ever seen.”
He was held in high regard by his fellow players, as evidenced by the role he played in the 1965 AFL All-Star game episode.
The game was scheduled to be played in New Orleans, which at the time was hopeful of getting a franchise in one of the two pro leagues. 30,000 tickets had already been sold, with an expected gate of 60,000 or more.
And then, as he tells it, from a player’s perspective…
We were sitting on the bus to go to our first practice. Sid Gilman, the West coach, was taking roll. "Bobby Bell!” No answer. "Earl Faison!” No answer. Somebody said, “Hey, all the black guys are missing!” And somebody from the back of the bus said, “They're all meeting back at the hotel.” Sid said, “What about?” “When they arrived at the airport, they couldn't get cabs. Then they wanted to go out to eat and were turned away at restaurants. They’re thinking about boycotting the game.”
So I got off the bus and went to where they were meeting.
(At the meeting) I said, "I've heard what's happened and that you're thinking of boycotting the game. Maybe it would be more important if you stayed and we played the game but we talk about what has happened to you all week and bring national attention to it.” But the consensus was it was really time to take a stand about treatment like that and that they were going to leave. I said, "Okay, then count me with you. "
The players dispersed and returned to their homes, but on short notice very quickly reassembled in Houston, where a game was in fact held - but in front of just 15,000.
In addition to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he is a member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
He attended law school at the University of San Diego in the off-season and in 1974 was General Manager of the World Football League’s Portland Storm.
He took great pride in his role as a pioneer for the benefits of strength training, as he told Ken Rappaport:
I didn't miss a game until my 10th year when I had a knee sprain and missed six weeks. There was a reason I stayed free of injuries – I worked out, year- round.
It was a huge advantage. Gigantic advantage. I could lift 325 pounds above my head. What confidence that is when you know the guy you're playing against is 250, 260, but you could lift him over your head if you needed to.
TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2025 “Desperation and prudence
are unlikely companions.” Richard M Ketchum, author and historian*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Long after Don James was hired to be the head football coach at the University of Washington, he still could laugh about the welcoming message on a hotel lobby reader board as he was checking in.
The sign proclaimed: "Welcome Don Jones, new Husky coach.” Too frequently James found himself correcting well-wishers about the name of the school where he had coached previously. "Not Penn State,” Don would say, "it's Kent State. You know, in Ohio. “
Most Washington fans didn't know James or Jones, Kent State or Penn State. The UW boosters had never heard of Don James and all they knew about Kent State was that it had been the scene of a tragic shooting five years earlier, where four students had died and others had been wounded, the aftermath of a campus protest.
But those University of Washington fans soon found out all about Don James, the coach who would be nicknamed the Dawgfather of Husky football. So did opponents of Husky teams: the traditional rivals in the Pacific Northwest, the other conference opponents, and many of the great football teams of intercollegiate football which competed against the James Gang in bowl games and in intersectional matchups.
The national recognition and respect James earned during his eighteen-year career at Washington is reflected in a Sports Illustrated article at the height of his career. In a preview of the 1984 season the magazine listed the top three football coaches in America. The S-I list: (1) Don James, (2) Don James, (3) Don James.
I couldn't disagree. From the first time I had a chance to meet and talk football with Don James, when he was an assistant at the University of Colorado, I was convinced he was destined to be a premier head coach – if given the chance.
When I had that chance as the athletic Director at Kent State, I hired him to run the football program and he has been making me look good ever since.
IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW HIM… Mike Lude grew up on a farm near Kalamazoo, Michigan. He played football at Hillsdale College before and after World War II service in the Marine Corps, then became an assistant to Dave Nelson, first at Hillsdale and then at Maine. It was at Maine that as line coach he helped Nelson devise what came to be called (after he moved with Nelson to Delaware) the Delaware Wing-T. From there, Mike went on to become head coach at Colorado State, then AD at Kent State, Washington, and Auburn. Mike had a remarkable career and lived a full life. He was a very impressive man, and it was my great privilege to know him for the last 20 years of his life. Since his passing (at 101) in March, 2024, I have tried to do my part in keeping his memory alive by reprinting segments of his autobiography, “Walking the Line.”
*********** While going through some old newspapers, I came across an October, 2004 article from the Portland Oregonian. It’s a mid-season look at what the reporter considered to be the best players in the ten-team Portland Interscholastic League (PIL).
At the time, I was coaching the offense (Double Wing, of course) at Madison High under head coach Tracy Jackson, and after an opening game loss on the road to a state power, we were on a roll. We were 4-1, and a lot of our success was due to our A-Back, Andy Jackson, Tracy’s son. Andy was a very good football player and a great kid, and in the eyes of the Oregonian’s reporter, he was at that point the Number One player in the PIL. I couldn’t disagree. Sure, there was an understandable amount of favoritism on my part. Besides, I had yet to see the big kid from Grant who was ranked Number Two (!)
*********** My copy of the Yale Alumni Directory has a lot of Smiths in it. In fact, there are six Frederick Smiths. Two Frederick W. Smiths.
But one of those Frederick W. Smiths was THE Fred Smith.
That Fred Smith graduated from Yale in 1966. He was born in Marks, Mississippi - in the Delta - but he must have come from a little money. (His father was a founder of the Toddle House restaurant chain.) He went to Memphis University School and by the time he graduated from high school he could fly a plane.
At Yale, he was a fraternity brother of George W. Bush, and was also friends with John Kerry.
After Yale, he spent four years in the Marines, including two tours in Vietnam, where he earned the Silver Star and the Bronze Star.
And then he returned to Memphis and, step by step, built FedEx, the world’s largest transportation company.
There is an often-told story that for an economics class he wrote a paper describing an innovative way to transform an entire industry and the instructor, unimpressed, gave it a “C.” (There was a time when Yale professors still had enough spine to give grades lower than “A.”)
The story goes on to state that the gist of Fred Smith’s paper was the outline of what was to become Memphis-based Federal Express - now FedEx.
It’s a great story to tell to people whose bright ideas have been put down by others, and it seems a shame to have to mention that, years later, Fred Smith said he honestly couldn’t remember what grade he’d gotten on the paper.
But even if that story is only a useful fable, it doesn’t detract from the real story of what Fred Smith accomplished, and how he revolutionized the worldwide delivery of goods.
But if you still insist on a good story that’s definitely true: there’s the time he saved the company from insolvency by going to Vegas with his last $5,000 and winning $27,000 at the blackjack table.
Fred Smith died Saturday. God bless him.
*********** I’ve had enough Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians.
Now there’s this MCWS crap.
Damn it! It’s not the MEN’S College World Series!!! It’s the COLLEGE WORLD SERIES!!! There’s ONLY ONE!!!
If you insist, go ahead and call the female version the WCWS, or because it’s softball, the SCWS - go right ahead. Even the WSCWS.
Now do you see why the NFL works so hard to protect the name “Super Bowl?” Why the IOC defends the name “Olympics?”
Next? Get ready for the MNBA.
*********** Sure wish Shedeur Sanders had signed with the Helsinki Roosters. (That’s Finland.) And that the Roosters could afford to pay him what the Cleveland Browns are paying him.
In Cleveland, his recent traffic ticket for going 100 mph in a 60 mph zone is going to cost him a couple hundred bucks. Spare me. That’s couch coins to him.
In Finland, it would be a bit different. First of all, he would have been nailed for going 160 kilometers per hour in a 96 kph zone. But mainly, it would have cost him a bit more.
Call it socialistic if you will, but while their traffic fines are based, just like ours, on the severity of the offense (and 160 in a 96 is pretty severe), but also on the income of the offender.
I know. It was 1991 and I was caught speeding outside the city of Tampere. The officer had me take a seat next to him in the back of the police car while he informed me that I had been caught speeding. “And now,” he said in quite good English, “I must give you a fine.”
Notice that he said, “I must.” (Just in case I might have had any ideas that I could wiggle out of it.)
And then, opening a book, he look at some sort of chart, told me how fast I’d been going, and asked me what my income was. I told him that I was only in the country for about three months and was only being given meals and lodging and air fare (which was all true). Taking that to mean that I had no monetary income in Finland, he found on the chart where my speed intersected with my income, and informed me that my fine was 300 marks - which worked out to about $75 American.
And I went on my way. I was told that I’d gotten off rather easy, and not long after that I read about some executive from some big Finnish corporation such as Nokia getting caught almost the same way I was, and having to pay a $5,000 fine.
*********** It’s nice to see the CFL up and running again. In my opinion, the quality of play is a good bit better than that of the UFL, and the fan interest is considerably better. It’s close enough rules-wise to the American game that perhaps some day I’ll get used to having only three downs to make ten yards.
BUT - I don’t know whether this is a sign or not, but in most of the stadiums I’ve seen (Winnipeg is a notable exception) the upper decks are vacant.
*********** The CFL does not appear to permit assisting the runner. Hence, no tush push. And yet their QB sneaks on very short yardage situations appear quite effective. Probably it’s because of their wider neutral zone - Canadian rules require the defensive linemen to be a yard back from the forward point of the ball.
*********** I’ve never been ejected from a game. I’m not bragging. I just offer that as proof that in high school football at least, there seems to be a level of professionalism among officials that motivates them to do everything possible to keep from tossing a coach.
There certainly have been a couple of instances where I’ve had my say (maybe even a little more than that) and the referee has had to come over close enough that it’s just he and I, and said, “Coach - that’s enough.”
And that was it. He’s been man enough to let me know that I’m on the edge. He’s drawn a line, and given me a clear choice: cross it and your ass is gone. I’m not that stupid.
There are games in which the officials are professionals. They’ll work with you and talk with you - and make clear where the limits are. Those games are fun to coach. And there are those in which they consider themselves to be royalty and you to be their subjects. Those games aren’t a lot of fun.
Such was the case in what would be the final game of the College World Series. An umpire’s ego - several umpires’ egos, actually - led to first-inning ejections of Coastal Carolina’s head coach and first base coach, and cast a pall over what should have been a great game.
What really angered me was that the umpire stood at home plate, like a little king, and without budging, from a distance of at least 50 feet away, threw the head coach out of the game. What a putz. Evidently he’s worked seven years as a major league ump. Gee, I wonder why he’s not working in the bigs any more.
*********** So far, a total of eight UFL players have signed free agent contracts with NFL teams (Nine if you count kickers):
Broncos sign Birmingham CB Mario Goodrich
Browns sign Arlington TE Sal Cannella
Cowboys sign Birmingham DL Perrion Winfrey
Falcons sign San Antonio RB Jashaun Corbin
Jets sign Birmingham K Harrison Mevis
Saints sign Birmingham G Barry Wesley
Saints sign Arlington TE Seth Green
Saints sign Arlington CB Jayden Price
Texans sign Houston CB Damon Arnette
It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the UFL though, when you realize that there are years when individual college teams will have nine or more players sign NFL contracts - and some of those players are draft choices.
https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/ufl-nfl-pipeline-tracking-every-ufl-player-signed-2025-nfl-roster
*********** I consider Woody Hayes to be among the top college coaches of all time, and I was fortunate enough recently to acquire this book of his, published in 1969. I have barely looked at its table of contents, but as a quick perusal of the book confirms, Coach Hayes had an enormous respect for the importance of even the most minute details. For example, under “Recognition and Correction of Offensive Mistakes - The Fumble” he expounds on 12 separate points, from “The Center-Quarterback Exchange” to “Certain Plays are Potential Fumble Plays.”
*********** The great Samuel Johnson was talking about a woman's preaching when he said it was “like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
If Dr. Johnson were alive today, he might well have said that about the WNFC.
On Saturday, the WNFC - it stands for “Women’s National Football Conference” - played its championship game, in a mostly empty stadium in Frisco, Texas. It was also televised, which was how I happened on it.
For the record, the Texas Elite Spartans beat the Washington Prodigy, 21-19.
I guess the Texas team is the women’s equivalent of the 1960s Packers or the 1970s Steelers - this was their fifth title in the last six years.
The broadcast, in a word, was fulsome - excessively complimentary. Players were “elite,” “electrifying,” “talented,” “dangerous with the football,” “incredibly athletic.”
Give me a break. A halfway decent high school JV team would have wiped up the field with either team. The skill level of the passers and receivers was primitive, and many of the linemen (linewomen?) were in deplorable shape.
Needless to say, they did their best to copy the NFL style of play, and as a result, DC wound up “rushing” for minus 35 yards total. Every down was a passing play. Every situation called for a pass. One player did impress me. Texas running back Destanie Yarbrough, said to be 5-7, 218, was a very tough runner.
My wife and I sat up straight when the announcers started filling us in on the personal lives of some of the players and we heard them say that one was out on the field “with her wife on the sideline.” They had to press on with the story, though, telling us that the couple had met in training camp, and “At the end of training camp they knew they were in love.”
So there’s that.
*********** Still loving the Coach Lude stories. Thanks.
I used to like Washington State. Now I think I love them. Go Cougs!
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Maybe it’s because so many UW Husky grads are clustered in the Seattle metro area, but not everybody in Washington knows of a Husky. Or possibly it’s because so many WSU grads become teachers. But it sure seems like everyplace else you go in the rest of the state, outside the Seattle area, you’ll find Cougars. Given the sharp political division of the state by regions, perhaps there are some conclusions to be drawn.
*********** Coach,
50 years for you and Connie living in the Pacific Northwest. 50 years for my bride and I living together all over the country as husband and wife! My wife was born and raised in Detroit. I was born and raised in Chicago. Both of our dads moved us to CA for jobs. Both went to high school and college in CA. Met there and got married. Lived in the Central Valley and the Bay Area before moving to NH for four years, moved to Minneapolis for 7 years, moved to Ohio for 7 years, and the final move to Texas where we've been for the past 15 years!
We've experienced hot (Central Valley); warm, humid, and cold (New Hampshire - not to mention FEET of snow); warm, humid, cold, colder, and frigid (Minnesota - not to mention entire lakes frozen over with 2 FEET of ice); warm, humid, and cold (Ohio); and warm, hot, humid, hotter, and cool (Texas - not to mention TORNADOES).
I suspect we'll see more and more "traditions" go by the wayside in college football. BUT...there is one that has been revived. Texas vs. Texas A&M.
The city of Las Vegas is all about glitz, glam, fame, and $$$. No way UNLV will be left out of that formula in today's world of college football. If they can't convince the Big 12 to let them in there's no way they'll stay in the Mountain West. The new PAC-whatever number will welcome them with open arms, with the conference office located there, and the championship game being played there.
Sacramento State just hit a roadblock in their quest to rise to the top of college football royalty. They will have to play as an independent for a couple of years before joining one of the "major" conferences. BUT...they'll do whatever is necessary to move up. As of right now they are a prime pick for the Mountain West.
You forgot to mention that the coach at Apopka had been a huge success running their version of the Single Wing. Think that may have had something to do with the sudden change of heart of the players choosing to leave? After all how can they develop into pros by not throwing and catching the ball?
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, There is some question about whether UNLV is really serious about football - serious enough to get a sophisticated town like Vegas to support it. The fact that the Raiders are in town now doesn’t help UNLV’s cause. I wish Sac State were ready to make the move to Pac 12 but I think it’s way too early.
The single wing coach you refer to is Rick Darlington, who after enormous success at Apopka moved on to Enterprise, Alabama for three years. He’s now at Deland, Florida, where he’s starting his fourth year. Coach Rolson, who just resigned, coached with Coach Darlington at Apopka and succeeded him when he moved on to Enterprise.
*********** QUIZ: He has often been called the best offensive lineman in the history of the NFL.
Born in Canton, Georgia, he grew up in Albertville, Alabama. For three years he attended the prestigious Baylor School in Chattanooga - where he participated in football, wrestling and track - and he played his final year at Albertville High School.
At Alabama, he was twice named first-team All-America as a guard, and in his senior year he was a consensus choice. That year, he won the Jacobs Award as the nation's best blocker, was named Conference MVP, and was named Lineman of the Year by the Birmingham Quarterback Club, the Atlanta Touchdown Club, and the Miami Touchdown Club.
In his three years at Alabama the Tide went 27-8-1 and won two SEC championships.
He is on Alabama’s All-Century Team and on the SEC’s 50-year (1933-1982) Team.
His coach, Bear Bryant, called him the finest offensive lineman I've ever been around."
Sports Illustrated called him “the best offensive lineman of all time.”
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Drafted fourth overall by the New England Patriots, he quickly made the transition from college wishbone lineman to NFL pass-protector, starting the first 13 games of his career. (He missed the final game of his rookie season because of an injury, the first of just five such missed games in what would be a 13-year career.)
He was named All-Pro for 10 straight years, and won the NFLPA Offensive Lineman of the Year award (voted on by his peers) four straight years (1978 through 1981). He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
In his final season, the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl (XX) and he was named All-Pro.
His number (73) has been retired by the Patriots.
He was the first Patriot inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was named to the 75th Anniversary All-Time NFL Team, as well as to the 1970s and 1980s All-Decade Teams, and he was ranked in the Top 20 of the “100 Greatest NFL Players.”
As for missing just five games to injury in 13 seasons (he did miss three others because of a contract dispute) he said, "To be great, you have to forget about pain. If it’s not going to hurt you permanently, it’s cheating your teammates if you don’t play.”
For what it’s worth, his last name is a palindrome.
FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2025 “If you don’t win, you’re
going to be fired. if you do win, you’ve only put off the day you’re
going to be fired.” Leo Durocher *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: To be competitive with the new pro football and baseball teams in Seattle, I wanted to upgrade our marketing, but I lacked a budget for any kind of a serious media blitz. I mentioned my problem to Al Thompson, president of a supermarket chain that was a radio sponsor of football and basketball broadcasts. Thompson offered an alternative plan: promote Husky sports through the region’s grocery stores.
"Not everybody reads a newspaper but everybody eats,” Thompson said. He volunteered to enlist the help of suppliers, retail grocery stores, and food industry employees, and called them together to brainstorm the concept.
Thompson took the lead in planning an event we billed as the world’s biggest tailgate party. Mike Wilson, our sports information director, came up with the name Husky Fever. The grocery suppliers provided the food and also created a blitz of decorations, bumper stickers and promotional material in the stores and in their advertising. Consolidated Restaurants, owned by Dave Cohn, one of our most loyal supporters and a UW regent, prepared and served the food to several thousand fans. We borrowed army tents and tables, courtesy of General James Shelton, a former player of mine at Delaware who was then the ROTC commandant at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma. Later we bought a huge purple-and-gold tent.
Participants that first year included Thompson's Tradewell stores, Golden Grain, Johnson and Lieber food brokers, Crescent Foods, S&W, Coca-Cola, and no doubt some others I have forgotten. By the second year, more food suppliers were lining up to take part - QFC, Pepsico, Johnny's Supermarkets, and many others. It helped get our purple and gold program out of the red and remains a popular and significant fundraiser for the UW. Husky Fever was another step forward in putting together a well rounded program. I felt we were making progress. Yet I never lost sight of the fact that football provides the fuel that makes the engine roar in the world of intercollegiate athletics. Football creates the revenue – ticket sales, contributions, radio and television contracts, and gate guarantees for road games – to support itself and all other areas of the program.
So thanks to the success of Don James’ staff and players in that first Rose Bowl season – with an assist from the foot of Frank Jordan – we were on our way.
IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW HIM… Mike Lude grew up on a farm near Kalamazoo, Michigan. He played football at Hillsdale College before and after World War II service in the Marine Corps, then became an assistant to Dave Nelson, first at Hillsdale and then at Maine. It was at Maine that as line coach he helped Nelson devise what came to be called (after he moved with Nelson to Delaware) the Delaware Wing-T. From there, Mike went on to become head coach at Colorado State, then AD at Kent State, Washington, and Auburn. Mike had a remarkable career and lived a full life. He was a very impressive man, and it was my great privilege to know him for the last 20 years of his life. Since his passing (at 101) in March, 2024, I have tried to do my part in keeping his memory alive by reprinting segments of his autobiography, “Walking the Line.”
*********** This weekend, we'll have officially been westerners for 50 years.
The older you get, the more truth there is to the old cliche about time flying, and it does, indeed, seem almost like yesterday that after growing up and going to college in the East - living the last 14 years in Maryland - my wife and I moved across the country.
I started work in late May as assistant GM and PR director for the World Football League’s Portland Thunder, while my wife - who was teaching - and our four kids - who were all in school - finished their school year back in Maryland.
And then, as just one of the many things my wife has done to help me make a career in football, she handled our entire move - hiring the mover, packing, selling one of our cars - then packed the four kids, a dog and a cat into our Volkswagen van and drove across the country. Well, not exactly - I flew to Denver and met them there, then drove the rest of the way - but we still marvel at what an undertaking it was. (The things you'll do when you're young and eager.)
My job was a blast. I was accepted and treated really well by the members of the Portland sports media, a very classy group of people. My boss, Bob Brodhead, was great to work for, and our entire organization - office staff, coaches, players - was dedicated to making the venture a success.
Unfortunately, dedication wasn’t enough, and in October, the entire World Football League folded. Along with everyone else in the league, I was out of work, for the second time in the past year.
What to do?
Fortunately, my wife had found a job teaching in the Vancouver, Washington schools. We were renting a house in a nice enough neighborhood, and our kids were adjusting well to their new schools. Realistically, even if we’d had enough money to move back East, other than family there was nothing for us to go “back to.”
I’d had enough of chasing a dream. I wanted to coach football, and being practical, that meant getting a high school job. Unfortunately, my Ivy League education didn’t include all the nonsense classes required to get a teaching certificate, so we made a hard decision: we’d stay where we were, and I’d take the classes necessary for me to get that certificate.
Without going into further detail, things worked out. Life in the Pacific Northwest - fifty years' worth - has been good.
REASON NUMBER ONE FOR LIVING WHERE WE DO
REASON NUMBER TWO FOR LIVING WHERE WE DO
*********** Q. (Headline in The Athletic) “Is There Too Much Soccer?”
A. (As any lawyer will tell you) “Never ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to.”
*********** Coach, we used to run the Fake Wedge, Wedge with motion, and others.
It often galls me when people run these DW plays and pronounce that they invented it!
Richard Scott
Blackwell, Oklahoma
*********** Watch as Jon Gruden opens a surprise package from Washington State…
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AgyjHRzPf/?mibextid=wwXIfr
*********** A person I was talking with (not a coach) mentioned the rapid growth of “women’s football” (he meant flag) and asked me if there were any plans to extend the Black Lion Award to women playing flag.
I may have come across as rude. I said, “Not a chance.”
For one thing, in football, there’s danger. There are people on the other team just waiting to knock you on your ass. In flag, there’s no danger. No more than there is, say, in basketball. And given the absence of danger, there isn’t much opportunity in flag to display courage, one of the criteria of the Black Lion Award.
For another, there aren’t any unattractive positions in flag. Not on offense, anyhow. You’re either a passer or a receiver. So where’s the chance to take one for the team by playing guard instead of running back?
Look: flag is NOT football. It’s a sport consisting of just one aspect of a much more complex sport, much like a home-run derby or a slam-dunk contest. Best of all, though, from a commercial standpoint, women can play it. Good for them. Worst of all, though, as we get softer and softer as a people, it could be the future of our sport.
*********** A coach wrote me about his move to a new town, and said that when they find out he’s a coach “they try to rope me into coaching at the high school.”
I told him, “Wait till they find out you’re a Double Winger!”
*********** According to GoRout, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, 97 Teams have “joined” in the last 60 days.
*********** What the hell - it’s only tradition. And it’s only college football. It’s not as if it’s sacred or anything.
So the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party - otherwise known as the annual Florida-Georgia game - played (traditionally) in Jacksonville as a neutral site, will disappear into the mists of bygone college football.
At least for a couple of years.
The 2026 game is going to be played in Atlanta, in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the 2027 game will be played in Tampa, in Raymond James Stadium.
Not to worry, you traditionalists - this is just a temporary move while Jacksonville’s stadium undergoes renovations.
Right.
*********** It’s looking more and more as if the eighth and final football-playing member of the Pac-2-4-6-8 will be Texas State. I’m for it.
Other than the distance from the rest of the schools, creating a sort of West Virginia-in-the-Big-12 anomaly, I like the upside: Texas State is a program on the climb, in one of the fastest-growing areas in a fast-growing state.
Meanwhile, adios, UNLV. Let them they play hard to get, waiting for a Big 12 offer that’s never going to come. While they piddle around in the Mountain West, the city of Las Vegas catches bigger fish by being a neutral site and hosting much bigger games than UNLV will ever play in.
*********** Jeff Rolson coached Apopka, Florida to three state championship appearances in his six seasons there. HIs overall record was 55-23, with three 11-win seasons.
But in 2024, Apopka went 4-6, and lost in the opening round of the state Class 7A playoffs by a single point.
And then the exodus began. Eight players left the team.
And then, after Apopka lost its spring game to an Orlando school, as many as a dozen more players left.
Apparently, Florida has a very liberal open-transfer policy.
And that’s when Coach Rolson decided he’d had enough. Time to pack it in.
“It’s just time,” he said. “The landscape has changed a little bit and I don’t know that my style is conducive all the time to today’s athletes. I am a little bit old-school.
”With the ability for kids to just jump around and go places, it’s just not for me right now. It’s not the same fit as it was.”
“We’re losing 20 kids off the roster this year who are going off to wherever they’re going. A lot of people are telling kids they’ll get more offers if they go here or go there. That’s just how it is now.”
In case you were considering a career as a high school coach. Building a brotherhood and developing young men and teaching them values and all that corny suff.
*********** Coach Wyatt,
Thank you for the travelogue of your recent trip. You reminded me there are wonderful places and good people in every corner of our country.
Thanks again,
Scott Mallien
Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** Coach:
What I intended you to take from my 'Travel Writers Quiz' is that everyone named belongs in the list. Over time, you've given us entertaining word pictures of places we might not have been. I was sincerely appreciating your work.
David Hornberger said a mouthful of perfect points. I can't imagine any of the great coaches of the past finding fault with anything Hornberger said.
Somewhere there lies among my possessions a copy of Word Power Made Easy. Seems to me I was about 10 when someone (?) gifted it to me. I can still see the cover and how the pages were formatted.
Coach Lude's comments about assigning out-of-lane extra duties to some of the coaches got me to wondering whether the august Ms. Patty Gasso would rebel at such a request.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Talk about book burning - I bet the AP burned every copy of Word Power Made Easy that it could find so that it could destroy our language by imposing its "style" on every damn newspaper in the US.
*********** Hugh,
Both DC and Michigan looked like pro football teams...for awhile. DC more so than Michigan. One question that needs to be asked. Prior to the start of the UFL season their marketing people hyped their league owners Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Dany Garcia. Both of them should be ashamed of the product the league devolved into. Both took a major financial hit. No wonder Rock ended up getting back into wrestling, and Garcia should have learned a thing or two about marketing from pro wrestling.
As I write this the Florida Panthers just won their second consecutive Stanley Cup on their home ice by blowing out Edmonton 5-1. Gotta give credit where it's due. The Conn Smythe trophy winner was Sam Bennett. Have to admit the Stanley Cup is one awesome trophy!
Great fan base down in south Florida. Likely almost all transplants! Can you say Bruins, Islanders, Rangers, Flyers, Penguins, Caps?
Small world. Recently found out a couple of friends here who have a son who graduated from Villanova, and served as a football manager at the same time Coach Flinn was there.
Contrary to what many may believe Texas State could become a valuable member of the new PAC 12. They have grown by leaps and bounds in the past 10 years. They are expanding their football stadium by 20,000 seats (will hold 45,000), and their program under head coach G.J. Kinne is for real. San Marcos, TX is located 40 miles south of Austin and 45 miles north of San Antonio so the Bobcats have a solid fan base and TV. I still think UNLV will get on board eventually, and since SMU isn't getting a slice of the ACC pie a handsome offer by the new PAC-12 could steer them west.
Have a nice week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I get the sense that The Rock has distanced himself from the UFL. As for Texas State, as you’ll see above, we agree. I think, like a lot of others on the case, that Texas State has the potential to be another Boise State. I believe that the Pac people would like to have another Texas team for travel purposes, and UTSA is the one most often mentioned, but your suggestion of SMU is intriguing.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Bruce Smith is probably the best defensive player to come out of Virginia Tech - possibly their best player ever.
He may very well be the best pass rusher in NFL history.
He is in the Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame, the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame, and the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
A native of Norfolk, Virginia, at Booker T. Washington High School there he was a high school All-American football player and a standout on a state champion basketball team.
At Virginia Tech, he was injured for much of his freshman season and didn’t become a starter until his sophomore year. In his junior year, his 22 sacks earned him a first-team All-America spot as a defensive end. In his senior year, he had 16 sacks, was a consensus All-America selection, and won the Outland Trophy.
Selected in the first round by the Buffalo Bills and also by the Baltimore Stars of the USFL, he signed with the Bills.
He got off to a slow start. Later, Bills’ head coach Marv Levy would recall that as a rookie he was “overweight, self-indulgent, and didn’t have great practice habits.”
Mentoring by a teammate helped get him on track and he went on to have a 19-year career in which be came to be considered one of the most dominant defensive players in the history of the game.
In his second year he received his first Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections, recording 12 sacks in a 12-game season.
After his fourth season, having had “substance abuse” issues, he objected to the Bills’ having him tailed by private detectives and as a “restricted” free agent he signed an offer sheet with the Denver Broncos. Under the rules of the time, the Bills chose to keep him, and in order to do so made him the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL.
He stayed with the Bills for eleven more seasons, breaking sack records along the way and playing in four Super Bowls, until finally he was released by the Bills for salary cap reasons.
He signed with Washington and played four more seasons with the Redskins until they, too, released him to create salary cap space.
In his 19 seasons, he was named to ten All-Pro teams, and in 1987 he was Pro Bowl MVP. He was twice named NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and four times AFC Defensive Player of the Year.
He is credited with an NFL record 200 sacks.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of fame on the first ballot.
Since retirement, he has worked as a hotel developer, primarily in Blacksburg, Virginia (home of Virginia Tech).
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BRUCE SMITH
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: He has often been called the best offensive lineman in the history of the NFL.
Born in Canton, Georgia, he grew up in Albertville, Alabama. For three years he attended the prestigious Baylor School in Chattanooga - where he participated in football, wrestling and track - and he played his final year at Albertville High School.
At Alabama, he was twice named first-team All-America as a guard, and in his senior year he was a consensus choice. That year, he won the Jacobs Award as the nation's best blocker, was named Conference MVP, and was named Lineman of the Year by the Birmingham Quarterback Club, the Atlanta Touchdown Club, and the Miami Touchdown Club.
In his three years at Alabama the Tide went 27-8-1 and won two SEC championships.
He is on Alabama’s All-Century Team and on the SEC’s 50-year (1933-1982) Team.
His coach, Bear Bryant, called him "the finest offensive lineman I've ever been around."
Sports Illustrated called him “the best offensive lineman of all time.”
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Drafted fourth overall by the New England Patriots, he quickly made the transition from college wishbone lineman to NFL pass-protector, starting the first 13 games of his career. (He missed the final game of his rookie season because of an injury, the first of just five such missed games in what would be a 13-year career.)
He was named All-Pro for 10 straight years, and won the NFLPA Offensive Lineman of the Year award (voted on by his peers) four straight years (1978 through 1981). He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
In his final season, the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl (XX) and he was named All-Pro.
His number (73) has been retired by the Patriots.
He was the first Patriot inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was named to the 75th Anniversary All-Time NFL Team, as well as to the 1970s and 1980s All-Decade Teams, and he was ranked in the Top 20 of the “100 Greatest NFL Players.”
As for missing just five games to injury in 13 seasons (he did miss three others because of a contract dispute) he said, "To be great, you have to forget about pain. If it’s not going to hurt you permanently, it’s cheating your teammates if you don’t play.”
(For what it’s worth, his last name is a palindrome.)
TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2025 “Freedom is not a gift from
heaven. It’s something we have to fight for each and every day.” Simon
Wiesenthal *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Another staff member who impressed me from our first meeting until the day I left was Gertrude Peoples, who was in charge of the academic counseling and tutorial programs. When I arrived she was a one-person department, handling all the athletes in the program and doing a magnificent job. She is responsible for more University of Washington athletes finishing their degrees than any other individual.
Some of the academic snobs in the Administration Building were skeptical of Gertrude because she left college to take care of her family before getting a degree. She couldn't have been better prepared and more effective if she’d had a masters and a PhD. They didn't come any better.
One coach who disappointed me was the baseball coach, Bubba Morton, a former professional player. I wasn't pleased when a group of Husky players came to me to complain that Bubba had missed practices and on one road trip had failed to show up for a game, leaving the players to manage themselves. He simply didn't fit what I was looking for in a work ethic – energy, enthusiasm, and dedication.
To replace Morton I brought in Bob MacDonald, a former Husky pitcher and UW alumnus who had been an assistant at Washington State University. MacDonald did a fine coaching job through my 15 years at Washington. He never lost his enthusiasm or shrugged off an assignment. Besides coaching, he was a major player in carrying out the details of every bowl trip we made. Bob worked as our liaison with the hotels and with rooming and food services. His regular partner in bowl planning was Allen Stover, a former high school teacher and coach in Renton, Washington.
Stover started out as an unpaid intern, but he handled every assignment amazingly well. When we went to a bowl game, I put him in charge of transportation, to make sure the buses were on time at the right place, and to handle the tricky job of assigning courtesy cars. Whether it was a Rose Bowl in California, an Orange Bowl in Miami, or an Aloha Bowl in Hawaii, Allan and Bob would attend our daily planning meeting. We started at 6:30 a.m. in my hotel suite. The team also included Don Smith, associate athletic director, and our directors of sports information, tickets, strength and conditioning, facilities, and development. We wanted to make sure nobody got embarrassed and things happened the way they were planned.
*********** UFL CHAMPIONSHIP WON BY DC
Juts one quarter of the way in, it was 13-6, favor Michigan, and we were being treated to one of the best back-and-forth slugfests you’d ever expect to see in a pro football championship game. By halftime. it was a 37-19 DC blowout. It was 46-19 after three quarters, and the final score (appearing deceptively closer because of a few desperate last-quarter Michigan touchdowns) was 58-34.
Three guys deserve special recognition:
DC head coach Shannon Harris became interim head coach just a week before the opening game when the head coach left to become head coach at Tennessee State, and even before taking the team to the league title Saturday he had already been named UFL Coach of the Year.
DC offensive coordinator Fred Kaiss has impressed me over the last couple of years. He has a highly unconventional background - he’s a white guy who’s been OC at five different HBCUs. He was named this year’s Assistant Coach of the Year. He called an outstanding game Saturday.
DC quarterback Jordan Ta’Amu was the undisputed MVP of the game. By halftime he had thrown for 320 yards. He was out of the game for much of the fourth quarter, with 390 yards on 21 of 28 completions, for four touchdowns. He averaged a very impressive 13.9 yards per attempt. Rushing the ball, he gained 28 yards on eight carries, one of them for a touchdown and several for key first downs. Somehow he had been overlooked as League MVP, the award having gone to Michigan QB Bryce Perkins, and at one point late in the game, Ta’Amu’s teammates are chanting “MVP! MVP! MVP!” . Perkins played well enough overall, completing 21 of 35 for 338 yards and four touchdowns, but for much of the game he was ineffective. And as for the league MVP Award - while he had a good enough season overall, he missed Michgan’s last three regular season games. His play in the seven games he appeared in was good, but not so good as to offset missing three games in a ten-game season.
Other than the play on the field, which was considerably better than usual, it was the sort of sh— show that I’d come to expect of the UFL.
The P-A announcer reminded us that it was the 250th Birthday of the US Army, then asked us to rise (those of us “who were able”) for the presentation of the colors, not by some soldiers, but by the Missouri State Police. WTF?
The alleged National Anthem was a solo on an electric guitar, played by some clown in a faded American flag-themed wife beater. One obvious bit of cost-cutting by the league was the flag itself. In a lame imitation of the usual NFL big-as-the-field flag, this one was maybe big enough to cover a tennis court, and it was held off the ground by maybe two dozen random people. One of them wore a baseball cap throughout.
We came back from a commercial break to the coin toss, by some guy in a plain white tee-shirt, whose celebrity must remain forever unknown since he was never introduced to us. At one point, I think I heard the referee call him “Jack,” but that was it.
During the game itself, at least half of the plays were shown on split screen as someone or other was being interviewed. In one case, while we were being shown a replay, we missed the first half of a DC touchdown, coming in on it shortly after the receiver caught the ball. Fortunately for the director, the TD was called back because of holding.
The halftime “show” was really low-budget - some trio, said to be a local group (probably since that was all the league had budgeted for), played on while in the background kickers, holders and snappers practiced. I thought of all the times I’d seen little kids out there playing touch at half-time of a high school game.
Typical of the incompetence of the UFL’s marketing people, they couldn’t even put more than a handful of people in the stands for their championship game. At $29 a ticket. The announced “crowd” in St. Louis was 14,559. But “hold all tickets,” as they say at race tracks whenever a result is in doubt. I don’t see how it could possibly have been that many. I had set the over/under at 10,000, and considering that the entire upper deck was completely unoccupied and the lower bowl (which seats 29,000) was nowhere near half-full, the “under” bet had to be the winner. I’m not paying “over” bets. Oh well, at least they didn’t greatly strain our credulity by claiming some totally absurd attendance figure.
I don’t wish any ill on the UFL, and I’d like to see it back next year, but not the way it was run this year. No one alive can argue sensibly that this wasn’t a half-ass operation, and the numbers reflect it:
Overall attendance was down 5 per cent. (That’s all???) The overall decline was checked somewhat by Michigan’s increase of 30 per cent.
Arlington, Birmingham, Houston and Memphis - all places one would normally consider football hotbeds - averaged under 10,000 people per game.
TV viewership was really down - a decline of 20.5 per cent per game - from an average of 812,000 in 2024 to 645,000 this year.
That probably explains why, for the last several weeks of the season, there were no announcers on hand (“in the booth’) despite several lame-ass attempts to fool the viewers into thinking that was not the case.
*********** Concerning the absence of Arlington head coach Bob Stoops from one of his team’s late-season games, an absence attributed to a non-specified “leg injury,” longtime friend - and coach - Greg Koenig of Colorado Springs wrote…
Bob Stoops is a much better football coach than I could ever hope to be, but a few years ago I coached in crutches with a ruptured quadricep tendon. I am now curious about the severity of Coach Stoops' injury.
*********** Many’s the time after hearing some female grammy-award winner butcher our national anthem that I’ve suggested a firing squad might be called for.
But after Saturday, no more “might be.”
On Saturday, some singer called Nezza was supposed to sing the national anthem at the Dodgers’ game but instead she threw a screwball. She celebrated “No Kings Day” by singing it in Spanish.
The Dodgers evidently thought they had taken precautions, insisting that she sing it in English, but after allegedly agreeing she went ahead with her Spanish version anyhow, and then had the gall to brag about it on Tik Tok.
Me? I’m so sick of hearing one talentless ass after another defile our song that I’d welcome the day when we do like so many other nations and reserve the national anthem for international matches only.
*********** I was on some site and the topic was the Eagles’ great Chuck Bednarik. Someone mentioned his hit on Frank Gifford that put the Giffer out of commission for an entire season.
The person wrote, “Everybody saw the hit on Gifford…”
Well. Over the years, the hit has been shown millions of times, but at the time it happened, “everybody” did NOT see the hit on Gifford. Not even close.
It was 1960. There were no cell phones then and there was no cable TV (let alone ESPN) to deliver game highlights to those phones anyhow. There wasn’t even replay yet. Videotape recording was in its infancy.
And in New York itself, where the Gifford hit took place, only the 60,000 or so who were actually at the game in Yankee Stadium “saw” it. No one else in the immediate New York area saw it on their TV, because at that time, all NFL games were “blacked out” within a 75-mile radius of the home team’s city.
I know. I went to college in New Haven, Connecticut. New Haven is 81 miles from New York which means that we saw all the Giants’ games, home and away. I saw the game, and while over the years I’ve seen film of the “hit,” I don’t remember “seeing” that particular play. There being no replay, I did the same thing the people in Yankee Stadium did: I simply waited until Gifford was stretchered off the field so play could resume.
*********** The NFL doesn’t seem to care whether players cover their knees or wear sufficiently protective shoulder pads or mouthpieces. And the way players pop their helmets on and off effortlessly, the League don’t seem to care much about properly fitting them. Or keeping chin straps fastened.
But they’ve informed Aaron Rodgers, who’s worn the same type of helmet for 20 years (a Schutt Air Q`11) and never had a head injury, that it’s now outlawed, and he has to wear some other model.
He doesn’t like it. “I can’t stand the helmet,” he said after a practice.
*********** While you were out there doing your No Kings protest, doing your bit for Palestine, for Pride, for Open Borders, I was watching the Army 250th Birthday Parade, and I can’t remember when I ever felt prouder of my America. An America that could kick the sh— out of yours.
*********** A “trans woman” (in other words, a male) pitched a shutout to win the Minnesota state high school Class AAAA softball championship game.
*********** Speaking of softball…
Oklahoma’s softball program is as good as it gets. In terms of domination of its sport, it’s almost on a par with Penn State wrestling. Until this past season, the Sooners (or is it Lady Sooners?) had won four straight Softball World Series championships. In all, they’ve won the series eight times.
But get this - in 2024 (a year in which they won the World Series) the OU softball program lost $2.9 million. That was actually better than the previous year, 2023, when it lost $3.8 million.
It’s not that they’re not bringing in money, especially by the standards of women’s sports. In 2024, they brought in $4.1 million in revenues, and their ticket sales - $2.6 million - were greater than those for OU men’s and women’s basketball combined.
What they have a spending problem.
They had $7 million in costs.
I don’t now where it all went, but I know where to start: the head coach, Patty Gasso, is paid $2 million a year. She is the only college softball coach making more than $1 million (Texas’ coach is in second place, and he makes $650,000 a year) and she has three assistants - plus something called a Director of Player Development (which sounds to me like what a coach does).
*********** Danny Etling played three games for the Michigan Panthers this past season.
He played college ball at LSU but he’s an Indiana kid, and before transferring to LSU, he played at Purdue.
He really wanted to go to Notre Dame but they didn’t recruit him so he went to Purdue.
He came from a Notre Dame family - his parents’ first date was the banquet celebrating Notre Dame’s 1988 national championship
Recalled Danny’s dad, ”When we walked in, we had to put name tags on, and she wrote, 'Mrs. Lou Holtz' on hers.”
Later, when Holtz happened to notice the name tag, he said, "You're a lot younger than I remember this morning.”
*********** Twice in five years, Kansas State has recruited brothers from Downingtown, Pennsylvania. First it was quarterback Will Howard, who started for the Wildcats from 2020-2023 before transferring to Ohio State last year (and helping the Buckeyes win the national title).
And then it was Ryan Howard. Will must have had a good experience at K-State, because now the Wildcats have got his little brother. He’s a redshirt freshman. An offensive linemen. Little brother is 6-7, 310.
*********** In “War As They Knew It,” a story of the ten-year “war” between Michigan’s Bo Schembechler and Ohio State’s Woody Hayes, Michael Rosenberg writes,
Every Ohio State freshman football player received a copy of a grammar textbook called Word Power Made Easy,” for mandatory English lessons. The lessons were taught by an Ohio State professor named Woody Hayes.
*********** At a recent rally in Pittsburgh, Steelers’ legend - and Vietnam War hero - Rocky Bleier presented President Trump with a Number 47 Steelers’ jersey, saying, “I have the honor of making you an honorary Steeler.”
Go ahead you Trump-haters. Speak your piece. Just be careful what you say about the guy who more than paid the price for the right to give his president that jersey.
*********** Way back in 1973, in those bygone days when it was against the rules to pay college athletes, Nike hired Oregon runner Steve Prefontaine and gave him Nike shoes to wear in meets, along with the title of National Director of Public Affairs. When asked what the title meant, Nike co-founder Phil Knight said, “it means he can run fast.”
*********** Back in October, one David Hornberger, from San Antonio, wrote in a letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal…
We love Football. We love football because it's a game about sacrifice, courage, brotherhood. It's about putting your personal safety in the hands of your brother and risking yourself so that your brother can succeed, knowing that both of your successes lift the entire team, a family.
Maybe we don't admit this because the sport glorifies toughness and because love supposedly is soft, but there is no doubt that love for each other drives the greatest teams. And those of us watching want so desperately to feel that same love, to be included in that same family.
There is an innate attraction to the combination of these elemental forces – risk, courage, love and family – that captivates our souls; thus the elevation of the game as our national pastime.
Makes sense to me.
So given such a wonderful developer of men, what do we do? We go and destroy the concept of brotherhood it teaches by introducing greed (NIL) and making it easy to break up the family (transfer) in the pursuit of money; and we remove the element of toughness and risk by promoting flag “football.”
*********** John Canzano on the Pac-12:
I think the Pac-12 is leaning toward Texas State as the conference’s all-sports addition. I reported that last week. UNLV, Memphis, and some others in the state of Texas (i.e., UTSA) are still in play, but more and more, I think the Pac-12 will add just one additional full-time member in this cycle. Texas State pencils out best among the options unless something shifts in the next two weeks.
*********** CORCH:
Now here's the real quiz: Which name does NOT belong? Paul Theroux, Bruce Chatwin, Hugh Wyatt, Rebecca West, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Steinbeck?
Dumb luck, but I've been in most of the spots you describe on today's great page. My observations match yours pretty closely, although I liked Ithaca a little more. Cooperstown could've been the set for a Jimmy Stewart movie. Anywaay, glad you had a magnifico trip.
Coach Lude paid attention to detail. Lesson learned.
That is one handsome couple.
Time to buckle down and get serious again, Corch.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Those people named above are renowned travel writers. They’e all good. All except one. He’s long dead, so now it can be told: I wrote most of Steinbeck’s stuff for him. Got him through Stanford. But all I could do was write. I was not a promoter, like him. He, on the other hand, had a way with publishers, and he convinced them that he had actually written all “his” stuff. Our final falling out came when I wanted to call a book that I wrote about the Dust Bowl “All The Things That Happened When The Okies Went Out To California in the Thirties,” but he came up with that stupid “Grapes of Wrath” title - and the publisher ate it up. I told him that with that title it would never sell because it didn’t give people any idea what it was about, but after it did sell, he went and got himself another ghost writer and forgot I ever existed. After all I did for him, go see if you can find any mention of me in any of “Steinbeck’s” work.
*********** Coach,
Sounds and looks like you had a great time on your trip!
I have been through upstate NY while driving from NH to MN. Missed West Point (on my bucket list) but of course with my wife on board we stopped briefly in Niagara Falls.
While living in NH I made a few trips to MA. Boston, Worcester, and the Cape. Missed out on the Berkshires though. Great story about one of my trips to Boston. Took my daughter and her friend to a Red Sox game. Couldn't get in (Red Sox games are always sold out). Anyway...we walked across the street and had some lunch. While eating lunch the game was on TV, and the Sox were losing badly to Detroit and it was only the 3rd inning! I noticed a number of fans leaving Fenway and dashed across the street asking three older folks if they were leaving. "Yeah, this game is ovuh." I asked them if they still had their stubs and they willingly gave them to me. I ran back across the street to get the girls and we got in the game. Best part of the story...the seats were four rows up from the Red Sox dugout! Even better ending...the Red Sox came back to win the game in the 11th inning!
Gotta admit those older more traditional Catholic schools sure know how to run a school. Probably why they're still around! If I'm not mistaken Aquinas Institute was once an all-boys school. Most of those types of schools started out that way. I had the pleasure of working in two schools like that. One in NH, and the other in MN. Both started out as all-boys schools and ended up merging with the all-girls schools.
When I was in NH I was able to make a trip to Dartmouth to watch the Maple Sugar All-Star Game between Vermont's and New Hampshire's best high school seniors. You're absolutely right. Hanover, NH is as quaint a college town as you'll find, AND, the campus sits on the banks of the Connecticut River. The football stadium isn't much to shout about, but the views...especially in the fall.
Don't really care who wins the UFL championship. I'll watch because it's football, but you're right, they'll be lucky to draw more than 10K.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: He is probably the best defensive player to come out of Virginia Tech - possibly their best player ever.
He may very well be the best pass rusher in NFL history.
He is in the Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame, the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame, and the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
A native of Norfolk, Virginia, at Booker T. Washington High School there he was a high school All-American football player and a standout on a state champion basketball team.
At Virginia Tech, he was injured for much of his freshman season and didn’t become a starter until his sophomore year. In his junior year, his 22 sacks earned him a first-team All-America spot as a defensive end. In his senior year, he had 16 sacks, was a consensus All-America selection, and won the Outland Trophy.
Selected in the first round by the Buffalo Bills and also by the Baltimore Stars of the USFL, he signed with the Bills.
He got off to a slow start. Later, Bills’ head coach Marv Levy would recall that as a rookie he was “overweight, self-indulgent, and didn’t have great practice habits.”
Mentoring by a teammate helped get him on track and he went on to have a 19-year career in which be came to be considered one of the most dominant defensive players in the history of the game.
In his second year he received his first Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections, recording 12 sacks in a 12-game season.
After his fourth season, having had “substance abuse” issues, he objected to the Bills’ having him tailed by private detectives and as a “restricted” free agent he signed an offer sheet with the Denver Broncos. Under the rules of the time, the Bills chose to keep him, and in order to do so made him the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL.
He stayed with the Bills for eleven more seasons, breaking sack records along the way and playing in four Super Bowls, until finally he was released by the Bills for salary cap reasons.
He signed with Washington and played four more seasons with the Redskins until they, too, released him to create salary cap space.
In his 19 seasons, he was named to ten All-Pro teams, and in 1987 he was Pro Bowl MVP. He was twice named NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and four times AFC Defensive Player of the Year.
He is credited with an NFL record 200 sacks.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
Since retirement, he has worked as a hotel developer, primarily in Blacksburg, Virginia (home of Virginia Tech).
FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2025 “Evil
does exist as a force in the world. Indeed, it is the only explanation
for why certain people do certain things.” Douglas Murray*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: A year before Don James’ first Pasadena trip, Rena and I joined other conference athletic directors and wives at the Rose Bowl. Rena and I got up early New Year's Day morning for the Tournament of Roses parade. As the Big 10 band turned the corner at Orange Grove and Colorado Avenue, I told Rena, "When the day comes that our Husky band marches around that corner, I'm going to cry like a baby.” I just didn't think that would happen as soon as it did.
Sure enough, tears of joy filled my eyes on the morning of January 1, 1978, when the Husky band hit that corner playing the Husky fight song, "Bow Down to Washington.” I was proud of our band and its Director, BIll Bissell. When I arrived at the UW, the marching band was funded by the music department but there was a lot of hand-wringing about lack of money. The squeeze was on me to make the band a part of the athletic department. Eventually, we took over all band expenses – uniforms, instruments, travel, and Bissell’s salary.
Bissell transformed the band into an elite Husky rooting section. From that first Pasadena march, the band was always there wherever the Husky teams went bowling – capped by a national championship in the 1992 Rose Bowl.
I used to tease Bill that I didn't want some monster-sized band with an army of musicians standing in the middle of the field and barely moving back-and-forth, turning their butts to the sidelines. I wanted a real marching band, like the one in “The Music Man.” He agreed – not the biggest, but a band with a touch of class. He made it happen. The band’s rendition of “Tequila” became a Washington trademark. “Louie, Louie” became so popular in the early 1980s that Husky fans tried to get it adopted by the state legislature as the official state song.
An avid fan of vaudeville, Bill considered himself an entertainer as much as a band Director. He was innovative and loved to poke fun but never crossed the line of bad taste with the band’s routines. I had a terrific rapport with Bill and with the band: on my regular morning rounds before home football games I would often give them a pep talk. I still have a photo of me with the tuba section and I'll never forget when the band did a “MIKE LUDE” spellout on the stadium turf.
*********** UFL CHAMPIONSHIP THIS WEEKEND
SATURDAY - 8 PM -The DC Defenders will face the Michigan Panthers
The Defenders beat the St. Louis Battlehawks last week, 36-18
The Panthers beat the Birmingham Stallions, 44-29
Actually, it ought to be a good game.
The Panthers are coached by Mike Nolan, whose dad, Dick Nolan, once coached in the NFL, and who himself was head coach of the 49ers.
DC head coach Shannon Harris, who was handed the job on an interim basis just a week before the opening game, has done a masterful job and definitely has earned Coach of the Year honors. (Maybe he has already. Is there a newspaper anywhere that would have the news if he did? Actually, more to the point: is there a newspaper anywhere?)
You want a good laugh? They’re playing the game at a “neutral” site - St. Louis. Actually, in the sense of anyone caring, EVERY game in the UFL has been played at a neutral site. St. Louis had to be where they thought they’d draw the best crowd, and they might have, had St. Louis been playing.
As it is, with the way they’ve openly discussed bets during UFL broadcasts, I’d love to see an over/under on crowd size. I’d put it at 10,000.
*********** This past weekend, my wife and I were in Lenox, Massachusetts for the wedding of our grandson Wyatt Love, son of our oldest daughter, Julia Love and her husband Rob, to Jordan Gittzus, the daughter of Jim and Sharon Gittzus, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Lenox, in the mountainous Berkshires region of western Massachusetts, is by any standard an upscale town. It always has been, going back to the days when the ultra-wealthy of Boston and New York had summer homes here. Although born and raised on the East Coast and fairly well travelled, it was my first time in the Berkshires and the area lived up to its reputation.
Famed artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell spent much of his life in the town of Stockbridge, and much of his work depicts scenes and people of the area.
The Boston Symphony spends its summers here in a place called Tanglewood. James Taylor has performed there dozens of times. It's where the wedding was held.
The location meant that this was definitely what you’d call a “destination” wedding, with only the bride’s close family and close friends living nearby.
Those who made it there comprised one of the most delightful groups of people I’ve ever been among. For me the parties, both before and after the wedding, were a conversational paradise. First, of course, there was our family, with three of our four kids and their spouses on hand, as well as eight of our grandkids, one of whom came with his wife and little daughter. We don’t see any of them often enough, and seldom all together.
Then there was my son-in-law Rob’s family. His mom’s maiden name was Connie Ianucci, and suffice it to say that that side of the family, all from New Jersey, was well represented. When I met Rob’s cousin Linda Ianucci, we got to talking about family, and when she told me about cooking for family dinners on Sundays, I had to ask her: Sauce or gravy? Her answer: “Definitely gravy!”
Since Julia and Rob were both Duke grads, there was a host of their friends from school, many of whom I hadn’t seen since their graduation many years ago.
Wyatt, the groom, went to Villanova, and there were quite a few Wildcats there.
And there were the Fighting Irish - Jim Gittzus and his roommate at Notre Dame, Chris Muscarella. It’s fair to say that they’re hardcore. Chris, now a professor in the business school at Penn State, was a football manager when Ara Parseghian was the coach, and he had a story or two to tell, all complimentary, of Ara.
It all went by so fast that I scarcely had time to talk to everyone I wanted to talk to, and I definitely didn’t have the time to talk to them as long as I’d have liked.
As for the wedding and the associated parties - it was all beautiful, and everything went off without a hitch. It rained hard the morning of the wedding, so the couple decided to move indoors. No problem.
Best of all from our family’s point of view, Jordan and her family represent a great merger. Jordan is as nice and personable as she is beautiful. What sold me on her was the way Wyatt’s two brothers, Matt and Connor, took her in as the sister they’d never had.
*********** And then, there was the trip itself.
With festivities getting under way Friday afternoon, there was no way to avoid leaving the West Coast on Thursday. As you will soon find out once you live out here, where there are few non-stop flights to the East Coast, you can’t arrive in the East at a reasonable hour without departing here at 6 AM. And even though we live less than a half hour from the Portland airport, we can’t make a 6 AM flight without getting up at 3 AM. Screw that. I’ve had more than my share of that.
So I found a flight that left as late as 8:30 and got us in at a reasonable time. In Buffalo. So we flew to Buffalo, stayed overnight there, rented a car, and drove the five hours across New York State to the wedding.
It was made easier when I got to the Hertz counter to pick up the medium-sized SUV I’d reserved, and the lady at the counter almost apologetically said, “All I got is a Chevy Tahoe.”
Damn. Oh, well. If you insist. I did my best to conceal my disappointment at what amounted to an upgrade to an $80,000 ride.
What about gas? you ask. What about the mileage? Ha. You think I’m going to worry about gas when I’ve come from a state where the average price per gallon is upwards of $4.50 - and I find myself in the high-priced East paying $3 a gallon? Hell, in Massachusetts - a state at least as screwed-up as Washington, I paid $2.79 a gallon. Which leads one to wonder: so what are the bastards who rule us planning on doing with that extra $1.71 a gallon?
*********** We found a little time before the wedding to slip over to Northampton, Mass., about an hour’s drive from where we were staying. We were hoping to find one thing - Joe’s - and we found it. Way too many years ago, when my wife-to-be and I were “courting,” I’d drive up on weekends to Northampton, where she was going to Smith College, and we’d hang out at a place we’d found on (literally) the other side of the tracks. Joe’s had pizza and beer. The pizza - ground beef and onions was our regular order - was cheap and it was good. The beer was beer. And cold. It certainly never occurred to us back then, just a couple of kids, that one day we would have four kids of our own. Or eleven grandkids. (Or, that 60+ years later, Joe’s would still be there, and still in business.)
*********** No matter where you are, you have to eat breakfast. And no matter where you are, no matter how ritzy the area, there’s always a place where the locals go to eat. Find it. The food will be good and reasonable, and the waitress will toss crap at you and make you laugh. So as we drove through the old, quaint and beautiful little town of Lee, Mass., I noticed the sign over a place that said “Joe’s Diner,” and I thought, “That’s our place.”
I wasn’t wrong. Unless you count my wife and me (I don’t) there were none of the beautiful people in there. Just regular people. The first morning we went in, I left the carpet by the front door rolled up a bit and the waitress jumped my ass because “somebody might trip on it.” I was home! Back where people say what’s on their mind and, as she later told me, “I’ve been here long enough that I don’t give a sh— what I say.”
Her name was Margaret, and she admitted to being 73. She told us she’d worked there since she was 16. (“Fifteen, actually, but only part-time.”)
Behind the counter hung two large pictures. One was a famous Norman Rockwell painting of a cop sitting at the counter of a diner next to a little boy. It was rumored that Joe’s was the diner that inspired the art, but Margaret said it wasn’t. But next to it was a photo, taken years later, at Joe’s. In it, the little boy who’d once posed for Norman Rockwell’s painting was now a grown man.
It was impossible not to notice a trio of hefty fellows who rode up on motorcycles and came in and sat down. Especially when their “colors” revealed that they were members of the “Hells Angels MC” from Massachusetts and Connecticut. I had to have a photo, but I was smart enough to realize that these were guys that you didn’t photograph without first asking their permission. They very graciously said that they had no objections, so I got my photo, and for my part, you won’t find me saying anything but good about them.
Another breakfast place we found was an actual old-fashioned diner, the kind made to resemble a railroad car. What are the chances you’ll find a place like that in a town of 3,500 people in rural Pennsylvania? Yet there it was, the Wellsboro Diner, in the town of the same name, and it was great. A guy sitting at the counter had an all-time great tee shirt: on the back it said,
THE DEVIL WHISPERED TO ME
I’M COMING FOR YOU
I WHISPERED BACK
BRING BEER
*********** We were in a bit of a hurry on the way to the wedding, but on the way back, I planned it so that we would see a little more of upstate New York, a place I’ve always admired for its beauty.
We had to catch Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s not close to anything. It’s about an hour and a half in any direction to any one of three airports, and it’s about 40 miles (on two-lane roads) from the New York Thruway. It is worth the effort. It’s not at all the tawdry collection of catch-penny shops that you’d expect to find in the typical American tourist attraction. It’s a beautiful little town with a main street whose many, many shops - mostly devoted to baseball in one way or another - are very tasteful and in keeping with the idea that the town exists because of history - in this case, baseball’s history. It was a Sunday and there was a decent crowd of people walking around but - how do I say this? - this was not the usual slovenly bunch that you’d expect to see in a tourist trap, either. We just swung through, but I could easily see spending a couple of days there.
*********** Back when I was in college, the so-called Asia Flu hit New Haven in the fall of my sophomore year, and I was laid low to the point where I missed our trip to Cornell. In those days, because of money considerations, the Yale-Cornell game was normally played in New Haven, where it was possible to draw a crowd of 20-30,000 rather than in Ithaca, New York, where they might draw 10,000. So that was my chance to visit Cornell.
Our drive around Ithaca meant I’d finally been to all eight Ivy schools, and I managed to get into the stadium to take a photo. It is, in a word, unimpressive. There’s seating on only one side, and the concrete grandstand is in the shape of a crescent, presumably so that most of the seats would be closer to the 50-yard line.
Actually, Cornell and Ithaca both disappointed me. Cornell’s famous alma mater begins “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters,” referring to the great Finger Lake, Cayuga Lake, which the Cornell campus allegedly overlooks. We drove around a but but I’ll be damned if I could see any trace of Cayuga.
Ithaca itself looked on approach like Generic Growing Western Suburb, with lots of apartments and chain restaurants. The inside of the town looked, less like a large town than like a small city; in fact, many of the parts we saw made us think we were in a big city. Hell, if you’re intending to go to an Ivy school and you want a city and all it provides, you’re better off picking Harvard (Boston), Brown (Providence), Yale (New Haven), Columbia (New York), or Penn (Philadelphia). Only at Dartmouth or Princeton do you really get the sense of “a college campus in a college town.”
Leaving Cornell and Ithaca behind, we enjoyed the road along the western shore of Cayuga, about 40 miles in length. It’s a beautiful drive.
*********** Rochester, New York was on our way to Buffalo, where we were flying from, and I couldn’t pass by Rochester and not pay a visit to Aquinas Institute, Don Holleder’s high school. It had been more than 20 years since I’d visited Rochester and Aquinas, and it was a great thrill to return. It has an enrollment of about 500 kids, roughly 50-50 boys and girls, and although there are four Catholic high schools in the Rochester area, it’s the only one left in the city itself. From the front of the school it appears to be somewhat tightly penned in by surrounding housing, but it’s deceptive - behind the school building, the property - including the football stadium and acres of practice and game fields - extends for a considerable distance. Between the school and the athletic fields is an extremely large field house - large enough to accommodate three side-by-side basketball courts encircled by a running track - that also contains an impressive weight room. Off to the side is a separate building containing the gym. Get this - Aquinas is one of the few schools - maybe the only school in America to still have boxing. Every year its boxing matches are an important way to raise funds to support the Basilian Fathers. I am really impressed by the way the school emphasizes academics and athletics as well as development of the whole person. I would be proud to send one of our kids there.
Aquinas takes great pride in Don Holleder, the inspiration for the Black Lion Award, and its annual presentation of the award is, in the words of Jay Polston, Director of Advancement, “one of the highlights of our year.” On the left, I’m with Frankie Burgess, Aquinas’ 2024 Black Lion Award winner. (The photo was taken during a break in the team’s spring practice.)
In the middle photo, that’s Jay Polston, my wife Connie, me and Dave Eustis, school President. On the wall is a photo of the school stadium.
There’s a story about the trophy I’m holding. As Jay Polston told it, an alumnus of Aquinas had bought a bar in the town of Canandaigua, and in cleaning out the attic, he found the trophy and gave it to the school.
On closer examination, its plaque reads:
DONALD
W. HOLLEDER
VOTED MOST VALUABLE PLAYER NORTH TEAM
10TH ANNIVERSARY MAHI SHRINE TEMPLE
NORTH-SOUTH COLLEGE
ALL-STAR FOOTBALL GAME
XMAS 1955 MIAMI, FLORIDA
VOTED MOST VALUABLE PLAYER NORTH TEAM
10TH ANNIVERSARY MAHI SHRINE TEMPLE
NORTH-SOUTH COLLEGE
ALL-STAR FOOTBALL GAME
XMAS 1955 MIAMI, FLORIDA
It was his MVP trophy from a prestigious all-star game! The North-South game was played in Miami from 1948 to 1973.
After playing out of position all season - at quarterback - because his team needed him to play there, Don Holleder played end in the North-South game - and won the MVP Trophy!
It was no participation trophy. It was a pretty big deal.
The MVP that year for the South was George Welsh of Navy
The North MVP the year before was Alan Ameche of Wisconsin
The North MVP the next year was Tommy McDonald
Welsh, Ameche and McDonald are all in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Don Holleder would surely be in also, as a likely two-time All-American end - had he not put his team first and agreed to play quarterback.
My suspicion - and that of a close friend of mine - is that Don Holleder, not one to care much about awards or recognition, might have treated some buddies to a night in Canandaigua, and then offered the trophy to pay for the tab.
(Left) A shot of a portion of Aquinas’ field house; (Right) the weight room, which runs the length of the field house building
*********** Before flying out of Buffalo on Tuesday morning, we had dinner Monday night at its famed Anchor Bar. Actually, it was at one of four or five Anchor Bars in the Buffalo area, so famous has the place become as the birthplace of the whole nationwide chicken wings craze. Some of the locals we spoke to downplayed the Anchor, insisting that there were better places, something that often seems to happen when a place becomes famous. (There are Philadelphians who will tell you that there are better places for cheesesteaks than Pat’s and Geno’s.) I ignored them. This was still wing mecca to me, and now that I’ve been there, all I can say is that the other places must REALLY be good if their wings are better than the Anchor Bar’s. I’ve eaten more than my weight in wings over the years, but these were the best I’ve ever had. And second place isn’t even in sight. Take my word for it - unlike what they probably pass off as “Buffalo wings” where you live, Buffalo wings - REAL Buffalo wings, as in Buffalo, New York wings - have to be CRISP. And they’re not drowning in sauce, either.
*********** While walking through the Denver Airport, I came upon a kiosk that said something like “Fix Your Cell Phone While You Wait.” Well. My phone’s charger port hadn’t been working for over a year. I’d followed advice and tried cleaning it out - paying special attention to stern warnings to be VERY careful doing so - and I’d had a little success, but only briefly. So what the hell - I handed my phone to a young lady who took a quick look at it and said, “It needs cleaning.” Yeah, right, I thought. As if I hadn’t already cleaned it.
But, I said, have at it. She took out some forceps-type device and before I could say “hey - you shouldn’t be that rough,” she was digging in aggressively, and then pulling out balls of lint. After two minutes or so, she stopped and blew in some air, then plugged in a charger cable and - I‘ll be damned - the phone was charging. Everything fixed, she handed me my phone, told me to be more aggressive in cleaning it - and refused payment. I put a $20 bill on the counter and said, “If you don’t pick this up somebody else will and that’d be a shame.”
*********** It had been a while since I’d last flown, and I was semi-dreading it, but it turned out we had a very pleasant experience. We flew Southwest, and despite what I’d heard to the contrary, their people were still as friendly, courteous and helpful as I’d known them to be. I sure do wish they wouldn’t go to assigned seating. I like the idea of getting into an early boarding group - I don’t mind paying extra for it - and then finding your seat once you’re on board.
One thing that I did find off-putting was having to wait in one airport surrounded by some fairly large groups of people, presumably from someplace in Asia, who insisted in “conversing” (in a language unintelligible to me of course) with the volume cranked up to “ear-splitting.” Perhaps they’re afflicted with a hearing deficiency that requires them to speak to each other as if they’re on opposite sides of a busy street, but I found myself beginning to think that I was the foreigner in a strange country.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Roger Brown was a member of two different “Fearsome Foursomes.”
He was one of the first NFL players to play at over 300 pounds.
There were ten Playoff /Runner-up Bowl games played - and he played in five of them.
He was born in Surry, Virginia, but his mother died when he was four and his family moved, first to Newport News and then to Nyack, New York, where he grew up and went to high school.
In high school, because of his size - 6-2, 230 - and speed (he was once timed in 50 yards at 5.4 seconds) he was a fullback, and was highly recruited.
"I was supposed to go to Michigan State,” he remembered, and I was supposed to go to Syracuse. But my grades out of high school weren't that strong.”
So he went instead to Maryland State, a small HBCU on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (and now known as Maryland-Eastern Shore).
Maryland State, although it had fewer than 300 students, was known for its strong football teams, producing NFL stars such as Emerson Boozer, Sherman Plunkett, Johnny Sample and Art Shell.
Moved to defensive tackle as a sophomore, he excelled and in 1959, his senior year, he was named to the Pittsbugh Courier’s Black College All-America Team.
He was taken by the Detroit Lions in the fourth round of the NFL draft, the highest up to that time of any player from an all-black college.
As a rookie, he started at defensive tackle in Detroit's first regular season game, and was a regular on the Lions’ defensive line for seven straight years. Dubbed the original “Fearsome Foursome” by a Pontiac (Michigan) sports writer named Bruno Kerns, the Lions’ front four consisted of him and Alex Karras at tackles, Darris McCord and Sam Williams at ends.
In his first three years with the Lions, they finished second in their division three straight times - to the Packers. The Packers went on to win three straight NFL championships, while the Lions went on to play in - and win - three straight Playoff Bowls.
Also dubbed the Runner-Up Bowl, the Playoff Bowl game was played between the two division runners-up, with the benefits going to the players’ pension fund. There were ten Playoff Bowl games played in all, and our guy had the distinction of playing in five of them.
By far his most famous individual performance came in the so-called “Thanksgiving Day Massacre,” when the Lions manhandled the previously unbeaten Packers, 26-14, dealing the Pack their only defeat of the season. During the game, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr was sacked eleven times. Our guy was credited with seven of those sacks, one of them for a safety.
In 1967, he was traded to Los Angeles, and filling in for the injured Rosie Greer, he became a member of the Rams’ Fearsome Foursome (along with Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones and Lamar Lundy) until a broken hand in 1969 resulted in his sharing duties with rookie Coy Bacon.
He retired after the 1969 season.
During his career, he was twice named first team All-Pro, and three times second team. He played in the Pro Bowl for six straight years, from 1962 through 1967.
In 1962, he was the Los Angeles Times NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
In 1994 the Detroit media picked an All-Golden Era Team - celebrating the Lions' first thirty seasons, from 1934 through 1963 - and he was one of four defensive linemen named, along with Darris McCord, Thurman McGraw, and Les Bingaman.
After retiring, he started a chain of fried chicken restaurants in the Midwest, which he sold before entering a management trainee program with McDonalds. After years in management with the company, he bought his own McDonalds franchise in Virginia, and wound up owning several restaurants.
Asked once about the difference between the NFL he played in and the NFL of today, he said, "There were twelve teams when I broke in. We had 34 or 35 players on the team. There was no such team as `injured reserve' or `taxi squad.'
"You either played football, or you went home. I remember that like it was yesterday.
"Back in those days if you were hurt or bleeding, you didn't complain. You played.
“When you got a sack and knocked somebody down, you didn't dance or do the boogie. You didn't wave your hands all over the place when you made a tackle. Sometimes someone else got the credit. You had a job to do and you went out and did it.
"You played the whole game, hurt or not hurt. Nothing kept you out of the game. I don't see that real ‘I'm- gonna-play-regardless' attitude that we had, and they're getting an awful lot of money to play today."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ROGER BROWN
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Joe Bremer - West Seneca, New York
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: He is probably the best defensive player to come out of Virginia Tech, and possibly their best player ever.
He may very well be the best pass rusher in NFL history.
He is in the Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame, the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame, and the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
A native of Norfolk, Virginia, at Booker T. Washington High School there he was a high school All-American football player and a standout on a state champion basketball team.
At Virginia Tech, he was injured for much of his freshman season and didn’t become a starter until his sophomore year. In his junior year, his 22 sacks earned him a first-team All-America spot as a defensive end. In his senior year, he had 16 sacks, was a consensus All-America selection, and won the Outland Trophy.
Selected in the first round by the Buffalo Bills and also by the Baltimore Stars of the USFL, he signed with the Bills.
He got off to a slow start. Later, Bills’ head coach Marv Levy would recall that as a rookie he was “overweight, self-indulgent, and didn’t have great practice habits.”
Mentoring by a teammate helped get him on track and he went on to have a 19-year career in which be came to be considered one of the most dominant defensive players in the history of the game.
In his second year he received his first Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections, recording 12 sacks in a 12-game season.
After his fourth season, having had “substance abuse” issues, he objected to the Bills’ having him tailed by private detectives and as a “restricted” free agent he signed an offer sheet with the Denver Broncos. Under the rules of the time, the Bills chose to keep him, and in order to do so made him the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL.
He stayed with the Bills for eleven more seasons, breaking sack records along the way and playing in four Super Bowls, until finally he was released by the Bills for salary cap reasons.
He signed with Washington and played four more seasons with the Redskins until they, too, released him to create salary cap space.
In his 19 seasons, he was named to ten All-Pro teams, and in 1987 he was Pro Bowl MVP. He was twice named NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and four times AFC Defensive Player of the Year.
He is credited with an NFL record 200 sacks.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of fame on the first ballot.
Since retirement, he has worked as a hotel developer, primarily in Blacksburg, Virginia (home of Virginia Tech).
TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2025 "The
secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it
made.” Jean Giraudoux French diplomat, dramatist, & novelist I regret that owing to a family function (wedding) I won’t be publishing again until NEXT Friday (the 13th, as it turns out). In the meantime, Happy Pride Month.
from Mike Lude: For the most part, the staff I inherited at Washington was outstanding. The head coaches in our high exposure sports, football and men's basketball, ranked with the best in the country. I knew all about Don James from our relationship at Kent State, and I was confident he was headed for a long, successful career.
Joe Kearney had high praise for Marv Harshman, the basketball coach, and it took less than one season of watching him in action to realize he was a class individual and a fine Coach. Marv was highly respected by his colleagues, a consummate teacher. He had strong ties to the state’s high school coaching ranks and knew most of them on a first-name basis. He had coached thirteen years at his alma mater, Pacific Lutheran University, another thirteen at Washington State, and was closing in on thirteen more years at Washington.
With a few exceptions, I was impressed with the rest of the UW staff, but it didn't take me long to make a couple of major additions. When I made a tour of media outlets – sports editors, TV sports directors, publishers, and the like – I had two things in mind: I always got along well with the press, and I wanted to let the media of Seattle know I would always be accessible. I also wanted its help in finding a sports information director. The strong consensus was Mike Wilson, who was the SID at archrival Washington State. Mike and I talked by phone but he was just leaving with the Cougar baseball team for the College World Series in Omaha. To get the process moving, I arranged a dinner with Mike's wife, Pat, in Seattle. Rena and I were impressed. I never forget to remind Mike that he got the job because of Pat’s interview.
Another big step forward was the hiring of Judy Cadman Biondi as development director. She had impressed me at a meeting with top executives at the public television station. We were trying to find a spot for a weekly TV show for Marv Harshman, and Judy was head of development at the station. I concluded if she could raise money for public TV she could do an even better job for the athletic department. Judy got our development program into high gear, greatly increasing the flow of much-needed funds that helped put us in the black.
*********** UFL THIS PAST WEEKEND (REGULAR SEASON IS OVER)
FRIDAY NIGHT
ST. LOUIS (8-2) 13, DC (6-4) 8
SATURDAY
HOUSTON (5-5) 19, MICHIGAN (6-4) 12
Perez 26/32/283
SUNDAY
ARLINGTON (5-5) 23, SAN ANTONIO (1-9) 6
BIRMINGHAM (7-3) 46 MEMPHIS (2-8) 9
USFL DIVISION
Birmingham 7-3
Michigan 6-4
Houston 5-5
Memphis 2-8
XFL DIVISION
St Louis 8-2
DC 6-4
Arlington 5-5
San Antonio 1-9
STARTING THIS WEEKEND: PLAYOFFS!!!
GAMES THAT ARE SURE TO SET YOUR HEARTS BEATING WILDLY …
FIRST: THE "TEAMS THAT CAN’T DECIDE WHO'S PLAYING QUARTERBACK" DIVISION
SUNDAY 3 PM EASTERN (ABC)
MICHIGAN (6-4) AT BIRMINGHAM (7-3)
NEXT: THE "TEAMS THAT AT LEAST KNOW WHO THEIR QUARTERBACKS ARE" DIVISION
SUNDAY 6 PM EASTERN (FOX)
DC (6-4) AT ST. LOUIS (8-2)
*********** The people who covered up what we all knew to be so - the lack of competence of our former “President” - I’ve found out where at least some of them went after the change of administrations.
They went to work in the UFL’s PR department.
Talk about cover-ups. Imagine an eight-team professional sports league finishing a short (ten game) season without three of the head coaches it started with, and never telling the public why.
In the opening game of the season, the Memphis Showboats showed up without their head coach, Ken Whisenhunt. We were told next to nothing. Something like “personal reasons.” He returned the next week, but then disappeared again. This time were we told - after a while - that it was because of “a need to step away from football and take a break.”
Next came the disappearance of Wade Phillips, head coach of the San Antonio Brahmas, whose absence from the sidelines was, we were informed, for “personal reasons.”
Finally, on the last weekend of the regular season, Arlington’s Bob Stoops was not on hand to coach his team because he’d “suffered a leg injury” during the week.
So what was the unspecified “leg injury” that it was so serious that he couldn’t even be at the game? Was it a fractured femur? Tibia? Fibula? Dislocated hip? LIsfranc? (Oh wait - does the foot count as a leg injury?)
Remembering scenes from the past of great coaches who “played with pain” and managed to show up on game day, I’m left wondering how bad this could be.
No matter. It’s consistent with the way this allegedly “pro" football league’s PR department has worked - don’t inform, conceal.
After all, for weeks now, I’ve tuned in one game or another only to be informed - just before game time - that the quarterback I’d hoped to watch won’t be playing, for reasons either vague or simply not given.
Will their PR people at least hang around long enough to tell us when the League folds? (Actually, if a league folds and nobody gives a rat’s ass… has it really folded?)
********** That’s my son, Ed, with Seiki Murono. They just had lunch in Melbourne, Australia.
Several years ago, I wrote a short biography of Seiki Murono, a man whose life story absolutely astounded me. Briefly, he is the only person born in a Japanese internment camp to ever play college football.
To make it as short as possible, Seiki Murono was born in a Japanese internment camp during World War II - on D-Day, in fact. Thanks to an amazing upbringing by amazing parents (that’s a story in itself), he had an almost-typical American upbringing in Seabrook, New Jersey; at Bridgeton, New Jersey High he was a standout quarterback. He played college ball at D-III Franklin and Marshall College, and in his junior year he led the Diplomats to just the second unbeaten season in their history. He was named All-Conference, and he was named the outstanding college football player from South Jersey (an award that’s since been won by the likes of Penn State’s Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell, Nebraska’s Irving Fryar and Mike Rozier, and Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne.) After college, first while attending business school and then while working in New York for a large international bank, he played quarterback for the Westchester Bulls of the Atlantic Coast Football League, and then went on to a long and successful career in international banking with Chase-Manhattan Bank. “Playing team sports,” he said, “especially as a quarterback, taught me leadership skills and the importance of cooperation and collaboration as keys to achieving success and reaching objectives.”
He now lives in San Francisco and has residences in Singapore and Melbourne. And it was there, on Sunday, that he and Ed finally met and had lunch.
Seiki Murono will celebrate his 81st birthday this Friday.
He was born on June 6, 1944 (D-Day) in an internment camp in Crystal City, Texas. For a beautiful story of the diversity that really does make America great, it’s hard to beat his. “I felt most ‘American’ when I was playing sports,” he told me. “It was probably the main reason I chose to participate in athletics...to assimilate and to gain acceptance.”
To read more
… https://www.coachwyatt.com/SEIKI%20MURONO.html
*********** It’s been a while since brothers Rock and Randy Foristiere have been together.
Rock’s been “overseas” for a while. Actually, he’s been on board an aircraft carrier - the USS Harry Truman - deployed in the Middle East for almost nine months. To say he’s been busy would be an understatement . To support round-the-clock bombing of our friends the Houtis, the crew has worked long shifts with few breaks, and it had to be a bunch of happy sailors and their families when the Truman docked in Norfolk, Virginia this past weekend.
Rock wasted no time getting to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where older brother Randy is stationed, and I am going to surmise that they might have shared a cold one or two.
Both Rock and Randy are Black Lion Award winners. Their dad, Mike, is now head coach at Marsing, Idaho, but the two brothers played their high school ball at Wahluke High, in Mattawa, Washington, where Mike was coaching at the time.
Randy went on to West Point, and he’s now a captain in the US Army. Rock played a year of football at Washburn University, in Topeka, Kansas, before deciding that he needed a change of scenery. One of the things that’s kept him going is the realization that he’ll still have three years of college eligibility left when he gets out of the Navy.
Which gives me an idea to help recruiting: Give an athlete an extra year of college eligibility for every two years of military service, without having him count against a school’s roster limit. (Service academy graduates not included.)
*********** Colorado’s season tickets are sold out for the third straight year. We all know the reason. What we don’t know yet is the cost. They haven’t seen the final bill yet.
*********** Came across this In MANNING - by Archie and Payton, with John Underwood.
Archie is writing about his head coach, Johnny Vaught, who - like most hard coaches in a time when the title “coordinator” had yet to be invented, was his own offensive coordinator…
One of his jobs as Ole Miss’ offensive coordinator ordinarily would be to break down the film of an opponent’s defense the week of the game to determine how and where to exploit it. But not Coach Vaught. He watched the other team’s offense, to find formations and plays he could use himself. Houston was a good source for him in those days – an outlaw school when it came to the rules, but with good players under a master of innovative offense, Coach Bill Yeoman. Coach Vaught would pore over the Houston films, and when he saw something he liked, he'd take it for his own. Nothing illegal about it, of course. Coaches in all sports borrow from one another all the time. Vaught just laughed it off. "Coaches are great plagiarists,” he’d say.
*********** Q. What do you call a state with two Democrat senators, a Democrat governor, and veto-proof Democrat supermajorities in both houses? A. Washington.
Living in the beauty of Washington (the state, not DC) is like living in God’s garden.
Living with the politics of Washington is like a rehearsal for an eternity in hell.
Take Washington high school sports. (As Henny Youngman would say, Please.)
Veronica Garcia is a transgender female (to keep from getting confused, it always helps me to substitute “fake” for “transgender”) who just won the state Class 2A girls 400 meter championship. (2A is the classification of Aberdeen, where I’ve coached.) Won it convincingly.
HURL ALERT…
Don’t click on the link below unless you’re into self-torture… like listening to otherwise normal-seeming media types who with straight faces call Veronica “her”; like listening to Veronica, who could sing bass in a quartet, asking “Why do grown adults think it’s okay to harass a child, let alone a transgender child?”
Not in any way to condone harassment, but the definition of the word often depends greatly on who’s doing the defining. And this particular “transgender child” is 17.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34MgcstWLA
*********** With all this fuss over flag - and all the money the NFL’s pouring into it - are you aware that there’s only five players on a side? With all the sports that they’ve basically invented in order to satisfy Title IX, you’d think they’d have tried to come up with one that provided more spots for females.
*********** This past weekend, I worked with the little guys. It was Aberdeen Youth Football’s annual camp, and I joined a dozen or so other coaches - youth, middle school and high school - and a dozen or so high school varsity players in “coaching” more than 100 kids from kindergarten through seventh grade.
Dave Tarrence was in charge. If you want something done, ask someone who’s already busy, right? Dave is an Aberdeen cop; he’s the Aberdeen High defensive coordinator; he’s the father of three kids, two of them football-age boys. So why not ask him to be President of Aberdeen Youth Football? He accepted. And of course I offered to help him.
There were three sessions - Friday evening, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
I worked with the quarterbacks, and we got together twice - on Friday night and Sunday afternoon. There’s only so much you can do in a couple of 20-minute sessions, but I bet they all know now that the quarterback’s number one job is to protect the football. Some of them can now carry the ball dependably with two hands. And some of them know that the only time you take the off-hand off the ball is (1) to throw; (2) to hand off; and (3) to run in the open field. My approach was simply to expose them to a lot of simple drills and to overlook the execution and move on to the next drill. I did see a couple guys with promise.
*********** This year, the Stanley Cup could actually be won by a Canadian team. The last time a team from the Land That Invented The Game won the Cup (the Montreal Canadiens) was 1993.
This year, the Edmonton Oilers are in the finals.
I’ve been to Edmonton and I like the place and the people. Granted, I was there in warm weather, but it’s a beautiful town.
I was working with the staff at Jasper Place High School, and they did such a great job with my Double Wing - yes, in 12-man football - that they won two provincial (state) championships.
One of the coaches, Kyle Wagner, showed me around town. He showed me the huge West Edmonton Mall (“biggest in the world”) and the church where Wayne Gretzky was married - one of the biggest events in the town’s history. And he took me to watch the Edmonton Eskimos practice. (They’re now Elks, but I can still say Eskimos on here.)
The Eskimos’ head coach then was the legendary Don Matthews, who in his CFL career won TEN Grey Cups. He won five of them in Edmonton, so he was, as you might imagine, very well thought of there.
I knew he was considered a player’s coach, but it still surprised me the way he started practice. No whistle, no horn.
He had been sitting in a golf cart watching the specialists go through their pre-practice stuff when suddenly he just hollered, “Red Rover, Red Rover - Let’s get this shit over!”
*********** I chewed Beech Nut in Vietnam because it came in a 12-pack box and nobody else in my unit wanted it. It served its purpose in keeping me awake at odd hours when I needed to be alert. The other purpose it served was in drawing compliments from young ladies who found the spitting most attractive. Your poem, by the way, was well done.
So Chris Herren had a drug addiction. I'm not addicted, but for the first time I understand the expression 'he's off his meds'. Following a recent hammering from an unexpected health issue, the neurologist prescribed a drug I couldn't abide. I discovered one must wean off such strong medicine...I did, and it was hellish. Good luck and iron discipline to all in Chris's situation.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Coach,
I have four of those books on your list. I'd like to add one if that's alright with you. "Coaching Today's Athlete" John Ralston (former HC at Stanford.
Also, not necessarily a "coaching" book but a great story, "Twelve Mighty Orphans."
To think that Walter Camp would make such a statement IN 1919 would be so apropos in 2025!
Side note on Fritz Crisler...One of his best players at Minnesota, Biggie Munn, later became Crisler's biggest Michigan rival when Munn became the HC at Michigan State.
That photo of you and your friend wearing those helmets was priceless! Reminded me of when one of my players made the comment to me that I used to play football when you could fold your helmet and put it in your pants pocket!
Not football, but the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers will face each other (again) for Lord Stanley's Cup. Probably made the NHL brass happy to have a Canadian team in it again. Heaven forbid two "southern" teams from the U.S. play for the cup!
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: He was a member of two different “Fearsome Foursomes.”
He was one of the first NFL players to play at over 300 pounds.
There were ten Playoff /Runner-up Bowl games played - and he played in five of them.
He was born in Surry, Virginia, but his mother died when he was four and his family moved, first to Newport News and then to Nyack, New York, where he grew up and went to high school.
In high school, because of his size - 6-2, 230 - and speed (he was once timed in 50 yards at 5.4 seconds) he was a fullback, and was highly recruited.
"I was supposed to go to Michigan State,” he remembered, and I was supposed to go to Syracuse. But my grades out of high school weren't that strong.”
So he went instead to Maryland State, a small HBCU on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (and now known as Maryland-Eastern Shore).
Maryland State, although it had fewer than 300 students, was known for its strong football teams, producing NFL stars such as Emerson Boozer, Sherman Plunkett, Johnny Sample and Art Shell.
Moved to defensive tackle as a sophomore, he excelled and in 1959, his senior year, he was named to the Pittsbugh Courier’s Black College All-America Team.
He was taken by the Detroit Lions in the fourth round of the NFL draft, the highest up to that time of any player from an all-black college.
As a rookie, he started at defensive tackle in Detroit's first regular season game, and was a regular on the Lions’ defensive line for seven straight years. Dubbed the original “Fearsome Foursome” by a Pontiac (Michigan) sports writer named Bruno Kerns, the Lions’ front four consisted of him and Alex Karras at tackles, Darris McCord and Sam Williams at ends.
In his first three years with the Lions, they finished second in their division three straight times - to the Packers. The Packers went on to win three straight NFL championships, while the Lions went on to play in - and win - three straight Playoff Bowls.
Also dubbed the Runner-Up Bowl, the Playoff Bowl game was played between the two division runners-up, with the benefits going to the players’ pension fund. There were ten Playoff Bowl games played in all, and our guy had the distinction of playing in five of them.
By far his most famous individual performance came in the so-called “Thanksgiving Day Massacre,” when the Lions manhandled the previously unbeaten Packers, 26-14, dealing the Pack their only defeat of the season. During the game, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr was sacked eleven times. Our guy was credited with seven of those sacks, one of them for a safety.
In 1967, he was traded to Los Angeles, and filling in for the injured Rosie Greer, he became a member of the Rams’ Fearsome Foursome (along with Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones and Lamar Lundy) until a broken hand in 1969 resulted in his sharing duties with rookie Coy Bacon.
He retired after the 1969 season.
During his career, he’s was twice named first team All-Pro, and three times second team. He played in the Pro Bowl for six straight years, from 1962 through 1967.
In 1962, he was the Los Angeles Times NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
In 1994 the Detroit media picked an All-Golden Era Team - celebrating the Lions' first thirty seasons, from 1934 through 1963 - and he was one of four defensive linemen named, along with Darris McCord, Thurman McGraw, and Les Bingaman.
After retiring, he started a chain of fried chicken restaurants in the Midwest, which he sold before entering a management trainee program with McDonalds. After years in management with the company, he bought his own McDonalds franchise in Virginia, and wound up owning several restaurants.
Asked once about the difference between the NFL he played in and the NFL of today, he said, "There were twelve teams when I broke in. We had 34 or 35 players on the team. There was no such team as `injured reserve' or `taxi squad.'
"You either played football, or you went home. I remember that like it was yesterday.
"Back in those days if you were hurt or bleeding, you didn't complain. You played.
“When you got a sack and knocked somebody down, you didn't dance or do the boogie. You didn't wave your hands all over the place when you made a tackle. Sometimes someone else got the credit. You had a job to do and you went out and did it.
"You played the whole game, hurt or not hurt. Nothing kept you out of the game. I don't see that real ‘I'm- gonna-play-regardless' attitude that we had, and they're getting an awful lot of money to play today."
FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2025 "I’m not that proud of my
philanthropy. I regard it as an absolute minimum duty for somebody who
is reasonably successful to be reasonably generous.” Charlie
Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime investing partner*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: The turnaround came almost exactly a year later. After a slow start, the Huskies finished with six wins in their final seven games, capped with a routine thumping of arch rival Washington state. But UCLA could clinch the conference title and a Rose Bowl invitation by beating the University of Southern California in the final game of the season.
I will never forget sitting in the James living room in Bellevue with a bunch of Seattle media types watching the USC-UCLA game on television. The unlikely hero in this whole scenario was Frank Jordan, the USC place kicker.
With time running out, Jordan kicked a field goal to give the Trojans a 29-27 victory over the Bruins. The UCLA loss put the Huskies in the Rose Bowl for the first time in fourteen seasons. To cap an already wonderful season, Washington scored a huge upset in Pasadena, 27-20 over Michigan. It was the first of what would be fourteen bowl game appearances by Don James-coached Washington teams. Our program, despite the shadow cast by the Seahawks, was on its way to becoming one of the most successful in the country.
That Rose Bowl victory revived season ticket sales. It attracted new members to the Tyee Club, our booster organization. It convinced fans to get out their checkbooks to support the Huskies’ sports programs across the board. We attracted more radio and television sponsors and the Pasadena victory gave a big push to our promotional brain child, Husky Fever, to become a million-dollar fundraiser.
Despite competition with the Seahawks for fans and media attention, I had a good relationship with the team’s original owners. Most of them were University of Washington alums, including members of the Nordstrom family who owned and ran the chain of upscale clothing stores, and Herman Sarkowski, a prominent developer. John Thompson, the first general manager, was a UW product and former staff member in the department of athletics. John and I met regularly, and we created a good feeling of coexistence.
*********** UFL PREVIEW - FINAL WEEK OF THE REGULAR SEASON
USFL DIVISION
Michigan 6-3
Birmingham 6-3
Houston 4-5
Memphis 2-7
XFL DIVISION
St Louis 7-2
DC 6-3
Arlington 4-5
San Antonio 1-8
UFL SCHEDULE THIS WEEKEND
FRIDAY NIGHT
ST. LOUIS (7-2) AT DC (6-3) - A COACH’S NIGHTMARE - REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME OF THIS GAME, THESE TWO TEAMS WILL MEET AGAIN NEXT WEEK FOR THEIR CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP. BRILLIANT.
SATURDAY
HOUSTON (4-5) AT MICHIGAN (6-3)
SUNDAY
ARLINGTON (4-5) AT SAN ANTONIO (1-8)
BIRMINGHAM (6-3) AT MEMPHIS (2-7)
*********** Thanks for all you do! Coach, if I may ask: what are your say top 10 coaching football books, offense and or defense… Thanks for your time! Coaching books in general. Not necessarily football either.
Anthony Fox
Brandon Mississippi
It’s been a few years since I last printed this, and I have updated it to include “Anatomy of a Game,” and “Football at Ohio State,” so here goes…
AT THE TOP OF MY LIST: Reade, Bob - Coaching Football Successfully - Human Kinetics, 1994 - Every young football coach should read this book - preferably twice or more - before even thinking about becoming a head coach. Coach Reade was a highly successful high school coach, winning three straight Illinois state titles, and a highly successful college coach, winning four straight NCAA Division III championships (at Augustana College) and being named National Division III Coach of the Year four times. As Coach Reade says in the Introduction, “This is not a typical football coaches’ book - it’s not strictly biographical or simply Xs and Os. Instead, it’s a combination of the two, a wedding of principles about life to an approach for coaching football.”
Nelson, David M. - Football Principles and Play - Ronald Press, 1962 - The absolute best book ever written on the thinking that underlies offensive and defensive football; although Dave Nelson is considered to be the father of the Delaware Wing-T, this book is general in nature and could be used as a coaching textbook.
Nelson, David M. - Anatomy of a Game - Univ. of Delaware Press, 1994 - Nelson was for years the head of the NCAA’s football rules committee, and this is the year-by-year story of the rules of the game and why - and how - they came into being.
Parseghian , Ara - Parseghian and Notre Dame Football - Doubleday & Co, 1971 & 1973 - Coach Parseghian's adaptation of the Wing-T offense and his Split-4 defense - and a whole lot more.
McKay, John - Football Coaching - Ronald Press, 1966 - The basics of the USC I-formation attack and his 5-2 Rover (Monster) defense - and more
Ellison, Glenn "Tiger" - Run and Shoot Football - Parker Publishing, 1965 & 1984 - An original offensive system written by the Ohio high school coach who devised it.
Bryant, Paul W. - Building a Championship Football Team - Prentice-Hall, 1960 - The Bear's master work - includes his explanation of Bum Phillips' defensive numbering system.
Evashevski, Forest and Nelson, David - Scoring Power With the Winged T Offense - Brown Co., 1957 - The original book on the offense that took the football world by storm after Iowa put it on display in the Rose Bowl.
Danzig, Allison - The History of American Football - Prentice-Hall, 1956 - A look at the men and their teams - and their thinking - that built the game we have today.
Ecker, Tom and Calloway, Bill - Athletic Journal's Encyclopedia of Football - Parker Publishing, 1978 - A compilation of offensive and defensive ideas from top college and HS coaches.
Tallman, Drew - Directory of Football Offenses - 1978 - incredible resource - pocket-sized diagrams of formations
Tallman, Drew - Directory of Football Defenses - 1980 - likewise
Caldwell, Charlie - Modern Single-Wing Football - Lippincott & Co - 1951 - It’s the first football book I ever got, given to me as a Christmas present when I was a kid. Very technical, it took me years to understand it, but his section on the wedge was a real eye-opener for me
Pool, Hamp - Fly-T Football - Prentice-Hall, 1957 - I have to include this, because it was what first got me interested in coaching. It was my senior year in college, I was injured, and I was pressed into service coaching our intra-mural (yes, tackle football) team. Hamp Pool's Los Angeles Rams of the early 1950s had put up incredible numbers because (1) he had one of the best assemblages of offensive talent ever put together on one team, and (2) he was light years ahead of other coaches in his offensive thinking. After four years of playing belly-T football, mostly from a full-house T backfield, I was awed by the stuff I saw in this book. And doggone if it didn't work when I tried it! It was like magic, and I was hooked.
Smith, Homer - Handbook for Coaching the Football Passing Attack - Parker Publishing, 1970 - The passing game at its very base - the fundamentals necessary for the simplest or most sophisticated passing attack.
Blaik, Earl and Cohane, Tim - You Have to Pay the Price - Holt, Rinehart and Winston - 1960 - A coach's perspective on the game - the agony and the ecstasy of a career in coaching.
Royal, Darrell and Sherrod, Blackie - Darrell Royal Talks Football - Prentice-Hall - 1963 - Just some plain old coaching wisdom that I was badly in need of in my early days.
Hayes, Woody - Football at Ohio State - self-published 1957 - Coach Hayes was noted for being thorough in his approach to the game, and he was just as thorough in this book, which covers all aspects of his program - offense, defense, kicking game, scouting, organization and planning, and the coach-player relationship.
Coach of the Year Clinic Manuals, any and all you can get your hands on (I go back to 1970 with them) - contact Earl Browning, PO Box 22185, Louisville, KY 40252 (telecoach@mindspring.com)
*********** I’m always amazed to learn that this CEO or that still doesn’t use email, but I understand. (That’s because he can afford to pay someone else to handle his email.) Me, I find that email works very nicely for me as a medium of communication.
I try hard to stay up with mine, and I think I do a pretty good job. But then along comes an email that tells me that so-and-so “sent you a message” on Facebook. So now I’m supposed to leave mails and go searching for that message.
Screw it. I did for a while, but 90 per cent of the messages were on the order of “Hi. How’s it going?”
For that, I wasted my time? No more.
So now I guess there are people who think I’m a stuck-up prick that doesn’t respond messages. Tsk, tsk. How bad should I feel when people don’t seem to know how to use email?
Now, along comes Vimeo, which I use to publish some videos, and I’ll be damned if I haven’t started getting messages on that platform. WTF?
coachwyatt@aol.com works great. Since 1997.
*********** I wrote this back in February about books I was reading
One is “Fall River Dreams,” by Bill Reynolds. Reynolds is a longtime sports columnist for the Providence Journal, and he’s covering a season of high school basketball in Fall River, Massachusetts, a town not far from Providence. Fall River is maybe best known as the home of Lizzie Borden. Like Aberdeen, Washington, the town where I’ve been coaching, Fall River has seen better days. Its textile mills have long closed and, with nothing to replace them, Fall River’s unemployment is consistently the highest in Massachusetts. But its people love their basketball, and because he’s been extremely successful, they tolerate their crusty and sarcastic coach, Skip Karam.
And then my son came to visit and I lent him the book and he liked it, and a few days ago he wrote to tell me about a 30-for-30 show called “Unguarded” that carries on where the book left off. My wife and I watched it last night. It follows the career of Chris Herren, a product of Fall River basketball. He could really play the game, but his college career (Boston College, Fresno State), his pro career (Nuggets, Celtics) and his overseas career (Italy, Turkey, China) were marred by severe addiction problems. He has been sober for several years (at least he was at the time of the show’s production), and he seems to have his life in order. Kudos to a wife who held the family together throughout his struggles. He now tours and talks - and tells a most riveting story that I would think would get the attention of people who need to hear it. I highly recommend “Unguarded,” if you can find it.
********** I can’t say that I watched “Duck Dynasty” that much, but I admired Phil Robertson. He died recently. I bet most of you didn’t know that he played college football at Lousiana Tech, where he was the starting quarterback and his understudy was a guy out of Shreveport named Terry Bradshaw.
As I get it, Phil Roberston simply preferred hunting and fishing to the drudgery of college football.
*********** The Democrats are going to have to learn how to speak new language: Deplorable.
I have to laugh at them. Realizing they had a masculinity problem, they discovered that Minnesota Governor Tim Walls had once coached high school football, and they immediately figured they could win the male vote by passing him off as the new John Wayne.
It took just one “Dance of the Fairies” by Tampon Tim and that was that.
Now the Dems are back at it, this time with something they call “SAM” - a very lame acronym for Speaking with American Men. See, they’re going to spend millions on experts who will teach them how to “speak to” American men - real men, that is.
(My bet is that they’ll wind up showing us a series of TV spots featuring soccer players and WNBA stars telling us how to be real men.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dems-drop-20m-bizarre-american-men-strategy-plan-study-effort-dig-out-2024-political-hole
I could save them all the money (half of it at least, after they’ve paid me my share) by reviving and adapting an old advertising campaign I remember from when I was living in Western Maryland - which at that time was definitely what Hillary Clinton would have called a basket of deplorables. Maybe you oldsters remember…
My daddy was a mighty fine man
He taught me a thing or two
When you fight - it’s to win
When you’re right - don’t give in
And Beechnut's the tobacco you chew
And now I'm a daddy and my son's full grown
And I tell him a thing or two
Scared money don't win
Evil women drink gin
And Beechnut's the tobacco you chew
It’s been over 50 years, I bet, since I last heard ‘em, but those Beech-nut Chewing Tobacco commercials have stayed with me all that time…
I’d run a jingle contest and offer nice prizes (a nice leather handbag?) for best submissions, such as…
My daddy was a mighty fine man
He taught me a thing or two
Do away with all bail
Let criminals outta jail
And Democrat’s the party for you
My daddy was a mighty fine man
He taught me a thing or two
The passage north may be tough
But we’ll give you free stuff
And Democrat’s the party for you
My daddy was a mighty fine man
He taught me a thing or two
Come on - let your pride show
Make your flag a rainbow
And Democrat’s the party for you
You’ll be able to tell a real man from a SAM poseur by asking him to eat meat… drink beer… play football… watch WWE… shoot a gun…
*********** ”Football, however, is not a game where a great national championship is possible or desirable. The very nature of the sport would forbid anything like such a series of contests as are played in baseball.” Walter Camp (1919)
All he did was create our game. What the hell would he know?
*********** Not to say that baseball isn’t still a man’s game, but…
Detroit Tigers’ starting pitcher Tarik Skubal is a very good pitcher. He’s 46-33 for his career, and he was last year’s Cy Young Award winner.
He’s in his 6th year with the Tigers.
Last week he pitched his first complete game.
*********** A friend coaches in Oklahoma, where NIL and legalized transfers (at the high school level) are now a fact of life, and he told me a couple of horror stories he’s heard from fellow coaches.
One said he lost three players to another school after taking his kids to a team camp. All of them had been offered cash to transfer.
Another, who coaches at a 2A (small) school told of losing an all-state player whom he’s coached since youth football to a 5A (large) school that offered the kid cash and the dad a job.
*********** Headline in the Babylon Bee:
Jake Tapper Uncovers Startling Evidence That Biden‘s Decline Was Covered Up By Jake Tapper
*********** When Fritz Crisler moved from Minnesota to Princeton in 1935, he became the first non-alumnus ever to coach one of the Big Three (Harvard-Yale-Princeton) teams. At Princeton, he ran up a record of 35-9-5. At Michigan, from 1938 to 1948, his teams won 71 games, lost 16 and tied three.
And then there’s the helmet. This is from a sign on the wall in Princeton’s football offices…
In 1935, Princeton head coach Herbert O. Fritz Crisler introduced to his team a black leather helmet with three stripes along its length and triangular “wings” meant to represent the folded-back ears of a tiger. The bold color combinations and distinctive design helped quarterbacks more easily identify receivers downfield. Crisler would later take this design with him to the University of Michigan after leading the Tigers to two of its record 28 National Championships. After 61 years of dormancy following Crisler’s departure from the University, the design was resurrected in coincidence with the opening of the new Princeton stadium.
Now, I can’t comment one way or another on quarterbacks identifying receivers downfield, which may be so, but “ears of a tiger?” Give me a break. It’s just the way that brand of leather helmet was constructed. In the photo above (from Christmas 1948), my buddy George and I (I’m on the left) showed off our brand-new helmets. (That’s George’s little sister, Patty.) As you can see, other than the fact that our smaller heads required only two strips of leather (stripes) to hold the bigger pieces together instead of three, the method of construction is identical to that of the Princeton (and then Michigan) helmet. No one in the world would have expected us to buy some concocted story about tiger’s ears. Hard to believe, in these sissified times, that there was once a time when American boys would get helmets for Christmas. Equally hard to believe - there was no organized, Pop-Warner-type youth football, so kids actually went outside and, without any help from adults and without any parents sitting in lawn chairs watching, played tackle football.
*********** Your letter to Moose, Rock, and Dani dispassionately covers the bases. Would that they were plugged in to NYCU.
H(igh) D(efinition) Thoreau said something about paying with a piece of one's life. I jumped to the thought that a major reason I prize NYCU is that it's full of life. Not the cutesy stuff some sports sites feature, but real guys (and a few special women) who get excited talking about sports. And we know some of what appears mundane to some is actually quite important in how life is lived in America.
Sting Ray? Why I swear, feller, he done been lifted from a Danny Jenkins novel.
Just before I'm about to hear a rendition of our National Anthem, I brace myself. Didn't used to be that way.
Ditto on Sam Acho. For two seasons he had a place on the CBSSports team broadcasting Army games. After a game or two I really liked him.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Coach,
IMHO I believe the UFL needs to embrace the cities of its teams. Initially having the teams headquartered in Arlington was financially a good move for the league. However, now, as the league has moved into their third year, why not keep the teams in each city in order to raise interest ($$$) and attendance levels ($$$)?
Skip is the outstanding coach and son of a "legendary" coach.
That LA Times article isn't far off. The NIL/Transfer portal has ruined our game at the college level, and is ruining our game at the high school level. What was never broken needed NOT be fixed. It will take someone with a massive set of stones to get things right.
Were you the HC at La Center HS in WA? Currently I have to give a shout-out to the La Center Superintendent Pete Rosenkranz for defying a state mandate requiring schools to be inclusive of trans-athletes. If I was a young coach in the state of Washington I would be working hard on becoming a young coach in Texas!
My youngest brother is a teacher/coach in California. He tells me a number of coaches he knows back there have been packing up and leaving California. Some to Arizona, some to Idaho, and some to Texas. He says he's next. Told him about a few places where I live that are for sale.
I like Sam Acho's enthusiasm. He can be a bit of a motor mouth at times, but he does a good job of providing insight.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, you are very observant. Yes, I coached at LaCenter for three years - 1996-7-8.
Their Supe refuses to require that teachers ask kids what pronouns they prefer. You know exactly where that crap is headed. I support him totally. In Washington, he seems too be fighting a lonely battle. Despite federal opposition to it, Our state association (WIAA) continues to support trans “athletes” in girls’ sports. So does our State Superintendent of Public Instruction (the Czar of public schools). The Democrats have super majorities in both houses and a stranglehold on the governor’s office, so there’s no chance of any change at the state level.
The Evergreen State is unbelievably beautiful and I love our climate, and I love our house. I like our town, too. But our state is cursed from the top down with a tyranny made possible only in such a solidly one-party state. Officials do as they wish, knowing that they are secure in office. They’re kept there by a majority of well-meaning types, plus the sort of assholes that are attracted here by the knowledge that no one will ever be strong enough to change even the most insane liberal idiocy. They actually LIKE it like this. We are as bad as Massachusetts. Or California. We’ve been accused of copy-catting California, but our fools don’t just try to copy California. They try to out-do it. What would your state do to deal $4.50 a gallon gas? Our leaders just added another six cents a gallon in tax
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Roosevelt Leaks was not the first black man to play football at Texas (Julius Whittier was, in 1970) but in 1972 he became UT’s first black All-American.
He grew up on a farm near Brenham, Texas, northwest of Houston, where he was a star in both baseball and football. As a linebacker and running back, he led Brenham High to a 22-2-1 record and district championships in his junior and senior seasons. He was all-state both years. In his high school career he rushed for 3,688 yards and 55 touchdowns and in his senior year was named to the Parade Magazine High School All-America team.
Highly recruited, he finally chose Texas over Houston.
In the NCAA’s last year of freshman ineligibility, he sat out his freshman year, but in his sophomore season he established himself as the successor to Steve “Woo Woo” Worster, Texas’ first wishbone fullback, once carrying 20 times in a single quarter.
He rushed for 1,099 yards and scored eight touchdowns as the Longhorns went 10-1, winning the Southwest Conference championship and finishing third nationally. He was an All-Conference choice, and was named second-team All-America.
In his junior year, he was nearly All-Everything. He set a SWC rushing record with 1,415 yards, including a single-game record 342 yards against SMU. He was not only All-Conference - the first black player to be so-honored - but he was named conference MVP. He was a consensus All-American - making him Texas’ first black All-American - and he finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting. (It was won that year by Penn State’s John Cappelletti. In fifth place was an Ohio State sophomore running back named Archie Griffin.)
He was considered a strong candidate for Heisman honors his senior season, but in spring practice he suffered a knee injury - described by Longhorns’ coach Darrell Royal as the worst he’d ever seen - and he was never the same runner again.
There was some question as to whether he would even play again, but he worked hard to rehab and was able to play his senior year. Royal admitted that he didn’t have the heart to bench a player he admired and respected so much, but his fullback had lost speed and it was obvious that he was playing in pain, and eventually he had to share time with a freshman named Earl Campbell (yes, that Earl Campbell).
His senior year output was a mere (for him) 408 yards, but overall, he rushed for 2,923 yards during his three years at Texas.
He was drafted in the fifth round by the Baltimore Colts, and although he did not have a spectacular NFL career, he played for nine seasons - five with the Colts and four with the Bills.
He rushed for 2,406 yards and 28 touchdowns, and caught 71 passes for 590 yards, but mostly he was valued for his blocking - no doubt a carryover from his high-contact days as a wishbone fullback.
Roosevelt Leaks is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ROOSEVELT LEAKS
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Rothwell - Corpus Christi, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
*********** QUIZ: He was a member of two different “Fearsome Foursomes.”
He was one of the first NFL players to play at over 300 pounds.
There were ten Playoff /Runner-up Bowl games played - and he played in five of them.
He was born in Surry, Virginia, but his mother died when he was four and his family moved, first to Newport News and then to Nyack, New York, where he grew up and went to high school.
In high school, because of his size - 6-2, 230 - and speed (he was once timed in 50 yards at 5.4 seconds) he was a fullback, and was highly recruited.
"I was supposed to go to Michigan State,” he remembered, and I was supposed to go to Syracuse. But my grades out of high school weren't that strong.”
So he went instead to Maryland State, a small HBCU on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (and now known as Maryland-Eastern Shore).
Maryland State, although it had fewer than 300 students, was known for its strong football teams, producing NFL stars such as Emerson Boozer, Sherman Plunkett, Johnny Sample and Art Shell.
Moved to defensive tackle as a sophomore, he excelled and in 1959, his senior year, he was named to the Pittsbugh Courier’s Black College All-America Team.
He was taken by the Detroit Lions in the fourth round of the NFL draft, the highest up to that time of any player from an all-black college.
As a rookie, he started at defensive tackle in Detroit's first regular season game, and was a regular on the Lions’ defensive line for seven straight years. Dubbed the original “Fearsome Foursome” by a Pontiac (Michigan) sports writer named Bruno Kerns, the Lions’ front four consisted of him and Alex Karras at tackles, Darris McCord and Sam Williams at ends.
In his first three years with the Lions, they finished second in their division three straight times - to the Packers. The Packers went on to win three straight NFL championships, while the Lions went on to play in - and win - three straight Playoff Bowls.
Also dubbed the Runner-Up Bowl, the Playoff Bowl game was played between the two division runners-up, with the benefits going to the players’ pension fund. There were ten Playoff Bowl games played in all, and our guy had the distinction of playing in five of them.
By far his most famous individual performance came in the so-called “Thanksgiving Day Massacre,” when the Lions manhandled the previously unbeaten Packers, 26-14, dealing the Pack their only defeat of the season. During the game, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr was sacked eleven times. Our guy was credited with seven of those sacks, one of them for a safety.
In 1967, he was traded to Los Angeles, and filling in for the injured Rosie Greer, he became a member of the Rams’ Fearsome Foursome (along with Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones and Lamar Lundy) until a broken hand in 1969 resulted in his sharing duties with rookie Coy Bacon.
He retired after the 1969 season.
During his career, he’s was twice named first team All-Pro, and three times second team. He played in the Pro Bowl for six straight years, from 1962 through 1967.
In 1962, he was the Los Angeles Times NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
In 1994 the Detroit media picked an All-Golden Era Team - celebrating the Lions' first thirty seasons, from 1934 through 1963 - and he was one of four defensive linemen named, along with Darris McCord, Thurman McGraw, and Les Bingaman.
After retiring, he started a chain of fried chicken restaurants in the Midwest, which he sold before entering a management trainee program with McDonalds. After years in management with the company, he bought his own McDonalds franchise in Virginia, and wound up owning several restaurants.
Asked once about the difference between the NFL he played in and the NFL of today, he said, "There were twelve teams when I broke in. We had 34 or 35 players on the team. There was no such team as `injured reserve' or `taxi squad.'
"You either played football, or you went home. I remember that like it was yesterday.
"Back in those days if you were hurt or bleeding, you didn't complain. You played.
“When you got a sack and knocked somebody down, you didn't dance or do the boogie. You didn't wave your hands all over the place when you made a tackle. Sometimes someone else got the credit. You had a job to do and you went out and did it.
"You played the whole game, hurt or not hurt. Nothing kept you out of the game. I don't see that real ‘I'm- gonna-play-regardless' attitude that we had, and they're getting an awful lot of money to play today."
TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2025 "The
cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is
required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” Henry
David Thoreau 
*********** Nearing sunset on the eve of Memorial Day… the Camas, Washington Cemetery is adorned with flags, placed on veterans’ graves by local Boy Scouts. In the background, those hills are in Oregon, across the Columbia River from us. Yes, on days like this, the sky really is this blue.
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: In the previous year, the first for Don James as head coach, the Huskies won four of their last five games to salvage a winning season, barely (six victories and five losses). Jim Owens, James' predecessor, had transformed the Washington program as well as the prestige of West Coast collegiate football early in his UW career. After back-to-back Rose Bowl victories over favorite Big Ten opponents in 1960 and ’61, Owens’ popularity was unparalleled. Adoring fans suggested the coach, who lived on the shores of Lake Washington not far from the campus, could have walked (on water )to work.
But the metaphors invoking deification became less frequent in the later years of the Owens regime. Some of the luster of those magnificent single-platoon conquests was dulled by a string of seasons in which the Huskies lost four or five games.
In my first year at Washington and the inaugural season of the Seahawks, Husky football attendance sagged about as we had projected. It fell to 42,595 per game, down from 51,383 a year earlier. Don James was making strides in regrouping his program but it didn't show in the win-loss column. The 5–6 record of 1976 evened his two-year totals to 11 wins and 11 losses.
If we didn't do something in a hurry we were headed for big trouble.
*********** Dear Moose and Rock and Dani:
You’d think that by now you’d have this thing figured out, but the football being played in today’s UFL isn’t close to what we saw two or three years ago - when there were two leagues competing for players and coaches.
And based on the vacant seats in the stands at your games, you stopped competing for fans long ago, and didn’t spend a dime on marketing.
I’d be surprised if the TV folks are in for another round of this next year.
The announcers have done their share to turn me against the UFL - it’s nonstop chatter, seldom directly related to what’s happening on the field. With “booth” conversations that take precedence over the game itself, they act as if they’re doing baseball, where there’s plenty of down time for that. Sideline interviews are interminable and silly.
No doubt because there isn’t the budget for them, there’s an annoying lack of replays.
Player development? I don’t see many players who could even make an NFL practice squad - but then, why would the NFL be interested anyhow? It seems to me that an unusual number of these guys are in their late 20s or older, and not likely to improve any. And with the small staffs your teams have, there can’t be that much “player development” going on.
Every week players come and go, often at key positions - including quarterback - with scarcely a word of explanation.
The play itself reflects the low level of talent and the lack of coaching. Missed tackles and missed passes are commonplace. Holding and pass interference are flagrant and stifle play.
The networks don’t seem to care. For weeks now, the announcers have been absent. Their “virtual booth” has been somewhere other than at the game site.
The planning sucks. Last week the Arlington-DC game went too long so our DVR didn’t catch the end of it. This week, the Fox guys somehow miscalculated how long the Indy 500 was going to last, and as a result we couldn’t join the DC-Houston game until midway through the second quarter.
On Saturday, the Memphis-Arlington game was held up so long by weather that we couldn’t record any of the game.
It would have taken more money (that’s easy for me to say) plus effort and imagination - but I really think you could have made a go of this.
I feel sorry for the players and coaches who are going to be out of work when you inevitably fold. (I imagine you will announce that you’re “suspending operations.”)
Signed regretfully,
Once one of the best fans spring football ever had.
UFL PREVIEW
USFL DIVISION
Michigan 6-3
Birmingham 6-3
Houston 4-5
Memphis 2-7
XFL DIVISION
St Louis 7-2
DC 6-3
Arlington 4-5
San Antonio 1-8
UFL RESULTS THIS PAST WEEKEND
FRIDAY NIGHT
ST. LOUIS 39, SAN ANTONIO 13
SATURDAY
ARLINGTON 30, MEMPHIS 12
BIRMINGHAM 26, MICHIGAN 22
SUNDAY
HOUSTON 24, DC 21
*********** I heard one of the UFL blabbermouths refer to Skip Holtz, Birmingham coach, as “The legendary head coach.”
Now, I happen to think Skip Holtz is a damn good coach. But legendary?
He’s won at UConn, at East Carolina and at Louisiana Tech, where he won six straight bowl games from 2014 through 2019. None of them could be called easy jobs.
And although he was only 16-21 in three years at South Florida, he was coming in on the heels of Jim Leavitt, who built the Bulls’ program from scratch, and whose departure was messy.
Overall, as a college coach, he’s 152-121. Very good, but not legendary.
So it must be what he’s done at Birmingham, where he’s 3 for 3 so far in winning spring football championships.
But isn’t it a bit excessive to refer to anything or anyone associated with a minor league operation as “legendary?”
*********** It takes a newspaper the size of the Los Angeles Times to be able to afford to cover high school sports the way their Eric Sondheimer has been doing for more than 40 years.
He knows everybody and he’s on top of everything. And when his latest article is titled, “High school football will never be the same in era of transfers, NIL money” - believe him.
Here’s a tease…
When Charles Dickens began his 1859 novel “A Tale of Two Cities” with the legendary line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” who knew that it would aptly describe the state of amateur football in 2025?
From college athletics to high school athletics, if you’re a parent, coach, athlete or fan, you have plenty of stories to tell. Take notes, because there’s so much material you’ll be able to write a book, launch a podcast or participate in court cases still to be decided.
Football isn’t in a crisis but it is in a black hole with stakeholders seeking an escape path.
With final rules still not adopted in how name, image and likeness is supposed to work and college programs not only paying their own athletes but high school recruits, too, everyone is adjusting on the fly. Parents trying to navigate the changes are hiring agents, who are showing up to high school camps trying to find clients. There’s the college transfer portal and something similar in high school that saw more than 17,000 students switch schools in California last year.
Until NIL rules are figured out, it’s roll your eyes and don’t be surprised at anything.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2025-05-25/prep-football-will-never-be-the-same-transfers-nil-money
*********** Lynn Amedee died recently in Baton Rouge.
Here’s an excerpt from his obituary
Lynn Joseph Amedee, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, passed away at the age of 83 on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. He attended Istrouma High School and LSU, where he played quarterback from 1960-1962 and was named outstanding player of the 1963 Cotton Bowl. He was also a pitcher for the 1960-1961 SEC championship baseball team. Lynn played professional football for the Edmonton Eskimos and then went on to have a distinguished career as a professional and college football coach serving as offensive coordinator for a number of universities, including LSU, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, USL, Texas A&M, Florida, Texas, and Mississippi State. He also coached for the New Orleans Saints and the Birmingham Americans of the World Football League.
Actually, Lynn Amedee coached two Birmingham teams. They were the Americans in 1974 and the Vulcans in 1975, which was when I met him. I knew what kind of football player he had been, and we spent a good bit of time in a hospitality room just talking football (as football people have been known to do).
He was a great guy, and a very good coach, but not many people - even in Louisiana - realize what a good football player he was.
That’s because he was a wing-T quarterback (LSU coach Paul Dietzel and his offensive coordinator Bill Peterson having been taught the Delaware Wing-T by Mike Lude), and to the ordinary fan, that means “all he did was hand off.”
He sure must have done a good job of that, though, because in his final two years, the Tigers’ record was 19-1-1, with an Orange Bowl win over Colorado and a Cotton Bowl win over Texas. And with national top-10 rankings both years.
One reason why “all he did was hand off” was that those of us who’ve run a wing-T type offense know how much deft ball handling and intricate footwork are involved in quarterbacking the Wing-T.
Another reason is that he had some pretty good backs to hand off to. After his final two seasons, three LSU running backs all told were NFL first-round draft choices:
In the 1962 draft, Wendell Harris was taken ninth overall by the Baltimore Colts and Earl Gros was taken fourteenth by the Packers. Wendell Harris played six years in the NFL and Earl Gros played nine.
In the 1963 draft, Jerry Stovall was the number two player taken overall - by the St. Louis Cardinals - and he played nine years in the NFL.
Amazingly, a fourth Tiger running back, Bo Campbell, was also considered a pro prospect, but he passed up the NFL. Nevertheless, he may well have come out ahead of all three of the others financially. After service in the Air Force, he had a very successful career as a banker in Shreveport (where his father owned the bank). He rose to become president of the bank, and after it merged with banking giant Capitol One, he served on the board at Capital One until his retirement. He was a major donor to LSU, and served on its Board of Supervisors and on the LSU Athletic Council. The E.R. “Bo” Campbell Auditorium, named in his honor, occupies a prominent place on the LSU campus.
Not a bad group for Lynn Amedee to be “just handing it off” to.
*********** I’m waiting for President Trump to get finished with tariffs, corruption, the border, DEI and Harvard so that he can get around to issuing an executive order calling for immediate execution of anyone doing what some singer named Natalie Grant did on Sunday.
Before the running of the Indianapolis 500, this woman “sang” something that she tried passing off as our national anthem.
And it took her long enough: 2:04.5 minutes on my stopwatch.
For reference, I timed a college band’s version and it was close to a minute shorter tham hers, at 1:14.9. And it was completely recognizable.
*********** I’m not one to judge - well, actually, yes, I am - but I am withholding judgement on people who would name a son Sting Ray. Yes, Sting Ray. A guy named Sting Ray Robb drove in the Indianapolis 500 Sunday, and, we were assured, that’s his given name.
He’s from Payette, Idaho, which happens also to be the hometown of baseball slugger Harmon Killebrew.
Personally, I’d have found it more believable if I’d heard he was from, say, Bessemer, Alabama and played strong safety for the Crimson Tide.
(Sting Ray’s parents, evidently, are big Chevy fans, and named him after the sports car.)
*********** Jason Ronquillo started out as head coach at little Hoquiam, Washington High School, our arch rival at Aberdeen (and the school where John Elway’s dad, Jack, once played quarterback).
He was successful enough there that he was hired as head coach at Yelm, a town of about 10,000 some 20 miles southeast of Olympia, the state capital.
That was 2013, and Yelm hadn’t made the state playoffs since 1987.
He finally got them there in 2018, and in 2022 Yelm won the state 3A title. They made it to the final game again the following year, although they lost.
The town - and the school - have continued to grow, and this past season, its first in a larger classification, Yelm went 7-3.
Overall, his record at Yelm after 12 years is 89-37.
This past week, just 10 days before the state-approved start of spring ball, he resigned.
Maybe that should be “resigned.” If you read me.
No one is speaking, and the only thing that’s come out is this, from the Tacoma News-Tribune: “Multiple sources have told The News Tribune the resignation stemmed from an off-the-field, personal issue.”
Well, no sh— Sherlock. The last time they were “on-the-field” was November.
https://www.elisportsnetwork.com/2025/05/23/hs-football-jason-ronquillo-steps-down-at-yelm/
*********** I like Sam Acho. He has room to improve as an announcer - he tends to talk a little too fast and a little too much - but overall I like him there.
And there’s no question that he’s an outstanding human being.
It’s that attire.
I get it. His heritage is Nigerian - his parents are Nigerian immigrants. But he’s as American as I am. He was born in Dallas.
He’s everything we’d like immigrants - or children of immigrants - to be.
He’s extremely bright. He went to Saint Marks School, an academically elite private school.
He’s respected by his peers. He played four years at Texas and was team captain his senior year.
He was a two-time academic All-American.
He won the Campbell Trophy. It’s been called the “Academic Heisman,” but it’s more than that.
He’s fluent in three languages: English, Spanish, Igbo, which is spoken in Nigeria language.
And he has an MBA.
With all that said, I think that his attire is out of place at a football game and calls excessive attention to something other than the game.
*********** There will be 16 NCAA baseball Super Regionals and eight of them will be hosted by SEC teams. No argument here - the SEC is that good.
I have four grandkids who graduated from Vanderbilt, so it’s not as if I needed any more reason to pull for them, but I really like their coach, Tim Corbin. He’s a New Englander and a solid baseball guy.
And after a post-game interview on Saturday, I really like R. J. Austin, their leading hitter who, in the words of the coach, "could virtually play every position on the field if needed… His consistency on the field is backed up by his behaviors socially and academically. He gets high marks everywhere.”
His dad, Reggie Austin, played in the secondary at Wake Forest and for the Chicago Bears.
*********** Coach Wyatt,
I received this email today and very quickly thought of you. I'm sure you know (and post) most of this information but I am forwarding it just in case there is something new.
I finally retired from teaching but still coaching with a former assistant of mine who is now a head coach. Having a blast!
God Bless,
Mark Hundley
Grove City, Ohio
Coach Hundley very thoughtfully sent me an email containing a link to “American Minute,” by Bill Federer.
It’s very good and well worth your looking into:
https://americanminute.com/blogs/todays-american-minute/memorial-day-honoring-american-heroes-of-courage-sacrifice-faith-american-minute-with-bill-federer
*********** Hi Coach!
I always take the time to read your Memorial Day essays/tributes. Thank you!
Mike Framke
Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** Coach:
Every year on or before Memorial Day, I look forward to reading your special edition of your page. There is no better one on any newspaper or Internet site in the country. I always particularly enjoy reading the sections having to do with Justice Holmes. He was a man of both intellect and action.
Last night I was at a high school graduation with over 900 students graduating. During that interminable ceremony, I was actually wondering how many of those students wIll recognize the meaning of Memorial Day on Monday.
Thank you for putting together such a remarkable page.
John Vermillion
Saint Petersburg, Florida
*********** Coach,
Thank you so much for continuing to share those Memorial Day thoughts with us. I for one will always look forward to them, and remember those who sacrificed so much for ours, others, and my freedoms and liberty.
I wasn't aware of Bham's fair weather background. Point taken. St. Louis on the other hand SHOULD have an NFL franchise.
With the latest college football playoff commission's mandate that conference champions will no longer receive automatic BYES, and that all teams will be seeded 1-12, has virtually guaranteed Notre Dame's independent status. Now, an undefeated ND team can receive one of those 4 byes IF they can finish an unblemished season.
Petros Papadakis is right. USC is no longer the USC we Irish faithful loved to hate, and were always nervous about! The Trojans are now a shell of their former "Tailback U" selves.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: He was not the first black man to play football at Texas (Julius Whittier was, in 1970) but in 1972 he became UT’s first black All-American.
He grew up on a farm near Brenham, Texas, northwest of Houston, where he was a star in both baseball and football. As a linebacker and running back, he led Brenham High to a 22-2-1 record and district championships in his junior and senior seasons. He was all-state both years. In his high school career he rushed for 3,688 yards and 55 touchdowns and in his senior year was named to the Parade Magazine High School All-America team.
Highly recruited, he finally chose Texas over Houston.
In the NCAA’s last year of freshman ineligibility, he sat out his freshman year, but in his sophomore season he established himself as the successor to Steve “Woo Woo” Worster, Texas’ first wishbone fullback, once carrying 20 times in a single quarter.
He rushed for 1,099 yards and scored eight touchdowns as the Longhorns went 10-1, winning the Southwest Conference championship and finishing third nationally. He was an All-Conference choice, and was named second-team All-America.
In his junior year, he was nearly All-Everything. He set a SWC rushing record with 1,415 yards, including a single-game record 342 yards against SMU. He was not only All-Conference - the first black player to be so-honored - but he was named conference MVP. He was a consensus All-American - making him Texas’ first black All-American - and he finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting. (It was won that year by Penn State’s John Cappelletti. In fifth place was an Ohio State sophomore running back named Archie Griffin.)
He was considered a strong candidate for Heisman honors his senior season, but in spring practice he suffered a knee injury - described by Longhorns’ coach Darrell Royal as the worst he’d ever seen - and he was never the same runner again.
There was some question as to whether he would even play again, but he worked hard to rehab and was able to play his senior year. Royal admitted that he didn’t have the heart to bench a player he admired and respected so much, but his fullback had lost speed and it was obvious that he was playing in pain, and eventually he had to share time with a freshman named Earl Campbell (yes, that Earl Campbell).
His senior year output was a mere (for him) 408 yards, but overall, he rushed for 2,923 yards during his three years at Texas.
He was drafted in the fifth round by the Baltimore Colts, and although he did not have a spectacular NFL career, he played for nine seasons - five with the Colts and four with the Bills.
He rushed for 2,406 yards and 28 touchdowns, and caught 71 passes for 590 yards, but mostly he was valued for his blocking - no doubt a carryover from his high-contact days as a wishbone fullback.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2025 "I
heard
a woman say there once, 'They gave their all. They gave their very
names.'" Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a veteran of Civil War battles,
on visiting unmarked graves at Arlington National Cemetery
MEMORIAL DAY, 2025
FOR YEARS, IT’S BEEN MY HONOR TO OBSERVE MEMORIAL DAY WITH A COLLECTION OF WRITINGS, POEMS AND OBSERVATIONS. I HOPE YOU’LL TAKE THE TIME TO READ THEM…
*********** Memorial Day was originally known as "Decoration Day,” set aside to honor the men who died in the Civil War. (For a long time, certain southern states chose not observe it, instead observing their own state’s Memorial Days to honor their Confederate war dead.)
*********** On Memorial Day, we honor those who died fighting for our country. But it's also important to honor those who didn't die - who survived the conflict itself, then spent the rest of their lives trying to suppress memories of the horrors of war, tormented by the thought that comrades died, and they were spared.
*********** For seven summers, I coached football in Finland. On one occasion, I attended the high school graduation of one of my players. Other than the language, it wasn't all that different from those that I'd attended in the US, except that at the end, instead of some raucous celebrating, the graduates marched solemnly to the nearby town churchyard and laid flowers on the graves of soldiers - some of them young men from their town who less than 50 years before had given their lives to defend their country against the Russians, some of them young men who had died years earlier, in a civil war to decide whether the communism unleashed in neighboring Russia might also engulf their country.
I marvelled at the graduates’ devotion to their country, and at the way they unashamedly honored their fallen soldiers, and I realize how blessed we were never to have had our very country threatened. But I also realized how special our dead servicemen were, because so many of them died on foreign shores, their deaths all the more tragic because they were only remotely connected to the actual defense of their country.
I ESPECIALLY HONOR THE MEN OF THE BLACK LIONS, AND DON HOLLEDER, FORMER ARMY ALL-AMERICAN, WHO DIED IN THE VIETNAM JUNGLE IN THE BATTLE OF ONG THANH, OCTOBER 17, 1967
VIETNAM WALL... K I A ... Adkins, Donald W.... Allen, Terry... Anderson, Larry M.... Barker, Gary L.... Blackwell, James L., Jr.... Bolen, Jackie Jr. ... Booker, Joseph O. ... Breeden, Clifford L. Jr ... Camero, Santos... Carrasco, Ralph ... Chaney, Elwood D. Jr... Cook, Melvin B.... Crites, Richard L.... Crutcher, Joe A. ...... Dodson, Wesley E.... Dowling, Francis E.... Durham, Harold B. Jr ... Dye, Edward P. ... East, Leon N.... Ellis, Maurice S.... Familiare, Anthony ... Farrell, Michael J. ...Fuqua, Robert L. Jr. ...Gallagher, Michael J. ...Garcia, Arturo ...Garcia, Melesso ...Gilbert, Stanley D. ...Gilbertson, Verland ...Gribble, Ray N. ...Holleder, Donald W. ...Jagielo, Allen D. ...Johnson, Willie C. Jr ...Jones, Richard W. ...Krischie, John D. ...Lancaster, James E. ...Larson, James E. ...Lincoln, Gary G. ...Lovato, Joe Jr. ...Luberta, Andrew P. ...Megiveron, Emil G. ...Miller, Michael M. ...Moultrie, Joe D. ...Nagy, Robert J. ...Ostroff, Steven L. ...Platosz, Walter ...Plier, Eugene J. ...Porter, Archie ...Randall, Garland J. ...Reece, Ronney D. ...Reilly, Allan V. ...Sarsfield, Harry C. ...Schroder, Jack W. ...Shubert, Jackie E. ...Sikorski, Daniel ...Smith, Luther ...Thomas, Theodore D. Jr. ...Tizzio, Pasquale T. ...Wilson, Kenneth P. .... M I A ... Fitzgerald, Paul ...Hargrove, Olin Jr
*********** The Civil War soldiers called it "seeing the elephant." It meant experiencing combat. They may have started out cocky, but they soon enough learned how horrible - how unforgiving and inescapable - combat could be. By the end of the Civil War 620,000 of them on both sides lay dead.
From "Seeing the Elephant" - Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh - Joseph Allan Frank and George A. Reaves - New York: Greenwood Press, 1989
"I have never realized the 'pomp and circumstance' of glorious war before this," a Confederate soldier bitterly wrote, "Men...lying in every conceivable position; the dead...with eyes open, the wounded begging piteously for help."
"All around, strange mingled roar - shouts of defiance, rally, and desperation; and underneath, murmured entreaty and stifled moans; gasping prayers, snatches of Sabbath song, whispers of loved names; everywhere men torn and broken, staggering, creeping, quivering on the earth, and dead faces with strangely fixed eyes staring stark into the sky. Things which cannot be told - nor dreamed. How men held on, each one knows, - not I."
Each battle was a story of great courage and audacity, sometimes of miscommunication and foolishness. But it's the casualty numbers that catch our eyes. The numbers roll by and they are hard for us to believe, even in these days of modern warfare. Shiloh: 23,741, Seven Days: 36,463, Antietam: 26,134, Fredericksburg: 17,962, Gettysburg: 51,112, and on and on (in most cases, the South named battles after the town that served as their headquarters in that conflict, the North named them after nearby rivers or creeks - so "Manassas" for the South was "Bull Run" for the North; "Antietam" for the Union was "Sharpsburg" for the Confederacy).
Union General William T. Sherman looked at the aftermath of Shiloh and wrote, "The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war."
********** THE YANKEE FROM OLYMPUS - ON MEMORIAL DAY
"We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt - we still feel - the passion of life to its top.... In our youths, our hearts were touched with fire." Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr.
At a time in our history when fewer than five per cent of the people who govern us have served in our Armed Forces, it's useful to go back to another time, a time of men such as Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr.
Born in Boston in 1841, he was the son of a famous poet and physician. In his lifetime he would see combat in the Civil War, then go on to become a noted lawyer and, finally, for 30 years, serve as a justice of the Supreme Court. So respected was he that he became known as "The Yankee From Olympus."
After graduation from Harvard, with the Civil War underway, he joined the United States Army, and saw combat in the Peninsula Campaign and the Wilderness. He was injured at the Battles of Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and he was discharged in 1864 as a Lieutenant Colonel.
The story is told that in July 1864, the Confederate general Jubal Early conducted a raid north of Washington, D.C., and President Abraham Lincoln came out to watch the battle. As Lincoln watched, an officer right next to him was hit by a sniper's bullet. Holmes was nearby and , not realizing whom he was speaking to, shouted to the President, "Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!"
After the war's conclusion, Holmes returned to Harvard to study law. Admitted to the bar in 1866, he went into private practice in Boston. In 1882, he became both a professor at Harvard Law School and a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. In 1899, he was appointed Chief Justice of the court, and in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt named him to the United States Supreme Court, where he served for more than 30 years, until January 1932.
Over the years, as a distinguished citizen who knew what it meant to fight for his country, he would reflect every year on the meaning of Memorial Day, and of the American soldier’s contribution to preserving our way of life.
On Memorial Day, 1884, 20 years after the end of the Civil War, Mr. Holmes said,
Accidents may call up the events of the war. You see a battery of guns go by at a trot, and for a moment you are back at White Oak Swamp, or Antietam, or on the Jerusalem Road.
You hear a few shots fired in the distance, and for an instant your heart stops as you say to yourself, The skirmishers are at it, and listen for the long roll of fire from the main line.
You meet an old comrade after many years of absence, he recalls the moment that you were nearly surrounded by the enemy, and again there comes up to you that swift and cunning thinking on which once hung life and freedom -- Shall I stand the best chance if I try the pistol or the sabre on that man who means to stop me? Will he get his carbine free before I reach him, or can I kill him first? These and the thousand other events we have known are called up, I say, by accident, and, apart from accident, they lie forgotten.
But as surely as this day comes round we are in the presence of the dead. For one hour, twice a year at least--at the regimental dinner, where the ghosts sit at table more numerous than the living, and on this day when we decorate their graves -- the dead come back and live with us.
I see them now, more than I can number, as once I saw them on this earth. They are the same bright figures, or their counterparts, that come also before your eyes; and when I speak of those who were my brothers, the same words describe yours.
This, from Justice Holmes' address to the graduating class of Harvard University on Memorial Day, 1895…
I have heard the question asked whether our war was worth fighting, after all. There are many, poor and rich, who think that love of country is an old wife's tale, to be replaced by interest in a labor union, or, under the name of cosmopolitanism, by a rootless self-seeking search for a place where the most enjoyment may be had at the least cost.
I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.
Most men who know battle know the cynic force with which the thoughts of common sense will assail them in times of stress; but they know that in their greatest moments faith has trampled those thoughts under foot. If you wait in line, suppose on Tremont Street Mall, ordered simply to wait and do nothing, and have watched the enemy bring their guns to bear upon you down a gentle slope like that of Beacon Street, have seen the puff of the firing, have felt the burst of the spherical case-shot as it came toward you, have heard and seen the shrieking fragments go tearing through your company, and have known that the next or the next shot carries your fate; if you have advanced in line and have seen ahead of you the spot you must pass where the rifle bullets are striking; if you have ridden at night at a walk toward the blue line of fire at the dead angle of Spotsylvania, where for twenty-four hours the soldiers were fighting on the two sides of an earthwork, and in the morning the dead and dying lay piled in a row six deep, and as you rode you heard the bullets splashing in the mud and earth about you; if you have been in the picket-line at night in a black and unknown wood, have heard the splat of the bullets upon the trees, and as you moved have felt your foot slip upon a dead man's body; if you have had a blind fierce gallop against the enemy, with your blood up and a pace that left no time for fear -- if, in short, as some, I hope many, who hear me, have known, you have known the vicissitudes of terror and triumph in war; you know that there is such a thing as the faith I spoke of. You know your own weakness and are modest; but you know that man has in him that unspeakable somewhat which makes him capable of miracle, able to lift himself by the might of his own soul, unaided, able to face annihilation for a blind belief.
On the eve of Memorial Day, 1931, at the age of 90, Mr. Justice Holmes wrote to a friend:
"I shall go out to Arlington tomorrow, Memorial Day, and visit the gravestone with my name and my wife's on it, and be stirred by the military music, and, instead of bothering about the Unknown Soldier shall go to another stone that tells beneath it are the bones of, I don't remember the number but two or three thousand and odd, once soldiers gathered from the Virginia fields after the Civil War. I heard a woman say there once, 'They gave their all. They gave their very names.' Later perhaps some people will come in to say goodbye."
Justice Holmes died on March 6, 1935, two days short of his 94th birthday, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. So spry and alert was he, right up to the end, that it's said that one day, when he was in his nineties, he saw an attractive young woman and said, "Oh, to be seventy again!" A 1951 Hollywood motion picture, The Magnificent Yankee, was based on his life.
*********** Roughly 10 million men were killed in World War I. So effective had the weapons of war become by then that for about half of them - five million men - there are no known graves.
*********** Many years ago, I visited the First Division (Big Red One) Museum at Cantigny, in Wheaton, Illinois. There, I read these lines, and thought of all the young Americans who died in the service of their country - men who, in the memories of those they left behind, would be forever young...
If you are able
Save a place for them inside of you,
And save one backward glance
When you are leaving for places
They can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
Though you may or may not always have.
Take what they have left
And what they have taught you with their dying,
And keep it with your own.
And in that time when men feel safe
To call the war insane,
Take one moment to embrace these gentle heroes
You left behind.
by Major Michael D. O'Donnell... shortly before being killed in action in Vietnam, 1970
***********After graduation from Harvard in 1910, Alan Seeger lived the life of a bohemian/beatnik/ hippie poet in New York City's Greenwich Village.
In 1914, he moved to Paris, and when war with Germany broke out, like a number of other young Americans, he joined the French Foreign Legion to fight on the side of the Allies.
On July 4, 1916, nine months before America joined the war, he was killed in the Battle of the Somme. He was 28.
A year after his death, his poems were published. The best known of them was "I Have a Rendezvous With Death," which according to the JFK Library, "was one of President Kennedy's favorite poems."
I Have a Rendezvous with Death
By Alan Seeger
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
*********** Poppies once symbolized the Great War. The World War. Or, if you prefer, "The War to End All Wars" (so-called because, in the conceit that seems to follow every war, people just knew in their hearts that after the horror of that conflict, mankind would do anything in its power to avoid ever going to war again.)
We now call it “World War I.”
Following the World War, Americans began to observe the week leading up to Memorial Day as Poppy Week, and for years after the World War ended, veterans' organizations in America, Australia and other nations which had fought in the war sold imitation poppies at this time every year to raise funds to assist disabled veterans.
The entrance to the National World War I and Memorial, in Kansas City, is a bridge - a transparent bridge - over a field of blooming poppies.
It was largely because of a poem by a Canadian surgeon, Major John McCrae, that the poppy, which burst into bloom all over the once-bloody battlefields of northern Europe, came to symbolize the rebirth of life following the tragedy of war.
In the spring of 1915, after having spent seventeen days hearing the screams and dealing with the suffering of men wounded in the bloody battle at Ypres, in Flanders (a part of Belgium), Major McCrae wrote, "I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."
Major McCrae was especially affected by the death of a close friend and former student. Following his burial - at which, in the absence of a chaplain, Major McCrae himself had had to preside - the Major sat in the back of an ambulance and, gazing out at the wild poppies growing in a nearby cemetery, composed a poem, scribbling the words in a notebook. When he was done, though, he discarded it, and only through the efforts of a fellow officer, who rescued it and sent it to newspapers in England, was it ever published.
Now, that poem, "In Flanders Fields", is considered perhaps the greatest of all wartime poems. The special significance of the poppies is that poppy seeds might lie dormant in the ground for years, flowering only when the soil has been turned over. The soil of northern Belgium had been so churned up by the violence of war that at the time Major McCrae wrote his poem, the poppies were said to be blossoming in such a profusion that no one could remember ever having seen before.
In Flanders Fields... by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
*********** Robert W. Service is one of my favorite poets. I especially like his poems about the Alaska Gold Rush - who hasn't ever heard "The Cremation of Sam McGee?" - but this one, about an idealistic young English soldier going off to fight in World War I, and the grief of his father at learning of his death, is heartbreaking. It's especially poignant on a day when we remember our people who gave everything, and the loved ones they left behind...
"Young Fellow My Lad"
"Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad, On this glittering morn of May?"
"I'm going to join the Colours, Dad; They're looking for men, they say."
"But you're only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad; You aren't obliged to go."
"I'm seventeen and a quarter, Dad, And ever so strong, you know."
"So you're off to France, Young Fellow My Lad, And you're looking so fit and bright."
"I'm terribly sorry to leave you, Dad, But I feel that I'm doing right."
"God bless you and keep you, Young Fellow My Lad, You're all of my life, you know."
"Don't worry. I'll soon be back, dear Dad, And I'm awfully proud to go."
"Why don't you write, Young Fellow My Lad? I watch for the post each day;
And I miss you so, and I'm awfully sad, And it's months since you went away.
And I've had the fire in the parlour lit, And I'm keeping it burning bright
Till my boy comes home; and here I sit Into the quiet night."
"What is the matter, Young Fellow My Lad? No letter again to-day.
Why did the postman look so sad, And sigh as he turned away?
I hear them tell that we've gained new ground, But a terrible price we've paid:
God grant, my boy, that you're safe and sound; But oh I'm afraid, afraid."
"They've told me the truth, Young Fellow My Lad: You'll never come back again:
(OH GOD! THE DREAMS AND THE DREAMS I'VE HAD, AND THE HOPES I'VE NURSED IN VAIN!)
For you passed in the night, Young Fellow My Lad, And you proved in the cruel test
Of the screaming shell and the battle hell That my boy was one of the best.
"So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad, In the gleam of the evening star,
In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child, In all sweet things that are.
And you'll never die, my wonderful boy, While life is noble and true;
For all our beauty and hope and joy We will owe to our lads like you."
*********** Hugh Brodie, an Australian, enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in Melbourne on 15 September 1940. In 1942, Sergeant Brodie was listed Missing in Action. Before he left us, though, he wrote "A Sergeant's Prayer"
Almighty and all present Power,
Short is the prayer I make to Thee,
I do not ask in battle hour
For any shield to cover me.
The vast unalterable way,
From which the stars do not depart
May not be turned aside to stay
The bullet flying to my heart.
I ask no help to strike my foe,
I seek no petty victory here,
The enemy I hate, I know,
To Thee is also dear.
But this I pray, be at my side
When death is drawing through the sky.
Almighty God who also died
Teach me the way that I should die.
*********** From "The Beast was Out There", by Brigadier General James Shelton, USA (Ret.)
"Like many other phenomena in life, history has a tendency to be fickle. In 2001, some thirty-four years after the Battle of Ông Thanh, and the subsequent withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in 1973, which was followed by the "honorable peace" that saw the North Vietnamese army conquer South Vietnam in 1975 in violation of the Paris Peace Accords, most historians, as well as a large majority of the American people, may consider the U.S. involvement in Vietnam a disastrous and tragic waste and a time of shame in U.S. history. Consider, however, the fact that since the late 1940s, the Soviet Union was the greatest single threat to U.S. security. Yet for forty years, war between the Soviet Union and the United States was averted. Each time a Soviet threat surfaced during that time (Greece, Turkey, Korea, Berlin, Cuba, Vietnam, and Afghanistan), although it may have been in the form of a "war of national liberation," as the Vietnam war was characterized, the United States gave the Soviet Union the distinct message that each successive threat would not be a Soviet walkover. In fact, the Soviets were stunned by the U.S. reactions in both Korea and Vietnam. They shook their heads, wondering what interest a great power like the United States could have in those two godforsaken countries. They thought: 'These Americans are crazy. They have nothing to gain; and yet they fight and lose thousands of men over nothing. They are irrational.’
"'Perhaps history in the long-term--two hundred or three hundred years from now--will say that the western democracies, led by the United States, survived in the world, and their philosophy of government of the people, by the people, for the people continues to survive today (in 2301) in some measure due to resolute sacrifices made in the mid-twentieth century by men like those listed in the last chapter of this book. Then the words of Lord Byron, as quoted in this book's preface, will not ring hollow, but instead they will inspire other men and women of honor in the years to come. "
The late General Jim Shelton was a former Delaware football player (a wing-T guard) who served in Korea and Vietnam, and as a combat infantryman rose to the rank of General. He was in Viet Nam on that fateful day in October, 1967 when Don Holleder was killed. Ironically, he had competed against Don Holleder in college. General Shelton served as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions and was instrumental in helping me establish the Black Lion Award for young American football players. The title of his book was taken from Captain Jim Kasik's description of the enemy: "the beast was out there, and the beast was hungry."
*********** The late George Jones could be a rogue, but he was a heck of a singer, and his "50,000 NAMES CARVED IN THE WALL" - a tribute to the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam - may be THE American Memorial Day song.
(Warning - this one could make you cry. I can't watch it without tearing up.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24WRxxsra04
*********** A TRIBUTE TO THE MAN WHOSE STORY INSPIRED THE BLACK LION AWARD... DONALD WALTER HOLLEDER, UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY CLASS OF 1956 -
If you doubt the axiom, 'An aggressive leader is priceless,' ...if you prefer the air arm to the infantry in football, if you are not convinced we recruited cadet-athletes of superior leadership potential, then you must hear the story of Donald Walter Holleder. The saga of Holleder stands unique in Army and, perhaps, all college gridiron lore.
Hence begins the chapter, "You are my quarterback", in Coach Red Blaik's 1960 book, You Have to Pay the Price. Every cadet in the classes of 1956, 57, 58 and 59, and everyone who was part of the Army family at West Point and throughout the world will remember, even 50 years after the fact, the "Great Experiment".
But there is much more to the Holleder story. . Holly was born and brought up in a tight knit Catholic family in upstate New York. He was an only child whose father died when Don was quite young. Doc Blanchard recruited high school All American Holleder who entered the Point just a few days after he graduated from Aquinas Institute in Rochester.
Twice turned out for academic difficulties, he struggled mightily to stay in the Corps. However as a cadet leader he excelled, serving as a cadet captain and company commander of M-2 his senior year.
Of course, it was in the field of athletics that Don is best known. Never a starter on the basketball team, he nevertheless got playing time as a forward who brought rebounding strength to a team that beat a heavily favored Navy team in the early spring of 1954. That fall, the passing combination of Vann to Holleder quickly caught the attention of the college football world. No one who watched those games will ever forget Holly going deep and leaping into the air to grab a perfectly thrown bomb from Peter Vann. Don was a consensus first team All American that year as a junior.
Three football defeats in 1955 after Holly's conversion to quarterback brought criticism of Coach Blaik and Don from many quarters but the dramatic Army victory over Navy, 14 to 6 brought redemption. Shortly thereafter, Holly received the Swede Nelson award for sportsmanship.
The fact that he had given up all chances of becoming a two time all-American and a candidate for the Heisman trophy and he did so without protest or complaint played heavily in the decision by the Nelson committee to select him for this prestigious award.
Holly's eleven year career in the Army included the normal schools at Benning and Leavenworth, company command in Korea, coaching and recruiting at West Point and serving as the commanding general's aide at Fortress Monroe.
After graduating from Command and General Staff College, he was off to Vietnam. Arriving in July, 1967, Holly was assigned to the Big Red One--the First Infantry Division-- and had considerable combat experience before that tragic day in the fall--October 17.
Lieutenant Colonel Terry Allen's battalion was ambushed and overrun--the troops on the ground were in desperate shape. Holleder was serving as the operations officer of the 28th Brigade--famous Black Lions. Hearing the anguished radio calls for help from the soldiers on the ground, Holly convinced his brigade commander that he had to get on the ground to help. Jumping out of his helicopter, Holly rallied some troops and raced toward the spot where the wounded soldiers were fighting.
The Newsweek article a few days after his death tells what happened next. "With the Viet Cong firing from two sides, the U. S. troops now began retreating pell-mell back to their base camp, carrying as many of their wounded as they could, The medic Tom "Doc" Hinger was among those who staggered out of the bush and headed across an open marshy plain toward the base, 200 meters away. But on the way he ran into big, forceful Major Donald W. Holleder, 33, an All-American football player at West Point..., going the other way--toward the scene of the battle. Holleder, operations officer for the brigade, had not been in the fight until now. ' Come on Doc,' he shouted to Hinger, 'There are still wounded in there. I need your help.' "
Hinger said later: 'I was exhausted. But having never seen such a commander, I ran after him. What an officer! He went on ahead of us--literally running to the point position'. Then a burst of fire from the trees caught Holleder. 'He was hit in the shoulder recalled Hinger. 'I started to patch him up, but he died in my arms.'
The medic added he had been with Holleder for only three minutes, but would remember the Major's gallantry for the rest of his life."
Holly died as he lived: the willingness to make great sacrifices prevailed to the minute of his death. Caroline was left a young widow. She later married our West Point classmate, Ernie Ruffner, who became a loving husband and father to the four Holleder daughters. All the daughters are happily married and there are eight wonderful and loving grandchildren.
The legacy of Donald Walter Holleder will remain an important part of the West Point story forever. The Holleder Army Reserve Center in Webster, New York, the Holleder Parkway in Rochester and the Holleder Athletic Center at West Point all help further Don's legacy. In 1985, Holly was inducted into College Football Hall of Fame.
A 2003 best selling book, "They Marched into Sunlight", by David Maraniss, tells the story of Holleder and the Black Lions. Tom Hanks has purchased the film rights to the book. An innovative high school coach, Hugh Wyatt, decided to further memorialize Don's legacy by establishing the Black Lion Award. Each year at hundreds of high schools, middle schools and youth football programs across the country, a single football player on each team is selected "who best exemplifies the character of Don Holleder: leadership, courage, devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and--above all--an unselfish concern for his team ahead of himself."
Starting in 2005, this award is presented to a member of the Army football team each year. Anyone who wishes to extend Holleder's legacy can do so by approaching their local football coaches and encouraging them to make the Black Lion Award a part of their tradition.
All West Pointers can be proud of Donald Walter Holleder; for him there were no impossible dreams, only challenges to seek out and to conquer. Forty years after his death thousands of friends and millions of fans still remember him and salute him for his character and supreme courage.
By Retired Air Force General Perry Smith, Don Holleders' West Point classmate and roommate, with great assistance from Don's family members, Stacey Jones and Ernie Ruffner; classmates Jerry Amlong, Peter Vann and JJ McGinn; and battlefield medic, Doc Hinger.
********** DON HOLLEDER'S HEROIC DEATH... "Major Holleder overflew the area (under attack) and saw a whole lot of Viet Cong and many American soldiers, most wounded, trying to make their way our of the ambush area. He landed and headed straight into the jungle, gathering a few soldiers to help him go get the wounded. A sniper's shot killed him before he could get very far. He was a risk-taker who put the common good ahead of himself, whether it was giving up a position in which he had excelled or putting himself in harm's way in an attempt to save the lives of his men. My contact with Major Holleder was very brief and occured just before he was killed, but I have never forgotten him and the sacrifice he made. On a day when acts of heroism were the rule, rather than the exception, his stood out." Black Lions medic Dave Berry
*********** A YOUNG BOY'S REMEMBRANCES OF DON HOLLEDER...
In 1954-55 I lived at West Point N.Y. where my father was stationed as a member of the staff at the United States Military Academy. Don Holleder was an All American end on the Red Blaik coached Army football team which was a perennial eastern gridiron power in 40s and 50s.
On Fall days I would run home from the post school, drop off my books, and head directly to the Army varsity practice field which overlooked the Hudson River and was only a short sprint from my house. Army had a number of outstanding players on the roster back then, but my focus was on Don Holleder, our All-America end turned quarterback in a controversial position change that had sportswriters and Army fans buzzing throughout the college football community that year. Don looked like a hero, tall, square jawed, almost stately in his appearance. He practiced like he played, full out all the time. He was the obvious leader of the team in addition to being its best athlete and player. In 1955 it was common for star players to play both sides of the ball and Don was no exception delivering the most punishing tackles in practice as well as game situations.
At the end of practice the Army players would walk past the parade ground (The Plain), then past my house and into the Arvin Gymnasium where the team's locker room was located. Very often I would take that walk stride for stride with Don and the team and best of all, Don would sometimes let me carry his helmet. It was gold with a black stripe down the middle and had the most wonderful smell of sweat and leather. Inside the helmet suspension was taped a sweaty number 16, Don's jersey number.
While Don's teammates would talk and laugh among themselves in typical locker room banter, Don would ask me about school, show me how to grip the ball and occasionally chide his buddies if the joking ever got bawdy in front of "the little guy".
On Saturdays I lived and died with Don's exploits on the field in Michie Stadium. In his senior year Don's picture graced the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine and he led Army to a winning season culminating in a stirring victory over Navy in front of 100,000 fans in Philadelphia. During that incredible year I don't ever remember Don not taking time to talk to me and patiently answer my boyish questions about the South Carolina or Michigan defense ("I'll bet they don't have anybody as fast as you, huh, Don?").
Don graduated with his class in June 1956 and was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Coincidentally, my Dad was also assigned to the 25th at the same time so I got to watch Don quarterback the 14th Infantry Regiment football team to the Division championship in 1957.
There was one major drawback to all of Don's football-gained notoriety - he wanted no part of it. He wanted to be a soldier and an infantry leader. But division recreational football was a big deal in the Army back then and for someone with Don's college credentials not to play was unheard of. In the first place players got a lot of perks for representing their Regiment, not to mention hero status with the chain of command. Nevertheless, Don wanted to trade his football helmet for a steel pot and finally, with the help of my Dad, he succeeded in retiring from competitive football and getting on with his military profession.
It came as no surprise to anyone who knew Don that he was a natural leader of men in arms, demanding yet compassionate, dedicated to his men and above all fearless. Sure enough after a couple of TO&E infantry tours his reputation as a soldier matched his former prowess as an athlete.It was this reputation that won him the favor of the Army brass and he soon found himself as an Aide-de-camp to the four star commander of the Continental Army Command in beautiful Ft Monroe, Virginia.
With the Viet Nam War escalating and American combat casualties increasing every day, Ft Monroe would be a great place to wait out the action and still promote one's Army career - a high-profile job with a four star senior rater, safely distanced from the conflict in southeast Asia.
Once again, Don wanted no part of this safe harbor and respectfully lobbied his boss, General Hugh P. Harris to get him to Troops in Viet Nam. Don got his wish but not very long after arriving at the First Division he was killed attempting to lead a relief column to wounded comrades caught in a Viet Cong ambush.
I remember the day I found out about Don's death. I was in the barber's chair at The Citadel my sophomore year when General Harris (Don's old boss at Ft Monroe, now President of The Citadel) walked over to me and motioned me outside. He knew Don was a friend of mine and sought me out to tell me that he was KIA. It was one of the most defining moments of my life. As I stood there in front of the General the tears welled up in my eyes and I said "No, please, sir. Don't say that."
General Harris showed no emotion and I realized that he had experienced this kind of hurt too many times to let it show. "Biff", he said, "Don died doing his duty and serving his country. He had alternatives but wouldn't have it any other way. We will always be proud of him, Biff." With that, he turned and walked away.
As I watched him go I didn't know the truth of his parting words. I shed tears of both pride and sorrow that day in 1967, just as I am doing now, 34 years later, as I write this remembrance.
In my mind's eye I see Don walking with his teammates after practice back at West Point, their football cleats making that signature metallic clicking on concrete as they pass my house at the edge of the parade ground; he was a leader among leaders.
As I have been writing this, I periodically looked up at the November 28, 1955 Sports Illustrated cover which hangs on my office wall, to make sure I'm not saying anything Don wouldn't approve of, but he's smiling out from under that beautiful gold helmet and thinking about the Navy game. General Harris was right. We will always be proud of Don Holleder, my boyhood hero.
Biff Messinger, Mountainville, New York, 2001
*********** A retired Navy captain wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the strict criteria for awarding the Medal of Honor (frequently called the "Congressional" Medal of Honor)...
"Remember the Marine Corps requirement: Fall on a hand grenade to save your fellow Marines and the grenade fails to explode, you get a Navy Cross; if the grenade explodes, you might get the Medal of Honor."
The Medal of Honor was meant to be awarded sparingly, Of the hundreds of thousands of men who fought in our Twentieth Century wars, here are the numbers of Medals of Honor Awarded: WW I - 124; WW II - 464; Korea - 135; Vietnam - 246. There were 1522 Medals of Honor awarded as a result of the Civil War. (Actually, there were more than that, but over 900 were later rescinded.) One reason for the late number was that in the Civil War, the Medal of Honor was the only medal awarded for valor. Another reason, though, was the enormous number of casualties suffered by Americans in that war.
http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/corrections/purge_army.html
*********** Other nations lost men in the same wars we did, of course, and they, too, honor, in poem and song, their men who gave all.
What can be sadder than the loss of a young man, one of his country's finest, in a distant war? One such song is known by some as "No Man's Land" and by others as "The Green Fields of France" - but either way it's a sad lament about a young soldier named Willie McBride, killed in battle in 1916 while still a teenager.
Fair warning: This is VERY sad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umsKdNCtGQk
Another very sad ballad, "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda," is the story of a young Australian sent off to fight in World War I. He was shipped off to Gallipoli (Turkey) where thousands of "Anzacs" (Australians and New Zealanders) were slaughtered by enemy machine-gun fire. (I highly recommend the movie, "Gallipoli") Although he escaped death, his legs were blown off, and his story in the song is told from the perspective of an embittered, now-old man. It's sung by Slim Dusty, a legendary Australian country singer.
Fair warning: So is this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGlpxviu8PY
*********** Trophies for everybody. There really was a time when most Americans knew why we put aside one day a year called Memorial Day: to honor - to memorialize - those who lost their lives in service of their country.
Not - as people who buy ads in our local paper seem to think - to remember a loved one who, no matter how sorely missed, never died in battle - never even served in the Armed Forces, in many cases - but simply did what we’re all destined to do one day. They died. I hate to be the one to spoil their grieving by telling them that Memorial Day is not about them, or about dear, departed Uncle Charlie. But somebody's got to tell them, and it might as well be me.
There are other days for that , folks - 364 others, if you’re really sincere. And there's a special one, called Veterans’ Day, when our nation honors and thanks all the people who served.
Actually, come to think of it: is there even one holiday - one single holiday - that hasn’t been given another meaning, one whose new meaning often obscures the original one?
Think of it:
New Year's Day? Bowl Games
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday? Come on - how many people actually use the occasion to honor the man?
Presidents’ Day? Sale! Sale! Sale! (Used to be two separate holidays. Now, few school kids could even tell you which two presidents it refers to.)
St. Patrick's Day? Although it’s scarcely observed in Ireland, in much of the US it’s a time-honored excuse to get drunk
Easter? (Wherever it's still allowed to be called "Easter") It's about Bunnies and Easter eggs. Mostly, though, it's part of Spring Break.
Mother's Day? This is the one holiday that remains as designed. If anything, it's grown stronger. Traditionally, this was the day when the phone company’s circuits failed. Warning: Do NOT schedule anything else on this day. And definitely - do NOT get drunk.
Cinco de Mayo? A holiday that means next to nothing in Mexico, it's been turned into a Hispanic-themed St. Patrick's Day
Memorial Day? The end of the school year. The start of summer. The Indy 500.
July 4? Fireworks and beer and hot dogs. (Once - you may be old enough to remember - patriotic parades and baseball double headers)
Labor Day? The end of summer; and, now, the end of the first week of college football
Veterans Day? It used to be called Armistice Day, way back, several wars ago, when we commemorated the end of a horrible world war
Hallowe'en? Used to be for kids to go trick-or-treating. But now that that's no longer safe, adult partiers have taken it over and turned it into the second-biggest beer-sales day of the year
Thanksgiving? Don't you mean “Turkey Day?” You know - the day before Black Friday?
Christmas - aka "Winter Holiday." For those who don't know, it's the “holiday” that people refer to when they wish you “Happy Holidays.”
*********** In a Wall Street Journal article back in 2015, a writer named Jerry Ciancolo urged us, the next time we pass a War Memorial with the names of dead Americans on it, to stop - and “Touch the names of those who never came home.”
He asked that we dispense with “hollow abstractions” such as “ultimate sacrifices,” and to think in everyday terms.
Many of those young guys, he noted...
… never set foot on campus. They never straightened a tie and headed to a first real job. They never slipped a ring on a sweetheart’s finger. They never swelled with hope turning the key to a starter home. They never nestled an infant against a bare chest. They never roughhoused in the living room with an exasperated wife looking on. They never tiptoed to lay out Santa’s toys. They never dabbed a tear while walking their princess down the aisle. They never toasted their son’s promotion. They never rekindled their love as empty nesters. They never heard a new generation cry out, “I love you, Grandpa!”
A lifetime of big and little moments never happened because of a bullet to the body one day in a far-off land. For those who crumpled to the ground, the tapestry of life was left unknit.
A moment’s reflection is all it takes to realize that every name on your town’s monument was a real person. One who bicycled the same streets as you, who sleepily delivered the morning Gazette, who was kept after school for cutting up, who sneaked a smoke out back, who cannon-balled into the local pond in the dog days of summer.
On Memorial Day - with your smartphone turned off - pay a visit to your local monument. Quietly stand before the honor roll of the dead, whisper a word of thanks, and gently run your finger across their names. The touch will be comforting.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/touch-the-names-of-those-who-never-came-home-1432332593
********** Memorial Day also happens to coincide with the anniversary of the World War I Battle of Cantigny, in which Americans of the 28th Infantry Regiment earned the nickname “Black Lions of Cantigny.”
Cantigny, in France, was the first battle fought and won by American forces in World War I. It began on May 28, 1918. Under the command of Colonel Hanson Ely - a former Army football player - some 4,000 men of the 28th Infantry Regiment, US First Division, American Expeditionary Forces, seized and then defended the town of Cantigny against German opposition. In the four-day battle, nearly 900 members of the regiment were killed or wounded. For their efforts the regiment earned the French Croix de Guerre as well as the designation “The Lions of Cantigny.”
Although it was not a major battle, Cantigny was of great significance in demonstrating the worth of the American soldier, as well as establishing the principle that American troops would serve only under American leadership. Until Cantigny, there had been great pressure from our Allies to employ the newly-arrived American troops merely as fill-ins - replacements for Allied soldiers who’d been lost in battle. But once the “doughboys” proved their worth in combat, the debate was settled - American men would remain - and fight - under American command.
http://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=27&MemID=75
***
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Seattle fans had thirsted for a professional football team for at least a quarter of a century. In the late 1950s there were attempts to bring a team in the fledgling American football league to the Northwest and use Husky Stadium as its home. University regents, wary of the impact a pro team might have on the box office success of the Huskies, turned down the plan.
The regents expressed a dim view of mixing professional and intercollegiate football in the same venue, and if I had been there at the time I would have totally supported their decision. I think it's absolutely wrong; professional and college teams in the same facility are not compatible.
The funding to construct a multipurpose Seattle stadium was turned down a couple of times by voters as the NFL cast a longing eye at expanding to the Pacific Northwest. Finally, the Kingdome project got a green light from the electorate.
Arriving as athletic director in the spring of 1976, I faced a head-to-head battle with the Seahawks, starting with ticket sales for the coming season. Sellout crowds appeared likely for the expansion franchise despite the unlikelihood of much success on the field. Ticket sales were booming, partly at the expense of UW attendance.
*********** UFL PREVIEW
USFL DIVISION
Michigan 6-2
Birmingham 5-3
Houston 3-5
Memphis 2-6
XFL DIVISION
DC 6-2
St Louis 6-2
Arlington 3-5
San Antonio 1-7
UFL SCHEDULE THIS WEEKEND
FRIDAY NIGHT
ST. LOUIS (6-2) AT SAN ANTONIO (1-7) - This one shouldn’t be a contest, unless St. Louis decides to rest some key players for the upcoming playoffs.
SATURDAY
ARLINGTON (3-5) AT MEMPHIS (2-6) - Memphis got a win last week, but it was against the UFL’s worst team (San Antonio). Arlington lost, but the game went down to the wire and it was against DC. Arlington is much the better team.
MICHIGAN (6-2) AT BIRMINGHAM (5-3) - Michigan beat Houston last week without QB Bryce Perkins; if Perkins plays, Michigan will beat Birmingham, no matter which one of the six different quarterbacks they’ve used (in eight games) gets the call.
SUNDAY
DC (6-2) AT HOUSTON (3-5) - Houston is a bad football team and DC is good. Plus, in Jordan Ta’Amu, DC may have the league’s best QB.
*********** 22 of the 32 NFL teams voted to outlaw the tush push, but not so fast… They needed 24 (75 per cent). So it remains.
Outlawing a play that’s successful 80 per cent of the time seems unlike football thinking. Normally, as soon as someone does something that obviously works, not a week goes by before everyone’s doing it.
I actually don’t mind that particular play. I’m opposed to any assistance - pushing or pulling - that’s given to a runner. I especially hate those plays where a runner appears to have been stopped by a tackler or two until, suddenly, the cavalry arrives - teammates who plow into the pile in his behalf. Often, they’re blocking defenders in the back, but apparently, in this particular situation, officials don’t consider that a foul.
*********** The NFL and the NFLPA have worked out a way to let NFL players - one from each team - play flag in the Olympics
Personally, I think that the NFL should go off on their own. The League is so strong right now that they could hold their own “Flag Olympics” - a 32-team playoff - and go up against the Olympics - and outdraw them.
*********** Sounds as if flag teams will have to recruit “non-binary” types to be playing center, based on the pronoun used in describing the position in nflflag.com:
Once the center has snapped the football to the QB – either directly or from a pistol or shotgun formation – they (sic) are eligible to go out for a pass and catch the ball.
*********** Especially if you’ve had some legal training, you’re going to have to read this article and tell me - in language I can understand - what, exactly, this means…
A new Tennessee law triggered the power conferences of college sports into demanding member schools like the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt to sign a loyalty pledge over new player pay rules or face possible expulsion.
Knox News confirmed the existence of the loyalty document through a source with direct knowledge of the situation. The source requested anonymity because that correspondence is between the conferences and member schools.
The document is being circulated by the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and the SEC. It demands that member schools agree to follow new rules involving paying players despite state laws giving the freedom to circumvent the rules. And the pledge also requires schools to waive their right to sue the NCAA or conferences if they disagree with the implementation of those rules.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/sports/college/university-of-tennessee/football/2025/05/20/tennessee-expulsion-sec-state-law-nil-pledge-pay-players/83683870007/
*********** Tommy Reamon died recently. He was 73. I never knew him, but I remember him well as a running back for the Florida Blazers - one of the best players in the World Football League. Later, as an outstanding high school coach in Tidewater Virginia, he was, among other things, Michael Vick's coach.
*********** According to Mack Brown, North Carolina has really set things up for his successor, noted ladies’ man Bill Belichick, to succeed.
As he told Dusty Dvoracek and Danny Kanell on SiriusXM College Sports Radio, “They’ve committed money to it, they’ve helped him with academics. They’ve lowered those standards some. So there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t be successful.”
Come on, Mack. How can a school that’s gone so low as to create non-existent classes for its knucklehead athletes “lower those standards” even more?
*********** John Canzano writes about one more nail - a railroad spike, actually - about to be driven in the coffin of college football:
The USC-Notre Dame football rivalry is at risk. The schools are struggling to come to a long-term agreement that would keep the 100-year series alive beyond the 2026 season. And while Knute Rockne is unavailable for comment and probably rolling in his grave, Petros Papadakis spoke for him.
The former USC team captain, radio host, and football broadcaster is authentic, outspoken, and has little tolerance for nonsense. What I’m saying is — we’re friends. Papadakis spit out the truth again on Wednesday and called USC’s attempt to wiggle out of the rivalry vs. the Irish “disgusting and sad.”
He’s not wrong.
The Trojans went 7-6 in their inaugural Big Ten season. Lincoln Riley’s seat is warm, and the only thing that protected him this offseason was his $88 million buyout. It’s not difficult to figure out the motivation. USC wants to schedule wins, not losses, and position the football program for the expanded 12-team playoff.
Conference realignment.
The loss of tradition.
The end of long-standing rivalries.
They’ve become sad byproducts of this money-hungry era of college athletics. But there are some traditions that should be held sacred — the Civil War, the Apple Cup, this Notre Dame-USC clash, among others, for example. Kill too many of the nostalgic things, and you’ve assassinated the essence of college football.
In the 1920s, Rockne’s wife, Bonnie, told him she’d like to vacation in California. She persuaded the legendary Notre Dame coach to schedule USC and play a game in Southern California every other year on the road. Doing so not only provided a break from the snowy winter in South Bend but also provided the Irish with some national exposure, it turns out.
These two programs have won a combined 24 national championships and 15 Heisman Trophies. That the rivalry is teetering is the most disappointing thing I’ve heard this week. That the motive behind killing the series has to do with USC thinking its Big Ten schedule is demanding enough is just plain sad.
Papadakis said: “USC-Notre Dame has been played for 100-plus years. The only time they took off was during World War II. It has nothing to do with conference realignment, which is why that’s not an argument. If USC is too soft that a new Big Ten schedule makes it so they can’t play Notre Dame, then maybe they should leave the Big Ten for god’s sake.
“If you can’t beat Minnesota or Maryland, what the hell are you worried about who’s on your schedule anyway? You’re not competing for a national championship or a Big Ten championship.”
Papadakis made the comments in an early morning appearance on a Fox national radio show hosted by LaVar Arrington, Brady Quinn, and Jonas Knox. He also blistered Riley, who has a 26-14 record since being hired.
Riley hasn’t embraced the tradition, history, or spirit of USC football. Worse yet, he hasn’t won often enough while doing so. Papadakis said he didn’t care if the Trojans’ coach wanted to wiggle out of the rivalry game against Notre Dame.
“Shut your effing mouth,” Papadakis said. “If they miss one year, it’s a travesty.”
On somewhat the same subject, Mike Lude once told me about hearing Mike Magee, then the USC AD, complaining about having Oregon State and Washington State in the Pac-10. See, they were in small markets, and to USC, they weren’t pulling their weight financially. “Mike,” Mike Lude remembers telling him, “You NEED Oregon State and Washington State in the league if you expect to go to a bowl game every year.” Well, USC finally got their wish a couple of years ago. They ditched the small-market guys and got into a league where they can make some real money. Except it’s also a league where they can get their asses kicked with regularity, and they don’t like it. Sounds like they wouldn’t mind being back with Oregon State and Washington State.
*********** More On GoRout…
I’ve explained their play-calling system.
Now for an interactive look at their method for coaches to send play diagrams to players…
https://gorout.navattic.com/0q10i0wb1?utm_source=ALL+CONTACTS&utm_campaign=59a70e06b6-FBQ22025+-+Navattic_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_75b9052c04-59a70e06b6-552623715
*********** Hi Coach,
I just now learned of the “Herndon Climb”. OutSTANDING!
When I think of it, the game of football that we love, particularly the DW, is one big “Herndon Climb”!
Best Regards!
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
(John is talking about a right-of-passage tradition for the plebes - freshmen - at the Naval Academy. Every year around graduation time they have to have to find a way to climb up a tall monument and place an officer’s cap on its top. To make things tough for them, the monument is greased. It’s quite a team effort. John sent along a link to a video of this year's graduates doing it back when they were plebes.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhaUDI_aIl8
*********** Coach:
You got an audible laugh for me when you said they could be in the restaurant booth instead of the press box booth.
Interesting to learn that coach Lude arrived at the University of Washington at the worst possible moment to scramble for dollars in and around Seattle.
Regardless of how it came about, the AI write up on coach Wyatt was nice.
I was as upset at Smith as Mrs. Wyatt.
The report on the Bahamas bowl is nearly unbelievable. And that I believe it however, I say the only course of action is to cancel the bowl.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Watched the St. Louis-Birmingham game. Good game. I think St. Louis could hang with some NFL clubs. If Birmingham had a reliable QB they also could compete against a few NFL clubs. As for the rest of the UFL teams...Nah!
As I mentioned before Birmingham and St. Louis would be good choices as NFL expansion franchises. So would San Antonio the city. NOT the Brahmas!
There must not be any bridges in Mexico.
I've heard of that Coachwyatt guy. Never met THAT one though.
My daughter is a graduate of an all-woman's university and about fell over when she heard about Smith awarding "Rachel" Levine an honorary degree.
The Texas HS state football championships are played on the THIRD weekend of December! Jerry's World workers will be busy with games on Friday, Saturday, and the Cowboys playing the Chargers on Sunday!
Add Texas A&M-Commerce (Southland), Southern Indiana (OVC), Missouri State (C-USA), and Lindenwood (Big South-OVC) to that list of schools moving to Division 1. Also, add the entire United Athletic Conference; Austin Peay, E Kentucky, West Georgia, N Alabama, Tarleton State, Central Arkansas, Southern Utah, Abilene Christian, Utah Tech.
Notice that most of the "blue" areas of this country are located in major cities, and areas where only the "rich" can afford to live?
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I doubt that any UFL club could play with the worst NFL team, but the top four UFL teams might hang with the Jets or Browns for a half or so. As for BHAM and STL… I’ve seen first-hand Birmingham’s enthusiasm for football, and I was blown away. But that was 50 years ago. Now, considering how apathetic the Birmingham fans are - and with a team that’s won the league three times in a row, yet - I can’t imagine any current NFL franchise considering a move there. That leaves expansion, and given how many billions an NFL expansion franchise is going to cost, I doubt that anyone is going to risk spending that kind of money on a team in a place that can’t put 10,000 paying spectators in the seats at a UFL game. Where did all those football fanatics go? St. Louis, on the other hand, is already a major league city in two other sports, and it has been showing me that it can get a decent crowd to a UFL game.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: The strength and conditioning coach is an indispensable member of any major college football staff. In fact, because of restrictions on the amount of contact that position coaches may have with players, the strength coach customarily sees the players more than any other coach, including, in most cases, the head coach himself. He is compensated appropriately: at Alabama, for example, he’s paid a million dollars a year. And as the importance of the position has grown, so has the size of strength and conditioning staffs.
It hasn’t always been this way.
It was August, 1969, when a young Nebraska assistant football coach named Tom Osborne persuaded head coach Bob Devaney to hire a young guy named Boyd Epley as the first paid college strength coach.
Epley had started lifting weights as a youngster, and grew more interested in strength training as he progressed through high school football (in Phoenix) and developed into a top collegiate pole-vaulter. After winning national titles in junior college, he wound up at Nebraska where he set a school record of 21 feet.
After an injury put an end to his track and field career, he began introducing football players to weight training. That’s when he came to Osborne’s attention.
Devaney, the head coach, was not in favor of weight training, but he was in need of help. After a long run of success, the Huskers had had back-to-back 6-4 seasons, and in 1968 had been defeated 47-0 by Oklahoma on national TV. There were suggestions that perhaps Coach Devaney had lost his touch.
Devaney decided to give his weight lifting program a try but, as Epley wrote later, “he looked me in the eye and said, ‘If anyone gets slower - you’re fired.’”
He went on: “I decided I needed to test the players on the 40 yard dash like the NFL was doing so I could show him the lifting was making the players faster. I knew it was important to show Coach Devaney that no one was getting slower. The problem was we didn’t have a stop watch. I borrowed one from the P.E. Department and we starting doing Performance testing.”
Nebraska became the first major college team to lift weights during the season, and in 1970, Epley’s first as strength coach, Nebraska went 9-2 (and beat Oklahoma 44-14 in Norman), and followed up with back-to-back national titles in 1970 and 1971. Needless to say, Devaney’s job was safe.
And now Nebraska had the attention of other programs, who began hiring Epley’s assistants and following his methods. Where Nebraska’s off-season program had emphasized endurance, Epley’s emphasized strength, with testing for such things as vertical jump, 10-yard dash, and agility runs.
In 1970, a linebacker named John Pitts became the first Nebraska player to bench press 300 pounds.
Boyd Epley is notable for two things.
First, he created an entirely new profession: the strength coach.
For quite some time he remained a dedicated weight trainer and body builder himself and won numerous competitions, and he was instrumental in founding the National Strength Coaches Association (NSCA). After retiring from Nebraska in 2006, he served as the NSCA’s Director of Coaching Performance in Colorado Springs. In 2014, he returned to Nebraska as Assistant Athletic Director for Strength and Conditioning.
Second, although not a position coach, Epley played a major part in Nebraska’s becoming a national football power.
To summarize his contribution: in the 35 years he worked as Nebraska’s strength and conditioning coach - 1969 to 2004 - Nebraska won five national championships, played in 35 bowl games, and won 356 games.
One of Epley’s final undertakings was shaping up the school mascot, Herbie Husker. After concluding that the old, plump version of Herbie was a hindrance to recruiting athletes, the Nebraska AD ordered a makeover. As the transition to a newer, trimmer Herbie took place, he was said to be “in training,” with the school’s PR department periodically showing Herbie running up the stadium steps… climbing the Stairmaster… lifting with the football team.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BOYD EPLEY
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
John Irion - Argyle, New York - I had an early period in my life where I followed his workouts religiously.
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe, Oregon, Illinois
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
John Rothwell - Corpus Christi, Texas
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** My football coach at Green Bay Preble HS had us doing Epley’s program in the early 1980s – squat, bench press, power clean. Simple, not easy.
Mike Framke
Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** My HS coach introduced me to weightlifting in 1970 and eventually I got bigger, faster, and stronger - before "BFS!" By the time I got into coaching football the Nebraska strength program and Boyd Epley were being touted as the latest and greatest advancement in player development. After having experienced it personally, and watching the success of the Nebraska program I vowed when I became a HC that strength training would be a cornerstone of my program. I attended Epley clinics, copied as much as I could of his basic program, and learned how to teach it. In 1998 Michael Arthur and Bryan Bailey, both strength coaches at NU came out with the book "Complete Conditioning for Football." It became the strength and conditioning bible for my teams).
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** Two things:
1. How amazing that Osborn had the stones to tell Devaney what he believed. That speaks volumes about the respect on that football staff.
2. I appreciate that Epley understood that strength training was about improved athletic ability. It wasn't about body building or slow strength. It was about explosive athletic performance. That has been my focus in the weight room. I tell kids that strength is how much weight you can move, but power is how fast you can express your strength.
Greg Koenig
Colorado Springs, Colorado
*********** QUIZ: He was not the first black man to play football at Texas (Julius Whittier was, in 1970) but in 1972 he became UT’s first black All-American.
He grew up on a farm near Brenham, Texas, northwest of Houston, where he was a star in both baseball and football. As a linebacker and running back, he led Brenham High to a 22-2-1 record and district championships in his junior and senior seasons. He was all-state both years. In his high school career he rushed for 3,688 yards and 55 touchdowns and in his senior year was named to the Parade Magazine High School All-America team.
Highly recruited, he finally chose Texas over Houston.
In the NCAA’s last year of freshman ineligibility, he sat out his freshman year, but in his sophomore season he established himself as the successor to Steve “Woo Woo” Worster, Texas’ first wishbone fullback, once carrying 20 times in a single quarter.
He rushed for 1,099 yards and scored eight touchdowns as the Longhorns went 10-1, winning the Southwest Conference championship and finishing third nationally. He was an All-Conference choice, and was named second-team All-America.
In his junior year, he was nearly All-Everything. He set a SWC rushing record with 1,415 yards, including a single-game record 342 yards against SMU. He was not only All-Conference - the first black player to be so-honored - but he was named conference MVP. He was a consensus All-American - making him Texas’ first black All-American - and he finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting. (It was won that year by Penn State’s John Cappelletti. In fifth place was an Ohio State sophomore running back named Archie Griffin.)
He was considered a strong candidate for Heisman honors his senior season, but in spring practice he suffered a knee injury - described by Longhorns’ coach Darrell Royal as the worst he’d ever seen - and he was never the same runner again.
There was some question as to whether he would even play again, but he worked hard to rehab and was able to play his senior year. Royal admitted that he didn’t have the heart to bench a player he admired and respected so much, but his fullback had lost speed and it was obvious that he was playing in pain, and eventually he had to share time with a freshman named Earl Campbell (yes, that Earl Campbell).
His senior year output was a mere (for him) 408 yards, but overall, he rushed for 2,923 yards during his three years at Texas.
He was drafted in the fifth round by the Baltimore Colts, and although he did not have a spectacular NFL career, he played for nine seasons - five with the Colts and four with the Bills.
He rushed for 2,406 yards and 28 touchdowns, and caught 71 passes for 590 yards, but mostly he was valued for his blocking - no doubt a carryover from his high-contact days as a wishbone fullback.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY, MAY 20, 2025 "When you're winning, you don't
need friends, and when you're losing you don't have them anyhow.”
Woody Hayes*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I was ecstatic about being picked for the Washington job. Now it was time to go to work on some potentially serious long-range problems in the Husky program. The first day on the job I met briefly with Dr. John Hogness, the school president, and he was blunt.
"I have just one major request of you. Get us out of the red ink and into the black. That's the most important thing now.”
I was taking over a department of intercollegiate Athletics that was in debt by more than $400,000 and it appeared the situation could be going from bad to worse.
Seattle was going through a major transition in terms of spectator sports, and I wasn't the only new arrival. The city’s sole major league franchise, the Seattle Sonics of the National Basketball Association, was about to be joined by two new teams, the Seahawks of the National Football League and the Mariners of Major League Baseball. The teams would share a new domed sports facility, the recently completed Kingdome.
In the big picture, my biggest challenge would be keeping the Huskies in a leading role in the rapidly changing local sports scenario. How I performed would be the measure of my success or failure as an athletic director. Nothing I accomplished has caused me more pride than my role in the way the UW sports program was able not just to survive but to prosper through this dramatic facelift of Seattle sports.
*********** UFL THIS PAST WEEKEND
MEMPHIS 24, SAN ANTONIO 22 - Pretty good game between two pretty bad teams. Chase Daniels did the color and he sucked. Kept referring to San Antonio coach Payton Pardee (grandson of the great Jack Par-DEE) as “Coach Party.”
Pardee told the sideline reporter that a tight-end reverse pass was coming - said that their Steve Stillianos had quarterbacked his HS team in Virginia to a state title. And then they ran the play and damned if Stillianos (from Christchurch, Virginia High School ) didn’t throw a touchdown pass.
MICHIGAN 30, HOUSTON 18 - Michigan, even without Bryce Perkins at QB, outclassed Houston. Houston actually outgained Michigan - Jalan McClendon threw 50 times for 316 yards - but after going in at the half down just 14-12, they didn’t score again until the last play of the game.
ST LOUIS 29, BIRMINGHAM 28 - Very good game, but Tim Brando and Joel Klatt wouldn’t shut up. My wife had to ask me to pause the TV so she could get a word in. Birmingham’s J’Mar Smith was the sixth person to play quarterback for them this season and did a commendable job, completing 14 of 27 for 262 yards and three long TDs. St. Louis’s Max Duggan had his problems passing but he ran for two TDs, and Jacob Saylors carried 16 times for 118 yards and a TD. Birmingham took a 28-21 lead with 5 minutes to play, but St. Louis scored and covered with 3 minutes left and held on for the win.
DC 33, ARLINGTON 30 - Our recording ended with two minutes remaining. Evidently the ending was pretty exciting, with DC intercepting in the end zone, but we wouldn’t know, because of ABC’s commitment to telecast an NBA game.
USFL DIVISION
Birmingham 5-2
Michigan 5-2
Houston 3-4
Memphis 1-6
XFL DIVISION
DC 5-2
St Louis 5-2
Arlington 3-4
San Antonio 1-6
Come on, we all know that it’s almost a federal law that before a football game starts we have to have a shot of the broadcast crew up in the press box, looking out at the stadium. How often have I found myself asking why we have to look at the talking heads, while down on the field the teams are taking the field, led by Ralphie the Buffalo or the Sooner Schooner.
The fact that it’s been at least three weeks since we’ve seen evidence that the announcers are actually at the field is enough evidence for me that they’re not.
We’ve now gone three straight weeks without broadcast crews on location, and instead of coming clean, they’ve become devious: two or three times we were informed that they were in “the booth.” Of course, that could have been in a restaurant.
Windbag Joe Tessitore noted that the UFL was giving out pizzas to the crowd and said something about having some “up here” at halftime. And sideline reporter Tom Luginbill stood on the sideline (where else?) and looked up at the press box and said something about getting pizzas “up there.”
Devious? Tessitore, standing in front of a generic backdrop, kept looking down, as if to see what was taking place down on that virtual field.
And at some point near the start of the third quarter, he said, “Beautiful sunny afternoon here in Washington, DC.” Yeah right.
Again, I have no hard proof that the broadcasters aren’t on-site. I haven’t heard any network official come out and say so. But we know from past experience that games can be done remotely, and if those talking heads were actually there, they’d be the first thing we’d see when we came on, with the stadium in the background.
*********** The UFL’s Super challenge is a great idea. It enables a coach to challenge just about anything that officials might have missed or, in the opinion of the challenging coach, called incorrectly. Each team gets one missed challenge per game, and since a missed challenge costs it a timeout, it must have at least one timeout remaining. If a challenge is upheld, the team gets another challenge without costs of a timeout.
Overall, the Super Challenge is mostly a farce, because even when we viewers can clearly see that the officials missed a call - say, an offensive lineman false starting - the reviewers seem too often to dismiss it as “not enough to change the call” - even though we know that the on-the-field officials would have called it if they’d seen it.
But there was one instance in the Arlington-DC game where Arlington coach Bob Stoops showed its value: He claimed that on a play in which DC had scooped up a receiver’s fumble and returned it to the one, an Arlington receiver - away from the play - had been held, and sure enough - replay showed him to be correct. Back came the play and the penalty was marched off.
And Arlington retained its challenge and its time-out.
Asked if he’d actually seen the holding, Stoops admitted that he hadn’t, saying that his receiver had told him he’d been held, and he - Stoops - went ahead with the challenge because of “Trust.”
Considering the tendency of so many receivers to make false claims - that they can beat their man, that they were interfered with - that was what I call REAL trust.
*********** Two crewmen were killed and several others wounded this weekend when a Mexican Navy multi-masted tall ship, on a goodwill tour of the US, crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge and was mostly dismasted. Evidently, it lost power and was swept by the river’s current, stern-first, under the bridge.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, and will no doubt take several weeks and spend millions of dollars doing so, but since I have a pretty good idea what happened, I decided to call Elon Musk and gave him the phone number of Moran Towing, so that the next time somebody brings a ship like that into the East River, it’ll have at least one tugboat escorting it. Duh.
*********** WTF???
I found this on Mapquest.com
Coachwyatt in Camas, WA offers an invaluable resource for coaches and collectors alike with their instructional materials, specifically the highly anticipated "Dynamics of the Double Wing 3.0." With over 25 years of experience, Coach Hugh Wyatt shares his extensive knowledge and expertise in this comprehensive book, which includes 250 pages, 150 plays, and detailed descriptions and illustrations of drills and techniques. The book not only focuses on building the offense with just 8 building blocks but also introduces a wristcard-based play-calling system that simplifies teaching and eliminates the need for players to memorize plays.
Coach Wyatt's instructional materials go beyond just theory, providing practical tools for coaches who wish to adopt his system. The book includes ready-to-use playcards, saving coaches valuable time and effort in preparation. With a focus on the fine details that make all the difference, Coachwyatt's materials are a must-have for any coach looking to enhance their understanding and implementation of the Double Wing offense.
Question Number One: Who is this Coach Wyatt guy, anyhow?
Question Number Two: What robot wrote this? I want to give him/her/it a tip.
*********** My wife is a little angry with her school - Smith College, a women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, after learning that of the four honorary degrees it awarded at its graduation, one of them went to fake female “Rachel” Levine. Is there anything dumber than a college that celebrates women’s education and achievements giving an honorary degree to a man whose career has been built on his posing as a woman? Hey girls - we men are even better at being women than you are!
*********** I wonder if the College Football Playoff guys considered this, when they scheduled playoff games for the third Saturday in December:
The NFL will be also playing games on that day:
Philadelphia against Washington
Chicago against Green Bay.
Asked whether the NFL had given any thought to moving its games, an NFL executive named Hans Schroeder noted that the NFL has played on the date 37 times in the last 40 years: “That’s an NFL day,” he said.
*********** The University of New Haven (that’s Connecticut) has announced that it will move up to Division I (FCS), beginning play in the Northeast Conference this coming fall.
New Haven won’t be the only new member of the NEC in 2025. Also joining will be the Chicago State Cougars, starting up a football program from scratch (and doing it at the D-1 level at that.)
I know, I know, Chicago isn’t exactly the “Northeast.” Picky, picky. What the hell - it’s only a name. Stanford and Cal aren’t exactly on the Atlantic Coast, either.
Northeast Conference Football Members
Central Connecticut
Duquesne
LIU
Mercyhurst
Robert Morris
Saint Francis
Stonehill
Wagner
+New Haven
+Chicago State
*********** With word coming out that the Bahamas Bowl might be in trouble (based on the “crowds” I’ve seen there, how could it not be?), I found on Reddit a compelling argument for keeping it going:
So we took a ship down to the Bahamas to see Ohio play UAB, and it has been nothing short of amazing (and honestly, questionable). Here's a short list of things we've done here at the game so far:
-Brought beer right in to the stadium. The locals at the gate didn't even ask to check tickets. One of them took a sip of my beer.
-We walked all the way around the stadium, until we reached a fenced off area. A Royal Bahamas Defense Force guard said we should check behind the fence, because he doesn't know what's back there. Upon walking past the fence, we ended up in the Ohio locker room. No questions asked.
-People are constantly walking on the athletic track around the field and chugging beer. The security forces down there just keep laughing and high fiving everyone. One of the soldiers keeps hugging random fans.
-There's a native family in front of me literally braiding each other's hair. They told me they have no clue about how football works. They just want to have a good time. One of them offered to braid my hair. My hair is 3 inches long.
-They were doing a T-Shirt toss, and one of the Bahamian families here straight up jumped three rows down onto a group of fans just to grab a shirt. They ended up getting two.
- drunk fan just walked on to the sideline and high fived a player. He then high fived a Royal Bahamian Defense Force soldier when walking back. The soldier couldn't stop laughing.
-There's like 20 entrances to this stadium, and only like 10 of them are guarded. Literally anyone could walk in here.
-They have one working scoreboard, and instead of showing the clock, it's the ESPN feed so you can barely see the score and clock on the bottom right corner.
-Whoever's in charge of music can't decide the volume. He tried playing Believer and adjusted the volume up and down around 4 times before giving up. There hasn't been any music since.
For these reasons, I urge that the playoff committee consider hosting the national championship here. It would be a terrible idea, but everyone would have a great time. I know the locals are.
*********** I said I’d find out more about GoRout and its products
THE SYSTEM EXPLAINED - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtXChwQ3rk
Player’s perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDbH4vVEPI
HS coach’s testimonial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze2A0QPdllc
HS coach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gIjeWHlJzI
HS coach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK1SKvfiBfY
North Central https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu42JmDSU30
D III - Head coaches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8tWVEcAaUI
D III - Players https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-xWSkS016k
Used in the Big 33 Game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImE5nbGfwo
Practice Demo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uku_9xbPFkE
Used in D-III Colleges 2024- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es_Ear4-GyY
*********** From The Athletic:
Since the state of Florida is always so clearly loaded with high school football talent, how come it rarely generates top-end quarterback recruits?
As a longtime member of the recruiting map’s Big 3 states (or Big 4, depending on whether you place Georgia alongside California, Florida and Texas, as you should), the nation’s dangly appendage should have a steady share of top QBs.
However, as Manny Navarro wrote yesterday:
“From 2010 through 2025, Florida produced only three quarterbacks who ranked among the top 100 prospects nationally — Jeff Driskel (No. 17 in 2011), Feleipe Franks (No. 54 in 2016) and Deondre Francois (No. 66 in 2015). Eight states have produced more top-100 quarterbacks during this stretch.”
*********** The good news was that the Aberdeen Bobcats won a loser-out playoff game to earn a one-game shot at going to the state baseball tournament.
The better news was that the one-game playoff took place just 30 minutes away from where we live.
And the best news was that Aberdeen won, defeating Hockinson 3-1, and qualifying for the state tournament for the first time in 25 years.
What made it really fun for my wife and me was that there were six football players on the baseball team. That’s one of them, Luke Martin, in the photo. Luke was our football team’s Black Lion Award winner this past season.
The starting pitcher was sophomore Mason Hill, our starting QB. He gave up a run in the first inning, then shut out Hockinson the rest of the way. Our catcher, sophomore Sam Schreiber, a starting slot back, hit a triple. And junior Gabe Matthews, a defensive back, started the winning two-run rally in the fifth inning with a base hit.
*********** Toronto - Canada’s largest city - hasn’t had a Stanley Cup winner since 1967, and the Maple Leafs just lost another playoff series this year, to the Florida Panthers.
*********** "Managers are always learning, and mostly we learn from our mistakes. That's why I keep a list of my mistakes at home for reference. I used to carry the list around in my pants pocket, but I finally had to stop. It gave me a limp.” Earl Weaver
*********** Just to show that lefties can be found everywhere, this county-by-county map of Idaho shows that in the last election, three of Idaho’s counties went blue:
Upper left: Latah County - Moscow and the University of Idaho (college towns are ALWAYS blue)
MIddle: Blaine County - Sun Valley, Hailey and Ketchum, vacation homes of Hollywood types (enough said)
Upper right: Teton County - catches the overflow from Wyoming’s Teton County and Jackson Hole, world-renowned hangout of the rich and famous.
*********** The opposing coach's thoughts on the Trojan Walk leapt out at me. That practice reflects the head coach's--and the team's--values. If individuality is prized more than teamwork, you'll get an underachieving team. The Sooners actually won when he abandoned them for USC.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Yes, I know that feeling well. Nothing better than taking part in the celebrations of successes that former players achieve in various enterprises.
We think alike! I used that very pass play to win a game! Called it Ripper 80 (sprint-out) Double-Cross Delay Pass. Threw it to the PSTE running the BS crosser.
Frankly the professional leagues' seasons, and the college sports seasons are WAY TOO LONG! The greed has filtered down into high school sports as well. Something as a former HS AD I used to fight vigorously.
You would think the university of spoiled children football team would be dressed to the nines.
We'll see Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose's names in the baseball HOF very soon.
ESPN raising prices? O - H - N - O!!
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: The strength and conditioning coach is an indispensable member of any major college football staff. In fact, because of restrictions on the amount of contact that position coaches may have with players, the strength coach customarily sees the players more than any other coach, including, in most cases, the head coach himself. He is compensated appropriately: at Alabama, for example, he’s paid a million dollars a year. And as the importance of the position has grown, so has the size of strength and conditioning staffs.
It hasn’t always been this way.
It was August, 1969, when a young Nebraska assistant football coach named Tom Osborne persuaded head coach Bob Devaney to hire a young guy as the first paid college strength coach.
The guy had started lifting weights as a youngster, and grew more interested in strength training as he progressed through high school football (in Phoenix) and developed into a top collegiate pole-vaulter. After winning national titles in junior college, he wound up at Nebraska where he set a school record of 21 feet.
After an injury put an end to his track and field career, he began introducing football players to weight training. That’s when he came to Osborne’s attention.
Devaney, the head coach, was not in favor of weight training, but he was in need of help. After a long run of success, the Huskers had had back-to-back 6-4 seasons, and in 1968 had been defeated 47-0 by Oklahoma on national TV. There were suggestions that perhaps Coach Devaney had lost his touch.
Devaney decided to give his weight lifting program a try but, as our guy wrote later, “he looked me in the eye and said, ‘If anyone gets slower - you’re fired.’”
He went on: “I decided I needed to test the players on the 40 yard dash like the NFL was doing so I could show him the lifting was making the players faster. I knew it was important to show Coach Devaney that no one was getting slower. The problem was we didn’t have a stop watch. I borrowed one from the P.E. Department and we starting doing Performance testing.”
Nebraska became the first major college team to lift weights during the season, and in 1970, his first as strength coach, Nebraska went 9-2 (and beat Oklahoma 44-14 in Norman), and followed up with back-to-back national titles in 1970 and 1971. Needless to say, Devaney’s job was safe.
And now Nebraska had the attention of other programs, who began hiring his assistants and following his methods. Where Nebraska’s off-season program had emphasized endurance, his emphasized strength, with testing for such things as vertical jump, 10-yard dash, and agility runs.
In 1970, a linebacker named John Pitts became the first Nebraska player to bench press 300 pounds.
Our guy is notable for two things. First, he created an entirely new profession: the strength coach.
For quite some time he remained a dedicated weight trainer and body builder himself and won numerous competitions, and he was instrumental in founding the National Strength Coaches Association (NSCA). After retiring from Nebraska in 2006, he served as the NSCA’s Director of Coaching Performance in Colorado Springs. In 2014, he returned to Nebraska as Assistant Athletic Director for Strength and Conditioning.
Second, although not a position coach, he played a major part in Nebraska’s becoming a national football power.
To summarize his contribution: in the 35 years he worked as Nebraska’s strength and conditioning coach - 1969 to 2004 - Nebraska won five national championships, played in 35 bowl games, and won 356 games.
One of of his final undertakings was shaping up the school mascot, Herbie Husker. After concluding that the old, plump version of Herbie was a hindrance to recruiting athletes, the Nebraska AD ordered a makeover. As the transition to a newer, trimmer Herbie took place, he was said to be “in training,” with the school’s PR department periodically showing Herbie running up the stadium steps… climbing the Stairmaster… lifting with the football team.
FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2025 'Perfectionism
doesn't say, "Wait until it's perfect.” It says, "Give it a
try, and
if it doesn't work exactly right, fix it on the way.” William
Safire*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Joe Kearney, the athletic Director I succeeded, had listened to me sing so many choruses praising Don James, the Kent State football coach, that Kearney hired Don at Washington. It was a strong recommendation by James that helped me rejoin him as the Huskies’ athletic Director.
When I was at Kent State, I remember attending NCAA meetings and observing Harry Cross, Washington's faculty representative. As that body’s president and later its parliamentarian, he was intimidating. He came across as a hard-nosed lawyer – tough and rigid, not someone you wanted as an adversary. After accepting the job as Washington's athletic director, I was worried about how I would get along with Cross. Not to worry. He became my advisor, confidant, and an expert on all the nuances of the workings of the NCAA. He was as helpful as any faculty rep could be.
During the three-hour interview I had with the selection committee at Washington, I was asked some pointed questions about racial unrest and problems that resulted in student protests on many college campuses. I found out later that in 1969 four black football players at Washington had been suspended, resulting in a boycott of the UCLA game by other African-Americans on the team. As a result of this incident, the UW administration had become increasingly sensitive to the diversity issue. After my formal interview, my wife and I were invited to a casual social gathering to meet leaders of the minority community. At first, things seem a little stiff; then the door opened and a big African-American filled the room.
Rena and I immediately recognized the latecomer as Isaiah Kelley, one of my former players at Colorado State. He was married to an airline flight attendant who had grown up in Seattle. When Isaiah heard I was being interviewed, he asked if he could be on hand to welcome me. When Rena saw him she ran to him, jumped into his arms, hugged him, and kissed him.
That was a bigger icebreaker than one of those ships they sent from Seattle to Antarctica. A week or so after I returned to Kent State, I received a telephone call from Al Ulbrickson, Jr., the vice president of student affairs, offering me the job.
*********** Last Friday my wife and I were pleased and proud to be invited to a surprise graduation party for Josh Fritts. Josh played center at Aberdeen, Washington High when I coached there in 2019, and as a senior, dealing with us new coaches, he provided exceptional leadership. He’s now a Washington State Cougar, as you can see from the shirt, graduated and certified as a teacher, and already subbing. Last fall, as he was doing his student teaching at the local middle school, he also assisted the middle school football coach. He’s going to be a great one. One of the other former players we saw is now the manager of the Aberdeen Safeway; another is a semester away from getting his degree in construction management; and a fourth has just been hired by the city fire department. It’s always great to see these kids after they’ve been out of school for a few years, and hear them say how much the football experience meant to them. There’s no amount of money that can buy the satisfaction that comes from sharing that. (RIGHT) One of Josh’s teammates, Cody Bemis, couldn’t attend because he had to work. So after the party, we stopped over to his place of business to say Hi - it happened to be a brewpub.
*********** UFL THIS WEEKEND
USFL DIVISION
Birmingham 5-2
Michigan 5-2
Houston 3-4
Memphis 1-6
XFL DIVISION
DC 5-2
St Louis 5-2
Arlington 3-4
San Antonio 1-6
FRIDAY 8 PM EASTERN
MEMPHIS AT SAN ANTONIO (FOX)
SATURDAY 1 PM EASTERN (BOTH GAMES 1 PM, BOTH ON FOX)
MICHIGAN AT HOUSTON
BIRMINGHAM AT ST LOUIS
SUNDAY NOON EASTERN (ABC)
ARLINGTON AT DC
Three of the four teams worth watching are playing at the same time - on FOX. I suppose that means that one of them will be on FS1 or some such.
We’ve now gone two straight weeks without broadcast crews on location, so it’s safe to assume that the networks are pleased and we’ll see more.
*********** Brian Flinn, WR coach and Passing Game Coordinator at Princeton - and WR coach at Villanova before that - has been good enough to come on my Zoom two or three times a year to help expand the horizons of us running-game cave men.
If you’ve watched many of my clinics, you know that for me a special peeve is the stubbornness or incompetence (or both) that’s so often on display in short-yardage/two point situations, and I asked Coach Flinn if he’d share some of his thinking on that topic.
Tuesday night he more than delivered. He thew a lot at us, much of it stuff that a Double-Wing coach would be unlikely to use. But a lot of it was universal stuff, easily adapted to what we do. And some of it made me sit up straight and open my eyes wide.
It’s well worth a look! https://vimeo.com/user174754949/177?share=copy
(LEFT) He showed us a play they use, one that Ohio State had scored on against Notre Dame in the CFP final: (RIGHT) my adaptation of that play to an under-center Double Slot formation…
*********** Got this from an Army source and I thought you might find it interesting…
Below is a quick synopsis of our Army’s operational unit structure.
• Teams—the smallest unit, often 4 or 5 Soldiers.
• Squads—usually comprised of 1 to 3 teams.
• Platoons—usually 3 or 4 squads; the first level with an officer in charge.
• Companies—usually 3 or 4 platoons; first level with an officer in command (captain), who is advised by a first sergeant.
• Battalions—usually 4 to 6 companies; commanded by a lieutenant colonel, who is advised by a sergeant major.
• Brigades—usually 2 or 3 battalions; commanded by a colonel, who is advised by a sergeant major.
Echelons above brigade include—
• Divisions—usually 3 or 4 brigades; commanded by a major general (2stars), who is advised by a sergeant major.
• Corps—usually 2 to 5 divisions; commanded by a lieutenant general (3 stars), who is advised by a sergeant major.
• Field armies—usually 4 or more divisions; commanded by a general (4 stars), who is advised by a sergeant major.
The nomenclature gets complicated for units above corps, as some of the largest unit formations have not been mobilized since World War II.
Each of these formations is more than numbers and titles. They are teams of Soldiers with names like “Rakkasans,” “Curahees,” “Black Lions,” or “Battle Company.” They are all flexible to respond to the mission, and yet they are slightly distinct in their capabilities and cultures.
They are also steeped in Army heritage. If you want to see an example of this, simply look at the names of our battalions. Within one brigade in the 1st Infantry Division, you will find 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment; 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment; 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment; and more. The regimental system is a vestige of our history. Today it reminds us of our venerable past, and it keeps alive memories of famous battles, units, and leaders who exemplified our ethos.
Throughout a Soldier’s career, these teams leave a lasting impression on our identity and character. The bonds that we build in our units.
*********** My son Ed sent along a couple of comments that illustrate a major difference between the NBA and the NFL…
@Kylemedian
Can u imagine the devastation the NBA execs would feel if Flagg went to the Wizards or Charlotte?
lol, Silver is gonna want him to evolve into the face of the league, you can't do that stuck in Charlotte, who most people forget are even a team.
The leagues goal is to make money, it's an entertainment product. If anyone feels like the league doesn't influence these things then you must live a pretty sheltered perfect life.
@BrettKollmann
This approach is why the NFL is eating the NBA's lunch. NFL preseason rates higher than NBA playoff games. They took over Christmas day at will.
And why? Because they make EVERY market matter. The face of the league is in Kansas City. The Draft was in a small town in WISCONSIN.
Wow. That is SO right on.
There are plenty of reasons why the NFL is so amazingly successful, and this is a major one. As Ed mentioned, not a word was said about Travis Hunter going to - Jacksonville! Omigod!
Oh - and next year’s NFL draft (itself an unbelievably well-promoted, manufactured “event”) will be in Pittsburgh, a “small” market that doesn’t even HAVE an NBA team.
*********** Think he’ll stop?
The jockey of Kentucky Derby-winning horse Sovereignty was fined $62,000 for excessively striking the horse with his riding crop. Tsk, tsk. For the win, he earned $310,000.
Normally, the fine would have been 10 per cent of his earnings, but this was his second offense in the last 180 days, so…
If he’d only let up a little bit - and finished second - he’d have earned $50,000. Free and clear, with no fines.
I dunno. Do the math.
*********** This is just a trifle long to use as a quote, but it’s applicable to today’s conditions…
“Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and with us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures.”
Walter Lippman, “The Public Philosophy” (1955)
*********** An article in The Athletic quoted a number of opposing head coaches on why they think USC has been underachieving:
The pre-game Trojan Walk came up a lot. The players don’t wear team apparel when they get off the bus and walk into the Coliseum. Riley allows the players to dress the way they want for home games (they wear team apparel for away games).
“It’s like they think they’re NBA stars walking into an arena,” one of the head coaches said. “They’re wearing designer shorts with dress shoes. Another guy is in tie-dyed sneakers. This team looks like they’re an AAU team.”
Added another staffer: “That promotes individuality. You don’t let Hollywood take over your program. Then you attract the kind of kids where football is not important to them.”
I don’t disagree. But even in places like Boise and Fargo and Pullman, in today’s college football in which the players reign supreme, individuality has to be a problem.
*********** Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson are no longer officially outcasts.
They both broke inviolable rules of their sport, and now, they’re both dead - they both served life sentences for their sins.
Jackson’s exile from the game started in 1920, after he and several of his White Sox teammates conspired to throw the 1919 World Series.
Rose was banned from the game in 1989 for betting (on his team) while managing the Reds.
(A little bit of trivia - the Commissioner of Baseball at the time, Bart Giamatti, was a college classmate of mine.)
Now, in all likelihood, they’ll both make it to the Hall of Fame.
Why the hell not? They both achieved fame through their performances on the field: Jackson had a lifetime batting average of .356; Rose got more hits than any man who’s ever played the game. Neither one of them cheated. They played the game hard and straight and they proved themselves to be among the very best ever to play.
Yes, they broke the rules. But now that we can sit in our seats at the ball park (or on our couches at home) and look at our phones and wait for the right moment to bet as the odds on the game change with every pitch - I think it would be hard to find a majority of us fans that would argue against their being in the Hall of Fame.
Besides, it’s the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Honor, or the Hall of Good Conduct.
OJ Simpson is in both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and you’d have a hell of a time convincing me he didn’t earn his spot in either place.
As for fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame is full of guys - offensive linemen, for example - who weren’t even famous when they were playing.
To those who claim that pardoning Jackson and Rose sets a bad example and opens the gates to future trespasses, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said it well: “It’s hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.”
*********** In a politician’s quest for money or votes, there is absolutely no stone that will remain unturned, as an Ohio Representative has proved once again. Fed up with Ohio State’s constant presence on Fox’s much-hyped Big Noon Kickoff games, he presented a bill to put an end to it.
The bill would prevent games (I guess he means in the entire state of Ohio) from beginning before 3:30 Eastern.
Good luck with that one. Reminds me of the old days in Pennsylvania and Maryland when the “Blue Laws” - now just a distant memory - once prevented NFL games from kicking off before 2 PM on Sundays.
Not that I like noon games, because out here on the West Coast that means 9 AM kickoffs.
*********** ESPN and its people can be downright hateful, almost Nike-ish in its arrogant wokeness, but before anyone roots for its demise it’s important to know that it owns the broadcast rights to roughly 1/3 of all big time sports: major professional leagues and college football. If anything were to happen to ESPN, an awful lot of those games we’re so used to watching are going to go bye-bye.
(Of course, now that the World-Wide Leader has announced its expanded streaming service and its price - $29.95 a month - we might be saying bye-bye to a lot of its “free” games anyhow.)
*********** I was reading a review of “The Illegals,” a book about Russian spies by Shaun Walker, an international correspondent for The Guardian, and I came across this:
“The Russian spy agencies always paid meticulous attention to detail: before one veteran agent was dispatched to Israel, he was sent to a clinic in northern Moscow to be circumcised.”
*********** The caller who was late: don't know his age but he should've learned the importance of being on time when he was a pup. As a plebe, we had to pull CQ duties (just as is done in the Army itself), and a part of our prep was learning phone protocol. If you're calling someone, the first thing you do is identify yourself. Yet so many callers violate that rule...if it's someone I don't know, I give the lecture on identifying oneself first, then I say the call is over.
I have never liked Rafael Devers, but my reasons were trivial. Now my reasons are important, and I'll probably forever dislike him.
The four O's starters from '66: two sights offend me. One, not one of them is sporting a necklace of any sort. Two, those uni belts look like the team picked them up at Salvation Army.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I can see it now. Eventually going through Siri or Alexa to call the plays in football. "Alexa...run 88 Super Power!"
As I get older I shudder at the thought of guys like Devers, LeFlop, and a host of others who influence young people to change the face of team sports, the word "TEAM", and (gasp!!) make the Black Lion Award obsolete. I pray for a new generation of throwbacks who are NOT SELFISH, NOT GREEDY, and NOT fond of those who are.
The only good that will come out of the UFL is that the NFL may consider adding St. Louis and Birmingham as franchises.
The BIG 12 and ACC could learn something from the AD at Iowa State if those conferences want to remain relevant in today's college football landscape. Right now, the BIG 10 and SEC are doing everything they can to separate themselves from "everyone else" in college football. The BIG 10 and SEC are planning on poaching schools from the BIG 12 and ACC that can "survive" NIL, and effectively compete in the BIG TWO.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Warde Manuel grew up in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. His father worked three jobs, and his mother was a school administrator, and they sent him to Brother Martin High School, an academically rigorous all-boys Catholic school.
He was a high school All-American lineman and highly recruited, but he wound up at Michigan because his father, who had served in the Army, liked Bo Schembechler’s no-nonsense approach. And Schembechler liked his mother’s gumbo. (In fact, after he signed with Michigan, his mother sent Schembechler a gallon of her gumbo and the coach invited her son and several of his teammates to his home to help him eat it.)
As he later recalled, “It was very nice of him to share. He could certainly have eaten it by himself, but he had us over, and that was a memory I will never forget.”
He earned a starting position as a sophomore at defensive end, and won two letters, but a neck injury put an end to his Michigan career and any hopes he had of playing professionally.
“It was hard,” he says now. “There was a point when I was in tears, knowing my career here and my dream of playing professionally was going to end.”
(He does recall Schembechler’s concern for him after his career-ending injury, and said that in his present job it still inspires him to put the needs of his staff and players first.)
Turning his attention elsewhere, he earned a letter in track and field.
After graduating with a bachelor of general studies degree, he was coordinator of a Michigan “Incentive Scholarship Program,” a partnership between the Michigan’s state universities and Detroit Public Schools.
During that time he got his master’s degree in social work, and then, after working briefly at Georgia Tech as assistant athletic director of academic affairs he returned to Michigan. There, he served in a number of positions in the athletic department, including oversight of the football and men's basketball programs. During this time, he also earned an MBA from Michigan’s School of Business.
In 2005 he was hired as AD at Buffalo (officially the State University of New York - SUNY- at Buffalo). During his eight years there the Bulls enjoyed unprecedented success athletically, and in 2008 he was recognized by Sports Business Journal as one of its "40-Under-40.”
In 2012 he became AD at UConn. During his time there, UConn teams won six national titles. In 2014 the Huskies won national championships in both men’s and women’s basketball. In 2015, he was honored by the National Association of College Directors of Athletics (NACDA) as the Athletic Director of the Year, and in January, 2016 he was hired as the Director of Athletics at the University of Michigan, where he continues to serve.
Since February 2024 he has served as the chairman of the Football Playoff Committee, and oversaw the first-ever twelve-team playoff..
In July 2024, Warde Manuel was named recipient of the 2024 National Football Foundation's John L. Toner Award, which recognizes an athletics director who has “demonstrated superior administrative abilities and shown outstanding dedication to college athletics, particularly college football.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING WARDE MANUEL
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
*********** QUIZ: The strength and conditioning coach is an indispensable member of any major college football staff. In fact, because of restrictions on the amount of contact that position coaches may have with players, the strength coach customarily sees the players more than any other coach, including, in most cases, the head coach himself. He is compensated appropriately: at Alabama, for example, he’s paid a million dollars a year. And as the importance of the position has grown, so has the size of strength and conditioning staffs.
It hasn’t always been this way.
It was August, 1969, when a young Nebraska assistant football coach named Tom Osborne persuaded head coach Bob Devaney to hire a young guy as the first paid college strength coach.
The guy had started lifting weights as a youngster, and grew more interested in strength training as he progressed through high school football (in Phoenix) and developed into a top collegiate pole-vaulter. After winning national titles in junior college, he wound up at Nebraska where he set a school record of 21 feet.
After an injury put an end to his track and field career, he began introducing football players to weight training. That’s when he came to Osborne’s attention.
Devaney, the head coach, was not in favor of weight training, but he was in need of help. After a long run of success, the Huskers had had back-to-back 6-4 seasons, and in 1968 had been defeated 47-0 by Oklahoma on national TV. There were suggestions that perhaps Coach Devaney had lost his touch.
Devaney decided to give his weight lifting program a try but, as our guy wrote later, “he looked me in the eye and said, ‘If anyone gets slower - you’re fired.’”
He went on: “I decided I needed to test the players on the 40 yard dash like the NFL was doing so I could show him the lifting was making the players faster. I knew it was important to show Coach Devaney that no one was getting slower. The problem was we didn’t have a stop watch. I borrowed one from the P.E. Department and we starting doing Performance testing.”
Nebraska became the first major college team to lift weights during the season, and in 1970, his first as strength coach, Nebraska went 9-2 (and beat Oklahoma 44-14 in Norman), and followed up with back-to-back national titles in 1970 and 1971. Needless to say, Devaney’s job was safe.
And now Nebraska had the attention of other programs, who began hiring his assistants and following his methods. Where Nebraska’s off-season program had emphasized endurance, his emphasized strength, with testing for such things as vertical jump, 10-yard dash, and agility runs.
In 1970, a linebacker named John Pitts became the first Nebraska player to bench press 300 pounds.
Our guy is notable for two things. First, he created an entirely new profession: the strength coach.
For quite some time he remained a dedicated weight trainer and body builder himself and won numerous competitions, and he was instrumental in founding the National Strength Coaches Association (NSCA). After retiring from Nebraska in 2006, he served as the NSCA’s Director of Coaching Performance in Colorado Springs. In 2014, he returned to Nebraska as Assistant Athletic Director for Strength and Conditioning.
Second, although not a position coach, he played a major part in Nebraska’s becoming a national football power.
To summarize his contribution: in the 35 years he worked as Nebraska’s strength and conditioning coach - 1969 to 2004 - Nebraska won five national championships, played in 35 bowl games, and won 356 games.
One of of his final undertakings was shaping up the school mascot, Herbie Husker. After concluding that the old, plump version of Herbie was a hindrance to recruiting athletes, the Nebraska AD ordered a makeover. As the transition to a newer, trimmer Herbie took place, he was said to be “in training,” with the school’s PR department periodically showing Herbie running up the stadium steps… climbing the Stairmaster… lifting with the football team.
TUESDAY, MAY 13, 2025 'The only thing that scares a
tough guy is a crazy guy.” Drew “Bundini” Brown, Muhammad Ali’s trainer*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: The camera sweeps from the stadium to a panoramic view of Lake Washington. The lush green background, bathed in afternoon sunshine, reaches south to the brilliant image of Mount Rainier, its snow-capped peak stretching 14,410 feet into the sky. On the lake several hundred boats, an elite and popular mode of transportation to University of Washington football games, bob at anchor.
At some point during most football games televised nationally from Husky Stadium in Seattle, viewers from Bangor to Bakersfield are teased with a peek at the surrounding landscape. The image is something indelible, quite often far more so than the game itself. Those living in less scenic precincts could be forgiven for feeling a bit envious.
Few college campuses in the United States occupy such an attractive location. And by almost every other measuring stick, the University of Washington ranks with the elite colleges in America: great academics, respected faculty, and outstanding facilities situated in a city ranked among America's "most livable.”
In the realm of intercollegiate athletics, the Huskies have a long and successful tradition, and the school belongs to one of the most prestigious conferences in the land. This is the big time.
I was part of it for 15-plus years as director of athletics, definitely a career highlight.
Before landing the Seattle job, during my five and one-half years as athletic director at Kent State, I became acquainted with two prominent University of Washington officials. One of them stole my football coach, and the other one frightened me to death. Both of them have since become close friends and respected colleagues.
***********
FLASH: Last week, I read an exciting article in the Wall
Street Journal about a company named Gorout (“Go route” - get it?),
with a product, it seemed to me, that could revolutionize our sport. Envisioning a possible article for this site, I started digging, and found the company’s Web site. I indicated “interest” (no, I didn’t exactly pose as a buyer), and soon got a call from a Gorout representative named Dan Friend, a former coach whose last stop was at Indiana.
We talked at some length and he couldn’t have been more helpful and informative.
Briefly - They have a play-calling system that, like the NFL’s in-helmet radio, is theftproof. But unlike the NFL’s in-helmet radio, it’s a lot less expensive. It uses individual players’ wrist watches (think Apple Watch) that communicate with and are controlled by the coach’s tablet, and it enables wearers to see the coach's play call on their watches. And even after the play’s been “called,” by buzzing/vibrating the watches, the coach can alert wearers to last-second changes or tweaks.
It’s not exactly a high-tech electronic version of our hand-made playcards, which in addition to the play call also contain each individual’s assignment. What it is, as my cursory research appears to show, is a fool-proof, tamper-proof, theft-proof way of getting the play call directly from the booth to the quarterback (or to your defensive signal-caller).
No more shouting at the QB. No more having him run over to the sideline to get the call. No more hand signals. No more stupid posters held high in the air.
In my offense, using Gorout, the coach in the booth (or on the sideline) would send in the play coordinates (say, “20-5”) to the QB via his watch, and the QB would then give them to the rest of the team, either in the huddle or at the line. (If the play caller happens to be the OC up in the booth, then the head coach down on the sidelines will have a watch, too.)
Here’s what I see as just one great feature of the Gorout system: if I want to run hurry-up, I can send in the play while the entire team - including the QB - is at the line and ready to go!
Right now at the high school level, it's only approved for use in Texas (which does not belong to the NFHS). Hint to high school coaches in other states: get busy and get to work on your state association to permit its use. Perhaps approval is best done at the NFHS level, but it’s safe to make one prediction: like every important innovation in our sport, it isn’t going to go away.
I have no idea whether it could be used at the youth football or middle school level.
This past season, it was game-tested in the NCAA in the Liberty League, a D-III conference in upstate New York comprised of schools such as Hobart, Ithaca, RPI, St. Lawrence, Rochester and Union. Their coaches and players speak quite favorably of their experience with Gorout.
I can see a school buying three watches: one each for the QB and MLB (or whoever calls the defense) and one for the head coach. (The play caller has the tablet.) You could even get by with two - one to be shared by the on-the-field players (offense and defense), and one for the head coach. Each watch has two channels, enabling a player or coach to switch from, say, offense to defense just by pressing a button on his watch.
After my talk with Dan Friend, I told my friend Greg Koenig in Colorado about it. Said Greg, “At first I thought that wearing a wrist watch might not be seen as cool, but then I remembered that Shedeur already made it cool.” That made me think maybe I ought to suggest to Gorout that they offer wrist bands in school colors.
More to come as I learn more, including costs and additional uses for their products (they also offer cell phone-size display devices that enable the coach to send play diagrams to every player on the field if need be.)
The Gorout Web site - https://gorout.com/football/in-game/
Gorout at the D-III level - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es_Ear4-GyY
*********** I found this photo on Facebook. It’s the Orioles’ starters from 1966 - from left to right, Moe Drabowsky, Wally Bunker, Jim Palmer and Dave McNally. At the time, I worked for the National Brewing Company in Baltimore, and our owner also owned the Orioles. Wally Bunker is holding a can of our “Draft Beer by National,” and Dave McNally, who worked with us in the offseason as a sales trainee, is holding a bottle of National Premium. That was my baby. I was National Premium’s product manager, which meant that I was responsible for overseeing and shepherding every aspect of its marketing - packaging, advertising, distribution. Dave is very obviously holding the bottle so that people can see the label. Or is he? On close examination, it looks as if the bottle might very well have been photoshopped in. Dave McNally, by the way, was a great guy. Sadly, he died young. Imagine a 20-game winner nowadays having an off-season job. Imagine that job being a sales trainee with a brewery. Hell, in today’s baseball - imagine a 20-game winner.
*********** No Black Lion Award for Rafael Devers.
Devers is the Boston Red Sox’s designated hitter. (Is there a softer job in all of team sports than DH?)
Devers is no Don Holleder. Don Holleder, the inspiration for the Black Lion Award, was a lock to be a two-time All-American end at Army. But his coach, Earl Blaik, seeing a need for Holleder’s leadership, asked Holleder to move to quarterback his senior year. Holleder did so willingly. Understandably, he certainly did not make any All-American teams. He wasn’t that good a quarterback. But he was a great leader, and by making the change, he made his team better.
Rafael Devers was approached by Red Sox management about filling in at first base after their starter underwent season-ending surgery.
They’d already “switched” him during training camp from third base to DH, and now here they were, asking him to play an actual position again.
Of course he said “No.”
They pay the guy a lousy $27,500,000 - and for that, they expect him to play in the field?
*********** UFL REPORT
USFL DIVISION
Birmingham 5-2
Michigan 5-2
Houston 3-4
Memphis 1-6
XFL DIVISION
DC 5-2
St Louis 5-2
Arlington 3-4
San Antonio 1-6
For what it’s worth: the four winning teams happen to be the four teams that LOOK like real football teams. Houston would be all right if it weren’t for that gooney helmet design, and Memphis is only borderline bad, but San Antonio and Arlington look like imitation football teams, with the kind of uniforms some fruity designer who’d never seen an actual football game would come up with.
The UFL crowds get worse by the week. I’ll miss football in the spring, but I don’t see how they can continue. Or why.
The UFL play is marred by inconsistency. Other than perhaps DC's Jordan Ta’amu, I doubt that there’s a QB in the UFL who’s put together two straight good games.
This past weekend:
Michigan 25, Arlington 24 - good game
DC 32, San Antonio 24 - fair game.
Birmingham 33, Houston 25 - incredible comeback
St. Louis 19, Memphis 9 - bad game
Michigan scored with one second remaining to tie the game, then converted (no kicking for the PAT) for the win. Bryce Perkins’ last-second dive landed him at the one, and then, with time for just one play, Toa Taua bounced outside to tie the game. His run for the extra point won it for the Panthers.
Birmingham, down 25-6 after a horrendous performance on both sides of the ball, scored a touchdown with :03 remaining in the half, and went on to score 21 straight points while shutting out Houston. It was a crushing defeat for Houston. After finally losing the lead with 1:55 remaining, they still had an outside chance - until they fumbled the kickoff and gave up a second TD within ten seconds! An unlikely hero for Birmingham was QB J’Mar (JAY-mar) Smith, who had to come on late when starter Case Cookus was shaken up. Smith, who had played for Stallions’ head coach Skip Holtz at Louisiana Tech, was signed on Wednesday, and in his brief appearance at the end of the fourth quarter, he completed 3 of 5 for 63 yards and drove the Stallions to two scores.
Kevin Hogan played QB at Stanford and played pretty well - despite having spent a lot of his career backing up Andrew Luck - but since then he’s knocked around NFL practice squads for several years. He’s 33 years old, but he’s looked pretty good for San Antonio. For old-timers, there’s this: his uncle is Coley O’Brien, who in 1966 as a Notre Dame QB made his first start in the final game of his sophomore year when starter Terry Hanratty was injured, and led the Irish to a 51-0 win over USC. Hanratty had been injured the week before, when ND and Michigan State, ranked 1 and 2 nationally, had played to a 10-10 tie, and the big Irish win over the Trojans almost certainly influenced the AP voters, who named the Irish national champions.
*********** I didn’t get into coaching until I was in my 30s and by that time I had had significant business experience. I’d worked for some very successful companies, including IBM, and I’d seen how things were done there, and in all my years of coaching it’s been my aim to apply many of the things I learned in business to my football operations.
One of them concerns respecting other people’s time. For several years I sold packaging, and much of my territory was the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Early in the game - back in the sixties - I was late for an appointment with a very important customer, one I really respected. He was a real southern gentleman, a phrase that once really meant something. He said that he understood that I had to cover some considerable distances between calls, and said that it was okay to be late for an appointment - just so long as you showed them the courtesy to call ahead and let the other person know you were going to be late.
That wasn’t always easy to do in those days before cell phones, finding yourself out in the country and looking for a pay phone, but it was great advice and it’s served me well all these years. The point was that the other person’s time was just as important as mine, and no one is so f—king important that he has a right to just make other people sit and wait for him. I’m not bragging, but I prize punctuality to the point that I’ve twice fired assistant coaches who arrived late to a first staff meeting without letting me know in advance. I considered it disrespectful to me and the other coaches, and likely an omen of more of the same to come.
Which brings me to this past weekend. On Friday night while we were out of town a guy called our home phone (land line) and left a message. Said he was a coach and asked if I’d call him back.
Saturday morning I called him but had to leave a voice mail.
That afternoon about 3:45 (my time) he called me back. He wanted to know about the Double Wing, and we talked a while until finally I suggested he get on his computer and we could Zoom for a few minutes. He said that whe as at a restaurant and asked if we could do it later when he got home to his computer. I suggested 5 my time and he said “great.”
As 5:00 neared, I got a text from him asking if we could postpone to 5:45. I was beginning to run out of patience so to see how serious he was I said how about 5:30 and then we could go to 6:00?
He said great.
I started the Zoom at 5:15.
5:30 came and went with no show.
At 5:35, as is my custom, I said f—k it and ended the Zoom.
At 5:38 I got a text saying, “Hey coach I’m on.”
I see. So now that YOU’RE ready, the show can start.
I was hoping he’d call and I’d have a chance to give him the same advice that customer once gave me, back in the sixties. But no…
Seems to me a fellow named Vince Lombardi once had a thing or two to say about the importance of being early.
*********** It was the 50th reunion of the 1965 Michigan State national championship team, and the talk got around to strength of schedules at various schools.
Jim Proebstle, the starting tight end, said that the toughest schedule in the country belonged to the the Spartans’ scout team, because "they had to play a national championship team every single week.”
*********** I was doing some research on the great Michigan State teams of the 1960s - back when, in the last days of segregation, Duffy Daugherty raided the south and came back to East Lansing with some great black players that no southern school was yet willing to recruit.
How great? In the 1967 NFL draft, FOUR Spartans were drafted in the first round: Bubba Smith, Clint Jones, George Webster and Gene Washington. Of the four, Jones, from Cleveland, was the only northerner. Smith and Washington were from Texas and Webster was from South Carolina.
I came across an article about the 50th reunion of their 1965 national championship team, and I read about a guy named John Mullen, a backup quarterback who seldom played.
After the 1964 season, a Michigan State assistant named John McVay (later to be the 49ers’ GM) was hired as head coach at Dayton, and he offered Mullen a chance to go with him. Mullen knew he wasn’t going to be any better than third string at Michigan State, but he decided to stay. He won two letters and two national championship rings.
"One of the best decisions I've ever made," Mullen said, looking back. "I would have started at Dayton, but I never would have been able to say I was on two national championship teams. And that you can't buy.”
*********** It was once hard to believe that Iowa State could be good for even one year. That the Cyclones could have two consecutive winning seasons was nearly unthinkable.
Only three times since the 1920s have the Cyclones had back-to-back winning seasons - once under Clay Stapleton (1959-1960) and twice under Dan McCarney (2000-2001 and 2004-2005).
Earle Bruce actually managed three straight winning seasons at Iowa State - 1976-77-78 - and that so impressed the people at Ohio State that they chose him to succeed Woody Hayes.
Even Johnny Majors, who went on to win a national title at Pitt and win 116 games at Tennessee, could manage no more than one winning season (in five) at Iowa State.
But under Matt Campbell, who came from Toledo in 2016, it’s been a new Iowa State. He’s had just two losing seasons, and one of those was his first at Ames. From 2017 through 2021 he put together the only five-winning season streak in school history, and last season, the Cyclones won 11 games for the first time in school history.
Things like that don’t happen without good leadership, and an article in The Athletic by Scott Dochterman gives a lot of the credit to the leadership of Athletic Director Jamie Pollard:
Perhaps the most important moment of Pollard’s Iowa State tenure took place two weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the NCAA Tournament. On a Sunday night in March of 2020, the athletic director texted every head coach: In my office, 7 o’clock, we’re having a meeting.Pollard, a trained CPA, had pored over the numbers of what the pandemic could cost his department, and Iowa State faced potential devastation.
The coaches gathered around Pollard’s office table the next morning, and for 90 minutes, Pollard explained how the people in that room — himself included — combined to make about 90 percent of the department’s salaries. If they agreed to cut their salaries by 10 percent and forgo their bonuses that year, they could prevent high numbers of department employees from losing their jobs.
“At some point in time,” Pollard told them, “COVID will end. And if we have to spend all our time trying to ramp back up because we let everybody go — the custodians, the equipment people, the marketing people — you all aren’t going to be successful. So, if you really want to be successful, you take the pay cut, you give up your bonuses, and we won’t lay anybody off. And I’m positive when we come out of COVID, we’ll be one of the leaders, because we’ll have a head start.
“They all agreed to it on the spot.”
Afterward, Pollard received a text from Campbell, who let the athletic director know if he needed to withhold more, he could. The athletic director choked up five years later recalling that moment: “Who does that?”
“It was critical for me to make sure that we kept our great people,” Campbell said. “It’s always been about that, the people that are working with us here. It did end up taking a lot more than whatever the 10 percent was, but I would rather take it than lose some of our good people that it was going to affect.”
Iowa State implemented those cuts the next day and didn’t lay off or furlough a single employee. The department used reserves to cover a $20 million shortfall, rather than borrowing from the institution or a bank. That level of fiscal responsibility was different from many other athletic departments. Across the state, for instance, Iowa athletics borrowed $50 million from the university, complete with a 15-year repayment plan.
“Some things changed after COVID,” Pollard said. “But all of our custodians stayed in place. All of our event and equipment people stayed in place, and we were ready to hit the ground running. I’m convinced that’s why we went to the Fiesta Bowl that year. And why did we bounce back from being 2-22 in (men’s) basketball so quickly? Yeah, (head coach T.J. Otzelberger) gets all of the credit, and he should get most of it, but everybody else stayed here.
“It allowed it to give us a fighting chance. I think we’ve taken advantage of it.”
*********** Mark Madden of the Pittsburgh Tribune is not exactly high on the Steelers’ management, and while you might think he’d be happy that they’re finally rid of George Pickens, there’s this…
"It makes you wonder all the more why they drafted (Pickens) in the first place. This is a horrible organization run haphazardly.”
He was highly critical of recent draft picks.
"Troy Fautanu? Injury prone. They took him. What happened? He got injured. George Pickens. Head case. They took him. What happened? He became a head case. Kenny Pickett. No team had him rated in the first round besides the Steelers. They took him anyway. What happened? He stiffed. These guys don't know what they are doing. They think every decision is right because they make it. And when it turns out to be wrong, they are more convinced that it is right."
*********** The senior from Smith needs to continue her education about the ursine world from Mrs. Constance Wyatt. I figured they selected the Bears 'moniker' because the school student officers had fond memories of the Berenstain Bears on Saturday mornings.
Tim "Mercedes" Benz truly donned his thinking cap to match AC/DC lyrics with the Steelers.
Thanks for reporting Coach Foristiere's son's experiences. You and he are correct, in that many onboard jobs that get overlooked are often dangerous, physically taxing, and mentally damanding.
Re the doctored Pope pic: as I watched the proceedings in the Vatican yesterday, I smiled to myself thinking nonsense, such as, "Was he a starter on one of 'Nova's title teams? Can he turn a high and tight four-seamer into a line drive?" I know I'm doomed to Hades for sure now.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Didn't see the name of Robert Prevost (the actual name of the new pope) on that betting list. I bet whoever chose him and his odds made a few bucks!
I'll also bet that Villanova and Merrimack College (both run by the Augustinians which Pope Leo IX is a member) will (at some point) extend invitations to the new pope to speak at their commencements before BC, Georgetown, Holy Cross, and Notre Dame receive that same consideration. Oh, BTW, all four of those colleges play football as well as basketball.
Oregon will find a prospect at QB. They always manage to pull one out of the weeds (er, cat-tails).
So is Mr. Benz saying the Steelers won't be "Back in Black" this year?
Earl Weaver...they don't make many like him anymore.
Dan Campbell...a throwback, and likely why he has turned the Lions franchise around.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. His father worked three jobs, and his mother was a school administrator, and they sent him to Brother Martin High School, an academically rigorous all-boys Catholic school.
He was a high school All-American lineman and highly recruited, but he wound up at Michigan because his father, who had served in the Army, liked Bo Schembechler’s no-nonsense approach. And Schembechler liked his mother’s gumbo. (In fact, after he signed with Michigan, his mother sent Schembechler a gallon of her gumbo and the coach invited her son and several of his teammates to his home to help him eat it.)
As he later recalled, “It was very nice of him to share. He could certainly have eaten it by himself, but he had us over, and that was a memory I will never forget.”
He earned a starting position as a sophomore at defensive end, and won two letters, but a neck injury put an end to his Michigan career and any hopes he had of playing professionally.
“It was hard,” he says now. “There was a point when I was in tears, knowing my career here and my dream of playing professionally was going to end.”
(He does recall Schembechler’s concern for him after his career-ending injury, and said that in his present job it still inspires him to put the needs of his staff and players first.)
Turning his attention elsewhere, he earned a letter in track and field.
After graduating with a bachelor of general studies degree, he was coordinator of a Michigan “Incentive Scholarship Program,” a partnership between the Michigan’s state universities and Detroit Public Schools.
During that time he got his master’s degree in social work, and then, after working briefly at Georgia Tech as assistant athletic director of academic affairs he returned to Michigan. There, he served in a number of positions in the athletic department, including oversight of the football and men's basketball programs. During this time, he also earned an MBA from Michigan’s School of Business.
In 2005 he was hired as AD at Buffalo (officially the State University of New York - SUNY- at Buffalo). During his eight years there the Bulls enjoyed unprecedented success athletically, and in 2008 he was recognized by Sports Business Journal as one of its "40-Under-40.”
In 2012 he became AD at UConn. During his time there, UConn teams won six national titles. In 2014 the Huskies won national championships in both men’s and women’s basketball. In 2015, he was honored by the National Association of College Directors of Athletics (NACDA) as the Athletic Director of the Year, and in January, 2016 he was hired as the Director of Athletics at the University of Michigan, where he continues to serve.
Since February 2024 he has served as the chairman of the Football Playoff Committee, and oversaw the first-ever twelve-team playoff..
In July 2024, he was named recipient of the 2024 National Football Foundation's John L. Toner Award, which recognizes an athletics director who has “demonstrated superior administrative abilities and shown outstanding dedication to college athletics, particularly college football.”
FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2025 'The best time to make friends
is before you need them.” Ara Parseghian*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: When the job of commissioner of the Mid-American Conference became vacant I had recommended Joe Kearney, whom I later succeeded as athletic director at the University of Washington. Kearney would have been a good choice – he later served as commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference for many years – but the MAC selected Fred Jacoby for its vacancy.
Fred served us well; he was a bright, hard-working guy, totally honest and highly respected by all of his colleagues. Later he moved up to become commissioner of the Southwest Conference. He was an extremely close friend and I respect him greatly. Many of the athletic directors and coaches in the MAC I admired and worked with became lifelong friends, including Joe Hoy at Western Michigan, Bill Rohr at Ohio University, Dick Shrider at Miami of Ohio, and Dick Young, who became AD at Bowling Green the same year I got the Kent State job. Dick later moved to Oklahoma State and then Washington State.
My path crossed with that of Joe Kearney again shortly after the 1974 football season ended. His head coach at Washington, Jim Owens, was retiring. After listening to me rave on and on about Don James, Carney called to ask permission to talk to James about moving to the Northwest. James left behind a lot of good memories and a record of 25-19-1 in four seasons.
After accepting the UW job, Don recommended his defensive coordinator, Dennis Fitzgerald, as his Kent state replacement. I wasn't totally convinced, but I respected Don's opinion and said OK. Dennis was a terrific assistant coach and an outstanding coordinator, but he didn't have the leadership and personality and the overall concept of what it took and how to administer a program as the head coach. His first season of 1975 was a disaster.
Meanwhile, Kearney was growing disenchanted at Washington, and it didn't take him long to land the athletic directorship at Michigan State. He even offered to take Don James with him, but Don had completed only one season in Seattle and liked it there. When Washington officials started searching for a new AD, James asked if he could offer a suggestion. That's when my phone rang.
Al Ulbrickson, Jr., vice president for student affairs, asked me to send a résumé and I agreed to meet with him in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for an interview. We talked for three hours, discussing the job. I was sold, but it took Ulbrickson a while to agree. In March, Don and Carol James visited us at Kent, and we talked about the vacancy in Seattle. While they were staying at our house, Don called Dave Cohn, one of the Washington program’s biggest boosters, and I talked with him. Subsequently, I visited Seattle for an interview and was offered the job.
Purple and gold would become my favorite colors for the next 15 1/2 years, the longest tenure of any University of Washington athletic director.
*********** When someone tells you Australians will bet on anything, they really mean anything. This is from SportsBet, where my son works…
If my name was Pierbattista Pizzaballa, you couldn’t pay me to change it, even if it meant not becoming Pope. (Anyone remember the Alka-Seltzer ad: “Mama Mia! That’s a spicy Pizzaballa…”)
*********** My college coach was a Villanova grad, and one of my grandsons is a graduate. Villanova assistant Brian Flinn and head coach Andy Talley were extremely gracious to me in letting me watch their spring practices a few years ago. And at heart, I'm a Philly guy. So I’m very happy for Villanova. But boy, I bet the people at BC, Georgetown, Holy Cross and (of course) Notre Dame are eating their hearts out.
“We got a Pope, Yes we do! We got a Pope - how ‘bout YOU?”
*********** Jared Curtis, a five-star high school QB prospect from the Nashville area, changed his commitment from Oregon to Georgia, and to hear all the experts tell it, Oregon might just as well throw in the towel and apply for admission to the Mountain West.
Except…
In an age when people can go out and buy a ready-to-play quarterback, you really think a program’s rise or fall depends on whether they can sign a high school kid?
Remember when Quinn Ewers was the nation’s number one prospect? (In the recent NFL draft, THIRTEEN quarterbacks were taken ahead of him.)
*********** I know everyone said this was a bad year for QBs in the NFL draft, but how much better can next year’s crop be, when Arch Manning, who has yet to play a full season as a starting quarterback, is already the Heisman favorite?
*********** For several months, longtime coach/friend Mike Foristiere’s youngest son, Rock, has been on board the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman.
Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s in the Middle East right now, and for most of the time it’s been there, its planes have been bombing the Houtis almost non-stop. Which means the people who service the planes - and load the ordnance on board - have been working long hours, seven days a week. Obviously, this can take a toll on personnel.
In additon, just in the last week, two of the Truman’s fighter jets - worth $60 million apiece - have been lost at sea.
Writes Mike, “My Sister's husband is a Navy Veteran and stays up on all things Military, especially Naval operations.
“He said that the Truman has had more action than almost any of our ships in four years during World War II.”
Question: if this is peacetime, what the hell is war going to be like?
*********** I confess that I’m not a connoisseur of AC/DC and its music, but I did like the way Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review associated the titles of some of their songs with the current condition of the Steelers, and if any of you are AC/DC aficionados, you’ll appreciate it even more…
The last time AC/DC played in Pittsburgh was at Mellon Arena on Jan. 7, 2009. The Steelers were about to cap off the 2008 campaign with a trip to Super Bowl XLIII. The Penguins were embarking on a run to the Stanley Cup.
Now, they are coming back to Pittsburgh to perform on Thursday night. Is it an omen?
Um, no. Who are we kidding?
I’m just happy to be going. I’ve never seen AC/DC live. Hopefully, they’ll perform a lot of the big hits like “Back in Black,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “For Those About To Rock,” “Who Made Who” and “Highway to Hell.”
But, as is tradition here at “Breakfast With Benz,” whenever when one of our favorite bands rolls through town, we come up with a team-specific setlist we’d like to see based on the venue they are playing.
So, here is our all-Steelers setlist for this week’s AC/DC show at Acrisure Stadium.
Meltdown: Inspired by the Steelers’ last five games of 2024.
Stiff Upper Lip: What you’ve needed to be a fan of this team the last eight years.
Ain’t No Fun (Waiting ‘Round to Be a Millionaire): A special dedication to George Pickens.
All Screwed Up: The Steelers’ QB depth chart.
Kicked in the Teeth: How I felt all those times Matt Canada called pass plays short of the sticks on third down.
Through the Mists of Time: An ode to Aaron Rodgers’ contract negotiations.
Problem Child: In case Antonio Brown is in the crowd.
Fly on the Wall: What I’d like to be during offensive meetings with Rodgers, Pickens, DK Metcalf and Arthur Smith.
Walk All Over You: What Derrick Henry did to the Steelers’ run defense.
Borrowed Time: The Steelers’ non-losing-season streak.
Deep in the Hole: Where I expect the Steelers to be after the first six weeks of this season.
Nick of Time: When Pickens finally got to Acrisure Stadium on Christmas Day.
Back in Business: An homage to Mason Rudolph.
Have a Drink on Me: What we should all be saying to Chris Boswell.
Beating Around the Bush: National media members whenever they mention that Mike Tomlin has never had a losing season.
Safe in New York City: Justin Fields’ bank account.
Baptism by Fire: What’ll happen to Will Howard if he has to play this season.
Whiskey on the Rocks: What Tomlin and Smith were probably drinking when they came up with that game plan against the Bengals in Week 18.
Shot Down in Flames: Any trade request Omar Khan made for a good wide receiver last year.
Can’t Stand Still: Russell Wilson in the pocket behind last year’s offensive line.
Hard Times: Pretty much every playoff game since 2010.
Jailbreak: What it looked like when the Steelers were trying to block Myles Garrett during that Thursday night game in Cleveland.
Give It Up: What I hope Arthur Smith does with that wide-right pitch play.
Givin The Dog A Bone: The snap count philosophy for Fields after Russ got healthy in Week 6.
ENCORE
Moneytalks: A request from T.J. Watt’s agent.
Nervous Shakedown: How they played against the Ravens in the playoffs.
Thunderstruck: How I’ll describe myself if they actually win a playoff game this year.
Didn’t see your favorite song? Well, if you are a Penguins fan, check back again next week before Pearl Jam plays at PPG Paints Arena.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com
*********** In his autobiography, “It’s What You Learn After You Know It All That Counts,” Orioles’ Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver told of a few discussions he had with outfielder Pat Kelly. Kelly, who happened to be the younger brother of Cleveland Browns’ great Leroy Kelly, was a Born-Again Christian and, in Weaver’s words, “one of the sweetest men I ever met.”
One of their “religious” discussions:
One day Pat said, "Skip, don't you want to walk with the Lord? "
“Kell," I told him, "I'd rather you walk with the bases loaded.”
Another such discussion:
Another day Pat came into the dugout all excited after hitting a home run and said the Lord had been looking out for him.
"Yeah, "I said, "and what about that poor sonuvabitch on the mound who threw that high slider? We better not be counting on God. He always knows who's going to win. We're just acting it out so 26 million people will pay to get through them ballpark gates.“
*********** A writer for The Athletic recently took on the challenge of spending a day supercharged, the way Lions’ coach Dan Campbell does, and then writing about his experience. This, apparently, is the way Coach Campbell starts his day:
Two 20-ounce Pike Place medium roast coffees with two shots of espresso in each one.
Its nickname is a “Black Eye.”
I haven’t found out yet how the writer made out.
*********** I mentioned not so long ago that Smith College, the all-female college in Massachusetts that my wife attended, had decided that it no longer wanted its sports teams to be the Pioneers. “Pioneers” made perfect sense to me - the area in western Mass where it's located is often called the Pioneer Valley, and the Smithies’ idea was to celebrate the fact that Smith was a pioneer in women’s college education.
But then I guess that someone happened to be watching late-night TV and saw an episode of Wagon Train and put two and two together and figured: pioneers fighting Indians. Bad.
In just the last week, they announced a new “moniker” (as they seem to prefer to “nickname”):
The Bears. (No, not “Da Bears.”)
See, a long time ago a woman named Senda Berenson formed a basketball team at Smith. And after that, she served for years as their director of physical education.
Let me explain. Where I grew up, in Philly, Senda’s last name would be pronounced BURR-en-son. But in many parts of the country, it’s pronounced BEAR-en-son.
Get it? Berenson? Bears?
Besides, said a senior class officer, bears are “empathetic, joyful, playful, social, and altruistic. That’s representative of the Smith community to me."
Wait: empathetic, joyful, playful, social, and altruistic? Grizzlies?
I guess that those grizzlies - the ones that kill campers - must be the bad apples. Every group has ‘em.
*********** I mentioned in my tribute to Phil Petry that he had made a few “bad decisions.” One that I was personally aware of - and everybody else in Hagerstown was, too - was his involvement in “street-level pharmaceutical sales,” as the police would say. Translation: He got caught selling marijuana. I didn’t approve, of course, but now, in view of the way states shamelessly peddle “cannabis” it’s impossible for me to look back on him as any sort of criminal. (Not that I did even then: Phil was just so doggone likable.)
In Hagerstown, despite his drug dealing, there were plenty of people who were still fond of him, so he got light treatment - he was given community service, which consisted of doing janitorial work around the county courthouse. That left his evenings free for football practice. (Like most minor league teams, we practiced in the evenings to accommodate guys with jobs, many of whom lived an hour or more away in the Baltimore and DC areas).
My wife, who was then in her first year of teaching, happened one day to be taking her fourth-graders on a tour of that very courthouse.
Her kids were especially excited at the prospect of seeing the jail, and the highlight of the tour came when they went down into the basement and looked down a hall with cell doors on both sides and saw a “real prisoner” down at the end mopping the floor. Imagine their reaction when the “prisoner” looked up and said, cheerily, “Hi, Mrs Wyatt!”
*********** Don’t be surprised if something happens at the federal level regarding the NIL/transfer portal situation. When President Trump was at Alabama last week to deliver the commencement address, he was introduced by Nick Saban, and evidently the two of them spent a fair amount of time together afterwards. It would really shock me if a man as astute as Saban didn’t take advantage of the kind of opportunity few college coaches will ever have.
*********** In a previous NYCU you mentioned Andrew Luck stepping in to run the scout team at Stanford. It reminded me of my dad telling us about David Nelson, when he was the AD at Delaware coming out and throwing batting practice.
Tom Walls
Winnipeg, Manitoba
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Dean Look was born in Lansing, Michigan. His father was an outstanding athlete who played some minor league baseball in the Philadelphia A’s system before settling into a job at the Lansing Oldsmobile plant. His older brother Bruce was a star baseball player at Michigan State, and played as a catcher in the Braves, Dodgers and Twins organizations.
He grew up in “the sticks” as he referred to the outskirts of Lansing, and at Everett High, with fewer than 300 students, he played every sport possible. He was a star in football, basketball and baseball, and in track he helped his team to a Class C state title, running an anchor leg on a relay team and setting a state record in the pole vault.
He was recruited by both Michigan and Michigan State - for football and baseball - and when he chose MSU, he played both sports there.
In baseball, he was twice named team MVP, and won All-Big Ten honors. In his junior season he led the Spartans in runs, RBIs, total bases, stolen bases, doubles and home runs.
In football, he started out as a single wing tailback in Duffy Daugherty’s multiple offense, and switched to under-center quarterback for his senior season. In addition, he punted and returned punts.
In his sophomore season he helped lead Michigan State to a national championship. Against Michigan his junior year, he returned a punt for a 92-yard touchdown as the Spartans and Wolverines tied, 12-12.
In his senior season he was named to the UPI Backfield of the Week on three separate occasions. He was voted team MVP, he made the Football Writers’ All-America team, and he finished sixth in the Heisman voting.
On the very same day in November of his senior season, he was drafted by the Chicago White Sox, and by the Denver Broncos of the brand-new American Football League.
(He was the first quarterback taken by the Broncos. In the first year of the AFL draft, every team was required to fill eleven offensive positions - four backs, two ends, two tackles, two guards, and a center - with their first 11 picks before unrestricted drafting of the remaining players.)
Offered a $50,000 contract - quite generous at the time - to sign with the White Sox, he chose baseball.
It was not an easy decision. “It was hard,” he recalled later, “but baseball was signing with bonuses, and football was a bag of popcorn. Even as a first-round pick you didn’t make much money.”
His baseball career was short. He made it to the majors, but for a mere six at bats, and he never got a hit. The closest he came was when he hit a ball down the third base line against the Orioles. Future Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson made a diving stop over the bag and - from his knees - threw the runner out.
So he went back to football. That career, too was short-lived.
After playing in three pre-season games with the Buffalo Bills as a running back, he was traded to the New York Titans (now the Jets). In his third game with the Titans, now their third-string quarterback, “I went in the game in the second quarter,” he remembered. “I rolled out to throw a pass, and a guy smacked me in the jaw and broke my neck. I never played again.”
He then embarked on a career in business and as an official.
After working his way up to the NFL level, his first big test, he remembered, came in a preseason game in New England, between the Patriots and the Bears. Chicago’s Dick Butkus laid out Patriot QB Jim Plunkett with what Look considered a late hit.
No sooner had the flag hit the ground than Butkus was in his face.
“I’ve been called most of the things he has called me, but never in the combination he used,” he said later. “It was amazing that he could get all of that out, one after the other. He started out calling me a ‘little rookie so and so.’”
After the game, he said he went into the official’s locker room and made a decision - that was enough for him.
The abuse from Butkus, and then the constant ridicule from the Bears’ sideline?
“I said, ‘I don’t need this.’ I was done.”
He was dissuaded from quitting by the other officials, who all told him that they had all “quit” once, too, and that the kind of treatment he got from Butkus was common among players and coaches in a league where they’re under constant pressure to compete.
It was his induction into the brotherhood.
“It was my ‘Welcome to the NFL’ moment,” he remembered “I never thought about quitting again.”
He would have a successful 29-year career as an NFL official, working in numerous play-off games and three Super Bowls.
In the 49ers’ NFC championship game win over the Cowboys, he was the official who signaled the touchdown on “The Catch” - Joe Montana’s historic pass to Dwight Clark.
He officiated in Super Bowl XIII in 1979, Super Bowl XV in 1981, and Super Bowl XXVII in 1993.
Dean Look was inducted into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007 and the State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
His most treasured memory of his college football career?
“We never lost to Michigan or Notre Dame.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING DEAN LOOK
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. His father worked three jobs, and his mother was a school administrator, and they sent him to Brother Martin High School, an academically rigorous all-boys Catholic school.
He was a high school All-American lineman and highly recruited, but he wound up at Michigan because his father, who had served in the Army, liked Bo Schembechler’s no-nonsense approach. And Schembechler liked his mother’s gumbo. (In fact, after he signed with Michigan, his mother sent Schembechler a gallon of her gumbo and the coach invited her son and several of his teammates to his home to help him eat it.)
As he later recalled, “It was very nice of him to share. He could certainly have eaten it by himself, but he had us over, and that was a memory I will never forget.”
He earned a starting position as a sophomore at defensive end, and won two letters, but a neck injury put an end to his Michigan career and any hopes he had of playing professionally.
“It was hard,” he says now. “There was a point when I was in tears, knowing my career here and my dream of playing professionally was going to end.”
(He does recall Schembechler’s concern for him after his career -ending injury, and said that in his present job it still inspires him to put the needs of his staff and players first.)
Turning his attention elsewhere, he earned a letter in track and field.
After graduating with a bachelor of general studies degree, he was coordinator of a Michigan “Incentive Scholarship Program,” a partnership between the Michigan’s state universities and Detroit Public Schools.
During that time he got his master’s degree in social work, and then, after working briefly at Georgia Tech as assistant athletic director of academic affairs he returned to Michigan. There, he served in a number of positions in the athletic department, including oversight of the football and men's basketball programs. During this time, he also earned an MBA from Michigan’s School of Business.
In 2005 he was hired as AD at Buffalo (officially the State University of New York - SUNY- at Buffalo). During his eight years there the Bulls enjoyed unprecedented success athletically, and in 2008 he was recognized by Sports Business Journal as one of its "40-Under-40.”
In 2012 he became AD at UConn. During his time there, UConn teams won six national titles. In 2014 the Huskies won national championships in both men’s and women’s basketball. In 2015, he was honored by the National Association of College Directors of Athletics (NACDA) as the Athletic Director of the Year, and in January, 2016 he was hired as the Director of Athletics at the University of Michigan, where he continues to serve.
Since February 2024 he has served as the chairman of the Football Playoff Committee, and oversaw the first-ever twelve-team playoff..
In July 2024, he was named recipient of the 2024 National Football Foundation's John L. Toner Award, which recognizes an athletics director who has “demonstrated superior administrative abilities and shown outstanding dedication to college athletics, particularly college football.”
TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2025 '“Enjoy the little things in
life because one day you'll look back and realize they were the big
things.” Kurt Vonnegut*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: What made the Kent State job such a huge undertaking was that most of the organizing of the athletic department had to be done from scratch. Almost everything we did was a new adventure. The hardest part was trying to come up with the resources – the cupboard was oh, so bare – to get all the things done that were needed to bring the program from the Dark Ages to the real world.
Early on, I interviewed each member of the staff to get his or her insight to the situation; then I compiled and distributed a staff -wide memo titled "How we can be successful.” It enumerated all the things we needed to do to reach that goal. One of those things was loyalty to one another and being team players. That involved not only the staff members but their spouses. The memo was enthusiastically received.
In an effort to give our program more public exposure in the greater Cleveland area, I got acquainted with Art Modell, then owner of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. The relationship was highly productive. It didn't take too much persuasion to get him to move the Browns’ summer training camp to the Kent State campus facilities from Hiram College.
The move helped us financially in the form of rent for the use of our fields and other facilities and also gave us a significant boost in public relations. Members of the media who may have ignored us for years were on our campus regularly, covering the Browns’ preseason workouts, and every story written for more than a month carried the Kent, Ohio, dateline.
Modell also helped put together a collegiate football doubleheader in Cleveland Stadium – which proved to be a disaster, at least at the box office. And when I applied for the job of athletic director at the University of Washington Art wrote a superb letter of recommendation.
*********** I just learned this past
week that Phil Petry died back in March. It was back in Maryland,
and I’m out of touch. Phil was 80.That's Phil at left as a sophomore at Maryland in 1964.
Phil played minor league ball for me in Hagerstown, Maryland, but before that he was a high school All-American at South Hagerstown High. At Maryland, as a sophomore starter at quarterback, he led the Terps to a 27-22 win over Navy and their starting quarterback, a guy named Roger Staubach (who had won the Heisman the year before). Phil kept his starting job as a junior, but after the season head coach Tom Nugent was fired and was replaced by Lou Saban. Saban (no relation to Nick) had just won the AFL title as Buffalo’s coach, and he must have had other ideas about the quarterback position (I never talked to Phil about this) because Phil scarcely played his senior year. Saban, a notorious job-hopper, then left Maryland after one season to return to the AFL as coach of the Denver Broncos.
Phil evidently made a few bad decisions, which undoubtedly put the kibosh on any chances he might have had in the NFL, and at the height of the Vietnam War, he enllsted in the Army and served three years in the 82nd Airborne. By the time he came to me and the Hagerstown Bears, he had a lightly less than sterling reputation, but my team owner couldn’t overlook the fact that he was a potential draw at the gate, and it didn’t take me long to see that he still had skills. He was good-sized - 6-2, 215 - and a very good athlete, and he understood the game and could wing the ball. I liked him, too. He was a good guy and got along well with his teammates.
The problem was, I already had a good quarterback, Chuck Reilly. Chuck was very dependable, and his coming on board midway through the previous season (when we were 0-5) had probably saved my job. (We finished 7-7.) So there was the loyalty factor. There might have been a nasty quarterback conflict, because Phil was a local hero while Chuck was a soldier stationed in the Army at nearby Fort Ritchie, Maryland. But Chuck wasn’t nearly as good an athlete as Phil, so he was a quarterback or nothing, while Phil could play another position. We needed improvement at tight end, and when I explained the situation to Phil, he immediately accepted the challenge. He was good. He still got to play a fair amount at QB as it was , throwing for 1410 yards and 15 touchdowns (Chuck threw for 16), but he also caught 28 passes for 329 yards and was the all-league tight end.
The next year, with Chuck discharged and back home in Peekskill, New York, Phil became the man at QB. Our league was much tougher - we had added the Hartford Knights from the Atlantic Coast Football League - and we wound up throwing a lot more than I’d have liked. Against a team with Hartford’s talent, running was out of the question, and in one game against them, we threw so many times that when I finally called a running play, the Hartford defensive linemen, tired of all that pass rushing, got up after making the tackle and applauded me.
Speaking of tired - in one game in 1972 at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Phil threw 58 times, which stood as a national minor league record for many years. After the game, beat from all that dropping back, he had just one request of me: “Next time you decide to throw that much, could we do it out of shotgun?”
I hadn’t seen Phil since we moved west in 1975.
Rest in Peace, Phil.
*********** THIS WEEKEND IN THE UFL
ST LOUIS (4-2) 12, ARLINGTON (3-3) 6
It was 9-0 going into the fourth quarter. One touchdown, four field goals. Sheesh.
One O-lineman had four penalties.
HOUSTON (3-3) 21, MEMPHIS (1-5) 20
This was a Battle for the Bottom. In my opinion, Memphis is actually a better team,The key play was a brutal sack of Memphis QB Dresser Winn that resulted in a fumble and a 37 yard return near the end of the third quarter.
MICHIGAN (4-2) 38, DC (4-2) 14
This was an ass-kicking. Between the running and passing of QB Bryce Perkins and the running of backs Toa Taua, and Nate McCrary, Michigan seemed to move the ball at will.
BIRMINGHAM (4-2) 26, SAN ANTONIO (1-5) 3
Birmingham is not the same Birmingham that won the league title last year, but San Antonio is probably the UFL’s worst team. Amazingly, Brahmas’ QB Kevin Hogan (who played at Stanford) made his first start since 2017, and considering how awful his protection was, gave an all-star performance: 17 of 26 for 179 yards. He didn’t throw for any touchdowns, but a dropped pass that would have been a 60 yard touchdown would have helped his stats a lot.
It was not a very good weekend for the UFL.
BAD
On fourth and 30 a team punts - and a guy roughs the kicker
On fourth and long a team attempts a long field goal. A defender leaps over the offensive linemen (and lands on the snapper) and his personal foul gives the kicking team a first down.
A player returns a fumble for a long TD - but a teammate, 10 yards behind him, pushes an opponent - who has no chance of catching the runner - in the back.
A San Antonio receiver is wide open on a deep route and a perfectly-thrown ball hits him right in the hands - and he drops it.
On numerous plays, numerous defenders miss tackles
The holding by offensive linemen is sickening
The pass protection is terrible, and would be much worse without the holding
In the St. Louis-Arlington game, both quarterbacks fumbled because of poor fundamentals.
GOOD
Bryce Perkins, Detroit QB (Played at Virginia) is beginning to look like the league’s best. He is a decent passer but - really important in this league - he is almost unsackable. He’s quick, he’s nifty, he’s fast, and at 6-3, 215, he’s strong. Against DC he was 13 of 18 for 188 and 2 TDs passing, and 9 carries (you should have seen some of them) for 76 yards and a TD.
Toa Taua - the 5-8, 205 Detroit running back (from Nevada) carried 19 times for 94 yards and a TD against DC
Wes Hills, signed just this past week, made his first start for Memphis and carried 13 times for 47 yards. I like him because he’s a South Jersey guy - from Wildwood. He played at Delaware and Slippery Rock, and he’s now 29 years old, but he’s big (6-3, 215) and fast and he’s a very hard runner.
*********** The networks must have known how bad the UFL games were going to be this past weekend, because they let their announcers stay home.
All four UFL games this past weekend were called remotely: the announcers were somewhere other than at the game, and called the games off the TV screen. How do I know? We NEVER saw the “talent” (as they refer to them) and the field at the same time, as we ALWAYS do when they’re at the game and up in the booth, telling us how important this game will be. On the two ESPN games, at least we saw the two of them, together in front of a backdrop. On the two Fox games, we didn’t see them at all.
*********** The Black Lion Award was presented at Don Holleder’s school, famed Aquinas Institute in Rochester, New York, in an award assembly attended by the entire school.
Said Jay Polston of the Aquinas Class of 1990 who administers the Black Lion Award, “It is one of the best days of the year at Aquinas.”
In the photo, taken at the reception after the award ceremony, are (Left to Right) Lucas Leone, 2023 Black Lion Award winner; Nick Borkowski, 2006 Black Lion Award winner; Frankie Burgess, this year’s Black Lion Award winner; Joe Miller, Aquinas Class of 1951; Ron Mack, Aquinas Class of 1953. (Joe Miller and Ron Mack were high school teammates of Don Holleder.)
*********** The Memphis Showboats aren’t very good - yet - but their center, Alec Lindstrom, is. His dad, Chris Lindstrom, was a very successful Double Wing coach at Shepherd Hill High in Dudley, Massachusetts, and was a regular at my Providence clinics. Chris was a pro lineman himself, as were two of his brothers, and Alec’s brother, Chris, Jr., was a first round draft choice of the Atlanta Falcons. I like watching Alec because he plays and acts like a coach’s kid. (Not to mention a former Double-Winger.)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (May 5, 2025) – Everyone knows the cliché of a kid taking over the family business after proving they’re capable and responsible. Usually, it happens after college or a few years of hard work. Then the keys are handed over and the legacy continues. But what if that family business is professional football?
That’s exactly the case for Memphis Showboats starting center Alec Lindstrom.
His father, Chris Lindstrom, Sr., was a collegiate lineman at Boston University before playing professionally with the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and later the USFL’s Chicago Blitz.
Football didn’t stop there for the Lindstroms. Alec’s uncle, Dave Lindstrom, started at BU and went on to play eight seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs. Another uncle, Eric Lindstrom played at Boston College before he took his talents to NFL Europe and the Canadian Football League.
“You always look up to parents and family members as your idols and heroes growing up,” Alec remarked. “Having my dad and two of my uncles play professional football was awesome… It’s just kind of what I always wanted to do.”
As kids, Alec and his older brother, Chris, were around football as often as they could be. Whether they were going to games with their father and uncles, watching on TV or following their dad to local high school practices where he coached, football was woven into their everyday lives.
“We were building forts with all the agility pads and stuff,” he said. “We were just always around football.”
As the brothers grew older, they both realized they wanted to continue the family legacy. Having a father and uncles who knew what it would take to reach the highest level was invaluable — but it also meant Alec and Chris were working toward their goal under watchful eyes from the start.
“Every day before school started, at five in the morning, we were in the weight room of our high school training every day,” Alec said. “Then after school, [we were] training again… [It was great] having someone as a resource like that telling you, ‘Hey, this is what you’ve got to do. I know you’re a 16-year-old kid and you don’t want to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to go work out before school, but you have these dreams and aspirations. Do you want to really be about it, or do you just want to say you’re about it?”
From there, the rest was history.
Chris, Jr. picked up the mantle and ran with it. He played at Boston College from 2015 to 2018, starting 49 of 52 games. An elite guard, Chris was drafted as the 14th overall pick in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons, where he is signed through 2028.
Then there’s Alec – the youngest of the bunch – who, like his uncle and brother, also chose Boston College.
“My brother, Chris, has always been a huge influence in my life. Watching him go to BC and have the success he had… I kind of wanted that,” Alec said.
Wearing the maroon and gold, Alec played in 46 games and started 36. He earned Third team All-ACC honors as a sophomore and was a back-to-back First Team All-ACC selection as a junior and senior, along with being recognized as an All-American. Consistency, grit and football IQ clearly run deep in the Lindstrom bloodline.
“Going there, being with him – how many people can say they played next to their brother playing Division I college football?” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”
After college, Alec signed with the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad, spending some time there through 2022 and 2023. He later joined the New York Jets and saw some in-game action before moving to the Los Angeles Rams during the preseason. Eventually, he landed in Memphis, where he has become a fixture on the Showboats’ offensive line.
“Now, I’ve been in high-level college [football], I’ve been in the NFL and I’ve been in the UFL,” Alec said. “It’s kind of cool to hear that stuff growing up and then also living through it myself, like your dreams are coming true.”
Now, in the heart of the UFL season, Alec is proving that the family business is in good hands. Week after week, Alec is anchoring the O-line with the same poise and power that’s made the Lindstrom name synonymous with toughness and reliability in the trenches.
“I play for myself and I play for my family,” Alec said. “[It’s about] going out there and playing for the guys next to you… I know what I’m capable of, I know the type of player I am.”
*********** Antisemitic acts on college campuses aren’t entirely new phenomena.
In April 1978, three Miami freshman football players grabbed a 22-year-old Jewish man (he was wearing a yarmulke) who was on his way to religious services, and threw him into Lake Osceola in the middle of the campus. When coach Lou Saban was informed of this, unaware that the man was Jewish, he reportedly said "Getting thrown in the lake? Sounds like fun to me.”
Miami's large Jewish community was not amused, and although Saban apologized profusely, the damage was done. He offered to resign in mid-season but agreed to stay to the end, after which he left to coach at Army. (Where he would stay for one season.)
*********** While watching the run-up to the Kentucky Derby, I heard a trainer use a football metaphor in advising his jockey to let another horse lead the way through an opening: “Let him be your fullback.” (Since most of the jockeys were foreign-born, and since the fullback position is nearing extinction, I wonder whether the guy understood.)
*********** When the Crawler on the UFL games said that Caitlin Clark was not going to play in Sunday’s Indianapolis Fever game against the Brazilian national team, my first thought was “Uh-oh.”
The game was in Iowa City, where she played her college ball, and as expected, the game was a sellout. As of Wednesday, the average price of a ticket on the “secondary market” was said to be upwards of $400.
Fortunately, she wound up playing. The fans needed her more than the Fever did - Indianapolis won, 106-44. The halftime score was 70-24.
*********** To a Marylander, especially one from Baltimore or the Eastern Shore, two of the favorite local delicacies are crab cakes and steamed hard crabs.
In both dishes, one seasoning is mandatory: Old Bay.
Old Bay was invented by a German-Jewish immigrant who escaped the Nazis and came to Baltimore in the 1930s. Starting a company called the Baltimore Spice Company, he named this particular blend of spices after the Old Bay Line, which until the 1960s ran steamships up and down the Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore and Norfolk, Virginia. In 1990, Baltimore Spice Company was acquired by Baltimore-based spice giant McCormick and Company, and while the bulk of Old Bay is still used to spice up dishes featuring Maryland’s famous blue crabs, of late it has been getting exposure far beyond its home market.
As an example, as I was watching a recent “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” show, the cook at a place called “Born in a Barn” was rattling off the seasonings as he sprinkled them on the house burgers:
“Salt, pepper, Old Bay…”
In Laramie, Wyoming.
*********** Tuomas Iisalo is the new head coach of the NBA Memphis Grizzlies. He’s a Finn, who’s played and coached professional basketball in Finland. So that you’ll be able to laugh along with me when the TV guys butcher his name, it’s pronounced “TOO-oh-maas EE-sol-oh” (Beginner’s Finnish lesson: the first syllable is ALWAYS emphasized; every letter is pronounced; and no vowel has more than one way to be pronounced; The letters T, P and K are pronounced in such a way that in saying them you couldn’t blow out a match held in front of your mouth, making T almost sound like D, P almost like B, K almost like a hard G. In Finnish, there is no D, P or G.)
*********** In January, 1838, long before he was elected president and 25 years before his Gettysburg Address - Abraham Lincoln told an audience labout his plan to MAGAKIG: Make America Great and Keep it Great.
Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;--let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
*********** A graphic presentation of the results of a poll asking how Shedeur’s season is likely to go.
*********** Hugh
I read your link to the AFCA. It was a very good read. Thanks for including it.
See you at the next meeting.
David Crump
Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** If I’m game planning and calling defense in the coache’ box and Sam Acho comes in and sticks a mic in my face, I might stab him in the eye with my pencil
Josh Montgomery
Berwick, Louisiana
Coach. we both like Sam Acho and he's only doing as ordered, so that may be bit severe for him. But not for the guy in the studio a thousand miles away giving the orders. You would think, though, that in the twenty-first century, when we have the ability to see the freckles on a kid’s face from thousands of miles in space, that there might be a slightly less obtrusive way of eavesdropping on a guy while he’s got work to do.
*********** Coach Lude's nemesis, Glenn Olds, should've been president of the NCAA. Man had great ideas.
Kudos to you for covering the story about Doc Hinger and Armando Castro. And Lorene the guardian. First time I saw Coach Castro I felt the strength of a good man. Deep admiration that he traveled from Richmond to DC to see Doc, another fine man.
The CBS interview with Belichick was odd. One element of oddness I haven't noticed comment on is the incoming UNC coach wearing a holey Navy tee. I know of his former connections with Navy, but now his allegiance is supposed to be to UNC.
I stopped buying from Nike years ago.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Coach Lude's experience with a lead administrator who is less than enthusiastic about athletics haunts many of us!
Ben Gulbranson is likely the TRUE reason why the Portal was created. I hope he has a successful year at Stanford.
Columbus, OH and Austin, TX have something in common. Both cities have pro football teams that are NOT in the NFL or UFL.
There are fewer and fewer men like Doc Hinger around. God Bless him, and guys like Armando Castro who care.
The National Football Foundation and its HOF not only honors outstanding collegiate players, its local chapters are also instrumental in honoring outstanding HS players. I was fortunate and blessed to have nominated a few of my former players to take part in local NFFHOF awards dinners honoring local high school football players in and around the Austin area. Those I nominated, and others from surrounding high schools were honored for their accomplishments, and each time the Foundation provided great speakers delivering meaningful messages for all honorees, and their supporters in the crowd. The Foundation is an exemplary organization in promoting the game of football at both the collegiate and high school levels.
I have not purchased any NIKE gear in a long, long time. Probably about the same time that the NFL went woke.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Lansing, Michigan. His father was an outstanding athlete who played some minor league baseball in the Philadelphia A’s system before settling into a job at the Lansing Oldsmobile plant. His older brother Bruce was a star baseball player at Michigan State, and played as a catcher in the Braves, Dodgers and Twins organizations.
He grew up in “the sticks” as he referred to the outskirts of Lansing, and at Everett High, with fewer than 300 students, he played every sport possible. He was a star in football, basketball and baseball, and in track he helped his team to a Class C state title, running an anchor leg on a relay team and setting a state record in the pole vault.
He was recruited by both Michigan and Michigan State - for football and baseball - and when he chose MSU, he played both sports there.
In baseball, he was twice named team MVP, and won All-Big Ten honors. In his junior season he led the Spartans in runs, RBIs, total bases, stolen bases, doubles and home runs.
In football, he started out as a single wing tailback in Duffy Daugherty’s multiple offense, and switched to under-center quarterback for his senior season. In addition, he punted and returned punts.
In his sophomore season he helped lead Michigan State to a national championship. Against Michigan his junior year, he returned a punt for a 92-yard touchdown as the Spartans and Wolverines tied, 12-12.
In his senior season he was named to the UPI Backfield of the Week on three separate occasions. He was voted team MVP, he made the Football Writers’ All-America team, and he finished sixth in the Heisman voting.
On the very same day in November of his senior season, he was drafted by the Chicago White Sox, and by the Denver Broncos of the brand-new American Football League.
(He was the first quarterback taken by the Broncos. In the first year of the AFL draft, every team was required to fill eleven offensive positions - four backs, two ends, two tackles, two guards, and a center - with their first 11 picks before unrestricted drafting of the remaining players.)
Offered a $50,000 contract - quite generous at the time - to sign with the White Sox, he chose baseball.
It was not an easy decision. “It was hard,” he recalled later, “but baseball was signing with bonuses, and football was a bag of popcorn. Even as a first-round pick you didn’t make much money.”
His baseball career was short. He made it to the majors, but for a mere six at bats, and he never got a hit. The closest he came was when he hit a ball down the third base line against the Orioles. Future Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson made a diving stop over the bag and - from his knees - threw the runner out.
So he went back to football. That career, too was short-lived.
After playing in three pre-season games with the Buffalo Bills as a running back, he was traded to the New York Titans (now the Jets). In his third game with the Titans, now their third-string quarterback, “I went in the game in the second quarter,” he remembered. “I rolled out to throw a pass, and a guy smacked me in the jaw and broke my neck. I never played again.”
He then embarked on a career in business and as an official.
After working his way up to the NFL level, his first big test, he remembered, came in a preseason game in New England, between the Patriots and the Bears. Chicago’s Dick Butkus laid out Patriot QB Jim Punkett with what our guy considered a late hit.
No sooner had the flag hit the ground than Butkus was in his face.
“I’ve been called most of the things he has called me, but never in the combination he used,” he said later. “It was amazing that he could get all of that out, one after the other. He started out calling me a ‘little rookie so and so.’”
After the game, he said he went into the official’s locker room and made a decision - that was enough for him.
The abuse from Butkus, and then the constant ridicule from the Bears’ sideline?
“I said, ‘I don’t need this.’ I was done.”
He was dissuaded from quitting by the other officials, who all told him that they had all “quit” once, too, and that the kind of treatment he got from Butkus was common among players and coaches in a league where they’re under constant pressure to compete.
It was his induction into the brotherhood.
“It was my ‘Welcome to the NFL’ moment,” he remembered “I never thought about quitting again.”
He would have a successful 29-year career as an NFL official, working in numerous play-off games and three Super Bowls.
In the 49ers’ NFC championship game win over the Cowboys, he was the official who signaled the touchdown on “The Catch” - Joe Montana’s historic pass to Dwight Clark.
He officiated in Super Bowl XIII in 1979, Super Bowl XV in 1981, and Super Bowl XXVII in 1993.
He was inducted into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007 and the State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
His most treasured memory of his college football career?
“We never lost to Michigan or Notre Dame.”
FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2025 'I’d rather be two weeks too
late in playing a kid than one day too soon.” Joe Paterno*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Dr. White wanted to give up the college presidency to return to the School of Education. One of those being considered as a possible replacement was Dr. Glenn Olds, the president of Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Cy Porthouse, one of the Kent trustees and the owner of a rubber factory in nearby Ravenna, Ohio, had asked me to get a scouting report on Olds from the Springfield athletic Director, Ed Stietz. The report was not good, at least from my standpoint.
Stietz, the longtime secretary and editor for the NCAA Basketball Rules Committee, said Olds was not the least bit sympathetic to intercollegiate sports. Tell your trustees not to hire him, Stietz said. I passed this information along to Porthouse, but he didn't have the votes to block Olds from getting the job. It didn't help my situation when Olds found out I had been checking up on him.
Olds seemed to have great ideas about development of the university, but none of them had anything to do with the athletic department. Often I heard him say, “Mike, you've just got to learn to do more with less.” Glenn Olds was one of those people who liked athletics when everything was going right but he wasn't interested in providing the resources to make the program viable.
Maybe he had been in some sort of intellectual cocoon – far from the reality of college sports – but Olds invited Don James and me to his home one night and explained at length a theory he had been pondering for some time. He felt strongly that football coaches should not be on the field during a game; the game should be turned over to the athletes, and the coaches should sit in the stands like the rest of the spectators.
Dan and I tried to answer seriously, pointing out that we would be put at a huge disadvantage because the opposition would never agree to such a restriction. We left, shaking our heads, not certain whether we should laugh or cry.
When it was announced that I was leaving Kent State to go to the University of Washington, I got a call from Dick Shrider, the AD at Miami of Ohio, a highly respected colleague with whom I shared some of my feelings about the Glenn Olds administration. Shrider called and his first words were: "Mike, tell him to go to hell, baby,” a reference, of course, to Olds.
*********** Former Oregon State quarterback Ben Gulbranson, with one year of eligibility remaining, is transferring to Stanford for his final year of eligibility. After initially throwing in the towel in football back in January, reportedly intent on attending medical school, Gulbranson decided to enter the transfer portal.
In my opinion he’s been treated shabbily at OSU.
He came in 2020 as a three-star recruit out of California, and in his redshirt freshman year he went 7-1 as a starter, including throwing the game-winning pass against Stanford, but in 2023, in came the highly overrated DJ Uiagalelei from Clemson, and Gulbranson went to the bench.
He stuck it out though - eventually graduating from OSU with a degree in public health - and wound up starting three of the Beavers’ final four games this past season, throwing for 943 yards and four touchdowns.
Unlike most transfer situations, where there’s often bitterness, the feeling in Corvallis is respect for his loyalty and his devotion, and a guy on Reddit who goes by “Beaver Believer” said it well:
I’m actually not mad. I’m impressed with Ben. He’s not going to Stanford for some NIL payday, he’s going there because they offer an outstanding educational opportunity for him. If his dream is to become a doctor, Stanford medical is near the top of any list.
*********** When I was in the beer business, whenever we thought an ad, or a package, or a sign needed to appear manlier, we’d use a well-understood phrase: “put a set of balls on it.”
Not that Democrats would ever use such a testosterone-laden phrase, but in the last election, that’s exactly what they were trying to do with their campaign: put some Balz - er, Walz - on it.
Tim Walz is out on a speaking tour now, and he’s claiming that he was chosen to join Kamala Harris on the Democrat ticket because he could “code talk to white guys.”
Really. He really said that. He said he was picked because of his ability to “code talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck.” To “put them at ease.”
And I believe it. I believe that Tim Walz represents masculinity. To Democrats,
Me, what I saw was this little fart who would flit onto the stage doing the Dance of the Fairies and then brag about being the football coach who helped start his school’s “Gay-Straight Alliance.”
*********** Last year, Ohio State won the CFB title, and Buckeyes’ coach Ryan Day made no secret of the fact that its roster cost it in the neighborhood of $20 million.
Pikers.
This year, according to the Houston Chronicle, Texas’ payroll (might as well call it what it is) will be “between 35 and 40 million dollars.”
*********** On Tuesday, after quite a bit of prodding by his wife, Jane, my friend Tom “Doc” Hinger took advantage of an Honor Flight - an all-expense-paid trip for veterans - in his case from Polk County, Florida - to Washington, DC and a visit to its major memorials.
“Doc” - he was an Army medic in Vietnam - is extremely proud of his service, but like so many men of his era, he keeps pretty quiet about it. He has paid a price. He was severely wounded in combat and was awarded the Silver Star, the Army’s second-highest award, for his bravery under fire. He wouldn’t tell you how he got it if you held a gun to his head. He was at the scene when Major Don Holleder was cut down by sniper fire, and it was in his arms that Major Holleder died. Doc and Don Holleder and the men who fought that day are the inspiration of the Black Lion Award.
Over the years, Doc has suffered from numerous after-effects of the battle. I sometimes tease him about the number of trips he’s made to the VA Hospital in Tampa and he’ll crack that he’s only doing it for the mileage reimbursement.
The honor flights are totally supported by donations. The veterans (there were about 90 on this trip, all but two of them men, and they had served in a number of our wars) pay absolutely nothing.
Every veteran is accompanied by a “guardian,” who has paid $500 of his or her money for the honor of escorting the veteran at all times and tending to his needs, pushing a wheel chair if necessary. (Doc’s guardian, Dorene Vern, had been a guardian twice before.)
Doc admitted to being a bit uneasy about going, but Jane prevailed, and they got up early - VERY early - on Tuesday.
They got to Lakeland Airport at 4 AM, and the flight took off at 5:30, arriving at BWI (Baltmore-Washington International) at 8:40.
From there - with so many men in wheel chairs, everything took a while - they headed in four buses to the World War II Memorial.
That’s where Doc met up with Armando Castro and his wife, Carmen.
I’ll take the credit for introducing them: Armando and I have been coach/friends for more than 25 years. He’s originally from Miami - came from Cuba as a little guy - but he was living in Roanoke, Virginia in 2010 when Army came to Durham, North Carolina to play Duke. I told him that I was going to be at the game, and Doc as well, and suggested that he join us. He came, and he and Doc, both Army vets, really hit it off.
So when Armando, now living near Richmond, learned that Doc would be coming to DC, he arranged to meet him there at the World War II Memorial. Armando is a big guy, and Doc said he almost broke a couple of ribs when they hugged. Armando and Carmen accompanied Doc (Armando wisely realizing that a wheel chair would make sense and Doc wisely agreeing) as they went to the Wall - the Vietnam Memorial. Doc, of course, knew exactly where to find the names of fallen buddies. Said Armando, "Doc was pointing to and telling me name by name a little about each one and how they died and it made the Wall come alive.”
PHOTO ON THE LEFT: (Left to right) Guardian Lorene Vern; Doc Hinger; Armando and Carmen Castro on the Mall
IN THE MIDDLE: Doc and Armando
ON THE RIGHT: Doc and Armando at The Wall
When the tour buses took the veterans to Arlington National Cemetery, Armando and Carmen made their way by car, and managed to reconnect - not so easy, given the parking arrangements - and together they watched the changing of the guard.
One very moving recollection: Doc said that as his group gathered outside their buses and prepared to go witness the changing of the guard, they heard “Taps” being played at a ceremony nearby, and at the sound, every man, with the exception of who was physically unable - stood, and remained standing, until the last note.
Then, Doc said good-bye to Armando and Carmen, and the veterans’ buses made their way back across the Potomac, through rush-hour traffic, to depart from BWI at 5:30.
The high point of the day was yet to come. On arrival at Lakeland, each veteran went through a cordon, with cheering people on both sides and a band playing. He said he felt like some sort of hero.
I asked him if maybe it made up for some of those times when they came back from Vietnam as young guys, and the peace-protestors called them “baby killers.”
He said, no, it didn’t. But he also said it was one of the greatest moments of his life.
Let’s hear it for the people who paid the price. People like Doc Hinger.
And let’s hear it for the people who honor them. People like Lorene Vern. Like Armando and Carmen Castro.
*********** One of these days I’m going to find out why Fred Kaiss has his center snap the ball like this.
Fred is the offensive coordinator of the DC Defenders. I’ve been watching his teams for three years now, and I like a lot the stuff he does. Right now, the Defenders are the best team in the UFL, and Fred’s offense is a big reason why.
So I have a lot of respect for him and his work.
But I’ll be damned if I’d want the ball (and the neutral zone) directly under my center’s chin. I like my offensive linemen far back - as far away from the defensive linemen as possible - as a major way to keep defensive linemen from trying to grab our pulling linemen’s legs.
As a matter of fact, since “the snapper is offside if any part of his body is BEYOND the neutral zone,” Fred’s center is awfully close to being offside.
*********** The best statement I’ve seen yet on the weird ass Belichick story…
The season doesn't even start for another 4 months.
The way modern college football is, what are the chances a) he makes it to the season b) he makes it through the season c) makes the post-season in any way, shape or form?
*********** I hope there’s not a firewall, because if there isn’t, you can enjoy the latest copy of AFCA Magazine…
https://issuu.com/weareafca/docs/afca_magazine_-_march_2025
*********** The total won-lost record since 1950 of every Pennsylvania College football program
*********** To think that in the Great White North they once took pride in their beer. Beers like Molson and Dow and O’Keefe - Moosehead, even - were real beers, not like the swill that the Yanks drank.
And now comes this.
If this campaign works and Canadians start to drink this stuff voluntarily, it’s a sure sign that for all their bluster, deep down, they envy us and want to be our 51st state.
*********** Still no official word from Nike on its reported funding of a study on transgender youth athletes.
Don’t believe it’s possible? Check this out…
Our Commitment
Nike is on a mission to make sport available to everyone, everywhere. We’re continuing our commitment to helping shape a strong culture of LGBTQIA+ belonging and visibility in sport. We’re working to expand sport for the next generation through community grants, athlete partnerships, impactful storytelling, and products that celebrate the full spectrum of LGBTQIA+ expression. Because sport is better when all athletes are free to play as themselves.
Plays to Build Equity in Sport
Here are 5 LGBTQIA+ inclusive practices we’ve learned that you can put into action within your own locker room, field, and everywhere in-between. Let’s go!
Sorry - that’s all I’m good for. Click the link and take it from there…
https://www.nike.com/a/no-pride-no-sport
*********** Be honest. Admit that today’s teaching “profession” is loaded with nutcases like this…
An English teacher at Waterville Senior High School, in Waterville, Maine, is in a bit of trouble after she shared this on Facebook:
"The Secret Service has the perfect opportunity, if they choose to step up and take it. You are the ones with power. Coordinate. Take out every single person who supports Trump’s illegal, immoral, unconstitutional acts. Look at the sycophants and give them what they’re asking for. Every other country sees what’s happening and they are taking stands. If you step up, we can avoid a civil war. I’m not talking about assassinating a president. A president is a person duly elected by the American people. Tr*mp has shamelessly bragged openly about stealing the election. He is making plans to give himself a third term. I’m talking about Americans recognizing a fascist dictatorship and standing against it. Secret Service, you are Americans. My beloved military, you are Americans. We, the people, are counting on you. If I had the skill set required, I would take them out myself. I’m making this post public for a reason, I promise you. Don’t waste time wondering if I’m okay. I’m not. If you’re okay, you’re lying to yourself.”
(I’m okay, shithead. And that’s the God’s truth. And I sure don’t have to waste time wondering if you are. That’s pretty obvious.)
*********** 45 National Football Foundation honorees heard their names called at the recent NFL Draft. They included 2024 Campbell Trophy recipient Jalen Milroe (Alabama) and Campbell Trophy Finalists Tahj Brooks (Texas Tech), Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss), Dillon Gabriel (Oregon), Ashton Gillotte (Louisville) and Jack Kiser (Notre Dame).
Tyler Warren, Penn State tight end and 2024 Campbell Trophy Semifinalist, was the highest NFF honoree selected, going in the First Round (14th pick overall) to the Indianapolis Colts.
(Left to Right) Jaxson Dart, Dillon Gabiel and Jalan Milroe
At the start of last season, five recipients of the Campbell Trophy appeared on NFL rosters or practice squads:
Las Vegas Raiders' Christian Wilkins (Clemson-2018)
Los Angeles Chargers' Justin Herbert (Oregon-2019)
Baltimore Ravens' Charlie Kolar (Iowa State-2021)
Detroit Lions' Jack Campbell (Iowa-2022)
Denver Broncos' Bo Nix (Oregon-2023)
Of the 35 Campbell Trophy recipients so far, nine have wound up being drafted in the First Round:
Peyton Manning (Tennessee – 1997)
Matt Stinchcomb (Georgia – 1998)
Chad Pennington (Marshall - 1999)
Alex Mack (California – 2008)
Tim Tebow (Florida – 2009)
Christian Wilkins (Clemson – 2018)
Justin Herbert (Oregon – 2019)
Jack Campbell (Iowa – 2022)
Bo Nix (Oregon – 2023)
*********** Coach Wyatt,
I agree about your comment regarding DIV. 3 College Football. Good football without all the extra hype. Kids who just love playing the game. Isn't it truly what it should be about??
Scott Mallien
Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** Coach:
Why didn't you include on your list of distinguished commentators, one Mel Kiper, JUNIOR? I thought Rece Davis (NOT JUNIOR) handled that situation well. When Kiper claimed the reason Sanders dropped was racism, singularly so. But as Clay Travis countered, in 2023 and 2024, the first two players chosen were black QBs, and Cam Ward was the first pick this year.
Cam Skattebo was maybe the player most fun to watch last season. One tough dude, but also talented runner. Jeanty was tremendous, but he was drafted sixth overall, as I recall, and Skattebo wasn't far behind.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt that Cam Skattebo will make much of an impact in the NFL. And that’s a major reason why I prefer college football. (Or, at least, used to.)
*********** Hugh,
Shedeur’s slide had everything to do with $$$. The Browns gambled. IMHO they “knew” they would get him, but they wanted to bolster their “room” with another rookie QB who could provide fair competition without having to pay an arm and leg for both! I also think the Browns could temper Daddy’s involvement by giving Shedeur a fair shot, and if he’s not the guy in Cleveland at least he’s in the league and could move on. If he IS that good it turns out to be a win-win for the Browns.
Another “big” name QB directed by daddy, who was hailed early in his career but ended up playing for 3 different schools without much success (but made a lot of NIL $$) was DJ Uiagalelei.
I believe with the current state of college football NIL/Portal we will see more NFL drafts like this last one. NFL clubs will be more skeptical about selecting high paid NIL players as high draft picks who have moved around a few times. Especially if they choose not to take part in the NFL Combine, and are not represented by credible agents.
I was surprised Xavier Watts went late, but he will turn out to be one of the better low round rookies to play in the NFL this year.
It appears RB’s and road grader sized O Linemen are becoming more of a need in the NFL. Could that have something to do with the Iggles and Saquon Barkley? Isn’t that what us peon HS coaches have been saying for years? Run the rock!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: In observance of this weekend’s NFL draft, today’s subject, Jacque MacKinnon, was “Mister Irrelevant,” the last player chosen in the 1961 NFL Draft. For the record, there were 20 rounds then, and he was the 280th man picked)
Not counting Ryan Succop (a kicker), he holds the record for the most games played by any “Mister Irrelevant,” and along with Brock Purdy in 2024, he is one of only two Mister Irrelevants ever to make an All-Star team.
Big and fast, at Dover, New Jersey High, in football, basketball and track he was an all-star running back, forward and sprinter.
At Colgate, he was used as a runner and end on offense and - in those days of two-way football - a safety on defense. And he returned punts and kicks. As a measure of his great versatility, in both his junior and senior years he led his team in all-purpose yardage. His two-year totals:
681 yards rushing
470 yards receiving
243 yards kickoff returns
228 yards punt returns
152 yards interception returns
Taken by the Eagles in the NFL draft, he was taken also by the San Diego Chargers, in the 33rd round of the AFL draft.
He signed with the Chargers. In 1962, playing fullback, he carried 59 times for 240 yards and two TDs, and caught nine passes for 125 yards.
But given Sid Gillman’s pass-first offense, his size (6-4, 235), his speed, his blocking and his receiving ability led Gillman to move him to tight end. There, paired with All-Star Dave Kocourek in Gillman’s novel twin-tight end formation, his career took off.
In 1963 the Chargers won the AFL title, and he caught 11 passes for 262 yards (for a tight end, a very impressive 23.8 yards per catch.)
In 1966, he caught 26 passes for 477 yards and six TDs, and in 1968, he caught 33 passes for 646 yards and six TDs.
He was an AFL All-Star both years.
In all, he played 114 games for the Chargers. Over a six-year period - 1962-1967 - he didn’t miss a game.
In spring 1970, he was traded to the Packers for a future draft pick, but he refused to report and instead retired.
That fall, he came out of retirement and signed as a free agent with the Oakland Raiders, but after playing in only four games, he retired again.
Sort of. In 1974, when the new World Football League got under way, he signed with the Southern California Sun and played briefly before finally retiring for good.
Not long after that, he was involved in an automobile accident and, presumably drunk, he fled the scene, and leaped over a tall fence, unaware of what was on the other side. What was on the other side was a deep excavation, and he fell more than 30 feet to his death.
In 1976, along with Emil Karas, Frank Buncom and Bob Laraba, Jacque MacKinnon was one of the first four former Chargers inducted posthumously into their Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JACQUE MACKINNON
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Lansing, Michigan. His father was an outstanding athlete who played some minor league baseball in the Philadelphia A’s system before settling into a job at the Lansing Oldsmobile plant. His older brother Bruce was a star baseball player at Michigan State, and played as a catcher in the Braves, Dodgers and Twins organizations.
He grew up in “the sticks” as he referred to the outskirts of Lansing, and at Everett High, with fewer than 300 students, he played every sport possible. He was a star in football, basketball and baseball, and in track he helped his team to a Class C state title, running an anchor leg on a relay team and setting a state record in the pole vault.
He was recruited by both Michigan and Michigan State - for football and baseball - and when he chose MSU, he played both sports there.
In baseball, he was twice named team MVP, and won All-Big Ten honors. In his junior season he led the Spartans in runs, RBIs, total bases, stolen bases, doubles and home runs.
In football, he started out as a single wing tailback in Duffy Daugherty’s multiple offense, and switched to under-center quarterback for his senior season. In addition, he punted and returned punts.
In his sophomore season he helped lead Michigan State to a national championship. Against Michigan his junior year, he returned a punt for a 92-yard touchdown as the Spartans and Wolverines tied, 12-12.
In his senior season he was named to the UPI Backfield of the Week on three separate occasions. He was voted team MVP, he made the Football Writers’ All-America team, and he finished sixth in the Heisman voting.
On the very same day in November of his senior season, he was drafted by the Chicago White Sox, and by the Denver Broncos of the brand-new American Football League.
(He was the first quarterback taken by the Broncos. In the first year of the AFL draft, every team was required to fill eleven offensive positions - four backs, two ends, two tackles, two guards, and a center - with their first 11 picks before unrestricted drafting of the remaining players.)
Offered a $50,000 contract - quite generous at the time - to sign with the White Sox, he chose baseball.
It was not an easy decision. “It was hard,” he recalled later, “but baseball was signing with bonuses, and football was a bag of popcorn. Even as a first-round pick you didn’t make much money.”
His baseball career was short. He made it to the majors, but for a mere six at bats, and he never got a hit. The closest he came was when he hit a ball down the third base line against the Orioles. Future Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson made a diving stop over the bag and - from his knees - threw the runner out.
So he went back to football. That career, too was short-lived.
After playing in three pre-season games with the Buffalo Bills as a running back, he was traded to the New York Titans (now the Jets). In his third game with the Titans, now their third-string quarterback, “I went in the game in the second quarter,” he remembered. “I rolled out to throw a pass, and a guy smacked me in the jaw and broke my neck. I never played again.”
He then embarked on a career in business and as an official.
After working his way up to the NFL level, his first big test, he remembered, came in a preseason game in New England, between the Patriots and the Bears. Chicago’s Dick Butkus laid out Patriot QB Jim Punkett with what our guy considered a late hit.
No sooner had the flag hit the ground than Butkus was in his face.
“I’ve been called most of the things he has called me, but never in the combination he used,” he said later. “It was amazing that he could get all of that out, one after the other. He started out calling me a ‘little rookie so and so.’”
After the game, he said he went into the official’s locker room and made a decision - that was enough for him.
The abuse from Butkus, and then the constant ridicule from the Bears’ sideline?
“I said, ‘I don’t need this.’ I was done.”
He was dissuaded from quitting by the other officials, who all told him that they had all “quit” once, too, and that the kind of treatment he got from Butkus was common among players and coaches in a league where they’re under constant pressure to compete.
It was his induction into the brotherhood.
“It was my ‘Welcome to the NFL’ moment,” he remembered “I never thought about quitting again.”
He would have a successful 29-year career as an NFL official, working in numerous play-off games and three Super Bowls.
In the 49ers’ NFC championship game win over the Cowboys, he was the official who signaled the touchdown on “The Catch” - Joe Montana’s historic pass to Dwight Clark.
He officiated in Super Bowl XIII in 1979, Super Bowl XV in 1981, and Super Bowl XXVII in 1993.
He was inducted into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007 and the State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
His most treasured memory of his college football career?
“We never lost to Michigan or Notre Dame.”
TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2025 '“It’s never too late to have a
happy childhood.” Otis Chandler, longtime publisher of the Los Angeles
Times*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: One of my better hires was Todd Boyle, who coached swimming and was assistant athletic director, picking up many of the things handled before by Dick Tamburo. Todd won several conference championships, and he was the epitome of a team player. He'd do anything that needed to be done, usually without being asked.
Our track and field coach, Doug Raymond, was another of my favorites, a lovable type as well as being a fine coach. When the students clashed with national guardsmen five months before I arrived on campus, Raymond was right out in the middle of it, trying to dissuade the demonstrators before shots were fired.
Doug's choice of beverage was Teacher’s Highland Cream scotch, and I'm sure he took a few sips before his annual New Year's Eve ritual. He lived on West Twin Lake not far from our home, and at 12 o'clock he would get out his old trombone and play Auld Lang Syne.
One day he came into my office to make a strongly worded request, to which I had to say no, and he was not pleased. He got to the door, pulled it open, and seemed on the verge of slamming it. Then he turned around, smiled broadly, blew a kiss to me and said: "I love you, Mike."
Then I got a new boss and the job got a lot tougher.
*********** The Bud Light/NFL draft is over, and to me it highlighted two important truths:
(1) The NFL, based as it is on competition and rivalry, is paradoxically our greatest single unifier, as demonstrated by the enormous but friendly gathering of people assembled in Green Bay to show their passionate support of 32 different teams;
(2) The sports media people are as dismissive of the public that they serve as their counterparts who report on politics are.
Remember how the editors of the New York Times and Washington Post and the talking heads at the major TV networks appeared to be totally unaware of the open borders, DEI and fake girls competing against real girls in sports events, while expressing bewilderment at why so many voters would support a Republican candidate?
Well, this past weekend, the highly-paid analysts of ESPN provided some of the best entertainment of the entire draft with their persistent puzzlement over the decline of Shedeur Sanders’ stock. Rich Eisen was by far the worst. He seemed absolutely mystified. They would take turns beseeching someone - anyone - to tell them why no one had taken Sheduer Sanders.
Here, fellas, is your answer: The Shedeur Sanders story has been told many, many times now, but I’ll put the whole damn thing in a way that anyone who’s ever coached a team sport at the youth level will understand, and maybe you will, too:
if Daddy is the coach of the team, Junior will play any position Daddy wants him to. But whatever the position is, the offense will be built around Junior, and nothing that goes wrong will ever be his fault. And he will make the All-Star team.
If Daddy is NOT the coach, no one will have the balls to inform him that he’s not, so he will proceed to provide the staff with his input and game-planning advice, as well as in-game suggestions and post-game “analysis.’ And he will make sure that everyone within earshot knows what he would do if he were the head coach.
But the NFL has a way around this problem. It has this clever procedure called The Draft, which enables teams to decide whether they really want Junior on their team if that means that Daddy comes with him as a package deal.
What a service ESPN could have provided coaches, players and fans everywhere if their draft experts had stopped acting baffled at Shedeur’s fall. What a service, if they had had the cojones to risk incurring the wrath of Daddy Deion and use this as an illustration of the way that players inevitably pay the price for having parents like that.
*********** Green Bay - the franchise, the town, and the fans - did a great job of putting on the draft.
I thought it was really cool when the whole show started with the opening presenters - Commissioner Roger Goodell and numerous former Packer greats - arriving on bicycles, a tribute to the long Packer tradition of local kids lending players their bikes to ride back to the locker room after pre-season practices. Mark Murphy, longtime Packers’ president, did a super job greeting the people. I loved it when he noted the the Packers were the only community-owned team, and then said to the crowd, “Raise your hand if you’re an owner.” (Thousands of hands went up.) There was only one sad moment for me, and that was seeing Packers’ Hall of Famers Jerry Kramer and Dave Robinson. Nothing sad about seeing those two greats, except that Jerry Kramer, whom many of us old-timers remember as one hell of a pulling guard, is now in a wheel chair.
The crowd was enormous. (It wasn’t as big as Philly’s Super Bowl Parade was, but what the hell.) It was said to be more than two-hundred thousand, and I believe it. That would be 2-1/2 times the usual Packer crowd, and the people were packed so tightly in the huge area that’s usually the main parking lot that I found myself wondering:
(1) If a guy got drunk and passed out (this was, remember, Wisconsin, and a lot of beer cans were in evidence), how would he fall to the ground? Would he maybe just crumple?
(2) Where did all those people park their cars?
*********** When the third round of the draft was over on Friday night and the ESPN guys began debating (deploring, actually) the Shedeur Sanders slide, Joel Klatt suggested - not entirely in jest - that with Sanders still having another year of college eligibility, he might try going back to Colorado.
Nowadays, with the limp-waisted NCAA, nothing is impossible, and I mentioned this to my friend Greg Koenig. And Greg broke me up by noting that at Colorado, he’d have to have a new jersey number. (Of course, as is usually the case where a numbers is brought out of retirement temporarily, he could have given himself permission to wear the number.)
*********** I said I was done with Shedeur, but then I came on this, from Bill Simmons, and I had to break my pledge:
Race was a clear driving factor in what has happened in the NFL over the past three days. Let's just look at the facts.
Leave name and race out of it. What if I told you, going into the season, that an anonymous player:
• Was one of the most productive players in all of CFB
• Was a team captain and unquestioned team leader
• Had more TD passes than nearly all of his peers in line to be drafted this year
• Was a serious Heisman trophy contender nearly all year
• May lack prototypical physical traits, but put a lot of great play on tape, is tough as nails, has good football IQ, and consistently comes up big in huge moments
• Did this all while leading a long suffering Big 12 team that went 3-9 last year to double digit wins this year
…you would assume I’m talking about at least a day 2 pick, right? Not everyone can go in the first round, I get it. But this anonymous player, knowing nothing about his name or race, at least should be a lock to go in the first 3 rounds.
But then add in the guy’s name and race and suddenly he falls to day 3. I’m not accusing the GMs of being racists, to be clear. It’s just that sometimes people can get a prototype in their heads, and when the race doesn’t match, biases can kick in. I do think race is the simplest explanation for his slide, but not necessarily racism, if you get what I mean. And if you don’t think so, I obviously disagree, but I need you to come up with some alternate explanation that makes real sense:
How did Cam Skattebo make it all the way to day 3?
*********** Okay - last one. I promise.
It didn’t take them long to find the guy who prank-called Shedeur Sanders, posing as the GM of the Saints.
Cruel prank, they tell me. Actually, considering what a**holes Sheduer and Deion have been, I thought it was kind of funny and well-deserved. Of course, since the caller is white and the callee is black, there are sure to be cries of racism, so there’s that. More evidence, I suppose, that the entire NFL is racist to the core, and that poor Sheduer is being made to suffer for the sins of Colin Kaepernick.
Me? If I’d had Shedeur’s number, I’d have asked him if his refrigerator was running. Or if he had Sir Walter Raleigh in a can. And then I’d hang up and my buddies and I would laugh our asses off.
*********** I thought three TV guys did an especially nice job during the draft. They’d clearly done their homework, they had insightful things to say, and they expressed themselves well:
Maurice Jones-Drew… Daniel Jeremiah… Joel Klatt
*********** One of the many things that the NFL did quite well at the draft was to pronounce of the players’ names correctly. Many of the first names are, shall we say, “original,” and some of the African and Polynesian names defy any attempts to wing it, and it was obvious that the NFL people, realizing the importance of correct pronunciation of names, made sure that the many presenters were properly prepared.
It’s hard to watch the NFL draft and its draftees’ inventive names without thinking of Key and Peele’s classic East-West Game “introductions,” which John Rothwell, of Corpus Christi, Texas was kind enough to remind me of. It’s an oldie but (very) goodie…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODZzSOelss
*********** UFL REPORT - I suppose it takes a league four weeks before it can play decent football, but this past week - the fifth week of the season - the UFL produced three very interesting, watchable games. It’s actually worth reporting.
And, most encouraging after the horrible way things had gone offensively - in those three games this past weekend the “over” bet won, with combined scores of 70, 59 and 44
Still, the only good crowd was, as usual, in St. Louis. Hey UFL - time to get those marketing people (if you actually have any) off their asses and out selling ticket packages to local businesses.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Memphis (1-4) 24, Birmingham (3-2) 20 (OT)
It was Memphis' 1st win. QB Dresser Winn, from Tennessee Martin, in his 1st start, was 17 of 29 for 235 yards and a TD. Memphis’ Isiah Hennie returned a missed 63 yard field goal attempt 108 yards for a first half TD. Birmingham scored with 25 seconds left and then converted for two to send the game into OT.
SATURDAY: St. Louis (3-2) 32, Michigan (3-2) 27
St. Louis snapped a two-game losing streak. QB Max Duggan, from TCU, won in his first start, completing 9 of 12 for 124 and a TD, but just as important, rushing ten times for 70 yards and 2 TDs.
SUNDAY EARLY: DC (4-1) 37, Arlington (3-2) 33
DC’s Jordan Ta’amu completed 23 of 46 for 308 yards and 3 TDs. Down 24-22 after three quarters, DC outscored Arlington 15-3 in the fourth quarter. Arlington put on a final comeback but Luis Perez (23/33/268/1 TD) was intercepted in the end zone with :57 remaining.
SUNDAY LATE: Houston (2-3) 27, San Antonio (1-4) 3
Houston, which won only one game all of last season, won its second this season, spoiling San Antonio’s home opener. Coming off a huge upset win over DC last week, San Antonio was flat and offensively inept. They had just 118 total yards, and converted on only one third down. The two San Antonio QBs - Kellen Mond and Jarrett Guarantano - were a combined 10 of 24 for 41 yards and two interceptions.
*********** Stupid me. There I was, completely duped into thinking that, unlike prior spring leagues, this year’s UFL was an actual league, with teams in Arlington, Birmingham, Detroit, Houston, Memphis, San Antonio, Saint Louis and Washington, DC.
But I found out that in this case - to borrow from a former president - having teams “in” Arlington, Birmingham, Detroit, Houston, Memphis, San Antonio, Saint Louis and Washington, DC. depends on what the meaning of the word “in” is.
My wife and I always watch the games on replay so we can watch when it’s convenient, and I normally fast-forward through the halftime garbage. But on one of the games, I absent-mindedly let the halftime show roll, and I saw a tour of a big, beautiful weight room, with UFL executive Daryl Johnston (“Moose” to us) showing it off to announcer Eric MacLain.
Johnston described it as the place where “all UFL players” could not only get stronger, but also recover from the physical demands of the games.
“All UFL players?” I thought. That’s when it hit me that the same old scam was going on - that this was the same old spring football business model, with all eight teams headquartered and practicing in the same town, and then flying (both teams) to that week’s game site.
This will teach me to read even the most pedestrian news releases, because it’s not as if they’ve been sneaky about the whole deal. They explained it all in a news release back in January. They just haven’t gone overboard, as they had in the past, to let us know what’s going on.
The thing that puzzles me the most, then, is why, of all places, the hub of this whole deal - Arlington, Texas - has some of the most embarrassingly small crowds.
THIS WILL TEACH ME TO READ EVEN THE MOST BORING OF NEWS RELEASES…
ARLINGTON, TEXAS – January 29, 2025 – The United Football League (UFL) announced today that the City of Arlington, Texas, will become the year-round football operations home for the spring football league. UFL Owner Dany Garcia, UFL President and CEO Russ Brandon, UFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Daryl Johnston, and Mayor Jim Ross of the City of Arlington made the announcement during a ceremony at the league’s new offices located at Ballpark Circle in Arlington.
“The United Football League is excited about opening the doors to our new UFL headquarters in Arlington,” said Brandon. “We want to thank the honorable Mayor Ross, the City of Arlington, and the entire North Texas region where we hope to forge the future of the game and become an integral part of football history.”
The UFL HQ will encompass multiple facilities in central Arlington, which will serve as the football hub for all eight UFL teams. Beginning with training camps in March and continuing through practices during the 10-week regular season and two-week postseason, Arlington will host over 600 players, coaches, and staff gathering to meet, train, and practice.
“The United Football League’s decision to open its headquarters and player training facilities here is a huge win for the City of Arlington and for fans who will visit from across the country each spring to see their favorite UFL teams,” said Ross. “As the sports and entertainment capital of Texas, Arlington is thrilled to showcase the incredible talent of the UFL’s eight teams and create unforgettable experiences for their fans.”
UFL HQ will consist of five centralized facilities: the Offices at UFL HQ (1401 Nolan Ryan Expressway), Choctaw Stadium, and three additional practice locations in the area. The Offices at UFL HQ will house the UFL Team Offices & Training Rooms and the UFL Content Studio. Choctaw Stadium will house the UFL Performance Center.
The Offices at UFL HQ will also serve as the home of the UFL’s new innovation division – FAST – Football Advancement through Sports Technology. Designed with the intent to elevate the game of professional football, FAST will enable established and emerging media and technology companies to test and launch innovations and services that have the ability to take the sport to a new level.
As part of FAST, the UFL Technology and Football Operations Team will provide executive guidance, football specific expertise, and operational support to both established technology companies and emerging tech startups with targeted opportunities and products that will advance the game of professional football.
*********** It’s been called Farmageddon. The Iowa State–Kansas State game has been played every year since 1917, making it the longest uninterrupted rivalry in college football. But not so fast. In November 2023, the Big 12 announced its schedule for the next four seasons, and now it appears the rivalry’s continuous streak could end with the 2026 game. Isn’t realignment great?
*********** In doing some research into semi-pro/minor league football, I came across the site of the Greater Northwest Football Association. I think you’ll like it. If you’re into the history of lower-level pro ball, it is great.
https://www.gnfafootball.org/
*********** Can your AD/GM do this?
Last Monday, while looking in on Stanford’s last day of spring practice, GM Andrew Luck stepped in at quarterback and handed off the ball.
*********** I notice you're silent on the NFL draft. Makes sense to me.
Last week I said I hoped the Rex Smith episode would be completed today. It was. Coach Lude handled him well.
I hope they've been concerned about potential draftees' love of the game forever. But no doubt it's more important because as Gabriel said, they're already pros.
You probably watched President Trump speak out in support of the Massapequa Chiefs.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
You’ll notice that now that the draft is over, I’ve removed the Cone of Silence. (I surprised myself by watching the entire first three rounds.)
*********** QUIZ: In observance of this weekend’s NFL draft, today’s subject was “Mister Irrelevant,” the last player chosen in the 1961 NFL Draft. For the record, there were 20 rounds then, and he was the 280th man picked)
Not counting Ryan Succop (a kicker), he holds the record for the most games played by any “Mister Irrelevant,” and along with Brock Purdy in 2024, he is one of only two Mister Irrelevants ever to make an All-Star team.
Big and fast, at Dover, New Jersey High, in football, basketball and track he was an all-star running back, forward and sprinter.
At Colgate, he was used as a runner and end on offense and - in those days of two-way football - a safety on defense. And he returned punts and kicks. As a measure of his great versatility, in both his junior and senior years he led his team in all-purpose yardage. His two-year totals:
681 yards rushing
470 yards receiving
243 yards kickoff returns
228 yards punt returns
152 yards interception returns
Taken by the Eagles in the NFL draft, he was taken also by the San Diego Chargers, in the 33rd round of the AFL draft.
He signed with the Chargers. In 1962, playing fullback, he carried 59 times for 240 yards and two TDs, and caught nine passes for 125 yards.
But given Sid Gillman’s pass-first offense, his size (6-4, 235), his speed, his blocking and his receiving ability led Gillman to move him to tight end. There, paired with All-Star Dave Kocourek in Gillman’s novel twin-tight end formation, his career took off.
In 1963 the Chargers won the AFL title, and he caught 11 passes for 262 yards (for a tight end, a very impressive 23.8 yards per catch.)
In 1966, he caught 26 passes for 477 yards and six TDs, and in 1968, he caught 33 passes for 646 yards and six TDs.
He was an AFL All-Star both years.
In all, he played 114 games for the Chargers. Over a six-year period - 1962-1967 - he didn’t miss a game.
In spring 1970, he was traded to the Packers for a future draft pick, but he refused to report and instead retired.
That fall, he came out of retirement and signed as a free agent with the Oakland Raiders, but after playing in only four games, he retired again.
Sort of. In 1974, when the new World Football League got under way, he signed with the Southern California Sun and played briefly before finally retiring for good.
Not long after that, he was involved in an automobile accident and, presumably drunk, he fled the scene, and leaped over a tall fence, unaware of what was on the other side. What was on the other side was a deep excavation, and he fell more than 30 feet to his death.
In 1976, along with Emil Karas, Frank Buncom and Bob Laraba, he was one of the first four former Chargers inducted posthumously into their Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2025 'Life
is not worth living without principles. It is not worth living without
backbone. If you don't have a backbone, you slither.’' Justice Clarence
Thomas*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I found Rex Hughes through Dean Smith, the incomparable North Carolina coach and a person I had been close to in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Smith said John Lotz, one of his assistants, thought highly of Hughes.
After getting permission from Bob Boyd, the head coach at USC, to talk to Hughes, I was off to Los Angeles for an interview. I met Rex and his wife, a delightful lady, and hired him on the spot.
Off the court, he loved to sing Christian hymns, and he had a nice voice. At basketball practice he would lock the doors, and what came out of his mouth couldn't be repeated in church. He used a vocabulary of four-letter words, including some he may have invented.
Rex was never shy about turning loose his rage on officials. In those days a starting pistol with blanks was used to end a period. One night Rex was giving a referee a lot of verbal abuse and had already been whistled for one technical foul. Enraged over another call, he went to the scorer’s table, picked up the pistol, aimed it at the official and fired the blank.
Rex was quickly ejected but he refused to leave. I came out of the stands and finally got him out in the hall of the gymnasium, but he was still ranting. Now he wanted to fight me. I told him bluntly: "Rex, let me tell you something. You have never fought me, and you don't know that you can lick me. So let's just put it this way: it's better not to try than to be embarrassed.“
He calmed somewhat but instead of retreating to the locker room he wanted to go up in the balcony to signal instructions to his assistant down on the bench. Of course, he couldn't do that. Well, I finally got him out of there. Yes, Rex’s antics entertained the crowd, but Fred Jacoby, commissioner of the Mid-American Conference, was less than amused. After I left Kent State Rex lost his job and did some coaching in the Continental League.
*********** With the draft on us, this is worth printing in its entirety. John Canzano reports that there’s a new question that NFL teams are struggling to answer: “Does he love football?”
The mindset in college has changed the NFL Draft.
Fox NFL Sunday insider Jay Glazer noted something different this year in his preparation for the league’s annual draft.
General managers had historically pulled players off their draft boards due to things such as injury concerns or character issues. But a third category — a new one — emerged in the lead-up to this week’s NFL Draft.
“Doesn’t love football.”
Glazer asked around after he heard this comment repeatedly in conversations with league executives. The prevailing thought, he reported, was that NIL payments had softened the edge of some top college players. They’d already cashed in, after all. The work ethic driven by intrinsic and extrinsic motivations had been altered.
It dovetails with a conversation I had late last season with Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel. We were chatting about the rapid loss of innocence and simplicity in college athletics. The sands had shifted beneath his cleats during his college career. Gabriel played at three different schools, bouncing from Central Florida to Oklahoma to Oregon, where he cashed in with a seven-figure NIL deal.
Gabriel wasn’t married. He didn’t have children. His life didn’t appear overly complicated, but what did I know? I asked the Oregon QB if he remembered when he first started playing football as a kid, and how simple youth football felt. And then, I asked Gabriel if he was cognizant of how much more complicated life might feel after he gets drafted and turns professional.
He went silent.
Then, Gabriel said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, John, but college is the pros. I hope you know that. It’s a new day and age.”
NFL GMs like to keep their jobs. They’re always digging for reasons not to draft players. I remember fielding a call from a scout before the 2020 draft who asked me about Justin Herbert. Everyone knew he was tall, strong, had great feet, and a cannon for an arm. He was a leader on the field, but the scout’s questions were about whether Herbert was a vocal enough leader on the field.
I’d written a column about having lunch with Herbert years ago. The scout wanted to know what that experience was like. Was he a vocal guy? What did he talk about? I didn’t see how that correlated to Herbert’s leadership on the football field. The whole thing sounded like a nitpick, which is sort of what happens in the lead-up to the draft.
This “love of the game” thing isn’t, though.
College coaches talk about it frequently. Everyone loves four and five-star high school recruits. They run fast, jump high, and push the blocking sled all over the field. But discovering a person’s motivation is a real thing. It’s why programs with luxurious locker rooms and cool amenities have to be careful in this era. They want the best recruits, but they don’t just want players who like cool uniforms and video-game controllers at their lockers. They covet four-star and five-star players who also love to play the game.
“You know what I really want?” Miami coach Mario Cristobal told me a few years ago. “I want a bunch of guys who would die without football in their lives.”
Cristobal’s transfer quarterback at Miami next season, Carson Beck, will make $4 million. I don’t know if he’d die for the game. But I know he’s buying lunch.
Motivation is a predictor of success. Grit wins. A faction of NFL players wants to be the best. They want to have fun, play, dominate, and attain success. Maybe because they love the game. But there’s always been another group of pro players — ones who view the windfall NFL contracts as a way to attain financial success they’d never otherwise have. The edge has to come from within, doesn’t it? Particularly for players who are already sitting on a few million in the bank.
It’s the stuff of George Plimpton’s book — “The X-Factor.” He went to Camp David once to meet then-President George Bush many years ago. While there, Plimpton and Bush engaged in a game of horseshoes as they talked.
Plimpton noted that the president didn’t just play the game casually or friendly. He was out for blood. President Bush was focused, tough, determined, and merciless in his pursuit of victory. He beat Plimpton in a rout.
The two men scheduled a rematch months later, for which Plimpton trained. The result wasn’t any different. Bush dominated the author again. Plimpton walked away and launched into a deep study of CEOs, pro sports champions, and world leaders that resulted in a book about motivation, success, and killer instinct. NFL scouts ought to buy the book, it might help them draft better and keep their jobs.
I find it interesting that Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty have become universally loved in the preamble to the NFL Draft. GMs are raving about their in-person interviews with those two players. Hunter and Jeanty like the spotlight, sure. The NIL money spends, yes. But they both genuinely love the game. I’ve talked with both players. It hit me over the head.
I talked with Oregon coach Dan Lanning this week about how much the job of a head coach in college football has changed since he was hired. He’s heading into his fourth season. He’s managing a roster, navigating the world of revenue sharing, NIL payments, agents, and the transfer portal.
All of this comes amid a massive shift in the mentality of college football players, who now view themselves as professionals.
“You wear a lot of hats,” Lanning told me. “Every job adapts, but this is a job that has changed over the last five years, for sure.”
That NFL executives are striking players from their draft boards because they don’t love football is interesting. We’ve begun to see NIL paydays bleed into high school football. Prep players are switching schools amid financial incentives and promises. Money is changing hands. The innocence is being lost. I wonder how a young player ever falls in love with the game if it becomes about money at age 14.
Gabriel told me he was already in “the pros.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I wonder how long until we hear a high school player say it.
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*********** I knew that all those games I recorded last fall on or DVR would come in handy. For the last couple of nights, my wife and I have watched the D-III semifinal games. (I hadn’t watched them closely at the time.)
The first was Johns Hopkins at Mount Union: A really good game between two good teams - one from a school that’s won 13 national titles, the other from a school far better known for its medical school than its football team. Mount Union, the perennial power, won, 45-37.
The second game was Susquehanna at North Central: It was not a competitive game - it was 49-0, North Central, at the half - but it was a great exhibition of offensive execution and of quarterback play by North Central’s Luke Lewen. North Central outgained Susquehanna by more than 400 yards to less than 30 - at halftime. North Central, we learned, hasn’t lost at home in SIX YEARS.
D-III football. We LOVED it.
Screw the Power 4 and their million-dollar whores. These were real students, taking real classes, playing for the love of the game. They really cared, and it showed.
There were few penalties and NO jackassery. And - it seemed to me - much more offensive emphasis.
The low-budget TV production helped, too. There were no sideline “reporters.” And there were only a couple of cameras, so we got very few of the tight closeups that they love to give us when the Big Boys are playing.
Next is the championship game. I haven’t seen it yet, so please don’t tell me what happened.
*********** Massapequa High, on Long Island, is doing its best to fight a New York state law banning the use of Native American nicknames, mascots and logos. It wants to remain the Chiefs, and it’s picked up support from some authentic American Indian leaders.
Meanwhile, the high school in the neighboring town, Wantagh, is fighting to keep its Warriors name.
Frank Black Cloud, a member of the Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota, called the idea of renaming “a terrible thing to do,” saying, “Historically, we are Chiefs, we are Warriors.”
He noted a pair of 2004 and 2016 polls that found that 90 per cent of Native Americans are not offended by terms such as “Redskins.”
“All of these names, images,” he said, “They are something we all uphold and we’re proud of.”
https://nypost.com/2025/04/22/us-news/tribal-activists-stand-up-for-long-island-towns-chiefs-mascot-after-trump-pledges-fight-over-ny-native-american-logo-ban/
*********** In 1979 I was coaching high school ball in the Portland area and that summer I helped a team called the Van-Port (Vancouver-Portland) Thunderbirds get started. One of the early games was against the Pierce County (Tacoma, Washington area) Bengals, and they really kicked our ass. Partly that was because we weren't very good, but partly because they were very good. Based on my fairly extensive experience in minor league ball back East, they were right up there with the best I'd ever seen. They finished the 1979 season unbeaten, and Pro Football Weekly Magazine crowned them mythical national minor league champions. (It's said that Chambersburg proposed flying them in to play for the title but couldn't come up with the $25,000 needed to do it.) From 1973 through 1981, playing the best teams in the Northwest and making an occasional trip to California, the Pierce County Bengals were 88-8-1.
*********** Stanford went for the record - and got it. After setting up a softball diamond in a corner of the football stadium (above, left), Stanford lost the game to Cal, 10-8, but set a new all-time attendance record for a college softball game. The crowd of 13,207 broke the record of 12,566 set at last year’s Women’s College World Series, and the regular season record of 9,259 set earlier this year. Old timers will recall that when the Dodgers first moved west and the LA area had no suitable ballpark, they played their games in the Coliseum (above, right). It was a joke - 250 feet down the left field line, with a 40-foot fence. But with softball, the shorter outfield dimensions make the layout feasible. Expect to see more of this.
*********** On Outkick Wednesday…
The NFL Draft gets underway on Thursday, and there are going to be a lot of eyes on Shedeur Sanders and where he ends up.
But just days before the first round, an NFL coach absolutely slammed Sanders as “entitled” and said it was the worst interview of his life.
This, of course, comes amid concerns about Sanders’ on-field abilities, but… does Shedeur coming off as entitled really shock anyone?
I mean, the guy’s playing days in Boulder ended just a few months ago, and they already retired his number after two seasons, one of which was okay and the other was mediocre. You can understand why he might be under the impression he could waltz into any quarterback room in the NFL and be handed the starting gig, but that’s obviously not the case.
I am excited to see how this pans out, because as someone who makes his living writing about sports on the internet, I think Shedeur’s foray into pro football will provide some material one way or another.
*********** You did have to wonder after the news Monday that Nico Iamaleava, after a rather rancorous departure from Tennessee, had signed with the UCLA, and then, shortly after that, came the news that quarterback Joey Aguilar, who had transferred to UCLA from App State in December, was on his way to Tennessee, along with two future draft choices and a player to be named later.
No, colleges haven’t begun trading yet. I made that last bit up. That’s for next year.
I had to laugh at one UCLA commentator on Reddit: "we are not good enough to be a villain over this - wtf are we doing"
*********** I started out watching some supposed story of the wishbone offense, but I didn’t get very far before I heard this: “The story of the wishbone begins with a coach named Emory BELL-erd.”
Tsk, tsk. Even a tiny little bit of research would reveal that Coach Bellard (and everyone else) pronounced it “bell-ARD”
*********** If you find irony delicious, you have to relish the idea of Progs, whose entire reason for being is resentment of the rich and privileged, rushing to the defense of elite Ivy schools against the Trump administration.
if only the late, great Yalie, William F. Buckley, Jr., could be alive today to share with us his disdain for the intellectuals who infest those Ivory (and Ivy) Towers.
I am obliged to confess that I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise.
https://youtu.be/2nf_bu-kBr4?si=JX1gt7CHtFmQh6Sg
*********** Syracuse head coach Fran Brown told receiver Trebor Pena that Syracuse had paid him enough and now it was time to move on, as he related on a Syracuse radio show…
"What I’ll tell you is this. We paid him enough. He was going to be paid more…. But there were some numbers that were asked of me that I didn’t feel I would be able to do and move on. Of course, I treated him right. I took care of him. Done everything that was needed. I just said, yo, you got to go. I prayed on it that night and I kept going through things, and it was like, why would I try to convince somebody to be somewhere? …I was just like, now I have to tell him he needs to go.”
*********** Remember Nike’s ad campaign featuring little girls telling us about all the bad things in life they’ll avoid - “if you’ll just let me play?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ_XSHpIbZE
That was 1995. The way things have changed, it might just as well have been 1495.
Now, knowing Nike, it would be, “If you’ll just let me play… I might get to see some grown man’s schlong.”
Now, according to Outkick -
Nike is under fire after a New York Times article claimed that the sportswear giant is funding a study of young transgender athletes.
The aim of the study — which Nike has not yet confirmed it is backing — is to see how much surgery, therapy, and medications are needed to make it fair for a male to compete with a female.
I’ll save everyone the time and money: there’s not enough in the world to make that happen.
*********** A pet peeve... Here’s how the story was printed…
According to the criminal complaint, Mohamed entered a Mankato store last week wearing a COVID mask, gloves, a green stalking cap, and a heavy winter coat.
Who needs a special cap to go stalking, anyhow?
(I'm reporting from the Pacific Northwest, where the way “stalk block” is pronounced, most coaches think it’s spelled “stock block.”)
*********** Mike Patrick, who started doing play-by-play in ESPN’s early days (1982) and spent 36 years with the network until he was moved aside to make way for younger announcers, died Sunday at 80.
For years, he called countless ACC basketball championships; he was the voice of ESPN’s Women’s Final Four; he was the play-by-play announcer for College World Series games; and he did the play-by-play on ESPN’s “Thursday Night Football” and “Saturday Night Football.”
Those of you whose only exposure to televised college games has been recent, with the current flood of louder, more talkative announcers have no idea how good Mike Patrick was.
*********** From Washington, a beautiful West Coast state that’s so solidly Democratic we get daily, up-close looks at what life under President Harris might have been like….
(1) Our state high school association failed by one vote to get the 60 per cent necessary to pass an “advisory” vote to bar trans types from participating in girls’ sports. No matter. It was only advisory because state law (of course) still permits such competition.
(2) Flag for girls is now a state-sanctioned sport. Forget the fact that schools are going to be pressed to find fields. Forget the fact that every damn public school district in the state is facing huge deficits and most of them are letting teachers go. What the hell - the NFL is promoting flag, and it’s going to be in the Olympics, and the girls want it, so… Just don’t be surprised when that guy playing quarterback has a five o’clock shadow.
(3) Every kid in the state, once he (or she) has enrolled in high school, is now entitled to one free transfer to any other school. No questions asked. No requiring the family to move. No applying for a waiver for some bogus reason like wanting to take some bogus course that’s only offered at the target school. No more hard-luck stories. No more sitting out a whole season to be eligible - the athlete need wait out just 40 per cent of the season (by which time out of conference games will be over and district play will have begun). Don’t like the coach? Just go. Don’t like the offense? Just go. Not getting enough touches? Just go. Chance to make a few bucks at another school? Just go. There will be a window, probably in the summer.
MY PREDICTION: after successful lawsuits (or threats of lawsuits):
NEXT YEAR: Removal of the 40 per cent waiting period.
THE YEAR AFTER THAT: Unlimited free transfers.
(4) Nothing on the subject of NIL, so I assume that it’s already anything goes. Nothing to prevent anybody from paying a kid whatever it takes to get him to transfer. After all, we wouldn’t want the kid’s parents to sue us. Not in Washington, certainly.
*********** Hugh,
Daryl "Moose" Johnston is the man in your quiz. I am pretty sure that I have a picture somewhere of my kids in his locker when we toured Texas Stadium quite a number of years ago.
Greg Koenig
Colorado Springs, Colorado
********* I’ll miss prime Corso. The last few years were sad, and I wish he’d have gone out on top.
Mark Madden has it exactly right, and what he wrote will come to pass, whether in Pittsburgh, New Orleans, New York, or elsewhere.
Josh Montgomery
Berwick, Louisiana
*********** I heard that Western Michigan Hockey didn't use any NIL money for their team. Go Broncos!
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
*********** Maybe next week's episode will show us how the Coach Lude-Rex Hughes conflict ended, though I admit there really is little suspense.
I'll bet most readers of NYCU can recall vividly where they were, and how they reacted, when they watched Brian's Song.
Reminder: I guess it was about nine months ago that a letter to the editor in WSJ opined that the clearest solution to Harvard's Wokism was to hire Larry Arnn as its new President/Chancellor. Arnn has done nearly as much as Coach Lude to promote Hillsdale.
The Tom House podcast you recommended was spellbinding. He's a problem-solver.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I watched the documentary on ESPN regarding the Polynesians. I had the pleasure to coach a number of Polynesian kids when I was coaching in CA. Many of whom were an absolute joy to coach, and to know. (there are always those very few in ANY culture that slip through the cracks). But for the most part they were the hardest working, respectful, and most driven young men I've been around.
Caught glimpses of the SA-DC game. Was happy that SA won the game. Didn't see a beer snake though!
I continue to receive correspondence from Hillsdale, and am excited to read through it each time. Imprimis is great!
Fear not. The Fighting Irish lacrosse team will show up in the playoffs...again.
Heard Shedeur Sanders talking to a media rep the other day. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He talk fast. Needed an interpreter.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: At Lewiston-Porter High School, outside Niagara Falls, Daryl “Moose” Johnston was Western New York Player of the Year as a running back.
Recruited to Syracuse by Dick MacPherson, he spent a redshirt year and played sparingly as a redshirt freshman, but he earned the starting fullback job as a sophomore, and in his junior year his career took off, along with a new offense installed by a new offensive coordinator.
The coordinator was George DeLeone, and the offense was called the freeze option, which emphasized the fullback attacking the defensive middle. It was an immediate success and it started a run at Syracuse of 15 straight winning seasons and 12 bowl appearances in that time.
In our guy’s junior season, he carried 116 times for 614 yards - and an extremely impressive 5.3 yards per carry for a fullback - as the Orange went 11-0-1. The only smirch on the record was a 16-16 tie with Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, and Syracuse wound up ranked Number 4 nationally, the Orange’s first nationally-ranked finish since 1961. He was selected All Big East.
In his senior season, Syracuse finished 10-2, losing only to Ohio State and Number 4-ranked West Virginia (11-0) and finishing ranked 13th. He carried 128 times for 645 yards, an average of 5.0 yards per carry, and caught 20 passes for 250 yards. He was named All-American.
Taken by Dallas in the second round (the 39th player taken overall), his imposing size (6-2, 240) made him stand out from the other Cowboys’ running backs and earned him the nickname “Moose.” It would quickly catch on among Cowboys’ fans, who throughout his career would call out his name whenever he carried the ball.
He wound up playing 11 years with the Cowboys, was named to two Pro Bowls, and won three Super Bowl rings. He played in 149 straight games over nine seasons. He became a standout on special teams, and at a time when teams still used a fullback and the fullback still carried the ball, he carried 232 times for 753 yards. But he actually had more receptions - 294 - than carries, for a total of 2,227 yards.
It was as a blocker, though, that he really stood out. With him lead blocking for Emmett Smith in the Cowboys’ I-formation, he played a major role in Smith’s becoming the NFL’s all-time rushing yardage leader, and in Smith’s acceptance speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he addressed Moose Johnston and said, “Without you, I know that today would not have been possible.”
After retirement, he began in broadcasting as an analyst on Fox Sports Radio and then moved to TV, and over the years has continued to work both college and pro games.
Since 2018, Moose Johnston has been involved as an executive of assorted spring football teams and leagues, and he currently serves as Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the UFL.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING DARYL “MOOSE” JOHNSTON
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
John Irion - Argyle, New York (I was a big fan when he was at Syracuse
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Mike Burchett - Woodlake, California (Make Fullbacks Great Again!)
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
*********** QUIZ: In observance of this weekend’s NFL draft, today’s subject was “Mister Irrelevant,” the last player chosen in the 1961 NFL Draft. For the record, there were 20 rounds then, and he was the 280th man picked)
Not counting Ryan Succop (a kicker), he holds the record for the most games played by any “Mister Irrelevant,” and along with Brock Purdy in 2024, he is one of only two Mister Irrelevants ever to make an All-Star team.
Big and fast, at Dover, New Jersey High, in football, basketball and track he was an all-star running back, forward and sprinter.
At Colgate, he was used as a runner and end on offense and - in those days of two-way football - a safety on defense. And he returned punts and kicks. As a measure of his great versatility, in both his junior and senior years he led his team in all-purpose yardage. His two-year totals:
681 yards rushing
470 yards receiving
243 yards kickoff returns
228 yards punt returns
152 yards interception returns
Taken by the Eagles in the NFL draft, he was taken also by the San Diego Chargers, in the 33rd round of the AFL draft.
He signed with the Chargers. In 1962, playing fullback, he carried 59 times for 240 yards and two TDs, and caught nine passes for 125 yards.
But given Sid Gillman’s pass-first offense, his size (6-4, 235), his speed, his blocking and his receiving ability led Gillman to move him to tight end. There, paired with All-Star Dave Kocourek in Gillman’s novel twin-tight end formation, his career took off.
In 1963 the Chargers won the AFL title, and he caught 11 passes for 262 yards (for a tight end, a very impressive 23.8 yards per catch.)
In 1966, he caught 26 passes for 477 yards and six TDs, and in 1968, he caught 33 passes for 646 yards and six TDs.
He was an AFL All-Star both years.
In all, he played 114 games for the Chargers. Over a six-year period - 1962-1967 - he didn’t miss a game.
In spring 1970, he was traded to the Packers for a future draft pick, but he refused to report and instead retired.
That fall, he came out of retirement and signed as a free agent with the Oakland Raiders, but after playing in only four games, he retired again.
Sort of. In 1974, when the new World Football League got under way, he signed with the Southern California Sun and played briefly before finally retiring for good.
Not long after that, he was involved in an automobile accident and, presumably drunk, he fled the scene, and leaped over a tall fence, unaware of what was on the other side. What was on the other side was a deep excavation, and he fell more than 30 feet to his death.
In 1976, along with Emil Karas, Frank Buncom and Bob Laraba, he was one of the first four former Chargers inducted posthumously into their Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 2025 “Life offers you a second
chance. It’s called tomorrow.” Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale,
founder and owner of Gallery Furniture*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Dick Tamburo had a management style of his own. I would outline a project and explain it to Dick. If he ran into opposition when it came to implementing an idea, he could be somewhat blunt.
"That's the way Mike wants it,” Tamburo would say. "And dammit, that’s the way we're going to do it. If you don't like it you gotta fight me first.” Former linebackers can be persuasive if they try.
As I got better established I pushed hard to create a program for athletic development and began raising cash to be used exclusively for our department. I hired a young guy, a former Kent football player, Doug Smith, who had worked in several previous jobs on campus. He proved to be a premier fundraiser and currently works at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Unfortunately, Tamburo departed Kent State after about two years when he was offered a job as an associate AD at Illinois. Cecil Coleman, the athletic Director, knew Dick when both were at Arizona State, and I couldn't come close to matching the salary he would receive at Illinois.
Not everything was going as well as the football program. in basketball I inherited Frank Truitt, who had come a year earlier from being head coach at Louisiana State University for just one year. Earlier he had been the top assistant at Ohio State when the Buckeyes won the NCAA championship. He was a good coach but had a hard time disciplining his players. I was going to have to make a change.
I hired Stan Albeck, a bright, promising basketball coach. Twice. The first time was as a replacement for Tamburo. But he left after a few months to take an assistant coaching job in the pro ranks. After the departure of Truitt, I hired Albeck back – this time as head basketball coach. But shortly before practices were about to begin he bailed again for another NBA job.
I was frantic to find a coach. When I made a hurried decision things didn't get much better. The new guy was Rex Hughes, who had been an assistant at the University of Southern California. He was volatile, to the point of challenging anyone and everyone – including me – when he got riled up.
*********** FROM MY ARCHIVES… On the subject of Lee Corso…
In 2004, they interviewed Darryl Hill on the sideline at the Maryland-Georgia Tech game.
Lee Corso, who as an assistant on Tom Nugent's staff had recruited Hill to Maryland 40-some years earlier, told him, "Young man, I'm proud of you."
Replied Hill, "Coach - I'm 60 years old!"
Back in 1963, when Darryl Hill ("first Negro ever to wear Maryland's football colors," they wrote in that year's Street & Smith’s magazine) became eligible after transferring to Maryland from the US Naval Academy, he became the first black player to play on a Southern team. Well, technically he did. There are many who consider West Virginia to be southern, so Darryl Hill was one of three black players to break ground in the South that year, since WVU, then part of the Southern Conference, fielded guard Roger Alford and fullback Dick Leftridge.
"These Negro footballers," wrote Jack Horner in Street & Smith's, "are sure to be forerunners of others now that segregation barriers have been lifted in the two southern-dominated conferences.”
He got that right. Darryl Hill caught 43 passes that year, scoring eight touchdowns and kicking seven PAT's. Leftridge was West Virginia's leading rusher. The next year, there were more black players in the ACC. "They became immediate stars, to pave the way for others," wrote Street & Smith's in 1964.
But that first year, there were some uncomfortable moments in places not accustomed to seeing blacks and whites playing together. The Terps played at South Carolina (then a member of the ACC), at Duke (well, actually, that game was played in Richmond), at Wake Forest and at Clemson. As you might imagine, Mr. Hill was not exactly greeted warmly in places that had not yet integrated their own teams, and he said he especially remembered the hard time the students at Wake Forest gave him when the Terps showed up in Winston-Salem.
But then the Wake Forest captain came over to the Maryland side and shook Hill’s hand, apologizing and telling him how embarrassed he was.
"You could have heard a pin drop,” Mr. Hill remembered.
He said he never forget the captain's name. It was Brian Piccolo. The same Brian Piccolo whose friendship with black Chicago Bears teammate Gayle Sayers (at a time when opportunities for such friendships were rare) and whose early death from cancer were the subject of "Brian's Song," a real tear-jerker of a movie.
"I cried when Brian Piccolo died," Mr. Hill said, "and I cried when I saw the movie.”
*
********** Back in June, 1974, as
Player Personnel Director for the Philadelphia Bell, I spent the better
part of a week in Eastern Canada, taking a covert look at some CFL
teams while they were in camp. One of my stops was in Ottawa,
where the fifth annual CFL All Star Game was taking place, between the
CFL All Stars and the Grey Cup Champion Ottawa Rough Riders. I came across the game program this past weekend, and found a couple of great stories inside, in an article by a longtime CFL referee named Ray Boucher.
In one, he told of the time he made a wise decision that didn’t necessarily subscribe to the rules of the game:
The scene, Montreal‘s McGill Stadium. The game, the final of the two-game, total point series between Hamilton and Montreal for the Eastern Conference championship. Montreal is two points down, in front of a howling, maddened/up, 30,000 hometown crowd. On the first play from scrimmage, Sam Etcheverry, Montreal‘s quarterback and a perennial All-Star, drops back and passes. He is immediately knocked flat on his backside, then Cookie Gilchrist of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats launches himself at the prone quarterback, in an obvious attempt to injure Etcheverry.
Sam sees him coming, draws his knees back and hits Gilchrist full in the face with his cleats. Both acts called for the expulsion of Gilchrist and Etcheverry, but to throw out these two team favourites, in front of this crowd, warrants chaos. What to do? I look around that seething stadium and make my decision. “Rough play both teams, second down, Montreal!”
In a second story, he told of an incident between the BC Lions’ Joe Kapp and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ Angelo Mosca.
In 1963, Faloney and Barrow led the Tiger-Cats into Vancouver’s Empire Stadium to play the Lions, for the national championship. It was not a clean game. Early in the contest Angelo Mosca allegedly attacked running back Willie Fleming by piling on Wee Willie out of bounds. Two of my officials covered the play and told me that nothing had happened. But somehow, Willie wound up with a concussion and a session in the hospital. The BC fans were so incensed about this that I had to hide in the RCAF officers mess in Vancouver until it was time to fly home. But even then, a Vancouver newspaper finally caught up with me. The caller wanted to know if I had ever seen a rougher game. Blithely, I replied, “Brother, compared to an Ottawa-Hamilton game, this one was like a pillow fight at a pajama party.“
Mosca was the villain in that game, but many don’t know that he also got his come-uppance there. Joe Kapp, the toughest Chicano of them all, tossed a pass. Angelo came in late on Kapp. I called the rough play penalty and marched off the yardage. Then I noticed oily old Joe with clenched fists and a white face deliberately walking up to Mosca. I grabbed Kapp and whispered, “Hey Joe, Want to get thrown out of Canada‘s biggest sporting event? Want to end your season on a sour note?”
The fists slowly opened and Kapp’s face resumed its natural tan, as he replied, “OK, Mr. Referee, but don’t bother protecting me the next time I throw a pass.” On the next play I did as he asked and paid attention only to the flight of the ball. When I turned back to see Kapp, Mosca was lying half unconscious on the ground.
(Forty or so years later, there was still bad blood between Kapp and Mosca, both of them now in their seventies. They were being honored at some dinner, and when Kapp as a joke walked over to Mosca and offered him a flower, apparently as a peace offering, the old defensive lineman said, “Stick it up you ass!” And the fight was on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EB7-ook9aY
*********** Larry Arnn is 72, and he’s been president of Michigan’s Hillsdale College for ten years. Hillsdale doesn’t take a penny of government money. Harvard, on the other hand, does. Harvard gets $9 billion a year from the federal government (“$90,000 per student a year,” Mr. Arrn points out) and now, he says, Harvard is objecting to the fact that the Trump administration is attaching strings to that money. Those strings include putting an end to DEI while creating more “viewpoint diversity.” In objecting, says Mr. Arnn, “Harvard is claiming to have a constitutional right both to the money and to do whatever they want.”
He feels pretty strongly about the way America’s elite universities have been biting the hand that feeds them:
Elite American universities have created an entire generation of young people who reject Western Civilization and denigrate their country and its history. This generation has been subject to ideological thought control from D E I cells that have prevented anyone with contrary views from being hired or being heard. University administrations and their faculties have been complicit in this movement--or cowed into silence.Neo-racist Woke philosophy and radical leftism have created a generation that rejects basic American beliefs of patriotism, intellectual freedom, and a society based upon merit and not the color of someone's skin. It is time the universities be reigned in and forced to return to their mission of free scholarship and freedom of speech and thought.
Harvard and the other elites he says, should stop relying on government handouts - and “make an honest living.”
*********** There are three Ivy League teams in the most recent Division 1 Lacrosse Top Ten
1 Cornell 10-1
2 Maryland 10-2
3 Princeton 9-2
4 Penn State 9-3
5 North Carolina 9-2
6 Harvard 9-2
7 Army 10-1
8 Ohio State 11-2
9 Syracuse 9-3
10 Notre Dame 6-3
*Record through games on April 16
The 2025 NCAA tournament will start with opening round games on Wednesday, May 7.
Games will take place at campus sites through the first round of the tournament, and the quarterfinals will be played at Hofstra and Navy.
The semifinals and the championship game will be played May 24 & 26 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
The tournament field will consist of 10 automatic qualifiers and 8 at-large selections, and will be announced on on ESPNU on Sunday, May 4 at 9:30 p.m. ET.
*********** Today’s quote is by Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, founder of Houston-based Gallery Furniture. This guy is amazing. He has a sports background - played college football at Texas and at North Texas - and he’s a huge booster of Houston sports. He’s been known to sell furniture by placing a (very large) bet or two on a baseball or football game…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e5EPd0UURI
*********** I just happened to see a promo for a program on Fox called “Culture of Winning: Polynesian Football Pride.” I’m an admirer of the various Polynesian cultures and so my wife and I had to watch it. Our evaluation: very good, very well done.
It was produced by Tua Tagavailoa, and he has a lot to say, along with former 49er Jesse Sapolu, and current players Penei Sewell of the Lions and Puka Nacua of the Rams.
Obviously it emphasized the importance of football to the Samoan/Tongan/Hawaiian people, and the important role they’ve forged in our game. But it also deals heavily with things that make them admirable as people: the importance to them of faith and family and the manly values.
Check it out if you can. I highly recommend it.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvqWOnBE0w
*********** I WROTE THIS BACK IN JANUARY…
I’m by no means a quarterback whisperer, but I do know a little about the fundamentals of coaching quarterbacks, and over the last few years I’ve become quite the fan of Tom House. Tom House, for those of you who’ve never heard of him, was a major league pitcher for eight seasons, who retired with a won-lost record of 29-23.
And then he became a pitching coach - a pretty good one.
At his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Nolan Ryan had this to say about him…
While I was [with the Rangers] I was very fortunate to have a pitching coach by the name of Tom House. And Tom and I are of the same age and Tom is a coach that is always on the cutting edge. And I really enjoyed our association together and he would always come up with new training techniques that we would try and see how they would work in to my routine. And because of our friendship and Tom pushing me, I think I got in the best shape of my life during the years that I was with the Rangers.
He was the guy who taught the young cricket players how to throw a baseball, the basis of the movie.”Million Dollar Arm.”
He was in the bullpen when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, and he caught it on the fly.
In the belief that as “rotational athletes” pitchers and quarterbacks have so much in common, he expanded his work to include quarterbacks. Starting with Drew Brees (who was a neighbor), he has worked with Dak Prescott, Tom Brady and Jared Goff, among others.
I came across this fascinating interview of Tom House and I couldn’t stop watching it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=tom+house+film#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:a2a1aa16,vid:9iuohCIAUFs,st:0
*** I bring this up because Brian Flinn, passing game coordinator at Princeton, put me onto a podcast, an interview of Tom House by one Pablo Torre, and I wanted you to know a little something about Tom House, and how much regard I have for him.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pablo-torre-finds-out/id1685093486?i=1000702985105
*********** John Erwin, producer of “House of David”, a series streaming on Amazon that’s based on the life of King David, recalled showing the scripts to some Amazon executives for the first time.
“They said, ‘These are really good.’
“I said, ‘It’s based on a best seller, man. 5 billion copies sold. It’s a good book. You should check it out.’”
*********** In case anyone wondered if there was any actual connection between the University of Colorado - the proud flagship university of a proud state - and the football program that reputedly represents it, the football coach, one Deion Sanders, answered equivocally.
Questioning why the university had waited so long to honor the late Colorado coach Bill McCartney with a statue, the coach, whose salary is many multiples that of any of the people charged with turning out the state’s lawyers, doctors, mathematicians, engineers, journalists - and teachers - asked, “Why we wait?”
When told that the statue was two years in the making, the coach of the state’s flagship university asked, “How we in the making?” (I’m sorry, but google couldn’t provide a translation.)
And then, launching into a deep discussion of the impatience of today’s generation, he produced these gems…
“You don’t wait for nothing no more, do we?”
“We wanna eat, who we call?”
Summarizing, he said, “We ain’t in no waiting generation no more.”
Meanwhile, up in the faculty dining room, an English professor who had been watching this on TV was overheard asking,
“Who he? And what they payin’ him?”
*********** UFL WRAP-UP
*** Call it the IFL (Interim Football League). Three of the eight teams now have interim head coaches:
DC is being coached by Shannon Harris, who replaced Reggie Barlow just before the opening game after Barlow took the head coaching job at Tennessee State.
Memphis is being coached by former DC Jim Turner, who stepped in on an interim basis in the first game when Ken Whisenhunt took a “personal leave,” then stepped back when Whisenhunt returned, and now is back in (interim) charge again, after Whisenhunt officially stepped down.
San Antonio is now being coached (interim) by former OC Payton Pardee (the great Jack Pardee’s grandson) after head coach Wade Philips “stepped down” before Sunday’s game. Said the UFL in a bizarre statement, ”If and when Wade is ready to return to the sidelines, the entire UFL family will be there to cheer him on.”
*** Noel Mazzone, who’s made a lot of steps in a long career, is the new OC at Memphis.
*** Bryce Perkins of the Detroit Panthers, played most of his college ball and Virginia, and he’s looking like one of the UFL’s better QBs. He’s the nephew of former Dallas Cowboys’ running back Don Perkins.
*** If you like watching offensive ineptness on short yardage plays, you’ll love the UFL.
*** Houston coach Curtis Johnson seems like a good guy, but his team isn’t very good, and you can tell he’s getting frustrated. At one point in the second quarter of Houston’s game against St. Louis Saturday, a hot mic caught him saying, disgustedly, “You guys are so undisciplined!”
*** When San Antonio scored on its opening drive against DC Sunday, it marked the first time all year it had scored in the first half. It scored again on an 83-yard punt return, and went on to win its first game - and hand DC its first defeat - 24-18.
*** Despite the fact that it was undefeated and the weather was beautiful, DC had its worst crowd in a couple of years. Must have been because it was Easter Sunday.
*** This Dr. Pepper Blackberry sh— better be good, because if it turns out the public doesn’t like it, they’ll sure have blown a lot of money advertising it. Me, I miss the old Fansville spots.
*********** Morning, Coach:
Everyone confronts challenges and problems. Unless that person is close to us, we aren't privy to how he solved them. In the cases of both Coach Jim Young and Coach Mike Lude, I'm told not only the nature of the challenge, but also how they dealt with it. Good lessons for anyone.
A lot of fans grew critical of Vern Lundquist in his later years of broadcasting, but I overlooked his increasingly-frequent misspeakings because to me he was a normal, if avuncular guy with an appealing voice who was a genuine fan. I miss Vern, and I'll miss Jim Nantz, who never once (in my eyes) tried to steal the spotlight from a broadcast partner or an interviewee. I'm sure many of us recall reading that during a period when he was in much pain, he delivered his report from his back as he watched the action on a television. At the time the public was unaware he wasn't in a booth at the game. I'll miss ye, Jimmy. Nantz, however, is retiring with his fastball intact.
Now we learn Lee Corso will do one final Gameday, then be gone. And, sadly, Dick Vitale will return next season. Last season they put him between two other commentators; when Vitale spoke, I found him nearly unintelligible. Lee and Dick should have bowed out years ago.
Thanks for the update on Sam and Ed. They surely did pack a lot in.
In that I like three of the four schools Nico might choose, I hope he winds up at UCLA.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Coach Corso was never the same after his stroke. While he valiantly recovered from the stroke his speech and cognitive ability was never the same. He made College Game Day shows a Saturday must see.
He will be missed.
10,000 players, half of whom will regret that decision later.
Mark my words Cal and Stanford don’t bring in the kind of $$ it takes to buy a national championship football team in today’s NIL world of college football, and certainly aren’t academic institutions built to continue it.
NICO UPDATE: It’s back home to Southern California and UCLA for Nico.
And those close to him say the decision had nothing to do with money. Yeah, sure, and if you believe that I have beach front property in South Dakota I could sell you pretty cheap!
An interesting name left off that Colorado list is Rae Carruth, and for good reason!
Murder.
The list of NFL teams showing interest in Shedeur Sanders is shrinking fast. But I can guarantee you there is some sucker on that list willing to take their chances.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: At Lewiston-Porter High School, outside Niagara Falls, he was Western New York Player of the Year as a running back.
Recruited to Syracuse by Dick MacPherson, he spent a redshirt year and played sparingly as a redshirt freshman, but he earned the starting fullback job as a sophomore, and in his junior year his career took off, along with a new offense installed by a new offensive coordinator.
The coordinator was George DeLeone, and the offense was called the freeze option, which emphasized the fullback attacking the defensive middle. It was an immediate success and it started a run at Syracuse of 15 straight winning seasons and 12 bowl appearances in that time.
In our guy’s junior season, he carried 116 times for 614 yards - and an extremely impressive 5.3 yards per carry for a fullback - as the Orange went 11-0-1. The only smirch on the record was a 16-16 tie with Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, and Syracuse wound up ranked Number 4 nationally, the Orange’s first nationally-ranked finish since 1961. He was selected All Big East.
In his senior season, Syracuse finished 10-2, losing only to Ohio State and Number 4-ranked West Virginia (11-0) and finishing ranked 13th. He carried 128 times for 645 yards, an average of 5.0 yards per carry, and caught 20 passes for 250 yards. He was named All-American.
Taken by Dallas in the second round (the 39th player taken overall), his imposing size (6-2, 240) made him stand out from the other Cowboys’ running backs and earned him the nickname “Moose.” It would quickly catch on among Cowboys’ fans, who throughout his career would call out his name whenever he carried the ball.
He wound up playing 11 years with the Cowboys, was named to two Pro Bowls, and won three Super Bowl rings. He played in 149 straight games over nine seasons. He became a standout on special teams, and at a time when teams still used a fullback and the fullback still carried the ball, he carried 232 times for 753 yards. But he actually had more receptions - 294 - than carries, for a total of 2,227 yards.
It was as a blocker, though, that he really stood out. With him lead blocking for Emmett Smith in the Cowboys’ I-formation, he played a major role in Smith’s becoming the NFL’s all-time rushing yardage leader, and in Smith’s acceptance speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he addressed our guy and said, “Without you, I know that today would not have been possible.”
After retirement, he began in broadcasting as an analyst on Fox Sports Radio and then moved to TV, and over the years has continued to work both college and pro games.
Since 2018, he has been involved as an executive of assorted spring football teams and leagues, and he currently serves as Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the UFL.
FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2025 “The
problem of the world is this: Can we get men to behave decently to each
other if they no longer believe in God?” George OrwellHAPPY EASTER! “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain.”
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Off the playing field we started raising funds from our newly devoted boosters. Dick Tamburo, helped by Eddie Mullins, began calling on prospective donors in the community. One of them was Ken Hiney, who owned an Akron printing business. Ken routinely arrived at his shop early, usually by 6 AM. He would go to lunch, often consuming several cocktails, and never return to the office.
Eddie and Dick set up an appointment for lunch with Hiney to see if he might make a contribution to the athletic department. About 7 PM I got a call at home from Tamburo. "Hey boss, will you come and get us?”
Why, I asked.
"Well, the monkey stole the keys to my car and we can't come home.”
"The monkey? What are you talking about? "
Hiney had a pet monkey in his shop, and as Dick walked by the cage he waved his keys in front of the cage. The monkey snatched the keys out of Dick's hand and refused to give them back. That was before they started drinking.
It turned out they had joined Ken for lunch and a drink, and that led to another drink, and so it went, on into the late afternoon. By the time they were ready to go home they were in no shape to wrestle a monkey for a set of car keys. I went and picked them up. Mullins, a talented storyteller, later recited the details of the monkey episode was such elan at the annual gathering of college sports information directors that he won the best story award for the year, a television set.
*********** Lee Corso is retiring. Sad but due.
He was an assistant on the staff at Maryland and helped the Terrapins recruit Phil Petry. Phil Petry was a high school All-American quarterback at South Hagerstown High and after his career at Maryland was over, and things didn’t work out in the NFL, he wound up playing for me. I just mention that as my “connection” to Lee Corso, who at the time he recruited Phil would have been maybe 30 years old. He’s now 89, and as most of us who’ve watched College Game Day over the years have noticed, he’s lost his fastball. The Lee Corso we’ll remember will be greatly missed.
A side note on Lee Corso, and something I’m sure he’s justifiably proud of: when word got out that a talented young receiver named Darryl Hill wanted to leave the Naval Academy, it was Lee Corso who recruited him to transfer to Maryland - then in the ACC - where in 1963 he became the first black football player to play in any conference in the South. Interestingly enough, Corso’s next coaching job after Maryland was - Navy.
*********** We put our son, Ed, and grandson, Sam, on a plane back to Australia Thursday morning, and as I write this, they’re still in the air. (It’s a long-ass flight.) It was a visit of almost two weeks, and they did manage to cram quite a bit in.
It had been nearly two years since we last saw Sam. Now 16, he’s almost as tall as I am, and he’s a good bit more mature than he was last time. (One downside to that maturity is that he’ll soon outgrow his well-earned reputation Down Under as the “World’s Youngest Formula One Expert.”)
Here in the US, he feasted on American TV sports, because even though many of them can be seen in Australia, the time difference can really make viewing difficult.
Here, he watched baseball, NBA basketball and UFL football, as well as F1 (time trials and racing), Premier League soccer (he’s a big fan of Arsenal) and, definitely, the Masters.
His dad took him to a Mariners game in Seattle, and to a Trail Blazers game in Portland, where he was interviewed on the pre-game radio broadcast. (The Blazers were playing the Lakers, and to show what a broadcast pro he already is, he was astute enough not to say that the Lakers are his favorite team.)
At home, I made sure that we got in our share of pool. (He’s got a pretty good stroke now.) He got to shoot a rifle and a pistol at our nearby range, and I know he was impressed (as I was) by the emphasis on safety and by the really professional manner of the range instructor/attendant. The guy could coach with me any time.
I got him a little bit of driving practice (even though we Yanks drive on the opposite side from them) in both a shift car and an automatic.
And - definitely one of the high spots - a young neighbor whom he’s become friends with over the years and who shares his love of motor sports, took him driving on a cart track over in Oregon.
*********** An observation by my son:
Things you only hear in America: woman behind us at the airport said, “We haven’t seen you guys since the corn hole tournament.”
*********** Soon enough, it will be boiling… The water that the college football frog’s in continues to heat up…
In the first twelve hours after the spring Transfer Portal opened, more than 10,000 players entered.
*********** Wise observations from John Canzano…
The Cal Bears’ over/under win total is listed at 5.5 victories in the Las Vegas sportsbooks.
Stanford’s over/under is 3.5 wins.
In other words, that’s a lot of ACC travel, few wins, and not very much money for the trouble.
*********** For two years, my wife attended Smith College, an all-women’s school in Northampton, Massachusetts. And then we got married. And although she wound up graduating from Hood College, in Frederick, Maryland - a very good school - she’s always looked at Smith as her school.
Unfortunately, as happens with many of us, the schools we once knew and loved are no longer the schools we knew and loved.
For the last 40 years, Smith’s nickname (for some reason they seem to prefer “moniker”) has been the Pioneers. No, not Ward Bond and Wagon Train pioneers. Smith’s nickname was intended to represent “the Pioneer spirit of women breaking through barriers and reforming the status quo…”
But somewhere along the way, someone evidently discovered that to the general public, “pioneers” (gasp!) connoted men in coonskin hats and long rifles, engaging in nasty disputes with the “indigenous peoples,” sometimes even to the point of calling them derogatory names.
And in addition - every bit as unappealing to today’s college women - there was the demeaning role of pioneer women, forced to cook, sew, clean, provide sex on demand, give birth, nurse, raise the kids and keep a garden. Among other things.
So now, officially, it’s out with pioneers and in with… who knows?
What we do know is that the new nickname - sorry, moniker - will…
Modernize the college’s identity…
Acknowledge the college’s rich history…
Better reflect the values, strengths and aspirations of the Smith community today.
Me - I’m thinking more in terms of what the new mascot will look like at football games. Oh, wait…
*********** Last night, we watched the first half of the first-round Playoff game between Tennessee and Ohio State, primarily to have another look at Nico Iamaleava, the Tennessee QB who recently attempted to shake down the Tennessee collective for more money than he’d agreed to (back when he was in high school), and whose holdout for more money resulted in his being dismissed from the Tennessee team.
My half-ass assessment of the guy:
He is very tall. No question about it. He’s 6-6. And he’s pretty athletic.
As a runner, I’d give him an 8 (out of 10). He’s pretty fast for such a tall guy.
As a passer, I’d give him a 6. He’s not a major talent.
As a thinker, I’ll let you decide. I’ll take you back to the Tennessee-Arkansas game earlier in the season, when Tennessee trailed, 19-14, but had driven to the Arkansas 20 with six seconds left. It was fourth-and-five, and Mister Genius dropped back, then fled the pocket and sprinted for the sideline and the first down. He may or may not have made the yardage, but it didn’t matter, because the clock showed 0:00 and Arkansas had pulled off the big upset.
I’ll give him a 3 (and not a 2) because at least he didn’t spike it on fourth down.
But I’d definitely say that if Tennessee was paying him $2 million a year, it was overpaying.
Some observations by a pay-for-play trail blazer...
“Whoever gave him the advice to sit out killed that kid,” said Cam Newton on his “4th&1 with Cam Newton” program. “Regardless of how you bounce back from this, you will be the example. There are certain things in people’s careers that it just sticks. … With Nico, he will have this stain on his career and it’s sad because… he is still a kid that’s being guided by other people, whether it’s his father, whether it’s his agent, if it’s his family members. It doesn’t matter.”
“I did not see this coming. But what I do see about kids and college athletes is, they’re getting it from so many places, ‘Bro, if I was you, you heard how much he signed for?’ Just imagine, real example. And I can guarantee you what happened. When Carson Beck left Georgia to go to Miami and he realized Carson Beck made $10 million? I’m better than Carson Beck, I know I can slap ’em for $12, but I’m just making $1.7, $2 million, $3. Bad advice can kill you.”
*********** NICO UPDATE:
After eliminating all the 52 power conference schools that are either set at QB or don’t have the resources to meet Nico Iamaleava’s demands, Stewart Mandel in The Athletic wound up with a list of just four schools potentially in the running:
Central Florida
Oklahoma State
Syracuse
UCLA
Damn. After the great job that Fran Brown did at Syracuse in his first year, I’d hate to find myself rooting against the Orange. Somehow, though, after reading that he just told his top receiver to go somewhere else if it’s more money that he’s after, I have a feeling that he isn’t going to let NICO and company put him over a barrel.
*********** NIL UPDATE:
Writes Stewart Mandel in The Athletic, “Most people seem fine with the players getting endorsement deals, but a high percentage aren’t comfortable with the seven-figure deals, the brazen pay-for-play and the unregulated portal.”
*********** You don’t have to be a conspiracy nut to believe that Deion Sanders’ new contract at Colorado included the school’s agreement to retire the jerseys of two players he brought with him to CU: Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders. There really isn’t any other plausible explanation.
You could almost make the case for Travis Hunter, who did, after all, win the Heisman Trophy. Yes, the win was almost gimmicky due to his having played both ways, because Colorado didn’t have the kind of season that normally accompanies a Heisman-winning performance. But even acknowledging that he might deserve the honor, what was the rich?
Only four former Buffalos had been so honored. One of them, Rashaan Salaam, also won the Heisman. But he had to wait 23 years to have his jersey number retired - and then it was done posthumously.
What makes the whole things smell is conferring the honor on Shedeur Sanders, who was a decent enough college quarterback, but not even close to Heisman standards in his play. It was a big-time college example of daddy-ball, a phenomenon well-known to anyone who’s experienced youth sports - daddy, the coach, makes sure that his son gets the spotlight, and wins the awards.
Actually, the whole thing smells even worse when one compares the meager accomplishments of Shedeur Sanders and those of the following list of former Colorado players whose jersey numbers have NOT been retired:
Eric Bienemy - Big Eight Offensive Player of the Year; 9 years as NFL player; 19 years as NFL coach
Chad Brown - First team All-Big Eight; All-Pro linebacker
Cullen Bryant - Consensus All-American; 13 years as NFL player
Boyd Dowler - First team All-Big Eight; NFL Rookie of the Year; 1960s All-Decade Team; Packers Hall of Fame; 11 years as NFL player, 15 years as NFL coach
Deon Figures - Consensus All-American; Jim Thorpe Award; Big Eight Defensive Player of the Year
Darian Hagan - Big Eight Offensive Player of the Year; 2x First Team All-Big Eight
Carroll Hardy - Third Team All-American; Hula Bowl MVP; 1 year 49ers; 9 years major league outfielder
Don Hasselbeck - 2x All-Big Eight; NFL All-Rookie Team; 9 years as NFL player
Kordell Stewart - First team All-Big Eight; Second team All-American; Pro Bowl 2001; AFC Offensive Player of the Year; 11-year NFL career
Michael Westbrook - Consensus All-American; 2X All Big-Eight; 8-year NFL career
Alfred Williams - Consensus All-American; 2X Big Eight Defensive Player of the Year; 10-year NFL career
John Wooten - First team All-American; first team All-Big Eight; 10 year NFL career; first team All-Pro 1966; 29 years as NFL executive; Cleveland Browns Legends; Chairman, Fritz Pollard Alliance
(Notice that I didn't mention the records of the teams those men played on. Yes, Colorado has had some very good teams in the past, and these men played major parts on those teams. They did not compile inflated statistics on teams that went 13-12, as Shedeur Sanders did in his two years in Boulder.)
*********** To me, the best take on the Shedeur Sanders situation comes from Mark Madden of the Pittsburgh Tribune, in a town whose team desperately needs a quarterback…
The Steelers would be insane to draft Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Any NFL team would be.
They would get a legit first-round talent. Sanders’ ability is undeniable.
But they would also get the nuttiest Little League dad this side of LeBron James.
Make no mistake, Deion Sanders would be interfering. He’d be on the phone with Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. He’d put more attention on his son’s agenda than his job coaching Colorado. That seems impossible to believe but would absolutely happen. The main reason Deion started coaching was to further his kids.
Deion would reportedly force his son’s way to a different team if the wrong team drafted Shedeur. So Deion is already involved.
Tomlin would foolishly relish a connection to Deion. Kibitzing with a big name. More showbiz for the master of illusion.
But Tomlin couldn’t control it. He’d think he could. He’d think he was.
But Tomlin couldn’t and wouldn’t. And the first time he did or said something Deion or Shedeur didn’t like …
Deion served notice for all of the above when he retired Shedeur’s number at Colorado.
Travis Hunter’s number also will be retired. That’s tolerable. He just won the Heisman Trophy.
Colorado has retired just four numbers. It’s an exclusive club.
Deion decided on rapid expansion of said club, thus force-feeding legitimacy to the importance of his two seasons as Colorado coach.
It’s false legitimacy.
Deion is 13-12 at Colorado, 8-10 in conference play, 0-1 in bowl games. Colorado was ranked No. 25 at the end of this past season. Whoopee. Colorado is superior to Pitt, anyway.
Deion has made Colorado better. But the improvement has only been revolutionary in terms of showbiz. Deion certainly has ESPN buffaloed. (See what I did there?)
Ex-Steeler Kordell Stewart’s number isn’t retired at Colorado.
Stewart won two bowl games. He led Colorado to two top-10 finishes, including No. 3 in 1994. He threw the Miracle at Michigan. He was first-team all-conference, second-team All-America.
Shedeur won Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year this past season. He made first-team all-conference.
Stewart was better. His teams certainly did better.
But Stewart wasn’t the coach’s kid. Shedeur is. So Shedeur’s number gets retired, primarily for that reason.
Shedeur on the Steelers would be best for my business.
Deion and son can’t stomach criticism of any kind.
Imagine a quarterback tandem of Aaron Rodgers and Shedeur. Rodgers would start. Deion would go insane every time Rodgers threw an incompletion.
https://triblive.com/sports/mark-madden-with-deion-sure-to-interfere-steelers-should-steer-clear-of-shedeur-sanders/
*********** The city of Philadelphia has a 3.89 per cent income tax. I don’t know how unique Philadelphia is among big-league cities, but I do know that if you’re an NFL player and you’re a lowly backup earning the (penurious) salary of, say, $17 million and one of the 17 games you play this season happens to be against the Eagles, in Philadelphia, the city will figure that you earned 1/17 ($1 million) of your income there. And that means you owe the City of Brotherly Love $38,890.
Greed among politicians being what it is, I doubt that Philadelphia is the only city - it’s certainly not the only state - to pull this off.
I bring this up because I assume that there are already a few politicians out there who are now aware that NIL money is actually “pay for play,” and not some little side hustle signing autographs and making appearances, and therefore will count as money earned in their particular city and/or state.
*********** You might want to look up “dwarf tossing.” At one time it was a sort of “pub game” that originated in Australia (seeing how far patrons could toss a “small person”).
Shep Clarke, in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, sent me an item about the late Mike Leach once (allegedly) proposing a short-yardage play consisting of giving the ball to a small person and then tossing both him - and the ball - over the line.
https://x.com/IcingThePunter_/status/1911883829528133937
*********** The President has withheld $2 billion in government funding from Harvard, claiming that the college must first meet certain requirements before it gets the dough.
Harvard, in refusing to comply, is being praised by libs for “standing up to” the President.
What’s so praiseworthy about taking someone’s money and acting as if they have no rights to impose conditions? You ought to hear what a mob loan shark expects when he money.
Harvard, with an endowment of 53 billion dollars, boasts of being a private institution, one that the government shouldn’t be able to dictate to.
So why, then, with all that money, if it so prizes its independence, does it even take federal dollars?
Well, see, Harvard says that its endowment isn’t liquid - the school can’t access all that money as it wishes, because roughly 80 per cent of the endowment is limited to “specific purposes.”
Now wait just a minute, Harvard.
You’re trying to tell me that you've take money from donors and you've let them impose conditions on its use - but you’ll "stand up to" the government when its money (actually our money - us taxpayers) comes with conditions attached?
Well, screw you. And screw Columbia, and Princeton, and Penn, and, yes, Yale - and any other elite school that poses as private while sucking on the public teat.
You want to call yourself private and not let the government “dictate” to you? Simple. Go cold turkey. Be like Hillsdale College. It doesn’t take a nickel of the taxpayers’ money. Neither, in fact, do any of its students, who don’t even receive Pell Grants or accept students loans.
*********** This Belichick thing is sure to blow up.
First of all, it is rather unprecedented for a coach’s girlfriend - one who’s 45 or so years his junior - to be out on the practice field. But for her to be doing so while dressed as a trollop, is the height of bad judgment. He and his henchmen boast that North Carolina is going to be “the 33rd NFL team,” but I somehow don’t think an NFL coach would get away with a stunt like that.
And then there’s her attempting to micromanage the North Carolina sports information department, strongly suggesting that the school publicists refrain from referring to assistants named Stephen Belichick and Bryan Belichick as the coach’s sons, lest the public think that perhaps nepotism might be in play at North Carolina.
I guess we’re not supposed to refer to her as “the coach’s girlfriend,” either, because she doesn’t want anyone thinking she didn’t get this role for any reason other than merit.
Now, I don’t discount the possibility that Belichick the Elder might move on after a year or two while strongly suggesting that his replacement also be named Belichick, but at least he won’t be asking them to retire anyone’s number.
*********** Hugh,
In the case of Nico Iamaleava it appears he has suffered the same fate as one of his Polynesian brothers who also made a splash as a college quarterback, but recently fizzled out when papa started directing all of his moves.
Sad to hear the WHOLE story of what happened with Kyren Lacy.
Unfortunately the trend in college football championships will continue to repeat itself. The next college football national champion will continue to have a nationally recognized brand.
Speaking of college football...saw some photos of the North Dakota State's football team making a visit to the White House. One of the photos showed NDSU's most valuable lineman shaking hands with President Trump. The president is 6'5. This kid towered over the president! WHOA! They grow 'em big up there!
In golf we have a saying, "tough to play the game with both hands around your throat." Rory McIlroy found a way to remove his hands from his throat on the last couple of holes.
Watched the Birmingham v Arlington UFL game. The officials in that game made a defensive holding call that enabled the Stallions to pull out a 10-9 win at the end of the game. Apparently either Mike Periera re-read the rule book or you called him!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Mark Murphy was a three-sport star at Clarence (New York) Central High and as a senior was named Best All-Around Athlete in Western New York by the Buffalo Courier-Express.
At Colgate he was captain of the Red Raiders football squad, and earned All-Eastern College Athletic Conference honors as a defensive back.
Although he had an opportunity to play professional baseball, he chose instead to sign as an undrafted free agent with the Washington Redskins, then coached by the legendary George Allen.
His size (6-4, 210) and his hard-hitting quickly earned him a spot in the secondary, and he wound up starring there for eight seasons.
In his fourth year, Joe Gibbs took over as the Skins’ head coach. Seeing leadership qualities in Murphy, Gibbs made him team captain, a position in which he served for the remainder of his career, and with his leadership, the Redskins went to back-to-back Super Bowls, winning one of them.
“Made all the calls,” recalled Gibbs. “Got everybody in the right position. “He’s the player who was too smart for me to coach.”
In 1983, he led the NFL with nine interceptions, and was a consensus All-Pro selection.
He was named one of the Redskins’ 70 best players, and was a member of their 50th Anniversary Team.
His leadership role had its costs. As the Redskins’ player representative to the NFLPA, his part in the union’s 1982 strike action won him no friends among management.
But when his time came to move on, he was ready. Having taken evening classes during the seasons and studying full-time in the off-seasons, he earned an MBA in finance from American University, and then a law degree from Georgetown University.
As assistant executive director of the NFLPA, he served on the union’s bargaining team during the 1987 strike.
In 1989, he started work as a trial lawyer at the Department of Justice, and in 1992 he returned to Colgate as its Athletic Director. He spent 11 years there, and oversaw the rebuilding of the football program to three straight FCS (then called I-AA) playoffs from 1997-1999.
From Colgate he moved to Northwestern, where he served as AD for four years. During his term there, the Wildcat football team won two bowl games; prior to his arrival they had won only four in their entire history.
In January, 2008, he became President of the Green Bay Packers. Given the Packers’ position as the only publicly-owned NFL team, he assumed all the powers of an owner.
By any measure, Mark Murphy’s tenure at Green Bay would have to be considered successful.
On the field, one of his first orders of business was managing the amazingly smooth transition from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers and then, 15 years later, doing much the same thing when Rodgers left for New York and Jordan Love moved right in as his successor.
In his 17 years as President, the Packers have made the playoffs 13 times. They have made it to the NFC Championship Game five times, and they’ve won one Super Bowl.
The Pack’s overall record during his time is 173-101 -2, 12-12 in the playoffs.
As a remarkable example of the stability he brought to the Packers, in his 15 years as President, he has had to hire only one coach - Matt LaFleur.
Off the field, he has overseen extensive renovations of Lambeau Field, along with an effort to develop the area around the stadium into a year-round tourist destination called “Titletown.”
In July 2022, he announced that he would retire on July 13, 2025, his 70th birthday.
And in a culmination of years of effort on his part, and partly in recognition of his efforts, this spring’s NFL draft will be held in Green Bay.
As the only chief executive of a Super Bowl winner to have also played on one, he was asked by a Washington journalist to compare the two experiences:
“I think as an executive, or in my position with the Packers, I have a much greater appreciation of how difficult it is to win a Super Bowl. I don't think it's just because I'm 30 years older. But I think when you're a player, it's a little bit of, you take things for granted. I think you also don't really have an understanding of how many people contribute to getting a team to that point. But now in my position, I have such a great appreciation for the coaches, the trainers, everybody in our administration. So many people contribute to it.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MARK MURPHY
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin (When this Mark Murphy was playing for Washington, the Packers had their own Mark Murphy, also a safety.)
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin (As a Bears’ fan living in enemy territory, I do know that the answer is Mark Murphy!)
John Rothwell - Corpus Christi, Texas (One of my favorite Skins of all time!)
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: At Lewiston-Porter High School, outside Niagara Falls, he was Western New York Player of the Year as a running back.
Recruited to Syracuse by Dick MacPherson, he spent a redshirt year and played sparingly as a redshirt freshman, but he earned the starting fullback job as a sophomore, and in his junior year his career took off, along with a new offense installed by a new offensive coordinator.
The coordinator was George DeLeone, and the offense was called the freeze option, which emphasized the fullback attacking the defensive middle. It was an immediate success and it started a run at Syracuse of 15 straight winning seasons and 12 bowl appearances in that time.
In our guy’s junior season, he carried 116 times for 614 yards - and an extremely impressive 5.3 yards per carry for a fullback - as the Orange went 11-0-1. The only smirch on the record was a 16-16 tie with Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, and Syracuse wound up ranked Number 4 nationally, the Orange’s first nationally-ranked finish since 1961. He was selected All Big East.
In his senior season, Syracuse finished 10-2, losing only to Ohio State and Number 4-ranked West Virginia (11-0) and finishing ranked 13th. He carried 128 times for 645 yards, an average of 5.0 yards per carry, and caught 20 passes for 250 yards. He was named All-American.
Taken by Dallas in the second round (the 39th player taken overall), his imposing size (6-2, 240) made him stand out from the other Cowboys’ running backs and earned him the nickname “Moose.” It would quickly catch on among Cowboys’ fans, who throughout his career would call out his name whenever he carried the ball.
He wound up playing 11 years with the Cowboys, was named to two Pro Bowls, and won three Super Bowl rings. He played in 149 straight games over nine seasons. He became a standout on special teams, and at a time when teams still used a fullback and the fullback still carried the ball, he carried 232 times for 753 yards. But he actually had more receptions - 294 - than carries, for a total of 2,227 yards.
It was as a blocker, though, that he really stood out. With him lead blocking for Emmett Smith in the Cowboys’ I-formation, he played a major role in Smith’s becoming the NFL’s all-time rushing yardage leader, and in Smith’s acceptance speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he addressed our guy and said, “Without you, I know that today would not have been possible.”
After retirement, he began in broadcasting as an analyst on Fox Sports Radio and then moved to TV, and over the years has continued to work both college and pro games.
Since 2018, he has been involved as an executive of assorted spring football teams and leagues, and he currently serves as Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the UFL.
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2025 “One
of the biggest fallacies of our time is the notion that, if all groups
are not proportionally represented in institutions, professions or
income levels, that shows something wrong with society.” Thomas Sowell*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: The success of the football team gave our entire program a lift, on our own campus and in other parts of the intercollegiate athletic ranks. I felt strongly that a winning football program would trigger the momentum to help the rest of the Kent State student body and faculty out of the doldrums and revive support from our alumni and Kent-area fans. We encouraged pregame tailgate gatherings, and we started a Blue and Gold booster club. Our attendance had yet to fill all 30,000 seats, but we were making progress and we were winning.
We got people talking with the upset of North Carolina State, and when the wins began to come more consistently in 1972, leading to a ball game, and then ’73, the students and alums got excited – hey, this thing is for real. They didn't forget about May 4 but they had something to bring them together.
When we played Miami with the conference championship on the line in 1973, there was a big crowd, even though it had started snowing several days earlier and we were plowing off the field the morning of the game. I went out there at 3 AM Saturday to check things out because not many of our grounds crew had much experience clearing the white stuff from a football field. I had faced the same challenge at Maine and Delaware.
We had the tarp over the field, but the darn thing froze. So we had one tough job to get that field in shape to play on. I recall a picture of me sitting at the top of the stadium in my stocking cap after I'd worked some long, long hours with that maintenance crew. It wasn't enough to win, though, and Miami prevented a second straight championship.
*********** Found this comparison of the Pacific Northwest’s two biggest cities on Reddit…
Seattle is Portland's put-together older brother who went to business school and now makes a lot of money in investment capital. Portland, meanwhile, took a gap year, lived with their parents while going to art school and decided, eff it, I'm just gonna be a substitute teacher and play bass in a band with my 3 best buds.
*********** Looking at gatherings of Democrat congresspeople: Are they ugly because they’re Democrats or are they Democrats because they’re ugly?
*********** After Tennessee said “AMF” to Nico Iamaleava, the Vols immediately became one of the most popular teams in the country. Nico, a quarterback who’d been on their payroll since he was in high school, at some point decided that he’ was worth more than the $2 million a year they were paying him - twice more, in fact - and went on a form of holdout . When he didn’t show up for the Friday practice before last Saturday’s spring game, Vols’ coach Josh Heupel announced he was off the team.
There’s no way I can support a college kid pulling this holdout crap, or parents who shop their kid around to other schools, as NIco’s father evidently was doing.
But we should never forget that it was the state of Tennessee’s lawsuit against the NCAA that resulted in a ruling that said, in effect, that NIL did not have to be payment for use of a player’s name, image and likeness after the recruit had enrolled in school, but could actually be used in recruitment. And to people like Tennessee, that meant paying a player before he could find Knoxville on a map.
Good for Tennessee for saying AMF, but at the same time, you might say they made their own bed, selling their souls for a high school kid.
*********** A high school classmate, John French, died recently. At one time, his dad, Cooper French, had been head coach at our school, and then he became an official. I still remember a Saturday back in the early 50’s when he took John and me to a game he was officiating at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
News of John French’s death came at just about the same time that I was reading a biography of longtime Penn State coach Bob Higgins, in which I came across a reference to one Cooper French, a star running back for the Nittany Lions. Further research came across the above photo of Cooper French, which another classmate was able to send on to John’s son.
*********** Western Michigan won the NCAA Ice Hockey Championship this past weekend by defeating Boston U. Imagine - a team from the MAC winning it just a few years after a school from Connecticut named Quinnipiac won it (and that just a few years after another school from Connecticut named Yale won it). That got me to thinking that maybe there was something unique about hockey that gave more schools a chance to win the title.
So I counted: This century, 14 different schools have won the NCAA ice hockey championship.
Hmmm, I thought. How different is that from other team sports?
Not all that different, as it turns out.
In this century…
Baseball has had 16 different champions.
Basketball has had 15.
Football has had 13.
Wrestling, with only five, is an outlier, and Penn State is the reason. The Nittany Lions alone have won 12 NCAA team championships this century.
Football is also an outlier for its lack of first-time champions. Unlike Ice Hockey with its Western Michigans, Quinnipiacs and Yales, or baseball with its Mississippi States and Vanderbilts and Cal State Fullertons and basketball with its Virginias and Baylors, there hasn’t been a single school this century winning the football national title for the first time.
*********** I watched more golf this past weekend than I had in the past ten years altogether. Partly it was because we had family here, and one of my sons-in-law is a serious golfer and golf fan; partly, of course, is because it was Masters weekend, and the Masters is one of the great events of any sport; and partly it was because I got caught up in the personal quest of one very good and likable golfer, Rory McIlroy.
McIlroy had won the other three “majors” - the PGA, the US Open and the British Open - but in 16 tries, had had never won the Masters.
In brief - he won. But it was such an up-and-down final day that it would have tested the resolve and resilience of any man or - in a team sport - any team.
For any coach of any sport, it was remarkable watching him take a nice lead into the final day, then start right out by quickly losing the lead, then regaining it and appearing on his way to an easy win, then losing the lead once again and, finally, in overtime, pulling out the win.
*********** The celebratory moments immediately following Rory McIlroy’s history-making Masters win were historic in themselves because instead of jabbering away, telling us what we could see for ourselves, CBS’ Jim Nantz, the consummate professional, said it all by saying… nothing.
John Canzano asks…was there anything better than the live CBS call of McIlroy’s victory?
Jim Nantz and the crew let McIlroy’s winning moment breathe in a way that needs to be mentioned. There was nearly seven minutes of uninterrupted audio. I loved it. Too often, a broadcaster feels inclined to step in, offer commentary or a clever catchphrase, and trample the authentic reaction and crowd.
Nantz just sat quietly and let it go… and go… and go… and go… and whoever was in the truck producing the moment should also take a bow. It takes a lot of restraint not to suffocate that moment and CBS got it right.
*********** Since all of us at some point find ourselves negotiating for something or other, I found this letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, written by a Scott W. Petersen, of Wilmette, Illinois, to be quite instructive.
Having been an attorney for 53 years, I was involved in negotiations on a daily basis. One thing I learned about success: be as nice as you can be, and as tough as you have to be.
Being “nice” never meant being a pushover – it simply meant that cordiality was a more productive route to settlement.
One of the reasons 85% to 90% of lawsuits settle before going to trial is that, if they advance, there is a 100% chance someone will lose. Thus the resolution of differences is like drinking a warm Pepsi-Cola on a hot day: It isn’t particularly satisfying, but it’s better than ongoing thirst.
*********** You want an example of inflation?
This past season, a quarterback named Nico Iamaleava cost Tennessee $2,000,000 and in return they got a first-round playoff loss. Just 15 years ago, Cam Newton took Auburn to a national championship and all it cost them was $180,000.
*********** LSU wide receiver Kyren Lacy is dead.
Talk about hiding the story.
When we first learned of his death, all we knew was that he had been facing charges of negligent homicide, felony hit-and-run with death, and reckless operation of a vehicle following a car wreck that killed a 78-year-old man, and that a grand jury was set to begin hearing evidence in his case on Monday (today).
Yes, his actions may very well have caused the death of that man, but there was a certain element of sadness when the stories further revealed that Lacy, who once had NFL potential, had taken his own life. Lacy had played two seasons at Louisiana-Lafayette and then three seasons at LSU, starting for the Tigers in all 12 games this past season, with 58 receptions for 866 yards and nine touchdowns.
Sad, I thought - it was all just too much for the guy to handle. True, he was 24 - a little old for a college kid - but these are different times.
And then we learned even more - that the suicide had occurred after he had fired a gun during a domestic dispute and then driven off, shooting himself while being pursued by police.
*********** Once again, the UFL pisses in the soup. You already read here that I think that the league is killing any sign of offense with its permissiveness toward pass interference.
So this past weekend it was Houston 18, Memphis 17 with less than a minute to play in another dull and boring UFL contest. (In front of hundreds.)
But damned if Memphis didn’t just go and inject some excitement into things by scoring with seconds left, and now they were going for two and the win.
Alas, the attempt failed when a pass was overthrown.
But because the UFL (wisely, in my opinion) permits a challenge of just about any ruling (or non-ruling), Memphis appealed, contending that there was defensive holding on the play.
And so, as the league permits us to do, we watched the replay as their expert, a respected former NFL official named Mike Perriera, did, too. We all saw the same thing - a Houston player clearly grabbing a Memphis receiver.
Yessss! I said. Memphis is going to get another shot at a win! Finally, some excitement!
But no, declared Mr. Perriera, giving us another one of those weaselly “yes, there’s some holding, but not enough to justify changing the call” calls that the UFL is becoming famous for.
Which prompts me to ask:
Uh, doesn't the rule book say there isn’t to be ANY holding?
Or is there something we’re all missing that says there isn’t to be any holding - except for a certain amount?
*********** Syracuse coach Fran Brown has announced a program called "Syracuse 60,” which guarantees Syracuse players a job “in his major field” within 60 days of graduating.
I don’t know any more than that, but it sure sounds to me like the sort of thing that a real college might do to attract real “student-athletes.”
*********** Coach:
First, a general thank you for all you do without direct remuneration. You offer more reasoned views on sports than any of the highly-compensated loud mouths in public view. Week in and week out I luxuriate in the words of NYCU. And I'm sure everyone who's watched your free-of-charge Zoom clinics knows you don't throw them together in 30 minutes. Let Ed, Sam, and family know we apologize if we're taking any time away from them.
I was disheartened to read your comments on the proposed ACSA. That thing's so full of holes it doesn't merit a hearing.
Corch, a man with your retirement income has no right to be critical of Bellotti. Actually, I find those numbers repulsive.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ: He was a three-sport star at Clarence (New York) Central High and as a senior was named Best All-Around Athlete in Western New York by the Buffalo Courier-Express.
At Colgate he was captain of the Red Raiders football squad, and earned All-Eastern College Athletic Conference honors as a defensive back.
Although he had an opportunity to play professional baseball, he chose instead to sign as an undrafted free agent with the Washington Redskins, then coached by the legendary George Allen.
His size (6-4, 210) and his hard-hitting quickly earned him a spot in the secondary, and he wound up starring there for eight seasons.
In his fourth year, Joe Gibbs took over as the Skins’ head coach. Seeing leadership qualities in him, Gibbs made him team captain, a position in which he served for the remainder of his career, and with his leadership, the Redskins went to back-to-back Super Bowls, winning one of them.
“Made all the calls,” recalled Gibbs. “Got everybody in the right position. “He’s the player who was too smart for me to coach.”
In 1983, he led the NFL with nine interceptions, and was a consensus All-Pro selection.
He was named one of the Redskins’ 70 best players, and was a member of their 50th Anniversary Team.
His leadership role had its costs. As the Redskins’ player representative to the NFLPA, his part in the union’s 1982 strike action won him no friends among management.
But when his time came to move on, he was ready. Having taken evening classes during the seasons and studying full-time in the off-seasons, he earned an MBA in finance from American University, and then a law degree from Georgetown University.
As assistant executive director of the NFLPA, he served on the union’s bargaining team during the 1987 strike.
In 1989, he started work as a trial lawyer at the Department of Justice, and in 1992 he returned to Colgate as its Athletic Director. He spent 11 years there, and oversaw the rebuilding of the football program to three straight FCS (then called I-AA) playoffs from 1997-1999.
From Colgate he moved to Northwestern, where he served as AD for four years. During his term there, the Wildcat football team won two bowl games; prior to his arrival they had won only four in their entire history.
In January, 2008, he became President of the Green Bay Packers. Given the Packers’ position as the only publicly-owned NFL team, he assumed all the powers of an owner.
By any measure his tenure would have to be considered successful.
On the field, one of his first orders of business was managing the amazingly smooth transition from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers and then, 15 years later, doing much the same thing when Rodgers left for New York and Jordan Love moved right in as his successor.
In his 17 years as President, the Packers have made the playoffs 13 times. They have made it to the NFC Championship Game five times, and they’ve won one Super Bowl.
The Pack’s overall record during his time is 173-101 -2, 12-12 in the playoffs.
As a remarkable example of the stability he brought to the Packers, in his 15 years as President, he has had to hire only one coach - Matt LaFleur.
Off the field, he has overseen extensive renovations of Lambeau Field, along with an effort to develop the area around the stadium into a year-round tourist destination called “Titletown.”
In July 2022, he announced that he would retire on July 13, 2025, his 70th birthday.
And in a culmination of years of effort on his part, and partly in recognition of his efforts, this spring’s NFL draft will be held in Green Bay.
As the only chief executive of a Super Bowl winner to have also played on one, he was asked by a Washington journalist to compare the two experiences:
“I think as an executive, or in my position with the Packers, I have a much greater appreciation of how difficult it is to win a Super Bowl. I don't think it's just because I'm 30 years older. But I think when you're a player, it's a little bit of, you take things for granted. I think you also don't really have an understanding of how many people contribute to getting a team to that point. But now in my position, I have such a great appreciation for the coaches, the trainers, everybody in our administration. So many people contribute to it.”
FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2025 “One
of the few truths about teaching I know is that those who think they
teach well probably don’t.” Joseph Epstein, who for 30 years
taught
literature and writing at Northwestern University (I would amend that
by adding “really” to it: “those who think they teach REALLY well…”)*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: After the NCAA decision that allowed an additional football game each season, there was a lot of scrambling by most colleges to find an eleventh opponent. I called Earl Edwards, the head coach at North Carolina State, hoping to add a game and the revenues that went with it. I had a great coaching relationship with Edwards, sharing offensive ideas and concepts.
I told Edwards I didn't expect to win because NC State would be a huge favorite. Our Golden Flashes may have been out of their class, but that didn't seem to make much difference and Don James pulled off a major upset, 23–21. Edwards never let me forget that game, joking that I had set him up.
At least a few people on campus took notice. No one was more enthusiastic than Tony Adamle, our team physician, who earlier had played with the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Cleveland Browns. When the team flight arrived home in a downpour about midnight after the victory over North Carolina State, a small but happy group of family and friends showed up at the airport. Tony grabbed an umbrella that had been provided by the airline and said: "Here's a gift to remind you of our first great victory.” I kept it until it finally fell apart a year or so ago.
That opening was probably the high point of the season. For Don James, the win-loss record of 3–8 in that first year at Kent State was the worst of his head coaching career. Don and his staff just worked that much harder in the off-season, mounting a concentrated recruiting effort that was critical in the revival of the football program.
It came quicker than most of us anticipated. In his second season Don's team won the Mid-American Conference championship and a trip to the Tangerine Bowl. Don was named Coach of the Year in the MAC. The next season, with many of the same players, Kent cruised to a 9–2 record. That team’s defense, led by Jack Lambert, held all conference rivals to 14 points or less. Lambert was to become a Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ famed Steel Curtain defense.
*********** One of the blessings of the Internet is that it can help you reconnect with people you haven’t seen or heard from in years. Of course, at my age, when you finally “make” the “connection,” it isn’t always good.
That’s what happened when I located Gus Jacobs. Gus, I discovered, had died this past January, at his home in Bel Air, Maryland. Terrible news.
I met Gus when we were both young and living in Baltimore. I’m not sure how we met, but what bonded us was our love - and knowledge - of sports. A fun time for us was to hang out at Alonso’s, a popular hangout on Cold Spring Lane, where we’d drink beer and play “YOUR question is…”, our version of sports trivia.
Gus was a native of Lynch, a town of less than 1,000 people in the coal country of Eastern Kentucky. He’d graduated from The Citadel, and when we met he’d just finished two years as an Army artillery officer.
At a time when the entire city of Baltimore and its environs had “Colt Fever,” Gus was the most fanatical Colts fan I knew. At that time, the Colts were in the NFL West for some reason, and that meant two games a year against the Packers, also in the NFL West. For Gus, that meant two reunions a year with a guy he’d served with in the Army - a Packer defensive back named Herb Adderley (you may have heard of him - he’s in the Pro Football Hall of Fame). I marveled at their friendship, not the black-and-white aspect, which was unusual at that time, but the fact that it transcended the fierce rivalry that then existed between the Colts and the Packers.
Gus had Colts’ season tickets. I don’t know how a guy his age, who hadn’t been in Baltimore any longer than I had was able to get hold of them, because they were very hard to come by. They were in such demand that famed writer Frank DeFord, a Baltimore native who understood the whole Baltimore/Colts love affair, wrote a novel whose plot, in his words, “had to do with how a guy who chanced upon some Colt season tickets got to be mayor.”
Wrote DeFord at the time the Irsays absconded with the Colts to Indianapolis…
I grew up in Baltimore, with the Colts, and I know just how much they meant to that working-class city, forever in the lee of Washington and New York. The Colts were ours—even more so than the baseball team that came to town about the same time. Its very name, Orioles, belonged to another time, that of our grandfathers. The Colts were one with the city. It's really quite amazing. A man who could screw up professional football in Baltimore would foul the water at Lourdes or flatten the beer in Munich.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I was talking to Alex Hawkins, old Captain Who of so many Colt special teams. Alex told me how every fall, when he would come back to Baltimore from Atlanta, where he lived, he would purposely move into a different part of town because Baltimore was a city of neighborhoods and all that the citizens really asked of any Colt was that he drink with them in a neighborhood bar. Why, just down from where I grew up there was Mose's Sunoco station, where some of the Colts actually hung out after practice, kicking tires and all. There wasn't a person in Baltimore who didn't know at least one girl who was going out with a Colt. The Colts were like a high school team for a city of a million people.
The two most exciting franchises in sports at that time were the Milwaukee Braves and the Colts. Baltimore, you see, was the first place pro football mania really surfaced. It was 20 years ahead of old fancy-pants Washington, which still acts like it discovered enthusiasm. Impressionable youth that I was, I was so awed by Colt madness that I wrote my first novel about it. The plot had to do with how a guy who chanced upon some Colt season tickets got to be mayor. Then, one of my Baltimore contemporaries, Barry Levinson, brought out the movie Diner. Remember that? The girl Eddie wanted to marry had to pass a test about the Colts before he would walk down the aisle with her. People said, "Boy, was that far out!" I said, "No." Having grown up in Baltimore, I thought it was very true to life. Besides, it was an easy test Eddie gave her. Sample question: What was the longest run from scrimmage by a Colt rookie in his first game? Alan Ameche's 79-yarder on opening day in 1955, of course.
Which brings me back to Gus Jacobs. I didn’t see anything at all strange about the test given to the prospective bride in “Diner.” I’d already seen it happen with Gus.
When his mother once asked him to take her to a Colts’ game, he thought at first she was kidding, because she didn’t follow the team. And then he realized that she was serious, and he had to tell her, “No.” Why? I asked him, when he told me about it. Because, he said of the very woman who had once given birth to him, “She’s not worthy.”
*********** Colleges like to say that no taxpayer money is going to pay the outrageous salaries paid to their coaches. But in at last one state - Oregon - that’s not entirely true, because coaches at the University of Oregon are technically state employees, and while the state taxpayers aren’t paying their entire salaries, they are getting stuck with paying them fairly sizable pensions. (It’s not as if with the money they’ve been paid, they couldn’t provide for their own retirements.)
Take Robert M. “Mike” Bellotti, who retired in 2010 after 12 years in Oregon - six years as offensive coordinator, four as head coach and two as AD (nine months, actually, when he left to become an ESPN analyst).
In 2024 he pulled down $641,760. That’s his pension, guys. It’s the third highest pension paid to a retired state employee. And while the annual amount can vary, he’s been living large like that since 2010.
So fo ahead and pay those guys their millions, you oligarchs (had to get that in there). But not a f—king dime from the taxpayers.
*********** If you like conspiracy rumors, how about this one? Commissioner Roger Goodell, who evidently dislikes the “Tush Push,” is said to have asked the President of the Packers, who’s soon retire, to do him one last favor and propose a ban on the play.
In return, it goes, the NFL is staging this year’s draft in Green Bay.
(As with any good rumor, this one passes the plausibility test.)
*********** As author Frank DeFord has put it, there are people so inept they could flatten the beer in Munich.
No need to go to Munich to find them, though. Pittsburgh’s far enough.
They’re in the Pirates’ organization. They have committed two of the most unpardonably stupid acts of disrespect, one to a former Pirate great…
It’s almost unanimous that Roberto Clemente was the greatest of all Pirates. Good man, too - died in the crash of a plane taking emergency supplies to NIcaragua following an earthquake. For years, his name and his number (21) were prominently displayed on the stadium’s right field wall. Not this year, though. Now, many Pirates’ fans noticed, in its place was a sign advertising some drink called Surfside.
And then an insult to hundreds - maybe thousands - of loyal fans…
(2) Before the ball park was built in 2001, “Bucco Bricks” were sold to the public to be placed in the area outside the stadium entrance as (supposedly) permanent tributes to beloved friends and family members. And there they remained until this season when they were removed and replaced with plain old cement paving. Management said they were getting worn.
What to do? There were options
1. Replace them
2. Move them elsewhere
3. Offer them to the original purchasers
4. Store them (while you decide on 1, 2 or 3
5. What the Pirates did. CBS News Pittsburgh found the missing Bucco Bricks at a recycling plant.
https://triblive.com/sports/joe-rutter-discarded-bucco-bricks-are-more-than-just-pieces-of-stone/
*********** As with Donald Trump, I often find myself going in two directions with Pat McAfee: First “Wow. This guy is really good.” Then “Damn. I can’t believe he thought that was smart.”
McAfee is a Pittsburgher (“My mom’s from Churchill, my dad’s from Forest Hills, and I’m from the greatest topography on planet Earth, the East Hills of Pittsburgh”) with all that that entails. And Wednesday night he put on a show billed as “Pat McAfee’s Big Night Aht.”
I’m told that it sold out the city’s PPG Paints Arena.
I have absolutely no idea what took place, but I picture some sort of mongrelization of a Pro wrestling match, a rock concert and a Trump rally.
(If you understand Pittsburghese and the accent, you recognize the pronunciation of “out.”)
*********** Saw this in the Wall Street Journal.
How much is a trillion? To illustrate…
To spend a trillion dollars…
If you spent a million dollars a day...
It would take you 2,740 years.
*********** Roy Kramer was a very good coach. He won a national championship at Central Michigan, and he wrote one of the best books I’ve seen on the I-formation. He went on after coaching to be commissioner of the SEC. I came across a clinic presentation on defense that he made in the AFCA’s 1975 Summer Manual and it resonated with me. On the subject of teaching hitting and aggressiveness he advocated putting a kid into a situation where he HAS to be tough, because people are watching. A situation where, as Coach Kramer says, he’s “pressured into hitting or stepping aside.”
“We believe very strongly that one of our major responsibilities as a coaching staff is to create an atmosphere in our practice sessions which will encourage intensity of execution and hitting. For young players this can best be accomplished in one-on-one situations where the player is pressured into hitting or stepping aside. There is no way to blame someone else or make the excuse that he did not hear a defensive call. We like to run these drills with many players watching so as to increase the intensity.”*********** I know this sounds like it's April Fools, but it's actually serious...
A new bill introduced Monday in the House of Representatives would “create the American College Sports Association” to “replace the NCAA."
A brief descripion of it actually reads as if it could have been drafted by Bernie Sanders, but he's a senator.
This new organization, the ACSA (“AXE-UH?”) would “have a commissioner appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate,” and this commissioner would serve at least one four-year term.
If you’ve watched any of the cabinet confirmation hearings (or, better yet, a Supreme Court nomination hearing) designed to get the “advice and consent of the senate,” you have to wonder what poor bastard would want to subject himself (or - don’t rule this out) herself to it. If you think that college presidents can’t be trusted with selecting the executive director of the NCAA, wait till you see what happens when senators get involved in selecting the commissioner of the ACSA.
The bill calls for “NIL funds and revenue directly shared with the schools to be distributed ‘equally among all student athletes of such institutions within the ACSA.‘”
That sort of sounds to me like field hockey bench warmers would be paid the same as starting quarterbacks. Good luck with that one. You don’t suppose schools might consider discontinuing “minor” sports, do you? Or paying starting quarterbacks under the table? Or both?
Broadcast revenue also would “need to be distributed equally.”
Uh, does that mean “within a conference?” Or within a school’s athletic department? Or within a team?
Conferences would “need to include teams within the same time zone, with travel and academic concerns cited as reasons.”
So Florida (Eastern Time Zone) couldn’t be in the same conference with LSU (Central)? Will Utah, BYU and Colorado have to scrape up enough teams to form a Mountain Time Zone Conference? Will the Pac-12 be back in business? Cool.
Coaches' salaries would be capped. Here’s what’s suggested: “Ten times the full cost of attendance at such institution.’”
Best thing that ever happened to private schools.
Want to coach at a Power 4 state school? The total cost of attendance for an out-of-state student is around $40,000-50,000
How about at a private college? At Boston College, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, USC, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest - it starts at $90,000. At Syracuse, it’s only slightly lower, at around $85,000.
Somehow, considering how many Congressmen, who “serve the public” for a measly $174,000 a year, have net worths well into the millions, I have a feeling that boosters at low-cost schools will figure out ways to enrich their coaches well beyond any government-imposed salary caps.
“Hey, Coach - Roger, here, will write your life story. We figure an initial press run of, oh, couple hundred thousand books. We’ll buy ‘em all from you and hand ‘em out at games.”
*********** My son’s been visiting from Australia and of course we’ve watched some UFL games. He’s been very impressed with the production, especially by ESPN. Like me, he likes the on-the-spot reviews, and he likes the sideline interviews (when done by male interviewers who ask intelligent questions).
It really is a lipstick-on-a-pig situation, because they’ve taken a product that really sucks and put it in a very snazzy package.
My two biggest bones to pick with the UFL are:
1. They shouldn’t try to play a game that’s so easily compared with the NFL, because by comparison the UFL looks sandlottish.
2. They have GOT to crack down on the play in the secondary, where the pass interference is blatant and rampant. You can’t convince me that there are many people who tune in a game because they want to see incompletions and interceptions caused by great play in the secondary - much less flagrant pass interference.
*********** This is the kind of thing that comes like bolt out of the blue and makes your day…
A coach contacted me, saying that he had lost his original “Dynamics of the Double Wing” video and wondering whether I could still sell him one. I got back to him, and then he wrote me…
Coach,
I want to relate to you a DW success story and why I want that original disc.
In 2011 I had been volunteer coaching for about 3 years. I had gotten interested in the Air Raid through Tony Franklin in 2008. I started soaking up as much football as I could. Your original disc was one of my first offensive resources. I studied it over and over. So in 2011 I got a gig coaching OL at a small private school. The smallest 11 man football in the State of Alabama. I arrived to find out we were trying to run spread air raid. (Great, I love Air Raid) I did the best I could. We were horrible. We had something like 15 turnovers in the first three games. 5 interceptions in our 3rd game. And of course an 0-3 start. The HC was more of a facilitator than an actual coach. The OC was a real coach, and we had a couple of other guys that had some youth coaching experience. After the 3rd loss the HC said "We probably need to try something different". The OC and I both almost at the same time said "I have an idea". And we both suggested Double Wing, and the OC and I both spoke your language, and we installed 88 Power, Counter, Wedge, Counter XX, and a couple of play action passes in one week. The confusion on the defense of the team we faced the next week was hilarious. We managed to win 3 of our final 7 games that season. We took that offense, and morphed it into a shotgun spread version of the Wyatt DW in the off season. The 2012 season we went 13-1 and won the AISA 1A State Championship.
I always hoped I would get a chance to tell you about that!
Thanks again!
James Ransom
Birmingham, Alabama
*********** Hugh,
Coach Mike Lude reminded me of just how difficult moving cross-country into a new home can be. When I was hired as the DC at Sonoma State in 1984 I thought at that period of time in my young coaching career that I had just hit the mother lode of jobs. That thought was reinforced when we moved into what appeared to be a nice home on a golf course! Life was good! But the word "Appeared" was the operative word here. Within six months we dealt with a leaky roof, mold, mildew, and mushrooms growing inside the house, and the coup d gras...a family of skunks made a den under our house. I would go to the office early to shower and desperately rid myself of that odor! But when the other coaches arrived they would always ask, "what's that SMELL??" I called it "Eau De Le Pew."
Watched the NCAA basketball championship. Ugh. Now I know why I don't watch much basketball anymore. Helter Skelter would be an appropriate description of what I saw.
So good to hear that John Irion is doing well. I met John at a DW clinic in East Texas where I was a guest speaker. Coincidentally it was hosted by the same coaching friend of mine I wrote about last week who is now the AD/HC at a small 2A school in Central Texas. I have no doubt that John will put together another solid program. Good Luck John!
Sorry, but if I'm a college HC, and a kid like Finley showed up at my door after playing at four other schools my red flags and alarm bells would be flashing and blaring loudly. With his size and numbers WHY does this kid keep moving around?
I LOVE the QB Counter out of the DW. I even ran it without pulling ANY linemen! I used my B Back to kick out and C back to Lead. Had my O Linemen all reach block the opposite direction of the play. Talk about a key breaker!!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Oliver Luck grew up in Cleveland and was a standout quarterback at perennial Ohio powerhouse St. Ignatius High School.
At West Virginia, he was a three-year starter at QB, and set school career records for pass attempts, completions and touchdown passes, and ranks second in passing yardage. He still holds the school single-game record with 34 completions in a 27-24 loss at Syracuse in 1981.
His junior year was Hall of Fame coach Don Nehlen’s first at WVU, and the Mountaineers’ 6-6 record ended a five-year streak of losing seasons. In his senior year, WVU went 9-3 and beat Florida in the Peach Bowl.
He was named the team MVP in both his junior and senior years.
He was also a 4.0 student in history, a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, a National Football Foundation Scholar and a two-time Academic All-American. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude (with great honor) in 1982.
Taken in the second round of the NFL draft by the Houston Oilers, he served as a backup quarterback - mostly behind Warren Moon - for five years while earning his law degree at the University of Texas.
After accepting a fellowship to study the European Union and its legal system in Germany, he returned to West Virginia and ran for Congress. Running as a Republican, he was defeated by a Democrat incumbent running for his fourth term in the seat previously held by his father for 16 terms.
In 1991, he was general manager of the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League of American Football until the league suspended operations after two seasons. When the league resumed play in 1995, he became general manager of the Rhein Fire, playing in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a year later he was named league president. He held that position for four years, during which time the WLAF was rebranded as NFL Europe.
In 2001 he returned to the States as CEO of the Houston Sports Authority, created to provide the financing, construction and management oversight of Minute Maid Park, NRG Stadium and the Toyota Center. In 2005, he was named president of Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamos, helping lead the team to MLS Cup titles in his first two years on the job.
In 2008 he was appointed to the West Virginia University Board of Governors by Governor Joe Manchin, himself a former WVU quarterback, and in 2010 he was named the school’s athletics director.
During his time as the Mountaineers’ AD, West Virginia moved from the Big East to the Big 12.
In 2013, he was selected to be one of the 13 members of the first College Football Playoff Selection Committee.
In 2014, he left WVU to join the NCAA in the newly created position of executive vice president for regulatory affairs.
In 2018, he was named Commissioner and CEO of the XFL. Although the XFL got off to what it termed “the best launch of a new sports league in the last 30 years," it was forced because of the pandemic to suspend play, and our guy was fired by XFL owner Vince McMahon five months later.
Since January, 2023 he has served as executive director of the FCS football-only ASUN-WAC Football Conference.
Oliver Luck and his wife are the parents of four children, one of whom, Andrew, was an All-American quarterback at Stanford and was selected number one overall by the Indianapolis Colts in the 2012 NFL draft. (Now retired as a player, Andrew Luck serves as General Manager of the Stanford football program.)
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING OLIVER LUCK
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Rothwell - Corpus Christi, Texas
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Bremer - West Seneca, New York
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Tom Davis San Marcos, California
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
*********** QUIZ: He was a three-sport star at Clarence (New York) Central High and as a senior was named Best All-Around Athlete in Western New York by the Buffalo Courier-Express.
At Colgate he was captain of the Red Raiders football squad, and earned All-Eastern College Athletic Conference honors as a defensive back.
Although he had an opportunity to play professional baseball, he chose instead to sign as an undrafted free agent with the Washington Redskins, then coached by the legendary George Allen.
His size (6-4, 210) and his hard-hitting quickly earned him a spot in the secondary, and he wound up starring there for eight seasons.
In his fourth year, Joe Gibbs took over as the Skins’ head coach. Seeing leadership qualities in him, Gibbs made him team captain, a position in which he served for the remainder of his career, and with his leadership, the Redskins went to back-to-back Super Bowls, winning one of them.
“Made all the calls,” recalled Gibbs. “Got everybody in the right position. “He’s the player who was too smart for me to coach.”
In 1983, he led the NFL with nine interceptions, and was a consensus All-Pro selection.
He was named one of the Redskins’ 70 best players, and was a member of their 50th Anniversary Team.
His leadership role had its costs. As the Redskins’ player representative to the NFLPA, his part in the union’s 1982 strike action won him no friends among management.
But when his time came to move on, he was ready. Having taken evening classes during the seasons and studying full-time in the off-seasons, he earned an MBA in finance from American University, and then a law degree from Georgetown University.
As assistant executive director of the NFLPA, he served on the union’s bargaining team during the 1987 strike.
In 1989, he started work as a trial lawyer at the Department of Justice, and in 1992 he returned to Colgate as its Athletic Director. He spent 11 years there, and oversaw the rebuilding of the football program to three straight FCS (then called I-AA) playoffs from 1997-1999.
From Colgate he moved to Northwestern, where he served as AD for four years. During his term there, the Wildcat football team won two bowl games; prior to his arrival they had won only four in their entire history.
In January, 2008, he became President of the Green Bay Packers. Given the Packers’ position as the only publicly-owned NFL team, he assumed all the powers of an owner.
By any measure his tenure would have to be considered successful.
On the field, one of his first orders of business was managing the amazingly smooth transition from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers and then, 15 years later, doing much the same thing when Rodgers left for New York and Jordan Love moved right in as his successor.
In his 17 years as President, the Packers have made the playoffs 13 times. They have made it to the NFC Championship Game five times, and they’ve won one Super Bowl.
The Pack’s overall record during his time is 173-101 -2, 12-12 in the playoffs.
As a remarkable example of the stability he brought to the Packers, in his 15 years as President, he has had to hire only one coach - Matt LaFleur.
Off the field, he has overseen extensive renovations of Lambeau Field, along with an effort to develop the area around the stadium into a year-round tourist destination called “Titletown.”
In July 2022, he announced that he would retire on July 13, 2025, his 70th birthday.
And in a culmination of years of effort on his part, and partly in recognition of his efforts, this spring’s NFL draft will be held in Green Bay.
As the only chief executive of a Super Bowl winner to have also played on one, he was asked by a Washington journalist to compare the two experiences:
“I think as an executive, or in my position with the Packers, I have a much greater appreciation of how difficult it is to win a Super Bowl. I don't think it's just because I'm 30 years older. But I think when you're a player, it's a little bit of, you take things for granted. I think you also don't really have an understanding of how many people contribute to getting a team to that point. But now in my position, I have such a great appreciation for the coaches, the trainers, everybody in our administration. So many people contribute to it.”
TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2025 “The real opponent is yourself.
You must play the best you can play regardless of your
opposition.” Bud Wilkinson*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Getting my family moved from Colorado and settled down posed a more perplexing and, at first, odorous assignment. My wife, Rena, had made a passing comment that perhaps it would be nice to find a house on a lake. We had always enjoyed her parents’ lake house back in Michigan.
There were two lakes just outside of Kent and Bob Wilbur, a college booster who was a real estate broker as well as owner of a hotel and restaurant, heard about a listing on East Twin Lake. We went to check it out.
We opened the door and the stench knocked us over. There were animal feces all over. The doors and window sills had been chewed and scratched. A bunch of dogs and cats had been kept inside the house for some time while the woman who owned the house was gone indefinitely. The people who were supposed to care for the animals apparently just threw food in, but nobody let the animals out so they had done their bathroom duties inside the house. It was a mess.
But the house was a great buy, if we could just clean it up and get rid of the overpowering stink before my family arrived. Wilbur put a cleaning crew to work the next day and progress was being made, but the place still smelled. He also had a carpenter doing major refinishing work.
Before Thanksgiving, Rena and the girls came out to join me from Denver and checked into the hotel suite where I had been staying. I told them do not go out to the house; the cleaning job had not been finished. No, I didn’t tell them what a stinking mess it had been.
When I came back from the office that night about 6:30 or 7 o’clock, Rena and the girls were sitting in the middle of the floor, and all of them were sobbing. They had ignored my advice and decided they just had to go check out the place where they’d be living.
Rena just glared at me and said, “Mike, how could you put us in that shithouse? “
In just a few days the cleanup was complete, and we moved in Thanksgiving Day. The house had been completely transformed, and it turned out to be a great home for us. It was perfect for entertaining and ideal for gatherings of the soon-to-be-organized Kent State University Blue and Gold Club boosters organization.
*********** I was greatly disappointed by Duke’s loss. I really enjoyed watching that team play, and I have a tough time dealing with the fact that it’s over.
If sports really serve as a microcosm of life, then the over-and-done-with nature of today’s college sports seasons is a great scaled-down version of the transitory nature of our time on earth. Poof. It’s over. See you next year. (Or at least until we run out of rubes willing to donate their hard-earned money to pay professional athletes posing as college students.)
Not to take anything from Houston and its incredible comeback, or its coach, Kelvin Sampson, a Lumbee Indian from North Carolina - but any time a team comes from behind as the Cougars did, there’s the parallel story of its opponent’s simultaneous collapse. And collapse, Duke did.
I could never have coached basketball. I couldn’t coach a sport so hung up on the importance of personal stats, and I couldn’t coach a sport whose rules are so flagrantly flouted by players and coaches - and so inconsistently enforced by officials.
So I’m not in the best position to criticize the Duke coaching.
But… I sure as hell know that if it had been football and I had been coaching Duke, and I was leading Houston by 14 with under ten minutes to play, I’d be playing ball-control-squared. If I were at all aggressive, I’d temper the aggressiveness with prudence, I’d squeeze every second possible out of every play, and I’d make sure never to commit a turnover or a stupid penalty.
And - okay, okay, here I go criticizing the basketball coaching after all - I’d sure as hell, with five players on the floor pulling down millions of dollars in NIL, be able to get the ball in bounds from under the basket.
*********** Basically - John Irion, who’s been extremely successful in upstate New York (having won a state championship in Central Square and then, at Queensbury, earning a spot in their hall of fame), has been named head coach of the three-school combine of Warrensburg-Lake George-Bolton.
This will be unique challenge. The 2024 team was 8-0, outscoring its opponents 329-34 when a hazing incident caused the three school districts to put an end to what could very well have been a state championship season.
*********** It turns out that the relationship between Andrew Luck and Frank Reich runs even deeper than that of a quarterback and his coach.
It seems that after Luck and his wife were married in the Czech Republic, it was necessary for legal reasons for them also to be married in America, so Luck called in Reich, an ordained minister, to officiate.
Now, with Reich as their head coach, Stanford finished its first week of spring practices.
When asked, Reich said that on offense, his play-calling could best be described as “measured aggressiveness.”
And then he quoted a biblical passage (Ecclesiastes 7:16, I’m told):
“We understand a man of wisdom avoids all extremes.”
*********** John Canzano on spring games…
Q: Do you think it's risky for Oregon State to host the annual spring football game? Poaching and whatnot.
A: I suspect all fear-mongering about spring games and poaching is overblown. I’m not convinced the primary reason some schools are canceling them has to do with being scouted by competitors.
Coaches are more reluctant than ever to publicly mention players by name in interviews I do. This happened in conjunction with the introduction of the portal. Coaches are very mindful of leaving someone out when talking about a position group or having a backup hear that they were not mentioned as a “key player” in the interview, and then jump in the transfer portal.
Spring games sometimes cause injuries. There’s a chance opposing teams may scout, sure. Risk is part of the game here. But playing time and scrimmage flow also indicate how coaches view players on the depth chart, and some players leave the scrimmages frustrated, and with agents and family members in their ears. I wonder if those things cause more transferring than anything else.
*********** More John Canzano…
Keep an eye on Congressman Michael Baumgartner, who hails from the state of Washington. The freshman lawmaker is focused on legislative work in Washington, D.C. aimed at leveling the playing field in college athletics.
Baumgartner, you may recall, was tight with late football coach, Mike Leach. They taught a college course together on “insurgent warfare and football strategy.” The lawmaker is talking about ending the NCAA and creating a new entity led by a Presidential appointee.
He’s suggesting that college athletes should share pooled NIL distributions and that TV revenue should shared equally “across all schools and all sports.” Baumgartner wants to protect Olympic sports and said that participation in the model should be “voluntary” for schools wishing to continue to be eligible for federal student financial aid, the lifeblood of campus.
Said Baumgartner: “We don’t need a second NFL, controlled by corporate TV execs with all of the money going to football in the SEC and Big Ten.”
Hmmm. That's true, but we sure don’t need a Federal Bureau of Football.
*********** Tulane has suspended transfer QB T. J. Finley after he was arrested and charged with stealing a car.
Finley’s lawyers claim that he bought the car online, not knowing that it was stolen.
I do have to wonder why a store-boughten QB had to go online to buy a car, but we’ll find out.
Meanwhile, get this: Finley spent last season at Western Kentucky — where an ankle injury cut into his playing time. Before that, he had stops at LSU, Auburn and Texas State.
For what it’s worth, Tulane will be his fifth school (in four years).
*********** What Amazon says about “The Forgettables”…This is the unforgettable, bittersweet portrait of a minor league football team in the heartland of America—Pottstown, Pa. The legendary Pottstown Firebirds, led by the zany quarterback Jim "King" Corcoran, coached by the crafty Dave DiFilippo, and owned by underwear tycoon Ed Gruber, would put together a championship season like no other.
What noted critic Hugh Wyatt says… This book is a classic. It’s an up-close look at the comings and goings of the Pottstown Firebirds, one of the best non-NFL pro football teams ever assembled. It’s written by a guy who spent a championship season embedded with the team. In my eight years in the minor leagues of football, I got to play and coach with and against many of the people in the book, and I can vouch for its authenticity.
Amazon still has it in paperback for $19.99. Considering what the entertainment dollar buys you these days, that’s pretty cheap. If you’re looking for an interesting, entertaining, full-of-football read (not to mention a slice of true football history) it’ll be the best $19.99 you’ve ever spent. (No, I’m not paid by Amazon)
*********** Q. How do you run a Double-Wing QB Counter?
A. There are several ways. Here are two of my favorites.
The Top diagram shows it done without motion. It could be done as a draw. The QB takes a step back at 5 o’clock with his right foot as if to hand off to the B Back. He gathers his feet and then turns quickly and sharply 180 degrees to the left and follows his tackle through the hole. The A back stalks or runs the corner off (setting up a nice pass to him off this action). Optional - the C back can come around into pitch relationship. Use your imagination.
The second diagram, like so many of our plays, comes off Rip 88-reach action - a base play for me. The QB takes the first 2 steps of 88 and then turns back to the left. This full spin is important for two reasons: (1) If he simply turns to the right, he will wind up deeper than we want him to be, and farther from his blockers; (2) If he simply turns to the right, he will start doing it without faking and it will take you forever to finally get him to make a convincing fake!
If my purpose is to give my QB a counter, I would prefer the top one. The bottom play is the way I already teach the wingback counter, and I don’t normally see any need to run that same play with two different backs.
*********** Hugh,
The NCAA has placed a cap on roster size for football. 105, all of who can receive scholarships, and which seriously reduces the opportunities for walk-ons.
Watch the number of “club” teams grow now, and many at the “big-time” schools.
Why? Practice squads of course, and oh btw those “club” teams would also have their own 8-10 game schedules against other club teams. The “club” teams will come under the umbrella of IM-Rec, but will be informally guided by GA’s utilizing the varsity teams’ system.
This will either make club football more interesting, or provide better athletes at the JC, D2, and D3 levels, or kill college football altogether.
Your thoughts??
Joe Gutilla
Joe,
At first glance, of course, I don’t like the idea of the cap on roster size.
But without an absolute cap - one that’s easily enforced - I think that there are way too many ways around a limit on scholarships without placing a limit on the bodies actually on the field.
I just know that NIL - paid for by someone other than the school itself - would be found to pay the bills for those “unscholarshipped” kids.
And unfortunately, the only way to prevent the sort of stockpiling that would take place is an absolute limit.
I can see the start of club football at more schools, and I’m in favor of it, but I don’t see a kid who might have been good enough to be a preferred walk-on at, say, Florida sticking around and playing club football.
I suppose there is the possibility that an SEC or Big Ten team could keep a bunch of guys on the payroll as a “club” team but I don’t see the kind of athlete that can play at that level being willing to hang around and play on the “farm team.”
I can definitely see those kids taking scholarships at lower-classification schools, figuring that a successful season can lead back to a bigger school.
Actually, I'm afraid that we’re creating such a pay-for-play culture that there may not be as many people as we think who just want to play club football out of love for the game.
*********** Thank you for all you continue to do for the game of football. I throughly enjoy the Vimeo thread.
A former assistant of mine, Chris Soth, is doing a bang up job coaching Middle school football in Washington. They went 5-0 last year. Classic Double Wing.
If you would allow, Chris would like to be included on your zoom lessons.
Update: Because you love Army football, I had mentioned to you that one of my players, Pat Work, was captain of the team some time back. He received his 2nd Star and is now the Commander of the 82nd Airborne. Football and leadership still go hand in hand.
Blessings,
Ron Myers
Watsonville, California
*********** The accounts of Frank Reich were refreshing. Young Luck hit a homer. I hope the Cardinal have their best season in a decade.
Several posters beat me in complimenting you for demonstrating how your views on the DW and OW have developed since the last century. I look forward to the continuation of the series.
Pete H. does throw a nice ball, although I think I could have done every bit as well until about three months ago.
The Tucker obit is beautiful. Loved it.
Here's my delayed comment on GEN Schwarzkopf's lead-in a couple issues ago. I sure hope it was original, because it shows a fine mind at work.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
(“Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion.” General Norman Schwarzkopf)
*********** Hugh,
Thanks again for sharing the links to your Tuesday clinics. Thoroughly enjoyed the last two.
Speaking of the DW/Open Wing...A coaching friend of mine who successfully ran the DW down here and played for TWO state championships in Class 3A was just hired as the AD/HC at a struggling rural Class 2A school in Central Texas. He indicated to me after taking his former school to another state championship game this past year with a spread offense that he is considering going back to ground and pound at his new school. I asked him why he went to "the dark side" in the first place and he said it had more to do with keeping athletes out for football more than anything else. He told me he is strongly considering going back to DW at his new school, but that he inherits a pretty good QB. I told him about your Open Wing concept.
The Black Lion Award was the most prestigious award I could give to my teams, and I made it very clear to the players, parents, and school that indeed it was the most important. If I was coaching again I would continue to do it the same way.
Maybe not a member of the "new" PAC 10 yet, but Sacramento State would certainly be a prime get for the Mountain West.
I wonder what all those ribbons and medals were for that the Naval Academy Sup was flashing on her uniform? I wonder how many were for meritorious combat service?
That West Virginia vs. Texas football game this year will be fun to watch!
Did you know that this is the FIRST time EVER that Notre Dame's DL averages OVER 300 pounds?
I wouldn't be surprised to see Stanford line up with a FB and some TE's this year.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Cleveland and was a standout quarterback at perennial Ohio powerhouse St. Ignatius High School.
At West Virginia, he was a three-year starter at QB, and set school career records for pass attempts, completions and touchdown passes, and ranks second in passing yardage. He still holds the school single-game record with 34 completions in a 27-24 loss at Syracuse in 1981.
His junior year was Hall of Fame coach Don Nehlen’s first at WVU, and the Mountaineers’ 6-6 record ended a five-year streak of losing seasons. In his senior year, WVU went 9-3 and beat Florida in the Peach Bowl.
He was named the team MVP in both his junior and senior years.
He was also a 4.0 student in history, a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, a National Football Foundation Scholar and a two-time Academic All-American. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude (with great honor) in 1982.
Taken in the second round of the NFL draft by the Houston Oilers, he served as a backup quarterback - mostly behind Warren Moon - for five years while earning his law degree at the University of Texas.
After accepting a fellowship to study the European Union and its legal system in Germany, he returned to West Virginia and ran for Congress. Running as a Republican, he was defeated by a Democrat incumbent running for his fourth term in the seat previously held by his father for 16 terms.
In 1991, he was general manager of the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League of American Football until the league suspended operations after two seasons. When the league resumed play in 1995, he became general manager of the Rhein Fire, playing in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a year later he was named league president. He held that position for four years, during which time the WLAF was rebranded as NFL Europe.
In 2001 he returned to the States as CEO of the Houston Sports Authority, created to provide the financing, construction and management oversight of Minute Maid Park, NRG Stadium and the Toyota Center. In 2005, he was named president of Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamos, helping lead the team to MLS Cup titles in his first two years on the job.
In 2008 he was appointed to the West Virginia University Board of Governors by Governor Joe Manchin, himself a former WVU quarterback, and in 2010 he was named the school’s athletics director.
During his time as the Mountaineers’ AD, West Virginia moved from the Big East to the Big 12.
In 2013, he was selected to be one of the 13 members of the first College Football Playoff Selection Committee.
In 2014, he left WVU to join the NCAA in the newly created position of executive vice president for regulatory affairs.
In 2018, he was named Commissioner and CEO of the XFL. Although the XFL got off to what it termed “the best launch of a new sports league in the last 30 years," it was forced because of the pandemic to suspend play, and our guy was fired by XFL owner Vince McMahon five months later.
Since January, 2023 he has served as executive director of the FCS football-only ASUN-WAC Football Conference.
He and his wife are the parents of four children, one of whom was an All-American quarterback at Stanford and was selected number one overall by the Indianapolis Colts in the 2012 NFL draft. (Now retired as a player, that son serves as general manager of the Stanford football program.)
FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2025 “Most
of the press couldn’t even say what the Education Department does and
yet all know, in its exact present form, we can’t live without it.”
Holman W Jenkins, Jr. - Wall Street Journal********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: We had a new stadium at Kent State with permanent concrete seating on one side and temporary bleachers on the other side. It seated 30,000, although they didn't need more than 3000 seats to handle Kent’s biggest crowds when we started. There were no offices for the coaches or for the staff of the new athletic department I was putting together. We took some of the rooms underneath the new stadium and compartmentalized the space for the football coaches.
My first working office was the president’s box in the press box. It was pretty basic, no heat and no frills. During games we would put a tablecloth over my desk when lunch was served to the president’s party. We also created office space in the stadium press box for two newly hired assistants and simply shifted furniture and covered desks with sheets on game days.
Those first hires were an assistant A.D. and a sports information Director and both were superstars. I knew that Dick Tamburo, an assistant football coach at Iowa, wanted to get into administration and I hired him as my number 2 person. Dick proved to be just what I needed. When I called David Price at the Western Athletic Conference office and told him I was looking for an SID, he said Eddie Mullins might be available.
Eddie had made a national reputation at the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) for his creative press releases which always featured one or more colorful similes. Describing a receiver’s talents, Eddie once wrote, "He has more moves than a can of worms.” After years as a student and sports publicist at UTEP, Mullins was ready to make a change, and when I called he said yes.
Mullins was a real pro and had good contacts in the media nationally as a result of his work at UTEP. He wanted to bring with him a kid named Jim Paul, who had impressed Eddie as a student assistant in El Paso. I agreed. From his start at Kent, Jim went on to become a well regarded baseball executive and at one point was athletic Director at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces.
This fledgling athletic staff established great camaraderie, as often happens when people work long and hard in difficult situations. Almost daily, about 6:30 PM, they would come up to my office, and we would go someplace to have a beer and talk over the day’s activities. Besides being my valued consultants, Tamburo and Mullins got involved in fundraising and putting on booster club events.
*********** I sure wish I could be there for this. Aquinas Institute, a Catholic High School in Rochester, is the alma mater of Don Holleder, whose unselfish leadership of his Army football team and subsequent heroic death in Vietnam inspired the Black Lion Award.
(The Black Lion Award is not necessarily for your best player - your MVP. Of course it could be - but it could also be your center, who’s never won an individual award in his life. It’s for “that player who best exemplifies the character of Don Holleder: leadership, courage, devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and - above all – an unselfish concern for his team ahead of himself.“
In short, it’s for the kind of kid that we all wish we had more of. They’re still out there - and we need to recognize them.
It still baffles me that coaches - youth and high school alike - pass on the chance to make the Black Lion Award a part of their program. But here I go again, urging (not begging) you to contact me and find out what’s entailed.
(There is NO CHARGE. It’s FREE. And since all of us like to brag about our best kids, all you have to do to nominate yours is put it in writing.)
Find out more. Email me: coachwyatt@aol.com
*********** Sacramento State just announced plans to file an application with the NCAA for permission to move from FCS to FBS in football by 2026. The plan is to do so as an independent, which also requires the NCAA’s approval.
The Hornets are planning to play FCS football in the Big Sky Conference for 2025 and then move up. If the move is approved, Sac State would be ineligible for postseason play in the FCS in 2025 and then in the FBS in 2026.
Hey, Pac-12. You need one more football team, right? You still screwing around with the likes of North Texas and Memphis?
Are you missing something? Something right under your nose?
First of all, there’s this: back in September, in announcing plans to build a “state of the art” stadium, Sac State’s president called it “a commitment to our belief that Sacramento has a spirit and passion to turn this city into a college football town. It will be a stadium worthy of Sacramento State's academic and athletic prowess, and it will also honor our position as one of the top media markets in the country. We are excited about what the future will bring and can't wait to open our new stadium.”
And then there’s this: Didn’t I just hear the Prez call Sacramento “One of the top media markets?”
Well, I‘ll be damned. The Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto TV market, with 1.459 million TV households, is Number 20 nationally.
That means it’s bigger than a lot of so-called “major league” markets, ones that have two or more of the major-four (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB) teams. It’s larger, for example, than Charlotte, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Baltimore, Kansas City, Cincinnati or Milwaukee.
And right now, although at the present time Sacramento is serving as the foster home of the A’s, all it really has is an NBA team. It does seem to me to be ripe for something, and with the right marketing and the right football program, that could very well be Sacramento State.
*********** I don’t know what kind of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is going to be, but he can throw a pass…
https://2paragraphs.com/2025/04/pentagon-cheers-pete-hegseths-ability-to-throw-a-football-thats-why-hes-americas-secdef/
*********** In kind of a reversal of the old marketing trick where you let people into an event for free so you can make money on concessions, Coastal Carolina has announced that once you’ve paid to get into a game, you can have all the popcorn, hot dogs, nachos, fountain drinks and bottled water you want - for free.
I don’t see how they’re going to avoid big losses - typically, they make $250,000 a game selling the food and drink - and it seems to me it’s going to be really tough to plan, especially if they have a big walk-up.
But it sure seems to me that they’ll have a lot of people bringing their kids, which may actually be their plan.
https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/article303245576.html
*********** The other day I came across a book that I hadn’t looked at in quite a while. It’s called “Take a Lap,” and it’s the story of a Seattle cop named Don Sprinkle and the powerful semi-pro teams he coached from 1944 through 1962.
Coaching first the Queen Anne (a section of Seattle) Boys Club, then the Rainier Beach (another section of Seattle) AC, and finally the powerful Seattle Ramblers, he compiled an overall record of 147-34-4.
The Ramblers, which he founded in 1948 and coached until his death in 1963, went 104-31-3, playing mostly Army and Air Force base teams and small colleges, including UBC (University of British Columbia), Pacific University, College of Idaho, Central Washington, Pacific Lutheran, Puget Sound, Lewis and Clark, Oregon Tech, Eastern Oregon, Southern Oregon, Whitman, Humboldt State and Santa Clara.
They often played Canadian teams, and when they went north of the border, they’d use Canadian rules.
I thought of recommending it to readers, but first I though I should check it out on Amazon. Never mind. They want $120 for a copy.
*********** To be decided on by Washington’s high school association - the WIAA - in the next couple of weeks is a proposal to allow every high school athlete in the state one free transfer in his or her four-year high school career.
It’s been customary since I started coaching in Washington in 1980 for transferring to be discouraged by a WIAA rule stating basically that a kid’s high school was established by his ninth-grade enrollment. After that, the only way the kid could transfer schools and not be ineligible at the new school for a full year would be if his/her family actually moved into the new school’s district.
By and large, although there have been cases of certain schools’ boosters providing inducements (jobs, housing) to star athletes and their families to transfer in, the system has worked.
And, yes, there have been all sorts of sketchy workarounds, especially in and around the bigger cities - Seattle and Tacoma - where many school districts abut one another in a relatively small area, where housing situations can change abruptly, and where the definition of “family” is not always clear. In addition, in districts with more than one high school, it’s not uncommon for certain schools to be magnets for athletes to play certain sports.
But overall, it ain’t broke.
Still, this is Washington, where they say If it ain’t broke - break it.
Get this. The one-time penalty-free transfer would occur during a "WIAA defined window of transfer… Between the final day of school and the first day of turnouts for a WIAA fall sport.”
Sounds like a portal window to me. Sounds like a busy summer for the AAU basketball coaches and the 7-on-7 sharks.
But come on. What’s the worry? It’s only one free transfer. (Isn’t that what the NCAA said originally?)
*********** In a span of just 10 years - from 1946 through 1955 - one Oklahoma town of about 37,000 people produced five Sooner All-Americans:
Guard Buddy Burris 1946-7-8
Quarterback Eddie Crowder 1952
Center Kurt Burris 1954
Ed Max Boydston 1954
Guard Bo Bolinger 1955
The town was Muskogee.
And Buddy and Kurt Burris had three more brothers who starred for the Sooners.
*********** This is the Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy.
Think that doesn't keep the Chinese awake at night?
*********** Colorado and Syracuse will not get to play that spring football game as they’d hoped. The NCAA denied their request (to hold joint practices and a scrimmage), citing concerns about “competitive advantages, academic impact, and the late timing” of the request. However, the NCAA did indicate that it might consider allowing future joint spring practices.
(They’re just trying to figure out how they can grab some of the money, the way some state associations allow their high schools to play an extra game, provided the gate receipts go to the state.)
*********** It didn’t surprise me that the NFL stopped short of outlawing the tush push play made famous by the Eagles. It takes 24 of the 32 teams to pass or change a rule and despite the fact that only Philadelphia and Buffalo have been able to employ the play with a resemble amount of success, there’s undoubtedly other coaches out there that are holding back because they still harbor the belief that they might be able to make it work at their place, too!
Knowing what I know about coaches, I suspect that deep down every coach thinks that he might be the one who can do something that nobody else in the history of the game has ever been able to do. I do not exclude myself from that group.
********** Kirby Smart, telling college football analyst Josh Pate what he misses most from the good old pre-NIL, pre-portal days:
"I would say I long for knowing that regardless of how we coach a kid, they're going to be here the whole time. Because of the success they get and the reward I saw kids get for sticking through."
*********** There are times when an April Fools joke crosses the line into cruelty. This was such a time.
As you may know, Neal Brown WAS West Virginia’s head coach until after this past season, when he was fired and replaced by one-time WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez. Neal Brown has NOT been hired by Rich Rodriguez. In actuality, he is now an assistant at Texas.
Hahaha. Very funny. I’m thinking that Mister Funny Guy has never known what it's like to be fired.
*********** You may or may not like Tucker Carlson, but you can’t deny that his father’s story is an amazing example of what was once possible in America - and needs to be once again.
Obituary for my father.
Richard Warner Carlson died at 84 on March 24, 2025 at home in Boca Grande, Florida after six weeks of illness. He refused all painkillers to the end and left this world with dignity and clarity, holding the hands of his children with his dogs at his feet.
He was born February 10, 1941 at Massachusetts General Hospital to a 15-year-old Swedish-speaking girl and placed in the Home for Little Wanderers in Boston, where he developed rickets from malnutrition. His legs were bent for the rest of his life. After years in foster homes, he was placed with the Carlson family in Norwood, Mass. His adoptive father, a tannery manager, died when he was 12 and he stopped attending school regularly. At 17, he was jailed for car theft, thrown out of high school for the second time, and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.
In 1962, in search of adventure, he drove to California. He spent a year as a merchant seaman on the SS Washington Bear, transporting cargo to ports in the Orient, and then became a reporter. Over the next decade, he was a copy boy at the LA Times, a wire service reporter for UPI and an investigative reporter and anchor for ABC News, covering the upheaval of the period. He knew virtually every compelling figure of the time, including Jim Jones, Patty Hearst, Eric Hoffer, Jerry Garcia, as well as Mafia leaders and members of the Manson Family. In 1965, he was badly injured reporting from the Watts riots in Los Angeles.
By 1975, he was married with two small boys, when his wife departed for Europe and didn’t return. He threw himself into raising his boys, whom he often brought with him on reporting trips. At home, he educated them during three-hour dinners on topics that ranged from the French Revolution to Bolshevik Russia, PG Wodehouse, the history of the American Indian and, always, the eternal and unchanging nature of people. He was a free thinker and a compulsive book reader, including at red lights. He left a library of thousands of books, most dog-eared and filled with marginalia. His reading and life experiences convinced him that God is real. He had an outlaw spirit tempered by decency.
In 1979, he married the love of his life, Patricia Swanson. They were together for 44 years, all of them happy. She died sixteen months before he did and he mourned her every day.
In 1985, he moved to Washington to work for the Reagan Administration. He spent five years as the director of the Voice of America, and then moved to the Seychelles as the US ambassador. In 1992, he became the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and later ran a division of King World television.
The last 25 years of his life were spent in work whose details were never completely clear to his family, but that was clearly interesting. He worked in dozens of countries and breakaway republics around the world, and was involved in countless intrigues. He knew a number of colorful national leaders, including Rafic Hariri of Lebanon, Aslan Abashidze of Adjara, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and whomever runs Somaliland. He was a fundamentally nonjudgmental person who was impossible to shock, and he described them all with amused affection.
He spoke to his sons every day and had lunch with them once a week for thirty years at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, always prefaced by a dice game. Throughout his life he fervently loved dogs.
Richard W. Carlson is survived by his sons, Tucker and Buckley, his beloved daughter-in-law Susie, and five grandchildren. He was the toughest human being anyone in his family ever knew, and also the kindest and most loyal. RIP.
*********** Great Zoom last night. Seeing the evolution of the DW is interesting and produces a lot of ideas.
Thanks, John Bothe
Oregon, Illinois
*********** Hi Hugh,
Great Zoom this week on DW changes and being an old fart just loved all the DW stuff. I do like the “Open Wing” but in my heart will always be a true DW guy. Four takeaways from this week for me and things we actually did with our offense were the 43 Tackle Trap Draw, 2Wedge Reverse, squared up wings, and the punch step to the hockey stick Qb roll out. All were very successful for us and won our first state championship with the 43tackle Trap Draw. Third and 12 from spread and the draw went for a touch down and the winning score.
This is a terrific step and with our ages I worry that so much of this knowledge will be lost. Oh well as they say in Maine time and tide wait for no man. Great stuff Hugh and makes me wish I was coaching again!
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
*********** Thanks coach this (Zoom) is fantastic stuff - I can’t wait to draw this stuff up. Do the blocking rules pretty much stay the same with the changes of formations?
Dan Chery
Worcester, Massachusetts
Coach, Glad you like it. Other than an outlier play here and there, I make it a hard and fast rule to avoid anything that requires major changes in our blocking up front.
*********** Hugh,
Truly disappointed in the UFL openers. I thought we would get to see some decent football. Nah! Maybe next week?
Won’t surprise me to see Andrew Luck hang onto Frank Reich.
QUIZ: Tim Murphy (Met him when he was interested in my QB while I was coaching in Minneapolis, until my QB decided to attend the Notre Dame camp. It was there I ran into Dan Allen who was HC at Holy Cross. I previously met Coach Allen when he was the HC at Boston University. One of my former players in CA ended up starting for Coach Allen at BU. Coach Allen found out my QB from Mpls was at the camp and he fell in love with him. My QB put Coach Murphy and Harvard in the rear view mirror and ended up at Holy Cross).
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: From 1957 through 2023 - 66 years - Harvard had only three head football coaches: John Yovicsin from 1957 through 1970; Joe Restic from 1971 through 1993; and Tim Murphy (shown above), who took over in 1994 and coached through the 2023 season.
Murphy played high school ball in the Boston suburbs, but as he told author John Feinstein in “The Ancient Eight,” "The thought that I would play college football never really crossed my mind until my senior year. To be honest, I was thinking I would enlist in the Marines.”
And then he began to hear from colleges. He chose Springfield College, where he started at linebacker for four years while majoring in business.
After graduation, he spent six years coaching the offensive line, first for two years at Brown, then for a year at Lafayette and then for three years at Boston U, when his boyhood pal Buddy Teevens was named offensive coordinator.
When Teevens became head coach at Maine, Murphy went along, now as offensive coordinator, and when Teevens moved on to Dartmouth after two years, our guy became head coach.
After two years at Maine, where he went 8-4 and 7-4, he was hired at Cincinnati, where at 32 be became the youngest FBS coach in the country. He struggled at first, going 1-9-1, 1-10, 4-7 and 3-8, until his fifth year, when the Bearcats went 8-3, the most wins in their history.
In the meantime, he had greatly improved the team’s graduation rate, which made him an attractive applicant at Harvard, where Joe Restic had announced his retirement after 23 years.
When the job was offered, he took it, even though it meant a 50 per cent cut in pay. One of the things that swayed him was his old pal, Buddy Teevens telling him how much he enjoyed coaching Ivy League players. Also, he told John Feinstein, “It just felt like a unique opportunity to me.” And then, there were the people on Harvard’s selection committee: “I remember thinking,' if these are the kind of people I'll be working for, this has to be a good job.'"
His first three teams underperformed. They went 4-6, 2-8 and 4–6, finishing 7th, 8th and 6th, respectively, in the eight-team Ivy League.
But in his fourth year, Harvard finished 9-1, and won its first Ivy League title in 10 years.
He was off and running. And when he was done, 30 years later, he had left quite a legacy:
• The winningest coach in Ivy League Football history
• Ivy League-record 10 conference championships
• Three undefeated seasons
• Ivy League-record 16-consecutive winning seasons from 2001-16
• 200-89 (.692) at Harvard, 224-132-1 (.629) overall (Maine, Cincinnati, Harvard)
• 141-65 (.684) Ivy League record
• 19-10 (.655) against Yale
• All-time record nine-straight wins over Yale (2007-15)
• Eight-time New England Coach of the Year (One year at Maine, seven at Harvard - Led Maine to the 1987 Yankee Conference championship/First FCS playoffs appearance in history)
• Five-time finalist for Eddie Robinson Award for the top coach in FCS
• More than of his 30 Harvard players signed NFL contracts
• Past President of American Football Coaches Association
• From 2001 through 2022, Harvard (159-50 - .761) was sixth in winning percentage among all NCAA Football Division I schools: 159-50, .761; 1. Ohio State, 2. Boise State, 3. Alabama, 4. Oklahoma, 5. Georgia, 6. Harvard
And then, after an 8-2 2023 season, Tim Murphy announced his retirement. He’d thought about it a lot. Even though he was nearing 70, he felt he had something left in the tank. But the death - during the season - of his boyhood friend Buddy Teevens, who had been grievously injured when riding his bike in Florida the previous spring, played a role in his decision.
"He was my best friend for almost 55 years. We even talked about going out together when it was time,” he told John Feinstein. “Of course we never dreamed it would end this way.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TIM MURPHY
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Bremer - West Seneca, New York
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Cleveland and was a standout quarterback at perennial Ohio powerhouse St. Ignatius High School.
At West Virginia, he was a three-year starter at QB, and set school career records for pass attempts, completions and touchdown passes, and ranks second in passing yardage. He still holds the school single-game record with 34 completions in a 27-24 loss at Syracuse in 1981.
His junior year was Hall of Fame coach Don Nehlen’s first at WVU, and the Mountaineers’ 6-6 record ended a five-year streak of losing seasons. In his senior year, WVU went 9-3 and beat Florida in the Peach Bowl.
He was named the team MVP in both his junior and senior years.
He was also a 4.0 student in history, a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, a National Football Foundation Scholar and a two-time Academic All-American. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude (with great honor) in 1982.
Taken in the second round of the NFL draft by the Houston Oilers, he served as a backup quarterback - mostly behind Warren Moon - for five years while earning his law degree at the University of Texas.
After accepting a fellowship to study the European Union and its legal system in Germany, he returned to West Virginia and ran for Congress. Running as a Republican, he was defeated by a Democrat incumbent running for his fourth term in the seat previously held by his father for 16 terms.
In 1991, he was general manager of the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League of American Football until the league suspended operations after two seasons. When the league resumed play in 1995, he became general manager of the Rhein Fire, playing in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a year later he was named league president. He held that position for four years, during which time the WLAF was rebranded as NFL Europe.
In 2001 he returned to the States as CEO of the Houston Sports Authority, created to provide the financing, construction and management oversight of Minute Maid Park, NRG Stadium and the Toyota Center. In 2005, he was named president of Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamos, helping lead the team to MLS Cup titles in his first two years on the job.
In 2008 he was appointed to the West Virginia University Board of Governors by Governor Joe Manchin, himself a former WVU quarterback, and in 2010 he was named the school’s athletics director.
During his time as the Mountaineers’ AD, West Virginia moved from the Big East to the Big 12.
In 2013, he was selected to be one of the 13 members of the first College Football Playoff Selection Committee.
In 2014, he left WVU to join the NCAA in the newly created position of executive vice president for regulatory affairs.
In 2018, he was named Commissioner and CEO of the XFL. Although the XFL got off to what it termed “the best launch of a new sports league in the last 30 years," it was forced because of the pandemic to suspend play, and our guy was fired by XFL owner Vince McMahon five months later.
Since January, 2023 he has served as executive director of the FCS football-only ASUN-WAC Football Conference.
He and his wife are the parents of four children, one of whom was an All-American quarterback at Stanford and was selected number one overall by the Indianapolis Colts in the 2012 NFL draft. (Now retired as a player, that son serves as general manager of the Stanford football program.)
TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2025 “Spend
each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke
up.”
Warren Buffett’s closest associate, Charlie Munger, in “Poor Charlie’s
Almanack”*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I spent a lot of time in the early weeks with Carl Erickson, dean of the PE department, who had run the athletic department, picking his brain about the inner workings of the program, going over personnel, interviewing and interrogating him in every way. Before I had time to give much thought to the coaching staff, Dave Puddington, the head football coach, volunteered to quit if I wanted to bring in my own man. I wasn't anxious to make a change with just a few games remaining in the season. But the second time he came to my hotel with his letter of resignation – after a late-season defeat – I agreed. His departure was announced after the final game of the 1971 season.
The news traveled rapidly. A day later I received a call from a Colorado assistant I had met in Boulder several months earlier. His name: Don James. I had in my briefcase a list of coaches I wanted to talk to about the possibility of being Kent State's new head coach. There were two guys from Wyoming but the name at the top of the list was Don James. He had superb regional ties, having played quarterback in Massillon, Ohio, home of a celebrated high school football program. The father of one of Don's good friends was Paul Brown, who became a pro football legend with the Cleveland Browns.
James had an impressive coaching background; he was an assistant at Florida State, Kansas and Michigan before becoming defensive coordinator at Colorado with Eddie Crowder. From a recruiting standpoint, Don had great credibility in northern Ohio.
I invited Don to visit. He wasn't concerned about the salary, which was very low; he was eager to become a head coach. I told him the job was his. Don stayed with Colorado through that team’s Liberty Bowl appearance, and then he and wife Carol and their three children moved back to Ohio.
*********** WOW! I never saw this coming, but I have to say that I am very impressed with Andrew Luck - first, for having acted quickly and decisively on behalf of Stanford and Stanford football, and second, for drawing on his personal experience and choosing his former head coach, Frank Reich, as Stanford’s interim head coach.
Actually, Luck and Reich only worked together in Indianapolis for one season - Reich’s first season there and, as it turned out, Luck’s last.
Going back to when I was eleven years old, I’ve had ties to the town where Frank Reich grew up - Lebanon, Pennsylvania - and I’ve followed Frank Reich for some time. I am a big fan of him as a coach, and as a man.
Two articles from Central Pennsylvania papers, from back in 2016 after he’d just been hired by the Eagles as their offensive coordinator, will give you a look at some reasons why I’m a fan…
Philadelphia Eagles OC Frank Reich still inspired by his Penn State father
By Frank Bodani, York (PA) Daily Record
The son keeps his Penn State football father with him always.
Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Frank Reich Jr. sees the black-and-white photo in his office each day because of everything his father meant to him.
In it, Frank Reich Sr. is frozen in full sprint in 1954, charging across scrimmage from his linebacker spot. His broken hand is in a cast. He's not wearing a face mask, just a chinstrap. He looks like "he's ready to tear somebody's head off" as he closes in on the Navy quarterback.
"Just a toughness," is how his son describes the image.
On the first anniversary of his death in March 2016, Reich choked up while talking about the man who taught him the game but never pushed him to play — the father who never gained the acclaim of his son or ever worried about it.
Frank Reich Sr. was raised in Steelton and learned from his own father who worked the mills, and never called in sick in 47 years. He would grow into an iron horse center and leader of the '54 Penn State team that may be the most eclectic and successful combination of players in school history. He blocked with Rosey Grier on the offensive line, opened running lanes for Lenny Moore and helped keep a rotating quarterback system on schedule. He was quiet, humble and unyielding.
He paid little attention to those six or seven concussions or that broken right hand, somehow snapping adeptly with his left. He also starred on defense and was one of the last Nittany Lions to play all 60 minutes of a game.
The thing is, he rarely talked about those days with his son. After college, Frank Reich Sr. was drafted by the Eagles, but like many players at the time, opted for a more stable and lucrative career. He chose teaching industrial arts and coaching high school football, eventually settling in Lebanon.
That's where Reich Jr. grew up. He was 10 or 11 when he rummaged through his parents' closets while they were away, discovering scrapbooks that detailed his father's career at Penn State.
"When he got home, I was like, 'Dad, what's up with this?' After he got done whipping my butt for what I did, he talked to me. 'Frank, I never wanted you to feel the pressure that you had to play football. If you want to play in the band, you be the best band member you can.' He never wanted me to have any pressure to live up to."
Rather, his lessons came simple and direct. Once, he had his young son move a dump truck load of dirt from one side of their backyard to the other by hand.
"It took all stinking day to do it. Every time I'd go inside to complain that it's too big of a job for one person, he'd say, 'One shovelful at a time, one wheelbarrow full at a time, and you can do more than you think.'"
When Reich Jr. reached Cedar Crest High, his father abruptly retired from coaching at Lebanon. He not only wanted time to watch his son play, but he also didn't want to create a stir by coaching against him.
"The cool thing was, my dad always said to me, 'Frank, you're going to be a better man, a better football player.' I had that ringing in my head a zillion times ...'"
Although he was never a high-profile star, Reich Jr. certainly had his moments quarterbacking Maryland and in the NFL for 13 seasons, most as a backup with the Buffalo Bills. His career still holds a trivia-question notoriety: He led, at one point, the greatest comebacks ever in college and NFL history. He transitioned into coaching, where's he now in charge of the Philadelphia Eagles offense.
It means everything to him that he works for the team that drafted his father. The team only 90 minutes from where he grew up.
"When I see parents today and how crazy they are with youth sports and the pressure, it makes me sick. I just had a different kind of experience. I would argue my experience ... allowed me to excel even further because I didn't have that pressure."
Frank Reich comes home to share faith
The Cedar Crest grad and new Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator returned to his hometown on Friday evening to speak at an event benefiting New Covenant Christian School
By Matt Catrillo, Lebanon Daily News
JONESTOWN – It’s been four years since Frank Reich has been stationed on the East Coast, let alone his native Pennsylvania. But now, he’s finally come home.
Four months after being hired as the new offensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles, the Lebanon native finally set foot back in his hometown, speaking at Lebanon Area Evangelical Free Church in Jonestown Friday in an event benefiting New Covenant Christian School.
“I love it. To be so close to Lebanon is great. The family has already been down a bunch to visit us and it’s easy to get back and forth,” Reich said. “I’ve reacquainted with a lot of old friends as well. It’s been great.”
But before being hired by the Eagles, Reich had already agreed to speak at the event.
“It worked out really well for us when he came to the Eagles since this is pretty much Eagles country,” said event coordinator Anne Hubbard. “It was a huge blessing since he’s from Cedar Crest and has a lot of local roots here. He was very excited about coming here. He’s wonderful to work with, and was so kind and gracious.”
Besides the local connection, New Covenant Christian invited Reich to speak because they were so intrigued with his deep faith.
“We love his faith in the Lord and the fact it’s the real deal for him,” Hubbard said. “There’s some people that say they’re Christian but lead their lives totally differently. He is what he says. He’s a great man and loves the Lord and he’s very passionate about it and having a relationship with God. That meant a lot to us because that’s what our school is all about.”
And Reich’s message to the small crowd, of course, tied together the two things that have made up his life – faith and football. Reich started by sharing what he told the Eagles offense the first day of their offseason workouts.
“I shared with them about what it means to be a pro,” Reich said, whose father was actually drafted by the Eagles in 1956. “That’s the greatest compliment you can get- this guy is a real pro.”
But it’s not the “Pro” most people would first think of. In fact, Reich broke down his meaning of the word “in an acronym.
First came the “P,” which meant to play with “Passion.”
“Passion is deeper and stronger than emotion. It’s connected to a purpose,” Reich said. “God created us with a purpose - to love Him and others. He created us with a purpose. God gave me a garden like Adam and Eve, which is the Eagles offense. I have to make things grow and bring the best in other people. Everyone created by God has that purpose.”
Next came the “R”- play with “Respect.”
“Respect the game, teammates, opponent, and officials,” Reich said. “Treat every person with dignity and respect.”
And finally came the “O”- Play to make the most of the “Opportunity.”
“Growth is not an option. It’s what we’re called to do,” Reich said. “Part of learning to grow is dealing with failure.”
If anyone has learned how to grow by dealing with failure, it’s Reich. Not only from his past as a player, such as the 52-17 loss in Super Bowl XXVII when he came in for the injured Jim Kelly and tied a Super Bowl record for most fumbles in the big game with three, but just several months ago when he was fired by the San Diego Chargers after two seasons as their offensive coordinator.
But as the night ended, Reich wanted one thing to stand out to everyone in attendance.
“The underlying message is no man becomes suddenly different from his habits and cherished thoughts,” he said. “That quote’s been on my desk since I was 23 or 24. I really believe that to be true. Given that's true, then what are the habits and what are the cherished thoughts we’re developing? If we can be disciplined to develop the right kind of habits and the right kind of thinking, then that just translates to every area of our life.”
The homecoming isn’t over yet for Reich, as tomorrow he’ll speak with the Lebanon Valley College football coaching staff, and will also speak at a fundraiser for the school.
“My parents were school teachers, so I’m passionate about education and Christian education takes it to a whole other level for me,” Reich said, who actually grew up a Steelers fan since his mother was from Pittsburgh. “So that’ll be exciting to talk there tomorrow (Saturday).
*********** UFL opening weekend:
*** The football is as boring as the NFL, and much more poorly played.
*** Since nobody is ever going to compare what they’re playing with any really good football, and since the league is being promoted as a betting vehicle, I don’t know why they didn’t go ahead and do something radically different, so that those of us who don’t have a stake in any bets might still remain interested.
I’m as hard-core a football fan as you can get, but in two of the games one of the teams had barely 50 yards of offense in the entire first half, and in a third game one of the teams had just 104 yards of offense, and it’s really hard to stay interested when offenses are so incompetent. (And don’t tell me it’s because the defenses are so good - not the way those guys in that league tackle.)
Couple of suggestions:
FIVE downs to make ten yards. Why not?
TEN men on defense and eleven on offense (or, for those of us who follow the Canadian game) TWELVE men on offense and eleven on defense.
Come on guys - dare to be different.
The UFL’s opening weekend “crowds.” (Clockwise from upper left: St. Louis at Houston; San Antonio at Arlington; Michigan at Memphis; Birmingham at DC.)
*********** The UFL’s opening game attendance (it’s a stretch to use the word “crowds”) was shameful. Evidently the UFL “marketing” people cared so little about the importance of showing their TV viewers a live audience that they just sat on their asses the entire off-season and allowed it to happen.
I do question why they chose to open up at three places - Houston, Arlington and Memphis - where they had to know that the crowds would suck, just as they did last year. The sparse crowd at the fourth home field, DC, was a bit of a surprise, considering that their attendance last year was decent, and DC became known for the “beer snakes” that their end zone crowds created out of (empty) plastic beer cups.
I’m pretty sure that the four visiting teams - St. Louis, San Antonio, Detroit and Birmingham - would have drawn significantly better at their places, and to risk opening the season on such a down note made no sense to me.
*********** I was disappointed first to learn that St. Louis had decided not to re-sign A.J. McCarron, and then to learn that no one else in the league had picked him up. Had to be that he can’t run. For most of the UFL teams this past weekend, their leading rusher was their quarterback. (You’d run, too, if you saw the way those lines “protect” the passers.)
*********** Talk about weird - in the first of Sunday’s two games, we were informed that Memphis’ coach Ken Whisenhunt had just taken a “personal leave of absence” (whatever that means) and in the second, we learned that DC’s coach Reggie Barlow had picked up and left to take the head coaching job at Tennessee State.
(Is it really professional football when a head coach leaves the week before the season opener to take a job at an FCS college?)
Actually, the interim coaches didn’t do that bad.
Jim Turner’s Memphis Showboats, down 20-12 with 41 seconds to play, had driven the ball to the Michigan 24 yard line. Unfortunately, the Memphis QB, under pressure, threw carelessly and the ball was intercepted and returned 80 yards for a Michigan TD.
At DC, Barlow’s replacement, Shannon Harris, got his first win as a head coach, upsetting defending champion Birmingham, 18-11.
*********** The Michigan-Memphis game was almost impossible to listen to. Throughout the game, despite the fact that the crowd noise itself was negligible, the PA announcing was audible. Annoyingly so. Add to that, at various times, one or more of the following: broadcasters, players and coaches mic’d up, coordinators in the booth being interviewed, and the special “ESPN Sports Betting Analyst.”
*********** Watching the UFL and ESPN promote in-game betting takes me back many years ago to when I lived in Baltimore. There was always a race track going somewhere in the area, and it was a very big deal to give some money to a guy who was going to the track and ask him to put down a bet for you. That was the extent of legal gambling. Now that you can gamble legally almost anywhere on almost any sports event, I just can’t see that many people taking the time to learn enough about the teams and players of the UFL to bet on something as nebulous as a spring football league.
*********** The UFL has to be on its way toward setting some sort of record for the number and length of manes on its players.
*********** Jordan Palmer, who did the color on the Michigan-Memphis game, looks like a wind-up toy when he talks. He’s so active with his hands that he makes broadcasting look like a martial art. His partner, Joe Tessitore, is almost as bad.
*********** Troy Vincent, the NFL's Executive Vice President of Football Operations, announced at the Owners’ winter meeting in Palm Beach, Florida that as part of its overall long-range strategy, the League was developing plans to sponsor flag football teams from as many as a dozen nations in the 2026 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Beginning immediately, he said, the league would dispatch coaches and players to conduct clinics and camps in those countries, still to be named.
The plan, he said, was to expand NFFL (National Flag Football League) world-wide, creating subsidiaries (NFFL Africa, NFFL India, NFFL East Asia, NFFL Europe) in addition to NFFL Americas.
The NFFL intends to conduct a “World Cup” of flag football, but has not yet determined whether to do so in Olympic years, in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee, or to compete head-to-head with soccer’s World Cup.
A consortium of nations has submitted a proposal to the United Nations, asking its members to declare flag football the Official World Sport.
“It’s no secret,” said Vincent to the owners, “That our sport as currently constituted is limited in its world-wide appeal. Let’s be frank,” he said. “The main thing standing in our way right now is physical contact. In other parts of the world - especially Europe - even people physically fit enough to play a game as rough as ours don’t particularly care for physical contact. That’s just the way it is, and we aren’t going to change that.”
When asked by an owner if he was suggesting that the NFL itself go full-on flag as the “NFFL,” Vincent didn’t directly answer the question, but did list a number of ways that doing so would advantage the league.
First, he said, it would make football more inclusive, providing opportunities such as a women’s league (WNFFL), a multi-gender league (LGBTQ+NFFL), and a league for handicapped players (PARANFFL).
He said that League executives had discussed the possibility of coed leagues.
Also in the plans, in addition to youth leagues, which would be greatly expanded in order to challenge the dominance of youth soccer, there would be an NFFL Masters league (for recently retired players up to the age of 50) and NFFL Silver (for those 51 and above). “Imagine,” he said, going out to Levis’ Stadium and watching Joe Montana going long to Jerry Rice!”
One of tackle football’s drawbacks, he said, is the fact that it’s not a carryover sport. But flag would enable older men - and women - to enjoy playing the game well into middle age.
Citing concussion statistics and the increasing cost of insurance and helmets, Vincent said that research showed that high schools would welcome the introduction of flag for boys, in place of tackle football. (Girls’ flag is already the fastest-growing high school sport.)
Vincent also said that the NFL intends to set up an “Academic NFFL” for post-high school players, who under the current system play tackle football in college.
“We know that there will still be some players who will continue to play college football for money, and we anticipate that several of the SEC schools and Big Ten schools will remain in business, for a few more years, at least, but we believe that in time tackle football will fade in popularity. It’s also going to be hurt when SEC and Big Ten players find that there is no longer a professional tackle league for them to move on to.”
And, he added, NFL studies show that colleges can’t afford to continue very much longer operating as professional teams, paying players millions of dollars a year.
*********** Anybody else out there like to see a limit on the number of threes a basketball team is allowed to shoot?
*********** Elon Musk says DOGE will investigate why so many members of Congress become wealthy during their years in government service.
Hmmm. Talk about poking the bear. Well, I guess when you’re getting thousands of death threats every day, as he claims, what’s a couple hundred more?
*********** FROM MY COLLECTION…
SIX COMMON COACHING ERRORS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM
By: Bud Wilkinson
The best coach is the one who makes the fewest mistakes; the one who does the best teaching job; the one who is the best organizer. Writing the X’s & O’s is not the most important thing. There are 22 variables in a football game. Coach must be a salesman to the extent that when his team loses, they don’t blame him or the offensive and/or defensive system, but rather themselves.
ERRORS IN TEACHING METHODS
FIRST = FAILURE TO USE TIME EFFICIENTLY.
Failure to recognize the time factor available to get the job done. Planning makes for valuable use of time. Too long on any one thing produces boredom. When boredom comes in, learning goes out. Football players have a short attention span. Hold to time schedule.
SECOND = FAILURE TO EXPLAIN THE PURPOSE OF THE DRILL.
Tell the boy WHY he is doing what he is trying to accomplish and he will do a better job. Explain WHY, then show HOW.
THIRD = IMPROPER TEACHING PROGRESSION.
You can’t teach a boy how to block until he has learned stance. If he hasn’t learned stance, he doesn’t know how to step out of the stance into the block.
FOURTH = TOO MUCH VERBAL INSTRUCTION ON THE FIELD.
How much can boy learn from your verbal instruction with his helmet on, he’s breathing hard, he aches, he’s stunned, etc. Do WHO and WHY in chalk talk. Teach assignments before hitting the field. Correct on the field. Teach – no! (HOW is taught on the field – not WHO & WHY).
FIFTH = TOO MUCH DEMONSTRATION BY COACH.
How much you know is not important. How much player knows is.
SIXTH = BEING ON THE FIELD TOO LONG.
Better to have a team eager to play rather than physically tired. How long to practice is a judgment factor. Cut down as season goes along – not going to change mechanical ability late in season. Only one rule never violated at Oklahoma. If one coach on staff feels practice too long, we must cut it down. More boys play poorly because they practiced too long than boys playing poorly because they didn’t practice long enough.
*********** Hi Hugh ,
Just wanted to thank you for the last 5 years of clinics you’ve provided for us. Most of the time I watch the replay because I can stop it and take notes.
I’m coaching the offensive line at Oswego East this fall.
This will be my 52nd consecutive year coaching football in the state of Illinois.
Many of the things I teach is what I learned from you.
Thanks for all you do.
Paul Parpet
Naperville, Illinois
You can’t imagine how much a letter like that means.
*********** University of Chicago does still play football at the Division 3 level. They are football-only members of the Midwest Conference.
John Bothe
Oregon, Illinois
My error. I thought they were still club. Division III is REAL college football!
*********** Pitino’s handling of RJ Luis: the coach was critical of Luis's failure to pass. Pitino said the record shows that this SJ team wins only when it has lots of assists. In that Luis had zero assists, Ricky P. pretty directly accused him of selfishness.
You were far too harsh in speaking to the JoePa detractor.
If found guilty, Weiss should join his lowlife buds in El Salvador.
Someone went too far in relating the account of Rossovitch on the bed.
Two days of fantastic pages, Coachman.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
The RIGHT move for Stanford in today's college football world would be to hire Coach Clawson. The BEST move would be to hire Coach Monken and build a Harbaugh type juggernaut. But then again, Andrew Luck is a Stanford grad, and undoubtedly his experience as a prolific PASSER will certainly have an impact on his decision to hire Coach Clawson in today's college football world.
Not sure about you but I won't miss Gary Danielson as a broadcaster.
Traditionally speaking football games created Homecoming activities and large crowds. Today, Homecoming activities create large crowds for football games. As a former HS HC I dreaded Homecoming week. The distractions EVERY DAY before the actual game became overwhelming. Game nights became ridiculous. Pre-game activities and halftime activities, and post-game events made Homecoming night one of the longest nights of the season. Only to be challenged by "seniors night."
Pro kickers are so dang good nowadays that the penalty emphasis on the Kick-Off should be placed upon the kickers' shoulders. Kick from the 30. The remainder of the team lines up on the 50. Kick it into the end zone 15 yard penalty from the 30. Kick it short of the 10, 15 yard penalty from the 30. Kick it between the 10 and Goal Line and ball can be returned. Safety first!!
Now I can't tell you exactly where Lacrosse was started, but when I was in New Hampshire I could've sworn it started somewhere in the Northeast. Many of the football coaches in New England coached Lacrosse in the spring. Great game to keep the football kids in good shape.
That photo sure looked like gang tackling to me!
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I have never met a high school coach who enjoyed homecoming week and all the bullsh— activities it entailed!
When I was in college, in the 1950s, there were three strong high school lacrosse areas: Baltimore (but nowhere else in Maryland); Long Island; and, to a lesser extent, New England prep schools.
The deal that Baltimore sporting goods company Bacharach Rasin had with the Mohawks in Cornwall gave it a total monopoly on lacrosse sticks, which for a long time - until the introduction of fiberglass sticks - hampered the growth of the sport. (Those wooden sticks were expensive.)
There is an interesting parallel to the way guys who’d played lacrosse in eastern colleges helped spread the sport into the West. It’s not unlike the early days of football, when guys who had played at Yale were in great demand in other parts of the country.
*********** QUIZ: From 1957 through 2023 - 66 years - Harvard had only three head football coaches: John Yovicsin from 1957 through 1970; Joe Restic from 1971 through 1993; and our guy, who took over in 1994 and coached through the 2023 season.
He played high school ball in the Boston suburbs, but as he told author John Feinstein in “The Ancient Eight,” "The thought that I would play college football never really crossed my mind until my senior year. To be honest, I was thinking I would enlist in the Marines.”
And then he began to hear from colleges. He chose Springfield College, where he started at linebacker for four years while majoring in business.
After graduation, he spent six years coaching the offensive line, first for two years at Brown, then for a year at Lafayette and then for three years at Boston U, when his boyhood pal Buddy Teevens was named offensive coordinator.
When Teevens became head coach at Maine, our guy went along, now as offensive coordinator, and when Teevens moved on to Dartmouth after two years, our guy became head coach.
After two years at Maine, where he went 8-4 and 7-4, he was hired at Cincinnati, where at 32 be became the youngest FBS coach in the country. He struggled at first, going 1-9-1, 1-10, 4-7 and 3-8, until his fifth year, when the Bearcats went 8-3, the most wins in their history.
In the meantime, he had greatly improved the team’s graduation rate, which made him an attractive applicant at Harvard, where Joe Restic had announced his retirement after 23 years.
When the job was offered, he took it, even though it meant a 50 per cent cut in pay. One of the things that swayed him was his old pal, Buddy Teevens telling him how much he enjoyed coaching Ivy League players. Also, he told John Feinstein, “It just felt like a unique opportunity to me.” And then, there were the people on Harvard’s selection committee: “I remember thinking,' if these are the kind of people I'll be working for, this has to be a good job.'"
His first three teams underperformed. They went 4-6, 2-8 and 4–6, finishing 7th, 8th and 6th, respectively, in the eight-team Ivy League.
But in his fourth year, Harvard finished 9-1, and won its first Ivy League title in 10 years.
He was off and running. And when he was done, 30 years later, he had left quite a legacy:
• The winningest coach in Ivy League Football history
• Ivy League-record 10 conference championships
• Three undefeated seasons
• Ivy League-record 16-consecutive winning seasons from 2001-16
• 200-89 (.692) at Harvard, 224-132-1 (.629) overall (Maine, Cincinnati, Harvard)
• 141-65 (.684) Ivy League record
• 19-10 (.655) against Yale
• All-time record nine-straight wins over Yale (2007-15)
• Eight-time New England Coach of the Year (One year at Maine, seven at Harvard - Led Maine to the 1987 Yankee Conference championship/First FCS playoffs appearance in history)
• Five-time finalist for Eddie Robinson Award for the top coach in FCS
• More than of his 30 Harvard players signed NFL contracts
• Past President of American Football Coaches Association
• From 2001 through 2022, Harvard (159-50 - .761) was sixth in winning percentage among all NCAA Football Division I schools: 159-50, .761; 1. Ohio State, 2. Boise State, 3. Alabama, 4. Oklahoma, 5. Georgia, 6. Harvard
And then, after an 8-2 2023 season, he announced his retirement. He’d thought about it a lot. Even though he was nearing 70, he felt he had something left in the tank. But the death - during the season - of his boyhood friend Buddy Teevens, who had been grievously injured when riding his bike in Florida the previous spring, played a role in his decision.
"He was my best friend for almost 55 years. We even talked about going out together when it was time,” he told John Feinstein. “Of course we never dreamed it would end this way.”
FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2025 “Going to war without France is
like going hunting without an accordion.” General Norman Schwarzkopf********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: My approach with Dr. White was that we must try to give the students something to get excited about besides Vietnam, Cambodia, ROTC, and other issues that left such indelible scars.
I wanted to create a chance for those on campus to explode – a healthy psychological explosion about cheering for the football team or the basketball team, maybe even something that they didn't want to be a part of. It took a while but they did. It was a tough sell, you bet, and I never once thought it would be easy. But you get the direction and you keep going with it.
At the press conference when I was introduced as the new AD, I made a strong effort to be enthusiastic and optimistic – traits that have been ingrained in me in every job I have held. This was especially important in the Kent State situation. In newspaper articles I've been called Mr. Enthusiasm and the Good Humor Man because of my personality. And I was smart enough to keep from shooting my mouth off about possible solutions of problems I didn't yet know existed.
One of the top faculty leaders I apparently had made an impression on was Dr. Gerald (Jug) Ridinger, chairman of the search committee that helped pick me as AD. Ridinger, who later became the Kent State faculty representative, told me I was the only person interviewed who also interviewed the committee. And the selection group seemed to be impressed by the host of my friends who called to volunteer recommendations that included some well-known names in the ranks of collegiate football: Frank Broyles, Paul Dietzel, Dave Nelson, Bump Elliott, Wiles Hallock, Lou Holtz, Joe Paterno, Lou Saban, Biggie Munn, Johnny Majors, and Bill Murray, former Duke coach who was Executive Director of the American Football Coaches Association.
I joked later that the reason they recommended me was they just wanted to get me out of the coaching profession.
*********** A football first for Stanford: First firing of a college football coach (Troy Taylor) by a GM (Andrew Luck).
It appears to me that the best college football coverage on the West Coast is coming from the San Jose Mercury-News, particularly from its columnist, Jon Wilner, but I was getting tired of clicking on a story only to have the iron gate of a “SUBSCRIBE NOW” notice slam down and cut me off.
So I decided to take advantage of their latest come-on, and invested $3 in a 12-month subscription and (always thinking of my readers) I decided to share a very interesting column by Mr. Wilner:
Andrew Luck did, in fact, grab the mop and bucket.
Just four months into his term as general manager of Stanford’s struggling football program — and the de facto leader of Cardinal athletics — Luck began the cleanup process by clearing out coach Troy Taylor.
The most surprising aspect of the entire episode isn’t that Stanford axed its head coach Tuesday, a week before spring practice. It’s that Taylor was still on the job following two investigations into inappropriate conduct directed at female staff members.
Following the first investigation, in 2023, Taylor was warned that he could be fired if the conduct continued, according to an ESPN report. It did continue, with a second investigation a year later. But Taylor remained employed and coached the Cardinal to a second consecutive 3-9 season.
Then again, doing nothing is something Stanford athletics has done very well in recent years — and one reason Luck, the former Cardinal quarterback, was hired last fall with oversight of football and a direct line to university president Jonathan Levin.
At that point, it was clear athletic director Bernard Muir had been marginalized. After all, an AD without command of football is merely first mate. Not surprisingly, Muir stepped down in February with the department in vastly worse shape than it was when he took the job in 2012.
——
Luck has two options: Hire a permanent coach this spring under suboptimal circumstances; or appoint an interim coach for the 2025 season. The latter approach, although somewhat unusual, would create valuable time to evaluate the state of the football program and the industry, then find the best coach for the challenge.
Roster upgrades are desperately needed, of course. But talent acquisition is inexorably linked to broader changes in college football — changes that will require alignment across the university.
Next month, the presumptive settlement of an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA will legalize revenue sharing with athletes. Major football-playing schools are expected to spend as much as $15 million (approximately) on their rosters and another $5 million on all other sports.
Is Stanford willing to go all-in with football?
There are risks associated with hiring a permanent coach this spring and with using an interim coach for the season. But appointing an interim would grant Luck the time to assess the industry landscape following the lawsuit settlement, benchmark Stanford’s resources against peers in the ACC and map a path forward.
The Cardinal cannot botch the hire or make a half-hearted commitment to football.
The next five years are effectively an audition for Stanford before college football’s Great Restructuring begins. Whatever the outcome — whether the SEC and Big Ten expand again or a super league arises — Stanford cannot afford to get left behind.
The athletic department accounts for a sliver of a slice of Stanford’s $10 billion budget and is therefore easy for the administration and the board of trustees to ignore.
But the department’s intrinsic value as the most public-facing facet of the university — an entity that energizes donors, drives applications for admissions and helps frame campus culture — is immense.
If ignored … if left to wither under ineffective leadership … losing, chaos and irrelevance ensue.
Enough losing that ticket sales collapse and the budget craters.
Enough chaos that the university’s reputation is damaged.
Enough irrelevance that one of the best schools in the world, with the most successful athletic department in NCAA history, cannot gain admission into the Big Ten alongside UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington.
College sports increasingly resembles seven-dimensional chess. It appears Luck and Levin understand how the pieces move and interact.
Firing Taylor was the first step in an essential cleanup effort that will take years and require an unprecedented institutional commitment.
If Stanford whiffs on the hire, the salvage operation could be delayed indefinitely — with dire long-term consequences.
*********** I personally favor Stanford’s hiring a new head coach now. None of this interim stuff. Even if it means postponing spring ball until May.
First of all, why would you want to keep that staff around? There’s no way, as poorly as that team has played the last two years, that I’d make an interim coach out of someone currently on the staff. I’ve heard someone suggest doing that with the current defensive coordinator. Just one problem: the guy’s never been a head coach, and this is no time for on-the-job training.
Actually, there’s another problem. Before being fired, Troy Taylor brought another coach on staff and christened him “co-defensive coordinator.” Now hold on - if the current defensive coordinator was that f—king good, why did he need a collaborator?
I think it would be a terrible idea for Andrew Luck to attempt the interim role himself. That would definitely set things back a year. He’ll have plenty on his table just doing all the things his coach needs to be successful.
I say, rather than wasting a year - giving themselves the death penalty, almost - by bringing in a place-holder until they can find the real coach, it’s essential to get an established head coach in there now, someone who can spend the next year preparing things the way he wants them.
Most of the names I’ve heard that have Stanford connections do not excite me.
Pep Hamilton, now an assistant at Maryland… he’s been a head coach of a spring football team. For one season.
Troy Walters, now Bengals’ receivers coach… no sign at all that he could be a head coach, especially in a tough situation like this
Tavita Pritchard, now Washington Commanders’ QB Coach… no sign at all that he could be a head coach, especially in a tough situation like this
And then there are the others…
Jason Garrett, broadcaster and former Cowboys’ head coach… Highly questionable whether he (or anyone else, including Bill Belichick) can be a successful college coach under even the best of conditions
Kliff Kingsbury, Commanders’ OC… he’s got the X’s and O’s. But 35-40 in his only experience as a head coach (Texas Tech) is not a sign of a sure winner.
Ken Niumatolo, head coach at San Jose State… Had a great run at Navy… Did a nice job at San Jose State last year (7-6), indicating that he isn’t necessarily tied to a triple-option offense… As a native of Hawaii he may have good connections in the talent-rich Polynesian community… Has experience recruiting at a place with high academic standards.
Jeff Monken, head coach at Army…He’s made no secret of the fact that he’d like to coach at a Power 4 school…He’s been a solid winner at a place where success has not been easily attained… He has experience recruiting at a place with high academic standards… Here’s my trump card: If he stays with his offense (and Stanford buys it) he can provide them with a uniqueness and a physicality not unlike what set them apart during the Harbaugh years. But even more important: running an offense that no one else uses - an offense that requires unique talents - gives you a recruiting advantage, because very few other schools are recruiting the kind of guys you are. In addition, it gives you “portal protection”: because no one else runs your offense, you’re not in danger of losing your star triple-option quarterback… or, for that matter, your big fullback… or your quick little wingbacks… or your run-first offensive linemen. That might be appealing to Stanford, which deplores NIL - not because of the money involved but because of the principle.
Dave Clawson, recently retired head coach at Wake Forest… This would be a home-run hire. He’s won every place he’s coached - Fordham, Richmond, Bowling Green and Wake Forest - and he’s won a league championship at every one one those places. He knows what it’s like to succeed at the highest level at a private school with high standards. He may be “retired,” but he’s only 59. He simply got worn down from pushing that huge boulder called NIL up the hill every year at a place that’s short on resources. (Look up Sysyphus.) And - not to be overlooked - he’s a graduate of Williams College, a school that rivals Stanford in its selectivity. (For what it’s worth - Mike Lude really liked him - said “he reminds me of Don James.”)
My list:
1. Clawson
2. Monken
3. Niumatololo
4. You’re screwed
*********** Gary Danielson has announced that this is going to be his last year in the broadcast booth. How we met: it was autumn, 1975, and at the very moment that we at the Portland Thunder got the announcement that the WFL was officially dead, he and his wife were in the lobby of our offices in downtown Portland. That was it. Haven’t seen him since (except on TV). I haven’t the slightest idea why he was there, and he’s probably forgotten.
*********** On Reddit - The difference between Seattle and Portland…
Seattle is Portland's put-together older brother who went to business school and now makes a lot of money in investment capital. Portland, meanwhile, took a gap year, lived with their parents while going to art school and decided, eff it, I'm just gonna be a substitute teacher and play bass in a band with my 3 best buds.
*********** The University of Illinois is generally credited with being the creator of the Homecoming game - the football game that’s become an American tradition wherever football’s played.
It first took place in 1910 and Illinois has played a Homecoming game every year since.
Other colleges such as Baylor, Missouri, Michigan, Northern Illinois and Indiana have staked their claims to having originated the tradition, but what solidifies the Illini’s claim is that they actually called the event “Homecoming,” and the event’s focus was on a football game. That wasn’t the case elsewhere.
The idea came about because of a football game on Oct. 15, 1910 against Illinois’ biggest rival, the University of Chicago. Chicago doesn’t play football any more, but it was an original member of what’s now the Big Ten, and under its coach, the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg, it had beaten Illinois seven straight years.
The previous spring, three Illinois students set out to break the string of losses by inviting back alumni, especially those who had suffered through the seven years of defeats, to fire up the football team and, at the same time intimidate Chicago with their noise. With the support of the school paper and the blessing of the school administration, Homecoming Weekend went on and was a huge success. A large number of alumni returned, and best of all, Illinois beat Chicago, 3-0.
So successful was this newfangled Homecoming thingy that they decided to do it again the next year. And the next. And so on.
Anybody else notice the big difference between then and now?
Then, Homecoming was used as a means of helping to defeat a tough opponent.
Now, the idea is to schedule the weakest possible opponent so you don’t ruin Homecoming.
*********** NFL KICKOFF Change?
With touchbacks on kickoffs becoming football’s version of baseball’s intentional walk, the NFL is attempting to bring back the kick return.
Wait - didn’t they want to do away with the kickoff because it was causing so many injuries?
Oh, well.
The “competition committee,” which is responsible for rules changes, predicts that placing touchbacks at the 35-yard line instead of the current 30-yard line will increase the kickoff return rate.
It’s one of several rules owners will consider when they meet next week in Palm Beach, Florida. It takes at least 24 votes (from 32 owners) for approval.
Last year, with touchbacks spotted at the 30-yard line, the average return was 27.6 yards.
It’s believed that having a bigger difference between the touchback spot and the average return will cause more coaches to kickoff short, rather than conceding a touchback spot at the 35.
*********** Do they play baseball in Montana?
Orioles’ pitcher Dave McNally was from Billings. I went out on the town with him a couple of times when I was working for the brewery in Baltimore that owned the O’s (he worked for us in the off-season).
Great guy. Great pitcher.
in 13 seasons with the Orioles…
His 181 wins were the team record when he left in 1974; they’re still second in franchise history to Jim Palmer's 268.
His 33 shutouts are second only to Palmer's 53
His 2652-2/3 innings pitched rank second to Palmer's 3948
His 1476 strikeouts, ranks third behind Palmer's 2212 and Mike Mussina's 1535.
He’s second to Palmer in games started, with 384.
In single-season records…
His 24 wins in 1970 are tied for third
His 22 wins in 1968 are tied for ninth
His 202 strikeouts in 1968 are the seventh-most
His six shutouts in 1972 are tied for the fourth-most
His 1.95 ERA in 1968 is the ninth-lowest in a season in franchise history
In 1978, he was inducted into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame.
In 1999 he was named to the Orioles' All-Century team.
In that same year, Sports Illustrated named him Montana's Athlete of the Century.
But just five years later (a new century) when a 2004 Sports Illustrated poll asked Montanans to name the "greatest athlete who ever lived in or played for a team in your state" The winner was… (Drum roll please) Dave Dickenson.
Dickenson (for those of you outside Montana who’ve never heard of him) played quarterback for the Montana Grizzlies and had some good success in the CFL as a player and now as a coach. But in the big leagues - the NFL - he never got further than third-string QB on three different clubs. He got 19 per cent of the vote. That’s your best?
Second, just behind Dickenson with 18 per cent, was Jan Stennerud, a very good placekicker and a skier, but really?
And back in third place, with 9 per cent of the vote, was Dave McNally.
Hey Montanans - there’s a big world out there.
*********** Bernie Ulman was a head linesman and later a referee in the National Football League from 1963 through 1977.
He was good. He worked in the first Super Bowl in 1967 and the ninth in 1975.
He was a really good public speaker. He was a Baltimore guy and I heard him speak a few times. ”Whenever I speak anywhere," he used to say, "I ask the audience for one big boo. That way they feel at ease."
He insisted that officials should be as unobtrusive as possible, saying, “the rule book says the game is to be played by two teams of 11 individuals each. It doesn't say anything about six officials.”
*********** This photo, taken about 2005, shows Tom “Doc” Hinger and John Feinstein, on the field at Army’s Michie Stadium, waiting to do pregame interviews on the radio.
*********** The True Native American Sport…
By CHRISTINA TKACIK
May 13, 2018
BALTIMORE (AP) — Marylanders think of their state as the spiritual homeland of lacrosse. But without the Mohawk Indians, the sport might never have come here.
Native peoples of the Americas have played lacrosse since well before the arrival of European settlers. In the 1800s, some began to make and sell lacrosse sticks — made from wood, catgut and leather — to outsiders. Ninety-seven percent of the world’s lacrosse sticks once were made by the Mohawks of Akwesasne — a reservation that straddles New York and Canada — and nearby Cornwall, according to Don Smith, manager of Canada’s Cornwall Community Museum.
After the Civil War, a man named Peck Auer, founder of Baltimore-based Bacharach Rasin sporting goods, brokered a deal with the Mohawks that gave him the exclusive right to sell their lacrosse sticks. Big shipments arrived here each spring, and students at area schools like Loyola College and Towson University picked up the sport simply “because the equipment was there,” as the now-deceased historian Thomas Vennum told The Sun in 1998.
The lacrosse stick-making industry was covered in an article in The Baltimore Sun in 1951, entitled “Lacrosse Sticks: A Single Mohawk Tribe Makes, and A Baltimore Concern Sells, Most of the Entire World’s Supply.”
Photos by A. Aubrey Bodine depicted Mohawk artisans bending wood and weaving together the strings for the pockets.
Though most lacrosse players use sticks from synthetic materials today, the traditional wooden sticks are making a comeback, says Arnold Printup, a Mohawk historian on the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation. The reason is “simply because they’re very tough,” he said. “Modern ones tend to break a lot easier.”
Mohawk tribe members play two forms of lacrosse, said Printup: recreational lacrosse, as well as a more traditional form of the sport, used for healing purposes. When playing the ceremonial version, “We don’t play to win,” he said. “It’s played with the intent to uplift.”
But both forms of the sport remain very popular in native communities. On the reservation, said Printup, “I can honestly say if you’re a kid — girl or boy — you’ve picked up a lacrosse stick.”
*********** A trip back in time (1968, Frederick, Maryland)
*********** Ted Kempski died. He was 83.
From his entry in the University of Delaware Hall of Fame
A standout quarterback at UD in the early 1960’s, Ted went on to become the team’s longest serving assistant coach in school history and helped mold the Wing-T offense that led to unprecedented success for the Blue Hens under Hall of Fame head coach Tubby Raymond.Great guy. Great mind. Probably knew more about the Delaware Wing-T than any man alive. A group of Portland-area Wing-T coaches had him out for a one-man clinic in Portland back about ‘84 and then a few of us stayed around to have a few with him afterwards. I still have the clinic notes. Mike Lude liked him a lot. With Tubby Raymond he co-authored “The Delaware Wing-T: An Order of Football, and could have (should have?) succeeded Raymond when Raymond retired after the 2001 season. But he didn’t, and he retired from coaching since new coach KC Keeler had no use for the Wing-T.
A native of Wilmington, Del. and a star at Salesianum School, Ted has served the University of Delaware for more than a half-century and still remains close to the program. A two-year starter in 1961-62, he led the team to the Middle Atlantic Conference title in 1962 for Hall of Fame head coach Dave Nelson. He returned to Newark as an assistant coach in 1968 and served for 34 seasons before retiring as offensive coordinator following the 2001 season.
During his tenure, he helped guide record-setting UD offenses that annually ranked among the national leaders in rushing and scoring and resulted in national championships in 1971, 1972, and 1979, four national runner-up finishes, 16 NCAA Tournament appearances, and eight conference titles. Thirteen current UD Athletics Hall of Fame members played offense for Ted.
He wrote five books on the Wing-T, became one of the nation’s leading football clinic speakers, and in 2008 received the American Football Coaches Association Outstanding Achievement Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the sport.
After retiring from coaching, he served for several years as special assistant to former UD Athletic Director Edgar Johnson. Ted earned his bachelor’s (1963) and master’s (1965) degrees from Delaware and earned an honorary degree from University of Nuevo Leon in Monterey, Mexico in 1988.
He was inducted into the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame in 2010.
*********** Rick Pitino caught a LOT of flak after his St. Johns team was upset early in the NCAA tournament by Arkansas. It was a crushing end to a dream season, but what upset people at least as much as the loss was the fact that Pitino benched his top player, RJ Luis, for the final five minutes of the game.
To say the least, Luis was not having a good game - he was 3 for 17 on field goals - but the argument went something like this: “even when he’s having a bad game, you have to have your big star in at clutch time.”
Now, bearing in mind that I don’t know Pitino - who may be the world’s biggest prick - I’m going to go out on a limb and defend him. I’m going to pretend that I know Pitino, enough to know that he cared deeply about the kid and just didn’t have the heart to leave him in the game and let him destroy his self-confidence by continuing to play poorly.
Instead, Pitino unselfishly took the heat himself.
Hey - It’s possible.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Tim Rossovich played his high school ball at St. Francis High in Mountain View, California.
As a defensive lineman, he was an All-American at USC. He played in a pair of Rose Bowls and co-captained the 1967 National Champion Trojan team.
He was chosen in the opening round of the NFL draft. by the Philadelphia Eagles.
"To be drafted in the first round was an unbelievable experience in my life and something that I didn't expect," he said. "I had no expectations. I wanted to be a baseball player. I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates out of high school and I chose not to go play in the minor league system because I had the good fortune of having about 150 scholarship offers for football. I thought it'd probably be best to take advantage of that and get my education because who knows what's going to happen in the future?”
At 6-4, 245, he was a very good defensive player in the NFL, both as an end and a middle linebacker, but he’s best remembered for his “intense, eccentric and off-beat personality.”
“Tim Rossovich was the kind of guy who lived on the razor's edge of rationality and once in a while he would tip off to the wrong side," said Steve Sabol of NFL Films fame, who shared an apartment with him for two seasons. "I mean, how many people do you know who set themselves on fire?"
"Whatever you heard about Tim, believe it," said former Eagles teammate Ron Medved. “Whatever it was, I was sure Tim had done it. He was a wild man."
"I live my life to enjoy myself, I can't explain the things I do much beyond that," he once told Sports Illustrated's John Underwood. "I have more energy than I know what to do with. I can't just sit around. I get bored. A lot of what I do is silly, trying to cheer people up, trying to cheer myself up."
Among the many things he was known to do were:
Biting the tops off beer bottles and chewing drinking glasses.
Eating a lightbulb.
Diving head first into a whirlpool.
Grabbing a spider off a locker room table and eating it.
Diving naked into a birthday cake.
Setting his hair on fire.
Riding a motorcycle off a pier.
Once, during the Eagles’ Training Camp at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, a thunderstorm cancelled the afternoon practice and flooded the streets. Taking a table from the locker room, he went outside and, using it like a surfboard, paddled his way around the area, through and around stalled traffic.
While with the Eagles he played for three different head coaches in his four years with the club.
When Ed Khayat took over as Eagles head coach a month into the 1971 season, he issued an order: no long hair, no mustaches. Rossovich was the last player to comply, waiting until five minutes before the deadline to shave off his mustache.
"It didn't make sense to me," he said. "The length of your hair, the width of your lapels or your necktie. Did you have a mustache? What did that have to do with playing football? He said it improved discipline. I thought it was the opposite. It created a situation where guys were talking about this stuff instead of getting better as a football team.”
After becoming a starting defensive end midway through his rookie campaign, Rossovich was named to the Pro Bowl following his second season, but then Jerry Williams replaced Joe Kuharich as the head coach, and a career-ending injury to middle linebacker Dave Lloyd prompted Williams to propose a change in position.
"Jerry Williams called me in and said that he thought the best athlete should be playing middle linebacker," he said, "and would I consider moving from defensive end? And I said, 'Well, it's not like asking the center to move and play quarterback. Yes, of course. I can be in on every tackle, on every play.' So, I moved to middle linebacker."
"You know how I learned to play middle linebacker?” he asked. “From Dick Butkus. Not from him personally, but at that time, I was living with Steve Sabol of NFL Films and I said, 'They moved me to middle linebacker. I need to know how Dick Butkus plays middle linebacker.' So, he would bring all the highlights and I would study Dick Butkus for hours and hours and hours and hours."
"What I learned from Dick Butkus was that the most important thing was that you know all of your keys, you know what's happening in the backfield, you know what's happening on the line, and when somebody gets the ball, you don't tackle them, you tackle somebody three feet behind them. Because when you tackle somebody three feet behind them, you put your face onto their chin and you snap their neck. Their legs stop moving and they can't dodge you. They just fall down in a heap. That's football!”
In 1972, he and safety Bill Bradley held out during training Camp. When he and Bradley showed up at camp in an RV and sold drinks to the fans, that was enough - the Eagles swapped him to the Chargers for a first-round draft pick.
He spent one season with the Chargers and two seasons with the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League, and finally ended his career with the Houston Oilers in 1976.
Considering his California roots and connections (he and Tom Selleck were roommates at USC) and his reputation as a daredevil, it was no surprise that he found work in Hollywood as a stunt man. He got his start doing stunts on the 1978 Burt Reynolds film “Hooper.”
Rossovich would go on to find steady work as an actor, appearing in such TV shows as MacGyver, Hunter, Baywatch, Harry and the Hendersons, Jake and the Fatman, The Fall Guy, ALF, The Love Boat, Knight Rider, Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, Remington Steele, Soap, The A-Team and Magnum, P.I., and in such movies as Night Shift, Sting II, The Long Riders, Looker and The Main Event.
Because of his size and wild-eyed appearance, he often played a bad guy with a mustache.
"It bothers my mother when I get killed (in the movies) all the time," he once said. "But then she says, 'As long as the paycheck is in the mailbox, I guess it's OK.' I enjoy my life. It's like yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery. I feel like the only thing I'm guaranteed is today and I'm gonna live it to the utmost."
For the last several years of his life he and his wife operated “Chow Chow Rescue of the Sierra Foothills,” focusing on chows because of his wife’s lifelong love of the breed, but actually working with all breeds of dogs.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TIM ROSSOVICH
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
John Rothwell - Corpus Christi, Texas
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** MORE ON ROSSOVICH
While the 1974 WFL season was getting under way, the 1974 NFL “season” was two months late in getting started - it was delayed by a two-month-long strike. Once the strike ended and the NFL camps opened and players returned, they began making their cuts, and in the WFL we began to see an influx of NFL veterans who’d been let go. With the Philadelphia Bell, two of them were Tim Rossovich and Rick Cash.
According to payroll records which I’ve kept, Tim Rossovich joined us in early October, in time to play in a game at home against the Florida Blazers. As best I can tell, Rick Cash joined us at the same time.
Rossovich was well known in Philly. He’d played for the Eagles, and his zany shenanigans had been well-publicized. He would think up - and then do - things that would never even occur to most of us.
Rick Cash, a defensive lineman, had played for a number of NFL clubs, most recently the Patriots, and although he was an unknown in Philly, it didn’t take him and Rossovich long to pal up. They were kindred souls. Needless to say, they roomed together on the road.
When we were out of town, Tom Altieri, our trainer, would go to the players’ rooms some time after breakfast and give them vitamin B-12 injections. I have no idea what the purpose of those shots was.
I also don’t know how they got their shots when we were playing at home.
Anyhow, I remember sitting in the hotel lobby the morning of a game when Tom walked in and sat down next to me. He was ashen faced, and shook his head.
He looked over at me and said, “Hugh, you’re not going to believe what I just saw.”
Naturally, I had to ask him what he’d seen.
“I walked in Rossovich and Cash’s room,” he said. “Their door was open and they were both on the bed, balls-naked, rolling around and hugging and moaning and groaning like they were making love.”
He shook his head again, as if to get rid of the sight.
(Let’s get one thing clear - they were not gay. That was just an example of the lengths to which they’d go to shock people.)
I imagined myself walking in and seeing what Tom just described, and I said, “Tom, knowing those guys, I’m ready to believe anything.”
*********** MORE ON ROSSOVICH
Our quarterback, Jim Corcoran, was the quintessential self-promoter, and so narcissistic that he was very unpopular with the rest of the team. (In the press he was routinely referred to by the self-imposed nickname “King,” but very few players or coaches went along with it.)
He drove a luxury car - a Lincoln Continental Mark IV (license plate “KING 9”) and got to be known around town. Once, when it was towed, he showed up at the lot to get his car back and was immediately surrounded by workers wanting his autograph.
And then there was his parking spot. Unlike the players who had to park their cars in the stadium parking lot, coaches were permitted to park their cars inside the stadium gates and down underneath the grandstands. This was considered a wise move, since the coaches’ cars were loaned by local dealers and the club didn’t want to take chances on anything happening to them. But coaches’ cars were one thing. Corcoran’s luxury ride was another, and it pissed people off that Corcoran was allowed to park there, too.
He got away with it until the NFL veterans started arriving. To them, Corcoran was just a loud-mouthed minor leaguer.
I was at the stadium one day when Corcoran came up to me looking really angry.
“Hughie,” he said, “I can’t believe those guys. Rossovich and Cash. They went out and they collected dog shit from all around the area and then they smeared it all over my windshield. With their bare hands.”
He shook his head, incredulous, and repeated - “With their BARE HANDS!”
How did he know who did it? Come on. Everybody knew. Who else could it possibly have been?
*********** QUIZ: From 1957 through 2023 - 66 years - Harvard had only three head football coaches: John Yovicsin from 1957 through 1970; Joe Restic from 1971 through 1993; and our guy, who took over in 1994 and coached through the 2023 season.
He played high school ball in the Boston suburbs, but as he told author John Feinstein in “The Ancient Eight,” "The thought that I would play college football never really crossed my mind until my senior year. To be honest, I was thinking I would enlist in the Marines.”
And then he began to hear from colleges. He chose Springfield College, where he started at linebacker for four years while majoring in business.
After graduation, he spent six years coaching the offensive line, first for two years at Brown, then for a year at Lafayette and then for three years at Boston U, when his boyhood pal Buddy Teevens was named offensive coordinator.
When Teevens became head coach at Maine, our guy went along, now as offensive coordinator, and when Teevens moved on to Dartmouth after two years, our guy became head coach.
After two years at Maine, where he went 8-4 and 7-4, he was hired at Cincinnati, where at 32 be became the youngest FBS coach in the country. He struggled at first, going 1-9-1, 1-10, 4-7 and 3-8, until his fifth year, when the Bearcats went 8-3, the most wins in their history.
In the meantime, he had greatly improved the team’s graduation rate, which made him an attractive applicant at Harvard, where Joe Restic had announced his retirement after 23 years.
When the job was offered, he took it, even though it meant a 50 per cent cut in pay. One of the things that swayed him was his old pal, Buddy Teevens telling him how much he enjoyed coaching Ivy League players. Also, he told John Feinstein, “It just felt like a unique opportunity to me.” And then, there were the people on Harvard’s selection committee: “I remember thinking,' if these are the kind of people I'll be working for, this has to be a good job.'"
His first three teams underperformed. They went 4-6, 2-8 and 4–6, finishing 7th, 8th and 6th, respectively, in the eight-team Ivy League.
But in his fourth year, Harvard finished 9-1, and won its first Ivy League title in 10 years.
He was off and running. And when he was done, 30 years later, he had left quite a legacy:
• The winningest coach in Ivy League Football history
• Ivy League-record 10 conference championships
• Three undefeated seasons
• Ivy League-record 16-consecutive winning seasons from 2001-16
• 200-89 (.692) at Harvard, 224-132-1 (.629) overall (Maine, Cincinnati, Harvard)
• 141-65 (.684) Ivy League record
• 19-10 (.655) against Yale
• All-time record nine-straight wins over Yale (2007-15)
• Eight-time New England Coach of the Year (One year at Maine, seven at Harvard - Led Maine to the 1987 Yankee Conference championship/First FCS playoffs appearance in history)
• Five-time finalist for Eddie Robinson Award for the top coach in FCS
• More than of his 30 Harvard players signed NFL contracts
• Past President of American Football Coaches Association
• From 2001 through 2022, Harvard (159-50 - .761) was sixth in winning percentage among all NCAA Football Division I schools: 159-50, .761; 1. Ohio State, 2. Boise State, 3. Alabama, 4. Oklahoma, 5. Georgia, 6. Harvard
And then, after an 8-2 2023 season, he announced his retirement. He’d thought about it a lot. Even though he was nearing 70, he felt he had something left in the tank. But the death - during the season - of his boyhood friend Buddy Teevens, who had been grievously injured when riding his bike in Florida the previous spring, played a role in his decision.
"He was my best friend for almost 55 years. We even talked about going out together when it was time,” he told John Feinstein. “Of course we never dreamed it would end this way.”
TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2025 “Once you’ve wrestled,
everything else in life is easy.” Dan Gable.*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: The first day on the job, I discovered I didn't have an office. My hiring was to be the beginning of a re-organization that would separate the athletic program from the physical education department. President White found temporary space for me across the hall from his office, and the location worked to my advantage. It sent a strong message to the campus, especially administrators and faculty, that the hiring of a separate AD was important enough to station me close to the seat of power.
I wasn't even settled in when we had our first of many informal chats. It was the start of a relationship in which Dr. White became my mentor, my advisor, and my friend.
"MIke," he said, "we've made fifty years of poor decisions here about the administration of intercollegiate athletics. I want you to take this and run with it. Put it together and fashion a department that you and I will be proud of. We don't have a lot of resources (that sounded a lot like what I had heard at Colorado State), but I have a lot of desire to help you be successful.”
And I had a lot to learn.
Dr. White was not on the campus during the infamous Kent State shootings back in May; he was on a trip to Iowa at the time. But he was taking a lot of criticism over the incident, and a lot of questions were being asked about what had caused the tragedy. Actually, the governor had made the decision to send in the National Guard, and when the guardsmen felt threatened, they panicked.
The mood on the campus that first year was hardly festive. The incident cast a long shadow at Kent State, and the date, May 4, 1970, remained etched as clearly as December 7, 1941, or 9/11/01 for those who were there at the time.
The atmosphere was not like any I had experienced at the schools where I had coached earlier in my career. The place was depressed and subdued, almost morbid. It seemed to lack a soul.
*********** Either Michigan is on a run of bad luck or it does a terrible job of hiring people… And poor Jim Harbaugh. He just seems to attract lowlifes.
Read this and you’ll have to admit that compared to this guy - IF IT’S TRUE - Stanford’s Troy Taylor is more like your favorite uncle.
Former Michigan football co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Matt Weiss, accused of hacking into computers at more than 100 universities across the country and stealing the identities of more than 3,300 student athletes, pleaded not guilty to all 24 charges he faces during a hearing Monday in Detroit's federal court.
And in a separate, civil lawsuit filed Friday, two former University of Michigan student athletes accused Weiss, university leaders and others of failing to protect them from Weiss' alleged misconduct. They suggest they are two of potentially 1,000 or more former student athletes in this situation, asking the court to grant class-action status in their lawsuit.
"The regents and the university recklessly exposed plaintiffs to a dangerous predator, Weiss, knowing he could cause serious damage by sexually harassing female students, and also by violating their rights to privacy," the lawsuit states.
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2025/03/24/matt-weiss-charges-hacking-michigan-sued-intimiate-photos/82639533007/
The federal indictment alleges Weiss gained illegal access to a database of student-athletes at more than 100 colleges and universities that was maintained by a third-party company. Weiss is accused of downloading personal information and medical data of more than 150,000 athletes and using that information to obtain access to the social media, email and cloud storage accounts of more than 3,000 athletes. He allegedly downloaded personal intimate digital photographs and videos "that were never intended to be shared beyond intimate partners," federal prosecutors said Thursday.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/03/24/2-former-um-athletes-sue-ex-michigan-coordinator-matt-weiss/82635719007/
*********** This was an ad in the 1975 game program of the WFL Portland Thunder, where I was Assistant GM and PR Director. One of the perks of the job was a courtesy car, same as the coaches got, and in our case it was an International Scout. Mine happened to be the orange-and-white one in the photo, and it remains to this day the best “car” I’ve ever had. When the WFL folded (the second year in a row for me) it was bad enough to be out of work, but it broke my heart when I had to take the Scout back to the dealer. Five years later, I managed to buy a used ’74 Scout and I loved it. The Scout was a really cool machine - powerful, maneuverable, and sturdy as a tank. I dredged this up when I read that Volkswagen had bought the Scout name and is attempting a rebirth. But get this - as an EV. Good luck with that. (Mine were both V-8s.)
*********** When he found out that his 16-seed Spartans were 28-1/2 point underdogs against Number-one seed Florida, Norfolk State coach Robert Jones lost it:
“I know Florida is really really really good and they run a great program , got great players, but are we that bad that the point spread is like that?. I’m a little angry and like I said I’m a little bit more focused and play better when I’m angry. I think the players play better when they’re angry. We’re trying to show that we’re truly one of the best teams in the country.”
His players were so fired up that they went out and beat the spread. Final score: Florida 95, Norfolk State 69.
*********** At the present time I’m reading a biography of Earl Weaver, one of the greatest baseball managers ever.
In the 1969 World Series against the Mets, his Orioles won Game One, then lost four straight.
In Game Five, they led, 3-0 in the sixth, but wound up losing, 5-3.
Afterward, he pointed out that in baseball, unlike other popular sports, you can’t sit on a lead:
“You can’t run a few plays into the line and kill the clock,” he said. “You’ve got to give the other man his chance at bat. This is why this is the greatest game of them all. “
*********** Last Monday, Deion Sanders proposed playing a spring game against another team, emulating the NFL and holding joint practices with the opponent for a few days, followed by the game.
Later that day, Syracuse coach Fran Brown said the Orange was willing to spend three days in Boulder, practicing together with the Buffs and then playing the game.
Colorado’s spring game - originally planned to be an intrasquad scrimmage - is scheduled for April 19, which happens to be the same day that Syracuse will hold its final spring practice.
Such a spring game has never taken place, and the NCAA’s FBS Oversight Committee, whose next meeting is April 10, will have to rule favorably on the request.
Now, then - just in case the NCAA should say “No” - I suggest having a lawsuit all ready to go, suing the NCAA to allow the game because otherwise athletes from two colleges - both coached by African-American men, I would add, for effect - are being deprived of this unique chance to display their talents to the NFL, not to mention other colleges).
And then, as it always does when threatened by a lawsuit, the NCAA will fold.
In return for my support, I would request one concession from coaches Sanders and Brown: nobody wears one of those stupid-looking Guardian condom-caps.
********** A Wall Street Journal article on why more and more women are excluding marriage from their plans noted that more women than men are attending college, buying houses and focusing on friendships and careers over dating and marriage.
And then, to illustrate, it provided one of the most f—ked-up examples I’ve ever heard of.
Rachel Gosetti, a 33-year-old real estate agent in Savannah, Georgia, said she broke up with her boyfriend, with whom she shares a five-year-old son, over a year ago because she was tired of doing most of the child care, cooking, and scheduling while also earning almost double her boyfriend’s salary. She has yet to date anyone else in part because she worries about living in a red state with a six-week abortion ban. “I have a child that I can’t leave behind to drive to Virginia if I had a pregnancy scare, and I definitely can’t afford another child as a single mom,” she said.
Good luck to that little five-year-old guy, whose mother has already dismissed his father - partly because he didn’t make enough money - and doesn’t want to bring another man into the kid’s life for fear she’ll get knocked up and then have to travel all the way to Virginia, the nearest state where she can get a convenient abortion.
************ I’ve been around wrestling people long enough to know what a tight-knit group they are, how passionately devoted to their sport they are, and how the sense that they and their sport are unappreciated by the general public often leads to an us-against-the-world mentality.
So I can only imagine how excited wrestling people were when the President of the United States showed that they mattered - when he showed up Saturday at their premier event - the NCAA championships - in Philadelphia.
The place went wild, chanting “USA! USA! USA!” as President Trump entered the Wells Fargo Center.
On hand to greet him, among many wrestling dignitaries, were Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, who won four letters in wrestling at West Point and was team co-captain his senior year, and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who won four state championships while in high school, and two NCAA championships at Wisconsin.
Easily the most dramatic event of the entire tournament came in the very last match when heavyweight Wyatt Hendrickson of Oklahoma State upset Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson of Minnesota, with a takedown in the final seconds of their match. Steveson had won 70 straight matches, and until then had not suffered a single takedown all season.
After the win, Hendrickson saluted the President - his Commander-in-Chief - and then they hugged. Hendrickson had wrestled four seasons at Air Force and had graduated and been commissioned as an Air Force officer. Because of Covid-19 he, like other athletes, was given an extra year of eligibility, and he had qualified for Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program. But because service academies do not allow graduate students to compete there, he chose to wrestle as an Oklahoma State Cowboy.
AHEM: The name Wyatt originates from an old English surname and supposedly means “brave in war” or “strong warrior.” As Casey Stengel used to say, You could look it up. (Just in case Governor Walz of Minnesota would like to meet me somewhere.)
*********** Penn State won its fourth straight NCAA wrestling championship.
1. Penn State
2. Nebraska
3. Oklahoma State
4. Iowa
5. Minnesota
6. Ohio State
7. Cornell
8. NC State
9. Northern Iowa
10. Illinois
Penn State had nine wrestlers finish at least fifth - eight finished no worse than third; Mitchell Mesenbrink and Carter Starocci both won championships. Nebraska had eight wrestlers place in the top eight in their class, Oklahoma State had five, and Iowa had four.
Starocci, from Erie, Pennsylvania Cathedral Prep, became the first-ever five-time NCAA national champion.
It was Penn State Coach Cael Sanderson’s twelfth NCAA team championship in the 16 years he’s been the Nittany Lions’ coach. His record there is 218-16-2; he has coached 101 All-Americans and 40 national champions. As a college wrestler (at Iowa State) he never lost a match (159-0) and was a four-time national champion. And he’s just 45 years old!
College wrestling is still alive in a lot of places: 80 wrestlers who placed (eight in each of ten weight classes) represented 34 different colleges.
Front Row (L to R) Vincent Robinson, NC State (125); Lucas Byrd, Illinois (133); Jesse Mendez, Ohio State (141); Ridge Lovett, Nebraska (149); Antrell Taylor, Nebraska (157)
Back Row: (L to R) Mitchell Mesenbrink, Penn State (165); Dean Hamiti, Oklahoma State (174); Carter Starocci, Penn State (184); Stephen Buchanan, Iowa (197); Wyatt Hendrickson, Oklahoma State (285)
*********** Columbia University, which is being tied in knots by “protestors” and doesn’t have the stones to deal with them, once had a president who would have known how.
His name was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He was a little busy during World War II, but afterwards, from June, 1948 to January, 1953 (when he left to become President of the United States), he was the President of Columbia.
General Eisenhower (“Ike”) would have made short work of these culls.
But those were very different times. That America had just fought (and won) a war, and didn’t have a lot of patience for spoiled children, especially in large numbers.
But today? Imagine the protests if Columbia - any Ivy League school for that matter - even hinted at the mere possibility of hiring a retired Army general as its president.
*********** Q. Who isn’t in the NCAA Tournament?
A. Every ACC team except Duke
Q. Who is/was in the NCAA Tournament?
A. All five of the starters from last year’s Montverde Academy (Montverde, Florida) team (Hometowns in parentheses)
Liam McNeeley, UConn (Plano, Texas)
Cooper Flagg, Duke (Newport, Maine)
Derik Queen, Maryland (Baltimore, Maryland)
Asa Newell, Georgia (Fort Walton Beach, Florida)
Robert Wright III, Baylor (Wilmington, Delaware)
(Duke’s Flagg may be the best player in America and could be the NBA’s Number One pick. Maryland’s Queen scored on a buzzer-beater Sunday to defeat Colorado State.)
*********** COLORFUL QUOTE: After Army's 7-7 tie with Navy in 1965, Army coach Paul Dietzel said, "We were so bad offensively that we could've played for a week and neither team would've scored again. It was kind of like the battle of the ants.”
*********** The heading on Facebook was “Netflix Set to Release a Documentary on Penn State Nittany Lions Football and Joe Paterno – A Journey Through College Football Legacy and Excellence.”
And sure enough, one of the first comments on Joe Paterno was:
“Most over-rated coach in history.”
Now, that was guaranteed to get me going. My response:
Sir (notice how politely I addressed him), when Joe Paterno became head coach, the capacity of Beaver Stadium was 46,284 and it seldom sold out. Thanks to his leadership and the success of his teams it is now more than 100,000 - the second-largest college Stadium in America - and it is packed every game day. No other coach has ever come close to accomplishing anything comparable. But perhaps you and I have different definitions of “over-rated.”
*********** The Governor of WV smelled a rat, then got bittten by another, Indiana, which pilfered his basketball coach.
Enjoyed the info on Marcus Millen. In my day, infantry was the only branch for the man who wanted to run with the big dogs.
This fresh perspective gives me a new appreciation for Travis Hunter. I've never met a truly enthusiastic angler who isn't an all-round decent person.
I'm eager to hear more from Coach Lude about his AD duties.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I forget what ESPN show I was watching, but it was an interview with Travis Hunter.
I was stunned. I wasn’t expecting mild-mannered, honest, and funny. He wasn’t anything like the guy I would see on the field! That article you re-printed about him validates the interview I watched, and why I was pulling for him to win the Heisman.
WOW, reading about Matt Millen’s son Marcus made me realize how truly old I really am! At the same time if he ever does run for president, and I’m still around, he’d have my vote!
I don’t have a list, but MY number one for best college coach has to go to Jeff Monken. Year in and year out his teams compete and win with supposedly less talent than his Division 1 peers. I feel the same way about HS coaches who do the same.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, I give Jeff Monken great credit for winning the AAC in Army's first year of membership. Like most Army fans I was greatly disturbed by the ass-kicking that Navy delivered. I think we’re going to see just how good a coach he is this year, when he has to replace maybe 75 per cent of his offense with the loss of QB Bryson Daily (graduating) and RB Kanye Udoh (transferred to Arizona State).
*********** QUIZ: He played his high school ball at St. Francis High in Mountain View, California.
As a defensive lineman, he was an All-American at USC. He played in a pair of Rose Bowls and co-captained the 1967 National Champion Trojan team.
He was chosen in the opening round of the NFL draft. by the Philadelphia Eagles.
"To be drafted in the first round was an unbelievable experience in my life and something that I didn't expect," he said. "I had no expectations. I wanted to be a baseball player. I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates out of high school and I chose not to go play in the minor league system because I had the good fortune of having about 150 scholarship offers for football. I thought it'd probably be best to take advantage of that and get my education because who knows what's going to happen in the future?”
At 6-4, 245, he was a very good defensive player in the NFL, both as an end and a middle linebacker, but he’s best remembered for his “intense, eccentric and off-beat personality.”
“(He) was the kind of guy who lived on the razor's edge of rationality and once in a while he would tip off to the wrong side," said Steve Sabol of NFL Films fame, who shared an apartment with him for two seasons. "I mean, how many people do you know who set themselves on fire?"
"Whatever you heard about (him), believe it," said former Eagles teammate Ron Medved. “Whatever it was, I was sure (he) had done it. He was a wild man."
"I live my life to enjoy myself, I can't explain the things I do much beyond that," he once told Sports Illustrated's John Underwood. "I have more energy than I know what to do with. I can't just sit around. I get bored. A lot of what I do is silly, trying to cheer people up, trying to cheer myself up."
Among the many things he was known to do were:
Biting the tops off beer bottles and chewing drinking glasses.
Eating a lightbulb.
Diving head first into a whirlpool.
Grabbing a spider off a locker room table and eating it.
Diving naked into a birthday cake.
Setting his hair on fire.
Riding a motorcycle off a pier.
Once, during the Eagles’ Training Camp at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, a thunderstorm cancelled the afternoon practice and flooded the streets. Taking a table from the locker room, he went outside and, using it like a surfboard, paddled his way around the area, through and around stalled traffic.
While with the Eagles he played for three different head coaches in his four years with the club.
When Ed Khayat took over as Eagles head coach a month into the 1971 season, he issued an order: no long hair, no mustaches. Our guy was the last player to comply, waiting until five minutes before the deadline to shave off his mustache.
"It didn't make sense to me," he said. "The length of your hair, the width of your lapels or your necktie. Did you have a mustache? What did that have to do with playing football? He said it improved discipline. I thought it was the opposite. It created a situation where guys were talking about this stuff instead of getting better as a football team.”
After becoming a starting defensive end midway through his rookie campaign, he was named to the Pro Bowl following his second season, but then Jerry Williams replaced Joe Kuharich as the head coach, and a career-ending injury to middle linebacker Dave Lloyd prompted Williams to propose a change in position.
"Jerry Williams called me in and said that he thought the best athlete should be playing middle linebacker," he said, "and would I consider moving from defensive end? And I said, 'Well, it's not like asking the center to move and play quarterback. Yes, of course. I can be in on every tackle, on every play.' So, I moved to middle linebacker."
"You know how I learned to play middle linebacker?” he asked. “From Dick Butkus. Not from him personally, but at that time, I was living with Steve Sabol of NFL Films and I said, 'They moved me to middle linebacker. I need to know how Dick Butkus plays middle linebacker.' So, he would bring all the highlights and I would study Dick Butkus for hours and hours and hours and hours."
"What I learned from Dick Butkus was that the most important thing was that you know all of your keys, you know what's happening in the backfield, you know what's happening on the line, and when somebody gets the ball, you don't tackle them, you tackle somebody three feet behind them. Because when you tackle somebody three feet behind them, you put your face onto their chin and you snap their neck. Their legs stop moving and they can't dodge you. They just fall down in a heap. That's football!””
In 1972, he and safety Bill Bradley held out during training Camp. When he and Bradley showed up at camp in an RV and sold drinks to the fans, that was enough - the Eagles swapped him to the Chargers for a first-round draft pick.
He spent one season with the Chargers and two seasons with the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League, and finally ended his career with the Houston Oilers in 1976.
Considering his California roots and connections (he and Tom Selleck were roommates at USC) and his reputation as a daredevil, it was no surprise that he found work in Hollywood as a stunt man. He got his start doing stunts on the 1978 Burt Reynolds film “Hooper.”
He would go on to find steady work as an actor, appearing in such TV shows as MacGyver, Hunter, Baywatch, Harry and the Hendersons, Jake and the Fatman, The Fall Guy, ALF, The Love Boat, Knight Rider, Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, Remington Steele, Soap, The A-Team and Magnum, P.I., and in such movies as Night Shift, Sting II, The Long Riders, Looker and The Main Event.
Because of his size and wild-eyed appearance, he often played a bad guy with a mustache.
"It bothers my mother when I get killed (in the movies) all the time," he once said. "But then she says, 'As long as the paycheck is in the mailbox, I guess it's OK.' I enjoy my life. It's like yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery. I feel like the only thing I'm guaranteed is today and I'm gonna live it to the utmost."
For the last several years of his life he and his wife operated “Chow Chow Rescue of the Sierra Foothills,” focusing on chows because of his wife’s lifelong love of the breed, but actually working with all breeds of dogs.
FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2025 “Leadership is the skill of
influencing your teammates to work enthusiastically toward our team
goals.” Chris Petersen *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I waited. I waited some more. The longer I waited the more bored I got selling real estate. I’d come home and my wife, Rena, what ask me how things were going and I’d say, "Just great, really terrific, everything’s fine.” And she would say, "Mike Lude, I've lived with you a long time. You're not happy.” And after the unexpected death of Max Mpore, the Denver realtor who had hired me after I lost the Colorado State coaching job, I knew real estate was not for me.
Fall came. Football season was under way. And I was having withdrawal pains being away from the work I had thrived on from the day in 1947 when I joined the football coaching staff at Hillsdale College. On a Tuesday in late October 1970, Dr. White, the Kent State president, finally called. His words were simple, but they meant a lot to an unemployed football coach who had one daughter in college and two more in the wings.
"MIke, we would like to have you as our athletic Director,” Dr. White said. My response was equally brief: "Dr. White, you just hired an athletic Director.”
I had accepted without even knowing how much the job would pay. It appeared that Dr. White wasn't certain, either, because before we finished talking he asked me: "Uh, MIke, when you were here for an interview and we talked about the job last July, what did I tell you the pay would be?”
As I recall he had proposed a range. I said the low number wasn't nearly enough and that I had hoped to get more than the high. He agreed to give me the high and offered to try to help me "in a lot of other ways.“
After working out the logistics of travel, I packed my bag and hopped a plane to Cleveland, then drove to Kent, a pleasant city of about 30,000 in northern Ohio. I was anxious to get started on my first job in a new career. I was back in sports and still at the college level but I had a whole new range of responsibilities.
*********** I only know what I’ve read, and I hasten to rush to judgement, but it appears that Stanford football coach Troy Taylor has had some serious difficulties dealing with athletic staffers, particularly females, which led to two different investigations of “bullying and belitting” conduct in the two years he’s been there.
The first investigation came before he had even coached a game, after the school received numerous complaints about Taylor’s “hostile and aggressive behavior.”
After that investigation, the school claims that it “took appropriate measures,” which included some sort of “warning,” and putting Taylor on a Performance Improvement Plan.
That was followed by a 3-9 season, Stanford’s third straight after a pair of 3-9 seasons under Taylor’s predecessor, David Shaw.
Then came some conflict with the university’s compliance officer concerning NCAA infractions, and more accusations of “bullying and belittling,” which triggered a second investigation. It began this past June, with a different investigator, and it didn't go well.
The investigator, who has advised several Division I and Power 4 programs, said in his report that he had never encountered "this palpable level of animosity and disdain" for a university compliance office.
Taylor's behavior, the investigator concluded, "is a continuation of the type of conduct that resulted in the Written Warning issued to him" previously, and his continued behavior was "causing increasing stress and despair among those impacted."
The investigation concluded in July, and it would seem that with football practice about to get under way, the decision was made not to deal with Taylor, but instead to wait and see. Perhaps, with Stanford’s upcoming entry into ACC play, it was felt that there was already sufficient drama ahead without facing it with a leaderless team.
So with Taylor at the helm, Stanford finished with another 3-9 season, its fourth in a row.
The Athletic Director, who presumably had made the decision to press on, resigned not long after the season.
It’s hard not to ask the question – for three wins, they kept him around? If they had gone ahead and canned him right then and there, appointing an interim coach, what’s the worst that could have happened? 0-12? So what, if it meant doing the right thing?
Unless there’s a strong argument on Taylor’s behalf - one that seems to be missing so far - then for a school that takes enormous pride in doing things the right way… in putting its students’ experience first… in “upholding the highest standards of behavior in the workplace"… in being above the hoi polloi… no number of wins could have compensated for their failure to act. last July.
************ According to an article I read in the Pittsburgh Tribune, there’s a teacher shortage in Pennsylvania - as of this past October, there were 2,500 vacant teaching positions in the state - and it isn’t going to get any better: according to a February 2024 report, the number of certified teachers produced by the state's colleges and universities dropped a full 75% in the past ten years.
Sorta makes you wonder: do school districts, teacher training institutions and high school career counselors ever think about the future? Do they ever come out of their silos and, you know, talk to each other?
*********** I got a call from a long-time (20+ years) Double Wing coach who was concerned about something he’d heard a clinician say. The clinician was one of these “Shotgun Wing-T” guys and evidently he had said that a major reason for his switching to the gun was that with the QB under center, his pulling guards had to slow down because the quarterback was in the way.
Now, not to get a cat fight started on here, but if that really is so, he can’t have been much of a Wing-T coach if he couldn’t teach his QB to take the snap from under center and then get the hell out of the way of pulling guards.
Interestingly, that should be a bigger problem yet for a Double Wing coach. With the conventional Wing-T, the guards are split two feet from the center, but with our zero splits, our guards are two feet closer, which means they’re far more likely to crash into the quarterback.
One of the first things I teach the Double Wing QB is that he has to first the get ball out of the way and then get himself out of the way of any pulling guard, because we’re not going to ask that guard to slow down.
Please write me - coachhw@mac.com - if this has been a problem for you and I’ll be glad to share with you the steps I take to eliminate the problem. (PHOTOS BELOW: One thing I make sure to do in the early stages of teaching the center-QB exchange is to play “pulling guard” myself, starting on the snap count and trying to collide with the ball before the QB can pull it into “the stones” and get out of there.)
*********** I got my copy of “The Last Manager,” by John W. Miller, as soon as Amazon could ship it, and it’s as good as I’d hoped it would be.
It’s a biography of the great Earl Weaver, long-time manager of the Baltimore Orioles, and one of my favorite baseball people. In reading it, I came across one of the greatest descriptions ever of a great teacher…
It was Weaver‘s luck that season to be paired with 29-year-old Winston-Salem manager George Kissel, one of professional baseball‘s legendary teaching gurus. Kissel, who worked for the Cardinals from 1940 until his death in 2008, is credited with inventing “the Cardinal Way“ St. Louis’s systematic method of building winning baseball teams. Baseball men from Branch Rickey to Tony LaRussa would rave about his instruction.
How good a teacher was he?
“He could teach a snake to box,” said Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson.
*********** Welcome to our world Kirby!
With roughly half the Georgia roster preparing for their first season as Bulldogs, Kirby Smart has found himself teaching his team how to practice.
He’s discovered that he’s recruited some players that aren't mentally and emotionally prepared to handle a Georgia practice, he told footballscoop.com.
“They're offended when you coach them,” he said.
“'You're coaching me hard? You're telling me I've got to play with effort?’ Some of them, I guess have never been held to that standard.”
When asked if he’d seen an increase in players not taking well to coaching in recent years - when asked if players who were getting paid to play college football were less coachable because they think they've arrived - Smart answered, "Kids that want to be coached don't care what they make. Guys in the National Football Feague make more than these guys, and they still want to be coached.”
My question? Where is the team leadership? Where are the veterans? Where are the NCOs, the guys the military depends on to let the greenhorns know “how we do things around here?”
*********** This story was in The Athletic and that means it’s behind a firewall, so there’s no way I could have shared it with you by posting a link. But I thought it was so good that it needs to be shared? Why? Because it’s a rare opportunity to learn more - a lot more - about a kid who most of us know only as a football player.
You know Travis Hunter the 2-way phenom. But a 2-sport star? Take a ride on his fishing boat
Jayna Bardahl
March 19, 2025Updated 8:54 am PDT
It’s January, and a cold front is passing through Arizona. On Roosevelt Lake, about 100 miles east of Phoenix, winds whistle as white-capped waves crash on the dock.
One boat emerges carefully, yet quickly, seeking cover in a cove. There’s precious cargo to protect. Twenty-four carat gold. And a fisherman better known as the reigning Heisman Trophy winner.
Al Noraker had been so sure his friend and fishing partner Travis Hunter would win the 2024 Heisman Trophy that he crafted a congratulatory gift for him well before Thanksgiving. Stored in Noraker’s office in Loveland, Colo., for nearly two months sat a gold fishing reel equipped with the newest technology in the industry.
Finding time on the schedule of college football’s latest sensation isn’t easy. It’s nothing like 2023, when Hunter first came to Colorado and was texting Noraker, the former president of fishing equipment company KastKing, on nearly every off day from football, eager to get out on the fishing boat.
“What I realized that day was not only is this guy a top-notch talent in college football, he’s just a heck of a good kid,” Noraker recalls of first meeting Hunter.
“Him and I couldn’t be any more different. I’m this old White guy from the ‘burbs, and here’s this world-class athlete, young Black guy from the South.
“But when we get on the boat, it’s like we’ve been doing it all our lives, and that’s all we care about. It’s just really fun.”
At long last, on a cool January day, Noraker presented Hunter with a silver briefcase bearing his name, No. 12 and a Buffaloes helmet on a bronze plaque, an ode to the Heisman Trophy. Inside was a fishing reel better fit for a trophy case.
“I thought he was going to fall out of the boat,” Noraker remembers. “His mouth dropped open.”
But it’s hard to distract Hunter on a fishing boat for too long.
“As soon as we closed it and turned the camera off, Travis was like, ‘All right, can we go fishing now?’” said A.J. Gore, who was along for the trip with KastKing. “It was funny as can be because he just received this gold, fully functional, most advanced fishing reel on the market, and he was more excited to go fishing.”
There isn’t Hunter the two-way football star (and likely top-five NFL Draft pick), without Hunter the fisherman. Scoring touchdowns or picking off passes? Hunter dreams of neither, as he told ESPN on the day of December’s Heisman Trophy ceremony.
“When I dream at night, I’m fishing on a boat,” he said.
The 21-year-old details his fishing outings on YouTube, including competitions against Colorado coach Deion Sanders. A Season 2 episode of Amazon Prime’s “Coach Prime” series opens with Hunter and Noraker on a boat, with Hunter saying, “All I’ve pretty much known since I was little is to go fish or to play football.” He signed name, image and likeness deals with fishing companies in college, KastKing included. And at last month’s NFL Scouting Combine, when asked by ESPN’s Laura Rutledge how he handles the pressure of the upcoming NFL Draft, Hunter shrugged.
“I just look at fishing all day,” he replied.
But it’s unfair to call fishing a hobby for Hunter.
“When Travis talks about fishing, he’s deadly serious,” Noraker said. “I mean, that’s all he really wants to do other than be the best football player on the planet.”
This is the side of Hunter most people don’t see. On a fishing boat, football takes a back seat. The Athletic spoke with six people who have fished with Hunter in recent years, and each of them said he doesn’t talk much — or at all — about the gridiron. In the tight-knit fishing community, some didn’t even know who he was when they first met.
“I thought he was kind of tall and lanky for a football player, but I’m like, whatever,” said professional angler Max Hernandez, who first met Hunter fishing in Colorado in the summer of 2023. “After I left that night … I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I wonder who this Travis Hunter guy is for real?’
“I Googled him, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, he’s a big (deal).”
As familiar as Hunter’s skills on the football field have become, he isn’t your “average fisherman,” either, professional bass angler Matt Becker says. In May 2024, Becker met Hunter at a lake outside Orlando for a few quick hours of fishing.
Upon arrival, Hunter jumped out of the car and headed straight to the water, studying it.
“I could just pick up on his passion for fishing instantly. I can sniff that out in someone pretty quick,” Becker said.
On the water, it’s peaceful. No music or podcasts. Nature is the background noise, mixed with some competitive flair, of course.
“There was a lot of smack talk going on, back and forth trying to out-fish the other one,” Becker said. “Travis did catch the first fish, so I heard an earful about that one.”
Jokes, high energy and healthy competition are guaranteed on a fishing trip with Hunter. The stakes vary.
One day, Noraker presented Hunter with a bet. The fisherman with the greatest total length of fish caught that day would win. If Hunter won, he’d get a new rod and reel. If Noraker won, he’d get tickets to the next Colorado football home game, which happened to be the 2023 sold-out opener against rival Nebraska.
“My wife and I got to enjoy a very good game with great seats,” Noraker said.
Competition aside, fishing can be an escape from reality, even when trips don’t go as planned. In a recent outing at Valley Lake Ranch in North Texas, Hunter’s boat motor blew up while on the water with Cooper Thor of 6th Sense Fishing. A stressful situation at first, Thor reflects back and laughs. They didn’t let it derail the day, hopping on a friend’s boat to finish.
“He’s just one of the boys,” Thor said of Hunter. “He likes to catch fish. He will sit there and hang with us. He will fish for as long as you can, from sun up to sun down, with absolutely zero complaints.”
Fishing is a chance for Hunter to step away from the limelight of a high-stakes football career. After all, he wouldn’t be the first to reel in the opportunity.
In 2007, future Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive tackle Joe Thomas famously skipped the NFL Draft for a fishing day with his father on Lake Michigan. He took a call from the Cleveland Browns, who selected him at No. 3, from the boat.
Thomas never expected the decision to make headlines, he says now. Saturdays were always spent fishing with his dad. And those moments away from the “fishbowl” of NFL life were vital to his career.
“You spend 99 percent of your waking hours playing football, going to meetings, training your body, having your body recover, watching film,” said Thomas, who hasn’t talked to Hunter about fishing but bonded with many former teammates over the hobby. “You’re spending that time on a very, very high-intensity, stressful job with super high stakes. It’s huge to be able to recharge the batteries.”
The ideal recharge for Hunter ends with a familiar tradition: barbecue. On the day Hunter received his golden reel, the group arranged an outing to Salinas’s Smoke Street in Globe, Ariz., for dinner. The restaurant’s grand opening wasn’t until the next day. But dining with the Heisman Trophy winner tends to pull a few strings.
“I don’t know if people know this,” Gore said. “He likes football. He loves fishing. And he loves good barbecue.”
Even as life around Hunter grows more crowded, fishing remains a constant. A simple pleasure. A mental escape. A dream.
“If he wasn’t Travis Hunter the Heisman Trophy winner, I would almost guarantee that he would either be a huge social media fishing star or fishing at the highest levels,” said Jose Cinco, who has appeared on Hunter’s podcast “The Travis Hunter Show” to discuss fishing. “He’s just that passionate about it.”
When Hunter’s name is called in April at the NFL Draft in Green Bay, Wis., his future team will already know it’s adding a dual-threat player — a savvy wide receiver and lockdown cornerback whom teams see playing both ways. But how about a two-sport athlete?
There’s a split verdict among the community of fishermen who have seen him do both on what Hunter is more skilled at — catching footballs or fish. It turns out, Hunter might have a clearer answer for that.
“He was in the middle of landing a fish, and I joke around a lot, so I said, ‘Are you better at offense, defense or bass fishing?’” remembers Chuck Pippin, who fished with Hunter twice on the Butler Chain of Lakes outside of Orlando.
“He quickly answered bass fishing. That’s his passion.”
“”””””””””” Bruce Feldman, in The Athletic, recently posted his. Top 25 Current College Coaches
Frankly, I’m not a big fan of its like this, but I took the bait, just as you probably will - I looked at it.
Wrote Feldman:
The top three in my annual ranking of the best coaches in college football was easy. After that, things got more complicated.
How much does recency bias factor in? For me, not as much as it does for Stewart Mandel, whose Top 25 can be found here. I’ve always given coaches more credit for what they did at their previous stops than he does, but I’ve become more of a creature of the moment than I used to be.
One caveat: Even with all of the shake-up in the sport, it’s hard to include coaches who haven’t spent at least three seasons as a head coach (that means no Kenny Dillingham, despite a fantastic second season at Arizona State). It’s just too short of a shelf life to compare resumes with other coaches.
Me again: DeBoer at 5? Franklin at 8? Riley at 13? Sanders at 18? Really?
1. Kirby Smart, Georgia (2024: No. 1)
2. Ryan Day, Ohio State (2024: No. 5)
3. Dabo Swinney, Clemson (2024: No. 2)
4. Steve Sarkisian, Texas (2024: No. 11)
5. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama (2024: No. 4)
6. Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame (2024: NR)
7. Dan Lanning, Oregon (2024: NR)
8. James Franklin, Penn State (2024: No. 7)
9. Matt Campbell, Iowa State (2024: NR)
10. Brian Kelly, LSU (2024: No. 6)
11. Chris Klieman, Kansas State (2024: No. 12)
12. Kyle Whittingham, Utah (2024: No. 8)
13. Lincoln Riley, USC (2024: No. 9)
14. Lance Leipold, Kansas (2024: No. 3)
15. Jeff Brohm, Louisville (2024: No. 13)
16. Josh Heupel, Tennessee (2024: No. 17)
17. Rich Rodriguez, West Virginia (2024: No. 25)
18. Deion Sanders, Colorado (2024: NR)
19. Curt Cignetti, Indiana (2024: NR)
t-20. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss (No. 21)
t-20. Mario Cristobal, Miami (2024: NR)
22. Rhett Lashlee, SMU (2024: NR)
23. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa (2024: No. 15)
24. Bret Bielema, Illinois (2024: NR)
25. Jeff Monken, Army (2024: NR)
Dropped out: Florida State’s Mike Norvell (No. 10), Kentucky’s Mark Stoops (No. 14), Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson (No. 16, retired), Nebraska’s Matt Rhule (No. 18), Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell (No. 19), Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy (No. 20), Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith (No. 22), Auburn’s Hugh Freeze (No. 23) and Washington’s Jedd Fisch (No. 24)
Just missed: TCU’s Sonny Dykes, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, BYU’s Kalani Sitake, Stoops, Gundy, Norvell, Rhule, Fisch, Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, Fickell
(Top photo of Marcus Freeman: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
*********** MARCUS MILLEN, MATT’S SON - A CAREER ARMY MAN
From The Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record, November, 2007
It seems Marcus Millen was destined to become
a soldier from the moment he was born. His name means "strong warrior,"
and he has been fascinated with the military lifestyle for as long as
his parents can remember."Ever since he was just a little kid,'' says his father, ex-football pro Matt Millen, "he started collecting Civil War swords. "Ś He always had that mind for the military. Even when he went into the woods, he would always look for the high ground.’'
Camouflage T-shirts and shorts were the fashion for young Marcus, and every visit to the toy store for his birthday resulted in the purchase of a toy gun.
"I wanted to be an Army man,'' he said. "I was enamored by the whole concept. I watch the History Channel and the great battles. 'Wow, that is something else.' As I got older I realized what it really meant and what you have to do. I saw the sacrifice it takes and the commitment, and I knew that's what I wanted to do.’'
One of the happiest days of Marcus' life was the day he was accepted into the U.S. Military Academy. Another took place just two weeks ago when Millen, a senior defensive end and special teams player on the Army football squad, was granted his wish to branch into the infantry.
"I really couldn't see myself doing anything else but the infantry,'' Millen said. "In armor, you work with tanks. With field artillery, you work with the big guns. With aviation, you work with helicopters. With infantry, you work with people. You want the best leaders to be leading from the front and leading those people. It's where I wanted to be.’'
Being the best infantry leader he can be came at a price, though. Millen agreed to extend his mandatory military commitment from five years to eight just to improve his odds of getting his branch assignment.
As Brig. Gen. Robert Caslen, the commandant of cadets, addressed the corps at Eisenhower Hall, each cadet sat nervously with an envelope in hand and his or her future inside. When given the order, the future officers opened the handouts and Millen was relieved to see the crossed-rifles insignia representing the infantry. "That was a great feeling,'' Millen said, the smile still creasing his face two weeks later.
As it turns out, Millen earned the last infantry slot in the entire Class of 2008 thanks to his decision to extend his service.
"A lot of people on the team said, 'Millen, you are crazy to go infantry and give up three more years,' but I wanted infantry so much,'' Millen said. "I would rather be doing what I really want to be doing for eight years than do something I don't have my heart fully into for five years and maybe three after that (in the active reserves).''
Branching infantry means one more thing: Millen's ticket is surely punched for the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. He doesn't shy from the task ahead — in fact, Matt said his son's commitment and resolve were galvanized following the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001.
"The past four years I've been here "Ś we knew we were a nation at war,'' Millen said. "We knew what we were getting ourselves into.’'
Millen has practiced hard on the football field and he is grateful for the opportunity to play on Army's special teams units — in his final home game yesterday at Michie Stadium, he had the opportunity to fair catch one kick and return another. "I tried to make a cut and then I realized that I was slow,'' he laughed. The U.S. Army is his other team, and he's been practicing hard to be a soldier for four years. War, though never desired, is a soldier's Super Bowl, says Millen.
"Some people may think I am crazy for doing it,'' he said, "but I think that's what I've been preparing for these past four years, and one year after this, to get deployed.’'
Life at West Point has not been easy and Millen admits there have been days when he wanted to get away from it all, but he says the experience has helped him build character and leadership skills and forge the bonds of friendship.
That's what being a soldier is all about. Millen didn't fully understand that as a child but he has come to embrace it now.
*** UPDATE FROM THE (ALLENTOWN, PA.) MORNING CALL, April 2020
The son of Pat and Matt Millen, a former NFL player and CEO, was an all-state football player and captain of Easton’s wrestling program that won four consecutive PIAA Class 3A team tournament titles during his time there.
Millen was an officer leading units in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Baghdad before earning his MBA from Harvard and transitioning to the classroom. He is 12 years into a military career he knew he wanted when he was 8 years old, currently serving as an instructor in the Behavioral Science and Leadership department at West Point.
He carries the rank of major in the military and is married to the former Courtney Regan, a 2003 PIAA pole vault champion at Easton. They have three children: sons Lincoln, 4, and Griffin, 9 months; and daughter Parker, 2.
“He always had that personality, that leadership, that passion,” said Steve Powell, Millen’s wrestling coach at Easton. “I still think that kid is going to be president."
Marcus Millen’s future after four years at West Point never included football or wrestling. He was destined to lead in battle.
His first tour was as a reconnaissance platoon leader and executive officer during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
“That first fire fight, you don’t know what to expect,” he said. “It’s highly romanticized in the movies. A soldier said he saw a rock jump. We’re like, ‘Idiot, you’re being shot at.’ That romanticized version quickly fades.
“You grow up real fast when you have 40 people on your side and 80 Afghans with the same objective. At 25, everyone is asking you what to do. You have to rely on your training, be adaptive and disciplined.”
Millen was a captain for his second tour. He was the Brigade Chief of Plans and Global Response Force Heavy Company Team Commander during Operation Spartan Shield in Kuwait and Baghdad.
“That was a lot more technical for me,” he said. “But it reminded you that you were only minutes away from something getting really bad. The preparation for you to step in and stop the negative consequences is crucial.
“It’s like practicing in the wrestling room the things you hate.”
Courtney Millen was a constant throughout Marcus’ military career. When Millen was sent to Fort Polk in Louisiana prior to his first deployment, Courtney, who earned a finance degree from Princeton and was working in Manhattan, moved to an apartment in Louisiana close to where he was stationed.
The two were married in a ceremony with only their parents present before Millen was sent to Afghanistan.
There was a bigger celebration 18 months later at Stroudsmoor Country Inn in Stroudsburg, when tomahawks were the gifts for the men in the wedding party.
The Millens were in Colorado Springs following his second deployment, when they welcomed their first child (Lincoln). They then moved to Boston as Millen began his transition from the war room to the classroom.
He attended Harvard to work on an MBA.
“He called to tell me that he was going to Harvard and asked if I’d help him move,” Richmond recalled. “He bought my plane ticket [to Colorado Springs]. We packed up the house.
He drove the U-Haul. I drove his wife’s truck. His dad drove his truck, and we were on walkie talkies having conversation for the 28- to 30-hour trip.”
The craziness continued. Two days after Millen graduated from Harvard, he became a father for the second time (Parker).
The Millens returned to West Point, where Marcus began teaching everything from leadership classes to business strategy. He also travels to different Army units to teach principle negotiations.
Millen will have a decision to make in two years. It will be the first time he can transition out to the reserves. If he passes on that, he’ll have six more years before putting in his two decades of service.
Millen eventually plans on bringing his family back to the Lehigh Valley for the next phase of his life. Courtney will finish her executive MBA from Cornell in May.
“
Courtney has been a huge source of support,” Millen said. “She’s way smarter than me. She left Manhattan and came to the middle of nowhere Louisiana and worked remotely. She’s always adapted along the way.
*** CURRENTLY - MARCUS MILLEN, CEO OF THE VALOR STRATEGY GROUP
Marcus brings nearly two decades of experience leading, building, and advising high performing teams in the US Army, academia, intelligence and special operations communities. After two deployments as an Airborne Ranger qualified Infantry Officer, he served as an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point before concluding his active duty military career as a Strategist at the Defense Intelligence Agency. In his role as CEO he is responsible for the strategic integration and growth across the Valor Strategy Group portfolio of companies.
He holds a BS from the United States Military Academy, where he was a member of the football team, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He is married to his beautiful wife Courtney, and they have four children.
*********** Don Paul played linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams (1948–1955) and earned a reputation as one of the NFL’s dirtiest players.
He admitted that he was dirtier than everyoen said. “It’s not what you do,” he explained. “It’s what they see you do.”
“Look at it this way,” he once told Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray. ”I never bit anybody.”
*********** Hugh,
I had heard of Rush Limbaugh growing up, but it wasn't until I was into my middle aged years I actually started listening to his broadcasts.
Suffice it to say Mr. Limbaugh made an impression on me, and convinced me I was a conservative in nature.
Speaking of "old" radio broadcasters...I remember my folks listening to some guy named Paul Harvey. At that time in my life I really didn't have a clue as to what he was talking about half the time. But I always remembered his sign-off..."Good Day!" However, I DO remember him scaring the absolute "H" out of me once with his take on "If I Were the Devil"... After hearing that again I'm still scared! Good Day!
https://firstchristianmetro.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/paul-harvey-1965-if-i-were-the-devil.pdf
I would have LOVED to have heard Bobby Knight's take on who was the GOAT in basketball.
Deion Sanders may have opened a can of worms. Playing an actual spring "game" against another school would be great for the students and fans, but in today's day and age of college NIL will the players' agents demand the players get a "bonus" in their contracts for playing an extra game?
Maybe, with all this NIL/Portal crap going on, you may see more schools choose to play football at the club level. Actually there is a national club football association (NCFA). There are four conferences, and 14 teams (in alphabetical order) Clarkson University, Columbus State University, Coppin State University, George Mason University, Loyola University-Chicago, Michigan State University (yes, THAT MSU), Oakland University, Sacred Heart University, Ohio State University (yes, "THE" OSU), University of South Carolina (yes, THOSE same Gamecocks), University of Toledo, University of Vermont, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wright State University. There are other club programs NOT in the NCFA.
While Matt Millen went on to stardom at Penn State his teammate at Whitehall, and the QB, went on to start at QB for Division III power - at that time - Widener University of PA, coached by legendary belly option guru Bill Manlove. That same QB, Bob Cole, ended up in the coaching profession. He started out at the University of San Francisco coaching with me on the USF Gray Fog football club. After that Bob spent some time as a HS HC in the Bay Area, and many years as a Division I OC. He retired a few years ago. Geez am I old!).
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Years ago, as a packaging salesman, I would travel through rural and small-town Virginia, and Paul Harvey was on every radio station I could get in my car, and at least on half the radios in the offices of the people I called on. I got to love him. He was enormously influential in flyover country. “Good DAY” was his sign off, and his intro was always… “Stand by.. for… NEWS!” You have to love the club football guys because you know they love the game.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Growing up in Hokendauqua, Pennsylvania in a family of eleven brothers and sisters, Matt Millen played his high school ball at Whitehall High School, a perennial power in the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area. He is one of just three players in school history to have had their numbers retired. (Dan Koppen, center on the Patriots All-Decade team for the 2000s, and Saquon Barkley, Eagles’ All-Pro running back, are the other two.)
He wound up going to Penn State. “I have a really awesome story involving Coach Paterno,” he recalled. “He got into a fight with one of the recruiters at my house. It was interesting. I actually signed my papers with Colorado but my dad wouldn’t sign the papers and that’s how I got to Penn State.”
“My freshman year at Penn State both Bruce Clark and myself, we started at linebacker,” he said. “The problem was Clark and I were both about 240 pounds and we were about the biggest guys on our defense. We (as a team) were small and we weren’t very physical, so my freshman year we lost five games, I believe, and so Coach Paterno put Clark and me on the defensive line. He put our hands in the dirt, and then I played at around 270, and the same with Clark, and we were a lot more physical as a defense, which I think is one of the most important things you can do - because physical toughness matters. We changed things around and from there on we were pretty good.”
Yes, they were. Penn State was 11-1 in both his sophomore and junior years. In his junior season, 1978, the Lions lost (after a last-minute goal-line stand) to Alabama in the national championship game, 14-7.
He earned All-America honors that year, but in his senior year a back injury limited his action to just three games. Still, despite playing only two full seasons as a defensive linemen, he ranks fifth all-time in Penn State football history with 22 sacks.
He was taken in the second round of the NFL draft - the 43rd selection overall - by the Oakland Raiders.
“When I was drafted by the Raiders,” he remembered, “as soon as I got there Mr. Davis (owner Al Davis) told me I was going back to linebacker.”
When he told that to Joe Paterno - “The Raiders are going to make a linebacker out of me, and I can do it” - Paterno replied, “You can’t play linebacker!”
Never one to guard his tongue, he fired back, “Hey, Joe, you can’t coach, either, but that doesn’t stop you!”
He wound up being named defensive rookie of the year. And that year, when the Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10 in Super Bowl XV, he became the first rookie linebacker to start in a Super Bowl.
Growing up, his idols were two great middle linebackers: Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke.
“Two guys that I liked growing up were Butkus and Nitschke,” he said. “When I was growing up I was never watching teams. I liked players and it was easy to like Butkus and I got to know him pretty good and the same with Ray. They were from a whole other school. In fact I got probably my best compliment from Butkus when he said, Matt, this isn’t your era. You should have played with us.”
In nine seasons as a Raider, he played in 133 regular season games (with 127 starts) and helped them win two Super Bowls - one as the Oakland Raiders, one as the Los Angeles Raiders.
He played 12 seasons in the NFL (nine with the Raiders, two with the San Francisco 49ers, and one with the Washington Redskins). He played on four Super Bowl-winning teams, at least one with each of the three clubs he played for.
He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 1984 and 1985, and was voted to the 1988 Pro Bowl. He retired after winning his fourth ring with the Redskins in Super Bowl XXVI.
He did not back down from a fight, and got into several of them with opponents and one or two with teammates, including giant John Matuszak. He also slugged Patriots’ General Manager Patrick Sullivan after a 1985 playoff game during which he claimed Sullivan had been trash-talking him and teammate Howie Long, and urging his players to clip Raiders. He did not apologize for it, calling it “A good hit.”
Following his NFL playing career, he was an analyst for several national television and radio networks.
“Broadcasting is something fun and I enjoy it,” he said. “Coach John Madden was the one that got me involved.”
In 2001, he was hired as president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Lions. Things did not go well for him or the Lions, and he was fired in 2008.
“You take a shot,” he said later. “But what it taught me was I wasn’t ready for that position and that’s a whole different world. It’s not just about your knowledge and understanding of football. In fact that has very little to do with that. It’s more to do with managing people and getting the right people in the right positions and building an organization. Now, after being exposed to it, I have a better understanding of what it’s all about, but if I was going to do anything I would coach.”
He returned to broadcasting with ESPN, and is currently an analyst for the Big Ten Network.
In 2017 he was diagnosed with a rare disease called amyloidosis , and after its effect on his heart in 2018 he had a transplant.
“I’m doing pretty good health-wise,” he said a few years ago. “You have to be careful and you still watch certain things. I had a heart transplant and it went pretty well and I keep my fingers crossed and keep on going.”
Matt Millen and his wife, Pat, who was a gymnast at Penn State when they met, have four grown children. One of them, their son Marcus, played football at Army. After graduation from West Point he was twice deployed overseas as an Airborne Ranger-qualified Infantry officer.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MATT MILLEN
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
Brad Knight - Clarinda, Iowa
*********** QUIZ: He played his high school ball at St. Francis High in Mountain View, California.
As a defensive lineman, he was an All-American at USC. He played in a pair of Rose Bowls and co-captained the 1967 National Champion Trojan team.
He was chosen in the opening round of the NFL draft. by the Philadelphia Eagles.
"To be drafted in the first round was an unbelievable experience in my life and something that I didn't expect," he said. "I had no expectations. I wanted to be a baseball player. I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates out of high school and I chose not to go play in the minor league system because I had the good fortune of having about 150 scholarship offers for football. I thought it'd probably be best to take advantage of that and get my education because who knows what's going to happen in the future?”
At 6-4, 245, he was a very good defensive player in the NFL, both as an end and a middle linebacker, but he’s best remembered for his “intense, eccentric and off-beat personality.”
“(He) was the kind of guy who lived on the razor's edge of rationality and once in a while he would tip off to the wrong side," said Steve Sabol of NFL Films fame, who shared an apartment with him for two seasons. "I mean, how many people do you know who set themselves on fire?"
"Whatever you heard about (him), believe it," said former Eagles teammate Ron Medved. “Whatever it was, I was sure (he) had done it. He was a wild man."
"I live my life to enjoy myself, I can't explain the things I do much beyond that," he once told Sports Illustrated's John Underwood. "I have more energy than I know what to do with. I can't just sit around. I get bored. A lot of what I do is silly, trying to cheer people up, trying to cheer myself up."
Among the many things he was known to do were:
Biting the tops off beer bottles and chewing drinking glasses.
Eating a lightbulb.
Diving head first into a whirlpool.
Grabbing a spider off a locker room table and eating it.
Diving naked into a birthday cake.
Setting his hair on fire.
Riding a motorcycle off a pier.
Once, during the Eagles’ Training Camp at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, a thunderstorm cancelled the afternoon practice and flooded the streets. Taking a table from the locker room, he went outside and, using it like a surfboard, paddled his way around the area, through and around stalled traffic.
While with the Eagles he played for three different head coaches in his four years with the club.
When Ed Khayat took over as Eagles head coach a month into the 1971 season, he issued an order: no long hair, no mustaches. Our guy was the last player to comply, waiting until five minutes before the deadline to shave off his mustache.
"It didn't make sense to me," he said. "The length of your hair, the width of your lapels or your necktie. Did you have a mustache? What did that have to do with playing football? He said it improved discipline. I thought it was the opposite. It created a situation where guys were talking about this stuff instead of getting better as a football team.”
After becoming a starting defensive end midway through his rookie campaign, he was named to the Pro Bowl following his second season, but then Jerry Williams replaced Joe Kuharich as the head coach, and a career-ending injury to middle linebacker Dave Lloyd prompted Williams to propose a change in position.
"Jerry Williams called me in and said that he thought the best athlete should be playing middle linebacker," he said, "and would I consider moving from defensive end? And I said, 'Well, it's not like asking the center to move and play quarterback. Yes, of course. I can be in on every tackle, on every play.' So, I moved to middle linebacker."
"You know how I learned to play middle linebacker?” he asked. “From Dick Butkus. Not from him personally, but at that time, I was living with Steve Sabol of NFL Films and I said, 'They moved me to middle linebacker. I need to know how Dick Butkus plays middle linebacker.' So, he would bring all the highlights and I would study Dick Butkus for hours and hours and hours and hours."
"What I learned from Dick Butkus was that the most important thing was that you know all of your keys, you know what's happening in the backfield, you know what's happening on the line, and when somebody gets the ball, you don't tackle them, you tackle somebody three feet behind them. Because when you tackle somebody three feet behind them, you put your face onto their chin and you snap their neck. Their legs stop moving and they can't dodge you. They just fall down in a heap. That's football!””
In 1972, he and safety Bill Bradley held out during training Camp. When he and Bradley showed up at camp in an RV and sold drinks to the fans, that was enough - the Eagles swapped him to the Chargers for a first-round draft pick.
He spent one season with the Chargers and two seasons with the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League, and finally ended his career with the Houston Oilers in 1976.
Considering his California roots and connections (he and Tom Selleck were roommates at USC) and his reputation as a daredevil, it was no surprise that he found work in Hollywood as a stunt man. He got his start doing stunts on the 1978 Burt Reynolds film “Hooper.”
He would go on to find steady work as an actor, appearing in such TV shows as MacGyver, Hunter, Baywatch, Harry and the Hendersons, Jake and the Fatman, The Fall Guy, ALF, The Love Boat, Knight Rider, Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, Remington Steele, Soap, The A-Team and Magnum, P.I., and in such movies as Night Shift, Sting II, The Long Riders, Looker and The Main Event.
Because of his size and wild-eyed appearance, he often played a bad guy with a mustache.
"It bothers my mother when I get killed (in the movies) all the time," he once said. "But then she says, 'As long as the paycheck is in the mailbox, I guess it's OK.' I enjoy my life. It's like yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery. I feel like the only thing I'm guaranteed is today and I'm gonna live it to the utmost."
For the last several years of his life he and his wife operated “Chow Chow Rescue of the Sierra Foothills,” focusing on chows because of his wife’s lifelong love of the breed, but actually working with all breeds of dogs.
TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2025 “The difficult problems in life
always start off being simple.” Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Since losing my first - and last - head-coaching job, at Colorado State University after the 1969 season, I had been selling real estate. I enjoyed the scouting job with Denver, but it was nothing permanent. During separate stops to visit with two confidantes and coaching colleagues, Lou Holtz and Steve Sebo, I became convinced I should look for work as an athletic director.
When I conversed with Holtz at William and Mary he mentioned the Kent State job. Better known later in his career as the coach at Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, and, more recently, South Carolina, Lou is a Kent State graduate and has close ties there. He offered to recommend me to the college’s president.
Sebo, the athletic director at the University of Virginia, also urged me to apply. He thought Kent State would be a good place for me to start if I wanted to shift gears from coaching to the administration level.
Summer came. I was selling real estate. I finally got a response to my job application, a phone call in June from Dr. Tom Marshall, the Kent State faculty representative and an English professor. He asked me if I'd be interested in coming to Kent State for an interview, adding: "We've had a few problems here, as you may know.”
I said something like, "Yes, you have. "
What an understatement.
I told him, yes, I would be interested in interviewing, and I made the trip to the Ohio campus. I met with their selection committee, and they made me feel right at home. I conferred for two hours with Dr. Robert White, the president, and we got along famously. I answered all their questions, and by now I had made up my mind that I really wanted the job. But no offer came.
*********** There were times during the dark reign of “President” Biden that I wished Rush Limbaugh were still alive to provide comfort and reassurance, and now I find myself wishing that he could be here to enjoy the new regime (and also to take a jab or two at our former ruling party).
I was reminded of what he once said he’d do to reform our educational system - by weeding out all the non-teaching educational bureaucrats in central offices.
"I'd knock on their office door and say, 'What do you have to do with education in the classroom?' or 'When was the last time you were in a classroom?' or 'When was the last time you taught a kid?'
“If they couldn't answer me, I'd fire them."
*********** In reading about John Feinstein, I came across a very interesting quote by Bobby Knight: ”I’ve never seen a player worth more than a good coach." It was his standard answer to why he had no interest in coaching in the NBA.
That may very well have been true in another age, like the one he grew up in, a time when players spent four years in college, and there was free agency in the NBA.
He was a very good coach, to be sure, and maybe he would have been as good an NBA coach as Phil Jackson. But my wife and I just finished watching “The Last Dance,” and I came away thinking how sad it was that Bobby Knight may have died without ever having seen Michael Jordan.
*********** Not so very long ago, Bubba Cunningham, the AD at North Carolina, made the highly controversial move of giving a two-year contract extension to his basketball coach, Hubert Davis.
Davis seems like a good enough guy, but there’s no question that under him, Carolina basketball has crashed. Losing to Duke three times in the same season? Really?
But then, after the somewhat inexplicable extension, Cunningham managed to double down. As chairman of the NCAA basketball tournament selection committee, he might have recused himself, but instead he went ahead and left most basketball fans with the unmistakable impression that he used his position to secure the Tar Heels a spot in the tournament - the very last team in, as a matter of fact.
Adding to the whiff of corruption is the fact that securing the spot in the tournament earns his coach, Davis, a $100,000 bonus. And should the Tar Heels beat San Diego State in a “first four” play-in game, he’ll receive another $100,000.
One thing is for sure: if Bubba Cunningham had been Alabama’s AD, he’d have had them in that damn football playoff.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/north-carolina-coach-hubert-davis-earns-100000-bonus-for-ncaa-tournament-appearance/
*********** I don’t know whether the Governor Patrick Morrissey of West Virginia is a basketball fan, but you can definitely count him among those who smell a rat in North Carolina’s getting a spot in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament while West Virginia was left out.
It’s hard to blame him when North Carolina squeaked in ahead of West Virginia, with North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham just happening to be chairman of the tournament’s selection committee.
"This stinks at the highest level,” the Governor said. “This doesn't pass the smell test… Any way you slice it this thing reeks of corruption.”
*********** Back in 2014, Warren Buffett offered ONE BILLION DOLLARS to any of his Berkshire Hathaway employees who could come up with a perfect NCAA men’s tournament bracket.
That’s how astronomical the odds are against it.
The closest anyone has ever come was in 2019, when an Ohio guy picked everything perfectly up to the Sweet Sixteen.
https://fortune.com/2025/03/17/warren-buffett-once-offered-1-billion-to-any-berkshire-hathaway-employee-who-could-pick-a-perfect-march-madness-bracket-what-to-know-about-college-basketballs-biggest-tournament/
*********** HERE’S SOMETHING THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW (BUT YOU DO NOW): It wasn’t until 1984 - when Roger Staubach and O. J. Simpson both made it - that a Heisman Trophy winner entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
*********** There's growing evidence that girls and women aren't pursuing STEM careers because they simply prefer not to. That is, that sex differences in the STEM workforce may largely be a product of sex differences in interests and priorities.
This is a controversial claim, but there's abundant research to support it. First, if discrimination were preventing women from entering STEM fields, then women in countries with less gender equity, such as in the Middle East and South Asia, would surely be less likely to pursue STEM careers than women in countries with greater gender equity, such as in Scandinavia. After all, there must be more barriers for women who want to be scientists in Algeria than in Finland. In fact, we see the opposite: women make up over 40% of the STEM graduates in Algeria and only 20% in Finland. This pattern can be seen around the world.
WSJ, March 8-9, 2025, William von Hippel
*********** Steve Wright played offensive tackle at Alabama and although he never started a game for the Crimson Tide, he was taken in the fifth round of the NFL draft by the Packers and in the eighth round of the AFL draft by the Jets. He chose the Packers.
He played nine years in the NFL, for five different teams. He played 101 games. And he never once started.
He then played one year for the Chicago Fire of the WFL.
To say the least, he was a bit of a character, as he made clear in his “I’d Rather be Wright- Memoirs of an Itinerant Tackle,” with William Gildea and Kenneth Turan. Here’s an excerpt from his time with the Packers…
About 40 minutes before the kickoff most of us would go out to warm up, then come back in, do whatever we had to do, and get our pads on. That day it was just one of those times when I had to go to the bathroom.
So I was sitting in there reading the newspaper and doing my thing, making it an enjoyable experience, and when I was done I walked out into the locker room with my pants still down around my knees. As soon as I got there I knew something was wrong. All of the players were at one end of the room and Vince was right in the middle of them.
He turned around and saw me and right then I knew I should never have come out. I guess I had flushed the toilet right at the dramatic high point of his spiel and he just started yelling at me. "What are we running around here, a goddamn nursery? Can't you do anything right, Wright?”
Want a piece of trivia? Steve Wright was the model for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award statuette.
*********** Here’s the next bright idea from the geniuses who are running college football into the ground: “buyout” clauses in players’ NIL contracts.
One Big 12 school’s contract calls for the athlete to pay a buyout amounting to 50 percent of what’s still coming to him if he should transfer before the end of the deal’s term.
A former FBS assistant who is now director of a “sports consulting” firm said he saw a contract between a player and an ACC school that required a player to forfeit 50 percent of the money he’d received if he were to enter the transfer portal in April.
At least they’re trying, said an NIL attorney named Mit Winter: “They can’t stop players from moving from school to school, but the buyout clause is an attempt to limit that by making the player have to pay back money to the school if they want to get out of that contract.”
Apparently this sort of agreement began to catch on after the most recent transfer portal cycle, when schools’ “general managers” (a new position now common throughout college football) began to negotiate NIL contracts themselves, rather than previously, when schools were careful to maintain a separation between them and their “outside collective.”
Who pays this buyout money?
Most of those interviewed said it would be the school a player transfers to, and not the player.
“It’s basically a carbon copy of what happens with coaches,” said Winter. “They all have employment contracts that say, ‘You can’t coach anywhere else, but if you want to break the contract, here’s what you have to pay.’ And it’s almost always the new school that pays the buyout.”
Actually, most were doubtful that buyout clauses could be enforced, and they expressed reluctance to having to enforce them.
“Our preference wouldn’t be to be the first school to have to take a kid to court to chase down your $25,000 or $50,000,” said one ACC football administrator.
Said a Big 12 general manager, “When push comes to shove, if it gets litigated, you’re not going to win that. Now, I see the advantage of potentially using it as a scare tactic to keep players. They don’t know better. But the second any agent gets involved, they’ll just bypass it.”
Finally, said another Big 12 general manager: “The first team that sues a kid - I’d like to see their next recruiting class.”
*********** That didn’t last long, did it? Somebody caved, but who cares? Kyle Juszczyk is back with the 49ers.
*********** A sound prediction from a poster on the Army football forum:
In 5 years or so when the P4 players finally get a union and a deal for a CBA the whole college football world will implode. Or Explode. Or Blowup. And if the women sue under Title IX next year once football and basketball players get paid it will likely hasten the downfall of the game.
*********** SPRING GAMES
NEBRASKA ISN’T HAVING A SPRING GAME. Matt Rhule is afraid that among those 60,000 or so people in the stands watching their game would be a dozen or so poachers from other schools just waiting to storm the field afterward and lure promising Cornhuskers into the… Transfer Portal! Solution: Damn the game. Damn those 60,000 loyal Cornhusker fans. And tell that construction company to hurry the hell up and finish that secret underground bunker so we can get back to practicing football again.
WASHINGTON IS HAVING A SPRING GAME. “I was asked this morning why we’re doing a spring game,” said Huskies’ coach Jedd Fisch. “Because we have 300 football alumni that come back for it. If we don’t have a spring game, then 300 football alumni aren’t coming back. I’d love to have 40,000 people at our game. I want students to have some football in their life. Connecting with the community. We want to get the University of Washington family behind all of us so we can have an incredible run together.”
OKLAHOMA, LIKE MANY SCHOOLS, USED TO HAVE A VARSITY-ALUMNI SPRING GAME. For 25 springs - from 1956 through 1980, Oklahoma center/linebacker Bob Harrison, who in 1958 was a consensus All-American and the UPI Lineman of the Year, played in OU’s Varsity-Alumni football games. (He played three games on the Varsity side, 22 on the Alumni side.) In his final one, at age 43, the alumni found themselves short on linebackers, and he wound up, in his words, “havin’ to play ‘bout three quarters.”
DEION WANTS TO HAVE A REAL SPRING GAME: I have a tendency to disagree with Deion Sanders on just about everything, but not on this: he has become the first college coach to push for something that I began advocating long ago: a real, actual, honest-to-God spring game. Against another team.
“I would actually like to play the spring game against another team, in the spring. That's what I'm trying to do right now. I would like to style it like the pros. I'd like to go against someone in practice for a few days, and then have the spring game… I think it's a tremendous idea.”
Me too, Deion. It’s now become a routine part of the NFL pre-season. You learn a lot more about your players when you see them work against outsiders, and you reduce your exposure to injuries by half.
*********** Damn. All those pardons I sold and then signed using autopen… does this mean I’m going to have to refund everybody’s money now? Or can I wait until they’re actually locked up? (Genuine, authentic statement above courtesy of Babylon Bee.)
*********** Many of you probably don’t
remember the NBA Seattle SuperSonics. Too bad. Their owner
sold them back in 2006 and the new owner - an Oklahoman who had
promised to make a “good faith” effort to keep them in
Seattle - relocated them two years later to Oklahoma City. There’s still a hard core of people in Seattle who lovingly remember the Sonics, perhaps the most beloved of whom was a bald-headed guard named Slick Watts.
Slick Watts died Saturday. He was 73.
He was a Mississippi native, but when his career was over, he made Seattle his home, and he gave back to the community as a teacher and coach. He was a PE teacher for 20 years at the same elementary school, and put on youth camps with his son, Donald, who was a local high school star and went on to play for the University of Washington.
“Slick, out of all the players, Slick was Seattle,” said former teammate and Hall-of-Famer Spencer Haywood.
It’s fair to say that I don’t have much use for rap/hip hop, but I will make one exception: "Slick Watts - A Day in the Life of Seattle without the Sonics” - an oldie-but-goodie in which Slick himself co-stars, and the lyrics are mostly the names of former Sonics. It’s good. (Maybe I should call it a “short documentary,” so you’ll be more inclined to watch it.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJf-3o1nCow
*********** Your long-running series featuring Coach Jim Young was tremendous, as this series about Coach Lude is and has been. He was a fascinating man. I can't say strongly enough how thankful I am you have shared his story with us.
Young Sam's shining Down Undah. Samuel, son, inquiring minds want to know whether you'll be paid. Best wishes.
Anyone who's read him agrees that John Feinstein's rather early death is a serious loss to the sports world.
As Coach Lude mused about Kent State, a subsequent paragraph unfortunately projects this year's team to rank dead last in the 136-team field.
I've said "it's beneath me" to employers hundreds of times and recommend the practice highly. Mouthing that mantra will put the speaker on a speedy path to success.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
ESPN 2’s numbers (whatever they mean) place San Jose State and Fresno State in a virtual tie in their “poll.” To most these two are way down the list of importance. To Fresno State fans the Bulldogs rank much higher than their Bay Area rival, especially in average home game attendance, and how our fans (the Red Wave) follow the ‘Dogs on the road.
Those scholarship numbers you calculated using a school like Memphis may have increased the transfer portal for the Tigers!
Can’t imagine what those numbers would do for a higher profile state university! Is it little wonder why the gap between the haves and have nots gets wider and wider and wider?
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: Growing up in Hokendauqua, Pennsylvania in a family of eleven children, he played his high school ball at Whitehall High School, a perennial power in the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area. He is one of just three players in school history to have had their numbers retired. (Dan Koppen, center on the Patriots All-Decade team for the 2000s, and Saquon Barkley, Eagles’ All-Pro running back, are the other two.)
He wound up going to Penn State. “I have a really awesome story involving Coach Paterno,” he recalled. “He got into a fight with one of the recruiters at my house. It was interesting. I actually signed my papers with Colorado but my dad wouldn’t sign the papers and that’s how I got to Penn State.”
“My freshman year at Penn State both Bruce Clark and myself, we started at linebacker,” he said. “The problem was Clark and I were both about 240 pounds and we were about the biggest guys on our defense. We (as a team) were small and we weren’t very physical, so my freshman year we lost five games, I believe, and so Coach Paterno put Clark and me on the defensive line. He put our hands in the dirt, and then I played at around 270, and the same with Clark, and we were a lot more physical as a defense, which I think is one of the most important things you can do - because physical toughness matters. We changed things around and from there on we were pretty good.”
Yes, they were. Penn State was 11-1 in both his sophomore and junior years. In his junior season, 1978, the Lions lost (after a last-minute goal-line stand) to Alabama in the national championship game, 14-7.
He earned All-America honors that year, but in his senior year a back injury limited his action to just three games. Still, despite playing only two full seasons as a defensive linemen, he ranks fifth all-time in Penn State football history with 22 sacks.
He was taken in the second round of the NFL draft - the 43rd selection overall - by the Oakland Raiders.
“When I was drafted by the Raiders,” he remembered, “as soon as I got there Mr. Davis (owner Al Davis) told me I was going back to linebacker.”
When he told that to Joe Paterno - “The Raiders are going to make a linebacker out of me, and I can do it” - Paterno replied, “You can’t play linebacker!”
Never one to guard his tongue, he fired back, “Hey, Joe, you can’t coach, either, but that doesn’t stop you!”
He wound up being named defensive rookie of the year. And that year, when the Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10 in Super Bowl XV, he became the first rookie linebacker to start in a Super Bowl.
Growing up, his idols were two great middle linebackers: Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke.
“Two guys that I liked growing up were Butkus and Nitschke,” he said. “When I was growing up I was never watching teams. I liked players and it was easy to like Butkus and I got to know him pretty good and the same with Ray. They were from a whole other school. In fact I got probably my best compliment from Butkus when he said, (——) this isn’t your era. You should have played with us.”
In nine seasons as a Raider, he played in 133 regular season games (with 127 starts) and helped them win two Super Bowls - one as the Oakland Raiders, one as the Los Angeles Raiders.
He played 12 seasons in the NFL (nine with the Raiders, two with the San Francisco 49ers, and one with the Washington Redskins). He played on four Super Bowl-winning teams, at least one with each of the three clubs he played for.
He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 1984 and 1985, and was voted to the 1988 Pro Bowl. He retired after winning his fourth ring with the Redskins in Super Bowl XXVI.
He did not back down from a fight, and got into several of them with opponents and one or two with teammates, including giant John Matuszak. He also slugged Patriots’ General Manager Patrick Sullivan after a 1985 playoff game during which he claimed Sullivan had been trash-talking him and teammate Howie Long, and urging his players to clip Raiders. He did not apologize for it, calling it “A good hit.”
Following his NFL playing career, he was an analyst for several national television and radio networks.
“Broadcasting is something fun and I enjoy it,” he said. “Coach John Madden was the one that got me involved.”
In 2001, he was hired as president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Lions. Things did not go well for him or the Lions, and he was fired in 2008.
“You take a shot,” he said later. “But what it taught me was I wasn’t ready for that position and that’s a whole different world. It’s not just about your knowledge and understanding of football. In fact that has very little to do with that. It’s more to do with managing people and getting the right people in the right positions and building an organization. Now, after being exposed to it, I have a better understanding of what it’s all about, but if I was going to do anything I would coach.”
He returned to broadcasting with ESPN, and is currently an analyst for the Big Ten Network.
In 2017 he was diagnosed with a rare disease called amyloidosis , and after its effect on his heart in 2018 he had a transplant.
“I’m doing pretty good health-wise,” he said a few years ago. “You have to be careful and you still watch certain things. I had a heart transplant and it went pretty well and I keep my fingers crossed and keep on going.”
He and his wife, who was a gymnast at Penn State when they met, have four grown children. One of them, their son Marcus, played football at Army. After graduation from West Point he was twice deployed overseas as an Airborne Ranger-qualified Infantry officer.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2025 “I am extraordinarily patient,
provided I get my own way in the end.” Margaret Thatcher*********** It was on this day a year ago - March 14, 2024 - that my dear friend Mike Lude died. He was 101. He was the greatest man I’ve known. Considering the things he accomplished and the people he knew, Mike lived the equivalent of two or three normal lives. Ever since then, I've started every NEWS posting with serial excerpts from Mike's autobiography, "Walking the Line."
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I gawked at the TV screen in my motel room in Iowa City with an eerie feeling, wanting to make sure I had heard the name of the college correctly.
These were the turbulent times of 1970, perhaps more turbulent for me because for the first time in twenty-four years I didn't have a coaching job. That's why I took a temporary scouting assignment with the Denver Broncos and how I ended up in Iowa, having just had a glass of wine and an enjoyable dinner with University of Iowa football coach Ray Nagel.
Every television channel that night – May 4 – was reporting in dramatic detail a tragic incident that had taken place on the campus of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland. A student demonstration protesting a recent speech by President Richard Nixon had been transformed into tragedy when National Guardsmen turned their guns on the protesters. Four students we're dead and nine others were injured.
Did they really say Kent State? I squinted at the small screen, seeking more confirmation. You see, it was Kent State University where, earlier that spring, I had applied for the job of athletic Director. I was still hoping to hear from school officials when the sound of gunshots echoed across the campus.
Viewing the television coverage of what would be remembered years later as the Kent State Massacre totally flattened my enthusiasm for working there. My immediate thought: I have no idea if I'll ever hear again from Kent State University, but if I do I'll have an answer in two letters:
N-O.
When the question finally came, though, some five months later, the answer was:
Y-E-S.
*********** As I was typing
this, I learned of John Feinstein’s death, and it was a “stop the
presses!” moment. What a terrible blow. What a loss. The entire sports world - whatever the sport - has lost a great fan and a great reporter. In the process of researching and writing his books, John Feinstein probably got to meet and speak to more prominent sport figures than any human who ever lived.
He was a great fan of both Army and Navy football, and for many years did the color on their games.
At the present time I’m reading “The Ancient Eight,” his story of a football season he spent with Ivy League teams.
One of my best sports reads ever is “A Civil War.” He took us inside the Army-Navy rivalry, and it’s as just as good today as it was when it was published (1996). I’ve read it a couple of times.
A list of most of John Feinstein’s books…
• One on One: Behind the Scenes With the Greats in the Game (2011)
• Moment of Glory: The Year Underdogs Ruled Golf,
• Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember: A look at the seasons of two veteran pitchers, Mike Mussina of the New York Yankees and Tom Glavine of the New York Mets,
• Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major:
• Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four:
• Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL
• Let Me Tell You a Story (with Red Auerbach)
• Caddy For Life: The Bruce Edwards Story: The story of Bruce Edwards, the longtime caddy for golf great Tom Watson, and his battle with Lou Gehrig's disease.
• Open: Inside the Ropes At Bethpage Park: A look at the 2002 U.S. Open golf tournament
• The Punch: Deals with the infamous punch thrown by Kermit Washington that nearly killed Rudy Tomjanovich during an NBA game in 1977
• A Good Walk Spoiled: Days And Nights on the PGA Tour:
• The Last Amateurs: A look at the 1999–2000 basketball season in the Patriot League, a low-ranked NCAA Division I basketball conference.
• The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail: A look behind the scenes at a season's worth of majors
• The First Coming: A critical look at Tiger Woods and the people surrounding him.
• A March to Madness: An inside look at the 1996–97 basketball season in the ACC - the last season for Dean Smith.
• A Civil War: Army vs. Navy: A look at the 1995 football season at two great military academies, culminating in the Army–Navy Game
• Play Ball: A look at the 1992 Major League Baseball
• Hard Courts: A look at one year (1990) on the men's and women's professional tennis tours.
• Forever's Team: A look at the Duke team that lost in the NCAA final game in 1978.
• A Season Inside: an inside look at the 1987–88 college basketball season
• A Season on the Brink: A look at the 1985–86 basketball season at Indiana and legendary coach Bob Knight.
• Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball
• The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry:
*********** It’s taking a bit of effort on my part to refrain from making light of something that involves one of my wife’s colleges, but out of respect for her, I hold back. She’s a graduate of Hood College, in Frederick, Maryland, but her first college was Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, an old and highly-regarded women’s college. That’s where she went after high school. She was a sophomore when we met, and I was a junior at Yale, about 80 miles away in New Haven, Connecticut. (Yale was then an all-male school, and it was customary back then for us Yalies to find our female companionship on weekends at surrounding female colleges. And every so often - especially in the fall on football weekends, our dates would come visit us.)
We met on one of those football weekends. (She was a teammate’s date.) We saw a lot of each other the rest of that year and got married that summer. That meant her having to leave Smith while I finished up at Yale. Years later, with our kids all in school, we were living in Maryland and she began taking classes at a local community college and eventually was admitted to Hood, where she graduated.
She and I both have fond memories of good times in Northampton, though, and naturally she still receives mailings from Smith, usually of the “Please Give” variety.
It was one of those mailings - an email, actually - that made me start thinking about jokes.
Dear Smith Community,
In a recent survey, it was discovered that 82% of student-athletes feel disconnected from the college’s current Pioneer moniker. The process for selecting a new moniker and mascot has begun, and who better to help than the Smith community itself?
Whether you’re a student, a faculty or staff member, or an alum, we’d love to know your thoughts! Please submit up to three ideas for a new unifying moniker—one that embodies Smith’s spirit, determination, and strength.
Sincerely,
Moniker Committee Chairs
Kristin Hughes, Athletics Director
Amanda Rivera López, Associate Vice President for Alumnae Relations
Alex Keller, Vice President for Campus Life and Dean of the College
Debra Townsend, Interim Vice President for College Relations
So they’re going to change the name because “student-athletes” feel “disconnected” from the present one. (Notice how they seem fixated on using “moniker” rather than “nickname” or “mascot.”)
explaining further…
Throughout its history, Smith College has had a variety of monikers and mascots—even the Unicorns! The current “Pioneer” name, in place for the past 40 years, is intended to speak to the pioneering spirit of women breaking through barriers and reforming the status quo. While there are many lasting positive connotations associated with the term, it also has negative associations for some.
Today, Smith students have reignited the drive for selecting a new moniker and mascot—a process begun several years ago but never completed. The goal is to create a symbol that better reflects the college’s values and fierce competitive spirit, uniting the Smith community and inspiring pride at athletic events and beyond.
From March 12 to April 11, the entire campus community will have the opportunity to submit moniker suggestions. Alums can submit suggestions via our Google form. Students, staff, and faculty can log in to submit ideas. Be a part of this exciting moment in Smith’s history.
On April 14, the committee chairs will review all submissions and select three finalists, which will then be evaluated by the full Moniker Committee. During the week of April 18, committee members will gather stakeholder input, assess the final contenders, and initiate the final selection process. Designs and a logo for the new mascot will be developed in late spring and summer, and the new name will be in place for athletic, alum, and campus events in the fall.
As I said, I will refrain from any sophomoric jokes, but as long something as tame as Pioneers “has negative associations for some,” I have a feeling that they’re going to settle for something extremely lame.
Either that or something extremely feminist. (“Male Haters,” anyone.)
*********** Not once, during the whole damn time that electric cars were being shoved down our throats, electric heating and electric ranges were being mandated, and ground was being broken all over the country for immense server plants, did I hear anything about HOW all the electricity needed was going to be produced (certainly not by coal or gas), WHERE it was going to be produced (certainly not in MY neighborhood), or HOW it was going to be transmitted from where it was generated to where it was going to be used.
The transmission may be the biggest problem of all. Power lines are extremely costly to build - once their path has been determined and acquired. Besides natural hazards such as streams and mountains, there are enormous political obstacles to be overcome. Basically, no one wants them nearby. They’re ugly and - some say - a health hazard to those living near them. And they require the felling of tens of thousands of trees along their routes. But at some point, to get the power to where it’s used, something has to give.
As just one little sample of the problems you can expect all over America, this one in Portland, Oregon - to accommodate a transmission line, the local power company has just been given the okay to cut down nearly 400 large (they really are!), mature trees at the edge of the city’s magnificent Forest Park. The decision came after a long study and quite a fight, and while it’s said to be final, we’re dealing with environmentalists here, so it’s not really going to be final until they crank up the chain saws.
Coming to a neighborhood near you.
*********** I don’t usually get too deep into stories about how much professional athletes are paid. I’m always afraid that I’m going to read something that finally makes me snap.
But for some reason I was reading an article in The Athletic by Jason Lloyd. It was about Myles Garrett - you know, the Cleveland Browns’ defensive lineman who was just presented with a contract that guarantees him $123 million, making him the highest-paid non-quarterback in the game.
And then I came to this paragraph…
It’s well known within the Browns that Garrett is frequently late to the facility. He has skipped mandatory team activities on multiple occasions. Veterans typically police the locker room on those types of things and create the culture of accountability, but here, it’s the best player breaking the rules. That has to change now.
You don’t have to play $123 million to get that.
*********** Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, the second-largest college stadium in America and home of the White Out, is not named for Oregon State’s mascot. It’s named for a former governor of Pennsylvania, James A. Beaver, who raised and then commanded a Union regiment in the Civil War and was wounded several times, the final time when his leg, shattered by a rifle ball, had to be amputated. He was 26. He had refused numerous promotions because they would have meant taking him away from the men he had recruited.
Anyway, if you’re into jawbreakers, get ready for West Shore Home Field at Beaver Stadium.
The Penn State board of trustees voted to sell their soul - okay, just the name of their field - to a Pennsylvania company named West Shore Home, whose founder and CEO is a Penn State grad. And a generous grad at that - in addition to the large sum donated in return for the field naming, West Shore Home has Penn State running back Nicholas Singleton signed to a multi-year NIL deal.
Now, then - sorry, West Shore Home - you know everyone’s still going to call it “Beaver Stadium,” same as ever.
*********** No sooner had I written on Facebook about the worst field I ever coached on - Freeport, Long Island Speedway - than Don Shipley, the son of my coach when I played for the Frederick (Maryland) Falcons many years ago, produced this photograph. (How many of you thought I was lying when I said that the corners of the end zones run up onto the banked track?)
*********** Formula One is in Melbourne, Australia right now, and the World’s Youngest Formula One Expert is on hand to comment on the race.
That Expert is my grandson, Sam Wyatt, son of our son, Ed and his wife, Michelle, and while he’s still the World’s Youngest Formula One Expert, he’s been doing it a while and he’s starting to age out - he’s 16 now.
He and his dad are going to be paying us a visit in a few weeks, and two of the things he’s looking forward to doing are (1) driving my shift car (a Jeep) and (2) shooting a gun.
https://x.com/theprojecttv/status/1900089508734881945
*********** With some three minutes to play and home team Meadville beating Uniontown by eight points in a Pennsylvania state playoff basketball game, a hellacious brawl broke out in the stands and in the court.
When the dust settled, the game was called and both teams were dealt forfeits by the state association. Numerous people were arrested, including a Uniontown player named - I am not making this up - Notorious Grooms.
*********** Scratch the 49ers off my list of real football teams now that they’ve gone pussified and cut their fullback, Kyle Juszczyk, one of the last of a vanishing breed.
*********** This ranking of all 136 FBS teams comes from ESPN+. (Sorry - I have no idea what all the stupid figures mean.)
My biggest takes:
1. In the Top Ten, only one team - Notre Dame - is not from the SEC/BIg Ten Cartel (SECBTC).
2. 19 of the Top 25 are from the SECBTC
3. Mississippi State, at 65, is the lowest-ranked SEC team
4. Purdue, at 116 (between 115 UL-Monroe and 117 Rice) is not only the lowest-ranked Big Ten team, but the lowest-ranked Power 4 team.
5. Boise State, at 31, is the highest-ranked Group of 5 team; James Madison (47) is next
6. Army is 60, Navy is 62 (did those guys watch the Army-Navy game? Do they realize that Army’s star QB is gone, while Navy’s is back?) Air Force is 95
7. Stanford (88) is the lowest-ranked of the old Pac-12 teams
8. SMU (18) and Kansas State (19) are the only Big-12 teams in the Top 25
9. Clemson (11), Miami (14) and Louisville (22) are the only ACC teams in the Top 25
10. Oregon State (71) and Washington State (84) are all that’s left of the Pac-12; only Stanford (88) finished lower
Team SP+ Off. SP+ Def. SP+ ST SP+
1. Ohio St. 28.0 38.6 (6) 10.6 (2) 0.3 (11)
2. Alabama 26.1 39.1 (5) 13.0 (5) 0.2 (20)
3. Penn St. 25.3 39.1 (4) 13.8 (7) 0.1 (58)
4. Georgia 24.5 37.9 (7) 13.3 (6) 0.6 (1)
5. Notre Dame 23.4 37.3 (10) 13.9 (8) -0.2 (106)
6. Oregon 22.6 39.5 (3) 16.9 (15) 0.5 (3)
7. Texas 21.9 32.0 (28) 10.1 (1) -0.5 (135)
8. Tennessee 21.3 33.6 (22) 12.3 (4) 0.2 (21)
9. Ole Miss 20.2 34.5 (19) 14.3 (9) 0.3 (7)
10. LSU 19.5 39.7 (2) 20.2 (26) 0.1 (48)
11. Clemson 18.8 37.8 (8) 19.0 (21) -0.3 (133)
12. Texas A&M 18.5 35.7 (12) 17.1 (16) 0.2 (24)
13. Michigan 17.7 28.7 (51) 11.0 (3) 0.2 (22)
14. Miami 16.9 42.5 (1) 25.6 (49) 0.2 (19)
15. Missouri 15.7 32.0 (27) 16.3 (13) -0.1 (96)
16. S. Carolina 15.4 33.1 (24) 17.7 (18) 0.1 (50)
17. Florida 14.4 33.6 (23) 19.2 (22) 0.3 (8)
18. SMU 14.1 37.4 (9) 23.3 (38) 0.1 (40)
19. Kansas St. 13.7 34.4 (20) 20.8 (28) 0.2 (26)
20. Oklahoma 13.1 29.7 (43) 16.6 (14) 0.2 (31)
21. Iowa 12.5 27.5 (64) 15.0 (10) 0.3 (12)
22. Louisville 12.4 36.7 (11) 24.4 (45) -0.1 (97)
23. Auburn 12.1 29.9 (42) 17.8 (19) -0.1 (83)
24. Indiana 12.0 32.0 (29) 20.0 (24) 0.2 (29)
25. Illinois 11.2 30.5 (38) 19.3 (23) 0.2 (30)
26. TCU 10.5 34.6 (18) 24.1 (41) -0.1 (92)
27. BYU 10.1 31.6 (32) 21.5 (31) 0.3 (10)
28. Iowa St. 9.9 30.5 (39) 20.6 (27) -0.1 (87)
29. Arizona St. 9.8 31.3 (34) 21.5 (32) -0.6 (136)
30. USC 9.7 35.4 (14) 25.8 (52) 0.1 (63)
31. Boise St. 9.5 35.3 (15) 25.8 (53) -0.3 (132)
32. Utah 9.5 26.7 (70) 17.3 (17) 0.2 (36)
33. Texas Tech 8.7 35.5 (13) 26.8 (61) 0.2 (23)
34. Nebraska 8.2 24.5 (89) 16.3 (12) -0.2 (119)
35. Arkansas 8.2 31.9 (30) 23.7 (39) 0.2 (35)
36. Baylor 8.0 34.6 (17) 26.6 (58) 0.2 (38)
37. Minnesota 7.9 23.4 (98) 15.5 (11) 0.0 (64)
38. Washington 7.3 28.5 (54) 21.2 (29) -0.2 (121)
39. Duke 6.5 27.8 (62) 21.3 (30) 0.0 (66)
40. Kentucky 6.4 26.5 (73) 20.1 (25) 0.3 (14)
41. Wisconsin 6.1 25.1 (83) 19.0 (20) 0.0 (70)
42. Va. Tech 5.2 29.4 (49) 24.2 (43) 0.2 (37)
43. Rutgers 4.6 28.7 (50) 24.1 (42) 0.1 (52)
44. N. Carolina 4.6 31.4 (33) 26.8 (60) 0.0 (72)
45. NC State 4.5 31.6 (31) 27.1 (63) 0.1 (55)
46. Ga. Tech 4.5 32.0 (26) 27.5 (65) -0.1 (100)
47. JMU 4.0 29.7 (46) 25.7 (51) 0.1 (53)
48. Colorado 3.9 30.0 (41) 26.1 (54) -0.2 (114)
49. Kansas 3.9 32.5 (25) 28.6 (78) -0.1 (94)
50. Tulane 3.4 31.0 (35) 27.6 (66) 0.0 (77)
51. Florida St. 3.2 25.0 (85) 21.7 (33) 0.3 (13)
52. Memphis 2.8 35.2 (16) 32.3 (101) 0.1 (42)
53. Pittsburgh 2.7 29.7 (45) 27.0 (62) 0.2 (17)
54. Vanderbilt 1.8 27.4 (67) 25.7 (50) 0.3 (9)
55. Cincinnati 1.7 26.1 (76) 24.4 (44) -0.1 (88)
56. UCF 1.3 27.7 (63) 26.3 (56) 0.0 (81)
57. Syracuse 1.2 30.9 (36) 29.7 (84) -0.2 (101)
58. California 1.2 26.7 (71) 25.5 (48) 0.0 (82)
59. Liberty 1.1 27.8 (61) 26.7 (59) -0.2 (105)
60. Army 1.1 24.3 (93) 23.2 (35) 0.0 (75)
61. UTSA 0.7 34.0 (21) 33.2 (106) 0.2 (33)
62. S. Alabama 0.6 29.6 (47) 29.0 (79) 0.0 (69)
63. Navy 0.0 28.2 (58) 28.2 (69) -0.2 (113)
64. W. Virginia 0.0 28.5 (55) 28.5 (75) 0.2 (18)
65. Miss. St. 0.0 28.0 (59) 28.0 (67) 0.2 (27)
66. Arizona -0.1 27.4 (68) 27.5 (64) 0.2 (16)
67. Maryland -0.2 24.7 (87) 24.9 (47) 0.0 (68)
68. Boston College -0.3 26.3 (74) 26.6 (57) -0.2 (127)
69. UCLA -0.8 24.0 (94) 24.8 (46) 0.1 (54)
70. UNLV -1.1 28.3 (56) 29.4 (81) 0.4 (5)
71. Oregon St. -1.3 28.6 (52) 29.9 (85) 0.0 (67)
72. Ohio -1.8 24.3 (92) 26.1 (55) -0.3 (131)
73. Oklahoma St. -2.0 27.5 (65) 29.5 (82) 0.0 (78)
74. Louisiana -2.2 28.5 (53) 30.7 (87) 0.4 (6)
75. Toledo -2.2 26.2 (75) 28.4 (71) -0.1 (86)
76. Michigan St. -2.2 21.0 (107) 23.2 (37) 0.2 (32)
77. Troy -2.6 25.9 (78) 28.4 (73) -0.1 (84)
78. Houston -2.9 20.3 (111) 23.2 (36) -0.2 (120)
79. Texas St. -3.5 29.5 (48) 33.0 (104) 0.0 (79)
80. Ga. Southern -4.3 26.9 (69) 31.1 (91) 0.2 (15)
81. USF -4.3 29.7 (44) 34.0 (111) 0.2 (25)
82. Virginia -4.8 24.3 (91) 29.1 (80) 0.1 (56)
83. Wake Forest -5.2 25.2 (81) 30.5 (86) 0.1 (60)
84. Wash. St. -5.4 30.3 (40) 35.7 (117) -0.2 (110)
85. San Jose St. -5.7 25.7 (79) 31.4 (94) -0.2 (108)
86. Fresno St. -5.9 22.6 (101) 28.4 (74) -0.2 (102)
87. Northwestern -6.1 17.6 (122) 23.7 (40) -0.2 (103)
88. Stanford -6.2 25.4 (80) 31.6 (96) 0.2 (28)
89. E. Carolina -6.2 28.2 (57) 34.4 (114) 0.0 (65)
90. UConn -6.4 24.9 (86) 31.3 (92) 0.1 (61)
91. Marshall -6.5 24.6 (88) 31.1 (90) 0.1 (59)
92. N. Texas -6.7 30.5 (37) 37.3 (123) -0.1 (91)
93. App. St. -7.3 25.0 (84) 32.3 (100) -0.2 (112)
94. West. Kent. -7.6 20.7 (108) 28.3 (70) 0.6 (2)
95. Air Force -7.8 20.3 (110) 28.1 (68) -0.2 (125)
96. Buffalo -7.9 21.7 (102) 29.6 (83) 0.1 (49)
97. Old Dominion -8.3 23.2 (99) 31.5 (95) 0.0 (80)
98. Coastal Caro. -8.7 27.8 (60) 36.6 (121) 0.1 (43)
99. Miami-OH -9.0 14.2 (134) 23.2 (34) 0.4 (4)
100. Colorado St. -9.5 23.8 (96) 33.2 (107) -0.1 (89)
101. Bowling Green -9.9 23.2 (100) 33.0 (105) 0.0 (71)
102. J'ville St. -10.4 26.0 (77) 36.4 (120) -0.4 (134)
103. Wyoming -11.0 19.7 (115) 30.8 (88) 0.1 (46)
104. Delaware -11.1 21.4 (105) 32.5 (102) -0.2 (115)
105. Hawaii -11.9 20.0 (113) 31.9 (97) -0.2 (118)
106. Arkansas St. -12.1 27.4 (66) 39.5 (131) 0.1 (51)
107. La. Tech -12.7 15.7 (130) 28.4 (72) -0.1 (98)
108. FAU -12.7 21.6 (103) 34.3 (113) -0.2 (107)
109. San Diego St. -12.9 15.6 (131) 28.5 (76) -0.1 (93)
110. East. Mich. -13.4 19.9 (114) 33.4 (108) 0.1 (57)
111. Sam Houston -13.5 19.4 (117) 32.9 (103) -0.2 (129)
112. UAB -13.6 25.2 (82) 38.7 (129) 0.1 (47)
113. Georgia St. -13.7 23.4 (97) 37.2 (122) -0.2 (109)
114. N. Illinois -14.1 14.4 (133) 28.5 (77) -0.2 (124)
115. UL-Monroe -14.4 17.0 (127) 31.4 (93) -0.1 (95)
116. Purdue -14.6 17.7 (121) 32.3 (99) -0.2 (117)
117. Rice -14.8 16.1 (129) 30.9 (89) -0.2 (104)
118. New Mex. St. -14.9 21.3 (106) 36.2 (119) 0.2 (34)
119. FIU -15.2 18.3 (120) 33.4 (110) -0.1 (99)
120. Utah St. -15.2 24.4 (90) 39.6 (132) 0.0 (76)
121. Cent. Mich. -15.9 17.5 (124) 33.4 (109) 0.1 (44)
122. West. Mich. -16.4 19.1 (118) 35.5 (116) 0.1 (39)
123. Missouri St. -16.6 26.6 (72) 43.2 (134) -0.2 (115)
124. UTEP -16.6 17.5 (123) 34.1 (112) -0.2 (130)
125. Tulsa -17.2 21.5 (104) 38.6 (126) -0.2 (111)
126. Middle Tenn. -17.5 17.2 (125) 34.7 (115) -0.1 (90)
127. Temple -18.4 19.6 (116) 38.0 (125) 0.1 (62)
128. So. Miss -18.6 20.1 (112) 38.7 (127) -0.1 (85)
129. Akron -18.9 17.2 (126) 36.1 (118) 0.1 (41)
130. Kennesaw St. -19.7 12.3 (136) 32.0 (98) 0.0 (73)
131. Nevada -20.4 18.3 (119) 38.7 (128) -0.2 (126)
132. New Mexico -21.5 23.9 (95) 45.4 (136) -0.2 (123)
133. Ball St. -22.3 16.9 (128) 39.1 (130) 0.0 (74)
134. Charlotte -22.8 14.8 (132) 37.6 (124) 0.1 (45)
135. UMass -24.0 20.3 (109) 44.4 (135) -0.2 (128)
136. Kent St. -27.2 13.2 (135) 40.4 (133) -0.2 (122)
*********** The American Athletic Conference (AAC) became the first conference to establish a minimum requirement for the revenue sharing that’s expected to begin in Division I sports in July.
It will require every member except Army and Navy (which don’t provide athletic scholarships and don’t permit NIL payments) to provide athletes with at least $10 million - total - in “additional benefits” over the next three years.
Here’s something in the article I read that aroused my curiosity…
“The AAC considers new scholarships, payments for academic-related expenses and direct payments as added benefits. Each school, with some limits, generally can apportion those as it sees fit.”
Hmmm. So the “benefits” they’re already getting count against the total, eh?
Let’s do a little figuring. (Please - if you’re an athlete or an agent figuring on what you’ve got coming - my figuring is not something you should take to the bank).
ANYHOW, HERE GOES, USING A TYPICAL MEMBER SCHOOL (IN THIS CASE MEMPHIS) AS AN EXAMPLE
Out-of-state tuition at Memphis is $14,000 (in-state is $10,000)
Room and Board (estimated) $13,000
Stipend (already being paid to football players) $3,000
TOTAL ANNUAL ESTIMATED VALUE OF SCHOLARSHIP (OUT-OF-STATE PLAYER): $30,000
TOTAL ANNUAL ESTIMATED VALUE OF SCHOLARSHIP (IN-STATE PLAYER): $26,000
TOTAL FOOTBALL SCHOLARSHIPS NOW PERMITTED: 105
USING ESTIMATED BREAKDOWN OF 70 OUT-OF-STATE PLAYERS, 35 IN-STATE
TOTAL COST, 70 OUT OF STATE PLAYERS (X $30,000) = $2,100,000
TOTAL COST, 35 IN-STATE PLAYERS (X $26,000) = $910,000
TOTAL COST, 105 SCHOLARSHIPS - $3,010,000
PORTION OF $10,000,000 STILL TO BE PAID OUT ($10,000,000 - $3,010,000) = $6,990,000
$6,990,000 (IF DIVIDED EQUALLY BY 105 PLAYERS) = $66,571 PER PLAYER
*********** Hi Coach,
I just read NYCU over lunch and I wanted to thank you for your words.
Canada (and especially Winnipeg) is no Garden of Eden, but it has been a good home for me and my family. I have found the people to be curious and hospitable to newcomers. Rarely do I find them to be similar to the media stereotype of naive, overly polite, woodsmen.
The recent rhetoric has been distracting. My wife Shandy is running a campaign for the Conservative leadership of the province. Think Republican candidate for the governorship. At a rally an attendee asked the candidate what he planned to do about the Americans booing Oh Canada at a recent hockey game. All of this is just plain dumb.
I would however, support statehood for Canada if it meant we could convert to four down football. If you think it's tough selling our offense to kids today, try doing it in the land of three downs.
Take care,
Tom Walls
Winnipeg, Manitoba (still Canada)
*********** Illinois has Yuengling Beer now!
John Bothe
Oregon Illinois
Damn! The wrong Oregon!
*********** Hugh, hope all is well, thought i would share this with you as it occurred Friday afternoon. My principal called me last week to say one of his ex-players was looking for a coaching job. After he gave me his name and number I reached out.
So Friday we were talking. His experience has been 8 man football playing-wise, and his coaching experience has been 8 man.
Anyway, long story short/ I was talking to him, and first red flag was that in his opinion zone is the best offense.
I hadn't said a word about the offense I run. I did say we run a different type of offense.
Second red flag was when he asked if I run an offense from the 60's.
I still haven't mentioned what we run, but I told the guy, after I was getting a little steamed, that the only position I had available was at the Jr. High.
Ready for this? His response was “that’s beneath me.”
End of conversation.
Hugh these people do exist. They want a job? But it's beneath them? Give me a Flipping break!!
Hope you had a good laugh.
Name Withheld.
WOW. It's beneath me. There's a guy who's going to be a success whatever field he chooses.
*********** Hugh,
Regarding the quiz. I Absolutely enjoyed coaching Polynesian players. Samoans, Tongans, Hawaiians, didn’t matter.
Your beer list included Lone Star. A “Texas Beer” that isn’t really a “Texas Beer” anymore, but a lot of folks down here still drink it. Likely because it IS brewed in San Antonio, and has a 4.6 alcohol content compared to its authentic Texas cousin Shiner Bock. A golden lager with a 4.4 AC.
I didn’t know Mike Lude had a connection with Lou Holtz. Apparently a very important connection!
Speaking of crappy fields to play on.
When I was at Southwestern TX we played at Southern Virginia, but their “home” stadium was a local high school field.
Cow pasture would be a kind description!
When I was playing JC ball we played College of the Redwoods in the CA JC State Championship at Humboldt State’s grass field in Eureka. It had rained for two weeks prior, and a HS game had been played on it the night before our game. The only grass on the field was in the end zones. Mud Bowl. Jersey numbers disappeared during the first quarter.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Bob Apisa was born in American Samoa, the youngest of 11 children. When he was seven his family moved to Hawaii. Until then, he had never spoken a word of English.
He first started playing football as a high school freshman at Honolulu’s Farrington High School. By his senior year, he was a highly-recruited running back.
He also played baseball and became famous for a feat that took place during the spring of his senior year. Between games of a baseball doubleheader, he took part in a large track meet, the Punahou Invitational and, changing into a track shirt but still wearing his baseball pants, he competed in the shot put. His first attempt went 56 feet, A new state record. His job done, he headed back to baseball - and in the second game, he hit a home run.
After narrowing his school choices to Penn State, USC, and Michigan State, he eliminated Penn State because he wanted a chance to play in the Rose Bowl, at that time considered in the Islands to be THE game. (Penn State was still an independent.) His mother wanted him to go to USC - she was a fan - while his high school coach, who had gone to Purdue, pointed out that playing for Michigan State, a Big Ten team, would also afford him the opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl.
At the time, the signing of the grant-in-aid by an athlete had to be done in person, and when signing day came and the USC recruiter failed to show (he’d missed his flight, it turned out) Apisa signed with Michigan State.
There, he became a major part of one of the great football teams of all time, notable especially because of the highly talented black athletes Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty had recruited in the South, where the big-time schools still refused to play blacks. Jimmy Raye… Bubba Smith… Charlie Thornhill… Gene Washington… George Webster.
Freshmen were ineligible to play then, but in his sophomore season our guy rushed for 715 yards and ten touchdowns, helping lead the Spartans to the Rose Bowl and a share of the national title.
The Spartans went into the Rose Bowl unbeaten (10-0), and faced a UCLA team that they had beaten, 13-3 in the opening game of the season. They were upset 14-12. Down 14-0 in the fourth quarter, they put on a stirring comeback, sparked by our guy’s 38-yard touchdown run, but they came up short when he was stopped at the goal line on a last-minute two-point attempt.
They wound up sharing the national title with Alabama.
And Bob Apisa became the first Samoan to be named an All-American. (In time, many more would follow.)
The Spartans were really good his junior year. On November 19, 1966, he was a part of the much-hyped “ Game of the Century” in which Number Two Michigan State (9-0) and Number One Notre Dame (8-0) met.
There was considerable excitement in the Islands because there were three Hawaiians (Dick Kenney and Charlie Wedemeyer, besides our guy) playing for Michigan State, and so by means of a satellite connection over Sydney, Australia, it became the first mainland sports event ever to be televised live in Hawaii.
The game ended in a disappointing 10-10 tie, and the battle to decide who was Number One was unresolved. The next week, Notre Dame routed USC, 51-0 and wound up being rated Number One by most polls. Michigan State’s season had ended with the Notre Dame game - no bowl game - because in those days the Big Ten permitted only one team - its champion - to go to just one bowl game - the Rose Bowl. And because it had a “no-repeat” rule, and the Spartans had played in the Rose Bowl the year before, they stayed home. But the Spartans were still undefeated, and their record was the same as Notre Dame’s, and they ranked Number One by enough polls to justify their claim to a share of the title.
How good was that Spartan team? In the following spring’s NFL draft, four of its players - Bubba Smith (at Number One), Clint Jones (at Number Two), George Webster (at Number Five), and Gene Washington (at Number Eight) - were among the first eight players taken.
He missed considerable action in the last four games of his junior season and was slow to recover from off-season knee surgery in his senior year, but he was still a solid blocker, and he left Michigan State with the all-time school record for rushing yards by a fullback: 1,343 yards (on 262 carries - 5.1 yards per carry).
He was taken in the ninth round of the NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers. The Packers had won three straight NFL titles - and in addition, the first two Super Bowls - and to say the least, they were not in dire need of personnel. And then there was our guy’s knee. He was damaged goods.
As he recalled, "The decision came down to when Vince Lombardi drafted me with Green Bay, I signed a two-year contract with them, and they had just come out of their second World Championship, and I was honored. But the fact of the matter - when he released me because of my injuries, we didn't have collective bargaining back in those days - I don't think we even had injured reserve - you’re either on the 'taxi squad' (practice squad), or you're released outright.
“So they paid off my contract, and I was filled with enthusiasm for being an athlete and being young. I got my graduate degree from Western Michigan, went back home to Hawaii, worked with the governor's office, and after a couple of months, I got started as a stunt man with the original Hawaii Five-O. I knew this was a great place to release the energy that you have as a young man, as a former athlete, and I wanted to, with my dexterity, with my abilities to do this and do that, fit right into it. Then I got into directing as a stunt coordinator, so that's how that took off, and I was in it for about 34 years.”
In his on-screen career, he appeared in such television shows as “Hawaii Five-O” and “Magnum P.I.” and between 40 and 50 movies, including “The Last Boy Scout,” alongside stars like Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, “Hard Target” with Jean-Claude Van Damm, “Under Siege 2: Dark Territory” with Steven Segal and many more.
Bob Apisa was inducted into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017 and into the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame in 2018.
In 2016, he directed a documentary called “Men of Sparta,” featuring Michigan State's 1965 and 1966 teams and their impact on our game and on our culture.
"It was the greatest experience of my life," he said about it. "I talked about how we reached that pinnacle; I talked about how we became Big Ten champions and how we went to the Rose Bowl and became National Champions, Co-National Champions with Notre Dame. The fact is that we had great, iconic ballplayers back then, the George Websters, the Bubba Smiths, the Gene Washingtons, the Clint Joneses, and so forth. We came from different parts of the country, gentlemen like Jimmy Raye. He was the first African-American quarterback from the South - Duffy Daugherty had to go beyond the Mason-Dixon Line and recruit him from Fayetteville, North Carolina, during the Jim Crow era. He had to go south of the Mason-Dixon Line to go to Beaumont, Texas, to get Bubba Smith; he had to go south of the Mason-Dixon Line to get George Webster from Anderson, South Carolina. Now you mesh that in with people like myself, Dick Kenney, Charlie Wedemeyer, that went up from Hawaii to Michigan State - it was the first time in my life that I played with as teammates or against African-Americans because we had a mixture of ethnics in Hawaii growing up, but it was my first time. We meshed as a family. When you call us a family, you get this feeling of friendship, and you have each other's back, and that's how we played in the games, and that's how we ascended to the pinnacle and the title."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BOB APISA
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Tom Walls - Winnipeg, Manitoba
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: Growing up in Hokendauqua, Pennsylvania, he played his high school ball at Whitehall High School, a perennial power in the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area. He is one of just three players in school history to have had their numbers retired. (Dan Koppen, center on the Patriots All-Decade team for the 2000s, and Saquon Barkley, Eagles’ All-Pro running back, are the other two.)
He wound up going to Penn State. “I have a really awesome story involving Coach Paterno,” he recalled. “He got into a fight with one of the recruiters at my house. It was interesting. I actually signed my papers with Colorado but my dad wouldn’t sign the papers and that’s how I got to Penn State.”
“My freshman year at Penn State both Bruce Clark and myself, we started at linebacker,” he said. “The problem was Clark and I were both about 240 pounds and we were about the biggest guys on our defense. We (as a team) were small and we weren’t very physical, so my freshman year we lost five games, I believe, and so Coach Paterno put Clark and me on the defensive line. He put our hands in the dirt, and then I played at around 270, and the same with Clark, and we were a lot more physical as a defense, which I think is one of the most important things you can do - because physical toughness matters. We changed things around and from there on we were pretty good.”
Yes, they were. Penn State was 11-1 in both his sophomore and junior years. In his junior season, 1978, the Lions lost (after a last-minute goal-line stand) to Alabama in the national championship game, 14-7.
He earned All-America honors that year, but in his senior year a back injury limited his action to just three games. Still, despite playing only two full seasons as a defensive linemen, he ranks fifth all-time in Penn State football history with 22 sacks.
He was taken in the second round of the NFL draft - the 43rd selection overall - by the Oakland Raiders.
“When I was drafted by the Raiders,” he remembered, “as soon as I got there Mr. Davis (owner Al Davis) told me I was going back to linebacker.”
When he told that to Joe Paterno - “The Raiders are going to make a linebacker out of me, and I can do it” - Paterno replied, “You can’t play linebacker!”
Never one to guard his tongue, he fired back, “Hey, Joe, you can’t coach, either, but that doesn’t stop you!”
He wound up being named defensive rookie of the year. And that year, when the Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10 in Super Bowl XV, he became the first rookie linebacker to start in a Super Bowl.
Growing up, his idols were two great middle linebackers: Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke.
“Two guys that I liked growing up were Butkus and Nitschke,” he said. “When I was growing up I was never watching teams. I liked players and it was easy to like Butkus and I got to know him pretty good and the same with Ray. They were from a whole other school. In fact I got probably my best compliment from Butkus when he said, (——) this isn’t your era. You should have played with us.”
In nine seasons as a Raider, he played in 133 regular season games (with 127 starts) and helped them win two Super Bowls - one as the Oakland Raiders, one as the Los Angeles Raiders.
He played 12 seasons in the NFL (nine with the Raiders, two with the San Francisco 49ers, and one with the Washington Redskins). He played on four Super Bowl-winning teams, at least one with each of the three clubs he played for.
He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 1984 and 1985, and was voted to the 1988 Pro Bowl. He retired after winning his fourth ring with the Redskins in Super Bowl XXVI.
He did not back down from a fight, and got into several of them with opponents and one or two with teammates, including giant John Matuszak. He also slugged Patriots’ General Manager Patrick Sullivan after a 1985 playoff game during which he claimed Sullivan had been trash-talking him and teammate Howie Long, and urging his players to clip Raiders. He did not apologize for it, calling it “A good hit.”
Following his NFL playing career, he was an analyst for several national television and radio networks.
“Broadcasting is something fun and I enjoy it,” he said. “Coach John Madden was the one that got me involved.”
In 2001, he was hired as president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Lions. Things did not go well for him or the Lions, and he was fired in 2008.
“You take a shot,” he said later. “But what it taught me was I wasn’t ready for that position and that’s a whole different world. It’s not just about your knowledge and understanding of football. In fact that has very little to do with that. It’s more to do with managing people and getting the right people in the right positions and building an organization. Now, after being exposed to it, I have a better understanding of what it’s all about, but if I was going to do anything I would coach.”
He returned to broadcasting with ESPN, and is currently an analyst for the Big Ten Network.
In 2017 he was diagnosed with a rare disease called amyloidosis , and after its effect on his heart in 2018 he had a transplant.
“I’m doing pretty good health-wise,” he said a few years ago. “You have to be careful and you still watch certain things. I had a heart transplant and it went pretty well and I keep my fingers crossed and keep on going.”
He and his wife, who was a gymnast at Penn State when they met, have four grown children. One of them, their son Marcus, played football at Army. After graduation from West Point he was twice deployed overseas as an Airborne Ranger-qualified Infantry officer.
TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2025 “Geography
has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made
us partners. And necessity has made us allies.” John F.
Kennedy, on
Canada*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: In those eight years in Fort Collins, I continued to be active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I served on the group’s board for ten years and got to know so many class individuals, including Bill Bradley, basketball star turned senator; Steve Spurrier, football coach; Homer Rice, coach and athletic director at several colleges and the Cincinnati Bengals; Donn Moomaw, UCLA football great and minister; Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys; Dr. Louis Evans, minister of the popular Hollywood Presbyterian Church; Gary Demarest, a California-Berkeley baseball player and Presbyterian minister; and FCA staff leaders Leroy King and Bill Krisher and many others.
It didn't save my job, but a newspaper editorial about my departure from Colorado State made me feel a little better. The piece pointed out how I had inherited "one of the saddest messes in college football… A hapless team to play some nationally known competitors.” Pointing a finger at school officials, the editorial said:
"But Colorado state officials never quite gave Mike Lude enough to work with. The university’s desire to be big-time in athletics outstripped its budget. Embarrassment has been the result. As the symbol of CSU's football defeats, Coach Mike Lude is the natural scapegoat; but CSU is not without fault for needing a scapegoat. In essence, Lude is taking the rap for the state board of agriculture (board of trustees), the CSU administration and athletic director. Collectively, they made too many athletic financial misjudgments.Nice words but I had a family to support. I helped my assistants find jobs – Clarence Daniel and Larry French at Houston, Bill Hickey at his alma mater, Notre Dame, Paul Lanham at Arkansas, Urban Bowman, Joe Cribgari and Jersey Jermier remained at CSU. Then I started thinking about my future.
"Mike Lude took the CSU football program over one of the roughest stretches of its long road and many of us will remember him as a good coach and a fine person.”
One job option had come from Max Moore, a sponsor of my weekly television show and a Colorado State booster. He told me if I ever got tired of coaching I could go into real estate management with his Denver-area firm. The offer was still good, and it looked better than my coaching future. I passed the state exam after a crash course in real estate law, and the first month on the job I made more than I'd ever earned in two months of football (the CSU salary was $18,000 plus five grand more for the TV show).
Meanwhile, Lou Saban, the Denver Broncos’ head coach and general manager, offered me a temporary job scouting college spring practices and evaluating personnel.
During a scouting visit to the college of William and Mary in Virginia, Lou Holtz, a long time friend and the head football coach, suggested I might be interested in becoming the athletic director at his alma mater, Kent State University in Ohio. The president is a friend, Lou said.
At Lou's suggestion I made the call. It led to a career change that took me far beyond the coaching lines.
*********** Netflix has announced plans for a documentary on the history of the Penn State football program. Called “Game Changer: The Legacy of Penn State Football,” it’s scheduled to premiere shortly before the start of the 2025 college football season.
Among the topics covered will be the stunning growth of the program under legendary head coach Joe Paterno, who served as the Lions’ head coach for 46 years - after first spending 16 years as an assistant there.
The show will feature interviews with former players, coaches, and sports analysts, providing their accounts of Coach Paterno’s impact on the game, and how his leadership, his values, and his coaching philosophies affected the game.
I once loved Penn State football, mainly because I loved Joe Paterno. I no longer love Penn State football, but I still love Joe Paterno and what he accomplished, and it still angers me when I hear people demean him and his memory.
In 1974, in the role of personnel director for the Philadelphia Bell, I had some exposure to former Penn State players - enough to convince me that all we’d been hearing and reading about Paterno and his “great experiment” (his belief that winning in big-time football was not incompatible with high academic and behavioral standards) was spot-on. We had four of his guys - linebacker Gary Gray, tackle Bob Rickenbach, guards Dave Joyner and Carl Schaukowitch - on our roster, and although that was a small sample, it was enough to convince me. They were very good football players and good, intelligent, well-grounded people, too.
Gary Gray earned a degree in electrical engineering. He later became a professor of finance at Penn State, and in 2019 he wrote a book about his boyhood days in his hometown “A Levittown Legacy: 1960 Little League World Series Champions.”
https://www.altoonamirror.com/sports/psu/2019/12/ex-psu-football-player-turns-author/
Carl Schaukowitch graduated with a degree in mechanical enginering. He played a few years for Denver after the WFL blew up, then got his law degree from the University of Denver, and at the time of his death in 2015 (at age 64) he was a patent attorney with a Washington, DC law firm.
Dave Joyner was the team captain. In his junior year he finished second in the heavyweight class in the NCAA wrestling championships, and in his senior football season he was a consensus All-American guard. He had already started medical school at Penn State’s Hershey, Pennsylvania campus when the WFL started up, and part of our deal in signing him was to arrange for him to continue his medical studies at Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University (now Drexel University Medical School). I well remember driving to Harrisburg Airport - midway between State College and Philly - to meet with him and his attorney, Bob Mitinger (who had also played at Penn State and after that with the Chargers) to get his signature on a contract. This was a very big deal for us and got us a good bit of well-needed credibility (which we would later blow). Dave Joyner became a physician, and went on to become an orthopedic surgeon in State College. He served on the Board of Trustees of Penn State, and later served as Penn State’s athletic director from 2011-2015.
Bob Rickenbach owned and ran a furniture business in South Jersey. His son, Eric, played at Penn State (2000-2002)
Gray, Rickenbach and Joyner were seniors and Schaukowitch was a junior on the 1971 Penn State team that went 11-1 and, after stuffing the mighty Texas wishbone, 30-6, in the Cotton Bowl, was ranked fifth nationally.
Players from that Nittany Lions team who played in the NFL:
Seniors
RB Franco Harris
RB Lydell Mitchell
TE Bob Parsons
LB Gary Gray
LB Charlie Zapiec
Juniors
QB John Hufnagel
OL Carl Schaukowtich
LB Jim Laslavic
DE Bruce Bannon
DE John Skorupan
Sophomores
OL Charlie Getty
DB John Cappelletti (Sounds crazy, but if you had had Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell in the same backfield, you might have had a future Heisman winning running back playing in your secondary, too.)
DT Randy Crowder
LB Tom Hull
LB Ed O’Neill
*********** A question came up on the Semi-Pro Football History facebook page: Who had the worst field to play on and why?
Having got my coaching start in the minor leagues (I always hated the term “semi-pro” because to me that implied disorganized, poorly dressed, out-of-shape old guys), I had coached on some bad fields, and I felt eminently qualified to respond.
In 1972, we (Hagerstown Bears) played the Long Island Chiefs on the infield of Freeport (Long Island) Speedway. Needless to say, there was no grass; Pre-game, we did the best we could picking up all the rusty auto parts we could find; the lights were trained on the track, not the field; the corners of the field went up onto the banked asphalt track. Absolute nightmare. We had been planning on playing at Hofstra Stadium and hadn't learned about the switch until we arrived at Hofstra.
*********** Overall, it’s fair to say that I’m a strong supporter of President Trump. And even if you dislike the man, I think that if you were honest you’d admit that there was nothing that the other side did in its last four years in office to warrant giving it four more years.
BUT. Nobody’s perfect. I love my dog unconditionally, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t sometimes need correction.
There’s a reason behind today’s quote, and while we and our neighbors to the north may have our disagreements, I see no good reason to insult and disparage Canada and/or Canadians.
We’ve been blessed to share a 5,525 mile northern border that for the most part has required almost no guarding, because overall we respect each other and our (mostly) common values. With Canada on our north and great oceans protecting most of the rest of our continental land mass, only our 2,000-mile-long southern border - with Mexico - has ever been an issue. And that’s only been relatively recent - and mostly our fault, because of our failure to protect it.
We can - and do - disagree with Canada on many things, but if we’re to hold true to our argument that a nation’s borders matter, then we have to accept that until something they do actually threatens us, the border allows Canadians the right to their own policies and beliefs.
So go ahead and disagree with them, Mr. Trump. And if it furthers our national interest to deal firmly with them, by all means do so. But please do so respectfully, as one friendly neighbor to another.
Enough of the grade-school insults. Enough of this “51st state” crap.
(Don’t get me started on the Gulf of America.)
“Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies.” John F Kennedy
*********** In 1993-1994-1995 the CFL expanded into the US.
At different times there were franchises in Baltimore, Birmingham, Las Vegas, Memphis, Sacramento, San Antonio and Shreveport.
The experiment was not a success. Baltimore - still without its NFL team and still seething over the loss of the Colts - was the only franchise known to make a profit.
BUT there was this… In 1995 the Baltimore Stallions actually won the Grey Cup, leaving behind some unique trivia questions:
* Only city to have had three pro football championship teams?
* Only city to win pro football championships in two different countries?
* Only coach to win a pro football championship in two countries?
*********** I hate to finish a good book. I get immersed in it, get to know the people and the places, create their images in my mind, and live with them vicariously, and then - poof! - they’re gone, and I’m back in the real world.
I mentioned a while ago that I was reading “Fall River Dreams,” by Bill Reynolds. It kept me absorbed. It was a real page-turner. It’s a true story by a well-known and highly respected sports columnist who spent a season with a high school basketball team in a Massachusetts town (Fall River) that’s seen better days, and it grabbed me the way a good novel will.
The setting, Fall River, is a town that at one time had more textile mills than any city in the world, and once drew people from all over the world to work in those mills. At the time of the writing, the mills have long sat empty, and nothing has ever replaced them as a means of employment. Most of the people who could afford to leave town for something better have done so. But as in any failed logging town, mining town, mill town, there are always those who will never leave, because it’s all they know. They may not have much, but everything they have is there, and it’s their home.
That describes the kids on the Fall River basketball team. And for all the town’s negatives, basketball there is big, and the high school team has been very good for a very long time.
The protagonist is the high school coach, Skippy Karam, who at the time of writing (1994) is the winningest high school coach in the state’s history. He’s a local guy and he’s been coaching at the same school - Durfee High School - for over 30 years. Needless to say, he’s rather set in his ways. He’s crusty and profane and sarcastic - a relic of a time when the coach was god - and much of the plot deals with his continuing realization that the things he has long held firmly to as a coach are under constant siege by our changing society.
In case the reader thinks that what we coaches see occurring now just began to happen in the last ten years or so, bear in mind that this takes place in the 1990s: “Think of it this way,” he describes the situation. “The teachers are at war with the administration. The administration is afraid of the school committee (school board). The school committee is afraid of the parents. The parents are afraid of the kids. And the kids are afraid of nothing.”
Near the end, as Coach Karam ponders retiring…
Most people close to him thought it was a good decision. What else was there to prove? What else was there to win? He didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as he once did, and the consensus around the city was that Skippy had mellowed, that he wasn’t as tough as he once had been. Part of that undoubtedly was age. But part of it too was that coaching was more difficult now. Kids chafed at any kind of discipline, resented it, questioned it. He saw it every day in so many ways. The clothes they wore to school. The way they talked back to teachers. The lack of structure in the school itself, an erosion of the values that he had grown up with, and that once had been so much part of his life as a teacher.
“The parents can’t control them and the school can’t control them,” he liked to say. “What’s the coach supposed to do?“
Still, he tried, for he knew no other way, even if he knew that he was a dinosaur, that he belonged to another era, one that already had ended. He had been shaped by Lukey (Luke Urban, his predecessor, who had coached him), had begun coaching in a time when the coach’s word was law, inviolate, a court with no appeals. “A coach without discipline has nothing.” It was one of his personal mantras, one of the codes upon which his entire career had been based. Yet discipline now was tougher to maintain, because everything else in society seemed to refute it, and there was the sense that Skippy Karam’s basketball court might just be the only place where these kids got any discipline at all.
Most high school coaches dealt with the new reality by acquiescing to the players, letting them do what they wanted to, realizing that to try to discipline them certainly wasn’t worth the aggravation and probably wouldn’t work anyway. Either that or they tried to be the players’ friends, hoping to influence them with subtle pressure. Skippy did neither.
There was little question in Skippy‘s mind that his coaching style wouldn’t have worked in a lot of communities, probably wouldn’t work in Fall River if he were some young hotshot coach hired from another town. Parents wouldn’t let it work. School administrators wouldn’t let it work. He would have sworn at some kid, the parents would have complained, and that would’ve been it. He survived for one reason only: he was Skippy Karam in Fall River.
*********** Former Ohio State and NFL star Eddie George is the new head football coach at Bowling Green.
The Falcons’ former coach, Scot Loeffler, had left to become quarterbacks coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.
George, 51, just finished his fourth season at FCS Tennessee State. He had losing seasons his first two years, but in 2023 Tennessee State went 6-5, and last year went 9-4, earning a berth in the FCS playoffs.
It was their first spot in the playoffs since 2013, and only their second in this century.
George made his hiring sound a bit like divine intervention.
"I asked God maybe three weeks ago to give me a sign of what's next," he told the Columbus Dispatch. "As I was driving back from Indianapolis, from the combine, I was driving through Bowling Green, Kentucky - I was literally looking at a sign that said 'Bowling Green’ - and I looked down at my phone. And there was a message from Urban Meyer, talking about 'Are you interested in the Bowling Green job?’"
(Meyer, a former coach at both Bowling Green and Ohio State, was on the Bowling Green search committee.)
“I put the phone down and I said, 'Oh, boy. OK. What are you trying to say?’"
If you’re into coincidences - Eddie George scored his first touchdown as a Buckeye in a 1992 game against Bowling Green.
*********** If you’ve been raised to appreciate the proper use of the English language, a noun-verb disagreement is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Yet more and more - probably because by dictate of the Associated Press - we’re getting garbage like this:
“A 14-year-old is facing murder charges for THEIR involvement…”
If this is designed in some way to protect the identity of the little darling, forget it, AP. There is ZERO chance that the “14-year-old” is a girl.
*********** I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: goal-line/short yardage offense is to football as free throws are to basketball: a game-within-a-game. And, to most, a less-important game at that. Until it costs them a game.
The analogy is amazing. Those “less important” aspects of the game are too often given far less attention than they merit, and there will inevitably come that time when no matter how good one you may be at the more glamorous “bigger” game, no matter how glamorous your stats, a win or loss comes down to how competent you are at the “lesser” game.
*********** The World Football League is now 50 years in the past, and in observance of the anniversary, a number of people - myself included - have posted stuff on the WFL’s facebook page.
Recently, there was an article on there about Richie Szaro, a pretty decent placekicker who played for us in Philadelphia. He was born in Poland and raised in The Bronx, and he’d placekicked at Harvard.
A couple of Richie Szaro stories…
(1) We were having some kicking problems and our coach, Ron Waller, didn't much care for Szaro, so to try to replace him he had me bring in a bunch of kickers for tryouts. Whenever one would arrive, our special teams coach, Joe Gardi, would put him and Richie through a kicking contest. Szaro always won. The competition might be close at short range, but Szaro had a very strong leg, and as they increased the distance, Richie would manage to keep the competition going until he just wore the other guy out. He did this three or four different times.
(2) Our equipment manager, Bob Colonna, had once held the same job with the Eagles, and he knew all the ins and outs of the business - including how to deal with players who tried to sweet talk him out of one item or another. While Bob was definitely street wise, he was by no means what you would call eloquent, and the contrast with the Harvard-educated Szaro couldn't have been greater. This is how I remember one conversation they had:
BOB COLONNA: “Hey Siz-zaro (that’s how he pronounced it) - whaddayou want?
RICHIE SZARO: “How about giving me a tee-shirt?”
BC: “I ain’t got no tee shoits (Bob’s pronunciation).”
RC: “Aha, Colonna. Double negative. That means you must have some!”
BC: “Aah, f—k you, Siz-zaro!”
*********** The Seahawks just unloaded their two best receivers DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett - right before they signed Sam Darnold to be their QB. Now, the Seahawks may know what they’re doing. But does Sam Darnold know what HE’S doing?
*********** The first beer that ever tasted good to me was Rolling Rock. I gave it up as quickly as I found out it had abandoned Latrobe. Someone told me Doc Hinger negotiated that move to Newark.
After reading Wayne Ruggiero's phenomenal résumč, I've got ask whether Jake Dickert's been checked for rocks in his head. At the same time, Iowa has a real chance to break out offensively (at long last).
Thanks for shedding more light on Bob Blackman. I knew of him as a celebrated coach, but didn't know about his personal fighting spirit or his innovativeness.
Regarding the thoughts on below-FCS players transferring up: the NFL scout who questioned why William and Mary's Charles Grant hadn't done so, I said to myself that's one of the major things wrong with modern football. That scout didn't consider that maybe Grant appreciated the academic program at W&M.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Think maybe Clemson and FSU may have picked up some "inside" scoop as to the future of the ACC? I've said all along if the future roads to a National Championship in football forced ND to reconsider and give up its independent status they would become full-time members of the ACC. And don't think for a minute the ACC wouldn't make an offer. An ACC with Notre Dame on board would change things dramatically.
Rolling Rock was a quality American beer that unfortunately succumbed to a corporate conglomerate. Leinenkugel (affectionately known as Liney) has recently suffered the same fate. It was purchased by Molson-Coors, and M-C shuttered Liney's historic Chippewa Falls, WI brewery. Shiner beer (a Texas staple) and unlike many of its American counterparts. It is still a Texas beer brewed at the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas. If you haven't had a Shiner Bock you're missing out! Frankly, since I now take an HBP med that prohibits me drinking alcoholic beverages I've had to go to NA beer. Heineken 0,0 is my go to.
While growing up in Chicago my dad, my uncle, and their buddies always made sure there was plenty of Old Style on hand. Old Style is still being brewed, and has recently returned to its original brewery in La Crosse, WI after being brewed in Milwaukee for many years. It is still considered an independent.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I did not know that the Chippewa Falls brewery was shut down. Damn shame. The good news may be that Old Style is once again brewed in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, but the bad news is that the brewery is now owned by Pabst, and it’s where they brew all the brands that Pabst has acquired over the years. These brands, once strong independents, and many of them the once leading beers in their markets, now come out of the same brewery, and it’s not sound economically to change recipes from brand to brand. All they do is change the cans on the can line. So while the packages might be different, it’s fair to assume that there’s not a dime’s difference in the beer that’s in them.
Ballantine
Blatz
Falstaff
Lone Star
National Bohemian
Old Milwaukee
Olympia
Old Style
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Pearl
Primo
Rainier
Schaefer
Schlitz
Schmidt’s
Stag
Stroh’s
*********** QUIZ: He was born in American Samoa, the youngest of 11 children. When he was seven his family moved to Hawaii. Until then, he had never spoken a word of English.
He first started playing football as a high school freshman at Honolulu’s Farrington High School. By his senior year, he was a highly-recruited running back.
He also played baseball and became famous for a feat that took place during the spring of his senior year. Between games of a baseball doubleheader, he took part in a large track meet, the Punahou Invitational and, changing into a track shirt but still wearing his baseball pants, he competed in the shot put. His first attempt went 56 feet, A new state record. His job done, he headed back to baseball - and in the second game, he hit a home run.
After narrowing his school choices to Penn State, USC, and Michigan State, he eliminated Penn State because he wanted a chance to play in the Rose Bowl, at that time considered in the Islands to be THE game. (Penn State was still an independent.) His mother wanted him to go to USC - she was a fan - while his high school coach, who had gone to Purdue, pointed out that playing for Michigan State, a Big Ten team, would also afford him the opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl.
At the time, the signing of the grant-in-aid by an athlete had to be done in person, and when signing day came and the USC recruiter failed to show (he’d missed his flight, it turned out) our guy signed with Michigan State.
There, he became a major part of one of the great football teams of all time, notable especially because of the highly talented black athletes Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty had recruited in the South, where the big-time schools still refused to play blacks. Jimmy Raye… Bubba Smith… Charlie Thornhill… Gene Washington… George Webster.
Freshmen were ineligible to play then, but in his sophomore season our guy rushed for 715 yards and ten touchdowns, helping lead the Spartans to the Rose Bowl and a share of the national title.
The Spartans went into the Rose Bowl unbeaten (10-0), and faced a UCLA team that they had beaten, 13-3 in the opening game of the season. They were upset 14-12. Down 14-0 in the fourth quarter, they put on a stirring comeback, sparked by our guy’s 38-yard touchdown run, but they came up short when he was stopped at the goal line on a last-minute two-point attempt.
They wound up sharing the national title with Alabama.
And our guy became the first Samoan to be named an All-American. (In time, many more would follow.)
The Spartans were really good his junior year. On November 19, 1966, he was a part of the much-hyped “ Game of the Century” in which Number Two Michigan State (9-0) and Number One Notre Dame (8-0) met.
There was considerable excitement in the Islands because there were three Hawaiians (Dick Kenney and Charlie Wedemeyer, besides our guy) playing for Michigan State, and so by means of a satellite connection over Sydney, Australia, it became the first mainland sports event ever to be televised live in Hawaii.
The game ended in a disappointing 10-10 tie, and the battle to decide who was Number One was unresolved. The next week, Notre Dame routed USC, 51-0 and wound up being rated Number One by most polls. Michigan State’s season had ended with the Notre Dame game - no bowl game - because in those days the Big Ten permitted only one team - its champion - to go to just one bowl game - the Rose Bowl. And because it had a “no-repeat” rule, and the Spartans had played in the Rose Bowl the year before, they stayed home. But the Spartans were still undefeated, and their record was the same as Notre Dame’s, and they ranked Number One by enough polls to justify their claim to a share of the title.
How good was that Spartan team? In the following spring’s NFL draft, four of its players - Bubba Smith (at Number One), Clint Jones (at Number Two), George Webster (at Number Five), and Gene Washington (at Number Eight) - were among the first eight players taken.
He missed considerable action in the last four games of his junior season and was slow to recover from off-season knee surgery in his senior year, but he was still a solid blocker, and he left Michigan State with the all-time school record for rushing yards by a fullback: 1,343 yards (on 262 carries - 5.1 yards per carry).
He was taken in the ninth round of the NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers. The Packers had won three straight NFL titles - and in addition, the first two Super Bowls - and to say the least, they were not in dire need of personnel. And then there was our guy’s knee. He was damaged goods.
As he recalled, "The decision came down to when Vince Lombardi drafted me with Green Bay, I signed a two-year contract with them, and they had just come out of their second World Championship, and I was honored. But the fact of the matter - when he released me because of my injuries, we didn't have collective bargaining back in those days - I don't think we even had injured reserve - you’re either on the 'taxi squad' (practice squad), or you're released outright.
“So they paid off my contract, and I was filled with enthusiasm for being an athlete and being young. I got my graduate degree from Western Michigan, went back home to Hawaii, worked with the governor's office, and after a couple of months, I got started as a stunt man with the original Hawaii Five-O. I knew this was a great place to release the energy that you have as a young man, as a former athlete, and I wanted to, with my dexterity, with my abilities to do this and do that, fit right into it. Then I got into directing as a stunt coordinator, so that's how that took off, and I was in it for about 34 years.”
In his on-screen career, he appeared in such television shows as “Hawaii Five-O” and “Magnum P.I.” and between 40 and 50 movies, including “The Last Boy Scout,” alongside stars like Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, “Hard Target” with Jean-Claude Van Damm, “Under Siege 2: Dark Territory” with Steven Segal and many more.
He was inducted into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017 and into the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame in 2018.
In 2016, he directed a documentary called “Men of Sparta,” featuring Michigan State's 1965 and 1966 teams and their impact on our game and on our culture.
"It was the greatest experience of my life," he said about it. "I talked about how we reached that pinnacle; I talked about how we became Big Ten champions and how we went to the Rose Bowl and became National Champions, Co-National Champions with Notre Dame. The fact is that we had great, iconic ballplayers back then, the George Websters, the Bubba Smiths, the Gene Washingtons, the Clint Joneses, and so forth. We came from different parts of the country, gentlemen like Jimmy Raye. He was the first African-American quarterback from the South - Duffy Daugherty had to go beyond the Mason-Dixon Line and recruit him from Fayetteville, North Carolina, during the Jim Crow era. He had to go south of the Mason-Dixon Line to go to Beaumont, Texas, to get Bubba Smith; he had to go south of the Mason-Dixon Line to get George Webster from Anderson, South Carolina. Now you mesh that in with people like myself, Dick Kenney, Charlie Wedemeyer, that went up from Hawaii to Michigan State - it was the first time in my life that I played with as teammates or against African-Americans because we had a mixture of ethnics in Hawaii growing up, but it was my first time. We meshed as a family. When you call us a family, you get this feeling of friendship, and you have each other's back, and that's how we played in the games, and that's how we ascended to the pinnacle and the title."
FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2025 "Hear
for yourself how it sounds: 500 million Europeans begging 300
million
Americans to defend them from 140 million Russians.” Donald
Tusk,
Prime Minister of Poland *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: In our final game against New Mexico State we had a 20–14 lead late in the game. But with 1:36 remaining, they scored and kicked the extra point for a 21–20 victory. It was our third loss that year in which we were beaten at the wire. We lost to Brigham Young 22–20 on a 54 – yard field goal with 15 seconds left. Texas – El Paso beat us in the last 16 seconds, 17 –16 on a 38-yard field goal.
An Associated Press story summed up my last CSU season: "four points and 127 seconds meant the difference between Colorado State University's four-win, six-loss football record last season and what might have been seven and three.” It would have been extremely hard to justify not giving me a new contract if we had gone 7–3, especially when we were picked to finish near the bottom of the conference going into the season.
During that final year my secretary, Mary Dalton, came into the staff room one morning, extremely upset. She had just received a phone call from someone saying he represented the Black Panthers and that they were going to bomb my house that night.
The Colorado State campus had been having racial unrest, and the Panthers had been active. They had staged several demonstrations, but I felt our football program had made considerable progress. We had numerous black athletes and a couple of black assistant coaches – Jim Hillyer, a former Lubbock, Texas, high school veteran, and Al Lavan, our former defensive back and place kicker, who moved on to coach at many big-school programs.
I told Mary not to worry, that most of these calls were harmless threats. I told my staff what was going on, though, and because I had a speaking engagement that night out of town, Hillyer volunteered to stay with my family. We notified the police and they put surveillance on our home, but nothing happened.
*********** If Washington, DC were ever to become a state, what would its capital be?
*********** NO HARD KNOCKS AT UNC
It would have been great TV, but now the word is that North Carolina and Bill Belichick will not be the subject of HBO's "Hard Knocks.”
https://collegefootballnetwork.com/hard-knocks-bill-belichick-deal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hard-knocks-bill-belichick-deal
*********** Growing up in southern California, Maalik Murphy dreamed of being an Oregon Duck. But for one reason or another, things didn’t work out.
Now, he’ll get a closer look at the Ducks from the other side of the field. On September 20, when he and his Oregon State teammates visit Eugene.
Murphy, who just two years ago was the starting Texas QB, spent last season at Duke, where he made Blue Devils fans forget about Riley Leonard’s departure for Notre Dame by leading Duke to nine regular season wins for just the second time in school history. In the process he threw for 2,933 yards and a school record 26 touchdowns.
And then, the story goes, he was informed by Duke that they were “going in another direction” and just like that, he was in for transfer portal.
Hmmm. That was a new one to me. What was Duke thinking?
“Of course it sucks initially,” he said. “It’s kind of like getting fired from a job. But life moves on. I couldn’t just sit and dwell on it. Just take your next step forward and make it your best step.”
His next step, much to the delight of Oregon State fans, has turned out to be Corvallis, Oregon. He’d been offered by the Beavers when he was in high school, and when he left Texas after the 2023 season, he’d visited Oregon State before deciding on Duke.
*********** It appears that after all the acrimony and bitterness over Florida State and Clemson bitching about unfair revenue distribution and their desire to break free from the ACC, the plaintiffs have won.
More details emerging from settlement between ACC, FSU and Clemson will result in even distributions based on TV ratings. The ACC also has “success initiatives” that reward schools for post-season play, which greatly benefitted both SMU and Clemson this year.
It does appear that the Exit fee will drop by $18 million a year through 2029-30, which is the year at which most other conference deals come up for renewal. After that, the exit fee will drop to $75 million and - this is key - any team that exited would retain its media rights.
Interestingly, for all the talk about Clemson and FSU and their greater TV appeal, the ACC's highest-rated program in 2024 was Georgia Tech, due partly to Tech’s Week 0 game against Florida State and its seven-overtime game against Georgia on the final Friday of the regular season.
*********** THE FOLLOWING THREE ARTICLES ON THE SUBJECT OF THE WAY NIL AND THE LIBERAL TRANSFER RULE AFFECT COLLEGE ROSTERS AND NFL SCOUTING HAVE AS THEIR SOURCE AN ARTICLE THAT I HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO LOCATE, WHICH PREVENTS ME FROM CREDITING IT. I’M NOT ABLE TO IDENTIFY MY SOURCE, AND I DON’T WANT TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT IT'S MY ORIGINAL MATERIAL
HOW NIL AND THE TRANSFER RULE AFFECT NFL SCOUTING - PART ONE:
NIL money and the one-time transfer rule, which went into effect for the 2021 college football season has led to a steady decline in the number of players from small schools making it to the combine. Now, it seems they all move up before they go pro.
"The Khalil Macks of the world [played four years at Buffalo of the MAC before going No. 5 in the 2014 draft] will be relics of the NFL drafts past," an NFL staffer told The Athletic. "With the money you get in the portal now -- not sure we'll ever see another top 10 pick out of an FCS or lower program again."
From 2016 to 2021, before the transfer rule, an average of 20.5 small schoolers were invited to the combine. Since 2022, that average has dropped to 14.5, the lowest it has been in the past 10 years.
From 2015 to 2021, an average of 3.5 under-FCS players were invited, with a high of seven of them invited in 2017.
But for the past two combines, not a single D-II or D-III prospect has been invited.
*********** HOW NIL AND THE TRANSFER RULE AFFECT NFL SCOUTING - PART TWO:
in 2018 only two of 336 players (0.6%) in that year’s scouting combine transferred up - from a non-FBS program (NAIA to D-II, FCS to FBS, for example) to a higher level of college football.
But this year, 28 of the 330 players (8.5%) invited to the scouting combine have transferred up at least once from a non-FBS program -- 14 times the number of players who transferred up in 2018.
126 of this year's 330 (38.2%) had transferred at least once from any level of college football at least once, the majority of them moving to a school at the same level.
Back in the 2018 combine only 18 of 336 (5.4%) had transferred at any point from any level.
Combine players who had transferred at least once
*********** HOW NIL AND THE TRANSFER RULE AFFECT NFL SCOUTING - PART THREE:
The director of player personnel (at a group of 5 school) says his program will lose this battle every time to a Power 4 program because it doesn't have the NIL money to compete. He estimated the range for a player moving up to a Power 4 program for a starting role to be in the mid-six figures.
An FCS offensive coordinator -- also not authorized by his team to speak -- said he had an "average, at best" tackle transfer out of his program in December for a deal at an FBS school worth $1.7 million.
"It's much harder to retain players, especially at the lower levels," the G5 player personnel director said.
One scouting director for an NFL club said he has been having conversations with his staff members about how they might need to change their process and spend less time going to smaller programs. "Go where the players are," he said.
The G5 director of player personnel said the director-level scouts haven't been coming to scout his program the past couple of years because his seniors have transferred up. Area scouts are still coming through -- for now. One area scout said he's still going to all of his "free agent schools" outside of the power conferences, but he has noticed that many of his peers are not.
"There's just less talent available at those levels," the scout said. "And sometimes, it's frustrating because they'll leave, let's say, San Jose State or Louisiana Tech or something, and they end up being a backup at a Big 12 school, or a Big Ten school, and you think, 'Wow, they got paid,' and they're not even on the field."
The increase in transfers can make a scout's job harder in some ways because it requires more work to collect information on the player's personality and internal makeup across multiple schools, but it has also made their job easier because they can get a more accurate idea of how the prospect will perform at the NFL level.
"The hardest thing to do in scouting, in my opinion, is normalizing competition," one NFL analytics staffer said. "It's why it makes SEC players often easier to project -- you know they're also going against elite players."
"Seeing them at a big program against real NFL talent is very helpful," one veteran NFL area scout said. "I've thought a few times this year, 'I bet this dude would've tricked someone into drafting him if he would've stayed where he was.'"
A transfer on a player's résumé used to be such an outlier that it would prompt questions. Players had to explain and defend themselves for transferring. Now that the college football landscape has changed so much, a transfer isn't an automatic red flag. One area scout said it's only a deterrent if the player has transferred three to four times at the Power 4 level, but also said scouts find it refreshing when a player has never transferred.
Raiders general manager John Spytek worked as Tampa Bay's assistant general manager before accepting the Raiders job in January. The Buccaneers have had success drafting small school players such as former guard Ali Marpet out of D-II Hobart College and guard Alex Cappa out of D-II Humboldt State.
"Maybe those guys transfer up now," Spytek said. "Maybe they don't. I give a lot of respect to the guys that stick it out with the school they're at and take a smaller NIL deal than they could have gotten if they would have transferred to the big one. There's a loyalty and a quality to that human that really stands out. And there's a couple guys in this draft this year that had the same opportunity."
At the same time, transferring up has become so expected and normal in this era of college football that it's almost a red flag when an elite player at a lower level doesn't take a chance to face better competition. Another NFL scout said when his team discussed William & Mary tackle Charles Grant, one of the seven FCS players at the combine, it questioned why he didn't transfer up when he had opportunities. Why didn't he want to test himself?
*********** Texas is said to be close to hiring former West Virginia and Troy coach Neal Brown.
Brown went 35-16 at Troy with a Sun Belt championship in 2017, and for the past six seasons was the head coach at West Virginia, where he went 37-35.
He is not a stranger to Texas football, having been Texas Tech’s offensive coordinator from 2010 to 2012.
*********** When I was in school, Bob Blackman at Dartmouth was the archenemy of every other Ivy League team. He was different. He didn’t play the corporate way. And he won. He’d coached JC ball in California and he’d been head coach at the University of Denver. He had contacts all over the West, and he knew how to get players. He, uh, “recruited.” While the other Ivy schools scarcely bothered recruiting (to be fair, the league had probably placed restrictions on recruiting), he reeled ‘em in. On defense, he was almost certainly the first coach to popularize the 4-4 (the stack), and it drove opposing offenses crazy. And on offense, his innovation was the “V Formation,” which was a variation of the T-formation that, like the single wing that only Princeton then ran, employed a blocking back. To introduce him, I found his obituary, written for the New York Times by its famed sports writer William N. Wallace, himself a Yale man.
By William N. Wallace
Bob Blackman, an innovative football coach at Dartmouth, Illinois and Cornell in a career that spanned 34 seasons, died Friday at a hospital in Burlingame, Calif. Blackman, who lived in Hilton Head, S.C., was 81.
Blackman's wife, Katharine, said he was hospitalized while they were on vacation in Singapore and was found to have a bacterial infection and anemia. While they were flying home last Thursday, his condition worsened and he was taken to a hospital after their flight landed in San Francisco.
Coaching 16 seasons at Dartmouth, Blackman led his teams to seven of the first 15 championships in formal Ivy League play, and his squads were undefeated and untied in 1962, 1965 and 1970.
It was his recruiting zeal that caught the attention of the eight-team Ivy League. ''Bob taught the Ivies how to recruit nationally when there were no numbers limitations,'' Seaver Peters, a former Dartmouth athletic director, once said. ''He had a national network.''
Blackman's 1970 Dartmouth team, which held six of its nine opponents scoreless, concluded with a rare-for-the-Ivies top-20 ranking (14th) in the two national polls and won the Lambert Trophy as the best team in the East.
Penn State Coach Joe Paterno, partly in jest, challenged this award and suggested a postseason game between his team -- a perennial national power -- and Dartmouth. ''If we were allowed to play a postseason game, I'd prefer to play a team with a better record,'' Blackman replied. Penn State's was 7-3.
After that season, it was on to Illinois for Blackman, whose goal was to build championship teams to represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl game, which was a shrine of sorts for Blackman.
He was an alumnus of the University of Southern California, a native of Long Beach and he had played in the Rose Bowl in a high school championship game.
As an 18-year-old U.S.C. freshman football player, Blackman was stricken with polio on his right side and given little chance to walk again. But a year later he was playing football again, limping through the drills. The head coach, Howard Jones, kindly made him an assistant freshman coach -- and the vocational die was cast.
Blackman, who was left with mild polio limitations, disliked any handicap classification. He made a point of showing up -- with skis -- at the Dartmouth ski area during Winter Carnival weekends.
He served in the Navy during World War II and began college coaching at Pasadena City College in 1949, taking his teams to national junior college championships in 1951 and 1952. They played home games at the Rose Bowl.
Next he went to Denver University for two seasons, taking the Pioneers to their first Skyline Conference title in 34 years. Along the way he was tinkering with something he called the V-formation, a forerunner of the wishbone offense, and with original, intricate defenses.
Dartmouth sought a new coach and persuaded Paul Brown, coach and founder of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, to review candidates. Brown's son, Mike, was the Dartmouth varsity quarterback.
''Red Rolfe, the former New York Yankees' third baseman and a Dartmouth alumnus, was the athletic director,'' Mike Brown recalled. ''He sent game films of the three leading candidates, and my father and his staff recommended Bob Blackman.''
Blackman's record at Dartmouth was 104 victories, 37 defeats and 3 ties.
As Blackman's first Dartmouth quarterback, in 1955, Mike Brown scored 10 touchdowns. ''All of them were scored on quarterback sneaks,'' Brown remembered. ''Bob made sure my accomplishment was a big part of that year's highlight film. The film was shown at a Dartmouth alumni gathering in my hometown, Cleveland, and by the time the last quarterback sneak came up, the audience was giggling. I was embarrassed.''
Attention to the smallest details, quarterback sneaks or whatever, was a part of Blackman's preparation, which included use of early computers in accounting for opponents' offensive tendencies.
''He knew exactly what he wanted each player to do on every play,'' Brown said. ''And he could coach every position.''
One of Blackman's most memorable players was Jake Crouthamel, a running back from 1957 to 1959 who succeeded him as head coach in 1971 and is currently director of athletics at Syracuse University.
At Illinois, there were no invitations to the Rose Bowl and disillusionment set in. His teams' results over six seasons were modest -- 29 victories, 36 losses, 1 tie. So Blackman returned to the Ivies, going to Cornell, coaching his teams there to 23 victories, 37 defeats and a tie, with his best finish second place in 1980.
Despite the less-than-overwhelming success his second time around in the Ivies, Blackman once remarked: ''I like the Ivy League -- the only conference where the coaches are paid more than the players.''
Bob Blackman’s V-Formation (from an old Yale scouting report).
Wiliam N. Wallace was an interesting person himself:
He was born on April 29, 1924, in Washington to Josephine Parrot Wallace and Lew Wallace Jr. His great-grandfather was Lew Wallace, the Civil War Union general who wrote “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.”
He graduated from Yale in 1945 after serving in World War II. He was a catcher on the Yale baseball team. His newspaper career began at The New York World-Telegram in New York. He moved to The New York Herald Tribune in 1957 and started covering football two years later. He joined The Times after the newspaper strike of 1962-63.
His last article in The Times, in 2007, was an obituary for James DeAngelis, the last surviving player of the 1934 Yale football team, winners over Princeton in a game in which the eleven Yale starters played the entire way - both offense and defense - without any substitutions. Two years earlier he had written about that Yale team in his book “Yale’s Ironmen: A Story of Football and Lives in the Decade of the Depression and Beyond.”
*********** IOWA CITY, Iowa-- The Hawkeye football offices were busy on Monday night when 247Sports' Matt Zenitz reported that former Wake Forest offensive coordinator Warren Ruggiero has been hired as a senior analyst. Ruggiero was most recently Wake Forest's offensive coordinator. He spent 11 years with the Demon Deacons.
Ruggiero's quarterback development has been impressive. He was most known for his ability to develop former Wake Forest and Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman.
Following the 2021 regular season, Ruggiero was named a finalist for the prestigious Broyles Award. The award honors the top assistant coach in the country, and he was one of five finalists among nominees from every FBS institution.
That’s what they wrote about it in Iowa.
Here’s what I had been working on when Iowa made its announcement:
I’ve been following Wake Forest pretty closely since fall of 2015, when my grandson, Connor Love, arrive there as a freshman. When I heard that the football players had helped the incoming freshmen move in, I figured that they had a coach I needed to know more about.
In the process I developed a “coach crush” on Wake’s head coach, Dave Clawson, and as I became more familiar with his program, and more impressed by his offense, I began to learn a little about the Deacons’ offensive coordinator, Warren Ruggiero. I couldn’t learn much, because his offense was quite unique and quite effective and he and Dave Clawson were very secretive about it.
And I discovered that Ruggiero, who had come to Wake with Clawson after working with him at Bowling Green, had no aspirations to be a head coach. He was satisfied professionally with being an offensive coordinator. I liked that. I liked the idea that a guy could appreciate his place in the picture and I liked the idea that being the best he could be at his craft was - enough. He didn’t need to fly closer to the sun.
How much great football, I’ve often wondered, have we missed out on because guys who were very good coordinators felt they had to take the next big step - and became unsuccessful head coaches?
More about Warren Ruggiero -
He’s from Glen Rock, New Jersey.
He’s 58 years old. He played QB at Delaware.
He’s been an offensive coordinator at six different colleges, most recently at Wake Forest, where he served in that capacity for the past 11 seasons.
At every place where he’s been OC, his offense has finished in the top 10 nationally in either total offense or scoring offense.
At his last four jobs, his offenses have finished in the top six in the country in passing offense.
At five of his last six coaching jobs, he has coached an All-American QB.
It broke my heart that after this past season, Dave Clawson threw in the towel at Wake Forest. It also hurt, because I knew that meant that Warren Ruggiero, who had worked hand-in-glove with Clawson during those eleven years at Wake Forest and before that five years at Bowling Green, would almost certainly be out of work.
Sure enough, he was not retained by new head coach Jake Dickert.
With all the success he’s had, why wasn’t he snapped up? A likely reason is his unique “slow mesh” offense. It’s has been very successful wherever he’s employed it, but it is different, and it would require a retooling. And, no doubt wisely - he and Dave Clawson were very careful not to share its secrets, so as a result, he’s seen as an outlier. (Double-Wingers would understand.)
His resume:
Defiance College (1989-1993) - OC
Clarion (1994-1996) - OC… 1996 team made a national semi-final appearance.
Glenville State (1997-1998) - Head Coach… 15-8 overall record; made D-II playoffs 1998
William & Mary (1999) - Tight Ends
Hofstra (2000-2005) - QB/OC… 2004-2005 led Atlantic 10 conference in passing
Elon (2006-2007) - OC… QB Scott Riddle earned All-America honors
Kansas State (2008) QBs - coached future 1st-round pick Josh Freeman, mentored Collin Klein.
Bowling Green (2009-2013) - OC… 2013 team was 10-3, averaged 35.4 points per game
Wake Forest (2014-2014) - OC - Set nearly 400 school records including marks for points scored, points per game, total offensive yards, first downs and passing yards over the past five seasons.
Only ACC program to average at least 30 points per game each year since 2017.
2021 Wake team scored a program-best 574 points = fourth-most in ACC history and 53rd most in modern FBS history
2021 Wake team scored 35 points or more in 12 games, making Wake one of only seven teams in the College Football Playoff era (2014 Oregon, 2018 Alabama, 2018 Oklahoma, 2019 Alabama, 2019 LSU, 2020 Alabama) to do so.
In summary: I like Iowa and I like Kirk Ferentz, and I know how good Iowa can be if they have any offense at all. And now they have the guy who can give them that much-longed-for offense. If only they’re willing to use him.
*********** My friend Tom Hinger, one of the inspirations for the Black Lion Award, is a native of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Latrobe is a small city in western Pennsylvania, about an hour east of Pittsburgh, and although it’s long been a steel town, its greater claim to fame is being the home town of Arnold Palmer and of Mister Rodgers. Also Rolling Rock Beer. Once hailed as a beer that came from the “mountain springs” of the nearby Laurel Highlands, Rolling Rock was acquired several years ago by InBev, the global brewing giant that owns, among other brands, Budweiser, and now it’s brewed in Newark, New Jersey. (Thank about that a minute. Next time you consider having a Rolling Rock, don’t believe that bullsh— on the bottle about Mountain Springs. That stuff you’re about to drink is made from water that comes from God-knows-where, but it sure as hell isn’t from any mountain springs.)
Anyhow, Tom’s high school classmate Jim Mickinak has, over the years, become undoubtedly the world’s greatest fan of Rolling Rock - the Rolling Rock That Was - and much of his property is a tribute to the company, its products, and its advertising materials. Above is a recent photo Tom sent me of the entrance to Jim’s property. I thought I was pretty good with my handful of lighted signs and my collection of several hundred beer cans, but that sign alone kicks my ass.
*********** Found this in an old (1957) Yale-Brown program about the time Herman Hickman, Yale’s head coach, had so little respect for his upcoming opponent, Brown, that he chose to spend his Saturday scouting another game rather than on the sidelines coaching his own team…
On November 5, 1949, Herman Hickman, the resident football genius at New Haven, left Brown to his assistants and players and went off to scout Princeton against Harvard. Herman saw a dandy game at Cambridge but back in the bowl Brown was stiffening his team, 14–0.
*********** Hugh,
The baseball "world games" are under way and I watched a little of the Germany-Brazil game. There are two Chinese teams playing. One is from the mainland, "China", and the other from Chinese Taipei. I wonder if your son has any information on the differences between those two. I'm thinking I'll watch if the two of them end up facing one another in a game.
I bet of the 85,000 in attendance at Ohio Stadium for the Blue Jackets game not even half of them have ever seen the Blue Jackets play, and I bet after every Blue Jackets home game in Nationwide Arena you won't hear Carmen Ohio being played. That was an Ohio State event if I've ever seen one! In fact...the Blue Jackets are likely the ONLY pro team that can survive in Columbus. There are 3 pro football teams in Ohio. One's in Cincinnati, another is in Cleveland, and the other is in Columbus.
The more I thought about this the more I support Diego Pavia's claim. Athletes who attend a prep school for a year or two don't have those years counted against their eligibility at a four year school. Neither do athletes at the military academy prep schools. Makes perfect sense to me that a JC kid shouldn't have to forfeit those one or two years either. As far as age is concerned if you add up the years from the time an athlete is enrolled to the time he/she is finished competing that age could be as high as 25/26!
With the "Pavia Rule" in effect, becoming a HC at the JC level (especially in California) may likely become the best football job on the planet.
On the other hand, as a former DIII coach I have to say that if you end up as a HC at any of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC - DIII) schools you'd have a pretty good gig. That would be UW-Whitewater, UW-Eau Claire, UW-River Falls, UW-Platteville, UW-LaCrosse, UW-Stout, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
From what I’ve read, up to now Ohio State has not been a strong supporter of the Bluejackets. I’m in on the Pavia claim all the way. I wish Oregon and Washington still had JC football programs, which were still strong when I first came West in the mid-70s.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: The next time you see an NFL QB take a knee - with a couple of backs behind him for insurance purposes - think of this guy. John McVay.
John McVay was born in Bellaire, Ohio, but when he was quite young his family moved to Massillon - “Tigertown” - then, as now, a high school football hotbed. In 1948, his senior season, Massillon finished 9-1 and won the state title, and he was named second team All-Ohio at center. A good student, he was a member of the National Honor Society.
At Miami of Ohio, he was coached by two all-time greats. He played his first two years under Woody Hayes. And after Hayes moved on to Ohio State, he was succeeded by Ara Parseghian. Our guy was a two-time team MVP for Miami, team captain his senior year and an All-Mid-American Conference selection at center.
After serving as an assistant at Lancaster High School for three years, he was named head coach at Franklin High School and after one year there he was hired as head coach at Canton Central Catholic. After five years there, with a record of 41-7, he was hired by Michigan State to assist the legendary Duffy Daugherty. And after three years at MSU, he was hired as head coach at the University of Dayton. In eight years there, his record was 37-41-3.
In 1974 and 1975 he was head coach of the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League, and when the WFL went under after the 1975 season, he was hired as an assistant by New York Giants’ head coach Bill Arnsparger, a former Miami Teammate.
Those were tough years for the Giants, and when they lost their first seven games, Arnsparger was fired and McVay replaced him.
In his half of the season, he finished with three wins and four losses.
His second season, the Giants finished 5-9.
And then, in his third season, came “The Fumble” (if you were a Giants’ fan) or “The Miracle at the Meadowlands” (if you were an Eagles’ fan).
It was in the Meadowlands, November, 1978, and with just seconds left to play, the Giants led the Eagles by five points. Needing only to run out the clock, they called for quarterback Joe Pisarcik to hand off to running back Larry Csonka on a simple dive. But the handoff was botched and the loose ball was picked up and run in for the winning touchdown by Eagles’ defensive back Herman Edwards. Not long after, at the end of a 6-10 season, our guy was out of work.
But rather than think of John McVay as the coach in a disastrous event that will live forever in New York Giants’ lore, it’s far more appropriate to think of him in terms of what happened in the next chapter of his life… to think of him when someone mentions Bill Walsh… or Joe Montana… or Jerry Rice… or Ronnie Lott… or Charles Haley… or Dwight Clark… or Roger Craig… or the San Francisco 49ers’ five Super Bowl wins between 1982 and 1995.
To a great degree, John McVay was the architect of those great San Francisco teams.
Shortly after being cut loose by the Giants, 49ers’ owner Edward DeBartolo, Jr. offered him a position in their front office and as he enjoyed telling it, “I was on the next plane.”
Technically, he was brought in as Director of Player Personnel, but although head coach Bill Walsh had the final say in all major football decisions, our guy played a major role in scouting, draft choices, free-agent signings and contract negotiations. “I had a lot of different titles,” he recalled, “but I functioned as general manager basically from Day One.”
One of his first duties on joining the 49ers was finding Walsh a quarterback.
They both liked Notre Dame’s Joe Montana but were wary when he was still untaken in the third round. His arm strength and durability were in question, but Walsh liked his potential.
Recalled McVay, “Bill said, ‘Can we check and see why Montana keeps dropping?’ I told Bill, ‘Let me call one of the Notre Dame assistant coaches.’”
He contacted Bill Gruden, who had been on his staff at Dayton.
“I asked him, ‘Billy, what’s the story with Montana?’” he recalled. “Billy’s response was brief. ‘Just take him.’”
As the 49ers’ dynasty was built, McVay was willing to remain in the background, but the people who mattered knew how important his role was.
“His true forte — besides being totally selfless – was that he was an absolutely brilliant talent evaluator,” said owner DeBartolo. “We wouldn’t have had the success we had if Bill didn’t have John McVay and they didn’t work so well together.”
Said Walsh in his biography “The Genius,” “I don’t know what I’d have done without John McVay…He was nonconfrontational and nonabrasive to the extreme, never upstaging anyone, but if he didn’t agree with me he’d tell me straight out. He was the glue that held the organization together from the time he arrived.”
Twenty years after he came west to work with the 49ers, he retired. He died in 2022 at the age of 91. In his home he displayed a photo of Walsh, inscribed, “You are the master.”
He also took great pride in seeing his grandson, Sean McVay, coach in the Super Bowl: “As I watch him - I wish we just had a camera on him so I could not see anything else — he’s one of those head coaches who coaches everything,” he said. “A lot of guys say, ‘OK I’m just gonna concentrate on offense, or concentrate on defense,’ but he’s doing all sides of it.”
In return, said grandson Sean, “My grandpa meant so much to me and our family and really to everybody that he touched. I can’t think of a better example of someone who was so consistent with the character he had, the way he treated people, the relationships that he developed and built that really were sustainable and meant something with real depth, the consistency at which he always handled both the good and the challenging times. I think about him all the time and how fortunate I’ve been just to have McVay as my last name because of the legacy he set.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOHN McVAY
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
John Rothwell - Corpus Christi, Texas
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: He was born in American Samoa, the youngest of 11 children. When he was seven his family moved to Hawaii. Until then, he had never spoken a word of English.
He first started playing football as a high school freshman at Honolulu’s Farrington High School. By his senior year, he was a highly-recruited running back.
He also played baseball and became famous for a feat that took place during the spring of his senior year. Between games of a baseball doubleheader, he took part in a large track meet, the Punahou Invitational and, changing into a track shirt but still wearing his baseball pants, he competed in the shot put. His first attempt went 56 feet, A new state record. His job done, he headed back to baseball - and in the second game, he hit a home run.
After narrowing his school choices to Penn State, USC, and Michigan State, he eliminated Penn State because he wanted a chance to play in the Rose Bowl, at that time considered in the Islands to be THE game. (Penn State was still an independent.) His mother wanted him to go to USC - she was a fan - while his high school coach, who had gone to Purdue, pointed out that playing for Michigan State, a Big Ten team, would also afford him the opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl.
At the time, the signing of the grant-in-aid by an athlete had to be done in person, and when signing day came and the USC recruiter failed to show (he’d missed his flight, it turned out) our guy signed with Michigan State.
There, he became a major part of one of the great football teams of all time, notable especially because of the highly talented black athletes Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty had recruited in the South, where the big-time schools still refused to play blacks. Jimmy Raye… Bubba Smith… Charlie Thornhill… Gene Washington… George Webster.
Freshmen were ineligible to play then, but in his sophomore season our guy rushed for 715 yards and ten touchdowns, helping lead the Spartans to the Rose Bowl and a share of the national title.
The Spartans went into the Rose Bowl unbeaten (10-0), and faced a UCLA team that they had beaten, 13-3 in the opening game of the season. They were upset 14-12. Down 14-0 in the fourth quarter, they put on a stirring comeback, sparked by our guy’s 38-yard touchdown run, but they came up short when he was stopped at the goal line on a last-minute two-point attempt.
They wound up sharing the national title with Alabama.
And our guy became the first Samoan to be named an All-American. (In time, many more would follow.)
The Spartans were really good his junior year. On November 19, 1966, he was a part of the much-hyped “ Game of the Century” in which Number Two Michigan State (9-0) and Number One Notre Dame (8-0) met.
There was considerable excitement in the Islands because there were three Hawaiians (Dick Kenney and Charlie Wedemeyer, besides our guy) playing for Michigan State, and so by means of a satellite connection over Sydney, Australia, it became the first mainland sports event ever to be televised live in Hawaii.
The game ended in a disappointing 10-10 tie, and the battle to decide who was Number One was unresolved. The next week, Notre Dame routed USC, 51-0 and wound up being rated Number One by most polls. Michigan State’s season had ended with the Notre Dame game - no bowl game - because in those days the Big Ten permitted only one team - its champion - to go to just one bowl game - the Rose Bowl. And because it had a “no-repeat” rule, and the Spartans had played in the Rose Bowl the year before, they stayed home. But the Spartans were still undefeated, and their record was the same as Notre Dame’s, and they ranked Number One by enough polls to justify their claim to a share of the title.
How good was that Spartan team? In the following spring’s NFL draft, four of its players - Bubba Smith (at Number One), Clint Jones (at Number Two), George Webster (at Number Five), and Gene Washington (at Number Eight) - were among the first eight players taken.
He missed considerable action in the last four games of his junior season and was slow to recover from off-season knee surgery in his senior year, but he was still a solid blocker, and he left Michigan State with the all-time school record for rushing yards by a fullback: 1,343 yards (on 262 carries - 5.1 yards per carry).
He was taken in the ninth round of the NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers. The Packers had won three straight NFL titles - and in addition, the first two Super Bowls - and to say the least, they were not in dire need of personnel. And then there was our guy’s knee. He was damaged goods.
As he recalled, "The decision came down to when Vince Lombardi drafted me with Green Bay, I signed a two-year contract with them, and they had just come out of their second World Championship, and I was honored. But the fact of the matter - when he released me because of my injuries, we didn't have collective bargaining back in those days - I don't think we even had injured reserve - you’re either on the 'taxi squad' (practice squad), or you're released outright.
“So they paid off my contract, and I was filled with enthusiasm for being an athlete and being young. I got my graduate degree from Western Michigan, went back home to Hawaii, worked with the governor's office, and after a couple of months, I got started as a stunt man with the original Hawaii Five-O. I knew this was a great place to release the energy that you have as a young man, as a former athlete, and I wanted to, with my dexterity, with my abilities to do this and do that, fit right into it. Then I got into directing as a stunt coordinator, so that's how that took off, and I was in it for about 34 years.”
In his on-screen career, he appeared in such television shows as “Hawaii Five-O” and “Magnum P.I.” and between 40 and 50 movies, including “The Last Boy Scout,” alongside stars like Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, “Hard Target” with Jean-Claude Van Damm, “Under Siege 2: Dark Territory” with Steven Segal and many more.
He was inducted into the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017 and into the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame in 2018.
In 2016, he directed a documentary called “Men of Sparta,” featuring Michigan State's 1965 and 1966 teams and their impact on our game and on our culture.
"It was the greatest experience of my life," he said about it. "I talked about how we reached that pinnacle; I talked about how we became Big Ten champions and how we went to the Rose Bowl and became National Champions, Co-National Champions with Notre Dame. The fact is that we had great, iconic ballplayers back then, the George Websters, the Bubba Smiths, the Gene Washingtons, the Clint Joneses, and so forth. We came from different parts of the country, gentlemen like Jimmy Raye. He was the first African-American quarterback from the South - Duffy Daugherty had to go beyond the Mason-Dixon Line and recruit him from Fayetteville, North Carolina, during the Jim Crow era. He had to go south of the Mason-Dixon Line to go to Beaumont, Texas, to get Bubba Smith; he had to go south of the Mason-Dixon Line to get George Webster from Anderson, South Carolina. Now you mesh that in with people like myself, Dick Kenney, Charlie Wedemeyer, that went up from Hawaii to Michigan State - it was the first time in my life that I played with as teammates or against African-Americans because we had a mixture of ethnics in Hawaii growing up, but it was my first time. We meshed as a family. When you call us a family, you get this feeling of friendship, and you have each other's back, and that's how we played in the games, and that's how we ascended to the pinnacle and the title."
TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2025 "A truth that's told with bad
intent beats all the lies you can invent." William Blake*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: With Oscar Reed gone we needed a superstar tailback in our offense, and we found the perfect replacement in Plainview, Texas. His name was Lawrence McCutcheon, but there was nothing plain about him. Paul Lanham, who had developed some good recruiting contacts in football-rich Texas, took me to visit the McCutcheon family and his high school.
Oklahoma and most of the major Southwest football powers were anxious to get a commitment from McCutcheon. But Paul's close relationship with the school officials gave Colorado State the inside track. Still, the Sooners wouldn't give up until he was committed and on our campus. It didn't take him long to make an impact.
The first time he took a handoff for the Rams, McCutcheon dashed eighty yards for a touchdown. It was a great start of a great career. He smashed Reed’s single-game rushing record in his second game, piling up 213 yards on 13 carries. That season he set a Western Athletic Conference record for most rushing yards by a sophomore (freshmen didn't play on the varsity in those days). He ran for 797 yards and 10 touchdowns despite missing the final two games with a wrist and hand injury.
We had high hopes that Lawrence would play against a good Arizona State team in Tempe in our next next to last game in 1969. He made the trip and his hand was much better. The team doctor asked Lawrence to do some fingertip push-ups and asked if it hurt. Being an honest person, he said, “Yes.” The doctor said, "Sorry, he can't play."
With those words, team morale went from very good to very bad, and the result was a rout. It was a disaster, a record loss, 79–7.
McCutcheon was a superb running back and an outstanding young man, a tough runner and a great person to coach. Lawrence had a fine career at Colorado State and went onto stardom with the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League. My only regret was having had only one season as head coach. After McCutcheon's first varsity season my contract was not renewed.
*********** My son’s been having fun in Australia calling baseball games on the radio. I’m guessing they don’t hold the Yank accent against him. In fact, maybe it lends him a bit of authenticity, in the same way every rugby game we see here is broadcast by a Brit or Aussie.
Recently he sent me some info about Korean teams coming to Australia for preseason training, and I found this to be very interesting:
You’d actually like Korean baseball (and probably Japanese even more) because they really stress fundamentals and ‘small ball.’ They bunt really well and you should see them work on the fundamentals during practice. Crazy attention to detail. The Koreans have a bit more power – I think I told you this last year but they’re much bigger than the Japanese. Some 6’2” and 6’3” pitchers and some hitters who are much beefier in general than the Japanese players. That said, the Japanese League is much better – a guy on the team I’m watching tonight was a big hitter in the KBO, went to Japan and couldn’t cut it, hit about .220.
*********** In reading about the outdoor NHL game played in Ohio Stadium last weekend (it drew 85,000), I came across this amazing fact:
Not only is Columbus Ohio’s most populous city (with 913,000 people living there), but it’s considerably larger than Ohio’s two better-known big cities, Cleveland and Cincinnati - both of which have NFL and major-league baseball teams.
In fact, if you were to add the populations of Cleveland (360,000) and Cincinnati (310,000), you’d have 670,000 - almost enough room for the next largest city, Toledo (270,000).
(Bear in mind that these are the populations of the core cities, and not the metro areas, which include the often-populous towns that surround large cities. But even there, the Columbus area has almost caught up with Cincinnati, and while it trails the Cleveland area, it’s growing a lot faster.)
*********** John Canzano on the Diego Pavia case
A: Last December, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia won an injunction against the NCAA that allows him to play another year. Pavia started his career as a community college athlete before transferring to a four-year school. The ruling is specific to him but appears to have opened the possibility for all JUCO athletes to gain extra eligibility. (I should check on my eligibility at once.)
The judge is allowing Pavia to get four full years to compete at the NCAA level. It raises all kinds of questions and possibilities. If the ruling holds up, I expect four-year coaches to be suddenly more interested in recruiting community colleges. I also think athletes in some cases would be more inclined to pick a JUCO vs. going to a four-year school.
Here’s a question for the comment section: Should the NCAA try to implement an age limit for college athletes? How old is too old to be playing in a college game? How much does age matter?
*********** Jacob Robinson’s “Takeaway from the Combine” (in The Athletic)
Last year, Tej Seth of SumerSports evaluated which workout metrics best predict NFL production, finding that the following markers forecasted high future EPA for offensive players:
QB: Broad jump surprisingly has the highest correlation with future production, though it’s skewed by players like Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts. If you can jump, you can probably move quickly in the pocket.
RB: Being relatively young and heavy were actually more predictive than any combine event, thanks in part to Derrick Henry’s 247-pound combine weight. The 40-yard dash appears overvalued.
WR: Youth was again the trait most correlated with future production, while the 40 has been over-emphasized.
TE: This is where the 40-yard dash matters most, according to the data. Former 49er Vernon Davis still holds the position record (4.38).
OT: Ten points if you guessed the most important would be the 40-yard dash, as the most explosive runners tend to play the most snaps per season. Meanwhile, a higher bench press has often meant fewer NFL snaps.
*********** With spring practice just around the corner, Oregon State lost two assistants to NFL teams.
Just last week, Cal lost its defensive coordinator, Peter Sirmon, to the New Orleans Saints.
The timing couldn’t be worse. It’s caused by the lack of overlap between NFL and college seasons - the pro hiring season doesn’t begin until the NFL season ends, which is a month or more after the college season does.
And the lure of the pros is greater than ever. A big enticement - even bigger than the money, which has always been better - is the increasing amount of time college coaches have to spend recruiting their own players, largely because of NIL (and now revenue-sharing) considerations. The surest way to escape is to take a job in the NFL.
Said Oregon State coach Trent Bray, “It’s going to continue to happen until something’s done to manage and curtail what going with the craziness of college football. I think more and more coaches are going to want to get out of it.”
*********** A coach at a small D-III program once said his roster consisted of slow guys who liked to hit and fast guys who didn’t. He thought his best chance was to go with the fast guys, because they at least gave him a chance of stopping somebody. I have always subscribed to that thinking. Not that I'd ever want to be in that position, but I have more faith in my ability to get the fast kid over the fear of contact than to make the slow kid fast.
*********** Funny - In all his years with the Patriots, Bill Belichick wouldn’t let NFL Films and “Hard Knocks” get any closer to his team than the Rhode Island state line. But this year, with NFL teams shying away from the show because of the risk of unwanted exposure that it entails, NFL Films has found a college willing to let it inside its walls.
Surprise. It’s the University of North Carolina, now coached by (in case you’ve been away from the planet for the past several months) none other than Bill Belichick.
And can you believe it? There are cynical types who dare to suggest that Belichick is suddenly playing Mister Media Friendly in order to position himself for another run at an NFL job next year - when his buyout will have dropped to a very affordable (for NFL purposes) $1 million.
*********** An old trivia standard is the three coaches who have won both a college national title and a Super Bowl: Pete Carroll, Barry Switzer and Jimmy Johnson (who’s actually won TWO Super Bowls).
Johnson was a career coach for sure. Before getting his first head coaching job - at Oklahoma State - he was an assistant at one high school and six different colleges. He won a national title at Miami, and then won two Super Bowls coaching for Jerry Jones, his former college teammate at Arkansas who happened to own the Dallas Cowboys.
He never spent more than five years at any coaching job, but for the last 31 years, he’s been employed as a panelist on Fox NFL Sunday.
He and Terry Bradshaw have been on the show since it debuted in 1994. He’s now 81 and he just announced that he’s retiring.
*********** Some poster on Reddit thought it would be clever to add eyes to some otherwise eyeless college logos. Pretty Clever.
*********** A lot of water goes by the mill that the miller isn’t aware of…
And so it was that it took an email from reader Dr, John Rothwell, in Corpus Christi, Texas to alert me to a rather dismaying play that’s been developing about two hours to the north of us, in Tumwater, Washington, a suburb of our state capital, Olympia.
Tumwater is a nice town. Nice houses in nice neighborhoods. Like most nice neighborhoods in the area, it is rock-solid liberal Democrat.
Tumwater High School is one of our state’s premier football powerhouses.
It’s a rare year that Tumwater isn’t in the state finals in its class.
But Tumwater High is in the news now for another sport - girls’ basketball.
Well, mostly girls. All but one.
Look - I just received the tip as I was in a bit of a hurry to publish, so I may have some facts wrong, but here I go, summarizing…
It seems that early in February, as the girls’ team from Shelton High was in the Tumwater gym warming up before the game, a couple of girls from Tumwater spotted a member of the Shelton team whom they knew to be a male.
They decided on principle that they would not play in the game if the pretend female did. I have no idea how good either of the girls is, or what impact their absence had. In fact, I don’t even know the score of the game.
Evidently, though, one of the (real) young women confronted the male-who-pretends to be a female and said, “You’re a man!”
Oh, dear. She “misgendered” him. Bet you didn’t know that’s a mortal sin in a Democrat state.
That brought in the state Association, which is all-in for transgenders being allowed to compete in girls’ sports. It evidently accused our young woman of something on the order of a hate crime. Forget her first amendment rights. She evidently had left them at the schoolhouse door.
She also subsequently posted something online that evidently was not to the liking of those who favor allowing transgenders to compete against girls.
She found herself in trouble at her school because, being faithful Washington educators, its administrators were acting in accord with a recent very public statement by the state Director of Education (or whatever his f—king title is), denouncing the President’s recent executive order barring transgenders from competing in girls’ sports. Mr. Washington Big Shot, doubling as a constitutional scholar, contended that Washington Law supersedes federal law, which therefore meant that Tumwater High School was obligated to allow the pretend female to play.
Because our young woman has been threatened with punishment for the position she took, she has received legal help, and the upshot now is that Tumwater High School is being investigated by the Department of Education for a possible Title IX violation of her rights.
In the meantime, since the original incident took place, the Tumwater School Board voted 3-1 in favor of an amendment to state regulations that would now forbid trans females from taking part in female sports. The school board meeting was disrupted by some interesting-looking youngsters chanting “Trans Rights are Human Rights!,” and a petition has been started to recall the three members who voted for the amendment.
That’s the best I could do. There’s lots more. google: Tumwater trans
*********** I can't question the 77% of those NFL players who voted, but I sure found some of their choices surprising.
I also emailed the new Army AD, and am happy to say he replied swiftly.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Correction on the QB’s list: Mikey Keene Michigan, from Fresno State. Not Memphis. Keene ended up at Fresno after leaving UCF.
Gonna take a centrist AD at Stanford to get that football ship turned around. Don’t hold your breath. With that school’s reputation lately I highly doubt one of those types will ever get a sniff.
Great email and response regarding the new Army AD! At least you’re not the only Army Football Club member he’s been hearing from!
Originally the concept of spring football was all about a school’s coaching staff taking time to evaluate their talent. It still is.
Only now other schools’ coaching staffs are involved in the evaluation process!
Prior to his first stint as a Michigan assistant coach Biff Poggi resurrected a downtrodden Baltimore high school’s football program. So much so that most of the private schools and public schools in Baltimore refuse to play them anymore. Little St. Frances Academy is now one of the premier high school football teams in the country.
QUIZ: John McVay (ah yes, the heyday of 49ers football!)
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Good catch. Mea Culpa. I knew that Mikey Keene played at Fresno State. Saw him play several times! Biff Poggi is a wealthy man. Coaches around Baltimore don’t unanimously approve of the way he built the St. Frances football program (or, before it, the Gilman School program). I know a fair amount about it but not enough to take any shots.
*********** QUIZ: The next time you see an NFL QB take a knee - with a couple of backs behind him for insurance purposes - think of this guy.
He was born in Bellaire, Ohio, but when he was quite young his family moved to Massillon - “Tigertown” - then, as now, a high school football hotbed. In 1948, his senior season, Massillon finished 9-1 and won the state title, and he was named second team All-Ohio at center. A good student, he was a member of the National Honor Society.
At Miami of Ohio, he was coached by two all-time greats. He played his first two years under Woody Hayes. And after Hayes moved on to Ohio State, he was succeeded by Ara Parseghian. Our guy was a two-time team MVP for Miami, team captain his senior year and an All-Mid-American Conference selection at center.
After serving as an assistant at Lancaster High School for three years, he was named head coach at Franklin High School and after one year there he was hired as head coach at Canton Central Catholic. After five years there, with a record of 41-7, he was hired by Michigan State to assist the legendary Duffy Daugherty. And after three years at MSU, he was hired as head coach at the University of Dayton. In eight years there, his record was 37-41-3.
In 1974 and 1975 he was head coach of the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League, and when the WFL went under after the 1975 season, he was hired as an assistant by New York Giants’ head coach Bill Arnsparger, a former Miami Teammate.
Those were tough years for the Giants, and when they lost their first seven games, Arnsparger was fired and our guy replaced him.
In his half of the season, he finished with three wins and four losses.
His second season, the Giants finished 5-9.
And then, in his third season, came “The Fumble” (if you were a Giants’ fan) or “The Miracle at the Meadowlands” (if you were an Eagles’ fan).
It was in the Meadowlands, November, 1978, and with just seconds left to play, the Giants led the Eagles by five points. Needing only to run out the clock, they called for quarterback Joe Pisarcik to hand off to running back Larry Csonka on a simple dive. But the handoff was botched and the loose ball was picked up and run in for the winning touchdown by Eagles’ defensive back Herman Edwards. Not long after, at the end of a 6-10 season, our guy was out of work.
But rather than think of him as the coach in a disastrous event that will live forever in New York Giants’ lore, it is far more appropriate to think of him in terms of what happened in the next chapter of his life… to think of him when someone mentions Bill Walsh… or Joe Montana… or Jerry Rice… or Ronnie Lott… or Charles Haley… or Dwight Clark… or Roger Craig… or the San Francisco 49ers’ five Super Bowl wins between 1982 and 1995.
To a great degree, he was the architect of those great San Francisco teams.
Shortly after being cut loose by the Giants, 49ers’ owner Edward DeBartolo, Jr. offered him a position in their front office and as he enjoyed telling it, “I was on the next plane.”
Technically, he was brought in as Director of Player Personnel, but although head coach Bill Walsh had the final say in all major football decisions, our guy played a major role in scouting, draft choices, free-agent signings and contract negotiations. “I had a lot of different titles,” he recalled, “but I functioned as general manager basically from Day One.”
One of his first duties on joining the 49ers was finding Walsh a quarterback.
They both liked Notre Dame’s Joe Montana but were wary when he was still untaken in the third round. His arm strength and durability were in question, but Walsh liked his potential.
Recalled out guy, “Bill said, ‘Can we check and see why Montana keeps dropping?’ I told Bill, ‘Let me call one of the Notre Dame assistant coaches.’”
He contacted Bill Gruden, who had been on his staff at Dayton.
“I asked him, ‘Billy, what’s the story with Montana?’” he recalled. “Billy’s response was brief. ‘Just take him.’”
As the 49ers’ dynasty was built, our guy was willing to remain in the background, but the people who mattered knew how important his role was.
“His true forte — besides being totally selfless – was that he was an absolutely brilliant talent evaluator,” said owner Debartolo. “We wouldn’t have had the success we had if Bill didn’t have (him) and they didn’t work so well together.”
Said Walsh in his biography “The Genius,” “I don’t know what I’d have done without (him)…He was nonconfrontational and nonabrasive to the extreme, never upstaging anyone, but if he didn’t agree with me he’d tell me straight out. He was the glue that held the organization together from the time he arrived.”
Twenty years after he came west to work with the 49ers, he retired. He died in 2022 at the age of 91. In his home he displayed a photo of Walsh, inscribed, “You are the master.”
He also took great pride in seeing his grandson coach in the Super Bowl: “As I watch him - I wish we just had a camera on him so I could not see anything else — he’s one of those head coaches who coaches everything,” he said. “A lot of guys say, ‘OK I’m just gonna concentrate on offense, or concentrate on defense,’ but he’s doing all sides of it.”
In return, said his grandson, “My grandpa meant so much to me and our family and really to everybody that he touched. I can’t think of a better example of someone who was so consistent with the character he had, the way he treated people, the relationships that he developed and built that really were sustainable and meant something with real depth, the consistency at which he always handled both the good and the challenging times. I think about him all the time and how fortunate I’ve been just to have (——) as my last name because of the legacy he set.”
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2025 "Evil
does exist as a force in the world. Indeed, it is the only explanation
for why certain people do certain things.” Douglas Murray*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: The success we had in the 1966 season actually backfired on the football program. Jim Williams, who had become the third of four athletic directors I would work for at Colorado State, called me into his office and announced: "Now that you've got this program turned around, I'm going to move 12 scholarships from the football allotment and give six to men's gymnastics and six to men's swimming.” He said he had discussed the move with the university’s executive branch and school officials agreed.
I was stunned. "You can't sustain a program by diluting it,” I protested. "You can destroy a program much faster than you can improve it.”
It didn't take long for my words to come true. The program I thought we had moving in the right direction was taking a turn backward. Depth is critical to every college program and that's where the loss of those scholarships hurt. In 1967, ’68 and ’69 we had mediocre records because we didn't have the resources. My rebuilding effort started to crumble with the retirement of Dr. William Morgan as CSU president. Supported by VP for business and finance, Joe Whaley, Dr. Morgan pushed for new athletic facilities, first a basketball arena and then a football stadium, a 30,000-seat facility that opened in 1968. It helped the school get an invitation to join the Western Athletic Conference.
The athletic Director who hired me, Bob Davis, died of cancer after I'd been there about three years. Next came an acting AD, former swimming coach Tommy Tompkins. In my opinion Tompkins didn't know if the football was stuffed or pumped, oblong or round. Yet he wanted to meet with me weekly to go over offensive and defensive game plans. My coaching staff teased me and laughed about those meetings to get his suggestions and final approval of the game plan. To them and to me it was a joke and a waste of time, but I listened, nodded, and then did just what we had planned.
Next came Williams, who had been the Colorado State basketball coach and a good one, but he left a lot to be desired as athletic director.
Perry Moore, who became AD in the summer of 1968, had been an assistant at a strong football school, the University of Florida. Had he replaced Bob Davis things might have been a lot different. Perry liked to stick a cigar in his mouth and give the impression of being important. He could be abrasive with some media people, and I can remember him getting into an argument with a sports writer from New Mexico that almost came to blows.
The spring before what would be my final football season was marked by the appointment of a new president, Dr. A. R. Chamberlain, Morgan's executive vice president. Chamberlain was described in newspaper stories as an avid sports booster and reportedly was seen often at practices and various sports events on campus. I never remember seeing him at one of our football workouts. I do remember a conversation I had when I pleaded for more resources for the football program.
He looked me in the eye and said bluntly: "Mike, let me tell you something. I would not go across the street to see an intercollegiate athletic contest if it were not for the fact it was politically expedient for me to do so.” This guy was no friend of the football team or the athletic program.
*********** MY EMAIL TO THE NEW ARMY AD…
Dear Theo:
I bid you welcome and congratulate you on your recent appointment as AD.
Although I am not a West Point graduate
I’ve been an Army fan since I was a kid growing up in Philadelphia in the days of Blaik, Blanchard and Davis.
I’m a Yale graduate, but I take great pride, as a result of my having established and administered the Black Lion Award, in being an honorary member of the Army Football Club and also of the West Point Class of 1956.
I wish to take this opportunity to do three things:
1. To applaud you for being the first of the four ADs I’ve known of (since 2000) who even acknowledged the existence of the Army Football Club. Your introductory email was a great start in establishing a relationship with an organization whose importance to your mission you are obviously aware of.
2. To make a mild quibble: Army’s colors are black and GRAY and gold. They represent the three components of gunpowder: charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur. One day, the fact that you know that will be sure to impress someone.
3. To beseech you - please, for the love of God - to put an end to the pretentious “Army West Point” nonsense. For more than 100 years, Army’s sports teams built a national brand known to generations as “Army.” Affixing the tag “West Point,” for whatever reason, has been a cause of great aggravation among graduates, and confusion among the sporting public. (Does this mean there could be another “Army” out there somewhere?) “When it’s not necessary to change, it’s necessary not to change.”
I rest my case.
And I offer you my support.
Go Army! Beat Navy!
Hugh Wyatt
Camas, Washington
AND - GET THIS - IN EXACTLY THREE HOURS, I GOT THIS IN RETURN…
Thank you, Sir. I appreciate the feedback - especially #3 - I've heard that a few times.
Know I'm here if you need anything. Thank you for your support!
Go Army!
Theo
Tom Theodorakis
Director of Athletics
Army West Point
*********** As a history major, I’ve never totally bought into the idea of a Black History Month, but I have great respect for Mr. Carter Woodson and his original idea of Negro History Week, because history as it has generally been taught has often treated blacks as the Forgotten Americans.
No, I don’t feel an obligation to do anything special in observation of Black History Month. Instead, I believe that I have an obligation at all times to portray our sport honestly and fairly and accurately, while always conscious of the fact that for almost a century of football’s existence, the “football” that was widely publicized was played mostly by white men. But it was also being played - unknown to the general public - by black men. That’s our history, too.
Instead of one month out of the year, I believe that it’s essential at all times for historians to be cognizant of the fact that throughout our history the role - often the mere existence - of black people has for too long been ignored. I believe that historians have an obligation to acknowledge this by digging deeper than ever… by opening doors that appear locked… by actively and eagerly exploring.
Which brings me to something that I came across in my “exploring” - something I had to share. And if it happens on the final day of Black History Month - so much the better:
Elston Howard was a very good baseball player. Good enough to play for the Yankees when they were consistently one of baseball’s best teams. The Yankees had enough confidence in him as a catcher that they moved Yogi Berra - a Hall of Fame catcher - to the outfield to take advantage of his bat and prolong his career.
Elston Howard was Yankees’ first black player. He came up in 1955. For eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947, the Yankees did not have a single black player. (It would be four more years before Pumpsie Green would join the Red Sox and every major league team would finally have at least one black player.)
And now - as the great Paul Harvey would say - the rest of the story:
Elston Howard invented the batting doughnut - the weighted, plastic-coated ring that on-deck batters slip onto their bats to take warmup swings. (Only old-timers remember when the guy on deck would swing two bats.) Unfortunately, he didn’t make a lot of money from his invention because the idea was easily copied, and he and his partners didn’t have the money to take all the copycats to court.
*********** Baltimore was once famous around the Middle Atlantic area for The Block - actually several blocks on East Baltimore Street where, it was generally accepted, “anything went.”
“Anything” meant, um, prostitution. I guess. I seldom went there. Neither did anyone from the brewery where I worked. Why bother? They didn’t sell a lot of beer in those joints. What they mostly sold - what “the girls” sold - was cheap champagne at steep prices.
But one night, for some reason, a bunch of us from the brewery visited one of the joints.
It was dark and dingy like a cave, and like a cave, it probably hadn’t seen the light of day since the day it was built.
One of our group, our sales promotion manager - I’ll call him John - did spend a fair amount of time in those places and he knew just about everybody. At some point, one of the young ladies came to the booth where we were all sitting and sidled over next to him. But it wasn’t more than five minutes before John started laughing uproariously and the girl got up and angrily walked away.
We asked John what was so funny and he said she said she’d give him a B-J for fifty bucks.
And that’s when he threw his head back and laughed and said, “You don’t have fifty bucks!”
That’s the Baltimore I remember, and all I can say is that if what Justin Tucker (Ravens’ plackekicker) is accused of is true - some 16 “massage therapists” from eight different “upscale spas” around the area have accused him of “sexual misconduct” - it sure has come a long way from the heyday of “The Block.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Block,_Baltimore
*********** I can’t recommend “Second Wind” highly enough.
Streamed on ESPN+, its full title is "Second Wind: The Boomer and Gunnar Esiason Story”, and it tells the very moving story of Esiason, the big-time NFL quarterback, and his son, Gunnar, who at two years old is diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
At the time he was diagnosed, the prognosis for anyone with the disease was dire - life expectancy was at most 30 years.
But Boomer, as we might hope would be the case, refused to accept the finality, and he (and his wife) embarked on a two-prong mission - to help their little boy grow up as normally as possible in spite of the constant need to deal with the disease, and to raise funding to support research into a cure.
I won’t spoil it for you, other than to say it’s a very heartwarming story that left me with profound respect for Boomer and his wife Cheryl.
*********** The Athletic asks, “Are we about to see the last of the spring games?”
Based on what farces most of them have become, have we already seen the last of them?
Nebaska’s Matt Rhule said his concern about playing a game is that it showcases talent for others to poach.
“So to go out and bring in a bunch of new players and then showcase them for all the other schools to watch, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Rhule said Feb. 1. “The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just absolute free, open, common market. And so, I don’t necessarily want to open up (the spring game) to the outside world. I don’t want these guys all being able to watch our guys and say, ‘Wow, he looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.’”
***
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian didn’t mention tampering. His concern was wear and tear on his players: “Over the last two years, we’ve played 30 games,” he said. “That’s a lot for college football.”
***
Said Ohio State coach Ryan Day “to think that we can continue with the same spring game or spring practice model is asking for trouble.”
***
Said TCU’s Sonny Dykes: “You’re sitting there watching these guys go through spring ball, wondering which of those players are going to be here in the fall. All of a sudden, a player has a good spring game, and now that’s a bargaining tool for, ‘I want this or I want that or I need to go in the portal.’”
***
Tulane’s Joe Sumrall was one coach who has no plans to do away with the spring game.
“I don’t have the luxury of going out and buying everybody else’s players because my NIL situation doesn’t allow that, so I’ve got to develop dudes.”
*********** Stanford’s AD, Bernard Muir, resigned this week, after 13 years on the job. This was not a retirement - he’s 56 years old.
Stanford offers more sports than any Power 4 school, and excels in most of them. The so-called minor sports, anyhow - the ones euphemistically referred to as “Olympic sports.”
The revenue sports? Football - bad. Men’s basketball - bad. Women’s basketball (in the first year after the retirement of the great Tara Vanderveer) - bad.
Football, of course, is the main concern. Stanford has gone 3-9 for four straight years, and hasn’t had a winning season since 2018.
Stanford, one of the wealthiest colleges in the US, has been slow in adopting NIL.
Besides, Stanford’s rigorous academic standards make transferring iffy.
Stanford great Andrew Luck was brought on board recently by Stanford’s new president as General Manager of the football program, which you’d think would indicate that they’re serious about playing big time football.
At the same time, his hiring had to be seen by Muir as a lack of confidence in his ability to manage the football program.
The last time Stanford was in a spot like this, they’d had five straight losing seasons under two straight coaches who’d been brought in after Tyrone Willingham left for Notre Dame.
Year after year, though, they’d boast about winning this trophy or that for all-around athletic excellence, but they weren’t fooling anybody - their football program sucked.
Time for a new sheriff. Out with the old AD, in with Bob Bowlsby, who’d been a very successful AD at Iowa. His first order of business? Hiring a guy whose head coaching experience had been limited to a small, private FCS college. A guy named Jim Harbaugh.
Harbaugh changed the culture from a team that was notoriously soft to one that kicked ass. And in four years he took teams that went 4-8 and 5-7 to teams that went 8-5 and 12-1.
And then he left for the 49ers, but for the next eight years his successor, David Shaw, continued to win. Stanford went to eight straight bowl games, and won at last 11 games in four of those years.
It was a great time. Stanford was winning, and Shaw was a Stanford alum who did things in a way that made every Stanford alum proud.
And then Stanford football fell off a cliff. I have no idea why. It wasn’t the pandemic - the crash actually started in 2019, the year before the pandemic. But Stanford hasn’t won more than four games in a season since.
Might there be a second coming of Bob Bowlsby?
More to the point, how will the new AD and Andrew Luck coexist?
*********** QB Transfers since the past season…
Jackson Arnold - Auburn from Oklahoma
Kaidon Salter - Colorado from Liberty
Darian Mensah - Duke from Tulane
Fernando Mendoza - Indiana from Cal
Miller Moss - Louisville from USC
Michael Van Buren - LSU from Mississippi State
Carson Beck - Miami from Georgia
Mikey Keene - Michigan from Memphis State
John Mateer - Oklahoma from Washington State
Maalik Murphy - Oregon State from Duke
Devon Dampier - Utah from New Mexico
Chandler Morris - Virginia from North Texas
*********** A panel of head coaches, assistants, GMs. recruiting coordinators put together by The Athletic estimates that the NIL range for Power 4 QBs is from $900k to $1.3 million.
Meanwhile, the 49ers have begun talks with Brock Purdy's agent.
Purdy just completed the fourth year of a four-year contract worth $3.737 million, earning $934,252 for this past season. That’s less than most Power 4 quarterbacks are making with their “NIL” deals.
There may be some debate as to how good Purdy actually is, but there’s not a damn one of these guys playing the sham that passes for college football who’s taken a team to the Super Bowl.
*********** Biff Poggi is back at Michigan. Writes Bruce Feldman in The Athletic
Michigan announced Monday that it has hired former Charlotte head coach Biff Poggi as associate head coach. The 64-year-old Poggi previously played a key role in helping Jim Harbaugh turn around a Wolverines program that won a national title in 2023.
Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald, who ran the Wolverines defense in 2021, said Poggi’s presence inside the UM program was “huge” in helping Harbaugh elevate the program after it had backslid to 2-4 in 2020 and pressure was mounting on the head coach.
“He’s kind of like the consigliere,” Macdonald told The Athletic. “He’s really the only guy that is willing to hash it out with (Harbaugh).”
Poggi was hired in July 2021 at Michigan and had also been on the UM staff as an analyst in 2016. The former high school head coach didn’t just manage the Wolverine assistant coaches and connect with the players and their families, he was also a vital sounding board willing to have hard conversations with Harbaugh, becoming his right-hand man.
“Biff’s a great mentor and has been that for me,” Harbaugh told The Athletic in 2022. “He likes to scheme it up, and he knows how to coach and helps coach the coaches. … As far as helping me personally, there’s not too many decisions that I make that I don’t run by Biff and we talk it out.”
Poggi was hired as the head coach of Charlotte after the 2022 season. He went 3-9 in his debut season and then was 3-7 when the 49ers fired him.
*********** I am so excited at the way the NFL reacted to a major problem.
The problem? The inexact method - eyeballing, actually - used in locating the spot at which a ball becomes dead at the end of a play.
It’s eyeballed - sometimes by two people, who disagree - and then often passed from one official to another until it’s finally placed on the ground.
As often as not, if it’s close to being a first down, the referee or the head linesman says, “What the hell,” and declares it a first down.
If there’s any question, they bring out the chains and measure.
Well. No more measuring by chains. The NFL has a more precise way of determine whether the ball is (or is not) past the line-to-gain.
Just one problem here - in terms of precise spotting of the ball, nothing’s been accomplished.
The “precise” spot is still going to be eyeballed - sometimes by two people, who disagree - and then often passed from one official to another until it’s finally placed on the ground.
Then, and only then - after human error has been given its chance - will precise measurement begin.
*********** The NFLPA surveyed its members on a number of issues and 1625 players responded - 77 per cent of the membership.
Here are the compilations of the players’ responses:
TEAM MANAGEMENT BOTTOM 5
Steelers
Jets
Browns
Patriots
Cardinals
TEAM MANAGEMENT - TOP 5
Dolphins
Vikings
Falcons (Up from 25)
Raiders
Chargers (Up from 30)
COACHES - TOP 5
Dan Quinn
Raheem Morris
Kevin O’Connell
Andy Reid
Mike MacDonald
COACHES - BOTTOM 3
30 Kevin Stefanski
31 Doug Pederson (already fired)
32 Matt Eberflus (already fired)
OWNERS - BOTTOM 5
Art Rooney II
Robert Kraft
Michael Bidwell
David Tepper
Woody Johnson
*********** You’d think that when a guy has been an NFL head coach at the same place for 18 years, he’d have a coaching tree that looks like a live oak.
But for one reason or another, the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin doesn’t have a single former assistant who’s a head coach now, and only a couple of guys - Bruce Arians and Mike Munchak - have spent time on his staff before moving on to head jobs. (Arians was actually hired by Tomlin’s predecessor, Bill Cowher.)
*********** Coach Wyatt,
Quiz Answer: Charles Woodson
Without a doubt one of my favorite Packer Players. Great leader on the field and in the locker room, hard worker, high effort, and simply made plays - total and complete defensive back!!
Thank you,
Scott Mallien
Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** G’Morn, Corch:
Especially because of your family connection with Stanford, I expected to read your reaction to the Andrew Luck hiring. This 'General Manager' thing seems to have caught on. I understand what the GM is supposed to do, but the name itself is an unfortunate reminder of collegiate sport becoming ever more professional.
The Wyoming Special is an oddity. Seems that the QB and flanker would have to have spent a lot of time repping the play to assure the correct bounce.
When the Nebraska-Tennessee spat surfaced, the first thing I thought of was KARMA. Sorry, Vols, now you know a little of how Army felt.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
I bin waitin’ for the news of the Stanford AD to break.
*********** Hugh,
Reading Coach Lude's latest reflection and his team's loss to Wichita State that cost them a bowl invite. Seeing that name "Wichita State" got me to thinking of all the schools that eventually caved to the pressures of Title IX by dropping football. Back then you could hear the cries of many of us, and the gnashing of teeth condemning those decisions. Yet, here we are today fighting our collective arses off trying to save women's sports from "boys" wanting to be "girls." Go figure.
So the Eagles would like to be invited to the White House now. I'm thinking the President will extend an offer this time.
Check with Mike Foristiere on this one, but I would venture to guess that most HS teams in and around the Boise area would still prefer to play their games on Friday nights.
Down Texas way there have been a few colleges that experimented with Thursday/Friday night games. Dismal failure. HS Friday Night Lights still rules in Texas. However some of those same colleges have been flirting with Saturday night games in order to draw crowds to escape that relentless Texas heat in September and October with apparent success.
When I was an assistant coach at DIII Southwestern University I coached in the hottest game I could recall. A 1:00 Saturday afternoon affair in September. Temp was 98. Humidity made it feel like 108. Artificial turf made the field temp well over 120 degrees. The players, coaches, and field personnel suffered, and the aluminum grandstands also took a toll on the fans. The soles of my daughter's shoes melted right off!
Interestingly enough a number of high schools in Michigan still run the full-house T, the DW, and the Wing-T. Maybe something to do with the weather up that way?? Back down here in Texas you still see a bunch of schools running the Texas Slot-T. Eerily similar to the DW and Wing-T, but weather has absolutely NOTHING to do with why coaches run that offense.
The 88 Reach became a staple of my offense. It was a big reason why we were able to run off-tackle with better effectiveness. Getting on the perimeter so quickly really put a lot of pressure on C Gap defenders to try and maintain outside leverage AND shut down the C Gap. Running it out of Ram/Lion. Or, Tight Bear Ripper. At times I would align my B back as an inside WB next to my C Back and run the Reach (Tight Brown). Other times I would do that AND align my A Back as an offset HB behind the RG (Tight Brown Race). Would come back with Counter B Lead, or A 4 Wedge, or 80 Pass (sprint out), or A Draw.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
***********QUIZ ANSWER: At Fremont (Ohio) Ross High, Charles Woodson set school records in rushing and scoring. In his senior year, he rushed for 2,028 yards and scored 230 points, and in addition to making USA Today and Parade All-American teams, he was named Ohio’s Mister Football.
Although he was highly recruited as a running back, Michigan recruited him as a defensive back, and he chose to go there.
As a freshman, he was a varsity starter at cornerback by the second game. He led the team with five interceptions and was named All-Big Ten by the conference coaches.
As a sophomore, he was an AP First-team All-American and named All-Big Ten First-team by the conference coaches and the news media.
As a junior, he helped Michigan go undefeated and earn a share of the national championship. He was a unanimous All-American, was named All-Big Ten for the third straight year.
He was Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Big Ten Most Valuable Player and Big Ten Male Athlete of the Year.
He won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the best defensive college player, and won the Chevrolet Defensive Player of the Year award for a second straight season.
To top it all, he became the third Michigan player in program history to win the Heisman Trophy, joining Tom Harmon and Desmond Howard. Finishing second was Peyton Manning of Tennessee.
Although he had been used on returns and had played some at receiver, Charles Woodson was the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy.
He declared for the NFL draft following his junior season at Michigan and was taken in the first round - the fourth player taken overall - by the Oakland Raiders.
He would play 18 seasons in the NFL, 11 with the Raiders and seven with the Packers.
He played in 254 games. He made 983 solo tackles. He intercepted 65 passes and returned them for 996 yards.
He scored a total of 13 defensive touchdowns, an all-time NFL record he shares with Rod Woodson and Darren Sharper.
He was Defensive Rookie of the Year and, in 2009, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
He was four times first team All-Pro and four times second team All-Pro.
He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
He was named to the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team.
Charles Woodson is in the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CHARLES WOODSON
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
John Rothwell - Corpus Christi, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: The next time you see an NFL QB take a knee - with a couple of backs behind him for insurance purposes - think of this guy.
He was born in Bellaire, Ohio, but when he was quite young his family moved to Massillon - “Tigertown” - then, as now, a high school football hotbed. In 1948, his senior season, Massillon finished 9-1 and won the state title, and he was named second team All-Ohio at center. A good student, he was a member of the National Honor Society.
At Miami of Ohio, he was coached by two all-time greats. He played his first two years under Woody Hayes. And after Hayes moved on to Ohio State, he was succeeded by Ara Parseghian. Our guy was a two-time team MVP for Miami, team captain his senior year and an All-Mid-American Conference selection at center.
After serving as an assistant at Lancaster High School for three years, he was named head coach at Franklin High School and after one year there he was hired as head coach at Canton Central Catholic. After five years there, with a record of 41-7, he was hired by Michigan State to assist the legendary Duffy Daugherty. And after three years at MSU, he was hired as head coach at the University of Dayton. In eight years there, his record was 37-41-3.
In 1974 and 1975 he was head coach of the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League, and when the WFL went under after the 1975 season, he was hired as an assistant by New York Giants’ head coach Bill Arnsparger, a former Miami Teammate.
Those were tough years for the Giants, and when they lost their first seven games, Arnsparger was fired and our guy replaced him.
In his half of the season, he finished with three wins and four losses.
His second season, the Giants finished 5-9.
And then, in his third season, came “The Fumble” (if you were a Giants’ fan) or “The Miracle at the Meadowlands” (if you were an Eagles’ fan).
It was in the Meadowlands, November, 1978, and with just seconds left to play, the Giants led the Eagles by five points. Needing only to run out the clock, they called for quarterback Joe Pisarcik to hand off to running back Larry Csonka on a simple dive. But the handoff was botched and the loose ball was picked up and run in for the winning touchdown by Eagles’ defensive back Herman Edwards. Not long after, at the end of a 6-10 season, our guy was out of work.
But rather than think of him as the coach in a disastrous event that will live forever in New York Giants’ lore, it is far more appropriate to think of him in terms of what happened in the next chapter of his life… to think of him when someone mentions Bill Walsh… or Joe Montana… or Jerry Rice… or Ronnie Lott… or Charles Haley… or Dwight Clark… or Roger Craig… or the San Francisco 49ers’ five Super Bowl wins between 1982 and 1995.
To a great degree, he was the architect of those great San Francisco teams.
Shortly after being cut loose by the Giants, 49ers’ owner Edward DeBartolo, Jr. offered him a position in their front office and as he enjoyed telling it, “I was on the next plane.”
Technically, he was brought in as Director of Player Personnel, but although head coach Bill Walsh had the final say in all major football decisions, our guy played a major role in scouting, draft choices, free-agent signings and contract negotiations. “I had a lot of different titles,” he recalled, “but I functioned as general manager basically from Day One.”
One of his first duties on joining the 49ers was finding Walsh a quarterback.
They both liked Notre Dame’s Joe Montana but were wary when he was still untaken in the third round. His arm strength and durability were in question, but Walsh liked his potential.
Recalled out guy, “Bill said, ‘Can we check and see why Montana keeps dropping?’ I told Bill, ‘Let me call one of the Notre Dame assistant coaches.’”
He contacted Bill Gruden, who had been on his staff at Dayton.
“I asked him, ‘Billy, what’s the story with Montana?’” he recalled. “Billy’s response was brief. ‘Just take him.’”
As the 49ers’ dynasty was built, our guy was willing to remain in the background, but the people who mattered knew how important his role was.
“His true forte — besides being totally selfless – was that he was an absolutely brilliant talent evaluator,” said owner Debartolo. “We wouldn’t have had the success we had if Bill didn’t have (him) and they didn’t work so well together.”
Said Walsh in his biography “The Genius,” “I don’t know what I’d have done without (him)…He was nonconfrontational and nonabrasive to the extreme, never upstaging anyone, but if he didn’t agree with me he’d tell me straight out. He was the glue that held the organization together from the time he arrived.”
Twenty years after he came west to work with the 49ers, he retired. He died in 2022 at the age of 91. In his home he displayed a photo of Walsh, inscribed, “You are the master.”
He also took great pride in seeing his grandson coach in the Super Bowl: “As I watch him - I wish we just had a camera on him so I could not see anything else — he’s one of those head coaches who coaches everything,” he said. “A lot of guys say, ‘OK I’m just gonna concentrate on offense, or concentrate on defense,’ but he’s doing all sides of it.”
In return, said his grandson, “My grandpa meant so much to me and our family and really to everybody that he touched. I can’t think of a better example of someone who was so consistent with the character he had, the way he treated people, the relationships that he developed and built that really were sustainable and meant something with real depth, the consistency at which he always handled both the good and the challenging times. I think about him all the time and how fortunate I’ve been just to have (——) as my last name because of the legacy he set.”
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2025 "Honesty
may be the best policy but it’s important to remember that, by
elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.” George
Carlin*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: With our football talent pool improving steadily, the program was on the rise. We no longer were getting outmanned and outclassed. It was the 1966 team that finished with the best record in my eight seasons at CSU. We were one win short of a bowl bid.
Led by the running of Oscar Reed, that team won seven games – including a major upset over 10th ranked Wyoming. We had been saving a trick play for the Cowboys, something Paul Lanham had picked up from a high school coach in Texas. Here's how the play went: we would send a flanker wide left, dropping off 2 to 3 yards. The quarterback would throw the ball into the ground, bouncing it into the hands of the receiver. The rival defenders, thinking the play was an incomplete pass, relaxed. Meanwhile, our tight end would run a post pattern and become the target for the flanker-turned-passer. We called it the Wyoming Special.
Because the original pass was backward – and we made sure to tell the officials in advance what we were doing - the ball was live. The first time we tried the play our quarterback, Bobby Wolfe, threw way over the head of flanker Larry Jackson. I called the play again. This time it worked. As Wyoming defenders were walking back to the line of scrimmage, Tom Pack took Jackson's looping pass and walked into the end zone, good for a 9-7 lead. We swapped field goals in the second half and held on for a 12–10 victory, Wyoming's only loss of the year.
The victory moved Colorado state into the top twenty of the weekly college football rankings.
Larry Berliffi, the Wyoming broadcaster and a writer for the paper in Cheyenne, called me unethical and a lot of other not so nice things. For us it was a satisfying win, and the bounce pass play has become part of CSU football legend. I still receive an occasional call from the media wanting me to re-create the details of that Wyoming Special bounce pass play.
As we stretched our 1966 winning streak to five, bowl game scouts started showing up and a post-season invitation was within reach. We were 6–2 with two games remaining, but I could sense a letdown. When we went on the road to play Wichita State, a team that was having a terrible season, there was no focus. No matter what I said, our players seemed much more interested in a group of young women who were still hanging around our hotel after attending a rock concert in the Wichita stadium a day or two earlier. My fears were justified. Wichita State took a big lead, and by the time our kids woke up it was too late and we lost 37–23. Our bowl hopes were shattered, despite a solid victory a week later over Iowa State, 34–10.
We stayed home during the bowl season, but I was appreciative when United Press International picked me as Colorado Sportsman of the Year.
*********** Happy first anniversary to our grandson, Nick Tiffany, and his wife, Mollie. It was my great honor to officiate at their wedding last February 24, in St. Paul’s Church in the beautiful little town of Port Gamble, Washington.
*********** I was going through some clinic notes from a 1986 clinic at Lewis and Clark College in Portland. The speaker was Larry Smith, then head coach at Arizona.
Coach Smith was an interesting guy and a very good coach. He grew up in Van Wert, Ohio, a teammate and close friend of Jim Young, who himself would be a successful head coach at Arizona, Purdue and Army.
Larry Smith played at Bowling Green for Doyt Perry.
From there, after a few years of coaching high school ball, he
Assisted at Miami (under Bo Schembechler)
Assisted at Michigan (under Bo Schembechler)
Assisted at Arizona (under Jim Young)
From there, he became head coach at Tulane, and then head coach at Arizona.
After Arizona, he was head coach at USC and at Missouri.
He was known for his emphasis on defense and special teams, and because few plays can give your team as big a shot in the arm as blocking an opponent’s punt, I found the part of his talk on blocking a punt to be especially interesting and helpful:
* “The key to blocking a punt is you should never touch it with any part of your body but the hands.”
* Run through the “block point” - one yard in front of where the foot hits the ball
* Try to “catch” the ball as it comes off the punter’s foot
* Never leave your feet. If you dive…
1. You’ll miss
2. You’ll rough
To that, I would add maybe the most important factor of all in blocking a punt - the right people.
The late George Allen was an innovator in many ways, and one of his “firsts” was naming an assistant named Marv Levy (yes, THAT Marv Levy) the NFL’s very first special teams coach.
And Levy once said that the secret to blocking a punt is simple - find a guy who’s willing to do it.
But if blocking an opponent’s punt is a great booster, the converse is also true - few plays can be as damaging to you as a roughing-the-kicker call. Your defense has just stopped the opponents and you’re going to get the ball back, and - uh-oh - there’s a flag back upfield. Some dumbass hit the punter.
And that’s a “right people” thing, too. Put very frankly, every team has guys who have no business being anywhere near the punter in a punting situation. As a coach, you have to make sure those guys stay away from the kicker, and the best way I ever came across was something I got from a coach named Vince McCullough, who was coaching in Finland at the same time I was. In the states, Vince assisted at Saddleback College, a California JC, and one of his rules for special teams players, he told me, was that no one went near the kicker unless Vince had given him a “license” to block a kick. Vince said he would actually make a big deal of “handing out” the “licenses,” so that everybody knew who had one. (And, every bit as important, who didn’t.)
*********** "The star system is the craziest thing in football. The people who rate the star system absolutely have no idea. It's like me going to rate banks. ‘You know what? They were nice, the teller was nice to me, so it's a five star bank.’ I see five stars that never play and I see two stars that are great players." Chip Kelly, Oregon head coach - 2009
*********** Back in 2006, Nebraska and Tennessee agreed on a home-and-home series for 2016 and 2017. For some reason, they had to reschedule the home-and-home for 2026-2027, but just last week, the Cornhuskers cancelled it.
Their reason, they said, is that with their stadium’s capacity being temporarily reduced while it undergoes renovation, they’ll have to play additional home games to make up for the loss in revenue.
It will cost Nebraska as much as a million big ones to cancel.
I’m sorry that Tennessee has to go find another game. Sort of.
Back in 2021, they cancelled a 2022 game with Army and replaced Army with… Akron.
Stadium capacity had nothing to do with that cancellation. 2021 just happened to be when Josh Heupel was hired as the Vols’ head coach, and if you’re a cynic like me, it isn’t hard for you not to believe that one of the conditions of his taking the job was “get that damned triple option team off that schedule.”
*********** According to the Babylon Bee, unborn fetuses have begun identifying as death row inmates so that Democrats will fight to keep them alive.
*********** John Canzano reports on his visit to Boise State…
I spoke with Karl Benson, a Boise State graduate, this week. He played baseball there and went on to serve as the commissioner of a number of leagues, including the WAC. I asked Benson how in the world Boise State athletic rose to become a “Group of Five” football power.
“They owned Friday nights,” Benson told me.
In 2004, Boise State was a member of the WAC, which had a TV deal with ESPN. Benson said the contract didn’t specifcy that Friday night games were off the table. The network asked whether the WAC would be willing to play some games in a window that was unthinkable in other parts of the country.
High school football is religion in Texas. There’s no way the idea would have flown in the south and other regions. But the WAC and ESPN offered a $100,000 per game bonus to conference members willing to play a Friday night.
“Friday nights were taboo,” Benson said, “but Boise State was willing to go with it.”
It wasn’t just Boise State. The entire Treasure Valley area got behind it. High school football games were moved from Fridays and played instead on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Gene Bleymaier, the school’s former athletic director, opened the home football stadium — blue turf and all — to the region’s high schools. He invited them to play Saturday games in Bronco Stadium. It was a brilliant strategy that united the community and resulted in a full stadium for those once-unthinkable Friday night games.
“Once they figured out they could fill the stadium and pick up a $100,000 inconvenience fee, it was on,” Benson said.
Boise State spent $23.4 million on football in the last fiscal year. The Broncos’ entire athletic department budget is $50.6 million. When the Broncos (12-1) took the field as the No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff last December, they had star running back Ashton Jeanty but were operating at a staggering financial disadvantage.
Earlier in the season, Boise State played No. 1 seed Oregon to the final seconds in a 37-34 loss in Eugene. That it was a close game wasn’t shocking. The Broncos were 3-0 against Oregon before the loss.
What was shocking were the numbers. The Ducks’ athletic department budget is $153 million. In the quarterfinal round, Boise State suited up against Penn State, which spent even more on athletics ($181.2 million).
The financial comparison?
“It’s apples and chainsaws,” said Boise State athletic director Jeremiah Dickey.
Ohio State, the national champion, spent $72.4 million on football alone. It’s a source of pride for Boise State that it’s mattering with less, but as Dickey told me, “We’ve got to find a way to do more.”
What have I learned in a few hours on the ground in Boise?
There’s ample parking downtown. Nobody appears bothered by a light snow flurry or a little rain. The football fans are rabid and eager to tell you about next year’s team.
Fall enrollment: 27,250.
That’s a 13 percent increase since 2020. Jeremiah Shinn, the vice president of enrollment at Boise State, told me that in-state students represent a large portion of the spike.
There was also a 66 percent spike in out-of-state residents since 2014. This is a campus that is growing while other universities are facing enrollment crisis.
The school recently opened a new residence facility on the edge of campus that houses 250 upperclassmen. Shinn said: “We’re set to open up a 450-bed first-year residence hall right in the heart of campus in the fall.”
What part of the Oregon State and Washington State sales pitch got the deal done for Boise State? The Broncos officially joined on July 1, 2026. What needs to happen between now and then? What is Boise State doing to keep being Boise State now that everyone is playing on Friday nights?
Boise State’s success can also be credited to synergy and congruency of vision. A line of successful football coaches and ambitious athletic directors grasped the mission. Spencer Danielson is the latest head coach in a position that has included Chris Petersen, Dirk Koetter, and Dan Hawkins.
Dickey is in the athletic director seat.
Next season, the Broncos play a road game at Notre Dame.
Boise State has long wanted to be a Pac-12 member. It got its wish along with four other Mountain West members. There’s heavy lifting to be done and questions to be answered. My first stop in this project begins with a school that was willing to play football games on a day that others found unthinkable
Said Benson: “They look so smart now.”
*********** For several years, back when every issue of “Texas Coach” magazine could be counted on to have at least one very good football article, I was a faithful subscriber.
One article I’ve saved since October, 2000 has grabbed my attention every couple of months since I first saw it, and it still does. I read it, and re-read it, and re-read it.
It was written by a coach named Leo Hand. He’s been around and he’s coached at a number of different places, including two well-known Los Angeles-area high schools, Servite (where his record was 34-14-1) and Serra (where his record was 24-1 and included a state championship).
The title of this article was “FOOTBALL’S OFFENSE OF THE FUTURE ” and before you look at his formation and chuckle dismissively, I should tell you that he’s written - knowledgeably - about a lot of different aspects of our game, and my impression is that he knows his sh—.
Without my going into much detail, he argues rather persuasively that starting out in this formation, he can run any pass play the pros can run (bear in mind that this was 24+ years ago), while also being able to take full advantage of the tremendous running opportunities afforded by the old-fashioned “full house T.”
And, because few coaches have any idea of the great variety of plays that can be run from a full house, he provided a brief list of resources:
Dan Devine and Al Onofrio - Missouri Power Football (1961)
Bobby Dodd - Bobby Dodd on Football (1954)
Don Faurot - Secrets of the Split-T Formation (1950)
Jake Gaither - The Split-Line T Offense (1963)
Woody Hayes - Football at Ohio State (1957)
Woody Hayes - Hot Line to Victory (1969)
Frank Leahy - Notre Dame Football (1949)
Bud Wilkinson - Oklahoma Split T Football (1962)
(They are all excellent books, but as Coach Hand pointed out, they were all out of print. And that was in 2000. Since then, they’ve become harder to find and - obviously - more expensive. Damn shame.)
He goes on…
After browsing through this list there are probably a lot of coaches (particularly young coaches) who are asking themselves, "Is this guy for real? This is the 20th century! Why would anyone want to read books written in the Stone Age by prehistoric men?”
The answers to these questions are simple. The "old-timers" didn't know a whole lot about the passing game; their primary mode of attack was the run. The running games of yore were the most sophisticated, precise, and refined running games in the history of football. They had to be.
As coaches began to comprehend the potential of the forward pass, they became extremely excited, so excited in fact, that they quickly forgot almost everything they ever learned about the run. This is the reason why so many of our NFL and major college teams now employ pathetically weak and unproductive running attacks.
Ironically, a team’s ability to run the football also enhances its ability to throw the ball and vice versa. It reminds me of something I once heard Bear Bryant say. He was talking about how hard it was for him to throw the ball into so many sophisticated coverages when he was running the pro offense, but how easy it became when he switched to the wishbone because the only coverage he ever saw against the bone was one-on-one.
*********** Q. Your favorite sweep?
A. Rip 88 Reach. Page 168. It’s also great from Slot. From DW it’s the only sweep I’ve run consistently for at least 20 years.
From my Playbook:
MANY YEARS AGO, I HEARD JIM SWEENEY, THEN THE COACH AT
WASHINGTON STATE, SAY, “THE SWEEP IS THE WORST PLAY IN FOOTBALL - BUT
YOU HAVE TO RUN IT.”ONE THING THAT MAKES THE SWEEP A BAD PLAY IS THAT IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO LOSE YARDAGE.
A SIMPLE REASON WHY SWEEPS OFTEN DON’T WORK IS THAT EVERY SOUND DEFENSE IS SET UP INITIALLY TO STOP ONE. BASICALLY, IF A SWEEP ISN'T THERE – IT ISN'T THERE. YOU CAN’T FORCE IT. I HEARD A COACH WHOSE NAME I’VE FORGOTTEN SAY THAT THE SWEEP CAN’T BE TAKEN – IT HAS TO BE GIVEN.
SOMETIMES AT THE YOUTH LEVEL, WHEN YOU HAVE GREAT SPEED AND OPPOSING DEFENDERS ARE STILL LEARNING THE GAME, YOU CAN RUN A SWEEP AS A BASE PLAY, BUT OTHERWISE, “IT ISN’T THERE UNTIL IT’S THERE.”
BUT EVEN WHEN IT’S NOT THERE, WE MAY STILL RUN IT A TIME OR TWO BECAUSE ANYTIME WE RUN MOTION, I WANT THE DEFENSE THINKING “SWEEP!” THE DEFENSE’S REACTION TO THE THREAT OF A SWEEP SETS UP OTHER RUNS AS WELL AS PLAY ACTION PASSES.
MOSTLY, THOUGH, A DOUBLE WING TEAM NEEDS TO HAVE A SWEEP TO KEEP DEFENSES FROM PINCHING TO TRY TO STOP SUPER POWER. FOR ME, THE KEY TO A SWEEP’S SUCCESS IS WHEN A DEFENSE IS WILLING TO GIVE US THE SWEEP IN ORDER TO STOP SUPER POWER. THE SIGN OF THAT IS A TIGHT DEFENSIVE ALIGNMENT OR A PINCHING DEFENSIVE END. THAT MEANS THAT OUR PLAYSIDE TIGHT END CAN REACH BLOCK THAT PINCHING END - AND THAT’S A MAJOR KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL SWEEP!
THERE ARE LOTS OF WAYS TO RUN A SWEEP, AND I’M PRETTY SURE I’VE TRIED THEM ALL. WHEN I HAD SPEED, THEY ALL LOOKED GOOD, AND WHEN I DIDN'T HAVE SPEED NONE OF THEM WAS WORTH A DAMN.
YOU CAN’T WASTE TIME TRYING TO RUN THEM ALL – YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE ONE. FOR ME, AFTER YEARS OF TRYING, I FIND THAT THE ONE I’VE SETTLED ON – WHICH I CALL RIP 88 REACH AND LIZ 99 REACH - IS THE EASIEST TO TEACH, IT OFFERS BY FAR THE BEST RATIO OF RISK TO REWARD, AND IT CAN BE RUN FROM THE WIDEST VARIETY OF SETS, INCLUDING FROM DIRECT SNAP.
IT FORCES PEOPLE TO PAY ATTENTION TO MOTION BECAUSE IT HITS THE EDGE ALMOST AS FAST AS A JET SWEEP, AND THAT MOTION SETS UP A NUMBER OF COMPLEMENTARY PLAYS,.
IT GETS OUR B-BACK, INSTEAD OF A GUARD, OUT ONTO THE PLAYSIDE CORNER – THE #1 MAN. (IF MY GUARDS ARE FASTER THAN MY B-BACK - AND BETTER OPEN FIELD BLOCKERS - MAYBE I’VE GOT THE WRONG MAN AT B-BACK.)
AND, FINALLY, THE TYPE OF HANDOFF THE QB MAKES ENABLES HIM TO KEEP THE BALL TO THE OPPOSITE SIDE OR, SHOULD ANYTHING GO WRONG WITH THE EXCHANGE, , TO SIMPLY KEEP THE BALL AND FOLLOW THE INTENDED BALL CARRIER - AN ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY THAT HAS MADE THE QB “FOLLOW” A STAPLE PLAY.
*********** Green Bay Packers’ president Mark Murphy - who in a former life was a very good free safety for the Washington Team Formerly Known as the Redskins - would like to see the NFL outlaw the Eagles’ notorious “Tush Push” play, aka (as a play on words) the “Botherly Shove.”
Said Murphy, ”I am not a fan of this play. There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less. The series of plays with the Commanders jumping offsides in the NFC Championship Game to try to stop the play was ridiculous,” he said, referring to the game in which officials wound up warning Washington that if they persisted, the officials could go so far as to award a score to the Eagles.
"I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the runner on this play,” he said. “There used to be a rule prohibiting this, but it is no longer enforced because I believe it was thought to be too hard for the officials to see. The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner.”
Amen.
*********** My wife and I have been handling our football craving by watching the Netflix “Quarterbacks” series, a look - two seasons ago - at three NFL QBs - Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota. They all seem to be good people and good family men - both Mahomes and Mariota became fathers during the season, Mariota for the first time. (Wait - They’re all married. Is there something wrong?) I’m especially impressed by Cousins the person, and I’m saddened as the realization that he will likely never play in a Super Bowl sets in. And - especially because he was an Oregon Duck - I feel for Mariota as he loses his starting position for the remainder of the season. Mahomes? No matter how weary of the Chiefs you may have become, it’s hard to dislike him. He’s good and he knows it, but not obnoxiously so. He works very hard at his job and he is tough, playing through quite a bit of pain.
*********** I’m reading a couple of books right now.
One is “Fall River Dreams,” by Bill Reynolds. Reynolds is a longtime sports columnist for the Providence Journal, and he’s covering a season of high school basketball in Fall River, Massachusetts, a town not far from Providence. Fall River is maybe best known as the home of Lizzie Borden. Like Aberdeen, Washington, the town where I’ve been coaching, Fall River has seen better days. Its textile mills have long closed and, with nothing to replace them, Fall River’s unemployment is consistently the highest in Massachusetts. But its people love their basketball, and because he’s been extremely successful, they tolerate their crusty and sarcastic coach, Skip Karam.
The other is “The Ancient Eight,” by John Finebaum. Finebaum has written a library of sports-related books and I’ve read some of them. What got him started was “A Season on the Brink,” in which he wrote about spending the 1985-1986 college basketball season with Coach Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers. His “A Civil War,” in which he spent an entire football season going back and forth between Army and Navy, building up to their traditional season-ending game, is a masterpiece. It was written in 1996, and he’s written 20 books since then. “The Ancient Eight” refers to the Ivy League. Specifically, Ivy League football.
Mock you may, but at a time when “college football” is becoming as sorry a term as “pro wrestling,” Ivy League football may be the only thing left standing when other football programs have either dropped all pretenses and declared themselves fully professional, or dropped football entirely. Although its schools - especially Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn - were primarily responsible for the birth and growth of American football, since its official founding in 1956 it has stood back at a distance as other schools and conferences increased the pace at which they head for the abyss. As Daniel Webster once said of his alma mater, Dartmouth, “There are those of us who love it,” so are there those who love Ivy League football. Unfortunately, judging from attendance at games, most of those seem to be the athletes themselves, current and former. The Ancient Eight are relatively small, private schools that are immensely wealthy, extremely selective, and quite similar athletically and academically, and they like it that way. Feinstein acknowledges that and takes a shot at today’s Power 4 football conferences and their cancerous growth when he observes that there is zero chance that there will ever be an “Ancient 10,” or “Ancient 12.”
*********** Good morning, Coach.
If you send the new Army AD the email, as I hope you will, I will do the same. I'm with you on all three points. As a side note, we learned yesterday the SECDEF has a list of serving personnel who might be on the chopping block. I have to wonder if that might include the AD's boss.
Fascinating account of the Lude-Amos connection.
I'm fed up with CFB. The SEC and Big 99 directing all 130 + D-I teams approaches incomparable arrogance. They've taught Cam Ward well.
John Vermillion
St. Patersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I had read somewhere that John Amos was a former college football player but was unaware he played at CSU for Mike Lude. Thanks for sharing Coach Lude's memoirs for all of us. Great stuff!
Well...the Four Nations Face Off Championship game may not have turned out the way the USA team had planned, but it was a well played game by both teams, and a great way for this NHL "experiment" to end. The sport of hockey gained more fans because of it. There was a smattering of boos from the Boston crowd initially during the Canadian National Anthem but they quickly faded. Which got me to thinking. What if the game had been played in Philly...?? Kudos to the NHL brass, and hopefully they can come up with an even better Face Off next year.
This latest SEC/BIG movement is basically telling Notre Dame to either s**t or get off the pot regarding conference alignment. You're either with us, or not. The BIG would like nothing more than to absorb ND. But the Irish would like nothing more than to remain who they are. You can bet there will be some future injunctions, or litigations, filed by ND, and/or other schools outside of the SEC/BIG sphere of influence to block this move.
Will be interesting to see how this new Army AD works out. I wonder what kind of relationship he has with Jeff Monken? Will he let the coach (general) command his troops? Or will the AD be calling the shots?
Frankly, a number of my friends who still live in Minnesota already refer to it as "Minnesotastan" with or without the flag change.
My only regret as a DW coach was not having the opportunity to spend time coaching with you, Jack, my good friend Mike Foristiere, and all those great DW coaches who visit with you on Tuesday nights for your clinics!
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
***********QUIZ: At Fremont (Ohio) Ross High, he set school records in rushing and scoring. In his senior year, he rushed for 2,028 yards and scored 230 points, and in addition to making USA Today and Parade All-American teams, he was named Ohio’s Mister Football.
Although he was highly recruited as a running back, Michigan recruited him as a defensive back, and he chose to go there.
As a freshman, he was a varsity starter at cornerback by the second game. He led the team with five interceptions and was named All-Big Ten by the conference coaches.
As a sophomore, he was an AP First-team All-American and named All-Big Ten First-team by the conference coaches and the news media.
As a junior, he helped Michigan go undefeated and earn a share of the national championship. He was a unanimous All-American, was named All-Big Ten for the third straight year.
He was Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Big Ten Most Valuable Player and Big Ten Male Athlete of the Year.
He won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the best defensive college player, and won the Chevrolet Defensive Player of the Year award for a second straight season.
To top it all, he became the third Michigan player in program history to win the Heisman Trophy, joining Tom Harmon and Desmond Howard. Finishing second was Peyton Manning of Tennessee.
Although he had been used on returns and had played some at receiver, our guy was the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy.
He declared for the NFL draft following his junior season at Michigan and was taken in the first round - the fourth player taken overall - by the Oakland Raiders.
He would play 18 seasons in the NFL, 11 with the Raiders and seven with the Packers.
He played in 254 games. He made 983 solo tackles. He intercepted 65 passes and returned them for 996 yards.
He scored a total of 13 defensive touchdowns, an all-time NFL record he shares with Rod Woodson and Darren Sharper.
He was Defensive Rookie of the Year and, in 2009, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
He was four times first team All-Pro and four times second team All-Pro.
He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
He was named to the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2025 “Perseverance is not a long
race. It is many short races, one after the other.” Walter Elliot*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: One of the true free spirits ever to don a Colorado State uniform was an early recruit. He later became famous, but not as an athlete. John Amos had been recommended by Tommy Dean, a former Bucknell quarterback, who was coaching in East Orange, New Jersey. He touted Amos as a fullback who was “a great physical specimen.“
Amos had fun skirting most of the rules of our program and the university. One time he was walking across the intersection near the student center and a car pulled up close. John said, “You shouldn’t be here,” and put his fist through the side window.
Later, he “borrowed” a chair from the student union and put it in his room. I had to intercede when he was threatened with serious disciplinary action. I said, “John, the police say you stole a chair.” He said, “No, I did not steal a chair; I borrowed it from the student union and put it in another university building - in my dorm room.”
During spring practice of John’s senior year I got a call from the Boulder police. “Coach Lude, I think we have one of your football players in jail. He’s accused of stealing a motor scooter and riding it to Boulder to visit friends.”
I asked who the player was. They said John Amos. I responded, “John who? I don’t have a football player by that name. I guess he’ll have to stay in jail.“
This happy-go-lucky guy was a talented stand-up comedian. His fame stretched far beyond college football. John Amos became a celebrated writer and actor. He was nominated for an Emmy in the role of Kunta Kinte in Alex Haley‘s “Roots” and has won plaudits for his work on the stage, in movies and television.
One of his numerous movies featured a college coach with whom he had constant problems. He insisted the coach be called Milo. I felt honored
*********** Mandel: Arrogance of Big Ten, SEC leaders on full display in New Orleans college football meetings
By Stewart Mandel
Feb 17, 2025
For two decades, every hare-brained development in college football could be boiled down to a simple explanation: “No one is in charge.”
Today, however, two indisputable ruling parties are controlling the sport: the Big Ten and SEC. And they’re about to light the whole thing aflame.
Leaders of the two leagues are meeting this week in New Orleans, where they’re expected to push forward with a full-on takeover of the College Football Playoff. Beginning in 2026, the field would expand to 14 or 16 teams, and the Power 2 would grant themselves four automatic berths each. The ACC and Big 12 would get two, the Group of 5 one, leaving just one or three at-larges.
It’s a ludicrous and unnecessary provision, one made possible by the fact that the Power 2 conferences already negotiated themselves favored nation status in the new CFP contract that begins next year. The previous version required unanimous agreement among the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame to make changes to the format. The Big Ten and SEC now get to dictate changes to the others.
While the four-bid idea was first discussed a year ago, before the 2024 season played out, behold the arrogance if the SEC pushes it through immediately after landing just three bids last season.
The first year of the 12-team CFP exposed some largely fixable flaws in the format when it came to seeding and byes. But for the most part, it achieved exactly what was intended.
New faces — Arizona State, Indiana, SMU — got to enjoy their moment in the sun. The entire bowl season got a much-needed interest boost from those mid-December games.
And No. 8 seed Ohio State and No. 7 seed Notre Dame earned their way to the championship game rather than getting voted into the semifinals like before.
What better way to undermine the event’s credibility before it has barely started than by formally stacking the deck for two conferences that were likely to dominate the tournament anyway with or without special provisions.
Big Ten and SEC leaders will tell you it’s a necessary acknowledgment of the post-realignment landscape as if they themselves didn’t orchestrate the whole thing. Oklahoma and Texas didn’t slip and fall into the SEC. And the Pac-12 would still exist if the Big Ten didn’t decide to add two schools (USC and UCLA) located 2,000 miles from the league office.
Big Ten and SEC leaders will point out the numbers are essentially right in line with how many bids those leagues would have earned on average historically. That’s true, but that doesn’t mean they should be preordained. What if a conference has a down year — like the SEC did just last season?
Finally, Big Ten and SEC leaders will spin this as a means to reduce subjectivity in the system. Rather than allowing the selection committee to use its ever-shifting criteria to determine most of the participants, we can just go by their own league standings. As if the leagues’ own convoluted tiebreakers aren’t themselves confusing and arbitrary.
Had this model been in place last season, the SEC’s four berths would have gone to Texas (7-1 in league play), Georgia (6-2), Tennessee (6-2) and whoever emerged from a six-way tie among 5-3 teams Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas A&M. One decimal point difference in the cumulative win percentage column would be the difference between making the CFP and making the ReliaQuest Bowl.
The great irony here is those conferences (and all the others) have spent the past four years decrying other major changes to the sport — the so-called “Wild, Wild West” of NIL and the transfer portal — that have thus far had no negative effect on the product whatsoever. If anything, they’ve helped disperse talent and create more parity, making the Playoff more attainable for more of their members.
But that doesn’t mean college football is indestructible. The single biggest threat to its popularity is the most recent cycle of realignment-gone-wild, which cost 12 West Coast schools their natural rivals, exiled two (Oregon State and Washington State) to Siberia and has effectively told every fan base outside the Big Ten and SEC that their school is unimportant. Legislating that distinction into the Playoff will alienate large swaths of the country.
All for something that is completely unnecessary.
The Big Ten and SEC are going to combine for eight berths more often than not. Maybe Notre Dame siphons off one from time to time like it did last season. In other years, however, the Power 2 might get nine, with the ACC, Big 12 and G5 getting one bid each.
And the Big Ten and SEC are already pocketing more money than the others. They granted themselves each 29 percent of the revenue from the CFP’s new six-year deal with ESPN that averages $1.3 billion a year, compared with 17 percent for the ACC and 15 percent for the Big 12. Those larger cuts for the Big Ten and SEC equate to more than $21 million per school, more than triple their share of the previous deal.
But apparently, that wasn’t enough. The addition of at least two more CFP games will garner even more television money. Here’s betting it won’t be divided equally. And, of course, the inevitable next step will be for the Big Ten and SEC to create their own versions of the NBA Play-In Tournament to see who gets those third and fourth auto-berths.
More money, more money, more money.
But at what cost?
The Big Ten and SEC have by far the most national-brand programs between them that will always get the highest TV ratings and the biggest crowds. But they also comprise just 25 percent of all FBS schools.
It’s not generally a winning formula to alienate 75 percent of your customers. But the two ruling parties are only governing for themselves.
Stewart Mandel is editor-in-chief of The Athletic's college football coverage. He has been a national college football writer for two decades with Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports. He co-hosts "The Audible" podcast with Bruce Feldman. Follow Stewart on Twitter @slmandel
*********** Washington’s state flag is green - the only state flag with a green field. But, hey- we’re the Evergreen State. It’s also the only one with a President’s face on it. But, hey - we’re the only state named for a President. But you know how it goes these days. Let’s change it. Why not? They did it in Minnesota not so long ago, and look what a wonderful flag they wound up with - it's the one on the right a flag that many nations would be proud of. (Nations whose names end in "stan.")
https://komonews.com/news/local/historian-tribal-leaders-and-citizens-to-help-redesign-washington-state-flag-in-new-bill-president-george-seattle-art-design-community-vote-capitol-america-american-pnw-meaning-politics
*********** You’re in a strange business when one lone employee earns more in a year than the entire company. But there's Joe Burrow, pulling down $55 million a year, while the Bengals' most recent profit was $42 million. (But whoever said the NFL wasn’t a strange business?)
*********** A shot of the crowd at the end of the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade, gathered around the statue of Benjamin Franklin to celebrate the Birds’ win. That’s the Art Museum in the distance. (A thought: cameras are so good now that if a shot like this were taken from outer space, snoopy people could zoom in and see some very personal stuff going on. Actually, considering the angle of this shot, I’m guessing that it was taken from someplace high up on City Hall, once Philly’s tallest building.)
*********** Army (aka West Point) has a new AD, Tom Theodorakis, and while he may not have had prior experience at someplace exciting - he was an internal hire - he did something that not one of the four athletic directors that I’ve known of ever did: he acknowledged the existence and significance of the Army Football Club, the association of former Army football players, coaches and important insiders, in this email he sent to all its members.
Dear Army Football Club,
I hope this message finds you well. For those I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, my name is Tom Theodorakis (“Theo”), and I am truly honored to serve as the Director of Athletics at Army West Point. Stepping into this role is a privilege, and I am excited to build upon the rich legacy of excellence that defines Army Athletics. Engagement and connection with this group are a top priority for me, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue on how we can strengthen our bond with the Long Gray Line.
Army Football holds a special place in the history and tradition of West Point. The grit, discipline, and unwavering commitment to excellence our players display on the field are a direct reflection of the leadership and character instilled by this great institution. As alumni, you set the standard for what it means to be part of Army Football, and our cadet-athletes look to you as THE example of what it means to wear the Black and Gold.
We are entering an exciting new era for Army Athletics. The Michie Stadium Preservation Project is progressing well, ensuring that future generations of cadets, alumni, and fans will experience our historic venue at its very best. Meanwhile, our current cadet-athletes continue to embody the warrior ethos, pushing through tough winter workouts and preparing to compete with the resilience and toughness that define Army Football.
As we navigate the ever-changing landscape of college athletics, our mission remains steadfast - to develop leaders of character who will excel on the field and go on to lead as future officers in the U.S. Army. Winning matters, and we will continue to rise to every challenge against our AAC conference opponents and service academy rivals.
I look forward to connecting with each of you and strengthening our bond within the Army Football Brotherhood. Your support and dedication mean everything to our program, and I hope to see many of you at Michie Stadium - or on the road - this season.
Thank you for your continued commitment to Army Football. Please don’t hesitate to reach out - I welcome the opportunity to connect. My email is Thomas.Theodorakis@westpoint.edu.
Go Army! Beat Navy!
Theo
Tom Theodorakis
Director of Athletics
Army West Point Athletics
I’m impressed. And as long as he’s gone public with his email, I’m thinking of writing him about a couple of things
1. The importance of his reaching out to the Army Football Club
2. Army’s colors are black and GRAY and gold (the colors of the ingredients of gunpowder: charcoal, saltpetre and sulfur.
3. He could make a lot of friends by putting an end to the “Army West Point” crap.
*********** Miami’s (and Incarnate Word’s and Washington State’s) Cam Ward is one of the top quarterback prospects in the upcoming NFL Draft, and to show how much he thinks of himself, he had a rather cocky message for teams who might not be interested in him:
“OK, you’re either going to draft me or you’re not,” he said to the AP. “If you don’t draft me, that’s your fault. You’ve got to remember you’re the same team that’s got to play me for the rest of my career, and I’ll remember that.”
Oooooh. The last thing that teams want to do is anger Cam Ward.
When asked about the impression he gave the public that he quit on his teammates by setting a record in the first half of Miami’s bowl game against Iowa State and then sitting out the entire half while Miami blew a ten-point lead - and the game - he said, “I wish we could have ended up winning the game. If we had won the game, they wouldn’t have said nothing.”
Right. You know how “they” (those damn people) are.
As for the boastfulness, permit me to introduce others who have gone that route before him…
JaMarcus Russell
Jimmy Clausen
Johnny Manziel
Josh Rosen
Baker Mayfield
(In fairness, most of them used better English than Cam Ward.)
*********** If ever the time was right for Bill Belichick to take over the North Carolina football program, this would seem to be it.
Forever, it seems, North Carolina has been a “basketball school,” with football a poor stepchild.
But these days, things on the hardwood aren’t looking so good.
The Tar Heels right now are 16-11 - and 9-6 in the ACC.
This is not good for them: if they miss out on the NCAA tournament this season it will be the second time in the last three years that they’ve done so.
It’s not good for their coach, Hubert Davis, either: it would be the second time in his four years in Chapel Hill that UNC missed the tournament. (Last year they missed, and chose not to demean themselves by playing with the commoners in the NIT.)
In the meantime, though, at least Belichick’s given them football to talk about.
*********** The things you learn. In some parts of the country, people who were there at the beginning still refer to Buffalo Wild Wings as BW3.
That's because the original name of the chain, started by some guys from Buffalo, was Buffalo Wild Wings & Weck. Get it? BW3?
(The "Weck" comes from "beef on weck", a sandwich popular in Buffalo and surroundings: beef on a kummelweck roll, with a side of horseradish and au jus. A kummelweck roll is topped with caraway seeds and kosher salt.)
Somewhere along the way they dropped the “weck” - damn shame - but the wings stayed, and so (for some people) did the nickname BW3.
Beef on weck: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=kummelweck
Schwabl’s - a great place for beef on weck: https://www.schwabls.com/
*********** Chip Kelly, who introduced (or at least popularized) offense at a racehorse pace when he took over at Oregon, has slowed things down considerably, and it’s been deliberate.
At Oregon, in 2012, the Ducks averaged 81.4 plays per game, ranking them 9th in FBS.
This past year, at Ohio State, the Buckeyes averaged 61.8 plays per game, putting them in 120th place.
Oregon, 2012 81.4 9th
UCLA, 2023 72.1 17th
Ohio State, 2024 61.8 120th
“We huddled a lot this year,” Kelly says. “We didn’t run a lot of plays. Starting from our head coach on down, we had a great vision for how to play a 16-game season and what toll that takes on your players.”
Also interesting was the number of snaps the Buckeyes took from under center. It actually wasn’t all that much - it just seemed like a lot because so few college teams go under center at all. While the Buckeyes used shotgun on a full 89.6 percent of their snaps, it ranked them 113th in FBS.
*********** You probably know that baseball is VERY popular in Japan, but maybe you didn’t know that it’s also big in Korea - South Korea, that is. And in much the same way that American baseball players head south - to Florida and Arizona - for warmer weather, the Korean baseballers are starting to head south also - to Australia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onF47cUjWB4
*********** Hugh,
Really enjoyed the latest presentation (on Zoom) and it sure brought back some 2008 memories. I can’t remember the name of the little QB we had but I sure remembered the Ram formation and the wedge and option he ran off it as well as those runs he made of the punt! Really good stuff.
I never did the Open Wing as that came long after I was gone and out of coaching but looking back I really think given the talent we had running the Open Wing would have produced at least one more state championship for us. I really liked learning it , even though I will never use it, but you can never take the coach out of this old dog. I do think coaches would get a lot from it especially those in situations where a job might depend on running “modern stuff” and not that “old fashion tight football”. I can see where this take on the DW could sure produce wins.
Keep up the good work and I am looking forward in two weeks to the next installment of the Open Wing.
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
Without going too deeply into a story I’ve told many times… In 2008, after Jack, whom I’d known for several years as a devoted Double-Wing offensive coordinator (and winner of several state titles in Maine) had just retired, I was hired as head coach at North Beach High in Ocean Shores, Washington. On a whim (and in need of a good assistant), I suggested that, rather than hang around Maine all Fall missing football, Jack should come out to Washington and spend the football season coaching with me. We had a place big enough for him (and, as it turned out, another coach), and to my great surprise and delight, Jack accepted my offer. Fast forward: we coached the crap out of those kids, and wound up taking a team that had gone 1-9 the year before to a 7-3 finish (and the three losses were by a total of 11 points). It was a great experience. Having both run the same offense and using the exact same terminology for some ten years, we were always on the same page. If you’re a Double Winger, you can’t imagine how cool it is to have a kindred soul working alongside you. (And the “little QB” was a sophomore named Derek Archer who ran the offense about as well as any kid I’ve ever had. TRUE STORY: As soon as I took the job - it was about August 1 - I got the phone number of the previous year’s quarterback, and gave him a call. He was in Phoenix. I asked him when he was planning on coming back to Ocean Shores, and he said “around Labor Day.” I reminded him that practice was starting a couple of weeks before that, and that we had already begun our pre-season “circuit” workouts. He asked if he could still be the starter if he came a couple of weeks late, and I said I didn’t see how. When he asked me why not, I turned it around on him, asking how he’d feel if he’d been working with me for two weeks, learning the position, only to have the “real starter” arrive, and then he’d have to step aside while the “real starter” took over the number one spot and got all the practice reps. The line went quiet for a bit, until he finally said, “I’ll be there.” And he was. And from day one Derek Archer was my guy. I can’t imagine how things would have worked out if he’d simply called my bluff, because I had no Plan B.)
*********** Thanks for mentioning the Four Nations Face-Off. What interested me about three fights in the opening nine seconds was the likely reason they occurred. American players had had it with hearing the booing during the playing of our Anthem. Good for them for standing up for our country. Would athletes in other sports have gone this route?
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
I believe that the Canadians were upset at the idea of reciprocal tariffs. Those hockey players are notorious for their support of fair trade. And the Americans were upset that the Canadians hadn’t accept President Trump’s generous offer to make them our 51st state.
*********** Hugh,
I'm wondering if the Canadian hockey fans will boo the American National Anthem again. I'm thinking the Canadian hockey team may have something to say about it after getting their @$$ess handed to them by the Americans.
Coach Lude's story about his CSU team's trip to Honolulu brought back a similar memory. My NH team made a trip from Manchester (that would be pronounced MAN-ches-tuh) to Dover (pronounced DOV-uh) for a state semi-final game. We lost the game on the last play of the game on a very controversial call. Turned out the officials were all local guys. After I tracked one of them down to explain their call all he said to me was..."hey, coach, haven't you huhd, you're in Dovuh."
That place in KC sounds very cool. Reminds me of an establishment in Cayucos, CA that has thousands of hats hanging from the ceiling. I sent them one of ours at that time and it's still hanging.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: At Detroit’s Mackenzie High School Jerome Bettis played running back and linebacker, and in his senior year he was ranked the top high school player in Michigan by the Detroit Free Press, and was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year.
In three years at Notre Dame, he rushed for 1,912 yards on 337 carries - an impressive 5.7 yards per carry. He was big - 5-11, 250 - and powerful, and his size and his ability to carry tacklers on his back earned him a nickname - “The Bus” - by which he would become known the rest of his career - a nickname at least as appropriate as William Perry’s.
Leaving Notre Dame after his junior year to enter the NFL draft, he was taken in the first round - the tenth player overall - by the Los Angeles Rams.
As a rookie, his 1,429 yards rushing was second only to Emmitt Smith’s 1,486, and although he didn’t earn the Rams’ starting job until the sixth game of the season, he had seven 100-yard rushing games. He was named first team All-Pro, and was a consensus pick as NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
He rushed for more than 1,000 yards in his first two seasons with the Rams, but after they moved to St. Louis under a new coach who put more emphasis on the passing game, he was given a choice after his third season between moving to fullback - or moving on.
He chose the move, and was traded to Pittsburgh.
In his first year with the Steelers, he rushed for 1,431 yards and 11 touchdowns and was named the NFL Comeback Player of the Year, a rather unusual honor for a player who was only 24 years old.
He rushed for over 1,000 yards in every one of his first six seasons with the Steelers, including three seasons of over 1,300 yards.
His best season was 1997, when he rushed for 1,665 yards in 15 games, although by sitting out the final regular-season game, resting up for the playoffs, he fell short of the franchise regular-season record by 26 yards.
You can’t beat the way he went out - as a member of the victorious Steelers team in Super Bowl XL, played in his hometown of Detroit.
In 13 NFL seasons he retired as the league’s 5th all-time leading rusher with 13,662 yards and 91 touchdowns. He also caught 200 passes for 1,449 yards and 3 touchdowns and threw 3 career touchdown passes.
He was twice named first-team All-Pro and was named to six Pro Bowls.
Jerome Bettis was named to the Steelers All-Time team and is in the Steelers’ Hall of Honor.
The Steelers have not officially retired his Number 36, but no one has worn it since he retired, and no one is likely to.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In 2021, he was named Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year.
That same year, Jerome Bettis returned to Notre Dame to complete work on his bachelor's degree, and he graduated in May, 2022, almost 30 years after he left school for the NFL.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JEROME BETTIS
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Joe Bremer - West Seneca, New York
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Rodney Lunsford - Westfield, Indiana
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
***********QUIZ: At Fremont (Ohio) Ross High, he set school records in rushing and scoring. In his senior year, he rushed for 2,028 yards and scored 230 points, and in addition to making USA Today and Parade All-American teams, he was named Ohio’s Mister Football.
Although he was highly recruited as a running back, Michigan recruited him as a defensive back, and he chose to go there.
As a freshman, he was a varsity starter at cornerback by the second game. He led the team with five interceptions and was named All-Big Ten by the conference coaches.
As a sophomore, he was an AP First-team All-American and named All-Big Ten First-team by the conference coaches and the news media.
As a junior, he helped Michigan go undefeated and earn a share of the national championship. He was a unanimous All-American, was named All-Big Ten for the third straight year.
He was Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Big Ten Most Valuable Player and Big Ten Male Athlete of the Year.
He won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the best defensive college player, and won the Chevrolet Defensive Player of the Year award for a second straight season.
To top it all, he became the third Michigan player in program history to win the Heisman Trophy, joining Tom Harmon and Desmond Howard. Finishing second was Peyton Manning of Tennessee.
Although he had been used on returns and had played some at receiver, our guy was the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy.
He declared for the NFL draft following his junior season at Michigan and was taken in the first round - the fourth player taken overall - by the Oakland Raiders.
He would play 18 seasons in the NFL, 11 with the Raiders and seven with the Packers.
He played in 254 games. He made 983 solo tackles. He intercepted 65 passes and returned them for 996 yards.
He scored a total of 13 defensive touchdowns, an all-time NFL record he shares with Rod Woodson and Darren Sharper.
He was Defensive Rookie of the Year and, in 2009, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
He was four times first team All-Pro and four times second team All-Pro.
He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
He was named to the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2025 “When
plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the
course of time they create for themselves a legal system that
authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” Frédéric
Bastiat*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Our recruiting work was starting to pay off. By the third season we had become competitive with any of the teams on our schedule. For example, one year after that 69–0 whipping by Air Force, we gave them a close game, 14–6, in 1963.
The final game of the season was played in Hawaii, and we approached the trip as a special treat for our players. We won but only after getting a taste of the partisan officiating that had been inflicted on visiting teams for many years. Late in the game we had a one-touchdown lead. Deep in Hawaii territory, we ran a quarterback sneak into the end zone. But the ball popped loose, and Larry French, our offensive guard, recovered for an apparent touchdown.
The officials huddled and took the ball out to the 20-yard line and pointed the other way: the referee signaled Hawaii's ball, no score. I called the referee over to the sideline. "We scored,” I said. He said, "No, there was a fumble.” I said, "there was a fumble, and the ball was loose in the end zone, yes or no?” He said yes.
I asked, "Who recovered it?” He answered with the number on Larry's jersey. I said, "That's our man, white jersey. He recovered the fumble in the end zone, and by rule that's a touchdown for Colorado State.”
The referee looked at the other officials and stood there, mute. Finally, after a considerable delay, he stepped close to me, put a finger on my chest and said: "Coach, that may be, but that's not the way we play here in Honolulu.” Despite that bad call we finally stopped them and wrapped up the victory.
One of the hardest things for me at CSU was firing an assistant coach. But after three seasons as Colorado State’s head coach I decided Lou Baker, the backfield coach, wasn't the man for that job. Other staff members had to step in to handle some of his responsibilities and it distracted all of us. What concerned me was Baker's wife and children. I had a long chat about the situation with my minister, BIll Hagge. Then I went back to my office, called Baker over and told him he was out. He was bitter, which is understandable; in reorganizing, I made Paul Lanham backfield coach, and things went a lot smoother.
*********** Donn Moomaw, who earned nationwide acclaim in the 1950s as a two-time All-American linebacker at UCLA, and who years later, as an ordained minister, delivered the invocation at both of President Ronald Reagan’s inaugurations, died last week. He was 93.
https://footballfoundation.org/news/2025/2/11/football-hall-of-famer-donn-moomaw-passes-away.aspx
*********** One of our daughters was visiting us this past weekend, and she mentioned a friend whose father had suffered some sort of injury that prevented him from ever skiing again. On learning this, the gentleman had evidently told his children that if he couldn’t ski, there really wasn’t much reason for him to keep living.
My daughter said that it seemed to her that as long as you could still do something, you should at least do that. I agreed, and told her that it brought to mind a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King: “If you can't fly, then run; if you can't run, then walk; if you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."
*********** He might as well have been talking about football…
“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each others’ kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That's how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people.” Steve Jobs
*********** The Eagles’ Super Bowl celebration drew some 1.5 million people to Center City and - mirabile dictu! - there were few signs of disorderly conduct.
But the national headlines read, “Two Shot at Eagles’ Celebration.”
It would have been far more accurate had they read: “Coincidence: Two Shot on Side Street As Eagles’ Celebration Goes on Without Them.”
Apparently, the shooting was not in any way connected to the celebration - two women fighting over something or other, the sort of thing that’s apt to happen in any one of many major US cities at almost any time, regardless of whether the city’s even got an NFL team, let alone a Super Bowl winner.
*********** It wasn’t football, but ice hockey will do in a pinch. Especially the kind of hockey provided by what they call the Four Nations Face-off - a tournament played over this past weekend by teams representing the US, Canada, Finland and Sweden.
This tournament was well organized and put on and quite unlike the farces that all-star games in other major sports have become.
These players were among the best in the sport, the NHL having suspended league play so that its players would be available to play for their home nations’ teams, and the tournament was a great display of a sport’s best players playing hard and actually caring about winning.
Thursday night, The USA will play Canada in the final. It will not be an NBA All-Star game, where they play a “mini- tournament” in which players graciously step aside to let someone score; it won’t be a baseball All-Star game (which they’ll stop if they run out of pitchers); and it won’t be a Pro Bowl (which won’t even be a game of football).
No, not this one. Not after the US-Canada game last Saturday night, which started out with three fights in the first nine seconds.
*********** Heard on a hockey telecast: “This PowerPlay is brought to you by Tylenol.” Were they really trying to tell me that they’d just have gone on playing without sending anyone to the penalty box if they hadn’t been able to land a sponsor?
*********** Golden State’s Draymond Green says NBA basketball is “just who can run faster, who can hit more 3s, it’s no substance. I think it’s very boring.”
He’s catching some hell, but he’s right. And fans seem to agree. According to Sports Business Journal, fan interest in the NBA is down 5 per cent from last season, and a major reason is the emphasis on the three-point play.
It amazes me that the NFL’s marketing is so good that it manages to delude people into thinking that its games are exciting, when overall they’re boring as hell, mainly because of NFL team’s over dependence on their own three-point play - the field goal.
************* In going through some notes from a conversation I had a few years ago with a CFL coach named Gary Etcheverry, I found something that he’d said: “Shovel is an upside-down option.”
*********** Notre Dame’s Al Golden won the Broyles Award as the top assistant in college football. As the Irish defensive coordinator, he played a major role in Notre Dame’s making it to the National Championship game. (Since that game, Golden has moved on to the Cincinnati Bengals as their defensive coach.)
The Broyles Award is named for Frank Broyles, the former University of Arkansas football coach and athletic director.
In accepting the award in Little Rock, Golden took a shot at ESPN GameDay’s Desmond Howard for his dismal record of predicting Irish games: "And Des, thank you for picking against us six times this year. We won 14 games, and he picked against us six times. It's unbelievable," Golden said.
*********** I coached Caleb Bridge, the son of my head coach Todd Bridge, for four years. Heck of a kid and heck of a football player. When I spoke with Caleb not so long ago and learned that he was living in Kansas City, I told him, “You’ve got to get to Chappell’s!”
Chappell’s, in North Kansas City, is billed as a “sports bar,” but in reality it’s a sports museum that doubles as a first class bar-restaurant.
I was first told about Chappell’s by Sam Knopik, coach at Kansas City’s Pembroke Hill School, who hosted one of my clinics there. After the clinic, at Sam’s suggestion several of us headed to Chappell’s, and we liked the place so much that for the next several years it became THE post-clinic get-together spot in KC.
One of the interesting features of Chappell’s was - still is - a huge collection of football helmets - pro, college and high school - hanging from the ceiling. On what turned out to be my last visit there I asked the owner, Jim Chappell, whom I’d gotten to know, what I had to do to get a North Beach High helmet up there. He said, “Send me one.”
Immediately on my return to the Northwest, that’s exactly what I did. But that was about ten years ago and - things happen - I haven’t been back since.
But shortly after we spoke, Caleb went there, and then he reported back. With photos.
That’s Caleb and Jim Chappell in the photo on the left, and up above them you’ll see a few of the many, many helmets. In the photo on the right, Caleb is pointing to the black-and-gold North Beach helmet.
https://chappellskc.com/
*********** JOHN CANZANO…
Q: You are covering the Olympics, Super Bowl, National Championship of any sport, World Series, and NBA Finals. Here’s the deal, you get to take your family to experience it with you. Which one are you choosing?
A: My kids would probably want to go to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but I’d take them to a summer Olympics. It’s an unmatched cultural and sports experience. I’d steer clear of the Super Bowl. It’s overcooked. So is the College Football Playoff title game. The women’s Final Four and the College World Series in Omaha would be my second and third choices.
*********** I should have known better…
But when I saw the headline “Why Kellen Moore was a terrible hire for the Saints,” I had to bite..
Dumb me. Call me an easy mark. I fell for it.
It turned out to be some airhead female on YouTube, posing as an expert while almost certainly reading stuff (that someone else wrote) from a teleprompter.
Personally, I think that team’s so bad that anybody would have been a bad hire, and while I know NFL head coaching jobs don’t come open every day, I’m sorry that Moore cast his lot with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUi6A4EuuwY
*********** In Oregon, as in many (if not most) states, the numbers of high school officials had already been decreasing steadily prior to the Pandemic. But in just one year - from 2019-20 to 2020-2021 - they dropped a precipitous 26 per cent, from 3,469 to 2,552.
One result of that officials’ shortage has been an increase in Thursday night high school games.
But, writes Nik Streng in Oregonlive, since 2020, the numbers have actually increased and are almost back to where they were before the Pandemic, thanks in large part to two initiatives by the state association, the OSAA.
One was aimed at better pay for officials, in hopes of attracting younger guys.
The other required schools to take responsibility for the way people at their events interact with officials. Writes Streng, “If you've ever noticed that your school's athletic director walks referees off the court and out of the building, this is why.”
*********** My contribution to Saving the Planet. I have found a way to reduce global CO2 emissions by some 30 million metric tons a year.
According to the Wall Street Journal, soccer - globally - produces more than 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year - just about the same as the nation of Denmark.
The big-time soccer people probably won’t like this, but the environuts will love it: soccer must go.
*********** I don’t at all like hiring quotas, and I don’t go out of my way to look for signs of racial discrimination. But isn’t it rather surprising that there is not one single black offensive coordinator in the entire 32-team NFL?
••••••••••• Good story from Coach Lude about Oscar Reed. The way you (or Coach Lude) wrote that section sounded as if he hadn't forgotten Prothro's running up the score on the CSU guys.
You made up the joke about the time you were in the beer bidness, but no prob, because it's a good one.
The correct answer to what percentage of Big Boy's lifetime earnings you will demand is 95.
I like the idea of Jim Tressel as future Governor of Ohio. J.C. Watts did well, Burgess Owens is doing well, Tommy Tuberville is doing great, and Tommy Osborne was great.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
I did NOT make up that joke. I won’t tell you the name of the beer distributor, but I will say that it happened in a town of about 15,000 people, roughly 10 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line, some 55 miles north-northwest of Baltimore and 20 miles southwest of York, Pennsylvania.
••••••••••• Hugh,
Hard to believe there were 133.5 million suckers watching that SB halftime “show.”
Jim Tressel must have realized how much more money he could make in politics as opposed to being a college administrator.
Speaking of politics and ex-football coaches…maybe Tommy Tuberville would be a good choice for Commissioner of College Football.
Saw a brief shot of the Eagles’ SB parade on the news. OMG! Apparently the weather didn’t matter! What would Philly fans do if the Flyers, Sixers, and Phillies all won their respective championships?
5 % is the going rate for a player’s contract, and 10% of his endorsements contract. This based upon what agents make in the 25th percentile (rookies).
Enjoy your weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: At Detroit’s Mackenzie High School he played running back and linebacker, and in his senior year he was ranked the top high school player in Michigan by the Detroit Free Press, and was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year.
In three years at Notre Dame, he rushed for 1,912 yards on 337 carries - an impressive 5.7 yards per carry. He was big - 5-11, 250 - and powerful, and his size and his ability to carry tacklers on his back earned him a nickname by which he would become known the rest of his career - a nickname at least as appropriate as William Perry’s.
Leaving Notre Dame after his junior year to enter the NFL draft, he was taken in the first round - the tenth player overall - by the Los Angeles Rams.
As a rookie, his 1,429 yards rushing was second only to Emmitt Smith’s 1,486, and although he didn’t earn the Rams’ starting job until the sixth game of the season, he had seven 100-yard rushing games. He was named first team All-Pro, and was a consensus pick as NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
He rushed for more than 1,000 yards in his first two seasons with the Rams, but after they moved to St. Louis under a new coach who put more emphasis on the passing game, he was given a choice after his third season between moving to fullback - or moving on.
He chose to move on, and was traded to Pittsburgh.
In his first year with the Steelers, he rushed for 1,431 yards and 11 touchdowns and was named the NFL Comeback Player of the Year, a rather unusual honor for a player who was only 24 years old.
He rushed for over 1,000 yards in every one of his first six seasons with the Steelers, including three seasons of over 1,300 yards.
His best season was 1997, when he rushed for 1,665 yards in 15 games, although by sitting out the final regular-season game, resting up for the playoffs, he fell short of the franchise regular-season record by 26 yards.
You can’t beat the way he went out - as a member of the victorious Steelers team in Super Bowl XL, played in his hometown of Detroit.
In 13 NFL seasons he retired as the league’s 5th all-time leading rusher with 13,662 yards and 91 touchdowns. He also caught 200 passes for 1,449 yards and 3 touchdowns and threw 3 career touchdown passes.
He was twice named first-team All-Pro and was named to six Pro Bowls.
He was named to the Steelers All-Time team and is in the Steelers’ Hall of Honor.
The Steelers have not officially retired his Number 36, but no one has worn it since he retired, and no one is likely to.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In 1921, he was named Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year.
That same year, he returned to Notre Dame to complete work on his bachelor's degree, and he graduated in May, 2022, almost 30 years after he left school for the NFL.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2025 "Faith is taking the first step
even when you can't see the whole staircase." Reverend Martin
Luther King, Jr.*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I had developed a lot of contacts with high school coaches, first as the Delaware recruiting coordinator and also teaching our Wing-T offense at clinics around the country.
One of those contacts was a coach in Tennessee named Esau Lathon. Esau coached at an all-black high school. Later he became one of the first blacks to coach an integrated school in that state. He told me about a great running prospect named Oscar Reed and said he would help me recruit him for Colorado State.
In that era it was uncomfortable – sometimes dangerous – in many parts of the South for blacks to ride in the same car with whites. Anti-integration forces were on the loose, administering their own form of justice through threats, intimidation, and worse. When Esau picked me up at the airport, he told me, “You sit in the back because I've got to pretend I'm your driver.” I protested but he insisted. "You just don't understand what's going on down here.” The same sort of discrimination still took place in most restaurants, and when we stopped for lunch I'd go in and ask if they served black people. Usually, the answer was no. So we’d go to the black section of town and eat a great meal. Esau and I became good friends. His younger son, Gerald, eventually enrolled at the University of Washington and graduated. I was proud to have been his mentor.
One of the traditions at Oscar Reed’s high school was to allow unusually talented running backs to wear gold – colored football shoes. So Oscar's nickname was Golden Shoes Reed. When he rambled they twinkled.
There was plenty of competition to recruit Reed, and one of the coaches who made a strong pitch was Tommy Prothro. The Oregon State coach had played football at Duke but had grown up in Tennessee and still had connections there. Thanks to Esau Lathon's introduction, I convinced Oscar's mother that we would look out for her son's best interests at Colorado State. One of our boosters, Norman Cousins, helped Oscar get a summer job in Denver, paving the way for him to become one of our first great players.
Oscar Reed became a member of the CSU Hall of Fame after setting numerous school rushing records. Later he played in the Super Bowl with the Minnesota Vikings.
*********** The Super Bowl pulled in 127.7 million viewers - a record - beating last year's 123.7 million.
That number is an average of viewership totals taken at various points in the game,
The high point was 137.7 million viewers between 8 and 8:15 (Eastern) - in the second quarter (when it was still a game).
But here’s some bad news for us hard-core types: the halftime show sh— isn’t going anywhere.
Kendrick Lamar’s (they tell me that’s who it was) “show” drew 133.5 million viewers, an all-time record for a halftime.
*********** A coaching friend wrote me to say that after he showed his wife the photo of 72-year-old Bill Belichick and his 24-year-old girlfriend, she said to him, “Don't get any bright ideas - you can’t afford it.”
While we’re one the subject of Bill Belichick…
Many years ago, when I was in the beer business, one of our distributors in Pennsylvania got himself a younger girlfriend. He was maybe 50 and let’s say she was 25.
He got into a bit of a scrape one night when he walked into a bar and some wise guy, seeing him enter, went for a laugh, asking loudly, “How many times does 50 go into 25?” And that’s how the fight started.
*********** Not that anybody in the Army - veteran or active duty - or, for that matter, anybody in nearby Fayetteville, North Carolina ever went along with that “Fort Liberty” crap. But in case you hadn’t noticed - sanity rules, and it’s Fort Bragg once more.
*********** Noting how so many congressmen manage to spend a couple of years in Washington earning $174,000 a year yet come away as multimillionaires, some guy on the Internet suggested, in the interest of transparency, “politicians should wear jackets like NASCAR drivers.”
*********** It’s a regular routine for me to walk our dog every morning and evening, and on the morning walk it’s also been a routine for me to stop at one of our local high schools, where the dog, Rhodey, greets the kids as they come in, while I chat with the principal. It’s an alternative school, with just a little more than 150 kids, and the principal is at the door every morning to greet every kid. That’s the kind of leader she is. She’s a former coach, and we frequently talk about leadership and dealing with kids. Anyhow, she knows I’m a coach, and a few weeks ago she introduced me to a kid who evidently had told her he wants to play football. He’s big. He’s at least 6-5 and could be 6-6. He’s not what you’d call trim. He’s considerably overweight, but not sloppily so. He said he weights 400 pounds. I would have no way of knowing whether that’s so (actually, I have no idea how he weighs himself) but he’s definitely well more than 300 pounds. He obviously is going to be a project, but who’s kidding who? - you could start with a hundred well-built fairly big young guys and no matter how hard you worked with them, you couldn’t make a single one of them 6-6, unless God intended it. (And he said he was still growing.) I asked him if he’d like me to give his name and info to the head coach at the main high school in town (they made it to the state finals this past season) and after he said “yes,” I gave the info to the coach when I saw him at a clinic last Saturday.
So here’s my problem: When I offer to get the kid into decent football shape in exchange for a lifetime contract as his agent, what percentage of his future earnings should I ask for?
*********** Marc Fogel’s sister told CNN that President Trump, just before he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, told her mom that he would bring her son home from a Russian prison, and said, “The man was true to his word.”
(I can imagine, somewhere in CNN headquarters, an executive shouting at the screen, “Whose bright idea was it to put that f—king woman on?”)
Meanwhile, Mark Fogel, describing himself as “just a school teacher from Pittsburgh,” showed up at the White House shortly after his return to the US and met with the President. In one of the best marketing stunts of all time, somebody arranged for a guy who had just spent three years in a Russian prison to be holding a can of (Pittsburgh’s own) Iron City Beer.
(My friend Tom Hinger, is from Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Latrobe's about an hour east of Pittsburgh and once the home of Rolling Rock Beer, so Tom's no fan of Iron City. When I showed him the photo he said, “He must have been brainwashed.”)
*********** Cam Newton (remember him?) recalled what it was like to be chosen first, but by a poor team. He definitely didn’t make any friends among his former Carolina Panthers’ teammates when he said, “When I was the first pick, I went into a locker room of losers. Guys didn’t know how to win. Guys didn’t know how to prepare.”
Said the guy who refused to fall onto a fumble in a Super Bowl. And then walked out of the post-game interview in a childish pout.
*********** In June, 2018, $310 million was the total bet on sports in the US.
In January 2014, that figure had increased by 4,400 per cent, to $13.9 BILLION.
Which brings us to today’s “gaming” story (From The Athletic):
Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is under federal investigation for playing a part in an illegal gambling operation.
In March, 2023, when he was with the Charlotte Hornets, Rozier was averaging 35.3 minutes and 21.1 points per game, until in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans, he came out of the game after playing just 9 minutes and 34 seconds and scoring just five points - and didn’t return.
He claimed to have a sore right foot.
You don’t suppose, do you, that someone might have bet the “under” on whether he’d score 21 points?
The pros in Vegas aren’t dumb. They have people constantly on the alert for betting anomalies, and when they noticed “unusual betting activity” regarding Rozier’s play in the game, they notified the NBA office.
And the story eventually wound its way to the feds.
Not to suggest that I know anything about Terry Rozier - I don’t give a big rat’s ass about the NBA - or whether he’s done anything inappropriate or illegal, but anybody can see how easily a “prop bet” such as an over/under on how many points a player will score, or how many minutes he will play, can be rigged, and just the suspicion of fishy activity can be almost as damaging to a sport as the actual act.
*********** The hiring of Eagles’ offensive coordinator Kellen Moore as the head coach of the Saints means that since winning the Super Bowl in 2018, the Eagles have seen four of their coordinators leave to take head-coaching jobs. Preceding Moore have been OC Frank Reich to the Colts, OC Shane Steichen to the Colts, and DC Jonathan Gannon to the Cardinals.
*********** Personally, I admire Jim Tressel for taking the kind of career shot that would have destroyed lesser men - losing his dream job - and climbing back to respectability. And although it may not have been as the head coach of THE Ohio State University, he certainly has been able to affect positively the lives of many Ohioans.
At the darkest moment of his life, after he had resigned as Ohio State’s coach, his mentor, a retired English professor, told him, “I hope you know that your greatest impact is ahead of you.”
After a term as vice-president at Akron University, he served for ten years as president of Youngstown State University, where earlier, as the school’s football coach, he had won four national championships.
On Monday, he was nominated as the state’s next lieutenant governor, after then-lieutenant governor Jon Husted was named to replace Vice President JD Vance in the Senate. On Wednesday, he was confirmed by the Ohio General Assembly.
Said Governor Mike DeWine, "Jim Tressel has Ohio values. He’s a hard worker and shares that vision (that I have) for the future of Ohio. He has the ability to pull people together. He has the ability to lead. He will enable me to be assured that if something happens to me, he can walk in and be governor that day and that would be seamless.”
************* They greased the light poles on Sunday but idiots still climbed them - this was Philly, after all. But no one was killed in the impromptu “celebration” of the Eagles’ Super Bowl win, so the official parade and celebration will go on Friday as scheduled. Police are expecting a crowd of at least a million people to line Broad Street (proudly claimed to be “the world’s longest straight street”) and then the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on the parade’s path from Lincoln Financial Field to the plaza at the top of the steps of the Art Museum (which is what locals call it, although “The Museum of Art” is what the hoity-toities insist we call it). That’s where Jason Kelce gave his “We’re from f—kin’ Philly” speech back in 2018. It’s not likely there’s anyone on the current roster capable of matching that one.
They are not exaggerating the number of people who will attend. I was looking out our office window on South Broad Street in 1974 when the city put on a parade to celebrate the Flyers’ (the aptly-named Broad Street Bullies) Stanley Cup win. The official count was in excess of a million, and although we could only see a block or so to the right or left, it was an amazing sight.
*********** There were some zany late-stage WAC games between Fresno St and SDSU back in the day. Marshall Faulk was super talented,
You should know because of your page I started adding a trivia question on my weekly bulletin a few years ago to staff/parents/etc. and it has significantly increased the amount of people who actually read it. Questions are usually Woodlake sports history, local history, Woodlake lore, etc. It really does work.
Thanks,
Mike Burchett
Principal, Woodlake High School
Woodlake, California
I am flattered and pleased to learn that! I consider it a great compliment.
*********** Coach, I appreciate your views on the whole Superbowl "Extravaganza",
but your silence on the degenerate halftime show was too loud!
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
John, Your critique is spot-on. I chose to walk the dog - even though it meant having to miss the halftime show.
*********** I find there's always a lot to take away from Coach Lude's thoughts. Too bad he had so little to work with at CSU, a fact substantiated by fellow coaches. But having that experience of losing game after game only solidified his character.
Great point about Coach Gutilla's influence. The NFL Mafia had their day.
One of my recurring characters was Tetu Palaita, who of course bears some resemblance to Jordan Mailata. Incidentally, someone has noted that former Army lineman Brett Toth was on Eagles special teams, but also came on as center in the fourth quarter.
I guess I'm in the minority, meaning I watch the game and enjoy it, but shut out all the noise and flashing lights surrounding it. It's just too much.
I second the RIP, Dick Jauron.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
No conspiracy. At some point all my paisanos were made an offer they couldn’t refuse.
You aren’t wrong about the NFL. After that exhibition of “entertainment” television the WWE is still better at it!
Didn’t watch it, but from what I hear and read the halftime “show” was pathetic and a large majority of Americans aren’t happy about it. Woke is no longer cool.
As far as the teams playing in that game it was very apparent to me right away that the Eagles were tougher and more physical than the Chiefs. Old school rules!
All things considered those Yalies you listed were pretty damn good football players considering they didn’t have athletic scholarships in college. Sure…they received financial assistance like all Ivy League student-athletes do, but so do most Ivy students.
President Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk to “purge” the waste, fraud, and abuse in our government is transparent and good for this country. The leftists acceptance of financial support from George Soros is Oz-like and catastrophic for this country.
QUIZ: Marshall Faulk
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Born and raised in New Orleans, Marshall Faulk played football for the Carver High School Rams. Extremely fast (he also sprinted on the track team, and ran a 10.3 100 meters), he ran for 1,800 yards and 32 touchdowns in his last two years at Carver, and was highly recruited.
Because of his senior year performance as a defensive back (he intercepted 11 passes and returned six for touchdowns), colleges recruited him as a corner.
All except San Diego State. They accepted the fact that he wanted to be a running back, and they were the first college to recruit him solely as a runner. "I didn't love playing cornerback," he later told a magazine. "So I knew I wouldn't be as successful in that position. You have to really love what you do to be a star."
Would you call this being a star…
In his second game - his first start - he rushed for 386 yards - then an NCAA record - on 37 carries, and scored seven touchdowns. For the season, he rushed for 1,429 yards and 21 touchdowns, and became just the third freshman (after Tony Dorsett and Herschel Walker) to be named to the AP All-America Team.
In his career as an Aztec, he was a three-time All-American, a winner of a WAC Offensive Player of the Year award, and a three-time Heisman Trophy finalist. His 148 yards per game and his 180.5 all-purpose yards per game (he was also a good receiver) still rank him in the top 10 in college football history.
He was taken by the Indianapolis Colts as the second player overall in the 1994 NFL Draft.
Would you call this being a star…
In his first game his rookie year, he rushed for 143 yards and three touchdowns against the Houston Oilers.
That season, he rushed for 1,282 yards 11 TDs, and caught 52 passes for 522 yards and a touchdown, and was named Rookie of the Year. He was named to the Pro Bowl, and became the first rookie ever to be named MVP of the game.
Although hampered by a toe injury his third season, in four of his first five seasons he rushed for at last 1,000 yards, and caught 297 passes for 2,804 yards.
After five years in Indianapolis, he was traded to the St. Louis Rams , and in his first season with his new team he helped take them to a Super Bowl title. He became just the second player in NFL history to go over 1,000-yards in both rushing and receiving, and his 2,429 total yards were a new NFL record. He was named the NFL Offensive Player of the Year - for what would be the first of three straight seasons.
In his second year with the Rams, he led the NFL in both scoring and touchdowns, and he was named the NFL Most Valuable Player.
After nine years in which he’d missed the 1,000-yard mark just once, he slipped - to 953 yards in 2002. That was followed by seasons of declining performance: 818, 773 and 292 yards respectively, and after undergoing knee surgery and missing an entire season, he announced his retirement in March of 2007.
Would you call this being a star?
He was the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year three times, and its MVP once.
He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 1999, 2000 and 2001 and he was named second-team All-Pro in 1994, 1995 and 1998. He was also named All-AFC twice and All-NFC three times, and was named to seven Pro Bowls. In one of those Pro Bowls - his first, as a rookie - he was MVP.
He was the first player in NFL history to gain 2,000 yards from scrimmage for four straight seasons (1998-2001)
At the time of his retirement, his 12,279 yards rushing ranked as the ninth-best all-time among. He scored 100 touchdowns on the ground, and in addition, he had 767 career receptions for 6,875 yards and 36 touchdowns.
His 19,154 total yards from scrimmage - rushing and receiving - was sixth best all-time.
He rushed for 100 or more yards in 38 games and in three games he rushed for more than 200 yards And he had eight games in which he had 100 yards or more receiving.
Marshall Faulk is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
I’d say he was a star.
In addition to establishing a foundation for underprivileged youth and the Boys to Men mentoring network, he has endowed a scholarship at San Diego State. He has also worked as an analyst on the NFL Network.
His son played football at Central Washington.
On the same day that this quiz was posted on this site, Marshall Faulk was named running backs coach at Colorado by head coach Deion Sanders. (Proof that Coach Prime reads this stuff. But rather than guess who it was, he simply offered the guy a job.)
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MARSHALL FAULK
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Burchett - Woodlake, California
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
John Rothwell, Corpus Christi, Texas
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: At Detroit’s Mackenzie High School he played running back and linebacker, and in his senior year he was ranked the top high school player in Michigan by the Detroit Free Press, and was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year.
In three years at Notre Dame, he rushed for 1,912 yards on 337 carries - an impressive 5.7 yards per carry. He was big - 5-11, 250 - and powerful, and his size and his ability to carry tacklers on his back earned him a nickname by which he would become known the rest of his career - a nickname at least as appropriate as William Perry’s.
Leaving Notre Dame after his junior year to enter the NFL draft, he was taken in the first round - the tenth player overall - by the Los Angeles Rams.
As a rookie, his 1,429 yards rushing was second only to Emmitt Smith’s 1,486, and although he didn’t earn the Rams’ starting job until the sixth game of the season, he had seven 100-yard rushing games. He was named first team All-Pro, and was a consensus pick as NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
He rushed for more than 1,000 yards in his first two seasons with the Rams, but after they moved to St. Louis under a new coach who put more emphasis on the passing game, he was given a choice after his third season between moving to fullback - or moving on.
He chose to move on, and was traded to Pittsburgh.
In his first year with the Steelers, he rushed for 1,431 yards and 11 touchdowns and was named the NFL Comeback Player of the Year, a rather unusual honor for a player who was only 24 years old.
He rushed for over 1,000 yards in every one of his first six seasons with the Steelers, including three seasons of over 1,300 yards.
His best season was 1997, when he rushed for 1,665 yards in 15 games, although by sitting out the final regular-season game, resting up for the playoffs, he fell short of the franchise regular-season record by 26 yards.
You can’t beat the way he went out - as a member of the victorious Steelers team in Super Bowl XL, played in his hometown of Detroit.
In 13 NFL seasons he retired as the league’s 5th all-time leading rusher with 13,662 yards and 91 touchdowns. He also caught 200 passes for 1,449 yards and 3 touchdowns and threw 3 career touchdown passes.
He was twice named first-team All-Pro and was named to six Pro Bowls.
He was named to the Steelers All-Time team and is in the Steelers’ Hall of Honor.
The Steelers have not officially retired his Number 36, but no one has worn it since he retired, and no one is likely to.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In 1921, he was named Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year.
That same year, he returned to Notre Dame to complete work on his bachelor's degree, and he graduated in May, 2022, almost 30 years after he left school for the NFL.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2025 "When you're winning, you don't
need friends, and when you're losing you don't have them anyhow.”
Woody Hayes *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: In our next-to-last game against Oregon State we were big underdogs. The night before the game, Tommy Prothro, the OSU coach, stopped by our hotel with a rather unusual message. He said, "MIke, I've looked at the films and you have a (bleep) football team. We have a chance tomorrow of breaking a record with Terry Baker, our Heisman Trophy candidate, and his receiver, Vern Burke. So if I leave them in the game for a while longer than normal you will understand we are not just trying to run up the score.” I said I understood that the contract says the game goes sixty minutes and it doesn't have anything to do with the score.
At halftime, we were leading, 14–13. Going up the ramp, Prothro put his arm around me and said, "You little rascal, you're after my butt, aren't you?” I said, "Well, it's just a football game, Tommy, sixty minutes.” We couldn't hold on and lost, 25–14, but it was a good game and a good experience.
So we went into the final game of the season with a 0–9 record. No wonder the only fans who showed up in our ancient stadium were the parents of the players and a few students and friends. That venue held only about 14,000, but it still seemed empty. The competition was a University of Montana team that was about as bad as we were. Its Coach was a former Colorado star, Ray Jenkins, whose pride was the kicking game.
We took a 7–0 lead, but just before halftime Montana scored and made a 2-point conversion for the lead, 8–7. We scored again and elected to go for two, and we made it for a 15–8 edge. Late in the game Montana punted out of bounds on our one-yard line and we took over. I instructed our quarterback, Billy Wrenn, a senior from Sherman,Texas, to go for a QB sneak, cover the ball so he wouldn't lose it, and set up a punt. As fate would have it, the ball popped loose and Montana recovered. They scored and went for a two-point conversion and a 16–15 victory. Our losing streak was unbroken.
The bitter residue of that loss lasted through the long, long off-season.
Nobody on our staff was idle that winter. The key to improving this team was to get better players, which meant a dramatic upgrade in recruiting. In some cases it meant going head -to-head with bigger, better-known schools. This task was less intimidating to me than it might be to many young coaches (I was thirty-nine when hired by Colorado State). I had developed a lot of contacts with high school coaches, first as the Delaware recruiting coordinator and also teaching our Wing-T offense at clinics around the country.
*********** THE STUPOR BOWL…
*** In a nutshell: I’m glad that the Eagles won. I’m sorry that the Chiefs played so poorly and also sorry that we may have seen the end of their great run.
*** Considering that the Chiefs - simply because they were the Chiefs - won a lot of games this past season that a lesser team probably wouldn’t have won, you have to wonder if maybe their great run is over. Other than their run defense, they put on one of the sorriest performances I’ve ever seen in a Super Bowl. They had no running game at all. They ran ELEVEN RUNNING PLAYS, at least two of which were Mahomes taking off from the pocket. Their passing game was pitiful: Mahomes threw some really bad passes and threw some passes badly. The arrogance of their thinking that their defenders could play press coverage and stay with the man when he went deep cost them two touchdowns.
*** Can you imagine how good an athlete like Cooper DeJean must have been, playing in a tiny Iowa high school?
*** The game was a classic illustration of the maxim: avoid losing - then win. Jalen Hurts did an exceptional job of protecting the ball.
*** The Eagles’ lines - offensive and defensive - were the difference.
*** Tom Brady may be your GOAT (God, I hate that “word”), but he’s not mine. There’s no room in today’s football for a human statue. He’d have been eviscerated if he’d had to stand in the Kansas City pocket.
*** Brady isn’t as bad as I expected - not exactly high praise - but I think he spends too much time reminiscing. On the other hand, he may have the director in his ear saying, “Tell ‘em about the time you…”
*** Twelve-and-a-half minutes of our lives wasted…
The national anthem (sung in falsetto I might add), took a record two minutes to be “performed.”
That was followed by two-and-a-half minutes of commercials…
Followed by the coin toss, which took three-and-a-half minutes…
Followed by a commercial break that took four-and-a-half minutes.
Then- TADA! - came the kickoff (a touchback, naturally)
*** Is this a conspiracy or something? Is Joe Gutilla behind it? Sirianni coaching the winning team… Fangio and Spagnuolo coaching the defenses…Playing for the Lombardi Trophy?
*** Jordan Mailata, Eagles’ 6-8, 365-pound guard, became the first Aussie to start in - and win - a Super Bowl. s
*** Commercials pretty much sucked… Rocket.com with Country Roads playing, sang of “Blue Ridge Mountains…Shenandoah River…” Look, I like West Virginia. It’s a beautiful state. But that ain’t West Virginia in the commercial. We’re looking across a large, flat, almost treeless plain, when there’s not a flat, cleared piece of land that big in all of West Virginia. And off in the distance there’s a jagged, snow-capped mountain range that sure as hell ain’t the Blue Ridge.
*** Nike is up to their usual you-go-girl BS (“You can’t win! So WIN”) by seemingly encouraging female athletes to go ahead and act like a$$holes just like the guys.
*** Bud put on one of the lamest Clydesdale commercials ever when a keg fell off a truck and - to the rescue - a Clydesdale rolled it to its destination, pushing it with its nose.
*** Grrr. Thanks a lot, NFL. “LET’S MAKE GIRLS’ FLAG FOOTBALL A VARSITY SPORT IN ALL 50 STATES.” (In one scene in the commercial with the usual tired girl-beats-misogynistic-boy theme: a high school girl catches a ball - one-handed - and fires it back at the guy who threw it, hitting him - where else? - in the balls. Remember a few years ago when they wouldn’t even run a commercial on the Super Bowl unless it had at least one kick-in-the-balls scene?)
*** The dudes in the cul-de-sac throw a party and - nyuk, nyuk - use leaf blowers to shoot cans of Bud Light. And who should show up at the end, hauling a wagonload of Bud Light? Why, it’s Mister “I’ll do anything for money” himself, Peyton Manning, whoring himself to try to persuade us that Bud Light is actually very masculine to drink and almost tastes like beer.
*** Jeep almost had the best commercial with Harrison Ford right until the very end when the last Jeep he showed us was electric.
*** The best commercial by far was the Stella Artois commercial in which David Beckham is told by his parents about something in his past - “we didn’t tell you you had a brother” - and he goes to the US and meets the long-lost (twin) brother - who turns out to be Matt Damon. Too bad that the spot cost them some $8 million, a sum that probably to hit their ad budget so hard that we’ll never see it again.
*** You know it’s an event more than it is a game and your crowd isn’t exactly what you’d call hard-core when you hear “Sweet Caroline.”
*** I guess when you’re aiming for a head coaching job in the NFL you can’t afford to be choosy, but I sure hope Kellen Moore knows what he’s doing, leaving the Eagles (as their OC) to take the Saints’ job.
*********** As proof that Deion Sanders reads this page… on the very day that I brought my QUIZ subject to the attention of my millions of readers, Coach Prime got the bright idea to hire him as his running backs coach. Coincidence? I think not!
*********** John Madden once said, "Gary Fencik played football at Yale; that’s like saying clean dirt.”
I get it. An oxymoron.
Okay, okay. So there haven’t been that many Yalies that played pro football. The explanation is simple - most of us old Yalies snubbed pro football and went instead for the big bucks of Wall Street.
Actually, in the days before pro football became THE sport, and NFL salaries skyrocketed, that was literally true.
There was a time when Yale football was as good as it got. To meet public demand for tickets, the Yale Bowl was built in 1914. It seated 70,000 people - largest stadium in the world at the time - and to fill it, Yale reached out to such schools as North Carolina, Maryland and Georgia.
The Tar Heels were no problem. From 1919-1924, Yale went 6-0 against UNC. The Terps weren’t much tougher: Yale went 7-2-1 against them from 1921-1930. When it came to Bulldog against Bulldog - Georgia - Yale had a slight 5-4 edge from 1923-1931.
But that was then. The NFL was a rag-tag operation, and to college graduates with any decent job prospects, it was for hooligans, and little more than a chance to pick up a few bucks on the side.
After World War II, though, just as playing pro football began to become attractive financially, the Ivy League got under way in 1956, and Yale and the rest of the Ivy schools officially de-emphasized all sports.
De-emphasis meant, among other things, the elimination of athletic scholarships, which, in addition to the schools’ already-high academic standards, meant that most good football players went elsewhere.
As a result, in a 30-year span after I graduated from Yale in 1960, there were just seven Yalies who went on to have NFL careers:
Gary Fencik - Defensive Back - Bears 1976-1987
Calvin Hill - Running Back - Cowboys, Hawaii (WFL), Redskins, Browns 1969-1981
Dick Jauron - Defensive Back - Lions 1973-1980
Chuck Mercein - Running Back - Giants, Packers, Jets 1965-1970
Mike Pyle - Center - Bears 1961-69
Jeff Rohrer - Linebacker - Cowboys 1982-1987
John Spagnola - Tight End - Eagles, Seahawks, Packers 1979-1989
(Mike Pyle was a year behind me, and was a teammate my junior and senior years. His reputation preceded him - he was a Chicago-area kid, and all the Chicago guys on the team - and they were many - knew about him. He more than lived up to his billing. He was easily the best player on our team - maybe in the entire Ivy League.
He would go on to be the Bears’ starting center and their captain. For years, he and Mike Ditka were roommates on road trips. But still, coming from an Ivy League school, his success in the NFL was no sure thing at first.
“They gave me a little needling about being a ‘Yale boy,’ ” he told Richard Whittingham in “Bears in Their Own Words”. “They’d give me a little extra shot in practice, then they’d kid me. Eventually, they kind of said this guy’s not a bad football player. He’s standing up and taking it, so maybe he’s not a Yale wimp.”
Mike Pyle died in 2015. This past Saturday, we lost Dick Jauron. From what I heard, he died of cancer - one week after being diagnosed.
He was a quiz subject back in May, 2022…
This is not about the father, a native of Nashua, New Hampshire, who played halfback at Boston College when the Eagles, coached by Frank Leahy, were a national power. He played in two consecutive major bowl games - the 1940 Cotton Bowl and the 1941 Sugar Bowl - and after WW II service in the Army Air Corps, he embarked on a long career as a football coach. It was 1950, while he was coaching at Manual Training High in Peoria, Illinois that his third son - our guy - was born.
By the time the son started grade school, Dad was head coach at St. Joseph’s College, in Rensselaer, Indiana, where in 1956 he was named Small College Coach of the Year.
And by the time the son entered high school, the family had moved back to New England, and the son was playing football at Swampscott, Massachusetts High.
He had an outstanding high school career as a running back and defensive back and as a senior he was a Parade Magazine All-American. He has since been listed among the all-time top-ten Massachusetts high school football players by the Boston Globe.
He played college football at Yale, where (freshman not yet being eligible to play varsity sports) he was named All-Ivy three straight years, the first Yale player ever to be so honored. He had 16 games of over 100 yards rushing and gained 2,947 yards in his career.
In his senior year he was Ivy League Player of the Year and was also named Best College Football Player in New England.
He was a three-year letterman on the baseball team and was a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete.
He was drafted as a shortstop by the St. Louis Cardinals but he was also drafted in the fourth round (the 91st pick) by the Detroit Lions, with whom he signed.
A starter as free safety in his rookie year, he was named to the Pro Bowl in his second season. He played five years with the Lions and three with the Bengals. Playing in exactly 100 games, he intercepted 25 passes - returning one of the 95 yard for a TD - returned 44 punts for 47 yards (10.2 average) and 19 kickoffs for 426 yards (22.4 average).
In 1985 he was hired by the Bills as the defensive backfield coach, then spent eight years in Green Bay as the Packers’ DB coach.
In 1995 he was named defensive coordinator of the new Jacksonville Jaguars. After an initial 4-12 season under Tom Coughlin, the Jags went 31-17 and made the NFL playoffs three straight years, and that was enough to get our guy the Chicago Bears’ head coaching job.
Replacing Dave Wannstedt, he went 6-10 and 5-11 in his first two seasons, but then in 2001 he took the Bears to a 13-3 season and was named AP Coach of the Year. (In the long history of the Chicago Bears’ franchise, only three other coaches - George Halas, Mike Ditka and Lovie Smith) have taken the club to 13 wins in a season. After five years with the Bears, he was 35-45, and he was out of work.
Hired as DC by the Lions, he finished a season as interim head coach after Steve Mariucci was fired, and then was hired as head coach by the Buffalo Bills, where he went 7-9 for three straight seasons.
After that, he spent three season as defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns before retiring to his native Swampscott.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
RIP, Dick Jauron.
*********** Super Bowl Sunday is also Puppy Bowl Sunday.
We had it on another screen, and I have to admit that in many ways it was more enjoyable to watch than the football game.
And Chiefs’ fan or not, you had to be happy with the outcome: every single one of the puppies in the “game” wound up being adopted.
*********** Delaware state 3A football champion Middletown High School is under investigation by the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association (DIAA) for possible violations of eligibility rules tied to a player’s residence.
The DIAA has received information implying that several players on Middletown’s championship team may not have actually resided within the Middletown School District.
Perhaps coincidentally, Middletown is one of two schools - Salesianum (of Wilmington) is the other - that led all other Delaware high schools in the number of new transfers at the start of the school year. (Salesianum is a private, Catholic, all-boys school.)
A prediction: if the DIAA is like most state associations, and Middletown is guilty as charged, Middletown will receive a stern letter warning it not to do such things again and stating that any future occurrences could result in their receiving another stern letter.
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/sports/high-school/2025/01/31/diaa-examining-player-eligibility-at-state-football-champ-middletown-high-school/78064474007/
*********** It’s obvious how little experience Bill Belichick has had with college guys, and what they say on social media - yet. Otherwise, why would he, now that he's a college coach, have shown up at a public event with an exhibitionistic woman/girlfriend/wife dressed for all the world like a stripper in search of a dancing pole?
The longtime coach seems to be acting like a monk who after 50 years in the monastery has renounced his vows and suddenly discovered women.
Oh - except that from the looks of those rings he's wearing, he never bothered with the vow of poverty. Hence the age of the woman on his arm.
In this giant departure from the norm of the college coach’s wife who’s looked upon respectfully by the players as if she were their mom away from home, I have a rough idea what 100 or so horny young North Carolina football players are going to be thinking (and, under their breath, saying) whenever this - um - “lady” shows up at practice.
Wouldn’t you love to be a sports writer assigned to the North Carolina football beat this season?
*********** Sports historians, in talking about what launched the NFL on its way to being our number one sport, like to talk about this star or that star, this coach or that, this team or that, this game or that, this style of offense or that.
But realistically, those things are all irrelevant to one single fact: football is the most telegenic of sports. It was made for TV: Its field is uniform in size and dimensions, it’s possible for viewers to follow the ball and - as important as anything - there are frequent and predictable stoppages of play, allowing for discussion of play and - most important of all - commercial breaks.
Consider that, and then consider this: in a span of just 10 years, the percentage of American homes with a TV set went from under nine per cent in 1950 to 95 per cent in 1960.
*********** Saying, ”Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years," President Trump took strong action Monday by firing the boards of visitors at the four U.S. service academies.
Most were appointees of the Biden administration.
The boards of visitors of the academies - The Military Academy in West Point, New York; the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut - are made up of lawmakers and presidential appointees and they have enormous say over how the academies are run.
Their role is to advise academy administrators responsible for educating our future officers on issues such as curriculum, student morale, academic methods and needs such as equipment and funding.
Lefties, predictably, are calling the President’s action a “purge,” when in actuality Biden did the same thing on taking office four years ago. In my opinion, considering the increasing evidence of rot at what should be some of our finest institutions, this step was absolutely called for in fulfilling the President’s pledge to reform our military.
https://nypost.com/2025/02/10/us-news/trump-mass-fires-military-academies-board-of-visitors-in-purge-of-woke-leftist-ideologues/
*********** I read an article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal about an app called TouchTunes, which basically enables a person to arrange, remotely, for songs to play on selected jukeboxes in something like 65,000 different bars and restaurants in the US and elsewhere. Players with the app are charged by the song and, I assume, by the number of places where they want the songs played. And since they could find their song waiting in a queue behind songs ordered by other TouchTunes users, they can pay extra for what’s called “Fast Pass,” which allows them to move their song to the front of the line.
What’s this got to do with football? Evidently, back when Tennessee was playing against Ohio State in The Playoff, some guy in Knoxville arranged for jukeboxes around Columbus to keep playing “Rocky Top.”
*********** I always assumed that most of the foreign aid went to African warlords and Hamas, who would take their cut before a starving child was fed.
I'm actually more offended to find out that the money instead went to all of the worst people in DC. Mike Cernovich
*********** And what, prithee, does the Sage of Baltimore know about anything? Certainly not the difference between a rose and a cabbage. Nope, the Sage had about everything correct. Too bad he isn't around to describe how to execute a proper Wedge.
Incidentally, between the last Zoom and today's story of the little guy wearing the Saquon jersey...and throw in the respect for Jason--you're making it awfully hard to root against the Eagles.
Speaking of respect, greatest respect to you for your handling of Coach Lude's views on Homer Smith.
By my count, you spent 33 minutes on "Fly Eagles Fly'. That deviation from the normal Zoom was worth it.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
When we first moved to Baltimore (not long after I got out of college) I was amazed at the number of people who spoke of H. L. Mencken as if they were on close terms with him. I still hold Baltimore in fond regard. How many cities nurture and admire such a person?
(But I honestly doubt that he could tell me as much about the Wedge as the great Charlie Caldwell, of Bristol - the Virginia side,
As I kept finding renditions of “Fly Eagles Fly” I found myself being pulled back into Philadelphia, and I began to realize how fortunate I was to have grown up in that city. Its unique character endures, maybe because (I suspect) its population contains fewer people “from away” (as Mainers say) than any other major city. The fact that its crazy accent endures, while those of other regions have become homogenized, is a great example of that. Philadelphians’ devotion to their Iggles (and their other teams, too) is reflective, I think, of the fact that they CARE and they’re not afraid to let it be known that they do. They are not humdrum people. Things MATTER to them, including their opinions. They are passionate about those things - all in - and they’ll let you know it. That doesn’t always ingratiate them to outsiders who just don’t understand that there can be people like that, but as the song goes, “we’re from Philly, F—kin’ Philly - no one likes us, we don’t care.” It’s almost tribal.
I will add that although Philadelphians may seem insular, they warmly welcome outsiders who accept them as they are and are “all in” type people themselves. A few examples: Richie Ashburn; Jason Kelce; Tommy McDonald; Vai Sikahema; Tom Brookshier.
*********** Hugh,
Related to your QUIZ this week...in 1977 I attended and watched coach Claude Gilbert bring his high flying INDEPENDENT 16th ranked San Diego State Aztecs into Fresno for a matchup with Jim Sweeney's eventual PCAA Champion Bulldogs. The Aztecs were led by RB David Turner, WR's Ronnie Smith and Dennis Pearson, and TE Don Warren (all future NFL players). Sweeney's Bulldogs were led on offense by option QB wizard Dean Jones, and FS Bob Glazebrook (NFL) on defense. In front of the largest most raucous crowd (16,000 at that time) for an FSU football home game at old Ratcliffe Stadium the Bulldogs option offense and suffocating defense handily beat the Aztecs 34-14 for the only loss SDSU would suffer that season. It was only Sweeney's second year at the helm of the Bulldogs, and last year of playing a mixed large school/small school schedule. It was because of THAT game Fresno State initiated the building of current Bulldog Stadium modeled after Oregon's Autzen Stadium. The field at Bulldog Stadium was later named Jim Sweeney Field.
Saw something on FOX News this morning that irked me. They interviewed Joe Theismann regarding the Super Bowl, and identified him as a former Super Bowl Quarterback for the Washington Commanders. Uh, correction FOX News, Joe Theismann was NEVER a QB with the Washington Commanders. He was the QB for the Washington REDSKINS!!
Which brings me to the discussion of how some media talking heads insist that the Nebraska Cornhuskers bowl wins when Tom Osborne was their coach should be considered BIG 10 wins?? Uh, NOT! At THAT time they were members of the Big 12 (or Big 8)!
Why is it that NFL booth announcers hardly ever let us know where players attended college?
Next year's ND schedule: AT Miami FL; OFF; Texas A&M HOME; Purdue HOME; AT Arkansas; Boise State HOME; NC State HOME; USC HOME; OFF; AT Boston College; Navy HOME; AT Pittsburgh; Syracuse HOME; AT Stanford.
I support your son Ed's prediction that the NFL game in Melbourne will be a sellout. Aussies LOVE American "Gridiron", and amateur clubs continue to sprout down under.
Enjoy the weekend, and the GAME!!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe,
You really hit the spot. In the same way as the Soviets making people disappear from history, ESPN and the phonies in Big Phootball are trying to make the Redskins disappear. Grrrr.
They don’t identify colleges because the NFL considers the colleges to be competitors (instead of their cost-free minor leagues).
Do you get the idea that I consider the NFL to be a subversive organization?
*********** QUIZ: Born and raised in New Orleans, he played football for the Carver High School Rams. Extremely fast (he also sprinted on the track team, and ran a 10.3 100 meters), he ran for 1,800 yards and 32 touchdowns in his last two years at Carver, and was highly recruited.
Because of his senior year performance as a defensive back (he intercepted 11 passes and returned six for touchdowns), colleges recruited him as a corner.
All except San Diego State. They accepted the fact that he wanted to be a running back, and they were the first college to recruit him solely as a runner. "I didn't love playing cornerback," he later told a magazine. "So I knew I wouldn't be as successful in that position. You have to really love what you do to be a star."
Would you call this being a star…
In his second game - his first start - he rushed for 386 yards - then an NCAA record - on 37 carries, and scored seven touchdowns. For the season, he rushed for 1,429 yards and 21 touchdowns, and became just the third freshman (after Tony Dorsett and Herschel Walker) to be named to the AP All-America Team.
In his career as an Aztec, he was a three-time All-American, a winner of a WAC Offensive Player of the Year award, and a three-time Heisman Trophy finalist. His 148 yards per game and his 180.5 all-purpose yards per game (he was also a good receiver) still rank him in the top 10 in college football history.
He was taken by the Indianapolis Colts as the second player overall in the 1994 NFL Draft.
Would you call this being a star…
In his first game his rookie year, he rushed for 143 yards and three touchdowns against the Houston Oilers.
That season, he rushed for 1,282 yards 11 TDs, and caught 52 passes for 522 yards and a touchdown, and was named Rookie of the Year. He was named to the Pro Bowl, and became the first rookie ever to be named MVP of the game.
Although hampered by a toe injury his third season, in four of his first five seasons he rushed for at last 1,000 yards, and caught 297 passes for 2,804 yards.
After five years in Indianapolis, he was traded to the St. Louis Rams , and in his first season with his new team he helped take them to a Super Bowl title. He became just the second player in NFL history to go over 1,000-yards in both rushing and receiving, and his 2,429 total yards were a new NFL record. He was named the NFL Offensive Player of the Year - for what would be the first of three straight seasons.
In his second year with the Rams, he led the NFL in both scoring and touchdowns, and he was named the NFL Most Valuable Player.
After nine years in which he’d missed the 1,000-yard mark just once, he slipped - to 953 yards in 2002. That was followed by seasons of declining performance: 818, 773 and 292 yards respectively, and after undergoing knee surgery and missing an entire season, he announced his retirement in March of 2007.
Would you call this being a star?
He was the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year three times, and its MVP once.
He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 1999, 2000 and 2001 and he was named second-team All-Pro in 1994, 1995 and 1998. He was also named All-AFC twice and All-NFC three times, and was named to seven Pro Bowls. In one of those Pro Bowls - his first, as a rookie - he was MVP.
He was the first player in NFL history to gain 2,000 yards from scrimmage for four straight seasons (1998-2001)
At the time of his retirement, his 12,279 yards rushing ranked as the ninth-best all-time among. He scored 100 touchdowns on the ground, and in addition, he had 767 career receptions for 6,875 yards and 36 touchdowns.
His 19,154 total yards from scrimmage - rushing and receiving - was sixth best all-time.
He rushed for 100 or more yards in 38 games and in three games he rushed for more than 200 yards And he had eight games in which he had 100 yards or more receiving.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
I’d say he was a star.
In addition to establishing a foundation for underprivileged youth and the Boys to Men mentoring network, he has endowed a scholarship at San Diego State. He has also worked as an analyst on the NFL Network.
His son played football at Central Washington.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025 “Just because a rose smells
better than a cabbage doesn't mean that a rose will make better soup.”
H.L. Mencken************ Wisdom from Mike Lude: I had accepted the offer to be Colorado State head coach in December 1961 after a superb apprenticeship with Dave Nelson at three schools. When I arrived in Fort Collins, a town of about 25,000 (it’s about four times that size now) I was cautious but enthusiastic. In fact, it didn't take long for the Denver media to nickname me Mr. Enthusiasm.
The first challenge of taking over a football program where the previous coach was fired is finding the cause of the problem. That wasn't too difficult for me at CSU. Without demeaning the character or willingness of the talent of the squad, it was obvious too many of our players were lacking the ability to play at this level.
After getting a chance to assess the talent of the football players in spring practice, I had no doubts that we needed better athletes if we were going to turn the CSU program around. The recruiting done by my predecessors had fallen way down, and we needed a major overhaul. We had to upgrade the talent pool.
I asked two former Delaware players, quarterback Dan Miller and linebacker Jim Garvin, to help us in spring drills, and they were so unimpressed they decided not to stick around. MIller later became a successful head coach at Trinity College. Garvin took one look at the players and decided to attend law school. He soon became a successful attorney in Newark, Delaware. My top assistants would be Lou Baker, who had worked as an assistant at Illinois, as offensive coach; Paul Lanham, the Frosh coach at Dayton, as the End coach; and Bill Craver, a former Delaware lineman, as the line coach. I retained Joe Cribari from the former staff as freshman coach.
The year before I was hired at Colorado State the team had lost all 10 games, scoring just 74 points and giving up 249 points. I couldn't imagine we could be any worse than that. Wrong. We also went 0–10, scored 66 points and gave up 269. We were shut out three times, and in only two games did we score more than a single touchdown.
*********** No matter how Sunday’s Super Bowl turns out, the little guy in the Saquon Barkley jersey will be the big hero.
His name’s Trey Howard. He lives in Northeast Philadelphia, and he’s 10 years old.
He was in his dad’s car last Friday evening while Dad went into a store to buy some donuts, when suddenly all hell broke loose.
“Sounded like a missile was firing bullets, metal at my car, everyone else’s car,” his dad, Andre Howard, Jr. said. “You see a car on fire, a man walking on fire. It was just crazy.”
A jet plane had just crashed into the ground a short distance away.
As Dad backed up the car, Trey told his 2-year-old sister to get down, then covered her with his body. And then, said Dad, “I hear the glass shatter. I turn around, there's a piece of metal sticking out of my son's head from the plane.”
Trey was bleeding. A good samaritan helped Dad stop the bleeding, until a police officer arrived to rush Trey to the hospital, where he underwent emergency brain surgery.
That night, Dad said the family was told that their son might not survive - and that if he did there was a chance he might never walk again.
Fast-forward to the wonderful news that Trey may be on the road to recovery.
In a TV interview, Dad said that after Trey woke up, he remembered, "You told us to get down. I was just trying to help my sister ... next thing I know, I thought I died.”
And he had two questions:
First, “Daddy, did I save my sister?”
And second, “Daddy, what's today?”
“I was like, ‘Monday,” Dad said.
“OK, wait. We didn't play yesterday, did we?”
“No,” Dad said. “You didn't miss the Super Bowl.”
*********** President Donald Trump (gee, it’s nice to be able to type that, isn’t it?) will be in the SuperDome Sunday, the first sitting President to attend a Super Bowl game. When asked about that, Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce said it was a “great honor” to have the President there.
Oh, dear. Travis, as most of us know, has been hanging with a famous woman-who-must-remain-nameless, a woman who happens to have endorsed some Democrat female who made an unsuccessful run for the presidency. The woman happens to be extremely popular, so much so that her fans have formed something of a worshipful cult, and now, as a result of Travis’ seemingly benign comment, the cultists are coming out from under their rocks.
They’ve got nothing good to say about Travis Kelce, who demonstrated to them his unworthiness by saying something respectful about the Evil One, many of them even saying that as a result of his comments they’re now going to - get ready for this - root for the Eagles.
I don’t in any way presume to speak for Eagles’ fans anywhere, but I’m not sure that they will exactly welcome the wokesters. Knowing the love that Eagles’ fans have for Travis’ older bother Jason, their former All-Pro center, I have a feeling that if there’s any Chiefs player that they - sorta - like, it would be his younger brother Travis.
And if it’s any help to Travis, as his former fans jump ship - maybe his girlfriend, too - at least he’s now got me. I just watched a great show on Prime about Jason, and I really got to like the Kelce brothers. Jason seems like a great father to his little girls, and they sure like their “Uncle Trav.”
*********** You can’t get much more Philly than this… a Pep Rally/Parade Wednesday along the main street of Media, Pa, the county seat of Delaware County, just to the west of the city.
If you’ve got the time to watch the video, it’s very down-to-earth, and narrated by “The Philly Captain,” whose accent is very authentic Phiily. (Like all true Philadelphians, I once spoke that way too, I’m sure, but most of it’s rubbed off over the years.)
There’s a lot of green in the crowd. And be sure to notice all the Number 62 jerseys. That’s Jason Kelce. How many cities venerate a center?
https://youtu.be/nh_PV-Olq4g?si=dI9ce60WFXgbpwZ-
*********** FROM THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL FOUNDATION…
IRVING, Texas (Feb. 6, 2025) – Last night, Children's Hospital New Orleans announced it is being renamed the Manning Family Children's Hospital after a "transformational gift" from Archie and Olivia Manning and their sons Cooper, Peyton, and Eli.
"It's very hard to put into words, I mean, to have a hospital named after you," said Archie Manning. "This is not like making Second Team All-SEC or anything like that. We have such admiration for this hospital, the people, and the leadership. To do this for our family, it's one of the greatest things to have ever happened in my life.”
The hospital made the announcement last night ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans at a special event, "Louisiana Legacy," honoring Olivia, Archie, and the Manning family for their dedication to improving the health and well-being of children and families nationwide.
"The Mannings have always been leaders both on and off the field, with a deep desire to make a difference in the lives of others," said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. "Naming the hospital in their honor is a fitting tribute to their decades of service and dedication to countless communities across the country. Their transformational gift and adding their family name to the hospital will make an exponential impact on countless children and families in the region. We could not be prouder to celebrate this incredible milestone with Archie and his family.”
Archie, who has served on the NFF Board of Trustees since 1993 and as NFF Chairman since 2007, has continuously used his platform as one of the game's greatest legends to make an impact in the community. All three of his sons have followed in the footsteps of Archie and his wife Olivia as leaders in the community.
Eli (Ole Miss) and Peyton (Tennessee) were both honored as NFF National Scholar-Athletes. Peyton also claimed the NFF Campbell Trophy in 1998 as the top scholar-athlete in the nation. Both Archie (Ole Miss) and Peyton have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and Archie received the NFF Gold Medal, the organization's highest honor, in 2016 in recognition of his nationwide leadership.
"Without a doubt, I can say … renaming this hospital is our family's finest hour," Archie said at the event.
*********** Arch Manning, who hasn’t even been able to win the starting quarterback job at Texas yet, is the pre-season betting favorite to win next year’s Heisman.
*********** The NFL is going down.
Actually, it’s going Down Under. In 2026, the Los Angeles Rams will host a regular-season game in Melbourne, Australia - 7,000 miles from Los Angeles. Melbourne’s metro area population of more than 5 million people has surpassed that of Sydney to make it Australia’s largest, and its MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds) Stadium, which seats more than 100,000, is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.
Neither the date of the game or the Rams’ opponent has yet to be decided.
One hangup, besides the distance from the US (which will be the greatest of any regular-season NFL game so far) will be the extreme time difference - Melbournians will have to wake up early on a Monday morning in order for Americans to watch the game in prime time Sunday night.
(As a result, in Australia, American college football is more popular than the NFL, since our Saturday is their Sunday.)
Nevertheless, my son Ed, who has lived in Melbourne for 20 years and has dual citizenship, knows Melbourne sports and predicts a sellout. The Australian Ministry of Sports estimates that there are 1.5 million NFL fans in the country. Ed added that large numbers of Australians already fly to the US to watch NFL games, mostly in Los Angeles, San Francisco and, now, Las Vegas.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/02/05/nfl-to-play-in-australia-with-rams-as-home-team/
*********** In case you wondered about that Allstate commercial where some doofus brings a duck to be cooked at an Oregon tailgate…
The Oregon athletic department is being paid by Allstate for the use of the UO brand.
Allstate had similar deals with three different schools for commercials during the football bowl season: Oregon (the tailgate), West Virginia (the dumbasses who paint their chests but can’t even sit together in the correct order) and Alabama (the tool who greets Bama players and coaches as they come off the team bus by shouting “High Tide!”).
(All three schools, incidentally, lost their bowl games. Some people, John Canzano writes, are now referring to it as the “Allstate curse.”
Allstate is also running an ad back East - in ACC country (no, Stanford, that’s not you) that plays on the Duke-North Carolina rivalry: a young guy shows up at the door of his date’s house wearing a Duke shirt. The girl - and her family - are all wearing Carolina blue.
The point, we’re told: “Check first.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csKujUFfJog&t=6s
*********** Aesop’s Fable of the Fox and the Grapes…
A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox's mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.
The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.
Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.
"What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for."
And off he walked very, very scornfully.
Modern-day version
“I couldn't coach pro ball, because the way they practice, the way they go about it, I couldn't take it. As a man, and as a football enthusiast, and I care about the game.”
Deion Sanders
*********** A story about Manny Diaz (Duke coach), early in his career when he was an assistant to Chuck Amato…
MANNY DIAZ AND THE POOL TABLE
When Amato took over as head coach at N.C. State in 2000, he brought Diaz with him, calling him “one of the smartest individuals I’ve been around.” Diaz would be a graduate assistant for the Wolfpack the first two years, then linebackers coach before taking over the Pack’s safeties and special teams.
The players seemed to like Diaz, his methods and his enthusiasm in trying them. “Manny, he’s cool,” Wolfpack defensive back Marcus Hudson said at the time. “He’s young, he’s creative, he can relate to us. He doesn’t sit in the film room and preach the same things over and over. He tries different things.”
Like using a pool table. One day Diaz took his safeties to the players lounge at the Murphy Center, headed to the pool table and used pool balls to explain defensive and offensive sets. As Diaz explained it in 2004, it went something like: “We have two balls rolling across the formation. Who does the 13-ball have now? The 8-ball goes in motion. Where does the 13-ball go now? Who does the 13-ball have now?” Diaz called it a “different aspect of visual learning.” The players seemed to dig it and understood it. Who needs game film when you slide an 8-ball across the table? “It was still learning,” Hudson said then. “Coach Diaz knows the game. He can teach us.”
(Staff writer Chip Alexander covered NC State when Diaz was an assistant coach)
https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/acc/nc-state/article282825803.html#storylink=cpy
*********** I spent maybe half of my Zoom Tuesday night dealing with a huge problem that the NFL has - one that, because of embarrassment, teams simply won’t admit to having.
We medical professionals call it SYD - Short Yardage Dysfunction.
Its cause is mostly stubbornness - a refusal to admit that the short yardage game is a game within a game, and needs to be treated as such.
A team should have a short yardage specialist, with the same sort of access to “position” players that the special teams coach enjoys.
This is going to create a little bit of controversy, but what the hell - I’m going to say it: in the NFL, special teams are highly overrated. That old saw about special teams being one-third of the game?
As my grandmother used to say, “Not no more."
Kickoffs? In 2024 (I haven’t seen the stats) maybe a half dozen (out of more than 1,000) were returned for a touchdown. Maybe 1/3 were returned at all.
Punts? Maybe a half dozen punts (out of some 1,000) were returned for a touchdown. Most were fair caught. Once in a blue moon, a punt is blocked, and sometimes that results in a score.
Field goals/PATs? It’s a three-man operation. Once you’ve got that, you teach the blocking and the timing takes care of itself.
Special teams being 1/3 of the game? In what sense of the word?
Sure, it takes practice. But a special teams coordinator - and not a short-yardage coordinator?
Think of it…
How many drives are killed because teams either can’t make a yard or two - or they know they can’t, so they punt or kick a field goal?
How many drives that result in a field goal might have resulted in a touchdown?
How many more teams might attempt two-point conversions if they had more effective short yardage offenses?
How many teams lose games in the last two minutes because they simply can’t get 10 yards in four plays to run out the clock?
*********** Hi Hugh,
Loved this weeks Zoom ! Years ago our daughter lived in Abington and had a friend who worked in the Eagles Ticket office. She got us tickets in the club section and saw an Eagles Pats game. I don’t remember who won the game but that “Fly Eagles Fly” sung by 40 thousand people sure made an impression.
I have said for a long time now pro teams should have a short yardage coach and a short yardage team. The DW would be perfect with three or four run concepts and a pass or two would be nearly unstoppable.
“Fly Eagles Fly”
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
Jack is referring to the first half of the Zoom, when I tried to illustrate the way they Eagles have penetrated every aspect of society by showing “FLY EAGLES FLY” being sung at The Line (Lincoln Financial Field), by the 500,000 or so gathered at the 2018 Super Bowl celebration, being played and sung by assorted string bands (a uniquely Philly thing), being played by the prestigious Philadelphia orchestra, and by a group of Pennsylvania Dutchmen, singing in Pennsylvania Dutch (which is really a German dialect).
I didn’t have time to show Jason Kelce’s one-of-a-kind speech at the Super Bowl celebration in which, dressed as a mummer (another Philly thing), he cut loose in a way Philadlephians love, ending by leading the huge crowd in song:
(To the tune of “My Darling Clementine”)
No one likes us, No one likes us
No one likes us, We don’t care
We’re from Philly, F—kin’ Philly
No one likes us, We don’t care
*********** Hello Coach. Sorry to have missed class (Zoom) yesterday but as always appreciate you sending the recording. And man that Ivy League education shines thru. Good job spelling Eagles. And yes Eagles must win. I don’t want chiefs getting 3. My favorite team will always be the 1972 Miami Dolphins. I lived in the Orange bowl as a kid. Thanks for keeping the continuity of real football alive. My regards to the Wyatts. Take care.
Armando Castro
Richmond, Virginia
Coach Castro, a true Double Winger, is a native Miamian and a fan of the Dolphins and the U, but he’s pretty good about taking the arrows I occasionally direct at his Hurricanes.
*********** Coach:
I assume you're pretty familiar with Hack, given today's opening. I have a soft spot for the man. He was controversial for sure, but he was a courageous hardcore patriot who sacrificed his body over and over. Did you also know that for a time he hid out from the law not many miles from our General friend? He was a real man.
I wonder what Coach Lude meant about it coming back to Homer Smith...lack of sustained success as a head coach? On the other hand, as you've said on this site, Smith was one of the great offensive talents of recent times in CFB.
Thanks for the great reading.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
I knew both Homer Smith and Mike Lude. I knew Homer a little and I liked him. I knew Mike Lude well and I loved him. There were very few people that Mike couldn’t say something good about but Homer Smith was one of them. I suspect that Homer just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I was no one to try to convince Mike that maybe he was wrong on Homer Smith.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, Chuck Amato played high school football and wrestled at Easton Area High School. One of his high school classmates was future heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes, aka the “Easton Assassin.”
At North Carolina State, as he had in high school, he played football and wrestled. As a linebacker, he lettered for three years and helped lead the Wolfpack to a share of the ACC title as a sophomore. As a wrestler, he won two ACC titles, one as a heavyweight his sophomore year, and one at 191 his senior year.
He graduated from NC State with a BS in mathematics.
After two years as a high school assistant coach back in Easton, he returned to NC State as a graduate assistant. After two years as a G.A., during which he got his master’s degree, he was hired as a full-time assistant, and spent five more years at State, under Lou Holtz and then Bo Rein.
When the Wolfpack won the ACC title in 1969, Rein was hired by LSU, and Chuck Amato was hired at Arizona by Larry Smith.
He spent two years coaching linebackers at Arizona and then he was hired by Bobby Bowden at Florida State. He would stay there for eighteen years, the first four as defensive line coach, and the final 14 coaching first the defensive line and then linebackers, along with the additional title of “assistant head coach.”
In 2000, he became a head coach for the first time - at his alma mater, NC State. He had been an assistant for 29 years, and in all that time had coached at only two other places.
He won right out of the gate, going 8-4, 7-5, 11-3 and 8-5 in his first four years in Raleigh, and going 3-1 in bowl games. His 2002 team remains the greatest in Wolfpack history in terms of wins (11) and national ranking (12th), and culminated in a 28-6 Gator Bowl win over Notre Dame. It didn’t hurt that his quarterback all four years was Philip Rivers.
After Rivers left for the NFL, replacing him proved impossible. The Pack went 5-6 the first year, and then 7-5, and when they fell to 3-9 in 2006, dropping their last seven games in a row, Amato was fired.
His overall record at N.C. State was 49-37, and his record in bowl games was 4-1. The enthusiasm generated by his initial four-year run made possible an $87 million renovation of State’s Carter-Finlay Stadium.
It didn’t take long for Bobby Bowden to welcome him back, as linebacker coach and “executive assistant head coach” (whatever that means). He held that position for three years, until Bowden retired, but Bowden’s successor Jimbo Fisher chose not to retain him.
After two years out of coaching because of a bout with cancer of the neck and throat, he returned to coaching in 2012 at Akron, when Terry Bowden was hired there as head coach. He served as Bowden’s assistant head coach and defensive coordinator until he retired following the 2017 season.
PS: Chuck Amato was often referred to as “The Chest.” Everybody knew who it meant.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CHUCK AMATO
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
John Rothwell, Corpus Christi, Texas
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: Born and raised in New Orleans, he played football for the Carver High School Rams. Extremely fast (he also sprinted on the track team, and ran a 10.3 100 meters), he ran for 1,800 yards and 32 touchdowns in his last two years at Carver, and was highly recruited.
Because of his senior year performance as a defensive back (he intercepted 11 passes and returned six for touchdowns), colleges recruited him as a corner.
All except San Diego State. They accepted the fact that he wanted to be a running back, and they were the first college to recruit him solely as a runner. "I didn't love playing cornerback," he later told a magazine. "So I knew I wouldn't be as successful in that position. You have to really love what you do to be a star."
Would you call this being a star…
In his second game - his first start - he rushed for 386 yards - then an NCAA record - on 37 carries, and scored seven touchdowns. For the season, he rushed for 1,429 yards and 21 touchdowns, and became just the third freshman (after Tony Dorsett and Herschel Walker) to be named to the AP All-America Team.
In his career as an Aztec, he was a three-time All-American, a winner of a WAC Offensive Player of the Year award, and a three-time Heisman Trophy finalist. His 148 yards per game and his 180.5 all-purpose yards per game (he was also a good receiver) still rank him in the top 10 in college football history.
He was taken by the Indianapolis Colts as the second player overall in the 1994 NFL Draft.
Would you call this being a star…
In his first game his rookie year, he rushed for 143 yards and three touchdowns against the Houston Oilers.
That season, he rushed for 1,282 yards 11 TDs, and caught 52 passes for 522 yards and a touchdown, and was named Rookie of the Year. He was named to the Pro Bowl, and became the first rookie ever to be named MVP of the game.
Although hampered by a toe injury his third season, in four of his first five seasons he rushed for at last 1,000 yards, and caught 297 passes for 2,804 yards.
After five years in Indianapolis, he was traded to the St. Louis Rams , and in his first season with his new team he helped take them to a Super Bowl title. He became just the second player in NFL history to go over 1,000-yards in both rushing and receiving, and his 2,429 total yards were a new NFL record. He was named the NFL Offensive Player of the Year - for what would be the first of three straight seasons.
In his second year with the Rams, he led the NFL in both scoring and touchdowns, and he was named the NFL Most Valuable Player.
After nine years in which he’d missed the 1,000-yard mark just once, he slipped - to 953 yards in 2002. That was followed by seasons of declining performance: 818, 773 and 292 yards respectively, and after undergoing knee surgery and missing an entire season, he announced his retirement in March of 2007.
Would you call this being a star?
He was the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year three times, and its MVP once.
He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 1999, 2000 and 2001 and he was named second-team All-Pro in 1994, 1995 and 1998. He was also named All-AFC twice and All-NFC three times, and was named to seven Pro Bowls. In one of those Pro Bowls - his first, as a rookie - he was MVP.
He was the first player in NFL history to gain 2,000 yards from scrimmage for four straight seasons (1998-2001)
At the time of his retirement, his 12,279 yards rushing ranked as the ninth-best all-time among. He scored 100 touchdowns on the ground, and in addition, he had 767 career receptions for 6,875 yards and 36 touchdowns.
His 19,154 total yards from scrimmage - rushing and receiving - was sixth best all-time.
He rushed for 100 or more yards in 38 games and in three games he rushed for more than 200 yards And he had eight games in which he had 100 yards or more receiving.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
I’d say he was a star.
In addition to establishing a foundation for underprivileged youth and the Boys to Men mentoring network, he has endowed a scholarship at San Diego State. He has also worked as an analyst on the NFL Network.
His son played football at Central Washington.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2025 "If you find yourself in a
fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly.” David
Hackworth*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I had not been back in my hotel room long when I got a call from one of the players. He said a teammate was ill and asked me to come downstairs to the lobby to help figure out what to do. One of our major boosters, Stan Williams, was there, and we speculated that there had been some celebrating and the "sick" player was not ill at all.
When I got off the elevator, I was surprised to see the whole team waiting, wearing big grins. They grabbed me and pitched me into the hotel swimming pool, clothes and all. It was the kind of wet celebration I preferred for my athletes. Yes, they were excited. Some had been involved from the start of that lengthy string of setbacks. They were overdue for something other than heartbreak and head hanging.
Our next-door neighbor in Fort Collins, Ralph Kotich, and several of his buddies were so encouraged by the victory they decided to sneak a flask of booze into the home games and take a swig every time Colorado State scored a touchdown. This tradition would begin the next week against the Air Force Academy.
Unfortunately, Air Force whipped us, 69–0. Ralph told me the next day: "we gave up on you and decided to take a drink every time Air Force scored. We were feeling no pain.“
In that same game I found out what it feels like to have somebody run up the score. I lost a lot of respect for Ben Martin, the Air Force coach. Dominating us all afternoon wasn't enough for the Falcons. They not only scored on the final play of the game, they elected to go for a two-point conversion after time had run out.
Homer Smith, one of their assistants, tried to explain to me later in the dressing room that Martin was under pressure and “We needed to do something to maybe help him save his job.” I responded, "What about Mike Lude? What about his job?” In the emotion of the loss I told Homer, “Some day this will come back to you.” And it did.
*********** Canadian Taylor Elgersma got his chance at quarterback in Saturday’s Senior Bowl, and he didn’t disappoint. Elgersma, who played the 12-man Canadian game at Wilfrid Laurier University (in Waterloo, Ontario) got the call from the Senior Bowl when Ohio State’s Will Howard backed out. Seeing action in the third period, Elgersma showed that he could play under center or in shotgun, survive a blitz and still get a pass off, take a sack, show good footwork (if only fair speed) on a bootleg, throw on the run, and “drop a dime” - completing a high-arching 43-yard beauty.
It’s not as if Elgersma just fell off the turnip truck and found himself lost in the big city. While this was his first exposure to the American game, he had a leg up on his American counterparts in terms of exposure to professional coaching and professional competition. That’s because Canadian rules allow college players to attend CFL summer training camps, and he’s been through three of them - two with the Toronto Argonauts and one with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. In addition, he did have a little private coaching on the side from an American coach.
(CFL training camps start in May and don’t interfere in any way with college schedules. The CFL - and Canadian colleges - obviously see this as a way to develop more Canadian players for a league whose teams are limited in the number of American “imports” they’re allowed to carry on their rosters.)
Whether NFL people now consider him draft-worthy remains to be seen, but if he does wind up being drafted, he would be the first QB from a Canadian college to be drafted in 43 years - since 1982, when a player named Dan Ferraday was taken by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 12th round.
*********** It was pretty cool that Riley Leonard of Notre Dame and Duke, Duke, Duke (he played three years at Duke and just one year at Notre Dame) got to play in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, which is almost his hometown. He’s from Fair Hope, Alabama, which is about 20 miles from Mobile, and to welcome him back, his high school held a pep rally in his honor.
*********** Bet the farm on Alabama next year. In what at least one reporter has called the “least surprising news of the offseason,” Alabama has hired Ryan Grubb as its offensive coordinator, reuniting him and Bama head coach Kalen DeBoer.
It was Grubb who as Washington’s OC (along with Michael Penix and three of the best wide receivers you’ll ever see on the same college team) created an explosive offense that took the Huskies to last year’s national championship game.
When DeBoer was hired away by Alabama, Grubb chose to stay in Seattle as the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator, but one season was all it took for Seahawks’ first-year head coach Mike Macdonald to decide that Grubb wasn’t his man.
Tsk, tsk. Take that as Macdonald’s opinion, and not in any way an evaluation of Grubb’s worth.
Macdonald, a career defensive guy with one year’s experience as a head coach and just three as a coordinator, still has plenty to prove.
Grubb, on the other hand, has spent much of his career with DeBoer as his OC at Sioux Falls, Fresno State and Washington, and they’ve enjoyed considerable success together.
DeBoer does have one slight issue: this past season, Bama had co-offensive coordinators; they made a combined salary of $2.45 million, and they’re both on multi-year contracts.
But what the hell. It’s only money. “High Tide!”
************ I wrote an article on Friday stating that there may not be a better instance anywhere of a sports team’s ability to knit together the widely varied (and often at odds with each other) components of a major metropolitan area than the Philadelphia Eagles and the greater Philly area..
I included a link to film of a celebration of an Eagles’ win at the intersection of Frankford and Cottman Avenues in the Mayfair section of the city - not that far, coincidentally, from the Frankford section of Philly, where the forerunners of the present-day Eagles, the Frankford Yellow Jackets, once represented the area in the NFL.
Also not that far - and less than a mile - it turns out, from the scene at Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard (in “Philly tawk” it’s either “ROSE-a-velt Boulevard” or simply “The Boulevard”), where a medevac jet crashed right after takeoff, killing seven people, injuring many others, and destroying several homes.
My wife and I, knowing the area fairly well, watched all the stuff on TV, especially saddened that two of those killed were a little girl and her mother. The little girl had just spent four months in a Philadelphia hospital and, evidently cured, was on her way back home to Mexico.
Philadelphia is a city of a great number of distinct “sections,” many of them still very tight-knit and still based on ethnic - mostly Irish, Italian and Polish - closeness, as is Mayfair, where the plane crash occurred.
A number of the people we heard interviewed mentioned the Eagles, and said it was especially sad that the plane crash and the pain it was causing the community had come at a time when everyone was so happy at the thought of the Eagles playing in the Super Bowl.
*********** As all-star games continue to lose their luster, one thing I won’t miss is the stupid sharing of helmet decals that results in, say, a kid from NC State with a Miami “U” on one side of his helmet and a Syracuse “S” on the other.
It sure would piss me off if I had donated money to a collective so it could pay a player a million or so to “represent” us, and then, after the guy was selected to play in an all-star game - on national television - the dumbass went and took our decals off his helmet.
*********** Considering some of the stuff I’m hearing from Belichick now that he’s a college coach, I find myself wishing he was back in the NFL, stiffing reporters with mumbling one-word answers to their questions.
I’m pretty sure he was joking - bet you didn’t know he could do that, did you? - when he suggested that since coaches can’t win Super Bowls without players, instead of awarding the Super Bowl winner the Lombardi Trophy, “Maybe they should name it the Brady Trophy. He won seven of them.”
Thanks, Bill. Uh, shouldn’t you be watching film or texting high school players?
*********** Sent to me by longtime wing-T/Double Wing coach Mark Kaczmarek, of Davenport Iowa, who says, “Looks like 88-O to me.”
https://x.com/CoachDanCasey/status/1886498719106748899
I’d have to say Coach Kaz is spot-on.
*********** The Stanley Cup-winning Florida Panthers visit the White House. (Look at all the red ties.)
*********** Chip Kelly’s headed to Las Vegas to be the Raiders’ offensive coordinator.
Why? you ask.
In order of importance (my opinion):
No need to teach the offense to a new roster every year; the players you need/want are locked in by contract.
No recruiting.
Tens of thousands of rabid Buckeyes fans, a large percentage of which, win or lose, live to make a coach’s life miserable.
More money. (Actually, maybe I should move this one up higher on the list after reading that John Canzano says he’s going to be paid SIX MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR TO CALL PLAYS!!!!!)
Concerning Chip Kelly’s value to Pete Carroll, Canzano also notes:
The 2009 season was Carroll’s final year at USC and Kelly’s first season at Oregon as the head coach.
Remember the 2009 USC vs. Oregon game?
The Ducks clobbered the Trojans 47-20. At the time, it was the most points that Oregon had ever scored vs. USC in more than 50 meetings. It was also the most points that a Carroll-coached team had ever given up in a football game. The next season, Carroll left for the NFL to be coach of the Seahawks.
*********** Early in my first career, not long after graduating from college, I sold corrugated packaging for a large paper company called Union-Camp. It was a southern company. Its largest mill was in Savannah, and a lot of its higher-ups were southerners.
Southerners, in writing and in speech, have always fascinated me with their facility with the English language, and one of them whom I greatly admired was a company vice-president named Jerome Pinckney.
He was a South Carolinian, and I think I recall his saying that he was descended from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a general in Washington’s army and a signer of the Constitution.
He was an impressive man. He was big. He had played tackle for Georgia just before the War. (World War II.)
He was educated and eloquent - great with words - and I loved to listen to his low-country accent.
I was reminded of him recently when I read something about tariffs, and the fact that items under a certain value were considered “de minimis.”
I studied Latin for five years, and I know what it means, but any time I hear it I think of Jerome Pinckney.
I don’t know what he was talking about, but he used the phrase. Then, realizing that he might be talking over the heads of some of his audience, he paused and said, “That’s Latin for ‘too small to f—k with.’”
*********** Now, look - YOU know that Saquon Barkley is the league’s MVP, and so do I.
But we both know he won’t win the award.
After all, the running game - and the running back position - has been so devalued that no running back has been the MVP since Adrian Peterson in 2012.
Suppose Barkley should run for 250 yards and three touchdowns in the Super Bowl?
Won’t make a bit of difference. You see, the NFL MVP has already been chosen - by a panel of sportswriters who made their choice AFTER the end of the regular season but BEFORE the playoffs.
That means that it could very well go to either Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, both good players, but neither one with any involvement in Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Given the importance the NFL (and TV) place on the damn playoffs, shouldn’t performance in the post-season be a factor in determining the MVP?
*********** Q: My coaches are unsure about flipping players instead of the traditional left guard and right guard etc., They feel it may be more complicated for players although I think the opposite. I personally am concerned with good coaches catching on to having the same numbered lineman on the side you run to. What are thoughts in regards to these concerns?
A. Who says you’re going to be running to the “side you run to?” Can’t you run a counter?
It cuts your teaching time in half because you don’t have to teach a play to the right and then teach everybody a different assignment when you run it to the left. You teach the same assignment, and that’s it - whether you’re running the play right or left.
It makes things MUCH easier for players because they learn ONE assignment for each play, which they use to the right or to the left. I have NEVER had a lineman who didn’t prefer flipping.
Your best runner will always be the guy running your best play, with the best possible blocking - in either direction. Isn’t that better than not being as good to one side as to the other?
If a defense is noticeably weaker on one kid than the other, you have the ability to put your best people up against their weakest - or else force them to flip-flop along with you, forcing them to play an unfamiliar position.
Even If defenses were know what you were doing, what would they do with that info? In preparing for you, are they going to teach their kids to flip-flop? In just three days’ time?
I can’t coach your team. I can only share my experience. But I would caution your staff members not to get too set in their ways. Unless you have been quite successful, they shouldn’t be at all resistant to an idea that might make you better just because they have no experience with it. I was plenty experienced myself - over 75 - when I found that flip-flopping worked for me.
*********** The Canadian kid going to the Senior Bowl? The globalists in the world of CFB making a statement? Maybe, but could be also that the Bowl committee couldn't find any real seniors left in the US.
I ain't feeling charitable today. Morons like the dummy climbing the greased light pole...go for it. Pay the price for stupidity. And Mr. Genius Nyzier Fourquerean, you too, pal, grow up and discover you're the only one who sees dollar signs in your NIL future.
Answer = Chuck Amato. Time does fly...I watched him on FSU sidelines as head coach of NCSU, but had forgotten that must've been 20 years ago.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I was touched by the Black Lion legacy story, and at the same time reminded of what an old fart I am!
Like Mr. Mike Lude many of us have been on both sides of that win/loss fence, and for some of us…further away from it on the loss side!
I just have a really hard time understanding “fans”. As much as I cherish ND (and have since I was a kid), and known to have partaken in beverage celebrations every so often, finding poles to climb to show my support has not been something I would ever try to accomplish.
I became more familiar with the Wing-T while serving as an assistant at Columbus Academy in ‘08. So much so I attended the National Wing-T Clinic in Pittsburgh, and heard Randy Blankenship. He was considered a Wing-T guru on the West Coast (California). Ever hear of him? I picked up some good stuff from him I was able to marry with the DW.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Randy Blankenship was famous for what I guess he called the “Fool Me” Drill: His backs stayed after practice and ran plays while he stood on the other side of the line of scrimmage. They could go in when their execution of plays was so good that they had fooled him a specified number of times.
*********** QUIZ: Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, he played high school football and wrestled at Easton Area High School. One of his high school classmates was future heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes, aka the “Easton Assassin.”
At North Carolina State, as he had in high school, he played football and wrestled. As a linebacker, he lettered for three years and helped lead the Wolfpack to a share of the ACC title as a sophomore. As a wrestler, he won two ACC titles, one as a heavyweight his sophomore year, and one at 191 his senior year.
He graduated from NC State with a BS in mathematics.
After two years as a high school assistant coach back in Easton, he returned to NC State as a graduate assistant. After two years as a G.A., during which he got his master’s degree, he was hired as a full-time assistant, and spent five more years at State, under Lou Holtz and then Bo Rein.
When the Wolfpack won the ACC title in 1969, Rein was hired by LSU, and our guy was hired at Arizona by Larry Smith.
He spent two years coaching linebackers at Arizona and then he was hired by Bobby Bowden at Florida State. He would stay there for eighteen years, the first four as defensive line coach, and the final 14 coaching first the defensive line and then linebackers, along with the additional title of “assistant head coach.”
In 2000, he became a head coach for the first time - at his alma mater, NC State. He had been an assistant for 29 years, and in all that time had coached at only two other places.
He won right out of the gate, going 8-4, 7-5, 11-3 and 8-5 in his first four years in Raleigh, and going 3-1 in bowl games. His 2002 team remains the greatest in Wolfpack history in terms of wins (11) and national ranking (12th), and culminated in a 28-6 Gator Bowl win over Notre Dame. It didn’t hurt that his quarterback all four years was Philip Rivers.
After Rivers left for the NFL, replacing him proved impossible. The Pack went 5-6 the first year, and then 7-5, and when they fell to 3-9 in 2006, dropping their last seven games in a row, our guy was fired.
His overall record at N.C. State was 49-37, and his record in bowl games was 4-1. The enthusiasm generated by his initial four-year run made possible an $87 million renovation of State’s Carter-Finlay Stadium.
It didn’t take long for Bobby Bowden to welcome him back, as linebacker coach and “executive assistant head coach” (whatever that means). He held that position for three years, until Bowden retired, but Bowden’s successor Jimbo Fisher chose not to retain him.
After two years out of coaching because of a bout with cancer of the neck and throat, he returned to coaching in 2012 at Akron, when Terry Bowden was hired there as head coach. He served as Bowden’s assistant head coach and defensive coordinator until he retired following the 2017 season.
PS: He was often referred to as “The Chest.” Everybody knew who it meant.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2025
“Give me a 75% idea executed at 100% instead of a 100% idea
executed
at 75%." Phil Marineau, former North American Marketing Chief,
PepsiCo*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: My head coaching career started off like a Boeing jetliner taxiing halfway to San Francisco before it finally got off the ground.
By the start of my second season I had achieved the distinction of coaching the college football team with the longest current losing streak in the country – twenty-six games without success. Yes, it was something I'd just as soon forget, and, no, it was not a situation I ever could have imagined when I became the head coach at Colorado State University.
The squad I inherited at Fort Collins in 1962 had been drubbed, thumped, and hammered for sixteen consecutive defeats before I arrived. I tacked ten more defeats onto the streak in my rookie head coaching season (1961) before we found a team we could beat.
Finally, on a warm September night in Stockton, California, I reached that milestone first victory as a head coach, when Colorado State defeated University of the Pacific, 20–0.
Losing was not something I found easy to tolerate. As a player and an assistant coach at three different universities, all of the teams had been successful. Even back in high school in Vicksburg, Michigan, we won most of our games. Going out and getting beat up for ten consecutive Saturdays was difficult to stomach. For the first time I could identify with what other coaches who were mired in losing streaks – even two or three games – had felt when they said they didn't think they'd ever win again. In my case, since my record was 0–10 I kind of wondered if I'd ever win, period.
What perplexed me was how my team reacted when the losing streak ended. If there was any sort of a big celebration or emotional expression – even relief – it wasn't apparent in our locker room in Stockton. It wasn't what I had expected.
We had just put an end to Football's most enduring period of disgrace, so where's the whooping and hollering?
*********** From behind the pay wall at The Athletic comes the story of Taylor Elgersma, the first quarterback from a Canadian College (where they play 12-man football) to play in the Senior Bowl (this Saturday, in Mobile). He’s big, and I hear that he’s got a big arm, but while I’d rather not ruin a good story, there are big guys with big arms all over FBS, much of FCS, and a lot of Division II and unlike Taylor Elgersma, they’ve been playing 11-man football since they were little. Elgersma, on the other hand, has been playing a game with 12 men to a side, multiple men in motion, three downs to get ten yards, on a MUCH wider field - and against competition that would struggle to compete at the FCS level.
And, although this is not considered a strong quarterback draft class, he’s still going up against the likes of Jaxson Dart, Dillon Gabriel, Riley Leonard and Jalen Milroe.
************ Say this for the Philadelphia Eagles - there may not be a better instance anywhere of a sports team’s ability to knit together the widely varied (and often at odds with each other) components of a major metropolitan area.
A local personality of sorts who calls himself The Philly Captain shot some scenes of the ad hoc celebration Sunday evening following the Eagles’ defeat of the Washington Team Formerly Known as the Redskins.
In his unique unique Philly accent - a sort of cockney - he shows, as the game winds to an end, how the celebration begins, at the intersection of Frankford and Cotton Avenues in the Mayfair section of the city. It’s not that far, coincidentally, from the Frankford section of Philly, where the forerunners of the present-day Eagles, the Frankford Yellow Jackets, once represented the area in the NFL.
Win or lose, the cops obviously expected some action, because the streets have been blocked off, and as the game ends, the streets begin to fill with people.
The location is the center of an old, working-class neighborhood, sort of at the dividing line where the North Philly ghetto gives way to the traditionally white “Northeast,” and for a city that once was as segregated as any place in the South ever was, the crowd is remarkably mixed racially.
The video is fairly long, but to me it’s a lot of fun seeing “my people” having a street party, Dressed in all sorts of Eagles’ apparel, there’s dancing, singing (“Fly, Eagles Fly”), and, yes, drinking. Every few minutes somebody starts to spell out “Eagles” (E-A-G-L-E-S, if you’re reading this, Madam Mayor), and everywhere you hear “Go Birds!”
And, as the alcohol and testosterone reach critical levels, there’s pole climbing. Downtown (“Center City”) it gets really bad, with crazy yahoos jumping up and down on the crossbeams holding traffic lights.
Since climbing the poles is obviously dangerous, somebody at City Hall decided to be proactive and grease them before big Eagles’ games. There. That ought to put a stop to pole climbing, right?
Well, no. Never underestimate the power of alcohol. Now, it simply means that celebrants climb poles that are far slipperier, which means they’re much slower going up - but much faster coming down. Which is what happened Sunday evening to a Temple University student who - not in any way suggesting that alcohol was involved in his case - came down way too fast, and died from his injuries two days later.
Despite that tragedy, the truly amazing thing is how peaceful and joyful things are overall.
Actually, it’s kind of scary. Too much fun and not enough violence can give people the wrong idea about Philly fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eRqv_qboN4
*********** Bill Belichick may or may not have had anything to do with it - they say the decision was made “in consultation” with him - but this week North Carolina began converting its football field back to natural grass.
The whole deal, we are told, will require the installation of 67,000 square feet of sod, with another 36,000 square feet of articifial turf around the perimeter of the field.
*********** The ACC attained a good bit of stability Thursday with the announcement by ESPN and the conference that the network was picking up its option to continue showing ACC games until 2036.
*********** The Black Lion Award, which dates to 2001, may have achieved a milestone when an Illinois youth program presented its Black Lion Award to a player whose dad won it in 2001.
The youngster’s coach, Richard Barski, of Roselle, Illinois, explained:
Coach,
Please see attached picture of our Black Lion award, this is the legacy player with his dad and the coaches. To remind you, Jeff Ball was the Black Lion recipient in 2001 while playing for coach John Urbaniak on the Hanover Park Hurricanes.
This season he recruited Coach John (Urbaniak) to be our offensive coordinator and bring the Black Lion award to the Bloomingdale Bears. Brandon, Jeff’s son, displayed all the qualities of a Black Lion on and off the field, it was a great honor to name Brandon for this award.
During our varsity end of the year banquet, we had Coach John give the history of Don Holleder and the Black Lion award.
Jeff, being a Black Lion, was designated to be the coach to present the award and did not know who the recipient was beforehand. As he read aloud from the certificate, he saw Brandon’s name and gleamed with pride, making this the first legacy Black Lion award given out.
It was a great honor for me to carry on the tradition of this award, and as a head coach to give my boys another example of how to carry themselves throughout their lifetime.
Coaches' names from left to right Jeffery Ball (Assistant Coach), John Urbaniak (Offensive Coordinator), Brandon Ball (2024 Black Lion), Richard Barski (Head Coach, Michael Mazza (Defensive Coordinator).
Dad and son - both Black Lions. Jeff Ball (2001); Brandon Ball (2024).
*********** An 11-year-old kid in California got hold of some one-of-a-kind Paul Skenes Topps gum rookie card and evidently at some point - maybe now - it will be worth more than the Hope Diamond. (That’s all I know about it.)
Skenes could turn out to be one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time, and The Pittsburgh Pirates, for whom he plays, wanted the card. Badly.
They offered him a million dollars - cash.
But in case he didn’t want the money - what the hell is an 11-year old kid going to do with all that cash? - they gave him an alternative:
A pair of season tickets behind home plate at Pirates’ games for the next 30 years.
Participation in pre-game warmups.
A softball game for him and 20 or 30 of his friends in the Pirates’ Park.
And a chance to watch a game with Paul Skenes’ girlfriend in her personal luxury suite (at the stadium). Maybe you’ve heard of her. Her name is Livvy Dunne.
He turned it down and decided to auction off the card instead. That’s how I know he’s only 11. I bet his mom talked him out of taking the Pirates’ deal as soon as she heard about the watch party with Livvy Dunne.
*********** Remember Diego Pavia’s argument - successful, as it turned out - that his time playing JC ball shouldn’t count against his college eligibility?
Now we’ve got a kid from Wisconsin who’s suing the NCAA, claiming that his two seasons in Division II (at Grand Valley State) shouldn’t count, either - that doing so denies him a chance to profit from his name, image and likeness.
“Profit from his name, image and likeness?” He’s a cornerback named Nyzier Fourqurean. Anybody heard of him?
*********** In Colorado, prior to a high school basketball game, a basketball coach at one of the schools - Lotus School for Excellence by name - hung up a “Palestinian flag” in the gym, and then, following the game (against a Jewish school named Denver Torah), draped the flag around his neck while making a point of not shaking hands with the opposing coaches.
The offending (also offensive) coach was suspended.
1. How in the f—k do people like that get hired for a position that can influence young people.
2. Wasn’t there a single person in the gym with the balls to confront that creep?
*********** Think it’s “too late?”
Wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan: “A man in his early 80s told my friend, who is his psychotherapist, that what he really wanted to do was learn Italian, but that’s absurd, he said - he’ll likely be dead in 10 years. What would he do with it? The therapist said, “Well you can die knowing Italian or die not knowing Italian. Which is better?” So the old man studied Italian, happily. It’s never too late.”
*********** Those of us who might now be classified as “True Believers” have seen way too much incompetence in short yardage situations. It’s time to do something! Time to bang on the door of an NFL coach - knock the door down, if necessary. Time to show them real short yardage stuff!
Mais non, my friends. You don’t know what you’re going up against. You might as well be trying to tell a CEO of an automobile company that people wold rather buy cars with internal combustion engines.
As the great Dr. Fauci used to say, “The science is settled.”
The resistance to what we propose to do is so deeply embedded in the coaching of the offensive line at the professional and major college levels that there's just too much for us to have to fix. Zone blocking has so captured the offensive coordinator market that very few teams would be able to teach a fire-out drive block even if they really wanted to. They seldom use pads big enough to block with, and they don't “get welded” and “drive for 12.” They have no idea how to prevent penetration. They take big splits and get up on the ball, and their stances are built for pass protection, the exact opposite of what we teach, which is gap protection. Their first step is normally one side or another, instead of directly at the opponent. Their down blocking and double-teams and their attempts at wedge blocking are a joke.
Other than that, they’re just waiting for us to show them how…
*********** I was looking at some clinic notes from years back and I came across a presentation from a coach named Dwain Hatch. He was coaching at Bellevue, Washington High and he won a state title running the Wing-T. His team was good, obviously.
And of course, being one of the few guys in Washington running the Wing-T myself, I was interested in what he had to say. And he had some really astute things to say.
Here were two of the most important things I outlined, things that have stuck with me over the years:
“If you can control the football and keep your defense off the field, then you are going to be in every contest.”
"Sticking to the basics and doing them well will take up most of your time.”
*********** RE: O-A head coach Larry Allen.
Asked if I could teach him a little about how we did things as he wanted a way to become more competitive with his group. He was a really good man so I said sure. KNOWING we had to play him at least 2 more times in district football.
First year post him and his team coming to camp we beat them. Fairly handily.
2004- GH 40 OA 0
2005- GH 6 OA 24
Uncharacteristic for GH we turned the ball over 7 times (4 lost fumbles and 3 INTs)
OA 310 yards of offense GH 175 yards.
We stayed on pace rushing with them. But they had a QB and a quality TE and outgained us by 120 yards in the passing game.
We learned and got better from this loss and ended up as the district runner up and a playoff qualifier after graduating a bunch of REALLY good football players in 2004. That was the
Otto- qb - Hustedt- C back - Gebers- A Back - Platt- B Back
Heitman/Schoer/Broesder/Waller/Todd offensive line (3 seniors a junior and a soph)
with 2 TE's being seniors and the other TE being a junior and future C back as well)
Great memories. Larry was a good coach and better human. His wife was the district football secretary.
No shock Larry is having continued success.
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
*********** Hugh,
As much as I love running the wedge play I think the Bills WAY over did it! The Chiefs had it wired. QB Allen favored their “tush push” over his left guard. That bad spot would have never been an issue if they would have mixed the play-calling up a bit.
I found out a year after I was hired at one particular school that their first choice had initially turned them down, but they were still after him even while I was their coach!
At the end of my second year I went to the AD to let him know I knew, and he could bring the other guy in now that I was leaving.
Josh Allen’s story is why I’ve been pulling for him. He’s from a small farming community (Firebaugh) on the west side of Fresno County. Set all kinds of passing records in high school yet didn’t get any looks. Went to Reedley JC (just outside of Fresno) and continued running up impressive stats. Still not considered D1 because of his size (even Fresno State passed on him!). Only Wyoming offered him and he was off to Laramie. As a Cowboy Allen had a significant growth spurt and talent to get drafted to the NFL.
Needless to say I’ll be pulling for the E-L-G-S-E-S - Eagles and Saquon Barkley in the SB!
I’ve noticed that the pros don’t appear to be wearing those “shorts” exposing the knees like the collegians do, but they both wear those same tiny SP’s!
Also have seen more VICIS helmets and Schutt F7’s being worn at both levels.
I’m assuming we will now see a lot more poor tackling techniques used by the Raiders with Mr. “Hawk Tackling” in charge.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: On this hot September night, Number 22 walked through the door of the gymnasium with his 50 or so teammates. He stood there beyond the end zone and waited with them to run onto the field. They were a small-town Mississippi football team.
The stadium behind the old brick high school was crowded with 4000 people. There was a pale quarter-moon on the horizon. A train whistle from the Illinois Central echoed across from independence Quarters, and crickets chirped from a nearby hollow. The grass was moist from yesterday’s rains.
He was big. He was carrying his helmet, which he put on now over a copious Afro haircut kept in place by a red hairnet. He was 17 years old and he was wearing glasses.
***
I had heard about him for many months, ever since I came back from the North to live in Mississippi. Going into his senior year, he was the most sought-after and acclaimed high school football player in America, a swift and powerful running back whom many were already comparing with the legendary Herschel Walker of Georgia.
So did well-known author Willie Morris, himself a Mississippi native, begin “The Courting of Marcus Dupree,” a best-selling book about the recruiting of a small-town high school phenom.
In Philadelphia, Mississippi everybody in town knew from the time Marcus Dupree was a young boy that he was going to be good. Really good. That’s the way things work in small towns.
The very first time he touched a football in his high school career - as a 210-pound freshman who had already been timed at 4.4 seconds in the 40 - he returned the opening kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown. Playing wide receiver, he scored five touchdowns for the season.
As a sophomore, playing running back, he rushed for 1,850 yards and 28 touchdowns, and as a junior he rushed for 1,550 yards and 25 touchdowns.
In his senior year, he rushed for 2,955 yards and 36 touchdowns. In his high school career, he rushed for 7,355 yards (averaging 8.3 yards per carry) and 87 touchdowns, the latter mark breaking Herschel Walker’s national high school record.
To college recruiters, he was “the second coming of Earl Campbell… the heir apparent to Herschel Walker.”
Big? He was 6-3, 240.
Strong? College coaches who visited his school marveled at watching him bench-press 400 pounds 10 times before going outside to run a 40 for them.
Fast? He’d run 4.3/4.4 since he was a freshman.
Wrote one sports reporter, he had “the strength of Zeus, the vision of Artemis, the speed of Hermes and the controlled rage of Ares.”
And that, in those days - after the last game of his senior season - , was when the recruiting began
LSU, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State, Southern Miss, UCLA, Pitt and Oklahoma - everybody was after him.
The recruiting became so interesting that it - and the coincidental fact that Philadelphia, Mississippi was the site, years earlier, of the brutal murder of three civil rights workers - was the inspiration for Willie Morris’ book.
Although Oklahoma assistant coach Lucious Selmon - a former OU All-American - had camped out in a motel room in Philadelphia for six weeks, our guy gave a verbal commitment to Texas. But Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, not to be denied, arranged for former OU star (and Heisman Trophy winner) Billy Sims to fly into Philadelphia to try to change our guy’s mind, and when Sims left town, he had closed the deal: Marcus Dupree was going to OU.
A major factor in the decision to switch? Oklahoma had a game scheduled in Hawaii the next season. Texas? “The only place Texas goes,” he told Sports Illustrated, “is Arkansas.”
How big a deal was his signing?
So big that after three games of Dupree’s freshman year, Switzer abandoned the wishbone that had been so good to him, and changed to the I formation.
Dupree didn’t see extensive action until the fifth game with the Sooners 2-2. In mid-October against Texas, his 63-yard touchdown run made the difference in a 28-22 Sooners win. The next week, against Kansas, was his first start, and he rushed for 158 yards and earned Big 8 Offensive Player of the Week honors.
Starting the final seven games, he rushed for a total of 1,144 yards, and became the first freshman ever to lead OU in rushing. He had nine runs of 48 yards or more.
He scored 13 touchdowns and led all freshmen in rushing, and was All-Big 8 and named Big 8 Newcomer of the Year.
In the 1983 Fiesta Bowl against Arizona State, playing less than half the game - he pulled his hamstring in the second quarter - he set a new Fiesta Bowl record with 239 yards on 17 carries and was named game MVP.
But there were problems on the horizon.
A Sports Illustrated cover story the following summer questioned whether the star runner and Coach Switzer could coexist.
Marcus Dupree was good, for sure. The problem was, he knew it, and took advantage. He practiced indifferently, and other players resented what seemed to be the way Switzer accommodated him. The Sooners had a very good running back named Stanley Wilson who against his wishes was moved to fullback (aka blocking back) because Dupree had made it clear that there was no way HE was going to play fullback.
He was not by any means a good student. "I don't really like school, "he said. "College isn't for everybody, and I guess it's just not for me. All I want is to try to make life simple, mind my own business and try to make things fun. "
And then there was his weight. Switzer had reportedly been on him about it, telling others that his star was overweight and lazy.
He was probably right about the overweight part. In the SI article, writer Douglas Looney wrote, Dupree “tends to eat not just too much but way too much. He loves squash and hates peas, but more than anything he looks for chances to wade into hamburgers, ribs, french fries and chicken nuggets.”
Said his mother, “In our family nobody eats breakfast. But after noon, the kill is on. We just sit and eat until we go to bed. "
And he made it clear that he didn’t like Switzer’s style of coaching.
“I had the impression,” he said, “Before I went to Oklahoma from just watching Coach Switzer on TV that he's a hard guy and that he treats his players hard. That turns out to be true. I think I'll play this year, but it could be my last. Coach Switzer says I don't practice that well. The problem is, it's not like high school when Coach Wood made it fun. At Oklahoma, it's not fun. I don't know.”
Five games into the 1983 season, after a 28-16 loss to Texas, the Sooners were 3-2. And their best player, Marcus Dupree, had gone missing.
A week later, it was announced that he’d flown home to Mississippi and wasn’t returning to OU.
He enrolled at Southern Mississippi, but he not only had to miss the remainder of the 1983 season but also, under the transfer rules then in effect, had to sit out the next season too.
Rather than wait it out, he chose to turn pro. Still off-limits to the NFL because he had only spent two years at college, he signed instead with the New Orleans Breakers of the USFL.
He had a decent first year, but in his second year - the Breakers having moved to Portland, Oregon - he suffered a severe knee injury that effectively ended his career. He did make an attempt at a comeback with the Los Angeles Rams after a four-year layoff (he had to lose 100 pounds in three months to do so) , but he was never the same again.
Marcus Dupree was featured in a “30 For 30” documentary entitled “The Best That Never Was.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MARCUS DUPREE
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Brad Knight - Clarinda, Iowa
John Rothwell, Corpus Christi, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
*********** QUIZ: Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, he played high school football and wrestled at Easton Area High School. One of his high school classmates was future heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes, aka the “Easton Assassin.”
At North Carolina State, as he had in high school, he played football and wrestled. As a linebacker, he lettered for three years and helped lead the Wolfpack to a share of the ACC title as a sophomore. As a wrestler, he won two ACC titles, one as a heavyweight his sophomore year, and one at 191 his senior year.
He graduated from NC State with a BS in mathematics.
After two years as a high school assistant coach back in Easton, he returned to NC State as a graduate assistant. After two years as a G.A., during which he got his master’s degree, he was hired as a full-time assistant, and spent five more years at State, under Lou Holtz and then Bo Rein.
When the Wolfpack won the ACC title in 1969, Rein was hired by LSU, and our guy was hired at Arizona by Larry Smith.
He spent two years coaching linebackers at Arizona and then he was hired by Bobby Bowden at Florida State. He would stay there for eighteen years, the first four as defensive line coach, and the final 14 coaching first the defensive line and then linebackers, along with the additional title of “assistant head coach.”
In 2000, he became a head coach for the first time - at his alma mater, NC State. He had been an assistant for 29 years, and in all that time had coached at only two other places.
He won right out of the gate, going 8-4, 7-5, 11-3 and 8-5 in his first four years in Raleigh, and going 3-1 in bowl games. His 2002 team remains the greatest in Wolfpack history in terms of wins (11) and national ranking (12th), and culminated in a 28-6 Gator Bowl win over Notre Dame. It didn’t hurt that his quarterback all four years was Philip Rivers.
After Rivers left for the NFL, replacing him proved impossible. The Pack went 5-6 the first year, and then 7-5, and when they fell to 3-9 in 2006, dropping their last seven games in a row, our guy was fired.
His overall record at N.C. State was 49-37, and his record in bowl games was 4-1. The enthusiasm generated by his initial four-year run made possible an $87 million renovation of State’s Carter-Finlay Stadium.
It didn’t take long for Bobby Bowden to welcome him back, as linebacker coach and “executive assistant head coach” (whatever that means). He held that position for three years, until Bowden retired, but Bowden’s successor Jimbo Fisher chose not to retain him.
After two years out of coaching because of a bout with cancer of the neck and throat, he returned to coaching in 2012 at Akron, when Terry Bowden was hired there as head coach. He served as Bowden’s assistant head coach and defensive coordinator until he retired following the 2017 season.
PS: He was often referred to as “The Chest.” Everybody knew who it meant.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2025 “The trouble is that in the
modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of
doubt.” Bertrand Russell*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: When a head coach starts getting attention as Dave Nelson did at Delaware, his assistants normally become targets of athletic directors looking for would-be head coaches. It was an exhilarating experience.
At one point I was offered the Bucknell job, but Nelson pointed out that I'd be facing Delaware every year. I wasn't sure I wanted that. Dave said, be patient; other jobs would come along. Later he recommended me for the Colgate job, but they picked someone else. I was interviewed for the University of Massachusetts job, but the salary was less than I was making as an assistant. Tulane pushed hard to bring me in as an assistant, and New Orleans was an attractive lure. But I wanted my own team.
In the late 1950s, at the national coaches’ convention in Cincinnati, Tad Wieman, the AD at Maine when I was there, wanted me to come to Denver University as his head coach. Let's talk some more tomorrow, he said. I was starting to get excited. That same night, the school president at Denver made the decision to drop football. That's how fast job offers can disappear.
After the 1961 football season, Colorado State fired Tuffy Mullison. In his search for Mullison’s replacement, Bob Davis, the CSU athletic Director, asked Wieman if he had any suggestions. Tad related the story of how he had offered me the job at Denver University before the president dropped the football program. Davis liked the idea of hiring me, and I was headed for Fort Collins and my first job as a head coach.
*********** Did the Chiefs look like a Super Bowl team to you? They didn’t, to me. But then, neither did the Bills. In fact, the Bills looked as if they had no business being in a game of that magnitude, and I found myself really sorry that I rooted for them against Baltimore. The loss to the Bills deprived Lamar Jackson of a chance to show off his talents on the big stage. (Not to mention winning a Super Bowl.)
I don’t know when I’ve seen a worse short-yardage performance by a team - at any level - than by the Bills on Sunday. Where was a fullback? Where were the three (or even two) tight end sets? Where was this “jumbo” package - the six offense linemen set - that I’d read so much about?
And - worst of all - where was this quarterback who’s supposed to be one of the best in the game? While I really like his story - the small-town quarterback that nobody wanted who managed through sheer hard work and belief in himself to make it to the heights of the game - I’m having a hard time seeing Josh Allen as the superstar he’s been made out to be.
*********** I like what a guy wrote on Reddit:
I’ve always thought it was wild we rely on these old men to eyeball where the ball ended up on any given play, and then when sh— gets real we break out a chain to measure inches like it’s an exact science.
Did you think that the Bills got that first down? I did.
Either way, isn’t it time, knowing that the technology exists, that the ball be spotted robotically?
There’s a “game-is-fixed” train that seems to be picking up passengers at every station. I’m not on it. Yet. But while I may not believe that wrongdoing is taking place, I do believe in human incompetence. And when incompetence can be so easily mistaken for malfeasance, and it’s so easily eliminated - what’s the holdup?
*********** The Redskins picked a bad time to come apart, but come apart they did, against the Eagles. Four turnovers? Yikes. Almost all turnovers are avoidable but one Washington turnover especially interested me. The runner appeared to be carrying the ball responsibly, if one-handed - when he took a helmet to his upper biceps. I’m theorizing that that blow was what caused him to loosen his grip on the ball, and that the blow was damaging only because he was not wearing the type of shoulder pad that would have absorbed it. On my Zoom clinic last week I showed a clip where a Green Bay guard was injured simply because he blocked someone using his shoulder - while wearing shoulder pads so puny you wouldn’t put them on a 12-year-old.
Ironic that these guys who pay so much attention to their bodies with proper training and nutrition can be so foolish when it comes to properly equipping themselves.
*********** It’s not often that you have a chance to see a great athlete in the flesh, and then, when you do, his performance meets - even exceeds - your expectations. For me, there was Johnny Lattner of Notre Dame.
I remember as a kid going to see a Penn-Notre Dame game. It was 1953. The place was sold out - 74,000 tickets sold - but a severe snowstorm hit the Philadelphia area the day before the game, and as a result, “only” 69,000 people showed up at Penn’s Franklin Field for the opening kickoff. That was my first introduction to the drawing power of Notre Dame, because where we sat, in the upper deck behind the end zone, my buddy and I (both Penn fans) got the feeling that we had crashed a Notre Dame home game.
It was early November, and the Irish were undefeated. They had been ranked number one since the start of the season. Lattner, their left halfback (they ran mostly from the “full house” T formation), had been a unanimous All-American the year before, and had won the Maxwell Award. (Given by Philadelphia’s own Maxwell Football Club, it was, at the time, on a par with the Heisman Trophy.) He was playing at the same high level this year, and that very week he had been on the cover of TIME Magazine, an unusual honor for an athlete.
Penn, an 18-point underdog, shocked everyone - and gave us Penn fans hope - when it received and drove for the first score. The Irish fans around us were quieted, but their silence didn’t last long, when Lattner took the Penn kickoff on his ten and returned it 90 yards to tie the game.
The Quakers made a game of it, but Lattner was everywhere, and doing everything. He returned another Penn kickoff 58 yards, and he returned a punt for 36 yards before being knocked out of bounds by the last man with a chance to stop him. Sharing the running duties with two other backs plus quarterback Ralph Guglielmi, he rushed for close to 100 yards, and - playing both ways - made a number of tackles, and made a last-minute interception on the goal line to seal the Irish 28-20 win.
I wasn’t pleased with the result. I wasn’t happy with Lattner’s performance. Not then. Only years later, after I’d done a little growing up, did I realize what an honor it had been to witness it.
Famed New York sportswriter Red Smith, covering the game, wrote of Lattner’s performance, “Not Franklin Field or any other stadium is likely to see a more rousing individual performance this season.”
Lattner would win the Heisman Trophy that season.
Which brings me to the Eagles’ Saquon Barkley. You go to watch him, and he delivers.
Midway through the first quarter of the Eagles-Redskins game, he broke a couple of tackles and was off on a 60-yard touchdown run. It was his seventh touchdown run this season of 50 yards or more - an NFL record.
He scored another touchdown in the first quarter, and wound up with three for the game, He carried the ball 15 times for 118 yards - an average of 7.9 yards per carry.
He’s a threat to go all the way any time he touches the ball. Even in a Super Bowl. And we’re privileged to see it.
*********** I personally think it’s a healthy sign that we could be in the process of putting the matter of race behind us when two young guys in the Eagles’ secondary - Reed Blankenship and Cooper DeJean - are referred to as the “exciting whites” and there’s no adverse comment.
DeJean (it’s undoubtedly French but it’s pronounced De-GENE) is an amazing story. He’s from a town in Iowa - Odebolt - that I know a little bit about because my friend Brad Knight used to coach in that area and I used to visit there.
As small Midwest farm towns have lost population, they’ve had to combine schools in order to continue playing eleven-man football.
At the time I was doing camps out there, Brad Knight was coaching at Galva-Holstein High, and Odebolt had combined with the nearby town of Arthur, to play as Odebolt-Arthur. Another pair of nearby towns, Battle Creek and Ida Grove, had combined as well. As the four towns’ populations continued to decline, they had to consolidate further, and Cooper DeJean wound up playing for Odebolt-Arthur-Battle Creek-Ida Grove (shortened, for headline purposes, to OABCIG).
At OABCIG, DeJean played quarterback and defensive back. In his senior season, he passed for 3,447 yards and 35 touchdowns and ran for 1,235 yards and 24 touchdowns. He was the named the All-American Bowl Player of the Year.
At Iowa, he played on defense and special teams, and was named All-American and All-Big Ten as a junior. He declared early for the NFL draft, and was taken in the second round by the Eagles. He’s been a defensive fixture as a rookie.
*********** If they make prospective NFL players take tests to measure their intelligence, shouldn’t they do the same with the people who broadcast the games?
Tony Romo, talking before the game about Josh Allen: "I believe he actually believes they can win this."
Sideline reporter, letting us in on Kansas City DC Steve Spagnuolo’s talk with his players: “He told the defense, ‘We must stop the run.’”
*********** Damn shame the Buffalo DC forgot to remind his players not to let Mahomes get outside the edge man.
*********** When the Bills’ Christian Benford was carted off after taking a helmet to the head, did you, like me, question whether he should have even been playing after suffering a concussion just a week earlier?
*********** Considering the way Saquon Barkley exposes the poor tackling that takes place in the open field, it would sure seem to me to be worth (1) doing more with the running game to get runners into the open field and (2) practicing tackling.
*********** The last we heard, Ohio State’s defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was all ready to pack up and move to Oklahoma as OU’s defensive coordinator. It sounded strange to those of us who knew that his last job before Ohio State was Oklahoma - Oklahoma State, that is. But there was a story going around that he had become engaged to a woman in Oklahoma, and she didn’t want to move, and - whaddaya know - the DC position at OU was open, so…
And then, as the Buckeyes celebrated their recently-won national title, Jim Knowles was nowhere to be be found. Had he jumped to Oklahoma?
Nope. Worse than that. A LOT worse.
To Penn State. Where evidently he’s become the highest-paid coordinator in all of college football.
Want another rumor? Evidently there have been hard feelings between Knowles and head coach Ryan Day since Ohio State’s midseason loss to Oregon. The Buckeyes gave up 496 yards in offense and didn’t get to Ducks’ QB Dillon Gabriel a single time, and it’s said that Day’s order afterward to “fix it” wasn’t received well.
Whatever happened, though, it had the desired effect on the Buckeyes’ defensive play - and as a result, the Buckeyes won the national title, and Jim Knowles is now the highest-paid assistant college football coach in America. At Penn State.
*********** A couple of weeks ago, before the Eagles-Rams playoff game, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker held a press conference at City Hall with city officials to discuss snow preparations, and urge fans to drive safely.
And then, after doling out that good advice on travel, she concluded with some bad advice on cheering.
Leading everyone in the spell-it-out cheer that follows the playing of the team’s fight song, she shouted
“E-L-G-S-E-S, Eagles!”
*********** Ever apply for a job and not get it, and come away with the feeling that all along the job was wired - that they knew who they wanted right from the jump - and you were just a bit player in the show?
The Bears interviewed SEVENTEEN people for their head coaching job - but then, no sooner were the Detroit Lions eliminated from the playoffs, than the Bears announced they’d hired the Lions’ offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson.
You get the idea that he was their man all along, and the whole interview thing was just a charade until their man was finally free to leave the Lions?
It probably was a slimy way to treat the guys who didn’t get offered the job - although there may have been one or two who used the announcement that the Bears had talked to them as leverage to get a raise out of their current employers. But at least, if I were a Bears fan, if that’s what actually happened it would give me some confidence that the team might actually know what it was doing. Otherwise, to bring in 17 guys without having any idea who they really wanted was a sign of a totally f—ked up organization.
*********** JOHN CANZANO - Are the Power Four spreading their wings to take in March Madness?
The Power Four conferences recently submitted a proposal to the NCAA that would give them greater control over championship events.
It sounds like the worst idea ever.
A decision is expected this summer.
Stu Jackson, the WCC commissioner, told me on Friday the proposal raised eyebrows and concerns among those who watched the “Power Four” seize control of the revenue for the College Football Playoff and dictate terms of the House v. NCAA settlement without seeking input from the rest of college athletics.
Said Jackson: “They told the rest of the FBS world how it was going to be.”
Make no mistake, this is a business decision by the “haves” of college athletics. They’d like control of the championship events — including the men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. And that includes being in charge of the revenue distributions.
“Tampering with the men’s basketball tournament and the women’s basketball tournament is a bigger issue even than the CFP process,” Jackson told me. “That tournament and the revenue that’s garnered from that tournament affects far many more NCAA member institutions than does the CFP distribution process.
“That tournament funds a great many institutions and athletic programs across the country. Many people — not only men’s and women’s basketball — rely on that revenue, as do the Olympic sports. And potentially, there are a lot of student-athletes services, experiences, a championship, and their care that will be affected if those tournaments are tampered with, particularly not knowing what their intention is.”
*********** John Canzano writes, “Chad Bowden leaves Notre Dame, where he was making $300,000 a year, to go to USC, where he’s reportedly getting around $1 million. He’ll be the general manager, in charge of roster building. It’s a heavy investment but much cheaper than the $80 million needed to fire (Lincoln) Riley right now.”
*********** Watched some great 30 for 30 documentaries this past weekend:
Requiem for the Big East (The birth and death of an amazing basketball league)
Dickie V (The announcer who made big-time college basketball what it is today)
The Band That Wouldn’t Die (The Baltimore Colts Marching Band)
Trojan War (The rise of USC during the Pete Carroll era)
*********** Good morning, Corch. The greatest among us (as Rush could) had honed the ability to reduce the complex to something all can understand. The Washington apothegm you picked for today is something Bishop Budde (did she play for the Chiefs decades ago?) might have woven into a genuine Gospel message blessing of the President and his family.
Harmony, honesty, industry, and frugality.
The answer is Marcus Dupree. ESPN has always been better at documentaries than sports analysis and live broadcasting. I'll bet most NYCU followers saw that excellent story on Marcus.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Enjoyed your news as always. Some great commentary.
Yes, we have the NFL conference championships, and Super Bowl remaining. Admittedly both games should be good ones between good teams.
Speaking of the Super Bowl…have you seen the ads for the halftime show? WTF?
Not that I’m going to watch it, but I’ve never heard of either of those “artists” and can say for certain I don’t care if I ever do! NFL…still woke.
Good news is we won’t have to wait long to satisfy our football fix. UFL starts in March. Eh…it’s football, and it beats watching basketball. Give me hockey!
New Fresno State HC Matt Entz has hired South Dakota OC Josh Davis., and NIU DC Nick Benedetto. Those hires reinforce his intentions to turn the Bulldogs into the most physical football team on the West Coast. Also, the Dogs reeled in QB E.J. Warner (son of Kurt Warner) through the portal. Warner was the starting QB at Rice, and at Temple. He has 2 years left.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
PS: First time I’ve liked what a pro football player (Saquon Barkley) had to say about his team, and the game in general. Scoring 55 points running the football down their throats!
*********** QUIZ: On this hot September night, Number 22 walked through the door of the gymnasium with his 50 or so teammates. He stood there beyond the end zone and waited with them to run onto the field. They were a small-town Mississippi football team.
The stadium behind the old brick high school was crowded with 4000 people. There was a pale quarter-moon on the horizon. A train whistle from the Illinois Central echoed across from independence Quarters, and crickets chirped from a nearby hollow. The grass was moist from yesterday’s rains.
He was big. He was carrying his helmet, which he put on now over a copious Afro haircut kept in place by a red hairnet. He was 17 years old and he was wearing glasses.
***
I had heard about him for many months, ever since I came back from the North to live in Mississippi. Going into his senior year, he was the most sought-after and acclaimed high school football player in America, a swift and powerful running back whom many were already comparing with the legendary Herschel Walker of Georgia.
So did well-known author Willie Morris, himself a Mississippi native, begin a best-selling book about the recruiting of this small-town high school phenom.
In Philadelphia, Mississippi everybody in town knew from the time he was a young boy that he was going to be good. Really good. That’s the way things work in a small town.
The very first time he touched a football in his high school career - as a 210-pound freshman who had already been timed at 4.4 seconds in the 40 - he returned the opening kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown. Playing wide receiver, he scored five touchdowns for the season.
As a sophomore, playing running back, he rushed for 1,850 yards and 28 touchdowns, and as a junior he rushed for 1,550 yards and 25 touchdowns.
In his senior year, he rushed for 2,955 yards and 36 touchdowns. In his high school career, he rushed for 7,355 yards (averaging 8.3 yards per carry) and 87 touchdowns, the latter mark breaking Herschel Walker’s national high school record.
To college recruiters, he was “the second coming of Earl Campbell… the heir apparent to Herschel Walker.”
Big? He was 6-3, 240.
Strong? College coaches who visited his school marveled at watching him bench-press 400 pounds 10 times before going outside to run a 40 for them.
Fast? He’d run 4.3/4.4 since he was a freshman.
Wrote one sports reporter, he had “the strength of Zeus, the vision of Artemis, the speed of Hermes and the controlled rage of Ares.”
And that, in those days - after the last game of his senior season - , was when the recruiting began
LSU, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State, Southern Miss, UCLA, Pitt and Oklahoma - everybody was after him.
The recruiting became so interesting that it - and the coincidental fact that Philadelphia, Mississippi was the site, years earlier, of the brutal murder of three civil rights workers - was the inspiration for Willie Morris’ book.
Although Oklahoma assistant coach Lucious Selmon - a former OU All-American - had camped out in a motel room in Philadelphia for six weeks, our guy gave a verbal commitment to Texas. But Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, not to be denied, arranged for former OU star (and Heisman Trophy winner) Billy Sims to fly into Philadelphia to try to change our guy’s mind, and when Sims left town, he had closed the deal: our guy was going to OU.
A major factor in the decision to switch? Oklahoma had a game scheduled in Hawaii the next season. Texas? “The only place Texas goes,” he told Sports Illustrated, “is Arkansas.”
How big a deal was his signing?
So big that after three games of our guy’s freshman year, Switzer abandoned the wishbone that had been so good to him, and changed to the I formation.
Our guy didn’t see extensive action until the fifth game with the Sooners 2-2. In mid-October against Texas, his 63-yard touchdown run made the difference in a 28-22 Sooners win. The next week, against Kansas, was his first start, and he rushed for 158 yards and earned Big 8 Offensive Player of the Week honors.
Starting the final seven games, he rushed for a total of 1,144 yards, and became the first freshman ever to lead OU in rushing. He had nine runs of 48 yards or more.
He scored 13 touchdowns and led all freshmen in rushing, and was All-Big 8 and named Big 8 Newcomer of the Year.
In the 1983 Fiesta Bowl against Arizona State, playing less than half the game - he pulled his hamstring in the second quarter - he set a new Fiesta Bowl record with 239 yards on 17 carries and was named game MVP.
But there were problems on the horizon.
A Sports Illustrated cover story the following summer questioned whether the star runner and Coach Switzer could coexist.
Our guy was good, for sure. The problem was, he knew it, and took advantage. He practiced indifferently, and other players resented what seemed to be the way Switzer accommodated him. The Sooners had a very good running back named Stanley Wilson who against his wishes was moved to fullback (aka blocking back) because our guy had made it clear that there was no way HE was going to play fullback.
He was not by any means a good student. "I don't really like school, "he said. "College isn't for everybody, and I guess it's just not for me. All I want is to try to make life simple, mind my own business and try to make things fun. "
And then there was his weight. Switzer had reportedly been on him about it, telling others that his star was overweight and lazy.
He was probably right about the overweight part. In the SI article, writer Douglas Looney wrote, our guy “tends to eat not just too much but way too much. He loves squash and hates peas, but more than anything he looks for chances to wade into hamburgers, ribs, french fries and chicken nuggets.”
Said his mother, “In our family nobody eats breakfast. But after noon, the kill is on. We just sit and eat until we go to bed. "
And he made it clear that he didn’t like Switzer’s style of coaching.
“I had the impression,” he said, “Before I went to Oklahoma from just watching Coach Switzer on TV that he's a hard guy and that he treats his players hard. That turns out to be true. I think I'll play this year, but it could be my last. Coach Switzer says I don't practice that well. The problem is, it's not like high school when Coach Wood made it fun. At Oklahoma, it's not fun. I don't know.”
Five games into the 1983 season, after a 28-16 loss to Texas, the Sooners were 3-2. And their best player, their star runner, had gone missing.
A week later, it was announced that he’d flown home to Mississippi and wasn’t returning to OU.
He enrolled at Southern Mississippi, but he not only had to miss the remainder of the 1983 season but also, under the transfer rules then in effect, had to sit out the next season too.
Rather than wait it out, he chose to turn pro. Still off-limits to the NFL because he had only spent two years at college, he signed instead with the New Orleans Breakers of the USFL.
He had a decent first year, but in his second year - the Breakers having moved to Portland, Oregon - he suffered a severe knee injury that effectively ended his career. He did make an attempt at a comeback with the Los Angeles Rams after a four-year layoff (he had to lose 100 pounds in three months to do so) , but he was never the same again.
He was featured in a “30 For 30” documentary entitled “The Best That Never Was.”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2025 “Nothing but harmony, honesty,
industry, and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy
people." George Washington*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Those Delaware teams rarely lost, and I guess I can take the heat for one of those defeats, a 24–20 setback against West Chester in 1952. On the day of the game Dave Nelson was involved in a neighborhood automobile mishap. Dave was shaken by the incident, and I was delegated to be the acting head coach that night. Late in the game, with Delaware leading, 20–17, the West Chester tailback ran off tackle on fourth down. He fumbled the ball, and it went forward into the end zone, where an end recovered. It was an illegal forward fumble – I am certain the play was designed that way by Coach Glen Killinger – but the officials didn't make the call. So we ended up losing.
In my recruiting responsibilities I worked with the college’s director of admissions and served on the student personnel committee that looked at discipline situations. I was also involved in setting up a scholarship program for athletes that put me in touch with some of the Delaware supporters and members of the board of trustees. One of these was Bob Carpenter, son of a prominent and affluent family. As a summer job I tutored his son, Ruly (R.R.M. Carpenter III), on the fundamentals of football.
Ruly was a solid high school player and picked Yale for college. After his freshman year, Bob called me and said Ruly was disenchanted and wanted to quit Yale. It was during two-a-day practices. He didn't like the coaches and football wasn't fun. He was ready to transfer to Delaware. I told Ruly if he came to Delaware the coaches would be just as tough, just as demanding, and that he wouldn't like me, either. "Go back, suck it up, hang with it, and you'll be OK,” was my message. Ruly went back, played four years, and graduated from Yale as the team captain. He later became a Delaware trustee.
Bob Carpenter gave me two jobs with the Philadelphia Phillies, the baseball team he owned at the time. One summer I scouted the Alabama-Florida league, bouncing between the six small towns of Panama City, Fort Walton Beach, Pensacola, Montgomery, Selma, and Dothan. Later I set up a group called Friends of the Phillies, which was basically made up of high school coaches. I organized a network of scouts in surrounding states – Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and Virginia – to single out baseball prospects in those areas.
MY NOTE: Ruly Carpenter was two years behind me at Yale and as a teammate I knew him and liked him a lot. There I was, a Philly kid on scholarship, and there he was, son of the owner of the damn Phillies, but he just a regular guy from back home that I could talk baseball with. He was a very good athlete who lettered in both baseball and football. ONE MINOR QUIBBLE: (the liberal media would call it “fact-checking”): Ruly was not captain of the Yale football team - but he was captain of the baseball team. Minor mistake.
*********** “Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” So said the great Samuel Johnson when his biographer, James Boswell, said he had been to a Quaker meeting and had heard a women preach.
So there was the Presidential party at the National Cathedral Tuesday morning, for a so-called “National Prayer Service,” when a female bishop turned it into a National Ambush, proceeding to lecture the President on behalf of transsexuals and illegal immigrants.
It’s an abuse of God’s house for a person who has been accorded the respect owed to a clergyman to stand in the pulpit and directly address any member, much less in an adversarial, accusatorial way. And certainly not when that person is the President of the United States.
The Reverend Lorenzo Sewell, who gave the benediction at the inauguration, was present at the “Prayer” Service and referred to what had transpired as “Theological malpractice.”
This bishop had a chance to speak on behalf of a rebirth of faith in America and she blew it. But then, Episcopalians (I was once one) aren’t interested in that Gospel stuff. Instead, she showed one and all a major reason why the Episcopal Church, of which she is a bishop, has lost nearly 500,000 members in the last ten years: promotion of female clergy and gay marriage.
But here’s my question - two questions, actually: one, what kind of presidential assistant, knowing in advance the background and political leanings of this “bishop” (who has made her views clear through assorted speeches and writings) would have gone ahead with the service and submitted the President to such an indignity? And two, how much severance did they give that person?
*********** There’s nobody to blame for Notre Dame’s loss to Ohio State. The better team won. The two Irish scores at the end gave a nice cosmetic look to the final score, but it was actually a decisive beating. It was the 16th freaking game for both teams, and - at least for the Irish - on the offensive and defensive lines it showed. (And if either of the teams had played in a conference championship game, it could have meant 17 games played.)
Sorry, but that’s too damn much football, even if those “scholar-athletes” are now de facto pros.
Too long a season? Remember when Thanksgiving was once the traditional end of the season for everybody except for bowl-bound teams (back before there were close to 50 bowls), Army-Navy (the next weekend) or Texas-Texas A & M (the next day). Thanksgiving this year was TWO MONTHS ago.
Think about this for a minute:
The entire bowl structure could have been kept intact, exactly as it had been for years - and on January 2 the College Playoff Committee (or somebody) could have chosen the best four teams from all the bowls and - the next week - started a four-team playoff.
That is, if we really needed to have a playoff at all.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Our way - the 12-team playoff way - ESPN got more games, which meant more commercials to sell and - best of all - it got to keep the money, instead of it going to those bowl people.
Personally, I’ve spoken to a lot of serious college football fans who had run out of enthusiasm by that final Monday night. (Speaking of which - did it seem to you that Monday night was the dark corner of the room that the colleges were sent off to by the NFL, now that it’s taken control of all the weekend time slots?)
*********** I’ve often thought of Duke basketball and Notre Dame football as kindred programs. They both have long histories of success and they both have huge national followings of people who never attended either school. Any time Duke is in town to play the local team - doesn’t matter where it is - the place sells out. Same with Notre Dame football.
The two programs have something else in common, too - they both have large numbers of people who “hate” them. See, they win too much, they’re on TV too much, they beat my favorite team, their fans are obnoxious (ahem: I’m a Duke fan). Who knows why else?
But for me, not much of a Notre Dame fan for most of my years, this past season I found myself actually pulling (ever so slightly) for the Irish. I’ve noticed the same sort of change in others I know, and I suspect it’s for the same reason: Marcus Freeman. He appears to be a class person and he handles himself especially well, considering the goldfish bowl that the job puts a guy in. I hope he can win enough games to keep the Irish fanatics off his case, because as former Notre Dame coach Dan Devine - who won a national title there - once said, "There are two kinds of people in the world, Notre Dame lovers and Notre Dame haters. And, quite frankly, they're both a pain in the ass."
*********** Speaking of Notre Dame, this is why it’s hard to build a dynasty: no sooner was the Irish season over than their DC, Al Golden, who did a terrific job for them, than he was snatched up by the Cincinnati Bengals.
************ And speaking of the Bengals, those Chilean “tourists” who have allegedly been traveling around the country breaking into the houses of the rich and famous?
They may be vicious… they may be cruel… they may be cold-blooded… they may be devious…
But the sonsabitches aren’t very smart.
When they were pulled over by police, they immediately became “persons of interest” in the break-in of Joe Burrow’s home. Why? One of them was wearing a Bengals’ hat and there was an LSU shirt in the car.
*********** Chris Vannini of The Athletic, ranks all 134 FBS teams throughout the season, and this is his final Top Ten.
He explains his reasoning, which I found very interesting and persuasive:
Immediately, I realized how difficult this exercise would be when I concluded Oregon should be No. 2. I had Notre Dame here initially, as the final AP Top 25 did. But as I went back through, the Oregon case was fairly simple on paper. Oregon has a win over Ohio State, unlike Notre Dame. It has four top-15 wins in total and has the fewest losses, none of which came against Northern Illinois. The 41-21 Rose Bowl loss to Ohio State may ultimately be how people remember this Oregon team, but the regular season still matters, to me at least.
Notre Dame’s run to the final was thrilling, impressive and earned. But the rest of the Irish resume was lacking. Oregon didn’t win a CFP game but had three wins over CFP teams (Ohio State, Penn State and Boise State), same as Notre Dame. Against common opponents (Ohio State and Penn State), Oregon looked better, and the Rose Bowl blowout loss to Ohio State is still better than the home loss to Northern Illinois, in my opinion. The new CFP bracket could make this part hard every year, but that’s my explanation.
No. 4 Penn State finished with one top-10 win here but had the same number of top-15 wins as Georgia, nearly beat Notre Dame in the semifinals and only lost to the top three teams.
The Bulldogs stay ahead of Texas because they beat the Longhorns twice.
Tennessee drops behind Arizona State to No. 8 because its resume hinged solely on an Alabama win that got worse with time.
No. 7 ASU finished with wins against BYU, Iowa State and Kansas State.
Boise State slips to No. 9 after a competitive loss to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl.
It turns out No. 10 Indiana’s only losses came to the two national championship game participants, though neither game was all that competitive. The Hoosiers deserved their Playoff spot and still deserve an apology from Kirk Herbstreit and others. The win over Michigan looks better now and counts as a top 25 victory here.
*********** The feature attraction this weekend in the NFL will be the Chiefs-Bills matchup - the Chiefs going for a three-peat (your check’s in the mail, Pat Riley), the Bills going for that highly-elusive Super Bowl. For what it’s worth, I’m pulling for the Bills.
But the more interesting game, to me, is the Washington-Eagles game. (No, you can’t make me say “Commanders,” that stupid tribute to wokeness.) If you saw my Zoom this past Tuesday (or its recording) you know how excited I am about the Redskins’ offensive scheme and their rookie quarterback, Jayden Daniels. On the other hand, it is Philly, and they’re the Iggles, and Saquon Barkley is having a season for the ages. He has had eight runs of 50 yards or more, and six of them were for touchdowns - the most 50+ yard touchdown runs in one season in NFL history. He is actually making the running game exciting again.
*********** I have no use for NBA, and guys like the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler are a major reason why The guy wants out of Miami and by way of making this known he’s been making himself obnoxious. After retuning from a seven-game suspension, he was suspended again for missing a team flight, or, in the team’s words: "Continued pattern of disregard of team rules, insubordinate conduct, and conduct detrimental to the team, including missing Wednesday's team flight to Milwaukee. “
Asked what he told the other players, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, “The point that I made to our team is get used to it. Get over it. This is the NBA life; this is the life we chose. If you think it's going to be predictable, you're really mistaken.”
*********** In making its season ticket pitch, Army just sent out the 2025 home schedule
• vs. Tarleton State (Date TBA)
• vs. Charlotte (Date TBA)
• vs. North Texas (Date TBA)
• vs. Temple (Date TBA)
• vs. Tulsa (Date TBA)
Wow. Sign me up for ten seats.
On second thought, so many people I know would like to see those teams - better make that a luxury suite.
*********** According to ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, the conference is looking at two interesting proposals to change its current conference championship game format.
First proposal: Regular-season 1 gets the automatic playoff spot; regular-season umbers 2 and 3 play for the (likely) second playoff spot
Second proposal: Keep the championship game, but…
In the final week of the regular season, 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3
and the winners meet in the conference championship game
(I have no idea what the regularly-scheduled opponents of teams 1,2,3,4 are supposed to do on that final weekend.)
*********** Thought of you as I was reading this
The Ancient Eight: College Football’s Ivy League and the Game They Play Today by John Feinstein
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209456191
Mark Kaczmarek
Davenport, Iowa
Of course I bought it. (I like John Feinstein’ work.)
*********** Coach, I’m still having to do this by dictation so your editor, Miss Connie, might have work to do.
Now to your page today: I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. Like you, once I tuned in to the inauguration I couldn’t take my eyes away. It was one of those things that if you had a close friend you could talk for many hours about what you saw taking place on that screen yesterday.
Bold leader, bold message, all business. This was a leader taking charge. And to think that Joe Biden not only lived in this country, but advanced to the highest levels of government in a country populated by the likes of Mike Lude is just not right. Let this scumbag pardon, preemptively, multiple people as Trump was speaking - about as low as you can go in continually lowering the bar of ordinary human decency.
At least it is reported that Milley‘s photograph was removed from the Pentagon‘s gallery of former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I’m sure he was concerned highly about his retirement pay and it’s too bad because I was hoping that Trump would take it from Millie‘s grasp.
You’re right about seeing a government that could react quickly and do things right but I still had a couple of minor quibbles with conducted ceremonies. One was the Israel hostages behind him who stood there for so long without being recognized properly, in my opinion. Another was the military inspection setup. I thought it was wrong, and I thought that whoever was leading him on in the ceremony was gonna get his butt chewed because Trump had no chance to speak, and I thought Trump was expecting to speak. In fact, I think any time the President is before any formation of soldiers he should be allowed or even encouraged to speak to the troops no matter how briefly.
But overall, it was brilliant and there were so many - like America’s tenor singing “America.” Oh my goodness that was brilliant, as was the minister. He was a fine man, but all of them were - there just were so many good people speaking good things, meaningful things yesterday that it was hard to keep up - which is why I, like you, taped the entire inauguration so that I can see it what I want in its entirety.
Well, I wanted Notre Dame to win last night and they didn’t but I’m I’m proud of them. I, like you, also have nothing against Ohio State in this case, although ordinarily I root against Ohio State in every game.
I’ve gone on too long coach, and given your editor too much work to do.
Thanks for your uplifting page. As DJT concluded yesterday, it’s Liberation Day for every one of us.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Regarding the National Championship:
Credit and congrats to OSU. ND fought back from a large deficit, tried like hell to make a game of it despite some questionable coaching decisions, and proved they too are building a championship level program.
Questionable coaching decisions? How about getting away from what worked in the first offensive series? How does one of the best RB’s in the country only get 4 carries during the course of the entire game? How about the defense getting away from what got them there in the first place? Why wasn’t our best corner in press man coverage on arguably the best WR in the country at a crucial moment in the 4th quarter? Why, with late offensive momentum, kick a FG instead of going for it inside the 15 when you would still be down by two?
Oh well, woulda-shoulda-coulda. Not all was lost. We finally have a real President running our country again! Thank God!
Think the NFL isn’t conscientious about betting lines? How about the KC Chiefs’ late game safety?
The Redskins (er, “Commanders”) have a good team. QB Daniels is for real. The “Iggles” and RB Saquon Barkley will be a test for the young D.C. defense.
Go Bills! I’m a Josh Allen fan. He played for Reedley JC (just outside Fresno) where I played and coached JC ball (WAY before he was there!).
A longtime basketball coaching buddy of mine told me a long time ago we would see a large influx of foreign players in this country. “They practice more than they play, and they practice fundamentals on a regular basis. They will be as good if not better than our guys. Recruiting will become international.”
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
It really shows in basketball, where they - at least the Europeans - still work on skills and drills. We, on the other hand, thanks to the AAU-influence, play. And play. And play. Who needs practice?
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: No Bronco will ever again wear Craig Morton’s Number 7. Actually, though, it’s not HIS number 7 that was retired. The number 7 that was retired happened to belong to his successor as Broncos’ QB - John Elway.
Nevertheless, Craig Morton is honored and remembered by Denver fans as the first quarterback to take their Broncos to the Super Bowl.
He played his high school football in Campbell, California, where he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball.
At Cal, he played under head coach Marv Levy and a young offensive coach named Bill Walsh. He played on losing teams all three years he was eligible, but he held up his end: in one stretch between his junior and senior years, he threw at least one touchdown pass in 16 straight games. As a senior, he set Pac-8 records for pass attempts (308), pass completions (185) and passing yards (2,121), and was the recipient of the Pop Warner Trophy, given to the most valuable player on the Pacific Coast. Although the Bears went 3-7 that year, he made several All-America teams, and finished seventh in the Heisman voting, ahead of such future immortals as Joe Namath and Gale Sayers.
When he graduated he held just about every Cal passing record. (Actually, he had set most of them by the end of his junior season.)
He was the fifth player taken overall in the 1965 draft (by Dallas) and he would spend 10 seasons with Cowboys (1965-74). Those ten seasons could be broken into three phases:
Phase 1 - Backing up Don Meredith
Phase 2 - Starting - he led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl following the 1970 season (they lost to the Baltimore Colts).
Beginning the next year -
Phase 3 - The Quarterback Controversy - his competition with Roger Staubach. In one game against the Chicago Bears, Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry actually had his two quarterbacks alternating plays.
In 1974, having lost the QB competition with Staubach, he asked for a trade, and signed a contract with the World Football League Houston Texans to play for them in 1975 (after he would become a free agent). But shortly into the 1974 season, he was traded to the New York Giants. In return, the Giants sent the Cowboys their 1975 Number One draft choice (which Dallas would use to take Randy White).
His three years in New York were a nightmare. Actually, they were scarcely spent in New York at all. In 1974 the Giants played their home schedule in New Haven, Connecticut, in the Yale Bowl. They lost all seven home games and finished 2-12. In 1975, they played home games in Shea Stadium - home of the Jets - and went 5-9. In 1976, installed in all-new Giants Stadium in New Jersey, they started out losing their first nine games and finished 2-12. Head coach Bill Arnsparger was fired at the 0-7 mark.
In the off-season he was traded to Denver, and he would later recall his response on learning that he had been traded to Denver: “God, thank you very, very much.”
In 1977, with new coach Red Miller and their new quarterback, the Broncos went 12-2 and made it to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. He became the first quarterback to start in a Super Bowl for two different teams. (Since then, he would be joined by Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Tom Brady).
He was named AFC Offensive Player of the Year and also NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
In his first five years in Denver, the Broncos won 50 games, as he and wide receiver Haven Moses became known as the “M & M Connection.”
In his next-to-last season, at the age of 38, he had one of his best seasons statistically, throwing for 3,195 yards and 21 touchdowns. His 8.5 yards per attempt is still a team record. But he was sacked 54 times - a team record that lasted for another 41 years.
He played just three games in the strike-shortened season of 1982, then retired.
Following his playing career, he served as head coach of the Denver Gold of the original USFL.
Craig Morton is in the Colorado Hall of Fame, the Broncos’ Ring of Honor, the Cal Sports Hall of Fame, the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CRAIG MORTON
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
John Rothwell, Corpus Christi, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: On this hot September night, Number 22 walked through the door of the gymnasium with his 50 or so teammates. He stood there beyond the end zone and waited with them to run onto the field. They were a small-town Mississippi football team.
The stadium behind the old brick high school was crowded with 4000 people. There was a pale quarter-moon on the horizon. A train whistle from the Illinois Central echoed across from independence Quarters, and crickets chirped from a nearby hollow. The grass was moist from yesterday’s rains.
He was big. He was carrying his helmet, which he put on now over a copious Afro haircut kept in place by a red hairnet. He was 17 years old and he was wearing glasses.
***
I had heard about him for many months, ever since I came back from the North to live in Mississippi. Going into his senior year, he was the most sought-after and acclaimed high school football player in America, a swift and powerful running back whom many were already comparing with the legendary Herschel Walker of Georgia.
So did well-known author Willie Morris, himself a Mississippi native, begin a best-selling book about the recruiting of this small-town high school phenom.
In Philadelphia, Mississippi everybody in town knew from the time he was a young boy that he was going to be good. Really good. That’s the way things work in a small town.
The very first time he touched a football in his high school career - as a 210-pound freshman who had already been timed at 4.4 seconds in the 40 - he returned the opening kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown. Playing wide receiver, he scored five touchdowns for the season.
As a sophomore, playing running back, he rushed for 1,850 yards and 28 touchdowns, and as a junior he rushed for 1,550 yards and 25 touchdowns.
In his senior year, he rushed for 2,955 yards and 36 touchdowns. In his high school career, he rushed for 7,355 yards (averaging 8.3 yards per carry) and 87 touchdowns, the latter mark breaking Herschel Walker’s national high school record.
To college recruiters, he was “the second coming of Earl Campbell… the heir apparent to Herschel Walker.”
Big? He was 6-3, 240.
Strong? College coaches who visited his school marveled at watching him bench-press 400 pounds 10 times before going outside to run a 40 for them.
Fast? He’d run 4.3/4.4 since he was a freshman.
Wrote one sports reporter, he had “the strength of Zeus, the vision of Artemis, the speed of Hermes and the controlled rage of Ares.”
And that, in those days - after the last game of his senior season - , was when the recruiting began
LSU, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State, Southern Miss, UCLA, Pitt and Oklahoma - everybody was after him.
The recruiting became so interesting that it - and the coincidental fact that Philadelphia, Mississippi was the site, years earlier, of the brutal murder of three civil rights workers - was the inspiration for Willie Morris’ book.
Although Oklahoma assistant coach Lucious Selmon - a former OU All-American - had camped out in a motel room in Philadelphia for six weeks, our guy gave a verbal commitment to Texas. But Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, not to be denied, arranged for former OU star (and Heisman Trophy winner) Billy Sims to fly into Philadelphia to try to change our guy’s mind, and when Sims left town, he had closed the deal: our guy was going to OU.
A major factor in the decision to switch? Oklahoma had a game scheduled in Hawaii the next season. Texas? “The only place Texas goes,” he told Sports Illustrated, “is Arkansas.”
How big a deal was his signing?
So big that after three games of our guy’s freshman year, Switzer abandoned the wishbone that had been so good to him, and changed to the I formation.
Our guy didn’t see extensive action until the fifth game with the Sooners 2-2. In mid-October against Texas, his 63-yard touchdown run made the difference in a 28-22 Sooners win. The next week, against Kansas, was his first start, and he rushed for 158 yards and earned Big 8 Offensive Player of the Week honors.
Starting the final seven games, he rushed for a total of 1,144 yards, and became the first freshman ever to lead OU in rushing. He had nine runs of 48 yards or more.
He scored 13 touchdowns and led all freshmen in rushing, and was All-Big 8 and named Big 8 Newcomer of the Year.
In the 1983 Fiesta Bowl against Arizona State, playing less than half the game - he pulled his hamstring in the second quarter - he set a new Fiesta Bowl record with 239 yards on 17 carries and was named game MVP.
But there were problems on the horizon.
A Sports Illustrated cover story the following summer questioned whether the star runner and Coach Switzer could coexist.
Our guy was good, for sure. The problem was, he knew it, and took advantage. He practiced indifferently, and other players resented what seemed to be the way Switzer accommodated him. The Sooners had a very good running back named Stanley Wilson who against his wishes was moved to fullback (aka blocking back) because our guy had made it clear that there was no way HE was going to play fullback.
He was not by any means a good student. "I don't really like school, "he said. "College isn't for everybody, and I guess it's just not for me. All I want is to try to make life simple, mind my own business and try to make things fun. "
And then there was his weight. Switzer had reportedly been on him about it, telling others that his star was overweight and lazy.
He was probably right about the overweight part. In the SI article, writer Douglas Looney wrote, our guy “tends to eat not just too much but way too much. He loves squash and hates peas, but more than anything he looks for chances to wade into hamburgers, ribs, french fries and chicken nuggets.”
Said his mother, “In our family nobody eats breakfast. But after noon, the kill is on. We just sit and eat until we go to bed. "
And he made it clear that he didn’t like Switzer’s style of coaching.
“I had the impression,” he said, “Before I went to Oklahoma from just watching Coach Switzer on TV that he's a hard guy and that he treats his players hard. That turns out to be true. I think I'll play this year, but it could be my last. Coach Switzer says I don't practice that well. The problem is, it's not like high school when Coach Wood made it fun. At Oklahoma, it's not fun. I don't know.”
Five games into the 1983 season, after a 28-16 loss to Texas, the Sooners were 3-2. And their best player, their star runner, had gone missing.
A week later, it was announced that he’d flown home to Mississippi and wasn’t returning to OU.
He enrolled at Southern Mississippi, but he not only had to miss the remainder of the 1983 season but also, under the transfer rules then in effect, had to sit out the next season too.
Rather than wait it out, he chose to turn pro. Still off-limits to the NFL because he had only spent two years at college, he signed instead with the New Orleans Breakers of the USFL.
He had a decent first year, but in his second year - the Breakers having moved to Portland, Oregon - he suffered a severe knee injury that effectively ended his career. He did make an attempt at a comeback with the Los Angeles Rams after a four-year layoff (he had to lose 100 pounds in three months to do so) , but he was never the same again.
He was featured in a “30 For 30” documentary entitled “The Best That Never Was.”
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2025
"My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a
horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken
place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their
democracy, and indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America’s
decline is over.Our liberties and our nation’s glorious destiny will no longer be denied. And we will immediately restore the integrity, competency and loyalty of America’s government." PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump
*********** I confess that watching Monday’s inauguration (think of it - a real, honest-to-God President!) and the events associated with it took precedence over preparing today’s page. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. So please indulge me and my restored hope that our country still has a chance, and forgive me if the page might seem a bit light in content.
Considering the time constraints that faced the Republicans in changing the inauguration arrangements (from outdoors to indoors), the precision with which they brought everything off is a good sign for those of us who remember a time when our government actually got things done right and on time.
High on the list of my favorite types of music is marches, and a major government event - one in which the military and its bands take part - is the time to hear them.
I loved the pomp. I loved the awesome beauty of the Capitol Rotunda. I loved the President’s speech.
And Lord, I loved to see to all those smiling people. Thank for that, Joe Biden. You did that. By leaving town.
Meantime, if you hadn’t noticed - THE FLAG IS NO LONGER UPSIDE-DOWN!
********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: I learned about selling our program to parents as well as the athletes. Ronnie McCoy of Smyrna was a good prospect whose father was a state police captain. He took me goose hunting about 4:30 AM one day, and after bagging several geese we returned to the McCoy home for breakfast. The doorbell rang and it was a rival recruiter, MIke Cooley, an assistant coach at Lehigh. I went out to the door and grinned: "Coach, you just gotta get up early in the morning in this game. Ronnie has decided to become a Fightin’ Blue Hen and be with us at Delaware.“
That nickname often triggered snide comments from our opponents and snickers from outsiders who thought it lacked the tough, aggressive image normally associated with such labels. During the Revolutionary War, troops from the Delaware colony carried fighting cocks, and between battles they’d match the birds in deadly combat. The blue hen was considered the most ferocious strain of these cocks. That historical link led to the university’s nickname.
In the early 1950s I was approached at a football clinic in Atlantic City by a young coach named Tommy Phillips at Struthers high school in Ohio. He asked if he could visit our spring practice. Tommy came back for about six years. He ended up staying at our house and babysat our kids. He developed a top quarterback named John Mackovic when he coached at Barberton. Phillips predicted that Mackovic one day would be an outstanding head football coach. I tried to recruit him but he picked Wake Forest. John went on to coach at his alma mater, then Illinois, University of Texas and more recently the University of Arizona. Phillips later was an assistant when I was AD at Kent State where he had a heart attack. He was concerned I wasn't going to keep him on staff. I told him that as long as I had a job there would be a place for him at Kent State.
Delaware had become a comfortable situation, in my job and with my family. After a year, Rena and I bought our first home, three bedrooms with one bath and a carport, located in a tract of new houses on the outskirts of Newark. The price was $9,900. Janann, our second daughter, was born November 5, 1953, followed by Jill, January 31, 1956. Three years later we moved into a two-story colonial in the Fairfield Crest area. Hard work and success were starting to pay dividends.
It took four days and overcoming the hazards of a fierce snowstorm before I made it to the hospital to see Janann for the first time. It started snowing the night she was born, and all the roads were impossible to navigate. I walked three miles to get to the office, and our weekend game was eventually called off because all the trains were shut down.
*********** Thank God this “Biden” creature is gone from our lives. “His” last-minute pardons of Fauci, Milley and Schiff are the sleaziest thing I’ve ever seen done by a president (or whoever’s behind the curtain). If it matters that much that Fauci, Milley and Schiff pay for their misdeeds, Trump probably knows some fellas in NYC who'd be glad to whack the three of them for free, as a favor to their country.
*********** GO IRISH! GO BUCKEYES! I admire both programs and I hope that they’ll both be able to give it their best shot and that tonight’s better team will win. And I’ll feel bad for whichever team loses.
*********** Think the 12-game college playoff has made the season long? Writes John Canzano…
It’s going to get even longer for the 2026 season when they increase the field to 14 teams.
Chip Kelly made some comments this week about how Ohio State managed the length of the season. The Buckeyes were intentional about managing the pace of games. Kelly said he wanted to limit the number of snaps and take some wear and tear off his players.
Said Kelly: “We were a little bit more slowed down on offense. And there was a reason; we knew we were going to play in a 16-game schedule. You just can’t run 100 snaps in every game during the regular season and expect to be fresh during the end of the season. We planned on that.”
Just another reason for “slowing the game down” on offense. Translation: running the ball.
I have to admit to being bemused by the “play fast” fad. I consider every play precious, and I hold to the belief that fewer plays run with the aim of perfection are more likely to be successful than a whole lot of plays run fast but run haphazardly.
*********** Xavier Lucas, once a DB from Wisconsin, gave up on entering the transfer portal when - he says - the school failed to enter his name, and now he’s simply transferring to Miami - without going through the portal. (He’s got a lawyer.)
Wisconsin - the entire Big Ten, as a matter of fact - is accusing Miami of tampering, but who’s supposed to enforce any rules against that? The NCAA?
The NCAA issued a statement on Friday saying, "NCAA rules do not prevent a student-athlete from unenrolling from an institution, enrolling at a new institution and competing immediately.”
You got that? THIS IS BIG and somehow it’s gone largely unnoticed.
So, says the NCAA, players (sorry - “student-athletes”) can transfer any time they want - without going through the portal - and be immediately eligible.
One problem solved: no more worrying about windows before or after the bowls or spring practice. One window or two? Who Cares? Who needs windows?
Hell, if a kid doesn’t think he’s being thrown to enough, what’s to stop him if he decides at halftime to go over to the other team’s locker room and put their jersey on?
Not the NCAA. Not the people who used to put schools on probation for buying a kid a cheeseburger.
*********** Not saying that Lions’ coach Dan Campbell would let the pursuit of “EQUITY” get in the way of his game preparations - he wears whatever they give him to wear - but my son-in-law Rob Tiffany happened to catch this while we were watching the game - the inside of the bill of his cap shows that , while all over America companies are turning their backs on DEI, the NFL, aka The League of Yard-Sign Slogans (“Choose Love,” “Be Love,” “Stop Hate,” “Inspire Change”) is still at it.
*********** CHIEFS 23, TEXAS 14 - Years ago, Steelers’ linebacker Jack Lambert said that the way the rules (and officials) protected quarterbacks, they might as well have them wear dresses.
I’m not going to get after NFL officials, but I do wonder what Lambert would think about the way Patrick Mahomes seems to be coddled. I sense a large and growing number of fans resent this, and I hate to see this happening because I like the way Mahomes plays.
*********** REDSKINS 45, LIONS 31 - I have to say that this was one of the best, most interesting NFL games I’ve seen in years. A main reason: The Washington Team that Will Remain Unnamed ran a nice college-type offense (running the ball, using assorted options and blocking schemes) and made use of the unique talents of Jayden Daniels, one of the most impressive rookie QBs we’ll ever see. Before dumping Jared Goff, as so many dejected Lions’ fans suggest, I’d suggest taking another look at why he was brutally hit in the head on an interception play - in which he is supposed to be treated as a defenseless player - and there was no penalty assessed on the perp. Goff returned to the game after going through concussion protocol, but had to have been affected the rest of the way by that shot he took. Sorry about all the fuss being made about how long it had been since the Redskins were in the playoffs, when the Lions haven’t won a championship since 1957 - ten years before there even was a Super Bowl.
*********** EAGLES 28, RAMS 22 - In the snow, the Eagles’ Saquon Barkley rushed for 205 yards and two TDs, averaging 7.9 yards per carry and Jalen Hurts, although throwing for just 128 yards, ran for 70. The Rams’ Matthew Stafford, 26 of 44 for 324 yards and two TDs, led a comeback that fell just short.
*********** BILLS 27, RAVENS 25 - The Ravens outgained the Bills, 416 to 271. Lamar Jackson had a great game - 18 of 25 passing for 254 yards and two TDs, and 39 yards rushing on six carries, but he made a few mistakes, and his pass for a two-point conversion in the closing seconds was dropped by normally sure-handed tight end Mark Andrews. The Bills’ offense was anemic - Jared Allen’s 127 yards passing (16 completions out of 22 attempts) was less than six yards per attempt, and he ran for just 20 yards.
*********** Wayne Tinkle, Oregon State’s basketball coach, has been on the hot seat, and his team’s huge 97-89 upset of Gonzaga last Thursday led to an interesting revelation, as he confided in John Canzano:
Oregon State is a team of foreigners.
On his roster are players from Turkey, Iran, Germany, France, England, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Lithuania, Turkey and the UK. among other countries. Seven different languages are spoken in the locker room.
It was no accident. He built the team that way. Why?
First of all, college athletes on student visas are extremely limited in their ability to work in the US - which includes getting NIL payments.
In addition, Tinkle and his staff have found that “international” players are generally coachable and willing to share the ball - unlike a lot of American kids - and in addition, their parents are interested in their sons’ educations.
Finally, there’s loyalty - a disappearing commodity thanks to the NIL/Transfer Portal combination. Said Tinkle, “There’s a lot more loyalty over there than what we see in the states these days.”
*********** I suppose there’s no way to avoid distractions. First, there was the rumor that the Bears were interested in interviewing Marcus Freeman. (What the hell - they’ve got some 17 guys on their wish list, so what’s the harm in one more?)
But then came the story a few years ago that Oklahoma was interested in Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.
Knowles is already making more than $2 million at Ohio State (he’s earning it - in his three years at Ohio State he’s had the Buckeyes’ defense ranked nationally).
So, Oklahoma State did you say? Well, no, even though that’s where he was coaching when Ohio State called.
No, we’re talking OU - and not as their head coach, either - they’ve already got on in Brent Venables, and he’s got an enormous buyout, so he isn’t going anywhere. Venables lost his DC to West Virginia back before New Year’s, and the fact that he’s been waiting this long when he’s already got a well-qualified man on his staff might indicate that he’s been waiting until Knowles can move.
Why would he leave Ohio State?
I read that he recently became engaged to a woman who lives in Oklahoma and she has kids and doesn’t want to move.
*********** Coach,
Just finished a book called the Boys from Riverside. It is about the California School of the Deaf in Riverside and their winning the 2022 8 man CIF title in the southern section. In the book they mention that the Huddle was invented by Gallaudet University on the East Coast. I checked the internet and it mentions it was done in 1894.
We changed the game.
In 1894, the Gallaudet football team was playing against another deaf team. Paul Hubbard, the quarterback, didn’t want to risk the other team seeing him use American Sign Language (ASL) to explain the play to his teammates, so he asked them to form a tight circle formation, now known as a huddle.
Today, the huddle is used all over the world, in a wide variety of team sports, such as baseball, football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse and many other sports.
Tom Davis
San Marcos, California
My reply…
It appears that there was (and likely still is) some controversy concerning the origin of the huddle, with numerous claimants to be the originator.
Illinois Coach Bob Zuppke, as I wrote, is generally considered to be the originator of the huddle.
There is considerable discussion on the subject and the issue remains inconclusive, but while Gallaudet may in fact have a bona fide claim to being the first, their evidence appears to be lacking.
In Allison Danzig’s magnficent “The History of American Football,” there is almost an entire page devoted to the topic of the huddle with this conclusion: “the weight of evidence and opinion credits Zuppke as the first.”
I’ll see if I can find the time to reprint that portion of the book.
***
I happen to have had some connection with Gallaudet, a college for the deaf (or, as they said when I was young, “deaf and dumb”), When I played for the Frederick (Maryland) Falcons in 1968 and 1969, we had a few players on our team who were teachers at the Maryland School for the Deaf (located in Frederick), and they had played at Gallaudet.
One of them, Ed Gobble, had played four years at Gallaudet, and then the year before joining us, had played for a very good minor league (ACFL) team called the Virginia Sailors. He was 6-1, 230 and very quick and he could knock your ass off, and he quickly established himself as our middle linebacker.
Communication was no problem at all. In fact, he called our defenses using sign language, simplified enough so that the rest of us could understand.
He was a hell of a player and a great guy. I’ll never forget the look of delight on his face when my eight-year-old son said “Hi” to him in American sign language.
*********** Our first President gave you the perfect quotation for today.
Sorry to say Sen Jack Reed (jagoff inquirer) was in my company at West Point. You're the last person who should ask such a question, Jackie.
I'm not ready to concede the title to the Buckeyes. Says here the Irish pull the upset. I wish college athletic decisionmakers--whoever they are nowadays--would heed your caution about the noisiness and flashiness of CFB today. Many of us want to watch football, and don't give a damn about the glitzy halftime show they pay millions for.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
My daughter (ND-St. Mary’s alumna) looked into going to Atlanta to see the big game and take part in all the festivities. Took about 20 minutes for her to change her mind! “Dad, I really want to be there, but it hit me, I’m not at that level yet!
I still have a few kids I worked with who are grad students at ND. The group of them couldn’t sniff tickets to the game.
From what my daughter tells me large contingents of ND alums (and “subway alums”) will be gathering in cities across the country at local Irish “game-watch” party locations (sponsored by local ND Alumni Clubs directly affiliated with the University), to cheer on the Fighting Irish. She is a past president of the Austin Club.
To win the national championship ND will HAVE to control the ball on offense and end time consuming drives with TD’s.
The defense will HAVE to be great open field tacklers, limit explosive plays, and create turnovers. IF they can do that, and avoid mistakes, ND special teams will determine the outcome of the game.
Would enjoy the NFL playoffs much more drinking my Heineken NA if the Lions and Eagles play for the NFC title, and the Chiefs play the Bills for the AFC.
Glad to read that John V. is on the mend!
I thoroughly enjoy his views on your news, AND…his take on the big game! Go Irish! ☘️ ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️
Enjoy the weekend, and the games!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: No Bronco will ever again wear his Number 7. Actually, though, it’s not HIS number 7 that was retired. The number 7 that was retired happened to belong to his successor as Broncos’ QB - John Elway.
Nevertheless, this guy is honored and remembered by Denver fans as the first quarterback to take their Broncos to the Super Bowl.
He played his high school football in Campbell, California, where he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball.
At Cal, he played under head coach Marv Levy and a young offensive coach named Bill Walsh. He played on losing teams all three years he was eligible, but he held up his end: in one stretch between his junior and senior years, he threw at least one touchdown pass in 16 straight games. As a senior, he set Pac-8 records for pass attempts (308), pass completions (185) and passing yards (2,121), and was the recipient of the Pop Warner Trophy, given to the most valuable player on the Pacific Coast. Although the Bears went 3-7 that year, he made several All-America teams, and finished seventh in the Heisman voting, ahead of such future immortals as Joe Namath and Gale Sayers.
When he graduated he held just about every Cal passing record. (Actually, he had set most of them by the end of his junior season.)
He was the fifth player taken overall in the 1965 draft (by Dallas) and he would spend 10 seasons with Cowboys (1965-74). Those ten seasons could be broken into three phases:
Phase 1 - Backing up Don Meredith
Phase 2 - Starting - he led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl following the 1970 season (they lost to the Baltimore Colts).
Beginning the next year -
Phase 3 - The Quarterback Controversy, in competition with Roger Staubach. In one game against the Chicago Bears, Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry actually had his two quarterbacks alternating plays.
In 1974, having lost the QB competition with Staubach, he asked for a trade, and signed a contract with the World Football League Houston Texans to play for them in 1975 (after he would become a free agent). But shortly into the 1974 season, he was traded to the New York Giants. In return, the Giants sent the Cowboys their 1975 Number One draft choice (which Dallas would use to take Randy White).
His three years in New York were a nightmare. Actually, they were scarcely spent in New York at all. In 1974 the Giants played their home schedule in New Haven, Connecticut, in the Yale Bowl. They lost all seven home games and finished 2-12. In 1975, they played home games in Shea Stadium - home of the Jets - and went 5-9. In 1976, installed in all-new Giants Stadium in New Jersey, they started out losing their first nine games and finished 2-12. Head coach Bill Arnsparger was fired at the 0-7 mark.
In the off-season he was traded to Denver, and he would later recall his response on learning that he had been traded to Denver: “God, thank you very, very much.”
In 1977, with new coach Red Miller and their new quarterback, the Broncos went 12-2 and made it to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. He became the first quarterback to start in a Super Bowl for two different teams. (Since then, he would be joined by Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Tom Brady).
He was named AFC Offensive Player of the Year and also NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
In his first five years in Denver, the Broncos won 50 games, as he and wide receiver Haven Moses became known as the “M & M Connection.”
In his next-to-last season, at the age of 38, he had one of his best seasons statistically, throwing for 3,195 yards and 21 touchdowns. His 8.5 yards per attempt is still a team record. But he was sacked 54 times - a team record that lasted for another 41 years.
He played just three games in the strike-shortened season of 1982, then retired.
Following his playing career, he served as head coach of the Denver Gold of the original USFL.
He is in the Colorado Hall of Fame, the Broncos’ Ring of Honor, the Cal Sports Hall of Fame, the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY,
JANUARY 17, 2025
"Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force.
And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George
WashingtonRIP BOB UECKER: "I signed with the Milwaukee Braves for $3,000. That bothered my dad at the time because he didn't have that kind of dough to pay out. But eventually he scraped it up.
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Irv Wisniewski, another former Michigan player, joined the staff in 1952 as end coach, and he was a very positive contributor to the development of the Wing-T. So was Ed Maley. Both “Whiz” and Maley retired at Delaware.
While Nelson was a fierce competitor, he was not without mercy when an opponent was outclassed. I remember a game in 1959 against Temple when we were six or seven touchdowns ahead. I was upstairs in the press box when Dave got me on the phone and said, "MIke, what do you think about sending the manager over to their coach to ask if we could keep the clock running with no timeouts for incomplete passes or out-of-bounds plays?” I agreed it would be a good idea. So he sent the manager to the visiting bench and he returned quickly. "What did he say? "I asked Dave. "The coach said please.” And that's the way it ended.
High school coaches were joining the parade to the Wing-T. One day a short, plump man, a coach in Eunice Louisiana, walked into my office, wanting to learn about the system. Faize Mahfouz became a close friend. I spoke at his clinics in Eunice and in New Iberia when he moved there and at meetings of the Louisiana State Coaches Association.
Those contacts were helpful in one of my other responsibilities at Delaware, running our recruiting efforts. In those years I had the privilege of selling our football program to hundreds of players, and so many of them have kept in touch with me over the years.
My first Delaware recruit was Jimmy Flynn, a running back I went after when I was still at Maine. His coach at Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh was Nick Skorich, a former professional player with the Steelers and a classmate of mine in graduate school at Michigan State University. When the Maine coaching staff departed for Delaware, Jimmy called me and said, "What happens to me?” I told him he was obligated to stay at Maine. He replied, "Well, Coach Skorich said that wherever Coach Lude goes, I go too.” He got a release from Maine and became an outstanding tailback and a sprinter at Delaware.
My first quarterback recruit was Don Miller from Prospect Park (Pennsylvania) High School, who was a perfect fit for the system we used at Delaware. Besides being a talented passer, he was a standout ball handler whose deception and handing off the ball to his running backs perplexed rival defenses.
*********** OHIO STATE-NOTRE DAME
Of course I’ll watch. I like both teams.
But if you had any doubts about where all this playoff sh— is headed: the word is that each of the two schools has been allocated a grand total of 500 tickets for students.
The game, you see, is the focal point of the American obsession with always being bigger, flashier, noisier - and definitely more expensive - than whatever came before.
Students? Purists? lovers of the game? Screw you. Go watch it on TV.
Why, thank you. I think I will.
I’ll save on air fare, lodging, tickets, parking, and overpriced beer and food.
I won’t have to listen to obnoxious “music” over the P-A, between announcements that it’s thir-r-r-r-r-d down. (As message boards say MAKE NOISE)
I won’t have people squeezing past me, blocking my view as they make their way to restrooms or concession stands.
And while you dupes sit there doing absolutely nothing until that guy out there in the red hat lets the teams know that the TV commercials are over and it’s permissible to play football once again, I’ll use the bathroom or go get a drink or a snack.
I’ll do my best to enjoy the game, despite the over-the-top pre-game buildup… the multiple-grammy award-winning “performing” of what they insist on claiming is “our national anthem”… the grotesque halftime show that has zero connection whatsoever with either of the participating schools or, for that matter, the game of football itself … the five-minute-long commercial breaks at every change of possession…
And when the game’s over, I’ll watch the confetti cannons make a mess of everything and listen to the coaches and key players tell sideline reporters “what it means” to have won the title. SPOILER ALERT: “It means everything.”
And then, since I’m already home, I’ll go to bed.
Meanwhile, not done yet with proving that Barnum was right (“there’s a sucker born every minute”) you sit in the parking lot, waiting for an opening…
*********** By now, NFL games ought to be worth watching…
SAT - TEXANS - CHIEFS (1:30 EST) - Can anybody beat the Chiefs? Will Taylor swift be there? I like Andy Reid and I like Patrick Mahomes and I’m not ready to see the Chiefs’ run come to an end.
SAT - COMMANDERS - LIONS (5:00 EST) - Lions appear unbeatable, but Washington QB Jayden Daniels is worth watching. He’s one heckuva rookie. But I have to go with the Lions - a team that hasn’t won a championship since I was in college.
SUN - RAMS - EAGLES (3:00 EST) - E-A-G-L-E-S-EAGLES! I like Jalen Hurts and I like Saquon Barkley. And I’ve still got some Philly in me (too much, some would say).
SUN - RAVENS - BILLS (6:30 EST) - Damn shame this game has to come so early in the going because these are two of the top three or four teams in the league. We lived in Maryland for 14 years, and in Baltimore for five of them, but those were the days of the Baltimore COLTS. I’ve gotten to know a lot of Buffalo guys and I like them and I like the town and I know how much a win would mean to them. So - Go Bills.
*********** Uhhhh… While you and I took our eyes off the ball, seems like Deion and Jerry done sat down and talked.
*********** To be successful…
Famed Army coach Earl “Red” Blaik: “You have to pay the price.”
Old strength-training cliche: “No pain, no gain.”
Jensen Huang, founder of Nvidia (and now one of the world’s wealthiest men: “I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.”
*********** Thinking about taking your team to an overnight camp, were you? You didn’t have enough to worry about with the kids and hazing. Now you have to worry about your coaches.
By Aimee Green | The Oregonian/OregonLive
The Beaverton School District has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the mother of a Westview High School football player who claimed he was abruptly awoken in the middle of the night during a summer sports camp and slapped in the face by his coach.
The 17-year-old football player, now in his senior year, was among a dozen teens attending the overnight sports camp in June 2024 when prosecutors allege they were slapped, grabbed or otherwise harassed by their coach, Jamal Jones, as the players slept in a gym at Linfield University in McMinnville. According to court papers, Jones told police he had downed four beers before embarking on the 1 a.m. spree, which startled players and prompted them to pack up and leave.
*********** I read someplace where Bill Belichick (you know - the new football coach at North Carolina) told Pat McAfee that he would run a college program exactly like a pro team, and turn it into a “pipeline to the NFL.”
Uhhh… isn’t that pretty much what Herm Edwards said back when he took over at Arizona State?
Uhhh… did those guys mean like ANY pro team? Even the Jaguars? Panthers? Titans?
Shouldn’t they have said, “Like a REALLY GOOD pro team?”
I mean, there are so many crummy pro football teams, that it would make just as much sense to me to go into one of those loser franchises and announce that you’re going to run things exactly as you would with a really good college team.
*********** The Oregon Ducks have signed a wide receiver named Malik Benson.
Was someone supposed to get excited?
He spent two years at Hutchinson (Kansas) Community College… then a year at Alabama… then a year at Florida State…
And now, after the Pavia ruling (holding that junior college play should not count against a player’s NCAA eligibility) he’s a Duck.
Nothing against Malik Benson, you understand… but wasn’t it great back when a guy grew up in your favorite college program? Remember watching him arrive as a freshman and then develop over the years? Remember looking forward to how good he’d be as a senior?
(WHICH BRINGS UP THE QUESTION: What, exactly, IS a college “senior” these days?)
*********** During Pete Hegseth's Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) asked Hegseth to explain the term “jagoff."
Now, If I were prompting Pete Hegseth, I’d have had him saying, “Well, Senator, let’s put it this way - you probably ought to stay out of Pittsburgh.”
********* In Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing - he’s been nominated to be Secretary of Defense - I bet I heard the term “warfighter” used several dozen times, when “soldiers” or “sailors” or “Marines” or “service members” would have worked.
It’s a rather new term, undoubtedly invented for a reason, and when I asked a friend - a veteran - what he thought, he said right away that he figured it was so that the speaker wouldn’t get accused of offending females by using a term that was considered masculine.
*********** Tom Clements, once a great Notre Dame quarterback but in recent years the quarterback coach of the Packers - he coached Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Jordan Love - is retiring.
He’s 71, and in addition to the Packers he’s coached for the Saints, Chiefs, Steelers, and Bills.
*********** I read this in Oregon live…
Oregon State defensive coordinator Keith Heyward has resigned after one year with the Beavers’ football staff.
A source confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive that Heyward is no longer with the football program. No reason was given for Heyward’s resignation.
Under Heyward during the 2024 season, Oregon State gave up an average of 399.9 yards and 29.9 points a game. Heyward also helped coach defensive backs.
Such is the state of journalism today. After just reading that last paragraph, I could have sworn I read, in the paragraph just before it, “No reason was given for Heyward’s resignation.”
*********** According to the Brewers Association, a national trade group, in 2024, for the first time in nearly two decades, the U.S. saw more craft breweries close (399) than open (335).
1. Too many people got into the business because it’s relatively easy to do
2. Americans are drinking less beer (they’re switching to spirits, hard cider, hard seltzers)
3. Americans are drinking less alcohol in general (One reason is the legalization of marijuana).
*********** I’m by no means a quarterback whisperer, but I do know a little about the fundamentals of coaching quarterbacks, and over the last few years I’ve become quite the fan of Tom House. Tom House, for those of you who’ve never heard of him, was a major league pitcher for eight seasons, who retired with a won-lost record of 29-23.
And then he became a pitching coach - a pretty good one.
At his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Nolan Ryan had this to say about him…
While I was [with the Rangers] I was very fortunate to have a pitching coach by the name of Tom House. And Tom and I are of the same age and Tom is a coach that is always on the cutting edge. And I really enjoyed our association together and he would always come up with new training techniques that we would try and see how they would work in to my routine. And because of our friendship and Tom pushing me, I think I got in the best shape of my life during the years that I was with the Rangers.
He was the guy who taught the young cricket players how to throw a baseball, the basis of the movie.”Million Dollar Arm.”
He was in the bullpen when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, and he caught it on the fly.
In the belief that as “rotational athletes” pitchers and quarterbacks have so much in common, he expanded his work to include quarterbacks. Starting with Drew Brees (who was a neighbor), he has worked with Dak Prescott, Tom Brady and Jared Goff, among others.
I came across this fascinating interview of Tom House and I couldn’t stop watching it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=tom+house+film#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:a2a1aa16,vid:9iuohCIAUFs,st:0
*********** Tell John Vermillion I'll get around to reading the rest of his books (which, so far, are GREAT, btw)
AFTER I finish
"Tactical Implications of the Adoption of
AUFTRAGSTAKTIK
for Command and Control on the AirLand Battlefield"
So far, I'm not much past the title, though.
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
*********** Coach: Thanks for the kind words. I AM on the way back to my previous state of normalcy.
I've never spent much time exploring downtown Philly, but sometime in the early 70s I agreed to visit Wanamaker's with someone who regarded it as one of the wonders of the modern world. This was during the Christmas holiday, and I can say neither Disney nor any similar theme park enchanted me as much as John Wanamaker's. It was a Hollywood production where commerce occurred. As an outsized toy train rumbled past, and surrounded by a special Christmas presentation, I felt I was in a movie. Macy's was a poor substitute, I have no doubt, but still, it's disheartening to discover that link with JW is now itself gone.
Army didn't put its best foot forward against Notre Dame, but a wise man on the Army message board at the time cautioned our fans to wait until the season wound down before passing final judgment on the Irish. As I recall, he believed they might have enough talent and coaching to run the table. I hope ND rolls OSU...I don't expect that outcome, but I can hope--reasonably, I think--that Notre Dame wins.
Speaking of Herb Kirkstreit, that sure looks like him on one of the games shown on your NFL Films photo.
Instant Portal, NIL, disregard of established rules: who might succeed at restoring order to CFB? Maybe Tommy Tuberville will accept the job as a side gig?
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
You, and many of your readers who know me, know how ecstatic I am that my most favorite college football team Notre Dame will play for the national championship. It’s a dream come true. Yet, I am a retired football coach and the coach in me is still alive and well.
After evaluating both the Georgia and Penn State games there is no way on God’s green earth the Irish will beat either Texas or Ohio State playing offense the way they have. No way. OC Denbrock does not give me the warm and fuzzies with his play-calling. Never has.
Frankly, the defense has continually bailed us out of a number of close games that should’ve never been close to begin with.
BUT…I always hold on to hope that things will improve, and the Irish win the “natty!”
Surprised me to see the MWC bring on Northern Illinois. I thought NDSU would be a more likely candidate.
I still think UNLV will be the next new member of the new PAC. Followed by UTSA.
Never could figure out where George Carlin was coming from as a kid. Do now!
Hook ‘em! (Will NEVER pull for Ohio State)
Enjoy your weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: At Salem, New Jersey High Lydell Mitchell was an All-South Jersey running back as a sophomore and - after being injured his junior year - as a senior.
At Penn State he shared the backfield with a fellow South Jersey native, Franco Harris, with whom he became lifelong friends. In his three years of eligibility (1969-1971) the Nittany Lions went 29-4, with wins in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl. (As a result of his MVP performance in the Lions’ win over Texas, he is in the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame.)
In his senior year he was a first-team All-America selection and finished fifth in the Heisman balloting, after breaking three NCAA single-season records: touchdowns (29), touchdowns rushing (26) and points scored (174).
He ran for 1,567 yards, a school season record that stood for more than 30 years, and his career rushing yardage record broke that of all-time Nittany Lion great Lenny Moore.
Drafted in the second round by the Baltimore Colts in 1972, he went on to play in the NFL for 10 seasons - seven with the Colts, two with the Chargers, and part of one with the Rams.
He was 5-11, 205 and tough. In 1974 he established an NFL record with 40 carries against the Jets. (The record would last for just two years until it was broken by - of all people - his former college running mate, Franco Harris, then with the Steelers.)
In 1975, under new coach Ted Marchibroda, the Colts made the playoffs, and Mitchell was a major factor. He became the first running back in Colt history to rush for 1,000 yards, gaining 1,193 yards on 289 carries.
It would be the first of three straight 1000-yard-plus seasons for him (14-game seasons, it should be noted) and he was named to the Pro Bowl all three years.
In 1977 he set a new team all-time rushing record, and play was stopped as the Baltimore fans stood and cheered him - and the man whose record he’d just broken - Hall of Famer Lenny Moore.
“I don't remember anything else about that game,” he said later, “except that, at that moment, Lenny came out on the field and presented me with the football and told me ‘You deserve this.’ That was big, man, when you break a legend's record - especially since we were both from Penn State.”
On the way to setting the new team record, he gained 1159 yards on 301 carries. But in addition, he led the NFL in pass receptions with 72. It was no fluke - it was the second time he had led the league in receptions.
Although he was coming off his best season, a contract dispute with Colts’ ownership (those damned Irsays wouldn’t give him a $100,000 raise) resulted in his holding out during the 1978 training camp, and his being traded to the Chargers.
He played two more years with the Chargers and part of one with the Rams and retired.
He and Franco Harris remained close friends (“We finished each others’ sentences”) until Harris’s death, and he partnered with Harris in a Pittsburgh bakery and in the rescue of Baltimore-based Parks Sausage Company, at the time one of the nation’s largest minority-owned companies.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In his pro career, Lydell Mitchell played in 111 games and started in 84 of them. In all, he carried 1,675 times for 6,534 yards and 30 TDs. For a running back, he was an exceptionally good receiver, with 376 receptions for 3,203 yards and 17 TDs.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING LYDELL MITCHELL
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Tim Brown - Florence, Alabama
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Rothwell, Corpus Christi, Texas -
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: No Bronco will ever again wear his Number 7. Actually, though, it’s not HIS number 7 that was retired. The number 7 that was retired happened to belong to his successor as Broncos’ QB - John Elway.
Nevertheless, this guy is honored and remembered by Denver fans as the first quarterback to take their Broncos to the Super Bowl.
He played his high school football in Campbell, California, where he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball.
At Cal, he played under head coach Marv Levy and a young offensive coach named Bill Walsh. He played on losing teams all three years he was eligible, but he held up his end: in one stretch between his junior and senior years, he threw at least one touchdown pass in 16 straight games. As a senior, he set Pac-8 records for pass attempts (308), pass completions (185) and passing yards (2,121), and was the recipient of the Pop Warner Trophy, given to the most valuable player on the Pacific Coast. Although the Bears went 3-7 that year, he made several All-America teams, and finished seventh in the Heisman voting, ahead of such future immortals as Joe Namath and Gale Sayers.
When he graduated he held just about every Cal passing record. (Actually, he had set most of them by the end of his junior season.)
He was the fifth player taken overall in the 1965 draft (by Dallas) and he would spend 10 seasons with Cowboys (1965-74). Those ten seasons could be broken into three phases:
Phase 1 - Backing up Don Meredith
Phase 2 - Starting - he led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl following the 1970 season (they lost to the Baltimore Colts).
Beginning the next year -
Phase 3 - The Quarterback Controversy, in competition with Roger Staubach. In one game against the Chicago Bears, Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry actually had his two quarterbacks alternating plays.
In 1974, having lost the QB competition with Staubach, he asked for a trade, and signed a contract with the World Football League Houston Texans to play for them in 1975 (after he would become a free agent). But shortly into the 1974 season, he was traded to the New York Giants. In return, the Giants sent the Cowboys their 1975 Number One draft choice (which Dallas would use to take Randy White).
His three years in New York were a nightmare. Actually, they were scarcely spent in New York at all. In 1974 the Giants played their home schedule in New Haven, Connecticut, in the Yale Bowl. They lost all seven home games and finished 2-12. In 1975, they played home games in Shea Stadium - home of the Jets - and went 5-9. In 1976, installed in all-new Giants Stadium in New Jersey, they started out losing their first nine games and finished 2-12. Head coach Bill Arnsparger was fired at the 0-7 mark.
In the off-season he was traded to Denver, and he would later recall his response on learning that he had been traded to Denver: “God, thank you very, very much.”
In 1977, with new coach Red Miller and their new quarterback, the Broncos went 12-2 and made it to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. He became the first quarterback to start in a Super Bowl for two different teams. (Since then, he would be joined by Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Tom Brady).
He was named AFC Offensive Player of the Year and also NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
In his first five years in Denver, the Broncos won 50 games, as he and wide receiver Haven Moses became known as the “M & M Connection.”
In his next-to-last season, at the age of 38, he had one of his best seasons statistically, throwing for 3,195 yards and 21 touchdowns. His 8.5 yards per attempt is still a team record. But he was sacked 54 times - a team record that lasted for another 41 years.
He played just three games in the strike-shortened season of 1982, then retired.
Following his playing career, he served as head coach of the Denver Gold of the original USFL.
He is in the Colorado Hall of Fame, the Broncos’ Ring of Honor, the Cal Sports Hall of Fame, the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY,
JANUARY 14, 2025 “Wars may be fought with
weapons, but they are won by men.” General George S. Patton, Jr.*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Dave Nelson was a brilliant, innovative football coach. He was able to take features of arguably the two most effective offensive systems of roughly a century of football – the single wing and the T-formation – and create a hybrid, the Wing-T. With all the patience of an inventor, he tinkered and mixed different elements to improve the product. He took immense pride when the system produced successful teams.
“At times Dave could be somewhat distant or seem preoccupied. He knew how critical recruiting was to the success of any college program, but it wasn't his favorite part of the job. Like most former running backs, he was more interested in the offensive side of the game than defense.
“By contrast, I liked the recruiting experience, meeting athletes and their families and making the sale. I think I am a good salesman. And I loved defense, the total team aspect of that side of football. Perhaps that's why Dave and I were a good combination.
“He could be demanding. He was patient but he wouldn't settle for an inferior performance. If you blundered you could expect to hear about it. Although I know how much he appreciated what every person on his staff did for the program, he rarely handed out praise.
“Harold (Tubby) Raymond, who joined the Delaware staff in 1954, was one of our neighbors in the Brookside area of Newark, and we often carpooled to work. During those drives Tubby would ask me, ‘Mike, does Dave like me?’ Or ‘Does he like the job I'm doing?’
“I always had the same response. ‘Well, Tubby, has Dave ever told you that he doesn't like you or doesn't like what you're doing?' He said no, that wasn't the case. I said, ‘I have worked for Dave since 1947, and he has never told me that he liked me or liked what I was doing. He told me I had enthusiasm and not to ever lose that enthusiasm.’ But Dave Nelson is one of those people who, if you did a great job for him, he would seldom give you a compliment. You would know, however, if you screwed up.
“Obviously, he liked Tubby because when he retired from coaching Dave picked Tubby as his successor as head coach and Tubby lasted for 36 years.”
*********** PLAYOFF SNAPSHOTS
NOTRE DAME - PENN STATE
While everybody is still ganging up on Penn State QB Drew Allar - only two of his completions were to wide receivers (don’t the receivers bear some of the responsibility for that?) and he threw his last pass - an interception - blindly to the backside.
Post-game, during the award ceremony, ND head coach Marcus Freeman had to deal with this: “Coach, I know you’re all about team but I want to give a moment for everyone here to be able to celebrate you because you are the first black head coach to go to a national championship game in college football… How much does this mean to you?”
His answer (to his everlasting credit): “I don’t ever want to take attention away from the team…this ain’t about me. This is about us.” (He might have said, “I’m also the first Asian head coach (his mother is South Korean) to go to a national championship game in college football.”)
OHIO STATE-TEXAS
A tale of two calls, both in the fourth quarter.
1 Ohio State Fourth and three in Texas territory - score tied 14-14. Ohio State’s Chip Kelly calls QB Power and Will Howard goes for 15. Ohio State goes in to score.
2 Texas Second and goal on the one. Ohio State 21, Texas 14. After getting stuffed up the middle on first down (Who hands the ball to a back who’s lined up EIGHT YARDS DEEP?) Texas’ Steve Sarkisian calls for a toss play wide to the left. When the dust clears, its third-and-eight.
Asked about it afterward, Sarkisian said this: “But that's one of those plays, if you block it all right, you get in the end zone, and we didn't, and we lose quite a bit of yardage.”
Uh, Steve… you couldn’t possibly have blocked it “all right,” because they had you outnumbered by two men. Ohio State couldn’t have played it better if they’d called the play themselves.
Kirk Herbstreit (before second-guessing Sarkisian): “I”m not gonna second-guess any coach…”
*********** NFL WILD CARDS
Ravens - Steelers: Steelers had two first downs in the first half. One-two punch of Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry might be the NFL’s best. Jackson has made the Tom Brady-style stand-up quarterback obsolete.
Bills-Broncos: Broncos just aren’t ready yet. Damn shame the Bills and Ravens have to meet next week.
Eagles-Packers: Saquon Barkley made the biggest play of the day when he broke into the clear in the fourth quarter and chose to dive instead of scoring, much to the chagrin of all the dupes who’d bet on him to score a touchdown.
Texans - Chargers: I love Justin Herbert, but he did throw four interceptions (at least two of which were the fault of receivers who can’t catch). And since he can’t run, it’s kind of important for somebody else to do so, but come on, Harbaugh - 18 rushing attempts? For 50 yards? Have you already forgotten Michigan?
Commanders - Buccaneers - All that needs to be said: Jayden Daniels is a franchise-builder. He is one exciting football player.
*********** Former Georgia QB Carson Beck is said to be going to Miami (the University, not the Dolphins) for $4 million. While I find it hard to believe that there really are people willing to blow that kind of money on one year of a football player’s services without anything of value in return, it means (if it’s true), that Beck will make more money next year than a typical rookie quarterback in the NFL.
And that means that college football, in effect, is waging war on the NFL. And that’s going to cost the NFL money - at least temporarily. Big Football doesn’t like that. Good luck with this one, college guys. In my experience (having been collateral damage in a war between the NFL and a rival league) taking on Mister Big is not a winning proposition.
*********** Considering that Indiana’s only two losses came against the two teams now playing for the national title, maybe it’s time we all went back to where we were before the Playoff - giving the Hoosiers well-deserved credit for a great season.
*********** South Dakota State QB Mark Gronowski, who led the Jackrabbits to two straight FCS national titles, has announced he’s transferring to Iowa. I think it’s a great get for the Hawkeyes.
*********** Mike McCarthy appears to be officially out as head coach of the Cowboys. What’s the over/under on the days it will take him to land another NFL head coaching position?
*********** Just about this time a year ago, the Washington Huskies were licking their wounds after losing in the title game to Michigan. But what a run it had been for the Huskies!
They had perhaps the best set of receivers in the country, and a great passer in Michael Penix.
Their performance was so impressive that it undoubtedly was the major factor in getting their coach, Kalen DeBoer, the Alabama job when Nick Saban retired.
Another thing they had - unquestionably, one of the main reasons for the Huskies’ success - was their offensive coordinator, Ryan Grubb. But rather than accompany DeBoer to Tuscaloosa as many expected, he stayed in Seattle, hired by the Seahawks and their new head coach, Mike MacDonald.
Last week, after just one season, Ryan Grubb was out of work, fired by the Seahawks. It appears that his devotion to the passing game clashed with Macdonald’s background as a defensive coach who favors the running game.
Ryan Grubb is one bright dude and he’s available. Could he wind up at Alabama?
*********** I loved Riley Leonard when he was at Duke and I still like him a lot now that he’s peddled his talents to South Bend. But I struggle with the fact that while I deplored Auburn’s renting the services of a hired gun (Cam Newton) for one stinking year, here’s Notre Dame doing basically the same thing, just slightly sanitized by the sham of NIL and instant transfer.
(1) Have we seen the end of the days when top teams recruited and developed their own QBs?
(2) If the colleges are going to emulate the pros, shouldn’t a Wake Forest or a Duke that recruits and develops a QB, be compensated when someone poaches/signs one of their players.
*********** Unless you grew up in Philadelphia, it’s impossible for you to understand the sadness of the news that Macy’s is closing its downtown (in Philly, they say “Center City”) store.
Not that losing Macy’s is that big of a crusher. Macy’s is a New York store anyhow, and it’s not exactly what you’d call a top-of-the-line store.
It’s the fact that Macy’s occupied the building - right smack in the heart of Center City Philly, cater-cornered across from City Hall at 13th and Market - that was originally John Wanamaker and Company.
“Wanamaker’s” as everybody called it, was a true department store - a 12-story building occupying an entire downtown city block, with different departments on different floors, every floor (accessed by elevators, or course) an adventure to a little kid being dragged around by his mother.
At the heart of the store was a massive center court several stories high, and at the heart of the heart, right down on the main floor, was an enormous bronze statue of an eagle. (No relation to the football team - the Wanamaker’s eagle was there for years before there was even an NFL. It was originally used to represent Germany at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904, and it was acquired after the fair closed by the merchant John Wanamaker.
So it’s been there on the main floor of Wanamaker’s since about 1905.
At a time when it was common for people to do their major shopping downtown, the Wanamaker’s eagle became the de factor city center - the place where people coming via train, trolley or bus from Philadelphia’s many neighborhoods and suburbs and far-flung area towns to center city would arrange to meet; everyone in the Philadelphia area knew the phrase “Meet you at the eagle.”
Wanamaker’s also became famous for its Christmas light show, which drew thousands - many of them presumably shoppers - to the center court every winter, and for its massive pipe organ, one of the largest in the world.
Like other once-wonderful big city department stores, Wanamaker’s was gobbled up by a large national chain - in this case, Macy’s - and in recent years it lost a lot of its luster. That, combined with online shopping, spelled death to Macy’s if it had any intentions of carrying on the Wanamaker’s tradition.
So Macy’s is gone. But the building remains. And so do the eagle, the pipe organ and the center court. They’re now national historic sites. But their futures are not assured.
To the extent that I’m one of those lazy modern-day shoppers who would just as soon sit on my ass and order things from Amazon, I guess I’m partly guilty for Macy’s financial ills. But still - screw them.
*********** Maybe you’re heard of the LSU wide receiver, Kyren Lacy, whose “allegedly” atrocious driving “allegedly” caused the death of another driver in an accident from which he “allegedly” fled, not to surface until he’d first declared for the NFL draft.
Needless to say, whatever the outcome of the case against him, an NFL that has room for a Tyreek Hill has room for Kyren Lacy.
But I did appreciate the take of one poster on Reddit:
Imagine, for a moment, you are a selfish, socially maladjusted, borderline uneducated star athlete who’s been paid millions of dollars to play a game and who is surrounded by enablers and sycophants pumping your ego 24/7. Can you see now how that person kills someone in a crash because they were too impatient to wait for traffic then flees the scene of their crime?
He is responsible for his actions, but his actions are unsurprising. He is the consequence of a society which has allowed him to be utterly selfish and completely inconsiderate of everyone around him, a society which has rewarded him for this and overlooked his glaring failures as a human because he can run fast and jump high. It’s the same reason why Deshaun Watson sexually assaulted all those masseuses, or why Chris Brown assaulted Rihana, or why any of these stars / celebrities / musicians / athletes end up destroying other people’s lives with so little remorse.
The silver lining is that prison will do a lot to reform all that selfishness which our society and the glorification of athletes enabled in the first place, because being inconsiderate of your neighbor in prison has some pretty stark consequences when the head football coach can’t step in to get you off.
************ About ten years ago, my son and I were given a tour of NFL Films Headquarters, in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. While most definitely a workplace that churns out great product, it also serves as a museum of football memorabilia, most of it collected by the late Steve Sabol. Its halls were lined with historic photos and posters and program covers (I suspect that the frames alone were worth seven figures). And the piece de resistance had to be an entire room dedicated to Sabol’s collection of football games.
If I’d only known at the time, I’d have been sure to check for this game:
The “Howard H. Jones Collegiate Football Game,” a 1930s board game developed by the USC coach, featured a mechanical device that launched a tiny ball for punts, kickoffs and field goals. Players spun arrows to determine the results of plays.
*********** FROM THE BABYLON BEE
LOS ANGELES, CA — Girl firefighter Melissa Sandros risked life and limb yesterday as she entered a burning building to tell a victim that he was too heavy for her to carry, but that the real firemen would be there in about fifteen minutes or so.
************ I’m no super patriot, but I bet I love our country as much as anyone I know.
Still, that doesn’t mean I have to love the things that “performers” invariably do to trash our national anthem before games. In fact, I find most versions so offensive that I’d rather not hear the anthem before games.
(I’d make an exception for college bands of at least 100 members.)
Interestingly, while here in the states I’ve even heard the national anthem sung before JV football games, I spent seven seasons coaching in Finland, and I heard their national anthem (a beautiful piece of music, by the way) just once - before an international contest. And lemme tell you - those people love their country every bit as much as we do.
*********** Overlooking the fact that it’s a pretty slimy thing to do to Marcus Freeman at a time when he’s sorta busy with other things, if there’s any truth to the rumor that the Bears might be interested in him, he would cement his legacy at Notre Dame if he could somehow manage to say something like, “Notre Dame is where I want to be and Notre Dame is where I hope to spend the rest of my career.”
*********** I love the dog food commercial where the guys straight out of the Sopranos are seated at a table and some underling says something disrespectful about the Big Guy’s little brown and white cocker spaniel. I’m not sure, but I think the guy is suggesting that the Boss might be spending too much money on food for just a dog.
Uh-oh. Cut to a shot from inside the trunk of a car as the lid closes and the fellas (all but one) walk away.
Cut to the next scene. As the little dog happily chows down on his meal, the Boss, not averse to a little witness tampering, says to the pooch, “Anybody asks… you were at Grandma’s.”
*********** Thank you for the last Zoom recording. I'll get to it today.
Amen to your opening words. I needn't comment on the SoCal fires, which your readers understand resulted in no small measure from mismanagement by elected officials. Nonetheless, there isn't enough money to care for many whose lives have been damaged. Determining how to allocate the funds that are available will require the wisdom of Solomon. Thanks Joe for dumping this on the lap of President Trump.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
(John Vermillion has been absent from these pages for a few weeks because of a health setback, but he’s on the mend and it’s great to see him back. Make him feel REALLY LOVED- read one of his books!
https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00JGC4FSG/about?ccs_id=28612e96-bc72-4e39-9dcd-8a789a4cb7ff
*********** Hugh,
BEFORE:
You, and many of your readers who know me, know how ecstatic I am that my most favorite college football team Notre Dame will play for the national championship. It’s a dream come true. Yet, I am a retired football coach and the coach in me is still alive and well.
After evaluating both the Georgia and Penn State games there is no way on God’s green earth the Irish will beat either Texas or Ohio State playing offense the way they have. No way. OC Denbrock does not give me the warm and fuzzies with his play-calling. Never has.
Frankly, the defense has continually bailed us out of a number of close games that should’ve never been close to begin with.
BUT…I always hold on to hope that things will improve, and the Irish win the “natty!”
Surprised me to see the MWC bring on Northern Illinois. I thought NDSU would be a more likely candidate.
I still think UNLV will be the next new member of the new PAC. Followed by UTSA.
Never could figure out where George Carlin was coming from as a kid. Do now!
Hook ‘em! (Will NEVER pull for Ohio State)
AFTER
Well…as John Madden said, “…you have to be able to run the football…” Maybe you should send that video to Sarkisian so he can go back to the future and recruit RB’s like Earl Campbell or Ricky Williams in order for Texas to be able to run the ball into the end zone from the one yard line!
January 20th will be HUUGE in more ways than one. Inauguration Day, and Notre Dame vs Ohio State for the national championship. WOW.
Buckeyes already a 9.5 point favorite, and Notre Dame licking their chops at being the underdog once again, and getting some payback for that heartbreaking loss two years ago. Should be a good old slobberknocker!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: At Salem, New Jersey High he was an All-South Jersey running back as a sophomore and - after being injured his junior year - as a senior.
At Penn State he shared the backfield with a fellow South Jersey native, Franco Harris, with who he became lifelong friends. In his three years of eligibility (1969-1971) the Nittany Lions went 29-4, with wins in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl. (As a result of his MVP performance in the Lions’ win over Texas, he is in the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame.)
In his senior year he was a first-team All-America selection and finished fifth in the Heisman balloting, after breaking three NCAA single-season records: touchdowns (29), touchdowns rushing (26) and points scored (174).
He ran for 1,567 yards, a school season record that stood for more than 30 years, and his career rushing yardage record broke that of all-time Nittany Lion great Lenny Moore.
Drafted in the second round by the Baltimore Colts in 1972, he went on to play in the NFL for 10 seasons - seven with the Colts, two with the Chargers, and part of one with the Rams.
He was 5-11, 205 and tough. In 1974 he established an NFL record with 40 carries against the Jets. (The record would last for just two years until it was broken by - of all people - his former college running mate, Franco Harris, then with the Steelers.)
In 1975, under new coach Ted Marchibroda, the Colts made the playoffs, and our guy was a major factor. He became the first running back in Colt history to rush for 1,000 yards, gaining 1,193 yards on 289 carries.
It would be the first of three straight 1000-yard-plus seasons for him (14-game seasons, it should be noted) and he was named to the Pro Bowl all three years.
In 1977 he set a new team all-time rushing record, and play was stopped as the Baltimore fans stood and cheered him - and the man whose record he’d just broken - Hall of Famer Lenny Moore.
“I don't remember anything else about that game,” he said later, “except that, at that moment, Lenny came out on the field and presented me with the football and told me ‘You deserve this.’ That was big, man, when you break a legend's record - especially since we were both from Penn State.”
On the way to setting the new team record, he gained 1159 yards on 301 carries. But in addition, he led the NFL in pass receptions with 72. It was no fluke - it was the second time he had led the league in receptions.
Although he was coming off his best season, a contract dispute with Colts’ ownership (those damned Irsays wouldn’t give him a $100,000 raise) resulted in his holding out during the 1978 training camp, and his being traded to the Chargers.
He played two more years with the Chargers and part of one with the Rams and retired.
He and Franco Harris remained close friends (“We finished each others’ sentences”) until Harris’s death, and he partnered with Harris in a Pittsburgh bakery and in the rescue of Baltimore-based Parks Sausage Company, at the time one of the nation’s largest minority-owned companies.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In his pro career, he played in 111 games and started in 84 of them. In all, he carried 1,675 times for 6,534 yards and 30 TDs. For a running back, he was an exceptionally good receiver, with 376 receptions for 3,203 yards and 17 TDs.
FRIDAY,
JANUARY 10, 2025 “No matter how good your plan
is, at some point you need to stop and look at the results.”
Winston Churchill*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “(Frank) Broyles, who became a lifetime friend as a coach and later athletic director, sounded frantic when he called Dave Nelson one spring day. He told Dave, ‘Look, my line coach, Dixie White, is ill. He has fluid on the lungs and can't coach at all in spring practice. Can I borrow Mike Lude for spring practice?’ Dave said it was OK with him, if it was OK with me and as long as I had a good handle on my recruiting responsibilities.
“So I said, ‘Fine. I'll be there before the week’s out.’ That may be the only lend-lease deal in college football history.
“I spent the next sixteen days in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and it was a great time. The center of that Arkansas team was Barry Switzer, who later coached Big Eight championship teams at Oklahoma. The coaching staff included Doug Dickey, later head coach at Florida and Tennessee and athletic director at Tennessee, as well as Jim McKenzie, who later coached at Oklahoma.
“One of the genuine characters on the Arkansas staff was Wilson Matthews, a former drill instructor who had come through the prep ranks in Little Rock, Arkansas. We all worked well past midnight every night, installing the new offense. One night we had worked late and the coaches were getting weary of the long hours. Matthews got up and paced around the table.
“Broyles spoke up. ‘Wilson, aren't you interested in what Mike is doing and what we’ll be doing tomorrow at practice?’ Matthews responded, ‘Yes sir, Coach, I am. I know how important this is; I really do. But, Coach, my wife is fixing to have love made to her tonight, and, if possible, I'd like to be there.’ After the laughs subsided, Broyles called it a night and sent us home.
“Wilson was a colorful guy who loved the game. When a defender came through with a fierce hit he called it a slobberknocker. I borrowed the phrase and used it at Delaware and Colorado State University when I became a head coach.”
*********** THE PLAYOFF? Who cares? Just give us some good games.
*********** FCS - Good game. I was impressed by the way North Dakota State took control. I like Montana State but I’m convinced the Bison are better.
I sure wouldn’t mind seeing the FCS schedule moved to the spring.
*********** I will always be a huddle guy. I don’t really give a sh— how many plays we run. My concern is that the ones we do run are run as well as we can possibly run them.
I’m also one of the old farts who remembers when football was a team game. And to me, nothing symbolizes the idea of “team” more than assembling before the play, then reassembling afterward. There’s not a whole lot said in the short time that a team huddles, but sometimes what IS - and sometimes what ISN’T - said in a huddle can be extremely profound. And only the guys in the huddle know what it is.
It’s something that coaches as wise as Ryan Day and Chip Kelly seem to be discovering.
Says Day, about the fact that Ohio State is huddling more…
"Getting in a huddle and having Will Howard look 10 guys in the eye, break the huddle, kind of grew as the season went on. It was a little bit of a part that we felt gave us a little bit of an edge. We broke the huddle together. It's almost like going back in time, but it's sort of a new thing, really.”
Yeah, really new. Bob Zuppke of Illinois is given credit for inventing the huddle, and he claims, in his book, “Coaching Football,” that he first ran it against South Dakota, in October, 1921.
Actually, as with anything in football, there’s “new,” and there’s “new to you.”
*********** JOHN CANZANO on the state of the “Pac-12”…
Readers keep asking me about a $100 million payday Oregon State and Washington State will collect from the Rose Bowl over the next two years.
Is it true?
Also, they want to know — what’s the latest with conference expansion?
It’s not “new” money, but the Rose Bowl payday part is true. Two $50 million payments (this year and next) are part of the settlement the two schools won in December 2023 from the 10 departing members of the conference.
That settlement protected the two schools against liabilities involving ongoing lawsuits and gave them $190 million in future conference revenue (Rose Bowl payments + NCAA Tournament units + other revenue).
The deal also provided a total of $65 million from the 10 departing schools. The 10 schools agreed to pay OSU and WSU $6.5 million each in installments due in 2024 and 2025. Why spread it over two years? Some of the departing schools took reduced media rights distributions to join their new conferences and were in dire financial positions.
Anyway — the total Pac-12 haul is $255 million.
It’s often referred to as a “war chest” but the two schools and their conference hate that term. (It’s not always helpful to have your finances out there when you’re trying to litigate or negotiate expansion deals.)
Teresa Gould, the Pac-12 commissioner, told me on the day she was promoted that $65 million in payments from the departing members was specifically earmarked for expansion.
One campus source joked with me this week that it’s not like the conference has $255 million sitting in a bank and Scrooge McDuck is in the vault swimming in the bills.
Still, the settlement provided OSU and WSU with a badly needed subsidy given that they didn’t have a media rights deal, and were left facing a massive hole in their athletic department budgets when the Pac-12 splintered.
Kirk Schulz, the president at WSU, explained to me last summer that the $255 million would be used for operational expenses at the Pac-12 offices, looming expansion, scheduling agreement costs, and to help replace the divot left by no media deal.
Said Schulz: “You can burn through it pretty quickly.”
Oregon State AD Scott Barnes sat down with me in his office last spring for a similar talk. He pointed to the hidden costs of doing business in college athletics and said: “We need that revenue to operate.”
What happens next?
A few thoughts:
• The new-world Pac-12 still needs at least one “all-sports” member to join before July 1, 2026, to reach the NCAA minimum. The conference can’t wait that long to make an addition because of transition time, but that’s the deadline.
• The Pac-12 remains immersed in selling its media rights. The new media partner will cast an important vote about which school gets added next, be sure.
• The Pac-12 kicked the tires on Tulane and Memphis last September. I’m told the conference never made a formal offer to the schools but tried to open discussions and presented some terms that were supposed to serve as a starting point. The American Athletic Conference members then surprised the Pac-12 by publicly announcing they were staying put. I’m not convinced the door is shut. Stay tuned, especially if the media partners value inventory in a new time zone.
• I’m not convinced the Pac-12 ideally wants to look eastward for members, however. The new-world conference has a tight geographic base right now and several of the athletic directors have described the mission of the future Pac-12 to be viewed as “the best in the West.”
• That thought always brings me back to UNLV. The Rebels signed a Memorandum of Understanding to remain in the Mountain West in September. There were significant financial promises made by the MW to UNLV. However, the terms of that deal and uncertainty after lawsuits between the Pac-12 and MW may leave some wiggle room.
*********** Northern Illinois will be joining the Mountain West in 2026
John Canzano’s take:
The expansion move raised eyebrows. It doesn’t add media value and increases travel costs for MW schools.
Said one industry source: “They’re becoming more geographically dispersed and not any stronger as a conference. I can’t understand how this benefits them.”
Adding Northern Illinois gives MW Commissioner Gloria Nevarez nine football schools and helps with scheduling. But the addition this week was greeted with some puzzling reactions. More than one told me they saw it as a defensive move, designed to give the MW a cushion should it lose another member.
As one media-world source told me this week: “I still think they have some exposure with UNLV going to the Pac-12.”
*********** When I’m not grieving over the death of the Pac-12, I can think offhand of two consolations…
1. It was a stiff price, true, but at least we got rid of Colorado.
2. It would have been a historically-bad bowl season, one that we’d never have heard the end of:
PAC 12’s bowl record: 1-6 (5 did not become bowl-eligible)
WINNER: USC
LOSERS: Arizona State, Cal, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Washington State
NOT BOWL ELIGIBLE: Arizona, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, Utah
(Geez, it used to be so cool the way the Pac-12 schools were paired geographically. It sure did make the basketball season easy to follow, as - for example - the two Washington schools would spend a weekend in Northern California playing Stanford and Cal, while at the same time the two Arizona schools would spend the weekend in Oregon playing Oregon and Oregon State and the two Rocky Mountain schools would be in Southern California playing UCLA and USC.)
Washington: UW, WSU
Oregon: UO, OSU
Northern Calif: Cal, Stanford
Southern Calif: UCLA, USC
Arizona: ASU, U of A
Rockies: Colorado, Utah
*********** For three straight years - 1935, 1936 and 1937 - three straight sell-out crowds in New York's Polo Grounds watched Pitt and Fordham, both nationally ranked, play three straight scoreless ties. (One New York sportswriter, in the days when most sportswriters at least knew who Shakespeare was, referred to the series as “Much Ado About Nothing to Nothing”).
In 1937 Pitt probably would have won had it not lost eight fumbles.
Five of the Panthers’ fumbles were by their great halfback Curley Stebbins, and after the game , when a writer dared to ask Pitt coach Jock Sutherland why he hadn't removed Stebbins after his fourth fumble, the coach, who could be a bit sarcastic, replied, “I'd no way of knowing that he was going to fumble a fifth time.”
*********** Got a text from my friend, Ralph Balducci. Ralph and I go way back, to 1980 when I was helping coach a local semi-pro team called the VanPort (Vancouver-Portland - get it?) Thunderbirds and he was an offensive lineman. I liked his style - we had a few bigmouths on the team and Ralph didn’t take any sh— off anybody.
Ralph really knows his football and I’ve always thought I’d love to have had him as an assistant, but he had to make a living. Still, he’s managed to keep his hand in coaching, both at the high school level and at the youth level.
His son, Alex, was a very good college football player - he started at nose guard for Oregon, with Arik Armstead on one side of him and DeForest Buckner on the other.
Anyhow, Ralph’s text read, “Alex’s girlfriend got me the book “War as They Knew It.” Alex told her how much I loved Woody Hayes so she bought the book.
Wow, thought I. “THAT girl,” I texted Ralph, “sounds like a keeper!”
*********** Joe Gutilla and I mentioned on Tuesday the recurring problem of officials’ excusing targetting, and I thought it might be time to mention another couple of areas in which football is becoming more and more lawless.
If you saw the Notre Dame- Georgia game, you might have wondered (as I did) how bad the hit on a punter has to be in order to get the officials to call roughing. As with targeting (“did he actually hit him with the crown???”) we’re now splitting hairs, trying to determine which one of the punter’s legs the guy has to fracture before it’s roughing - or running into - the kicker.
And then, there’s pass interference, which, like holding by offensive linemen, seems to occur on nearly every play and is commonly dismissed by announcers as “maybe a little contact.”
*********** WHEN THEY MAKE ME KING
PROBLEM: Blocking in the back is illegal, right? But it’s evidently okay to run into a standing pile and, in some cases, hit an opponent in the back. Allowing the pile to take on a life of its own encourages all sorts of hits in the back, not to mention pushing and pulling.
SOLUTION: Even if the pile is still moving, the play becomes dead the instant any player not originally in the pile joins it.
PROBLEM: Punching another player will get a player ejected from the game, right? Yet punching the ball is tolerated, even encouraged, because it can sometimes cause an opponent to fumble.
SOLUTION: Punching at any part of an opponent in any way, shape or form shall be illegal. (Sooner or later, if nothing is done, a misdirected punch, although probably thrown with the intention of hitting the ball, is going to cause a brawl.)
*********** While debating “rest versus rust” - whether the playoff’s bye hurts a team - I was reminded of something that happened several years ago at LSU.
My friend and former boss, Bob Brodhead, was the AD at LSU, and he’d hired Bill Arnsparger to be his head coach. The hire was criticized in some quarters because while Arnsparger had been a head coach in the NFL, it has been quite some time before he’d coached at the college level.
It was his first year at LSU, 1984, and the Tigers, playing Vanderbilt, led after three quarters, 34-6.
So he substituted - pulled his starters - and Vanderbilt, going against LSU’s backups, scored.
And then they stopped the Tigers and scored again.
So back into the game went the LSU starters.
But Vanderbilt stopped them and scored yet again - 21 straight points - to make the score 34-27.
The Tigers managed to hold on for the win, and Arnsparger admitted to Bob that he’d learned a lesson:
That if you pull pros out of a game and then put them back in, they can flip the switch and get right back into “play” mode.
Not so, as he found out that day, with college kids.
Just something to think about when your opponent has played a game while you’ve had the week off.
*********** Life in Reverse, By George Carlin
In my next life I want to live my life backwards.
You start out dead and get that out of the way.
Then you wake up in an old people’s home
feeling better every day.
You get kicked out for being too healthy,
go collect your pension,
and then when you start work,
you get a gold watch and a party on your first day.
You work 40 years
until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement.
You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous,
then you are ready for high school.
You then go to primary school,
you become a kid,
you play.
You have no responsibilities,
you become a baby until you are born.
And then you spend your last 9 months
floating in luxurious spa-like conditions
with central heating and room service on tap,
larger quarters every day and then Voila!
You finish off as an orgasm.
I rest my case.
*********** Hugh,
My fear a few years after 9/11 was that many Americans would get over their anger and eventually forget. There are still many of us who are angry, and will NEVER forget! Yet there are those who consider what happened on January 6th to be worse than 9/11. WTF??
Have seen a lot of good young players in the bowl games I’ve watched thanks to the selfish opts outs.
Two of the best QB’s in college football reside in Fargo, ND and Bozeman, MT. Either of them could play for most FBS schools.
Would relish an ND-Ohio State rematch from 2023 in this year’s national championship game. The “Luckeyes” stole a 17-14 win from ND which to today still sticks in the craws of every Irish fan.
QUIZ: Who won the Rose Bowl as the interim HC?
Enjoy the games! Go Irish!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: At Yale, Howard Jones never played in a losing game and he played on three national championship teams.
He coached at Syracuse, Yale, Ohio State, Yale (again), Iowa, Duke, and USC - six major colleges - and had winning records at all but Duke (a single season in which he went 4-5).
He won national titles at three different schools: Yale (1909), Iowa (1921), USC (1928, 1931, 1932, 1939( - six in all.
He won two Big Ten titles and seven Pacific Coast Conference (forerunner of the Pac-12) titles. And he won five Rose Bowls without losing any.
He is the coach who made USC a major power.
After playing at Yale, he coached Syracuse to a 6-3-1 record, then returned to Yale and coached them to a 10-0 season and yet another national championship in 1909. As a player or a coach, he had yet to lose at Yale.
After one year as Yale’s unpaid coach, he was hired by Ohio State, and stayed there just one season. It was a successful season: the Buckeyes went 6-1-3, and most important of all, a 3-3 tie that ended a nine-game losing streak to Michigan.
He left coaching for two years, but returned to Yale in 1913, and became the Eli’s first paid coach at $2,500 a year. This time he went 5-2-3, and then once again left coaching briefly.
In 1916 Iowa hired him away for $4,500 a year for five years, the most money they’d ever committed to pay a coach. Iowa had not won a Big Ten title in 15 years and In his first year he lost to Minnesota 67-0 and to Nebraska, 47-0. It took him six years, but in 1921 the Hawkeyes went unbeaten and won the Big Ten title outright. The biggest win was a 10-7 triumph over Notre Dame. His first of what would be many meetings against Knute Rockne, it ended a 20-game Notre Dame winning streak, the longest of Rockne's career.
In 1922. Iowa again went undefeated, the only time in Iowa history that the Hawkeyes have won back-to-back conference titles. The most notable win of the season came over Yale, coached by his brother, Tad. It was the first time a "western" team had defeated Yale in New Haven. From 1920-1923 Iowa ran up a 20-game win streak
After a falling-out with the higher-ups at the Iowa, he resigned and took the head coaching job at Trinity College, now known as Duke University.
He stayed there just one season with a 4-5 record, and then was hired to coach Southern California. It has been said that one of the factors in his getting the job was the recommendation of Rockne. (Notre Dame had just agreed to play a series of games with USC, and it was important to Rockne, who valued the West Coast trips, that USC be a strong opponent.)
In 16 years as the Trojans’ coach, he would win 121 games, losing 36 and tieing 13. Of all USC coaches, only John McKay has won more (127)
There was one spell, from 1934-1937 when the Trojans went 17-19-6, but he managed to right the ship and win his sixth national title in 1939.
One of his most famous Rose Bowl wins was in 1939, when a last-second minute play scored the first touchdown Duke had given up all season, beating Wade Wallace’s “Iron Dukes,” 7-3.
His final Rose Bowl win was in 1940. The following summer, he died of a heart attack. He was only 55.
His career college coaching record was 194-64-21.
Largely as a result of the USC-Notre Dame series, begun when he took over at USC, he came to be considered, along with Knute Rockne, one of the two top coaches of his era.
The two schools first met in 1926, a 13-12 Notre Dame win in front of 75,000 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that Rockne would call the greatest game he ever saw. The 1927 game, a 7-6 Irish win, was played in Chicago’s new Soldier Field, in front of an estimated 120,000 people.
USC finally won in 1928, the year they won their first national title, and over a five year span, the national championship would be won by either USC (1928, 1931, 1932) or Notre Dame (1929 and 1930).
The 1929 game, played at Soldier Field, drew 112,912.
Notre Dame won again in 1930, its 19th game in a row and with it, the national title. As it was traditionally the final game of the season, it would turn out to be Rockne’s last game.
The following season, 1931, following Rockne’s death in a plane crash in March, would be Notre Dame’s first since 1918 without Rockne on its sideline, and a USC field goal with a minute to play gave the Trojans a 16-14 win, a national title, and their first win ever in South Bend, ending the Irish 15-game wining streak.
In the locker room after the game, seeing a national sports figure on hand to present the national title trophy, Jones asked him if he knew where Rockne was buried. The man said yes, and then, putting aside the celebration of the win over Notre Dame and the national title, less than an hour later the entire USC team assembled at Knute Rockne’s graveside, where Coach Jones conducted a service honoring his fallen rival.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING HOWARD JONES
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Rothwell, Corpus Christi, Texas -
1. I share the same birthDAY with this amazing coach.
2. He coached John Wayne at USC!
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT HOWARD JONES:
1. He was the immortal Duke Slater’s coach at Iowa; at USC he coached John Wayne and Ward (“Wagon Train”) Bond
2. He would carry poker chips in his pocket so that when the opportunity presented itself, he would place them on tables and use them to demonstrate plays.
3. After losing in his first season to Pop Warner’s Carlisle Indians, he enjoyed great success against Warner the rest of his career.
4. In 1923 he published a book titled, “How to Coach and Play Football” (beating Warner to the market by four years).
5. The 1931 USC-Notre Dame game was the first time an entire football game was filmed as a feature film, with a professional voice-over, and when it was shown at the biggest theatre in Los Angeles, it broke all the house records.
6. He was so fixated with football that frequently “he ignored traffic signals and other cars as he drove. He lost socks and keys, forgot appointments, left members of his family stranded, forgot his way home. When his wife asked a question, she was apt to have to wait an hour for the reply: ‘did you say something, dear? I was thinking of a play.’”
7. In back-to-back Rose Bowls, his USC Trojans beat teams that came into the game unbeaten and unscored-on: Duke in 1938, and Tennessee in 1939.
8. Key Howard Jones quote: “The worst mistake a coach can make is to get caught without material.”
*********** QUIZ: At Salem, New Jersey High he was an All-South Jersey running back as a sophomore and - after being injured his junior year - as a senior.
At Penn State he shared the backfield with a fellow South Jersey native, Franco Harris, and they became lifelong friends. In his three years of eligibility (1969-1971) the Nittany Lions went 29-4, with wins in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl. (As a result of his MVP performance in the Lions’ win over Texas, he is in the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame.)
In his senior year he was a first-team All-America selection and finished fifth in the Heisman balloting, after breaking three NCAA single-season records: touchdowns (29), touchdowns rushing (26) and points scored (174).
He ran for 1,567 yards, a school season record that stood for more than 30 years, and his career rushing yardage record broke that of all-time Nittany Lion great Lenny Moore.
Drafted in the second round by the Baltimore Colts in 1972, he went on to play in the NFL for 10 seasons - seven with the Colts, two with the Chargers, and part of one with the Rams.
He was 5-11, 205 and tough. In 1974 he established an NFL record with 40 carries against the Jets. (The record would last for just two years until it was broken by - of all people - his former college running mate, Franco Harris, then with the Steelers.)
In 1975, under new coach Ted Marchibroda, the Colts made the playoffs, and our guy was a major factor. He became the first running back in Colt history to rush for 1,000 yards, gaining 1,193 yards on 289 carries.
It would be the first of three straight 1000-yard-plus seasons for him (14-game seasons, it should be noted) and he was named to the Pro Bowl all three years.
In 1977 he set a new team all-time rushing record, and play was stopped as the Baltimore fans stood and cheered him - and the man whose record he’d just broken - Hall of Famer Lenny Moore.
“I don't remember anything else about that game,” he said later, “except that, at that moment, Lenny came out on the field and presented me with the football and told me ‘You deserve this.’ That was big, man, when you break a legend's record - especially since we were both from Penn State.”
On the way to setting the new team record, he gained 1159 yards on 301 carries. But in addition, he led the NFL in pass receptions with 72. It was no fluke - it was the second time he had led the league in receptions.
Although he was coming off his best season, a contract dispute with Colts’ ownership (those damned Irsays wouldn’t give him a $100,000 raise) resulted in his holding out during the 1978 training camp, and his being traded to the Chargers.
He played two more years with the Chargers and part of one with the Rams and retired.
He and Franco Harris remained close friends (“We finished each others’ sentences”) until Harris’s death, and he partnered with Harris in a Pittsburgh bakery and in the rescue of Baltimore-based Parks Sausage Company, at the time one of the nation’s largest minority-owned companies.
He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In his pro career, he played in 111 games and started in 84 of them. In all, he carried 1,675 times for 6,534 yards and 30 TDs. For a running back, he was an exceptionally good receiver, with 376 receptions for 3,203 yards and 17 TDs.
TUESDAY,
JANUARY 7, 2025 “Men more frequently require
to be reminded than informed.” Samuel JohnsonWHERE IS THE RAGE? The terrorist attack on our country is a great national tragedy, possibly the greatest in my lifetime (and I was alive in 1941), and maybe even in our entire history. It is also possibly the greatest outrage in my lifetime. But I was home all day Tuesday, and what I seemed to see on TV as the news began to sink in was mostly expressions of grief and fear. But no anger. Yes, it's sad. Unbelievably sad. It's awful thinking of those innocent people whose lives were snuffed out, and of their families. And of the brave, dedicated rescue workers and firefighters who also perished. And, yes, there is some reason for all of us to be afraid. But where, I thought, is the anger - where is the rage? I don't think I saw a single person interviewed on TV who appeared angry - really angry. Where was the anger at the kind of scum who would fly planes full of innocent people into buildings full of innocent people? Where were the people, like the ones I talked to and the others I heard from, ones who sounded ready to suit up right now if that's what it takes to rid the world of those bastards? Have we turned into such a nation of eunuchs - such a bunch of sensitive Alan Aldas - that we'll wring our hands and hug and cry, and worry about what to tell the children, and try to figure out what could possibly make people so angry that they'd lash out at us like that? This was not the way Americans reacted to Pearl Harbor. Are we going to let our leaders get us involved in some do-nothing "coalition" with our gutless European pals, the ones who love to have us defend them in return for the right to criticize us? Are we going to sit passively and listen while the peace-at-any-costers tell us that violence on our part will just beget more violence? While politicians babble about bringing the perpetrators to "justice?" Bring them to justice, you say? You mean the way we brought the killers of the Marines in Lebanon, or the bombers of the USS Cole to justice? Justice, you say? American justice? The kind that allows a foreign court to deliver a slap on the wrist to the Lockerbie bombers? The kind that leaves no stone unturned in its search for an excuse for the most heinous of crimes, and turns proven killers loose on technicalities? The kind that does everything it can to deprive society of any chance to display its outrage? Isn't anybody else, finally, angry?
.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than 23 years since I wrote this (on September 12, 2001), but here we are again. I'm already sick of hearing all the talk about the “tragedy” of New Orleans, and of all the “brief moments of silence,” and I'm convinced that we’ve lost our capacity for anger - real anger.
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “As the offense became better known and more successful, I became one of the Wing-T offense’s busiest advocates. I had the opportunity to speak at football clinics around the country, spreading the word among coaches, especially in the East and the South. I put on a clinic at the national convention of the American Football Coaches Association in Philadelphia. We had players in pads to demonstrate what we were teaching. I lectured at clinics in New York, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Ohio.
“I worked with Dietzel putting in the offense at LSU, spending hours with Carl Maddox, the LSU backfield coach, and Bill Peterson, the line coach. Peterson later became head coach at Florida State, and one of his assistants was Don James, later my head coach at Kent State and Washington. In Frank Broyles’ first year as head coach at Arkansas, I helped him install the Wing-T, long before he became athletic director.
“Peterson, who later was head coach of the Houston Oilers, called me when I was taking part in a clinic at Southern University in Baton Rouge. He wanted me to come to the LSU campus, in the same city, to help sort out the system’s principles of line play and blocking. My schedule was tight, so I suggested he attend sessions that already were planned. He explained that because LSU had just been integrated it would not be appropriate for him to go to Southern U, an all black school at the time.
“I spent a few days helping the LSU staff install the Wing-T offense, and that job grew into a full-season exercise. Each week the offensive coaching staff would call me to go over their game plan and the defense they would be facing. After the scrimmage on Tuesday, I'd get a call Wednesday to advise them about any needed changes. On Thursday they’d put the game plan to bed.
“Louisiana State went unbeaten that season and won the national championship. In his book, “The Wing-T and the Chinese Bandits,” Coach Paul Dietzel gave me credit in the foreword for the success of the LSU offense.”
(Mike enjoyed telling me about the clinic at Southern U. It was an all-day deal, in the dead of a Louisiana summer, and there was no air conditioning in the conference room. He and another coach - who was talking on another subject - took turns presenting, one lecturing for an hour while the other cooled off in the pool at their hotel.)
*********** THE PLAYOFF? MY PICKS…
NOTRE DAME OVER PENN STATE
OHIO STATE OVER TEXAS
*********** Still sticking in my craw is the fact that Silas Bolden, whose 75-yard punt return gave Texas a 14-3 lead over Arizona State, played three years at Oregon State - and not a mention was made of it on TV. Not only was he a Beaver, but so was his older brother, Victor.
*********** How can Georgia, a school that once churned out great running backs, be held to only 62 yards rushing?
*********** Bill Oram, columnist for The (Portland) Oregonian, said it well…
And let’s be clear: The Ducks were beaten by Ohio State, not by the CFP committee or the bracket.
But in this case two things are simultaneously true.
One, that Oregon was thoroughly outclassed in the Rose Bowl and, two, that the Ducks were not adequately rewarded for posting the nation’s only undefeated regular season and winning their conference championship.
Oregon’s regular season success already feels emptier because of what happened in Pasadena. But winning in the regular season has been completely devalued by a system that actually better rewards teams that suffer a loss or two than one that manages to run the table.
*********** JOHN CANZANO writes…
None of the final four (Penn State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Texas) would have even made the four-team playoff under the old format. We’re on new ground.
The national champion will either be: A) Ohio State, which lost to 7-5 Michigan; or B) Texas, which lost twice to Georgia; or C) A two-loss Penn State team; or D) Notre Dame, which lost to Northern Illinois. It’s starting to look more and more like the NFL, isn’t it?
*********** Maybe the bowls are dying, maybe not. Certainly not with me. I want to keep believing I’m watching guys who are still playing for their teammates and for the love of the game.
As long as I keep seeing kids - none of whom will ever sign an NFL contract - exuberantly celebrating bowl wins with their teammates and coaches, I’ll watch a bowl game over a playoff game anytime.
*********** Back before they were allowed to pay players… Did anybody consider asking the players if they wanted to (1) forego the fun of a bowl game experience and a chance to end the season with a win, or (2) still be practicing in earnest, weeks after the regular season was over, on the extremely outside chance of winning a national championship.
*********** I read this morning that Tyreek Hill is unhappy with his role as a Miami Dolphin, and wants out. I despise the guy, but for some reason, I read on. Big mistake.
As I read on in the article (in ESPN.com) I came upon this: “Hill and the Dolphins restructured his contract before the season began, bringing the total guaranteed money on his five year contract to $106.5 million.” I almost lost it.
Our cities’ streets have potholes and our bridges are collapsing. Few municipal police forces are fully staffed. Budget problems cause inner-city swimming pools to stay closed.
Hell - in Aberdeen, Washington, where I coach, it rains a lot in the winter months, so it sure would be cool to have an indoor practice facility.
But we don’t have the money for those extravagances. Not when we have necessities like paying a Tyreek Hill what used to be enough money to build a f—king stadium.
Just a thought... If the Dolphins really think that guy is worth that kind of money, how much ransom do you suppose they'd pay? Hmmm.
*********** The capacity of our football players to absorb the shock and pain of violent physical contact without wincing, and to rally strongly and courageously in the face of misfortune and adversity is familiar to all who know the game. The football player accepts blows from Fate and his adversary as part and parcel of the game and stays in there swinging. He combines fortitude and strength with bodily skill and agility, and these facts with split-second thinking and reactions. These are the same qualities that make our fighting men the toughest and best in the world.
Admiral Jonas Ingram, 1943
From The Melbourne (Australia) Age - by Australian Phil Dye, author of "The Father Lode; a New Look at Becoming and Being a Dad." He speculates that in the process of filling our kids' heads with all that "you are special" stuff, we have failed to teach them one very important skill: the ability to lose. Yeah, yeah, I know - "show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser," and all that crap. But 20 years ago, did we have the expression "going postal?" Did fired workers return and shoot up the workplace?
Here is what author Dye has to say: "children have entered a period of being constant winners. Every child is a winner at just about everything, or at least worthy of immense praise for just taking part." (Trophies for everybody?) And as a result, losing - or falling short - comes as a total shock. Mr. Dye mentions his days as a teacher, when everything on a report card had to be positive, and every teacher was given a list of phrases - all positive, some more positive than others - to soften the impact of what the teacher really wanted to say. "Will achieve her best with a little more effort," was one example, when what probably would have served the child a whole lot better was a frank statement that she was goofing off.
We have to stop trying to manipulate outcomes so that no one is a loser, and prepare kids to deal with the fact that some of us are just plain better - or worse - than others at certain things, and all the efforts of parents and teachers and coaches can't change that fact. I personally think that we have created a lot of problems in our kids with our "you can be anything you want to be" motivational mumbo-jumbo. It's just not so.
"It is the reality of life," Mr. Dye says, "that while we may all be equal, we are all very different. We can't be good at all things. While we may be able to fool ourselves some of the time, when the crunch comes, it will hit us very hard indeed." (So why, as educators, are we wasting so much time fooling kids by telling them how wonderful they are just exactly as they are - no changes necessary - instead of helping them to deal with reality, and improve or adapt? It's a major reason, I believe, why kids roll their eyes when a teacher asks them to redo a paper, or bristle when a coach corrects them; it's why they quit the team - or call in Mom and Dad - when they’re asked to play another position, or told that the coach thinks somebody else at their position is better.)
Mr. Dye mentions other ways in which learning to lose is important, as well. For example, if kids never experience loss - "if all we have for comparison is the ecstasy of previous wins" - they'll never be satisfied. Instead, they'll continually search for greater thrills than merely winning can provide. If today's children don't know how to lose, Mr. Dye says, it may be because today's parents are so busy "putting children first" - trying to be their kids' friends - that they have abdicated their roles as leaders.
Parents, he says, have got to return to risking being unpopular with their children, and learning to say one magic word - NO. "The 'no' word is being lost from a parent's vocabulary," he says, and what we have produced is what he calls the "yes" generation - kids who can't tolerate deprivation or loss. We must begin to teach kids to deal with losing - with reality - and that's going to require parents (and educators, too) with the strength and courage (call it "stones") to "present the raw truth or use the “NO” word a little more often.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5824316
*********** My son, Ed,who lives in Melbourne, Australia, informs me that three of the final four Playoff teams have punters from Melbourne - all trained by now-famous ProKick.
Kudos to Texas for hiring a red-blooded American to do a real American job. JUST KIDDING!!! JUST KIDDING!!!
Ohio State’s punter, Joe McGuire, is the son of Eddie McGuire, who may very well be the best known person in all of Australia. He has been active in sports, serving as president of Collingwood Football Club (an Australian Rules power) and in politics, and he has been on every sort of TV show imaginable, leading to his being called, in typical Aussie good humor, “Eddie Everywhere.”
*********** Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, said that a successful artist told her how he handles invitations and requests for his time. He puts a post-it on his phone: “Do I have to? Do I want to?”
In other words -
(1) Is it a matter of personal or professional obligation ?
(2) Will the event be a source of joy or pleasure?
If either is “yes,” then yes.
If neither is “yes,” then no.
*********** Washington hired a new defensive coordinator: Ryan Walters, recently fired by Purdue after only two years as its head coach.
Walters replaces Steve Belichick, who left to take the same job under his father , at North Carolina.
According to the USA Today network, the two-year deal calls for a salary of $1.4 million in 2025 and $1.5 million in 2026.
Purdue has to pay Walters about $9.5 million to cover the remaining three years on his contract, and since his contract did not include an “offset” provision, his Washington salary will not decrease the amount that Purdue owes.
*********** Writes contributor Joe Gutilla, “I’m convinced there is no such thing as “targeting” in football after seeing that no call in the ASU-Texas game. If THAT hit wasn’t the very type of contact being prohibited it just doesn’t exist.”
The exoneration of the Texas player accused of targeting an opponent from Arizona State - hitting him in the head with his helmet - has caused a number of people to wonder, like me, it college football is really that interested in stamping out this menace to our game.
College football’s pathetic, half-ass “war on targeting” is a mirror image of the soft-on-crime policies of our big cities, where cops make the arrests, but DA’s simply refuse to punish the criminals.
It’s seems to me that we’re more concerned that the “accused” gets “due process” than we are about eliminating this serious threat to football.
The instant that a player is accused of targeting, a team of Philadelphia lawyers arrives to determine whether the victim of the hit really was “defenseless,” or whether the blow was struck by the “crown” of the helmet - a circular area said to be approximately 15 centimeters in diameter - or whether the perpetrator was the product of a dysfunctional upbringing. (Okay, I made some of that up, but that’s how lawyerly it sometimes sounds.)
If found guilty of targeting, the perp is “ejected.” But only technically. Actually, the “hasn’t he already suffered enough?” do-gooders have arranged for him to be allowed to remain on the sideline. Instead of being sent off the field in shame, he remains with his team, where he can be consoled (even lauded) by his teammates.
Put yourself in the place of a mother who might have been watching that Texas-Arizona State playoff game and saw that hit - consider for a moment if you’d want your young son playing a game in which they take such a casual approach to such dangerous play.
If they’re really serious, they’ll have a team of three high school coaches on hand to rule whether what appears to be targeting really is targeting. I’d venture to say that in roughly 90 per cent of all cases they’ll rule for ejection.
If it's even close, the guy is gone. “Any doubt? Throw him out.”
Two players ejected in any game would cause ejection of the head coach, with a fine to accompany it. Plus - this is what they’d really hate - no return from suspension without their submitting a detailed Plan for Improvement. (Coaches hate that sh—.)
Only then, facing a much stronger possibility of ejection for hitting with the helmet, will coaches begin to take seriously their responsibility to eliminate this obnoxious tactic.
*********** I was talking over the weekend with an old high school classmate and teammate, Hap Gwynn. Hap still lives in Philly, and naturally we got to talking about the Iggles. He said his son might be the only guy in the whole area who’s not excited about the Birds being in the playoffs. That’s because he’s a Philly cop, and he knows that for any Eagles games being played in Philly, he’ll be on duty - not the most desirable assignment when you consider how much of the crowd’s fanaticism will be alcohol-fueled.
*********** If it seems that this years NFL race to the bottom wasn’t as spirited as most years, it’s because there’s no Caleb Williams in this year’s quarterback group. First quarterback taken is a tossup between Cam (“I only play the first half”) Ward, Shedeur (”Watch me turn a third-and-three into a fourth-and-23”) Sanders, and Jalen (“You should have seen me a a freshman!”) Milroe.
*********** “Mike Buddie (Army AD who recently left to take the job at TCU) has been an extraordinary teammate, truly committed to the ideals of Duty, Honor, Country," said Lt. Gen. Steven W. Gilland, the West Point Superintendent.
"He has made a lasting impact on Army Athletics, including the Michie Stadium Preservation Project, Army Football's move to the American Athletic Conference, and numerous conference championships and postseason appearances.
“Yet, his true legacy over the past five and a half years is the thousands of cadet-athletes who developed into leaders of character for our Nation.”
Are you serious, General Gilland? An AD did that?
Really?
Then why are we taxpayers spending all that money at West Point on coaches, faculty and staff members?
*********** Hugh,
I’m convinced there is no such thing as “targeting” in football after seeing that no call in the ASU-Texas game. If THAT hit wasn’t the very type of contact being prohibited it just doesn’t exist.
As much as I hate to admit it “THE” Ohio State football team is playing the best football of the four semifinalists. Your description of the Texas Longhorns is spot on.
ND will have to play its absolute best to beat a very good Penn State team. The Irish will have to overcome the loss of a few key players due to injury to stay close. But, we may have an edge with our HC Marcus Freeman.
Remember this name: KOI PERICH. He is the true freshman FS for Minnesota. This kid is special. Can play any position on the field so don’t be surprised to see him play on both sides of the ball, and special teams, next year for the Golden Gophers.
Off topic. George Soros receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom?? WT-?
Only 15 more days. Can’t get here soon enough!!
Have a great week.
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I noticed Koi Perich in the Minnesota-Virginia Tech game. Really good-looking kid!
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING OUR QUIZ SUBJECT SO FAR (ANSWER ON FRIDAY)
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Rothwell, Corpus Christi, Texas
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Joe Gutilla - Granbury, Texas
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
David Crumo - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: At Yale, he never played in a losing game and he played on three national championship teams.
He coached at Syracuse, Yale, Ohio State, Yale (again), Iowa, Duke, and USC - six major colleges - and had winning records at all but Duke (a single season in which he went 4-5).
He won national titles at three different schools: Yale (1909), Iowa (1921), USC (1928, 1931, 1932, 1939( - six in all.
He won two Big Ten titles and seven Pacific Coast Conference (forerunner of the Pac-12) titles. And he won five Rose Bowls without losing any.
He is the coach who made USC a major power.
After playing at Yale, he coached Syracuse to a 6-3-1 record, then returned to Yale and coached them to a 10-0 season and yet another national championship in 1909. As a player or a coach, he had yet to lose at Yale.
After one year as Yale’s unpaid coach, he was hired by Ohio State, and stayed there just one season. It was a successful season: the Buckeyes went 6-1-3, and most important of all, a 3-3 tie that ended a nine-game losing streak to Michigan.
He left coaching for two years, but returned to Yale in 1913, and became the Eli’s first paid coach at $2,500 a year. This time he we nt 5-2-3, and then once again left coaching briefly.
In 1916 Iowa hired him away for $4,500 a year for five years, the most money they’d ever committed to pay a coach. Iowa had not won a Big Ten title in 15 years and In his first year he lost to Minnesota 67-0 and to Nebraska, 47-0. It took him six years, but in 1921 the Hawkeyes went unbeaten and won the Big Ten title outright. The biggest win was a 10-7 triumph over Notre Dame. His first of what would be many meetings against Knute Rockne, it ended a 20-game Notre Dame winning streak, the longest of Rockne's career.
In 1922. Iowa again went undefeated, the only time in Iowa history that the Hawkeyes have won back-to-back conference titles. The most notable win of the season came over Yale, coached by his brother, Tad. It was the first time a "western" team had defeated Yale in New Haven. From 1920-1923 Iowa ran up a 20-game win streak
After a falling-out with the higher-ups at the Iowa, he resigned and took the head coaching job at Trinity College, now known as Duke University.
He stayed there just one season with a 4-5 record, and then was hired to coach Southern California. It has been said that one of the factors in his getting the job was the recommendation of Rockne. (Notre Dame had just agreed to play a series of games with USC, and it was important to Rockne, who valued the West Coast trips, that USC be a strong opponent.)
In 16 years as the Trojans’ coach, he would win 121 games, losing 36 and tieing 13. Of all USC coaches, only John McKay has won more (127)
There was one spell, from 1934-1937 when the Trojans went 17-19-6, but he managed to right the ship and win his sixth national title in 1939.
One of his most famous Rose Bowl wins was in 1939, when a last-second minute play scored the first touchdown Duke had given up all season, beating Wade Wallace’s “Iron Dukes,” 7-3.
His final Rose Bowl win was in 1940. The following summer, he died of a heart attack. He was only 55.
His career college coaching record was 194-64-21.
Largely as a result of the USC-Notre Dame series, begun when he took over at USC, he came to be considered, along with Knute Rockne, one of the two top coaches of his era.
The two schools first met in 1926, a 13-12 Notre Dame win in front of 75,000 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that Rockne would call the greatest game he ever saw. The 1927 game, a 7-6 Irish win, was played in Chicago’s new Soldier Field, in front of an estimated 120,000 people.
USC finally won in 1928, the year they won their first national title, and over a five year span, the national championship would be won by either USC (1928, 1931, 1932) or Notre Dame (1929 and 1930).
The 1929 game, played at Soldier Field, drew 112,912.
Notre Dame won again in 1930, its 19th game in a row and with it, the national title. As it was traditionally the final game of the season, it would turn out to be Rockne’s last game.
The following season, 1931, following Rockne’s death in a plane crash in March, would be Notre Dame’s first since 1918 without Rockne on its sideline, and a USC field goal with a minute to play gave the Trojans a 16-14 win, a national title, and their first win ever in South Bend, ending the Irish 15-game wining streak.
In the locker room after the game, seeing a national sports figure on hand to present the national title trophy, our guy asked him if he knew where Rockne was buried. The man said yes, and then, putting aside the celebration of the win over Notre Dame and the national title, less than an hour later the entire USC team assembled at Knute Rockne’s graveside, where their coach conducted a service honoring his fallen rival.
FRIDAY,
JANUARY 3, 2025 “War is such a dangerous
business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very
worst.” Carl von Clausewitz*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Forrest Evashevski, the Iowa coaching guru, wanted the Wing-T. Paul Dietzel of Louisiana State University couldn't wait to learn all of its intricacies. Ditto for Frank Broyles at Arkansas and Eddie Robinson at Grambling.
“As the offensive system known as the Wing-T became a national phenomenon, my job as an assistant coach at the University of Delaware took me far beyond the campus in Newark, situated in northern Delaware near I-95, between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
“Dave Nelson, my head coach, had created the Winged-T in 1950 at the University of Maine. The name was simplified to Wing-T as it became the offense of choice for many football teams across America. I taught the blocking schemes to our offensive linemen that first season and helped Dave perfect the system in future years after we moved to Delaware.
“Evashevski played a major role in the wide recognition and acceptance of the wing–T. One of the first coaches at a major school to employ the system, he gave it a huge boost by winning a national championship. Dave went to Iowa City and worked closely with his former University of Michigan teammate to teach the coaching staff and the Iowa players every detail of the offensive formation.
“With Evashevski as co-author, Nelson produced a highly successful book, ‘Scoring Power with the Winged T Offense, which became a bible for coaches at all levels who were switching to the new system. The book contained detailed diagrams and photographs to explain how the formation worked. I appreciate Coach Nelson's crediting me, along with his other assistant, Harold Westerman, as one who ‘helped originate the system.’”
*********** THE PLAYOFF?
PENN STATE VS BOISE STATE - Boise State may have had the best runner, but Penn State had the best - and most - talent. Boise would have had a chance if the Broncos had played error-free football - and tackled better - and the layoff may have had something to do with their rather sloppy play. Boise State didn’t make enough mistakes as it was, but in this game they put one of the worst exhibitions of tackling I’ve seen all year. Still, Penn State was clearly the better team.
NOTRE DAME VS GEORGIA - Hate to say it, UGA, but maybe there’s still time to cancel that statue of Saint Kirby, because he sure did get outcoached by Marcus Freeman. That team, as it turns out, was very fragile, built on the talent of one man - a quarterback - who unfortunately was lost to a season-ending injury. Did Saint Kirby - given time to adjust to his backup quarterback’s abilities - do anything different? Maybe try to put together a running game I-formation and all that? Nah - let’s just stick the kid in there and expect him to do things he just can’t do. Sure does expose a coach that’s used to beating people with talent - when the talent runs out.
TEXAS VS ARIZONA STATE - The Sun Devils wound up controlling the game, and if they’d gotten off to a better start - there’s that layoff factor - they might have wound up hammering Texas. I am amazed at how a team with Texas’ talent underperforms.
OHIO STATE VS OREGON - It’s hard to beat a good team a second time, especially one as talented as Ohio State. And, as it’s beginning to appear, the first-round bye is NOT an advantage. I’m happy for the Ohio State staff and I think they’re the best team in the Playoff - by far. More on Oregon’s Dan Lanning, the James Franklin of the West, down below.
*********** So much for automatic qualifiers and first-round byes. There’s not a single conference champion left in the Playoff.
*********** Not to say that the Playoff games have pretty much sucked as entertaining football, but if you like a back-and-forth game…
In all eight playoff games, there have been just four lead changes.
Three involved Texas. In the Texas-Clemson first-round game, the Tigers took an early 7-0 lead, but it only lasted for 12 minutes until Texas took a lead it never lost.
In Texas’ game against Arizona State the lead never changed during regulation. ASU actually took the lead for the first time in the top half of the first overtime period, but Texas tied it up in the bottom half and then regained the lead for good in the top half of second overtime.
In the Georgia-Notre Dame game, the Bulldogs went out in front, 3-0, early in the game, but Notre Dame had the lead before the first period was over and then never gave it up.
Eight games - and only three of them saw even one lead change. Be still, my beating heart.
*********** Did I say excitement? With the point spread on the Georgia-Notre Dame game flipping almost overnight to making Notre Dame a one-point favorite, every single Playoff game has been won by the favorite. Not only that, but the favorite has covered in seven of the eight games - all except Texas, favored by 13.5 over Arizona State.
*********** 1:27 left in the Gator Bowl game and Jaxon Dart has just thrown his fourth touchdown pass. That’s 52 points for Ole Miss. Dart had played the entire game. When they got the ball one more time, a new QB came in - and on the last play of the game, he threw long. Kiffin, you prick, I was actually starting to like you. But after this dishonoring of your bowl game opponent, the only way I’d ever want to see your sorry ass in the playoff would be if there were some way we could match you up with Ohio State and get you a good ass whipping. (Question: Does this guy have a single friend?)
*********** Let the rumors begin: Oregon’s Dan Lanning is headed for the NFL. For the Bears. Or the Cowboys. Who knows? The fact that there might be some truth to the rumors might help explain why Lanning’s team got so badly mishandled by Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.
Wouldn’t surprise me to learn the rumors were started by fans of a certain nearby school that knows what it’s like to be victimized by a coach who put pursuit of another job ahead of preparing his team for a big game. Call them Beavers.
They’re Oregon Staters, and this time last year they were rocked by the departure of their coach, Jonathan Smith - an OSU alumnus, for God’s sake! - to Michigan State. While his responsibility to Oregon State was to have them ready for their big game with Oregon, he was closing on his deal with the Spartans. The Beavers got killed by the Ducks, and It’s been tough sledding for them ever since. Meantime, while Oregon State struggled, less than an hour away the Oregon Ducks spent most of the past season ranked number one, a fact their fans have enjoyed pointing out to Beavers’ fans.
So if anybody knows what it’s like to be jilted, it’s the fans of Oregon State. And if their rivals get stiffed by a guy whose whole career has been spent in pursuit of the main chance, I for one will certainly forgive them for their schadenfreude.
I’m no fan of the guy anyhow, so AMF. Go follow in the distinguished footsteps of Willie Taggart and Mario Cristobal, two ex-Duck coaches who thought they were leaving for something better.
*********** Can we have a do-over on the Heisman? Travis Hunter may be very, very good at two positions and all that, but it’s not often that you’ll see a player other than a quarterback affect a big game the way Cam Skattebo did. Maybe if his coach had been willing to neglect his coaching duties in order to lobby for him with the Heisman voters…
*********** HEY HERBIE - After watching Alabama and South Carolina in their bowl games… I realize that you’re owned by ESPN, just like the SEC is, but do you still think they belonged in the playoff ahead of, say, Indiana? I mean, Indiana lost to Notre Dame by fewer points than your conference champion.
*********** Still not entirely sure what the Bielema-Beamer kerfuffle was all about, and I don’t much care, but it sure was a bad look for a guy who’s expected to be a model of conduct for young men to totally lose it over what seemed like a lack or respect. Doesn’t it concern him that one of his players might lose it like that? Isn’t that phony “he disrespected me” macho crap the very thing that gets young men killed?
*********** Former Princeton wide receiver Tiger Bech, an All-Ivy League performer, was identified as one of the victims of the mass truck attack in New Orleans. Bech is the older brother of Jack Bech, a standout wide receiver at TCU in 2024. Tiger was taken to a New Orleans hospital with critical injuries from the attack before dying on Wednesday, according to Kim Broussard, the athletic director at St. Thomas More Catholic High School. Bech was 28. Tiger Bech played high school football at St. Thomas More Catholic High School in Lafayette, Louisiana before earning a scholarship to the Ivy League's Princeton. He twice earned All-Ivy League honors as a return specialist and caught 53 passes for 825 yards and three touchdowns in his career. After graduating from Princeton in 2021, he worked as a trader at Seaport Global, a New York brokerage firm.
Yes, Brian Flinn, Princeton’s passing game coordinator and a guest-presenter on my Zooms, coached him.
*********** West Point (aka Army) AD Mike Buddie has taken the AD job at TCU, effective immediately.
He did two things in his tenure at Army for which he’ll be remembered - for better or worse:
(1) He pushed through the Michie Stadium “Preservation Project,” essentially forcing Army to play in a sub-capacity stadium while a new grandstand is added, consisting mostly of luxury boxes.
(2) He took Army, long an independent, into the American Athletic Conference, making his scheduling job easier but locking the US Military Academy into games against teams of no interest to Army fans, and creating the real possibility of two Army-Navy games in the same season.
The jury is still out on both of them.
Also, I still harbor a suspicion that Jeff Monken’s failed “updated offense” experiment in 2023 might at least partly have been “suggested” by Buddie, to overcome AAC coaches’ objections to adding a triple option team.
This is a very important hire.
Navy’s concluding a 10-win season with a bowl win over a Power-4 opponent, and Air Force’s strong finish (four straight wins) both show that it’s important for Army to keep the foot on the gas.
(For all the grief that he took after firing Ken Niumatololo, it would seem that Chet Gladchuk knew what he was doing at Navy.)
Scary thought: the Biden administration still has a couple of weeks left to get a transgender AD into place at West Point.
*********** If anybody ever asks what was the most-attended single sports event in 2024 - maybe of all time - wait until everybody else has guessed “Super Bowl,” or “Indianapolis 500,” or “Kentucky Derby,” or whatever.
Then inform them it was a cricket match.
A “test match,” as they call it. That means an international match. In this case, it was between Australia and India.
A few weeks ago, it drew 373,691 fans to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, more commonly known as the MCG or, to Aussies, “The G.”
The G holds 100,000 people, which is a lot, but not enough to accommodate a crowd of 373,691.
The tricky answer to this tricky question is that while a test match is one sporting event, it may take place over three, and sometimes as many as five, days.
This one took place over five days in The G, and drew daily crowds of
87,242
85,147
83,073
43,867
74,362
Those numbers amount to 373,691 separate admissions.
Matches began every day at 10:30 AM and went to about 6 PM, with a few breaks along the way.
Normally, my son (who lives in Melbourne) tells me, the first two or three days draw the biggest crowds, and then attendance will drop off some, but in this case, the combination of a really competitive match, the fact that India was playing (Indians are huge cricket fans), and the pleasant - it being the southern hemisphere- summer weather combined to break the all-time MCG record.
For those eager to find out how this one came out, here’s a brief write-up from an Indian paper:
Nitish, Washington register second highest 8th-wicket partnership for India in Australia. Nitish and Washington got together at 221 for seven when Nathan Lyon pinned Ravindra Jadeja in front with the side still in a deficit of 253 runs.
(Got that?)
*********** Hugh,
Coach Wyatt! Pulling for Notre Dame?? As Redd Foxx’s character on his TV show used to say when he was shocked hearing something he never thought he would hear as he held his hands to his chest, I’m saying, “Elizabeth…Elizabeth, this is it…this is the big one!”
Navy was impressive in their final two games. Great way to end a great season.
Thought I saw Army run some counter plays against LA Tech. Where were those plays against Navy??
Vandy coach Clark Lea must be ecstatic knowing he’ll have his QB Diego Pavia back for 3 more years.
New Fresno State coach Matt Entz will most likely be looking for another FG kicker. His NDSU kickers were always reliable.
Enjoyed watching Iowa State take Miami down, and BYU thrash Colorado. Like you I missed a bunch of “other” bowl games this year.
Give me Texas facing Oregon, and Penn State taking on Notre Dame in the semis.
If that Ohio State team that handled Tennessee shows up Oregon could be in trouble. But I just can’t bring myself to pull for the Buckeyes…EVER! Go Ducks!
I don’t think Skattebo will be enough for ASU to overcome Texas, and Jeanty not enough for Boise State to take down a really strong Penn State defensive front.
Most pundits aren’t giving ND any love over Georgia. Not so fast my friend!! The Irish will win a close one.
QUIZ: Army, Navy, Air Force, Clemson
Happy New Year, and enjoy the games!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
THIS PAST SEASON THERE WERE JUST FOUR FBS TEAMS THAT DID NOT USE THE TRANSFER PORTAL AT ALL, AND THREE OF THEM WON TEN OR MORE GAMES.
WHAT WERE THE FOUR TEAMS, AND WHICH WERE THE THREE THAT WON TEN OR MORE GAMES?
TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE CREDITED WITH YOUR ANSWER PLEASE BE SURE TO TYPE QUIZ IN THE SUBJECT LINE OF YOUR ANSWER
THREE SERVICE ACADEMIES PLUS CLEMSON (ONLY AIR FORCE DID NOT FINISH WITH TEN WINS)
QUIZ CORRECTLY ANSWERED BY:
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Guttila - Granbury, Texas
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Tom Walls - Winnipeg, Manitoba
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: A native of Corning, New York, Bob Higgins played college football at Penn State, where he was a two-time All-America, lettering in football, baseball, boxing and wrestling.
He played at Penn State from 1914 to 1917, and was first named an All-American in 1915 - the second Penn Stater to be so honored. During World War I he left Penn State to serve as a U.S. Army officer in France, and after his discharge, he returned to Penn State to captain its football team and earn All-America honors for a second time.
After graduation, he began his coaching career at West Virginia Wesleyan, while at the same time playing professionally with the NFL Canton Bulldogs (1920-1921).
In 1925 he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, and in 1928 he returned to Penn State as an assistant.
He was named the Lion head coach in 1930 and served in that capacity for the next 19 years.
It was not easy going. He succeeded Hugo Bezdek, who had been his coach in 1919, and who in 12 years at State College had gone 65-30-11, with only one losing season in that time. Bezdek remained as athletic director, and there seems to be some evidence that he was less than completely supportive of his successor.
It wasn’t until Higgins’ eighth season that he finally posted a winning record. Perhaps it was coincidental, but that was 1937, which was also the year that Bezdek was dismissed as athletic director.
Over the next 11 seasons, he would have just one losing season.
His best season was after World War II, 1947, when he led the Nittany Lions to only the second unbeaten, untied regular-season record in the school's history. The Lions finished 9-0, shutting out six opponents along the way. They tied Southern Methodist, 13-13, in the 1948 Cotton Bowl, in only the second time that Penn State had played in a bowl game.
When the Lions finished the season ranked #4 - behind Notre Dame, Michigan and SMU - it marked the first time a Penn State football team had been ranked in the Top Ten.
During his time as head coach, Wally Triplett became the first black player to start a game at Penn State, and became the first black man to play in the Cotton Bowl.
The now-famous “We Are… Penn State!" cheer dates to November, 1946, when Penn State’s players learned that Miami, the final game on the Penn State schedule, had declined to let Penn State’s two black players (one of whom was Wally Triplett) play. “We are Penn State!” said the team captain, Steve Suhey, a World War II vet. “It’ll be all or none.” He called for a team vote and it was unanimous: forfeit the game. And so it appears in the official records: “cancelled.” Legend has it that Miami then contacted Syracuse about replacing Penn State and the Orange declined.
When poor health forced him to retire in 1948, his record at Penn State was 91-57-11, and his all-time record was 123-83-16.
Bob Higgins’ daughter, Virginia (“Ginger”), married Steve Suhey, the captain and an All-American guard on the unbeaten 1947 Cotton Bowl squad.
The Suheys had four sons, three of whom - Larry, Paul and Matt - lettered in football at Penn State between 1975 and 1979.
Matt played for 10 years with the Chicago Bears in the National Football League and is a member of the Pennsylvania football all-century team.
Two great-grandsons, Joe and Kevin, have also played for Penn State.
For good reason, the Suhey family - going all the way back to Ginger’s father - is considered the First Family of Penn State Football.
Bob Higgins was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.
He died in 1969.
After he retired as Penn State’s head coach, he was succeeded by Joe Bedenk, a longtime assistant and the head baseball coach, who wound up coaching for one year.
Bedenk was succeeded by Rip Engle, who coached for 16 years before turning the job over to his chief assistant, Joe Paterno, who was Penn State’s coach for 46 years.
When Paterno first arrived at Penn State in 1950, after having been Engle’s quarterback at Brown, he lived for a year with Ginger and Steve Suhey.
QUIZ CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BOB HIGGINS:
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
Joe Guttila - Granbury, Texas
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Mike Foristiere - Marsing, Idaho
Tom Walls - Winnipeg, Manitoba
Ossie Osmundson - Woodland, Washington
David Crump - Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: At Yale, he never played in a losing game and he played on three national championship teams.
He coached at Syracuse, Yale, Ohio State, Yale (again), Iowa, Duke, and USC - six major colleges - and had winning records at all but Duke (a single season in which he went 4-5).
He won national titles at three different schools: Yale (1909), Iowa (1921), USC (1928, 1931, 1932, 1939( - six in all.
He won two Big Ten titles and seven Pacific Coast Conference (forerunner of the Pac-12) titles. And he won five Rose Bowls without losing any.
He is the coach who made USC a major power.
After playing at Yale, he coached Syracuse to a 6-3-1 record, then returned to Yale and coached them to a 10-0 season and yet another national championship in 1909. As a player or a coach, he had yet to lose at Yale.
After one year as Yale’s unpaid coach, he was hired by Ohio State, and stayed there just one season. It was a successful season: the Buckeyes went 6-1-3, and most important of all, a 3-3 tie that ended a nine-game losing streak to Michigan.
He left coaching for two years, but returned to Yale in 1913, and became the Eli’s first paid coach at $2,500 a year. This time he we nt 5-2-3, and then once again left coaching briefly.
In 1916 Iowa hired him away for $4,500 a year for five years, the most money they’d ever committed to pay a coach. Iowa had not won a Big Ten title in 15 years and In his first year he lost to Minnesota 67-0 and to Nebraska, 47-0. It took him six years, but in 1921 the Hawkeyes went unbeaten and won the Big Ten title outright. The biggest win was a 10-7 triumph over Notre Dame. His first of what would be many meetings against Knute Rockne, it ended a 20-game Notre Dame winning streak, the longest of Rockne's career.
In 1922. Iowa again went undefeated, the only time in Iowa history that the Hawkeyes have won back-to-back conference titles. The most notable win of the season came over Yale, coached by his brother, Tad. It was the first time a "western" team had defeated Yale in New Haven. From 1920-1923 Iowa ran up a 20-game win streak
After a falling-out with the higher-ups at the Iowa, he resigned and took the head coaching job at Trinity College, now known as Duke University.
He stayed there just one season with a 4-5 record, and then was hired to coach Southern California. It has been said that one of the factors in his getting the job was the recommendation of Rockne. (Notre Dame had just agreed to play a series of games with USC, and it was important to Rockne, who valued the West Coast trips, that USC be a strong opponent.)
In 16 years as the Trojans’ coach, he would win 121 games, losing 36 and tieing 13. Of all USC coaches, only John McKay has won more (127)
There was one spell, from 1934-1937 when the Trojans went 17-19-6, but he managed to right the ship and win his sixth national title in 1939.
One of his most famous Rose Bowl wins was in 1939, when a last-second minute play scored the first touchdown Duke had given up all season, beating Wade Wallace’s “Iron Dukes,” 7-3.
His final Rose Bowl win was in 1940. The following summer, he died of a heart attack. He was only 55.
His career college coaching record was 194-64-21.
Largely as a result of the USC-Notre Dame series, begun when he took over at USC, he came to be considered, along with Knute Rockne, one of the two top coaches of his era.
The two schools first met in 1926, a 13-12 Notre Dame win in front of 75,000 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that Rockne would call the greatest game he ever saw. The 1927 game, a 7-6 Irish win, was played in Chicago’s new Soldier Field, in front of an estimated 120,000 people.
USC finally won in 1928, the year they won their first national title, and over a five year span, the national championship would be won by either USC (1928, 1931, 1932) or Notre Dame (1929 and 1930).
The 1929 game, played at Soldier Field, drew 112,912.
Notre Dame won again in 1930, its 19th game in a row and with it, the national title. As it was traditionally the final game of the season, it would turn out to be Rockne’s last game.
The following season, 1931, following Rockne’s death in a plane crash in March, would be Notre Dame’s first since 1918 without Rockne on its sideline, and a USC field goal with a minute to play gave the Trojans a 16-14 win, a national title, and their first win ever in South Bend, ending the Irish 15-game wining streak.
In the locker room after the game, seeing a national sports figure on hand to present the national title trophy, our guy asked him if he knew where Rockne was buried. The man said yes, and then, putting aside the celebration of the win over Notre Dame and the national title, less than an hour later the entire USC team assembled at Knute Rockne’s graveside, where their coach conducted a service honoring his fallen rival.
TUESDAY,
DECEMBER 31, 2024 “If you understand it, it is
not God.” St. Augustine *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Fresh seafood, not too easy to find in Michigan, was readily available in Maine, and Rena and I enjoyed buying clams and lobsters straight from the sea. We would have picnics on the rocky shore. Most of the restaurants featured sandwiches they called lobster rolls. The bread resembled a hot dog bun, toasted on the outside, only it featured lobster instead of a frankfurter.
“Meanwhile, I took graduate courses at Maine. One of my professors was Rome Rankin, the head basketball coach and a great storyteller. He helped me get involved in sports psychology. I created a test that measures the reaction times of football and baseball players and it proved to be a good coaching support. A few years later I finish my masters degree during the summer at Michigan State University.
“One unforgettable character at Maine was the campus snowplow driver. The only name I knew him by was Sparky, but for some reason he got very attached to me. During a severe storm he called me aside. "Coach Lude, will you come with me to see my boss?” I asked what the problem was. He explained that he had worked completely around the clock in the snow and marked twenty-five hours on his time card. "But the boss wouldn't let me do that,” he said. I asked, "Sparky, how did you figure those twenty-five hours in one day?’ He explained patiently. "Well, I didn't stop for anything. I worked right through my lunch time and my dinner time, a half hour for each, and that's an additional hour. It comes out to 25 hours.” Sparky should have checked with the math department.
“When Bill Murray took the head football coaching job at Duke, there was considerable speculation over whom Dr. John Perkins, the president at the University of Delaware, would hire as Murray's replacement. Perkins called the coach at his alma mater, Michigan, and Fritz Crisler recommended Dave Nelson. I was asked to go along as an assistant coach. Nelson also would serve as athletic director.
“So in July 1951, Rena, Cynthia and I moved from Orono, Maine, to Newark, Delaware. We would end up spending 11 years there, using it as the stepping stone to what had become my ultimate goal: a head-coaching job.”
*********** WHAT THE PLAYOFF NOW LOOKS LIKE…AND MY PICKS (REGARDLESS OF SENTIMENT)
PENN STATE OVER BOISE STATE - I will root for Boise State. Boise State has the best runner, but Penn State has the most talent.
NOTRE DAME OVER GEORGIA - I will root for Notre Dame. I think Notre Dame is good enough to win, no matter who plays QB for the Bulldogs. So I won’t blame Gunner Stockton.
TEXAS OVER ARIZONA STATE - I will root for Arizona State. Arizona State has some talented players, but Texas has far more.
OHIO STATE OVER OREGON - I will root for Oregon. It’s hard to beat a good team a second time, and I think that this time the decision - a close one - goes to the Buckeyes.
WHAT THE PLAYOFF WOULD LOOK LIKE IF THEY’D ONLY LET ME RE-SEED IT AFTER THE FIRST ROUND…(AND MY PICKS)
OREGON VS ARIZONA STATE - OREGON
PENN STATE VS GEORGIA - GEORGIA
TEXAS VS NOTRE DAME - NOTRE DAME
OHIO STATE VS BOISE STATE - OHIO STATE
*********** My favorite bowls, based on the excitement or interest or pleasure its result provided. Please don’t make me try to remember the name of the bowl.
1. BYU 36, Colorado 14 - If every other bowl game had been a disappointment, the result of this game alone would have made the whole bowl season a successful one for me. Not even the open support of the ESPN flacks in the broadcast booth was enough to keep Coach Prime and his Precious Ones from laying a monster egg. ESPN made such a big deal about the fact that this was the Last Hurrah of the Sanders Clan that there’s little likelihood we’ll have to go through this crap again next year. Of course, with today’s college football, you never know.
2. Navy 21, Oklahoma 20 - Courtney Lyle (“The Voice of NCAA Volleyball”) did the play-by-play and was unlistenable. When OU scored their second touchdown, she shrieked.
Navy has had its share of great runners - including Heisman Trophy winners Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach - but until Middies’ QB Blake Horvath did it against the Sooners, no Navy player had ever run as much as 95 yards for a touchdown.
We heard a lot of whining about all the players that Oklahoma was playing without, but that doesn’t mean that the players they did have playing were junk. They still had a bunch of guys that Navy never had a chance at recruiting, and conversely, there probably wasn’t a player on the Navy team that Oklahoma would have considered good enough for them to recruit. If the Sooners weren’t properly prepared to play, that’s on coaching.
3. Iowa State 42, Miami 41 - How sweet is it to watch a bought team crumble? When/how was the decision made not to play Cam Ward in the second half? Although it appeared to be a complete surprise to the broadcast crew, they went along with the whole sham as if the absence of a Heisman Trophy finalist was scarcely worth mentioning.
Now, if I had been the sideline reporter, with Ward standing on the sideline, without his helmet, I’d have asked him…
When was it decided you weren’t going to play any more, and whose decision was it?
What, exactly was the “record” that we were told you were trying to break?
Who cares? (I might not ask that one.)
What was the name of the team you played for this year?
What was the name of your center?
Is it good or bad to be called a mercenary?
In the aftermath of the game, I loved Iowa State’s explanation that the key to success in this stage of college football is getting the right kind of people: “Ames, Iowa isn’t for everybody.”
4. Kansas State 44, Rutgers 41 - K-State had to come from behind, something they’re used to doing. Down 41-29 early in the fourth quarter, they scored 14 points in the last eight minutes. The Wildcats rushed for 347 yards, led by 5-7, 170 pound Dylan Edwards, who had 18 carries for 196 yards and 2 TDs.
With the win - their ninth - the Wildcats joined an elite group of just five Power 4 football teams that have had 3 straight 9-win seasons, along with at least one conference title:
Alabama
Clemson
Georgia
Oregon
Kansas State
5. East Carolina 26, North Carolina State 21 - The game ended with some very nasty skirmishes that resulted in an official’s face being gashed. Damn shame that the brawl stole the headline from ECU’s Rahjai Harris, whose shocking 86-yard scoring burst with 1:40 to play gave the Pirates the comeback win. (Harris finished the day with 214 yards rushing.)
The two teams will open against each other next season, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the bad blood will carry over, because as ECU coach Blake Harrell pointed out post-game, by then both teams will have completely different rosters.
6. Toledo 48, Pitt 46 (6 OTs) - Back and forth. Back and forth. Great game. BUT: Third and goal from the one and down by three in second OT after having held Toledo to a field goal - Pitt, which had averaged 5.6 yards per carry on the ground, tried a tricky-ass play that called for their tight end to take the snap and throw the ball. It was incomplete. Lesson learned. No more trick plays. Unfortunately, no more plays, at all- on fourth and one, they kicked the field goal to send it into a third overtime.
After losing in six overtimes, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi left the field without shaking hands. Classless. I found it especially interesting after remembering how a few years back he got all pissed off at Georgia Tech’s Jeff Collins for giving him only a perfunctory post-game shake.
He may try saying that he was headed in to lead his players off the field, but that one falls flat because it’s his responsibility to make sure that all his players are off the field before he heads for the locker room, and his place was out there on that field. There was bad blood throughout the game, and if anything had broken out while Narduzzi was in the locker room, he wouldn’t have been able to defend his absence.
7. Vanderbilt 35, Georgia Tech 27 - Vanderbilt winning a bowl game? Impossible. What the hell’s Vanderbilt doing in a bowl game in the first place? Answer: Diego Pavia. All he did was account for all of Vandy’s touchdowns, throwing for three and running for two. He is that rare guy who can make the team around him better.
8. Northern Illinois 28, Fresno State 20 (2 OTs) - A very exciting win for a team that earlier in the season had given Notre Dame its only loss; and a very sad loss for a Fresno team hoping to win for interim coach Tim Skipper. The game went into OT after both teams missed last-minute field goal attempts.
9. South Florida 41 San Jose State 39 (5 OTs) - USF made the longest trip of any college team this season in order to play in the game (in Hawaii). Both teams finished 7-6.
10. UConn 27, North Carolina 14 - Remember how bad the Huskies were just a few years ago? This was their ninth win! How much longer can they keep Jim Mora? How bad was Carolina? The sideline reporter (since it was in Fenway Park, both teams were on the same sideline) told us that their coaches were “working on fundamentals.” I guess it’s never too late, even in the middle of your bowl game, to discover that the fundamentals are sort of important.
11. USC 35, Texas A & M 31 - An incredible comeback by the Trojans, who were down 24-7 with 5 minutes left in the third quarter, and scored 21 points in the fourth quarter. And a terrible letdown for the Aggies, who lost their last three games. It was a late-night game, and I lost interest at halftime, when it was tied, 7-7.
12. Syracuse 52, Washington State 35 - As a WSU Cougar fan, I was really proud of the way they stepped up and accepted their bowl challenge. After their OC and their QB left for Oklahoma and their HC left for Wake Forest, they lost a total of 26 players to the transfer portal, including 11 of the 22 who had started in their last regular season game. Syracuse was the better team and earned the win, but WSU played them tough and had their chances. I was especially impressed by the job they did getting their backup QB ready to play.
Special kudos to interim head coach Pete Kaligis, a career assistant and - ironically - a former Washington Huskies offensive lineman along with the guy I work for, Todd Bridge. Pete Kaligis did a terrific job on very short notice of rallying the team to play hard, play well and play together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUWkqSsWy54
13. Army 27, Louisiana Tech 6 - For anybody not an Army fan it would be considered dull. What a dogass conference the AAC is: it sends its number 2, 3 and 4 teams to play Power 4 opponents - Tulane to play Florida, Memphis to play West Virginia, and Navy to play Oklahoma - but it commits its champion to play Marshall, another Group of 5 team which everybody knew was likely to lose its coach and, consequently, a lot of players. Sure enough, Marshall crapped out of the Independence Bowl, and fortunately for all, Louisiana Tech stepped up.
Enough complaining. Army’s win made it the first 12-win team in Army football’s long history.
And no matter who you are and who you’re playing, it’s a well-coached team that can put on a 21-play drive covering 75 yards and consuming 12:21 of clock! (The 21-play drive against Tech ties an earlier Army drive against North Texas for longest in FBS this season.)
Credit to Army for a solid performance in a game that it had to be hard to get excited about, and to Louisiana Tech’s players for showing up and helping their school earn a paycheck as a last-minute substitute.
And credit to the 34,000-some said to be in attendance on a cold, rainy night.
14. Memphis 42, West Virginia 37 - With Rich Rod coming to town, the Mountaineers were hemorrhaging players. The Tigers finished 11-2 and 6-2 in the AAC. They lost only to Navy and UTSA, and their 34-24 defeat of Tulane knocked the Green Wave out of playoff contention. I don’t like seeing West Virginia lose but I liked the Memphis QB, Seth Hennigan. Get this - he stayed at Memphis for flour years. In those four years he threw for 14,278 yards and 104 touchdowns, and in his final two years he led the Tigers to a 21-5 record.
LOST INTEREST
UNLV 24, Cal 13 - That a$$hole Fernando Mendoza. Good luck at Indiana next year.
Nebraska 20, Boston College 15 - Not very interesting. Don’t let the close score fool you.
TCU 34, Louisiana 3 - Ugly, ugly, ugly.
LAST PLACE
(Four-way tie) All of the Playoff games so far
DIDN’T WATCH
Arkansas 39, Texas Tech 26
Arkansas State 38, Bowling Green 31
Florida 33, Tulane 8
James Madison 27, Western Kentucky 17
Miami (O) 43, Colorado State 17
Ohio 30, Jacksonville State 27
Sam Houston 31, Georgia Southern 26
South Alabama 30, Western Michigan 23
UTSA 44, Coastal Carolina 15
*********** Coach Scott Mallien, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, was in Shreveport, Louisiana over the holidays visiting his son, and he stopped by to watch an Army practice. He had his picture taken with Army’s star QB Bryson Daily and was kind enough to send it to me. (He and his son also attended the Army-Louisiana Tech Independence Bowl game in Shreveport.)
In the game, Bryson Daily scored three TDs, giving him 32 for the season, which is the most for any FBS QB ever. His 32 rushing TDs tie him for third place among all FBS players. His 129 yards rushing in this bowl game gave him 11 games rushing for at least 100 yards.
Although Army was playing without leading running back Kanye Udoh, who has already signed with Arizona State, junior Hayden Reed was more than adequate as a replacement, carrying 20 times for 114 yards and a TD.
*********** New Coaches moving up from FCS…
Fresno State - North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz. First there was Craig Bohl, going to Wyoming. Then there was Chris Klieman at Kansas State. Not a bad record for former Bison coaches.
Washington State - South Dakota State head coach Jimmy Rogers.
I like the Cougars, and I like this hire. I like what I’ve seen of the South Dakota State Jackrabbits, and I like the fact that some of their players could wind up in Pullman, including their QB, Mark Gronowski.
WSU lost both coordinators in addition to their head coach, so it’s possible that Coach Rogers will bring one or both of SDSU’s coordinators with him. If either one doesn’t come with him, it’s probably because he’ll have been offered the head job at SDSU.
My only concern about Rogers is admittedly a very picky one: while his record at SDSU is outstanding - 27-3 - he’s only been a head coach for two seasons, and this season’s 12-3 record actually was a fall-off from 2023, when the Jackrabbits went 15-0 and won the FCS title. How much of his success, you have to wonder, was owing to the fact that he succeeded the legendary John Stiegelmeier, who in 26 years went 199-112. In his final three years at SDSU, he went to the national NFC semifinals once, and to the finals twice, winning the FCS title in his last game as the Jackrabbits’ head coach. (How tough must it have been to retire just one game shy of 200 wins?)
*********** ESPN is catching hell from viewers - and rightly so - for the way its announcers, Dave Pasch and Dusty Dvoracek, (and, obviously, its director) used the Colorado-BYU broadcast to try to advance the myth of Coach Prime and the Prime Time Players he brought forth.
Gasp! “Hunter may be the best two-way player in history!” (My ass.)
Gasp! “Shedeur Sanders may be the best college quarterback in America!” (My ass.)
Gasp! “This is their last game playing together!” (Promise?)
Gasp! “And aren’t they wonderful? They’re actually playing in a bowl game!” (Later - after word got around about Miami’s Cam Ward opting out at halftime - “Aren’t they wonderful? They’re still playing!”)
It was, in sum, a new low in sports broadcasting. I’ve been copying some of the more fulsome moments of the broadcast for potential use on my Zoom.
As usual, ESPN came into the game with a story line. But then, when BYU upset the applecart, that story line was all they had. So they pressed on with it, even when it was obvious what they were doing. When Colorado finally scored with six minutes left in the third quarter, they almost wet their pants, telling us that Colorado had “cut the BYU lead.” Yeah - “cut it” to 27-7.
Right from the start, I knew something was fishy when they said the crowd was “mostly Colorado fans.”
Impossible, I thought. Not with BYU in the house.
BYU will draw a crowd anywhere in the country.
And sure enough, I saw a LOT of blue in that crowd.
*********** A man a plan a canal Panama. Maybe you’ve seen that palindrome (a word or phrase that’s spelled the same, forward or backward).
It’s sort of funny that no sooner does President Trump raise the subject of our taking back the canal, than Jimmy Carter, the president who turned it over to Panama in the first place, dies.
The canal was handed over in 1977.
When the subject of transferring ownership of the canal had come up the year before, Republican Senator S. I. Hayakawa of California opposed it, famously saying, “We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square.”
*********** Frank Hinkey played at Yale from 1891-1894. He was a four-year All-American, and he was captain of th Yale team his junior and senior years. In those early days, the captain ran the football team, as this article about Hinkey explains:
Being a captain at Yale in those days meant something. It meant that he was supreme on the field and off. He selected the coaches and accepted or rejected their recommendations as he saw fit. He determined the type of play and he ran the game.
*********** Alex Kroll died last week. He was 87.
He was a year ahead of me at Yale, and he was a very good football player.
He may very well have been the last Yale football player to become an All-American. The only problem was, he won that honor at Rutgers, not at Yale.
He was born and raised in western Pennsylvania, in the small town of Leechburg, where his father spent 45 years as a steelworker for Allegheny-Ludlum Steel Corp.
He was captain of his high school football team and class salutatorian, graduating second in his class.
He passed up other college offers and chose to attend Yale.
At a time of freshman ineligibility, as a sophomore he started every game at center on Yale’s 1956 Ivy League championship team.
Alas, that winter, following a traffic accident. he physically assaulted (“slugged” as we all heard it put at the time) someone who turned out to be an associate professor, an act for which he was expelled. “I was nineteen,” he said, years later. “It’s one of the regrettable incidents of my life.”
Enlisting in the Army, he served two years as an MP, then enrolled at Rutgers. In his two years as a starting center in their single wing offense, the Scarlet Knights went 17-1. In his senior season, 1961, they were unbeaten, and he was a near-unanimous All-American - Rutgers’ first since Paul Robeson in 1918.
As he had at Yale, he participated at Rutgers in boxing, wrestling and rugby in addition to football, and he graduated as a Henry Rutgers Scholar - a senior who completed an “outstanding independent research project leading to a thesis.”
Looking forward to a professional football career, he signed to play with the New York Titans of the AFL, forerunners of today’s Jets.
But while still at Rutgers, he was contacted by an alumnus who was a senior vice-president of Young & Rubicam (Y & R), a large New York advertising agency, who arranged a job interview for him.
At the conclusion of the interview, they made him a proposal: he would play pro football for two seasons, and intern for Y & R in the off-season, and at the end of two seasons, he would choose either pro football or Y & R.
It took him only one year to decide: he found he liked the advertising business. As for football, according to New York Magazine, he was the “last person carried unconscious off the playing field at the Polo Grounds.”
And, too, as he put it in a 1982 interview with the same magazine, “I didn’t want to tell my children I made my living bending over in front of Joe Namath.”
Ah, the children. He was married by that point. He had married his high school sweetheart, but had to elope to do it, because her family was opposed: he was a steelworker’s kid, and she was the only child of a vice-president of the steel company. They were married during the North-South game festivities following his senior season, and his best man was the North coach, Duffy Daugherty. (They remained married until his death.)
He had a talent for the advertising business, and his ascent in Y & R was rapid.
Beginning as a copywriter, he rose to the position of Executive Vice-President and Creative Director by the time he was 33.
In 1985 he became CEO of Y & R, by then the largest advertising agency in the world, and he served in that position for ten years.
During that time, Y & R was responsible for handling the advertising of such clients as KFC (Y & R came up with “We do chicken right”), Oil of Olay, Proctor and Gamble, AT & T, Lincoln-Mercury, Right Guard, 7-11, Hallmark Cards, and Gannett Publishing (and its introduction of USA Today), and many, many more.
Recognized as a legend in the advertising industry, he often referred to his sports background as good preparation for a business well known for its ups and downs.
In that 1982 New York Magazine article, he recalled his high school coach, an ex-World War II Marine: “His one motto was to ‘run it off.’ I used to think he was a sadist, but the older I get, the more I see the logic. If you lie there, your bruises congeal. If you get up and run, you’re moving toward something else.”
He often noted parallels between sports and the advertising business:
“Advertising is very much like the sports I played in college; all require discipline and personal goal-setting.”
“Athletics is great training for advertising. You find out how hard it is to win and how good it feels.”
“Advertising is not a business you can ever take for granted. It keeps you hungry. Take it for granted and you get hit in the chops.”
He received numerous prestigious awards, among them the Walter Camp Distinguished American Award, the NCAA Silver Medal for Excellence, the American Jewish Committee's National Human Relations Award and the Horatio Alger Award (for outstanding Americans who exemplify dedication, purpose and perseverance in their personal and professional lives). In addition to the College Football Hall of Fame, he has been inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame and the Rutgers Athletics Hall of Fame.
*********** Penn State quarterback Drew Allar attributes the successful year he - and the Nittany Lions - have had to the way he’s handled social media. He’s shut it off.
"If we had a nickel for every time there was a Monday morning quarterback saying some BS stuff, we'd all be pretty rich," offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki said. "I think part of being a quarterback, especially at Penn State but really anywhere, is how you respond to and manage criticism."
The 20-year-old Allar has made strides in that department after a trying 2023 season that finished with a 10-3 record. He says that's largely because once fall camp started back in August, he logged off the social media platform X.
Allar said negative online experiences wore on him last year, and his phone number was leaked a few times, which added to the stress. He finally realized that controlling outside narratives was impossible, so the best course of action was to eliminate a needless distraction.
"I've been more mentally free, as much as that sounds crazy," Allar said. "I think that's been a huge difference for me this year.”
*********** Georgia QB Gunner Stockton will be getting his first career start Wednesday against Notre Dame.
His is a great story. Small town boy makes good? How about a kid from Tiger, Georgia, a town of a little more than 500 people in the mountains of North Georgia?
He drives his grandfather’s 1985 Ford pickup.
His girlfriend once complained that all he cared about was hunting, fishing and football.
In high school (Rabun County) he broke Trevor Lawrence’s state record for career passing yards, and Deshaun Watson’s state record for touchdown passes. And, being bigger than a lot of kids in smaller high schools at 6-1, 215, he ran for more than 4,000 yards.
But Georgia and the SEC was vastly different, and there he was, a redshirt sophomore (in his third year of college football) who seldom saw any action. And suddenly, when starter Carson Beck was injured, against Texas, he got the call.
He made some mistakes, as would be expected, but he played well enough to save the day for Georgia.
Said Georgia coach Kirby Smart afterwards, “The players believe in Gunner. They love Gunner.”
That’s because they admire his attitude as a team man. And his toughness.
Said his high school coach, “When he was being recruited, ‘toughness’ came out of my mouth within the first two or three sentences.”
Said his father, “It's not easy when you've never been a back up your entire life to then be a back up. When you know how to be a good teammate, you know how to support by standing in the shadows.”
(MY SOURCE FOR THIS WAS A GREAT ARTICLE IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BY LAINE HIGGINS)
*********** I saw a player in a bowl game fail to make a first down because he was pulled back - reeled in, you might say - by a defender who had hold of his shirt tail, which by the time the play was whistled dead had been stretched until it was six feet long.
Wait, I can hear you say - the way these jerseys are cut to fit now, there’s no way a guy could grab that much jersey.
Oh, no? Then you haven’t been paying attention to all these fashionistas whose tee shirts billow out from under their game jerseys almost like little tu-tus.
It’s slovenly, and it tells me something about a coach’s concern for detail, but it’s not against the rules.
But there are guys whose mouthpieces dangle from their face masks, in clear defiance of the rules requiring them to be in the players’ mouths. (Yes, there are a few guys so into fashion statements that they actually wear a mouthpiece but still have a second one dangling on the outside for effect.)
And then there are the guys who wear what amount to shorts, completely in violation of the rule stipulating that they must have a knee pad covering the knee. (Some punters wear shorts cut so high that the “knee pads” they contain are above mid-thigh.)
Why isn’t something done about blatant equipment violations? Simple, but shocking: I heard a high school official, asked about these concerns, tell a group of coaches, “We’re not going to be fashion police.”
So there you have it. WE OFFICIALS are more important than the game and the rules we’re expected to enforce. So go ahead - pass all the rules you want - but WE’LL decide which ones we choose to enforce.
Funny that he used the term “police,” as if our actual police were actually all that concerned about enforcing all of our laws.
It’s no secret that there’s general disorder in our society, and a major reason is that there are a lot of things our police simply won’t deal with. In some cases I suspect it’s simply because they just can’t be bothered with small stuff, but in others because they fear the repercussions that might come from doing their jobs in a society that’s becoming downright unruly.
*********** Hugh,
“King” James needs to shut his big yapper. Christmas Day now belongs to football. Four NBA Christmas games fell way short of two NFL games in Christmas Day TV viewership numbers. While both pro leagues are woke, the NBA and its “icon”, along with a few of its head coaches are more woke than the NFL. Frankly, I didn’t watch ANY of ‘em!
Still on basketball…longtime college and current University of Miami coach Jim Larranaga called it quits. When asked why he replied, “I’m exhausted.” Citing NIL and Transfer Portal as the main culprits.
“It has become professional.” Like many of his college football counterparts he certainly won’t be the last to get out in college basketball.
Those Dakota schools apparently know how to recruit some hard-nosed, tough as nails hombres! Montana State HC Brent Vigen who was the OC at NDSU under Craig Bohl for a number of years must have brought that recipe with him to Big Sky country! Can’t wait to see MSU and NDSU square off!
Do you think Jeff Monken will leave Army to take a shot at another less restrictive G5 school to show he has the chops to match his old Navy nemesis Ken Niumatalolo?
Why do guys like Kirk Herbstreit continually apologize for remarks they make about issues (not others) that are true? What is so offensive about speaking the truth?
Can’t wait for January 20th!
Enjoy the weekend! Happy New Year!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I think that Ken Niumatololo has an edge because he has shown that he can "open it up" and be successful at it.
QUIZ: What unique career move do the following college coaches have in common?
They all had two different stays as the head coach at a major college school
Johnny Majors - Pitt
John Robinson - USC
Mack Brown - North Carolina
Greg Schiano - Rutgers
QUIZ CORRECTLY ANSWERED BY:
Josh Montgomery - Berwick, Louisiana
Greg Koenig - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Adam Wesoloski - Pulaski, Wisconsin
Mike Framke - Green Bay, Wisconsin
Tom Davis - San Marcos, California
John Vermillion - St. Petersburg, Florida
Scott Mallien - Green Bay, Wisconsin
John Bothe - Oregon, Illinois
Tom Walls - Winnipeg, Manitoba
QUIZ: I’M SERIOUSLY CONTEMPLATING GOING TO ONE “QUIZ” SUBJECT PER WEEK. NEXT QUIZ ON FRIDAY
BUT IN THE MEANTIME, HERE’S ANOTHER GOOD ONE FER YA:
THIS PAST SEASON THERE WERE JUST FOUR FBS TEAMS THAT DID NOT USE THE TRANSFER PORTAL AT ALL, AND THREE OF THEM WON TEN OR MORE GAMES.
WHAT WERE THE FOUR TEAMS, AND WHICH WERE THE THREE THAT WON TEN OR MORE GAMES?
TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE CREDITED WITH YOUR ANSWER PLEASE BE SURE TO TYPE QUIZ IN THE SUBJECT LINE OF YOUR ANSWER
ANSWER ON FRIDAY…
*********** QUIZ: A native of Corning, New York, he played college football at Penn State, where he was a two-time All-America, lettering in football, baseball, boxing and wrestling.
He played at Penn State from 1914 to 1917, and was first named an All-American in 1915 - the second Penn Stater to be so honored. During World War I he left Penn State to serve as a U.S. Army officer in France, and after his discharge, he returned to Penn State to captain its football team and earn All-America honors for a second time.
After graduation, he began his coaching career at West Virginia Wesleyan, while at the same time playing professionally with the NFL Canton Bulldogs (1920-1921).
In 1925 he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, and in 1928 he returned to Penn State as an assistant.
He was named the Lion head coach in 1930 and served in that capacity for the next 19 years.
It was not easy going. He succeeded Hugo Bezdek, who had been his coach in 1919, and who in 12 years at State College had gone 65-30-11, with only one losing season in that time. Bezdek remained as athletic director, and there seems to be some evidence that he was less than completely supportive of his successor.
It wasn’t until our guy’s eighth season that he finally posted a winning record. Perhaps it was coincidental, but that was 1937, which was also the year that Bezdek was dismissed as athletic director.
Over the next 11 seasons, he would have just one losing season.
His best season was after World War II, 1947, when he led the Nittany Lions to only the second unbeaten, untied regular-season record in the school's history. The Lions finished 9-0, shutting out six opponents along the way. They tied Southern Methodist, 13-13, in the 1948 Cotton Bowl, in only the second time that Penn State had played in a bowl game.
When the Lions finished the season ranked #4 - behind Notre Dame, Michigan and SMU - it marked the first time a Penn State football team had been ranked in the Top Ten.
During his time as head coach, Wally Triplett became the first black player to start a game at Penn State, and became the first black man to play in the Cotton Bowl.
The now-famous “We Are… Penn State!" cheer dates to November, 1946, when Penn State’s players learned that Miami, the final game on the Penn State schedule, had declined to let Penn State’s two black players (one of whom was Wally Triplett) play. “We are Penn State!” said the team captain, Steve Suhey, a World War II vet. “It’ll be all or none.” He called for a team vote and it was unanimous: forfeit the game. And so it appears in the official records: “cancelled.” Legend has it that Miami then contacted Syracuse about replacing Penn State and the Orange declined.
When poor health forced him to retire in 1948, his record at Penn State was 91-57-11, and his all-time record was 123-83-16.
His daughter, Virginia (“Ginger”), married Steve Suhey, the captain and an All-American guard on the unbeaten 1947 Cotton Bowl squad.
The Suheys had four sons, three of whom - Larry, Paul and Matt - lettered in football at Penn State between 1975 and 1979.
Matt played for 10 years with the Chicago Bears in the National Football League and is a member of the Pennsylvania football all-century team.
Two great-grandsons, Joe and Kevin, have also played for Penn State.
For good reason, the Suhey family - going all the way back to Ginger’s father - is considered the First Family of Penn State Football.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.
He died in 1969.
After he retired as Penn State’s head coach, he was succeeded by Joe Bedenk, a longtime assistant and the head baseball coach, who wound up coaching for one year.
Bedenk was succeeded by Rip Engle, who coached for 16 years before turning the job over to his chief assistant, Joe Paterno, who was Penn State’s coach for 46 years.
When Paterno first arrived at Penn State in 1950, after having been Engle’s quarterback at Brown, he lived for a year with Ginger and Steve Suhey.
FRIDAY,
DECEMBER 27, 2024 “To one who has faith, no
explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is
possible.” St. Thomas Aquinas*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “The solution, of course, would be a preseason trip to warmer climes. Many northern schools do that routinely to escape the snow and cold, but it was unheard of for Maine baseball teams. I talked to Tad Wieman about it, but he said there was no money. I tried to raise some cash, with little success. Then I suggested staying at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, and playing some games in the Washington, D.C. area against schools like George Washington, Georgetown, and Hampden-Sydney in Virginia.
“One of our neighbors in student housing was Jed Brewster, the nephew of Maine senator Owen Brewster. Maybe the senator could use his influence to let my team stay at the Academy in New London? He did precisely that and we used private automobiles to provide the transportation for Maine’s first “Southern” baseball trip.
“We won the Yankee Conference championship that season, and I spent the summer coaching a team in a league sponsored by the Bangor newspaper and the Boston Braves. One of my star players was a young pitcher named Carlton Willey from Cherryfield, a town that still calls itself the blueberry capital of the world. Willey had an amazing fastball which caught the attention of the Braves. He played for them in Boston and Milwaukee, when the team moved there, then finished his major league career with the New York Mets.
“A couple of important milestones came in 1950, one before and one after the first football season at Maine. Just before practices started in August, Cynthia Ruth Lude, our first daughter, was born in Bangor. We took her home to a modest rental house. It was small but it had a heat duct in the living room and a vent up in the master bedroom.
“After the season, I attended my first American Football Coaches Association convention and the Coach of the Year dinner. Dave Nelson, Tad Wieman and I – plus our wives – drove to New York. I was dazzled. I had the chance to talk with Army Coach Earl (Red) Blaik, who had six unbeaten seasons in 17 years at the US Military Academy, Bud Wilkinson of Oklahoma, Bobby Dodd of Georgia Tech, and many others. Those great coaches took time to share some of their expertise with newcomers like me. The Coach of the Year dinner was my first visit to the original Mama Leone's restaurant. What a great time.”
*********** Chris Vannini, The Athletic…
"So two NFL games today between playoff teams and both had lopsided results. Weird how that happens."
(Christmas Day NFL doubleheader: Kansas City 29, Pittsburgh 10; Baltimore 31, Houston 2)
*********** WHAT THE PLAYOFF NOW LOOKS LIKE…
NOTRE DAME VS GEORGIA -
PENN STATE VS BOISE STATE -
TEXAS VS ARIZONA STATE
OHIO STATE VS OREGON
WHAT THE PLAYOFF WOULD LOOK LIKE IF THEY’D ONLY LET ME RE-SEED IT AFTER THE FIRST ROUND…
OREGON VS ARIZONA STATE
PENN STATE VS GEORGIA
TEXAS VS NOTRE DAME
OHIO STATE VS BOISE STATE
*********** During Valdosta State’s Division II semifinal win over Minnesota State, they asked Valdosta State’s head coach, Tremaine Jackson about Alfonso Jackson, one of the most exciting running backs I’ve seen all season, any level.
Said Coach Jackson, “He’s a DOG!”
And then, quickly, to make sure he wasn’t misunderstood, explained, “Discipline, Obedience, Grit.”
*********** Old friend Sam Knopik, long time coach at Kansas City’s Pembroke-Hill School, knows that I’m a collector of football books, and was kind enough to send me this story about Bill Belichick and his football book collection.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2015/01/28/bill-belichick-library-steve-belichick-naval-academy
*********** Clearly, Ken Niumatololo is no longer a one-trick pony.
From 2007 through 2022, he was Navy’s head coach. In 16 years, he won 109 games, and took the Middies to nine bowl games. Most impressive of all, he was 11-5 against Army. (He won his first nine games against the Black Knights, a far longer streak than any other Navy coach.)
He did it all with the triple option that he learned under Paul Johnson. And while his offense - heavy on the run and light on the pass - was perfect at the Naval Academy, it almost certainly eliminated him as a candidate for other jobs he might have been interested in. For a number of reasons, today’s big-time athletic directors simply won’t hire a coach who won’t air it out.
But this past season, his first at San Jose State, he’s shown the football world a Ken Niumatololo they’d never seen before - a pass-first, run-second Ken Niumatololo.
This past year, his Spartans threw 552 times as opposed to 324 rushing attempts.
The passing game produced 4,183 yards versus 1,138 on the ground, and 31 touchdowns as opposed to 13. The Spartans averaged 7.6 yards per per pass attempt versus 3.5 yards per carry.
You’d have to see it to believe it - his offensive linemen never put a hand down. They go the whole way in two-point stances.
It looks very run-and-shootish to me. They seldom use a tight end and I haven’t seen them mess with any of that H-Back or sniffer or pistol stuff.
Aesthetically and professionally I don’t care for it, but I understand: you can’t run any offense if you don’t have a job, and there just aren’t a lot of job openings for out-of-work triple option coaches.
*********** Evidently the word is out that Pete Carroll is interested in the Chicago Bears job. They could do a lot worse than a guy who’s won a National Championship and a Super Bowl. (He’s one of just three to do that - besides him, there’s just Barry Switzer and Jimmy Johnson.)
Carroll’s 74. If he were to get the Bears’ job (or, now that we know he’s back in play, some other NFL job) he would become the oldest NFL head coach ever, beating out Romeo Crenell, who was 73 when he took over as interim coach of the Texans in 2020.
*********** Saturday’s two NFL games drew larger viewing audiences than any of the college football playoff games, and they trounced the two playoff games that opposed them in the same time slots.
Figures shown are the average of viewer numbers at different points in a game
Playoff Games up against NFL games
SMU vs Penn State: 6.4 million
Texans vs Chiefs: 15.5 million
***
Clemson vs Texas: 8.6 million
Steelers vs Ravens: 15.4 million
Playoff Games with no NFL competition
Indiana vs Notre Dame: 13.4 million
***
Tennessee vs Ohio State: 14.3 million
Not that the college games were flops: the overall average of the four games was 10.6 million viewers, which was more than all but four college games this past season
Georgia-Texas: 13.2 million
Michigan-Ohio State: 12.3 million
Georgia-Alabama: 12.0 million
Alabama-Tennessee: 11.5 million
NOW - ARE YOU READY FOR THE REAL SHOCKER?
I forgot to add that SMU-Penn State and Clemson-Texas had some additional competition beside the NFL games:
SMU vs Penn State: 6.4 million
South Dakota State vs North Dakota State: 1.6 million
***
Clemson vs Texas: 8.6 million
South Dakota vs Montana State: 1.4 million
DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS MEANS? WITH ZERO PROMOTION, GOING UP AGAINST THE PLAYOFF, SOMETHING THAT’S BEEN HEAVILY PROMOTED SINCE THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON, ONE FCS SEMIFINAL GAME DREW ONE- FOURTH THE AUDIENCE THAT SMU-PENN STATE DREW, AND THE OTHER DREW ONE SIXTH THE AUDIENCE THAT CLEMSON-PENN STATE DREW
SHEER GENIUS: ESPN IS PAYING ABOUT $1.3 BILLION PER YEAR FOR THE RIGHT TO TELEVISE THE PLAYOFF - NEXT TO NOTHING TO TELEVISE THE FCS SEMIFINALS AND FINALS
*********** I’ve found that analogies are great ways to help me teach - to explain something to players by comparing it to something else that they might be more likely to be familiar with.
I came across a great one recently while reading in the Wall Street Journal the obituary of a man named Clifton Wharton. Mr. Wharton had a long, varied and distinguished career - as president of Michigan State University (becoming the first black president of a major university), chancellor of SUNY (State University of New York) with its 64 campuses, chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, Deputy Secretary of State, and Co-Chairman of the Knight Commission on College Athletics.
His obituary noted that in his autobiography he had advised any leader coming into a new organization to resist the temptation to immediately begin making big changes. He compared it to trying to “change the fan belt while the engine is still running.”
*********** The way I always heard it was that old Jewish ladies, asked whether chicken soup could actually cure various ailments, would reply, “It can’t hurt.”
Similarly, while you may not believe in the power of prayer - “it can’t hurt.”
I came across this article in the Wall Street Journal telling how in 1944, as the opening rounds of what came to be called the Battle of the Bulge were fired, General George S. Patton implored American soldiers to pray…
Eighty years ago, with the Allies stalled at Germany’s western frontier, another bloody winter loomed. Even the usually ebullient Gen. George Patton, commander of the U.S. Third Army, was in a funk. His forces, which had slashed across France months earlier, were suffering and stuck in the mud.
On Dec. 8, an exasperated Patton asked his chief chaplain, James H. O’Neill, to compose a prayer for good weather. He ordered 250,000 copies to be distributed to every man in the Third Army. By Dec. 14 prayer cards were scattered among more than 20 divisions.
The timing was perfect. Two days later, the Germans began a terrifying barrage of Allied lines in the densely forested Ardennes, marking the opening salvos of World War II’s deadliest campaign, the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler’s aim was to split Allied forces, reach the port of Antwerp, and perhaps force a negotiated end to the war on the western front.
The ensuing fight would cost the U.S. some 19,000 men and wound nearly 50,000. As they battled amid atrocious conditions, many in summer clothing, the young Americans needed something to hold on to besides a rifle or friend in a foxhole. According to surveys from the U.S. Army’s Information and Education Division, almost three-quarters of U.S. soldiers turned to prayer in especially frightening combat. Faith mattered to men confronting death.
Patton instructed his men: “Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day.” He believed the Third Army’s nearly 500 chaplains, representing 32 denominations, were as critical to victory as his tank commanders. “He wanted a chaplain to be above average in courage,” O’Neill recalled. “In time of battle, he wanted the chaplains up front, where the men were dying. And that’s where the Third Army chaplains went—up front. We lost more chaplains, proportionately, than any other group.”
Patton relied on his faith more than most commanders did. Brig. Gen. Harry H. Semmes wrote that Patton “always read the Bible, particularly the life of Christ and the wars of the Old Testament. He knew by heart the order of morning prayer of the Episcopal Church. His thoughts, as demonstrated daily to those close to him, repeatedly indicated that his life was dominated by a feeling of dependence on God.” Semmes added that “Patton was an unusual mixture of a profane and highly religious man.”
Gen. Omar Bradley concurred: “He was profane, but he was also reverent. He strutted imperiously as a commander, but he knelt humbly before his God.” This was certainly the case during Patton’s finest moment in the Ardennes. “Destiny sent for me in a hurry when things got tight,” he wrote at the height of the battle. “Perhaps God saved me for this effort.” He also noted: “We can and will win, God helping. . . . Give us the Victory, Lord.”
The Almighty obliged despite Patton’s frequent profanity. (The Third Army commander is said to have believed that to make his men “remember something important” it was necessary to “give it to them double dirty.”) On Dec. 23, the skies cleared, allowing a massive Allied air force to wreak havoc on German forces and supply lines. “What a glorious day for killing Germans!” Patton wrote in his diary.
By late January 1945, Hitler’s last great strike in the West had ended in abject failure. The winter combat, as Winston Churchill stressed, was “the greatest American battle of the war.” In Luxembourg, shortly after the ordeal ended, a prominent clergyman, Daniel A. Poling, encountered some of Patton’s weary soldiers with their prayer cards. In an icy hell, their faith had been strengthened or renewed and then rewarded. As Poling recalled, they “believed—firmly believed—that God stopped the rain in answer to their prayers.”
By spring 1945, Patton had crossed the Rhine with an unstoppable army. After the guns fell silent in Europe that May, Patton hoped he might be sent to the Pacific. Instead, he became the military governor of Bavaria, a role unsuited to the bellicose warlord. In September 1945, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower removed him from that position after he made one too many impolitic statements to the press. “It is rather sad to me to think that my last opportunity for earning my pay has passed,” Patton wrote. “At least, I have done my best as God gave me the chance.”
The end was nigh. Patton was injured in a car accident on Dec. 9, 1945, and died 12 days later at age 60. He was buried on Christmas Eve in the American cemetery in Luxembourg, alongside a Third Army soldier who perished in the Battle of the Bulge.
His celebrated prayer asked for good weather, but it also implored God to “crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies” and establish justice among men. All who cherish freedom should thank the Lord for righteous blasphemers like Gen. Patton and the legions of God-fearing Americans he led to victory over evil.
*********** I was pleased to hear that Diego Pavia was granted an injunction allowing him more college eligibility.
The ruling, which applies only to him but soon, it would seem, could apply to others, was that the season(s) he spent in junior college should not count against his seasons of NCAA eligibility. His attorneys argued that it unfairly impacted his ability to market his name, image and likeness.
Considering that the NCAA now seems to grant extra eligibility for almost any reason (there are now guys playing football as sixth- and seventh-year players), it seems absurd that Pavia’s having played football at a level totally unconnected with the NCAA should count against his years of eligibility at a college.
For many years, athletes have attended prep schools for a year (or even two) after high school, at no cost to their college eligibility. They can step right into a college program as freshmen, with four years of eligibility.
But if athletes go to junior college and spend the usual two years there, they enter four year colleges as juniors, with only two years of eligibility remaining.
Here’s where It’s hard to reconcile the differences between these two situations, prep schools and junior colleges:
As an example of a prep school, at least half of the freshmen football players at Army will have spent a year at the US Military Academy Prep School (USMAPS). It’s designed to help prepare kids coming out of high schools for the academic rigor and strict cadet life of West Point, but it also provides them an extra year of (technically) high school football. When they arrive at West Point as plebes (freshmen) they have four years of college eligibility.
But when you look at the USMAPS football schedule you see that at least three of the teams on the prep school’s schedule are junior colleges. Why should those JC kids lose college eligibility while the guys they’re playing against don’t?
*********** In a book called “The Golden Age of Pro Football,” by Mickey Herskowitz (a Houston sportswriter who should be forever recognized as the man who gave the wishbone its name) I found this little gem about legendary defensive back Dick “Night Train” Lane…
He was an expert at the clothesline, or necktie, tackle, and yanking a ball carrier down by his face mask, until the NFL legislated against this little gesture. It was suggested, in fact, that Lane's head hunting had inspired the action. Train took the position that if a player couldn't take getting his neck wrung, he shouldn't be playing.
Even after law and order became the rule, Lane continued to tackle high. "My object,” he said, "was to stop the guy before he gained another inch. I was usually dealing with ends who were trying to catch passes, and if I hit them in the legs they would fall forward for a first down. There was nothing I hated worse than a first down. It meant I had to stay out there for three more plays. I grabbed them around the neck so I could get back to the bench and sit down.”
***********QUIZ: WITH THE CHRISTMAS RUSH, I FELT THAT THIS MAN DESERVED MORE TIME TO BE RECOGNIZED;
ACTUALLY, I’M SERIOUSLY CONTEMPLATING GOING TO ONE “QUIZ” SUBJECT PER WEEK.
BUT IN THE MEANTIME, HERE’S A GOOD ONE FER YA:
What unusual career move do the following college coaches have in common?
Johnny Majors
John Robinson
Mack Brown
Greg Schiano
*********** QUIZ: A native of Corning, New York, he played college football at Penn State, where he was a two-time All-America, lettering in football, baseball, boxing and wrestling.
He played at Penn State from 1914 to 1917, and was first named an All-American in 1915 - the second Penn Stater to be so honored. During World War I he left Penn State to serve as a U.S. Army officer in France, and after his discharge, he returned to Penn State to captain its football team and earn All-America honors for a second time.
After graduation, he began his coaching career at West Virginia Wesleyan, while at the same time playing professionally with the NFL Canton Bulldogs (1920-1921).
In 1925 he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, and in 1928 he returned to Penn State as an assistant.
He was named the Lion head coach in 1930 and served in that capacity for the next 19 years.
It was not easy going. He succeeded Hugo Bezdek, who had been his coach in 1919, and who in 12 years at State College had gone 65-30-11, with only one losing season in that time. Bezdek remained as athletic director, and there seems to be some evidence that he was less than completely supportive of his successor.
It wasn’t until our guy’s eighth season that he finally posted a winning record. Perhaps it was coincidental, but that was 1937, which was also the year that Bezdek was dismissed as athletic director.
Over the next 11 seasons, he would have just one losing season.
His best season was after World War II, 1947, when he led the Nittany Lions to only the second unbeaten, untied regular-season record in the school's history. The Lions finished 9-0, shutting out six opponents along the way. They tied Southern Methodist, 13-13, in the 1948 Cotton Bowl, in only the second time that Penn State had played in a bowl game.
When the Lions finished the season ranked #4 - behind Notre Dame, Michigan and SMU - it marked the first time a Penn State football team had been ranked in the Top Ten.
During his time as head coach, Wally Triplett became the first black player to start a game at Penn State, and became the first black man to play in the Cotton Bowl.
The now-famous “We Are… Penn State!" cheer dates to November, 1946, when Penn State’s players learned that Miami, the final game on the Penn State schedule, had declined to let Penn State’s two black players (one of whom was Wally Triplett) play. “We are Penn State!” said the team captain, Steve Suhey, a World War II vet. “It’ll be all or none.” He called for a team vote and it was unanimous: forfeit the game. And so it appears in the official records: “cancelled.” Legend has it that Miami then contacted Syracuse about replacing Penn State and the Orange declined.
When poor health forced him to retire in 1948, his record at Penn State was 91-57-11, and his all-time record was 123-83-16.
His daughter, Virginia (“Ginger”), married Steve Suhey, the captain and an All-American guard on the unbeaten 1947 Cotton Bowl squad.
The Suheys had four sons, three of whom - Larry, Paul and Matt - lettered in football at Penn State between 1975 and 1979.
Matt played for 10 years with the Chicago Bears in the National Football League and is a member of the Pennsylvania football all-century team.
Two great-grandsons, Joe and Kevin, have also played for Penn State.
For good reason, the Suhey family - going all the way back to Ginger’s father - is considered the First Family of Penn State Football.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.
He died in 1969.
After he retired as Penn State’s head coach, he was succeeded by Joe Bedenk, a longtime assistant and the head baseball coach, who wound up coaching for one year.
Bedenk was succeeded by Rip Engle, who coached for 16 years before turning the job over to his chief assistant, Joe Paterno, who was Penn State’s coach for 46 years.
When Paterno first arrived at Penn State in 1950, after having been Engle’s quarterback at Brown, he lived for a year with Ginger and Steve Suhey.
TUESDAY,
DECEMBER 24, 2024 "Destiny sent for me in a
hurry when things got tight.” George S PattonMY ANNUAL CHRISTMAS WISH FOR FOOTBALL COACHES EVERYWHERE (First printed in 2000, and every Christmas since, with annual revisions as needed):
May you have.... Players' Parents who recognize that you are the football expert; who stand back and let you coach their kids; who know their kids' limitations and don't expect them to start unless in your opinion they're better than the other kids; who don't sit in the stands and openly criticize their kids' teammates; who don't think it's your job to get their kid an athletic scholarship; who schedule their vacations so their kids won't miss any practices; who know that your rules apply to everybody, and are not designed just to pick on their kid...
A community that can recognize a year when even Vince Lombardi himself would have trouble getting those kids to line up straight... Opponents who are fun to play against; who love and respect the game and its rules as much as you do, and refuse to let their kids act like jerks... Students who want to be in your class and want to learn; who laugh at your jokes and turn their work in on time... who listen carefully, hear everything you say and understand all instructions the first time...Officials who will address you and your kids respectfully; who know and respect the rulebook; who will have as little effect on the game as possible; who will let you step a yard onto the playing field without snarling at you... Newspaper reporters who understand the game, always quote you accurately, and know when not to quote you at all...
A school district that provides you with a budget sufficient to run a competitive program... A superintendent (or principal) who schedules teachers' workdays so that coaches don't have to miss any practices... An athletic director who has been a coach himself (or herself!) and knows what you need to be successful and knows that one of those things is not another head coach in the AD's office; who can say "No" to the bigger schools that want you on their schedules; who understands deep down that despite Title IX, all sports are not equal... Assistants who love the game as much as you do, buy completely into your philosophy, put in the time in the off-season, and are eager to learn everything they can about what you're doing. And why! And if they disagree with you, will tell you - and nobody else... A booster club that puts its money back into the sports that earn it, and doesn't demand a voice in your team's operation... A principal who believes that when there's a teachers' position open, the applicant who is qualified to be an assistant coach deserves extra consideration; who doesn't come in to evaluate you on game day; who gives you weight training classes, and makes those weight-training classes available to football players first, before opening them up to the general student body; who knows that during the season you are very busy, and heads off parent complaints so that you don't have to waste your time dealing with them; who can tell you in the morning in five minutes what took place in yesterday afternoon's two-hour-long faculty meeting that you missed because you had practice... A faculty that will notify you as soon as a player starts screwing off or causing problems in class, and will trust you to handle it without having to notify the administration... A baseball coach who encourages kids to play football and doesn't have them involved in tournaments that are still going on into late August... A basketball coach who encourages kids to play football and doesn't discourage them from lifting, and doesn't hold "open gym" every night after late-season football practices ... A wrestling coach who encourages kids to play football and doesn't ask your promising 215-pound sophomore guard to wrestle at 178...
A class schedule that gives you and at least your top assistant the same prep period... Doctors that don't automatically tell kids with little aches and pains to stay out of football for two weeks, even when they know there's nothing seriously wrong with them... Cheerleaders who occasionally turn their backs to the crowd and actually watch the game; who understand the game - and like it... A couple of transfers - move-ins to your district - who play just the positions where you need help... A country that appreciates football and football coaches - and realizes what good it can do for its young men... A chance, like the one I've had, to get to know coaches and friends of football all over the country and find out what great people they are... The wisdom to "Make the Big Time Where You Are" - to stop worrying about the next job and appreciate the one you have ... Children of your own who love, respect and try to bring honor to their family in everything they do... A wife (like mine), who understands how much football means to you... Motivated, disciplined, coachable players who love the game of football and love being around other guys who do, too - players like the ones I've been blessed with....
For all assistants - A head coach whose values and philosophy you can support
They're the things I've been blessed with - may you be blessed with them, too.
And one special wish for those coaching brothers who find themselves "between positions" at this time of year - May your Christmas joy not be dimmed by the fact that you're temporarily without a team, and instead may it be brightened by faith that your next job is just around the corner. (If my experience is any indicator, it will be a far better one than the last one, anyhow!)
FINALLY...
A nation at peace - a peace that exists thanks to a strong and dedicated military that defends us while we sleep.
A nation whose people love it and what it represents, and respect the people who came before us and made it all possible
A nation whose leaders love it more than they love power and personal enrichment.
*********** A Christmas thought...
I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.
God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.
Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.
From "A Parliament of Whores - A Lone Humorist Attempts To Explain The Entire U. S. Government ," by PJ O'Rourke, 1991
********** WHAT DO I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS? There's nothing material that I need or want. My request of God - not Santa Claus - is that I'll wake up on Christmas morning and be back in America again. Actually, I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning with the fulfillment of my wish just four weeks away.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Maine's new coaching brain trust took a season to get adjusted. We assumed that the four larger schools on our Yankee conference schedule – the Universities of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut – would be our biggest rivals. So we focused on those games and won the conference. We shrugged off the advice of the locals who kept telling us that success or failure at Maine was measured by games against traditional rivals we had never heard of – Bates, Bowdoin and Colby – in what was called the State Series. We lost all three of those games in 1950. Former Yale coach Ducky Pond was at Bates; the coach at Bowdoin was Adam Walsh, the center at Notre Dame when the legendary Four Horsemen played in the backfield. I can't recall who was at Colby. No matter. These guys taught us something about coaching.
“We played only seven games, and I lobbied Dave to schedule eight or nine, as many other schools did. He was skeptical, pointing out that we didn't get paid any more for coaching eight or nine games, and if we lost, it would only put more pressure on what we were trying to accomplish.
“Orono, the small town just north of Bangor where the Maine campus is located, had one thing in common with Hillsdale, Michigan: bitterly cold winters. Unable to find any other place that we could afford, Rena and I lived in student housing. The apartment units had been converted from World War II barracks. Our place had walls like cardboard and a space heater. We cooked on a kitchen range that had been converted from wood to oil. In those severe winters I remember walking 150 yards to an oil shack to get a refill for the heater. You would take a breath, and your nostrils would stick together and immediately freeze.
“When Dave Nelson was hiring me as his line coach at Maine he mentioned to Tad Wieman, the athletic Director, that I had coached baseball at Hillsdale. Coincidentally, Maine's baseball coach had just left. The job was mine.
“Most of our baseball practices that spring were held indoors. We had hitting cages for batting practice, and we ran bases and did other drills in a big fieldhouse. Occasionally, the snowplows would clear a parking lot, and I was able to take our players outside long enough to hit fly balls to the outfielders and infielders.”
*********** If the purpose of The Playoff is to produce a “true national champion,” the CFP committee did its job, mainly by eliminating four teams that had no absolutely zero chance of winning four straight games against the kind of competition they faced this past weekend.
If it’s to produce entertaining games - which used to be a major goal of bowl games - it was a colossal failure. After a season of so many unbelievably exciting college football games, The Playoff provided us with four real dogs.
The conflicting goals represent a dilemma for ESPN, which - let’s face it - has for years been the engine driving college football madly down the track to a larger and larger playoff format. But will the public keep watching?
Yes, there is a significant portion of the TV audience that will watch any game at all. All you have to do is keep telling them and telling them and telling them how important it is. But even these dupes aren't so stupid that they don’t recognize a bad game when they see one. There’s also a fairly large number of actual football fans, and they don’t take long at all to recognize a stinker. And then there are the dyed-in-the-wool followers of the two teams involved: The fans of the obviously stronger team will watch to the bitter end. But how quickly will the fans of the losers-to-be bail?
It will be interesting to see the TV ratings to see how dramatically the viewership fell off by halftime.
*********** “If James Franklin is winning playoff games, you have too many teams in the playoffs.” Stugotz
*********** NOTRE DAME 27, INDIANA 17 - Great atmosphere, or so it seemed. But not much of a game. We see it all the time in high school, whenever the undefeated AAA power goes up against the one-loss AAAA champ. I respect the job that Kurt Cignetti has done at Indiana, but his cockiness - and at such an early stage, yet - is unbecoming of a coach. (If by some chance you left early, don’t let the score fool you, It was 27-3 with 1:27 left to play. Game over. That’s when Indiana - its starters still in - scored twice to make things look a lot more respectable than they actually were.)
PENN STATE 38, SMU 10 - College Football Game Day did a feature on D’Eriq King, former vagabond college QB who’s now the 27-year-old quarterback coach at SMU. And then they had to go and spoil everything by showing a national TV audience what kind of job he’d done with Mustangs’ quarterback Kevin Jennings. Aargh. Possibly the worst performance by a quarterback in a post-season game in all my years of watching. Yes, he can throw the ball 65 yards with a flick of the wrist. But he carries the ball one-handed and well below the elbow, he throws off balance and across his body, and passed up a sure first down in order to attempt to make a heroic play.
TEXAS 38, CLEMSON 24 - At least the Tigers refused to quit, coming back from three scores down to make it a one-score game early in the fourth quarter. But that brings up this question: Considering that Clemson was the “last team in,” barely a winner over SMU thanks to a last-second field goal, how good, then, is Texas?
OHIO STATE 42, TENNESSEE 17 - It must have killed those a$$hole fans in Columbus who wanted the Buckeyes to lose so they’d finally be rid of Ryan Day - the ones who sold their tickets to Tennessee fans - to watch the Buckeyes’ trouncing of Tennessee. You had to chuckle at those derisive “SEC! SEC! SEC!” chants coming from the Buckeyes’ fans. And at the absolute silence from all those SEC “fan bases” that felt entitled to spots in The Playoff because, well, “It Just means More.”
*********** My Power Ratings, based on what I’ve seen so far…
1. (TIE) Ohio State, Oregon
3. Notre Dame
4. Penn State
5. Georgia
6. Texas
7. Arizona State
8. Boise State
*********** Don’t look now, but of the eight teams left in The Playoff, three are Big Ten teams (okay - one, Oregon, is a recent acquisition) but only two are SEC teams (if you count Texas).
*********** It won’t surprise me to find the Buckeyes favored over Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Which brings me to the need to re-seed after the first round. Any fool could have foreseen the need to keep the top two seeds from meeting in the quarter-final round.
*********** Next time we hear someone whining about how much they “deserve” a spot in the playoff, as if we’re still giving out participation trophies, we shouldn’t forget that the Playoff Committee kept Florida State out last year precisely to avoid a game like Indiana-Notre Dame, or SMU-Penn State, as deserving as Indiana and SMU might have been. The CFP people caught hell for it because, we kept hearing, "Florida State is deserving." Maybe next year coaches should be required to write an essay titled "Why I Would Like to be in The Playoff.” (I’m just kidding. There’s probably not one coach of a playoff team who’s ever written an essay. Besides, they have GAs and ChatGPT.)
*********** Montana State, ranked number one in FCS, made it to the final game with a convincing 31-17 win over South Dakota in Bozeman, Montana. In the other semifinal, North Dakota State kept South Dakota State from winning its third straight FCS title, beating the Jackrabbits, 28-21, in the FargoDome.
Let’s face it - as whorish as FBS is becoming, its refreshing to watch an FCS game without having to kid ourselves about whether the guys playing actually care about the game or their teammates or are even college students.
But as long as we’re on the subject of playoffs…
Back when there was still a debate over the “need” for a playoff, we kept hearing that “FCS manages to have a playoff…” and so forth.
Ahem. They have a 32-team playoff - but it seems to me it doesn’t work all that well. Every year they play for four or five weeks and still wind up with pretty much the same bunch of teams.
*********** When I heard that Fernando Mendoza had entered the transfer portal, I almost gagged. You’d have to see the act he put on in the postgame interview after Cal came from behind to beat Stanford. The word for it is fulsome: disgustingly excessive. But despite the tears and the undying love for his brothers, blah, blah, blah - he’s now in the Transfer Portal, debating whether to sign with Georgia, Indiana, UCLA or Wisconsin. (This from a guy who had ZERO offers coming out of high school and was all set to go to Yale when along came the offer from Cal.)
*********** Between injuries, opt-outs and the Transfer Portal, we’re seeing a lot of backup quarterbacks playing on short notice, in colleges and the pros. Most of the time, sadly, they suck.
Hey - in the case of colleges, you have to assume that the guys were all recruited. Somebody, at some point, thought they were worth spending a scholarship on. And in the NFL, they’ve all had decent college careers - some of them NFL careers.
Makes you wonder: don’t they get ANY coaching?
*********** As the clock wound down on the Ohio State-Tennessee game, I saw Seth McLaughlin down on the Buckeyes’ sideline, smoking a cigar. Tsk, tsk. Didn’t anybody tell him that The Shoe is a no-smoking zone?
Actually, after all that he’s been through, if I had been there, I’d have gotten to him before he lit up and handed him a Padron and lit it for him.
Just about this time a year ago, Seth McLaughlin was Alabama’s center, and he was in the process of being crucified by the TV guys - and then by Bama fans - for single-handedly costing the Tide their playoff game against Michigan.
It got brutal, which may have been part of the reason why he hit the Transfer Portal after the game.
I believed that the criticism was unjust, and I felt the need to come to his defense…
I WROTE THIS LAST JANUARY 5-
Except possibly in the case of Jason Kelce, playing center is one of the most thankless and anonymous jobs in all of sports.
But it’s one of the toughest. And one of the most important.
Quarterbacks can throw 35 or 40 passes a game, and people will marvel at 70 per cent accuracy.
But today’s centers throw 60 or more passes a game - between their legs, without even looking - and if they happen to miss their target just once a game they’re the object of scorn and derision.
Once a quarterback throws a pass he immediately joins a protected class. Let a defender so much as look at him cockeyed and there’s hell to pay.
But a center has two jobs. He throws his pass - that’s his first job - and then his second job begins.
After he’s thrown his pass, he’s not shielded from contact the way the quarterback is. In fact, as often as not, he instantly becomes the personal target of the biggest, strongest man on the opponent’s defense - the opposing nose guard. And in the cases when he’s not, he has to go find someone to block. Maybe, if he’s as athletic as Kelce, he’ll even pull out and lead a runner.
Most coaches understand how difficult a center’s job is.
But most fans don’t, as in the aftermath of the Alabama-Michigan game so many of them seem to be blaming Bama’s loss on their center.
Granted, Bama’s snaps weren’t perfect, but they weren’t as bad as the amateur experts have been claiming. Yes, there was an errant snap that cost the Tide 13 yards. It was slightly off center, but it would have been catchable had it not been snapped before the QB - and the rest of the team - was ready. Ever snapped a ball with 100,000 fans screaming? Me neither. So I can’t say how tough it is to snap the ball at the proper time under those conditions. But from what I’ve been reading - one mistake out of 66 snaps? String him up!
I undertook to look at every one of Alabama’s snaps - all 66 of them - in slow motion, side view and top view, and I’m here to say that in my judgement Alabama’s center, Seth McLaughlin, is getting WAY too much blame for Alabama’s poor performance.
Yes, there was the one snap that was uncatchable. And he was guilty of one false start when he moved the ball slightly.
At most I saw three other snaps that the QB, Milroe, had to make any extra effort to catch. But - none of the TV guys mentioned this - there were several decent snaps that Milroe mishandled, chiefly because of his highly unorthodox manner of catching them.
Hey, Alabama - if that’s the best way to be catching snaps (hands apart, one hand over the other, trying to clamp the ball between them as it arrives) how come you’re not teaching that technique to your receivers?
Maybe you’re on to something, but now that I’ve printed the photos, your secret’s out. And who knows - maybe next year every quarterback will be catching snaps this way. But I doubt it.
Check out next Tuesday’s Zoom and see what I mean.
Back to the present day... Once in the portal, he was picked up by Ohio State, which ought to tell you something about the judgement of all those yahoos who wanted him drawn and quartered.
He wound up starting for the Buckeyes and playing very well until a late-season injury laid him low. Many think that his not being in the lineup against Michigan was a major factor in the Buckeyes’ shocking upset loss.
Ironically, his cigar smoking could be interpreted as meaning he held no hard feelings toward Alabama, since it’s a tradition for the winners in Alabama-Tennessee games to light up in celebration. On the other hand, it could also have been an in-your-face reminder that he, at least, got to beat Tennessee this year, even if they didn’t.
*********** Emmanuel Acho, on X:
There are 3-5 elite CFB teams annually. Another 4-5 really good ones, everyone else is just, “good.”
Adding more playoff games just exposes the reality of CFB. The gap between the 6th best team and the 11th best is the size of the Atlantic Ocean.
*********** I’m not a huge volleyball fan but I like the sport, and one of my daughters coaches it.
So I know that Penn State’s women won the NCAA title - their eighth - by beating Louisville.
Here’s what’s amazing, considering all the years since Title IX: Penn State’s Katie Schumacher-Cawley became the first woman to coach a team to a Division I volleyball title.
Every bit as impressive - She coached the team while undergoing chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer and never missed a practice.
*********** If the 49ers don’t get things straightened out, it’s a good thing that Kyle Shanahan won’t have to go out and get a real job because he looks like he’s just wandered away from a homeless camp.
*********** Phil Longo, who left North Carolina as OC to become OC at Wisconsin, is now off the sinking ship and head coach at Sam Houston State.
*********** In all my years of coaching, I have yet to hear another coach call ANY play an “end-around.” I know what an “end around” is, but it’s a play - and a term - that’s so old it’s almost totally obsolete. In fact, at a time when a “tight end” might line up almost anywhere, even in the backfield, there’s almost no such thing as an “end” anymore. At least on offense. So why, when broadcasters normally try to sound as if they actually know the game, do they insist on calling a reverse or a jet sweep an “end around?”
(I was shocked to hear an announcer named Dave Fleming, calling the Montana State game, say “Jet Sweep!”)
*********** Mark Jones is such a jackass with his insistence of using name suffixes: “A catch by Wallace the third!”
*********** Who was the last Ohio State coach to leave of his own volition?
*********** With guys attending two and three colleges, will “Senior Day” go the way of Lincoln’s Birthday?
*********** Watching the Ohio State Band (“TBDBITL” as Woody hayes used to call it) do the “Script Ohio” used to be a halftime must whenever an Ohio State home game was televised. It’s an almost unbelievable feat of precision marching, with some honored individual getting to carry a sousaphone and “dot the i” at the end.
But that was then. Saturday night, the fools they hired to televise a college game obviously had no idea what was going on, so they kept the cameras at field level - the worst place imaginable to watch the band perform - and let the frat boys in the booth yuck, yuck, yuck.
*********** You had to see College Game Day’s special edition on Friday afternoon/evening to see a comedian named Shane Gillis get under Nick Saban’s skin. Gillis is a Notre Dame fan, and he started by saying that it was great now that Notre Dame could pay players “just like everyone else.” It was obvious that King Saban, who’s lived in his royal bubble for years now, did not enjoy having someone taking shots at him, and he proved very testy and humorless in trying to respond to Gillis’ barbs. (I’m still trying to figure out how the number of players Alabama has in the NFL is proof that they “did things right” and didn’t pay players.) The best was when Gillis, referring to Saban’s Indiana Jones hat, called him “Alabama Jones.”
*********** Coach,
I hope you are well and the Christmas season is shaping up to be a joyous one for you.
I am very late with my nomination for the Black Lion. I hope it can still be considered.
The Trojans had another good season, in large part to the double wing. We finished 9-2, winning our first playoff game since 2017. We knew who we were (not a passing team), and ended up producing over 4000 yards of rushing offense and 40+ points per game. Both wings were all-state (1st team and honorable mention). As you know, the line deserves far more recognition than they will ever get, except in film sessions. Those backs know who got them to the endzone, though.
As I enter the twilight of my career, I find myself more and more thankful for the box of videos I found in 2001 that had Dynamics in it. I was going through a stack of books the other day and found the Dynamics VHS tape, the playbook, and Don Capaldo's handout from a clinic at Augustana in 2000. I showed them to my sons and said "guys, if I hadn't come across these, I wouldn't be where I am today." They were fascinated. As always, thank you.
Merry Christmas,
Todd Hollis
Elmwood, Illinois
For you, nominations are still open! Send it! (Coach Hollis is a recent inductee into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame.)
*********** And now Coach Dickert is leaving Wazzu for Wake Forest. He grew up 30 minutes north of Green Bay and a UW-Stevens Point grad.
I thought when you wrote this Tuesday that it was so true — "When the college football bubble bursts - and I pray that I’ll live to see the day - there’ll still be FCS and Division II and Division III, so I’ll be okay."
What a mess. It's so stupid what they're doing. Just watching the Badgers trying to navigate this new world and it's been weird. They recruit a QB each season and both have potential but neither will be ready to play, so will they enter the portal? If so, which portal window period? The one right after the regular season that messes up bowl and playoff teams or the second one? So many players just keep bouncing school to school.
You don't want to play the rent-a-QB game but they kind of have to at the moment until their young QBs are ready. So difficult for the coaches to retain and build a program. Seems so reactive instead. We've seen basketball coaches get out the game as a result and I think there's football coaches who will as well. Perhaps Coach Clawson is one who has had enough.
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
There is no doubt in my mind that Coach Clawson has had enough. He’s an educated guy - a Williams grad - and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him next at a D-III school.
*********** Hugh, Notre Dame vs. Georgia in the Sugar Bowl SHOULD be a good one. BUT, Georgia is NOT Indiana. I’m still not convinced Irish OC Mike Denbrock is the play calling guru the talking heads claim he is.
Texas has all the tools to be national champs but they are SO inconsistent! They need more practice under center! If they continue playing that way Arizona State has a shot.
Penn State is still an unknown commodity having gone through their CFP scrimmage with SMU. They’ll get a test from Boise.
As of this correspondence THE Ohio State Buckeyes are having their way with Tennessee. Go Ducks!!
Best game of the day on Saturday was the FCS semi-final between NDSU and SDSU.
The Bison are back! The championship game in Frisco, TX with Montana State could be epic.
Speaking of NDSU…Fresno State’s new HC is former NDSU HC Matt Entz. Dog fans better get ready for some good old fashioned physical football for a change, instead of the basketball on grass they’ve seen over the last decade.
Now that the Ivy League has decided to take part in the FCS playoffs I wonder how a Dartmouth-Villanova first round matchup would end up?
Merry Christmas!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, I would say that Villanova’s league - the Coastal Athletic Association - is third toughest in FCS - after the Missouri Valley Football Conference (NDSU, etc) and the Big Sky (Montana State, etc.). Those conferences give football scholarships and they tend to play at least one game a year against at least one tough FBS school. The Ivy League is competitive, but it places certain restrictions on its members that put them in a class or two below the Villanovas, North Dakota States, and Montana States.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: In the 1960s the Cowboys, trying to get the jump on the rest of the NFL, spent considerable time and effort looking for the “best athlete available,” rather than the usual “best player available.”
They looked carefully at guys who were good in other sports such as baseball, basketball and track. (Since they didn’t share the information, they didn’t have to use draft choices on them.)
The Cowboys and their personnel director Gil Brandt, valuing raw athletic ability as almost on a par with football ability, saw one particular basketball player and his rebounding ability and saw potential as a defensive back: Cornell Green.
He had never played a down of college football. In fact, wanting to concentrate on basketball and baseball, he had played only one year of high school football.
At El Cerrito High in Richmond, California, he was a standout basketball player, and at Utah State he was a two-time All-American. He was Skyline Conference MVP his senior year, and left as the Aggies’ all-time leading rebounder. (He’s in the Utah State Hall of Fame, and his number 24 is retired.)
Offered a free agent contract by Dallas, he signed, figuring he would go to training camp, and then, after getting cut, he’d report to the NBA team that had drafted him.
But he didn’t get cut. Instead, he made the team and became a starting cornerback as a rookie, and wound up playing 13 seasons with the Cowboys.
Just three years earlier, his older brother “Pumpsie” (real name Elijah) had become the first black player to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last major-league team to integrate.
Big (6-3, 210) and fast, with great leaping ability, he gained a reputation as one of the earliest of pro football’s “cover corners.” Said Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry, “He’s the guy who covers the Bobby Mitchells of the league,” referring to the Washington Redskins’ great wide receiver.
He also gained a reputation for toughness and durability. Including playoffs, he started 186 games. At one point, he started 145 consecutive games, the third best in Cowboys’ history.
He was three times named first team All-Pro, and once named to the second team.
He was selected to five Pro Bowls, and is one of the few defensive backs in NFL history to earn Pro Bowl invitations as both a cornerback and a safety.
The Cowboys won 63 percent of the games that he played in, winning seven division titles, two NFC championships and one Super Bowl. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 1971, the year of that Super Bowl victory.
Cornell Green was named to the Cowboys’ 25th Anniversary team, and is still considered the best Cowboy ever to wear the number 34.
After his playing days, he spent 35 years as an NFL scout, 28 of them with the Denver Broncos.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CORNELL GREEN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN ROTHWELL - CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: A native of Corning, New York, he played college football at Penn State, where he was a two-time All-America, lettering in football, baseball, boxing and wrestling.
He played at Penn State from 1914 to 1917, and was first named an All-American in 1915 - the second Penn Stater to be so honored. During World War I he left Penn State to serve as a U.S. Army officer in France, and after his discharge, he returned to Penn State to captain its football team and earn All-America honors for a second time.
After graduation, he began his coaching career at West Virginia Wesleyan, while at the same time playing professionally with the NFL Canton Bulldogs (1920-1921).
In 1925 he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, and in 1928 he returned to Penn State as an assistant.
He was named the Lion head coach in 1930 and served in that capacity for the next 19 years.
It was not easy going. He succeeded Hugo Bezdek, who had been his coach in 1919, and who in 12 years at State College had gone 65-30-11, with only one losing season in that time. Bezdek remained as athletic director, and there seems to be some evidence that he was less than completely supportive of his successor.
It wasn’t until our guy’s eighth season that he finally posted a winning record. Perhaps it was coincidental, but that was 1937, which was also the year that Bezdek was dismissed as athletic director.
Over the next 11 seasons, he would have just one losing season.
His best season was after World War II, 1947, when he led the Nittany Lions to only the second unbeaten, untied regular-season record in the school's history. The Lions finished 9-0, shutting out six opponents along the way. They tied Southern Methodist, 13-13, in the 1948 Cotton Bowl, in only the second time that Penn State had played in a bowl game.
When the Lions finished the season ranked #4 - behind Notre Dame, Michigan and SMU - it marked the first time a Penn State football team had been ranked in the Top Ten.
During his time as head coach, Wally Triplett became the first black player to start a game at Penn State, and became the first black man to play in the Cotton Bowl.
The now-famous “We Are… Penn State!" cheer dates to November, 1946, when Penn State’s players learned that Miami, the final game on the Penn State schedule, had declined to let Penn State’s two black players (one of whom was Wally Triplett) play. “We are Penn State!” said the team captain, Steve Suhey, a World War II vet. “It’ll be all or none.” He called for a team vote and it was unanimous: forfeit the game. And so it appears in the official records: “cancelled.” Legend has it that Miami then contacted Syracuse about replacing Penn State and the Orange declined.
When poor health forced him to retire in 1948, his record at Penn State was 91-57-11, and his all-time record was 123-83-16.
His daughter, Virginia (“Ginger”), married Steve Suhey, the captain and an All-American guard on the unbeaten 1947 Cotton Bowl squad.
The Suheys had four sons, three of whom - Larry, Paul and Matt - lettered in football at Penn State between 1975 and 1979.
Matt played for 10 years with the Chicago Bears in the National Football League and is a member of the Pennsylvania football all-century team.
Two great-grandsons, Joe and Kevin, have also played for Penn State.
For good reason, the Suhey family - going all the way back to Ginger’s father - is considered the First Family of Penn State Football.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.
He died in 1969.
After he retired as Penn State’s head coach, he was succeeded by Joe Bedenk, a longtime assistant and the head baseball coach, who wound up coaching for one year.
Bedenk was succeeded by Rip Engle, who coached for 16 years before turning the job over to his chief assistant, Joe Paterno, who was Penn State’s coach for 46 years.
When Paterno first arrived at Penn State in 1950, after having been Engle’s quarterback at Brown, he lived for a year with Ginger and Steve Suhey.
FRIDAY,
DECEMBER 20, 2024
"I think this man (Obama) really does believe he can change the
world,
and people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked
politicians.” Thomas Sowell*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “In that first season we ran the Michigan Single Wing offense, but our tailbacks were constantly getting hurt, including a serious shoulder injury to our star, Harold Marden. We finally decided to convert to the T-formation, with the quarterback taking a direct snap from the center on every play. We hoped this would prevent further injury to Marden, who later became an executive with one of the world’s largest chemical firms.
“Before the 1950 season Nelson sent Westerman, our backfield coach, to Notre Dame to pick the brain of Frank Leahy, the noted coach of the fighting Irish and a T-formation master. Dave had conferred earlier with Rip Engle, then at Brown University, another pioneer in that offense.
“Then Dave did his own innovating, working his red and blue pencils to stubs; those modifications produced the Winged-T. Our offense would feature a balanced line (equal number of players on each side of the center in the offensive line) with a wingback in the backfield. We tried to keep the blocking principles of the Single Wing. Simply, instead of just shoving a defending player away as most blocking is practiced now, our goal was to have the blocker stay welded to his opponent and sustain that move.
“At 2 AM the night before the players were scheduled to report for the start of two-a-day practices we still hadn't made a final decision to make the change. Finally, Nelson said, "Let's not lose our guts; let's go with it. Let's go home and get a few hours sleep, and come back here and get ready to coach it tomorrow.” And we did.
“That was the beginning of the famous Winged-T offense. We used it successfully that season at the University of Maine. But the formation’s popularity didn't take off until Nelson, accompanied by me as his line coach, moved to the University of Delaware the following season (1951).”
*********** Mike Lude’s been gone since March, and there’s still scarcely a day that goes by that I don’t think about him - so many things go on in the world of college football that remind me of him and what he might be saying about them.
Most of what he’d have to say, I can assure you, would be negative - and this, from the most positive person I’ve ever known.
Just imagine devoting your life to the game - first as a coach (Hillsdale, Maine, Delaware,, Colorado State), but then especially as an administrator (Kent State, Washington, Auburn), working for the common good and, above all, for order, and then seeing the state of disorder that it’s in.. He saw the Pac-8 grow to ten teams (he was opposed) and then to 12 teams, and then, finally, disintegrate.
i dearly miss talking with him - he’d have loved to listen to me tell about this past season at Aberdeen, and he would have been delighted at the outcome of our recent election - but I know how much it would hurt him to see what’s happened to the college football he worked so hard to help build.
*********** INDIANA AT NOTRE DAME (FRIDAY NIGHT) - Go Hoosiers. Go Irish. I don’t have a serious rooting interest here. Part of me wants to see the underdog Hoosiers move on, part of me wants to see Notre Dame become Notre Dame again. That latter part of me somehow has been able to forget the Irish neighborhood I grew up in, and how obnoxious the so-called subway alumni were when Notre Dame was a national power. I think that Notre Dame has the better chance in the next round, but on the other hand, with a big win finally in hand the Hoosiers could be tough.
SMU AT PENN STATE - The team that was given the death penalty against the team that the NCAA wanted to give the death penalty to. For a long time, I LOVED the Nittany Lions. Loved Joe Paterno. But then they told us that Joe Paterno was a bad guy. Tried to erase their history because he was a bad guy. Fired him because he was a bad guy. Pulled down his statue because he was a bad guy. Ever since then I’ve had a hard time rooting for Penn State because I didn’t believe he was a bad guy - still don’t - and I don’t like the kind of people who think that by pulling down statues they can change history. So I wouldn’t mind seeing SMU win. But regardless of my prejudices, I think that if Penn State can play the way they did against Oregon in the Big Ten title game, the Lions will win.
CLEMSON AT TEXAS - I know a lot of Clemson people and I like Dabo Swinney. I despised Sarkisian when he was at Washington and then USC but maybe he really has reformed. Still, I like the Tigers. The two starting QBs- Clemson’s Cade Klubnik and Texas’ Quinn Ewers - have met before, in the 2021 Texas state Class 6A championship game, won by Klubnik’s Southlake Carroll High over Ewers’ Austin Westlake, 52-34. Fans of both QBs might have to miss this game, because while Klubnik and Ewers are going at it, their two high schools will be playing for state titles at the same time. Of course, there’s always the chance that Sarkisian will realize that he could use a little running from his quarterback and decide to give Arch Manning more than a play or two.
TENNESSEE AT OHIO STATE - This ought to be a good game and ordinarily it wouldn’t bother me if Tennessee were to win. In fact, it might please me to see the spoiled Ohio State fans’ Christmases ruined. But I’m not ready for the chaos that’s going to ensue in Columbus if the Buckeyes should lose. A playoff loss on top of another loss to Michigan would likely be cause for one or more public hangings, so I think you’ll find me pulling for O-HI-O.
*********** Hey TV announcers - unless it has a roof over it, a stadium is not a building.
*********** Years ago, I was back at Yale for a reunion, and a few of us had a chance to meet with the head coach at the time, Jack Siedlecki.
Someone asked why the Ivy League champion didn’t take part in the post-season football playoffs, and Coach Siedlecki explained to us that the league’s presidents did not want anything to impinge (he didn’t use that word) on the league’s traditional end-of-season rivalries, many of which dated to the nineteenth century - Harvard-Yale, for example.
They felt that should be enough.
It actually made some sense to me. Shouldn’t Harvard-Yale be enough? Army-Navy? Ohio State-Michigan? UCLA-USC? South Carolina-Clemson? Auburn-Alabama?
Wouldn’t winning the game against your archrival be the right way to end the season?
But that was then, and this is now, and this week the high and mighty poohbahs of the Ivy League went back on themselves - and agreed to participate in the NCAA Division I FCS playoffs, starting next season.
It means that now an Ivy League team can play for a national title. Sure. And a Conference USA team can win The Playoff.
Ivy League Football is not bad. It’s not a joke, as some wise guys would like us to think. But the step up in FCS from Yale to North Dakota State is about the same as the step up in FBS from Ball State to Alabama.
One thing is worth considering. If some of those Ivy League hedge fund guys ever decide to get serious about their NIL collectives - and who’s going to stop them? - the current FCS powers in Montana and the Dakotas won’t know what hit them.
To me, the really interesting thing is that many of the presidents who approved this move to add some emphasis to football are the same ones who just a few years ago cancelled an entire season.
*********** Army’s star running back Kanye Udoh has entered the Transfer Portal.
Just a few years ago, another very good Army player did the same thing but then, perhaps finding out that the grass over on the other side wasn’t that green, he decided to stay at Army and presumably all was forgiven.
What, someone recently asked on an Army board, should happen if Udoh were to decide to return?
The first answer I saw had to have come from a career Army guy, and it represents the kind of hard-nosed thinking I grew up around, with World War II vets as my teachers and coaches:
In my opinion, regardless of his outcome, Udoh should never play Army football again.
There should be something called team loyalty.
I agree that it will be a huge loss for Army in one sense, but I disagree in another sense that he will have lost respect among his teammates which will negatively affect his play.
I ask you: would you want to go into battle with this person, or anyone like him?
You wouldn't know if he would run to save his skin and leave you hanging or not.
*********** Malik Murphy did a nice job for Duke this season after leaving Texas, and it surprised me to hear that he’d entered the Transfer Portal. But “surprise” scarcely describes my reaction to the news that he’s going to - Oregon State.
Cool. I do remember hearing that after leaving Texas last year he’d had a good visit to OSU before deciding on Duke.
I’ll bet that what swung the deal this time was Oregon State’s forestry program.
*********** I made a huge mistake recently when I somehow overlooked Mick Yanke’s correct identifying of Duke Slater.
Coach Yanke, from Cokato, Minnesota, is a longtime reader.
As he put it, “Your page has been a 20 year source of knowledge, entertainment and fellowship for me and your readers.”
So first of all, an apology.
Bur second of all, I missed out - and so did all the readers - on a very significant piece of information he provided:
Duke Slater, Coach Yanke pointed out, was also a good track man.
Results from the 1921 NCAA Track Championships
HAMMER THROW
1. Charles Redmon, Chicago
2. Blackwood, Northwestern
3. Duke Slater, Iowa
4. Skidmore, Southern Illinois
DISCUS
1. Gus Pope, Washington
2. Blackwood, Northwestern
3. Praeger, Kalamazoo
4. Duke Slater, Iowa
Many thanks to Coach Yanke for the research.
*********** Adam Wesoloski, of Pulaski, Wisconsin, passed along what I think was meant as a joke :
I am being told that Dave Clawson put his letter of resignation in the Wake Forest A.D's hand but held onto it for five additional minutes to honor the slow mesh.But while we’re on that subject, I wonder what will happen to Warren Ruggiero, who’s been with Dave Clawson for the last 15 years as his OC. He’s the inventor of Wake’s slow-mesh and they’ve been very secretive about its workings.
*********** Dr. John Rothwell, from Corpus Christi, noted when identifying Joe Carr, that another good topic for my QUIZ would be the Nesser brothers - seven brothers from Columbus, Ohio (a couple of them were born in Germany) who gained fame in the early days of pro football, such as it was. It’s a great suggestion but I doubt that I could make it much of a challenge, given that their story is so unique.
Anyhow, you may want to read about them…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesser_brothers
John also made a significant addition to today’s QUIZ subject, Stan Hindman, with the story - still a legend at Ole Miss - of how he ran down from behind LSU speedster Joe LaBruzzo (whom he outweighed by 60 pounds), downing him just short of a touchdown.
http://southdocs.org/the-rundown/
*********** I really like Wake Forest. A grandson is a Wake grad. It’s a very good school with a beautiful campus in a nice southern city. Although it’s the smallest school in all Power 4 conferences, it has still managed to be competitive in all major sports.
But increasingly, Dear Old Wake Forest is beginning to look like The House of Broken Dreams
First they lost Kenneth Walker to Michigan State. (Where he wound up finishing sixth in the Heisman voting.)
Then they lost Sam Hartman to Notre Dame. (Maybe he didn’t have such a great year at Notre Dame, but they’d have known how to use him at Wake Forest.)
And recently they lost their coach, Dave Clawson, who evidently, after 11 years, came to the conclusion that he was fighting a losing battle there.
Next up? Jake Dickert, who’s been at Washington State. Ironically, he gave up on the WSU job the day after his QB, John Mateer, entered the Transfer Portal.
I wish Wake well and I wish Jake Dickert well. He’s a good man. I just wonder if he did his due diligence and still thinks he can change the law of gravity.
Or were things really getting that bad in Pullman, Washington?
Meanwhile, back in the Pacific Northwest, John Canzano has a list of suspects for the WSU job:
Brent Vigan (Montana State), Tim Plough (UC Davis), Ken Niumatalolo (San Jose State), Paul Chryst (ex-Wisconsin head coach)
And get this one: “I’d interview Rick Neuheisel.”
********* Isn’t it interesting how quickly after some guys enter the Transfer Portal we hear where they’re headed?
They - and the schools they sign with - must be incredibly quick at doing their research and negotiating, because as we all know, it’s not permissible for other schools to talk to players in advance - before they enter the transfer portal. They wouldn’t dare, knowing that if they did, they’d get a strongly-worded letter from the NCAA.
*********** JOHN CANZANO ON THE COUGS...
Jake Dickert is leaving Washington State to become the head football coach at Wake Forest. Nobody should be shocked, which is only to say that most of us understand that a person can only take so much.
Dickert was abandoned by the athletic director who hired him, repeatedly ditched by his coordinators, and just watched his star quarterback, John Mateer, and 19 other teammates scramble into the transfer portal, causing a bottleneck.
What?
You had Dickert down as a forever guy in Pullman?
WSU’s 41-year-old coach publicly said he wanted to work for 10 more years and then retire. I didn’t have his “dream job” penciled in as a modest address on Tobacco Road, but these are the times — and college football is broken.
NIL, the transfer portal, realignment, an invasion of street agents, an absence of guidelines, no consequence for rule breakers — the shocking thing is that Dickert didn’t throw in the keys last December when his other star quarterback, Cam Ward, announced he was leaving.
Ward head-faked like he was declaring for the NFL Draft last spring, then landed at Miami, where he cashed a seven-figure NIL check and became a Heisman finalist.
I cautioned WSU multiple times in print over the last few months that it needed to lock Dickert down with a lifetime contract. Yes, even amid his team’s late-season swoon. He was a growing flight risk, in part because he cared so much and the world around him was wobbling.
The Cougars should have thrown their best contract pitch at Dickert while they still had the chance. There were multiple discussions during the season between Dickert’s agent and WSU Athletic Director Anne McCoy, per sources. But insiders told me there were concerns about pushback from the university trustees, who had recently scolded the athletic department for overspending and slashed $11 million from the budget.
It takes money to win football games, folks.
It’s like Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said this season: “Pay the man his money.
ASU’s athletic department, incidentally, spent $121 million on all sports in the last fiscal year. That ranks second-to-last among the 10 public schools that made the College Football Playoff and No. 33 in the country. Give Dillingham a ‘high-five’ for beating the odds.
Ohio State spent $72 million on football alone in the same fiscal year.
Washington State’s entire annual athletic department budget is $74 million. Boise State, which spent “only” $24 million on football, is proof winning can be accomplished on the cheap with a good culture and an unusually loyal 2,000-yard running back. But we need to get real — the financial gap is widening with every season, and the playing field is tilted in a way that flies in the face of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
The SEC and Big Ten will receive a combined 58 percent of the College Football Playoff revenue. Those two conferences also have media rights contracts that pay them tens of millions more annually than peer conferences. The math only makes sense if the objective is to leave the SEC and Big Ten as the only two conferences eventually standing.
It’s an anti-competitive market. The financials create an unreasonable restraint on the competition. By definition, it’s an antitrust issue. Washington State won’t be the only school left to fight donor apathy and the sinking feeling of alienation. It’s coming eventually for others, including the Big 12 and ACC.
NIL?
The transfer portal?
They’re wonderful tools for athletes, theoretically. But those things should have been onboarded years ago by the NCAA in a methodical, thoughtful, rational manner. There should have been collective bargaining and parameters designed to protect both sides. Instead, it was a rushed and unregulated mess.
I spoke with several high-level WSU donors in the last two weeks. Boosters who fund the Cougar Collective met twice to cobble together their best NIL offer to Mateer. “Mom-and-pop” business in Pullman chipped in. Donors reached deep. They came up with a NIL package that was worth more than $1 million and presented it to Mateer along with a video from ex-Cougar greats Ryan Leaf and Jack Thompson.
The message from the two former NFL QBs to Mateer: “You could stay here and be the very best of all of us.”
The thing is, Mateer had a $1.5 million offer from an SEC school on the table. There was also a deal in the works from the collective of another school that would be worth as much as $3 million. The Cougars didn’t have a chance. Not even armed with a seven-figure package and some sincerity.
One long-time WSU donor told me: “I only have so many of these left in me. This is ridiculous. This s—t has got to change.”
Dickert sounded understandably down about things this week. He said: “I think the first step is realizing there are no rules. That’s the first step. I mean, tampering is now part of it… if you’re not recruiting other people’s rosters, it feels like in today’s world that... you’re going to fall behind.”
Then, Dickert walked into the portal himself.
John Mateer told his team that he was entering the transfer portal. (Photo: Geoff Crimmins)
Another Division I head football coach reached out to me on Tuesday with some numbers. There are 6,658 football players in the transfer portal in all divisions of football. On Monday and Tuesday, 300 new players entered the transfer portal. All other sports combined have 15,121 athletes in the system.
Two transfer windows in football? One of which opened on Dec. 9, before the football postseason even started? The other football transfer window comes in the spring? Where a starting player can theoretically leave his team in a lurch if he gets a better offer from someone with a big pile of money? It makes no sense unless the desired outcome is chaos.
I know some who are eager to see NCAA President Charlie Baker and the major conference commissioners dragged in front of a congressional committee to answer antitrust questions about college football. It would be good theater, but I’d also like to see the bigwigs at FOX and ESPN get some airtime on C-SPAN, too.
Is this what the networks had in mind when they consolidated the college football inventory and dismantled a 108-year-old conference? They “parted out” the Pac-12, snatching the LA market, Oregon’s brand, and some TV households in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. It’s not the job of television executives to think about the consequences on the left-behind campuses, I guess, but I wonder if they realize the role they played.
Dickert’s family is packing up and moving to Winston-Salem, N.C.
Which means Rylee, his daughter, is going, too. One of the first messages I got on Wednesday after the news broke was from Matthew McNelly, a church pastor who works down the street from WSU’s campus.
His daughter is friends with Rylee.
“I’m heartbroken for my kid,” the pastor wrote. “She has lost so many friends these last nine months.”
*********** Mountain West Report - from our Melbourne, Australia Bureau
UNLV lost a good football coach.
They’ve also found a good football coach.
Barry Odom, who revitalized the Rebels’ program is off to try to do the same thing at Purdue. UNLV didn’t miss a beat, luring Dan Mullen out of retirement – or should I say TV land – to continue what Odom has built.
Mullen’s pedigree is solid, a 103-61 record as a head coach at Mississippi State and Florida,a 7-3 bowl record and two BCS national championships as an offensive coordinator.
UNLV will pay Mullen a Mountain West-record $3.5 million per year on a five-year deal. That’s more than twice what Odom was paid, and close to double what Colorado State pays Jay Norvell, previously the conference’s highest-earning coach.
Dampier Gone
As predicted, it was too difficult for New Mexico to hang on to star quarterback Devon Dampier, who is headed to the University of Utah. The Lobos – who surprisingly nearly made a bowl game this season – have lost head coach Bronco Mendenhall (to Utah State) and offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who will take Dampier with him to Utah.
Actually, our Melbourne, Australia Bureau is staffed - and headed - by my son, Ed Wyatt, who finds that Australia is a great vantage point to keep an eye on Mountain West sports (I avoid accusations of nepotism by making sure he’s the only one on staff)
*********** Hello Coach,
Well, we wrapped up our season last week with a 12-2 record (4th round game). Great season and great group of kids.
I have a quick question about blocking back with the center.
When facing odd fronts, (which became almost weekly) We started out the year basing the nose and allowing our TE to cut/gate/hinge block the 4i. We ended up playing some great defensive linemen and they made us pay. We did have a large and not that athletic sophomore TE attempting this block but regardless we had a lot of run though.
We ended up towards the end of the season blocking back with center on the 4i and the playside guard blocked down on the nose. It’s seemed to clean things up for us. I wanted to hear your thoughts on this. Our backside cut block is some old Paul Johnson 45,60, 90 3 step drive to the front knee and get them down, kind of block. Look forward to hearing from you.
I also enjoy going back and watching the podcasts, Thanks
Tim Grady
Head Football Coach
Athletic Director
B.A (Born Again)
James Kenan High School
Warsaw, North Carolina
Hi Coach,
Congratulations on a great season.
To answer your question:
First of all, it sounds as if we’re on the same page.
We don’t normally have problems with the TE doing his “replace and turn back” (R & T) as long as we’re very careful to make sure of the “Holy Trinity” of tight gaps, back off the ball as much as possible, and inside hand down.
I avoid any low blocks on the backside because with our tight splits I’m concerned that at some point we’ll get called for a chop block.
Against a lot of odd fronts, mostly 3-5-3 or some variation of a 5-3, when that tackle is closer to the center than he is to the TE, I will do one of three things:
(This is all explained on page 56 of the playbook)
66 Super Power Dog 66 Super-O Dog (Backside Tackle doesn’t pull)
These drawings aren’t shown against an odd front, but the principle is the same.
1. DOG: Down block across the front; TE: R & T
2. O: Block as usual but don’t pull the backside tackle; TE and T: both R & T
3. O-DOG: Down block AND don’t pull the backside tackle
So as I say, it appears that we see eye to eye on the down blocking. We disagree on the low blocking on the backside but that’s okay. There's no question about its effectiveness - just so long as you don’t run into the wrong refs!
Merry Christmas!
Hugh Wyatt
*********** Most know Harold Bloom as an influential literary critic. I know him as Yale's greatest football player.
For obvious reasons I haven't wanted to discuss the A-N game. Your list is accurate. I also kept a list. It began with the out-of-bounds KO. Then the phantom tackling. KO coverage was atrocious. Worley had nothing to go to when the planned offense failed. My list says no screens, no misdirection, no changeup in splits...oh, what the heck, it was poor preparation, which I insist falls under the rubric of Leadership.Our HC, OC, and DC were defeated in detail by their Navy counterparts. I'm watching to observe what they learned. (Dr. Johnson: "Man requires not so much to be taught as to be reminded.")
I hope CFB collapses quickly so it can similarly find a new way more quickly.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I completely agree with your assessments on this week’s edition of the “news.”
Navy-Army: The Mids sang second, AND, get first billing, deservedly so. They were ready, they were steady, they outplayed and outcoached the Army! Kudos to coach Newberry. On the other hand…
There is something else going on with Jeff Monken and the entire program. Losing a player like Udoh to the portal is not a good sign.
Marshall is the first school, and certainly won’t be the last school, to suffer from the pangs of what I call “AAU Transfers” as long as the Transfer Portal remains to run amok in the world of college athletics.
Combined, the portal and NIL is killing college football. It will certainly widen the gap between the haves and have nots. I can see schools like Wake Forest initiating a new organization of schools that place limits on Transfers and NIL money.
Frankly, at some point I truly see the demise of these super conferences reorganized into more of an NFL model. Those who are willing to pay for that model will play in that model. I’m certain it will include player contracts of some sort, and marketing fees to the schools to pay for the rights of name usage. AND…this won’t just apply to football. This will become a joint venture for the NFL and the NBA.
The NCAA has lost all control of its initial purpose. From the top down, all the way to the enforcement of its own rules. All the way down to how players should wear their uniforms!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: He played his college football in Mississippi… was a Number One draft choice of the 49ers… Wore number 80.
But no, he wasn’t Jerry Rice. He was Stan Hindman - and he was 19 years before Jerry Rice.
At Newton (Mississippi) High School he earned all-southern and all-state honors as a lineman, and earned three letters in football, five in track, two in basketball and one in baseball.
Although heavily recruited by most schools in the South, he chose to go to West Point. But when he discovered quite early that cadet life was not for him, he called Ole Miss coach Johnny Vaught to ask if there was still a scholarship available for him.
There was one, indeed, and Coach Vaught immediately summoned another freshman player, one who knew Hindman from competing against him in high school track, and informed him that he was going to be getting a new roommate.
But, the freshman told the coach, he already had a roommate, a friend from his hometown. Replied Coach Vaught, “As I told you, I want you to room with Stab Hindman.”
They roomed together for four years and, said the roommate, “I can honestly say we never had a harsh word, not one.”
In addition to being a very good football player, he was a straight-A student. “(He)wasn’t like the rest of us,” recalled his roommate. “He studied all the time. Stan loved school. He loved to learn.”
“I started out at Ole Miss thinking I'd like to become a doctor,” he recalled years later. “But premed and football are a little tough to take together. Besides, I found myself hanging around the fine arts building more and more, and I became increasingly interested in what was going on. Finally I switched my major to fine arts.”
“In the back of my mind, I suppose I always had an interest in art, because as a kid I can remember always doodling. Later in high school I drew a lot. Drew pictures of almost anything. My uncle had some art books and I used to borrow them."
He was good enough as a two-way lineman to be drafted Number One by both the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and the AFL’s Houston Oilers. He signed with San Francisco.
He signed a $350,000 contract - total - spread out over 13 years.
He was originally forecast to be an offensive lineman, but the team needed help on defense, and his unusual speed for a big man made him an outstanding defensive end. After a serious knee injury suffered during his fourth season slowed him down, he moved inside to defensive tackle.
He retired after the 1971 season, but came back a year later to help the 49ers after injuries nearly wiped out their defensive line.
By that time, he had become known for his art - particularly sculpture - but chose not to have any public showings because he wanted his art to stand on its own merits, and not as something done by a well-known football player.
He had also in his final pro years begun studying architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.
Torn briefly between pure art and the more commercial architecture, he chose the latter. “I love the gathering of the information, creating the seed of what the building is going to look like,” he said. “Then getting the sense of what it can be from an architectural standpoint and achieving it.”
After working for several Bay Area architectural firms, he received his architectural license in 1989 and began to work on his own, mostly designing homes.
He had a very successful practice, and when asked years later whether he defined himself by football or by architecture, he said architecture. “It’s something I’ve been doing for a longer time.”
But, he added, “Part of me is being an athlete. I owe football a lot.”
He was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Ole Miss Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. He was chosen as an SEC Legend in 2014 and is a member of Ole Miss “Team of the Century” (1893‑1992).
Asked in 2007 for any advice that he would give to current draftees, he said, “You should really dedicate yourself to getting better at what you do, so that you can have pride in it later on. That means really training and working on whatever technique it takes to perfect it. In that way, it’s like art.”
Stan Hindman died in July, 2020.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING STAN HINDMAN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JASON MENSING - ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN ROTHWELL - CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: In the 1960s the Cowboys, trying to get the jump on the rest of the NFL, spent considerable time and effort looking for the “best athlete available,” rather than the usual “best player available.”
They looked carefully at guys who were good in other sports such as baseball, basketball and track. (Since they didn’t share the information, they didn’t have to use draft choices on them.)
The Cowboys and their personnel director Gil Brandt, valuing raw athletic ability as almost on a par with football ability, saw one particular basketball player and his rebounding ability and saw potential as a defensive back.
He had never played a down of college football. In fact, wanting to concentrate on basketball and baseball, he had played only one year of high school football.
At El Cerrito High in Richmond, California, he was a standout basketball player, and at Utah State he was a two-time All-American. He was Skyline Conference MVP his senior year, and left as the Aggies’ all-time leading rebounder. (He’s in the Utah State Hall of Fame, and his number 24 is retired.)
Offered a free agent contract by Dallas, he signed, figuring he would go to training camp, and then, after getting cut, he’d report to the NBA team that had drafted him.
But he didn’t get cut. Instead, he made the team and became a starting cornerback as a rookie, and wound up playing 13 seasons with the Cowboys.
Just three years earlier, his older brother “Pumpsie” (real name Elijah) had become the first black player to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last major-league team to integrate.
Big (6-3, 210) and fast, with great leaping ability, he gained a reputation as one of the earliest of pro football’s “cover corners.” Said Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry, “He’s the guy who covers the Bobby Mitchells of the league,” referring to the Washington Redskins’ great wide receiver.
He also gained a reputation for toughness and durability. Including playoffs, he started 186 games. At one point, he started 145 consecutive games, the third best in Cowboys’ history.
He was three times named first team All-Pro, and once named to the second team.
He was selected to five Pro Bowls, and is one of the few defensive backs in NFL history to earn Pro Bowl invitations as both a cornerback and a safety.
The Cowboys won 63 percent of the games that he played in, winning seven division titles, two NFC championships and one Super Bowl. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 1971, the year of that Super Bowl victory.
He was named to the Cowboys’ 25th Anniversary team, and is still considered the best Cowboy ever to wear the number 34.
After his playing days, he spent 35 years as an NFL scout, 28 of them with the Denver Broncos.
TUESDAY,
DECEMBER 17, 2024 “Everyone wants a prodigy to
fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.” Harold Bloom*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “The offensive formation called the Wing-T had a profound, widespread influence on the game of football at all levels. High-profile coaches at national college powers used this offensive system with enormous success. Many high school teams ran it and won state championships. Some high school programs still do.
“During the peak of the Wing-T's popularity, the system – a hybrid mix of the quarterback snap and handoff of the T-formation and the blocking schemes of the single wing formation – was referred to as the Delaware Winged-T.
“That's because the mastermind of the system, Dave Nelson, was head football coach at the University of Delaware, which was somewhat isolated from the well-known collegiate football powerhouses of that era (Notre Dame, USC, Michigan, Alabama, etc.)
“What most of the fans and serious practitioners of the offense didn't know was that the "Delaware" Winged-T actually was launched at the University of Maine. I was there as a member of Dave Nelson’s coaching staff when it all happened. The birth name of Nelson's innovation was Winged-T; as the popularity of his creation increased the name evolved and was simplified to Wing-T.
“If Nelson was the father of the Winged-T, then Harold Westerman and I ought to be considered at least illegitimate sons. Harold and I were on Nelson's coaching staff at Hillsdale and when Nelson was hired at Maine in 1949 he asked us to rejoin him there.”
*********** MY QUICK DISSECTION OF THE ARMY-NAVY GAME
Army was not only upset; Army had its ass kicked.
In one afternoon Army pissed away its best season since 1958.
Army blew a rare chance at a national ranking.
Why?
* Army was not properly prepared
* Army left its best game on the field last week against Tulane - in the unwanted championship game of a stupid conference
* It had been a tough four-week slog, starting with the loss to Notre Dame.
* Army coach Jeff Monken had allowed his name to be associated with openings at P4 schools, almost surely a distraction from the job at hand.
* As little offensive imagination as Army showed against Notre Dame, it showed even less against Navy
* The Army offense was mostly single wing in its most primitive form - tailback off tackle.
* Army showed no misdirection: no counter, no bootleg, no screen
* Army’s defense played as if no one had told them that Navy’s QB could run
* Navy undoubtedly had a belly full of Army this and Army that, Bryson Daily this and Bryson Daily that, Joe Moore Award this and Joe Moore Award that.
TO SUM IT ALL UP - NAVY OUTCOACHED ARMY
I have to confess that I took some guilty pleasure at watching that Navy offense.
The scheme was beautiful and well-executed. Wing-T guys everywhere had to enjoy watching it. I have to admit that I did.
It’s not as if Navy had been hiding any of this. Army’s people had to know what Navy would do. The Middies had four main weapons - QB Blake Horvath, Slotback Eli Heidenreich, RB Alex Tecza, Slotback Brandon Chatman. That’s it. That’s the way it’s been all season. But Army looked as if they’d never even watched film of the Middies.
Navy’s overall battle plan appeared to be to score first and make Army play from behind. To let it all hang out on the first drive and put Army behind - something they hadn’t experienced much all season - and it worked. On defense they planned - correctly - to make Army play left-handed: to take away Daily’s running and force them to do some things they didn’t do well. It seemed as if they knew that Army refused to run counters and traps. The triple option? It was a ruse. They junked that long ago. As Gary Danielson noted, Army didn’t run a single triple option play all game. The result was an anemic running game and a passing game that yielded three interceptions. In fact, two of Army’s most effective plays were incomplete passes that resulted in pass interference.
Don’t even get me going on the fake punt.
As if the loss to Navy wasn’t depressing enough to last a whole year, before the day was over Army was hit with the news that its bowl opponent, Marshall, was backing out, and its leading running back, Kanye Udoh, was entering the Transfer Portal.
*********** ESPN’s Max Olson, writing on X
Of the first 1,500 FBS scholarship players who've entered the portal, 31% are repeat transfers looking to join their 3rd or 4th school.
More than half of them do not have their degree.
*********** ESPN’s Max Olson, writing in ESPN+
In recent weeks, we've seen a bunch of Power 4 starters announce they're returning to their team in 2025, including Kevin Jennings (SMU), Garrett Nussmeier (LSU), Kyron Drones (Virginia Tech), Jalon Daniels (Kansas), Rocco Becht (Iowa State), Brendan Sorsby (Cincinnati), Luke Altmyer (Illinois) and CJ Bailey (NC State).
Sources at several Power 4 schools told ESPN that the price for re-signing a proven starter this offseason is typically exceeding $1 million.
*********** Penn State ran it up against Maryland by letting backup QB Beau Pribula throw a touchdown pass against Maryland with :04 remaining and Maryland down, 38-7.
To show his gratitude, Pribula has entered the Transfer Portal and won’t be playing in the Lions’ playoff game.
He blames the whole thing on the NCAA for presenting him with “an impossible decision.”
Horse puckey, writes Matt Hayes in USA Today.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2024/12/16/college-football-playoff-transfer-portal-beau-pribula-penn-state/77025982007/
*********** John Mateer, Washington State QB, spent two years backing up Cam Ward, who as we all know transferred to Miami for this season and wound up in New York at the Heisman dinner Saturday night. The Cougs tried, but couldn’t come up with enough moolah to keep him. (How degrading is it, anyhow, to beg for money to give to a college kid?) Where’s he going to go? Well, his Washington State OC this past year is now at Oklahoma, so…
*********** Dave Clawson at Wake Forest has thrown in the towel, finally frustrated at his school’s inability to keep up with the big spenders. This is greatly disturbing to me, because I have made no secret of the fact that I admired him more than any other coach in America.
I am sick. College football is sick. I don’t think it can last much longer without turning into something like the NFL, only without the leadership and marketing brains. It won’t break my heart if and when the bubble bursts.
Dave Clawson is a bright guy - a Williams College grad.
He’s the only coach to have won ten or more games at four different colleges: Fordham, Richmond, Bowling Green, Wake Forest
He spent 11 years at Wake. I know that he tuned down numerous offers in that time.
Imagine yourself in this position:
For the 2023 season, Wake Forest star quarterback Sam Hartman left to play his final season of eligibility at Notre Dame. Clawson needled Notre Dame for a video tribute to Hartman on Senior Night, saying, "Here's a guy that we recruited and we developed and they're putting a video on him saying, 'We will always love you.'"
He added: "You only dated him a couple of months. It can't be love. We're the ones that love him. We had five years with him. You rented him for a season. ... When that video played, it was like, 'Holy cow, this is where college football is.'"
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/43008306/sources-wake-forest-dave-clawson-stepping-coach
*********** Now showing:
“We Are Marshall,” the stirring, heartwarming story of a school and its entire community and how they rallied to revive their football program after a disastrous plane crash.
“We Were Marshall,” the dark, depressing story of college football players betraying their school and the community by deserting both in the vain hope of fame and riches someplace else.
*********** Michael Vick’s name is being mentioned as a possible coach at Sacramento State. What the hell - why not? He’s never coached, but he’s just as entitled to the job as some guy who’s spent the last 20 years working his way up the ladder, learning his craft. And besides, he’s better known, which will help them with recruiting, blah, blah, blah.
*********** Jack Patera, the Seahawks’ original head coach, preferred that his players call him “Jack,” and any time a player would call him “coach,” he’d respond by calling the guy “player.”
*********** What is the effect on our economy - and on our society - of taking money from people used to spending it on a variety of things and instead using it to pay large sums of money to uneducated, otherwise unemployable young males to play college football - something that until quite recently those young males were eager to do for free?
Is that any more productive a use of that money than gambling? Actually, no. It’s not. When you gamble, there’s always an outside chance you’ll get a return on your money.
*********** When the college football bubble bursts - and I pray that I’ll live to see the day - there’ll still be FCS and Division II and Division III, so I’ll be okay.
*********** In the East, where there are few junior colleges playing football, it's not that uncommon for high school kids to spend a post-graduate year between high school and college at a prep school. It’s not cheap - a year at some of these places starts at $50,000 - but in comparison with Jucos, prep schools offer far superior academic preparation, and they don’t cost players any college eligibility.
But Friday night, I had to hit rewind to make sure I’d heard correctly when the announcers told us that a Montana State player named Brody Grebe - from Roundup, Montana - had gone to Choate-Rosemary Hall. I know Choate-Rosemary Hall. It’s in Wallingford, Connecticut. We lived in Wallingford briefly after I graduated from college. A year’s tuition there is $69,700.
But maybe it was worth it. After all, Brody Grebe was just named Big Sky Conference Defensive Player of the Year, and - who knows? - maybe it was the year at Choate-Rosemary Hall that made the difference.
*********** I heard the TV guys say that Montana State QB Tommy Mellott drinks two gallons of water a day.
There. I set you up. You provide the punch line.
*********** Is there no getting away from it? As they prepared for a football game I heard, in the background, “We-e ready… We-e ready… We ready… fo-or y’all.”
In Brookings, South Dakota.
*********** Latest addition to the Football Coach’s Book of Handy Cliches… “We gotta execute.”
Also: after it was added to the football vocabulary last year, have you noticed how common “complementary football” has become?
It basically means offense and defense working together cooperatively, helping each other out, in the way a ball-control offense helps the defense by keeping the other team’s offense off the field.
The spelling of the word is crucial.
“Complementary” (with an “e”) comes from “complete.”
“Complimentary” comes from the word “compliment”: “Nice going offense. Way to turn the ball over.”
*********** According to Randy Moss - and I have no reason to disbelieve him - he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In more than 95 per cent of cases, this means death within five years. He said that he had undergone a Whipple procedure - an extremely complicated operation that requires hours in the operating room. Recovery from Whipple surgery will be long and difficult, but if it’s successful the five-year recovery rate can jump from 5 per cent to 25 per cent. No one in this life is immune to these things, and I’ll pray for the guy.
*********** Back in 2021, Washington State football coach NIck Rolovich refused to take the Covid shot. In the Peoples Gulag of Washington, that made him Public Enemy Number One, and as a state employee that meant that he had to lose his job.
Now that the whole vaccine business appears to have been exposed as something of a hoax, perhaps perpetrated for the benefit of a large pharmaceutical concern, Rolovich has been offered his head coaching job back, with back pay and generous compensation for the damage done to his reputation.
Okay. I lied. (Come on - liberals NEVER admit they were wrong.) But Rolovich is coaching again, hired as an assistant by Cal.
*********** It’s easier to get a visa to visit North Korea than it is for the NFL to get a compliment out of me, but here goes -
The Seahawks-Packers game Sunday night - at least at the start - was the first example I’ve seen in years of both teams - all eleven on each team - dressed in full uniform, stem to stern, every man alike. Every Packer wearing the same color shoes and socks, and all stockings the same height. Ditto every Seahawk. Not a single man on either team with a shirt hanging out, not a single one with a white tee-shirt flowing out below his jersey.
WTF is going on?
Oh - I did overlook the Seahawks in that ghastly green, looking like a bunch of highway flaggers who’d had chartreuse for lunch; and the Packers, wearing white helmets to show the football world that that Lombardi guy was so 1960s.
As I said, WTF is going on?
*********** Sunday night… 8:44 left in the third quarter… Packers face 3rd and 1.
They get stuffed.
I get a text from Scott Mallien, a Green Bay guy and (duh) a Packers’ fan.
Coach you need to teach the Packers how to run the wedge in short yardage.
I texted back:
Coach, just finished watching the recording. First thing we need to get them to do is close down those splits. (They were HUGE) Then we teach them the wedge concept. Then we show them how to block using their pads.
*********** I was eating somewhere where they were showing a No Fun League game, and noticed a new "rule" concerning onside kicks.
YOU HAVE TO NOTIFY THE OTHER TEAM THAT YOU ARE ATTEMPTING AN ONSIDE KICK!
MORONS!
(reason #4,869 why 'pro football' is unwatchable these days - ugh!)
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
*********** Before dabbling in Double Wing…
My opinion anyway
1. Stances
2. Splits
3. Play calling verbiage (easier to ask questions/get feedback)
4. Details (1st step, angles, etc)
5. Assignments (as is because they are right and effective)
6. Do NOT dabble in it. It IS your offense (not a part of it)
7. REPS are what make you efficient (more reps = better production)
8. Block the way recommended. Do not think you can switch to the grab-and-steer method.
9. NO TURNOVERS and NO STUPID PENALTIES
As far as the box feeling loaded, I have a theory.
On offense we always hear about getting our best athletes in space.
Well defensively they want the same thing...separation. Engage, extend, get off blocks.
SO the box being loaded and the way we block doesn't give them a chance to get the space they want on defense. Find a running back who can "embrace" the chaos inside the box. There is space there...a good back doesn't need much. If you don't have one of them BLUDGEON people for 3-4 yards a run. (those are fun too)
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
The interesting thing to me is how over the past couple of years the pros have come to realize that they can create “space” by lining up tight, like us. But to show that they’re so-o-o much smarter than us, they call them “compressed formations.”
*********** Just spitballin': so now we're in one of the portal periods. Let's say a kid who just had a very fine freshman season threw his name in the transfer hopper, and decides to leave right away. He thus does not take semester exams, which further means he's earned no academic credits. In theory, this guy could repeat the process a half-dozen times while having achieved zero credits. I'm surely incorrect for numerous reasons, but my point is CFB has turned into such a farce I'm entitled to think this way. In a similar fashion, it's not farfetched to think Army might wind up without a bowl opponent. There has been talk that the entire Marshall squad of starters might transfer to Southern Miss along with their coach. Some schools picked for bowls already have prepared their excuses: "It'll take a miracle for us to win now that our top five WRs have gone into the portal." As you said on today's page, the bowl system will die soon without major changes.
The "assigned at birth" language has torqued me from the moment I first heard it a couple years ago. The hubris of these professor wannabes is indescribable. Picture the doctor asking the new father and mother, "Now it's time for you to tell me which gender to assign the baby."
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, FL
Since this was written, Marshall - the entire school - has opted out.
*********** Hugh,
Hey, did you catch that NFL “thriller” with the 49ers and Rams?
Army-Georgia Tech would have been a better bowl game! And not inviting Army QB Bryson Daily to NYC for the Heisman ceremony is a travesty.
Since college athletics is now all about the $$ I won’t be surprised if the new PAC offers Cal and UCLA the opportunity to return for all sports in the next couple of years. Add Gonzaga and Creighton to enhance basketball revenue and VOILA!!
Enjoy the weekend! Go Army! Beat Navy!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** (QUIZ ANSWER):In its history, the NFL has been led by three “presidents” (from 1920-1941) and five “commissioners” (1941 to the present).
Joe Carr was one of the presidents. He held the job for 19 years, from 1921 to 1939. He has been called “The Father of the NFL,” and “The Father of Professional Football.” Certainly, more than any other individual, he was responsible for keeping the NFL alive in its formative years and through the Depression, and forging much of the structure that today’s NFL stands on.
Born in Columbus Ohio in 1880, he was working as assistant sports editor of the Ohio State Journal when he organized a baseball team made up of employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Panhandle Division,” and later a football team, both teams known as the Columbus Panhandles.
The football Panhandles featured the six Nesser brothers, all of them boilermakers for the railroad. Because the Panhandles’ players were all railroad employees, they had free passes which enabled them to travel far and wide at no expense to the team. Consequently, the Panhandles played most of their games on the road, not only in order to save on expenses, but to make scheduling games easier.
At that time it was common for players to jump from team to team, playing for the highest bidder. In fact the Panhandles actually played against Knute Rockne six times in one season; each time, he was playing for a different team.
It was also common for college players to play for their colleges on Saturdays and then, using assumed names, play on Sundays for professional teams.
It was the desire by Carr and other owners to put an end to these practices that was a major factor in the founding of the National Football League
On September 17, 1920, a group of team representatives met in an automobile showroom in Canton, Ohio for the purpose of forming a league, which they called the American Football Association.
When Carr was asked to serve as its president, he declined, reportedly saying, “No, I’m an unknown. This league should be headed by the biggest name in football - Jim Thorpe,” whereupon Big Jim was elected president.
The following April, after one season of play, the league met again in Canton. The name of the league was changed to the National Football League. And our guy was named president, replacing Thorpe, at a salary of $1,000 a year.
He wasn't on the job long before he had to come down hard on a team for using college players under phony names. Handed proof that the Green Bay team was guilty of the practice, he ordered the franchise vacated and returned to the league. (A year later, a Green Bay team reorganized under the leadership of Curly Lambeau would be readmitted to the league.)
In 1925 the new president was faced with the league’s first real crisis when the Chicago Bears signed - and played - Red Grange immediately following the end of his college season, and then, shortly after that, the Duluth Eskimos signed Stanford star Ernie Nevers.
There was considerable public outcry, not to mention rage among college coaches, and at the president’s insistence, the owners adopted a resolution that read:
The National Football League places itself on record as unalterably opposed to any encroachment upon college football and hereby pledges its hearty support to college authorities in maintaining and advancing interest in college football and in preserving the amateur standing of all college athletes.
We believe there is a public demand for professional football… And to the end that this league may not jeopardize the amateur standing of any college player, it is the unanimous decision of this meeting 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, and any member violating this rule be fined not less than $1000 or loss of its franchise, or both.
Through much of his time in the presidency, he had to deal with rival leagues, as well as the comings and goings of lesser-funded teams, most of them in smaller cities. He had had considerable experience with organized baseball and, convinced that the NFL needed to emulate major league baseball in locating in larger cities, he sold Tim Mara a franchise in New York (the Giants), persuaded George Preston Marshall to put a team in Boston (the Redskins, which would soon be moved to Washington), and arranged for the Portsmouth, Ohio team to be relocated to Detroit. He sold Art Rooney a franchise in Pittsburgh (originally called the Pirates) and brought in Bert Bell in Philadelphia to take over the Frankford Yellow Jackets and rebrand them as the Eagles.
As NFL president, he oversaw the introduction of many of the rules that have helped bring about the great fan interest and the competitive parity that today’s league enjoys, including the rearrangement of the league into divisions and conferences, the resultant post-season playoffs, the player draft, and the waiver rule.
In all, he served from 1921 until his death in 1939. By that time, the NFL had strengthened itself through “addition by subtraction”: where in 1926 it had as many as 22 members, by 1939 it was down to ten members. But all - except for Green Bay - were now in “major league” cities. Thanks in large part to his direction, the NFL was strong enough to survive the Depression and what was to come: World War II, and the post-war challenge of the All-American Football Conference.
In 1963, Joe Carr was a member of the very first class inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He did all this while also serving as president of the professional American Basketball League - a forerunner of the NBA - and running the Columbus minor league baseball team and helping organize baseball’s minor league structure. At the time of his death, there were 37 minor leagues in America, and 26 of them owed their existence to him.
Joe Carr was once approached by baseball great Branch Rickey about a job in major league baseball. “If you give up football,” Rickey said, “I’ll make you the biggest man in baseball.”
His answer: “If that’s the price I’d have to pay, I want no part of it.”
FAIR WARNING: If your answer includes the first name “JOSEPH” you won’t get credit. That may have been what his mother and father called him when they were angry, but it was NEVER how he was known publicly. Blame it on Wikipedia, and what it’s doing to sports history.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOE CARR
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN ROTHWELL - CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He played his college football in Mississippi… was a Number One draft choice of the 49ers… Wore number 80.
But no, he wasn’t Jerry Rice. He was 19 years before Jerry Rice.
At Newton (Mississippi) High School he earned all-southern and all-state honors as a lineman, and earned three letters in football, five in track, two in basketball and one in baseball.
Although heavily recruited by most schools in the South, he chose to go to West Point. But when he discovered quite early that cadet life was not for him, he called Ole Miss coach Johnny Vaught to ask if there was still a scholarship available for him.
There was one, indeed, and Coach Vaught immediately summoned another freshman player, one who knew our guy from competing against him in high school track, and informed him that he was going to be getting a new roommate.
But, the freshman told the coach, he already had a roommate, a friend from his hometown. Replied Coach Vaught, “As I told you, I want you to room with (our guy).”
They roomed together for four years and, said the roommate, “I can honestly say we never had a harsh word, not one.”
In addition to being a very good football player, he was a straight-A student. “(He)wasn’t like the rest of us,” recalled his roommate. “He studied all the time. (He) loved school. He loved to learn.”
“I started out at Ole Miss thinking I'd like to become a doctor,” he recalled years later. “But premed and football are a little tough to take together. Besides, I found myself hanging around the fine arts building more and more, and I became increasingly interested in what was going on. Finally I switched my major to fine arts.”
“In the back of my mind, I suppose I always had an interest in art, because as a kid I can remember always doodling. Later in high school I drew a lot. Drew pictures of almost anything. My uncle had some art books and I used to borrow them."
He was good enough as a two-way lineman to be drafted Number One by both the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and the AFL’s Houston Oilers. He signed with San Francisco.
He signed a $350,000 contract - total - spread out over 13 years.
He was originally forecast to be an offensive lineman, but the team needed help on defense, and his unusual speed for a big man made him an outstanding defensive end. After a serious knee injury suffered during his fourth season slowed him down, he moved inside to defensive tackle.
He retired after the 1971 season, but came back a year later to help the 49ers after injuries nearly wiped out their defensive line.
By that time, he had become known for his art - particularly sculpture - but chose not to have any public showings because he wanted his art to stand on its own merits, and not as something done by a well-known football player.
He had also in his final pro years begun studying architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.
Torn briefly between pure art and the more commercial architecture, he chose the latter. “I love the gathering of the information, creating the seed of what the building is going to look like,” he said. “Then getting the sense of what it can be from an architectural standpoint and achieving it.”
After working for several Bay Area architectural firms, he received his architectural license in 1989 and began to work on his own, mostly designing homes.
He had a very successful practice, and when asked years later whether he defined himself by football or by architecture, he said architecture. “It’s something I’ve been doing for a longer time.”
But, he added, “Part of me is being an athlete. I owe football a lot.”
He was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Ole Miss Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. He was chosen as an SEC Legend in 2014 and is a member of Ole Miss “Team of the Century” (1893‑1992).
Asked in 2007 for any advice that he would give to current draftees, he said, “You should really dedicate yourself to getting better at what you do, so that you can have pride in it later on. That means really training and working on whatever technique it takes to perfect it. In that way, it’s like art.”
He died in July, 2020.
FRIDAY,
DECEMBER 13, 2024
“I don’t want to be surrounded by yes men. I want men who tell me the
truth, even if it will cost them their jobs.” Samuel GoldwynGO ARMY! BEAT NAVY!
************ Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Back to my career in baseball. I had played from the time I was the first baseman on the town team in Fulton when I was in high school, through college, and in the Marines in Maui. But I had never coached the game. I wasn't all that confident I understood the nuances of baseball. I got some advice from John Williams, a Hillsdale man who had played in the New York Yankee farm system. Another helpful source was a textbook on baseball written by former Duke coach Jack Coombs. That was my bible.
Surprisingly, we won the MIAA baseball championship that first season. My strategy moves, such as when to replace a struggling pitcher or when to use the hit and run, seemed to be working. One of our best players was shortstop Bill Young, who split time with the baseball team and the track squad, where he was an outstanding sprinter. A few other key players included Tommy McCarthy, who later signed with the Yankees; outfielder Terry Thomas, first baseman Rod Oberlin, and infielder Merv Holbeck. We repeated as conference champs in 1949, improving the team with several talented additions.
During those first two years coaching at Hillsdale, Rena and I lived in what had been her family's summer cottage at a nearby lake. Because no one had ever occupied the place in the winter, the sewer pipes and water pipes occasionally froze, and we would move into town with Rena's parents until it warmed up. Her dad, Earl Pifer, encouraged me to get my masters degree, so I spent the summer of 1949 back in the classroom at Michigan State, working toward the advanced degree I received five years later.
Meanwhile, Dave Nelson was ready to make another move. After one year at Harvard he was offered the head coaching job at the University of Maine. When the athletic Director, Elton (Tad) Wieman, picked Nelson, Dave called his former Hillsdale assistants, Harold Westerman and me. "I've got the job and I want you two guys to join me,” he told us over the phone. "Can you come tomorrow?”
Harold wore just as many hats at Hillsdale as I did; he was the backfield coach in football, head basketball coach, and head track coach in the spring. But he slipped away during our spring break to help Nelson get settled in Maine, and I wasn't far behind as soon as the baseball season ended.
I was on the coaching carousel now, and I never knew when or where it might stop. I just knew I didn't want to get off.
*********** When the Army Cadets stormed the field at West Point on Friday night, after Army’s 35-14 win over Tulane, we knew that Dave Schorr was smiling.
Dave, who passed away last Thursday night, was as devout an Army supporter as there’s ever been.
I’ll let his obituary below serve to tell about him - wait till you read what he wrote to his future parents-in-law - and just simply say that he was a wonderful man in every respect.
Consider this: Dave spent four years on the football team at West Point, one as a plebe - when freshmen weren’t eligible - and three as an upperclassman. For his entire upperclass career, he was on the “B Squad” - the scout team. Not once did he get into a varsity game. In fact, not once did he even dress for a varsity game. But he was an Army Football Player - and he remained one for life.
While a teacher at West Point, he and his wife, Patty were quartered in a faculty residence that Dave christened the “BEAT NAVY HOUSE.” It remains so to this day.
His dogged determination as a football player carried over to his support for the Army team. For years he and Patty, had season tickets, and they hosted a very popular pre- and post-game tailgate. He never missed an Army-Navy game, and was known for the party bus he’d provide to take fellow Army fans to the game.
He was one of the most positive people I’ve ever met. A dear friend, John Simar, who as a plebe at West Point had him as a math teacher, then reconnected with him years later when John was AD at the Lawrenceville School and Dave was teaching math there, said that even during the darkest days of Army football, when people were wearing badges that said, “GO ARMY! BEAT SOMEBODY!” Dave would say, before almost every game, “You, know, I have a good feeling about this one.”
When I used to do clinics in Philly, Dave and John would make it a point to drive down from Lawrenceville to have breakfast before the clinic with my wife and me and several of the coaches. (Two regulars were Brian Mackell and Jason Clarke, from Baltimore.)
One of the many great things about Dave was his modesty. West Pointers don’t boast, so it was only after his death that I learned that he had earned the Silver Star, the Army’s second-highest honor. When I asked another friend, Tom Hinger, himself a Silver Star recipient and also a friend of Dave’s, if he’d known about Dave’s Silver Star, he replied, “Of course not.”
Rest in Peace, Dave.
PS: In Dave’s photo above as an Army colonel, I don’t know the meanings of the ribbons on his chest, but three things jump right out at me:
At the Top of his left breast:
* The CIB (Combat Infantryman’s Badge) - the blue rectangle with the rifle and the silver wreath.
It’s awarded to infantrymen and Special Forces soldiers - colonel and below - who have fought in active ground combat. It is one of the most prized of all military awards because there’s no other way to earn it than to be right there, on the ground, when the bullets start flying.
At the bottom of his left breast
* The Jump Wings (Parachutist Badge) - It looks from here like an upside-down silver crescent
It states that the soldier is a trained military parachutist
Top of his left sleeve, just below the shoulder
* The Ranger Tab - Signifies that the wearer has graduated from Ranger School
Extremely difficult to qualify for Ranger School, extremely difficult to graduate
While holding the hand of his beloved wife of 66 years, Colonel David E. Schorr (U.S. Army, Retired) passed away on December 5. He was born on March 15, 1935 to Brigadier General David Peter and Mrs. Mary B. Schorr. In 1957, he graduated from the United States Military Academy where he played football for the Black Knights. After completing basic training and earning his Ranger tab and Jump Wings, he served as an active-duty Infantry Officer for 27 years.
He distinguished himself through exceptional valor and gallantry on the battlefield during two separate combat tours of duty in the Republic of Vietnam. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit (2OLC), the Bronze Star with Valor, the Army Commendation Medal with Valor, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart. Due to extraordinary service later in his career, he also received the Defense Superior Service Medal. During his active-duty career, he earned a master’s degree in nuclear physics from Tulane University, and he had the great privilege of teaching Math to cadets at the United States Military Academy for three years.
After retiring from active-duty, he accepted a position as a Teacher and the Director of Building and Grounds at the Lawrenceville School where he worked for 16 years. Students, faculty and school employees alike all affectionately knew him as “The Colonel”. For many years, he coached the Mighty Big Blue Hamill House football team whose members had the special privilege of benefiting from his lifelong passion for football. He also served as the Director of the Lawrenceville School Camp in northwest New Jersey where he and Lawrenceville students provided a free multi-week overnight outdoor summer camp experience for underprivileged youth. Students elected him as an Honorary Member of the Lawrenceville classes of 1988, 1997 and 2002. The School bestowed upon him the Masters Award in recognition of his excellence as a Math teacher. The many students who he taught, coached, mentored and inspired all hold fond memories of him.
On November 29, 1958, the date of the Army/Navy game, he attended the only event that could have ever possibly prevented him from going to the game – his marriage to Margaret Patricia Peck (Patty), the love of his life. Shortly before his marriage, as a 23 year-old Second Lieutenant assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, he included the following sentence in a letter to his future parents-in-law: “In the course of twenty-three years, God, in his infinite kindness, has given me gifts of immeasurable value. I include therein the gifts of my religion, my mother, my father, my sister, and now he has given me the greatest gift of all, your Patty.” His selfless and unwavering devotion to his faith, Patty and his family was the greatest of the innumerable abundant gifts that he provided throughout the course of his life.
He is survived by his wife, Patty, their daughter and her husband, their three sons and their wives, and 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
A funeral Mass offered in thanksgiving for his life was celebrated at Saint Ann’s Church, 1253 Lawrenceville Rd., at 11 AM on Thursday, December 12.
In lieu of flowers, donations in his honor may be made to Army Football or Saint Ann’s parish in Lawrenceville.
*********** Headlines in The Athletic:
Dolphins, Bills Sell Stakes in Teams to Private Equity Firms
NFL Owners Approve 15% Sale of Raiders
NFL Owners Approve 8% Sale of Eagles to Investment Groups
Why, you ask, does anyone want, say, eight per cent of a team, when you’re not going to have any say whatsoever in the way it’s run?
Simple. I assume that you, like me, are not in the market for a piece of an NFL club, but for someone who can afford it, it’s almost scary what can happen to your investment.
Eagles’ owner Jeffrey Lurie paid $185 million for the Eagles in 1994 - and most people thought he’d overpaid.
But based on what two different groups paid for what amounts to eight per cent of the team, the franchise is now valued at $8.3 BILLION!
Do the math: Mr. Lurie just received eight per cent of $8.3 billion - or $664 million. Now, after taxes and commissions and legal fees and whatnot, he’s still going to have a lot of money.
Not that he needs more money - right now - but he’s wise enough to know that the time will come when he’s going to want this children (actually, I don’t even know if he has any) to inherit the team, and he wants to prevent a situation where they have to sell the team to pay the inheritance tax.
(At least that’s what I suspect is happening.)
One thing’s for sure - the NFL had to change its policies to allow investment groups to purchase pieces of teams because the values of the franchises have increased to the point where they’re running out of people who can afford to buy teams in their entirety.
*********** Good-bye, beach volleyball. According to this article in The Athletic, additional spending on employees - er, student-athletes - as a result of the recent House decision (requiring colleges to share revenues with their athletes) could mean doom for “Olympic” (once known as “minor”) sports. Colleges, which have played a major role in development of athletes (not just USA athletes, either) in Olympic sports may no longer be able to fund them.
For years, leaders in the Olympic and Paralympic movement have lobbied colleges and universities to preserve their broad-based sports programs.
To and through its Collegiate Advisory Council, with the NCAA, in Congress and during the Games, they have shared the necessity of the collegiate pipeline in training Team USA athletes.
On Tuesday, LA28 Chairperson and President Casey Wasserman made clear the existential threat in a room of college athletics administrators at the SBJ's Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, presented by Learfield, reports SBJ's Rachel Axon.
“That fork in the road is if football leaves the system and the money leaves the system, Team USA is over,” Wasserman said. “We can pretend like that's not the case. That is unequivocally the case. You add $20 million of expense to the athletic department. What's the first thing you cut? ... Olympic sports, non-revenue sports. You cut the sports that cost money that don't generate revenue.”
That threat has hung over the movement like a Sword of Damocles for the better part of a decade as the collegiate sports system has gone through iterative, substantial changes.
Up next is the adoption of the settlement in the House v. NCAA anti-trust litigation, which is expected to be approved next year and includes, among its provisions, a revenue sharing portion that Power Four schools anticipate adding around $20 million annually’
The changes to finances at the collegiate level have spelled concerns in the Olympic sports -- and, to a far lesser degree, the Paralympic sports -- world. Many of them saw cuts to programs the last time college athletics saw a significant impact on finances in the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the system is the lifeblood not just of Team USA, but of athletes internationally -- a fact Wasserman underscored at IAF.
More than 75% of Team USA athletes competed and trained collegiately, and more than 1,000 current and former NCAA athletes competed for more than 100 countries.
Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the National Football Foundation highlighted the connection between the two, hosting the Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards.
“A lot of schools will hang in, not just in California, but in the country, until 2028, until the games are in L.A.,” Wasserman said. “And after that, you're going to see a lot more schools have SEC number of teams than former Pac-12 numbers of teams. The days of 25 and 30 teams are over. So now you're going to have 15 to 17.”
Hmmm. Maybe instead of pleading to Congress (aka the American taxpayer), they ought to try hitting up the NFL, which has been busy plowing money into a sport which it almost singlehandedly made into an Olympic sport - flag football.
*********** Proposed amendment to the WIAA handbook:
Participation in girls sports would be limited to students assigned female at birth.
Now, who the hell came up with this “assigned female” garbage? Talk about woke nonsense. Unless, that is, they consider God to be the one doing the “assigning.”
(If I could find a bookie who’d take the bet, I’d wager that in Washington, a state so dominated by a fanatical liberal majority in just one large county, this amendment won’t pass anyhow.)
*********** With colleges now paying players upwards of a million dollars to play “college” football, with colleges (or, technically their “collectives” ) bidding against each other for players, how much longer will it be before the NFL gets in on the auction?
In 1925, when the Chicago Bears signed Red Grange to play for them just weeks after his eligibility at Illinois had come come to an end, college coaches raised so much hell that the NFL (which was hardly strong enough then to take on the colleges) passed a rule:
"It is the unanimous decision of this meeting 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 a violation was harsh: a one-thousand-dollar fine!
The rule has changed slightly over the years, but the principle remains the same: only the NFL itself stands in the way of its signing any player it wishes. Were it to decide this winter to draft and sign college underclassmen, colleges would be powerless to stop it.
Should the NFL vote to do so, it seems likely that any attempt by colleges - now de facto professionals themselves - to stand in the way would be seen as an illegal attempt to deny a player the opportunity to sell his talents to the highest bidder.
It wouldn’t even require action by the whole league - just one renegade owner acting on his own. (Is there another Al Davis?) Or one college player who’s had a successful freshman season and wants to make more money than the colleges are offering. The lawsuit(s), I’m as certain as I can be, would be successful.
The colleges, besides openly paying players, have created the conditions making it possible. They've blown their cover of amateurism. And with players hanging around for five and six years and graduate transfers making the concept of eligibility a thing of the past, with multiple transfers all but making a mockery of degree requirements, they’ve forfeited any claim they might have once had that players needed to stay in college for a specified period of time.
*********** So. Bill Belichick is going to be a Tar Heel. My wife and I just finished watching the 30 for 30 “Two Bills.”
Belichick to UNC sounds interesting. At least at first.
There’s the name, a la Deion Sanders. But Sanders is a salesman and he’s very outgoing. Belichick is not. How far does a name go in giving a coach a recruiting advantage? Answer” not very. Belichick’s name notwithstanding, UNC is still going to have to greatly increase their NIL funding because his name won’t recruit kids the way money will.
Belichick had the advantage of an owner who gave him free rein and left him alone, while at UNC there appears to be a huge and nasty power struggle going on between the athletics department and the board of trustees.
Forget the idea that “managing” college kids is going to be easier than pros. With NIL and multiple transfers, today’s college football players are becoming even less manageable than pros.
There is not - yet - one example of a former NFL coach being greatly successful in college without prior college experience. (Saban don’t forget, was a successful college coach before going to the Dolphins.)
Conferring “coach in waiting” stature on his son is insane. The woods are not exactly full of sons of successful coaches who have succeeded their fathers and been successful themselves. I don’t even think it’s a good idea for a school to lock itself into an existing coach for more than five years, let alone to his son.
With all those negatives, though, Belichick is a different guy. He’s very smart, he really knows the game, and he’s certainly earned his status as one of the greatest coaches of all time. Pro coaches, that is.
But college football and pro football are not the same game, and I wonder if somehow he let himself get blinded to that fact.
And then there’s the wild card. Elderly Coach Belichick is said to have a “close friendship” with a 23-year-old woman. She evidently has no understanding of how difficult the life of a college coach’s wife can be - when her husband’s life is not his own. The demands on his time and energy are endless. Belichick and his young friend haven’t been together that long, so it seems to me there’s a good chance she has no idea how neglected a college coach’s wife can feel once football season rolls around. Was there not one person in North Carolina’s decision-making circle who saw this warning flag?
*********** We purchased your videos and used them to install the system. We had more success than in previous years. At the end of the day, the bigger, faster teams gave us problems, but we were competitive unlike years past.
I have a question about splits. We went zero splits. I liked the proximity to double teams, but it also brought a lot of defenders to the power hole.
Have you widened your splits to get those overloaded boxes spread out a bit? And if so, how far?
Thanks in advance
Hi Coach -
Good question. It’s hard to find one I haven’t been asked, and this is one I’ve been asked often.
The short answer is that once I made the decision to close ‘em up I never went back. The longer answer is that while I may on occasion split a man slightly to gain an advantage on a particular play, I’ve never adjusted splits in response to something the defense has done.
To me those splits are the basis of my offense, and I don’t budge on that. I don’t think I need to go into all the reasons why that is. A major reason, though, is to make us better at protecting our inside gaps, and if that were all that zero splits did, that would be enough for me.
For sure, they are a real pain in the ass for defenses.
If things are unusually crowded between the tackles, it means they are wasting people in the box. So I will run outside. It sounds simple, and like everything else about the Double Wing, nothing is as simple as it looks, but it’s always been important to me to have the threat of a good sweep to keep people honest.
Be sure to get back to me if you’d like me to clarify anything. I don’t mind. My interest is in helping you be successful.
*********** When Luigi the rich kid, the (alleged) New York murderer, got recognized - and caught - in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the first thing I thought was, “He’s never spent any time in a small town.”
Now, Altoona, with 60,000 people or so isn’t necessarily small, but there’s a world of difference between it and a city of several hundred thousand or more.
In New York City, Luigi could have painted his face blue and carried a poleaxe into a McDonalds and nobody would have paid him a bit of attention - maybe because they were afraid of angering him by staring, but more likely because in a city like New York, where people are used to seeing almost anything, NOTHING seems out of place.
Not so in a smaller town. I’ve lived in some small cities and I’ve coached in some really tiny places. And one thing anybody who’s lived in such places knows is that people notice. And they’re hyper alert to anomalies - things (or people) who just seem out of place.
If Luigi the (alleged) killer had only known that, he'd have known better than to go into a small-town McDonalds wearing a hoodie and a surgical mask and then sit in the back of the store tapping away at his laptop, as if the people behind the counter see that sort of stuff from strangers every day.
Of course, he did plenty of other stupid “arrest me” things, which really pisses me off because now here he is, a guy who went to a private prep school where the tuition is $40,000 a year, yet claims that he needs a public defender. Shouldn't he at least have tried to hide, or wear a disguise, or look innocent?
*********** Jimmy Conzelman, longtime coach of the Chicago Cardinals, told about his first game as the Cardinals’ coach, which happened to be against the crosstown rival Bears.
“I had a naked reverse play that worked very well. As soon as I took over the Cardinals, I put it into the offense. Right after we got that first touchdown we got the ball again and our quarterback called a reverse play. Lloyd Madden, a rookie back from the Colorado School of Mines, got the ball and broke into the clear. Lloyd, fresh out of college, didn't realize that in our game the goal posts were on the goal line. He stopped running 10 yards away from the goal post and the Bears clobbered him.”
*********** Greasy Neale, who coached the Philadelphia Eagles to NFL titles in 1949 and 1950, gave an example, years later, of the lengths to which coaches would go to get information.
I began thinking about installing the T formation. I was naturally impressed with that 73 to 0 beating the Bears had pinned on the Redskins the year before (in the NFL title game - HW) and I wanted to know more about how they did it.
One day I got hold of a newsreel fellow and had him run off his reel of the game. When he finished, I said, “How is it that your cameras were shooting only when they were making the spectacular plays?”
He laughed and said, "We shot the whole game. Then we edited the footage so we could show all the big plays in a short time in the movie houses. We have the whole game on film.”
"What will it cost me?” I asked.
“I'll sell you a print for $156,” he said.
I gave him the money and took the film. Five hours every day during the next five months, I studied that movie and I found a way to improve on the Bears’ offense.”
*********** After nine years as Washington State’s president, Kirk Schultz will retire this summer, and I happened to find something interesting he said in an interview in our local paper:
How would you describe the future of WSU Athletics?
It's a complicated question. So now we have a rebuilt PAC-12, and I am going to be the first to admit, I've tried to tell all of our groups, I am under no illusion that the rebuilt PAC-12 is like the old PAC-12. And sometimes fans will go, "Oh, it's not the same.” Well, you're right – it's not the same.
But if you look at all these other conferences out there, you look at what the SEC was eight years ago, you look at what the Big 12 was eight years ago – all these conferences have changed, and I think that's OK.
And to be honest, the rebuilt PAC-12 has a lot more schools that look a lot more like Washington State University, land-grant universities with similar academic and research profiles, like Colorado State, Utah State and so forth.
So I actually think the future in terms of our conference affiliation looks really bright for us, and I think we're going to be very competitive athletically in that particular conference. We are going to be in the western half of the United States; that footprint feels good. We are not sending our student athletes to Chapel Hill or wherever on a regular basis to have to compete. And I just think at the end of the day, as they get their degrees, this is a far better place for them to be. So that’s all the positives.
WSU got used to, for many years, getting a very large check annually from the Pac 12 conference. You know, $35–$36 million came in. And largely, if you say, how did we financially support our athletic program? It was off PAC-12 revenues. Our donors were modest. You know, our ticket sales were good but not great. And that was the way we kind of funded athletics programs.
Well, now with the new PAC-12, when we get a new media deal done, there's going to be instead of $35–$36 million, maybe we get $18 million each year, or $16 million, and what you wind up having is now a $20 million hole between what you used to get and what you have to get moving forward. So we're going to have to get creative about how we close that $20 million gap.
So what he’s saying is that only real problem is money. Isn’t that what it’s been all along?
*********** The great Duke Slater!!!!
Clinton was a good old fashioned railroad and river town. Had to be tough to live there! Still do.
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
*********** That relief of Duke Slater is an outstanding work of art!
Nice video here: https://facilities.uiowa.edu/art-on-campus/artwork/duke-slater-groundbreaker-and-champion
The video talks about how the iconic photo, of a helmetless Slater blocking 3 Notre Damers, acted as the inspiration for the relief.
The photo is about halfway down the page here:
https://ouriowaheritage.com/our-iowa-heritage-duke-slater/
John Rothwell
Corpus Christi, Texas
*********** Every person can state personal views about where we are in 'postseason' CFB, but for me it stinks. This committee has created a bigger mess than ever. And, yeah, I've read the putative reasons Army will play Marshall (and I absolutely don't intend to denigrate the Herd), but still, Army won the conference with an undefeated record, yet two other members, Tulane and Navy, play Florida and Oklahoma, respectively. Where's the reward for winning the AAC? And, btw, the Army game will kick off at 2115 (9:15). As I said, it stinks. Is Chet Gladchuck running the show?
All quiz subjects are interesting, but Duke Slater is fascinating. Great pick.
I have GEHA insurance. Never used it. Might get rid of it after finding out it has replaced Arrowhead, as good and fitting a name as any in the country.
Loved the coaching carousel commentary. In mentioning Charlotte, however, you failed to mention we'll be losing the answer to a recent Wyatt Quiz. The big fellow patrolling the sideline in his ripped T-shirts is no more.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Biff Poggi, I imagine, will soon be back in Baltimore, where he knows how to win as a high school coach. Of course, not everyone there agrees with his methods.
By the way, he was once the very successful head coach at Baltimore’s Gilman School, his alma mater and also that of Luigi the (alleged) killer.
*********** Hugh,
The current CFP won’t last. Whether it’s seeding every team without automatic byes for conference champs, or increasing the number of teams to 16, or to a complete overhaul of the entire system I’ll bet what we see in the post-season next year will be a change from this year.
The bowl games: Too many, and many made meaningless with the specter of the portal/NIL hanging over our heads. Until something is done about this the bowl games will become defunct.
How about Kenny Dillingham’s approach to the portal when it comes to his players?
Declare for the portal you can still be on the team, go to meetings, practice, play in the game, and we’ll do everything we can to help you get to your destination. Huh?
More conference games? Nick Saban thinks so.
Sorry, but this whole mess was created by becoming more greedy than King Midas himself. The MEDIA, idea of these stupid super conferences, the crazy realignments, NIL, and the portal have all contributed to professionalizing the game.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Bowl games, did you say? Remember the days when players were excited to play in them - and get swag bags worth as much as $300?
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Duke Slater (his given name was Frederick, but he somehow got the nickname because that was the name of the family dog) was born in Normal, Illinois but when he was 13, his family moved to Clinton, Iowa, when his father became pastor of Bethel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church there.
Although his father refused to let him play football, considering it a sport for “roughnecks,” he went out for the local high school team anyhow, as a sophomore. When his Dad discovered his wife repairing a torn football jersey, he got wise to what was going on and cracked down further. But after the son went on a hunger strike, Dad agreed to let him play - on the condition that he not get hurt.
From then on, he made it a point never to mention any bumps and bruises.
Another potential hurdle came when players had to furnish their own equipment. The family didn’t have the money to buy him both shoes AND a helmet, and when his father asked him which he needed more, he chose the shoes. Thereafter, for his entire high school career and much of his college career, he played helmetless.
After he helped lead Clinton High to two (mythical) state titles, his play came to the attention of University of Iowa alumni who persuaded him to become a Hawkeye.
Black players were rare on college rosters at that time, but Iowa was an exception, having already had some standout black players. Our guy was big for his time (6-1, 215) and with him on the line, Iowa enjoyed success it hadn’t known before.
He became Iowa’s first black All-American player as a sophomore and was honored again as a senior, when Iowa went unbeaten and won its first-ever Big Ten title.
Chicago’s Fritz Crisler, who would go on to become a legend as a coach, called him “the best tackle I ever played against.”
Said Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, “No better tackle ever trod a western gridiron.”
After his senior season he enrolled in Iowa Law School, and after holding a variety of jobs to pay his tuition, he signed to play professional football with the Rock Island (Illinois) Independents, in the then two-year-old National Football League, for $1,500. (That’s for the season.) And he became the first Black lineman in NFL history.
He put his law school plans on hold, but in 1925 he resumed pursuit of his law degree, taking classes in the morning in Iowa City and then practicing with Rock Island in the afternoon.
In 10 NFL seasons, he made seven all-pro teams as a member of the Independents and then the Chicago Cardinals. For a good part of his career, he was the NFL’s only black player.
How good was he? Recalled the Chicago Bear’s George Halas years later, “They talked about Fordham's famous Seven Blocks of Granite in the mid-1930s and what a line that was. Well, (he) was a One Man Line a decade before that.”
He retired in 1931 “when I realized that football is a young man’s game,” but after moving to Chicago to practice law, he continued to play with the Chicago Blackhawks, a team made up entirely of Black players.
He became an assistant district attorney and, in 1948, a municipal court judge, and in 1960 he became the first black judge on the Superior Court of Chicago.
In 1951, as a member of the College Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class. he became the first black man so honored.
He is in the Iowa High School Football Hall of Fame and the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1946, he was one of 11 players chosen to an all-time college football All-American team and in 1969, he was as one of 44 players chosen to an all-century team commemorating 100 years of college football.
In 1989 he was selected as a tackle on Iowa’s 100th anniversary team.
In 2020 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Duke Slater Field at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium is named in his honor, and outside the stadium, he’s honored by a huge bronze relief showing him in action - without a helmet.
Years later, remembering his helmetless days, he joked, “In thinking back, I’m sure Dad made a mistake. I wear size 14 shoes, and he would have saved money if he had bought the helmet.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING DUKE SLATER
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
BRAD KNIGHT - CLARINDA, IOWA
JOHN ROTHWELL - CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
*********** QUIZ):In its history, the NFL has been led by three “presidents” (from 1920-1941) and five “commissioners” (1941 to the present).
Our guy was one of the presidents. He held the job for 19 years, from 1921 to 1939. He has been called “The Father of the NFL,” and “The Father of Professional Football.” Certainly, more than any other individual, he was responsible for keeping the NFL alive in its formative years and through the Depression, and forging much of the structure that today’s NFL stands on.
Born in Columbus Ohio in 1880, he was working as assistant sports editor of the Ohio State Journal when he organized a baseball team made up of employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Panhandle Division,” and later a football team, both teams known as the Columbus Panhandles.
The football Panhandles featured the six Nesser brothers, all of them boilermakers for the railroad. Because the Panhandles’ players were all railroad employees, they had free passes which enabled them to travel far and wide at no expense to the team. Consequently, the Panhandles played most of their games on the road, not only in order to save on expenses, but to make scheduling games easier.
At that time it was common for players to jump from team to team, playing for the highest bidder. In fact the Panhandles actually played against Knute Rockne six times in one season; each time, he was playing for a different team.
It was also common for college players to play for their colleges on Saturdays and then, using assumed names, play on Sundays for professional teams.
The desire by our guy and other owners to put an end to these practices was a major factor in the founding of the National Football League
On September 17, 1920, a group of team representatives met in an automobile showroom in Canton, Ohio for the purpose of forming a league, which they called the American Football Association.
When our guy was asked to serve as its president, he declined, reportedly saying, “No, I’m an unknown. This league should be headed by the biggest name in football - Jim Thorpe,” whereupon Big Jim was elected president.
The following April, after one season of play, the league met again in Canton. The name of the league was changed to the National Football League. And our guy was named president, replacing Thorpe, at a salary of $1,000 a year.
He wasn't on the job long before he had to come down hard on a team for using college players under phony names. Handed proof that the Green Bay team was guilty of the practice, he ordered the franchise vacated and returned to the league. (A year later, a Green Bay team reorganized under the leadership of Curly Lambeau would be readmitted to the league.)
In 1925 the new president was faced with the league’s first real crisis when the Chicago Bears signed - and played - Red Grange immediately following the end of his college season, and then, shortly after that, the Duluth Eskimos signed Stanford star Ernie Nevers.
There was considerable public outcry, not to mention rage among college coaches, and at the president’s insistence, the owners adopted a resolution that read:
The National Football League places itself on record as unalterably opposed to any encroachment upon college football and hereby pledges its hearty support to college authorities in maintaining and advancing interest in college football and in preserving the amateur standing of all college athletes.
We believe there is a public demand for professional football… And to the end that this league may not jeopardize the amateur standing of any college player, it is the unanimous decision of this meeting 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, and any member violating this rule be fined not less than $1000 or loss of its franchise, or both.
Through much of his time in the presidency, he had to deal with rival leagues, as well as the comings and goings of lesser-funded teams, most of them in smaller cities. He had had considerable experience with organized baseball and, convinced that the NFL needed to emulate major league baseball in locating in larger cities, he sold Tim Mara a franchise in New York (the Giants), persuaded George Preston Marshall to put a team in Boston (the Redskins, which would soon be moved to Washington), and arranged for the Portsmouth, Ohio team to be relocated to Detroit. He sold Art Rooney a franchise in Pittsburgh (originally called the Pirates) and brought in Bert Bell in Philadelphia to take over the Frankford Yellow Jackets and rebrand them as the Eagles.
As NFL president, he oversaw the introduction of many of the rules that have helped bring about the great fan interest and the competitive parity that today’s league enjoys, including the rearrangement of the league into divisions and conferences, the resultant post-season playoffs, the player draft, and the waiver rule.
In all, he served from 1921 until his death in 1939. By that time, the NFL had strengthened itself through “addition by subtraction”: where in 1926 it had as many as 22 members, by 1939 it was down to ten members. But all - except for Green Bay - were now in “major league” cities. Thanks in large part to his direction, the NFL was strong enough to survive the Depression and what was to come: World War II, and the post-war challenge of the All-American Football Conference.
In 1963, he was a member of the very first class inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He did all this while also serving as president of the professional American Basketball League - a forerunner of the NBA - and running the Columbus minor league baseball team and helping organize baseball’s minor league structure. At the time of his death, there were 37 minor leagues in America, and 26 of them owed their existence to him.
He was once approached by baseball great Branch Rickey about a job in major league baseball. “If you give up football,” Rickey said, “I’ll make you the biggest man in baseball.”
His answer: “If that’s the price I’d have to pay, I want no part of it.”
FAIR WARNING: If your answer includes the first name “JOSEPH” you won’t get credit. That may have been what his mother and father called him when they were angry, but it was NEVER how he was known publicly. Blame it on Wikipedia, and what it’s doing to sports history.
TUESDAY,
DECEMBER 10, 2024 “Facts can be ignored, but
their consequences cannot be escaped.” Thomas Sowell*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “We went through my first season as a coach undefeated, with two ties. I tried to make up in enthusiasm and dedication what I lacked in coaching experience and expertise. Coaching a bunch of linemen who just the year before were my side-by-side teammates wasn't always easy, but most of the time they at least pretended to listen. I thought I might miss the satisfaction of making a key tackle or throwing a block on a big play, but I was so fired up about getting a chance to coach that I didn't worry about being retired as a player.
“Because I had played in Nelson's system – we used the single wing he had played in at Michigan – making the transition to coaching was relatively easy. But I soaked up everything I could from the head coach. He was the boss, and he was becoming a respected friend.
“After my rookie season as an assistant coach, I came down with the mumps, and Dave came to visit during the Christmas break. I had been in agony when one of my testicles had swollen up about the size of a grapefruit. I couldn't even roll over in bed. Dave handed me a championship gold football and said, "Mike, I don't know what's going to happen to you, but I want you to have this gold ball because every man needs two.”
“After two successful seasons at Hillsdale, Dave Nelson was targeted by other, larger schools. That spring, while I was busy coaching the baseball team, Dave told me he was accepting the job of backfield coach at Harvard. President Turner brought in James (Gib) Holgate, another University of Michigan product, as our new coach. He asked Harold Westerman, the other assistant on Nelson’s staff, and me to stay on. We had another good season, scoring 287 points and holding opponents to 67, but we missed a third straight MIAA championship with two losses and a tie.”
*********** CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS WEEKEND
FRIDAY
CONFERENCE USA
JACKSONVILLE STATE (9-4) 52, WESTERN KENTUCKY (8-5) 12 - JACKSONVILLE STATE WAS FAVORED BY 3 -
I didn’t watch it. My eyes were fixed on the Army game. Is Rich Rod (Jacksonville State’s coach) on his way back to West Virginia?
***
MOUNTAIN WEST
BOISE STATE (12-1) 21, UNLV (10-2) 7 - BOISE STATE WAS FAVORED BY 4
Ditto: I was glued to the Army game.
***
AMERICAN ATHLETIC
ARMY (11-1) 35, TULANE (9-4) 13 - TULANE WAS FAVORED BY 4.5 -
Army wanted to play; Tulane didn’t. In my opinion, they folded their tents after losing to Memphis (and losing their shot at a playoff spot).
Army’s coach had his team prepared; Tulane’s coach didn’t. There are those who think he spent too much time dickering over the North Carolina job.
Army went through the entire game without a penalty, a punt or a turnover.
They were 4/5 on first down plays. Army put the game away with a third-and-fourth quarter drive that carried 84 yards in 16 plays and - making sure to use the maximum amount of clock on every play - consumed 10 minutes and 44 seconds.
In its first year in the AAC, Army won the first conference championship in its 125-year football history.
Army QB Bryan Daily is what the Heisman Trophy was designed to honor. If Army were in a power 4 conference, he would have the Heisman locked up.
I’ve been critical of Army coach Jeff Monken, mainly over the way he tried to sell last year’s disastrous move to a shotgun offense, but I have to salute the way he kept the Army team focused and fighting after the disheartening loss to Notre Dame and, with it, any shot at a playoff spot. Granted, he is working with a special type of person, but it still took a remarkable job of coaching to keep that one huge disappointing loss from upsetting the entire season.
SATURDAY
BIG-12
ARIZONA STATE (11-2) 45, IOWA STATE (10-3) 19 - ARIZONA STATE WAS FAVORED BY 2.5
245 yards rushing - the Sun Devils’ total - will win most games. If the Playoff Committee was really honest about looking at every week as a blank slate, they might have ASU as their Number One team based on this one. The way these guys are playing, they are as tough as anybody.
MAC
OHIO (10-3) 38, MIAMI (8-5) 3 - MIAMI WAS FAVORED BY 2.5 -
After 56 years and five losses in conference championship games, the Ohio Bobcats finally won a MAC title. They have now had three straight double-digit-win seasons.
Sure hope that’s enough to keep them happy, because before the sun went down Saturday, their coach, Tim Albin, who came to Ohio with former coach Frank Solich and spent 20 seasons there, took the Charlotte job.
SEC
GEORGIA (11-2) 22, TEXAS (11-2) 19 OT - TEXAS WAS FAVORED BY 2.5 -
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought this game was the SEC at its best - or, really, its worst. With the score 10-6 and 40 seconds left in the third quarter, it was, the astute announcing crew told us, “a low-scoring game.”
Boring? It was about as exciting as your usual run-of-the-mill NFL game.
In fact, we may have had a sneak peek at the future of big-time college football. I guess the networks and the Super Conferences think the American public will learn to like 60 minute games consisting of two touchdowns and SIX field goals.
And more dropped passes than you’ll see in a season of high school games.
Coach Sark is about to become acquainted with alumni who fired a guy that produced results like this. But at least that guy - Mack Brown - won a national title. He says ,“Welcome to my world.”
I was hoping that Georgia would win, but just barely, and with its starting quarterback, Carson Beck, injured, the Playoff Committee would be forced to do to Georgia what it did to Florida State last year, using the same reasoning.
But no… the UGA backup, Gunner Stockton, more than showed that he can carry the team. And he can run, even!
Texas, meanwhile, showed us all we needed to see of Quinn Ewers, the million dollar quarterback who can’t run and throws lollipops. And can’t act very well on Dr. Pepper commericals, either. Arch Manning mustn’t be as good as Quinn Ewers because he only got in for a play (or was it two?).
Hey, Arch - I see that Ewers is coming back next year. You’ve put in your time and proved you’re a team guy. But now it’s time to do something besides ride the pines. Can I be your agent?
***
SUNBELT - 7:30 PM EASTERN
MARSHALL (9-3) AT LOUISIANA (10-2) - LOUISIANA FAVORED BY 3.5 -
I didn’t watch a down. I suppose I should have, since Army will be playing Marshall in the Independence Bowl, but then, after losing its coach (to Southern Miss) and losing plenty of guys to the Transfer Portal, it’s not going to be the same Marshall team that shellacked Louisiana anyhow.
***
BIG TEN
OREGON (13-0) 45 VS PENN STATE (11-2) 32 - OREGON WAS FAVORED BY 3.5
It started out like a Ducks’ blowout, but Penn State refused to fold, and made it a good game.
Penn State could definitely win it all, but you don’t win big ones when you commit four personal fouls in the first half.
By the end of the first quarter, the two teams had already scored more touchdowns than Texas and Georgia are able to produce in an entire regulation game.
James Franklin sure could have used that run-it-up, last-play touchdown he allowed against Maryland in last week’s game. Too bad. Instead, his record against top-five teams is now 1-14.
ACC - 8 PM EASTERN
CLEMSON (10-3) 34, SMU (11-2) 31 - SMU WAS FAVORED BY 2.5
A really good game. As it had done the last time out, Clemson folded at the end (or, if you wish, SMU came on furiously), but then the Tigers miraculously pulled out a win with a 56-yard last-second field goal.
Dabo Swinney (post-game): “Thank you, Jesus.”
Jesus (as I picture Him): “For what, Coach? By the way, didn’t you have a game today? How’d it go?”
Somebody must have turned over a rock somewhere and when they saw Craig James was under it they asked him if he’d like to stand on the SMU sideline during a game and act as if he’d never done anything to earn the enmity of a nation of college football fans. (Wonder how that kid of his wound up.)
*********** I’m tired of reading about “strength of schedule.” To me, the most important consideration is the reflection of a team’s record on the Playoff’s credibility when it proposes to give us a “true national champion.”
It seems to me that if a team goes undefeated - or perhaps loses one or even two close games - in the regular season and then wins it all in the Playoff, the public will accept its claim to be the “national champion.”
But if those one or two losses should be bad - the kind that no national champion would ever have had on its record back in the dark days of AP-poll-elected champions - then no matter that the team goes on to win the playoff. The loss(es) would forever taint the title itself.
For example: should SMU somehow emerge the Playoff winner, its close losses (to BYU early in the season and to Clemson in the ACC championship game) will not in any way diminish the title.
But another example: had Alabama been included in the playoff field and then gone on to win the playoff, its two really bad losses (40-35 to Vanderbilt, 24-3 to Oklahoma, enough in the AP-poll days, to keep it from winning a national title) would have brought its “championship” into question.
Do I hear a cry for a 128-team playoff?
Great idea! Let’s settle it on the playing field! Let ‘em all play! (All, that is, except Kent State, Tulsa, Southern Miss, Middle Tennessee, Kennesaw State, New Mexico State, UMass, UTEP, Temple. Sorry about that.)
Of course, such a playoff would take seven weeks. But in the eyes of the TV people and the Big Ten/SEC cartel, that’s not so bad, because after the first two weeks, 96 teams’ seasons would be over and they could all kick back and watch what remained of The Playoff. Isn’t that what the cartel wants?
*********** The day may come when people will get used to college football players playing six and seven years.
But I’m shocked that anyone with any understanding of the college game could write this sentence: “Staubach played just three seasons at Navy…”
Yeah, I thought. “Just” three seasons.
HISTORY LESSON FOR THE WRITER: When Staubach played, freshmen weren’t eligible for varsity play. And there was no such thing as a redshirt. Or a “graduate transfer.”
Translation: EVERYBODY played “just three seasons.”
All of us. No exceptions. And then, our eligibility exhausted, those of us not good enough to play in the 12-team NFL (40-man rosters) got on with our lives, as men had been doing since the earliest days of college football.
*********** I’m not a big fan of Joe Tessitore and the way he tends to overdramatize things - and insisting on calling certain plays “easy” (as if anything about football is ever easy) but in calling the Big 12 title game, he noted that last year, a star player like Arizona State’s Cam Skattebo would undoubtedly opt out of whatever bowl game the Sun Devils were in.
But let’s not give The Playoff too much credit for this. The Playoff has all but killed the Bowls As We Know Them. It’s just that it’s provided a few more games that guys won’t opt out of. (At least until they form a union.)
Actually, Skattebo may not have been the best example. The way he plays the game, and the way he’s played his way up from FCS Sacramento State, it’s possible that he really does like playing enough that he wouldn’t opt out of a bowl game.
*********** One-third of the teams in the playoff field got in without having to play a 13th game:
Indiana, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Tennessee
*********** I’m more and more convinced that a lot of the “RPOs” we see are really predetermined - which makes them just plain, old-fashioned play-action passes.
*********** Interesting back story on Arizona State receiver Xavier Guillory. From Spokane, Washington, he started out at Idaho State, where he established himself as one of the best receivers in FCS. He’s a native, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe (for those of you who know the story of Chief Joseph).
*********** The SEC championship game was the only game all weekend that had the entire TV audience all to itself. So, when they announce the ratings, they can brag about how many millions watched the Texas-Georgia snoozer. Of course they did - because it just means more.
*********** Whew. CBS extended its Army-Navy Game Television Agreement For 10 More Years, until 2038.
Thank goodness.
That one single game means so much to the two academies. The revenue from it is enough to fund most of their athletic budgets, which at Army includes 26 intercollegiate sports. (It might surprise people to know that no federal taxpayer dollars go to support sports at any of the service academies.)
*********** Coaching carousel - North Carolina - Not that they’d have had him anyway, after the way his team played at Army on Friday, but Jon Sumrall’s out of the running after Tulane gave him an extension (!). They’ve been talking seriously with Bill Belichick, and part of the deal, it appears, would be bringing in his son, now the DC at U of Washington, as head coach-in-waiting. I would love to see this happen.
*********** Coaching carousel - West Virginia - Rich Rodriguez took the Mountaineers to three straight top-10 seasons (2005-6-7), took Arizona to a Pac-12 Championship Game and just took Jacksonville State (9-4) to a Conference USA title - in the program’s second season in the FBS. He’s 61 now, and perhaps wiser. Will the Mountaineers have him back?
*********** Coaching carousel - UCF - Scott Frost is back. He parlayed his undefeated 2017 UCF “national championship” season into his “dream job” at Nebraska, where he wound up with a 16-31 record, a firing, and all sorts of accusations of erratic behavior. This past season he’s been working as an “analyst” with the LA Rams. It’s sad to see the way this UCF program declined since he left. To Frost’s credit, he left the Knights on good terms.
*********** Coaching carousel - Purdue - Barry Odom, who did a great job at UNLV (and didn’t do that bad a job at Missouri) is really into the heavy lifting now, taking on the Purdue job. . Purdue finished 1-11 this year. Odom was 25-25 at Missouri, and 19-8 in his two seasons with UNLV (10-3 this year). A big asset at UNLV was his OC, Brennan Marion, and he’d be a big asset at Purdue as well, but he’s reported to be first in line for the now-vacant UNLV job
*********** Coaching carousel - Central Michigan - Army assistant Matt Drinkall replaces Jim McElwain, who retired from coaching after his six seasons at CMU. Drinkall came to Army as TE coach when they scarcely used tight ends, and he almost certainly was part of last year’s abortive move to a shotgun offense. He’s been serving as offensive line coach this season.
Before Army, he had a 42-17 record as the head coach at Kansas Wesleyan from 2014-18, and reached the NAIA semifinals in 2018.
*********** Coaching carousel - Southern Miss - Charles Huff finally pulled the plug at Marshall as soon as his Thundering Herd beat Louisiana in the Sun Belt championship game.
*********** Coaching carousel - Marshall - NC State DC Tony Gibson has taken the Marshall job.
*********** Coaching carousel - Charlotte - Ohio’s Tim Albin leaves after winning the Bobcats’ first-ever MAC championship. Good luck at a place that hasn’t been easy.
*********** Coaching carousel - Temple - K.C. Keeler, who has had success at Rowan College in New Jersey, then at Delaware, and most recently at Sam Houston State, has returned to his home area (he’s a native of Emmaus, Pennsylvania) to coach the Owls. This is a serious hire, a much better one than I thought Temple was capable of. It shows they mean business. HIs overall record is 271-112-1, and he’s the only coach to win FCS titles at two different schools (Delaware and Sam Houston State). He took Sam Houston State from FCS to FBS - in his first year the Bearkats were 3-9, but this year (their second) they went 9-3. He wasn’t born yesterday, so he won’t come in expecting the same sort of support he had at Sam Houston State. Or even Delaware.
K.C. Keeler, speaking at his introductory press conference, on the importance of culture:
“ I believe that if you just are always taking transfers to fill every gap and hole, it’s tough to really develop a culture.
“So many times, coaches will rush in and try to just accumulate talent. Talent’s great. I love talent, but I want culture. I do a lot of cross-pollination. I (have) a lot of defensive coaches doing stuff with the offensive guys and offensive coaches doing stuff with the defensive guys because when you’re in the hotel or you’re on the plane or, more importantly, you’re on the sideline, you need to be able to know everybody and trust each other. So again, I do some unique things, and I think those things have moved this in a direction where our culture has been the foundation.”
*********** Hey, Kansas City - What’s with this “GEHA Field” crap? What did you do with Arrowhead Stadium?
*********** Nebraska and Ohio State:
Most disgusting fan bases ever. Anything but a national title and/or a win over the rival is unacceptable.
Nebraska still thinking it is the days of Tom Osborne.
tOSU riding Ryan Day to death
Both need some "dark days" or several in a row (see FSU) to come back down to earth.
Nebraska has had many in a row and it still hasn't gotten them off the high horse
Rhule has them bowl eligible and that isn't good enough any more even though they went 7 years not qualifying. They still claim their "national titles make them the greatest ever" even after 20 years or more.
They make their "excuses" such as officials or crowd or whatever and yet Iowa with LESS has beaten them 9 of the last 10 years.
Nebraska is going to “Nebraska” every time we play them.
tOSU is snake bitten vs. Michigan.
BUT Day brought this one on himself. a 22 million dollar roster....22 million being paid to players should equate to a win. SHOULD. So I do not feel sorry for him.
Let's face it...college football has "evened" up talent wise. Kids want to play sooner. They are looking for "the bag", there is no loyalty, or “help me to develop so I can play as a junior or senior.”
We reap what we sow.
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
PS: Pass along a “well done” to Tom Walls. I loved his newsletter. His comments are spot on. Football (and wrestling) prepared me for life. Life has a way of kicking you in the teeth (death/divorce/etc) and I remain standing today because I refused to stay down. While I am not currently coaching football I am trying to deliver the same "message" to the girls on my softball team. There is NO ADVERSITY ever that can keep you down if you don't let it.
*********** Glad to see my 'newspaper' was waiting at the doorstep this morning.
You mentioned Ryan Day connected with da Bears. Another coach even closer to Chitown has also: Marcus Freeman. Coach Gutilla has submitted a strong letter recommending Freeman.
Great story about John Mackey. That kind of attitude might have earned a Mackey in his younger years a Black Lion nod.
I very much hope Andrew Luck can do good things at Stanford. I want to believe his father's skill in sports administration have taken root in the son.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
I do hope that Marcus Freeman stays at Notre Dame. Thanks to him - I hope I’m not wrong about him - the Irish are growing on me.
And although I keep seeing Oliver Luck’s name mentioned for this big job or that, nothing seems to happen. He sure has got the resume.
*********** Hugh
I guess there are still many young people in this country that embrace their responsibilities and obligations, instead of their rights and privileges. I am reminded of it when I watch the military academies play football, and honor those who went before them showing their respect and reverence standing at attention for the playing of their alma maters. Truly inspiring.
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, I didn’t even go to West Point, but I get chills when I hear the alma mater. It was especially impressive after Friday night’s win - with the Corps of Cadets down on the field (I guess you could say they “stormed it”) you could hear them singing it.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: As a defensive line coach, Jack Patera coached the Fearsome Foursome when he was with the Rams, and he coached the Purple People Eaters when he was with the Vikings. If that wasn’t enough, he was the first coach the Seattle Seahawks ever had.
He was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, but he played his high school ball in Portland, Oregon, where he was an all-city tackle. He played his college ball at the University of Oregon under the great Len Casanova, and later recalled, “Cas probably influenced my life the most. His dedication to coaching, to the U of O, and to life in general has certainly affected me for the better, I hope.”
A four-year letterman at Oregon, he was named All-Coast, and played in the East-West Shrine Game, the Hula Bowl, and the College All-Star Game.
He was drafted in the fourth round by the Baltimore Colts, and after starting out as a guard was moved to middle linebacker after an injury to the starter.
After three seasons at middle linebacker, he resisted when moved back to guard, and he was cut. Two days later he was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals, and played two seasons for them.
In 1960, he was taken by the brand-new Dallas Cowboys in their expansion draft, and became the first middle linebacker in Cowboys’ history. But he was injured in the fourth game of the season, and never fully recovered. He stayed with the Cowboys for two seasons before retiring.
He apparently worked well with Cowboys’ new coach Tom Landry, saying, “Landry was more like Cas (Oregon’s Len Casanova) than other coaches I was associated with and that was probably why we got along so well. I probably learned as much in that first year with Dallas as I learned during my previous six years.”
In 1963, when Harland Svare became the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, he was then, at 31, the youngest head coach in NFL history. And he assembled a staff at least as young as he was, including Jack Patera, at 30. Part of the reason was his experience running Tom Landry’s defense; it was the same defense Svare ran when he coached under Landry in New York and then succeeded him as the Giants’ DC.
Patera coached the defensive line, and he had some pretty good ones: Rosey Grier, Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy and Merlin Olsen - the Fearsome Foursome. He stayed with the Rams for four years - three under Svare and one under George Allen - then moved to New York to spend two seasons under Allie Sherman.
And then he moved to Minnesota, where he worked under the great Bud Grant and once more he had the privilege of coaching one of the NFL’s great defensive lines - the so-called Purple People Eaters: Carl Eller, Gary Larsen, Jim Marshall and Alan Page.
In his seven years in Minnesota, the Vikings played in four NFL championship games and three Super Bowls, and when he finally left the Vikings, Grant told him, “You were really a key figure in our success.”
He left the Vikings because he was hired as the coach of the brand-new Seattle Seahawks.
Because, as with most NFL expansion teams, the Seahawks were undertalented, his approach was tough - because that was his way. Said offensive lineman Ron August, he “was really old-school. We were probably the last team to have a strength and conditioning coach, we were probably the last team to allow water at practice. He was old-school, but he was a great coach.”
But also, his approach was to try to do all sorts of things on offense, which proved to provide entertaining football.
By his third season, the Seahawks went 9-7 and they did the same the next year.
But back-to-back bad seasons, combined with a difficult time during a players’ strike, and an increasingly hostile relationship with the Seattle media cost him his job two games into his seventh season.
He was just 50, but he never coached again.
Recalled receiver Steve Largent, who would go on to have a Hall of Fame career with the Seahawks, “Jack was a guy who was kind of a hard guy, he had a plan, he had a way he thought you should run a team. He wanted a certain kind of player and he tried to get those players. His hands were tied by the way the league allowed teams to enter in the league. It was much harder then than it is now with free agency. But even with that, Jack was fairly successful for the way you had to build a team in those days.
"It really was a fun time period for the team. We didn't have the kind of success we wanted to have, but we were more successful than anyone else had been in the same circumstances. We just had the type of guys on our team who were really quality people, who had a lot of character and who were players who knew how to win."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JACK PATERA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Normal, Illinois but when he was 13, his family moved to Clinton, Iowa, when his father became pastor of Bethel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church there.
Although his father refused to let him play football, considering it a sport for “roughnecks,” he went out for the local high school team anyhow, as a sophomore. When his Dad discovered his wife repairing a torn football jersey, he got wise to what was going on and cracked down further. But after the son went on a hunger strike, Dad agreed to let him play - on the condition that he not get hurt.
From then on, he made it a point never to mention any bumps and bruises.
Another potential hurdle came when players had to furnish their own equipment. The family didn’t have the money to buy him both shoes AND a helmet, and when his father asked him which he needed more, he chose the shoes. Thereafter, for his entire high school career and much of his college career, he played helmetless.
After he helped lead Clinton High to two (mythical) state titles, his play came to the attention of University of Iowa alumni who persuaded him to become a Hawkeye.
Black players were rare on college rosters at that time, but Iowa was an exception, having already had some standout black players. Our guy was big for his time (6-1, 215) and with him on the line, Iowa enjoyed success it hadn’t known before.
He became Iowa’s first black All-American player as a sophomore and was honored again as a senior, when Iowa went unbeaten and won its first-ever Big Ten title.
Chicago’s Fritz Crisler, who would go on to become a legend as a coach, called him “the best tackle I ever played against.”
Said Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, “No better tackle ever trod a western gridiron.”
After his senior season he enrolled in Iowa Law School, and after holding a variety of jobs to pay his tuition, he signed to play professional football with the Rock Island (Illinois) Independents, in the then two-year-old National Football League, for $1,500. (That’s for the season.) And he became the first Black lineman in NFL history.
He put his law school plans on hold, but in 1925 he resumed pursuit of his law degree, taking classes in the morning in Iowa City and then practicing with Rock Island in the afternoon.
In 10 NFL seasons, he made seven all-pro teams as a member of the Independents and then the Chicago Cardinals. For a good part of his career, he was the NFL’s only black player.
How good was he? Recalled the Chicago Bear’s George Halas years later, “They talked about Fordham's famous Seven Blocks of Granite in the mid-1930s and what a line that was. Well, (he) was a One Man Line a decade before that.”
He retired in 1931 “when I realized that football is a young man’s game,” but after moving to Chicago to practice law, he continued to play with the Chicago Blackhawks, a team made up entirely of Black players.
He became an assistant district attorney and, in 1948, a municipal court judge, and in 1960 he became the first black judge on the Superior Court of Chicago.
In 1951, as a member of the College Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class. he became the first black man so honored.
He is in the Iowa High School Football Hall of Fame and the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1946, he was one of 11 players chosen to an all-time college football All-American team and in 1969, he was as one of 44 players chosen to an all-century team commemorating 100 years of college football.
In 1989 he was selected as a tackle on Iowa’s 100th anniversary team.
In 2020 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The field at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium is named in his honor, and outside the stadium, he’s honored by a huge bronze relief showing him in action - without a helmet.
Years later, remembering his helmetless days, he joked, “In thinking back, I’m sure Dad made a mistake. I wear size 14 shoes, and he would have saved money if he had bought the helmet.”
FRIDAY,
DECEMBER 6, 2024 ““I have made life harder than
it’s needed to be.” Josh Brolin*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: Rena and I had returned to Hillsdale for a weekend in late August, when the football team was getting ready to start practice. We stopped by to visit Dave and his wife, Shirley. He didn't mince any words in our conversation. "I kept telling you that at some point I'd like to have you as an assistant football coach,” he said. Iremember him saying that before, but I hadn't thought he was serious. Now he was offering me a job on his staff as line coach.
I told him, "Dave, if you're not kidding you may have just hired an assistant football coach.” I had hoped by the time I was 40 years old my alma mater might hire me as a coach.
There were a few obstacles, though, before I could join Nelson's staff. I had to talk to Harvey Turner, the Hillsdale president, who was concerned about the ethics of my breaking the contract I had in Port Huron. Turner's approval was contingent on getting a release from the superintendent of schools in Port Huron; the superintendent was very understanding, but Brick Fowler, his athletic Director, was not. He ripped me every bit as effectively as I had been by some senior Marine officers. But finally he said, “Well, I can't stop you if the superintendent has given you the OK.”
So, three months out of college, I was on the Hillsdale payroll for the 1947–48 school year as offensive and defensive line coach, trainer, director of intramurals and physical education instructor. After the end of football season Dave Nelson said being football coach and athletic director was taking all his time so he was appointing me head baseball coach. All these responsibilities for a salary of $2,400 - that’s for a year not a month.
I had a hard time comprehending such an unbelievable, incredible, wonderful, astonishing thing had happened to me. If I looked just a little bit smug would you blame me?
*********** CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS WEEKEND
Before we start: I am rooting - bigly - for all the “NEW GUYS” - Oregon, Texas, SMU and Arizona State to come in and win their conferences’ titles in their first years as members. (ARMY, TOO, FOR THAT MATTER.)
FRIDAY
CONFERENCE USA - 7 PM EASTERN
WESTERN KENTUCKY (8-4) AT JACKSONVILLE STATE (8-4) - JACKSONVILLE STATE FAVORED BY 3 -
I don’t know enough about either team but I do know that Rich Rod has done a really good job at Jacksonville and he might be hoping that not everybody in West Virginia (where the job is now open) still hates him for the way he jilted them
***
MOUNTAIN WEST - 8 PM EASTERN
UNLV (10-2) AT BOISE STATE (11-1) - BOISE STATE FAVORED BY 4 -
For lots of reasons. I have to go with the Broncos. I like Ashton Jeanty; the people at Boise were so gracious when we took my grandson from Australia to visit the blue field; and the Broncos are going to be Pac-12 members. PLUS - they played Oregon tougher than anybody in the hoity-toity Big Ten.
***
AMERICAN ATHLETIC - 8 PM EASTERN
TULANE (9-3) AT ARMY (10-1) - TULANE FAVORED BY 4.5 -
Of course I’ll go with Army and Bryson Daily - and take the points. Yes, I remember the way Tulane shut down Navy not so long ago. And I remember what Notre Dame did to Army a few weeks ago. But Tulane, while good, is not Notre Dame. I’m hoping that Tulane will be distracted by the talk of their coach, Jon Sumrall, possibly heading to North Carolina (after ONE F—KING YEAR). And I’m hoping that an 8 PM game in the Hudson Valley in December will freeze those southern boys’ asses off.
SATURDAY
BIG-12 - NOON EASTERN
IOWA STATE (10-2) AT ARIZONA STATE (10-2) - ARIZONA STATE FAVORED BY 2.5
Arizona State is really hot. I like the QB, Sam Leavitt, because he’s an Oregon kid and an old coaching associate, Jon Eagle, was his high school coach. And I really like their running back, Cam Skattebo, because he’s a throwback to the days when everybody had a tough dude like him at running back.
***
MAC - NOON EASTERN
OHIO (9-3) AT MIAMI (8-4) - MIAMI FAVORED BY 2.5 -
I’ll take Ohio U because, like Aberdeen, Washington - they’re the Bobcats. I know - that’s no better reason than my wife picking a horse because it’s gray.
***
SEC - - 4 PM EASTERN
TEXAS (11-1) VS GEORGIA (10-2) AT ATLANTA - TEXAS FAVORED BY 2.5 -
Thinking back to the Georgia Tech game, will we see “First Half Georgia” or “Second Half Georgia?” Or - what if Georgia plays less than its best for TWO halves? While waiting for answers, I think Texas wins this one. Texas, as they say in baseball, is due.
***
SUNBELT - 7:30 PM EASTERN
MARSHALL (9-3) AT LOUISIANA (10-2) - LOUISIANA FAVORED BY 3.5 -
Marshall did a great job of beating James Madison in OT to get to this game. But Marshall’s Charles Huff has basically been working without a contract, and there are strong rumors that he’s headed to Southern Miss. For that reason alone, I have to go with the Cajuns.
***
BIG TEN - 8 PM EASTERN
OREGON (12-0) VS PENN STATE (11-1) AT INDIANAPOLIS - OREGON FAVORED BY 3.5
Last time they met was 1994, in the Rose Bowl. It was Penn State’s first year in the Big Ten. (Actually, that made it the Big Eleven, but who’s counting anymore?) The question here is - it’s not Ohio State, but is this game big enough that James Franklin freezes? Ducks - because Oregon has weapons, and also a very tough defense. And Penn State has James “Run ‘Em Up” Franklin.
***
ACC - 8 PM EASTERN
CLEMSON (9-3) VS SMU (11-1) AT CHARLOTTE - SMU FAVORED BY 2.5 -
I would ordinarily go for Clemson and I still might, but I was very disappointed in the way they pissed away the South Carolina game. The only thing that keeps me from going for SMU is that I keep hearing what obnoxious rich bastards they can be.
*********** When we talk about the greatness of certain players, we sometimes can get too carried away with stats. Unfortunately, there’s no way of measuring - and therefore no way of letting others know - the value of a man to his team.
It’s not that the Baltimore Colts’ John Mackey didn’t have the stats to justify his being considered one of the greatest tight ends ever to play the game. But he did so much more for his team just by being the man he was.
In a book I was perusing - “Sundays at 2:00 With the Baltimore Colts” - former Colts’ General Manager Ernie Accorsi recalled how much Mackey meant to the team.
“John just exuded leadership qualities. He lifted everybody, although he may not be recognized so much for that. Facing a tough road game, you'd see John get on the bus and you knew things were going to be all right.”
Accorsi went on,
In 1970 we traded for wide receiver Roy Jefferson, who had a reputation for trouble in Pittsburgh.
Coach Don McCafferty told (assistant coach) Dick Bielski, "Run him. I want to see how fast he is.”
I was in McCafferty's office when Dick came back. “What did he run?” Don asked.
"He wouldn't run. He told me to go to hell.“
About three minutes later, John Mackey walked in and said, "Coach, room him with me. I want him to realize how we do things here. “
How did that work out? The Colts won the Super Bowl that season. And, noted Accorsi, without Jefferson, “We wouldn’t have smelled the Super Bowl.”
*********** I was talking with a friend who said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if the Bears hired Ryan Day?”
Yes, I said, it would be very cool. And so richly deserved by those “fans” in Columbus.
Ohio State chews up coaches and spits them out.
And we're not talking bad coaches doing bad jobs.
Other than Luke Fickell, who had the job on an interim basis after Jim Tressel was let go, only one coach at Ohio State since 1951 has had a winning percentage less than .750 - and that was John Cooper, at .715.
Yet not one of them got to leave Columbus of his own volition.
To find the last one who did, you have to go back to 1943, when Paul Brown left to join the Navy during World War II. When the War ended, he did come back to Ohio - but to Cleveland, as the first coach of the Browns.
Since Paul Brown…
Carroll Widdoes
Paul Bixler
Wes Fesler
Woody Hayes
Earle Bruce
John Cooper
Jim Tressel
Luke Fickell
Urban Meyer
Ryan Day
*********** You heard it from me, and I heard it from my son, Ed, who lives in Melbourne, Australia (and has to be the Mountain West’s most far-flung reporter): New Mexico’s Devon Dampier (remember seeing him on my last Zoom?) may be about to be snatched up by a Power 4 school.
Utah is said to be closing in on hiring Jason Beck, New Mexico’s offensive coordinator, and I can’t believe that Utah would hire the guy without the QB accompanying him. Nor can I believe he would take a job without bringing Dampier along. (Transfer Portal opens Monday.)
Me - I hope the story’s true. Getting a QB like Dampier would light any coach’s fire.
I like Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, and I’ve hated seeing him looking beaten down this season.
*********** The Baltimore Ravens suspended wide receiver Diontae Johnson for one game because he refused to go into the game against the Eagles.
What’s the big deal? College players routinely refuse to even suit up for bowl games, and nothing happens to them. No repercussions at all. Many of them are actually allowed to stand on the sidelines at the bowl games in street clothes, as if they were still full-fledged members of their teams. I don’t know whether they still keep their scholarships - including room and board - but I do know that many of those bowl holdouts are still able to take part in their schools’ pro days. So some on, Ravens - lighten up on old Diontae.
*********** For years, Oregon’s high school sports governing body listened to coaches’ complaints about the lopsided scores of first-round playoff games, especially in the largest classification, 6A.
Finally, they decided to do something about it, but as a result, they wound up with two 6A state championships:
(1) The 6A Open championship. It’s not unlike the College Football Playoff, with the top 12 teams in the final rankings, adjusted as necessary to make sure all six 6A league champions get in. The top four seeds get a first-round bye. The winner is the “Class 6A Open Champion.”
(2) The 6A State championship: 16 teams - seeds 13-28 - are placed in a bracket and play for the “state championship.” The winner is the “Class 6A State champion,” and the winning team’s trophy looks identical to the ones given out to all the state champions in all the other classes.
Yeah. But what about seeds 29 and higher? Don’t they deserve a trophy, too?
*********** Oregon State coach Dee Andros believed in power football - he wrote a book (a pretty good one) titled “Power T Football.”
His philosophy? “Run the ball up the gut and rely on a rugged defense.”
He once ran his fullback, Pete Pifer, 17 straight times in a win over Syracuse in 1965.
He believed in recruiting the best athletes on their team, regardless of position, and as a result, one of his Oregon State teams had 17 starters who had played either fullback or quarterback on their high school teams.
*********** Credit Stanford for realizing they had to do something.
The last time they were mired like this, in 2006, they hired a real AD - Bob Bowslby - who hired Jim Harbaugh.
Recently, coming off a 3-9 season (their second in a row), Stanford didn’t hire an AD. Not exactly. But they did hire a guy who, it appears, will have the power to do exactly what Bob Bowlsby did.
The guy is Andrew Luck. He’s been hired as “General Manager.” But the question is - will he do what Bowlsby did?
The situation is dire: Stanford hasn’t won more than four games in a season since 2018, when David Shaw, after a great eight-year run in which the Card went 82-25 (with no season worse than 8-5) and played in three Rose Bowls, saw his program take a nose dive. His last four years at Stanford were 4-8, 4-2 (Covid), 3-9 and 3-9.
His replacement, Troy Taylor, has done no better. He’s had back-to-back 3-9 seasons. Other than an amazing comeback against Colorado in 2023 and a shocking upset of Louisville this season, Stanford football under him has been, well, dismal.
What worries me about Andrew Luck is one of the things I heard him say about Troy Taylor: “He’s had incredible success everywhere he’s been.”
Now, maybe Andrew Luck is including his record as a high school coach, and I guess he was pretty good, but he’s only been a head coach at two colleges - one of them FCS Sacramento State - for a total of five years, and his record at Stanford is 6-18.
When they hired Troy Taylor, I remember thinking, “Is this the best you can do? Really?” It appeared to me that they hired on the cheap.
Think of that for a minute - this is one of the world’s great universities. When they have an opening in their economics department, or their physics department, or their music department, they’re able to hire from the very best applicants in the field. And, presumably (taking DEI into account) they do.
Why shouldn’t football be the same? Hire the best football coach in America and give him a large enough budget and then - just as Stanford’s academics lure students from all over the world - attract football players by showing them that in addition to the value of a Stanford diploma, they’ll prepare players for a potential NFL career by providing them with the very best coaching available anywhere. Are you listening, Coach Belichick?
*********** Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi is said to be very excited about the recruiting class that the Panthers just signed:
Pitt recruits
Name, previous school, Pos., Ht./Wt., Stars (Rivals)
Mason Alexander, Hamilton Southeastern (Ind.), DB, 6-0/180, 4
Julian Anderson, Blair Academy (N.J.), ATH, 6-4/215, 3
Jaylin Brown, Cardinal Newman (Fla.), RB, 5-11/185, 3
Torian Chester, Westover (Ga.), OL, 6-5/320, 3
Denim Cook, Bishop Hartley (Ohio), LB, 6-4/245, 3
Akram Elnagmi, UK/NFL Academy (UK), OL, 6-6/295, 3
Jordan Fields, North Shore (Texas), OL, 6-6/265, 3
Joshua Guerrier, Ocoee (Fla.), ATH, 5-11/170, 3
Mason Heintschel, Clay (Ohio), QB, 6-2/200, 3
Max Hunt, Plant (Fla.), TE, 6-5/210, 3
Tony Kinsler, Spruce Creek (Fla.), RB, 5-11/165, 3
Shawn Lee, Milford Academy (N.Y.), ATH, 6-1/180, 3
Cameron Sapp, Miami Palmetto (Fla.), WR, 5-9/165, 3
Synkwan Smith, Roswell (Ga.), 5-9/165, 3
Trevor Sommers, St. Thomas Aquinas (Fla.), DE, 6-3/255, 3
Emmanuel Taylor, Green Run (Va.), WR, 6-2/200, 3
Justin Thompson, Good Counsel (Md.), LB, 6-3/225, 3
*Shep Turk, Thomas Jefferson, OL, 6-5/275, 3
Ja'Kyrian Turner, South Sumter (Fla.), WR, 5-10/170, 3
Cole Woodson, Battlefield (Va.), DB, 6-0/190, 3
Bryce Yates, Matoaca (Va.), WR, 6-0/165, 3
Notice anything strange?
Although Pittsburgh is in the heart of Western Pennsylvania, long a recruiting hotbed, the Panthers signed just one Pennsylvanian - Shep Turk, from suburban Clairton
*********** Instead of pumping all this money into promoting a softer type of football (“flag”), the NFL should get off its ass and get busy making real football safer.
*********** The Following is a reprint of Bill Battle’s obituary by the National Football Foundation. After becoming a big-time head coach at a very young age, and then becoming an ex-head football coach at a very young age, he did a remarkable job of reinventing himself.
Bill Battle, the 2008 NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award recipient who played at Alabama, coached at Tennessee and founded the Collegiate Licensing Company, passed away Nov. 28. He was 82.
After accepting the NFF OCAF Award in 2008, Battle joined the NFF Board of Trustees, serving in emeritus capacity until his passing. He also served as the athletics director at Alabama from 2013 to 2017.
"Bill Battle did it all in the world of college athletics, and he did it with class and style," said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. "A player, coach, administrator, and marketing innovator, Bill Battle ranks among the most influential figures of his generation in college athletics. He knew how to motivate on the playing field and in the boardroom, and he was one of the people who understood the future of college athletics, helping lay the foundation for many of the advances which we all enjoy today. We were particularly grateful for his service on the NFF Board of Trustees, and we are deeply saddened by his loss. He was a friend to all and a wonderful man and great American."
A legend in the world of collegiate marketing, Bill Battle leveraged his experiences as a player for Bear Bryant at Alabama and as a head coach at Tennessee to build the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) into a major force in the multi-billion-dollar annual market for collegiate merchandise, earning hundreds of million in royalties for his clients over the years.
His passion for collegiate athletics and a strong interest in marketing led him to launch Golden Eagle Enterprises in 1981, and he landed his coach, Bear Bryant, and alma mater, Alabama, as his first licensing client.
By 1983, Battle had signed eight other schools and moved the renamed Collegiate Licensing Company to Atlanta, Georgia from Selma, Alabama. With an unrelenting focus on providing his clients with greater exposure and the broadest range of licensing services, Battle built CLC into a national leader in the multi-billion annual market for collegiate licensed merchandise. Battle sold the enterprise to IMG in 2007. At the time, his client list encompassed more than 200 colleges, universities, bowls and conferences, representing more than 75 percent of the annual market at the time of the sale.
A member of Hall of Fame Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's first national championship team in 1961, Battle was a three-year starter from 1960-62 for the Crimson Tide, earning spots on the UA All-Decade Team for the 1960s as first-team tight end and second-team defensive end.
Battle followed his playing days by entering the coaching profession as an assistant at the University of Oklahoma under Hall of Fame Coach Bud Wilkinson. From 1964-1965, he served at the U.S. Military Academy, including work as an assistant football coach under Paul Dietzel.
He arrived at the University of Tennessee in 1966 as an assistant to Hall of Fame Coach Doug Dickey, and in 1970, when Dickey left for Florida, Battle, 28 years-old, assumed the head coaching position, becoming the youngest coach at the time, tallying a 59-22-2 record and five straight bowl appearances with three squads finishing in the top ten. His 55 wins rank fourth all-time in UT history, while his .723 winning percentage is sixth in Vol annals.
Following the sale of CLC to IMG, Battle returned to his alma mater in 2013 to serve as director of athletics for four years. During his tenure, Alabama produced three NCAA team national championships (including football in 2015), 10 SEC team championships in five different sports,15 NCAA individual champions, 43 Academic All-Americans, including six Academic All-Americans of the Year and 16 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship awardees.
Following his tenure as AD, Battle continued on at UA as special assistant to The University of Alabama president where he assisted Dr. Stuart R. Bell in a variety of initiatives benefiting the University and the Department of Athletics.
A native of Birmingham, Ala., Battle was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of fame in 1981 and was the first member inducted into the National Collegiate Licensing Association Hall of Fame in 2000. He was named one of Street & Smith's 20 Most Influential People in College Athletics.
He has also been inducted into the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association Hall of Fame (2008), the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators Hall of Fame (2010), Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame (2011), the Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame (2016) and the Alabama Business Hall of Fame (2017).
He served on the boards of Birmingham Southern College, the Bryant-Jordan Student-Athlete Foundation, The University of Alabama A-Club Educational & Charitable Foundation, the Crimson Tide Foundation and along with his wife, Mary,on UAB's Stem Cell Institute Board.
Battle earned a master's degree from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from The University of Alabama and an Honorary Doctor of Law from Birmingham Southern College.
With all his other accomplishments, let’s not forget that Bill Battle was the head coach at Tennessee who recruited a kid from Huntsville, Alabama named Condredge Holloway, and enabled him to become the first black quarterback in the SEC.
*********** Tom Walls started and built a strong high school football program (with significant assistance from his wife, Shandy) at Springfield Collegiate Institute, in suburban Winnipeg, Canada. A major strength of the program is the job Tom does of keeping lots of people involved and keeping them informed year-round. One of the major ways he does it is through his newsletter, and I thought you might enjoy his latest…
https://22.files.edl.io/2db8/12/05/24/202435-5ca38d94-1121-4fb6-adb0-10f56c0b8a6b.pdf
*********** It wasn’t that long ago that Eric Bienemy was being passed over for jobs, and woke sportswriters were climbing all over each other to find different ways of suggesting that racism had to be at play. So what do you suppose they’ll be saying after today’s news that he was just fired by UCLA, whose head coach, DeShaun Foster, is a black man?
*********** We all see the horrible state of CFB. Four times Saturday we witnessed the stupid attempted "planting" of school flags. We saw a few cops outnumbered in some cases by 20:1. At some point those cops will need more than pepper spray. To combat the nasty stuff happening on the field, I would jack up the fine from 100,000 to one million for the school or schools responsible AND sideline the QB and head coaches for, let's say, three games. But that proposal stands near no chance of implementation because the NCAA is virtually impotent. What we've been seeing and you've been reporting for a long while is important in prime part because the players are being trained to be good citizens and good neighbors. I contrast the way today's CFB players are handled with the way the Hillsdale faculty and family treated young Mike Lude.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
While I believe Travis Hunter will win the Heisman (after all he IS the best ALL-AROUND football player in the country based upon the original intention of what the award was to represent). Two-way starter, great receiver, great DB, and a great special team player. BUT…based upon results over the last 20 years Jeanty is just as deserving.
Army-Tulane: The Green Wave can still take home the AAC Championship with a win, and go to a bowl game. Army can also win it. Army still has Navy and the CIC Championship. (I’m wondering which of the two trophies will carry the most weight?). Army will also look forward to a bowl. The AAC championship will be held at frosty West Point. Friday night’s high will be in the high 20’s!
The Golden Gophers brought home Paul Bunyan’s axe! As Coach PJ Fleck says after a win… Row the boat! Go Gophers!
Ski-U-Mah!!
ND earned a home playoff game. Likely a sun belt school. No matter who it is South Bend in December?? Good luck wit dat! UNLESS… the playoff committee decides Indiana travels a short drive north to make it a money game.
Speaking of money… word has it Michigan offered LSU “commit” Bryce Underwood over 6 million to “flip” his “commitment.” I guess those words truly don’t have the same meaning they used to.
The Ohio State-Michigan post-game brawl, along with what we saw in a few other games leads me to the following:
As Lou Holtz once stated (and I’m paraphrasing) …Used to be we were more concerned with responsibilities and obligations. Now it’s all about rights and privileges.
West Virginia HC candidates… my money is on Jimbo Fisher or Rich Rodriguez.
We lost another coaching legend last week with the passing of former Tennessee Vol Bill Battle. RIP Coach.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I would like to see Jeanty win the Heisman if only to help put a lid on the transfers of kids who are being told that they won’t get noticed at a Group of 5 school
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Charlie Caldwell was born on “the Virginia side” of Bristol Virginia-Tennessee.
He was an outstanding football player at Princeton, but he was also an outstanding baseball and basketball player, and he spent a year with the New York Yankees before deciding that he had no future in baseball. As a college player, though, he actually had a higher batting average than a player at rival Columbia - Lou Gehrig. It may be legend, but according to some, it was his beaning of Yankee first baseman Wally Pipp that led to the headache that caused Pipp to be removed from the lineup and replaced by Gehrig.
Offered a job at Princeton by his former head coach, Bill Roper, he stayed there for three years, mostly coaching the freshmen, but also scouting, which enabled him to travel to places in the Midwest and East and observe many aspects of the game.
After three years, he was offered the head coaching job at Williams College, in Massachusetts, where for much of his time there he coached football, baseball and basketball.
He stayed at Williams for 13 years, and his football teams, running his single wing, compiled an overall record of 76-37-6. (His three-sport overall record was 254-177-6.)
Williams had to give up football for two years during World War II, and unable to serve in the armed forces because of nearsightedness, he got a leave of absence from Williams so that he could assist at Yale, and he also served as a scout for Army coach Earl Blaik.
And then, as World War II was ending, in 1945 he was hired by his alma mater as its head coach. The program was down, but by 1950 his Tigers - and their single wing - were gaining national recognition. From October, 1949 until November, 1952, Princeton won 30 of 31 games, and they were undefeated in both 1950 and 1951.
In 1950 he was named AFCA Coach of the Year, and his tailback, Dick Kazmaier, won the Heisman Trophy.
In 1957, while still the head coach at Princeton, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had to step down from his position. He died in November of that year, at the age of 55. (I was a sophomore at Yale at the time, and I remember hearing the news that the head coach of our nemesis, the Princeton Tigers, had cancer.)
In Charlie Caldwell's book, Modern Single Wing Football, published in 1950, he told of what - and who - inspired him to become a coach:
The longer I coach, the more I work with boys, the more clearly I understand that the seemingly small incidents – often chance happenings – are largely responsible for those decisions that shape an individual’s career. In my own case, it took a great team, and the master coach of them all, Knute Rockne, to convince me that football was for me, that coaching was a profession requiring the same kind of intense study and lifelong devotion demanded of teachers, lawyers and even of doctors.
No, I never played for Rockne. I played against him, or against his 1924 team that included the celebrated four Horsemen, Elmer Layden, Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley and Don Miller. It happened in Palmer Stadium on a sunny October twenty-fifth, and never before in my life had I spent such a frustrating, disappointing afternoon. We were beaten, 12-0, and the final score could've been 28-0, or possibly higher. The score didn't bother me – it was the way in which Rockne's men handled us, particularly me.
The 1924 Princeton team was a better-than-average Princeton team. We had beaten Navy, we later turned back Harvard, 34 to 0 and lost to a sound Yale team, 10-0. Yet against Notre Dame I felt as if we were being toyed with. I was backing up the line and I don't believe I made a clean tackle all afternoon. There would come Layden, or Miller, or someone. I would get set to drop the ball carrier in his tracks and someone would give me a nudge, just enough to throw me off balance, just enough pressure to make me miss. I played the whole game that way, giving a completely lackluster performance.
We were walking up the chute to the dressing rooms after the game and I actually felt ready for another two hours of contact. I wasn't tired, nor was I beaten down physically as I generally was after a big game. Others walking with me agreed. As we pieced together our individual reactions to our defeat, we began to see that we had met something new, something we had never anticipated. We, and I am writing this in retrospect, had been subjected to our first lesson in what might be called the science of football.
These Rockne inspired thoughts stayed with me for a long, long time.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CHARLIE CALDWELL
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA - Tried to read his book, one of the most difficult books on Football I ever read.
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: As a defensive line coach, he coached the Fearsome Foursome when he was with the Rams, and he coached the Purple People Eaters when he was with the Vikings. If that wasn’t enough, he was the first coach the Seattle Seahawks ever had.
He was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, but he played his high school ball in Portland, Oregon, where he was an all-city tackle. He played his college ball at the University of Oregon under the great Len Casanova, and later recalled, “Cas probably influenced my life the most. His dedication to coaching, to the U of O, and to life in general has certainly affected me for the better, I hope.”
A four-year letterman at Oregon, he was named All-Coast, and played in the East-West Shrine Game, the Hula Bowl, and the College All-Star Game.
He was drafted in the fourth round by the Baltimore Colts, and after starting out as a guard was moved to middle linebacker after an injury to the starter.
After three seasons at middle linebacker, he resisted when moved back to guard, and he was cut. Two days later he was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals, and played two seasons for them.
In 1960, he was taken by the brand-new Dallas Cowboys in their expansion draft, and became the first middle linebacker in Cowboys’ history. But he was injured in the fourth game of the season, and never fully recovered. He stayed with the Cowboys for two seasons before retiring.
He apparently worked well with Cowboys’ new coach Tom Landry, saying, “Landry was more like Cas (Oregon’s Len Casanova) than other coaches I was associated with and that was probably why we got along so well. I probably learned as much in that first year with Dallas as I learned during my previous six years.”
In 1963, when Harland Svare became the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, he was then, at 31, the youngest head coach in NFL history. And he assembled a staff at least as young as he was, including our guy, at 30. Part of the reason was his experience running Tom Landry’s defense; it was the same defense Svare ran when he coached under Landry in New York and then succeeded him as the Giants’ DC.
Our guy coached the defensive line, and he had some pretty good ones: Rosey Grier, Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy and Merlin Olsen - the Fearsome Foursome. He stayed with the Rams for four years - three under Svare and one under George Allen - then moved to New York to spend two seasons under Allie Sherman.
And then he moved to Minnesota, where he worked under the great Bud Grant and once more he had the privilege of coaching one of the NFL’s great defensive lines - the so-called Purple People Eaters: Carl Eller, Gary Larsen, Jim Marshall and Alan Page.
In his seven years in Minnesota, the Vikings played in four NFL championship games and three Super Bowls, and when he finally left the Vikings, Grant told him, “You were really a key figure in our success.”
He left the Vikings because he was hired as the coach of the brand-new Seattle Seahawks.
Because, as with most NFL expansion teams, the Seahawks were undertalented, his approach was tough - because that was his way. Said offensive lineman Ron August, he “was really old-school. We were probably the last team to have a strength and conditioning coach, we were probably the last team to allow water at practice. He was old-school, but he was a great coach.”
But also, his approach was to try to do all sorts of things on offense, which proved to provide entertaining football.
By his third season, the Seahawks went 9-7 and they did the same the next year.
But back-to-back bad seasons, combined with a difficult time during a players’ strike, and an increasingly hostile relationship with the Seattle media cost him his job two games into his seventh season.
He was just 50, but he never coached again.
Recalled receiver Steve Largent, who would go on to have a Hall of Fame career with the Seahawks, “(He) was a guy who was kind of a hard guy, he had a plan, he had a way he thought you should run a team. He wanted a certain kind of player and he tried to get those players. His hands were tied by the way the league allowed teams to enter in the league. It was much harder then than it is now with free agency. But even with that, (he) was fairly successful for the way you had to build a team in those days.
"It really was a fun time period for the team. We didn't have the kind of success we wanted to have, but we were more successful than anyone else had been in the same circumstances. We just had the type of guys on our team who were really quality people, who had a lot of character and who were players who knew how to win."
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2024 “If I were to be born again, I
would like to be born in the United States.” Winston Churchill *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Dave Nelson's inaugural season as a head coach was successful. Our Hillsdale college team lost just one game, a 13-6 setback at the hands of Albion, one of the school’s longtime rivals in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association. We were co-champions of the MIAA, and no one took more pride in that season than I did. Besides serving as team captain, I played almost every down at guard.
“Nelson commanded our respect from the start of two-a-day practices going into the 1946 season. The team was a mix of returning veterans and an assortment of talent Nelson had recruited to play the same Michigan Single Wing formation he competed in as a pre-war Wolverine. Nelson wasn't more than a few years older than those of us who had returned from World War II, so we developed a special rapport with our new coach. Yet he could be tough and demanding, a strong leader who never lost the reins of control.
“We had two outstanding running backs, Tom Wood from Imlay City, Michigan, and Bill Young from the Detroit area. Other standouts on the team included Dick Pifer, a Hillsdale product and brother of Rena; center Alex Clelland from Detroit, and Carl Sweig, a transfer who had played at Albion before the war.
“In the classroom, I was much improved. Good grades came a lot easier now that I had learned to study and prioritize my time. The biology department was proud of me. I was having a great year, with one exception. Rena Pifer, the love interest in my life, had received a scholarship to a preschool education specialty institution in Detroit, during spring semester. That was a downer, but the romance still thrived. Just a few days after our graduation ceremony we were married in Rena’s Hillsdale Presbyterian Church, on June 5, 1947. After a short honeymoon in Chicago we headed for Port Huron, Michigan, where we had jobs in the city’s summer recreation program. In September Rena would teach kindergarten and I would become a high school assistant football and head baseball coach.
“Then Dave Nelson threw me a curveball.
“He offered me a job.”
*********** THINK THIS DOESN’T GO OVER WELL WITH SUPERINTENDENTS AND PRINCIPALS?
For several years the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association and the Washington Officials Association (WIAA – WOA) have placed an emphasis on sportsmanship in High School sports throughout the state.
The South Sound Football Officials Association (SSFOA) took this initiative very seriously and in 1998 we created a sportsmanship/scholarship program. Eligibility for our sportsmanship/scholarship program centers on schools in our service area, players, coaches and fans which exemplify sportsmanship in their football programs. Since 1998 we have provided over $68,000 in scholarships to help young men and women further their education at the next level.
Our members selected Aberdeen (2A, 3A and 4A schools) and Montesano (1B, 2B and 1A schools) to receive the South Sound Football Officials Association Sportsmanship Award for 2024 season. Each school will select two students to receive our scholarship award, each student will receive a $1,000 scholarship to help further their education at the next level.
Our officials donate money from their game fees to cover the cost of these scholarships along with a generous donation of $2,500.00 from Dr. Mark Simmonds of Simmonds Chiropractic who is excited to support the program. We as an Association believe strongly in giving back to communities and this is one way that we can have a positive impact.
Congratulations to all the schools this year for an outstanding season, and especially to this year's winners, Aberdeen and Montesano.
*********** Brad Knight’s and my picks - many of them emotionally based, few of them backed by hard analysis, a couple of them downright idiotic.
THURSDAY - AS I WENT TO PRESS, SO IT WENT UNPREDICTED…
MEMPHIS 34, TULANE 24 - UH-OH. There went any chance that Tulane had of making the Playoff as the best Group of Five team. And there, too, went any chance of anyone other than the Army Corps of Cadets being on hand to watch next Saturday, when Tulane visits West Point to play Army for the AAC championship. Until Memphis’ upset, Tulane was ranked higher than any Big-12 team, which would have given it an automatic Playoff berth.
FRIDAY
BOISE STATE 34, OREGON STATE 18 - Jeanty 200 and 3 scores. Or more (if they keep him in the game) If he does not win the Heisman it is a sham. He won't...but he should. Will be a nice consolation prize to see a non QB win for a change if we get so lucky. (ME) Watch out, Broncos - the Beavers played very well in beating Washington State last week. This one is DEFINITELY a trap. But I’m pulling for Jeanty for the Heisman - imagine one from a Group of 5 school!
IN SUM: Did Jeanty lose the Heisman? Yes, he may have rushed for 226. But he had “only” one TD. And he fumbled! Yes, it was only his second of the year, but still… OSU, meanwhile, misses out on a bowl game.
COLORADO 52, OKLAHOMA STATE 0 - Will see if the Buffs can rebound after being humbled by the Jayhawks. I think Okie St is bad...I'll take the Buffs. Colorado will attempt to make a statement that their losses should not disqualify them from playoff contention. ME: Have to take the Buffs, now that the Big 12 has decided that it was okay for Shedeur to shove that ref.
IN SUM: Will Shedeur and Hunter pass on the Buffs’ bowl game? Will “Coach Prime” be back or is he just another daddy coach? What’s the over/under on the number of assistants Mike Gundy will have to replace?
MINNESOTA 24, WISCONSIN 7 - Give me Wiscy since I hate the NOPHERS. Sorry to my friend Joe Gutilla. The feeling between Nophers and Hawkeyes is mutual hatred. I'll pick against PJ and the Nophers unless they play Nebraska or Iowa State. Man I do kinda miss Kinnick North. And it still wasn't a fair catch. ME: Gophers all the way. Just watched Nebraska and Wisconsin in its entirety on Tuesday night, and Fickell picked a hell of a time to let his OC go. If the Badgers lose, Fickell won’t even collect his (very sizable) bowl bonus this year.
IN SUM: Badgers have now lost five straight. Who would have thought that Barry Alvarez’ legacy would be a Wisconsin football team that rushed for 36 yards against that state to the west?
NAVY 34, EAST CAROLINA 20 - Give me the Midshipmen. I kinda want to pick the Pirates (since I once was a Pirate, and Coach Leach loved Pirates) but I think the MIddies are better. ME: I’ve seen the Pirates the last couple of games and - with an interim coach - they’ve played well. I’m going to take a chance and go ECU.
IN SUM: Navy QB Blake Horvath unavailable? No problem. Up steps Sophomore Braxton Woodson, 6-3, 215, completing 12 of 19 for 165 and a TD and carrying 15 times for 125 yards and two TDs. Sure hope Army noticed that it is possible to give a backup quarterback enough practice reps that he can run your whole offense.
OLE MISS 26, MISSISSIPPI STATE 14 - Give me the Rebs...BIG. All 3 loss SEC teams are going to try to make a statement that they should be in the playoff mix. Kiffin's team was embarrassed by an unrated team last week. Maybe they choose to show up and not throw 3 INT's in 4 plays at the end of the game. ME: There’s a lot of emotion in this one but Mississippi State just doesn’t have it. Rebels by a lot.
IN SUM: State, playing their best game of the year, made it a lot closer than anyone expected.
COLORADO STATE 42, UTAH STATE 37 - This one has a chance to be a really decent game. I like the Aggies to win a close one, late. This is my favorite of the Aggies. Had a buddy who coached there for a short while. ME: Aggies. CSU finally got brought down to earth last week by Fresn
IN SUM: Down 30-13 after three quarters, Rams scored 29 straight points in the fourth. Aggies finally managed a TD with :14 left to make it close.
SAN JOSE STATE 34, STANFORD 31- San Jose State drubs Stanford. UNLESS Stanford plays like they did against Louisville. (or be honest if San Jose plays like Lousiville did against Stanford. I'll take SJSU. And hope they can outplay Louisville who played O'Possum (dead) against Stanford. ME: Lots of Bay Area kids on that SJSU team that would love to beat Stanford. The game might not matter as much to the Stanford kids after their total fold last week against Cal. But I’m gonna take a chance and say Stanford.
IN SUM: Stanford wins this year’s Choker Award. Stanford scored twice in the fourth quarter to take a 31-27 lead, but after a very controversial interception, San Jose State went ahead at 1:55 remaining, and then Stanford’s final comeback attempt ended when the QB fumbled.
GEORGIA 44, GEORGIA TECH 42 (8 OTS) - Georgia in the rivalry game. I really want to pick Tech because I love their QB. BUT GA has too much on the line. Once considered out of the playoff now they are back in with a chance to move up. ME: Clean, old-fashioned hate. Since this one’s being played between the hedges, I have to go with UGA. But give ‘em a game, Tech!
IN SUM: Absolutely amazing game - first because Georgia didn't seem serious; then, because Georgia did; and then because the two teams went toe-to-toe..
IOWA 13, NEBRASKA 10 - HAWKEYES ALL DAY. Only team I dislike more than ISU is Nebraska. A steady dose of KJ against their 3-5 defense and Iowa wins. KJ should be invited to NY. He won't be....but I sure hope he sticks around for another year at Iowa. ME: Look out, Knighter - I saw what Holgorsen did for NU against Wisconsin - they look like a new team. Playing offense. Moving the ball. Scoring points, even. This is my upset pick.
IN SUM: Nebraska put on the tough guy act, refusing to shake hands, but they couldn't back it up. Huskers' fans deserve better.
UTAH 28, UCF 14 - I'll take the Utes in the battle of the dumpster fires. Utah gave ISU all they wanted a week ago. Whittingham possibly leaving? Hearing rumors. Not sure I believe any of them. But this Utes team has been a disappointment for sure. ME: I HAVE to take the Utes. This could be Kyle Whittingham’s last game. (A HUGE loss for football if it is.)
IN SUM: It was Gus Malzahn's last game as UCF head coach. This program is a sleeping giant.
SATURDAY
MICHIGAN 13, OHIO STATE 10- tOSU wins again FINALLY. But I do expect Michigan to play better than they have all season long. tOSU but close. No dog in the fight, secretly hoping Michigan wins again so i can see the pain on Day's face after spending 22 million to pay this group. ME: I happen to LIKE Ryan Day and I’d hate for him to have to go through another off-season with a loss to Michigan on his back. So, too, would Buckeyes’ fans. who will scream for his neck. Go Buckeyes!
IN SUM: I don’t see how you could watch this and not believe in jinxes. Ohio State, literally the best team that money can buy, got its ass whipped by a sub-par Michigan team. The Buckeyes scored just one touchdown and rushed for 77 yards. Truthfully, it was a boring game. The only thing that kept it “exciting” was the suspenseful wait to see if Ohio State could actually manage to lose this thing.
TENNESSEE 36 VANDERBILT 23 - Tennessee Vols win. Vandy disappointed me last week. I am off the Vandy bandwagon. I should like Tenn. more. Heupel's dad was the coach at Northern when I was in South Dakota. He was a good guy. I think his kid is as well. ME: Vandy will NOT beat Tennessee. I think General Neyland passed a law back in the 1930s making it illegal.
IN SUM: Vandy gave them a good game - led 17-7 after one period, thanks to a 100-yard return of the opening kickoff - but the Vols held them to one TD in the entire second half.
SOUTH CAROLINA 17, CLEMSON 14 - I'll take the Cocks to shock the Dabos. RUN THE BALL. Sellers is a stud. AND Clemson deserves to be a little bit humbled. They started this DJ Ukelele mess. Or whatever this toxic qb's name is (will he transfer again? from Florida State and ruin another program) ME: Clemson is 8-1 over the last nine meetings but those days might be over. On the other hand, the Gamecocks have to go into Death Valley, where it’s hard to beat the Tigers. My ACC blood says Clemson.
IN SUM: South Carolina scored to go ahead with 1:08 left to play. Clemson drove - only needed a field goal to go into OT - but got impatient and threw - an interception.
ARMY 29, UTSA 24 - Army…if and only if they run more than "hey diddle diddle up the middle". I think they rebound. But unfortunately the ND loss keeps them from playoff consideration. Imagine a week to try to get ready to see ground and pound? ME: Army’s a 7-point favorute. But since a one-point loss to Tulsa back in October, Roadrunners have won three in a row - including a 44-36 win over Memphis. I think Notre Dame could wind up beating Army twice
IN SUM: Bryson Daily scored twice within two minutes of play early in the fourth period to give Army a 12-point lead that enabled the Cadets to hang on. Daily was 10 of 17 for 190 yards and a TD passing, and he carried 27 times for 147 yards and two TDs. One thing hasn’t changed since last week’s Notre Dame shellacking: Daily either ran or passed on 59 per cent of Army’s plays.
ILLINOIS 38, NORTHWESTERN 28 - Illini are way too physical for the Nerds of Northwestern. Illinois has had a very solid season. NW is a MESS. Fitz is likely happy to be gone. ME: Years ago, a smartass reporter called them the Mildcats.
IN SUM: I definitely thought this would be worse.
LOUISVILLE 41, KENTUCKY 14- Louisville UNLESS they play like they did against Stanford. I don't think they will. But one never knows. ME: It’s at Kentucky. I’ll take the Wildcats. Besides, it’s the SEC, where IT JUST MEANS MORE.
IN SUM: If you’re a Kentucky fan, there’s no other way to say it: this was BAD. It was 20-0 at the half. The Cardinals rushed for 358 yards. Kentucky turned the ball over five times - two fumbles and three interceptions.
DUKE 23, WAKE FOREST 17- I'll take DUKE....I think Duke is just better than WF. They surprised me. I thought when coach bailed to A&M (who wouldn't for that money and recruiting grounds at a FB school) Duke would fall off. They certainly have not. ME: Both schools are in the family - hard for me to root against either. So I won’t root. But Duke is a LOT better.
IN SUM: With eight seconds left and the game tied, 17-17, Duke’s Maalik Murphy dropped back to pass. It was second down and there was still time to kick the winning field goal - if he threw it fast enough. But no - he bounced around there in the pocket, and I’m yelling “throw the ball!” He finally did - too late, I thought - and it went for a 39-yard TD.
BAYLOR 45, KANSAS 17 - No shock, I'll stay with the hottest team in the country to win and make a bowl game. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!! Daniels and Neal. Difference makers, and good kids. Go get that Bowl game so we can wave the wheat some more. ME: I also say ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!! How about this bit of trivia: Kansas has played more ranked teams than Oregon, Ohio State and Indiana - combined!
IN SUM: A Baylor win would have been a surprise (to me). But to do it the way they did was a shocker: 603 yards of offense, almost evenly divided between rushing and passing. The Bears put it away with a 21-7 third quarter. How about some love for Dave Aranda: after a 2-4 start, Baylor reeled off six straight wins.
TEXAS TECH 52, WEST VIRGINIA 15 - If it was at WV I'd take the Mountaineers. But at TT? Give me the Red Raiders. Even though I hate what the administration did to Mike Leach. I'll never forgive them for that. ME: I hate ‘em for what they did to Leach, too - except that’s what made him available when Washington State came calling on him in Key West. GO MOUNTAINEERS!
IN SUM: The Mountaineers lost a fumble and threw two interceptions. They were down, 35-3, at the half. They’re now looking for a head coach.
BOSTON COLLEGE 34, PITT 23 - The fighting O'Briens beat the Fighting Narduzzis. Pittsburgh has let me down too many times. I won't pick Pitt again this year unless we talk about best helmets...and maybe I'd consider them. ME: Hate to see Pitt on the way down, but that’s what seems to be happening, and BC is definitely on the climb. Eagles.
IN SUM: In five weeks, Pitt went from 7-0 to 7-5. Against BC, they had an almost unbelievable - this is Pittsburgh, remember - 23 yards rushing. BC also finishes 7-5, but three of their last four games were wins, and the loss was to ACC leader SMU, 38-28.
PENN STATE 44, MARYLAND 7 - Nittany Kittens. Maryland showed a week ago they are not good at backup QB. Penn State is just too close to being playoff bound to lose to Maryland. ME: As Beano Cook once said, after picking Penn State: “Why? Because Penn State ALWAYS beats Maryland.”
IN SUM: With the score 38-7 and Penn State on the Maryland 15 with time for just one more play, what would YOU have done? I bet that 90 per cent of you out there would say, “Take a knee.” Not James Franklin. 38-7 wasn’t enough. He wanted more. But when you’re on the 15 with time for just one play, you almost have to pass, right? Well, what the hell - let’s throw it. Actually, they’d thrown an incomplete pass the play before. This time - what do you know? - it’s complete for a TD. Yay, Nittany Lions. And wouldn’t you know it - Mike Locksley, Maryland’s coach, called it “bullsh—.” What a sorehead, huh? Franklin? He said, “I’m good with it. Anybody that's not, that's their problem.”
MORE FRANKLIN: The main reason why I dislike James Franklin dates back to 2017, when he called a timeout with eleven seconds left in order to ice Georgia State’s field goal kicker and get Penn State’s field-goal-block unit on the field. Penn State led, 56-0. Guy’s a prick.
Said New York sports guy Mike Francesa at the time (2017)
“It’s 56-0, let him kick the ball! And then try to lie about it. What a stooge. What he hasn’t got is any class, because why would you do that to a kid up 56-0?! ‘We had our fourth team on the field, we didn’t have a fourth-team field-goal block.’ What the heck do you need to block it for?! Let the ball go through the uprights, you jerk. So he calls timeout to get the second-team field-goal block in. What a bunch of garbage that is. He sells you that, he’ll sell you anything. The guy iced him, plain and simple, because he wanted a shutout.”
NOTRE DAME 49, USC 35 - ND will roll USC. ND is physically better. USC may have better athletic ability BUT ND will beat them up. And be the 5 seed. Too bad they didn't join a conference...they would likely be a higher seed. Oh that and losing to NIU? WTF? ME: It’s in the Coliseum and USC has been playing better. This one could make the Trojans’ season. I’ll forecast a USC upset.
IN SUM: It was a pretty good game. Except for a minute or so at the end when Notre Dame scored to lead 49-28, the two teams were never separated by more than two scores. An interesting - and disappointing - thing to me was some examples of dirty play by the Irish. notably a punch thrown at a downed Trojan by ND’s number 88.
ALABAMA 28, AUBURN 14 - A wounded BAMA and J. Milroe win the rivalry game. Another 3 loss SEC team trying to prove worthy of playoff entry. Something tells me if ESPN can find a way Bama makes it in. ME: An Auburn win can’t be allowed to happen. ESPN won’t have it. You explained why I MUST forecast a Bama win. Big. ESPN has willed it. Bama will play the way they played against Georgia, not against Oklahoma.
IN SUM: Maybe it was because the two teams had ten losses between them, but this one just didn’t have the feel of your typical Iron Bowl. It seldom commanded my attention - other than when there was a bit of a fracas on the Auburn sideline in the third period. I was rooting for Auburn simply because Alabama is ESPN’s darling and I just know they’re going to find a way into the Playoff.
SYRACUSE 42, MIAMI 38 - the U wins. Just better than Cuse. Maybe the U is back. This year should certainly help recruiting as they are nOT too far from being back to the Jimmy Johnson days of old. ME: The Orange, hot off a win over mighty UConn, sends the ACC reeling with a win over the Canes.
IN SUM: Was anybody else out there rooting for Syracuse? How’d you like to have been Syracuse QB Kyle McCord on Saturday? He was sort of dumped by Ohio State after last season, and acquired by Syracuse. Under new coach Fran Brown, the Orange has gone 9-3, and he’s been a major reason. Saturday, going against Heisman candidate Cam Ward, he not only wound up on the winning side, he had better stats: McCord: 26/36/380 and 3 TDs; Ward: 25/36/34 and 2 TDs. And instead of standing in The Shoe being booed by 100,000 or so angry Buckeye “faithful,” he was the toast of 45,000 Syracuse fans.
SMU 38, CAL 6 - SMU wins and assures themselves a shot to be playoff bound IF they win the Conf Champ game. (this is dumb to say but I can see smaller market teams being bumped if they lose championship weekend in an effort to load SEC and B1G teams into the 12 team field) ME: If SMU can beat Cal AND win the ACC title game, they may suddenly find themselves the darlings of a VERY big market (the way the Cowboys are playing). They will win this one, for sure.
IN SUM: After a rough start with a one-point loss to BYU and a narrow win over Nevada, only Duke, in a one-point OT loss has come close to the Mustangs. Now, in the ACC title game, SMU, the new member that had to buy its way into the conference , faces Clemson a team that tried to buy its way OUT.
ARIZONA STATE 49, ARIZONA 7- Arizona State. Impressive season for the "baby" coach. Hope he doesn't have another tantrum. If they win out they may see playoffs in their future. ME: Strange things happen in this “Territorial Cup” game, but I don’t think the Wildcats have what it takes to pull off an upset.
IN SUM: Sun Devils are in the Big-12 championship game. Sam Leavitt completed 17 of 22 for 291 and three TDs; Cam Skattebo carried 21 times for 177 and three TDs.
MISSOURI 28, ARKANSAS 21- As a "pseudo" JAYHAWK I have to hate Mizzou. Give me Arkansas in an upset. ME: Not that big a fan of Mizzou’s Eli Drinkwitz, and a BIG fan of Arkansas’ Sam Pittman. So wo-o-o-o-o PIG.
IN SUM: Missouri scored 18 points in the fourth quarter, the last eight coming on a Brady Cook run with 1:53 left to kill the Razorbacks’ upset hopes.
RUTGERS 41, MICHIGAN STATE 14 - I'll take Rutgers. I dislike Sparty. BUT I do think they have been better than expected this year. I'd love to see a coach who bailed on the Beavs lose again. ME: Used to like Michigan State, before the last couple of hires. I like Greg Schiano. Rutgers.
IN SUM: Jonathan Smith finished his first season at MSU 5-7, and very few people back in Corvallis, Oregon feel bad about it. This time last year, after a week of dickering with the Michigan State people instead of preparing Oregon State for their game with Oregon, he was off to East Lansing in the clumsiest, most ungracious way imaginable. For the third straight year, the Spartans will stay home during bowl season.
UCLA 20, FRESNO STATE 13 - Love the matchup. Maybe. UCLA beats Fresno State giving Iowa a quality loss and a chance to be in the 12 team playoff. LOL Purely kidding. I'll take UCLA who possibly has some things figured out. Maybe Foster will be a better speaker at B1G media days next year. ME: This has more meaning to the Fresno kids than to the Bruins. But UCLA should have beaten USC and they’ll win this one.
IN SUM: Believe it or not, UCLA hadn’t beaten Fresno State since 2000, but after a roller-coaster season, the Bruins found a way to win this one. They finish 5-7 under first-year coach DeShaun Foster. The Bulldogs finished 6-6 under interim head coach Tim Skipper.
NC STATE 35, NORTH CAROLINA 30- Another rivalry...does Mack Brown have one more win in him? I believe he does. Does Mack Brown come back for another year? That is the even bigger question. ME: Since press time, Mack was let go. This will probably be his last game coaching the Tar Heels. NC State has won the last three games and will win this one. Go Pack!
IN SUM: At least Mack Brown managed to coach this one last time - the bastards wanted him gone last Monday - but his kids couldn’t get the win for him. The Tar Heels went ahead, 30-29, with 1:51 to play, but the Wolfpack drove for the winning score with :25 left.
WYOMING 15, WASHINGTON STATE 14 - Wash. State trounces Wyoming. The Cowboys are just BAD. ME: WSU has lost two in a row and dropped out of the rankings, but they’re still pretty good - a LOT better than the Cowboys.
IN SUM: Cougars lost their final three games - and their national ranking - dropping this one in the final seconds to one of the Mountain West’s worst teams - a team that the Pac-12 deemed unworthy of membership in their conference.
INDIANA 66, PURDUE 0 - Cignetti wins. Google him. Indiana thumps Purdue. In large part because Purdue is putrid this year. Purdon't might lose a scrimmage. To themselves. ME: Indiana is still pretty good and might have given Ohio State a better game. I think that Indiana at its worst can still beat Purdue at its best.
IN SUM: It’s hard to imagine a worse beating in such a long rivalry. Indiana had 582 yards of total offense. Purdue had just 67 yards total. The Boilermakers finished 1-11, and that was enough to cost Ryan Walters his job - and Purdue in excess of $10 million in buyout money for Walters and his staff.
FLORIDA 31, FLORIDA STATE 11- Florida. (Napier has kept his bunch together while Florida State continues to flame out). I've been impressed with Florida's continued improvement when everyone left them for dead. I also think they have gotten healthy finally. ME: Florida food its QB in DJ Lagway. Now, I hear he may be hurt. If he plays, Florida wins big. If he doesn’t, Florida wins.
IN SUM: Floriida has made one of the season's most amazing turnarounds.
LSU 37, OKLAHOMA 17 - Sooners are hungover. LSU wins a battle of teams I dislike. Can Boomer go back to the Bone? Bring Switzer back. NIL deals and triple option qb's were his specialty before NIL deals were legal. ME: OU played their asses off and beat Bama; LSU went through the motions and beat Vanderbilt by a score. I say LSU is still in a daze and OU runs over them.
IN SUM: Tigers still have it. A big question is whether Nussmeier (QB) is badly hurt.
OREGON 49, WASHINGTON 21 - DUCKS. Washington has surprised me. Didn't think they would win at all. But Oregon is way too good to lose now. The only team that can beat the Ducks is the Ducks currently. ME: This is a real, host-to-God rivalry game. Washington is not close to the team that twice took it to a (possibly) superior Oregon team last year, but Oregon is still coached by the guy that did shake-your-head stupid things and passed it off as “because we’re aggressive.” What I’m saying is, I’m picking Oregon - bit Oregon is good at finding ways to lose to Washington.
IN SUM: Who were those guys in the black and silver playing against the Washington Huskies? The Oakland Raiders? No, it was the Oregon “Dress for Success” Ducks, in their 574th different uniform since August. Seldom noted is the fact that these guys can play some defense - when all the sack yardage was subtracted (the Ducks had 16 tackles for loss) Washington wound up with 43 yards rushing.
TEXAS 17, TEXAS A&M 7- I am not sold on Texas. I am inclined to take A&M because they have played a much tougher schedule. Give me the Aggies in an upset. ME: You got here first, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take the Aggies, too. Gig ‘em!
IN SUM: This may have been Texas’ best game of the year, and it landed them a spot in the SEC title game (in case anyone’s interested in a redo of their earlier game with Georgia). Defensively, the Longhorns held the Aggies to only 146 yards passing and 102 yards rushing.
IOWA STATE 29, KANSAS STATE 21 - WildKitties...even though I'm forbidden to pick them (rival). I can't pick ISU. I'm so torn. Hailee will forgive me. ME: An explanation: Hailee is Brad’s daughter. She’s a sophomore at KU. So of course she has to hate the Wildcats. This is a tough call. Earlier in the season I’d have said K-State by a lot. I’ll root for K-State but I’d bet on the Cyclones.
IN SUM: It’s another 10-win season for the Cyclones and a spot in the Big-12 title game. K-State finishes 8-4 after a hot start that had them leading the conference earlier in the season.
UNLV 38, NEVADA 14 - UNLV wins this one. And Las Vegas rejoices as if everyone hit the multiplier on the penny slot machines. ME: Oh, please. Should be easy for UNLV, then on to the MW final against Boise State.
IN SUM: Easy, peasy. Rebels rushed for 351 yards, totaled 519 yards in offense (8.2 yards per play).
VIRGINIA TECH 37, VIRGINIA 17 - Give me the Hokies. I do not think Virginia can compete yet. ME: HOKIE, HOKIE, HOKIE HY! TECH, TECH, V-P-I! The folks from the hills take it to the silk stocking types.
IN SUM: This was a battle for bowl eligibility and the Hokies won it, in front of the customary packed house. Tech running back Bhayshul Tuten carried 18 times for 124 yards and two TDs.
BYU 30, HOUSTON 18 - BYU gets it figured out this week. Beats Houston but close. ME: BYU has had a couple of tough ones and ought to welcome Houston.
IN SUM: In a sloppy game (three fumbles lost by BYU, two fumbles and two interceptions by Houston), the Cougars beat the Cougars to finish 10-2, just out of the running for the Big 12 title game.
AIR FORCE 31, SAN DIEGO STATE 20 - San Diego State because that is who Ron Burgundy would pick. Stay classy San Diego? ME: I think San Diego State is worse than Air Force. How can that be?
IN SUM: AF: 276 rushing, 128 passing; SDSU: 236 passing, 120 rushing. The Falcons didn’t have to work very hard for their passing yards: they passed just twice. Both passes were completed, one of them for a 76-yard TD. (How’s 64 yards per attempt sound?) After losing seven in a row, the Falcons ended their season with four straight wins.
BIG LATE-NIGHT SHOCKER FROM THE PACIFIC: HAWAII 38, NEW MEXICO 30
*********** Stanford made a very common mistake - one made by so many coaches - in thinking that the Double Wing is just a formation and that all you have to do is line up in it and start running plays. After successfully throwing a halfback pass from “our” formation last week against Cal, this past weekend Stanford tried running good old “66 Super Power” against San Jose State. It was a disaster. And like most people who try to do what they did, they almost certainly don’t know why. But they have a pretty good idea why it didn’t work. I can hear it now, the common refrain among the many who, like Stanford, thought they could get away with half-assing the Double Wing: “this sh— doesn’t work.”
*********** A sure sign that something’s wrong: Not one single Stanford running back has scored a touchdown this season.
*********** I imagine that a lot of you saw that for the last 23 Michigan-Ohio State games, the team with more rushing yards has won the game.
*********** The real loser this past weekend was sportsmanship.
(1) Everybody knows about the scuffle that took place following the Ohio State-Michigan game, and I found it interesting that the Fox Network allowed a Michigan player to say, condescendingly, "some people" should learn how to lose” without challenging him and pointing out that "some people should learn how to win.”
For a while it was a scary scene. Fortunately, it’s not the sort of thing that could happen when thousands of students storm the field, because (usually) students only storm the field when the home team wins, and when the home team wins, there’s no reason for the visitors to “plant” their flag in the middle of the home team’s logo.
What was disgusting to me was that neither of those coaching staffs, whose aggregate salaries were in the multi-millions, had done a damn thing to prepare their players in the proper post-game protocol. It was especially disgusting because I’ve known hundreds of high school coaches whose players would never have acted like those big-timers at Ohio State and Michigan.
(2) A Colorado receiver celebrated a touchdown by getting down on all fours, then lifting a leg, simulating a dog pissing on the football. Stay classy, Deion.
(3) Iowa players are claiming that Nebraska coach Matt Rhule walked through their area of the field as they were warming up before the game. Now - to you casual fans who don’t understand football protocol - it is long-accepted practice for the two teams playing in the game to warm up on their respective sides of the 50-yard line. No trespassing. No exceptions. You don’t run pass patterns that cross over onto the other team’s side, and if you have receivers lining up to catch passes, their lineup does not extend across the 50. No exceptions. No, it’s not a felony, so enough of the lame jokes about sending Matt Rhule to prison. Enough of fans pooh-poohing it. It’s a matter of mutual respect, and any willful violation of the protocol is clearly an expression of disrespect. I know that respect is becoming rarer and rarer, but that still doesn’t make the person who walks through the other team any less of a sh—head.
(4) It’s been claimed - and not denied (and there are photos that seem to show) that Nebraska’s captains refused to shake hands at the coin toss with their Iowa counterparts. I’m not sure WTF is wrong with a referee who would see this and not immediately hit the Nebraska coach with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. I do recall some other asshole coach having his players do this a few years ago, and the conference hitting the team with a $10,000 fine. Of course, in today’s game, at least in the Big 12, it’s okay to push a referee, so I suppose there’s no sense getting all upset about a silly handshake?
*********** The Michigan-Ohio State postgame fracas is why Saban's gone. Not the fight itself, but the reason why it took place.
The reason? Players have the upper hand. You operate at their pleasure. All you have to do is look at the way teams dress nowadays - no two players on the same team dressed exactly alike - to know who’s in charge.
Why? Simple. Thanks to the Transfer Portal, players are in control, and as a result coaches are afraid to do what coaches once did as a matter of routine - to correct players and enforce team discipline - lest they create an atmosphere that drives their players to the portal and a place where they can run the show.
*********** I actually heard Kirk Herbstreit call Deion Sanders “Coach Prime.” Do you really think that he’d say that if he wasn’t paid to?
*********** Are owls unlucky?
There are four FBS teams nicknamed “Owls”:
Florida Atlantic, Kennesaw State, Rice and Temple.
Until December 1 - when Kennesaw State announced the hiring of Jerry Mack - all four of them were looking for coaches.
*********** When Notre Dame played USC on NBC - who were all those clowns on the NBC halftime show?
*********** Amazing what one part of the wardrobe can do, but when Iowa, which to me is one of the best-dressed teams in football, came out wearing black pants instead of the usual gold, it looked like they were wearing pajamas.
*********** They’ve got to do something about the college overtime. Once the best of any sport (except maybe baseball’s extra innings), as a result of a handful of games that went overly long it’s been twisted and tweaked to the point where it’s beginning to look like a soccer shootout.
The Georgia-Georgia Tech game sure was exciting, but as it neared the end, it wasn’t football. Football is a game of strategy - of one play setting up another, of deciding whether to “go for it” or just try to keep moving the ball. The further we get from the idea of four downs (or more) to make something happen, the more we turn the game into a farce.
Where, in a country that hasn’t won a war since 1945, is it written that every contest MUST have a winner?
I once asked Mike Lude what he thought about overtime, and I wrote it down. It’s still on a white board that I can see as I write this: “I can coach better on Sunday after a tie.”
*********** I don’t particularly like Kirby Smart, and he pissed me off when he referred at halftime to Georgia Tech’s offense “nickel-and-diming.”
Surely he has access to the stats that showed that at that point Tech had had four plays of 20 yards or more.
*********** Hi Hugh,
Not sure if you saw the Syracuse/ Miami game , it was a good one. An upset Syracuse win but the reason I am writing is because of the Syracuse goal line attack. They lined up in an I wing. They blocked everyone down, pulled a guard who kicked out and led through with the FB and Miami had no answer! I cheered at the TV, finally someone who knew how to run a short yardage power play!
Happy Holidays,
Jack Tourtillotte
Boothbay, Maine
Damned if they didn’t run it, exactly as Jack describes - 9:16 left in the 4th quarte
*********** Hugh,
I miss handing out the Black Lion Award.
There’s one HS game I’d like to see but will be missing. My part-time PE job school (Grace Classical Christian Academy) will play for their state association (TAIAO) Division 3 six-man state championship on Saturday. They started the playoffs with a 2-7 record (every team gets in), and have won three straight to make it into the final.
Their opponent is 10-2.
Unfortunately Coach Jeff Monken may have painted himself into a corner. No doubt he is a good coach, but in today’s big-time college football world where P4 is the be all end all, and NONE of those schools and their athletes are interested in the type of offense Monken is an expert, the chances of him getting hired by ANY of them is virtually slim and none.
Apparently Ivy League presidents are more tolerant of sowing the BS going on at their campuses, and giving them a national black eye, than what they can reap from the game of football.
My version of the axis of evil:
THE Suckeyes
U of Spoiled Children
Meesheegun
Bucky
Bumblebees (sorry Brad, but sometimes the refs just miss!)
Enjoy the weekend’s games!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: They called him "Cactus Jack.” Some people called him "Mister Forward Pass." Jack Curtice coached two college teams - one at Utah and one at Stanford - to national passing titles.
Born in Glasgow, Kentucky, he played football, basketball and baseball and ran track at famed Louisville Male High School.
He went on to Transylvania College and played three sports, starting at quarterback for four years.
For the next eight years he coached high schools in Kentucky. He spent two years at Elizabethtown as its football and basketball coach, and then six years as head football coach and athletic director at Owensboro High. His overall high school record was 32-22-3.
In 1938 he was hired as an assistant coach at West Texas State. He was promoted after two years to the head coach position and in two years as the head coach his record was 15-5.
With World War II going on, he joined the Navy, and spent most of his time coaching different sports at different Navy bases.
Following the war, he coached at Texas Western (now UTEP), and in four years there his teams went 24-13-3.
That got him the job at Utah, where in eight years his teams went 45-32-4, and won four Skyline Conference championships.
In 1957 his quarterback, Lee Grosscup, was the nation's leading passer, completing 61 per cent of his passes, then a single-season record. He made good use of a delayed shovel pass, a sort of middle screen, that became known at the time as the "Utah Pass."
By the time he left Utah, all the teams in the Skyline Conference had begun to emulate his pass-first style of offense, and he had begun to find himself having to face his own offense every week.
In 1958, he was hired by Stanford, where he would coach for five seasons.
His 1959 Stanford team set a new college record for passes completed in a single season. All-American end Chris Burford - who went on to an outstanding career in pro football, - led the nation in receiving with 61 catches for 756 yards, and QB Dick Norman, who completed 152 of 263 passes for 1963 yards - huge numbers at the time - led the nation in passing and total offense.
Unfortunately, he did not win at Stanford, actually going 0-10 in 1960, and in 1961, despite having the best passing team in the country, going 4-6. Following the 1962 season, although Stanford had improved to 5-5 with a 30-13 season-ending victory over arch-rival Cal, his contract was not renewed. In five years at The Farm, his record was 14-36.
The following season, he signed on as head coach at UC Santa Barbara, playing in the “college division,” as FCS was called then.
In seven years there, his teams went 37-29-1.
His career record was 135-115-2, and despite his reputation as a wide-open passing guru, his teams won two national rushing titles, making him the first college coach to win two national rushing titles as well as two national passing titles.
Jack Curtice served for several years as chairman of the college football rules committee, and in 1961 as president of the American Football Coaches Association.
His 1961 book, "The Passing Game in Football," was considered a major contribution to the modern passing game.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CACTUS JACK CURTICE
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born on “the Virginia side” of Bristol Virginia-Tennessee.
He was an outstanding football player at Princeton, but he was also an outstanding baseball and basketball player, and he spent a year with the New York Yankees before deciding that he had no future in baseball. As a college player, though, he actually had a higher batting average than a player at rival Columbia - Lou Gehrig. It may be legend, but according to some, it was his beaning of Yankee first baseman Wally Pipp that led to the headache that caused Pipp to be removed from the lineup and replaced by Gehrig.
Offered a job at Princeton by his former head coach, Bill Roper, he stayed there for three years, mostly coaching the freshmen, but also scouting, which enabled him to travel to places in the Midwest and East and observe many aspects of the game.
After three years, he was offered the head coaching job at Williams College, in Massachusetts, where for much of his time there he coached football, baseball and basketball.
He stayed at Williams for 13 years, and his football teams, running his single wing, compiled an overall record of 76-37-6. (His three-sport overall record was 254-177-6.)
Williams had to give up football for two years during World War II, and unable to serve in the armed forces because of nearsightedness, he got a leave of absence from Williams so that he could assist at Yale, and he also served as a scout for Army coach Earl Blaik.
And then, as World War II was ending, in 1945 he was hired by his alma mater as its head coach. The program was down, but by 1950 his Tigers - and their single wing - were gaining national recognition. From October, 1949 until November, 1952, Princeton won 30 of 31 games, and they were undefeated in both 1950 and 1951.
In 1950 he was named AFCA Coach of the Year, and his tailback, Dick Kazmaier, won the Heisman Trophy.
In 1957, while still the head coach at Princeton, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had to step down from his position. He died in November of that year, at the age of 55. (I was a sophomore at Yale at the time, and I remember hearing the news that the head coach of our nemesis, the Princeton Tigers, had cancer.)
In his book, Modern Single Wing Football, published in 1950, he told of what - and who - inspired him to become a coach:
The longer I coach, the more I work with boys, the more clearly I understand that the seemingly small incidents – often chance happenings – are largely responsible for those decisions that shape an individual’s career. In my own case, it took a great team, and the master coach of them all, Knute Rockne, to convince me that football was for me, that coaching was a profession requiring the same kind of intense study and lifelong devotion demanded of teachers, lawyers and even of doctors.
No, I never played for Rockne. I played against him, or against his 1924 team that included the celebrated four Horsemen, Elmer Layden, Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley and Don Miller. It happened in Palmer Stadium on a sunny October twenty-fifth, and never before in my life had I spent such a frustrating, disappointing afternoon. We were beaten, 12-0, and the final score could've been 28-0, or possibly higher. The score didn't bother me – it was the way in which Rockne's men handled us, particularly me.
The 1924 Princeton team was a better-than-average Princeton team. We had beaten Navy, we later turned back Harvard, 34 to 0 and lost to a sound Yale team, 10-0. Yet against Notre Dame I felt as if we were being toyed with. I was backing up the line and I don't believe I made a clean tackle all afternoon. There would come Layden, or Miller, or someone. I would get set to drop the ball carrier in his tracks and someone would give me a nudge, just enough to throw me off balance, just enough pressure to make me miss. I played the whole game that way, giving a completely lackluster performance.
We were walking up the chute to the dressing rooms after the game and I actually felt ready for another two hours of contact. I wasn't tired, nor was I beaten down physically as I generally was after a big game. Others walking with me agreed. As we pieced together our individual reactions to our defeat, we began to see that we had met something new, something we had never anticipated. We, and I am writing this in retrospect, had been subjected to our first lesson in what might be called the science of football.
These Rockne inspired thoughts stayed with me for a long, long time.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2024 "If critics could write,
they'd write. But they can't, so they're critics." Tom Clancy************ Chicago Bears’ coach Matt Eberflus may already be their former coach by the time you read this, but he ought to be way ahead of all contenders for the NFL’s Man of the Year Award.
His almost incomprehensible mismanagement of the clock at the end of the Bears-Lions game Thursday saved countless families all over the country by pushing aside the recent election as the topic of their Thanksgiving-dinner conversations.
A grateful nation thanks you, Coach.
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “I had returned to Hillsdale from a three-year stint in the Marine Corps in World War II in 1946 to finish my senior year and, almost as important, my final season of college football.
“When my former coach, Dwight Harwood, retired after a long career, Dave Nelson was lured to Hillsdale as his replacement. Nelson had played wingback at the University of Michigan for legendary coach Fritz Crisler during the careers of better-known teammates Tom Harmon, an All-American running back, and Forrest Evashevski, who became even more famous as a national championship coach at the University of Iowa. Nelson was named Hillsdale athletic director as well as head football coach.
“Like most campuses after World War II, Hillsdale was crowded with returning military veterans. They were, of course, older, more confident, and more serious about doing whatever it took to collect a diploma and get on with their lives.
“I was no exception. I wanted my bachelor of science degree, majoring in biology. The next step, I hoped, would be a coaching job, probably at the high school level.
“There was another new person in my life, a college coed named Rena Pifer who, like me, would be a Hillsdale senior in the fall. That summer I worked on a Kalamazoo County road crew, driving a tractor and mowing the sides of County roads. I had saved enough money from the Marine Corps to buy a new car, and I put on a lot of mileage between Vicksburg and Hillsdale, where the lovely Rena lived with her family.”
*********** We held our awards
banquet at Aberdeen (Washington) High on Sunday night, and as might be
expected with a team that gave out more than 70 letters - freshman, JV
and Varsity - there were a lot of people on hand, first for the meal,
then the awarding of the letters (with something relevant said
about every player) and then the individual awards. The
whole deal took a little over three hours, but it’s fair to say that as
important as all the conditioning, camps, practices and meetings are,
this one evening of recognition might be the most important of all the
expenditures of a coach’s time.Having established the Black Lion Award in 2001 and administered it since then, I had the great honor of presenting our Black Lion Award to junior Luke Martin.
New to Aberdeen as its quarterbacks coach, I found myself last summer with two candidates for the position. Both were underclassmen. Both were already pretty good, with high upsides. In all my years of coaching high school kids, I’d seldom been gifted with one quarterback as good as either one of them, let alone two of their caliber at the same time.
Making a choice between them was going to be difficult, I knew, and we actually went into our first game planning on alternating series between the two.
Circumstances wound up making the choice for us. Luke was needed at free safety. Since having to play two ways was going to have an adverse effect on his play at quarterback, and since we already had another quarterback quite capable of taking over the job, the decision was made that Luke would start at safety and back-up at quarterback.
Without hesitation, Luke accepted the decision. I knew how badly he wanted to be our starting quarterback, and I knew how hard he’d worked to earn that spot - but I never heard him say a word and I never saw any indication of disappointment on his part.
On defense, with a new defensive coordinator and a new scheme, Luke’s value to the team at free safety was almost immediate as he became “quarterback" of the unit. Its leader. In the words of Dave Tarrence, our DC, Luke “knew the defense better than anyone,” and was “one of the biggest reasons our defense performed so well.”
To Luke’s credit, he continued to work and compete at the quarterback position just as if he were going to be the starter on Friday night, and he celebrated our quarterback’s successes just as if they were his.
Luke’s conspicuous demonstration of putting the team ahead of himself, without even giving it a second thought, made him the unanimous choice of our coaching staff to be our Black Lion Award winner.
*********** Brad Knight’s and my picks - many of them emotionally based, few of them backed by hard analysis, a couple of them downright idiotic.
BRAD SOUNDED A BIT SHEEPISH WHEN HE SENT ME THIS WEEK’S “PICKS,” CONCERNED THAT HE HAD PICKED SO MANY LOSERS LAST WEEK. I HAD TO BREAK THE NEWS TO HIM HIM THAT HE WAS DOING FINE - THAT HE WAS NOW IN THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS, AND THAT IF OUR READERS WANTED “EXPERT” PICKS THEY HAD ONLY TO OPEN A NEWSPAPER OR GO ONLINE. WHAT THEY WANTED, I TOLD HIM, WAS TO BE ENTERTAINED, AND AS LONG AS HE KEPT DOING WHAT HE WAS DOING, HE HAD A JOB HERE. (PLUS, I CAN’T AFFORD HIS BUYOUT.)
FRIDAY
OREGON STATE AT BOISE STATE- Jeanty 200 and 3 scores. Or more (if they keep him in the game) If he does not win the Heisman it is a sham. He won't...but he should. Will be a nice consolation prize to see a non QB win for a change if we get so lucky. (ME) Watch out, Broncos - the Beavers played very well in beating Washington State last week. This one is DEFINITELY a trap. But I’m pulling for Jeanty for the Heisman - imagine one from a Group of 5 school!
OKLAHOMA STATE AT COLORADO- Will see if the Buffs can rebound after being humbled by the Jayhawks. I think Okie St is bad...I'll take the Buffs. Colorado will attempt to make a statement that their losses should not disqualify them from playoff contention. ME: Have to take the Buffs, now that the Big 12 has decided that it was okay for Shedeur to shove that ref.
MINNESOTA AT WISCONSIN- Give me Wiscy since I hate the NOPHERS. Sorry to my friend Joe Gutilla. The feeling between Nophers and Hawkeyes is mutual hatred. I'll pick against PJ and the Nophers unless they play Nebraska or Iowa State. Man I do kinda miss Kinnick North. And it still wasn't a fair catch. ME: Gophers all the way. Just watched Nebraska and Wisconsin in its entirety on Tuesday night, and Fickell picked a hell of a time to let his OC go. If the Badgers lose, Fickell won’t even collect his (very sizable) bowl bonus this year.
NAVY AT EAST CAROLINA- Give me the Midshipmen. I kinda want to pick the Pirates (since I once was a Pirate, and Coach Leach loved Pirates) but I think the MIddies are better. ME: I’ve seen the Pirates the last couple of games and - with an interim coach - they’ve played well. I’m going to take a chance and go ECU.
MISSISSIPPI STATE AT OLE MISS- Give me the Rebs...BIG. All 3 loss SEC teams are going to try to make a statement that they should be in the playoff mix. Kiffin's team was embarrassed by an unrated team last week. Maybe they choose to show up and not throw 3 INT's in 4 plays at the end of the game. ME: There’s a lot of emotion in this one but Mississippi State just doesn’t have it. Rebels by a lot.
UTAH STATE AT COLORADO STATE- This one has a chance to be a really decent game. I like the Aggies to win a close one, late. This is my favorite of the Aggies. Had a buddy who coached there for a short while. ME: Aggies. They’re not. CSU finally got brought down to earth last week by Fresno.
STANFORD AT SAN JOSE STATE- San Jose State drubs Stanford. UNLESS Stanford plays like they did against Louisville. (or be honest if San Jose plays like Lousiville did against Stanford. I'll take SJSU. And hope they can outplay Louisville who played O'Possum (dead) against Stanford. ME: Lots of Bay Area kids on that SJSU team that would love to beat Stanford. The game might not matter as much to the Stanford kids after their total fold last week against Cal. But I’m gonna take a chance and say Stanford.
GEORGIA TECH AT GEORGIA- Georgia in the rivalry game. I really want to pick Tech because I love their QB. BUT GA has too much on the line. Once considered out of the playoff now they are back in with a chance to move up. ME: Clean, old-fashioned hate. Since this one’s being played between the hedges, I have to go with UGA. But give ‘em a game, Tech!
NEBRASKA AT IOWA- HAWKEYES ALL DAY. Only team I dislike more than ISU is Nebraska. A steady dose of KJ against their 3-5 defense and Iowa wins. KJ should be invited to NY. He won't be....but I sure hope he sticks around for another year at Iowa. ME: Look out, Knighter - I saw what Holgorsen did for NU against Wisconsin - they look like a new team. Playing offense. Moving the ball. Scoring points, even. This is my upset pick.
UTAH AT UCF- I'll take the Utes in the battle of the dumpster fires. Utah gave ISU all they wanted a week ago. Whittingham possibly leaving? Hearing rumors. Not sure I believe any of them. But this Utes team has been a disappointment for sure. ME: I HAVE to take the Utes. This could be Kyle Whittingham’s last game. (A HUGE loss for football if it is.)
SATURDAY
MICHIGAN AT OHIO STATE- tOSU wins again FINALLY. But I do expect Michigan to play better than they have all season long. tOSU but close. No dog in the fight, secretly hoping Michigan wins again so i can see the pain on Day's face after spending 22 million to pay this group. ME: I happen to LIKE Ryan Day and I’d hate for him to have to go through another off-season with a loss to Michigan on his back. So, too, would Buckeyes’ fans, who will scream for his neck. Go Buckeyes!
TENNESSEE AT VANDERBILT- Tennessee Vols win. Vandy disappointed me last week. I am off the Vandy bandwagon. I should like Tenn. more. Heupel's dad was the coach at Northern when I was in South Dakota. He was a good guy. I think his kid is as well. ME: Vandy will NOT beat Tennessee. I think General Neyland passed a law back in the 1930s making it illegal.
SOUTH CAROLINA AT CLEMSON- I'll take the Cocks to shock the Dabos. RUN THE BALL. Sellers is a stud. AND Clemson deserves to be a little bit humbled. They started this DJ Ukelele mess. Or whatever this toxic qb's name is (will he transfer again? from Florida State and ruin another program) ME: Clemson is 8-1 over the last nine meetings but those days might be over. On the other hand, the Gamecocks have to go into Death Valley, where it’s hard to beat the Tigers. My ACC blood says Clemson.
UTSA AT ARMY- Army...if and only if they run more than "hey diddle diddle up the middle". I think they rebound. But unfortunately the ND loss keeps them from playoff consideration. Imagine a week to try to get ready to see ground and pound? ME: Army’s a 7-point favorute. But since a one-point loss to Tulsa back in October, Roadrunners have won three in a row - including a 44-36 win over Memphis. I think Notre Dame could wind up beating Army twice.
ILLINOIS AT NORTHWESTERN- Illini are way too physical for the Nerds of Northwestern. Illinois has had a very solid season. NW is a MESS. Fitz is likely happy to be gone. ME: Years ago, a smartass reporter called them the Mildcats.
LOUISVILLE AT KENTUCKY- Louisville UNLESS they play like they did against Stanford. I don't think they will. But one never knows. ME: It’s at Kentucky. I’ll take the Wildcats. Besides, it’s the SEC, where IT JUST MEANS MORE.
DUKE AT WAKE FOREST- I'll take DUKE....I think Duke is just better than WF. They surprised me. I thought when coach bailed to A&M (who wouldn't for that money and recruiting grounds at a FB school) Duke would fall off. They certainly have not. ME: Both schools are in the family - hard for me to root against either. So I won’t root. But Duke is a LOT better.
KANSAS AT BAYLOR- No shock, I'll stay with the hottest team in the country to win and make a bowl game. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!! Daniels and Neal. Difference makers, and good kids. Go get that Bowl game so we can wave the wheat some more. ME: I also say ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!! How about this bit of trivia: Kansas has played more ranked teams than Oregon, Ohio State and Indiana - combined!
WEST VIRGINIA AT TEXAS TECH- If it was at WV I'd take the Mountaineers. But at TT? Give me the Red Raiders. Even though I hate what the administration did to Mike Leach. I'll never forgive them for that. ME: I hate ‘em for what they did to Leach, too - except that’s what made him available when Washington State came calling on him in Key West. GO MOUNTAINEERS!
PITT AT BOSTON COLLEGE- The fighting O'Briens beat the Fighting Narduzzis. Pittsburgh has let me down too many times. I won't pick Pitt again this year unless we talk about best helmets...and maybe I'd consider them. ME: Hate to see Pitt on the way down, but that’s what seems to be happening, and BC is definitely on the climb. Eagles.
MARYLAND AT PENN STATE- Nittany Kittens. Maryland showed a week ago they are not good at backup QB. Penn State is just too close to being playoff bound to lose to Maryland. ME: As Beano Cook once said, after picking Penn State: “Why? Because Penn State ALWAYS beats Maryland.”
NOTRE DAME AT USC- ND will roll USC. ND is physically better. USC may have better athletic ability BUT ND will beat them up. And be the 5 seed. Too bad they didn't join a conference...they would likely be a higher seed. Oh that and losing to NIU? WTF? ME: It’s in the Coliseum and USC has been playing better. This one could make the Trojans’ season. I’ll forecast a USC upset.
AUBURN AT ALABAMA- A wounded BAMA and J. Milroe win the rivalry game. Another 3 loss SEC team trying to prove worthy of playoff entry. Something tells me if ESPN can find a way Bama makes it in. ME: An Auburn win can’t be allowed to happen. ESPN won’t have it. You explained why I MUST forecast a Bama win. Big. ESPN has willed it. Bama will play the way they played against Georgia, not against Oklahoma.
MIAMI AT SYRACUSE- the U wins. Just better than Cuse. Maybe the U is back. This year should certainly help recruiting as they are not too far from being back to the Jimmy Johnson days of old. ME: The Orange, hot off a win over mighty UConn, sends the ACC reeling with a win over the Canes.
CAL AT SMU- SMU wins and assures themselves a shot to be playoff bound IF they win the Conf Champ game. (this is dumb to say but I can see smaller market teams being bumped if they lose championship weekend in an effort to load SEC and B1G teams into the 12 team field) ME: If SMU can beat Cal AND win the ACC title game, they may suddenly find themselves the darlings of a VERY big market (the way the Cowboys are playing). They will win this one, for sure.
ARIZONA STATE AT ARIZONA- Arizona State. Impressive season for the "baby" coach. Hope he doesn't have another tantrum. If they win out they may see playoffs in their future. ME: Strange things happen in this “Territorial Cup” game, but I don’t think the Wildcats have what it takes to pull off an upset.
ARKANSAS AT MISSOURI- As a "pseudo" JAYHAWK I have to hate Mizzou. Give me Arkansas in an upset. ME: Not that big a fan of Mizzou’s Eli Drinkwitz, and a BIG fan of Arkansas’ Sam Pittman. So wo-o-o-o-o PIG.
RUTGERS AT MICHIGAN STATE- I'll take Rutgers. I dislike Sparty. BUT I do think they have been better than expected this year. I'd love to see a coach who bailed on the Beavs lose again. ME: Used to like Michigan State, before the last couple of hires. I like Greg Schiano. Rutgers.
FRESNO STATE AT UCLA- Love the matchup. Maybe. UCLA beats Fresno State giving Iowa a quality loss and a chance to be in the 12 team playoff. LOL Purely kidding. I'll take UCLA who possibly has some things figured out. Maybe Foster will be a better speaker at B1G media days next year. ME: This has more meaning to the Fresno kids than to the Bruins. But UCLA should have beaten USC and they’ll win this one.
NC STATE AT NORTH CAROLINA- Another rivalry...does Mack Brown have one more win in him? I believe he does. Does Mack Brown come back for another year? That is the even bigger question. ME: Since press time, Mack was let go. This will probably be his last game coaching the Tar Heels. NC State has won the last three games and will win this one. Go Pack!
WYOMING AT WASHINGTON STATE- Wash. State trounces Wyoming. The Cowboys are just BAD. ME: WSU has lost two in a row and dropped out of the rankings, but they’re still pretty good - a LOT better than the Cowboys.
PURDUE AT INDIANA- Cignetti wins. Google him. Indiana thumps Purdue. In large part because Purdue is putrid this year. Purdon't might lose a scrimmage. To themselves. ME: Indiana is still pretty good and might have given Ohio State a better game. I think that Indiana at its worst can still beat Purdue at its best.
FLORIDA AT FLORIDA STATE- Florida. (Napier has kept his bunch together while Florida State continues to flame out). I've been impressed with Florida's continued improvement when everyone left them for dead. I also think they have gotten healthy finally. ME: Florida found its QB in DJ Lagway. Now, I hear he may be hurt. If he plays, Florida wins big. If he doesn’t, Florida wins.
OKLAHOMA AT LSU- Sooners are hungover. LSU wins a battle of teams I dislike. Can Boomer go back to the Bone? Bring Switzer back. NIL deals and triple option qb's were his specialty before NIL deals were legal. ME: OU played their asses off and beat Bama; LSU went through the motions and beat Vanderbilt by a score. I say LSU is still in a daze and OU runs over them.
WASHINGTON AT OREGON- DUCKS. Washington has surprised me. Didn't think they would win at all. But Oregon is way too good to lose now. The only team that can beat the Ducks is the Ducks currently. ME: This is a real, host-to-God rivalry game. Washington is not close to the team that twice took it to a (possibly) superior Oregon team last year, but Oregon is still coached by the guy that did shake-your-head stupid things and passed it off as "being aggressive.” What I’m saying is, I’m picking Oregon - but Oregon is good at finding ways to lose to Washington.
TEXAS AT TEXAS A&M- I am not sold on Texas. I am inclined to take A&M because they have played a much tougher schedule. Give me the Aggies in an upset. ME: You got here first, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take the Aggies, too. Gig ‘em!
KANSAS STATE AT IOWA STATE- WildKitties...even though I'm forbidden to pick them (rival). I can't pick ISU. I'm so torn. Hailee will forgive me. ME: An explanation: Hailee is Brad’s daughter. She’s a sophomore at KU. So of course she has to hate the Wildcats. This is a tough call. Earlier in the season I’d have said K-State by a lot. I’ll root for K-State but I’d bet on the Cyclones.
NEVADA AT UNLV- UNLV wins this one. And Las Vegas rejoices as if everyone hit the multiplier on the penny slot machines. ME: Oh, please. Should be easy for UNLV, then on to the MW final against Boise State.
VIRGINIA AT VIRGINIA TECH- Give me the Hokies. I do not think Virginia can compete yet. ME: HOKIE, HOKIE, HOKIE HY! TECH, TECH, V-P-I! The folks from the hills take it to the silk stocking types.
HOUSTON AT BYU- BYU gets it figured out this week. Beats Houston but close. ME: BYU has had a couple of tough ones and ought to welcome Houston.
AIR FORCE AT SAN DIEGO STATE- San Diego State because that is who Ron Burgundy would pick. Stay classy San Diego? ME: I think San Diego State is worse than Air Force. How can that be?
*********** UMass is playing UConn this Saturday. It’s at UMass, and last I heard, it was going to be “Senior Day.” It could take a while.
Interestingly, when the people at UMass first announced their plans, they put the word “seniors” in quotes. That’s because, thanks to today’s liberal transfer rules, they have 54 guys who at least in terms of college eligibility are called “seniors. ” But in actuality, very few of them fit the conventional definition of a senior - someone who has spent five years in the program.
Me? With rare exceptions, I’ve never considered a guy - high school or college - to be a “senior,” with all the honors and privileges accorded one, unless it was his second year in a program.
*********** On Saturday, two teams from our league, both of whom spanked us this season, will be playing in the Washington Class 2A semifinal games. W.F. West of Chehalis, our #2 team, will play Anacortes, and Tumwater - our #1 team as well as the state’s #1 team, will play Archbishop Murphy, of Everett. Tumwater, one of the best high school teams I’ve seen in quite some time, has given up just 15 points in its last seven games, while scoring 342. Last week, in the state quarterfinal, the Thunderbirds beat Sehome High, of Bellingham, 70-7. They’ve scored more than 50 points eight times.
*********** Football originally was a gentleman’s game, played by college boys at a time when only the wealthy could afford to send their sons to college.
Over the years, the game became more democratic, as it spread to the west and south, to the sons of miners and farmers and factory workers.
Now, interestingly, in many places in the country it appears to be becoming once again a game for the rich.
In many states in the country, the best teams typically represent either private schools or public schools from an affluent suburb.
The Portland area is a great example of this.
In the Class 6A (largest classification) final this Saturday, the game pits schools from Portland's two most affluent suburbs, Lake Oswego (11-0) and West Linn (10-1).
And across the Columbia River from Portland, its most affluent suburb on the Washington side, Camas (12-0), goes into Saturday’s semifinals against Gonzaga Prep of Spokane (also 12-0) as the Number One seed in Class 4A (Washington’s largest).
An old friend, Jon Eagle, is looking for his second Oregon state title at West Linn. He’s already won two Washington titles at Camas. I don’t know of anyone who has won titles in both states.
*********** North Medford and South Medford will meet Saturday in the finals of an Oregon state title game.
It took them long enough.
As far as I know, they have never met in a state final.
Medford, is about four hours south of Portland, not far from the California line. When Fred Spiegelberg arrived there in 1952 it had about 20,000 people, and one high school.
He was its head coach for the next 31 years.
During that time, the Medford Black Tornado was a force in Oregon football:
21 Southern Oregon championships
14 Oregon semi-final appearances
9 Oregon final game appearances
4 Oregon state championships
Over the years, Medford’s population exploded:
1960: 24,000
1970: 29,000
1980: 40,000
And as the town grew, so did Medford’s football program. Crowds of 10,000 or more at games were commonplace.
Rather than accommodate the growth and build a new high school - potentially diluting Medford’s position as a state power - the town fathers built a new school building that served as a “mid high,” serving ninth and tenth graders. The eleventh and twelfth graders remained in “Medford High School.”
It was fairly common knowledge around the state that so long as “Spieg” was the coach, there would not be two high schools in Medford.
And then following the 1982 season, Spieg retired.
In 1986, Medford finally split into two high schools - North Medford and South Medford.
People predicted that Medford would never see another state title, and truthfully, I’m not aware of either of them winning one in the years since.
Medford now has close to 90,000 people, and the two high schools each have almost 2,000 students. They’ve had good seasons over the years, but - both of them in the final game? What are the odds? Yet here they are, meeting Saturday in a state final.
I can see a return Saturday, however briefly, to the days when Spieg was coaching there, and there were 10,000 people in the stands to watch the Black Tornado.
*********** Usually Army’s Jeff Monken waits until the season’s over to see if there’s anyone else outside of a service academy looking for a head coach whose career has been built on triple option offense. But this year, the search started early with an article in the Athletic on the Thursday before Army’s game with Notre Dame.
Brian Hamilton
Thursday Nov 21
The Athletic
“I could argue that I’m having more of an impact on people here than I could have anywhere else,” Monken says. “But personally – personally – I want to go play for a national championship. I’m not sure that can be done at an academy. Maybe it can. Maybe we can be the top Group of 5 and get into the playoff. But I can’t control that.”
***
“I’d like to have an opportunity to have that challenge at the highest level,” Monken says. “This is a hard job. People talk about other Power 4 (schools) – ‘That’s a hard job.’ Harder than the one I’ve got? What’s harder than this job? Which one?”
***
It’s not a complaint. He enlisted in his own way, though Johnson (Paul Johnson, under whom Monken coached at Navy- HW) at the time did tell his former assistant that the Army job would afford Monken patience and a better salary. And Monken had the blueprint from his time at Navy, to boot. “Where he is,” Johnson says, “is a really good fit for him.” The results prove that. Over time, there have been conversations and maybe even close calls with schools inquiring about his services.
***
And Jeff Monken is still the Army football coach.
“If he gets the opportunity and it’s the right one, he’ll pursue it,” Buddie (Army AD Mike Buddie - HW) says. “He’s in Year 11. He’s earned that opportunity.”
***
The part about the right one matters. Some places aren’t for Jeff Monken and Jeff Monken might not be for some places. The coach and his athletic director have discussed that very topic. Why haven’t there been any right ones, though? There’s loyalty involved – Johnson just about kicked Monken out of his office when Monken told him he might stay at Georgia Tech instead of taking the Georgia Southern job – and there are also biases and boosters and message boards afflicting the people doing the hiring.
***
I see. He’ll pursue it? He’s earned that opportunity?
So the AD seems to be fine with his coach looking around? What kind of an AD talks like that?
*********** After the 1955 Rose Bowl game, Ohio State’s Woody Hayes, fresh off a 20-7 win over USC, decided to rub salt in the wounds by telling the world, “Big Ten teams are better in the Rose Bowl because they are raised on tougher competition.”
Hmmm. Mind if we check that out, Woody?
So. After the next 25 Rose Bowls, the “less tough” Pacific 10 schools held a 15-10 edge over the “tougher” Big Ten;
And after 35 Rose Bowls, the softie Westerners’ edge had grown to 22-13.
*********** Hi Coach,
Hope you are enjoying winding down after your season. We had a rough one over at West Hempstead going 4-5, with two winnable losses costing us the playoff berth.
On a lighter note thought you'd enjoy this little anecdote from Saturday night. Coach Dom Carre and the rest of the staff were in line to get into Yankee Stadium (disaster - took over an hour), when a “lets go Army” chant broke out. We joined in and the folks next to us decked out in West Point gear ask "Where ya'll from?" We reply “Long Island, what about you? Certainly not Long Island with that twang" To which they responded "Texas"
After some talking one young girl exclaimed "My brother is the quarterback." Yes, we were hanging with the Daily family getting into the game. What a fantastic family, and it is evident that they have raised a true leader and outstanding young man.
The story gets better, Mr. Daily then tells us he is with #87's family to which I responded "You mean #4. This grabbed attention of Mr. Reynolds and he says " How do you know my sons High School number ?" "Well, that X -now screen your son took to the house on the first play of the ź finals two years ago still stings."
Casey Reynolds the starting WR for Army was a player in our small Long Island Conference at Cold Spring Harbor High School and is now a two sport athlete for the Knights. After sharing more stories it was nothing but respect around.
As for the game, what I noticed from the nosebleeds is that Notre Dame's speed indeed was evident whenever Army attempted to bounce the ball. The true adage of "Spill to Kill" was alive and well in the Bronx. From that vantage point ND would have 2-3 defenders chasing the spill and shutting the edge.
Again hope all is well with you and the family.
Regards,
Dean Bourazeris
West Hempstead, New York
*********** Wisconsin Badgers football is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. I'm starting to think Luke Fickell is a good recruiter but not a good coach.
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
*********** Corch:
Today's answer is Tim Mara. Outside of actress Mara, not many in the family have much to crow about these days. The Giants have more problems than even the Jets. But we can't lay today's Giants' problems at Tim's feet. All we can say is he invested wisely.
Beautiful page, Coach. I especially refer to your personal recollections of special Thanksgiving. And many times I heard Rush with his annual Thanksgiving message. I hope for rich blessings upon you, Connie, and all your followers.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Agreed. Thanksgiving Day has always been my favorite holiday. Used to be even better when colleges played their rivals that day, and that weekend. It was the day my buddies and I played our own “Turkey Bowl” in the empty lot down the street.
Add the meal of turkey, gravy, dressing, cranberries, potatoes, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and other goodies and WOW!
I was as dumbfounded as you watching the Army-ND game. The “Daily” show wasn’t quite what I expected. Yes, he’s their main guy, but in previous games Army at least showed a more diverse scheme.
Minnesota let that Penn State game get away from them.
Fresno State must have watched the start of one of your Tuesday clinics.
They ran the ball successfully which led to that upset of Colorado State.
I read somewhere that the Ivy League is considering allowing their schools to participate in the FCS playoffs next year.
Is that just more leftist propaganda??
Happy Thanksgiving to y’all.
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I rather doubt that the Ivies will ever make a move toward EMPHASIZING football. The major reason initially was that the presidents didn't want to do anything to minimize the importance of the end-of-season rivalry games. Most people would understand.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Tim Mara was born poor on New York’s Lower East Side, the son of an Irish policeman. He would wind up owning the New York Giants - or, as it was once necessary to say, the New York FOOTBALL Giants.
At 13 he dropped out of school to help support his family.
While working as a “newsboy” (selling newspapers on street corners), he became well-acquainted with bookies, and soon began working for them as a “runner” (taking bets and paying off winners, who often tipped him). By the time he was 18, he was a full-fledged bookie himself.
In 1925, with the five-year-old National Football League in search of someone to operate a franchise in New York City, he put up $500 (about $7,500 in today’s money) to buy the rights. He didn’t know much about football but he was reported to have told people that an exclusive franchise to do anything in New York was worth $500.
At first, things did not go well for him financially. New York was then a college football town, and pro football had little following. But when the Chicago Bears, having just signed Illinois star Red Grange, came to town, our guy rented the Polo Grounds, and the huge crowd that attended brought in $143,000 at the gate, putting the Giants in the black for the season.
The next year, Grange and his agent, C. C. Pyle, formed a rival league, the American Football League, and put a franchise in New York called the Yankees. And when Mara’s coach and one of his standout linemen left to join the Philadelphia Quakers franchise in the new league, Mara was forced to give raises to all his remaining players and sign them to season-long contracts.
He lost a lot of money as a result, but at the end of the season he challenged the American League champion, the Philadelphia Quakers, to a post-season game, and when they accepted, the Giants wound up beating them, 31-0. So much for the AFL.
In 1927, the Giants won their first NFL championship. They would win three more championships during his lifetime.
He had to fight off numerous challengers to his hold on New York pro football, probably the toughest of which came after World War II with the start of the All-America Football Conference. During the AAFC’s existence, from 1946 to 1949, he had to compete with AAFC teams in both New York (the Yankees) and Brooklyn (the Dodgers), but when the leagues “merged,” the Giants were left as the only team in New York.
He died in 1959 at the age of 71, leaving the Giants to his two sons, Jack and Wellington.
Jack’s grandson would ultimately sell his side of the family’s fifty per cent share in the team, but Wellington’s side of the family still owns its half of the club. Wellington’s grandson, John, is the current president of the Giants.
Only the Halas family of Chicago has owned an NFL team for a longer time than the Mara family.
In 1963, Tim Mara was among the first 17 members inducted into the Pro Football Hall of fame in its charter class.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TIM MARA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: They called him "Cactus Jack.” Some people called him "Mister Forward Pass." He coached two college teams - one at Utah and one at Stanford - to national passing titles.
Born in Glasgow, Kentucky, he played football, basketball and baseball and ran track at famed Louisville Male High School.
He went on to Transylvania College and played three sports, starting at quarterback for four years.
For the next eight years he coached high schools in Kentucky. He spent two years at Elizabethtown as its football and basketball coach, and then six years as head football coach and athletic director at Owensboro High. His overall high school record was 32-22-3.
In 1938 he was hired as an assistant coach at West Texas State. He was promoted after two years to the head coach position and in two years as the head coach his record was 15-5.
With World War II going on, he joined the Navy, and spent most of his time coaching different sports at different Navy bases.
Following the war, he coached at Texas Western (now UTEP), and in four years there his teams went 24-13-3.
That got him the job at Utah, where in eight years his teams went 45-32-4, and won four Skyline Conference championships.
In 1957 his quarterback, Lee Grosscup, was the nation's leading passer, completing 61 per cent of his passes, then a single-season record. He made good use of a delayed shovel pass, a sort of middle screen, that became known at the time as the "Utah Pass."
By the time he left Utah, all the teams in the Skyline Conference had begun to emulate his pass-first style of offense, and he had begun to find himself having to face his own offense every week.
In 1958, he was hired by Stanford, where he would coach for five seasons.
His 1959 Stanford team set a new college record for passes completed in a single season. All-American end Chris Burford - who went on to an outstanding career in pro football, - led the nation in receiving with 61 catches for 756 yards, and QB Dick Norman, who completed 152 of 263 passes for 1963 yards - huge numbers at the time - led the nation in passing and total offense.
Unfortunately, he did not win at Stanford, actually going 0-10 in 1960, and in 1961, despite having the best passing team in the country, going 4-6. Following the 1962 season, although Stanford had improved to 5-5 with a 30-13 season-ending victory over arch-rival Cal, his contract was not renewed. In five years at The Farm, his record was 14-36.
The following season, he signed on as head coach at UC Santa Barbara, playing in the “college division,” as FCS was called then.
In seven years there, his teams went 37-29-1.
His career record was 135-115-2, and despite his reputation as a wide-open passing guru, his teams won two national rushing titles, making him the first college coach to win two national rushing titles as well as two national passing titles.
He served for several years as chairman of the college football rules committee, and in 1961 as president of the American Football Coaches Association.
His 1961 book, "The Passing Game in Football," was considered a major contribution to the modern passing game.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2024 "Trust everybody, but cut the
cards." Finley Peter Dunne*********** In their rush to sell us stuff, the merchants and the media appear to be preparing to bypass Thanksgiving. Too bad. Thanksgiving will always be special for me.
Thanksgiving, 1945 - I saw my first football game. In Pennsylvania, as in many eastern states, it was customary in those days for high schools to play their Big Game on Thanksgiving day - usually in the morning, while back at home the turkey was in the oven. My brother was nine years older than me, and his high school, Germantown High, was playing at Norristown High. I don’t remember who won - probably Norristown, because Germantown wasn’t very good then - but I do remember how cold my feet got. Funny the things you remember. No matter - it was the start for me of a long tradition of football on Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving, 1958 - A few weeks earlier, at the Yale-Princeton game, I had just met the girl who would become my wife. We were both from the Philly area and were home for Thanksgiving. I met her parents and her brother and liked them - and I guess they liked me. She met my parents and liked them, and they loved her. In keeping with a Thanksgiving tradition for many Philadelphians back then, we went to the Penn-Cornell game, where I proudly introduced her to my favorite aunt and uncle, who were huge Penn supporters. They loved her, too. My aunt even had a mum for her. (That’s short for chrysanthemum, a flower which in those days was almost a compulsory part of every woman’s attire at football games in the fall.) The next July, we were married.
Thanksgiving, 1989 - We had just moved into our home in Camas, Washington a few days before. It’s the only home we’ve ever owned. We’d looked all over Southwest Washington before finally finding this one, and it suited us so well that we’ve lived in it ever since. Thirty-five years in the same house! One sad note - Jerry Foley, a transplanted New York Irishman who as our realtor was tireless in his efforts to help us find the right place, passed away last year. God bless him.
*********** On this Thanksgiving, I’m thankful...
That I was born and grew up in the most wonderful country imaginable. I was born during the Depression, and when I started school, World War II was still going on, but because of people - relatives, neighbors, teachers, coaches - who endured the hardships of those difficult times, I was blessed to grow up in the America I remember…
For having parents, teachers and coaches who must have seen something better in me than just a smartass, hyperactive kid who couldn’t stay out of trouble…
That I met and married a girl who loved me for who I was and, simply by being herself, motivated me to try to become as good a person as she was…
For the unforgettable experience of seeing our children grow into good responsible adults, of seeing them marry wonderful people and bring them into the family, and of getting to know and love the eleven wonderful grandchildren they’ve given us - and, now, the grandchildren’s spouses and, this year, the first of what we hope will be a score of great-grandchildren.
For the way events worked together so that I have been able to spend more than 50 years in the job of my dreams - football coaching - and as a result, to have been able to meet so many great people whom I would never have met otherwise…
Finally, I’m thankful that the same God who watched over the Pilgrims still watches over us all.
*********** This week, as it has done every Thanksgiving since 1961, the Wall Street Journal will publish two pieces:
First, “The Desolate Wilderness,” an account of the Pilgrims’ journey to America.
And then, “The Fair Land,” written by Vermont Royster, who held many positions at the the WSJ, including editor from 1959 to 1971, during which time he started the annual tradition of publishing the two pieces on Thanksgiving.
In it, he reminds us “That for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators.”
Mr. Royster was more than a “journalist.” During World War II, he was captain of a US Navy destroyer in the Pacific. After engaging in combat, in September 1945 he was among the first Americans to see first-hand the results of the atomic bomb that hit Nagasaki.
Back at the WSJ in 1953, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, and in 1984, he received another Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
A native North Carolinian, he retired from the WSJ in 1996 and became Kenan Professor of Journalism and Public Affairs at the University of North Carolina.
Every year, a re-reading (and re-printing) of these two writings is an essential part of my Thanksgiving. Maybe I can help make it a part of yours.
The Desolate Wilderness
Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton , keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford , sometime governor thereof:
So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.
When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.
The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the quay as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.
Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.
Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.
If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.
The Fair Land
Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.
This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.
And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.
So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.
For the traveler, as travelers have been always, is as much questioned as questioning. And for all the abundance he sees, he finds the questions put to him ask where men may repair for succor from the troubles that beset them.
His countrymen cannot forget the savage face of war. Too often they have been asked to fight in strange and distant places, for no clear purpose they could see and for no accomplishment they can measure. Their spirits are not quieted by the thought that the good and pleasant bounty that surrounds them can be destroyed in an instant by a single bomb. Yet they find no escape, for their survival and comfort now depend on unpredictable strangers in far-off corners of the globe.
How can they turn from melancholy when at home they see young arrayed against old, black against white, neighbor against neighbor, so that they stand in peril of social discord? Or not despair when they see that the cities and countryside are in need of repair, yet find themselves threatened by scarcities of the resources that sustain their way of life? Or when, in the face of these challenges, they turn for leadership to men in high places—only to find those men as frail as any others?
So sometimes the traveler is asked whence will come their succor. What is to preserve their abundance, or even their civility? How can they pass on to their children a nation as strong and free as the one they inherited from their forefathers? How is their country to endure these cruel storms that beset it from without and from within?
Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.
But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere—in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.
We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.
And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.
*********** I don’t remember a whole lot about my college graduation, but according to the program I still have, those of us in attendance sang this old hymn, suggesting that the people who came before us and helped make us what we are gave God appropriate credit. It acknowledges that after “our exiled fathers crossed the sea,” and “trod the wintry strand,” they worshipped God “with prayer and psalm.”
O God, beneath Thy guiding hand
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea,
And when they trod the wintry strand,
With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee.
Thou heard'st, well pleased, the song, the prayer;
Thy blessing came, and still its pow'r
Shall onward through all ages bear
The memory of that holy hour.
Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God
Came with those exiles o'er the waves,
And where their pilgrim feet have trod,
The God they trusted guards their graves.
(There is zero chance that today’s Yale, infected by rot like much of the rest of today’s society, would risk offending anyone by including a Christian hymn in its graduation ceremony.)
*********** Rush Limbaugh will have been gone four years this coming February, and I can’t help thinking that his absence for almost the entire Biden presidency was the main reason why the Mainstream Media and the Party in Power were able to maintain the pretense of a sentient President as long as it did.
It’s also conceivable that it was the vacuum created by his absence that presented the opportunity for Donald Trump to return to power.
I still miss El Rushbo, and I invite you to enjoy his “The True Story of Thanksgiving”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAyvTCaoFA0
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Dave Nelson, who won widespread fame and recognition as one of the most cerebral and creative college football coaches in history, was an untried rookie when I first met him at Hillsdale College.
“Hillsdale was Nelson's first stop in a coaching career that was eminently successful and somewhat remarkable because none of the schools where he practiced his trade and made such innovative waves were big-time programs in huge media markets. They didn't compete in the Big 10, the Pac-10 or the Southeastern Conference.
“I was the captain of Dave Nelson's first team as a head coach.
“Then, for most of the next fifteen years at Hillsdale College, the University of Maine and the University of Delaware, I had the good fortune to serve as an assistant coach with Nelson; I was a trusted strategist and disciple of the man who created and taught the Winged-T offense. We spread the Winged-T gospel at hundreds of clinics and blackboard sessions in football war rooms in universities across the country.
“But I am getting ahead of myself here. I had returned to Hillsdale from a three-year stint in the Marine Corps in World War II in 1946 to finish my senior year and, almost as important, my final season of college football.”
*********** Brad Knight’s and my picks - many of them emotionally based, few of them backed by hard analysis, a couple of them downright idiotic.
We may even give you a reason to be interested in a particular game.
Here are the results of the games and, in the interest of strict accountability, our “predictions."
FRIDAY
MICHIGAN STATE 24, PURDUE 17 – The Spartans...big. Purdue is TERRIBLE. ME: Could this be the one? Could this be the Boilermakers’ win? What the hell - I’m going to start the weekend off with a BIG upset. (Okay, okay. They almost pulled it off. Anybody find out who that was, dressed in black pants and black helmets and “midnight green” jerseys, claiming to be the Spartans?)
UNLV 27, SAN JOSE STATE 16 – I like San Jose State in this one. I just think both teams are decent, and the game is on the road for the UNLV Fighting Mafia. ME: I like Ken Niumatololo and the job he’s done at SJSU, but UNLV is fighting for a spot in the MW championship game against Boise State, and they’re not going to go limp. (They didn’t.)
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE 38, INDIANA 15 – I'll take the UPSET! Indiana might shock the country. Plus I hate the Buckeyes. ME: Maybe it’s because I root for hated Duke in basketball, but I just can’t hate the Buckeyes. They’re good and they consistently meet a high standard. But I’m going to root for Indiana because I already have a book written about their miracle 14-0 season, including their last-second kickoff return touchdown to beat Texas in the National Championship game. I do insist on playing Kurt Cignetti in the movie version, but they keep telling me I’m not “Italian enough.” (Except for Michigan’s down season, the Big Ten is pretty much back to business as usual, with the Buckeyes in control of things.)
MIAMI 42, WAKE FOREST 14 – Hurricanes....need this one to stay in the hunt for the playoffs. Perhaps a loss was good for them to refocus. ME: I like Wake but Miami isn’t going to fold now. Especially in front of one of their huge home “crowds.” (As usually, Wake made it a game - until it wasn’t.)
FLORIDA 24, OLE MISS 17 – FLA played well a week ago....but Kiff will have his guys ready. Defensively the Rebs have gotten much MUCH better. ME: Ole Miss wins. Rebels still have hopes of a Playoff berth. (We both whiffed on this one. Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart had a good day - 24/41 for 323 yards and two TDs - but he threw two INTs, both in the closing minutes as the Rebels fought to tie things up.)
SMU 33, VIRGINIA 7 – SMU is just too good. ME: Agreed. SMU can beat Miami. Or even Clemson. (Enough said.)
ILLINOIS 38, RUTGERS – I'll take the Bielema boys to beat up on the Knights. In this game anyway. Jerzee and Hailee and I could take him! ME: Illinois is 7-3 and I think they’re better. But Rutgers is 6-4. I’m going out on a limb and taking the Jersey Boys. (Heck of a game - 37 points scored in the fourth quarter. Rutgers took a one-point lead with 1:08, Illini won with a 40-yard pass with :04 left.)
IOWA 29, MARYLAND 13 – Iowa...with the mystery qb. Get the ball to KJ. Play defense. Iowa wins this one. ME: There’s Iowa with their classic uniform against Maryland and their “look what they’re making us wear this week” attire. Motivation: Loser has to wear the other team’s uniforms in their next game. That’s why I know Iowa will win. (Maryland actually dressed like a real big-time college team, so Iowa had nothing to worry about, as it turned out.)
BOSTON COLLEGE 41, NORTH CAROLINA 21 – BC with internal issue and a QB who is disgruntled. I'll take Mack Brown and the NC Tarheels. ME: After watching UNC running back Omarion Hampton against Wake Forest last week, I hesitate to pick BC, but I think that O’Brien has the QB situation under control. So BC. (Surprised it was by this much)
TEXAS 31, KENTUCKY 14 – Texas gets knocked off by Stoops. Kentucky in a shocker. ME: Just one more in the string of weak teams that Texas has feasted on this year. (Ditto.)
PENN STATE 26, MINNESOTA 25 – The Nittany Kittens eat the Gophers. Still need Sanderson to coach in big games. ME: I would call for an upset except that Franklin does pretty well in games where Penn State’s favored. (Great game. Penn State fake punt helps them control the ball and run out the clock.)
ARIZONA STATE 28, BYU 23 – Game of the week maybe...AzState playing well. BYU coming off a huge loss. Give me the Sun Devils. ME: Sun Devils for sure. Between runner Cam Skattebo - a human bowling ball - and QB Sam Leavitt (an Oregon kid), and ASU coach Kenny Dillingham’s mind, Sun Devils may have the best offense in the Big 12. (Took ‘em a while to clear the prematurely-stormed field. Skattebo - 28/147/3 TDs.)
KANSAS 37, COLORADO 21 – I won't pick against the JAYHAWKS again. Hailee will stab me if I do. Kansas is the hottest team in the country at the moment. Bowl game is not impossible. ME: Unlike some bandwagon jumpers, I’m picking Kansas for the second straight week. (Watching the Buffs some back down to earth was fun to watch. And Kansas is definitely on fire.)
MICHIGAN 50, NORTHWESTERN 6 – Michigan...because Northwestern is just bad. ME: Northwestern thought that they’d dodged all the bullets after they fired Pat Fitzegerald, but they haven’t seen anything yet. (Bring back Pat Fitzgerald.)
NEBRASKA 44, WISCONSIN 28 – Wisconsin wins this one. The Badgers are improving and Nebraska isn't used to Holgerson's offensive philosophy yet. Plus I dislike Nebraska. ME: Based on Holgorsen’s far greater experience at his position (two weeks) vs whoever will be calling Wisconsin’s plays (less than a week), I have to go with the Huskers. Plus there’s something about Luke Fickell that I just don’t like and I can’t put my finger on it. (Guess maybe the Badgers pulled the trigger on offensive coordinator Phil Longo a little too soon.)
CAL 24, STANFORD 21 – The winner can claim "most liberal school". Should be a battle. But Stanford is not good. I will take the fighting democrats of CAL. ME: I like Cal’s Justin Wilcox but I’m a proud Stanford dad and this is Big Game. So go Card. And in case you haven’t been watching: Stanford had shown that it can come back; Cal has shown that it can’t hold leads. (WHO did I say couldn’t hold leads??? Aargh.)
TEXAS TECH 56, OKLAHOMA STATE 48b – Tech blasts Gundy. Okie State is just not good at all. ME: Win or lose, Cowboys are headed for a losing season. With everyone jumping on Gundy, it’s only fair to point out that their last losing season was his very first one at Stillwater - 19 seasons ago. (C’mon Cowboys!)
WEST VIRGINIA 31, UCF 21 – The Mountaineers win a shootout. And burn some couches. ME: Got to agree. Throw the couches in the blazing dumpster that is Central Florida. (Which they would have done if it were in Morgantown.)
UTAH STATE 41, SAN DIEGO STATE 20 – Tough one here. I like the other Aggies. But I think San Diego State is better. San Diego State wins. And we all know the meaning Ron Burgundy has for San Diego. Stay classy! ME: The Aggies, who can stand there after a game and tell stories about adversity that top anybody’s, will be smiling after this one. (Aggies actually ran a criss-cross for a TD)
LOUISVILLE 37, PITT 9 – Time for a physical battle from Narduzzi's bunch. P-Burg wins this one. Give me the Panthers. ME: Pitt. Did Louisville even practice this week? After watching the way they played against Stanford last week, do they ever practice? They have no idea what damage they did to the ACC with the way they played Saturday. (It was a trick. Louisville laid down against Stanford last week just so we’d pick Pitt - Pantheritis and all.)
MISSOURI 39 MISSISSIPPI STATE 20 – Misery....because Mississippi State still angers me for their comments about the Hawkeyes a few years ago. ME: Mississippi State would love right now to be back there a few years ago, when they could actually make disparaging remarks about anybody. Not now. They’re suffering. And so is Missouri, but Missouri is a lot better than they are. (Surely there must be somebody Mississippi State can beat. I have it - let’s get someone from the MAC. How about Toledo? They’ve got an open date.)
ARMY AT NOTRE DAME (AT YANKEE STADIUM) – I dislike ND. I LOVE ARMY. Let's Go BLACK KNIGHTS!!!!! ME: More about this one below.
BOISE STATE 17, WYOMING 13 – I will not pick against Boise State as long as Jeanty is healthy. Give him 200+ and 4 TD's in a route. ME: This is one of the easier calls we’ll ever have to make. (Maybe an easy call, but not an easy game. This one was tied, 10-10 going into the fourth quarter. Ashton Jeanty was “held” to 169 yards.)
OREGON STATE 41, WASHINGTON STATE 38 – Washington State. The BEAVS are bad. ME: Not only are the Beavers bad, but the Cougs are good. They have some weapons, especially their QB, John Mateer. This is considered a Pac-12 game, but by agreement it is NOT for the Pac-12 Championship. (A shocker. A really entertaining game in front of a packed house in Corvallis. The lead changed nine times. OSU, loser of five straight, came back from 38-31 with 2:45 left, kicking the winning field goal with :20 left after a WSU receiver, failing to protect the ball, fumbled with under a minute to play.)
BAYLOR 20, HOUSTON 10 – Houston in a battle of "other" Texas schools. Baylor and Houston are both having okay seasons and can be quite entertaining to watch. Houston misses Holgerson's passing game prowess. ME: While no one was looking, Baylor was beating West Virginia - earning bowl eligibility and saving Dave Aranda’s job. Go Bears! (Great job of saving the season.)
OKLAHOMA 24, ALABAMA 3 – BAMA! ROLL TIDE!!! Oklahoma is wishing it had stayed in the Big 12. ME: I don’t think the OU folks ever imagined that Alabama’s first SEC visit to Norman would look like this. Bama by 10 - at least. (Baylor is 7-4; Houston is 4-7. Hope it was worth it to Willie Fritz to leave Tulane for Houston.) (OU outrushed Bama, 257-70. Is Jalen Milroe - 11/26 for 164 and THREE INTs, SEVEN yards rushing - regressing? Wish I’d been there to hear the OU fans chanting “SEC! SEC! SEC!”)
AUBURN 43, TEXAS A&M 41 (4 OTs) – A&M because AUBURN SUCKS!!! ME: Yes, and Hugh Freeze would make them hard to like even if they were good. But Pop Warner could be coaching them, and A & M would still be a whole lot better. Can’t wait for the Aggies-Longhorns next week! (Since it was such an epic effort by Auburn, will the SEC promoters at ESPN call it a “quality loss” for A & M?)
IOWA STATE 31, UTAH 28 – I will take the Utes in an upset. They will manhandle ISU up front. ME: From my distance, it looks as if the Utes are through. I hate to be the one to tell you that the hated Cyclones aren’t ready to fold just yet. (While we were looking elsewhere, Iowa State has put together another 9-win season.)
LSU 24, VANDERBILT 17 – Give me Vandy. LSU is looking for money to buy Kelly out! ME: Why am I wasting money paying a predictor who would actually think that Vanderbilt can beat LSU? Actually, now that I think about it, after the listless way the Tigers played against Florida, an upset isn’t out of the realm of possibility. But I still don’t have the stones to pick Vandy. (Just as well I didn’t - LSU is bad, but not that bad. A friend who was at the game said he expected more of Vandy’s Diego Pavia than 186 yards passing and 43 yards rushing. Me, too.)
KANSAS STATE 41, CINCINNATI 15 – K State rebounds. In a game that could be close this one won't be. The Wildcats in a rout. ME: If the Wildcats can somehow avoid falling behind 21-0 to start the game (as they didn’t against ASU) they’ll be fine. Sure was surprised to hear some boos from the KSU faithful last week.(Wildcats rushed for 281 yards, exceeded this season only by the 283 against BCS Tennessee-Martin in the season opener.)
DUKE 31, VIRGINIA TECH 38 – Not sure who to pick. Tech needs a win to make a bowl game. Duke needs a win just to get another win. But I think Duke is better. Especially at Duke. ME: This Duke team is pretty good. The Devils are 7-3, and they’ve been in every game they’ve played, including holding a 28-25 lead over Miami until 3:08 left in the third, and having the potential winning field goal against SMU blocked with no time left on the clock. Go Devils. (Duke’s Eli Pancol caught just five passes, but they were for 188 yards - an average 37.6 yards per catch - and three TDs. Get this - he’s been at Duke - same school - for five years. Duke is now 8-3 in Manny Diaz’ first season.)
USC 19, UCLA 13 – The "who cares" bowl. I'll take USC to beat UCLA in a game literally half the country (especially me) cares about. LA can just move to Russia. ME: This game symbolizes to me how far, in many ways, college football has regressed. There was a time for me when I looked forward to this game every year. It was so exotic- there I was, a kid sitting in front of the TV - in Philly where it was already dark outside - watching these two teams playing in bright sunshine, 100,000 people in the Coliseum, each side trying to outdo the other with clever card tricks. Guy with cool names like Aramis Dandoy and Sam Tsagalakis. Unlike Brad Knight, I’m going to pick a winner: USC. (UCLA had its chances. It was a good game with surprisingly few nasty interactions between players. That we could see, that is. One that we couldn’t see occurred as the teams went in at halftime and resulted in the Bruins’ kicking off from their own five to start the second half.)
AIR FORCE 22, NEVADA 19 – I'll take the Zoomies. Against my better judgement. ME: I don’t like the Zoomies, but I think they’ll win. (It was a three-point game until AF scored with 1:11 remaining to make it 22-12.)
FRESNO STATE 28, COLORADO STATE 22 – Have to go with the boys from Fresno State. Not sure I will be right BUT Colorado and California are both leftist hellholes. ME: I have to go with Fresno because if Colorado State wins, they’ll be in the Mountain West title game against Boise State, mainly because they had a pillow-soft schedule that didn’t include either of the conference’s two best teams - Boise State and UNLV. (Whew. For a while there the prospect of Colorado State in the MW championship game scared me. I haven’t checked carefully, but it does appear that this Fresno win means that Boise and UNLV will meet for the MW title.)
*********** There still isn’t a P-4 coaching vacancy yet, but I did fail to mention two others in the Group of 5: Charlotte and Rice.
*********** YOU NEWCOMERS - SURE HOPE YOU DID WELL ON THESE:
UMASS AT GEORGIA – Georgia 59, UMass 21
UTEP AT TENNESSEE – Tennessee 56, UTEP 0
WOFFORD AT SOUTH CAROLINA – South Carolina 56, Wofford 12
*********** First of all, this is not to suggest in any way that Notre Dame is not much, much better than Army. It’s probable that nothing that Army did could have given it a much of a chance against Notre Dame, but…
A word about the Army offense.
Legendary comedian Groucho Marx used to emcee a TV quiz show called “You Bet Your Life,” and whenever someone failed to make any money, he’d tell them he didn’t want them to go away empty handed, so for fifty bucks or so (decent money then), he’d ask, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?”
A similar easy-to-answer question for anybody watching Army-Notre Dame Saturday night would have been (any time Army was on offense), “ Who’s going to carry the ball on the next play?”
(No, the answer’s not “Ulysses Grant.”)
If you’d said, “Bryson Daily,” your chances of getting the answer were quite good. About 70 percent. Of Army’s 67 offensive plays, 39 were runs by Daily and eight were passes by Daily.
Now, Bryson Daily is one terrific football player. And, this being consistent with Army strategy throughout the season, it makes a lot of sense to put the ball in his hands as much as possible.
But Notre Dame wasn’t like the rest of Army’s opponents. Notre Dame was much better - faster and stronger, especially - and it seemed to me it made sense for Army to have played a little “what if?” in advance, and to have had some other weapons ready.
Misdirection? Nowhere to be found. Traps? Ditto
Triple option? Make me laugh.
They did run a couple of plays that could possibly have been called triple option, because that’s what they resembled, but the plain and simple fact, made obvious a couple of weeks ago when Daily couldn’t play against Air Force and his backup didn’t run a single triple option play, is: ARMY DOESN’T RUN TRIPLE OPTION ANY MORE.
They have been running a little of it with Daily under center - enough to mollify the hard core grads - but in reality, whether under center or direct snap, the bulk of the Army offense has become a primitive, off-tackle version of “Hey diddle diddle, We’re comin’ up the middle.”
Primitive? Hey, Irish - here’s who’s going to carry… we’re going to snap it right to him. Where he’s going? Wait a half-step and you’ll see. Okay? Now, then - stop us.
It’s important, of course, to have a signature play - something that opponents know that you’re going to run and that they HAVE to stop or it’s going to be a long day for them.
But with Army, as with those of us who run Double Wing: it is possible for opponents to stop a single play. Then what? What we know from experience is that in order to stop our base play they HAVE to give us something else. What is it? That’s where long experience with the offense comes in handy.
In Army’s case, they didn’t have enough experience with “Daily off-tackle” - specifically with people stopping it - to have anything else ready.
*********** NOW THIS IS HOW YOU START A RIVALRY…
Just in case anybody might have thought the the Washington State-Oregon State game was going to be a “friendly” (a sickening soccer term) between two brothers left orphaned by rest of the family, Washington State coach Jake Dickert dispelled that notion the Monday of game week by saying: “I’ve never gotten into the, like, ‘They’re our buddy.’ Oregon State’s not our buddy. They would’ve left us as fast as we would’ve left them.”
*********** Now that Indiana has a loss, watch as ESPN tries to make a case for a three-loss SEC team to get into the playoff ahead of the Hoosiers - because, you’ll grow tired of hearing, the SEC is so tough that many of those losses are “quality losses.”
They conveniently forget to say that back when this was happening in the Pac-12. Back then, they said it was because the Pac-12 was a weakling conference.
*********** If you’ve watched much weeknight football, you’ve certainly encountered Matt Barrie and Dan Mullen. Mullen’s not bad - former coach, knows his stuff - but Barrie really ruins a broadcast. He has a high-pitched voice and he speaks in machine-gun fashion, spewing all sorts of data and facts and tales, sometimes even touching on the play being run. When he runs out of data and facts, he calls the game, but it’s as if we’re blind and listening to it on the radio. Fewer things are more annoying that having someone assume that you’re a child that can’t see that a passer is dropping back, and so you need to be told. Mainly, he seems committed to making sure that no bit of the broadcast is wasted by silence.
Some of the nonsense he spews is laughable. An example from last week:
“Georgia Tech - a phenomenal institute of technology.”
Well, Matt, if you say so…
*********** Did I say that Matt Barrie is bad? Gus Johnson is worse, but evidently he’s built up a big enough following at Fox headquarters that he gets to call most of the big games.
Besides his motormouth, his biggest failing is his disrespect for football.
He cut his teeth calling NBA games, and he’s never managed to get that out of his system.
But what kills me is when he inflicts soccer talk on us:
“Indiana up, seven-nil,” he said as we went to commercial. Grrrrr. Drop that “nil” sh—. And then, when we came back, he said it again.
*********** Anybody going to be watching Texas-Texas A & M Saturday?
1. Texas Longhorns 6-1 SEC (10-1 overall)
2. Georgia Bulldogs 6-2 (9-2)
3. Tennessee Volunteers 5-2 (9-2)
4. Texas A&M Aggies 5-2 (8-3)
5. South Carolina Gamecocks 5-3 (8-3)
6. Alabama Crimson Tide 4-3 (8-3)
7. LSU Tigers 4-3 (7-4)
8. Missouri Tigers 4-3 (8-3)
9. Ole Miss Rebels 4-3 (8-3)
10. Florida Gators 4-4 (6-5)
11. Arkansas Razorbacks 3-4 (6-5)
12. Vanderbilt Commodores 3-4 (6-5)
13. Oklahoma Sooners 2-5 (6-5)
14. Auburn Tigers 2-5 (5-6)
15. Kentucky Wildcats 1-7 (4-7)
16. Mississippi State Bulldogs 0-7 (2-9)
*********** Of course I watched the Yale-Harvard game Saturday, won by -(ahem) Yale, 34-29. And one of the things I learned - the Ivy League operating in semi-secrecy - is that there’s a three-way tie for first place, among Harvard (which stood to win outright if it could just have beaten Yale), Dartmouth, which has been strong in recent years, and….Columbia.
Yes, Columbia, the place where anti-Israel protests seemed to become a way of life. That Columbia.
The last time Columbia finished in first place in the Ivy League was 1961.
*********** It probably wouldn’t have made any difference, but mishandled snaps on punts played big roles in starting the slide to defeat of both Indiana and Army.
*********** Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham has done a great job. He’s young - 34 years old - and he looks even younger.
But the way he looked Saturday, ranting at the officials on national TV near the end of the BYU game, you’d think he was a LOT younger - like maybe 3 or 4.
*********** Every so often Chris Vannini in The Athletic ranks all 134 FBS teams, from Number One Oregon to Number 134 Kent State (in case you wondered), the only FBS school that has yet to win a game. Their coach, Kenni Burns, doesn’t have enough trouble - he’s also being sued by a Kent Bank that claims he owes $24,000 on his Mastercard. Dude’s making $475,000 a year. Soon it could be a lot less than that.
Anyhow, based on this week’s rankings, here’s how HIS 12-team playoff would look:
Wow. Boise State… SMU… Arizona State… Indiana… Miami. Think any of them will win a game? No matter. New blood in the mix.
Thank you, twelve-team playoff.
And thank you, Oklahoma, Florida and Auburn.
*********** Good morning, Corch:
I watched a short interview (12 min?) with Army OC Cody Worley yesterday. He echoed your contention that trying out new stuff vs the Irish would be a big mistake. In fact, he said that a couple of times. Hope he and Monken mean that. Your analysis of the Army-ND game is fair. A former Army QB invited me to watch the game at his house in Tampa. We've watched together a few times, but this time I declined, honestly claiming we are too intense. On Brave Old Army Team
Still loving the weekly connection with Coach Lude, as well as the weekly BK-HW picks.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
************ Hugh
Glad to hear you survived the “bomb.”
Am conflicted. I really enjoy watching Army play football. Our buddy Mike’s son graduated from West Point. I’ve been a huge Notre Dame fan for years, daughter is a grad. I’ve decided it would be fair if it was just a great game!
Will also be conflicted for Army-Navy.
Am a big Army fan, but my niece’s daughter is in the Navy and so is Mike’s other son! If Navy QB Horvath is healthy, and if Army QB Dailey can stay healthy after ND, UTSA, and Tulane it will be a close Army win. Otherwise, without Dailey the Middies could pull out the win.
No offense to Knighter but as a Golden Gopher fan I can only pull for those Iowa bumblebees when they play Ohio State and Michigan.
You left one coach out. Biff Poggi was let go at UNC Charlotte.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Woody Green remains one of the greatest high school athletes ever to come out of Portland, Oregon.
As a running back at Jefferson High School, he was first team All-City his junior and senior years, and was first team All-State and High School all-American his senior year.
In his senior year he was second team All-City on the school’s city championship basketball team, and he was state champion in the 100 and 440 in both his junior and senior years.
With size - 6 foot, 205 - and speed, he was a perfect fit at Arizona State and Frank Kush’s run-heavy Wing-T offense.
In his second game, as a sophomore, he ran for 214 yards and two touchdowns against Utah. For the season, he rushed for 1,310 yards, averaging 5.5 yards per carry, and earned honorable mention All-America honors.
Playing in the very first Fiesta Bowl at the end of the season, he carried 24 times for 101 yards and three TDs as the Sun Devils defeated Florida State, 45-38.
In his junior season, he had the greatest season any ASU running back has ever had, rushing for 1,565 yards and 15 TDs on 234 carries (an average of 6.7 yards per carry).
He had games of 201 yards against San Jose State, 198 against both BYU and Wyoming, 195 against Houston and 172 against Arizona.
He earned consensus All-American honors, becoming only the second Sun Devil to be so honored.
Playing in the Fiesta Bowl again, he rushed for 202 yards and three touchdowns as the Sun Devils beat Missouri, 49-35.
In his senior season, he surpassed 1,300 yards for the this straight year, gaining 1,313 yards, and became the first Sun Devil player to earn consecutive consensus All-American selections.
The Sun Devils finished the season 11-1 after a third Fiesta Bowl win, this one over Pitt, with a Number 9 ranking nationally.
He finished eighth in the Heisman balloting.
He set ASU career rushing records that still stand : 4,188 yards and 39 touchdowns. Over the course of his three seasons, he had 21 100-yard rushing games, and during that time the Sun Devils’ record was 32-4 (Two 11-1 seasons and one 10-2).
He was the 1st round draft choice of the Kansas City Chiefs, and although he had a promising rookie season, he suffered a knee injury that slowed him down and ultimately led to his retirement part way through his third season.
The amazing thing is that he was not an I-back getting a disproportionate share of the carries. Playing in a two- and three-man backfield, he shared the carries. In his sophomore year, Ben Malone rushed for 857 yards; in his junior year, Brent McClanahan rushed for 988 yards; and in his senior year, Malone rushed for 1.129 yards.
In the year that our guy was drafted first, Malone was drafted second, by the Dolphins, and went on to a nine-year NFL career. McClanahan was a year ahead of our guy, and after being drafted by Minnesota, he spent seven seasons with the Vikings.
The Sun Devils’ offense was not exactly as sportswriters often described it: “run, run, run, run, run, maybe think pass, run, run, run…” The 1972 Sun Devils’ team set an NCAA regular-season scoring record with 513 points, and it wasn’t all done on the ground.
Their quarterback, Danny White, whose three-year ASU career paralleled our guy’s, finished with 6,717 passing yards and 64 touchdowns. He was drafted third by the Dallas Cowboys - the same year the Sun Devils had running backs taken in the first and second rounds - and he led them to a Super Bowl win.
Woody Green entered the ASU Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 1975.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING WOODY GREEN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born poor on New York’s Lower East Side, the son of an Irish policeman. He would wind up owning the New York Giants - or, as it was once necessary to say, the New York FOOTBALL Giants.
At 13 he dropped out of school to help support his family.
While working as a “newsboy” (selling newspapers on street corners), he became well-acquainted with bookies, and soon began working for them as a “runner” (taking bets and paying off winners, who often tipped him). By the time he was 18, he was a full-fledged bookie himself.
In 1925, with the five-year-old National Football League in search of someone to operate a franchise in New York City, he was approached to put up $500 (about $7,500 in today’s money) to buy the rights. He didn’t know much about football but he was reported to have told people that an exclusive franchise to do anything in New York was worth $500.
At first, things did not go well for him financially. New York was then a college football town, and pro football had little following. But when the Chicago Bears, having just signed Illinois star Red Grange, came to town, our guy rented the Polo Grounds, and the huge crowd that attended brought in $143,000 at the gate, putting the Giants in the black for the season.
The next year, Grange and his agent, C. C. Pyle, formed a rival league, the American Football League, and put a franchise in New York called the Yankees. And when our guy’s coach and one of his standout linemen left to join the Philadelphia Quakers franchise in the new league, our guy was forced to give raises to all his remaining players and sign them to season-long contracts.
He lost a lot of money as a result, but at the end of the season he challenged the American League champion, the Philadelphia Quakers, to a post-season game, and when they accepted, the Giants wound up beating them, 31-0. So much for the AFL.
In 1927, the Giants won their first NFL championship. They would win three more championships during his lifetime.
He had to fight off numerous challengers to his hold on New York pro football, probably the toughest of which came after World War II with the start of the All-America Football Conference. During the AAFC’s existence, from 1946 to 1949, he had to compete with AAFC teams in both New York (the Yankees) and Brooklyn (the Dodgers), but when the leagues “merged,” the Giants were left as the only team in New York.
He died in 1959 at the age of 71, leaving the Giants to his two sons, Jack and Wellington.
Jack’s grandson would ultimately sell his side of the family’s fifty per cent share in the team, but Wellington’s side of the family still owns its half of the club. Wellington’s grandson, John, is the current president of the Giants.
Only the Halas family of Chicago has owned an NFL team for a longer time.
In 1963, our guy was among the first 17 members inducted into the Pro Football Hall of fame in its charter class. In the photo above, that's his son, Wellington, next to his bust in the Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2024 “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t
even past.” William Faulkner*********** My wife asked me when I plan on turning the flag right-side-up. I told her - when I hear President Trump say, "So help me God."
*********** Thanks for all your help. You can stop sending us money now. We made it through the Bomb Cyclone just fine. A little rain (it is, after all, the Northwest) and a little wind. Even our place on the Coast is okay.
But there were places in the Northwest that had problems with downed trees and a subsequent loss of power, and the area outside Seattle, near where our daughter and son-in-law live, got hit pretty hard.
On a somewhat associated note, the Pacific Northwest is not exactly Tornado Alley, so when the graphic below was sent to me Tuesday by a friend, my only reaction was “WTF?” A tornado in the Northwest is about like snow in Miami. (On the map, our place is just about at the “a” in “Ocean.” )
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “We planned a party to dedicate the new club, and when Art Hass and I suggested we might even have a little female companionship at the affair, the other officers scoffed. Wagers were placed. Art and I had met a couple of local girls and were able to patch through a phone call to their home to get their parents’ OK to come to the club. I didn't do much dancing because a badly sprained injured ankle had me on crutches. But Art and I each won fifty dollars when we showed up with the local girls.
“I was also learning about the power politics of the military system. Not long after arriving in Hawaii, I was dispatched with a group of sixteen Marines to load 120 new amphibious tractors aboard LSTs and move them from Pearl Harbor to our base of operations in Maui. When we arrived at Pearl, the commanding admiral where I had been sent ordered me to send two of my Marines to kitchen duty as long as we were around.
“I called the Pacific Theater Marine headquarters and talked to the commanding general to complain, citing the pressing time schedule. He agreed, adding: "I outrank him.” So the two-star general told the one-star admiral we would not be furnishing any mess cooks from my detail. We loaded the tractors on the LSTs and got them back to Maui. I never saw the admiral again, but I wasn't looking for him either.
“More than six months after the Japanese surrender I arrived in San Diego and immediately requested two weeks’ leave to visit my family in Michigan. I borrowed Grandpa Lude's 1941 DeSoto coupe and drove to Hillsdale to visit friends. At one of the hangouts near the campus entrance where students would gather between classes for snacks and socializing I spotted an incredibly attractive brunette coed. Her name was Rena Pifer, and I remembered meeting her when I was a sophomore. She was the sister of a fraternity brother, Bill Pifer, a guy I had run into earlier in Honolulu, where he worked with a naval repair unit. After dating Rena the next night I decided she was a very special lady, and that I should do everything I could to recruit her to my program.
“In no time I fell in love with her, and it's been that way for a lifetime.”
*********** Brad Knight’s and my picks - many of them emotionally based, few of them backed by hard analysis, a couple of them downright idiotic.
we might on occasion surprise you with a reason to be interested in a particular game.
FRIDAY
PURDUE AT MICHIGAN STATE – The Spartans...big. Purdue is TERRIBLE. ME: Could this be the one? Could this be the Boilermaker’s win? What the hell - I’m going to start the weekend off with a BIG upset.
UNLV AT SAN JOSE STATE – I like San Jose State in this one. I just think both teams are decent, and the game is on the road for the UNLV Fighting Mafia. ME: I like Ken Niumatololo and the job he’s done at SJSU, but UNLV is fighting for a spot in the MW championship game against Boise State, and they’re not going to go limp.
SATURDAY
INDIANA AT OHIO STATE – I'll take the UPSET! Indiana might shock the country. Plus I hate the Buckeyes. ME: Maybe it’s because I root for hated Duke in basketball, but I just can’t hate the Buckeyes. They’re good and they consistently meet a high standard. But I’m going to root for Indiana because I already have a book written about their miracle 14-0 season, including their last-second kickoff return touchdown to beat Texas in the National Championship game. I do insist on playing Kurt Cignetti in the movie version, but they keep telling me I’m not “Italian enough.”
WAKE FOREST AT MIAMI – Hurricanes....need this one to stay in the hunt for the playoffs. Perhaps a loss was good for them to refocus. ME: I like Wake but Miami isn’t going to fold now. Especially in front of one of their huge home “crowds.”
OLE MISS AT FLORIDA – Fla played well a week ago....but Kiff will have his guys ready. Defensively the Rebs have gotten much MUCH better. ME: Ole Miss wins. Rebels still have hopes of a Playoff berth.
SMU AT VIRGINIA – SMU is just too good. ME: Agreed. SMU can beat Miami. Or even Clemson.
ILLINOIS AT RUTGERS – I'll take the Bielema boys to beat up on the Knights. In this game anyway. Jerzee and Hailee and I could take him! ME: Illinois is 7-3 and I think they’re better. But Rutgers is 6-4. I’m going out on a limb and taking the Jersey Boys.
IOWA AT MARYLAND – Iowa...with the mystery qb. Get the ball to KJ. Play defense. Iowa wins this one. ME: There’s Iowa with their classic uniform against Maryland and their “look what they’re making us wear this week” attire. Motivation: Loser has to wear the other team’s uniforms in their next game. That’s why I know Iowa will win.
NORTH CAROLINA AT BOSTON COLLEGE – BC with internal issue and a QB who is disgruntled. I'll take Mack Brown and the NC Tarheels. ME: After watching UNC running back Omarion Hampton against Wake Forest last week, I hesitate to pick BC, but I think that O’Brien has the QB situation under control. So BC.
KENTUCKY AT TEXAS – Texas gets knocked off by Stoops. Kentucky in a shocker. ME: Just one more in the string of weak teams that Texas has feasted on this year.
PENN STATE AT MINNESOTA – The Nittany Kittens eat the Gophers. Still need Sanderson to coach in big games. ME: I would call for an upset except that Franklin does pretty well in games where Penn State’s favored.
BYU AT ARIZONA STATE – Game of the week maybe...AzState playing well. BYU coming off a huge loss. Give me the Sun Devils. ME: Sun Devils for sure. Between runner Cam Skattebo - a human bowling ball - and QB Sam Leavitt (an Oregon kid), and ASU coach Kenny Dillingham’s mind, Sun Devils may have the best offense in the Big 12.
COLORADO AT KANSAS – I won't pick against the JAYHAWKS again. Hailee will stab me if I do. Kansas is the hottest team in the country at the moment. Bowl game is not impossible. ME: Unlike some bandwagon jumpers, I’m picking Kansas for the second straight week.
NORTHWESTERN AT MICHIGAN – Michigan...because Northwestern is just bad. ME: Northwestern thought that they’d dodged all the bullets after they fired Pat Fitzegerald, but they haven’t seen anything yet.
WISCONSIN AT NEBRASKA – Wisconsin wins this one. The Badgers are improving and Nebraska isn't used to Holgerson's offensive philosophy yet. Plus I dislike Nebraska. ME: Based on Holgorsen’s far greater experience at his position (two weeks) vs whoever will be calling Wisconsin’s plays (less than a week), I have to go with the Huskers. Plus there’s something about Luke Fickell that I just don’t like and I can’t put my finger on it.
STANFORD AT CAL – The winner can claim "most liberal school". Should be a battle. But Stanford is not good. I will take the fighting democrats of CAL. ME: I like Cal’s Justin Wilcox but I’m a proud Stanford dad and this is Big Game. So go Card. And in case you haven’t been watching: Stanford had shown that it can come back; Cal has shown that it can’t hold leads.
TEXAS TECH AT OKLAHOMA STATE – Tech blasts Gundy. Okie State is just not good at all. ME: Win or lose, Cowboys are headed for a losing season. With everyone jumping on Gundy, it’s only fair to point out that their last losing season was his very first one at Stillwater - 19 seasons ago.
UCF AT WEST VIRGINIA – The Mountaineers win a shootout. And burn some couches. ME: Got to agree. Throw the couches in the blazing dumpster that is Central Florida.
SAN DIEGO STATE AT UTAH STATE – Tough one here. I like the other Aggies. But I think San Diego State is better. San Diego State wins. And we all know the meaning Ron Burgundy has for San Diego. Stay classy! ME: The Aggies, who can stand there after a game and tell stories about adversity that top anybody’s, will be smiling after this one.
PITTSBURGH AT LOUISVILLE – Time for a physical battle from Narduzzi's bunch. P-Burg wins this one. Give me the Panthers. ME: Pitt. Did Louisville even practice this week? After watching the way they played against Stanford last week, do they ever practice? They have no idea what damage they did to the ACC with the way they played Saturday.
MISSOURI AT MISSISSIPPI STATE – Misery....because Mississippi State still angers me for their comments about the Hawkeyes a few years ago. ME: Mississippi State would love right now to be back there a few years ago, when they could actually make disparaging remarks about anybody. Not now. They’re suffering. And so is Missouri, but Missouri is a lot better than they are.
ARMY AT NOTRE DAME (AT YANKEE STADIUM) – I dislike ND. I LOVE ARMY. Let's Go BLACK KNIGHTS!!!!! ME: More about this one below.
BOISE STATE AT WYOMING – I will not pick against Boise State as long as Jeanty is healthy. Give him 200+ and 4 TD's in a route. ME: This is one of the easier calls we’ll ever have to make.
WASHINGTON STATE AT OREGON STATE – Washington State. The BEAVS are bad. ME: Not only are the Beavers bad, but the Cougs are good. They have some weapons, especially their QB, John Mateer. This is considered a Pac-12 game, but by agreement it is NOT for the Pac-12 Championship.
BAYLOR AT HOUSTON – Houston in a battle of "other" Texas schools. Baylor and Houston are both having okay seasons and can be quite entertaining to watch. Houston misses Holgerson's passing game prowess. ME: While no one was looking, Baylor was beating West Virginia - earning bowl eligibility and saving Dave Aranda’s job. Go Bears!
ALABAMA AT OKLAHOMA – BAMA! ROLL TIDE!!! Oklahoma is wishing it had stayed in the Big 12. ME: I don’t think the OU folks ever imagined that Alabama’s first SEC visit to Norman would look like this. Bama by 10 - at least.
TEXAS A&M AT AUBURN – A&M because AUBURN SUCKS!!! ME: Yes, and Hugh Freeze would make them hard to like even if they were good. But Pop Warner could be coaching them, and A & M would still be a whole lot better. Can’t wait for the Aggies-Longhorns next week!
IOWA STATE AT UTAH – I will take the Utes in an upset. They will manhandle ISU up front. ME: From my distance, it looks as if the Utes are through. I hate to be the one to tell you that the hated Cyclones aren’t ready to fold just yet.
VANDERBILT AT LSU – Give me Vandy. LSU is looking for money to buy Kelly out! ME: Why am I wasting money paying a predictor who would actually think that Vanderbilt can beat LSU? Actually, now that I think about it, after the listless way the Tigers played against Florida, an upset isn’t out of the realm of possibility. But I still don’t have the stones to pick Vandy.
CINCINNATI AT KANSAS STATE – K State rebounds. In a game that could be close this one won't be. The Wildcats in a rout. ME: If the Wildcats can somehow avoid falling behind 21-0 to start the game (as they didn’t against ASU) they’ll be fine. Sure was surprised to hear some boos from the KSU faithful last week.
VIRGINIA TECH AT DUKE – Not sure who to pick. Tech needs a win to make a bowl game. Duke needs a win just to get another win. But I think Duke is better. Especially at Duke. ME: This Duke team is pretty good. The Devils are 7-3, and they’ve been in every game they’ve played, including holding a 28-25 lead over Miami until 3:08 left in the third, and having the potential winning field goal against SMU blocked with no time left on the clock. Go Devils.
USC AT UCLA – The "who cares" bowl. I'll take USC to beat UCLA in a game literally half the country (especially me) cares about. LA can just move to Russia. ME: This game symbolizes to me how far, in many ways, college football has regressed. There was a time for me when I looked forward to this game every year. It was so exotic- there I was, a kid sitting in front of the TV - in Philly where it was already dark outside - watching these two teams playing in bright sunshine, 100,000 people in the Coliseum, each side trying to outdo the other with clever card tricks. Guy with cool names like Aramis Dandoy and Sam Tsagalakis. I’m going to pick a winner: USC.
AIR FORCE AT NEVADA – I'll take the Zoomies. Against my better judgement. ME: I don’t like the Zoomies, but I think they’ll win.
COLORADO STATE AT FRESNO STATE – Have to go with the boys from Fresno State. Not sure I will be right BUT Colorado and California are both leftist hellholes. ME: I have to go with Fresno because if Colorado State wins, they’ll be in the Mountain West title game against Boise State, mainly because they had a pillow-soft schedule that didn’t include either of the conference’s two best teams (Boise State and UNLV).
BEGINNERS CATEGORY – THANKS TO THE SEC, WE’VE BEEN PROVIDED WITH THE FOLLOWING GAMES FOR YOU TO TRY YOUR PREDICTING SKILLS.
UMASS AT GEORGIA –
UTEP AT TENNESSEE –
WOFFORD AT SOUTH CAROLINA –
*********** Army and Notre Dame meet for the 52nd time Saturday when they face each other in Yankee Stadium.
The games between them began in 1913 and their first game was one of the most famous of their meetings. It was the game in which Notre Dame, then a little-known Catholic school from the Midwest, came east to West Point to play mighty Army, and stunned the football world by upsetting the Cadets, 35-13. It wasn’t just the surprise Irish win that caught the nation’s attention, though - it was the way in which they won, using the precision passing of Gus Dorais to a receiver named Knute Rockne.
Rockne would soon enough become the Irish coach, and his teams enjoyed good success against Army.
With the exception on 1918, during World War I, the two teams met every year from 1913 through 1947.
From 1925 through 1946, the games were all played in New York City, first in the Polo Grounds and then in Yankee Stadium.
Because of the size of Army’s Yankee Stadium, the game has never been played at West Point. Not until 1947 was it played at South Bend.
From 1932 through 1943, Notre Dame never lost in the series; they won 12 games and two were tied.
But then came World War II, and while Notre Dame’s roster, like those of most other colleges, was depleted by the war, Army won two years in a row - and won decisively, by 59-0 in 1944 and 48-0 in 1945. Army won the national title both years.
But in 1946, Notre Dame was back to full strength again, and the two teams played to a historic 0-0 tie in a so-called “Game of the Century.” Between the two teams, there were 11 All-Americans on the field (in a time of two-way football) and four Heisman Trophy winners - Army’s Doc Blanchard had won it in 1945 and Army’s Glenn Davis won it in 1946; Notre Dame QB Johnny Lujack would win it i 1947, and Irish end Leon Hart, who would win it in 1949, played in the game as an eligible freshman.
The 1947 game was an Irish win, 27-7, and it would be the last in the long series for ten years. It is a story for another day, but suffice to say that there were bad feelings between the schools, fed to some extent by the way some Notre Dame fans berated the Army players as draft dodgers.
Then, too, there was the reality that with the war ended and players returning to their colleges - or to those that had offered them the early version of NIL, Army and Navy (there was not yet an Air Force Academy) were the only schools to actually lose talent through graduation.
The two teams began play again, off and on, in 1957.
Since then, they’ve met 18 times and Army has won exactly once - in 1958, the year of the Lonesome End, Army’s last unbeaten team and famed coach Earl Blaik’s last team.
Other than that one win, the closest Army has come since 1957 was a 20-17 loss in 1998.
The last time the two teams met was in 2016, in San Antonio, a 44-6 Irish victory.
The last time they’ve met in Yankee Stadium was 2010, a 27-3 Irish win.
One of the most famous Army-Notre Dame games was the so-called “Win One for the Gipper” game, in 1928.
In December, 1920, famed Notre Dame player George Gipp died, and as Rockne would tell the story years later, his dying words were, “I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy.”
As legend has taken if from there, with Army and Notre Dame tied 0-0 at the half - this is nearly eight years after Gipp’s death, remember - Rockne evidently chose to play the Gipper card.
“On his deathbed,” he supposedly said, “George Gipp told me that someday, when the time came, he wanted me to ask at Notre Dame team to beat the Army for him.”
In an article ghost-written for him two years later, in Collier’s Magazine, Rockne remembered, ”the boys came out for the second half exalted, inspired, overpowering. They won. As (Jack) Chevigny smashed through for the winning touchdown he said: ‘That's one for the Gipper.’”
Interestingly, not until two days after the game was anything said about the “Gipper” story, and not a lot of attention was paid to it.
One wise guy, told about it later, recalled the kind of rounder George Gipp had been and quipped, ”it would've been much more like him to ask Rock to put down a bet for him someday when the Irish were a sure thing.”
Interesingly, too, according to Gipp’s teammates he "never referred to himself as the Gipper.“
In fact, it wasn’t until Hollywood included the story in “Knute Rockne – All American” came out in 1940 (20 years after Gipp’s death) did it become a part of American sports mythology.
But it is a good story and what made it most poignant was the importance to Notre Dame of beating Army. And in New York City, with its huge Irish population, at that. Recalled one Notre Dame player in that 1928 game, "As we approached Yankee Stadium there were Irish cops on every corner hollering, 'Beat Army. Beat Army.' It was terrific and really got us keyed up for the game. “
Actually, the final score was 12-6, Notre Dame, and the game ended with Army on the Notre Dame one-yard line. Any business about winning one for the Gipper took a distant second to a controversy over whether the referee (who then kept the time on his own clock) had ended the game too soon, depriving Army of a chance to score.
*********** Notre Dame is a two-touchdown favorite over Army, and obviously the oddsmakers know what they’re doing.
Given that Notre Dame is more talented and has played a tougher schedule, I suggest that Army’s only chance to win is, as always, to avoid losing: to eliminate turnovers and penalties, to tackle well, to eliminate big plays against them, and to avoid mistakes on special teams.
Oh - and maybe most important of all - to avoid dumbass calls.
In that category, I include “doing something different offensively because we aren’t good enough to beat them with our regular stuff.”
Raise your hand if you’ve ever done that in a big game.
Okay now - put your hands down and now raise them if that strategy has ever worked out for you.
I didn’t think so. I’ve done it and regretted it.
My advice to Army (unsolicited, you understand) -
Capitalize on what makes you different. Don’t change your game. Make THEM change THEIR game. play YOUR game to play you. You have it within your power to do this.
Not good enough? How do you KNOW that you’re not good enough, when Notre Dame hasn’t played anyone like you?
if you play your under-center, ball control game, you have a chance. You’ll move the ball, you’ll keep the Notre Dame offense on the sideline, you’ll stay in the game - and, maybe most important, you’ll wear Notre Dame down physically.
Just. Make. First. Downs.
It’s going to take patience and persistence. And belief in what your guys can do. But you’ve done it before, in similar-type games against Oklahoma and Michigan.
But I can almost guarantee it - the more you go afield, the more you get into something that resembles what everybody does, the more you’re playing into Notre Dame’s hands. And once you’re playing them at their game, we already know they’re better at that than you are.
*********** At this time of year there are usually a considerable number of good jobs open. But not this year. At this point, there are three FBS jobs open, and none would be called primo positions:
FAU - Replacing Tom Herman, who had good success at Houston, not so much success at Texas. Herman joins a fairly long line of well-known predecessors - Howard Schnellenberger, who started the program, Lane Kiffin and Willie Taggart. Ray Lewis says he wants the job. (See what you started, Deion?) Charlie Weis, Jr., now OC at Ole Miss, who was an assistant at FAU under Kiffin, is said to be the favorite. Gee, just think - maybe he can get his dad to help him. For that reason alone I’d suggest they at least talk with Ray Lewis.
TEMPLE - Replacing Stan Drayton. This is a tough job. There are plenty of good football players within 100 miles of its campus - but very few of them want to go there. Part of the reason is that within a half- mile of the campus - in any direction - are some of the most dangerous, crime-ridden sections in any American city. There are also 4 or 5 million people within an easy drive of Temple games - but nobody gives a sh—. The town belongs to the Eagles. Who cares about AAC or MAC or whoever? Then there’s this: Temple plays in the Eagles’ stadium, far from campus, and with no place else to play, Temple is force to pay near-extortionary rent to the Birds. HOWEVER: guys in recent years have won here, and have used their success at Temple to move on to better jobs: Al Golden, Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio, Geoff Collins
UMASS - Replacing Don Brown, a New England legend who just couldn’t get it done. This may be the worst job in all FBS. First of all, New England doesn’t care that much about college football. Other than UConn and Boston College, that’s it. And they struggle. I almost forgot UMass, probably because they’re always stuck down around #130 or so among the 134 teams in FBS. There are good players within 100 miles or so, and the school is just an hour from Bradley Field (Hartford-Springfield). The light at the end of the tunnel: the Minutemen (or, since it’s Massachusetts, it may now the Minutepersons) are set to join the MAC in 2025, which means they’re going to escape the ups and downs of an independent schedule that have had them playing, over the last four weeks, Missouri, Wagner, Mississippi State and Liberty. (This week, they’re at Georgia.)
*********** Oregon is officially in the Big Ten championship game. It used to be a whole lot easier when there are two eight-team divisions. But now, with one giant conference, I read some article in which some genius - or maybe some robot - figured out at last a dozen possibilities for Oregon’s opponent, based on how things go the next two weeks.
And it’s not as if the SEC isn’t facing the same sort of knot.
*********** Chad Chatlos, head of Turnkey Sports, a major executive search firm, noted that this year, not one Power 4 conference coach has been fired.
He suggests that because the imminent legal settlement that’s going to mean that schools can (or will?) share revenue with their athletes is going to cost a LOT of money, schools are reluctant to commit large sums of money to coaches' buyouts.
*********** I got a call on Wednesday from a former player - coached him one year, his senior year, in 1996 - and had a great talk. He’s been successful in business and now he and his wife have been able to move with their two kids to Montana. Among the many things he mentioned was how much he liked the Double Wing. He said how as a guard he appreciated finally getting to do cool things like pull out and kick out, instead of “just pass blocking.”
I told him how I hear coaches say that they play a spread offense because it helps them recruit more players. Yeah. More players. What it does is help them recruit receivers. Want evidentce that it works? Take a look at any spread team’s offensive practice and I guarantee you that 1/3 of the players on the field will be receivers. But how do those numbers help? Sure, a great receiver is gold, but by and large, receivers are a dime a dozen. Yet we cater to them, trying to make the game more “fun” for them. Yeah, for them. But what about the offensive linemen? Five of the eleven offensive players are linemen - that’s as many “receiver” positions there are. Aren’t the linemen supposed to have fun, too? As hard as it is to find and develop linemen, I have yet to hear anyone saying that he runs the offense he does because it helps him recruit linemen.
*********** Coach,
I wanted to let you know that Lucan Leone former Aquinas Black Lion Award recipient was named section V Class AA Defensive Player of the year!
Jay P. Polston ‘90
Office of Advancement
Aquinas Institute
Rochester, New York
Aquinas, Don Holleder’s high school, is now 9-2 and still alive in New York State playoffs.
*********** I’ll bet NFL GMs were thanking their lucky stars that Pac Man Jones is no longer their problem…
Former NFL corner ball Adam “Pac Man" Jones, whose NFL career was not without its share of arrests and suspensions and whatnot, was taken into police custody in Arlington, Texas, not long after the conclusion of the “boxing” match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul.
Police told The Athletic that Jones faces one count of assault on an officer, one count of public intoxication, and charges of evading and resisting arrest.
*********** Bum Phillips, when asked by a reporter what he was going to do about Earl Campbell’s not finishing a mile run, said, "When it's first and a mile, I won't give it to him."
*********** 2024 AFCA Regional Coach of the Year Winners
*********** The Joe Moore Award has named its Semi-Finalists for 2024:
Alabama - CoachChris Kapilovic
Army - Coach Matt Drinkall
Indiana - Coach Bob Bosta
Iowa - George Barnett
Notre Dame - Joe Rudolph
Ohio State - Justin Frye
Oregon - A’lique Terry
Tennessee - Glenn Elarbee
Texas - Kyle Flood
Tulane - Dan Roushar
(I did not write this)
Joe Moore is widely regarded as one of the best offensive line coaches in college football history, most notably for his work at Notre Dame and Pitt. Coach Moore sent 52 players on to the NFL, including Bill Fralic, Mark May, Russ Grimm, Jimbo Covert and others.
In 2014, former Notre Dame lineman Aaron Taylor had an idea to honor Joe Moore, his college coach.
The Joe Moore Award for the Most Outstanding Offensive Line Unit annually recognizes the toughest, most physical offensive line in the country, making it the only major college football award to honor a unit or group.
The voting body of 200-plus members to select the annual recipient of the Joe Moore Award. includes all of the current offensive line coaches at the Division I/FBS level, as well as former players, coaches, colleagues of Coach Moore, select media members and the Joe Moore Award voting committee.
In addition to reviewing game tape every week of the season, the Joe Moore Award voting committee will go through each of the finalists’ season-long highlight reels and multiple back-to-back quarters of game film.
*********** You’re right. Army might wind up 9-5 with a bowl TBD, but as long as I know a win is possible, I'll root for them Saturday. We know the BK can't match ND in talent or size, but as we've said repeatedly, it's a team game. I'm afraid if we lost Daily, we'd be like Navy without Horvath. It's been some time since Army played a game under lights. Go BK! and I don't mean Burger King or Brad Knight.
Little known fact: Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke gave birth to a child, and his name's listed on today's NYCU.
I've thought more than I should about the Paul-Tyson matchup. I think I'm on the side of those who say Paul knew he could've put Mike down, but he didn't. I noticed his words after the fight. He showered Mike with every accolade he could think of. He knows MT is a Legend, and you treat them accordingly. Maybe it sounds odd, but I respect Paul's show of respect for Big Mike.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Of course I’m rooting for Army and I think they can win - provided they make ND play their game.
My real concern is that Army, having had two weeks to prepare, will go in thinking “we’re not good enough to beat them straight-up; we’ve got to do something different if we expect to have a chance.”
In other words, a lot of shotgun.
To me, that’s the recipe for a blow-out.
I’m familiar with the thinking. I’ve been guilty of it. And it has always turned out the same way: instead of selling ourselves short and looking for some magic trick, we would have had a much better chance doing it OUR way - the way we got there and the way our players believed in.
In sum: If Army plays Army football - AND avoids turnovers and penalties and mistakes in the kicking game - they can win.
Agree with you on Paul’s going easy on Tyson, but I think it was less out of respect for Tyson and more out of fear of the enmity he’d have earned if he’d been seen as treating Tyson disrespectfully - not to mention the elder-abuse aspect. He really was in a delicate spot and I agree with you that he handled it rather well.
I loved this quote from Jake Paul: “I kept trying to show people that I’m a good person. No one was buying it. And then one day I was like, f—k it - I can go heel. And I haven’t looked back.”
*********** Hugh,
Nostalgia buffs will appreciate the fact that at one time the Army-Notre Dame game had as much (if not more) hype than the Army-Navy game. The term “Subway Alumni” (NYC Irish fans who weren’t necessarily grads) was coined by sportswriters in reference to the many Army-Notre Dame games played in New York City. This year’s Army-Notre Dame game will be played in the new Yankee Stadium. The game had been played in the “old’” Yankee Stadium 22 times. The most memorable in 1946 when the teams battled to a 0-0 tie trying to determine a national championship.
The question for Army is can it (and QB Bryson Dailey) even survive its next three games vs. ND, Tulane (AAC championship), and Navy?
Undefeated and 5th ranked Indiana (now there’s a term folks aren’t used to hearing) rolls into Columbus Saturday to take on the 3rd ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. The game will likely go a long way determining which teams will play for the BIG championship. GO HOOSIERS!!
Colorado is suddenly a favorite to make it to the Big 12 title game. UNLESS the Kansas Jayhawks continue to play spoiler and beats the Buffs. I expect a shootout in Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday. ROCK CHALK!!
SMU and Miami in the ACC. Clemson has to hope SMU loses its two remaining games vs Virginia and at Cal to have a chance. NOT happening.
In the SEC, the renewal of the Texas-Texas A&M game will go a long way in determining who plays in the SEC title game. A Longhorns win and they’re in.
Alabama will be likely be their opponent UNLESS, Auburn pulls an Iron Bowl upset.
If that happens it could be Ole Miss.
March Madness…HA!!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, Don’t forget UTSA. They’re coming to West Point next week, and they’re looking tough
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: From the time Ernie Holmes was little they called him “Fats,’ but he grew up big and “farmer strong” on his family's forty-five-acre farm near tiny Jamestown, in East Texas not far from the Louisiana line. He went to high school in Burkeville.
He played college football at Texas Southern. While there, he married his girlfriend, and they had two children before he graduated.
He was drafted in the eighth round by the Pittsburgh Steelers, thanks to scout Bill Nunn, who had developed great knowledge of - and relationships with - black college football programs.
At 6-3, 280, “built like a John Deere tractor” in the words of a teammate, he became a key member of Pittsburgh’s famed “Steel Curtain” defensive line.
It didn’t take him long to gain a reputation as a rather complex individual.
Reporter Paul Zimmerman, who wrote under the pen name “Doctor Z,” said, “There were people who were scared to death of him, others who didn't want to have anything to do with him, still others who liked him as you would a big, galloping Great Dane puppy.”
Scared to death? "He had a look that was really scary," said safety Mike Wagner. "I think he wanted to beat people to death -- within the rules of the game."
Said teammate L.C. Greenwood, “(He) wanted to see blood. He wanted to beat on the guy until he started bleeding, and if he did start bleeding, (He) felt he had done a good day’s work.”
Veteran Steelers offensive linemen would ask him to slow down so they didn't get hurt. "Nobody would line up against him in practice," said Tom Keating, who joined the Steelers from the Raiders in 1973.
Tight end Randy Grossman compared him to the childlike giant Lennie, in Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” telling author Gary Pomerantz in “Their Life’s Work,” (He) was just a lovable, really nice guy but when he was beaned up or fired up, it was frightening. He would be the only guy that I would be afraid of in any combative situation. Anybody else might beat the shit out of me but (he) would really tear me up. He would rip off pieces of meat and throw them somewhere… or eat them.”
It did appear that to an extent paranoia drove him. He would on occasion visit with Steelers’ president Dan Rooney and say that he believed people were out to get him.
And he often made it known that he considered himself unappreciated - not as well-known or celebrated as his line mates, he was the only one of the famed Steel Curtain defensive line who never made the Pro Bowl.
He actually claimed to be as talented as Mean Joe Greene, still considered by many to be the greatest defensive lineman who ever played the game (“Joe Greene made a whole LOT of people think they were better than they were,” said Bill Nunn) but Woody Widenhofer, who coached the Steelers’ linebackers at the time, said there were times when he really was as good as Joe Greene.
"You want to know how good he was, how tough?" Steelers’ head coach Chuck Noll asked. "Take a look at the way the guy who had to play against him looks, coming off the field after the game -- if he was able to finish it."
Everyone, it seemed, had a story about him.
Wrote Pomerantz,
Most (stories about him) could be cataloged under three headlines: “Mood Swings,” “Eating To Excess,” and “Courvoisier."
The most legendary Eating to Excess story of all: that night in 1976 when Perles (defensive line coach George Perles) brought his defensive linemen to a local restaurant for a feast of roast suckling pig. When all the eating was done, Holmes took another swig of Courvoisier and then cracked a knife handle against a pig’s skull. He dug his fingers deep inside, scooped out small pieces of the pig’s brain, and ate them with delight. "Where I come from,” Holmes gushed, brain matter splashing his cheek, "this is a delicacy!”
Evidence of what a court-appointed psychiatrist would call his “acute paranoia psychosis” was an incident in which - explained here way too briefly - angered at being held up by a roadblock, he shot at the tires of trucks on an Ohio highway, then shot at a police helicopter searching for him after he had crashed his car and taken off on foot. It took a lot of effort on the part of Steelers’ management, a lot of money, a lot of testimony by teammates as to his character, and two months in the Western Pennsylvania Psychiatric Hospital before he was cleared to return to the Steelers. (Naturally, there were those who claimed that as a professional athlete he’d received preferential treatment.)
Back with the Steelers, now bothered by the fact that everyone on the line had a nickname but him, he shaved his head so that the remaining hair formed an arrowhead (pointing him toward the quarterback, he said) and told Coach Perles, “George, I don’t get any publicity because I don’t have a nickname. From now on, my name is Arrowhead.”
Showing how far ahead of today’s game he was in terms of personal branding, he said, “You have to be commercial in this business to get ahead. You need a gimmick.”
Eventually, his huge appetite got the best of him, and after the Steelers traded him to Tampa Bay, he was cut by the Buccaneers.
After football, he spent some time as a professional wrestler, and became an ordained minister and worked with young people in Texas.
In 2008 Ernie Holmes was killed in a one-car accident near Beaumont, Texas, and was buried in his native Jamestown.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ERNIE HOLMES
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He remains one of the greatest high school athletes ever to come out of Portland, Oregon.
As a running back at Jefferson High School, he was first team All-City his junior and senior years, and was first team All-State and High School All-American his senior year.
In his senior year he was second team All-City on the school’s city championship basketball team, and he was state champion in the 100 and 440 in both his junior and senior years.
With size - 6 foot, 205 - and speed, he was a perfect fit at Arizona State and Frank Kush’s run-heavy Wing-T offense.
In his second game, as a sophomore, he ran for 214 yards and two touchdowns against Utah. For the season, he rushed for 1,310 yards, averaging 5.5 yards per carry, and earned honorable mention All-America honors.
Playing in the very first Fiesta Bowl at the end of the season, he carried 24 times for 101 yards and three TDs as the Sun Devils defeated Florida State, 45-38.
In his junior season, he had the greatest season any ASU running back has ever had, rushing for 1,565 yards and 15 TDs on 234 carries (an average of 6.7 yards per carry).
He had games of 201 yards against San Jose State, 198 against both BYU and Wyoming, 195 against Houston and 172 against Arizona.
He earned consensus All-American honors, becoming only the second Sun Devil to be so honored.
Playing in the Fiesta Bowl again, he rushed for 202 yards and three touchdowns as the Sun Devils beat Missouri, 49-35.
In his senior season, he surpassed 1,300 yards for the third straight year, gaining 1,313 yards, and became the first Sun Devil player to earn consecutive consensus All-American selections.
The Sun Devils finished the season 11-1 after a third Fiesta Bowl win, this one over Pitt, with a Number 9 ranking nationally.
He finished eighth in the Heisman balloting.
He set ASU career rushing records that still stand : 4,188 yards and 39 touchdowns. Over the course of his three seasons, he had 21 100-yard rushing games, and during that time the Sun Devils’ record was 32-4 (Two 11-1 seasons and one 10-2).
He was the 1st round draft choice of the Kansas City Chiefs, and although he had a promising rookie season, he suffered a knee injury that slowed him down and ultimately led to his retirement part way through his third season.
The amazing thing is that he was not an I-back getting a disproportionate share of the carries. Playing in a two- and three-man backfield, he shared the carries. In his sophomore year, Ben Malone rushed for 857 yards; in his junior year, Brent McClanahan rushed for 988 yards; and in his senior year, Malone rushed for 1.129 yards.
In the year that our guy was drafted first, Malone was drafted second, by the Dolphins, and went on to a nine-year NFL career. McClanahan was a year ahead of our guy, and after being drafted by Minnesota, he spent seven seasons with the Vikings.
The Sun Devils’ offense was not exactly as sportswriters often described it: “run, run, run, run, run, maybe think pass, run, run, run…” The 1972 Sun Devils’ team set an NCAA regular-season scoring record with 513 points, and it wasn’t all done on the ground.
Their quarterback, Danny White, whose three-year ASU career paralleled our guy’s, finished with 6,717 passing yards and 64 touchdowns. He was drafted third by the Dallas Cowboys - the same year the Sun Devils had running backs taken in the first and second rounds - and he led them to a Super Bowl win.
Our guy entered the ASU Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 1975.
TUESDAY,
NOVEMBER 19, 2024
“It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s
good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t
lost the things that money can’t buy.” George Lorimer*********** Hey, all you guys in the South and Midwest and East with all your blizzards and tornadoes and hurricanes and droughts and floods and what-nots - it’s our turn, up here in the upper-left corner, where nothing very exciting ever happens meteorologically. (Unless you count the occasional eruption or tsunami.)
Tomorrow (Tuesday) the Pacific Northwest is due to get hit with a “Bomb Cyclone,” aka a “Category 5 Atmospheric River.” Aieee. We’re all gonna die.
Calm down, folks. The way these weather guys are nowadays, I’m figuring on a rainy day with a little wind. Give it a descriptive title to scare us and get us to watch TV. Details at 11. But they can’t fool me - how scary can it be if when doesn’t even have a f—king name?
(In case you feel like sending me money, I’ll be setting up a GoFundMe account.)
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Major Shead also assigned me the job of building an officer’s club, a retreat where we could sip our regular liquor rations in peace overlooking the ocean. I consider it one of my most creative efforts. I didn't know anything about Construction, but I knew the Seabees (Construction Battalion) had worked wonders under extremely adverse conditions during the war and there was a unit available at division headquarters.
First, I held a strategy session with a platoon sergeant who was a veteran at cutting through red tape. He said, ‘Lieutenant, here's what we've got to do. You get a truck. We have a bunch of obsolete tools down at the tractor maintenance barn. I'll load the tools into the back of the truck. You go around to all the officers and gather up as much liquor as you can from their monthly rations.’
We gathered up about two and one-half cases of hard liquor and an assortment of tools and headed for division headquarters about three o’clock the next morning. The sergeant talked to a chief petty officer in the CB unit. The chief said it would be at least six weeks before his construction specialists could help us. Then the sergeant said, ‘Oh, Lieutenant Lude, don't we have something in the back of our truck that the Seabees might be able to use?’ After looking at the load of tools, the chief said maybe they could do the job in two weeks.
Then my platoon sergeant said, ‘Mr. Lude, could you show the chief what you have in the cab of the truck?’ The chief petty officer took one look at the booze and said, ‘We’ll be there tomorrow morning.’
They arrived about 6 AM, and by the end of the day, using quick – hardening chemicals on the concrete, they had a nice building slapped together on a chunk of property overlooking the ocean. We opened and dedicated it that night. There was no air conditioning, but we had ocean breezes. We lacked food service; that had to come from the galley, which was a big tent. But there was a nice bar at one end of the room, which was about 30 x 70 feet. It had a thatched roof and window coverings on pulleys which could be closed in case of rain or severe wind.
The Seabees did wonders; they were terrific. So was that platoon sergeant who made it happen and made me look good.
*********** HOW’D WE DO THIS PAST WEEKEND? FIRST, BRAD KNIGHT’S PICK, THEN MINE.
REMEMBER - THESE ARE BY NO MEANS COLD, ANALYTICAL PICKS. SOMETIMES THEY ARE, BUT AS OFTEN AS NOT, THEY REFLECT OUR HOPES. I HAVE MY FAVORITES, AND SO DOES BRAD, AND WE DON’T GO OUT OF OUR WAY TO HIDE OUR BIASES.
BUT THERE ARE SOME TIMES WHEN WE MIGHT GIVE YOU A WAY OF LOOKING AT A GAME THAT YOU HADN’T CONSIDERED.
FRIDAY
COLORADO STATE 24, WYOMING 10 – I really want to pick the Cowboys of a state that identifies as what they are and actually vote that way. But I have to pick the liberal infested Rams of Colorado. Wyoming is in a big rebuild. ME: I love the Cowboys and I’m shocked by the poor season they’ve had. I don’t think the Rams are that good, and knowing something about the intensity of the rivalry - the two schools are only about an hour apart, which in the West is like “next door” - I’m going to Cowboy up!
WASHINGTON 31, UCLA 10 – Can UCLA run the ball as they did against the Hawkeyes? If so UCLA wins. I'll take UCLA in a PAC 12...errr B1G matchup. ME: Bow Down to Washington! I’ve heard rumors that Dead - sorry, Jedd - Fisch might be in demand somewhere else, and if a Husky win is what it takes to get him out of Seattle…
ARIZONA 27, HOUSTON 3 – Interesting matchup, two teams fighting to be relevant. I think Houston can win this one, as they have a better shot to become bowl eligible. Give me Planet Houston. ME: Bear Down, Arizona.
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE 31, NORTHWESTERN 7 – This one will be laughable. The Buckeyes will blast the Nerds. Northwestern should really consider making the temporary stadium home. It certainly is beautiful, and they do not have to sell many tickets to fill it. ME: This is my upset of the week: Ohio State, looking ahead to Indiana, won’t beat the spread (28.5)
TEXAS 20, ARKANSAS 10 – The Longhorns win. Tighter than maybe it should be. But winning games is hard. Especially in the SEC. ME: I’d love to see the Hogs get this one, but I don’t see it.
CLEMSON 24, PITT 20 – The fighting Narduzzi's vs. The fighting Dabo's. I think Narduzzi takes Dabo in a fight. I'd pay to watch that. Give me Clemson to win the actual football game. ME: I think that Pitt has begun to “Panther it.”
COLORADO 49, UTAH 24 – I'll keep taking the Buffs largely because I think Coach "Prime" has surrounded himself with some pretty decent assistants. I will not give him the name Coach Sanders until he has earned it. Utah might just smack them in the face however. ME: Unlike certain people I know who’ve jumped on the Coach Prime bandwagon, I’ll go down swinging with Kyle Whittingham and the Utes. (But if I were betting I’d need the points.)
TULANE 35, NAVY 0 – I want to pick Navy. Really, really do. But unlike Army, I do not think Navy's defense can slow down Tulane's offense. I will begrudgingly pick Tulane. ME: I like Navy and I saw them pass their one real test - Memphis - and I think they can upset Tulane (7-point favorite).
ILLINOIS 38, MICHIGAN STATE 16 – The fighting Bielema's have quietly had a pretty solid season. This one will be a good game I think. Michigan State, while not terrific, has continued to improve. But the Illini are too much in the end. ME: Illinois is better. Plus I can’t pass up a chance to see Jonathan Smith get his nose bloodied.
SYRACUSE 33, CAL 25 – I will have to say Syracuse is competitive. So are the Liberal Bears who do not know they are Bears. I think Syracuse wins a close one. ME: Cal. The Bears have got all their receivers now, including local kid Tobias Merriweather, a Notre Dame transfer who’s now healthy.
PENN STATE 49, PURDUE 10 – I'll take the Nittany Kittens. Can Cael Sanderson coach the games against ranked foes? He never loses to anyone. ME: Tough one. Remember when Purdue was good? I do, and it sucks to watch this.
NOTRE DAME 35, VIRGINIA 14 – I'll take the Leprechauns. (is that allowed to be said again?) ND just too much for Virginia. ME: Tony Elliott has finally got the Wahoos playing well but Notre Dame is so close to making the playoff that I don't think they'll let this slip away.
SMU 38, BOSTON COLLEGE 28 – Give me Death Penalty Recovery Part 2. SMU has too many weapons. BC only has one shot...control the clock. And that isn't going to happen. ME: Have to agree. SMU might be the best team in the ACC, which is impressive considering that they had to buy their way in.
FLORIDA 27, LSU 16 – LSU angrily beats the absolute crap out of the Gators this week. Largely because Coach Kelly probably beat the crap out of them after giving up a million yards and 4 TD's to Jalen Milroe a week ago. Nussmeier played as poorly as I'd ever seen. He's better than that. ME: LSU really got exposed against Bama, and they’re only favored by 4, but Florida is not Alabama, and I think the Tigers have enough left to win this one.
STANFORD 38, LOUISVILLE 35 – I'll pick ANYONE to beat Stanford. ANYONE. Sadly, the pound the rock days are gone for the Harvard of the midwest. Louisville BIG. ME - Since when is the Bay Area “Midwest?” Dream on, Iowa guy. But as a Stanford dad, it’s going to take a lot more Midwest - and a lot less Far West - to turn Stanford into an FBS football program again.
AIR FORCE 28, OREGON STATE 0 – I picked against the Air Force a week ago. MISTAKE. I picked the Beavers a week ago as well. Give me the Zoomies in this one. ME: It hurts to say it, but the Beavers suck. How bad do they suck? They won’t even beat Air Force! They’ve lost four straight, and they need to win two of their last three games to be bowl eligible - and it ain’t gonna happen.
USC 28, NEBRASKA 20 – Dana Holgerson in charge of the offense now...interesting. Doesn't change my pick much. I just think USC is better athletically than Nebraska. ME: Lincoln Riley has made USC soft. But they’re still USC and they still have athletes. I think Holgerson is going to make a big difference at NU, and this might be the week. Go Huskers!
BAYLOR 49, WEST VIRGINIA 35 – A battle for a Bowl between 2 5-4 teams. I think West Virginia at home wins a good game. ME: Let’s see… is this the week West Virginia wins or the week they lose? I forget. So I’ll pick the Mountaineers.
SOUTH CAROLINA 34, MISSOURI 30 – I am going to pick the Cocks again. They have identified who they are and are on a roll. ME: It’s the Battle of Columbia! I think the Gamecocks hav been playing so well lately that it’s time for them to disappoint their fans. That’s what they usually do. But they win this one.
RUTGERS 31, MARYLAND 17 – Rutgers....because I like the mascot! ME: Rutgers - because I used to go to the Jersey Shore when I was a kid. Wait - because Rutgers is better.
BOISE STATE 42, SAN JOSE STATE 21 – Jeanty 200+ and 4 TD's. Bank on it. Kid is the real deal. He can carry the rock. Boise State wins. ME: Boise wins and get closer to a Playoff berth.
ARIZONA STATE 24, KANSAS STATE 14 – I'll take the Wild Kitties to win. Can their offense continue to run the ball effectively and pass when they want to? K State...in a good one until the 4th quarter. ME: ASU is dangerous, but I still think K-State is the best team in the Big 12.
OREGON 16, WISCONSIN 13 – I'll take the Ducks to "JUMP AROUND" all over the Badgers. Not sure there is a BIG10 team that can compete with them this year. ME: After a dismal showing at home against Maryland last week, the Ducks need to show me that they’re really deserving of their Number One spot. They will.
GEORGIA 31, TENNESSEE 17 - Will the Dogs be angry? I believe so. Will Tennessee care? Probably not. This could be a great game. I'll take the DAWGS because my little brother is a law school alum there. ME: I’ll take Tennessee because I used to fly in and out of Knoxville. No, actually, I’ll take Georgia because Tennessee isn’t as good as Ole Miss.
IOWA STATE 34, CINCINNATI 17 – I think ISU is DONE. Their spirit is broken. Give me CINCY! In a "mild" upset. ME: I’ll take the Cyclones because Knighter doesn’t like them.
NORTH CAROLINA 31, WAKE FOREST 24 – Neither team is relevant in their conference race. BUT both still playing for a bowl bid. So it could be a quality game. I will take Coach Brown and UNC. ME: As long as it’s coming down to the coaches, I have to go with Dave Clawson, of Wake, who I like as much as any coach in college ball. Plus a grandson is a Wake grad. Go Deacs!
NEW MEXICO 38, WASHINGTON STATE 35 – Washington State is 8-1....after this they will be 9-1. ME: Lobos are getting better - read what my son Ed writes below about Devon Dampier - but the Cougs are good and they have expectations of getting into a really nice bowl.
KANSAS 17, BYU 13 – I'm on the verge of calling Kansas over BYU as my upset special. If it was at Arrowhead I'd probably do so. BUT since it is at BYU I will take BYU but in a very close game. The spread is only 3. The O/U is 55.5. I'd take the over. And BYU to cover. ME: I’ll take Kansas, They’ve been playing lights-out lately, and BYU was lucky - very, very lucky - to come away from Utah with a win.
UNLV 41, SAN DIEGO STATE 20 – Give me the Fighting Tark the Sharks. UNLV is a quality football team. They are having a good season. The Vegas boys have to be happy with them. ME: UNLV wins big.
*********** Army, which had a BYE last weekend is 9-0, and one of three remaining unbeaten FBS teams.
Savor the moment, fellow Army fans: we could conceivably wind up 9-5. They haven’t yet played a single team as tough as what’s coming up:
ARMY’S REMAINING SCHEDULE:
NOTRE DAME (AT YANKEE STADIUM) Irish (9-1) are 14.5 point favorites
UTSA AT WEST POINT - In their last two games UTSA has beaten Memphis (44-36) and North Texas (48-27)
TULANE - CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME - Tulane is 9-2 with Memphis still to play
NAVY - Navy is 7-3, still has to play East Carolina. But Navy is Navy. Enough said
BOWL GAME - Who knows?
*********** NOTABLE GAMES:
SMU 38, BOSTON COLLEGE 28 - BC’s Bill O’Brien demoted QB Thomas Castellanos, who immediately left the team. Yet with backup starter the Eagles gave the Mustangs a game. O’Brien joins Duke’s Manny Diaz and Syracuse’s Fran Brown as my ACC Coach of the Year nominees.
ALABAMA 52, MERCER 7 - Just kidding.
NEW MEXICO 38, WASHINGTON STATE 35 - Lobos scored the winning TD with seconds to play. What a show by the two QBs - WSU’s John Mateer was 25 of 36 for 375 and four TDs, and he ran for 65 more and a fifth TD. NM’s Devon Dampier threw for 174 and a TD and rushed for 193 and three TDs. Lobos lost their first four, and now they’re 5-6 with one game left - at Hawaii.
STANFORD 38, LOUISVILLE 35 - Taking nothing away from a Stanford team that worked hard for the win, this has been called by several reputable writers “the worst loss in the history of the program.” To me, it had all the earmarks of a team with no focus. Imagine a game in which your team commits 13 penalties - 11 against the defense alone… a game in which you lead, 7-0, with 45 seconds to play and one a fourth-and-one you give up a 25-yard touchdown pass… when you’ve got overtime assured if you just run out the clock, and on fourth down at midfield, you take a shot - and leave 5 seconds on the clock… when one of your defenders has to play tough guy and commit an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that moves the opponents 15 yards closer… and then, as the opponent lines up for a 57-yard field goal, one of your players jumps offside and makes it “only” a 52-yarder.
CLEMSON 24, PITT 20 - Clemson probably is the better team anyhow, but Pitt should have won - that is, if a team that can line up three times in a row and turn a third-and-goal from the one into third-and-16 can beat any good team.
SOUTH CAROLINA 34, MISSOURI 30 - Mizzou took a 22-21 lead with 9:21 left, but Carolina came back to take a 27-22 lead. The Tigers scored with 1:10 and made the 2-point conversion to lead by three, 30-27, but the Gamecocks drove 80 yards for a touchdown - a 12-yard shovel pass - to win.
FLORIDA 27, LSU 16 - This was a shocker to me, and I’m not sure there’s enough money in Louisiana to pay me to go through what Brian Kelly has to be going through right now. For a number of reasons, this LSU team is not very good. Their QB, Garrett Nussmeier, was sacked seven times. He’d been sacked just six times in all the games prior. Meanwhile, Billy Napier, who not very long ago was a dead man walking, has done a terrific job of keeping the Gators together and playing hard.
TULANE 35, NAVY 0 - As I watched, all I could think of was Army having to play Tulane in the AAC championship game. Navy rushed for 100 yards and passed for - ready for this? - 13. How you gonna beat a team whose QB is so smart his name’s Mensah?
USC 28, NEBRASKA 20 - I take back what I said about a Lincoln Riley team being soft on defense. The Trojans were especially tough on the final play when they were allowed to grab a Cornhusker’s jersey in the end zone, leading to a game-ending interception. I swear I heard an announcer say “You don’t call pass interference on the last play.” Really? Shouldn’t they announce that over the P-A system, or at least let the offense know that? Credit to USC QB Jayden Maiava, a transfer from UNLV making his first start.
KANSAS 17, BYU 13 - The Cougars outgained the Jayhawks, but a lot of their yardage was the useless kind. They put on a long drive at the end of the first half that ended when what I guess was supposed to be a fade into the end zone was intercepted, and another long one at the start of the second half ended in a field goal - the Cougars’ only score of the half. The go-ahead KU score came after their pooch punt hit a Cougar in the back of the helmet and, BYU not evidently having taught their players how to recover a punt, Kansas took possession deep in BYU territory and punched it in. Kansas may have suddenly become the Big 12’s best team. We may find out next weekend when they host - COLORADO!
*********** Actually, the best team in the Big 12 might be… Arizona State.
The Sun Devils are 8-2. Before the season the Las Vegas guys had the over/under on their total wins at 4.5
*********** Awful Announcing needs to come up with an award. My nomination this week was Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt. They just won’t STFU. And somebody needs to tell Johnson that he’s calling football, in which there’s no such metaphor as “putting the biscuit in the basket.”
*********** Worst-dressed team of the week - of every week, for that matter - is Maryland, which seems more preoccupied with how garishly it can dress than how well it can play. As a former Marylander (lived there for 13 years, three of our four kids were born there, started my coaching career there) this program has been an embarrassment ever since an incompetent AD named Kevin Anderson decided he could put a notch on his gun by firing Ralph Friedgen.
*********** We finally joined the Washington State-New Mexico game six minutes into the first period, with the score Lobos already out in from, 7-0.
Sure couldn’t blame FS1 for not wanting to leave the 32-14 Rutgers-Maryland thriller.
*********** Turns out Oregon’s narrow 16-13 win over Wisconsin Saturday wasn’t because of Oregon’s great defensive play after all.
Nope. It ought to be clear to anybody that the fault lay with Phil Longo, the Badgers’ offensive coordinator.
That’s sarcasm, folks. Only two teams - Ohio State and Boise State - have scored more than 18 points against the Ducks. Translation: they’re pretty good on defense.
Actually, the Badgers’ offense has sucked for most of the season, possibly - just possibly - because of the terrible knee injury early in the season that cost them the services of transfer quarterback Tyler Van Dyke.
Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell had to know that when he decided to bring in Longo and his Air Raid offense from North Carolina, making a break with the power football that Barry Alvarez had made a Wisconsin trademark, he was putting all his chips on having a good quarterback. One that would be healthy for the entire season.
Only last Monday, when Longo still had a job, this is how he summed things up for the news media:
“Typically things aren't pristine when you arrive and so right now these last two years Fick has a plan and a vision and he's laid it out and sometimes trying to get to where you want to get to, we all want that to happen tomorrow, but it's a process and it takes a little time.
“I said this last year and I'm going to say it again. When you are building something to sustain success, it's harder. It's more difficult to do that. You can go a certain route with regards to the upgrading or changing of your roster and get an immediate answer for that particular year or you can build something that you want to sustain some success over the long haul, which is the goal here and what Fick wants. We're grinding through that."
*********** Oregon coach Dan Lanning showed that he still has some of the G-D fool in him when with 1:50 to go in the game he tried a fake field goal on fourth and five.
*********** Granted, our national anthem is hard to sing, which is one reason why most can’t sing it well. Another reason, of course, is that we allow people to “perform” it, rather than just sing it. And, too, there’s the current obnoxious American obsession with “Look at me.”
On the other hand, Canada’s national anthem, “O Canada” is seldom monkeyed with. It’s a beautiful tune, and easy to sing. Maybe it’s just that Canadians are more respectful of others and of their country than we are, more reluctant to put themselves out there ahead of their country and its anthem.
There’s also the fact that Canadians take great offense (which they spell”offence” and pronounce “OH-fence”) at any suggestion that they might be copying Americans in doing anything, including butchering their national anthem.
But not to be outdone by the bloody Yanks, right before Sunday’s Grey Cup game they went and showed they were able find at least one Canadian willing to go out on the field and f—k up “O Canada.”
*********** The Toronto Argonauts won the Grey Cup, representative of the championship of the Canadian Football League, defeating the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 41-24.
The MVP was Toronto’s quarterback, Nick Arbuckle.
Wait. Nick Who?
He’s 31-years old. He’s a California kid who played two years of JC ball and then two years of college ball at Georgia State, where in 2015 he was Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year.
But then, in football terms, he sort of disappeared: became a backup QB in Canada.
In six years in the CFL - they didn’t play football in 2020 - he’s been with four different teams and started a total of 25 games.
Prior to Sunday, he had started one game for Toronto this season.
He had signed with the Argonauts last spring as a potential backup to starter Chad Kelly, and that was his job - until Kelly was severely injured in the CFL East Final.
Suddenly, Arbuckle found himself starting at quarterback. In the Grey Cup.
How’d he do? Not bad. He completed 26 of 37 for 252 yards and two TDs. (He did throw two interceptions.)
In truth, the Argos’ defense deserved some sort of award, because they intercepted four Winnipeg passes and returned them a total of 164 yards and one TD.
Three of the interceptions came in the fourth quarter, when Winnipeg quarterback Zach Collaros’ passing was clearly affected by an injury to his throwing hand.
Afterwards, Arbckle admitted that last spring he was ready to give up quarterbacking and look for a coaching job in the US, when the Argos’ offer came.
"If everybody was to know everything, all the things we overcame as a family, from my whole life and football career to be here, it's God's work. I've been so fortunate to have the support and belief in me from my wife and everybody to just keep chasing it and persevering. Look at it now.”
*********** One American who was disappointed by the Winnipeg loss was Jason Kelce. He and his kids were rooting for “Uncle Zach” - Winnipeg QB Zach Collaros, who was Kelce’s roommate at Cincinnati.
*********** They used to call old Yale alums “Old Blues.” Blue, see, has been the school’s color - its only color - since the 1800s. If any of Old Blues still go to Yale football games, they had to be nauseated by the drabness of the Yale uniforms, which looked as if they’d come to New Haven from UnderArmour with a stop off at some laundry in Moscow, which is where they left the blue.
*********** Did I tell you that I watched the fight? The Tyson fight? With the fight due to come on Netflix at 5 PM Pacific, I broke down and bought Netflix at about 4:40.
Not that I needed to hurry - the actual Tyson fight finally came on a little over four hours later, at 9:05.
It had been a while since I’d seen a televised fight, and I have to say that in comparing it with the fights of my youth - when boxing was very big (“The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports is On The Air!”) and the fight itself was paramount - everything nowadays is MORE. More hype, more show, more bombast, more tits. It’s almost a parody.
And there’s less fighting.
Except for the women.
Two women I’d never heard of - Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano - put on one hell of a fight. I have to admit that I wasn’t comfortable watching two women whale the tar out of each other, but if that had been two men, I’d have to call it one of the best fights I’ve ever seen.
As you’ve probably read, the main event was a farce.
For roughly 20 million dollars apiece, Mike Tyson and some clown named Jake Paul went through the motions of a fight for eight two-minute rounds. For the last 5 or so rounds, Mike Tyson did absolutely nothing with his right hand except block a punch or two. He didn’t throw a single punch with that hand, yet not once did the expert announcers make mention of it. You’d think it would have been fairly noticeable to them - he only landed 18 punches in the entire “fight.”
But they got me. And millions of others as well. Plus an announced “live” gate of 72,300 in Jerry World.
So Barnum lives.
*********** Watched the Portland State-Montana game and heard some color guy who sounded like Yosemite Sam. Turned out it was Marty Mornhinweg, former Grizzly QB who had a nice career as an NFL assistant. with two years as head coach of the Detroit Lions.
*********** Considering the fact that most big-time college guys are now making enough to afford a car, and considering what a problem parking is on most college campuses… do you suppose that NIL deals also include special parking passes?
To think that not that many years ago it was a major scandal when UCLA football players were caught using bogus handicapped parking passes.
*********** Corch:
You and BK (same initials as my team too) have a winner with your Huntley-Brinkley picks. I've heard that the 3-4 VIP Vegas pickers have learned to cheat by stealing your choices.
The Norm Maves story is fun and memorable even if it were proved inauthentic.
Those of us who love the DW/OW and ground pounding in general have, I think, something in our psycho makeup that causes us to look askance--or maybe cautiously--at what's in vogue. In various ways you address the issue on your pages. We're suspicious of the popular. We don't listen to the preachers of easy routes to riches. We want to earn what we get, and to feel the satisfaction that comes with it. That's what we get with the slow, plodding, Clydesdale rushing offenses...and I love it. I'm thankful every day that my Army team is what soldiers call a bunch of 'Grunts' (infantrymen).
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
The Utah AD? I KNOW what he was feeling, but WHAT was he thinking??!
NIU found a way to beat ND in South Bend. Could Virginia and former ND star Chris Tyree find it?
Georgia better find a run game soon or it will be running to a bowl game instead of the playoff.
Ohio State faces Northwestern in the “friendly confines” of Wrigley Field to accommodate the whiny OSU fans who couldn’t get enough tickets to NU’s temporary stadium.
5 Longest continuous rivalries in college football are:
Lehigh-Lafayette
Minnesota-Wisconsin
NC State-Wake Forest
Oklahoma-Oklahoma State
Kansas-Kansas State
There are others that were either interrupted by World Wars, Covid, or conference realignment.
I’ve been in league, conference, or district meetings that lasted more than 3 hours!
QUIZ: Gus Dorais (see the movie “Knute Rockne- All- American)
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Gus Dorais (“dor-AY”) was the throwing part of a famed Notre Dame passing combination - with end Knute Rockne as the catching part - and he’s often called “The Father of the Forward Pass.”
Although he did not invent the forward pass, he was a pioneer in popularizing it. The precision throw-and-catch techniques which he and Rockne developed in their off-hours while working in the summer of 1913 at Ohio’s Cedar Point Amusement Park would contribute a few months later to one of the first great football upsets. When little-known Notre Dame upset national power Army 35-13 that November, it not only brought fame to the small Catholic school in the Midwest, but it also created great interest in the forward pass as more than just a gimmick.
He was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to a French-Canadian father and an Irish mother. His given first name was Charles, but he never went by that name.
Although small at 5-7, 150, he starred as a triple- threat high school quarterback, and led Chippewa Falls to the state championship in 1909.
He had hopes of playing college ball at Minnesota, but wound up instead at Notre Dame. There, two games into his freshman season, the head coach set aside reservations about the quarterback’s overhand spiral throwing style and installed him as his starter. Good decision: in four years as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, he didn’t lose a game.
For the record, in the now-famous win over Army, he completed 14 of 17 attempts for 243 yards and three touchdowns.
He was team captain his junior and senior years, and in 1913 became Notre Dame’s first consensus All-American.
After graduation from Notre Dame, he remained active in football for years as a coach and player. HIs first coaching job was at Loras College, a small Catholic school in Dubuque, Iowa, where he coached numerous sports and still managed to play professional football, still in its primitive early days, for teams in Massillon, Ohio and Fort Wayne, Indiana.
In four years as a coach, his teams were 17-9-2.
He served in the Army during World War I, spending some of his time running and playing for a service team in Texas, and after the War he spent a year at Notre Dame as an assistant to his old roommate, Rockne, who was now the Irish head coach.
Then he was hired by Gonzaga, a Jesuit college in Spokane, as athletic director and head coach of football, basketball, baseball and track - for the princely sum of $4,000.
After five years in Spokane, he was hired at the University of Detroit, another Catholic school, where he would stay for 18 years.
From 1925 until 1942 - when Detroit dropped football for the duration of World War II - he compiled a record of 113-48-7. In those 18 seasons, he had just one losing season - his second.
In 1943, he was hired by the Detroit Lions as their head coach. In his five years there, the Lions went 20-31-2, and although he was fired, he was paid for the four years remaining on his contract, seemingly making him one of the first coaches to be paid a fairly generous severance package.
Then, along with his son, he ran an automobile dealership in Indiana.
To keep a hand in the game, he spent time as a scout for the AAFC, and in 1952 he came out of retirement for a year to assist John Bach, who had been hired by the Steelers as their head coach. Gus Dorais’ contribution was to help Bach convert the Steelers from the single wing attack they had been running for the previous six years to the T-formation which every other NFL team was by then running.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING GUS DORAIS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
RODNEY LUNSFORD - WESTFIELD, INDIANA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: From the time he was little they called him “Fats,’ but he grew up big and “farmer strong” on his family's forty-five-acre farm near tiny Jamestown, in East Texas not far from the Louisiana line. He went to high school in Burkeville.
He played college football at Texas Southern. While there, he married his girlfriend, and they had two children before he graduated.
He was drafted in the eighth round by the Pittsburgh Steelers, thanks to scout Bill Nunn, who had developed great knowledge of - and relationships with - black college football programs.
At 6-3, 280, “built like a John Deere tractor” in the words of a teammate, he became a key member of Pittsburgh’s famed “Steel Curtain” defensive line.
It didn’t take him long to gain a reputation as a rather complex individual.
Reporter Paul Zimmerman, who wrote under the pen name “Doctor Z,” said, “There were people who were scared to death of him, others who didn't want to have anything to do with him, still others who liked him as you would a big, galloping Great Dane puppy.”
Scared to death? "He had a look that was really scary," said safety Mike Wagner. "I think he wanted to beat people to death -- within the rules of the game."
Said teammate L.C. Greenwood, “(He) wanted to see blood. He wanted to beat on the guy until he started bleeding, and if he did start bleeding, (He) felt he had done a good day’s work.”
Veteran Steelers offensive linemen would ask him to slow down so they didn't get hurt. "Nobody would line up against him in practice," said Tom Keating, who joined the Steelers from the Raiders in 1973.
Tight end Randy Grossman compared him to the childlike giant Lennie, in Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” telling author Gary Pomerantz in “Their Life’s Work,” (He) was just a lovable, really nice guy but when he was beaned up or fired up, it was frightening. He would be the only guy that I would be afraid of in any combative situation. Anybody else might beat the shit out of me but (he) would really tear me up. He would rip off pieces of meat and throw them somewhere… or eat them.”
It did appear that to an extent paranoia drove him. He would on occasion visit with Steelers’ president Dan Rooney and say that he believed people were out to get him.
And he often made it known that he considered himself unappreciated - not as well-known or celebrated as his line mates, he was the only one of the famed Steel Curtain defensive line who never made the Pro Bowl.
He actually claimed to be as talented as Mean Joe Greene, still considered by many to be the greatest defensive lineman who ever played the game (“Joe Greene made a whole LOT of people think they were better than they were,” said Bill Nunn) but Woody Widenhofer, who coached the Steelers’ linebackers at the time, said there were times when he really was as good as Joe Greene.
"You want to know how good he was, how tough?" Steelers’ head coach Chuck Noll asked. "Take a look at the way the guy who had to play against him looks, coming off the field after the game -- if he was able to finish it."
Everyone, it seemed, had a story about him.
Wrote Pomerantz,
Most (stories about him) could be cataloged under three headlines: “Mood Swings,” “Eating To Excess,” and “Courvoisier."
The most legendary Eating to Excess story of all: that night in 1976 when Perles (defensive line coach George Perles) brought his defensive linemen to a local restaurant for a feast of roast suckling pig. When all the eating was done, Holmes took another swig of Courvoisier and then cracked a knife handle against a pig’s skull. He dug his fingers deep inside, scooped out small pieces of the pig’s brain, and ate them with delight. "Where I come from,” Holmes gushed, brain matter splashing his cheek, "this is a delicacy!”
Evidence of what a court-appointed psychiatrist would call his “acute paranoia psychosis” was an incident in which - explained here way too briefly - angered at being held up by a roadblock, he shot at the tires of trucks on an Ohio highway, then shot at a police helicopter searching for him after he had crashed his car and taken off on foot. It took a lot of effort on the part of Steelers’ management, a lot of money, a lot of testimony by teammates as to his character, and two months in the Western Pennsylvania Psychiatric Hospital before he was cleared to return to the Steelers. (Naturally, there were those who claimed that as a professional athlete he’d received preferential treatment.)
Back with the Steelers, now bothered by the fact that everyone on the line had a nickname but him, he shaved his head so that the remaining hair formed an arrowhead (pointing him toward the quarterback, he said) and told Coach Perles, “George, I don’t get any publicity because I don’t have a nickname. From now on, my name is Arrowhead.”
Showing how far ahead of today’s game he was in terms of personal branding, he said, “You have to be commercial in this business to get ahead. You need a gimmick.”
Eventually, his huge appetite got the best of him, and after the Steelers traded him to Tampa Bay, he was cut by the Buccaneers.
After football, he spent some time as a professional wrestler, and became an ordained minister and worked with young people in Texas.
In 2008 he was killed in a one-car accident near Beaumont, Texas, and was buried in his native Jamestown.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2024
“I’ve gone from believing that if you ask questions, it meant you’re
fundamentally not smart, to believing that the more you ask, the more
curious you are, the smarter you get.” Tim Cook, CEO of Apple*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “But I never got that far after my orders were delayed. When my old battalion returned from the front, several of my former fellow officers told me in no uncertain terms how lucky I was. I don't recall any precise casualty numbers, but it was tough. I was very fortunate indeed.
“When my orders finally caught up with me, they were changed and I was shuffled to Mare Island in the San Francisco area, then to Pearl Harbor and finally to the fifth Amphibious Tractor battalion in Maui. When I arrived at that then primitive Hawaiian outpost, I shared a tent with a survivor of amphibious landings at Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima, each a costly victory for American forces in terms of casualties. Art Hass had played football at Coe College in Iowa and went on to become a successful football coach in Austin, Minnesota. We became lifelong friends; I was best man at his wedding, and Rena and I named our middle daughter Janann, after his wife.
“In the summer of 1945 the dropping of nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities heralded a quick surrender and the end of hostilities. My commanding officer, Major George Shead, wanted to start a sports program for his troops and, knowing about my athletic background, decided I should be involved. We formed a baseball team, with me as the catcher, and played teams from other military groups and civilian teams on Maui. About the same time I tore up an ankle sliding into third base, Major Shead called me in and appointed me coach of his football team, the Fifth Amphibious Tractor Battalion Bulldogs. It was my first role as a football coach, and we played eight games that season on Maui.
“Major Shead wanted to give his troops a chance to have some fun in sports but this cocky, little (five-feet-eight, 155 pounds) career Marine wanted to keep their minds on something other than going home. The war was over but we were still in uniform, still living a military existence, and still a long, long way from rejoining our families and friends. Shead was a good officer and a competent leader, and he had a sense of humor.
“One night Art Hass and I were in our tent talking rather loudly and a faraway voice hollered, ‘Hey, knock it off.’ I figured it was just some wise guy mouthing off, so I yelled back, ‘Blow it out your rear end.’ The voice, as it turned out, had been that of Major Shead. Somehow I still managed to get good fitness reports and remained as coach of the football team.”
*********** Aberdeen update: Our head coach, Todd Bridge, had to waste his Tuesday night doing what most head coaches detest - attending the end-of-year All-League meeting - a get-together where coaches boast about their kids to the point where you start to think that they really must be shi—y coaches to have lost any games at all with talent like that.
I’ve yet to meet a coach who enjoyed these things. Most of the ones I know would just as soon do away with All-Star teams entirely, but they’re here to stay. The parents demand them and if we didn’t select them, the guys at the newspapers would.
Our little five-team league was totally dominated this season by two teams. One of them, Tumwater, finished the season undefeated and ranked Number One in the state. The other, W. F. West High, of Chehalis, lost just one game - to Tumwater.
Having gone through years of listening to guys whose teams finished oh-fer dominate the All-Star meeting, going on and on about how great this guy was and how indispensable that guy was, our league (wisely, I think) decided to base the number of players a team could nominate on the team’s performance during the season.
These were the first team All-League spots to be filled:
Three MVPs (offense, defense, special teams) selected
Eleven Offensive players
Eleven Defensive players
One punter
One kicker.
That’s three MVPs and 24 players - 27 spots in all.
Tumwater got all three MVPs - AND 12 players.
If you’re into math, you may already have done the work in your head: of 27 possible selections, Tumwater got 15.
W. F. West got seven players.
That means that, combined, Tumwater and W. F. West got 22 of 27 players on the first team.
That left five spots for the other three teams. We finished in third place, so we got two spots.
Now, it seems to me that this is where the nerds should get their revenge - where the guys who got their asses beaten during the season to get together at the meeting and say, “Okay, big guy. You had your fun. You ran up the big scores. But now, we’re at the bargaining table where we all have one vote, and there’s more of us than there are of you. Let’s vote.”
Unfortunately, there were only three of us outliers in that position. I suppose that this is one definite way you suffer when you have a small league: there just aren’t enough of you to have any clout.
For those who say "to the victor belong the spoils," I say this:
There’s been just one team in modern NFL history to go unbeaten - the 1972 Dolphins. They went 14-0 in the regular season and 3-0 in the post-season.
And yet, of the 50 or so players named to various All-Pro teams that year, just seven of them were Dolphins:
*Dick Anderson
*Nick Buoniconti
*Larry Csonka
*Larry Little
*Earl Morrall
*Bill Stanfill
*Paul Warfield
*********** BILL BELICHICK HAD TO CANCEL OUT ON ME AT THE LAST MINUTE, AND HE SAID TO SEND YOU ALL HIS REGRETS - SO ONCE AGAIN MY GUEST PICKER IS BRAD KNIGHT, THE PRIDE OF IOWA.
IN THIS WEEK’S RESULTS, I’VE INCLUDED OUR “PREDICTIONS,” FIRST BRAD’S AND THEN MINE.
FRIDAY
WYOMING AT COLORADO STATE – I really want to pick the Cowboys of a state that identifies as what they are and actually vote that way. But I have to pick the liberal infested Rams of Colorado. Wyoming is in a big rebuild. ME: I love the Cowboys and I’m shocked by the poor season they’ve had. I don’t think the Rams are that good, and knowing something about the intensity of the rivalry - the two schools are only about an hour apart, which in the West is like “next door” - I’m going to Cowboy up!
UCLA AT WASHINGTON – Can UCLA run the ball as they did against the Hawkeyes? If so UCLA wins. I'll take UCLA in a PAC 12...errr B1G matchup. ME: Bow Down to Washington! I’ve heard rumors that Dead - sorry, Jedd - Fisch might be in demand somewhere else, and if a Husky win is what it takes to get him out of Seattle…
HOUSTON AT ARIZONA – Interesting matchup, two teams fighting to be relevant. I think Houston can win this one, as they have a better shot to become bowl eligible. Give me Planet Houston. ME: Bear Down, Arizona.
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE AT NORTHWESTERN – This one will be laughable. The Buckeyes will blast the Nerds. Northwestern should really consider making the temporary stadium home. It certainly is beautiful, and they do not have to sell many tickets to fill it. ME: This is my upset of the week: Ohio State, looking ahead to Indiana, won’t beat the spread (28.5)
TEXAS AT ARKANSAS – The Longhorns win. Tighter than maybe it should be. But winning games is hard. Especially in the SEC. ME: I’d love to see the Hogs get this one, but I don’t see it.
CLEMSON AT PITT – The fighting Narduzzi's vs. The fighting Dabo's. I think Narduzzi takes Dabo in a fight. I'd pay to watch that. Give me Clemson to win the actual football game. ME: I think that Pitt has begun to “Panther it.”
UTAH AT COLORADO – I'll keep taking the Buffs largely because I think Coach "Prime" has surrounded himself with some pretty decent assistants. I will not give him the name Coach Sanders until he has earned it. Utah might just smack them in the face however. ME: Unlike certain people I know who’ve jumped on the Coach Prime bandwagon, I’ll go down swinging with Kyle Whittingham and the Utes. (But if I were betting I’d need the points.)
TULANE AT NAVY – I want to pick Navy. Really, really do. But unlike Army, I do not think Navy's defense can slow down Tulane's offense. I will begrudgingly pick Tulane. ME: I like Navy and I saw them pass their one real test - Memphis - and I think they can upset Tulane (7-point favorite).
MICHIGAN STATE AT ILLINOIS – The fighting Bielema's have quietly had a pretty solid season. This one will be a good game I think. Michigan State, while not terrific, has continued to improve. But the Illini are too much in the end. ME: Illinois is better. Plus I can’t pass up a chance to see Jonathan Smith get his nose bloodied.
SYRACUSE AT CAL – I will have to say Syracuse is competitive. So are the Liberal Bears who do not know they are Bears. I think Syracuse wins a close one. ME: Cal. The Bears have got all their receivers now, including local kid Tobias Merriweather, a Notre Dame transfer who’s now healthy.
PENN STATE AT PURDUE – I'll take the Nittany Kittens. Can Cael Sanderson coach the games against ranked foes? He never loses to anyone. ME: Tough one. Remember when Purdue was good? I do, and it sucks to watch this.
VIRGINIA AT NOTRE DAME – I'll take the Leprechauns. (is that allowed to be said again?) ND just too much for Virginia. ME: Tony Elliott has finally got the Wahoos playing well but Notre Dame is so close to making the playoff that I don't think they'll let this slip away.
BOSTON COLLEGE AT SMU – Give me Death Penalty Recovery Part 2. SMU has too many weapons. BC only has one shot...control the clock. And that isn't going to happen. ME: Have to agree. SMU might be the best team in the ACC, which is impressive considering that they had to buy their way in.
LSU AT FLORIDA – LSU angrily beats the absolute crap out of the Gators this week. Largely because Coach Kelly probably beat the crap out of them after giving up a million yards and 4 TD's to Jalen Milroe a week ago. Nussmeier played as poorly as I'd ever seen. He's better than that. ME: LSU really got exposed against Bama, and they’re only favored by 4, but Florida is not Alabama, and I think the Tigers have enough left to win this one.
LOUISVILLE AT STANFORD – I'll pick ANYONE to beat Stanford. ANYONE. Sadly, the pound the rock days are gone for the Harvard of the midwest. Louisville BIG. ME - Since when is th Bay Area “Midwest?” Dream on, Iowa guy. But as a Stanford dad, it’s going to take a lot more Midwest - and a lot less Far West - to turn Stanford into an FBS football program again.
OREGON STATE AT AIR FORCE – I picked against the Air Force a week ago. MISTAKE. I picked the Beavers a week ago as well. Give me the Zoomies in this one. ME: It hurts to say it, but the Beaver suck. How bad do they suck? They won’t even beat Air Force! They’ve lost four straight, and they need to win two of their last three games to be bowl eligible - and it ain’t gonna happen.
NEBRASKA AT USC – Dana Holgerson in charge of the offense now...interesting. Doesn't change my pick much. I just think USC is better athletically than Nebraska. ME: Lincoln Riley has made USC soft. But they’re still USC and they still have athletes. I think Holgerson is going to make a big difference at NU, and this might be the week. Go Huskers!
BAYLOR AT WEST VIRGINIA – A battle for a Bowl between 2 5-4 teams. I think West Virginia at home wins a good game. ME: Let’s see… is this the week West Virginia wins or the week they lose? I forget. So I’ll pick the Mountaineers.
MISSOURI AT SOUTH CAROLINA – I am going to pick the Cocks again. They have identified who they are and are on a roll. ME: It’s the Battle of Columbia! I think the Gamecocks hav been playing so well lately that it’s time for them to disappoint their fans. That’s what they usually do. But they win this one.
RUTGERS AT MARYLAND – Rutgers....because I like the mascot! ME: Rutgers - because I used to go to the Jersey Shore when I was a kid. Wait - because Rutgers is better.
BOISE STATE AT SAN JOSE STATE – Jeanty 200+ and 4 TD's. Bank on it. Kid is the real deal. He can carry the rock. Boise State wins. ME: Boise wins and gets closer to a Playoff berth.
ARIZONA STATE AT KANSAS STATE – I'll take the Wild Kitties to win. Can their offense continue to run the ball effectively and pass when they want to? K State...in a good one until the 4th quarter. ME: ASU is dangerous, but I still think K-State is the best team in the Big 12.
OREGON AT WISCONSIN – I'll take the Ducks to "JUMP AROUND" all over the Badgers. Not sure there is aBIG10 team that can compete with them this year. ME: After a dismal showing at home against Maryland last week, the Ducks need to show me that they’re really deserving of their Number One spot. They will.
TENNESSEE AT GEORGIA- Will the Dogs be angry? I believe so. Will Tennessee care? Probably not. This could be a great game. I'll take the DAWGS because my little brother is a law school alum there. ME: I’ll take Tennessee because I used to fly in and out of Knoxville. No, actually, I’ll take Georgia because Tennessee isn’t as good as Ole Miss.
CINCINNATI AT IOWA STATE – I think ISU is DONE. Their spirit is broken. Give me CINCY! In a "mild" upset. ME: I’ll take the Cyclones because Knighter doesn’t like them.
WAKE FOREST AT NORTH CAROLINA – Neither team is relevant in their conference race. BUT both still playing for a bowl bid. So it could be a quality game. I will take Coach Brown and UNC. ME: As long as it’s coming down to the coaches, I have to go with Dave Clawson, of Wake, who I like as much as any coach in college ball. Plus a grandson is a Wake grad. Go Deacs!
WASHINGTON STATE AT NEW MEXICO – Washington State is 8-1....after this they will be 9-1. ME: Lobos are getting better - read what my son Ed writes below about Devon Dampier - but the Cougs are good and they have expectations of getting into a really nice bowl.
KANSAS AT BYU – I'm on the verge of calling Kansas over BYU as my upset special. If it was at Arrowhead I'd probably do so. BUT since it is at BYU I will take BYU but in a very close game. The spread is only 3. The O/U is 55.5. I'd take the over. And BYU to cover. ME: I’ll take Kansas, They’ve been playing lights-out lately, and BYU was lucky - very, very lucky - to come away from Utah with a win.
SAN DIEGO STATE AT UNLV – Give me the Fighting Tark the Sharks. UNLV is a quality football team. They are having a good season. The Vegas boys have to be happy with them. ME: UNLV wins big.
REMEMBER, IN MANY CASES - MAYBE MOST - MORE THAN INTELLIGENCE AND COLD ANALYSIS HAVE GONE INTO OUR PICKS. SOMETIMES EMOTION HAS PLAYED AN OVERSIZE ROLE. BUT AT LEAST I DIDN’T PICK ANY GAMES SIMPLY BECAUSE ONE OF THE TEAMS’ NICKNAMES HAPPENED TO BE MY LAST NAME.
*********** More, as promised, about the great John Robinson.
Yes, he and John Madden went to the same parochial school.
Yes, he was a great coach at USC and a near-great coach of the Los Angeles Rams. Not many men have been able to get the job done at both levels of the game the way John Robinson did.
But what kind a guy was he? I trust the judgment of Norm Maves, a longtime friend who’s now retired as a Portland sports writer: “John Robinson was also one of the most personable people I ran across in all those years in the biz. He was as likable as they come; he could chat up a total stranger in a heartbeat. And he could tell a funny story at the drop of a helmet.”
Norm told this one, as best he could remember…
One year, when Robinson was an assistant coach at Oregon, he delivered a story that still cracks me up.
He was a reserve on the Ducks' 1958 Rose Bowl team, and warming the bench in the tense 10-7 loss to Ohio State. Oregon Coach Len Casanova, who inspired loyalty from generations of Oregon people, wanted to make sure all his players got into the action.
This is pretty close to the way Robbie told it:
"So Cas turns around, looks at the bench, then points to me and says 'You! Get in there for Robinson.’
"I grab my helmet, head out to the huddle, and stop halfway. I remember that I'm the only Robinson on the team.
"So I turn around and head back to tell Cas that. He greets me with a big smile, pats me on the back on the way back to the bench and says 'Nice game, Robinson.’"
I remember two things about him from clinics:
I remember him telling of the time USC was playing somebody tough, and things were going slower than usual. A few people started to grumble. But Robinson, true to his philosophy, kept running the tailback off-tackle. More grumbling. Finally, Robinson lost his patience and said, “I don’t care what we’re gaining. Just answer me this - are we beating the sh— out of them?” Of course they were. That was John Robinson - playing the long game.
The other thing that sticks with me - I’ve shown it at clinics - was the time he said, “This is our philosophy at USC.” And he turned and drew up a 5—2 defense (what most people now call a 3-4), and said, “this is our opponents.”
And then, starting to draw the offense, he said, “This is US,” and he drew USC’s I-formation offense in symbols three times larger than the defense.
*********** Gerry Faust died last week. He was a good man and a good coach - a VERY good high school coach - who landed his dream job when he was named head coachNotre Dame. But as he learned, the job was far bigger, far more complex, than he was prepared for.
Toward the end of his stay at Notre Dame, he learned that former Irish coach Ara Parseghian had said that no one should be hired to coach at Notre Dame unless he’d had 12 or 13 years’ experience as a college head coach.
In his autobiography, “The Golden Dream,” Faust admitted that he took offense at the time, but, with the perspective of years of coaching behind him, he came to understand:
What Ara said, in essence, is that the job is impossible. I was too naďve to hear that. What he said was that people were seldom happy with a win – unless you weren't supposed to win, which is an oxymoron, because you are always supposed to win. They expect you to win. They expect you to recruit great players. They expect a Notre Dame to have the number one recruiting class each year. You can't do anything that isn't already expected from the man in that position.
I found the concluding words of Gerry Faust’s book, written in 1997, to be moving.
I was the right man, if not the right coach, for Notre Dame.
I seized the day and it has never been a dark one – not even in its darkest moments. I still see the sun glinting off the Golden Dome illuminating my Golden Dream.
The only shortcut I ever took in my life was to Notre Dame. How can that have been a mistake? It gave me a chance to walk the path I believe God intended me to take. I know He never once let go of my hand along the way. And one day, He will let me know how our walk went. I can live with that.
*********** I’ll give our resident Notre Dame expert, Joe Gutilla, the last word on Gerry Faust…
A lot can be said for what Gerry Faust accomplished as a football coach. His Moeller teams were virtually unbeatable, and was the catalyst for his surprising hire at Notre Dame. While he didn’t achieve the same success with the Irish on the football field as his more famous predecessors, those who played for him respected and admired him for what he instilled for them in their personal lives.
Yes, the man loved ND. He had always dreamed of being its HC. I had the privilege to meet him years after he had been let go without a bad thing to say about the school, and his experience there.
Just a really good human being.
*********** If you can’t get your son to let you reprint his stuff, you haven’t done much a job of raising him, have you? My son, Ed, who despite living in Australia manages to keep a close eye on college football - and the Mountain West in general - tells about a player who’s worth our watching…
An exciting quarterback helps a downtrodden New Mexico university to an overachieving season.
Although short in stature compared to the prototypical quarterback, he’s a good runner and a good leader and is one of the more exciting players in the conference.
Are we talking about Diego Pavia? or Devon Dampier?
In 2023, Pavia led an unheralded New Mexico State team to a 10-5 record, throwing for nearly 3,000 yards and 26 touchdowns. He also led the team in rushing, with 923 yards and 7 touchdowns.
This year, Dampier hasn’t quite reached those heights, but he’s helped New Mexico to a 4-6 record, is 4th in the conference in passing (241 ypg, 11 TD) and 5th in rushing (872 yds, 87.2 ypg)
Here’s where the intrigue starts.
If you’re a fan of college football, you probably know that Pavia transfer portalled (I think I’ve invented a new verb) to Vanderbilt, where he engineered a huge upset win over Alabama and has the Commodores bowl eligible for the first time since 2018.
Dampier has also been impressive, not just on the field, but off it, where he made the Mountain West All-Academic team in 2023. In short, he’s the ideal candidate for a bigger program looking to bring in a smart, athletic quarterback.
As a New Mexico fan or a Mountain West fan, you’d hate to see Dampier poached. But this is the reality of college football and I would be stunned if a Big 12 or ACC team doesn’t take a hard look at him.
*********** This year, so far, NFL teams are 24 of 74 on two-point conversion attempts.
That’s a 32.4 per cent success rate.
Last year? It was 55.1 per cent.
Since the NFL adopted the 2-point conversion in 1995? The overall success rate is 47.9.
*********** From another coach…
Q. Do you think misdirection is better under center or in the open wing or wildcat?
A. I think it depends as much on the number and arrangement of the backs as how the quarterback gets the ball but I think it's about equal under center and wildcat, provided the ball is snapped low.
The key to misdirection is hiding the ball, and the conventional high snap of the shotgun eliminates any doubt about where the ball is.
Q. I probably haven't been as good about hiding the ball as I should've been.
A. It’s a great indicator of how deep into detail a coach is willing and able to go. I could do better certainly. We all could. But most guys can't even be bothered.
*********** A friend was asking me about doing something similar to what Army’s doing offensively. I told him,
One advantage they have that most of us don’t is that they get special guys who are smart. They all graduated at the top of their HS classes. They’re also tough and unselfish. From the time they get to West Point they get toughness drilled into them and selfishness flushed out of them and they want to win by whatever means are available. That means you can have an offense where everybody blocks. Even the option QB. And, too, because the Army itself at its base is “boots on the ground” - hard men in hand-to-hand combat - its fan base expects the same of its football team. Army fans don’t shriek with excitement at long incompletions. They get their thrills from long, methodical drives consisting of mostly running plays that punish the enemy.
*********** A little free, unsolicited advice to a coach who just concluded a successful season, his second or third running the Double Wing.
You are to be congratulated for your progress. Mostly, though, it’s for having the “stones” to stay with an unfashionable offense when there is always pressure to do what everyone else is doing. The longer you stay with it, the better you’ll get at it, and the harder you’ll be for other teams to stop.
Just don’t allow yourselves to get bored, because that’s the first step to losing the edge that the Double Wing gives you.
*********** The 16 Campbell Finalists get 18K each? Sounds like too many to me, some with questionable quals.
Surprisingly, the Black Knights did enter the CFP at #15. I won't argue whether that's right, because it won't matter in a month anyhow.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Well… two of my “unless” predictions came true. Haynes King of Georgia Tech played against Miami, and GT upset undefeated Miami. Minnesota, winners of four in a row, forgot how to run the rock and got beat by Rutgers that had lost four in a row. Apparently Alabama didn’t need Nick Saban after all, LSU did!
My Fresno State Bulldogs are in jeopardy of missing out on a bowl game. Talk about forgetting how to run the ball. They had a total of -13 yards rushing in their loss to Air Force!! They have lost two in a row to the two worst teams in the Mountain West. Their remaining games with Colorado State and UCLA certainly don’t improve their chances.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Hugh Campbell went to high school in Saratoga, California, and at Washington State he became - and remains - one of the greatest receivers in school history.
Nicknamed “The Phantom of the Palouse,” in his three-year career (1959-1961), when people weren’t throwing the ball the way they do today, he set a school single-game record for receptions (11), school single-season records for receptions (67) and touchdowns receiving (10), and school career records for receptions (177), yards (2,459) and touchdowns (22).
He was named All-Pacific Coast Conference all three years of his eligibility, and was second team all-American his senior year.
He was awarded the W.J. Voit Trophy, given (from 1951 to 1978) to the outstanding football player on the Pacific Coast.
Following his senior year, he played in the Hula Bowl, the College All-Star Game, the Coaches All-American Game, and the East-West Shrine Game. He was named the MVP in both the Coaches All-American and the East-West Shrine Games.
Drafted in the fourth round - 50th player taken - by the 49ers, he chose instead to play in Canada for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
He played five seasons with the Riders, then retired to take a job as an assistant at Washington State under Jim Sweeney, but came out of retirement to play one final season in Saskatchewan.
In his six seasons, he caught 321 passes for 5,425 yards and 60 touchdowns. He played on one Grey Cup Championship team. He won Western Conference All-Star honors (oops - “honours”) four times, and was twice named a CFL All-Star.
After retirement as a player, he was hired as head coach at D-III Whitworth College, in Spokane, Washington. After seven years there, during which he was twice named conference Coach of the Year, in 1977 he became head coach of the Edmonton Eskimos.
He took the Eskimos to the Grey Cup game in Montreal in his first year but lost 41–6 to the Montreal Alouettes. It was the only Grey Cup game he would ever lose, as his Eskimos won the next five Grey Cup games.
After the 1982 season, he left the CFL to become head coach of the USFL's Los Angeles Express, and after one season, he was hired by the Houston Oilers, who hoped that his hiring would help them land Warren Moon, then a free agent, who had played for him in Edmonton.
The Oilers then signed Moon, and our guy did last as head coach of the Oilers for two games shy of two seasons before being fired.
He almost immediately returned to the Edmonton as general manager, and served in that capacity until his retirement in 2006.
As player, head coach or general manager, Hugh Campbell was a member of 10 Grey Cup championship teams.
His son, Rick, is currently head coach of the CFL BC Lions.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING HUGH CAMPBELL
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORDO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He was the throwing part of a famed Notre Dame passing combination - with end Knute Rockne as the catching part - and he’s often called “The Father of the Forward Pass.”
Although he did not invent the forward pass, he was a pioneer in popularizing it. The precision throw-and-catch techniques which he and Rockne developed in their off-hours while working in the summer of 1913 at Ohio’s Cedar Point Amusement Park would contribute a few months later to one of the first great football upsets. When little-known Notre Dame upset national power Army 35-13 that November, it not only brought fame to the small Catholic school in the Midwest, but it also created great interest in the forward pass as more than just a gimmick.
He was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to a French-Canadian father and an Irish mother. His given first name was Charles, but he never went by that name.
Although small at 5-7, 150, he starred as a triple- threat high school quarterback, and led Chippewa Falls to the state championship in 1909.
He had hopes of playing college ball at Minnesota, but wound up instead at Notre Dame. There, two games into his freshman season, the head coach set aside reservations about the quarterback’s overhand spiral throwing style and installed him as his starter. Good decision: in four years as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, he didn’t lose a game.
For the record, in the now-famous win over Army, he completed 14 of 17 attempts for 243 yards and three touchdowns.
He was team captain his junior and senior years, and in 1913 became Notre Dame’s first consensus All-American.
After graduation from Notre Dame, he remained active in football for years as a coach and player. HIs first coaching job was at Loras College, a small Catholic school in Dubuque, Iowa, where he coached numerous sports and still managed to play professional football, still in its primitive early days, for teams in Massillon, Ohio and Fort Wayne, Indiana.
In four years as a coach, his teams were 17-9-2.
He served in the Army during World War I, spending some of his time running and playing for a service team in Texas, and after the War he spent a year at Notre Dame as an assistant to his old roommate, Rockne, who was now the Irish head coach.
Then he was hired by Gonzaga, a Jesuit college in Spokane, as athletic director and head coach of football, basketball, baseball and track - for the princely sum of $4,000.
After five years in Spokane, he was hired at the University of Detroit, another Catholic school, where he would stay for 18 years.
From 1925 until 1942 - when Detroit dropped football for the duration of World War II - he compiled a record of 113-48-7. In those 18 seasons, he had just one losing season - his second.
In 1943, he was hired by the Detroit Lions as their head coach. In his five years there, the Lions went 20-31-2, and although he was fired, he was paid for the four years remaining on his contract, seemingly making him one of the first coaches to be paid a fairly generous severance package.
Then, along with his son, he ran an automobile dealership in Indiana.
To keep a hand in the game, he spent time as a scout for the AAFC, and in 1952 he came out of retirement for a year to assist John Bach, who had been hired by the Steelers as their head coach. His contribution was to help Bach convert the Steelers from the single wing attack they had been running for the previous six years to the T-formation which every other NFL team was by then running.
TUESDAY,
NOVEMBER 12, 2024 “The bad news is they are
insane; the good news is they are insane and impotent.”Mark Steyn
********** VETERANS DAY: I think that one of the great formative influences in my life was when I first entered Germantown Academy as a 12-year-old seventh-grader, and from that point on, every single one of my teachers and coaches, all the way through to high school graduation, was a man. And, every bit as important, every single one was a veteran - most were veterans of the (fairly recent) Second World War, but some of the older ones were World War One vets.
For men like that, many of whom had seen action overseas (my Latin teacher, Mister Truesdale, had been gassed in World War I and my science teacher, Mister Schrepfer, had had much of his calf shot off in World War II), dealing with a wiseass punk like me was scarcely a challenge. They pretty much kept me in line.
I have few regrets in life, but one is that I never served in the military. I distinctly remember our headmaster, Doctor Day - himself a former paratrooper - telling me at least once that if you didn’t serve, “you weren’t part of your generation.”
That’s no longer so. But at one time, it was true, and America - and all of our institutions, certainly our politics - were better because it was.
The lessons they imparted have stayed with me all my life. Thank you, Veterans, for what you did for this one person.
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “At the time I was at Quantico, there was a major distraction back home in Michigan. Lightning hit our silo and started a fire that swept through the barn. Flames destroyed the farm equipment and all of the buildings except the house. Unable to farm, my father found a job with the Kalamazoo County road commission. With most of the younger men in the military, he was offered a job as a truck driver. My parents moved closer to Vicksburg, and my mother used her cooking skills to get a job at an elementary school lunch room. It was a far easier life than working the farm.
“Of the 226 would-be officers who were in my OCS class at Quantico, 182 were commissioned second lieutenant at a brief ceremony on May 3, 1944. When I was ordered to report for training with the amphibious tractor battalion on the beach at Oceanside, California, it was pretty clear this war was not going to be any picnic. Simply, our job was leading the invasion of enemy-held islands, of which there were many in the South Pacific theater.
“Our boats were called landing vehicle tractors; they were more like tanks that floated, and they were open on the top - at the same time, having the traction to move on land once they hit the beach. They were launched from larger ships offshore, and each carried about thirty Marines. The goal was to get on the beach, often under heavy fire, open the big ramp of the vehicle, and turn the Marines loose.
“A lot of people called the tractors seagoing tomato cans because they had a low profile in the water and little protection. The crew consisted of a boat driver, a gunner manning a 50-caliber machine gun on the top of the cab, and a lieutenant – that's me – in charge of several tractors. We made numerous practice runs in training on the California beaches. Later, back in our quarters, we speculated about our chances of surviving the action under fire.
*********** Aberdeen update: Last Thursday, two days after our season ended, we held our Last Practice.
A practice? After the season’s over? For what?
Last Practice is something that Head coach Todd Bridge and I started several years ago when we were coaching at North Beach High, in Ocean Shores, Washington. Our season had just ended, and several of the players gathered in Coach Bridge’s room at lunch on Monday and said they wished we could still have practice that afternoon. Done. Practice was on. Attendance was 100 per cent. We did a lot of fun things (everything’s more fun in the mud), and at the close, we gathered and expressed a lot of emotions. And then we ended with a “last tackle” (of a dummy) for all the seniors. Oh - and afterward we collected all the gear, so our “last practice” had its practical side as well.
At Aberdeen, our Thursday practice was attended by at least 90 per cent of our kids. (Most of those not in attendance were freshmen, whose season had ended Monday and who hadn’t dressed for Tuesday’s night’s game.)
We started out with Air Raid - a competition among our squadrons to catch balls shot high in the air by our Jugs machine (PHOTO), followed by our daily warmups, then by a 7-on-7 tournament among the squadrons, then by “senior speeches,” and finally by “last tackles.”
Yes, our season ended with a loss - but unless you’re a state champion, every halfway decent team winds up its season that way. We finished 4-6, and every team we lost to made the 32-team playoffs. But our season ended on a high note - with our kids already thinking about next season - because of our last practice.
*********** Columbia River, the team we lost to, 7-6 on Tuesday, lost its Saturday playoff game to Franklin Pierce, of Tacoma, 76-14. Franklin Pierce runs a full-house, double-tight offense.
ABERDEEN OPPONENTS WHO WON
Olympic 45, Washougal 6
Tumwater 70, Renton 8
W. F. West 56, Sequim 3
ABERDEEN OPPONENTS WHO LOST
Prosser 51, Steilacoom 35
Life Christian 36, Rochester 22
*********** COLLEGE GAME DAY HAD PAUL SKENES AND LIVVY DUNNE. FOR THE TIME BEING, I ANSWER WITH BRAD KNIGHT.
WE GO BACK A LONG WAY TOGETHER, TIED AT THE HIP BY THE DOUBLE WING.
BRAD’S HAD SUCCESSFUL COACHING STAYS AT GALVA-HOLSTEIN HIGH IN HOLSTEIN, IOWA AND AT CLARINDA ACADEMY, IN CLARINDA, IOWA, WHERE HE NOW LIVES.
IN RECENT YEARS, HE’S BEEN PARTLY SATISFYING HIS COACHING APPETITE COACHING SOFTBALL AT CLARINDA HIGH. HE IS, YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, AN IOWA HAWKEYES’ FAN, AND NOT THE WORLD’S BIGGEST IOWA STATE CYCLONES FAN.
IN THIS WEEK’S RESULTS, I’VE INCLUDED OUR “PREDICTIONS,” BRAD’S FIRST AND THEN MINE.
FRIDAY
CAL 46, WAKE FOREST 36 – I'll take the Bears. ME: I’ll take the Deacons.
UCLA 20, IOWA 17 – I will take Iowa. Kaleb Johnson another 130 and 3 TD’s. ME: Of course I’ll take the Hawkeyes. But the Bruins are better, too.
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE 45, PURDUE 0 – The Buckeyes in a rout. ME: I’ll go out on a limb and say “Buckeyes," too.
GEORGIA TECH 28, MIAMI 23 – I'll take the U, maybe they are back? They certainly have found the right guy at QB. ME: This is my big upset pick of the day. Go Jackets! (GT rushed for 271 yards, Miami 88. In the immortal words of John Madden, “I know you think you can win by passing all the time… but you can’t.”)
TEXAS 49, FLORIDA 17 - I'll still take Texas by 10 ME: Make that Texas by 20
RUTGERS 26, MINNESOTA 19 – The Gophers as much as it pains me to pick them. ME: Gophers are hot. Scarlet Knights are not.
BOSTON COLLEGE 37, SYRACUSE 31 – Give me the fighting O'Briens of BC. ME: I was impressed by the Orange against VT last week. (‘Cuse is already bowl-eligible. BC is 5-4 with three tough games remaining: SMU, North Carolina, Pitt.)
WEST VIRGINIA 31, CINCINNATI 24 – Give me Cincy! ME: I’ll take the Mountaineers.
NAVY 28, SOUTH FLORIDA 7 – Navy...no way USF can stop the run game. ME: Navy will NOT lose three in a row.
OLE MISS 28, GEORGIA 10 –Give me UGA but close....less than 10. ME: I’m going to take the Rebels. (Can I still call them that?)
INDIANA 20, MICHIGAN 15 – The Hoosiers coached by Gene Hackman.. ME: Indiana has suffered for years at the hands of Michigan. It’s turnabout time.
KANSAS 45, IOWA STATE 36 – Give me the JAYHAWKS in an upset. ME: I think that Cyclones will snap back after last week’s loss. (Knighter HATES Iowa State.)
ARMY 14, NORTH TEXAS 3 – I think Army is better. ME: I’m going to guess that he (Daily) doesn’t play - that he’s kept out to ready for Notre Dame - and North Texas wins in an upset. (He played, and Army’s ball-control offense crushed a team that had been averaging 40+ points a game)
CLEMSON 24, VIRGINIA TECH 14 – I'll take Dabo to win. ME: Oh, yes, Clemson wins.
DUKE 29, NC STATE 19 – I'll take Duke. ME: I’ll take Duke, I think they’re the better team. (Manny Diaz has already matched Mike Elko’s 2023 regular-season win total. Devils are 7-3, with Virginia Tech and Wake Forest left to play. Elko’s Duke team finished 7-5, then won its bowl game to go 8-5.)
SAN JOSE STATE 24, OREGON STATE 13 – So give me the Beavers to win this one. ME: Go Beavs. But they HAVE lost four in a row. (Make that five in a row.)
COLORADO 41 TEXAS TECH 27 – Buffs win. ME: No way I can root for Colorado, and I will use they/them pronouns before I’l call that clown “Coach Prime.” (Looks like he can coach, but I still detest him.)
SOUTH CAROLINA 28, VANDERBILT 7 – I will take the Cocks to win, but Vandy to cover. ME: Vandy is going to win. Book it. And when they do, they’ll interview Diego Pavia after. Great interview. And he’ll be sure to give thanks to God for giving him the opportunity. Book it. (Maybe the thrill is done.)
OREGON 39, MARYLAND 18 – The Ducks. I won't pick anyone to beat them at home. ME: Welcome to Autzen, Terps. Place is a 60,000-seat sounding board that poses as a stadium. (Actually, I thought the Ducks sucked.)
TENNESSEE 33, MISSISSIPPI STATE 14 – Tennessee... they are better than the Bulldogs. ME: Vols are way too good for the Bulldogs.
ARIZONA STATE 35, UCF 31 – Give me Ariz. State. ME: I’ll take the Knights over the Sun Devils.
TCU 38, OKLAHOMA STATE 13 – Give me the Horned Frogs! ME: I’m betting on Gundy to stop the slide.
NOTRE DAME 52, FLORIDA STATE 3 – Notre Dame... ME: Florida State is Indiana in reverse. (Afterward, FSU Coach Mike Norvell fired his OC and DC - and his wide receivers’ coach. Question: how you gonna hire anybody good when you’re probably on the way out yourself?)
ALABAMA 42, LSU 13 – ROLL TIDE! ME: Tigers win this one. (This was Bama’s 12th win in its last 14 games against LSU. Can you imagine the rage in Tiger Stadium after a day of “preparation” and then having to watch this?)
MISSOURI 30, OKLAHOMA 23 – Mizzou, but close. ME: Missouri BIG. (The way OU lost at the end was an object lesson to QBs who simply refuse to do the old-fashioned thing and protect the ball.)
PENN STATE 35, WASHINGTON 6 – Penn State rebounds and beats Washington. ME: Huskies just aren’t good enough (This was 28-0 at the half. Now, if only some Russian could have hacked into James Franklin’s phone and informed him that Washington was ranked Number Four…)
BOISE STATE 28, NEVADA 21 – Boise State with my Heisman pick toting the rock. ME: Got to go along with that one. (Broncos had a lot of trouble with a team that has yet to win a Mountain West game. But still, Ashton Jeanty rushed 34 times for 209 yards and three TDs.)
VIRGINIA 24, PITT 19 – Pitt rebounds. ME: If it were anyone by UVa, I’d pick Pitt to lose its second in a row, but I don’t think the Cavaliers can do it. (Having lived through many seasons of Washington State “Cougin’ it,” I can’t believe Pittsburghers haven’t invented a similar verb for what the Panthers have been known to do.)
AIR FORCE 36, FRESNO STATE 28 – Air Force is just not good. ME: This is the worst Air Force team I have ever seen. (WRONG: The Falcons rushed for 344 yards to win their second game of the year. The ran 86 plays to Fresno’s 38, and controlled the clock for 45:08 to the Bulldogs’ 14:52.)
BYU 22, UTAH 21 – BYU but close... ME: I don’t think that the Utes have the offense to beat the Cougars. (Absolutely unbelievable ending - a fourth-down sack on the BYU one, nullified by a holding call, followed by a game-winning drive. Followed by some of the harshest criticisms of officials you’ll ever hear. Welcome to the Holy War.)
WASHINGTON STATE 49, UTAH STATE 28 – I'll take Coach Leach's former school, just because I miss his press conferences. ME: Go Cougs.
*********** More on Friday about the great John Robinson, who died today (Monday).
*********** NCAA 2024 College Football Playoff Projection: Week 12 Top 25
These predictions are as of Sunday, November 10.
1. Oregon (10-0) LW: 1 — As long as Oregon keeps winning, the Ducks will stay at the top.
2. Ohio State (8-1) LW: 2 — A shutout win should put to bed any argument over who should be No. 2 in the country.
3. Texas (8-1) LW: 5 — Expect Texas to move into the top three after Georgia and Miami lost.
4. Tennessee (8-1) LW: 7 — Tennessee's win over Alabama got more juice after the Tide beat LSU. That small boost will move Tennessee into the top four for the committee.
5. Penn State (8-1) LW: 6 — Penn State won its whiteout game against Washington and will move into the top five.
6. Indiana (10-0) LW: 8 — Is a win over Michigan enough to move Indiana into the top five? I don't think so, especially not in front of a Tennessee team with a win over Alabama.
7. BYU (9-0) LW: 9 — BYU won a nail-biter over Utah in the Holy War, but I don't think a close win will cause the committee to drop the Cougars below a two-loss team.
8. Alabama (7-2) LW: 11 — Alabama should be the No. 8 team in the country after dominating LSU in Death Valley. Until someone ahead of the Tide loses, I don't think the CFP committee can overlook their two losses.
9. Georgia (7-2) LW: 3 — Georgia was ranked above Miami last week, and it'll stay above the Hurricanes after losing to a ranked opponent. However, the Bulldogs will fall below Alabama because of head-to-head.
10. Miami (9-1) LW: 4 — Miami's loss to Georgia Tech on the road is better than Notre Dame's loss to Northern Illinois at home. Luckily for the Hurricanes, Notre Dame is a floor in these rankings.
11. Ole Miss (7-2) LW: 16 — Ole Miss will be the last at-large team in the bracket this week after handily beating Georgia. South Carolina should be ranked too, giving the Rebels another ranked win on its resume.
12. Notre Dame (8-1) LW: 10 — Notre Dame falls out of the playoff field as Alabama and Ole Miss move in front of it. With only one ranked opponent remaining on the schedule, the committee could send a message about Notre Dame's stability in the bracket this week.
13. Boise State (8-1) LW: 12 — Boise State will stay in the playoffs as the highest projected conference champion remaining, but it won't be one of the 12 best teams after a close win over Nevada.
14. SMU (8-1) LW: 13 — SMU won't move in front of any teams after a bye.
15. Texas A&M (7-2) LW: 14 — Texas A&M won't move in front of any teams after a bye.
16. Kansas State (7-2) LW: 19 — Kansas State had a bye and will move up after three teams ranked ahead of it lost.
17. Colorado (7-2) LW: 20 — Colorado controls its destiny and could make the CFP as a conference champion. However, its path to becoming a top-12 team has a roadblock with a head-to-head loss to Kansas State.
18. Washington State (8-1) LW: 21 — Washington State has a long road ahead to become one of the top-12 teams, but it should move up three spots this week.
19. Louisville (6-3) LW: 22 — Louisville stays above Clemson after the Cardinals had a bye.
20. Clemson (6-2) LW: 23 — Last week's ranking told us that the committee won't put Clemson in front of Louisville after a head-to-head defeat unless the Tigers get a ranked win.
21. Missouri (6-2) LW: 24 — Missouri's win over Oklahoma doesn't hold as much weight as it was thought in the preseason. The Tigers likely have to win an SEC title to make the playoffs based on the committee's first rankings.
22. Army (9-0) LW: 25 — Army's win over North Texas wasn't groundbreaking so the Black Knights won't enter the top 20 yet.
23. LSU (6-3) LW: 15 — Sometimes it's about how you lose just as much as it's about who you lose to. For LSU both will drop the Tigers to the bottom of the top 25. A blowout loss at home is never a good look.
24. South Carolina (6-3) LW: NR — South Carolina beat a good Vanderbilt team a week after beating a ranked Texas A&M team. The Gamecocks will be ranked by the committee this week after feeling snubbed last week.
25. Arizona State (7-2) LW: NR — I think the committee will give Arizona State the final spot in this week's rankings. The Sun Devils should get the spot over fellow Big 12 school Iowa State, even though the Cyclones were ranked last week. Arizona State has won two straight while Iowa State has lost two straight. An argument could be made to rank Tulane, but I don't see the committee ranking two teams from the American in their second rankings.
https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2024-11-10/predicting-college-football-playoff-rankings-bracket-week-12
*********** IRVING, Texas (Oct. 23, 2024) – The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced today the finalists for the 2024 William V. Campbell TrophyŽ, college football's premier scholar-athlete award that annually recognizes an individual as the absolute best in the nation for his combined academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership. The 16 finalists will each receive an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship as a member of the 2024 NFF National Scholar-Athlete Class Presented by Fidelity InvestmentsŽ:
• Tahj Brooks, RB – Texas Tech (3.55 GPA – Sport Management)
• Robert Coury, LB – Carnegie Mellon [PA] (3.97 GPA – Mechanical Engineering)
• Jaxson Dart, QB – Ole Miss (3.71 GPA – Business) TRANSFER FROM USC
• Beau Freyler, DB – Iowa State (3.91 GPA – Kinesiology)
• Dillon Gabriel, QB – Oregon (3.43 GPA – Multidisciplinary Studies) SIX YEAR STARTER - UCF, OKLAHOMA, OREGON
• Ashton Gillotte, DL – Louisville (3.69 GPA – Communications)
• Brody Grebe, DE – Montana State (3.93 GPA – Mechanical Engineering)
• Mark Gronowski, QB – South Dakota State (3.76 GPA – Mechanical Engineering)
• Terrance Hollon, LB – Howard (3.90 GPA – Health Science)
• Jack Kiser, LB – Notre Dame (3.82 GPA – Business Analytics)
• Luke Lehnen, QB – North Central [IL] (3.76 GPA – Exercise Science)
• Brayden Long, QB – Slippery Rock [PA] (4.00 GPA – Sport Management)
• Jake Majors, C – Texas (3.65 GPA – Business Management)
• Seth McLaughlin, C – Ohio State (4.00 GPA – Finance) ALABAMA - FIRST YEAR AT OHIO STATE
• Jalen Milroe, QB – Alabama (3.52 GPA – Management)
• Jackson Woodard, LB – UNLV (3.77 GPA – Kinesiology) ARKANSAS FOR THREE SEASONS
With good reason, you call your award the Academic Heisman. But then you go and devalue it by including the poster child for everything bad that’s happening to college football.
Dillon Gabriel’s pursuit of a million-dollar payoff playing college football is perfectly legal, but come on, man - SIX F—KING YEARS OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL? “MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDIES?”
And you’re putting him in with honest-to-God college students? Most of the rest are legitimate students pursuing authentic majors, and not something concocted to keep academically aimless jocks eligible. And for many of them, NIL means nothing more than an occasional free cheeseburger and fries at the local hangout.
MY APOLOGY (IN ADVANCE): If anyone was offended by my disparaging of the academic achievements of Dillon Gabriel, I humbly apologize. I had no way that he was hot on the trail of a cancer cure, and was seriously considering giving up football because of the time it requires - time he’d prefer to be spending in the Multidisciplinary Lab, studying ways to make petroleum from seawater, with fresh water as a byproduct.
*********** Miami Coach Mario Cristobal got my attention when he told the sideline bimbo before the start of the second quarter that Georgia Tech was “running that counter right up our nose.”
Raise your hand when you were surprised that he didn’t refer to an orifice somewhat lower on the body.
*********** The act of aiming at an opponent’s head remains the biggest threat to the life of our game, and the people entrusted with our game keep screwing around with all kinds of lawyerly defenses of the creeps that do it. It reminds me of the way our society prizes the criminal over the victim, and it really angers me to see a guy, once he has been “ejected,” standing on the sidelines accepting condolence (and sometimes congratulations) from teammates. It’s time to punish coaches whose players hit with the helmets because I have to be honest and say that I wouldn’t want a son or a grandson playing college football the way it’s currently being allowed to be played.
*********** The Army offense is the football equivalent of running the table in straight pool - rack after rack - while all your opponent can do is sit and watch. (Full disclosure: I have never run more than one rack.) Army put on a second-half drive against North Texas that went 94 yards and consumed almost 14 minutes (13:54 to be exact). Talk about methodical - Army ran 21 plays. There were just two plays of more than 10 yards. There was one pass. Along the way, Army made seven first downs (eight, if you include the TD). There was one penalty - a delay of game caused by taking a little more than the maximum anount of time between plays.
*********** Oh, and PAT SUMMERALL'S DAUGHTER IS THE FIRST FEMALE WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF IN HISTORY!
(But Trump's still a misogynist)
J. Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
It’s true- newly-appointed Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is the daughter of the legendary Pat Summerall.
“Donald Trump - You never see him around strong intelligent women.” Mark Cuban
I have maintained for years that the first female president will be a conservative - because fewer people will question her qualifications for the job. Affirmative action may have helped some in the short term but by calling into question their credentials (for good reason, in far too many cases) it has done great long-term harm to the very people it claims to help.
*********** Answer is Johnny Majors, who I reckon was the player I most often pretended to be while playing our backyard games in Big Stone Gap.
This guest picker thing is pretty cool. Coach/Corch Knight kept my attention. Both you and he were wrong on most of them, but I assume you were just trying to be funny.
Grady Judd is a local point of pride, and a worthy successor to Joe Arpaio as America's titular sheriff.
Slight correction: Joe Biden earned all of his 81+ million votes in 2020, not 2024.
FYKIGM. I love Grunt talk. There's a motto to live by. Lots of superior values imbedded therein.
My only election comment isn't actually political. It is that now that this one is over, the Dem party will reform itself to return to being a party that loves America. I pray for a strong loyal opposition driven by strong values.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Sorry to hear about the result of the play-in game. Nevertheless a strong ending to the season, and should be a solid springboard to next year.
Enjoyed Brad’s and your take on College Gameday predictions.
A few “unless” predictions:
Georgia Tech over Miami UNLESS GT QB Haynes King doesn’t see the field.
Minnesota over Rutgers UNLESS the Gophers forget to run the rock.
N Texas over Army UNLESS the Cadets decide QB Bryson Dailey needs to play.
LSU over Alabama UNLESS Nick Saban shows up on the Alabama sideline.
Cross Billy Napier’s name off the list of coaches on the hot seat. His seat will get hotter next year if the Gators aren’t in the running for a a playoff spot.
As a HC I NEVER coached “Hawk” tackling. I always taught Chin-up, Chest-up, Wrap and Run. My last 3 years coaching as an assistant we were required to teach the “Hawk” method. MY teams were always good tackling teams. As an assistant our teams were pathetic tacklers.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Johnny Majors was one of the last of the great major college single wing tailbacks.
The son of a high school football coach and the oldest of four brothers who all played football - one of them with the Cleveland Browns, he played high school ball for his dad at Huntland, Tennessee. In 1951 - his junior year - they won the state championship.
He was recruited to Tennessee by the legendary General Bob Neyland, famed for his single-wing attack, but he never got to play for the General. Playing under Bowden Wyatt, he was the SEC Player of the Year in both his junior and senior years. In his senior year, he led the Vols to a 10-1 season - and Number 2 national ranking - and was a unanimous All-American. But in possibly the greatest travesty in the history of the Heisman Trophy, he finished second in the balloting to Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung. To this day, Hornung, whose Irish finished 2-8 on the season, remains the only Heisman winner from a losing team.
Because of Majors’ position in a then-outmoded offense, he was a poor fit in any pro football offense, and after a year in the CFL, he embarked on a coaching career.
After stops at Tennessee and Mississippi State and four years as an assistant under the great Frank Broyles at Arkansas, he was hired as head coach at Iowa State.
Iowa State was then perhaps the toughest assignment in all of major college football, and although it took him four years to turn in a winning record, when he did so, his Cyclones’ 8 wins were the most in the school’s history. Their bowl appearance (in the Sun Bowl against LSU) was the school’s first ever, and for his efforts, he was named Big Eight Coach of the Year.
After five years at Iowa State, he was hired by Pitt as their head coach, and there he built well: with three-time All-American Tony Dorsett as his main running back, in four years at Pitt he built a national champion. The Panthers won the national title in 1976, and earned him National Coach of the Year honors.
They also got him the head coaching job at his alma mater, Tennessee. It took him four years to get the Vols to a bowl game, but they would play in one in 11 of the next 13 years. He was 7-4 in bowl games.
In 16 years at Tennessee, had six seasons of 9 or more wins, and six nationally-ranked teams, two of them in the top five.
Three of his teams won SEC titles, and in 1985, after his Vols won the SEC title and finished fourth nationally, he was named SEC Coach of the Year.
In 1992, his sixteenth season as Tennessee’s head coach, he had to undergo heart surgery, and while he recovered, his assistant, Philip Fulmer, covered for him as interim head coach. Shortly after his return, he was “asked to resign,” and was succeeded by Fulmer. To this day, the story behind his removal remains open and a matter of great interest and controversy among longtime Volunteers’ fans.
He was immediately snapped up by Pitt, in hopes of a redo of his earlier success there, but it was not to be. In four seasons, his record was 12-32, and that was the end of his long, storied coaching career.
His overall record - Iowa State, Pitt (twice) and Tennessee - was 185-137-10. At Tennessee, it was 116-62-8.
Johnny Majors has a very impressive coaching tree: 25 of his assistant coaches went on to become college or professional head coaches themselves.
Among them:
Dom Capers: Carolina Panthers, Houston Texans
Curt Cignetti: IUP, Elon, James Madison, Indiana
David Cutcliffe: Ole Miss, Duke
Phillip Fulmer: Tennessee
Jon Gruden: Oakland Raiders, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders
Jimmy Johnson: Oklahoma State, Miami (FL), Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins
Jackie Sherrill: Washington State, Pitt, Texas A&M, Mississippi State
Dave Wannstedt: Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins, Pitt
Ron Zook: Florida, Illinois
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOHNNY MAJORS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He went to high school in Saratoga, California, and at Washington State he became - and remains - one of the greatest receivers in school history.
Nicknamed “The Phantom of the Palouse,” in his three-year career (1959-1961), when people weren’t throwing the ball the way they do today, he set a school single-game record for receptions (11), school single-season records for receptions (67) and touchdowns receiving (10), and school career records for receptions (177), yards (2,459) and touchdowns (22).
He was named All-Pacific Coast Conference all three years of his eligibility, and was second team all-American his senior year.
He was awarded the W.J. Voit Trophy, given (from 1951 to 1978) to the outstanding football player on the Pacific Coast.
Following his senior year, he played in the Hula Bowl, the College All-Star Game, the Coaches All-American Game, and the East-West Shrine Game. He was named the MVP in both the Coaches All-American and the East-West Shrine Games.
Drafted in the fourth round - 50th player taken - by the 49ers, he chose instead to play in Canada for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
He played five seasons with the Riders, then retired to take a job as an assistant at Washington State under Jim Sweeney, but came out of retirement after one year to play one final season in Saskatchewan.
In his six seasons, he caught 321 passes for 5,425 yards and 60 touchdowns. He played on one Grey Cup Championship team. He won Western Conference All-Star honors (oops - “honours”) four times, and was twice named a CFL All-Star.
After retirement as a player, he was hired as head coach at D-III Whitworth College, in Spokane, Washington. After seven years there, during which he was twice named conference Coach of the Year, in 1977 he became head coach of the Edmonton Eskimos.
He took the Eskimos to the Grey Cup game in Montreal in his first year but lost 41–6 to the Montreal Alouettes. It was the only Grey Cup game he would ever lose, as his Eskimos won the next five Grey Cup games.
After the 1982 season, he left the CFL to become head coach of the USFL's Los Angeles Express, and after one season, he was hired by the Houston Oilers, who hoped that his hiring would help them land Warren Moon, then a free agent, who had played for him in Edmonton.
The Oilers then signed Moon, and our guy did last as head coach of the Oilers for two games shy of two seasons before being fired.
He almost immediately returned to the Edmonton as general manager, and served in that capacity until his retirement in 2006.
As player, head coach or general manager, he was a member of 10 Grey Cup championship teams.
His son is currently head coach of the CFL BC Lions.
FRIDAY,
NOVEMBER 8, 2024 “It is much more important to
kill bad bills than to pass good ones.” Calvin Coolidge*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Every recruit was issued a bucket. It was your stool to sit on. It was where you washed your clothes. You used it when scrubbing the Quonset hut floors with brick and sand. I remember how we were warned to be ready to protect our bucket from someone who had lost his. I remember the old Marine response when somebody asked ‘Where's my bucket?’ The response was ‘Bleep you Jack, I got mine.’ Most guys would shorten the answer to six letters, ‘FYJIGM.’
“To toughen us up they marched us through swamps and made us run for miles at a time. If we slowed down they'd make us drop and do push-ups. There were constant rifle inspections. You had to field strip your rifle and clean it, and it was never clean enough for the DI (Drill Instructor). It was commonplace for a lieutenant walking down the line to grab your rifle, pull it up, and say, "What's that?” and you said, “Sir, that's a front sight,” and he said, ‘That's dust.’
“The next three months at Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, got considerably harder. The program was heavy on academic work, heavy on physical work, and heavy on field training. It was light on sleep. But the last thing you wanted to happen was to stumble on this final step to becoming an officer and be shipped immediately to a replacement unit in the Pacific as a private. During OCS and so many other times during my Marine career I reflect on how fortunate I was to have played football. I’d think, this is tough but it's not any tougher than two-a-day practices in the early fall when it's hot and humid. If I could handle that I can handle this. I was confident the training received at Quantico had absolutely prepared me – mentally, physically, and strategically – to be a Marine Corps leader. I was ready to go to war.
“I felt that I was ready to live up to Grandpa Chris Lude's pep talk about ending up as a general.”
*********** Aberdeen update: Our season’s over. We lost, 7-6, on Tuesday night to Columbia River High of Vancouver.
A “play-in,” it was a “half-game” - two 12-minute halves.
We won the toss and chose to defer. After stopping them on their first drive, we then put on a 62-yard drive to score with 1:59 remaining in the “half.” The drive ate up 8:26.
We missed the extra point, and after stopping them and getting the ball back with a minute or so left, we perhaps got a bit too conservative - a decision I happened to agree with. Knowing that we’d get the ball to start the second half, we chose to protect the ball and go in with a 6-0 lead.
We started the second half deep in our territory and were forced to punt. River started at midfield, where we forced them into a fourth-and-four, but they completed a 32-yard pass for a first down, and then, faced with another fourth-and-four, they completed a touchdown pass into the right corner of the end zone. The extra point made it 7-6.
We took the kick and drove 55 yards to their 15 where, on fourth and four, a high snap ended our drive and, basically, our chances.
I personally think that we were the better team, and that we’d have won in a full-fledged game, but the score remains the same - 7-6 - and River moves on.
We began the season 0-3, with a combined score of 71-13 against us. From there, we went 4-2, and the two losses came against teams ranked in the state’s top five. I could see us getting better every week, and the kids’ attitude and effort in practice indicated that they were seeing it, too.
In a nation whose young people are turning out soft because they’ve been shielded from hardship and protected from failure, our kids got a big dose of both. But I know that the pain they felt from the loss of a game and the end of season won’t scar them for life and will in fact help make them tougher. I think very highly of them, and I’m confident they won’t be pointing fingers of blame at each other, and instead will stay close in support of one another, with a resolve to work at getting better yet.
We started one senior on offense - at guard - and one on defense - at DB - so we’re returning almost our starting entire team. This is a tough bunch of kids. They work hard and they like each other, and knowing the kind of improvement that kids make from junior to senior year, I’d have to say that there’s real potential for Aberdeen to be a very good team next year.
That's our senior guard, Andres Arias, on the left with me and my wife. He was a stalwart on the line, and a real team leader. A class kid in every way.
*********** I'm a dog guy. If you are, too, you'll understand the pain that Kirk Herbstreit has to be feeling with the loss of his beloved dog, Ben. My sympathy to him. Dogs are one of God's greatest gifts to us.
*********** IN MY BEST IMITATION OF COLLEGE GAME DAY, I FOUND MYSELF A GUEST PICKER. HIS NAME IS BRAD KNIGHT AND HE LIVES IN THE DELIGHTFUL SOUTHWEST IOWA TOWN OF CLARINDA. CLARINDA’S PRETTY FAR FROM A MAJOR AIRPORT, AND I CAN’T AFFORD (YET) TO FLY HIM IN ON A PRIVATE JET, SO I SIMPLY EMAIL HIM A LIST OF GAMES AND TAKE THE RISK THAT WHAT HE EMAILS BACK TO ME WON’T OFFEND LARGE NUMBERS OF MY READERS. (ACTUALLY, IF IT DOES, TOUGH TIDDY, AS THEY USED TO SAY.)
HIS DISCLAIMER: “Bet away....if you win send me checks. If you lose it's not MY fault.”
My slight correction: send checks to ME!
FRIDAY
CAL AT WAKE FOREST – will far left Bears be hungover or hungry from the Election Day Massacre? Football players don't care about elections. I'll take the Bears. ME: I’ll take the Deacons.
IOWA AT UCLA – Iowa with Sullivan at QB and the stable of RB's. And an improving defense week after week. The Hawks have hit their stride. I will take Iowa. Kaleb Johnson another 130 and 3 TD’s. ME: Of course I’ll take the Hawkeyes. But the Bruins are better, too. They took it to Nebraska last week.
SATURDAY
PURDUE AT OHIO STATE – The Buckeyes in a rout. ME: I’ll go out on a limb and say “Buckeyes," too.
MIAMI AT GEORGIA TECH – I'll take the U, maybe they are back? They certainly have found the right guy at QB. ME: This is my big upset pick of the day. Go Jackets!
FLORIDA AT TEXAS - Texas is just too good for Florida. Florida did show a little fight last week. Maybe closer than we all think, but I'll still take Texas by 10 ME: Make that Texas by 20.
MINNESOTA AT RUTGERS – The Gophers as much as it pains me to pick them. Hawkeye blood runs deep, and it still wasn't a fair catch. ME: Gophers are hot. Scarlet Knights are not.
SYRACUSE AT BOSTON COLLEGE – Which Syracuse shows up? Give me the fighting O'Briens of BC. ME: I was impressed by the Orange against VT last week.
WEST VIRGINIA AT CINCINNATI – Another head scratcher for me. West Virginia has looked both good and bad, Cincy has looked good and bad. Think WV would love to have Dana H back at the helm. Give me Cincy! ME: I’ll take the Mountaineers.
NAVY AT SOUTH FLORIDA – Navy...no way USF can stop the run game. Can Navy keep USF in check by bleeding the clock is the question. Navy but closer than expected. ME: Navy will NOT lose three in a row.
GEORGIA AT OLE MISS – This might be a fun one. UGA seems to have found a little defense. But UGA also seems to love making the game harder by turning the ball over. Give me UGA but close....less than 10. ME: I’m going to take the Rebels. (Can I still call them that?)
MICHIGAN AT INDIANA – The Hoosiers coached by Gene Hackman. Get the ball to Jimmy! Indiana has been the surprise of the season in my book. ME: Indiana has suffered for years at the hands of Michigan. It’s turnabout time.
IOWA STATE AT KANSAS – Torn here. Really torn. Kansas is the best 2 win team in the country. I think ISU was exposed a little last week. Perhaps it was weather related. Give me the JAYHAWKS in an upset. ME: I think that Cyclones will snap back after last week’s loss. (Knighter HATES Iowa State.)
ARMY AT NORTH TEXAS – could be a decent game. I think Army is better. But can they contain NT? I believe they can, and I do not believe in a week NT can be ready to defend option football. ME: Since whether Army plays option football depends on whether Bryson Daily plays, I’m going to guess that he doesn’t play - that he’s kept out to ready for Notre Dame - and North Texas wins in an upset,
CLEMSON AT VIRGINIA TECH – Clemson will rebound possibly. Not real confident in picking them, but Va Tech has struggled to be consistent this year. So I'll take Dabo to win. ME: Oh, yes, Clemson wins. Tigers still have a shot - but not a good one - at a spot in the ACC title game.
DUKE AT NC STATE – Another game that could be very good. I'll take Duke. ME: I’ll take Duke, I think they’re the better team.
SAN JOSE STATE AT OREGON STATE – Picking this one blindly. Hate what the PAC12 did to the Beavers. So give me the Beavers to win this one. ME: Go Beavs. But they HAVE lost four in a row,
COLORADO AT TEXAS TECH – Has "Prime" become "Coach Sanders"? Too early to tell. But TT will be hungover from celebrating their win in Ames. Buffs win. Hunter and Sanders are a great WR/QB combo, and Hunter is a very very good defender. Heisman worthy? Not the "top" in my book, but it is close. There is a back in Idaho I like better (and a back at Iowa I like better also). ME: No way I can root for Colorado, and I will use they/them pronouns before I’l call that clown “Coach Prime.”
SOUTH CAROLINA AT VANDERBILT – I will take the Cocks to win, but Vandy to cover. ME: Vandy is going to win. Book it. And when they do, they’ll interview Diego Pavia after. Great interview. And he’ll be sure to give thanks to God for giving him the opportunity. Book it.
MARYLAND AT OREGON – The Ducks. I won't pick anyone to beat them at home. ME: Welcome to Autzen, Terps. Place is a 60,000-seat sounding board that poses as a stadium.
MISSISSIPPI STATE AT TENNESSEE – Tennessee...has some issues to straighten out, but they are better than the Bulldogs. ME: Vols are way too good for the Bulldogs.
UCF AT ARIZONA STATE – Give me Ariz. State. UCF has a shot...but not sure they will capitalize on it. ME: After UCF’s performance last week, I’ll take the Knights over the Sun Devils.
OKLAHOMA STATE AT TCU – WOW. Who would have thought this. "I'm a man, I'm 40 " is going to lose to TCU who seems to have figured out their issues. Give me the Horned Frogs! ME: With his back against the wall, I’m betting on Gundy to stop the slide.
FLORIDA STATE AT NOTRE DAME – Notre Dame...Free Shoes Univ is still a train wreck waiting to happen. ME: Florida State is Indiana in reverse.
ALABAMA AT LSU – This will and should be a great game. Has Bama figured out their issues? Is Brian Kelly an as$hole? Yes to both. ROLL TIDE! ME: The answer is “NO” to both questions. Tigers win this one.
OKLAHOMA AT MISSOURI – Mizzou, but close. ME: Missouri BIG.
WASHINGTON AT PENN STATE – Penn State rebounds and beats Washington. ME: Huskies just aren’t good enough, and James Franklin’s problem isn’t beating teams ranked lower than his; it’s beating teams ranked higher.
NEVADA AT BOISE STATE– Boise State with my Heisman pick toting the rock. ME: Got to go along with that one.
VIRGINIA AT PITT– Pitt rebounds. Picked Pitt last week and lost but I believe they are a high quality football team. ME: If it were anyone by UVa, I’d pick Pitt to lose its second in a row, but I don’t think the Cavaliers can do it.
FRESNO STATE AT AIR FORCE – Give me the blue collar fellas of Fresno State. Air Force is just not good. ME: Agreed. This is the worst Air Force team I have ever seen.
BYU AT UTAH – BYU but close...Utah being a rival and all. Can BYU hold up to the physicality Utah brings? ME: HUGE rivalry. Not many people outside the state of Utah understand the depth of the feelings between the two fan bases. I don’t think that the Utes have the offense to beat the Cougars.
UTAH STATE AT WASHINGTON STATE – I'll take Coach Leach's former school, just because I miss his press conferences. ME: Go Cougs. Now then, speaking of a former WSU coach - can the Couags manage to keep Jake Dickert from becoming a former WSU coach, too?
*********** Hey, ALL YOU fans of a super conference! You’ve GOT to love the Playoff rankings! And I imagine those folks at Big Ten and SEC headquarters are happy as pigs in sh— with the 12-team Playoff format, seeing as how it’s enabled them to take up eight of the twelve spots. Oh - and in case any of the current 12 should fall out of the rankings, three of the next four up - Texas A & M, LSU and Ole Miss - are SEC teams. Now aren’t you happy they expanded the Playoff? Hasn’t that made the regular season much more interesting? Me? I can’t wait to find out which four SEC teams get spots, and which Big ten teams do.
(Actually, Give me the old AP poll and the bowl system - bowls the way they used to be, that is, instead of what they are now - showcases for the f—king playoff. And let us bitch and moan for the entire offseason about how our team got screwed by the AP voters.)
College Football Playoff Rankings, Nov. 5
1. Oregon (9-0) | Projected No. 1 seed
2. Ohio State (7-1) | Projected No. 5 seed
3. Georgia (7-1) | Projected No. 2 seed
4. Miami (FL) (9-0) | Projected No. 3 seed
5. Texas (7-1) | Projected No. 6 seed
6. Penn State (7-1) | Projected No. 7 seed
7. Tennessee (7-1) | Projected No. 8 seed
8. Indiana (9-0) | Projected No. 9 seed
9. BYU (8-0) | Projected No. 4 seed
10. Notre Dame (7-1) | Projected No. 10 seed
11. Alabama (6-2) | Projected No. 11 seed
12. Boise State (7-1) | Projected No. 12 seed
13. SMU (8-1)
14. Texas A&M (7-2)
15. LSU (6-2)
16. Ole Miss (7-2)
17. Iowa State (7-1)
18. Pittsburgh (7-1)
19. Kansas State (7-2)
20. Colorado (6-2)
21. Washington State (7-1)
22. Louisville (6-3)
23. Clemson (6-2)
24. Missouri (6-2)
25. Army (8-0)
*********** Ever notice how often people do or say something that makes us go, “Yeah! Right!” and then a day or two later, they meekly apologize?
Sure enough, just days after smashing some a$$hole’s phone when the guy insulted his brother, Travis Kelce has gone and apologized. No doubt his agent told him to do it for the sake of his “brand.”
Makes you wonder - what’s the point of working your ass off to get your “f—k-you money” if, once you’ve finally got it, you won’t go ahead and say "F---k You!" to people who need to hear it?
*********** You’d have to have some experience with Portland, Oregon (Motto: “Keep Portland Weird”) to truly appreciate this “Judgmental Map,” but to someone who’s lived in the area for going on 50 years, I’d say it’s pretty spot-on.
*********** This is about as far as I intend to go politically - unless provoked - but I just can’t ignore the absolute statistical impossibility of Joe Biden’s getting 81 million votes in 2020 without even campaigning, so I had to pass along this unattributed bit of online humor:
Christian leaders have called an emergency meeting to discuss the possibility that the Rapture may have begun to occur after 15 million Democrat voters disappeared overnight without a trace.
*********** Grady Judd, sheriff of Polk County, Florida, is unapologetically tough on crime and criminals, and he’s always ready with a quip on the subject of lawbreakers’ intelligence (or, usually, the lack thereof). This makes him a hero to law enforcement officers around the country, especially those hampered as they are in their duties by reimagining-the-police politicians. He’s beloved by the citizens of Polk County, who just reeelected him by almost 84 per cent of the vote. It’s a wonder that anyone even bothers to oppose him, but I suppose there’s always someone with an axe to grind…
From the Lakeland Ledger…
Grady Judd easily won a sixth four-year term as Polk County sheriff on Tuesday.
Judd took nearly 84% of the vote vs. 16% for Theodore Murray with 166 of 172 precincts reporting.
Murray, 46, filed to run in May against one of the country's most popular personalities in law enforcement, citing issues with the Sheriff's Office and a run-in he had with a department in Franklin County. Murray claimed the Polk agency failed to investigate his allegations that associates forged deeds to take ownership of his properties in Frostproof and in Gulf County in 2022.
He also said he was mistreated by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office in an episode that led to his commitment to a psychiatric facility, then convicted of reckless driving and resisting arrest.
(Oh, and there’s also this - talk about burying the lede) Murray had also been convicted of misdemeanor voyeurism in 2003, according to court records.
*********** If you’re one of those that fell for the “Hawk Tackling” crap that Seahawks’ former coach Pete Carroll tried so hard to foist on gullible high school and youth coaches, you’ll remember that a major part of the selling point was that it had been “proven effective” in rugby.
Maybe it would help if you understand that rugby doesn’t make the demands on the tackler that football does. In rugby, all that matters is that the runner is brought down. That’s it. The tackler gets off him, he releases the ball, and play goes on. It doesn’t matter much where he goes down or where the ball is spotted, because there’s no such thing as “downs,” so there’s no such thing as a “first down.” Which means there’s no concern about yards (or meters) to gain.
Also - and probably more significant in dictating the way they tackle in rugby - it’s illegal in rugby for any part of the tackler to make contact with the runner ABOVE THE BASE OF THE STERNUM.
According to the rules of rugby, the tackling shown below is NOT legal.
But it is the very sort of tackling that I’ve taught since the early 1980s.
In fact, the photos are from an article in a 1976 edition of Scholastic Coach Magazine, once THE publication that all football coaches relied on. It was written by a coach in New York State named Brent Steuerwald, and it started me on a path to researching and developing the tackling method that I still teach today. It starts with a good football position, as shown at left, then progresses through an upward strike - our chest against the runner’s chest - as we “lock him up,” jerk the hips and strive to lift him off his feet. Then - still locked up - we keep our feet driving. We stay on our feet and don’t go down unless the runner is underneath us! (Please don’t write and attempt to argue, because I won’t respond. To use a phrase made famous during the Great Pandemic - The Science is Settled.)
Go ahead if you wish and keep teaching Hawk Tackling. Don’t let me stop you. They tell me it’s safer, but I have yet to see the proof of that. One thing I do know - I can see it with my own eyes, and if you watch much football you see it, too - is that it isn’t worth a damn at stopping runners.
*********** I knew and respected Don Bosseler because (1) his older brother, George, was the captain of the Penn football team (at a time when that was a very big deal in Philly); (2) As Miami’s fullback, he was a very important cog in their belly-T offense; (3) At a time when the Washington Redskins sucked - really sucked - he was just about the only thing Redskins’ fans could count on offensively. Consider this: In his eight years as their fullback, they won just 28 games. So I was saddened to learn of his passing.
From the National Football Federation…
Don "Bull" Bosseler, a 1990 College Football Hall of Fame inductee who was a four-year starter at fullback for the Miami Hurricianes from 1953-56, passed away Nov. 6. He was 88.
"Don Bosseler's talents helped the Miami football program achieve national prominence in the 1950s," said NFF Chairman Archie Manning. " An All-American, he epitomized toughness, earning the nickname 'Bull,' and you can still find his name in the records books at the "U" nearly 70 years later. We are deeply saddened to learn of his passing, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends."
Playing for College Football Hall of Fame coach Andy Gustafson, Bosseler gained 1,642 yards rushing in his UM career, which at the time ranked second all-time in school history and places him 21st in UM annals today. He led the team in rushing both in 1956 with 723 yards (4.5-yard average) and in 1955 with 435 yards (4.2-yard average).
In his senior year, 1956, he helped the team to an 8-1-1 record, was named All-America by the Associated Press, and was MVP in the Senior Bowl. Miami placed sixth nationally, its highest ranking until the 1983 national championship season. Bosseler was not only an All-American, but he was the team captain, voted the outstanding player in Florida, the Senior Bowl MVP and picked for the College All-Star game.
Washington drafted him in the first round in 1957, ninth overall. A 1959 Pro Bowl selection, Bosseler played all eight seasons of his professional career with the Redskins, rushing for 3,112 yards and scoring 22 touchdowns from 1957-1964. After his football days, he joined Prudential Bache in Miami and became a vice-president.
Born, Jan. 24, 1936, in Weatherfield, New York, Bosseler played at Batavia High School before being recruited to Miami by Gustafson. Bosseler was inducted into the UM Sports Hall of Fame in 1970, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990 and the UM Ring of Honor in 1999.
*********** Our season is over here. We lost our playoff game to the Provincial powerhouse St. Pauls, 33-3. The game was much closer, but when you play teams that are just plain faster than you, you find yourself forcing things. Eventually, forcing causes mistakes. We had two pick-sixes and a punt returned for a TD.
That being said we still won our conference and went 5-3 with the closest competition having a student body twice our size. Following the game a parent offered condolences on how the season ended. I was reminded of something that you wrote after an early season at North Beach. I told the dad, no need to feel sorry for me. We had a great season working with good kids. A coach can't ask for much more than that.
5-3 is not bad for a team with two guards both under 180 pounds.:)
Hope to be back to the zoom this week.
Tom Walls
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Tom, You’re right - no need for condolences.
Every season is a great season and some are better than others - and as long as that’s your attitude, you’ll never suffer burnout.
To me your season was great. My mission is to treat kids right, to hold them to high standards, to teach them more football than they ever imagined possible and to give them an experience they’ll treasure. By that measure, it seems to me you delivered.
*********** That first touchdown (Aberdeen against Tenino) was a 58-yard run, Coach! (not a 57-yarder. No need to be too modest, now...)
Loved the Ben Carson quote - he's one of my heroes.
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
Thanks, John!
I will pass that along to Micah Schroeder (good kid) and he’ll appreciate it!
Dr. Carson is a national treasure!
*********** Hugh
Congratulations on your win against Tenino.
I enjoyed watching it.
The opening was beautiful. Very nice run.
I was glad to see that the officials finally gave you the ball on that take away late in the first quarter. The ball carrier was clearly not down and your player took it away from him.
In Kentucky they would have called it an inadvertent whistle and Tenino would have kept the ball.
I think that your kid would have scored had the official not blown the whistle.
It was also a good thing that it happened on your side of the field.
I am sure that coach Bridge and his staff were telling the officials that the runner was not down.
David Crump
Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** Today you begin with words from Thomas Jefferson. C'mon, Coach, quote someone reasonably bright. By the way, I believe today we could update his words by saying not just newspaper readers, but news consumers from at least 90% of sources anywhere.
Congratulations on the Bobcats win, and for what remains of your season.
Thanks for the Biff Poggi story. I've seen him on the sidelines with Charlotte maybe three times, and wondered how he got away with that strange attire. Now I get it. Remember another man whose story in one respect (the F.U. Money) mirrored Poggi's? Joe Moglia, the coach who set Coastal Carolina up for the move to FBS.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Joe Moglia’s is a very interesting story. He paid his dues as an assistant coach in college, then left coaching to enter business, where he became so successful that when he found he still had the urge to coach, he could afford by then to do so.
*********** Hugh,
Congrats to Coach Mike Foristiere at Marsing HS ID, and to Coach Scott Mallien at Southern Door HS WI on putting together outstanding seasons! Both quality coaches and even better men.
As much as I think Jeanty is the best RB in the country, (and his original name may be of Italian origin), Travis Hunter is the epitome of what the Heisman Trophy was originally intended.
The Gophers pulled out a big win over Illinois! Ski-U-Mah!
Hawaii pulled off a late comeback to upset Fresno State, which doesn’t help interim HC Tim Skipper.
Notre Dame didn’t win, or lose, but still fell a couple of places in the AP poll. Go figure.
I expect Oregon, Ohio State, Miami, and Georgia to get the byes in the first CFP rankings. Followed by Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, BYU, Penn State, Notre Dame, SMU, Alabama, Boise State, and not necessarily in that order.
Have a great week, and Good Luck tonight!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: A native Tennessean, Roy Kramer graduated from Maryville College in his home town, then coached high school football in Michigan for 12 years - 11 of them as a head coach.
In one three-year span, he coached three different teams to unbeaten seasons. He spent five seasons as head coach at East Lansing High School, his last in 1964 when he was named Michigan Class A Coach of the Year after East Lansing finished 8-0 and ranked Number 1 in the final Associated Press state poll.
That got him an assistant’s job at Central Michigan, and in two years he became the Chippewas’ head coach.
He stayed at Central Michigan for eleven seasons, compiling a record of 83-32-2. In 1974, his Chippewas went 12-1 and won the NCAA Division II National Championship and he was named Coach of the Year.
As head coach, he played a major role in Central Michigan’s 1975 move to Division I.
In 1978, he returned to his home state of Tennessee as Vanderbilt’s Director of Athletics. There, he was responsible for the renovation of the McGugin Center, but also the construction of Vanderbilt Stadium.
In January 1990, he left Vanderbilt to become Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. In his first year as commissioner, South Carolina and Arkansas were addd to the conference. He led the conference in moving to divisional play and in playing the first major college conference football championship game.
During his time as its commissioner, the SEC won 81 national championships. He negotiated multi-sport national TV packages with CBS and ESPN, and oversaw the distribution of then-record sums of revenue to conference members.
In 1998, Roy Kramer was presented the Distinguished American Award by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
In his induction speech at the College Football Hall of Fame, he spoke of the importance of maintaining football at its grass roots:
"It's great to be at a huge stadium on a Saturday afternoon with 80,000 or 100,000 people, but we also have to realize that on that same Saturday afternoon, that same great game is being played on hundreds of campuses across the country, not in front of 80,000 people but in front of two or three thousand people and the young men playing that game have the same experience as the young men playing it at the very high level that we talk about so much."
And he praised football for the way it brings young men together with a common purpose…
"A Polish left guard and a farmer from Iowa open a hole for an African-American running back to score a touchdown," he said. "That's what life should be, that's what life should be in this country, and football sets that aside better than any other experience that I know of. And somehow, we need to be able to preserve that, not only at the big-time level, but at the high school and college level across the board.
"To be able to maintain the values, the traditions, the learning experience. There's no greater classroom … on any campus anywhere, in high school or college, than what we teach in football."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ROY KRAMER
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORDO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** If you don’t have Roy Kramer’s book on the I-formation and you want to learn the ins and outs of the offense - get it.
If you don’t have it and you’re a collector (or an aspiring one) - get it.
It’s the best.
*********** QUIZ: He was one of the last of the great major college single wing tailbacks.
The son of a high school football coach and the oldest of four brothers who all played football - one of them with the Cleveland Browns, he played high school ball for his dad at Huntland, Tennessee. In 1951 - his junior year - they won the state championship.
He was recruited to Tennessee by the legendary General Bob Neyland, famed for his single-wing attack, but he never got to play for the General. Playing under Bowden Wyatt, he was the SEC Player of the Year in both his junior and senior years. In his senior year, he led the Vols to a 10-1 season - and Number 2 national ranking - and was a unanimous All-American. But in possibly the greatest travesty in the history of the Heisman Trophy, he finished second in the balloting to Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung. To this day, Hornung, whose Irish finished 2-8 on the season, remains the only Heisman winner from a losing team.
Because of his position in a then-outmoded offense, he was a poor fit in any pro football offense, and after a year in the CFL, he embarked on a coaching career.
After stops at Tennessee and Mississippi State and four years as an assistant under the great Frank Broyles at Arkansas, he was hired as head coach at Iowa State.
Iowa State was then perhaps the toughest assignment in all of major college football, and although it took him four years to turn in a winning record, when he did so, his Cyclones’ 8 wins were the most in the school’s history. Their bowl appearance (in the Sun Bowl against LSU) was the school’s first ever, and for his efforts, he was named Big Eight Coach of the Year.
After five years at Iowa State, he was hired by Pitt as their head coach, and there he built well: with three-time All-American Tony Dorsett as his main running back, in four years at Pitt he built a national champion. The Panthers won the national title in 1976, and earned him National Coach of the Year honors.
They also got him the head coaching job at his alma mater, Tennessee. It took him four years to get the Vols to a bowl game, but they would play in one in 11 of the next 13 years. He was 7-4 in bowl games.
In 16 years at Tennessee, had six seasons of 9 or more wins, and six nationally-ranked teams, two of them in the top five.
Three of his teams won SEC titles, and in 1985, after his Vols won the SEC title and finished fourth nationally, he was named SEC Coach of the Year.
In 1992, his sixteenth season as Tennessee’s head coach, he had to undergo heart surgery, and while he recovered, his assistant, Philip Fulmer, covered for him as interim head coach. Shortly after his return, he was “asked to resign,” and was succeeded by Fulmer. To this day, the story behind his removal remains open and a matter of great interest and controversy among longtime Volunteers’ fans.
He was immediately snapped up by Pitt, in hopes of a redo of his earlier success there, but it was not to be. In four seasons, his record was 12-32, and that was the end of his long, storied coaching career.
His overall record - Iowa State, Pitt (twice) and Tennessee - was 185-137-10. At Tennessee, it was 116-62-8.
He has a very impressive coaching tree: 25 of his assistant coaches went on to become college or professional head coaches themselves.
Among them:
Dom Capers: Carolina Panthers, Houston Texans
Curt Cignetti: IUP, Elon, James Madison, Indiana
David Cutcliffe: Ole Miss, Duke
Phillip Fulmer: Tennessee
Jon Gruden: Oakland Raiders, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders
Jimmy Johnson: Oklahoma State, Miami (FL), Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins
Jackie Sherrill: Washington State, Pitt, Texas A&M, Mississippi State
Dave Wannstedt: Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins, Pitt
Ron Zook: Florida, Illinois
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5,
2024
“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he
who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." Thomas
Jefferson*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “The next step was Boot Camp in Parris Island, South Carolina, my real introduction to the Marine Corps. The only way to reach the island was aboard a barge that reminded me of a garbage scow. In fact, it was a garbage Scow. We unloaded from the bus that carried us to the waterfront, grabbed the sea bags that held all of our worldly possessions, and crowded onto the boat. At that time I felt as if I was going to prison, like Alcatraz. Only it was Parris Island and Marine boot camp.
“We were welcomed by a drill instructor, a noncom who was a corporal but who talked to us as if he thought he was a four-star general. He told us bluntly, ‘You college guys aren't half as smart as you think you are,’ making no secret of the fact that the enlisted men didn't have much use for officers-to-be and would make boot training as difficult for us as they could.
“Shock treatment was part of the psychology of the whole routine. I remember a drill instructor approaching me when we were marching in close-order drill, putting his face inches from my ear, and shouting: "Lude, square yourself away; you're bouncing; keep that head still. You look like a bubble on a pisspot.”
“The concepts of discipline – keeping focused on the objectives, physical and mental toughness, and leadership – were stressed in everything we did. I felt the camaraderie with my fellow trainees helped all of us over the rough spots; you could share frustrations and down feelings with your buddies and vice versa.”
AN OLD COACH WITH TWO OF ABERDEEN'S OUTSTANDING RUNNERS - LEGEND VESSEY ON THE LEFT, AND MICAH SCHROEDER ON THE RIGHT.
*********** Aberdeen update:
We won Friday night. Beat Tenino, 22-7. To my way of thinking, we actually won twice: last week, Tenino beat Rochester, 38-24. Five weeks ago, Rochester whipped us, 33-7. So Friday’s win over Tenino at least allows me to think that we’ve improved so much we’d have beaten Rochester, too.
It was a tough game. We scored on the first play from scrimmage - a 57-yard run by junior Micah Schroeder. After they tied it up, we scored once more to go in at the half with a 14-7 lead.
We missed a couple of scoring opportunities presented us by our defense, but managed to punch in a score in the third quarter and after Tenino was penalized on the PAT attempt, we decided to go for two. When we were successful it gave us a slightly more comfortable 15-point lead.
We relied on our ground game the rest of the way to run out the clock and get us win number four. (Not too bad after starting the season 0-3.)
We rushed 36 times for 218 yards, and threw for 79 yards.
Tuesday night, we play a “half game” - two 12-minute “halves” - against Columbia River High of Vancouver. The winner will then have three days to get ready to play the state’s #1-ranked team, the Franklin Pierce Cardinals of Tacoma. If that’s us, we’ll have the dubious honor of having met the state’s number one team twice in a four-week period, having lost earlier, 55-0, to then-number one Tumwater.
Tuesday night’s game will be the first post-season contest played on our home field - historic Stewart Field - since 1997.
Tenino’s recording of Friday night’s game: (check the black turf!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q4Bv6zN0Gs
*********** Can’t get a much bigger Double Wing matchup than Friday night’s Idaho playoff game between Marsing and Ririe.
Marsing suffered four turnovers in the first half - two at the end of long drives - and fell to Ririe, 28-15.
Noting that Marsing actually outgained favored Ririe, Marsing coach Mike Foristiere said, “the only stat that matters besides the scoreboard is turnovers: we had four and they had zero.”
Despite the loss, Mike’s 6-2 season - his first in Marsing - was an enormous success.
The one consolation for me is that another Double Wing team - Ririe - advances in the playoffs.
*********** What was a great first season as coach at Southern Door (that would be Door County, Wisconsin) High came to an end for Scott Mallien Friday night as his Eagles lost in the second round of the state playoffs and finished 7-4.
What made it especially exciting for me was the fact that Southern Door lost its first three games, then ran off seven straight wins - including an opening-round playoff game - before finally falling.
*********** COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS WEEKEND
FRIDAY
BOISE STATE 56, SAN DIEGO STATE 14 - The Broncos led, 35-10 at the half. They’re clearly the best of the Group of 5. They’re 7-1, but their only loss was to unbeaten Oregon, on a field goal at 0:00. Don’t let the geniuses at network headquarters try to sell you the “Ashton Jeanty was kept under control crap. He carried 31 times for 149 yards and 2 TDs. Meanwhile, Broncos QB Maddux Madsen completed 24 of 32 for 307 yards and 4 TDs.
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE 20, PENN STATE 13 - Ohio State stopped Penn State four straight plays inside their five, then had the running game to run out the last 5:13 on the clock. It’s a good thing this Penn State-Ohio State thing - this grudge match between two adjoining states, one that starts with high school all-star game competition - isn’t officially a “rivalry” - you know, like Ohio State-Michigan or Alabama-Auburn. Consider Bill Battle. Heck of a coach. Coached Tennessee fro 1970 through 1976. Record was 59-22-2. 22-18-1 in SEC play. But he had one big problem he just couldn’t overcome - he couldn’t beat Alabama. To make matters worse, he was an Alabama guy - played for the Bear. He beat his old coach his first time out, in 1970. But then he lost six straight to the Tide. And he wasn’t even close to James Franklin - who’s now 1-10 against Ohio State (also1-9 against top-five teams, 1-13 against top-ten teams). He’s lost eight in a row to the Buckeyes. You can tell it’s getting to him, because he actually responded to a taunting fan after Saturday’s game - said to him “If you’re gonna be man enough to talk, what’s your name?” Only a coach who knows his job is secure would be that f—king stupid, and that’s James Franklin. A few years ago he had an AD named Sandy Barbour who WAS f—king stupid, because in 2021, afraid that USC might snatch him up, she gave him a ten-year contract extension. We never did find out that heckler’s name, but if he wants to buy out Franklin, he’d better have some rich friends to help him out, because at the present time it’s going to cost just shy of $57 million. Damn shame they can’t make ole Sandy Barbour - now retired - pay half of that.
MIAMI 53, DUKE 31 - The Devils held on as long as they could, but this Miami team is good. Cam Ward is getting all the pub, but receiver Xavier Restrepo is the real deal. His 66-yard TD reception against the Blue Devils, gave him 2,573 yards in career receptions, putting ahead of former Hurricanes’ all-time leader Santana Moss.The catch also tied Restrepo with Mike Harley’for most career receptions (182).
OLE MISS 63, ARKANSAS 31 - Jaxson Dart was 25 of 31 for 515 yards and SIX TDs. The Rebels averaged 9.1 yards per play.
ARMY 20, AIR FORCE 3 - Army won, and that’s all that matters. I guess. I haven’t been to a concert since I was in college when Fats Domino and Laverne Baker and a bunch of early rock ’n’ roll greats came to the New Haven Arena, but I think I know how I would have felt if I’d found out - AT SHOW TIME - that the Fat Man wasn’t going to perform. But there were the powers that be at West Point, in a world-class PR fumble, informing the people at CBS - whose money they were perfectly happy to take in return for letting it televise their games- that their star quarterback, Bryson Daily, would not be playing. ON THE MORNING OF THE F—KING GAME. The reason? “Undisclosed injury or illness.” Who the hell knows what that means? Sheesh. It had been two weeks since their last game. Army won handily, and it was a nice opportunity for some of its less-publicized players - especially running back Kanye Udoh - to show their stuff. Running out of an ultra-primitive single-wing-style shotgun offense no doubt designed to be run in Daily’s absence, Udoh carried 22 times for 158 yards and both of Army’s TDs. For an Army fan like me, while it was a win, at the same time it was a lost opportunity to show a nation that maybe Army really did deserve to be included in playoff talk. For casual fans who just tuned in because the game was, after all, on CBS, the 6-3 halftime score and the dullness that it represented was probably enough to send them off to another, more interesting game. Does it sound like I’m spoiled? Damn right I am. I think that what this game reveals was that other than the little bit of triple option that Daily sometimes runs, Army isn’t running triple option any more. For shame.
MINNESOTA 25, ILLINOIS 17 - BIG win for the Gophers. Illinois led, 17-16 when Minnesota scored with 5:14 to play, then iced it with a field goal with two minutes remaining.
NORTHWESTERN 26, PURDUE 20 (OT): The Boilermakers rushed 23 times for 47 yards.
NC STATE 59, STANFORD 28 - The Wolfpack handed the Cardinal their sixth straight loss.
SYRACUSE 38, VIRGINIA TECH 31 - An amazing comeback win for the Orange - down 14-3 at the half, they fought to go ahead 24-21 less than a minute into the fourth quarter. But the Hokies pulled ahead and led, 31-24 until the Orange tied it up with a TD with :29 remaining, then won in OT with a nine-yard scoring run.
VANDERBILT 17, AUBURN 7 - Vanderbilt is now bowl eligible for the first time since 2018. Just as significant: in beating Auburn, the Commodores now have three conference wins. This marked the first time a Vanderbilt football team had beaten both Auburn and Alabama in the same season since 1955.
OREGON 38, MICHIGAN 17 - A very good Oregon team met a good - but not very good - Michigan team. Harbaugh knew when it was time to go.
GEORGIA 34, FLORIDA 20 - The Gators gave it their best shot - led 13-6 at the half - but Carson Beck, who threw three interceptions, threw for two touchdowns to lead the Bulldogs to a 28-point second half.
TEXAS TECH 23, IOWA STATE 22 - The Red Raiders scored with :19 on the clock to deal the Cyclones their first defeat.
INDIANA 47, MICHIGAN STATE 10 - Those greedy bastards at NBC put this one on Peacock. This week? They’re doing it to Washington at Penn State.
HOUSTON 24, KANSAS STATE 19 - In horrible weather conditions, Houston played their best game of the season and may have knocked the Wildcats out of contention for a spot in the Big 12 championship game.
UCLA 27, NEBRASKA 20 - Nebraska ranks 100th in FBS in scoring and many are calling for the scalp of offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield. Seems to me it wasn’t the Nebraska’s offense that allowed UCLA’s heretofore anemic offense to outgain the Huskers, 358 to 322.
UCF 56, ARIZONA 12 - It was 35-6 at the half. The Knights had 602 yards in total offense and 33 first downs. They had 308 yards rushing. Gus Malzahn fired his DC last week, and his replacement held the Wildcats to 5 (FIVE) yards rushing.
RICE 24, NAVY 10 - The game was delayed twice and probably shouldn’t have been played at all, but Rice, playing its first game under an interim coach, outplayed Navy and earned their first win over the Midshipmen since 2002.
SOUTH CAROLINA 44, TEXAS A&M 20 - The Gamecocks outscored the Aggies 24-0 in the second half.
LOUISVILLE 33, CLEMSON 21 - Prior to this game, Clemson was 8-0 against the Cardinals all time. The loss could cost them a spot in the ACC title game.
IOWA 42, WISCONSIN 10 - Where are all those naysayers who mocked Kirk Ferentz’s offense now? The Hawkeyes outgained the Badgers, 422 to 261. They passed for only 93 yards, but they rushed for 329, and piled up 23 first downs.
WASHINGTON 26, USC 21 - The Huskies put on a great goal line stand near the end to win the game between longtime Pacific Coast rivals.
TENNESSEE 28, KENTUCKY 18 - The Wildcats jumped out in from and held a 10-7 halftime lead. When their starting QB, Brock Vandegriff, had to leave the game in the third quarter, Gavin Wimsatt, an Owensboro, Kentucky kid who transferred from Rutgers, came in and threw a touchdown pass and then a two-point conversion. That cut the Tennessee lead to 21-18 with 13:31 left, but Tennessee scored with 5 minutes left to seal the win.
SMU 48, PITT 25 - Pitt, coming in with the nation’s sixth-highest scoring offense, could rush for only 103 yards - 82 of them in the second half when defeat was assured. The Panthers came in with the nation’s ninth-ranked defense, but gave up 467 yards of total offense, and four rushing touchdowns. The Mustangs are still unbeaten in the ACC, and with BC, Virginia and Cal left to play, they have a decent shot at a spot in the conference title game.
*********** The five remaining FBS unbeatens and their remaining schedules
Indiana (Remaining): Michigan, BYE, at Ohio State, Purdue, (Possible) Conference Championship Game
INDIANA’S CHANCES OF FINISHING UNBEATEN: Under 50 per cent. No way they get past Michigan, Ohio State and (if they make it that far) - Oregon or Ohio State (again) in the conference championship game. I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
BYU (Remaining): at Utah, Kansas, at Arizona State, (Possible) Conference Championship Game
BYU’s CHANCES OF FINISHING UNBEATEN: At 75 per cent - if they can win the Holy War against Utah. I am pulling for the Cougars.
Miami (Remaining): at Georgia Tech, BYE, Wake Forest, at Syracuse, (Possible) Conference Championship Game
MIAMI’S CHANCES OF FINISHING UNBEATEN: At 75 per cent. Who will they meet in the Conference championship game? Clemson? SMU? I don’t care. I don’t like their coach and I’m pulling against them.
Oregon (Remaining): Maryland, at Wisconsin, BYE, Washington, (Possible) Conference Championship Game
OREGON’S CHANCES OF FINISHING UNBEATEN: Over 75 per cent. Wisconsin is not a walkover. Washington, as a big rival, could be a problem, but the Ducks do have two weeks to get ready. The Conference championship game? Ohio State again? That was close the first time. Ever try having to beat someone twice in the same season? Go Ducks.
Army (Remaining): North Texas, BYE, Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium, UTSA, BYE, (Possible) Conference Championship Game, Navy
ARMY’S CHANCE OF FINISHING UNBEATEN: Under 25 per cent. The extent of Bryson Daily’s “undisclosed injury/illness” is a military secret. They’re only slightly favored over North Texas. They’re big underdogs against Notre Dame even with Daily. UTSA is not a given, and the conference championship game opponent - probably Tulane - is tough. And then, of course, there’s Navy. Obviously I am pulling for the Cadets.
*********** Our schools are doing a fantastic job when it comes to teaching about diversity and gender identity and such, but they’re not worth a damn at teaching common sense. Not based on the experience Saturday of some pencil-neck in State College, Pennsylvania who thought he could insult a former All-Pro NFL offensive linemen and not have to deal with some unfavorable consequences.
https://www.si.com/nfl/jason-kelce-smashed-fan-phone-after-offensive-comment-travis-kelce-taylor-swift
*********** I suppose that technically you could call what they did “postgame handshakes,” but they sure as hell weren’t “How’s Alice and the kids?”
Jeff Monken (Army) and Troy Calhoun (Air Force)
Ryan Day (Ohio State) and James Franklin (Penn State)
*********** It’s been many. many years since a Big Ten team beat both Ohio State and Michigan in the same season, and - ahem - it took a Pacific Northwest team to do it.
*********** Penn State picked up two taunting penalties in the Ohio State game. One was termed a bit controversial by the softies in the broadcast booth, but I thought it merited a penalty: it was one of those disgusting displays of disrespect where a guy makes a tackle and then, while his opponent still lies on the ground, gets up and walks off him - the long way, making sure to pass over his face.
*********** I just happened to hear that a Florida QB named Aidan Warner was a “Yale transfer,” and I immediately assumed he was a graduate transfer. But, no - this guy transferred after his freshman year - a freshman year in which he didn’t play enough - at an Ivy League school - to lose the year of eligibility. So here he is now, a redshirt freshman at Florida, playing against Georgia.
Um, it’s been my experience that most guys who leave Yale after one year do not do so of their own volition.
For what it’s worth, he was 7 of 22 for 66 (3 yards per attempt) against Georgia, and he threw an interception. Maybe he should have stayed for the education.
*********** The Navy-Rice game experienced numerous long delays and finally finished hours later than expected. When the game finally got underway there was virtually no one left in the stands.
Worst of all for those of us who set our recorders to record the game, we wound up with absolutely zero to show for our efforts.
*********** Navy has now lost two in a row. Maybe it’s because their QB’s still banged up, or maybe it’s that old football cliche about letting a team (in this case, Notre Dame) beat you twice.
Whatever it is, this is good news and bad news for Army.
First, the good news: There will not likely be an Army-Navy conference championship game a week before the “real” Army-Navy game.
The bad news: while Army is (in all likelihood) playing in the AAC championship game, Navy is licking its wounds and getting ready for Army. NO conference championship is worth more than a win in the Army-Navy game.
*********** Watching the Colts-Vikings play on Sunday night, I watched a Colts’ defensive tackle named Grover Stewart and, since the NFL no longer bothers to let us know where players played their college ball, I had to look it up.
Albany State. A little HBCU in South Georgia.
He’ll probably be the last guy from there to make it to the pros, because you know good and well that the next Grover Stewart to show up at Albany State and have a good season will be scooped up by any one of a dozen bigger schools, and that’s where he’ll make his name known.
And on his plaque in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, there’ll be no mention of Albany State. Damn shame.
*********** Why I don’t watch much NFL…
The Seahawks, facing a fourth and one in overtime, decided to go for it. They lined up in I-formation with the tailback 8 yards deep - and gave it to him. He never made it to the line of scrimmage.
The Rams took over and drove for the winning score.
*********** Before he gets fired at Charlotte, you ought to know something about Biff Poggi, their coach.
It’s an amazing story.
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2019/12/17/michigan-football-recruiting-baltimore-st-frances-academy/2650516001/
*********** Heard this on a game Saturday…
Only three schools have produced a President, a Heisman Trophy winner and a Super Bowl-winning quarterback.
Navy, Michigan, Stanford.
*********** I can’t believe the amount of out-and-out pass interference that’s being overlooked by officials - and explained away as “maybe a little contact” by the broadcast-booth geniuses.
*********** Apropos of your son's sad story from Down Under: a couple of days ago, I heard about an (maybe it's every team, I don't care to dig to find out) NFL franchise that's establishing an outpost in Munich to answer any questions and sell any merchandise related to the team. I loathe these people who thrust their grubby, greedy fingers wherever they have a chance to rip out a few drachma. I hear you, Ed, and hope the citizens of Australia can find the will and way to ward off the predator NFL.
Nice homage to Bryson Daily.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
First, good luck tonight. A good showing against Tenino might just be what the boys need to motivate them further for next week’s play-in “game.!”
That playoff structure reminds me of how the playoffs were set up in MN when I was coaching there. Last regular season game was on a Wednesday night. First round playoff game the following Tuesday night, and the second round game that Saturday. That’s THREE football games in ELEVEN days!! Depth, and luck won out!
Speaking of Minnesota…the Gophers will go a long way in finishing with a winning record if they can beat Illinois. The Illini have been a real PITA for the Gophers over the last few years, especially in Champaign.
Bryson Daily of Army IS a legit Heisman contender, but the best college football player this year, by far, is Travis Hunter from Colorado.
NFL, Democrat Party…two of a kind.
Not a fan of either Penn State or Ohio State, but I’ll cheer for the lesser of the two evils…GO BLUE!
Pitt at SMU. Hey, I’m Italian!
Best to Mike Foristiere and the Marsing Huskies!!
QUIZ: Clyde Scott
Enjoy the weekend! Starts tonight!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, while Hunter may be the guy, and he’s got a lot of the media pulling for him, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a “by far” decision. Would it change your thinking any if I were to tell you that I just discovered that Ashton Jeantty’s name was originally spelled “Gientti?”
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Clyde “Smackover” Scott was named Arkansas’ Athlete of the Twentieth Century by the Arkansas Daily Gazette.
His dad was an oil field worker. He was born in Dixie, Louisiana, the third of ten children, and grew up in Smackover, Arkansas.
He was a high school football star, and excelled in track. Despite having no hurdles at his high school he set state records in the hurdles and in the 100-yard dash.
He was also a good baseball player, and turned down a contract offer by the St. Louis Cardinals in order to attend the US Naval Academy, where some local businessmen had helped him receive an appointment.
World War II was going on, and Navy was very good - probably second only to Army. He played two years at running back for the Midshipmen, and in his second year, 1945, he earned second team All-America honors.
In track he set Naval Academy records in the 100-yard dash, the 110 high hurdles and 220 low hurdles and the javelin. In both 1944 and 1945 he was the academy’s light-heavyweight boxing champion.
And then he met Miss Arkansas. Her name was Leslie Hampton. She was on a tour of the academy on the way to the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, and he was asked to be her escort .
They fell in love, and by the end of the school year decided to get married, but with marriage by midshipmen prohibited, he chose to withdraw from the Academy.
Once word got out that he had withdrawn from the Naval Academy, he was heavily recruited by coaches such as Bear Bryant at Kentucky and Johnny Vaught at Ole Miss.
He was finally convinced to attend Arkansas by head coach John Barnhill, but he was no doubt influenced by the fact that his bride-to-be was a student there.
As a running back, he was a three-time All-Southwest Conference selection, and in 1948 he became the first Razorback ever named to an All-American team.
In his two years at Arkansas, he set a new school record of 1,463 yards rushing. In his senior year, he averaged 7 yards a carry.
At his graduation, his number 12 was retired. That was 1948, and in the years since, while Arkansas has had 21 consensus All-Americans, he remains one of only two Razorbacks to have had his number retired. (The other was Brandon Burlsworth, a former walk-on who earned All-American status and then was tragically killed at age 22 in a highway accident. His jersey was retired in 1999.)
While at Arkansas, he wanted to play baseball but Coach Barnhill prohibited it. But he was allowed to run track, where he set school records in the 100-yard dash, the 220 low hurdles, the 110 high hurdles, the 440-yard relay, and the javelin.
His 9.4 in the 100 yard dash in the 1948 Southwest Conference meet tied the existing world record but could not count because the SWC did not test for wind. He was the high-point scorer at the meet winning the 100, the high hurdles and low hurdles, finishing third in the javelin, and running a leg on the 440 relay team (that finished third). In all, he scored 42 points using today's scoring rules.
In the 1948 NCAA Track Finals he tied the world record in the 110 high hurdles with a time of 13.7 seconds. That summer he made the U.S. Olympic team in the 110 high hurdles and in 1948 London Olympics he won the silver medal, taking second in a photo finish. He was the first Arkansas athlete to win an Olympic medal.
He was drafted in the first round of the 1949 NFL draft by the NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles and, although plagued by injuries, he spent three seasons with the Eagles and one season with the Detroit Lions before retiring after the 1952 season.
He returned to Arkansas and enjoyed a successful career in business.
Coach Barnhill, quoted later in a book on Arkansas football said, “Clyde Scott meant more to the Arkansas program than any other athlete. His coming to Arkansas convinced other Arkansas boys they should stay home.”
Besides being named Arkansas’ Athlete of the Twentieth Century by the Arkansas Daily Gazette, He was a member of the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor, the State of Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
His daughter, Marsha, told of taking him to the Naval Academy in 1993 - the first time he’d been back since resigning in 1945.
At the time, she had a job in Washington, DC in the Clinton administration and, she recalled…
“I had asked about setting up a private tour and he agreed. That was 1993, almost 50 years later. He'd never said much about leaving Navy. We all knew that was very tough to do, but they frowned on married students and he was in love.
“It was difficult. We all knew he was proud of going to Navy, but he just didn't talk about it.”
The tour, just dad and daughter. was conducted by a young navy officer.
“It started off very quiet,” she said. “Dad just wasn't saying much. We went to a couple of places and then to the athletic hall, the dorm.”
At the top of a stairway that led to the dorm rooms. there was a wall lined with Navy players inducted into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame.
“There were three plaques – with pictures – on the wall when we made the first turn,” Marsha said. “They were Roger Staubach’s, Joe Bellino’s and Dad's. The ensign stopped and turned to look at Dad. He said, 'That's you!' And when he did, Dad started crying. The ensign started crying. I did, too.
“From that point forward, Dad lit up. He had a great time.
“I think it was a great time of healing. I know he felt kind of embarrassed he'd left Navy. When he saw that plaque – the same one they have on display in the museum at Arkansas - it was clear that they remembered him the same way at Navy.”
Clyde Scott remained married to Leslie until he died at 93.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CLYDE “SMACKOVER” SCOTT
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: A native Tennessean, he graduated from Maryville College in his home town, then coached high school football in Michigan for 12 years - 11 of them as a head coach.
In one three-year span, he coached three different teams to unbeaten seasons. He spent five seasons as head coach at East Lansing High School, his last in 1964 when he was named Michigan Class A Coach of the Year after East Lansing finished 8-0 and ranked Number 1 in the final Associated Press state poll.
That got him an assistant’s job at Central Michigan, and in two years he became the Chippewas’ head coach.
He stayed at Central Michigan for eleven seasons, compiling a record of 83-32-2. In 1974, his Chippewas went 12-1 and won the NCAA Division II National Championship and he was named Coach of the Year.
As head coach, he played a major role in Central Michigan’s 1975 move to Division I.
In 1978, he returned to his home state of Tennessee as Vanderbilt’s Director of Athletics. There, he was responsible for the renovation of the McGugin Center, but also the construction of Vanderbilt Stadium.
In January 1990, he left Vanderbilt to become Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. In his first year as commissioner, South Carolina and Arkansas were added to the conference. He led the conference in moving to divisional play and in playing the first major college conference football championship game.
During his time as its commissioner, the SEC won 81 national championships. He negotiated multi-sport national TV packages with CBS and ESPN, and oversaw the distribution of then-record sums of revenue to conference members.
In 1998, he was presented the Distinguished American Award by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
In his induction speech at the College Football Hall of Fame, he spoke of the importance of maintaining football at its grass roots:
"It's great to be at a huge stadium on a Saturday afternoon with 80,000 or 100,000 people, but we also have to realize that on that same Saturday afternoon, that same great game is being played on hundreds of campuses across the country, not in front of 80,000 people but in front of two or three thousand people and the young men playing that game have the same experience as the young men playing it at the very high level that we talk about so much."
And he praised football for the way it brings young men together with a common purpose…
"A Polish left guard and a farmer from Iowa open a hole for an African-American running back to score a touchdown," he said. "That's what life should be, that's what life should be in this country, and football sets that aside better than any other experience that I know of. And somehow, we need to be able to preserve that, not only at the big-time level, but at the high school and college level across the board.
"To be able to maintain the values, the traditions, the learning experience. There's no greater classroom … on any campus anywhere, in high school or college, than what we teach in football."
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2024 “God intends to give us what
we need, not what we now think we want.” C. S. Lewis*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “My career in the Marines started after I finished my junior year at Hillsdale College. When Pearl Harbor was bombed all of the men in college knew it would only be a matter of time before we were involved. Many of us had enlisted in the V-12 officers training program with the promise of being able to stay out of the war until we completed college. But as action intensified in the Pacific, we were abruptly summoned to active duty.
“The day before I got on the train, Grandpa Chris Lude took me aside for a pep talk. This hard-nosed German immigrant told me, "Mike, there's no reason why you shouldn't end up being a general before you’re through.” It was his way of telling me he respected me and thought I would do well. Growing up, I wasn't around him that much, but we had a good relationship. It wasn't a buddy-buddy, friendly thing, more ‘I am the patriarch of this family and you better pay attention to what I say.’
“Grandpa was an extremely hard worker, and he was very, very tough. A bull almost killed him when he was in the pen of the state hospital’s cattle barn, where he worked after giving up farming. When he got out of the hospital he went back into that pen and whipped the bull. If he had an ego it wasn't noticeable, other than making sure he was always neat and clean with a well-trimmed mustache. Grandpa was straightforward and honest. He was exceptionally tenacious, whatever he did. When I was a kid I was intimidated but I loved him, and his discipline, persistence, and willingness was a great example.
“I reported for indoctrination training at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, in July 1943. We were issued uniforms and learned the basics of military rules and close-order drills. We lived in dormitories. Training was more like college than boot camp. For several months we took courses in physics, mathematics, mechanical drawing, map reading, military history, and psychology.”
*********** Aberdeen update:
We finish our regular schedule Friday against Tenino, a very tough non-league opponent. How tough? Last week, Tenino beat Rochester, 38-24. Five weeks ago, Rochester whipped us, 33-7.
We’re a different team - a better team - than we were five weeks ago, but still…
We don’t dare treat this like a meaningless game, for fear we’ll lose the edge that enabled us to win our “must-win” game last Friday. We’ve made it a point to avoid any mention of next Tuesday.
That’s when we’ll play a “half game” - two 12-minute “halves” - against Columbia River High of Vancouver. It’s something like a wild-card game in NFL terms, with the winner advancing to the first round of the state playoffs four days later. (And, as with a wild card game, playing a much higher-seeded opponent, and at their place.)
This, I’m told, will be the first post-season game of any kind played on Aberdeen’s Stewart Field since 1997.
It’s been years since I coached a game against “River,” which is only about a half-hour away from our home in Camas. But for many years, one of my former schools, Hudson’s Bay High of Vancouver, was in the same school district and the same league as Columbia River, and we played the Chieftains (oops, sorry - they’re now the “Rapids”) at least once every year, sometimes twice.
We actually had something of a nasty rivalry with them, largely because we were fed by the same junior highs and we sometimes had to fight over kids who were supposed to come to our school but whose parents opposed it. With “River” being perceived by many as a level above us socially, we had to deal on a regular basis with parents trying to get “boundary exceptions” so that their kids could go to River and not have to associate with the riff-raff at “Bay.” The reason why they wanted the boundary exception was often some exotic class that River offered and we didn’t that those kids were intensely interested in taking.
Ironically, Columbia River wraps up its regular season Friday night against Hudson’s Bay.
*********** Can’t get a much bigger Double Wing matchup than Friday night’s Idaho playoff game between Marsing and Ririe.
Marsing, coached by Mike Foristiere in his first year there, is 6-2.
Ririe, which is across the state about five hours away, is also 6-2, and in a meeting earlier in the season, beat Marsing, 49-18.
They’re both Double Wing teams, but I’m only mildly conflicted, because Mike is almost family.
To hear Mike tell it, the Marsing community is really excited: “The school is paying for the team to stay in Idaho falls Thursday. Plus meals. Then last night, the boosters called and told me they’ll pay for hotel rooms for us after the game so we don't have to travel back - plus dinner.
But - should Ririe come out on top, I do have an interest in their further success:
Coach Wyatt,
Ririe High School has made the Idaho football playoffs in the 3A classification. We started out in July at our summer camp installing the "first five" from your system, and since that time, we have been working on trying to perfect those plays. We have not reached perfection yet, but we have had a lot of fun trying. This will be the first playoff game Ririe has hosted in its school history. At the end of the regular season, we are leading the state of Idaho in scoring at the 3A level, averaging 36 points per game. Our A back finished the regular season with 1,052 rushing yards, 14 rushing TD's, averaging 131.5 rushing yards per game, and 7.79 yards per carry. Our C back finished the regular season with 1,043 rushing yards, 13 rushing TD's, averaging 130.4 rushing yards per game, and 10.13 yards per carry. Our B back chipped in another 6 rushing TD's, and we were also able to throw 6 TD's. We play a tough Marsing team in the first round of the playoffs this Friday. Coach Foristiere at Marsing is a great coach, and he has done an outstanding job at Marsing. He runs a great DW offense as you know. Thank you for all you do to help coaches.
Brandon Dahle
OC Ririe High School
***********
Remaining unbeaten FBS teams
Army - Air Force at home
BYU - BYE
Indiana at Michigan State
Iowa State - Texas Tech at home
Miami - Duke at home
Oregon at Michigan
Penn State - Ohio State at home
Pitt at SMU
*********** COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS WEEKEND
FRIDAY
SAN DIEGO STATE AT BOISE STATE
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE AT PENN STATE
DUKE AT MIAMI
OLE MISS AT ARKANSAS
AIR FORCE AT ARMY
MINNESOTA AT ILLINOIS
NORTHWESTERN AT PURDUE
STANFORD AT NC STATE
VIRGINIA TECH AT SYRACUSE
MEMPHIS AT UTSA
VANDERBILT AT AUBURN
OREGON AT MICHIGAN
FLORIDA AT GEORGIA
TEXAS TECH AT IOWA STATE
INDIANA AT MICHIGAN STATE - PEACOCK!!!!!
KANSAS STATE AND HOUSTON
UCLA AT NEBRASKA
NORTH CAROLINA AT FLORIDA STATE
ARIZONA AT UCF
WYOMING AT NEW MEXICO
NAVY AT RICE
TEXAS A&M AT SOUTH CAROLINA
LOUISVILLE AT CLEMSON
WISCONSIN AT IOWA
USC AT WASHINGTON
KENTUCKY AT TENNESSEE
PITT AT SMU -
TCU AT BAYLOR
COLORADO STATE AT NEVADA
*********** The word is getting out that the NFL is done with developing QBs, advising them to stay in school and spend two+ years as a starter there before entering the draft.
One of the reasons for this change in approach has to be Bryce Young’s failure - so far - at Carolina.
I like the guy and I’m pulling for him, and I found this little exchange in The Athletic to be interesting:
She: I had a long talk with one of Bryce's coaches from Alabama recently. Did we miss something? And he said: He has it. He just needs the right people around him. He's not getting the right coaching.
So that’s what I want to ask you, where would you want him to go?
He: Go to Kevin O’Connell. Go to Minnesota.
She: What about Sean McVay?
He: Here’s one that might sound crazy: Go to freaking Andy Reid. Go be a backup. You don't have to play if you're not ready. There's guys out there that will fix him for sure.
*********** I believe I made myself clear when Anthony Richardson was at Florida that I didn’t see in him what the experts did. Now that he’s pulled his version of “Take me out - I’m tired,” I’m almost ready to say, “I told you so.”
*********** Buckeye quarterback Will Howard played his high school ball in Downingtown, a western suburb of Philadelphia, and he grew up a Penn State fan. His dad went to Penn State. But Penn State wasn’t a Will Howard fan, so he went to Kansas State instead, before transferring to Ohio State.
Now, looking ahead to the Buckeyes’ game Saturday at Penn State, he says he’s “stoked.”
https://vista.today/2024/10/will-howard-ohio-state-quarterback/
*********** It took Mike Elko one year at Duke to prove to the people at Texas A & M that he could coach.
I didn’t care for the abrupt way with which he departed Duke, but never having been offered millions myself, I can’t say how I would have gone about grabbing the brass ring without pissing anybody off.
And now that he’s spent more than half a season at A & M and he’s got the Aggies on top of the SEC, I can’t imagine anyone in Aggieland who doesn’t think they’ve got the right guy.
After beating LSU last weekend, he even allowed himself a bit of mild boasting in the post-game presser:
“We back up our actions,” he said. “We’re very honest. We’re very open. And this is a real program. It’s not fake. It’s not a politician running this program, talking fast and BS-ing everybody. This is a real program and for all the recruits out there, this is a real place and if you want to be really good at football, this is a really good place to be.”
(Hmmm. Who’s the “politician” he referred to?)
*********** Since my dad's death, people have kept coming up to say how much they miss him, how sorely his voice is needed at this most fractious moment. We deeply appreciate the esteem with which people held him, but really there was no great secret to what was special about my dad. In a nasty business, he managed to live by the Golden Rule. If he did it, we all can. It's in our mouths and in our hearts — right now.”
The Late Senator Joe Lieberman’s daughter
*********** Said Dr. Ben Carson, “There are a lot of Christians who say, ‘Both sides are corrupt and I don’t want to be involved in a corrupt system; I don’t want to have to choose between ‘the lesser of two evils.’”
“Well,” he went on, “Unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot, you’re always choosing between ‘the lesser of two evils.’”
*********** Considering how today’s NFL offenses emphasize the pass and ignore the run, you probably won’t believe me if I tell you that the NFL record for most passing yards in a single game is now 73 years old.
Believe me. Then go out and win a few bets.
On September 28, 1951, Norm Van Brocklin, then with the Los Angeles Rams, threw for 554 yards against the New York Yankees.
Since then, Warren Moon of the Oilers threw for 527 in 1990, and in 2012 so did Matt Schaub of the Texans. In 2021 Joe Burrow of the Bengals threw for 525.
But The Dutchman’s record still stands.
You might like this video by the Eagles that includes a testimonial to Van Brocklin from a guy who learned the quarterback trade as his backup - Sonny Jurgenson.
https://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/video/this-day-in-football-van-brocklin-s-554-passing-yards-6376289
*********** Watch the Army-Air Force game this weekend and you may get to see the last of the true single-wing tailbacks - Army’s Bryson Daily.
When I think of single wing tailbacks, I think of guys like…
Marshall Goldberg of Pitt, Nile Kinnick of Iowa, Tom Harmon, Bob Chappuis and Chuck Ortman of Michigan, Charley "Choo-Choo" Justice of North Carolina, Paul Giel of Minnesota, Frank Regan and Reds Bagnell of Penn, Les Horvath of Ohio State, Frank Sinkwich of Georgia, Elroy Hirsch of Wisconsin, Jackie Robinson and Paul Cameron of UCLA, George McAfee of Duke. At Tennessee alone, there were Beattie Feathers, Gene McEver, George Cafego, Hank Lauricella and Johnny Majors.
Just like today’s quarterbacks - shotgun or under center - those guys touched the ball on every play. (Okay, okay - except for the occasional direct snap to the fullback.)
And like today’s quarterbacks, they threw all of their teams’ passes.
But there the resemblance ends.
Unlike 99 per cent of today’s quarterbacks, whose participation in the run game consists mostly of handing off to a “real” runner, or every so often carrying the ball themselves as a sort of “change-up,” the single wing tailback WAS his team’s runner.
He was the passer and the workhorse runner and, in many cases, the punter, too, hence the term “triple threat.”
Bryson Daily is a throwback to the days of the single wing tailback.
He’s big enough at 6 foot, 220, to be Army’s workhorse back - which he is. He’s their leading rusher.
He’s not tricky. His trademark play, whether under center or shotgun, is power off-tackle. Simple as that. Try and stop us. You Double Wingers would love it.
He’s carried 138 times for 909 yards (an average of 6.6 yards per carry) and 19 TDs.
That’s just about the same amount of yardage as Army’s next two carriers combined - fullback Kanye Udoh, with 93 carries for 633 yards (6.8 yards per carry) and speedy slotback Noah Short, with 34 carries for 398 yards (11.6 yards per carry).
Daily has a strong arm and throws with an accuracy that shows how hard he’s worked on his passing. Throwing mostly in play-action situations, he’s completed 27 of 47 for 629 yards and 7 TDs. Just as important: he has yet to throw an interception.
But Daily takes things beyond running and passing. Well beyond.
He’s also the quarterback of an offense that at its base runs triple- and midline option. And at the three stages of a triple option - first reading the dive key, then either keeping or pitching at the next stage - he has proved to be nearly flawless. Amazingly, in a game earlier this season, he pitched the ball and then sprinted downfield to get ahead of the runner and throw a block for him.
I do hope that you get to see him at his best. He’s one of a kind.
https://cityviewmag.com/neyland-and-the-last-single-wing-tailback/
*********** Read this, sent me by my son, Ed, in Australia and then tell me if it’s wrong to pray for something bad to happen to the NFL…
A silent battle is unfolding in schools right across the country, and it’s one Australia’s biggest sporting codes may not even know they’re losing.
The NFL’s quest for global domination is full steam ahead, and Australian primary school students are firmly in the sport’s crosshairs.
Year five and six students are trying out for their school flag football sides in unprecedented droves. Why? The lure of a trip to Florida for the national champions to compete at the 2025 NFL Flag International Championship.
The byproduct of the tantalising reward that no other school sport in the country can match, is tens of thousands of kids exposed to the sport, many of who will play and support it for years to come.
The national championships are set to be contested this Friday on the Gold Coast, comprised of 10 top teams that hail from every state and territory.
“You always say with junior sport you’re not playing for sheep stations but it kind of feels like we are playing for a sheep station,” said Matthew Ross, who is the flag football coach at Melbourne’s Kew Primary School, one of the 10 schools set to compete at this week’s national championships.
“There’ll be a bit of emotion on the day for the kids because there’ll be a lot on the line. I think that is the reason why it’s becoming very popular, because there is this opportunity.”
Ross said that of his 150-strong year five and six cohort, 41 kids tried out for the flag football team.
“Parents mentioned how it was the first time their kids had been in a selection process where they missed the team, so for some of them it was confronting,” he said.
“I also coach cricket and we’re trying to pull a team together and we’re pulling teeth just to get kids to come down and play, there’s no carrot at the end.
“I think that’s what’s really powerful, a trip to the Gold Coast is a huge experience for the kids, they’ll have such a wonderful time, and the experience to get to the US for one of the teams will be unbelievable.”
Ross expects flag football to be a “big growth” sport.
“It’s different, the novelty of the belts and also the plays … my son mentioned that because there’s five kids on the field you feel like every snap you’re apart of the action,” Ross said.
“He also plays (Aussie rules) and there’s 18 on the field and you can catch a cold during a quarter where the ball comes nowhere near you.
“It’s like basketball, you’re more in the game because there’s less people on the field. Even if you’re not getting the ball you have to run a particular route and do your role, they might not have the ball but they’re helping the team succeed.
We’re pretty keen to be involved (as a school), the kids are enjoying it but there’s also these opportunities which other sports aren’t providing.”
Just as the coming of Walmart brought about the closing of Mom and Pop stores in small towns all over America, so is the NFL, through its insidious worldwide promotion of flag, threatening to kill off sports such as rugby, Gaelic football and Australian Rules football in a generation or two.
Yeah, yeah, I hear you say. But if every kid around the world plays flag, where, you ask, will the NFL get its players?
Silly. While little kids everywhere are busy playing flag (and becoming lifelong NFL fans), the NFL will simply form its own developmental league. There, select players on NFL-sponsored teams will undergo development in actual tackle football from professional coaches (not unlike the current MLS system).
High school tackle football? Who’ll need it? The NFL knows full well that of the 1,000,000 or so boys now playing high school football in America, very few of them are of any value to it as potential players. It’ll have that developmental league for the players its scouts identity as talented enough.
A high school team in every little town? That’s for those chumps like you and me who still believe that football is a great way to help turn boys into men.
*********** One of our favorite charities is Boys Town, Nebraska and I’m impressed by some of the tips they send on dealing with your own kids…
Teaching Important Social Skills
One thing parents sometimes fail to do is teach their children simple social skills they'll use later on in adolescence and adulthood. One critical basic skill is following directions. In fact, it is literally the first skill we feature in the Boys Town book Teaching Social Skills to Youth. This skill needs to be taught early and practiced often. The steps are simple:
1. Look at the person.
2. Say, "Okay."
3. Do what you've been asked right away.
4. Check back.
If you teach this skill to your children and practice it with them while they're young, then they will be conditioned to know how to respond when asked to complete a task.
(Isn’t it a lot easier to coach kids who come to you already coachable?)
*********** I actually purchased your book and dvd approximately 12 years ago. My best friend (and coach) and I started running the double wing offense at the youth level with a lot of success. We eventually introduced it to our high school in 2017 when we both were high school assistants. Our high school doesn't solely run double wing, but it's been a good package or scheme we usually hold onto until the playoffs. Because most of our youth teams grow up running double wing, it's been very easy to install it at the high school level (and the o-line loves it). We've found that it's very difficult for high school teams to prepare for this offense in one week, especially when most teams run some version of a spread offense today. I lent your playbook out and never got it back, which is why I purchased your new version. We have had a ton of success from youth through high school but essentially run 6 or 8 base plays and are 95% run. I wanted to dedicate some time to learning and implementing more passing options from your playbook. We are coming off of back to back state championships in Indiana (and won a 3rd in 2017 assisted with the DW), but lost a ton of great players. We are down compared to prior years but our head coach is on board with expanding our double wing playbook and is committed to making it more of our identity than just a change of pace........more than you wanted to know but thought I'd share. We put our own tweaks on your playbook over the years (mostly just terminology) but your book/offense has been huge for our little football community over the past decade from 1st grade to varsity. Appreciate all the support you have offered.
NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST
*********** As usual, lots of red meat on today's page, but I especially liked the letter to Sam. He could wind up as the only F1 commentator with experience as a mover.
I don't like making excuses for Navy, but they must have zero confidence in Horvath's backup. Six turnovers, five unforced? It looked to me that his hand injury was cause enough to pull him out early on, but the coaches let him fumble the game away. If Horvath is similarly compromised the remainder of the season, the Mids could be in trouble.
One man on your list of coaches who could receive the black spot already got it...Mike Bloomgren of Rice...but his school gave him seven years, which was more than fair.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Congrats on the win over Black Hills!
Also, congrats to Mike Foristiere’s Marsing ID Huskies on completing a successful regular season. They travel to Ririe for a first round playoff game on Friday night.
Ririe beat Marsing in an early season game where the Huskies lost two starters in the first half. Both teams run the DW.
Navy did not play ND the way they had played others. Seven turnovers doomed the Mids. It was an uncharacteristic showing for a good Navy team. I think Blake Horvath’s injured thumb may have led to a few of those fumbles. If it did he better get healed up fast with E. Carolina, Tulane, and Army on the horizon.
Provided Army doesn’t get the turnover bug I think they will have a much better chance against ND. Frankly, I think Bryson Dailey poses a much greater threat than Horvath, and the Cadet run game is much more potent which will cause problems for the Irish secondary.
Coaches on the hot seat. Dilfer for sure.
Followed by Napier, Aranda, and Freeze.
I wonder how many bowl game holdouts we’ll see this year? I’m also wondering if there will be any playoff holdouts?
Enjoy the week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: At Woodbury, New Jersey High (suburban Philadelphia) Milt Plum was an all-state quarterback.
Although he was also a very good catcher who drew interest from major league baseball teams, he chose to go to Penn State and play football.
Playing quarterback in Rip Engle’s run-heavy Wing-T offense, he seldom threw. But in those days of two-way football, he also played defense. And in addition, he punted and kicked extra points.
In his senior year, Penn State tied Pitt and lost narrowly to Army and Syracuse (and legendary running back Jim Brown), while upsetting Ohio State, 7-6.
After the season, knowing that Cleveland’s Paul Brown was desperately in search of a successor to the great Otto Graham, Engle recommended our guy, telling Brown, “He’s always the first one on the field. He studies game films zealously and he never gets upset under fire.”
Brown must have listened, because in the NFL draft they took our guy with their second pick. (They’d taken Jim Brown in the first round.)
He spent five years with the Browns, and was twice named All-Pro. During that time, the Browns were very good - just not quite good enough. Twice, the Giants beat them to the NFL championship game, and once the Eagles did.
In 1960, he completed a league-high 60.4 per cent of his passes, throwing for 21 touchdowns while throwing only five interceptions. The Browns finished 8-3-1, good enough for second in the East behind the Eagles, who finished 10-2. The Eagles would go on to defeat the Green Bay Packers to win the NFL title.
For two seasons, his understudy at Cleveland was Len Dawson, who would go on to sign with the AFL and play his way to pro football immortality.
After an article was published claiming that he had called the Browns’ offense “stereotyped,” and had criticized Brown’s rigid system of calling plays for his quarterbacks, that was enough for Paul Brown. Despite his insistence that he had said no such things. he was traded to Detroit in a six-player deal that also included Lions’ quarterback Jim Ninowski.
In his first year at Detroit, the Lions finished 11-3, just behind the Packers in the NFL West, but for the rest of his six years there, they went into decline, and he was off-and-on as the starting QB.
“Detroit was notorious for changing quarterbacks,” he remembered. “Whenever something went wrong, they yanked the quarterback. It was between Bobby Layne and Tobin Rote, Rote and Earl Morrall, Earl and I, Karl Sweetan and I.”
He wound up his career with the Rams, where he backed up Roman Gabriel, and then with the Giants, where he backed up Fran Tarkenton and Gary Wood before retiring after the 1969 season.
In his career, he completed 1,306 passes (2,419 attempts) for 17,536 yards and 122 TDs. He also rushed for 531 yards.
Asked years later about career highlights, Milt Plum said, “One of them is that I played professional football for 13 seasons.
“This may surprise you, but my ambition was to play baseball. I almost didn’t go to college. All my life was baseball, baseball, baseball. It came down to, ‘In football, you either make the NFL or you don’t.’
“When I got out of college in June 1957, it was too late to try minor league baseball. At that time pro football started in July. I got drafted number two, so I tried out with the Browns. I made it, and I hung around football for 13 years.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MILT PLUM
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY - (Coach Crump, a lifelong Browns' fan, swears that the photo on the left is of Bill Nelson, another Browns' QB who also wore #12.)
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He was named Arkansas’ Athlete of the Twentieth Century by the Arkansas Daily Gazette.
His dad was an oil field worker. He was born in Dixie, Louisiana, the third of ten children, and grew up in Smackover, Arkansas. (For much of his athletic career, the town name became his nickname.)
He was a high school football star, and excelled in track. Despite having no hurdles at his high school he set state records in the hurdles and in the 100-yard dash.
He was also a good baseball player, and turned down a contract offer by the St. Louis Cardinals in order to attend the US Naval Academy, where some local businessmen had helped him receive an appointment.
World War II was going on, and Navy was very good - probably second only to Army. He played two years at running back for the Midshipmen, and in his second year, 1945, he earned second team All-America honors.
In track he set Naval Academy records in the 100-yard dash, the 110 high hurdles and 220 low hurdles and the javelin. In both 1944 and 1945 he was the academy’s light-heavyweight boxing champion.
And then he met Miss Arkansas. Her name was Leslie Hampton. She was on a tour of the academy on the way to the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, and he was asked to be her escort .
They fell in love, and by the end of the school year decided to get married, but with marriage by midshipmen prohibited, he chose to withdraw from the Academy.
Once word got out that he had withdrawn from the Naval Academy, he was heavily recruited by coaches such as Bear Bryant at Kentucky and Johnny Vaught at Ole Miss.
He was finally convinced to attend Arkansas by head coach John Barnhill, but he was no doubt influenced by the fact that his bride-to-be was a student there.
As a running back, he was a three-time All-Southwest Conference selection, and in 1948 he became the first Razorback ever named to an All-American team.
In his two years at Arkansas, he set a new school record of 1,463 yards rushing. In his senior year, he averaged 7 yards a carry.
At his graduation, his number 12 was retired. That was 1948, and in the years since, while Arkansas has had 21 consensus All-Americans, he remains one of only two Razorbacks to have had his number retired. (The other was Brandon Burlsworth, a former walk-on who earned All-American status and then was tragically killed at age 22 in a highway accident. His jersey was retired in 1999.)
While at Arkansas, he wanted to play baseball but Coach Barnhill prohibited it. But he was allowed to run track, where he set school records in the 100-yard dash, the 220 low hurdles, the 110 high hurdles, the 440-yard relay, and the javelin.
His 9.4 in the 100 yard dash in the 1948 Southwest Conference meet tied the existing world record but could not count because the SWC did not test for wind. He was the high-point scorer at the meet winning the 100, the high hurdles and low hurdles, finishing third in the javelin, and running a leg on the 440 relay team (that finished third). In all, he scored 42 points using today's scoring rules.
In the 1948 NCAA Track Finals he tied the world record in the 110 high hurdles with a time of 13.7 seconds. That summer he made the U.S. Olympic team in the 110 high hurdles and in 1948 London Olympics he won the silver medal, taking second in a photo finish. He was the first Arkansas athlete to win an Olympic medal.
He was drafted in the first round of the 1949 NFL draft by the NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles and, although plagued by injuries, he spent three seasons with the Eagles and one season with the Detroit Lions before retiring after the 1952 season.
He returned to Arkansas and enjoyed a successful career in business.
Coach Barnhill, quoted later in a book on Arkansas football said, “(He) meant more to the Arkansas program than any other athlete. His coming to Arkansas convinced other Arkansas boys they should stay home.”
Besides being named Arkansas’ Athlete of the Twentieth Century by the Arkansas Daily Gazette, He was a member of the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor, the State of Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
His daughter, Marsha, told of taking him to the Naval Academy in 1993 - the first time he’d been back since resigning in 1945.
At the time, she had a job in Washington, DC in the Clinton administration and, she recalled…
“I had asked about setting up a private tour and he agreed. That was 1993, almost 50 years later. He'd never said much about leaving Navy. We all knew that was very tough to do, but they frowned on married students and he was in love.
“It was difficult. We all knew he was proud of going to Navy, but he just didn't talk about it.”
The tour, just dad and daughter. was conducted by a young navy officer.
“It started off very quiet,” she said. “Dad just wasn't saying much. We went to a couple of places and then to the athletic hall, the dorm.”
At the top of a stairway that led to the dorm rooms. there was a wall lined with Navy players inducted into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame.
“There were three plaques – with pictures – on the wall when we made the first turn,” Marsha said. “They were Roger Staubach’s, Joe Bellino’s and Dad's. The ensign stopped and turned to look at Dad. He said, 'That's you!' And when he did, Dad started crying. The ensign started crying. I did, too.
“From that point forward, Dad lit up. He had a great time.
“I think it was a great time of healing. I know he felt kind of embarrassed he'd left Navy. When he saw that plaque – the same one they have on display in the museum at Arkansas - it was clear that they remembered him the same way at Navy.”
He remained married to Leslie until he died at 93.
TUESDAY,
OCTOBER 29, 2024
“He’s tough as an old army boot. He’s got lots of enemies, different
groups that are scared, and between them, they have impeached him,
indicted him, raided him, railroaded him, shot him and sued him. And
where is he? He’s still standing.” “Doctor Phil” McGraw*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “My bleeping orders apparently were lost somewhere between the Bureau of Personnel in Washington, DC, and Camp Pendleton, so when my battalion shipped out I stayed behind.
“Several months later, when I had been assigned to duty with an amphibious tractor battalion in Maui, whom did I run into by chance? The unforgettable Colonel Hunt, of course. Once again he unloaded on me. I thought I'd heard every four-letter word that first time, but he coined new words in our second meeting. I reminded him again of my total lack of influence with anyone but he was having none of it.
“My original unit had just returned from taking part in the famous landing on Iwo Jima and had suffered heavy casualties. It was one of the deadliest battles of the Pacific war, widely remembered for the photograph of Marines raising the American flag at Mount Suribachi. Our units took part in the landing and the initial assault, and then brought in supplies once the beachhead was secure. By the time of that famous flag raising, our troops had the amphibious tractors back on the bigger ships and were ready to move out.
“The fact that my orders were lost might have saved my life.”
*********** Aberdeen update: We saved our best game of the season for when we needed it the most, defeating Black Hills High 28-14 Friday night.
We felt that our kids were ready. They knew quite well that the result of this game would define our season and, more importantly, launch us on the path to future success. We’re a very young team: we start just one senior on offense and one on defense. We’d lost to some very tough non-conference teams, and we knew we weren’t a match for the top two teams in our league, but a win over Black Hills would give us third place in the league - and a preliminary-round shot at a playoff spot.
A loss, on the other hand, would set us back quite a bit on our road to respectability.
We took the opening kickoff and after a short drive, stalled out and punted.
After holding Black Hills, we found our running game - mostly power off-tackle plays - was working, but an unfortunate tip of a slant resulted in a long pick six and put us behind, 7-0.
That would be it for Black Hills for a while, as our defense shut them down and our offense began to put together some impressive drives. The first, overlapping the end of the first period and the start of the second, went 64 yards, culminating in Micah Schroeder’s 33-yard burst off left tackle.
We drove to another score with 12 seconds left in the half to go in with a 14-7 lead. Schroeder’s 20-yard sweep was the key play.
We dominated play in the third period, putting on a long drive to take a two-touchdown lead, 20-7 (we missed the PAT).
And then, out of the blue, Black Hills completed a pass down to our one-yard line, and after they punched the ball in, cut our lead to 20-14 with most of the fourth quarter remaining.
We drove into their territory but came up short on a fourth-and-four on their 38 yard line, and they countered by driving to our 21 before we held them on downs.
And then, on the next play, damned if Schroeder didn’t hit off right tackle and sprint 79 yards for the score that clinched it for us. With a 28-14 lead midway through the fourth quarter, the combination of our tough defense and ball-control offense was enough to seal the win.
It was a beautifully-called game, one that I'd have been proud to have called myself.
In all, we rushed for 349 yards. Schroeder, who carried 35 times, gained 279 yards and scored three TDs. Unusual for a spread team, we attempted just four passes without completing a single one!
Next, we finish our regular schedule Friday against Tenino, a very tough non-league opponent, and the following Tuesday we play a “half game” - two 12-minute “halves” - against Columbia River High of Vancouver. The winner of that one advances to the first round of the state playoffs four days later.
A few observations about our having made the transition to a running team:
1. Play calling is more straightforward. Unlike with a passing team, it’s no sin to repeat a successful running play. (“It’s not your job to stop your offense.”)
2. It allows you to play complementary football - a ball-control offense greatly helps your defense by keeping the other team’s offense on the sideline.
3. It’s a great help when you need a first down or two to run out the clock.
4. It’s a great morale-builder when your players sense that they are physically dominating the opponent.
5. I think that the ability of a running game to wear out the opponent is greatly understated. Like breaking rocks or splitting wood, I’m convinced that our 79-yard clincher came about because we had worn the opponent down.
(For what it’s worth, the battle for first place in our league was settled Friday night when Tumwater High, which two weeks ago beat us 55-0, faced off against unbeaten and fifth-ranked W.F. West High of Chehalis, which beat us 47-12 four weeks ago. Final score: Tumwater 52, W.F. West 0.)
*********** We played our game Friday night at Tumwater High Stadium, where Sid Otton coached for 43 years. In that time, he won 394 games - tops of any coach in Washington high school history - including five state championships.
I got to know him a little bit in the early days, since we were both wing-T guys, and he impressed me as a really class act.
It can’t have been an easy run for him at first: his record after three years was 7-20, and people were after his ass.
In fact, it was 13 years before he won his first state title at Tumwater.
But he got ‘er turned and the rest is history. One thing that characterized his program was the amazing staff stability he cultivated.
https://www.elisportsnetwork.com/tumwater-winning-football-the-sid-otton-story/
*********** TOP GAMES FROM THIS PAST WEEKEND…
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE 21, NEBRASKA 17 - If you can’t rush for 100 yards, and the other team has 18 first downs to your 11, and a time of possession advantage 35-25, maybe there IS cause for concern.
NOTRE DAME 51, NAVY 14 - If the Middies had brought their best game, it still would have been a struggle. They didn’t and it wasn’t.
INDIANA 31, WASHINGTON 17 - If nothing else happens this season, it’s been great seeing the excitement in Bloomington. Kurt Cignetti really has performed a miracle.
OLE MISS 26, OKLAHOMA 14 – Not since 1998 (when the Sooners went 5-6 under John Blake) have they lost three straight games by double digits.
VIRGINIA TECH 21, GEORGIA TECH 6 - Were you as surprised as me that Georgia Tech (“RUN THE BALL!!!”) couldn’t run for 100 yards, and could only manage two lousy field goals?
NORTH CAROLINA 41, VIRGINIA 14 – Tar Heels are now at 4-4 with games remaining against Florida State, Wake, BC and NC State.
ARKANSAS 58, MISSISSIPPI STATE 25 – Arkansas is almost bowl-eligible
OREGON 35, ILLINOIS 9 – Okay. I’m convinced. Illinois is pretty good and they’re not even close to the Ducks. Now watch the Ducks lose.
BYU 37, UCF 24 – Cougars are unbeaten; Knights have lost five in a row and Gus Malzahn is running out of good will.
ALABAMA 34, MISSOURI 0 – So THIS is what happens when you tell the players that they’re expected to be on time for meetings. Why didn’t they try it sooner?
IOWA 40, NORTHWESTERN 14 – Hawkeyes, 5-3, have a decent chance of winning out.
MINNESOTA 48, MARYLAND 23 – Gophers have definitely separated themselves from the bottom of the Big Ten pack. Terps may not get to a bowl game.
UCONN 17, RICE 10 – Huskies are 5-3. Owls are 2-6 and likely to lose their coach.
WAKE FOREST 27, STANFORD 24 – Wake finally found a way to win one at the end. Stanford’s marketing department had better do something about those empty seats.
CAL 44, OREGON STATE 7 – Beavers have lost four straight, and now have to find a couple of wins. They might find them in San Jose State and Air Force.
TEXAS 27, VANDERBILT 24 – (1) Vandy isn’t bad; (2) Texas isn’t that good.
WEST VIRGINIA 31, ARIZONA 26 – Mountaineers rushed for 203 yards, held the ball 35:00 to 25:00. Wildcats have lost four straight.
MIAMI 36, FLORIDA STATE 14 – The Seminoles are now 1-7. Hurricanes are still unbeaten.
UTAH STATE 27, WYOMING 25 – Wyoming people are REALLY pissed at the way this season has gone, considering that Craig Bohl seemingly left things in good shape.
PENN STATE 28, WISCONSIN 13 – Even without Allar, Lions were simply better
TEXAS A&M 38, LSU 23 - Don’t look now, but the Aggies are on top of the SEC.
MICHIGAN 24, MICHIGAN STATE 17 – It seemed like a game played at a lower level than those years when one or both have been national powerhouses.
AUBURN 24, KENTUCKY 10 – Two coaches in danger. I hope that Mike Stoops has a large enough buyout.
KANSAS STATE 29, KANSAS 27 – The Sunflower Showdown is a game once again.
SMU 28, DUKE 27 (OT) – For some strange reason, Manny Diaz went for two (and the win) in first OT, when he didn’t have to.
FRESNO STATE 33, SAN JOSE STATE 10 – Bulldogs are now 5-3, with Hawaii, Air Force, Colorado State and UCLA left on the schedule.
COLORADO 34, CINCINNATI 23 – Coach Prime and his bunch are bowl-eligible.
WASHINGTON STATE 29, SAN DIEGO STATE 26 – Cougs have lost only once.
*********** Coaches Hot Seat
It seems somewhat ghoulish to try to predict which college coaches will get handed the black spot (if you’ve read “Treasure Island”) but it bothers me a lot less when I remember that NO coaches these days walk away without a giant going-away bonus, and, further, that it was the gigantic contracts (and commensurate buyouts) given out to college coaches that lit the fires that led to NIL and will lead, ultimately, to players as employees.
1. Trent Dilfer, UAB
2. Dave Aranda, Baylor
3. Sam Pittman, Arkansas
4. Billy Napier, Florida
5. Sonny Cumbie, Lousiana Tech
6. Joe Morehead, Akron
7. Mike Bloomgren, Rice
8. Stan Drayton, Temple
9. Neil Brown, West Virginia
10. Ryan Walters, Purdue
11. Mark Stoops, Kentucky
12. Mike MacIntyre, FIU
13. Hugh Freeze, Auburn
14. Mike Norvell, Florida state
15. Lincoln Riley, USC
16. Brent Venables, Oklahoma
17. Justin Wilcox, Cal
18. Gerad Parker, Troy
19. Ryan Day, Ohio State
20. Shawn Clark, App State
Ohio State? Really? To put it in perspective: Ryan Day’s overall record as the Buckeyes’ coach is 62-9. That’s a winning percentage of 873, which is second-best in the history of the game to the legendary Knute Rockne. Rockne’s .881 (from 1918-1930) is the highest winning percentage of any man who ever coached at the major college level, but while several of Day’s losses have taken place in postseason games, where he is 2-4, Rockne never even had to coach in a bowl game. Taking the postseason out of it, Day’s record is 60-5, which would put him at an all-time high of .923. Perhaps a more relevant figure to evaluate Day’s performance would be his record in Big Ten games - 41-4, or .911.
https://coacheshotseat.com/
*********** My 15-year-old grandson, Sam, lives in Australia. Recently, he helped a friend to move, and when my son told Sam that I’d worked as a furniture mover during summers while in college, Sam asked me about it.
Here’s what I wrote:
In the summers of 1958 and 1959 I worked for Eldredge Moving and Storage in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where my parents lived at the time.
I started out as a helper and advanced to where I was often assigned to drive a truck.
Our moves took place mostly in New Jersey and adjoining states (Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Maryland) but I did get a trip all by myself delivering a load to Rome, New York, about 250 miles away, and a long one with another driver to Greensboro, North Carolina.
I learned an awful lot about moving: how to pack cartons… how to get big pieces of furniture in and out of tight spaces… how best to lift big things… how to load a truck (always look for big heavy things to go on the bottom, as your “base.”) And, of course, how to drive a variety of trucks.
It was very important to me to be accepted by the regular workers, so I made an effort to work hard to show them I was not some “spoiled college kid.” I knew I was accepted when they invited me to drink beer with them. And I really knew I was accepted when I told them that I was getting married (to Grandma) and one of the regular drivers told me that if I ever needed a job he’d take me on as his full-time helper. I was very flattered by that offer and it’s still a highlight of my life.
I learned an awful lot on that job. I learned a lot from the drivers - the regulars. I learned to respect men for the jobs they did, rather than the education they had. None of them had gone to college, but they knew all the ins and outs of moving and of driving a truck.
I liked the fact that there was hard work involved, because I wanted to get in shape for football. And I liked the money. I worked a lot of overtime, for which you got paid “time and a half” (ask your dad) and as a result, after just four weeks on the job I had enough money to buy a 1952 Ford. It’s the car I was driving when I met Grandma two years later.
In all, it was a great and transformative job for me because it helped me become a man. I will always be appreciative of those working men for the way they accepted me as one of their own.
*********** I still love and respect and miss Joe Paterno, but I gritted my teeth when I read this in a report on Donald Trump’s recent visit to Penn State…
Penn State Trustee Jay Paterno (Joe’s son) stopped by and unzipped a Penn State windbreaker to show a few protesters he, too, was wearing a Harris and Walz 2024 shirt.
*********** At a volleyball match between Air Force and San Jose State, Academy officials made a fan cover a shirt that said, "Keep Women's Sports Female.”
For those who don’t follow volleyball or the latest in LGBT affairs, San Jose State’s volleyball team features a female impersonator (that’s what they used to call them on Bourbon Street) named Blaire Fleming.
The fan said that he was allowed into the game, but was told that if he tried to take off his sweatshirt, he would be required to leave.
He said that he was watched throughout the game to ensure that he complied.
*********** “This was a staged event-Trump is such a fraud. He doesn’t work at McDonalds!” Whoopie Goldberg
No sh—, Sherlock…
************ The major conferences are going to have to work hard to make sure that the bowls remain relevant.
How else, other than a nice bowl trip, are teams going to salve the pain of finishing in the bottom half of an 18-team conference?
BIG TEN
ALREADY ELIGIBLE
Indiana 8-0
Oregon 8-0
Penn State 7-0
Ohio State 6-1
Illinois 6-2
HIGHLY LIKELY
Iowa 5–3
Michigan 5– 3
Wisconsin 5– 3
Minnesota 5– 3
Nebraska 5– 3
DECENT SHOT (GAMES REMAINING IN PARENTHESES)
Michigan State 4–4 (Indiana, Illinois, Purdue, Rutgers)
Rutgers 4–4 (Minnesota, Maryland, Illinois)
OUTSIDE SHOT (BUT THEY PLAY EACH OTHER SO THEY WON’T BOTH MAKE IT)
*Washington 4–4 (USC, Penn State, UCLA, Oregon)
*USC 4–4 (Washington, Nebraska, UCLA, Notre Dame)
PRACTICALLY NO SHOT
*Maryland 4–4 (Oregon, Rutgers, Iowa)
Northwestern 3–5 (Purdue, Ohio State, Michigan, Illinois)
NO SHOT
UCLA 2-5
Purdue 1-6
It’s quite likely that at least two teams from the bottom half of the conference will go to bowl games. It’s even conceivable - but not likely) that Northwestern can get to six wins.
SEC
ALREADY ELIGIBLE
Texas A&M 7–1
Georgia 6–1
Texas 7–1
Tennessee 6–1
LSU 6– 2
Alabama 6– 2
Missouri 6–2
Ole Miss 6–2
HIGHLY LIKELY
Arkansas 5– 3
Vanderbilt 5–3
DECENT SHOT (GAMES REMAINING IN PARENTHESES)
South Carolina 4–3 (Texas A & M, Vanderbilt, Missouri, Wofford, Clemson)
OUTSIDE SHOT
Oklahoma 4–4 (Maine (!?!?) Missouri, Alabama, LSU)
PRACTICALLY NO SHOT
Florida 4–3 (Georgia, Texas, LSU)
Auburn 3– 5 (Vanderbilt, Lousiana-Monroe, Texas A & M, Alabama)
Kentucky 3–5 (Tennessee, Murray State, Texas, Louisville)
NO SHOT
Mississippi State 1 –7
*********** An awful lot of guys I speak to and correspond with believe (as I do) that most American boys have grown soft, and that more than ever, America needs football because football is hard and football is tough and football is demanding.
I came across this great letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal:
We love football because it’s a game about sacrifice, courage, brotherhood. It’s about putting your personal safety in the hands of your brother and risking yourself so that your brother can succeed, knowing that both of your successes lift the entire team, a family. Maybe we don’t admit this because the sport glorifies toughness and because love supposedly is soft, but there is no doubt that love for each other drives the greatest teams. And those of us watching want so desperately to feel that same love, to be included in that same family.
There is an innate attraction to the combination of these elemental forces – risk, courage, love and family – that captivates our souls; thus the elevation of the game as our national pastime.
David Hornberger, San Antonio
*********** In Texas, Palestine Westwood High School head coach Richard Bishop was suspended for the remainder of the season, after a committee ruled that he had illegally videotaped opponents while scouting.
Westwood is now 7-0, and while the punishment originally recommended forfeiture of games, the committee issuing the ruling voted unanimously against punishing the team, too.
During the meeting with the committee, the head coach said he was unaware that an assistant, who was sitting next to him at the game, was recording - a claim that the committee chair said he found “hard to believe.”
The committee noted inconsistencies in testimony about how long the assistant was recording and what he had recorded. (The assistant said he had filmed a few plays to send to his girlfriend in Virginia, adding that nobody had told him to record and that it was his idea to film.)
True to his profession, the defendants’ lawyer argued that recording an entire game on a cell phone was "unrealistic," and noted that it is not a violation of rules to record a band performance. Simple answer: open that damn phone and see how much of the recording was “band performance.”
************ I hope other coaches will join Tony Bennett in refusing to work through the muck and filth of NIL-XFER excesses.
I'm as fascinated by the Hoosiers as anyone, and wonder how they'll do this week without Kurtis Rourke, who leads the Big 18 in nearly every positive QB stat. I have no idea whether they can handle the Huskies.
I'm happy to be back reading my favorite sports page, which NEVER fails to satisfy.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I caught a glimpse of that Tumwater game (video highlights on MaxPreps). They run as good a Wing-T as I've seen. The last Wing-T team I saw that could run the offense THAT well was Clovis West (Fresno, CA) when Randy Blankenship (considered a Wing-T guru, was the head coach at CW from 1992-98). Blankenship won over 300 games in his career in California and ranks up there with another 300 game winner by the name of Don Markham.
I have to take issue with the latest college football rankings. Agree with Oregon as number one. But Penn State should be number two, followed by Miami, Georgia, and Ohio State.
Also, under the current playoff format the major bowl games should NOT be part of the playoffs. Those major bowls should remain bowl games.
As of this writing, it pains me to say that regardless if Notre Dame wins out they could be on the outside looking in for the playoffs. If they can move up to Number 11 or number 10 they'll get in. However...if they stay at number 12 (strength of schedule) they'll get bumped by the best G5 team. More reason for the Irish to seriously consider joining a conference in the very near future. Likely the ACC. This week's Navy game will go a long way in determining how the Irish will fare against Army.
There will be many more middle-aged college head coaches in football and basketball giving retirement a much more serious look.
I wonder how many BIG teams have ever swept the LA schools in the same year?? Minnesota did! Maybe the first?
UNLV will make the move to the new PAC. "Bank" on it.
The question remains...if Army and Navy end up first in the AAC will the traditional Army-Navy game determine the AAC champion? IMHO it doesn't make any sense for them to play each other in back-to-back everything on the table games
Enjoy the weekend, and good luck on Friday night!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe - Army and Navy totally depend on the Army-Navy game to support their entire athletic programs. There is the revenue from CBS, which is substantial, but in addition, donors get preference for Army-Navy tickets - the higher the donation the more tickets one can buy. There is great concern at Army and Navy that a meeting of the two teams in the conference championship game could greatly detract from the "real" game just a week later.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Tony Adamle was born in Fairmont, West Virginia to parents who were immigrants from Slovenia.
When he was a child, his family moved to Cleveland, and he attended Collinwood High School, where the sports editor of the Cleveland Press called him “without question the best high school player I have ever seen in action.”
In his words, (years later) “I went to Collinwood High School and majored in machine shop. I was voted ‘Least Likely to Succeed.’ The only thing I did was play football. The thing that changed me was, my last year in high school, I made All-Ohio. All of a sudden I'm somebody. When I got to be a senior, people are coming to look me up to go to school here and there. People I've never heard of were coming to my house. That's when I started waking up a little bit.”
As a senior, named All-Ohio by both the Associated Press and United Press International, he was selected by the Cleveland Press to an All-Star team that played a postseason game in Florida.
After graduation, he was recruited to Ohio State by new head coach Paul Brown, and played linebacker on their undefeated freshman team. But with World War II going on, he served in the Army Air Corps, seeing action in the Mediterranean and Middle East, and didn’t return to Ohio State until 1946.
“I only spent about two months at Ohio State. I played on the freshman team, then I went into the service. I enlisted in the Air Corps because all my buddies were gone and everybody from the fraternity was gone. This was in fall. Football season was over. The war was going on. Buddies of yours were getting killed, so we all went. I had just turned 18. ‘The hell with it,’ I said. The service really changed me around. I probably would've been in jail, otherwise. I was a heck of a thief. I could steal anything. I did everything you're not supposed to do. Three years in the service really woke me up.”
In 1946 he played his only year of college varsity football.
“I originally went to Ohio State to play for Paul Brown, but he left before I came back from the service. I had three years of eligibility left, but I was really unhappy at Ohio State. We lost a lot of games, and I was sitting on the bench. We got beat by Michigan something like 50 to 6. Dante Lavelli was my roommate and I said ‘Dante, I'm not going through this crap again.’”
A new rule permitted servicemen to sign pro contracts before graduating. So, after being drafted by the Chicago Bears of the NFL, our guy chose instead to sign with the Cleveland Browns in the year-old All-American Football Conference (AAFC). The Browns, who had just won the AAFC championship in their first season, were coached by none other than Paul Brown, who had already signed a number of former Buckeyes, including Lou Groza, Dante Lavelli, Bill Willis, and Gene Fekete.
Interestingly, before reporting to the Browns’ training camp, our guy first played in that summer’s College All-Star Game against the NFL’s defending champions - the Chicago Bears. “We beat the hell out of the Bears,” he recalled, “in front of the biggest crowd in history, 103,000 people."
He wound up playing six seasons with the Browns. Very few players in the history of pro football can touch his record of playing on five championship teams (AAFC/NFL) in six professional football seasons.
At a solid 6 foot, 215, he originally came to the Browns as a fullback, but with an already established future Hall-of-Famer at that position in Marion Motley, he wound up spending the better part of his career on defense, as a linebacker.
He was good. He played in the first two Pro-Bowl games and was named an All-Pro linebacker in 1951.
In the three seasons he played on offense, the Browns ranked either first, second, or third in points scored and yards passing and yards rushing.
In the six seasons that he played on defense, the Browns ranked either first, second, or third each year in fewest points allowed and fewest yards allowed passing and rushing.
Although no official all-time all-AAFC team has ever been named, it's generally conceded that he would've been no worse than second team as a linebacker.
He was admired by his teammates as a leader, many of them recalling that he did not hesitate to stand up to the autocratic Brown. Brown actually came to respect his candor, and named him team captain after Lou Saban retired.
He was admired for his intelligence. Tony Adamle, said Paul Brown, was “perhaps as intelligent a player as I ever had.”
He was admired for his toughness. Recalled former Browns’ teammate Ara Parseghian years later, "He dressed once with an ankle as big as a balloon. I thought there was no way he'd play, but he did. There's nobody in the game today who is tougher than Tony Adamle.” Added Paul Brown, “He gives this team its attitude. He’s a fighter all the way.”
He was the Browns’ captain in 1950, the year they entered the NFL and shocked the football world by winning the championship of the long-established league.
“Paul Brown made me his captain in Cleveland, and I don't know why he ever did that. The team didn't choose captains. He made guys captains. That was probably the greatest day of my life, when he did that. I guess part of the reason he did it is because I always told him the damn truth. I didn't feel like I had any kind of special relationship with him. He didn't want that. If he wanted to get some points across, he’d just throw them at me. I didn't pull any punches. No matter what I thought. I talked back to him, and I could get along with the guys. That was the big thing.
“I'd get guys raises, because the guy would listen to me. When he used to come down to the final cut, he always brought somebody in from the team to see what we thought about who should be playing. One year, it came down between Don Shula and another guy. The other guy was a real flashy guy who could run like hell, and Shula was a guy who just trudged along. He wasn't a real special athlete or anything but he always got the job done. I said, ‘I think when going’s tough, we should have Shula. Shula puts out to the end.’
“He traded the other guy. We kept Shula. If he had been put on waivers, he’d be teaching down at Mentor High School now. Life is funny, the little tiny breaks that make things happen.”
He eventually earned a bachelor’s degree from Kent State University in 1950.
Here’s how he explained that: “I had always had it in the back of my mind that I was going to go to medical school, but I never thought it could happen. It was one of my fantasies, you might say, because I looked up to the doctors.
“Brown encouraged me, so the winter quarter and the spring quarter and half the summer I went back to school, to Kent State, because it was closer than Ohio State. On the side, I was taking all these anatomy courses, and I was doing good in them. I got my degree in phys ed, then I got my masters degree in phys ed and then I looked at the degree and I said, “What the hell do I know?” I didn't know anything. It was just a piece of paper. It was just a bunch of BS and I can BS with anybody. I had a minor in physiology and physics, so I had all of my pre-med work done. I said, ‘I got two kids. The hell with it. I'm gonna shoot the works.’ So I went to med school when I was 27 years old.”
He retired from football after the 1951 season, but in 1954, after three years of retirement (and medical school studies), he was enticed to return - but only under the condition that he would have to practice just one day a week. In his absence, the Browns had lost three straight NFL championship games, but with him back in the lineup, they beat Detroit, 56-10, to win their first NFL title since the year they’d entered the league.
With his winner’s share of $2,478, he could afford to retire from football for good.
Two years later, he was a full-fledged doctor, receiving his MD degree from Western Reserve University.
He practiced medicine in Kent, Ohio for the next 38 years.
He became an early specialist in the field of sports medicine and, serving as team doctor for the local high school and for Kent State University, he became known as “the football doctor.”
After retiring at 70, he learned to play the accordion, and played in a polka band.
He and his wife had six children. One son, Mike, was an outstanding running back at Northwestern, then played six years in the NFL, for the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Jets, and the Chicago Bears. Later, Mike Adamle worked as a television commentator.
Tony Adamle served as proof that Paul Brown “always wanted his players to better themselves, and he wanted us known for being more than just football players.”
But, he added, “I came up from the mud. I owe everything I’ve got to football."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TONY ADAMLE
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: At Woodbury, New Jersey High (suburban Philadelphia) he was an all-state quarterback.
Although he was also a very good catcher who drew interest from major league baseball teams, he chose to go to Penn State and play football.
Playing quarterback in Rip Engle’s run-heavy Wing-T offense, he seldom threw. But in those days of two-way football, he also played defense. And in addition, he punted and kicked extra points.
In his senior year, Penn State tied Pitt and lost narrowly to Army and Syracuse (and legendary running back Jim Brown), while upsetting Ohio State, 7-6.
After the season, knowing that Cleveland’s Paul Brown was desperately in search of a successor to the great Otto Graham, Engle recommended our guy, telling Brown, “He’s always the first one on the field. He studies game films zealously and he never gets upset under fire.”
Brown must have listened, because in the NFL draft they took our guy with their second pick. (They’d taken Jim Brown in the first round.)
He spent five years with the Browns, and was twice named All-Pro. During that time, the Browns were very good - just not quite good enough. Twice, the Giants beat them to the NFL championship game, and once the Eagles did.
In 1960, he completed a league-high 60.4 per cent of his passes, throwing for 21 touchdowns while throwing only five interceptions. The Browns finished 8-3-1, good enough for second in the East behind the Eagles, who finished 10-2. The Eagles would go on to defeat the Green Bay Packers to win the NFL title.
For two seasons, his understudy at Cleveland was Len Dawson, who would go on to sign with the AFL and play his way to pro football immortality.
After an article was published claiming that he had called the Browns’ offense “stereotyped,” and had criticized Brown’s rigid system of calling plays for his quarterbacks, that was enough for Paul Brown. Despite his insistence that he had said no such things. he was traded to Detroit in a six-player deal that also included Lions’ quarterback Jim Ninowski.
In his first year at Detroit, the Lions finished 11-3, just behind the Packers in the NFL West, but for the rest of his six years there, they went into decline, and he was off-and-on as the starting QB.
“Detroit was notorious for changing quarterbacks,” he remembered. “Whenever something went wrong, they yanked the quarterback. It was between Bobby Layne and Tobin Rote, Rote and Earl Morrall, Earl and I, Karl Sweetan and I.”
He wound up his career with the Rams, where he backed up Roman Gabriel, and then with the Giants, where he backed up Fran Tarkenton and Gary Wood before retiring after the 1969 season.
In his career, he completed 1,306 passes (2,419 attempts) for 17,536 yards and 122 TDs. He also rushed for 531 yards.
Asked years later about career highlights, he said, “One of them is that I played professional football for 13 seasons.
“This may surprise you, but my ambition was to play baseball. I almost didn’t go to college. All my life was baseball, baseball, baseball. It came down to, ‘In football, you either make the NFL or you don’t.’
“When I got out of college in June 1957, it was too late to try minor league baseball. At that time pro football started in July. I got drafted number two, so I tried out with the Browns. I made it, and I hung around football for 13 years.”
TUESDAY,
OCTOBER 22, 2024
“If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on
anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” Margaret
Thatcher*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Having played football in high school and college, I was hardly a stranger to getting chewed out in words that covered a broad range in the vernacular of profanity. I thought I had heard it all.
”That was before I was confronted by Lieutenant Colonel A. T. Hunt, commanding officer of the US Marine amphibious tractor group, the military unit with which I was training prior to being sent into battle in the Pacific theater during World War II.
“The setting was Camp Pendleton, on the coast of Southern California. The mood was edgy because we knew the job ahead would be extremely dangerous. We were going island-hopping through the South Pacific against well-entrenched Japanese defenders. The names of these remote locations were to become too familiar to most Americans and military historians because of the heavy casualties incurred by allied forces.
“My amphibious landing unit was scheduled to move out in late January 1945, but I still had not received the appropriate orders. As the date neared, I was called into the office of Colonel Hunt, a place I rarely visited. He proceeded to give me the chewing out of a lifetime, shouting and screaming obscenities, a performance that confused me as much as it intimidated me.
“The gist of the blowout was that somehow, someone in high places – like Washington, DC – had used influence to prevent me from being sent into battle. Eyes blazing in contempt, Colonel Hunt said bluntly: “Obviously, your father is a politician or he has connections in Washington.” He uttered a string of bleep words, describing me, my ancestors, and the bleeping shame of what has been done on my behalf.”
“When he caught his breath I tried to plead my innocence, explaining that my dad was a sharecropper on a farm in rural Michigan who didn't have a high school education and didn't even know the township commissioner in Kalamazoo County.
Waving a finger in my face and pressing close, the Marine officer said: “Well, you can’t fool me, you bleep, bleep, bleep.”
*********** Friday night, we took an expected ass-kicking, losing to Tumwater High, 55-0. They really do a masterful job of running that Wing-T. What else can I say without making it sound like I enjoyed watching theM run through us?
This week, we play the OTHER Tumwater school - Black Hills High.
There are two high schools in the Tumwater School District, Tumwater High and Black Hills High.
Tumwater is a city of about 25,000 that adjoins the state capital, Olympia, and it is definitely upper-middle class.
Unlike most cities of similar size that have two high schools, there is almost no rivalry whatsoever between the two schools, a condition that I call almost criminal.
Consider: this year, Tumwater High is 6-0; Black Hills is 3-4.
Over the last ten years, Black Hills’ record is 48-50; Tumwater’s is 108-15.
In that time, Black Hills has had five winning seasons; Tumwater has had seven seasons with 10 or more wins.
In the last five seasons, Black Hills has had one winning season (6-4 in 2022); in that same time, Tumwater has had two 14-win seasons and a total of 53 wins.
I could go on and on. I don’t know the last time Black Hills has beaten Tumwater.
Now - not to demean Black Hills in any way - they’re our opponents Friday. They need a win as badly as we do, and they’re quite capable of beating us.
But isn’t there someone in that town willing to stand up and ask why this disparity has existed for years, and why the district isn’t making an effort to see to it that BOTH schools in the district excel?
*********** GAMES I RECORDED THIS WEEKEND…
FRIDAY NIGHT
DUKE 23, FLORIDA STATE 16 - From the Raleigh News-Observer: “The school that sued the ACC to get out because it's allegedly too good for the league is now 1 and 6 after losing to Duke for the first time in recorded human history.” I love it.
OREGON 35, PURDUE 0 - Less than seven days after a massive effort against Ohio State, the Ducks played a game three time zones away and took care of business.
BYU 38, OKLAHOMA STATE 35 - Cowboys scored to go ahead 35-31, but they left 1:13 on the clock. All the Cougars needed was 1:03 of that, scoring on a 35 yard pass with :10 remaining to stay undefeated.
FRESNO STATE 24, NEVADA 21 - Bulldogs were down, 21-17 at the half.
SATURDAY
MIAMI 52, LOUISVILLE 45 - Louisville’s Jeff Brohm was a bit upset over an apparent Louisville scoop and score that was ruled an incomplete pass, adding fuel to the accusations around the ACC that Miami is getting favored treatment by officials.
CLEMSON 48, VIRGINIA 31 - The Tigers are now 6-1, and that opening game loss to Georgia doesn’t look all that bad now, does it?
INDIANA 56, NEBRASKA 7 - Wow. And Nebraska, everyone agreed, had a good defense. Ralph Russo in The Athletic asks: “Who is going to beat these guys?” And then he answers: “Maybe bad luck?” (QB Kurtis Rourke had to leave Saturday’s game with an injury to this throwing-hand thumb.
MISSOURI 21, AUBURN 17 - The Tigers (Missouri) had to score twice in the fourth quarter to come from behind and pick up win number 6.
ARMY 45, EAST CAROLINA 28 - It started out as a yawner, and then Army chose not to pile on. Instead of being beaten into submission, ECU actually looked stronger at the end. Part of the reason, in my opinion: those of us who follow Army closely recognized quickly that there was more - much more - than the usual amount of shotgun offense, and a lot less of the under-center triple option. Look, Army QB Bryson Daily is a heck of a player, and if it were up to me I’d consider him a Heisman favorite. But Army has a lot of talented players, and it makes no sense to me for Daily to be the runner on close to 60 per cent of their running plays (31 of 54). Couple of questions come to mind: (1) is Army showcasing Daily? That’s semi-understandable, but it’s also exposing him to injury in a game that’s already won; and (2) THIS is the one that bothers me, and it irks me to have to ask it again - is Army coach Jeff Monken showcasing Jeff Monken’s shotgun offense?
WISCONSIN 23, NORTHWESTERN 3 - Sheesh. Imagine sitting through a game like this. Northwestern passed for 82 yards and rushed for 127. They had nine first downs.
UCLA 35, RUTGERS 32 - Rutgers scored late and tried an onside kick. A Bruin fielded the kick and returned it for a score. BUT - another Bruin had signaled for a fair catch. No harm. Bruins took three knees and got out of Jersey with their first-ever league win as a Big Ten member.
WAKE FOREST 23, UCONN 20 - Wake’s running game was so ineffective that when it needed to hang into the ball at the end, it couldn’t get a first down.
CINCINNATI 24, ARIZONA STATE 14 - Both teams are now 5-2. Sun Devils missed QB Sam Leavitt. Their kicker was 0-for-2 on field goal attempts, and afterward, said Boy Coach Kenny Dillingham, "Our kicking game’s atrocious, so if you can kick and you’re at Arizona State, email me. We're going to have kicking tryouts on Monday, so bring it on. Kicking tryouts Monday and let's go. “ What a child.
SOUTH CAROLINA 35, OKLAHOMA 9 - OU turned the ball over on their first three possessions. They’d run nine offensive plays and South Carolina led, 21-0.
John Hoover, si.com writes -
NORMAN — Saturday revealed the painful truth: Oklahoma is out of its league.
Literally, the Sooners do not belong in the Southeastern Conference.
Not yet, at least.
South Carolina, a traditional SEC doormat and a team that nearly upset both LSU and Alabama this year but came to town for the first time ever with a 1-3 conference record, shocked the Sooners and a whited-out crowd of 83,331 on an otherwise picturesque Saturday afternoon at Owen Field. The final score was 35-9, and USC led 32-3 at halftime — OU’s biggest halftime deficit at home since 1998.
This was supposed to be the easiest SEC game on a demanding OU schedule. Instead, it was a blaring alarm for the Sooners’ proud football program: Welcome to the SEC.
Still to come: Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama, LSU
TENNESSEE 24, ALABAMA 17 - Exciting game. Somebody had to win. Jalen Milroe was 24 of 45 for 239 yards and a TD. BUT he did throw two interceptions and - even more concerning, considering that he’s one of the best running quarterbacks in the country, he carried 14 times for just 11 yards. A trademark of a DeBoer team: Tennessee outrushed Bama, 214-75.
NOTRE DAME 31, GEORGIA TECH 13 - Is Georgia Tech without Haynes King a good team? No? Then we still don’t know how good Notre Dame is, do we?
ILLINOIS 12, MICHIGAN 7 - This one exposed Michigan, but it also exposed Texas, because before Saturday, the win over Michigan was Texas’ best by far. Texas’ best win now: 51-3 over Louisiana-Monroe (5-1)
NAVY 51, CHARLOTTE 17 - I wrote, “This could get bad.” It did, and in a hurry. It was 38-0 with 10:00 left in the second quarter.
NC STATE 24, CAL 23 - Ho-hum. Cal lost another close one, once again because of a missed field goal at the end. Cal (3-4) has lost four games by a total of nine points.
KANSAS 42, HOUSTON 14 - Jayhawks ended a five-game losing streak in a game played at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium while their own stadium undergoes renovation. Considering the team’s dismal record and the fact that Arrowhead is some 50 miles from campus, I don’t consider the announced attendance of 38,000 (which only half-filled the stadium) to be all that bad.
WASHINGTON STATE 42, HAWAII 10 - If the Pac-12 were still intact, the Cougars would be in second place, right behind Oregon, the nation’s number one team.
MARYLAND 29, USC 28 - The beautiful thing about a name school like USC is that even when they’re having an off-year, a win over them calls for storming the field. A fan asked John Canzano: was it worth it to USC to blow up the Pac-12 so they could go to Minnesota and Maryland and lose?
COLORADO 34, ARIZONA 7 - And the Wildcats were three-point favorites? Don’t look now, but the Buffs are 5-2 - one win away from bowl-eligibility.
NEW MEXICO 50, UTAH STATE 45 - Lobos have now won three in a row.
LSU 34, ARKANSAS 10 - That’ll teach me to pick the Hogs.
VANDERBILT 24, BALL STATE 14 - Bring on the Longhorns!
GEORGIA 30, TEXAS 15 - (Ahem) I’m going with UGA. Hey, Texas - I know Georgia’s defense is really good, but 29 yards rushing? Even if you don’t take away 34 yards lost attempting to pass, that’s still just 63 yards rushing? And you were the Number One team in the country?
IOWA STATE 38, UCF 35 - The Cyclones trailed much of the way until, down 35-30, they scored with :30 left and made the 2-point conversion to become 7-0.
KANSAS STATE 45, WEST VIRGINIA 18 - I could have made us all rich: “The Wildcats are only three-point favorites? I would take all of that that I could.” Mountaineers’ coach Neal Brown: KSU is the best team in the Big 12.
MEMPHIS 52, NORTH TEXAS 44 - Memphis is now 6-1, with their only loss coming to Navy. I’d say they’re in contention for the Group of 5 spot in The Playoff.
FLORIDA 48, KENTUCKY 20 - Has any team with a zombie coach played any better than these Gators are playing? They’ve won three of their last four and the loss was by six points at Tennessee.
SMU 40, STANFORD 10 - The Mustangs had 501 yards of offense. Stanford had 33 yards rushing (-10 in sacks). The Cardinal’s passing: 173 yards in 37 attempts, or 4.7 yards per attempt.
COLORADO STATE 21, AIR FORCE 13 - The Rams outrushed the Zoomies and outpassed them, and picked up their first win at Air Force in 22 years. All 13 of the Air Force points came in the fourth quarter.
UNLV 33, OREGON STATE 25 - Beavers were stopped at the end, and they now have the distinction of losing to Nevada schools two weeks in a row.
TCU 13, UTAH 7 - Utes’ OC Andy Ludwig “resigned” after the game
*********** Ralph Russo on Notre Dame’s chances:
Army and Navy are now a combined 13-0 overall and 10-0 in the American Athletic Conference, stacking up blowout victories. Army has yet to trail this season.
At this point, the possibility of Army and Navy playing in the AAC title game is looking fairly likely.
Remember, the academies don’t play a conference regular-season game. Their annual rivalry game is still scheduled for the week after championship games are played and the CFP field is set.
Tulane plays Navy and will still have something to say about who wins the AAC, but the biggest beneficiary of the success of Army and Navy could be Notre Dame.
The Fighting Irish have been methodically recovering from being upset by Northern Illinois and have ripped off five straight victories, smothering Georgia Tech on Saturday facing the Yellow Jackets’ backup quarterback.
Notre Dame hoped to get a strength-of-schedule boost from games against Florida State (1-6) and USC (3-4) in November. Not happening.
The Irish play Navy next week at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, home of the Giants and Jets, then return to the New York area the weekend before Thanksgiving to play Army at Yankee Stadium in what Notre Dame calls its Shamrock Series — basically home games away from home.
Army and Navy have been great stories, but the fact is their unbeaten records don’t have much meat on them. Especially Army’s.
So while beating the service academies should give the Irish a lift, they’re not the type of opponents that Notre Dame would likely be able to use as a high-quality loss.
*********** Already fired…
East Carolina - Head Coach
Southern Miss - Head Coach
Oklahoma - Offensive Coordinator
Oh - and after 10 years, off and on, as Utah’s offensive coordinator, Andy Ludwig “resigned.”
*********** Sam Acho is a bright guy and he’s well-spoken and has a lot to say. The problem is, he insists on saying it all every chance he gets.
And it annoys the sh— out of me to hear his broadcast partner continually call him “Acho.”
*********** The Georgia-Texas officials’ decision, well after the fact, to change a call that everyone knew was non-reviewable, could only have been reached because spectator misconduct in the act of protesting the original decision gave them the time (as well as several views of the stadium Jumbotron) to do so.
In addition, it’s possible that fear of further mob action intimidated them
Fortunately, the ruling, coming as it did as Texas seemed in the process of making a comeback, did not influence the outcome of the game.
Said Kirby Smart after the game, referring to official Matt Loeffler,
“Yeah, [Loeffler], uh, he just said the guy got it wrong. The guy called it on the wrong guy, which, it took him a long time to realize that, you know. So it’s one of those things that I don’t know what I’m allowed to say and not say, so I won’t comment because I want to respect the wishes of the SEC office. But I will say that now we’ve set a precedent that if you throw a bunch of stuff on the field and endanger athletes, that you’ve got a chance to get your call reversed. And that’s unfortunate, because to me that’s dangerous. That’s not what we want. And that’s not criticizing the officials. That’s what happened.”
Said the SEC in its statement:
“The game officials gathered to discuss the play, which is permitted to ensure the proper penalty is enforced, at which time the calling official reported that he erred, and a foul should not have been called for defensive pass interference. Consequently, Texas was awarded the ball at the [Georgia] 9-yard line.”
Uh, SEC fellas: they only “gathered to discuss the play” because play was halted when Texas fans began throwing sh— onto the field.
*********** To create the illusion of leather helmets for Illinois’ special commemoration of Red Grange’s great day 100 years ago, it was estimated that an artist spent two hours doing so. Per helmet. I’d bet the artist charged $100 an hour, and I’m guessing that he/she did 100 helmets.
Now, it’s their money, and they got it fair and square - by holding up gullible TV networks - and they can do with it as they please, but while they’re spending upwards of $20,000 on artwork on helmets, I’ll bet that there’s a high school somewhere in America that can’t afford to equip its football team.
They did a decent job of replicating the Illini jerseys of 1924, but they didn’t go so far as to make the players wear black hightop shoes, and they probably fended off a mutiny when they told the players that they wouldn’t have to cover their knees.
*********** I heard Nick Saban on College Game Day say that to his players, for whatever reason, Tennessee was THE big game - that there might have been times when he had to get them up even for Auburn, but NEVER for Tennessee.
*********** The things you learn: 14 of the 18 Big Ten quarterbacks who started their teams’ first games were transfers.
*********** Saw lots of Kamala ads on Saturday’s games.
She’ll end price gouging! Trump wants to cut your social security! He’ll ask if you want fries!
*********** John Canzano asks… UNLV? Did it look worthy of being a Pac-12 member? I thought so. NFL stadium, emerging TV market, growing city, and a football program that is 6-1. I know the Rebels committed to the Mountain West and signed a memo of understanding, but when it comes to conference realignment, is anything over until it’s over?
*********** After watching Alabama try to field an onside kick against South Carolina last week and East Carolina doing the same against Army this past week…
Doesn’t anybody practice the act of recovering loose balls?
*********** Interesting how the Georgia-Texas game illustrated a theory that I’ve been tossing back and forth since the start of this season, and our team’s encounters with running quarterbacks…
If you’re running the officially certified offense (shotgun, one running back) you’d better have a QB who can run.
Without one, defenses are able to employ simple logic: uh, they’ve got only one guy in their backfield who can run. Gee - who do you suppose is going to be running the ball?
*********** Okay, time to play their silly game…
Potential playoff teams:
Big Ten: Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, Indiana
Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas State, BYU
ACC: Miami, Clemson, SMU
Notre Dame
SEC: Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, A&M, LSU
G5: Boise, Army, Navy, UNLV, Memphis
*********** Before Saturday’s Georgia-Texas game, I saw something crawl across the screen. It said that Georgia was 2-6 all-time against teams ranked Number One.
I’m not sure what that was supposed to mean, because if was to suggest that the Bulldogs hadn’t done well - is there anybody with a WINNING record against number ones?
*********** “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Robert Heinlein
Evidently, I need to brush up on my invasion planning.
*********** WTF kind of people are we becoming?
When Oregon receiver Traeshon Holden was thrown out of the Ducks’ game Ohio State for spitting on a Buckeyes player, he became the third player ejected this season for the same disgusting act.
Earlier that same day, Memphis running back Mario Anderson, Jr. was tossed out of the Tigers’ game against South Florida for the same offense, and back in late August, SMU DB Brandon Crossley became the first known offender, in the Mustangs’ game at Nevada.
After guys do something so revolting, I wonder if their teammates and coaches stand around them and console them the way they do after an ejection for targeting, going, “There, there…that’s okay. We got your back.”
*********** With just days left before the start of basketball season, Virginia’s Tony Bennett announced he was retiring.
By Mike Barber, AP News
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Describing himself as “a square peg in a round hole,” a tearful Tony Bennett said Friday he suddenly retired from coaching at Virginia because he wasn’t suited to navigate the current landscape of college basketball.
Bennett — dressed in his signature suit-minus-tie look — told those gathered at his exit news conference that name, image and likeness money and the transfer portal have brought elements to the job that he’s “not great at.”
“I looked at myself and I realized, I’m no longer the best coach to lead this program,” Bennett said with athletic director Carla Williams seated next to him. “If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be all in. You’ve got to have everything. And if you do it half-hearted, it’s not fair to the university and those young men. That’s what made me step down.”
The guy’s 55 years old, and certainly seems to have plenty left in the tank.
Why aren’t football coaches doing this?
1. Not everyone is a Tony Bennett, who knows when it’s time
2. They may hate their jobs and the climate of today’s college football, but they’re making so much f—king money that they’d consider giving their souls to the devil before they’d let those $500,000 a month electronic deposits stop.
3. They have many, many people dependent on them, and once they get out of the game, all those assistants and analysts and whatnots will have to go looking for other work.
4. They feed the ultimate in bloodsuckers - agents, who stop making money the instant their clients stop making money.
*********** Once, when asked if he was working on a book, historian David McCullough replied, “I feel like I work IN a book. It’s like putting myself under a spell. It’s almost like hypnosis.”
He said he saw himself as “a foreign correspondent whose task was to report not from another country but from the past”.
*********** Coach
We played the first double-wing team we've seen in quite some time on Friday. (BTW just from your explanations in News I think the coach got his offense from a different source). The team has a new head coach and has traditionally struggled (1-7 this year), but they have a ton of freshmen and sophomores,and a new administration who actually cares so there may be some long term hope.
One thing I noticed is that their offense did have a 7 and one 8 minute drive in a 40-0 game, which helped keep it respectable. They for whatever reason went spread on two drives which resulted in 6 plays and 30 seconds off the clock. Seems to me getting some first downs and having some successes is way better than a 30 second possession. Plus, we weren't trying to embarrass them, but having less chances to score helped.
My personal belief having coached or had close observation of several offenses is that no offense has a ceiling - talent makes everything better - but some offenses have a distinct talent floor.
Army and Navy still look good!
My random .02,
Thanks,
Michael Anthony Burchett, Jr., Ed.D.
Principal, Woodlake High School
Woodlake, California
*********** Myron Rolle. I watched him accept his degree in FSU's basketball arena, but don't recall if it was a Bachelor's or Master’s.
Eleven unbeatens remain in FBS. That number will be eight on Monday.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
It’s Monday night, and with Texas gone, I count 10-
Army, BYU, Indiana, Iowa State, Liberty, Miami, Navy, Oregon, Penn State, Pitt
*********** Hugh,
40-0? Me thinks the Bobcats have finally figured out what it means to play a perfect game! Congrats! Keep it going tonight!
Notre Dame's game at Georgia Tech on Saturday will be a major test, but frankly, the remainder of the Irish schedule no longer looks like a cakewalk. Army and Navy loom as upset alerts, and USC has always found a way to crash an Irish winning season. Army and Navy are LEGIT, and USC has the athletes to match ND's best. It's going to be season ending schedule nail biters for Irish fans.
Illinois has another good RB in its latest showdown with Michigan. BUT...he's NOT Red Grange! Yet this Illini team and its throw-back uniforms is better than this edition of the Wolverines.
Gotta go with Texas over Georgia at DKR stadium. DKR holds just over 100,000. Georgia fans might fill 5,000 of those seats. But 95,000 screaming Longhorn fans will make the difference.
Another college in Texas will resume playing football. Schreiner University in Kerrville (west of San Antonio) will start play in 2026 at the Division III level. The Mountaineers last played the game between the early 1920's and the late 1950's. They will play in the SCAC (Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference) against McMurry (TX), Austin College (TX), Texas Lutheran, Centenary (LA), Lyon (AR), and Hendrix (AR). There are currently 47 colleges (four year and two year) playing football in Texas.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Myron Rolle could have been a pro football player. Instead, he chose to become a neurosurgeon. Nothing against pro football players, you understand, but last I heard, when your child needs brain surgery, you don’t go looking for a quarterback.
He was born in Houston to Bahamian parents, who shortly after his birth returned briefly to The Bahamas before returning to the US and settling in South Jersey, in a place just west of Atlantic City called Galloway Township.
He obviously was identified as an academically gifted youngster, because he attended two different highly-regarded New Jersey prep schools. First was the Peddie School, where he played football, basketball and track, while also playing saxophone in the school band, singing in a school play and editing the school yearbook.
After transferring to the Hun School, about 30 minutes away, he maintained a 4.0 GPA while as a linebacker earning recognition by ESPN’s rating service as the top college prospect in the country.
He chose to play college football at Florida State, where was moved to safety.
While earning All-ACC honors as well as being named to the AP All-American third team, he was also able to earn his bachelor’s degree in less than three years, with a 3.75 GPA at that.
He was named a finalist for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, but the Rhodes committee doesn’t pay a lot of attention to football, and it scheduled his final interview for the same day, in Birmingham, that the Seminoles were to play Maryland in College Park. Fortunately for him, the NCAA made a special allowance for him to fly by chartered plane from the interview site to the game, and he wound up winning twice that day - on the field, where the Seminoles won, and off the field, when it was announced, just before the game, that he had won the Rhodes Scholarship.
He became only the fourth FSU student ever to win the award.
Graduating a year early, he announced that he would postpone any NFL career in order to study at Oxford University under terms of the Rhodes Scholarship.
After earning a masters degree at Oxford in medical anthropology, he returned to the states and signed to play with the Tennessee Titans.
He spent two years with the Titans without ever getting into an NFL game, and spent a third season on the Steelers’ practice squad before announcing his intention to attend medical school full-time.
In a process that takes several years, he earned his MD at Florida State College of Medicine, and then spent his residency in neurosurgery at Harvard and at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Part of his motivation to become a neurosurgeon was the death of an aunt in the Bahamas, who died from a brain injury after being hit by a car.
“It was a preventable death,” he said, noting the deplorable lack of medical services where she lived. “If this injury happened in Boston with us right now, she would be alive, eating peas and rice, going to church and singing like she always used to do.”
Myron Role is a Christian. He and his wife, a pediatric dentist, have four children - two sets of twins - and now live in the Orlando area.
His 2022 book, “The 2% Way: How a Philosophy of Small Improvements Took Me to Oxford, the NFL, and Neurosurgery," is part biographical and part motivational, and tells of many of the lessons he learned from his coaches.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MYRON ROLLE
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOW GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE BURCHETT - WOODLAKE, CALIFORNIA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
JASON MENSING - ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Fairmont, West Virginia to parents who were immigrants from Slovenia.
When he was a child, his family moved to Cleveland, and he attended Collinwood High School, where the sports editor of the Cleveland Press called him “without question the best high school player I have ever seen in action.”
In his words, (years later) “I went to Collinwood High School and majored in machine shop. I was voted ‘Least Likely to Succeed.’ The only thing I did was play football. The thing that changed me was, my last year in high school, I made All-Ohio. All of a sudden I'm somebody. When I got to be a senior, people are coming to look me up to go to school here and there. People I've never heard of were coming to my house. That's when I started waking up a little bit.”
As a senior, named All-Ohio by both the Associated Press and United Press International, he was selected by the Cleveland Press to an All-Star team that played a postseason game in Florida.
After graduation, he was recruited to Ohio State by new head coach Paul Brown, and played linebacker on their undefeated freshman team. But with World War II going on, he served in the Army Air Corps, seeing action in the Mediterranean and Middle East, and didn’t return to Ohio State until 1946.
“I only spent about two months at Ohio State. I played on the freshman team, then I went into the service. I enlisted in the Air Corps because all my buddies were gone and everybody from the fraternity was gone. This was in fall. Football season was over. The war was going on. Buddies of yours were getting killed, so we all went. I had just turned 18. ‘The hell with it,’ I said. The service really changed me around. I probably would've been in jail, otherwise. I was a heck of a thief. I could steal anything. I did everything you're not supposed to do. Three years in the service really woke me up.”
In 1946 he played his only year of college varsity football.
“I originally went to Ohio State to play for Paul Brown, but he left before I came back from the service. I had three years of eligibility left, but I was really unhappy at Ohio State. We lost a lot of games, and I was sitting on the bench. We got beat by Michigan something like 50 to 6. Dante Lavelli was my roommate and I said ‘Dante, I'm not going through this crap again.’”
A new rule permitted servicemen to sign pro contracts before graduating. So, after being drafted by the Chicago Bears of the NFL, our guy chose instead to sign with the Cleveland Browns in the year-old All-American Football Conference (AAFC). The Browns, who had just won the AAFC championship in their first season, were coached by none other than Paul Brown, who had already signed a number of former Buckeyes, including Lou Groza, Dante Lavelli, Bill Willis, and Gene Fekete.
Interestingly, before reporting to the Browns’ training camp, our guy first played in that summer’s College All-Star Game against the NFL’s defending champions - the Chicago Bears. “We beat the hell out of the Bears,” he recalled, “in front of the biggest crowd in history, 103,000 people."
He wound up playing six seasons with the Browns. Very few players in the history of pro football can touch his record of playing on five championship teams (AAFC/NFL) in six professional football seasons.
At a solid 6 foot, 215, he originally came to the Browns as a fullback, but with an already established future Hall-of-Famer at that position in Marion Motley, he wound up spending the better part of his career on defense, as a linebacker.
He was good. He played in the first two Pro-Bowl games and was named an All-Pro linebacker in 1951.
In the three seasons he played on offense, the Browns ranked either first, second, or third in points scored and yards passing and yards rushing.
In the six seasons that he played on defense, the Browns ranked either first, second, or third each year in fewest points allowed and fewest yards allowed passing and rushing.
Although no official all-time all-AAFC team has ever been named, it's generally conceded that he would've been no worse than second team as a linebacker.
He was admired by his teammates as a leader, many of them recalling that he did not hesitate to stand up to the autocratic Brown. Brown actually came to respect his candor, and named him team captain after Lou Saban retired.
He was admired for his intelligence. Said Paul Brown, he was “perhaps as intelligent a player as I ever had.”
He was admired for his toughness. Recalled former Browns’ teammate Ara Parseghian years later, "He dressed once with an ankle as big as a balloon. I thought there was no way he'd play, but he did. There's nobody in the game today who is tougher than (him).” Added Paul Brown, “He gives this team its attitude. He’s a fighter all the way.”
He was the Browns’ captain in 1950, the year they entered the NFL and shocked the football world by winning the championship of the long-established league.
“Paul Brown made me his captain in Cleveland, and I don't know why he ever did that. The team didn't choose captains. He made guys captains. That was probably the greatest day of my life, when he did that. I guess part of the reason he did it is because I always told him the damn truth. I didn't feel like I had any kind of special relationship with him. He didn't want that. If he wanted to get some points across, he’d just throw them at me. I didn't pull any punches. No matter what I thought. I talked back to him, and I could get along with the guys. That was the big thing.
“I'd get guys raises, because the guy would listen to me. When he used to come down to the final cut, he always brought somebody in from the team to see what we thought about who should be playing. One year, it came down between Don Shula and another guy. The other guy was a real flashy guy who could run like hell, and Shula was a guy who just trudged along. He wasn't a real special athlete or anything but he always got the job done. I said, ‘I think when going’s tough, we should have Shula. Shula puts out to the end.’
“He traded the other guy. We kept Shula. If he had been put on waivers, he’d be teaching down at Mentor High School now. Life is funny, the little tiny breaks that make things happen.”
He eventually earned a bachelor’s degree from Kent State University in 1950.
Here’s how he explained that: “I had always had it in the back of my mind that I was going to go to medical school, but I never thought it could happen. It was one of my fantasies, you might say, because I looked up to doctors.
“Brown encouraged me, so the winter quarter and the spring quarter and half the summer I went back to school, to Kent State, because it was closer than Ohio State. On the side, I was taking all these anatomy courses, and I was doing good in them. I got my degree in phys ed, then I got my masters degree in phys ed and then I looked at the degree and I said, “What the hell do I know?” I didn't know anything. It was just a piece of paper. It was just a bunch of BS and I can BS with anybody. I had a minor in physiology and physics, so I had all of my pre-med work done. I said, ‘I got two kids. The hell with it. I'm gonna shoot the works.’ So I went to med school when I was 27 years old.”
He retired from football after the 1951 season, but in 1954, after three years of retirement (and medical school studies), he was enticed to return - but only under the condition that he would have to practice just one day a week. In his absence, the Browns had lost three straight NFL championship games, but with him back in the lineup, they beat Detroit, 56-10, to win their first NFL title since the year they’d entered the league.
With his winner’s share of $2,478, he could afford to retire from football for good.
Two years later, he was a full-fledged doctor, receiving his MD degree from Western Reserve University.
He practiced medicine in Kent, Ohio for the next 38 years.
He became an early specialist in the field of sports medicine and, serving as team doctor for the local high school and for Kent State University, he became known as “the football doctor.”
After retiring at 70, he learned to play the accordion, and played in a polka band.
He and his wife had six children. One son, Mike, was an outstanding running back at Northwestern, then played six years in the NFL, for the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Jets, and the Chicago Bears. Later, he worked as a television commentator.
He took pride in being an example for Paul Brown, who “always wanted his players to better themselves, and he wanted us known for being more than just football players.”
But, he added, “I came up from the mud. I owe everything I’ve got to football."
FRIDAY,
OCTOBER 18, 2024 “To read our history is to
say, ‘We got through that.’” Peggy Noonan*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “College was a huge transition for me, getting away from the farm and reaffirming my resolve never to return to that lifestyle. I thought at the time that if I never saw a cow again it would be too soon and the same went for potatoes, no matter how they were prepared. I was finally getting used to indoor plumbing, electric lights, and central heating. I had no problem getting dates with coeds, and as my grades started to improve I became more and more confident. I had a lot of friends, and I was involved in campus activities. If you were to ask my colleagues at Hillsdale what I was like in those days I think the response would be something like this: ‘He was a very friendly person, an enthusiastic guy who had a lot of energy, who is a very average student and put a premium on liking people. His athletic career was very important to him.’
“The most imposing obstacle for all of us attending college at that time was the prospect of the United States getting involved in the war that had already thrown Europe into turmoil. We had moved from the shadow of the Great Depression to the menace of a global war. We thought about the impending conflict and the threat it posed to our future.
“During my sophomore year in late 1941 I was attending a pancake supper at the Chi Omega sorority house when one of the women rushed into the room, talking about something horrible that had just happened. She said the Japanese had bombed our naval base at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Everybody was in shock. Later we sat around and listened on the radio to President Franklin D Roosevelt's famous declaration-of-war speech.
“A few days later Coach Harwood called a meeting of the football team. He told us about a Marine Corps platoon leader training program that would keep us from being drafted into the military until we finished college. He said we would be able to stick together as a team and graduate and then become Marine officers.
“The proposal sounded great to me. Where do I sign, Coach? On March 4, 1942, a recruiting officer came to Hillsdale, and I enlisted in the Marines. So much for promises. We were not permitted to finish college. By May 1943, as action in the Pacific intensified, many of the men on campus received notices to report for induction. Soon those of us on the football team who had signed up for the Marines received orders to report for active duty in the V–12 program at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.
“I remember many farewells at the bus station, coeds in tears as boyfriends left to report for active duty. Some never came back.”
*********** A bit of ancient Persian wisdom will get us through Friday night’s game against an overpowering foe: This, too, shall pass.”
And then there’s some wisdom I recently read in an article in the Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan, who once was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan.
The article was about the Johnstown Flood. You may never have heard of it, but it remains one of the worst natural disasters ever to occur in our country’s history. Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a coal and steel town of 15,000 people, was wiped out when a dam in the hills above it burst. 2,000 of its people were killed and hundreds more simply never were found.
Ms. Noonan went on to write about all the sh— we’ve been through as a nation - wars (including a horrible Civil War), floods, hurricanes, fires, epidemics, earthquakes, depressions - and yet somehow we’ve always made it through.
Her key quote: “To read our history is to say, ‘We got through that.’”
It celebrates the toughness and resilience that were once American characteristics.
Not to put a high school football game on a par with natural disasters that cost people their lives, their health, their treasure and their time (we’re not being forced to ride out a hurricane) but regardless of the outcome of our game, we know we’re going to look at each other afterward and say, “We got through that.”
*********** GAMES I’LL AT LEAST RECORD THIS WEEKEND…
FRIDAY NIGHT
FLORIDA STATE AT DUKE - Not many times I can remember when Duke has been a favorite over the Seminoles. Go Devils!
OREGON AT PURDUE -If you’re going to have a let down after a big win over Ohio State, the time to have one is when you're a 28 1/2 point favorite.
OKLAHOMA STATE AT BYU - BYU is unexpectedly very good; Oklahoma State is unexpectedly very bad.
FRESNO STATE AT NEVADA - Fresno is favored but Nevada is coming off a big win over Oregon State.
SATURDAY
MIAMI AT LOUISVILLE - This should be a tough test for Miami.
VIRGINIA AT CLEMSON - Virginia will not beat Clemson.
NEBRASKA AT INDIANA - Is THIS the week the Hoosiers hit the wall? Will they hit the wall?
AUBURN AT MISSOURI - Missouri is not as good as I thought they’d be, but they’re better than Auburn and they’re at home.
EAST CAROLINA AT ARMY - Army is favored by two TDs. Unless ECU can really throw the ball and somehow catch Army’s defense napping, I don’t think they have a chance, because they’re NOT going to stop the Army offense.
WISCONSIN AT NORTHWESTERN - Watch this one just to see the way Northwestern has dealt with their stadium situation.
UCLA AT RUTGERS - This was an unthinkable matchup just a couple of years ago. Now, the Bruins are playing in New Jersey (!) and they’re likely to get their asses kicked. That’ll teach them to listen to those Trojans.
WAKE FOREST AT UCONN - It pains me to see that the Deacs are underdogs. I’m calling for a Wake Forest win.
ARIZONA STATE AT CINCINNATI - Without QB Sam Leavitt, the Sun Devils are in trouble. I take the Bearcats.
SOUTH CAROLINA AT OKLAHOMA - The Sooners are 4-2. If they get by this one, they still have to play Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU. Tell me when it’s over if this is what you expected, Sooner fans.
ALABAMA AT TENNESSEE - It’s the third Saturday in October. How do you know? If you live in the South and like 99 per cent of the people you know you follow college football, you know because that’s ALWAYS the day when Alabama and Tennessee play. Two teams that are borderline disappointing.
NOTRE DAME AT GEORGIA TECH - For me, this is the game that tells us whether Notre Dame has been inflated, or whether the Irish are really good.
MICHIGAN AT ILLINOIS - More about this below. This is a game to watch, for sure
CHARLOTTE AT NAVY - This could get bad. Navy has the weapons and the offensive scheme to take advantage of them. Navy QB Blake Horvath is really good. Receiver Eli Heidenreich is one of the best I’ve seen this year, and running back Alex Tecza is tough and fast. He and Heidenreich were high school teammates in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvaia.
NC STATE AT CAL - In my opinion, Cal is a good football team that’s lost to some very good teams (Pitt, Miami) while State has been having trouble beating anyone. When one of the teams has to travel 3,000 miles, bet on the home team.
HOUSTON AT KANSAS - How many of Kansas’ problems are due to the loss of their OC to Penn State?
HAWAII AT WASHINGTON STATE - Wazzu will win.
USC AT MARYLAND - There will probably be a lot of SC fans in the Baltimore-Washington area at the game. I think they’ll find a Trojans team that’s finally figured out how to finish.
COLORADO AT ARIZONA - Wildcats are three-point favorites. Shedeur Sanders gets all the pub, but Arizona’s Noah Fifita is no slouch.
NEW MEXICO AT UTAH STATE - Lobos under new coach Bronco Mendenhall are now 2-4. They’ve won their last two games, scoring 50 in one and 52 in the other. Lobos QB Devon Dampier is a threat running or passing.
LSU AT ARKANSAS - The Battle for the Boot is a tossup. I’m going out on a limb and taking the Hogs.
BALL STATE AT VANDERBILT - Finally, a game in which Vanderbilt is the favorite!
GEORGIA AT TEXAS - I’m going with UGA.
UCF AT IOWA STATE - UCF has been a big disappointment to me and I’d hate to see them be the one to hand the Cyclones their first loss. I doubt it’ll happen.
KANSAS STATE AT WEST VIRGINIA - The Wildcats are only three-point favorites? I would take all of that that I could.
NORTH TEXAS AT MEMPHIS - Memphis is good. They’re 5-1, with their only loss coming to Navy.
KENTUCKY AT FLORIDA - This one is a pick ‘em. Can Billy Napier save his job?
SMU AT STANFORD - I realize nobody’s been looking, but SMU could wind up being no worse than the ACC’s second-best team.
COLORADO STATE AT AIR FORCE - The Rams are not that good, but they’re favored over a Falcons’ team that’s maybe the worst I’ve ever seen them field.
UNLV AT OREGON STATE - I think the Rebels are going to take it to the Bears.
TCU AT UTAH - Now that Utah has finally decided to stop waiting for Cam Rising, I think they’ll get back to work and play the ball they’re known for.
LATE EDITION (OR, IF YOU WISH, ADDITION)
I don’t usually do this, but long after press time, I received this from my old and good friend, Brad Knight, of Clarinda, Iowa and I felt compelled to print it, not because I felt sorry for him or anything, but because he obviously put in some time and, you must admit, does show occasional flashes of intelligence and wit…DISCLAIMER: These are NOT the carefully-weighed official picks of coachwyatt.com and as the publisher of this site I must take great pains to disavow myself of any connection whatsoever to Coach Knight’s picks.
FLORIDA STATE AT DUKE - I will take Duke. Free Shoes University is a trainwreck
OREGON AT PURDUE -I will take the Ducks even hungover. Closer than it should be.
OKLAHOMA STATE AT BYU - The Mormons win big. I'm a man, I'm 40 has disappointed this year.
FRESNO STATE AT NEVADA - I'll take the blue collar California kids.
SATURDAY
MIAMI AT LOUISVILLE - I really want to take Miami and believe they are back, but give me Louisville in an upset.
VIRGINIA AT CLEMSON - The fighting Dabo's win big.
NEBRASKA AT INDIANA - Why would I ever cheer for the bugeaters of Nebraska. No dribbles make the pass and give me the Hoosiers.
AUBURN AT MISSOURI - The Jayhawk in me says never pick Mizzou. But I'll pick Mizzou.
EAST CAROLINA AT ARMY - Give me the Army with the punishing ground game.
WISCONSIN AT NORTHWESTERN - Detest both schools as a Hawkeye fan. I will pick Wiscy to beat the Nerds.
UCLA AT RUTGERS - Rutgers in a rout.
WAKE FOREST AT UCONN - Wake Forest because Hugh says so!
ARIZONA STATE AT CINCINNATI - Cincy
SOUTH CAROLINA AT OKLAHOMA -The Gamecocks have played well against 2 quality opponents. This could go either way. I think OU is a hair better on defense than they have been in recent past. Boomer Sooner by a FG.
ALABAMA AT TENNESSEE - Saban is gone. So is the defense at Bama. I won't pick against Bama even if I think it makes sense. Bama in a close one.
NOTRE DAME AT GEORGIA TECH - If the GT I sw in Ireland shows up I would take GT. BUT give me Notre Dame. And yes I think they are "inflated".
MICHIGAN AT ILLINOIS - 2 run based offenses. I will pick the fighting Bielema's to beat the fighting Ex Harbaugh's.
CHARLOTTE AT NAVY - Horvath rushes for 11,000 yards and 20 scores. Navy BIG
NC STATE AT CAL - Cal (pains me to pick the damn liberals)
HOUSTON AT KANSAS - I'll take the Jayhawks. I think the defense has been the bigger issue. I agree the offense is far less creative and way too predictable this year as well
HAWAII AT WASHINGTON STATE - Give me State. Hawaii would be better as an FCS team.
USC AT MARYLAND - Give me the Trojans.
COLORADO AT ARIZONA - Ugh. Pains me but I'll take the Buffs to right the ship this week.
NEW MEXICO AT UTAH STATE - Mendenhall can coach. Give me the Lobos.
LSU AT ARKANSAS - I HATE IT. But NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND . LSU has figured out maybe how to win close games. Give me LSWho
BALL STATE AT VANDERBILT - Vandy
GEORGIA AT TEXAS - Game of the week, maybe. I do not like Texas. I do not like burnt orange. I have never liked Texas. But I do not think UGA is the UGA of old. Texas in a shootout.
UCF AT IOWA STATE - As a Hawkeye I really dislike ISU. As a UNI Panther alumni, I really dislike ISU. As someone who grew up close to Ames, I dislike ISU. But the in-state fan in me says ISU wins again.
KANSAS STATE AT WEST VIRGINIA - give me the Wild Kitties!
NORTH TEXAS AT MEMPHIS - Memphis.
KENTUCKY AT FLORIDA - Give me the other fighting Stoops brother.
SMU AT STANFORD - Give me "back from the death penalty part 3 to beat Stanford. Can Stanford go back to the days where they just pounded the rock and ran over people? Please?
COLORADO STATE AT AIR FORCE - Sickening what AF is this year. But I'll take them to beat CSU.
UNLV AT OREGON STATE - New QB is better than the 1st. UNLV makes the mob bosses happy.
TCU AT UTAH - the Utes! TCU is not good at all. Or is at best very inconsistent.
***********
*********** I don’t know whether Chip Kelly appreciates irony, but when it came out that Ohio State’s recent loss to Oregon was in some part attributable to a sly, clever, devious - but legal - maneuver on Oregon’s part, it made me think of him.
Chip Kelly is now Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, and his team was deprived (I can’t say “cheated”) of a chance to tie the Ducks by a weird rule that benefitted a team committing a penalty in the closing seconds of a game by not restoring the game clock to its pre-penalty setting.
I thought of Oregon’s devious insertion of a 12th man into the Ohio State game and its willingness to incur the penalty - because whether or not Ohio State took the penalty it still ran time off the clock - and I thought of the early days of Chip Kelly’s racehorse, no-huddle, no-speed-limit offense when he first came to Oregon as their OC. The scheme that opposing defenses finally agreed on as the best way to slow the Ducks down was - a time-out for an injury.
An “injury” at the right time, like intentionally putting 12 men on the field, wasn’t EXACTLY breaking any rules. I mean, who are we to say that that guy writhing on the ground isn’t actually hurt? Are YOU a doctor? I didn’t think so.
Chip Kelly, twice the victim of near-fraud.
For years, I was a big Ducks’ fan. Not now. Not now that they’ve gone the super-conference route. But even if I were, I definitely don’t think that winning in the manner they did - playing football like a Philadelphia lawyer - would be anything I’d be proud of.
*********** As you probably know, it takes a while to build a new stadium. In the meantime, life goes on and there’s a football schedule to play. The question becomes: where to play it?
When Northwestern tore down its old stadium and found itself caught itself without one to play in, it faced a choice: play in Soldier Field (where the Bears play), quite a distance away in Chicago, or play in a somewhat closer soccer stadium used by an MSL team.
Neither choice seemed right because the school did not wish to make its students and its fans leave campus for the football experience. So they decided to stay right on campus, and build a temporary stadium, right on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Its capacity around of 12,000 makes it by far the smallest of any Power 4 conference school, but its uniqueness, its size, and its beautiful lakefront setting have created great demand for seats, to the point that Northwestern has been able to raise ticket prices to the point where they bring in nearly as much revenue as they would have in their larger (but seldom filled) old stadium.
************* Wednesday night, as our practice at Aberdeen came to an end, the rain had stopped, and the little guys of our youth league, their practices also over, joined their “battle buddies” - players on the Aberdeen High team for a little buddy time.
Today (Thursday) I received this from Tom Walls, in Winnipeg, Canada. Tom is head coach of the Springfield Collegiate Institute Sabres, now 5-2 and in third place in the Provincial (state) standings.
I wanted to share a few things with you. A few weeks back you wrote about a tradition at Aberdeen of mixing high school players and your youth team. I liked this idea so much that we replicated it last week in a brief, combined, practice. I matched players up with "Battle Buddies" and then did some common-denominator drills. Afterwards we asked the youth players to write a letter of support to their high school battle buddy for our upcoming game.
I have included a video of the matching of players, a picture of my nephew (full ride to the University of Manitoba as a LB- an OKG to boot) with his battle buddy, and finally a copy of the letter written by a youth player known as "Wild Bill". It's hilarious.
This was an easy and powerful activity. Parents are still talking about it. Thank you.
I wrote to Tom telling him how much I respect and admire his ability to recognize a good idea and his willingness to quickly adapt it for use in his program.
Those are not common traits among coaches, who’ll copy a play in a heartbeat, while ignoring the importance of the infrastructure.
The things that Tom does outside of actual football - year-round activities including community service, camps, trips and competitions, and a great newsletter that he sends out regularly to parents and supporters - have enabled him to build what I would call a 360-degree program. To me, that makes it a program that influences in a positive way almost any and every aspect of young man’s life, year-round. To me, it’s making the most of the rare opportunity football affords us to reach and influence boys.
*********** Not many people realize that this Saturday’s Michigan-at-Illinois game will honor the 100th anniversary of one of the most important games in the history of American football: the day (October 18, 1924) on which Illinois dedicated its stadium, and before a sellout stadium, against defending champion Michigan, Illinois junior Red Grange scored four touchdowns against the Wolverines on runs of 96, 65, 54 and 48 yards - in the first quarter alone! He went on to score six touchdowns and rush for 402 yards as the Illini smashed Michigan, 39-14.
(A year later, Grange’s signing to play with the Chicago Bears would be considered the moment that pro football began to arrive as a major American sport.)
It isn’t enough that the Illini’s opponent once again is Michigan, and that once again the Wolverines will be defending national champions.
Or that both teams are ranked.
Oh, no. The Illini also have to jump the shark by wearing “throwback uniforms” and “hand-painted helmets,” somewhat on the order of what Grange and his teammates wore. Don’t want to miss out on the apparel sales, you know. Needless to say, the helmets won’t be leather. And the players will all have facemasks. And - in a real blow to authenticity - at least one Illini DB will wear pants that come at least a foot sort of covering his knees.
That's Grange in the photo belo. Where can I buy me one of them cool jerseys?
*********** This was copied from the Colorado High School Association’s weekly newsletter…
*********** A few things you may like.
Cielo drove in for the game last Friday.
At team dinner before our game I introduced her to the team. I then asked Cielo in
front of the players is there anything she’d like to say. She said yes, and turned to the
players and said, “I want to see the wedge tonight!”
Hugh, the kids just erupted in a roar!
That night our first play was wedge. We got 3 yards and 2 plays later I ran it and it was the best one we’ve run all year. It went well over 10 yards and even rolled up the safety. The kids started screaming on the sideline yelling “Coach I bet your wife loved that one!”
Too funny!
Last Friday Randy graduated from CATS class (Combat Advisory Training Class) at Fort Benning after 6 weeks.
Randy Graduated 9th out of 54. He is back at Fort Bragg and his wife Crystal flew in tonight to spend a day as she now tests for a special forces unit. A very unique couple for sure Ha.
As for Rock he is somewhere (in the Navy, headed for the Middle East) , but he can't tell me.
Take care
Mike Foristiere
Marsing, Idaho
(MIke’s Marsing Huskies are now 4-2. They’ve had just one season with more than four wins in the last ten years.)
************ Hugh
This is absolutely the easiest quiz you have ever put on your website. At least from my perspective.
The answer is a WKU all time great. His name is Romeo Crennel.
Some time I will have to tell you a great story about him and a late friend of mine from Owensboro. The story has nothing to do with football.
See you at the next meeting.
David Crump
Western Kentucky alum
Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** Here’s hoping for a miracle versus the Thunderbirds, ŕ la Chaminade versus Ralph Sampson's Cavaliers, an App State (before they came good) versus Michigan. You can be Tony Little and yell you can doooo it!!!
Nice little story about Chris Brown. Figure a way you can add value to any enterprise, and let it know you're available and willing.
Thanks for mentioning Army Bryson Daliy again. I like him for several reasons, but one is that he hasn't run toward the cameras. If you've seen his high school coach dad in the stands, you instantly intuit how well dad brought up his boy. Because Bryson's clearly a leader, I hope he receives recognition he hasn't sought. Last we forget, Dylan Gabriel's first commitment was to play at Army. Had he come to West Point, we might've seen big shifts in the BK offense to accommodate his arm, and might not have honed the ground game we have.
Final comment concerning Army: some considered Bob Anderson (USMA ’60), one of the best running backs ever at the Academy. He died about a week ago. The short account I read said his heart attack happened as he was preparing his home in West Melbourne, Florida for the coming hurricanes.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
(I’ve been planning to write about Bob Anderson. As John Vermillion points out, many people consider him one of Army’s “best running backs ever,” and that includes his teammate, Heisman Award-winning running back Pete Dawkins.)
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Romeo Crennel played high school football and baseball in Fort Knox, Kentucky and Amherst, Virginia and was a four-year starter as a defensive lineman at Western Kentucky.
After a season as a graduate assistant at Western, he was hired full-time and spent four years with the Hilltoppers. From there, he moved to Texas Tech, where he worked under a young defensive coordinator named Bill Parcells.
He then spent two seasons at Ole Miss and a single season at Georgia Tech before being hired by the New York Giants. After he had been there for two years, head coach Ray Perkins left to coach Alabama, and Bill Parcells was named the Giants’ new head coach.
When Parcells stepped down after winning the Super Bowl, our guy remained with the Giants for two more years before rejoining Parcells as defensive line coach of the Patriots. He spent four years in New England, then four years with the Jets and a year with the Browns before returning to the Patriots, now coached by Bill Belichick, with whom he had worked on the Jets’ staff.
This time he stayed with the Patriots for three seasons before leaving to become head coach of the Browns.
After four seasons in Cleveland he was fired, and then was hired as defensive coordinator at Kansas City. When Chiefs’ head coach Todd Haley was fired 13 games into the season, our guy was named interim head coach, and then was given one more full season before being let go.
A year later, he signed a three-year contract to be the Houston Texans’ defensive coordinator under Bill O’Brien.
After O’Brien was fired following an 0-4 start in 2020, Crennel was hired as the interim head coach, making him, at 73 years, 199 days, the oldest man ever to serve as head coach of an NFL team. (He and I share the same birthday.)
He broke the record held by the legendary George Halas, founder, owner and long-time coach of the Chicago Bears who retired 55 years earlier, in 1967, at the age of 72 years, 318 days,
And then, he retired.
Bill Belichick paid him about as high a compliment as he’s ever paid anyone, saying, “People talk about my defensive system, but nobody has worked as closely in the system with me as Romeo has. We’ve been through an awful lot of games, workouts and practices. Of all the people I’ve worked with, I think I have the most history with him.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ROMEO CRENELL
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He could have been a pro football player. Instead, he chose to become a neurosurgeon. Nothing against pro football players, you understand, but last I heard, when your child needs brain surgery, you don’t go looking for a quarterback.
He was born in Houston to Bahamian parents, who shortly after his birth returned briefly to The Bahamas before returning to the US and settling in South Jersey, in a place just west of Atlantic City called Galloway Township.
He obviously was identified as an academically gifted youngster, because he attended two different highly-regarded New Jersey prep schools. First was the Peddie School, where he played football, basketball and track, while also playing saxophone in the school band, singing in a school play and editing the school yearbook.
After transferring to the Hun School, about 30 minutes away, he maintained a 4.0 GPA while as a linebacker earning recognition by ESPN’s rating service as the top college prospect in the country.
He chose to play college football at Florida State, where was moved to safety.
While earning All-ACC honors as well as being named to the AP All-American third team, he was also able to earn his bachelor’s degree in less than three years, with a 3.75 GPA at that.
He was named a finalist for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, but the Rhodes committee doesn’t pay a lot of attention to football, and it scheduled his final interview for the same day, in Birmingham, that the Seminoles were to play Maryland in College Park. Fortunately for him, the NCAA made a special allowance for him to fly by chartered plane from the interview site to the game, and he wound up winning twice that day - on the field, where the Seminoles won, and off the field, when it was announced, just before the game, that he had won the Rhodes Scholarship.
He became only the fourth FSU student ever to win the award.
Graduating a year early, he announced that he would postpone any NFL career in order to study at Oxford University under terms of the Rhodes Scholarship.
After earning a masters degree at Oxford in medical anthropology, he returned to the states and signed to play with the Tennessee Titans.
He spent two years with the Titans without ever getting into an NFL game, and spent a third season on the Steelers’ practice squad before announcing his intention to attend medical school full-time.
In a process that takes several years, he earned his MD at Florida State College of Medicine, and then spent his residency in neurosurgery at Harvard and at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Part of his motivation to become a neurosurgeon was the death of an aunt in the Bahamas, who died from a brain injury after being hit by a car.
“It was a preventable death,” he said, noting the deplorable lack of medical services where she lived. “If this injury happened in Boston with us right now, she would be alive, eating peas and rice, going to church and singing like she always used to do.”
He is a Christian. He and his wife, a pediatric dentist, have four children - two sets of twins - and now live in the Orlando area.
In his 2022 book, “The 2% Way: How a Philosophy of Small Improvements Took Me to Oxford, the NFL, and Neurosurgery," is part biographical and part motivational, and tells of many of the lessons he learned from his coaches.
TUESDAY,
OCTOBER 15, 2024 “Diplomacy without weapons is
like music without instruments.” Otto von Bismarck *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “in the 1980s Hillsdale's lawyers went to the Supreme Court to avoid following federal restrictions because some students received aid from the government. The college raised private funds to replace the federal support and still rejects about $5 million annually in U.S. taxpayer cash. In the words of Dr. Larry Arnn, the school president, "Hillsdale is famous because it refused to count its students and its employees by the color of their skin.” The college's monthly publication Imprimis has a huge circulation and has raised millions to support Hillsdale's audacious and gutsy independent reaction to government handouts.
“The college survived other serious problems, including a devastating fire in 1874 and the threat of mortgage foreclosures during the Depression. The most recent trouble came with the unexpected departure of Dr. George Roche, Hillsdale’s president for 28 years. He left in late 1999 after rescuing the school from near bankruptcy and transforming it into a monument of the free enterprise system.
“Dr. Roche left under the cloud of a tragedy, the death of his daughter-in-law and some unfortunate allegations, none of them confirmed. His resignation left a scar on the fantastic job he did at Hillsdale, being the right man at the right time. As president he championed the school’s independence and put Hillsdale in the forefront of private colleges providing a liberal arts education. He wrote numerous books and raised millions of dollars.
“Fortunately, Hillsdale has rebounded strongly under the leadership of Dr. Arnn, who has done a magnificent job of keeping the school on track. He has sustained the financial backing of the college’s loyal supporters and the significant budget surpluses of recent years have remained steady.”
*********** In high school football, when everything is topsy-turvy, expect the worst.
An officials’ shortage moved our game to Saturday. At 5 PM yet. We learned this on Sunday.
We’d had no school on Thursday or Friday because of parent-teacher conferences.
We’d held our Friday practice at mid-day so that afterwards we coaches could disperse to the four winds to scout (film) potential future opponents who were playing on Friday night as usual.
Our pregame was abbreviated because the team buses were late arriving at the game, evidently because of having to wait for the cheerleaders, who - get this - ride with the team to away games. (Does Alabama have to do that?)
And it was hot. For us, that is. Really hot, by our standards. It was in the mid-70s at kickoff, which is hot for our coastal area, where as I write this on Monday it’s a comfy 60 degrees.
Going into the game with league opponent Centralia, I’d said earlier that I thought we were the far superior team. I’ve been wrong before, but this time I was right.
It took us less than a minute to find it out. On the first play from scrimmage, running back Micah Schroeder burst off right tackle for 61 yards and a touchdown.
We kept giving it to Schroeder (don’t stop your own offense, right?) and he kept responding. He carried the ball the first six plays, by which time the score was 14-0.
By the end of the first quarter, it was 20-0.
It was 26-0 at the half, and we had 287 yards of total offense (167 rushing and 120 passing) - that despite a 95-yard Schroeder touchdown run just before the halftime that was called back for holding.
We had a running clock shortly into the fourth quarter.
In all, we had 472 yards of total offense, We rushed for 278 yards, and our two quarterbacks, Mason Hill and Luke Martin, were a combined 7 of 9 for 194 yards passing. (Most of the stats were Mason’s - Luke, who starts at free safety, completed one for one for 30 yards.) Best of all, they threw accurately, exercised good judgment, protected the ball and moved the offense flawlessly.
Schroeder carried 11 times for 153 yards and three TDs, and he caught two passes for 69 yards and another TD. Back Riley Wixon carried nine times for 70 yards, including a 32-yard touchdown run.
Where’s all this offense been? Well, first of all, we’ve played some tough opponents. Our four losses have come against teams that are now a combined 17-7. Second, our line has gained experience. But third - credit our head coach Todd Bridge for this - he took over coaching the offensive line and we have retooled our running game to something more like what wing-T and Double-Wing guys would recognize. And that’s all I’ll say.
I can’t ignore the shutout. They’re rare enough in a coach’s life. The defense played especially well, holding Centralia to 115 yards total and preserving the shutout with two great goal-line stands. (The first, coming at the end of the half, gave us the ball on our own five. Imagine the shock it must have been to our opponents to have been held on six downs inside their 15, and then to watch us go 95 yards on the very next play.)
It was one of those nights. We’ve all had them. And now that we’ve had our celebration, we’re back down to earth, preparing for one of the state’s toughest teams in any classification, the Tumwater Thunderbirds. With one day less to prepare.
As if that would make a difference.
The T-birds have won six state titles, the most recent one in 2020.
Tumwater, a suburb of the state capital, Olympia, is currently the Number-One ranked team in our classification. They’re 6-0, and they’ve outscored opponents 317 to 61. They’re a wing-T team and a very good one: they’ve scored at least 49 points in all but one of their games; in that one they were “held” to 38.
Let’s just say our goals this week are realistic.
*********** My schedule this past week entailed a fair amount of driving:
Wednesday - Drive from our home in Camas to Aberdeen (2.5 hours) for evening practice.
After practice, drive 45 minutes to our place in Ocean Shores.
Thursday - Back and forth to practice in Aberdeen (45 minutes each way)
Friday - 45 minutes to practice at Aberdeen, then after practice, 2.5 hours home to Camas.
Friday night film game between Washougal and Hudson’s Bay at Washougal (15 minutes away)
Saturday - Leave home at 1:30 PM (I GOT TO SEE THE ARMY GAME!!!), drive to and from our 5:00 PM game at Centralia (1.5 hours each way); arrive home at 9 PM
*********** My assignment Friday night was to film a game in Washougal, Washington between two teams that could turn out to be post season opponents should things go well for us. On arrival at the stadium, my wife happened to run into one of my former players, Chris Brown, and invited him to join us. Chris has long been a teacher and coach himself (football and baseball) and he lives in Washougal and follows the Washougal Panthers because his son, Miles, is on the team.
Actually, Miles was injured last season, and when he expressed a desire to remain involved with the team, Chris suggested he approach the coach about being a manager. Done. Who doesn’t need a good manager?
Since then, Miles has specialized in video work, concentrating especially on drone videography.
This past summer he approached the football staffs at Washington and Oregon State - his top two schools of choice - about possibly working with them, and as a result both of them have offered him jobs once he’s accepted.
*********** IT WAS A SATURDAY FULL OF CLOSE ONES…
OREGON 32, OHIO STATE 31 - If Oregon really did pull a fast one at the end and deliberately incur a penalty whose effect was to rob the Buckeyes of precious clock time, expect that rule to be at the top of the NCAA Rules Committee’s agenda this winter.
PENN STATE 33, USC 30 (OT) - It was 30-30 and it came down to a dance contest; Penn State had the better dancer (aka kicker). But until then, it was a heck of a game. Early in the third quarter, Penn State pulled a variation of the Lonesome Polecat - a double-pass to the center (who had an eligible number and was lined up on the end. It was USC’s third loss at the buzzer:
Michigan - Field goal with :37 (27-24)
Minnesota - TD with :56 (24-17)
Penn State - FG in OT (33-30)
ALABAMA 27, SOUTH CAROLINA 25 - Get hold of a recording and watch South Carolina’s onside kick at the end. It was a drop kick! And it looked as if the Bama players were trying to catch a greased pig. But there’s still Crimson Privilege: There was Alabama, nearly beaten for the second straight week - its second straight poor performance against an unrated team - and yet there they are this week, still in the Top Ten.
TENNESSEE 23, FLORIDA 17 (OT) - Had to be a heartbreaker for fans of the Gators, who outgained the Vols. Say this for Gator coach Billy Napier - he may be on the skids, but he’s going out fighting.
LSU 29, OLE MISS 26 - (OT) - LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier threw a lot of passes (51) and a lot of incompletions (29) and two interceptions to boot. But he threw for 337 yards and three TDs, including the winner in OT.
KANSAS STATE 31, COLORADO 28 - Take nothing away from Shedeur Sanders, who threw for 388 yards and three TDs, but despite what some would have you believe, running still matters. And there, the Wildcats’ DJ Giddens rushed for 182 yards. The entire Colorado team “rushed” for -29.
PITT 17, CAL 15 - Pitt is still unbeaten and bowl-eligible. The last time they were 6-0, Dan Marino was their QB. Cal keeps finding ways to lose games and this week it was 13 penalties and three missed field goals.
ILLINOIS 50, PURDUE 49 (OT) - Purdue scored two TDs in the final minute and a half to take 43-40 lead, but the Illini sent it into OT with a 38 yard field goal with 0:00 on the clock. And then, in OT, after Illinois scored first and kicked its extra point and Purdue followed with a touchdown of its own, Purdue coach, Ryan Walters, whose days as a head coach appear to be nearing an end, decided to go for two. He explained afterward, “We were in control of the game at that point. We clawed back in the game, something we hadn't done this season, and I wanted to give us a chance to win.” Coach, regardless of what you were thinking, what you basically did was take the weekly paycheck and gamble it on a roll of the dice. What a great life lesson.
GEORGIA TECH 41, NORTH CAROLINA 24 - this sucker was headed into OT until Tech’s Jamal Haynes stunned the whole house by breaking up the middle for 68 yards and the winning TD with :16 left to play. It was the Tar Heels’ fourth straight loss.
*********** I heard Mark Richt telling about Bobby Bowden’s simple explanation of the stages of turning a program around:
1. Lose big
2. Lose small
3. Win small
4. Win big
*********** When Oklahoma kicked a first-period field goal to take a 3-0 lead over Texas Saturday, it marked the first time all season that the Longhorns had been behind. By halftime, though, it was 21-3 (Texas) and the final score was 34-3.
That leaves Indiana and Army as the only teams this season who’ve yet to be behind at any point.
The Hoosiers didn’t play Saturday.
Army, the only team in America to have scored a touchdown on every opening drive this season, kicked off to UAB to start the game, but still needed just one minute, twenty seconds to take a 7-0 lead. UAB coach Trent Dilfer, trying to play Army’s game, went for it on 4th and one on the UAB 35. Tsk, tsk. The Blazers didn’t make it, and Army made them pay. After the Blazers spotted them a five-yard head start with an offside penalty, Bryson Daily, on Army’s first offensive play, scored on a 30-yard quarterback counter. The clock read 13:40.
*********** Army also became the first FBS team to officially become bowl-eligible.
So, too, did…
Iowa State
Oregon
Penn State
Pitt
Texas
Ohio State will have to wait another two weeks - the Buckeyes have next week off.
*********** Iowa State QB Rocco Becht is the son of Anthony Becht, long time NFL tight end who for the last couple of years has been coaching the St. Louis Battlehawks in the spring. Anthony, a Philly guy originally, played at West Virginia. I don’t know whether they made much of a deal of it Saturday, Iowa State played at West Virginia.
*********** You may never see it again. Take a picture of your newspaper page: Army and Navy are both ranked in the Top 25
*********** A sure sign that the world is upside-down; there are college games on TV this week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights - and not a single one of them is a MAC game.
*********** At least four FBS quarterbacks are their team’s leading rusher:
Bryson Daily, Army: 107 carries for 738 yards and 14 TDs
Blake Horvath, Navy: 66 for 565 yards and 10 TDs
Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt: 105 for 388 and 2 TDs
Devin Dampier, New Mexico: 51 for 382 and 8 TDs
Army’s Daily actually ranks seventh among ALL rushers
Riley Leonard of Notre Dame, Jalen Milroe of Alabama and Avery Johnson of Kansas State, while not their team’s leading rusher, do rank highly among running QBs:
Leonard - 65 for 405 and 8 TDs
Milroe - 77 for 319 and 11 TDs
Johnson - 51 for 306 and 3 TDs
*********** ESPN’s College Game Day had a really nice feature about Jake Retzlaff, a Jewish kid who’s the starting quarterback for unbeaten BYU. He’s one of only three Jewish students at the largest religiously-affiliated school that plays big-time college. His religion didn’t appear, from interviews with him and teammates, to make a bit of difference in the way he’s treated there.
Not that they have much interest in college football, but the story would have broken the hearts of all those Jew-hating Ivy-League bastards.
*********** FRESH FROM AUSTRALIA - ED WYATT’S MOUNTAIN WEST ROUNDUP
Only someone who doesn’t know college football would ignore the fact that Air Force is 1-5, while Army and Navy are both undefeated and ranked for the first time since 1960.
Since starting last season with eight straight wins, the Falcons have gone into a tailspin, winning just two of their last 11 games. This week it was a 52-37 loss to rebuilding New Mexico.
The Falcons haven’t beaten a Mountain West team in nearly a year and this season’s only victory came against Merrimack, an FCS team with a 2-4 record.
Sitting here in Melbourne, I’m in no position to analyze why Troy Calhoun’s once powerful program has found itself in such dire straits, but I think he’s fortunate that he’s at a service academy which is unlikely to come under as much scrutiny as other major college football programs.
Pick Six Parade
Fresno State’s Mikey Keene essentially threw away the Bulldogs’ chances of an upset over Washington State when his pass was picked off by Ethan O’Connor and returned 60 yards for the winning score with less than seven minutes on the clock.
Wyoming lost its opportunity for a second win, with Evan Svoboda throwing two interceptions, including a 43-yard pick six in a 27-24 loss to San Diego State.
Jeff Choate Coach of the Year?
Okay maybe not, but after consecutive two-win seasons, Nevada has already won three after a stunning 42-37 upset of Oregon State. Savion Red (what a name!) ran for four touchdowns and quarterback Brendon Lewis ran for 151 yards in a wild game in Reno.
Warrior vs Warriors
What’s it say about Ashton Jeanty when he rushes for 217 yards and Hawaii gets praise for how well they handled him? This one was just 13-7 at the half but a relentless Jeanty (237 all purpose yards and two TD’s) and a few fortunate breaks helped the Broncos win their fourth straight.
The Rest
UNLV had no trouble with a struggling Utah State (50-34), while Jay Norvell’s Colorado State got a huge win at home over San Jose State to keep its bowl hopes alive.
Week 8 Coming Up
Fresno State at Nevada: Bulldogs have won five of the last seven meetings, but this is a fresh and confident Wolfpack team.
Hawaii at Washington State: Believe it or not, Hawaii has won three of the previous five meetings. Cougs a heavy favorite in this one.
New Mexico at Utah State: The two worst defenses in the Mountain West. New Mexico has lost seven in a row to the Aggies, but the Lobos have scored 50 points in back-to-back games for the first time since 1916.
Wyoming at San Jose State: Spartans have won five of the last six against the Cowboys. Wyoming is 1-5 and other than the 2020 COVID year, hasn’t had a losing season since 2015.
Colorado State at Air Force: Rams have lost seven straight to Air Force and the Falcons’ last conference win was this matchup nearly a year ago. Rivalry game with major implications for each team’s season.
UNLV at Oregon State: Beavers have won the last two, but they haven’t met since 2009. Rebels are red hot but beware a wounded OSU team coming off a shock loss to Nevada.
*********** Well, I threw out the challenge, and Dillon Gabriel responded.
JEANTY RUSHED FOR 217 (LAST WEEK 200)
GABRIEL HELPED THE DUCKS BEAT THE BUCKEYES (LAST WEEK 1400)
WARD DIDN'T PLAY (LAST WEEK 500)
MILROE HAD GOOD - NOT GREAT - STATS AS BAMA STRUGGLED (LAST WEEK 1100)
HUNTER LEFT THE K-STATE GAME IN THE SECOND QUARTER AND DIDN'T RETURN (LAST WEEK 300)
*********** Coach:
During the hurricane, I lost my computer. I’m a one finger typist on the phone so bear with me. I’m using the microphone. Night and day are upside down for me.
I like who you are, how you treat people, what you have done for people, What you continue to do for people. I am not as knowledgeable in coaching as most of your zoom participants, but I have learned and I’m continuing to learn.
The answer to today’s quiz is Ed Marinaro, a guy I liked as both player and actor.
I have no power, still no electricity, so my football watching was wiped out this weekend . That included the Army game, which was the first Army game. I’ve missed in years, but I have read what I can on the phone. They’re still continuing to do well.
Thanks for your kind words about me; they’re undeserved. Last I want to say for the page that I am unspeakably grateful that I and my property suffered little damage compared to many of my neighbors. Beautiful neighborhoods look like Third World tenements. Many people I know have lost all of their worldly possessions. I have no room to complain about anything.
I can’t leave without commenting on the Barry Switzer story. I’m one who always did like him and this makes me appreciate him more.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
I hope that God grants me that attitude if I’m ever beset by a disaster.
*********** Hugh,
Hoping to see win #2 tomorrow for the Bobcats!
Unfortunately the football team at the school where I’m doing that part-time PE gig got 45’d again. Fourth straight week.
Texas-OU playing in the Red River Rivalry this week highlighting the Texas State Fair in Dallas. Doesn’t matter what the conference, nor the records, this game matters ALL the time. Best game of the weekend. Hook ‘em!!
Second best game…Oregon v Ohio State.
Not necessarily natural rivals but always a good game. Go Ducks!!
IMHO Army Coach Jeff Monken realized in enough time how going back to his old offense saved his program. Navy coach Newberry apparently felt the same way. AF coach Calhoun compounded his issues.
QUIZ: Ed Marinaro (another in a long line of “Italian Stallions” who made their marks on this great game!). The list is LONG!
Enjoy the weekend! Go Bobcats!!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I think the first Italian Stallion may have been Bama’s Johnny Musso!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Ed Marinaro played his high school football in New Milford, New Jersey, and his college football at Cornell, an Ivy-League school.
In his three years of college eligibility, playing in all 27 games, he averaged 174.6 rushing yards per game.
In ten of those games, he rushed for 200 yards or more.
He was twice named first team All-American, and as a senior, he was a unanimous selection.
In his senior year, he led the nation in scoring and rushing. He averaged 209 yards rushing a game, an NCAA record that would last for 10 years.
For his career, he rushed for more than 4,000 yards, the first player in college history to do so.
He won the Maxwell Trophy and was named Player of the Year by the UPI and by the Columbus, Cleveland and Washington, DC Touchdown Clubs.
He finished second in the Heisman voting, the highest any Ivy player has finished since Dick Kazmaier of Princeton won it in 1951 (when the Ivy League was still considered a major conference).
Four of his NCAA records still stand: single-season carries per game (39.6 in 1971); career carries per game (34.0; career yards per game (174.6, 1969–71); earliest reaching 1,000 yards rushing (5th game, 1971).
He was named to the Ivy League Silver Anniversary Team.
He was drafted in the second round by the Vikings, and had a six-year NFL career with the Vikings, Jets and Seahawks.
He had a decent rookie season, although in the Vikings’ two-back system, he was used mostly as a blocker and a pass receiver.
And the next year, the Vikings drafted future all-star Chuck Foreman in the first round, which for our guy meant more blocking.
"Chuck was a great player and is still a good friend," our guy recalled. “You can have a two-back system, but when it was Chuck and I, I never got a chance. Chuck was the guy, and I was blocking. I'd run four times a game, and I think any running back will tell you that you can't get any feel when you're only carrying the ball four times a game."
After four seasons, in the early days of NFL free agency, he signed with the New York Jets. hoping to become more of a featured ball carrier,
Things seemed to be working out for him. In Week 4 he had 21 carries, 111 yards and a touchdown, and in Week 5 he had 31 carries for 119 yards and a touchdown. But in Week 6, he suffered a serious Lisfranc (foot) injury that ended his season and, in reality, his career.
He spent a year with the Seahawks, but that was it for his football career. Years later, he reflected on it:
"People talk about my football career, and it's been described as disappointing more than once. It's irrelevant now, but I never felt that my career was disappointing. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. As much as I loved being in Minnesota, and I've said this before, I was the leading rusher in college football history, and I come to the Vikings and they turn me into a blocker — something I never did in college — and a pass receiver. I caught 23 passes in my whole career at Cornell. I caught 11 in one game with Minnesota, so I wonder what was going on in that draft room when they decided to draft me. They didn't know I could catch the ball. They didn't know I could block. I don't know what they were thinking when they drafted me. What did they think I was going to do?”
A look at his stats confirms his comments about the way he was used: As a runner, he carried 383 times for 1319 yards and six TDs; as a receiver, he caught 146 passes for 1176 yards and seven TDs.
Fortunately, his time with the Jets led to a friendship with quarterback Joe Namath, and that friendship led, ultimately, to an acting career.
In his words:
"I had spent some time out in Hollywood with Joe Namath, who was a good friend of mine. I had met some people, and they kind of encouraged me. … I guess looking back into my personality, I liked attention. I can't deny that. I liked being attracted to the glamour.
"Then I got into it and saw what you had to do. I started working at it, got in a class and worked at it. I wanted to get good at it, but I wanted to make a living out of it. I didn't want to be a starving actor. I wasn't in love with the acting where I would do it for nothing. I wanted to make as much money as I could doing it. I had to know what I was doing a little bit."
He landed parts on Laverne & Shirley, first as Antonio DeFazio for an episode in 1980, before being cast as Sonny St. Jacques for 10 episodes. And then came unemployment. But then came 100 shows (and six years of work) as Officer Joe Coffey in Hill Street Blues.
“I was living the life being on a hit show, and then I was unemployed. Like any actor, I was auditioning for different roles and new things. It was kind of a difficult time when you basically get fired from a show. Every actor, once they leave one job, they think they'll never work again, so I auditioned for Hill Street Blues.
"It was the first year of the show. It did not have any, you know, it was a critically recognized show but a bit of a cult hit. I had never seen the show, so when I auditioned and got the part, it was four episodes, and I was going to get paid for four episodes, which was really cool, and that was fine. I went and did these episodes and got along with everybody and they liked my work.
"At the time, nobody knew the show was going to go for seven years. I was kind of taking it one step at a time. My character got a reprieve, and then I did six years of it. It was probably the biggest break of my career because there were a lot of athletes turned actors at that time, and you sort of got stereotyped, if you will, and it kind of elevated me in that regard, being on a show that was so critically acclaimed and with such talented actors. It gave me credibility that I probably didn't deserve, but I took it and it was great.
"I learned more about acting by doing that show than any acting class. It was great and kind of led to a bunch of other things. It was a very different business back then. There were three networks, so if you weren't watching Hill Street Blues on Thursday night at 10 o'clock, you had two other options, which when you think about it is kind of absurd, so our penetration, as far as people, today if you get three million or four million people watching your show, you're a success. We weren't even in the top 10 and we'd have 25 million people watching."
Now retired, he lives in Charleston, South Carolina. His son and namesake is a senior wide receiver at Cornell.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ED MARINARO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He played high school football and baseball in Fort Knox, Kentucky and Amherst, Virginia and was a four-year starter as a defensive lineman at Western Kentucky.
After a season as a graduate assistant at Western, he was hired full-time and spent four years with the Hilltoppers. From there, he moved to Texas Tech, where he worked under a young defensive coordinator named Bill Parcells.
He then spent two seasons at Ole Miss and a single season at Georgia Tech before being hired by the New York Giants. After he had been there for two years, head coach Ray Perkins left to coach Alabama, and Bill Parcells was named the Giants’ new head coach.
When Parcells stepped down after winning the Super Bowl, our guy remained with the Giants for two more years before rejoining Parcells as defensive line coach of the Patriots. He spent four years in New England, then four years with the Jets and a year with the Browns before returning to the Patriots, now coached by Bill Belichick, with whom he had worked on the Jets’ staff.
This time he stayed with the Patriots for three seasons before leaving to become head coach of the Browns.
After four seasons in Cleveland he was fired, and then was hired as defensive coordinator at Kansas City. When Chiefs’ head coach Todd Haley was fired 13 games into the season, our guy was named interim head coach, and then was given one more full season before being let go.
A year later, he signed a three-year contract to be the Houston Texans’ defensive coordinator under Bill O’Brien.
After O’Brien was fired following an 0-4 start in 2020, our guy was hired as the interim head coach, making him, at 73 years, 199 days, the oldest man ever to serve as head coach of an NFL team. (He and I share the same birthday.)
He broke the record held by the legendary George Halas, founder, owner and long-time coach of the Chicago Bears who retired 55 years earlier, in 1967, at the age of 72 years, 318 days,
And then, he retired.
Bill Belichick paid him about as high a compliment as he’s ever paid anyone, saying, “People talk about my defensive system, but nobody has worked as closely in the system with me as (he) has. We’ve been through an awful lot of games, workouts and practices. Of all the people I’ve worked with, I think I have the most history with him.”
FRIDAY,
OCTOBER 11, 2024
"I honestly believe I got more excitement and joy in one day playing
football than most people get in a lifetime.” Frank Gifford.*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “When I arrived at Hillsdale I had no inkling about the school’s fiercely independent approach to higher education, something that has continued to the present day. Politically, it was and still is conservative. From its beginning in 1844, Hillsdale would not accept financial assistance from federal or state governments, and as a result could express those conservative opinions. The school has long sponsored an enormously popular series of seminars featuring almost every conservative leader and spokesperson, not only on the campus but at settings across the country.
“Historically, Hillsdale was a strong opponent of slavery and admitted black students prior to the Civil War. A large number of male students, estimated at about four hundred, enlisted in the ranks of the North in the Civil War, producing some imposing figures: 40 won the Congressional Medal of Honor, three became generals and 60 were killed in battle. The growing enrollment during the Civil War was due at least partially due to the many women attracted to Hillsdale by its non-discriminatory policies.
“One of the school’s best known products was Charles V. Gridley, the commander of Admiral George Dewey's flagship in the battle of Manilla Bay during the Spanish American war. Dewey's famous order that launched the US attack on the Spanish fleet at dawn on May 1, 1898, is part of the proud history taught every American sailor: ‘You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.’
“Early in Hillsdale's athletic history, the school played the likes of Michigan, Purdue, Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University), and national power Notre Dame. In 1892 Hillsdale beat the Fighting Irish 14–12, and one of three games between the schools in as many seasons. According to one report in the college archives, the Notre Dame hosts ‘gave the Hillsdale players fine accommodations, a big dinner, and cigars to smoke on the ride home.’
“About the same time, Hillsdale oarsmen won four straight national amateur rowing championships, going unbeaten for three years before finally losing to a crew from the Thames rowing club in England. Unknowingly, I was endowed with this Hillsdale rowing heritage even before my career took me to the University of Washington where both men's and women's rowing programs have established national reputations.”
Hillsdale Lineman Mike Lude.
*********** Five games into the season and faced with a Saturday game this week, our coach made what I consider a wise decision and gave the kids a day off.
At practice last night (we go from 5 to 7:30) I could see renewed energy and enthusiasm in our kids.
Our opponents, the Centralia Tigers, have yet to win. They’re 0-5 and we’re 1-4. We‘ve had no common opponents yet. They’ve given up a lot more points than we have, but on the other hand, they’ve scored more points than we have.
I believe that we’re the far superior team, but, like anyone who’s ever coached high school kids, I’ve been wrong before. And I do know one thing: just as our kids are looking at Centralia as a very beatable team - Centralia’s kids are looking at us the same way!
The game’s at 5:00 PM Saturday. Oh, well. I probably wouldn’t have watched Oregon-Ohio State (or Ole Miss-LSU or Air Force-New Mexico or Vanderbilt-Kentucky or Iowa State-West Virginia or Syracuse-NC State or Minnesota-UCLA or Kansas State-Colorado) anyway.
Wore my Vanderbilt hat (I’ve had four grandkids graduate from there) to practice Wednesday night, and I was amazed at the number of our kids who recognized it. Just goes to show what it does for your public image when you beat Alabama on national television.
*********** This is Bowl Qualifier Weekend - the first weekend that FBS teams can reach the six-win level required by the NCAA for them to be bowl-eligible. Which begs the question - since the NCAA has washed its hands of practically any responsibility for what’s going on in college football today, when is somebody going to challenge it on the bowl-eligibility issue? What’s the fangless NCAA going to do when some 5-win team defies it and plays in a bowl game anyhow - tell it to stop paying players?
Teams that can become bowl-eligible Saturday:
Army
Iowa State
Ohio State
Oregon
Penn State
Pitt
Texas
Army could very well be the first. Its game against UAB - it’s heavily favored - kicks off at noon Eastern, and since Army plays a ball-control, time-consuming offense, it could be over relatively quickly.
Ohio State and Oregon play each other. So if the action on the field appears especially spirited, it’s not because there’s national ranking - and a playoff spot - at stake. It’s because the teams are playing to become bowl-eligible.
(Navy, 5-0, is off this week.)
*********** Here’s something worth watching for: There are only three FBS teams that have never been behind this season:
Army
Indiana
Texas
*********** The Big Ten in its infinite wisdom has scheduled games at USC and UCLA on the same day. Both schools have huge followings and the LA area is very, very big with a lot of college football fans, and there was a time - when both teams were good - that they both could play at the same time and both sell out.
This week, USC-Penn State may pack ‘em in (lots of relocated Pennsylvanians in the stands) but I foresee a lot of empty seats in the big old Rose Bowl to watch Minnesota-UCLA.
*********** THIS WEEKEND’S GAMES
THURSDAY NIGHT
COASTAL CAROLINA AT JAMES MADISON - JMU is 4-1
UTEP AT WESTERN KENTUCKY - UTEP won’t beat WKU
FRIDAY NIGHT
NORTHWESTERN AT MARYLAND - Two teams buried somewhere in the pile that is an 18-team league with no divisions. Who knows? Who cares?
UNLV AT UTAH STATE - UNLV is worth watching for what they do offensively.
UTAH AT ARIZONA STATE - Is Cam Rising ever going to play again?
SATURDAY
SOUTH CAROLINA AT ALABAMA - If Kalen DeBoer has a sense of humor, he’ll let #13 kick off. (Actually, I doubt that he’s even broken a smile this past week.)
CLEMSON AT WAKE FOREST - Keep it close, Deacs. Please.
MISSOURI AT MASSACHUSETTS - I don’t get it. The REAL SEC teams wait to schedule a weakie until week 10 or 11, just before the big rivalry game.
WASHINGTON AT IOWA - The pattern is becoming clearer and clearer: any time a Big Ten team has to travel at least two time zones, bet on the home team. This is basically a 10 AM game for the Huskies. Will they start taping ankles at 7 AM? WTF?
WISCONSIN AT RUTGERS - To me, this is a huge game for the Jerseyites. If they lose, they’re suddenly Same Old Rutgers. If they win, they can still be taken seriously.
GEORGIA TECH AT NORTH CAROLINA - Tech is pretty good. I have no idea what’s going on at UNC, and I do care for Mack Brown.
UAB AT ARMY - Army is a 25-point favorite. Geez, this new conference they’re in really sucks to watch. But at least the Army offense makes it fun.
TEXAS VS OKLAHOMA (AT DALLAS) - Got to go for OU.
PENN STATE AT USC - Penn State is favored by 4.5. I’m going on the pattern we’re all beginning to see and going for the home team Trojans.
STANFORD AT NOTRE DAME - It’s going to be ugly.
CAL AT PITT - Pitt is a slight favorite. Cal has played tougher opponents. Toss-up.
PURDUE AT ILLINOIS - Illini are three-TD favorites. Ugh.
LOUISVILLE AT VIRGINIA - UVA has looked good lately, Louisville has not. Still, I think the Cards are better.
CINCINNATI AT UCF - I don’t see how UCF can be slightly favored and I think Cinci will win. (IF the game is played as scheduled.)
SAN JOSE STATE AT COLORADO STATE - It’s a tossup so I’ll go with Coach Ken Niumatololo and the Spartans. So far, their only loss has been 54-52 to Washington State - in OT.
SAN DIEGO STATE AT WYOMING - Cowboy up!
MEMPHIS AT SOUTH FLORIDA - Memphis is a good TD better than USF. IF they play the game!
ARIZONA AT BYU - BYU should win this one by at least a TD.
MISSISSIPPI STATE AT GEORGIA - 33.5 points? Are you kidding me? That’s all?
FLORIDA AT TENNESSEE - Two TDs? That’s all? I say Tennessee by three TDs.
AIR FORCE AT NEW MEXICO - Wow. How long has it been since the Lobos were favored over the Zoomies? Go Lobos.
WASHINGTON STATE AT FRESNO STATE - Cougs are 3-point favorites. I think they’re better than that.
OHIO STATE AT OREGON - It’s seen as a close one. I’ve seen Oregon in plenty of big games and I predict that - as he always does - Ducks’ coach Dan Lanning will find a way to lose this one.
OLE MISS AT LSU - Bet you didn’t know they call this the Magnolia Bowl. Shades of Billy Cannon on Hallowe’en! I’d sure love to be at this one. Two of America’s least popular coaches go at it. (Actually, I happen to sort of like ‘em both.)
OREGON STATE AT NEVADA - Beavers should win by a TD or more but they struggled last week against Colo State.
APP STATE AT LOUISIANA - Bet on the Cajuns.
VANDERBILT AT KENTUCKY - You mean after knocking off Alabama last week that they have to play another game this week? They should get the rest of the season off.
IOWA STATE AT WEST VIRGINIA - I think the Cyclones will remain unbeaten - and become bowl-eligible.
SYRACUSE AT NC STATE - Will Grayson McCall play? NC State is not the same without him.
MINNESOTA AT UCLA - Long trip for the Gophers but they’re a lot better than the Bruins. They might be shocked, though, to be playing a Big Ten game in a half-empty stadium.
KANSAS STATE AT COLORADO - There aren’t many games I really care about, but this is one. Go Wlldcats. EMAW!
BOISE STATE AT HAWAII - Hawaii is not bad, and as everyone on the mainland knows, it’s always a potential trap when you play ‘em over there. But the Broncos are too good to let this one get away.
*********** The late Buddy Teevens has been named the 2024 recipient of the National Football Foundation’s Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award
https://footballfoundation.org/news/2024/10/9/the-late-buddy-teevens-named-2024-nff-outstanding-contribution-to-amateur-football-award-recipient.aspx
Previous NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award Recipients
2023 – Bill Hancock, College Football Playoff Executive Director
2020 – Don McPherson, Hall of Fame QB & Advocate for Prevention of Gender-Based Violence
2018 – Murry Bowden, Atlanta Hall Management Chairman
2016 – Grant Teaff, AFCA Executive Director & Coach
2015 – Charlie and Pete Gogolak, Placekicking Revolutionaries
2014 – Jim Host, Sports Marketing Pioneer
2013 – Dennie Poppe, NCAA Administrator
2011 – Verne Lundquist, Legendary Network Broadcaster
2011 – Brent Musburger, Legendary Network Broadcaster
2010 – Dr. Joseph Kearney, Athletics Administrator
2009 – Dan Jenkins, Longtime Sportswriter & Author
2008 – Bill Battle, Athletics Administrator & Marketing Innovator
2007 – The Collegiate Bowl Games, College Football Tradition
2006 – ESPN's College GameDay, Pioneering TV Program
2005 – Prentice Gautt, College Football Pioneer
2004 – Rick Dickson, Athletics Director
2004 – Pat Harmon, Sportswriter & NFF Historian
2003 – Rudy J. Riska, Executive Director of the Heisman Trophy
2002 – Dal Shealy, Fellowship of Christian Athletes
2001 – Thomas C. Hansen, Conference Commissioner
2000 – Tom Nugent, Innovative College Football Coach
1999 – Chuck Neinas, Influential Collegiate Administrator
1998 – Marino H. Casem, Influential College Football Coach
1997 – Jack Lengyel, College Football Coach & Athletics Director
1996 – Robert M. "Scotty" Whitelaw, Conference Commissioner
1995 – Fred Jacoby, Conference Commissioner
1994 – Mike Cleary, NACDA Executive Director
1993 – John E. "Buddy" Leake, NFF Chapter Leader
1992 – Eddie Robinson, Influential College Football Coach/Legend
1991 – Don B. Canham, Michigan Athletics Director
1990 – Bill Nicholas, Tournament of Roses Chairman
1989 – Bob Woodruff, College Football Coach & Administrator
1988 – Lindsey Nelson, Legendary Network Broadcaster
1987 – Chris Schenkel, Legendary Network Broadcaster
1986 – Rex Farrior, Florida Sports Ambassador
1985 – A.F. "Bud" Dudley, Liberty Bowl Founder
1983 – Gov. William Winter, 58th Governor of Mississippi
1982 – Earnest E. Seiler, Orange Bowl Founder
1981 – Edward "Moose" Krause, Notre Dame Athletics Director
1980 – Field Scovell, Cotton Bowl Selection Chairman
1978 – Jack Farcasin, Early NFF Chapter Leader
1975 – Joseph J. Tomlin, Founder of Pop Warner Football
1974 – Lathrop King Leishman, Longtime Rose Bowl Leader
*********** The Kalen DeBoer jokes have already started, and they’re only borderline funny.
Maybe it’s because they’re being written by outsiders, because Alabamians can’t find anything at all funny about a loss to Vanderbilt. Vander-f—king-bilt!
Prior to the game, Nick Saban had made a joke or two himself about the fact - true enough - that there would be more Alabama fans in Vanderbilt’s stadium to watch Saturday’s game.
How about this: DeBoer’s Bama team gave up three times as many points to Vandy in one game (40) than Saban’s teams gave up (13) in all the games he’d played Vandy from 2007-2023.
Or how about this: In their last three meetings prior to Saturday, Alabama had outscored Vanderbilt by a total of 148 to 3.
*********** While I’m on the subject of Vanderbilt, I think it’s about time I took another shot at Saint James Franklin. He's now the head coach at Penn State, and he’s done a decent job there. Most people agree that he got the Penn State job on the basis of the “near miraculous” job he did at Vanderbilt, where in three years (2011-2013) he posted a record of 24-15, with two straight 9-4 seasons.
But let’s look under the blanket:
His overall record in the SEC was 11-13.
Only once did he have a winning SEC record (5-3 in 2012).
He had to play Alabama only once. (Lost, 34-0).
Can't beat the big boys at Penn State, either.
*********** Most mornings, after we wake up and I first check for any overnight messages and emails, I’ll find an interesting story on my phone and read it aloud so my wife can enjoy it, too.
I hit gold yesterday when I came across a great article on Barry Switzer. He’s 87 years old. Yes, he’s still alive. Very much so.
And he’s still very much Barry Switzer. That means if you liked him before, you’ll love the article.
But even if you’ve never liked the guy, I urge you to give him a chance and give this a read…
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/41679128/barry-switzer-87-king-norman
************ Found this in the Wall Street Journal
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities (“Lit Hum”), Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.
This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.
“My jaw dropped,” Dames told me. The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.
*********** If you’re the kind who likes to bet on the winner of the Heisman…
I have two questions:
1. Dillon F—king Gabriel? (Oregon) Have they actually seen him play yet? Couldn’t they at least have waited until he’d played Ohio State?
2. What does Diego Pavia have to do to get on there? Beat Alabama? Uhhh... (Actually, as my coaching friend Josh Montgomery points out, after Pavia beatAuburn last year while with New Mexico State and just beat Bama, “he’s unbeaten against the state of Alabama.” How many football players have ever been able to make that statement?)
*********** I noticed during the Navy-Air Force game that the excuse-makers were blaming the Air Force performance this year on their lack of experience.
Well, yeah. But they failed to explain that the problem is one of Air Force’s own making. Call it karma, if you will.
Back at the time of the pandemic, when it appeared that the Mountain West wasn’t going to have a season, Air Force decided to have certain players “turn back” - sending them home, temporarily dropped out of school, so that they might return later without any loss of eligibility.
These, it should be noted, were good, experienced players.
When the conference later decided to play, Air Force was caught without seasoned players, and suffered a 3-3 season.
But when the turnbacks returned to Air Force, they helped the Falcons to a 29-10 record over the last three years. The problem was that Air Force was eating the seed corn: the experienced players dominated, keeping younger players on the bench, and the inevitable “inexperience” is what’s being blamed for this year’s 1-4 record. (Air Force did manage to beat Merrimack, 21-7. For what it’s worth, Merrimack is also 1-4, having lost to UConn, Maine and Dartmouth, in addition to Air Force.)
Expect zero sympathy from their two rival academies - Army and Navy. They were well aware of the “turn back” affair and viewed it as a somewhat underhanded stunt by an opponent for whom they share less than total respect.
*********** It’s been some time since I’ve failed to receive a letter from John Vermillion, of St. Petersburg, Florida, but this is one of those times. John is a West Point grad and retired Army colonel who has served overseas in a variety of capacities including as a military contractor. He’s a prolific author of action novels, most of them in one way or another related to subjects and places with which he is familiar or with which he has become familiar after doing extensive research.
The last I heard from John, he had spent a hard night in “a gym,” riding out Hurricane Milton, but he was still unable in the morning to get to his home to assess the damage. My prayers for Colonel Vermillion - John - and my thanks to God for keeping watch over him.
PS: I did manage to text the QUIZ to him and he - of course - managed to text me the answer.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Rodney Peete was born in Arizona and started high school in Tucson, but he finished high school in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, when his dad, Willie, became an assistant coach with the Chiefs.
He was a high school star in football, basketball and baseball, and he made clear to football recruiters that he wanted to play both football and baseball in college. (At graduation time, he was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays.)
Two coaches who honored his request were Ted Tollner of USC and Larry Smith of Arizona. He chose USC.
During his true freshman year there he backed up Sean Salisbury, but managed to throw for 566 yards.
Named the Trojans’ starter before his sophomore season, he threw for 2,138 yards and 10 touchdowns, and was named second team All-Pac-10.
But the Trojans finished 7-5, and Tollner was fired. His replacement was a coach who had recruited our guy hard - Larry Smith, who had been at Arizona.
Under Smith, USC improved to 8-4, and Peete threw for 2,709 yards and 21 touchdowns.
In his senior year, he started all 12 games and led the Trojans to a 10–2 record. He threw for 2,812 yards, and 18 touchdowns, and rushed for five touchdowns.
He won the Johnny Unitas Award as the nation's best senior quarterback and was second to Barry Sanders (and ahead of UCLA’s Troy Aikman) in the Heisman Trophy voting.
He finished his college career as USC’s all-time leader in pass attempts (1,081), completions (630), passing yards (8,225), total offense (8,640) and starts (40).
In the meantime, he had continued to play baseball, as a shortstop and third baseman, and carried a .339 batting average in his years at USC. Said his coach, Mike Gillespie, “I don’t think people realize Rodney Peete is a legitimate Major League prospect.”
He decided, however, that the demands on a quarterback were too great to allow for playing another sport, and ultimately, he wanted to be an NFL quarterback. It turned out to be a very good decision - he would play 16 years as an NFL quarterback.
He was drafted in the 10th round by the Lions, and he spent five years with them, starting 47 games in that time.
He then signed as a free agent with the Cowboys, but wound up backing up Troy Aikman, and after that year he signed with the Eagles.
His first year in Philadelphia turned out to be one of his best pro seasons. He started 12 games and was 9-3 in those starts. He completed 215 passes for 2326 yards and 8 TDs.
In two playoff games the Eagles were 1-1, but his completion percentage (67 %) plus his yards per attempt (9.9) plus his touchdowns per attempt (10%) and his interceptions per attempt (0 %) gave him an extremely positive 132.4 QB rating.
After four years, the Eagles traded him to the Redskins, where he mostly backed up Brad Johnson.
After one year of that, he went on to the Raiders, where he played behind Rich Gannon and Bobby Hoying.
And then he signed with the Panthers, and at the age of 36, he had the best year of his career. He started 14 games and went 7-7. He completed 223 of 381 for 2,630 yards and 15 TDs.
But time had begun to take its toll, and in the first game of his second season in Carolina, he was lifted in favor of newly-acquired Jake Delhomme and he never got his starting job back.
His wife was a fairly well-known actress and - possibly as a result of that but just as likely because of his fame and his on-air ability, he has since retirement made a career in radio.
In March 2010, he wrote a book entitled “Not My Boy!: A Father, A Son and A Family’s Journey with Autism.”
You wonder how Rodney Peete stayed around the NFL so long?
First, he obviously was a good team man who accepted his role - often meant serving as backup.
But every bit as important - teams could count on him to be ready. In all, he had 87 starts as a QB, and he won 45 of them. That makes him a winner.
One area in his stats jumped out at me - he had 244 career sacks. Checking his total career attempts - 2,346 - that’s close to one sack every ten attempts. It turns out that there’s an NFL stat called “Sacks Percentage,” and of 203 quarterbacks who had enough attempts to qualify, he is ranked 191, with a very high percentage of 9.42.
As an example, Payton Manning is the all-time Number 2, with a very low 3.13 percentage.
Lest anybody think that a high sacks percentage is necessarily an indictment of the quarterback, it should be pointed out that three Hall of Fame QBs have even higher ones than Rodney Peete: Roger Staubach (remember the way he once could scramble?), Bart Starr (who played for one of the best teams ever and passed relatively seldom) and Archie Manning (who, although he played for some of the worst teams ever, was a whole lot faster and more nimble than Peyton).
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING RODNEY PEETE
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He played his high school football in New Milford, New Jersey, and his college football at Cornell, an Ivy-League school.
In his three years of college eligibility, playing in all 27 games, he averaged 174.6 rushing yards per game.
In ten of those games, he rushed for 200 yards or more.
He was twice named first team All-American, and as a senior, he was a unanimous selection.
In his senior year, he led the nation in scoring and rushing. He averaged 209 yards rushing a game, an NCAA record that would last for 10 years.
For his career, he rushed for more than 4,000 yards, the first player in college history to do so.
He won the Maxwell Trophy and was named Player of the Year by the UPI and by the Columbus, Cleveland and Washington, DC Touchdown Clubs.
He finished second in the Heisman voting, the highest any Ivy player has finished since Dick Kazmaier of Princeton won it in 1951 (when the Ivy League was still considered a major conference).
Four of his NCAA records still stand: single-season carries per game (39.6 in 1971); career carries per game (34.0; career yards per game (174.6, 1969–71); earliest reaching 1,000 yards rushing (5th game, 1971).
He was named to the Ivy League Silver Anniversary Team.
He was drafted in the second round by the Vikings, and had a six-year NFL career with the Vikings, Jets and Seahawks.
He had a decent rookie season, although in the Vikings’ two-back system, he was used mostly as a blocker and a pass receiver.
And the next year, the Vikings drafted future all-star Chuck Foreman in the first round, which for our guy meant more blocking.
"Chuck was a great player and is still a good friend," our guy recalled. “You can have a two-back system, but when it was Chuck and I, I never got a chance. Chuck was the guy, and I was blocking. I'd run four times a game, and I think any running back will tell you that you can't get any feel when you're only carrying the ball four times a game."
After four seasons, in the early days of NFL free agency, he signed with the New York Jets. hoping to become more of a featured ball carrier,
Things seemed to be working out for him. In Week 4 he had 21 carries, 111 yards and a touchdown, and in Week 5 he had 31 carries for 119 yards and a touchdown. But in Week 6, he suffered a serious Lisfranc (foot) injury that ended his season and, in reality, his career.
He spent a year with the Seahawks, but that was it for his football career. Years later, he reflected on it:
"People talk about my football career, and it's been described as disappointing more than once. It's irrelevant now, but I never felt that my career was disappointing. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. As much as I loved being in Minnesota, and I've said this before, I was the leading rusher in college football history, and I come to the Vikings and they turn me into a blocker — something I never did in college — and a pass receiver. I caught 23 passes in my whole career at Cornell. I caught 11 in one game with Minnesota, so I wonder what was going on in that draft room when they decided to draft me. They didn't know I could catch the ball. They didn't know I could block. I don't know what they were thinking when they drafted me. What did they think I was going to do?”
A look at his stats confirms his comments about the way he was used: As a runner, he carried 383 times for 1319 yards and six TDs; as a receiver, he caught 146 passes for 1176 yards and seven TDs.
Fortunately, his time with the Jets led to a friendship with quarterback Joe Namath, and that friendship led, ultimately, to an acting career.
In his words:
"I had spent some time out in Hollywood with Joe Namath, who was a good friend of mine. I had met some people, and they kind of encouraged me. … I guess looking back into my personality, I liked attention. I can't deny that. I liked being attracted to the glamour.
"Then I got into it and saw what you had to do. I started working at it, got in a class and worked at it. I wanted to get good at it, but I wanted to make a living out of it. I didn't want to be a starving actor. I wasn't in love with the acting where I would do it for nothing. I wanted to make as much money as I could doing it. I had to know what I was doing a little bit."
He landed parts on Laverne & Shirley, first as Antonio DeFazio for an episode in 1980, before being cast as Sonny St. Jacques for 10 episodes. And then came unemployment. But then came 100 shows (and six years of work) as Officer Joe Coffey in Hill Street Blues.
“I was living the life being on a hit show, and then I was unemployed. Like any actor, I was auditioning for different roles and new things. It was kind of a difficult time when you basically get fired from a show. Every actor, once they leave one job, they think they'll never work again, so I auditioned for Hill Street Blues.
"It was the first year of the show. It did not have any, you know, it was a critically recognized show but a bit of a cult hit. I had never seen the show, so when I auditioned and got the part, it was four episodes, and I was going to get paid for four episodes, which was really cool, and that was fine. I went and did these episodes and got along with everybody and they liked my work.
"At the time, nobody knew the show was going to go for seven years. I was kind of taking it one step at a time. My character got a reprieve, and then I did six years of it. It was probably the biggest break of my career because there were a lot of athletes turned actors at that time, and you sort of got stereotyped, if you will, and it kind of elevated me in that regard, being on a show that was so critically acclaimed and with such talented actors. It gave me credibility that I probably didn't deserve, but I took it and it was great.
"I learned more about acting by doing that show than any acting class. It was great and kind of led to a bunch of other things. It was a very different business back then. There were three networks, so if you weren't watching Hill Street Blues on Thursday night at 10 o'clock, you had two other options, which when you think about it is kind of absurd, so our penetration, as far as people, today if you get three million or four million people watching your show, you're a success. We weren't even in the top 10 and we'd have 25 million people watching."
Now retired, he lives in Charleston, South Carolina. His son and namesake is a senior wide receiver at Cornell.
TUESDAY,
OCTOBER 8, 2024 "Negative experience without
teaching kills morale.” Nick Saban*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “One of the courses I enjoyed and the one I got the best grade in was freshman biology. So I said, hey, I'll make biology my major, even though it didn't have anything to do with my goal of being a football coach. Two biology professors with the same last name but unrelated, Dr. Bertram Barber and Dr. Ruth Barber, gave me significant help in my major course of scholastic work.
“One of the other professors who left a lasting impression was Dr. James Masterson of the English Department, undoubtedly the most severe critic of my writing efforts. A self-styled eccentric, he frequented the off-campus coffee shop where I worked part time; he demanded that we save and reheat day-old coffee for his marathon consumption as he chain-smoked cigarettes. He had big circles under his eyes, looking as if he seldom slept.
"When it came to the use of the written word he was a tyrant. The first paper I turned in for his class came back covered in red ink. I had to use the word unique, and around it he had put a big circle and the comment: "You don't have a clue what unique means. Never use a word if you don't know what it means. When you call something unique it means there is nothing in the world like it; that's the only one.” I'll say this, the impression he left with those words was unforgettable, almost unique.”
Hillsdale Lineman Mike Lude.
*********** There will be those times in a career when the other guys are just plain better than you.
There’s no other way to describe our 47-13 defeat Friday night. I suppose I could try the old “they won the first half and we won the second half” line, because we did outscore the state’s Number 5-ranked team in the second half, 13-7. The problem is, they outscored us in the first half, 40-0. And that meant a running clock the rest of the way - which meant that we ran only 20 offensive plays in the second half.
It’s amazing how quickly a game goes when the clock stops only for time outs and penalties, and it’s a damn shame for the backups on the winning team, because it drastically cuts into their chances of getting playing time. And, too, the game became a lot more fun for our kids, once they found themselves playing against number twos.
This week, we play Centralia, which has yet to win a game. But not so fast: because of an officials’ shortage, we have to play the game on Saturday. At 5 PM. (Selfishly, there goes most of a precious college football Saturday, shot to hell.)
To complicate matters, our kids won’t have been in school since Wednesday, after having both Thursday and Friday off to provide for parent-teacher conferences.
And, of course, the worst thing of all about a Saturday game - there’s one day less to review and grade film of this game and then prepare for the next game - which in our case is the state’s Number Two team, the Tumwater Thunderbirds. In the span of 15 days, we’ll have played two teams ranked in the top five.
*********** THIS WEEKEND’S GAMES
THURSDAY NIGHT
SAM HOUSTON 41 UTEP 21- The Sam Houston Bearkats are fresh off a huge 40-39 upset win over Texas State. Since starting out 0-8 in their first season in FBS last year, they’ve gone 7-2. The Miners have yet to win this year; this will be their first game since announcing their intention to join the Mountain West.
FRIDAY NIGHT (Point spread shown after the favorite)
HOUSTON 30 TCU 19 - (1) Where did Houston’s offense come from? (2) What is wrong at TCU, a team that won a playoff game just two years ago?
OREGON 31 MICHIGAN STATE 10 - Ho-hum. All set for next week, when Ohio State comes to Eugene? Tell me that wasn’t a major factor in the deal to entice the Ducks to join the Big Ten.
SYRACUSE 44 UNLV 41 (OT) HUGE win for a Syracuse team that’s been in desperate need of such a win for quite a few years.
SATURDAY
PENN STATE 27 UCLA 11 The Bruins beat the spread, and now they’re back home on the West Coast so all is good.
TEXAS A & M 41 MISSOURI 10 After watching this I have no idea why I thought Missouri was that good.
SMU 34 LOUISVILLE 27 - Good game. Mustangs are right at the ACC top.
WISCONSIN 52 PURDUE 6 - Badgers WERE much better.
VIRGINIA 24 BOSTON COLLEGE 14 - Thomas Castellanos actually may have tried to do a little too much, it seemed, and it cost the Eagles.
PITT 34 NORTH CAROLINA 24 Pitt remains unbeaten.
WAKE FOREST 34 NC STATE 30 - What a delightful surprise for this Wake fan.
NAVY 34 AIR FORCE 7 - This was Navy’s first win over AF in five years, and the Middies’ first win in Colorado Springs in 10 years. Navy QB Blake Horvath threw for 134 (9/15) and rushed for 115 (18 carries).
ARMY 49 TULSA 7 - Army continues to be the only FBS team to have scored on its opening drive in every game. Army’s nine straight wins is the nation’s longest current winning streak. Army QB Bryson Daily threw for 140 (5/5) and rushed for 110 (13 carries).
TULANE 71 UAB 20 - Tulane may be America’s best 4-2 team.
OHIO STATE 35 IOWA 7 - Iowa just can’t score points in the big games.
GEORGIA 31 AUBURN 13 Tigers gave the Bulldogs a bit of a game.
OLE MISS 27 SOUTH CAROLINA 3 - Rebels snapped back after last week’s shocking loss to Kentucky.
INDIANA 41 NORTHWESTERN 24 - Yes, Indiana is 6-0. For the record, the Hoosiers are the first FBS team to become bowl-eligible.
UCONN 29 TEMPLE 20 - An absolute disaster on the goal line killed the Owls’ chances for their first road win in three years.
VIRGINIA TECH 31 STANFORD 7 - Hokies are pretty good. Stanford isn’t.
NEBRASKA 14 RUTGERS 7 -Dull game; I was shocked at the difference in strength between the two teams.
WEST VIRGINIA 38 OKLAHOMA STATE 14 - I saw this as two teams in a potential death struggle, but I didn’t think WVU would come out the survivor.
VANDERBILT 40, ALABAMA 35 Allow me a little bragging - I started writing about Diego Pavia about this time last year, when he was in the next thing to the witness protection program - playing for New Mexico State.
OREGON STATE 39 COLORADO STATE 31 (2 OT) CSU gave the Beavers everything they had, and forced them to come back to force OT.
CLEMSON 29 FLORIDA STATE 13 - At least FSU looked better after a change in QBs. In fact, after Clemson jumped out to a 17-0 first quarter lead, the two teams played even the rest of the way.
BOISE STATE 62 UTAH STATE 30 - Ashton Jeanty went over 1,000 yards for the season, rushing 13 times for 186 yards and three TDs.
ARKANSAS 19 TENNESSEE 14 Outstanding play by a Razorback team that had had trouble finishing games.
WASHINGTON 27 MICHIGAN 17 - The Huskies were (at least to me) clearly the better team.
MINNESOTA 24 USC 17 It took guts to go for a TD at the end, instead of an easy field goal, but the decision to do it paid off for the Gophers.
IOWA STATE 43 BAYLOR 21 - Cyclones rushed for 265 yards - the third straight time they rushed for at least 235 yards. They are now 5-0 for the first time in 44 YEARS!
SAN JOSE STATE 35 NEVADA 31 - This was not a walk. The Wolfpack made a game of it the whole way; the Spartans didn’t pull ahead until there was less than a minute to play.
FLORIDA 24 CENTRAL FLORIDA 13 - Gators jumped out to a 24-3 halftime lead and held on. UCF has had the lead for less than a minute - total - in its last three games.
GEORGIA TECH 24 DUKE 14 - Duke had been making a habit of closing big, but this time it was the Yellow Jackets that did the closing, outscoring the Blue Devils 14-0 in the fourth quarter to come from behind and win. Tech, led by Jamal Haynes’ 128 yards on 19 carries, rushed for 245 yards.
SAN DIEGO STATE 27 HAWAII 24 - A pair of three-point losses - to UCLA and now SDSU - are all that stand in the way of Hawaii being 4-1 instead of 2-3.
MIAMI 39 CAL 38 - Damn. Cal led almost the entire way, and was up by 25 in the third quarter. But Cam Ward led four straight scoring drives to break the Bears’ hearts. I hurt me to see Cal lose, but I wish all the success in the world to Ward, a kid who not so very long ago was throwing them up for Incarnate Word. ACC officials: go check that targeting call that you said wasn’t targeting. How many weeks in a row are you going to give Miami a big break?
TEXAS TECH 28 ARIZONA 22 - The Red Raiders are now 5-1, winning by scoring 10 points in the final 2-1/2 minutes.
*********** Back when the “Playoff” consisted of just four teams, the National Football Foundation, exploring the then-fantastic idea of an expanded playoff, began publishing a weekly “Top 16,” to give fans an idea of what a 16-team playoff might look like.
Here’s how it looked after this past weekend’s games:
ASSUMING WE WERE LOOKING AT A 16-TEAM PLAYOFF RIGHT NOW, THIS IS WHAT THE FIRST ROUND WOULD LOOK LIKE:
1 vs 16 - Texas vs Indiana
2 vs 15 - Ohio State vs Texas A & M
3 vs 14 - Oregon vs BYU
4 vs 13 - Georgia vs LSU
5 vs 12 - Penn State vs Iowa State
6 vs 11 - Miami vs Notre Dame
7 vs 10 - Alabama vs Clemson
8 vs 9 - Tennessee vs Ole Miss
Surprisingly, although we have only a half-season to go on, at this point most of those first-round games are fairly interesting-looking matchups.
*********** I believe I mentioned that my son, Ed, “covers” the Mountain West from Melbourne, Australia where he lives. Here’s his wrap-up of this past weekend’s MW action:
Win or lose, MWC fans got their money’s worth in Week 6!
The first ever meeting between UNLV and Syracuse will go down as the game of the year so far in the Mountain West. Other than a questionable roughing the passer call in overtime, it was a slugfest that probably deserved to end in a tie.
There was also extra time - in fact two OT’s - in Corvallis, where Colorado State put up a good fight but fell to Oregon State 39-31.
San Jose State and San Diego State won close ones, while Boise State blew out Utah State, with Heisman hopeful Ashton Jeanty putting on another show.
The week’s only bummer was in Colorado Springs, where Air Force continued its miserable season getting blown out by Navy.
Week 6 Wrap
Syracuse 44 UNLV 41 (OT): A heartbreaking first loss for UNLV, but the Rebels had a number of chances to put the game on ice and couldn’t do it. Quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams (21/25 for 257 yds) was superb again and how about the performance from Ricky White Jr? The standout wideout had 10 catches for 135 yards and a touchdown PLUS a blocked a punt, his second of the year.
Oregon State 39 Colorado State 31 (2OT): Both teams racked up more than 430 yards of total offense, but the Beavers made two huge defensive stands and the Rams tripled their penalty average, getting flagged 13 times for 82 total yards.
San Diego State 27 Hawaii 24: San Diego State’s fifth straight win over Hawaii and the fourth straight in the series decided by seven points or less. Once again Hawaii drops a close one; this is their second loss by three points.
San Jose State 35 Nevada 31: It took a trick play in the last minute – a pass from wide receiver Nick Nash to Jabari Bates – for San Jose State to knock off pesky Nevada.
Boise State 62 Utah State 30: A statistician’s dream (or nightmare). Boise superstar Ashton Jeanty ran for 186 yards and three touchdowns (all in the first half), while QB Maddux Madsen threw for 256 yards and three touchdowns and kicker Jonah Dalman booted his 84th field goal, a Mountain West record.
Navy 34 Air Force 7: Oh Zoomies, what’s happened? They go to New Mexico next week in what, believe it or not, is a ‘must win’ game. Troy Calhoun’s men are 1-4 with Army, Fresno State and Oregon State still to come.
Coming Up:
UNLV at Utah State: Aggies lead the series 16-8, but Rebels won the last meeting in 2022.
San Diego State at Wyoming: Teams have split the 38 meetings, but Aztecs have won four of the last five. They haven’t met in Laramie since 2016.
San Jose State at Colorado State: Have played 12 times, CSU holds a 7-5 advantage.
Air Force at New Mexico: Air Force has won five straight over the Lobos.
Washington State at Fresno State: Last met in the 2022 L.A. Bowl, with Fresno winning 29-6.
Oregon State at Nevada: Haven’t played since 2018, when Nevada won 37-35 in Reno.
Boise State at Hawaii: The Broncos have won nine in a row over Hawaii. Last Warriors win was 2007, with the late Colt Brennan at QB.
*********** Rutgers has no idea how costly that loss to Nebraska could turn out to be. Such can be the random inequality of scheduling in an 18-team league that this year, the Scarlet Knights do NOT have to play:
Ohio state
Oregon
Penn State
Michigan
Iowa
*********** Killer play of the week. The season, maybe.
With three seconds left on the clock, Temple trailed UConn, 23-20. The Owls were on the UConn one. Inside the one, actually. (Not that it mattered, with just three seconds left, but it was fourth down.)
A chip-shot field goal would have sent the game into overtime, but the Owls, going for their first road win in over three years, chose instead to go for the touchdown.
They didn’t make it.
From a pileup at the goal line, the ball squirted out, and UConn’s Jordan Wright alertly scooped it up and raced 97 yards to put icing on the win.
UConn won its third straight, 29-20, to go 4-2.
*********** FIELD STORMING RATINGS
CATEGORY 1. I’D A BEEN THERE WITH YA
Vanderbilt - That wasn’t so tough, was it? Storming the field, I mean. After the football team pulled off the near-impossible, not only beating Alabama - a 23-point favorite - but putting 40 points on them, it didn’t take that long for Vandy students to figure out how to storm a field just like the kids at all the big state schools. Vanderbilt Student (a nuclear physics major): “Hey, this is fun. Do you guys do this every Saturday?”
Arkansas - If ever a fan base deserved a chance to release its pent-up frustrations and celebrate a big win down on the field, this was it. The Hogs had lost a couple of tough ones, and with Tennessee threatening at the end, tension became so great that the way the Vols’ QB simply ran out of bounds as time expired made it almost anticlimactic. Almost. For me, anyhow. But not for 70,000 Razorback fans.
Minnesota - How often have Gopher fans had a chance to see their team beat a nationally ranked team at home? How often has that team been the mighty USC Trojans? Since the two schools first met in 1953, this was just their ninth meeting. USC had won the last five straight. They last met in the Coliseum in 2011, and they last played in Minneapolis in 2010. The last time the Gophers beat the Trojans was 1955. So party on!
CATEGORY 2. OKAY, I GET IT
Washington - It was only Michigan, a relic of the team that won last year’s national title. And this year’s Husky team is a mere shell of the team that met the Wolverines in the title game. But still… It was the Huskies’ first-ever Big Ten game in Husky Stadium, and it was against a team that they once met only in Rose Bowls, so what the hell. Celebrate.
CATEGORY 3. WTF?
Texas A & M - Hey, Aggies - you just beat the formerly-unbeaten, ninth-ranked team - and you’re not even on the field? Either (A) You’re blasé; (B) Stadium security is the best in college sports; or (C) You’d rather stand and sing the Aggie War Hymn with the other 100,000 people. I’m guessing (C).
CATEGORY 4. SOME PEOPLE DON’T NEED MUCH CAUSE TO STORM A FIELD
Oregon State - Wait - you’re celebrating a win over 2-2 Colorado State (whose losses were blowouts by Texas and Colorado, and whose wins came over winless UTEP and FCS Northern Colorado?) And it took you two overtimes to do it? And weren’t you guys eleven-point favorites?
*********** I have a feeling that Toby Gearhart, great Stanford runner from the Jim Harbaugh days who finished second in the Heisman voting to Mark Ingram, would not be appreciated by many of today’s more enlightened educational administrators.
I heard him say, in an interview, that he’d sure like to see current Stanford head coach Troy Taylor bring about a return to the Harbaugh mentality: “bring some of that intellectual brutality back.”
*********** I just heard Colin Cowherd say that in the years since Terry Bradshaw retired, the Steelers have had 25 different quarterbacks, and only one of them - Ben Roethlisberger - would be considered top-rate. This may not be on Mike Tomlin, but something is definitely wrong in Pittsburgh.
*********** When the overflow crowd in Berkeley pushed its way onto the pre-dawn scene at last Saturday’s College Game Day, the snooty Cal kids were exposed as being just as attention-seeking as the (ugh) kids at ordinary (ugh) state universities. How embarrassing.
Being bright, they showed great inventiveness in their signs, one of which poked fun at Cal’s activitist reputation: “I THOUGHT THIS WAS A PROTEST.”
My favorite, showing that at least one Cal student could laugh at Cal’s noted wokeness, promoted Cal running back Jaydn Ott: “OTT FOR HEISPERSON.”
*********** Coach Wyatt,
There used to be a quote at the top of your news page about why football is still taught in schools. Could you please share it with me? I have a mom that's trying to get her son out of football & I would love to share it with her. Thank you & good luck this weekend!
Tim Kuhn
St Louis, Missouri
Coach:
"Football may be the best-taught subject in American high schools because it may be the only subject that we haven't tried to make easy.” Dorothy Farnan, longtime Chairman of the English Department, Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn, New York
Dr. Farnan died in 2003. Erasmus Hall High, which New York City Schools in their infinite wisdom have closed, has to have one of the most illustrious rosters of alumni of any American high school. Some examples:
Bob Arum (Boxing promoter)
Joseph Barbera (Hanna and Barbera cartoons)
Jeff Chandler (Actor)
Billy Cunningham (NBA star)
Al Davis (Raiders owner)
Neil Diamond (Singer-songwriter)
Norm Drucker (NBA official)
Bobby Fischer Chess Champion)
Eleanor Holm (Olympic swimmer)
Waite Hoyt (Major League pitcher/radio announcer)
Marty Ingels (Comedian)
Ned Irish (Founder of New York Knicks)
Roger Kahn (Sportswriter, author of “Boys of Summer”)
Lainey Kazan (Actress and singer)
Sid Luckman (Hall of Fame quarterback)
Bernard Malamud (Novelist)
Stephanie Mills (Singer-songwriter)
Jerry Reinsdorf (Owner, Chicago Bulls)
Sam Rutigliano (NFL coach)
Harvey Schiller (Head, USOC/President, Turner Sports)
Beverly Siłls (Opera star)
Mickey Spillane (Author)
Barbra Streisand (Singer)
Norma Talmadge (Actress)
Eli Wallach (Actor)
Sonny Werblin (Owner, NY Jets/Chairman Madison Square Garden)
There are plenty more, but who cares about scientists and mathematicians? (I guess I'd better say I'm being sarcastic.)
Interestingly, there seem to be ZERO politicians. Maybe that’s why they closed the place.
*********** Mike Foristiere’s Marsing (Idaho) Huskies are now 4-1 after a 39-12 win over New Plymouth. The halftime score was 13-12.
The Huskies had 491 yards of total offense: 8 of 14 for 185 yards passing, and 46 carries for 306 yards on the ground.
*********** Love the Coach Foristiere arcticle. Coach I saw your suggestions for that coach coaching 8 year olds. D same I ran all the time. But with the DW I learned this lesson - NEVER give up the offensive line unless you are sure that it is being taught our way - the DW way - all the way. If not you will be a member of the heartbreak motel. And then they will blame the OC for running a complicated offense that doesn’t work for rec league. (To the guy that has put in the DW himself or helped other coaches install in biddy- junior league, Middle school, JV , Varsity.)
Had to miss the meeting Tuesday - had some church duty to attend to. I’m so sorry to hear about Coach Latham. I’m almost positive I have talked to him before in length in one of your clinics a while back. He made such a great impact on me. I loved the video you showed. I sure do miss coaching and sharing real men coaching and life stuff with men like him. I’m sure he is going to be missed by all. I will pray for his family.
You mean a lot to me Coach. I Always Remember your dear wife Connie. Take care and way to,”Keep Coaching.”
Armando Castro
Richmond, Virgina
Coach Castro, who goes wa-a-a-ay back with me, knows his Double Wing inside and out. As he notes, he has coached it successfully at all levels, from pee-wees up through high school varsity. But he made a mistake this past season in agreeing to help a youth team with its offense, only to run into a nest of naysayers who (raise your hand if you’ve heard this before) insisted that the Double Wing is too complicated for little kids. (Raise your hand if you’ve proved that it’s not.)
He was, in the words of Jesus, casting pearls before swine. It’s hard enough to be successful without having the rest of your staff fighting your efforts, so finally he decided to throw in the towel, a move that I strongly concurred with.
(Raise your hand if you think they then decided to line up in a spread formation and try to throw the ball. Something we all know little kids can do.)
*********** Obviously it's Drew Bledsoe
Probably the best player to ever get "Wally Pipp"'ed in any sport.
Army and Navy are on a major collision course, and I'm impressed with both! As a former enlisted Marine, I lean towards Navy, but it's great to see both playing great football. The option and wing-T concepts still work, but everyone is auditioning for the next job as opposed to just winning football games.
Thanks,
Mike Burchett
Principal, Woodlake High School
Woodlake, California
*********** Your talk to the kids was, without doubt, a key reason they came so close to getting an elusive win. Now, Coach, let's use that positivity with respect to America. The A.F. Tyler words might be true, but we shouldn't want to hear them. I know we're just individuals, but we must fight Woke America until our final breath. I've followed you long enough, and believe I know you well enough, to sense your deep love of our country. Don't admit even a molecule of defeatism.
What's probably the best line on today's page [I must except the commentary about Coach Lude...which I continue to love]? That'd be the comment about UCLA, coaches included, wondering what they're doing in their shiny new conference. We spend more time on planes than on practice fields.
Go Bobcats!
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, FL
Answer is Drew Bledsoe. He certainly seems to be one special man who formerly was one special QB. Few guys in the NFL could have handled that 'ousting' as well as Drew.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Drew Bledsoe’s dad was a high school coach so he moved around a bit when he was a kid, but he spent his entire high school years in Walla Walla, Washington (“The Town So Nice They Named It Twice”).
Playing for his dad, he was the All-State quarterback. He also lettered in basketball and track, where as a weight man he threw the discus 148-10.
At Washington State, late in his freshman season he became the first true freshman to start a game at QB for the Cougars.
As a junior, he led the Cougs to a 9-3 record and a win over Utah in the Copper Bowl, setting school records for yards passing in a single game (476), pass completions in a season (241) and yards passing in a season (3,246).
He was the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year.
When he chose to forego his final college season and declare for the NFL draft, he had started 34 games and completed 532 passes for 7,373 yards and 46 touchdowns.
He was the first player taken in the 1993 NFL draft, chosen by the New England Patriots.
From the Patriots’ Web site;
(He) was the first overall pick in the 1993 NFL Draft and for the next eight years was considered the face of the Patriots franchise. During his nine-year Patriots career, he broke the Patriots’ career passing records for attempts (4,518), completions (2,544) and yards (29,657). (He) still holds the Patriots’ single-season passing records for attempts (691) and completions (400) and is the only player in franchise history to pass for over 400 yards multiple times (4). He still holds the NFL record for attempts in a season (691 in 1994) and both attempts (70) and completions (45) in a game against Minnesota in 1994 that sparked a seven-game win streak, propelling the Patriots to their first playoff berth in eight years. (He) led the Patriots to the playoffs four times in his first six seasons, helping the team earn back-to-back division titles and three consecutive playoff berths for the first time in franchise history. In 1996, he guided the Patriots to their second AFC Championship in franchise history and a trip to Super Bowl XXXI. (He) is the only quarterback in NFL history with four seasons of at least 600 pass attempts, including three straight from 1994-96 with the Patriots.
But early in the 2001 season, as he scrambled out of the pocket and headed for the sideline in a game against the Jets, he was hit hard and knocked out of bounds. He was slow to get up, and he was taken to a hospital where it was discovered that he was suffering from internal bleeding that nearly proved fatal.
His replacement at quarterback was a young player named Tom Brady.
He never got his starting job back, and in the offseason he was traded to the Bills. He wound up playing five more seasons, three with the Bills and two with the Cowboys.
His career totals are impressive. He completed 3,839 of 6,717 passes for 44,611 yards and 251 touchdowns.
He still holds two NFL records: Most attempts in a game (70) and most completions in a game - also held by Jared Goff (45).
He now lives in Bend, Oregon, where he coached high school football while his boys played. He and his wife now own the very successful and well-respected Bledsoe Family Winery in his home town of Walla Walla, a town that has earned a wide reputation for its many quality wineries.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING DREW BLEDSOE
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN CARLO
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
ARMANDO CASTRO - RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
MIKE BURCHETT - WOODLAKE, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Arizona and started high school in Tucson, but he finished high school in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, when his dad became an assistant coach with the Chiefs.
He was a high school star in football, basketball and baseball, and he made clear to football recruiters that he wanted to play both football and baseball in college. (At graduation time, he was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays.)
Two coaches who honored his request were Ted Tollner of USC and Larry Smith of Arizona. He chose USC.
During his true freshman year there he backed up Sean Salisbury, but managed to throw for 566 yards.
Named the Trojans’ starter before his sophomore season, he threw for 2,138 yards and 10 touchdowns, and was named second team All-Pac-10.
But the Trojans finished 7-5, and Tollner was fired. His replacement was a coach who had recruited our guy hard - Larry Smith, who had been at Arizona.
Under Smith, USC improved to 8-4, and our guy threw for 2,709 yards and 21 touchdowns.
In his senior year, he started all 12 games and led the Trojans to a 10–2 record. He threw for 2,812 yards, and 18 touchdowns, and rushed for five touchdowns.
He won the Johnny Unitas Award as the nation's best senior quarterback and was second to Barry Sanders (and ahead of UCLA’s Troy Aikman) in the Heisman Trophy voting.
He finished his college career as USC’s all-time leader in pass attempts (1,081), completions (630), passing yards (8,225), total offense (8,640) and starts (40).
In the meantime, he had continued to play baseball, as a shortstop and third baseman, and carried a .339 batting average in his years at USC. Said his coach, Mike Gillespie, “I don’t think people realize (he) is a legitimate Major League prospect.”
He decided, however, that the demands on a quarterback were too great to allow for playing another sport, and ultimately, he wanted to be an NFL quarterback. It turned out to be a very good decision - he would play 16 years as an NFL quarterback.
He was drafted in the 10th round by the Lions, and he spent five years with them, starting 47 games in that time.
He then signed as a free agent with the Cowboys, but wound up backing up Troy Aikman, and after that year he signed with the Eagles.
His first year in Philadelphia turned out to be one of his best pro seasons. He started 12 games and was 9-3 in those starts. He completed 215 passes for 2326 yards and 8 TDs.
In two playoff games the Eagles were 1-1, but his completion percentage (67 %) plus his yards per attempt (9.9) plus his touchdowns per attempt (10%) and his interceptions per attempt (0 %) gave him an extremely positive 132.4 QB rating.
After four years, the Eagles traded him to the Redskins, where he mostly backed up Brad Johnson.
After one year of that, he went on to the Raiders, where he played behind Rich Gannon and Bobby Hoying.
And then he signed with the Panthers, and at the age of 36, he had the best year of his career. He started 14 games and went 7-7. He completed 223 of 381 for 2,630 yards and 15 TDs.
But time had begun to take its toll, and in the first game of his second season in Carolina, he was lifted in favor of newly-acquired Jake Delhomme and he never got his starting job back.
His wife was a fairly well-known actress and - possibly as a result of that but just as likely because of his fame and his on-air ability, he has since retirement made a career in radio.
In March 2010, he wrote a book entitled “Not My Boy!: A Father, A Son and A Family’s Journey with Autism.”
You wonder how he stayed around the NFL so long?
First, he obviously was a good team man who accepted his role - often meant serving as backup.
But every bit as important - teams could count on him to be ready. In all, he had 87 starts as a QB, and he won 45 of them. That makes him a winner.
One area in his stats jumped out at me - he had 244 career sacks. Checking his total career attempts - 2,346 - that’s close to one sack every ten attempts. It turns out that there’s an NFL stat called “Sacks Percentage,” and of 203 quarterbacks who had enough attempts to qualify, he is ranked 191, with a very high percentage of 9.42.
As an example, Payton Manning is the all-time Number 2, with a very low 3.13 percentage.
Lest anybody think that a high sacks percentage is necessarily an indictment of the quarterback, it should be pointed out that three Hall of Fame QBs have even higher ones than our guy: Roger Staubach (remember the way he once could scramble?), Bart Starr (who played for one of the best teams ever and passed relatively seldom) and Archie Manning (who, although he played for some of the worst teams ever, was a whole lot faster and more nimble than Peyton).
FRIDAY,
OCTOBER 4, 2024 "It's difficult to prove
yourself reliable when people are required to wait for you." Wes Fesler*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “When I wasn't playing sports or hitting the books, I was learning some of the social graces I hadn't been exposed to on the farm. At the fraternity we were required to wear a tie and jacket for dinner. We had to stand until the house mother was seated. I learned how to say grace before a meal and took my turn giving thanks with the other fraternity pledges.
“I got a taste of fraternity hazing, like being blindfolded and dropped off out in the countryside with other pledges and having to find our way back to campus. Pledges were required to make a paddle for a fraternity ‘big brother,’ and if you didn't follow the proper procedure you had to be ready to grab your ankles while he took the paddle to your backside. Thanks to a tremendous big brother who didn't take the routine too seriously I thought it was all pretty good-natured fun.
“To help pay for my room and board at the fraternity, I made a deal to supply potatoes we raised on the farm, sacks and sacks of potatoes. I'd haul a load to school in my dad's old beat up jalopy each fall and bring a new supply when I came back from the Christmas break.
“Despite some intimidating classroom experiences, I made steady progress. My big goal was simply to keep my head above water academically. The day-to-day responsibilities took priority over a lot of deep thinking about the future, but I still wanted to get a college diploma and a coaching job.”
*********** At Aberdeen, coming off a big win over archrival Hoquiam, it would be nice if we didn’t have to face one of the two toughest tests on our schedule.
We had a rough first three games - those teams are all now 9-3 - and now, with a win under our belt, we face W.F. West High, of Chehalis.
Currently ranked #5 in the state, they’re 4-0, with three of their wins coming over teams in a higher classification. Last week they crushed Shelton, 62-0.
Their big weapon is their QB, Gage Brumfield. At 6-2, 210, he can run and pass with equal effectiveness: in the Shelton win, he threw for three touchdowns and ran for a fourth. He was our conference Player of the Year last season and, in the words of his coach, is “twice as good as last year at this point.”
But it’s apparent to me that we are getting better, week by week. Our inexperience still shows at times, but last week we played with a ferocity that I hadn’t seen before, and it was exciting to see.
*********** It’s always pleasing to a coach to see his teaching carried out in game action, so it pleased me greatly to see this photo in the Aberdeen Daily World from our game Friday night. Aberdeen quarterback Mason Hill is about to take a snap. Knees bent, hands together and reaching out, “framing” the ball, he’s in position to handle a bad snap, either high or low. And, too - a perfect snap hits his hands exactly at “handoff level.”
*********** On Wednesday, my good friend Joe Fagerstedt, who coaches the eighth grade team at our middle school, asked me if I’d come and talk to his kids on the eve of their big game with rival Hoquiam. Anything for Joe, a longtime Bobcats’ coach who’s had a lot to do with my being at Aberdeen now. Joe’s kids haven’t won a game this year - a rarity for Joe - and they were winless last year as seventh graders. Hoquiam, on the other hand, is unbeaten.
What do you tell kids in a situation like that?
I told them the story of Army-Navy in 1950. Army was 8-0 and had been highly-ranked all season, never lower than fourth, several times number one. They were number two in the nation coming into the game. They’d shut out five of their opponents.
Navy was 2-6. The Middies had beaten a 2-5-2 USC team, and 4-5 Columbia. They’d been outscored 174-108.
Navy hadn’t beaten Army in seven years.
Yet in a game in which no one gave them a chance - Navy won!
How can something like that happen? How is that possible?
Of course preparation is important, I told them, and I said I know that their coaches have prepared them.
But there are two other factors that have to be present, I said.
The first is belief. Call it faith. The entire team simply has to believe that winning is attainable.
Second is a great desire to have a feeling - a feeling that only a football player experiences, when his team has won and he looks around at his teammates and realizes “We did it!”
There’s absolutely nothing like it, I told them. I had to, because none of them has experienced it. The best meal they’ve ever had or the best roller coaster ride they’ve ever been on? Not even close.
Only after winning a football game with guys who sweated with you, felt pain with you, felt tired with you - and maybe even thought about quitting with you - can you have this feeling. People who haven’t played football will never know it, and you can’t describe it to them.
You have to crave that feeling. Once you’ve had it, you’ll never forget it.
With a burning desire to have that feeling, combined with a belief that you’re good enough, I told them, you have a chance to win.
UPDATE: I either spoke too long or not long enough, because in Thursday’s game, Joe’s kids led most of the way but fell, 29-28. I didn’t see the game (we had practice) but Joe said it was a “last second TD.” To think how close I came to a lucrative career as a motivational speaker.
*********** THIS WEEKEND’S GAMES
THURSDAY NIGHT
SAM HOUSTON AT UTEP - The Sam Houston Bearkats are fresh off a huge 40-39 upset win over Texas State. Since starting out 0-8 in their first season in FBS last year, they’ve gone 7-2. The Miners have yet to win this year; this will be their first game since announcing their intention to join the Mountain West.
FRIDAY NIGHT (Point spread shown after the favorite)
HOUSTON AT TCU -16.5
MICHIGAN STATE AT OREGON - 24 - Corvallis, home of Oregon State, is only 30 minutes or so away, but it’s not likely many OSU Beavers will be on hand to watch their now-despised former coach Jonathan Smith and his Spartans get sent home packing. Nevertheless, many, many of them will be rooting for the Ducks, some for the first time in their lives.
SYRACUSE AT UNLV -6.5 - I’ve liked ‘Cuse for a long time, but look out Orange - The Rebs have a super offense and new QB Tajj-Malik Williams has shown he can handle the job.
SATURDAY
UCLA AT PENN STATE -28 - Have the Bruins started to ask WTF they’re doing, flying around the country and playing tackling dummies in this new conference their AD got them into?
MISSOURI AT TEXAS A & M -2.5 - I’d go with Mizzou even without the points.
SMU AT LOUISVILLE -7 - If they’d played cleaner, Lousville could have beaten Notre Dame. I don’t know if they’re 7 points better, but they’ll win.
PURDUE AT WISCONSIN -14 - Badgers are much better.
BOSTON COLLEGE AT VIRGINIA -1 - Thomas Castellanos is expected to play for the Eagles, so for me this seems like an easy pick. BC.
PITT -3 AT NORTH CAROLINA - Tar Heels have been a huge disappointment. A win over unbeaten Pitt would help them straighten things out. I think Pitt.
WAKE FOREST AT NC STATE -5.5 - I’m very disappointed in Wake’s defense.
NAVY -10 AT AIR FORCE - It’s been a while since Navy beat the Zoomies. Either AF will finally wake up and play football or this will be a Navy runaway.
ARMY -12.5 AT TULSA - Here’s one to watch: Army is now the only FBS team to have scored on its opening drive in every game. Army is a four-down team: they’ve punted only seven times in four games, while they’v gone for it on fourth down eight times (converting six times).
TULANE -14.5 AT UAB - Green Wave is 3-2 but the losses were to K-State and Oklahoma. They will beat UAB by three scores.
IOWA AT OHIO STATE -20-5 - I’m betting that Iowa’s defense will keep the game closer.
AUBURN AT GEORGIA -24 - If the Bulldogs can come back from 28 points down against Alabama, they can easily put 25 on Auburn.
OLE MISS -9 AT SOUTH CAROLINA - Rebels snap back after last week’s shocking loss to Kentucky.
INDIANA -14 AT NORTHWESTERN - Indiana? 6-0? Really? Bet on it.
TEMPLE AT UCONN -17 - UConn has been playing well.
VIRGINIA TECH -7.5 AT STANFORD - If the Hokies play the way they played Miami, they’ll win. But it’s their first trip west, and I think Stanford can at least cover.
RUTGERS AT NEBRASKA -7 - I don’t think Rutgers gets enough respect. I think they’ll win without the points.
WEST VIRGINIA AT OKLAHOMA STATE -3.5 - WVU is 2-2; Okla St is 3-2. It’s been a rough road for both teams so far. I think the home field is enough for the Cowboys to cover.
ALABAMA -23 AT VANDERBILT - I want to see if Diego Pavia can play well enough against the Number One team to at least avert a blowout.
COLORADO STATE AT OREGON STATE -11 - If Colorado State sucks as bad as they did the last time I saw them play, this will be bad.
CLEMSON -14.5 AT FLORIDA STATE - Barring a change at QB for the Seminoles, Clemson will win this one by three scores.
UTAH STATE AT BOISE STATE -27 - It will take 12 men for the Aggies to contain the Broncos’ Ashton Jeanty. He’s that good.
TENNESSEE -14 AT ARKANSAS - Two Razorback players who transferred from Tennessee will be co-captains Saturday. It won’t make any difference. They’re going to “stripe out” the stadium, too. But that won’t make any difference, either. Tennessee covers.
MICHIGAN -2.5 AT WASHINGTON - This is not last year’s Michigan, but it’s not last year’s Washington, either. New rosters, new coaches. I give Michigan the slight edge, and I give the points.
USC -8 AT MINNESOTA - I think that the Trojans are just better and they’ll win by more than 8. But they’ll have to do it without my support, the bastards.
BAYLOR AT IOWA STATE -11.5 - Don’t look now but the Cyclones are 4-0. The Bears are 2-3 and they’ve dropped their last two.
NEVADA AT SAN JOSE STATE -2.5 - SJSU should win in a walk; last time they played they lost, 54-52 to Washington State in OT.
CENTRAL FLORIDA - 2.5 AT FLORIDA - A week or so ago I’d have said UCF by 10. But after the loss to Colorado, I have my doubts about this one. This is my upset call.
DUKE AT GEORGIA TECH -9 - Wow. There’s Duke at 5-0 and they still don’t get any respect. Of course, Tech may turn out to be the toughest opponent they’ve played so far. But I’d take the points.
HAWAII AT SAN DIEGO STATE -2.5 - I doubt that I’ll watch any of this. How bad must SDSU be when they’ve managed to get Hawaii - a pretty bad team - away from the notorious island officiating and they’re only favored by 2.5?
MIAMI -10.5 AT CAL - Can the home field actually help the Golden Bears? I sure hope so.
TEXAS TECH AT ARIZONA -6 - The Wildcats pulled off a big win against Utah, and now we’ll see if they’re for real.
*********** We read a lot about the Top 10, and even the Top 25, but that’s it. And there’s a lot of good teams - with a lot of good wins - in the Second 25.
Chris Vannini in The Athletic ranks all 153 FBS teams
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5804330/2024/09/30/college-football-rankings-134-teams-week-5/?campaign=11206383&source=untilsaturday_newsletter&userId=437916
*********** With the recent addition of major basketball brand Gonzaga, the Pac-12 may have carried out an impressive act of asymmetrical warfare (warfare using unconventional tactics) in its battle to revive itself.
While not adding to the conference’s football membership, Gonzaga’s entry immediately positions the Pac-12 to be a basketball power. And, writes Trent Wood in The Deseret News (a Utah publication), that could also put the Pac-12 back into play as an attractive location for good football schools that also have higher basketball aspirations than their current conferences can accommodate:
There is an argument to be made that Gonzaga joining the Pac-12 adds to the prestige of the conference on the whole, making the league more attractive to possible other members who sponsor football.
Attractive enough for potential additions like Memphis, Tulane or USF to reconsider their commitment to the American Athletic Conference. Or UNLV to the Mountain West. Or maybe, just maybe Cal and Stanford to the ACC.
According to Forbes, the only real potential additions from the non-Power ranks that would be especially valuable for the Pac-12 to add are Memphis, Tulane, UTSA, USF and Louisiana. Could the addition of Gonzaga be enough to bring those schools west?
*********** Now (Miami (Ohio), New Mexico, Wyoming and Old Dominion all won last Saturday, UTEP, Kennesaw State and Kent State are the three remaining winless FBS teams.
********** “The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler
*********** Most consecutive winning seasons among current FBS teams…
1. Boise State: 26 Seasons (starting in 1998)
2. Wisconsin: 22 seasons (starting in 2002)
3. Oklahoma State: 18 seasons (starting in 2006)
4. Alabama: 16 seasons (starting in 2008)
5. Clemson: 13 seasons (starting in 2011)
5. Georgia: 13 seasons (starting in 2011)
7. Ohio State: 12 seasons (starting in 2012)
8. Iowa: 11 seasons (starting in 2013)
9. Utah: 10 seasons (starting in 2014)
9. Memphis: 10 seasons (starting in 2014)
9. James Madison: 10 seasons (starting in 2014)
All of Alabama’s winning seasons in their streak have been 10-wins (or more)
*********** Mike Foristiere has more than paid his coaching dues, and has earned the right to coach in a place like Marsing, Idaho…
(1) Where this gun, built by one of the assistant coaches, is being raffled off as a fund raiser for the football team.
(2) Where, he writes, “My starting center’s mom works in our district office. I stopped in for something and she said that her son said when I run the wedge play it makes him feel very important.”
(3) Where, he tells me, “I see a lot of teenage girls wearing shirts that say ‘Jesus is my savior and Trump is my president.’”
(I am considering opening a travel agency to put together tours to Marsing, Idaho for red-blooded teenage boys stuck in blue states.)
*********** Hi Coach Wyatt, my name is ----- and I coach the 8 year olds at ----- in the ------- Youth Football League.
I am looking to gain more knowledge and information on the best offense and defense to implement for that age group. I was wondering if you could send me anything on the double wing-t, or whatever you think would be best for that age group. I have been tasked with trying to find the best offenses and defenses to run for youth football. The league we play in is very good and we have constantly been on the losing end of most of our games for all age groups. In doing research it seems that you are the most knowledgeable in youth football and I think you could help us turn this thing around.
I am flattered that you would write me.
I of course am biased in favor of a Double-Wing offense, either with a QB under center or using a direct snap, similar to the old single wing.
To be up front, though, I make a living selling materials showing how to run my Double-Wing, so you might want to bear that in mind in case it might sound to you as if I’m biased.
There are other offensive systems that you might use, but in most cases, they put unusual stress on one position - usually QB (in a passing or option offense), or a single running back (in an I-formation offense).
I do think that the important thing, no matter what you do, is that you decide on a system, and invest everything in getting better at that, rather than just running a hodgepodge of plays.
Defensively, you also need a system - something very, very simple yet sound. Your kids will get better by doing the same thing, over and over, in practices and games. The game results may improve if you change defenses week to week, but your kids will not.
For kids as young as yours, I think that penetration is good. A 5-3 or even a Gap-8 are sound.
I wouldn't rule out a "10-1". At that age, you don't have to worry very much about people beating you with the pass.
*********** Many years ago, when I was coaching back East, I heard of a high school coach in Pennsylvania who, not having a deep snapper, solved his problem by having his quarterback take a “side-saddle” exchange from center and then lateral the ball back to his punter.
Made perfect sense to me. A classic case of making do.
But then I read of a coach in our local (Vancouver, Washington) area who didn’t have a punter, and came up with the brilliant idea of place-kicking (you know - field-goal style) on fourth down.
I am not making this up.
I’m not naming names, so I’ll go ahead and say it’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of, and I can’t believe the person who wrote a story about it in our local paper was so ignorant that he would write about it as if it was a valid idea. (Well, actually, considering the quality of reporter these days, I can believe that.)
First of all - no punter on the entire roster? Hard to believe. I’ve gone into games with as few as 17 kids in uniform, but I’ve never coached anyplace where we didn’t have one single kid with the ability to punt a football. How can that be, today, in a nation where little boys are playing soccer before they’re out of diapers?
Second of all, to get any distance at all, a place kick has to come off the ground at a much lower trajectory than a punt, making a blocked kick much more likely.
Third, the placekick, which occurs at seven yards from the ball rather than a punt, which comes off from ten yards at the least to 15 yards at the most, requires everyone other than the kicker or the holder to block, meaning the chance of a return against you is much greater.
Fourth, even if you could release a couple of guys to cover, the place kick doesn’t have the hang time of a punt. It comes out a lot lower and it gets to the return man well before any coverage could get downfield. (There is a reason why teams customarily punt the ball after a safety.)
Fifth, with a placekick, there is an extra moving part in the operation: the holder. Lots of things can go wrong when you have to depend on the concerted actions of a center, holder and kicker.
That’s exactly what happened in a game - right before the story appeared in the paper - when a mishandled snap gave the ball to the opponents deep in the kicking team’s territory. The opponent scored and went on to win, 34-0.
You’d think that would have been enough for them to spike the story, but no. It never occurred to the geniuses in the sports department that there went the whole damn story.
*********** Imagine Pete Rose as a football player. Is there any question what position he’d play? Why, running back, of course. It takes a certain mentality - a compulsion to dominate, to defy any effort to stop him. A sense of “Here I come, world - stop me!”
That was Pete Rose.
Fortunately for us all, he played baseball, so we got to see one of the greatest players in the history of the game, because otherwise, were he to play in today’s NFL, he’d be a relatively underpaid, relatively unknown bit player in the Great American Passing Contest, the 7-on-7 with pads that’s sold as football every Sunday (and Monday and Thursday).
On the subject of Pete Rose, Christopher Scalia, writing in the Wall Street Journal, makes the best argument I’ve read yet for lifting Major League Baseball’s permanent ban of Rose. Essentially, his argument is that now that Rose is dead, the ban no longer punishes him - it punishes his fans and the great number of people who, while deploring many of his off-the-field activities, nonetheless admire his many accomplishments on the field.
*********** There once was a time when one could pretty much trust most newspapers to give us the story - to just give us who, what, when, where and, occasionally, how. To print the facts and let us figure things out for ourselves. To leave themselves and their biases on the editorial page, and out of their stories.
Not so today. Today, with most small-to-medium-sized newspapers fighting to survive, they’ve had to cut staffs to the point where very little of their content is locally-sourced (written by their own writers).
Instead, for the other 90 per cent of their paper - just about every story other than local ones - they depend on the Associated Press (AP), which provides local papers with content for a fee and for the rights to distribute any stories they and their writers may have originated.
It’s why you can open just about any newspaper in the United States and read the exact same story about, say, Hurricane Helene.
The problem is that the AP and its stories slant heavily to the left, with its opinions deftly inserted into them, and since it’s the source of most of the content of most of today’s small-to-medium-sized newspapers, that means that most of what those papers pass off to their readers as “news” is actually the liberal, anti-conservative garbage of the AP.
But wait - what’s this? Why, it’s the high-and-mighty AP, passing the “Fund Me” hat.
Can that mean they know that Kamala Harris must be losing? It must, because if the Demos win, you can expect one of their first acts to be a “Save the News” act, bailing out liberal newspapers (a redundancy) and the Associated Press as well with taxpayer dollars.
Me, I’m saving up my money for the day someone starts a “SHUT DOWN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS” fund.
*********** Thanks for my introduction to Wes Fesler. Based solely on what you wrote, he was indeed wise.
I'm still baffled by JMU. Last year's coach goes to Indiana, where his team's 5-0. This year's team also is undefeated, and after putting 70 on UNC scores 63 against Ball State. What is going on in Harrisonburg?
Congratulations to your Bobcats. Hope that 'situation' resolves quickly.
Like you, I would never question Coach Lude...but how--if Mercury simply wore another jersey--could the ref who ejected him in the first place not notice the ejectee remained in the game? He wasn't blind, was he?
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Unfortunately, this is not a good time to ask me about officials’ faculties.
*********** Hugh,
Congrats on the big win over Hoquiam. Sorry to hear about what happened with Todd being suspended, but it appears either the team didn't let it bother them much, OR...they used it as motivation. Either way nice win, and I hope Todd will get through this ok.
IMHO Army and Navy are legit. Their QB's, Army's Bryson Dailey, and Navy's Blake Horvath are outstanding athletes. Both do an incredible job of "managing" their respective offenses while adding their own talents to make those offenses go. They are throwbacks, and I'm enjoying every second of watching them play! Both will face Notre Dame this year, and frankly, the Irish will have their hands full with BOTH of them!
Speaking of Notre Dame...it was ugly, and Louisville certainly did all it could to help the Irish cause, but the win over the Cardinals was a big one for ND. Hopefully the bye week will help them get their guys who have been banged up get healed up, but after watching that anemic offense play against more talented teams I'm not too confident the play-calling will get any better to make Riley Leonard better.
Get Riley under center more often. Run the ball with TWO backs in the backfield with Riley regardless of being in the gun or under center.
Run a damn counter with the other backs! He's a much better passer off play-action. Develop the sprint-out passing game to give Riley more options to run or pass. Otherwise I'm afraid Irish fans will see more of the same, and the doubters will increase.
Interim Fresno State head coach Tim Skipper didn't help his cause to remove the interim tag with that crushing loss to UNLV. Yes, the Rebels have a good team regardless of who their QB is. In fact the new guy appears to be much better! Skipper, a former Bulldog LBer, seems to have forgotten his defensive roots. While the Bulldogs have always had good offensive teams their defensive toughness has also been a hallmark. Didn't see either the offense or defense display those reputations vs. UNLV.
Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee will make the playoffs. Ole Miss is close behind.
That's potentially 5 playoff spots for the SEC.
Add Ohio State, Penn State, and maybe Rutgers and Indiana to the mix and that makes 9 out of 12 spots. Who's left? Big 12 champ. ACC champ. Group of 5 champ. Methinks the playoff debate is still not resolved. Mark my words...an expanded playoff is on the horizon.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
PS Going on a two week vacation. Talk to you after the 10th!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Although football fans are marveling at the unusual success this year of Rutgers, New Jersey’s state university, the Garden State has produced more than its share of great football players who went elsewhere to play college ball.
Mike Rozier was one of them, possibly the best college running back of all time.
He played high school ball at Woodrow Wilson High in his native Camden, a tough, rundown former industrial city just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
He was very good, but he was lightly recruited, and was noticed by then-Nebraska assistant coach (and former Husker running back) Frank Solich while Solich was looking at film of another player.
He spent a year at Coffeyville (Kansas) JC, leading Coffeyvile to a 9-0 record with 1157 yards rushing.
In his first year at Nebraska, now a sophomore, he pressed starting I-back Roger Craig, who was moved to fullback before the next season.
In his junior year, he set a rushing yardage record, breaking one that had lasted for 30 years, with 1,689 yards, as Nebraska finished 12-1. Its only loss was early in the season at State College, Pennsylvania, to eventual national champion Penn State. He was named All-American.
In his senior year, he led the nation in total yardage - 2,486 - as he rushed for 2,148 yards, averaging 7.8 yards per carry. He scored 29 touchdowns, and rushed for more than 200 yards in each of the final four games of the regular season. Against Kansas, he rushed for 230 yards - in the first half.
He won the Heisman, the Maxwell and the Walter Camp Trophies and was named to every All-American team.
Despite averaging 52 points - and 401 yards rushing - per game, the Cornhuskers’ hopes for a national title were dashed by Miami, 31-30. Although he’d rushed for 138 yards in he first half, he was forced by an ankle injury to watch most of the second half.
Selected first overall in the USFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Maulers, he played two seasons in the USFL, first with the Maulers, then with the Jacksonville Bulls.
In 1985 he played in the spring for Jacksonville then in the fall for the Houston Oilers, who had taken him in a special draft of USFL players.
He played six seasons for the Oilers, and was named to the Pro Bowl twice. With the Oilers, he carried 900 times for 3171 yards, and in 1988 he rushed for 1,002 yards.
Released by the Oilers in 1990, he was signed by the Falcons, and played two years with them, carrying 249 times for 1036 yards, before retiring.
For his career, Mike Rozier carried 1159 times for 4462 yards and 30 touchdowns.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MIKE ROZIER
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JASON MENSING - ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: His dad was a high school coach so he moved around a bit when he was a kid, but he spent his entire high school years in Walla Walla, Washington (“The Town So Nice They Named It Twice”).
Playing for his dad, he was the All-State quarterback. He also lettered in basketball and track, where as a weight man he threw the discus 148-10.
At Washington State, late in his freshman season he became the first true freshman to start a game at QB for the Cougars.
As a junior, he led the Cougs to a 9-3 record and a win over Utah in the Copper Bowl, setting school records for yards passing in a single game (476), pass completions in a season (241) and yards passing in a season (3,246).
He was the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year.
When he chose to forego his final college season and declare for the NFL draft, he had started 34 games and completed 532 passes for 7,373 yards and 46 touchdowns.
He was the first player taken in the 1993 NFL draft, chosen by the New England Patriots.
From the Patriots’ Web site;
(He) was the first overall pick in the 1993 NFL Draft and for the next eight years was considered the face of the Patriots franchise. During his nine-year Patriots career, he broke the Patriots’ career passing records for attempts (4,518), completions (2,544) and yards (29,657). (He) still holds the Patriots’ single-season passing records for attempts (691) and completions (400) and is the only player in franchise history to pass for over 400 yards multiple times (4). He still holds the NFL record for attempts in a season (691 in 1994) and both attempts (70) and completions (45) in a game against Minnesota in 1994 that sparked a seven-game win streak, propelling the Patriots to their first playoff berth in eight years. (He) led the Patriots to the playoffs four times in his first six seasons, helping the team earn back-to-back division titles and three consecutive playoff berths for the first time in franchise history. In 1996, he guided the Patriots to their second AFC Championship in franchise history and a trip to Super Bowl XXXI. (He) is the only quarterback in NFL history with four seasons of at least 600 pass attempts, including three straight from 1994-96 with the Patriots.
But early in the 2001 season, as he scrambled out of the pocket and headed for the sideline in a game against the Jets, he was hit hard and knocked out of bounds. He was slow to get up, and he was taken to a hospital where it was discovered that he was suffering from internal bleeding that nearly proved fatal.
His replacement at quarterback was a young player named Tom Brady.
He never got his starting job back, and in the offseason he was traded to the Bills. He wound up playing five more seasons, three with the Bills and two with the Cowboys.
His career totals are impressive. He completed 3,839 of 6,717 passes for 44,611 yards and 251 touchdowns.
He still holds two NFL records: Most attempts in a game (70) and most completions in a game - also held by Jared Goff (45).
He now lives in Bend, Oregon, where he coached high school football while his boys played. He and his wife now own a very successful and well-respected winery in his home town of Walla Walla, a town that has earned a wide reputation for its many quality wineries.
TUESDAY,
OCTOBER 1, 2024
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no
constitution, no law, no court can save it. Judge Learned
Hand*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Coach Harwood also had a big part in determining which campus jobs were assigned to athletes on work scholarships. I figured it out early that the jobs got easier as you progressed in your career, but only if you had Harwood's recommendation.
“I also realized that no job on the campus was as hard or demanding as working on the farm where I had grown up. I started out raking leaves and mowing lawns. Later I waited tables in the East Hall dining room. Then I got the job of ringing the huge bell on the fourth floor of Central Hall, which was tolled hourly to mark the change of classes. The main thing was to be on time. As a junior I filled the coal stokers to keep the heating system in the field house running through the night. Then I got the best job of all, making the rounds of three sorority houses each night to replenish the coal supply for their furnaces.
“During the summer after my freshman year I had my first experience in travel by boat. I found a vacation job waiting tables in the upscale dining room on one of the big ferries that chugged across Lake Michigan, a six-hour crossing. I got seasick only once, but there were times when the water was far too bumpy for a kid who grew up on a farm.
“In addition to football, I played catcher on the Hillsdale baseball team, using hustle and enthusiasm to make up for my inability to hit a curve ball. My best hitting, unfortunately, seemed to come when we worked out indoors before the season. I rarely hit for power. I liked baseball because, for one thing, it got me out of spring football practice.”
*********** Buried in the sands of time is a story Mike Lude told me in one of our weekly chats. It concerned the great Mercury Morris, who passed away recently.
Mike said that in 1967 or 1968, he was coaching at Colorado State and the Rams were playing West Texas State (and Morris). Morris was very, very good.
Mike’s Rams were winning at halftime, largely because Morris had been thrown out of the game for one reason or another.
But in the second half, West Texas produced a previously unknown running back, one at least as good as Morris, who ran wild and led the Buffaloes to a come-from-behind win.
As good as Morris? It WAS Morris, because Mike said - and I never knew him even to exaggerate, much less fib - that the West Texas coach had simply put a different jersey on Morris.
Damn, I wish I’d recorded those calls!
*********** Aberdeen beat archival Hoqiuam Friday night, 34-9.
It was a great team win. Our kids played as hard as I could have wanted.
Our defense was sensational, and our offense began to show signs of life.
We scored our first running touchdown of the year, and then went on to score three more on the ground. We hit on several clutch passes and a couple of long ones, one of them good for a 69-yard TD.
We also had an 80-yard kick return called back. Hoquiam had kicked a field goal with two seconds left in the half to make the score 14-3, and then kicked off. Deep. As our return man was crossing the goal line, a well-meaning teammate was 15 yards back upfield, pushing an opponent in the back.
THE LESSON THAT WE FAILED TO TEACH: “Sometimes the best block you ever make is the block you never make.”
*********** I’ve got to be VERY careful how I say this because saying the wrong thing could jeopardize our entire football program: We had to play Friday night’s rivalry game without our head coach, who had been suspended that afternoon for some things he’d said at the pep rally Thursday night.
That’s all you’ll get out of me.
In a pre-game team meeting he had to explain to the kids that he wouldn’t be there - “it is what it is,” was the way he explained it - and that the position of head coach would be filled by our defensive coordinator (a very able coach), and that he expected that at the end of the game, the “substitute” coach’s record would be 1-0.
I’ve been coaching and around football in one way or another since 1970, and I’d never been through anything like it.
We won and it’s my hope that things can return to normal.
My greatest fear was that we would lose the game and there would be a nasty community uprising as a result.
*********** In combination with our rival, Hoquiam, we set two new state records Friday night:
Most combined penalties: 44
Most combined penalty yards: nearly 400 (I don’t know the exact figure).
Other than the constant delays, it wasn’t the kind of game you might expect after learning of those stats.
There wasn’t a single fight or near-fight. There was no more than the usual pushing and shoving, and there wasn’t a single face-to-face confrontation.
One of our players was ejected when he drew two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. The first was warranted - he tackled an opponent then stood over him and did a little dance.
The second came when he knocked a runner out of bounds and then, instead of turning and walking away, chose to back up while continuing to stare at his opponent. The official who threw the flag said in his official report that our player had said something “unsportsmanlike.” Funny. it was on our sideline, and I was watching the player, hoping he’d turn around and get the hell out of there. I was closer to the whole thing than the official, and I heard nothing.
But then, consider the official, who might himself have made the record books Friday night. Of the 44 flags thrown, he threw 28 of them. Do you realize what a game would be like if all five officials each threw 28 flagome
As it was, I can remember looking at my watch and saying, “We won’t get home until one in the morning.” I was spot on. It’s two-and-a-half hours from Aberdeen to our place in Camas, and after some time on the field and in the coaches’ room, we got home at one on the dot.
Now then, that official… he was the one on our sideline. I have no idea what was bothering the prick, but right from the start, I sensed we were in trouble when he told us to get “behind the line.” That’s pretty routine pre-game procedure, but when we all stepped back out of the coach’s box, he said, “Not THAT line,” then pointed to a line 10 feet farther back from the sideline and said, “THAT line.”
There are some good people officiating games, and I believe in doing our best to cooperate with them in putting on a game. But it bothers me the way the (supposedly) good ones refuse to intervene when a guy is clearly on a power trip. I can’t have a lot of respect for the other members of a crew who won’t call a time out and say to him, “Had enough for one night yet?”
Friday’s sportsmanship award went to the Hoquiam coach, who eschewed the customary post-game handshake line and instead, while our kids waited, gathered his team in the end zone. I have heard a rumor that he explained to his AD that he didn’t trust his kids to go through the handshakes without incident. Whose fault is that?
*********** THIS PAST WEEKEND’S GAMES
THURSDAY NIGHT
ARMY 42, TEMPLE 14 - The Owls did their best but they were no match for th Cadets. Army QB Bryson Daily rushed for 152 yards.
FRIDAY NIGHT
MIAMI 38, VIRGINIA TECH 34 - Looked like some home cooking at the end when an apparent winning TD catch by the Hokies was ruled an incompletion.
RUTGERS 21, WASHINGTON 18 - Huskies’ coach Jedd Fisch said you can’t beat two teams - the opponents and yourself. Scarlet Knights are 4-0, and with no Ohio State, Penn State or Michigan on the schedule, every team left is beatable.
SATURDAY
KENTUCKY 20, OLE MISS 17 - Guess that close call against Georgia last week wasn’t the fluke a lot of people thought it was.
MICHIGAN 27, MINNESOTA 24 - Michigan had to fight off a strong comeback by the Gophers, who outscored them 21-3 in the fourth quarter.
KANSAS STATE 42, OKLAHOMA STATE 14 - WTF happened to the Wildcats last week against BYU?
BYU 34, BAYLOR 28 - Cougars are 5-0 .
INDIANA 42, MARYLAND 28 - Indiana is 5-0 for the first time since 1967, when John Pont took the Hoosiers to the Rose Bowl.
NEBRASKA 28, PURDUE 10 - I like Purdue and it hurts to watch them.
BOSTON COLLEGE 21, WESTERN KENTUCKY 20 - Down 13 points at the end of 3 quarters, the Eagles, playing without QB Thomas Castellanos, finally pulled ahead with 3:33 remaining and then held on for the win.
NAVY 41, UAB 14 - Navy’s new offense may be “wing-T based,” but the Middies are doing a lot of things, and what makes it all possible is their QB, Blake Horvath. Navy, like Army, is 4-0.
TULANE 45, SOUTH FLORIDA 10 - Tulane’s Darian Mensah threw for 328. USF isn’t ready for the big time just yet.
USC 38, WISCONSIN 21 - Trojans covered the two-TD spread. Miller Moss was 30 of 45 for 308 and three TDs. Badger are 2-2, but their losses have been to Alabama and USC.
NOTRE DAME 31, LOUISVILLE 24 - Louisville committed two cardinal special teams sins in the first quarter, yet still managed to come close. Irish got out rushed, 173-120. Worse, QB Riley Leonard led them in carries (13 of a total 29) and yards rushing (52 of 120).
OKLAHOMA 27, AUBURN 21 - I guess Oklahoma isn’t as good as I thought, and Auburn isn’t as bad.
TEXAS A & M 21, ARKANSAS 17 - Aggies have won 12 of the 13 game they’ve played since they joined the SEC.
LOUISIANA 41, WAKE FOREST 38 - A field goal attempt at 0:00 was wide, and the Deacs are now 1-3, their worst start since Dave Clawson arrived 11 years ago. The two teams had a combined 938 yards of offense.
TCU 38, KANSAS 27 - Kansas has to be the best FOUR loss team in America.
COLORADO 48, UCF 21 - I’ve derided Deion and I still won’t buy into the “Coach Prime” crap, but Colorado outplayed UCF in every aspect of the game, and the Buffs are now 4-1. Coaching has to have something to do with that.
UNLV 59, FRESNO STATE 14 - I’m going to let my son, Ed, who although based in Australia covers all things Mountain West, write this one: The Matthew Sluka NIL controversy was pushed to the side as new starter Hajj-Malik Williams took the QB reins at UNLV and led the Rebels to a comprehensive 59-14 win over Fresno State. Williams – who threw for 182 yds, ran for 119 yds and accounted for 4 TDs helped UNLV into the top 25 for the first time in program history. Now let’s hope the Campbell transfer doesn’t hire a new agent and ask for more money.
DUKE 21, NORTH CAROLINA 20 - The Blue Devils were dead most of the way and they were down 17-0 at the half. They were down 20-0 in the third quarter,
TEXAS 35, MISSISSIPPI STATE 13 - The Longhorns did not cover. Booooo! Get that bum Manning outta there! Boooo!
OHIO STATE 38, MICHIGAN STATE 7 - zzzzzzzzzz.
CLEMSON 40, STANFORD 14 - Troy Taylor seems to be making some progress at Stanford, and the problem isn’t the ACC. Clemson is just a lot better, and Stanford would have been having similar problems in an intact Pac-12.
IOWA STATE 20, HOUSTON 0- Houston could throw for only 72 yards. Is that an FBS low for the year?
ALABAMA 41, GEORGIA 34 - Great game. It’s a great team that can take a 28-point lead, blow it, and then, while seemingly on the ropes, reach right back with a killer punch of its own.
PENN STATE 21, ILLINOIS 7 - Illinois has been looking pretty good. Can Penn State really be 19 points better? I say no.
MEMPHIS 24, MIDDLE TENNESSEE 7 - Tigers held Middle Tennessee to 29 yards rushing.
LSU 42, SOUTH ALABAMA 10 - Tiger QB Garrett Nussmeier threw for 409 yards and two TDs. Most encouraging for LSU had to be the 237 yards rushing, led by Caden Durham’s 128 yards on seven carries (18.3 yards per carry).
SMU 42, FLORIDA STATE 16 - I said: “I have a feeling that the Seminoles are going to get their heads handed to them.” (Every so often I call one correctly.)
TEXAS TECH 44, CINCINNATI 41 - The Bearcats had 555 yards of total offense; Texas Tech had “only” 482. It came down to a missed 51-yard field goal attempt by Cincinnati that would have sent the game into overtime.
WYOMING 31, AIR FORCE 19 - This is weird. It used to be Air Force that wore opponents down. But after leading 13-7 at the half, the Zoomies were outscored 24-6 in the second half.
BOISE STATE 45, WASHINGTON STATE 24 - Damn shame that Bronco running back Ashton Jeanty ("JENN-tee") will never be seen by most of the suits who vote for the Heisman, because he is something to see.
ARIZONA 23, UTAH 10 - Great game. Not if you’re a Ute, but Brent Brennan has done an amazing job in his first year in Tucson. Wildcats, now 3-1, saw Utes pull to within a TD with 12 minutes left, but three minutes later, ‘Zona Noah Fifita iced the game with a 35-yard TD pass. Utes rushed for only 84 yards and were stopped four times on fourth-and-short situations.
OREGON 34, UCLA 13 - zzzzzzzzz.
*********** The last time Army and Navy were both 4-0 was 1945. The country was just emerging from World War II, a time when the service academies were stockpiling great athletes, many of whom had played for other colleges before the war.
That was the only time in the history of their long rivalry they they entered the game ranked as Number One (Army) and Number Two (Navy).
The Middies wound up 7-1-1. They tied Notre Dame, 6-6, and they lost to Army, 32-13. They shut out three of their opponents and outscored opponents by 220 to 65.
Army wound up unbeaten and ranked Number One, as they had been for seven weeks. Army shut out five opponents during the season, and going into the Navy game had shut out three straight opponents - including #2 Notre Dame (48-0) and #6 Penn (61-0).
During the season, Army outscored opponents 412-46. Including Navy, Army defeated five ranked teams during the season.
Army fullback Don Blanchard (who had started out at North Carolina) won the Heisman Trophy. Next year, his backfield running mate, Glenn Davis, would win it.
Four Army players were consensus first-team picks on the 1945 All-America college football team: Blanchard; Davis; tackle Tex Coulter; and guard John Green, and the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) went so far as to name all eleven Army starters (two-way football) as its All-American team.
*********** Next Saturday’s GameDay will come from… get ready for this… Berkeley, California, when Miami visits Cal.
No comment.
Expect an awful lot of attention to be paid to the coincidence of Miami coach Mario Cristobal and Cal QB Fernando Mendoza having gone to the same high school, Miami’s Columbus High School.
Columbus is all-male, and my friend Armando Castro, a Miami guy, tells me it is “a powerhouse.”
*********** Hugh, got an e mail from the head sports writer for the Idaho Statesman (the Boise paper) .
Believe it or not, my QB, Jace Chaddez, was selected as Athlete of the Week. Hugh, we ran for over 300 yards, but Jace was 6 of 10 for 140 yards and threw 4 TD passes.
Never would I have thought my QB would be honored. But as I told the team today this was a team honor.
Mike Foristiere
Marsing, Idaho
See? Playing Double Wing quarterback DOES prepare kids for the next level!
*********** Something is going on at Air Force.
It seems to have started last year, when they got off to an 8-0 start and then totally folded against Army. It looked like a tank job.
After that, they finished 1-3, losing to Hawaii, UNLV and Boise State before narrowly beating JMU in a bowl game.
This season they struggled to beat Merrimack (!) and since then they’ve lost to San Jose State, Baylor and now Wyoming.
Starting with last year’s Army game, they’re now 2-7 counting the bowl win.
Is this possibly a reaction to the way Coach Troy Calhoun’s name keeps popping up whenever there’s an opening somewhere? Or is it possible that Coach Calhoun’s been looking because of something going on behind the scenes at the Academy?
*********** Wondering if we won't see Alabama vs. Georgia a possible 3 times this year.
Saturday was a great game
SEC championship game
playoff matchup depending on pairings
I do think the Vols may factor into the equation the way they have played.
Texas also may factor in as well.
Question being is Texas built to compete in the SEC week in and week out?
Much like can Oregon or USC compete week in week out an entire season in the Big 10?
Conference identities were earned. Big 10 and SEC were PHYSICAL conferences and defense was a priority. Pac 12 and Big 12 were not as physical, and offense was the priority
Are these new conference teams built in the current era to compete in the schedule.
Surprises:
Indiana and Kansas, opposite reasons.
BYU and Duke
Rutgers and UNLV
JMU
all undefeated.
--
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
********** Love your paragraph about the ingredients that produced Coach Lude. It’s a fine tribute to a man who, because he possessed such genuine humanity, left his mark on people far and wide.
Must disagree with one outrageous claim: rather than elevate your GPA, Yale should reduce it. I think 1.6 sounds about right. Why? Because unlike some of your heavily-applauded classmates, you stopped learning on the hour of your commencement. Am I correct? Nah, I’m getting booed from Helsinki to Houston.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, FL
*********** Hugh,
Army wasn’t challenged. But then again they soundly beat a team they should’ve beaten soundly. Unlike a certain team from northern Indiana that may find itself struggling to beat BOTH academies!
They’re in deep this Saturday with a sneaky good Louisville team making the trip to South Bend.
Looks like the PAC 6 has turned its attention to basketball as well as football.
Won’t be surprised to see them add Utah State, UNLV, Gonzaga, and New Mexico.
If so is Creighton and St. Mary’s next?
Georgia at Alabama should be a good one to watch. At least it will be on a network all of us have.
Congrats to my good friend Mike Foristiere and his Marsing HS Huskies!
Mike has his DW offense cranked up and along with a stout D the Huskies are 3-1.
Marsing manhandled a larger division opponent last Friday. Only loss was to a school that has been running the DW for years.
Enjoy the games this weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Wes Fesler was a head football coach at four colleges and a head basketball coach at three. At one of those schools he held both jobs at the same time.
He was a four-sport star in high school in Youngstown, Ohio, and at Ohio State he was one of their greatest all-around athletes.
In football he was team captain his junior and senior years, and a three-time All-American as a two way end (although at times he was also used in the backfield).
In his senior year he was named the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player, and would almost certainly be a Heisman winner had he not played before the existence of the award. In 1939, famed sportswriter Grantland Rice named him on his All-Time College Football Team.
He was captain of the basketball team as well as an All-American.
He was a star on the Buckeyes’ baseball team.
In all, he earned nine varsity letters, and in addition he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the most prestigious collegiate honor society.
Following graduation, he was hired as an assistant at Ohio State, and after two seasons - during which time he also played baseball in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization, he was hired by Harvard as head basketball coach and assistant football coach.
After nine years at Harvard, he was hired as head football coach and head basketball coach at Wesleyan College in Connecticut, but after two years, with World War II going on, the school dropped football.
In 1945, following the War, he was hired by Princeton as head basketball coach and assistant football coach, but a year later he was named head coach at Pitt.
And then, in 1947, he hit it big. He was hired as head coach at Ohio State, succeeding Paul Bixler, who had gone 4-3-2 in his one year there.
He lasted four years. His 1949 team won the Big Ten, and defeated Cal in the Rose Bowl.
In 1950, his star running back, Vic Janowicz, won the Heisman Trophy.
But following the 1950 season, despite a 6-3 finish and a Number 14 national ranking, he resigned, citing “excessive pressure for winning football games.” Well, duh.
He was almost immediately hired by Minnesota to be head coach, and he stayed there for four seasons, with an overall record of 10-13-4.
His overall record as a major college (Pitt, Ohio State, Minnesota) football coach was 34–31–8.
His overall record as basketball head coach (at Harvard and Princeton) was 67–108.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame. As a player.
He might be best known by the quality of the coaches who succeeded him at his last two posts.
At Ohio State, his successor was Woody Hayes, the greatest coach Ohio State has ever had.
At Minnesota it was Murray Warmath, whose record there is surpassed only by the legendary Bernie Bierman.
*********** Wes Fesler was not only a great athlete and a good coach, but also, based on his many quotes and observations about the human condition, a very wise man.
ˇ Hypocrisy is the audacity to preach integrity from a den of corruption.
ˇ While parents should always provide shelter from a storm, they should sometimes allow children to play in the rain.
ˇ When your woman gives you the silent treatment, say you're sorry, or you'll find out how truly sorry you are when her monologue resumes.
ˇ Scold your children, and they will know what is wrong; but correct them with love, and they will know what is right.
ˇ Resilience is the ability to attack while running away.
ˇ Self-mastery is the challenge of transforming yourself from own worst enemy into your greatest ally.
ˇ If you are willing to stir a pot, you better be willing to eat what comes out of it.
ˇ This world will slam doors in your face at every opportunity. Be willing to employ a foot when necessary.
ˇ It is difficult to prove yourself reliable when people are required to wait for you.
ˇ Good men are bound by conscience and liberated by accountability.
ˇ One can rarely achieve greatness on the path of least resistance.
ˇ No degree of worldly darkness can extinguish the glow of a soul's inner light.
ˇ Few moments in life are more gratifying than those when the arrogant are exposed as the ignorant.
ˇ Look for goodness in others, for beauty in the world, and for possibilities in yourself.
ˇ Meet every level of frustration with a greater level of character.
ˇ If we make every day better than the one before, today will be the best day yet, and the greatest days ever will await us in every tomorrow.
ˇ The only true failure is failure to try.
ˇ There is no future in waiting for tomorrow.
ˇ Never blame others for tracking in mud, until you have checked your own feet.
ˇ Worthy goals are consistently achieved by enduring forces of adversity and opposition until they subside.
ˇ If you share in a heart-felt sorrow, you can lighten the load of a friend. Sometimes facing the burden together can mend two broken hearts in the end.
ˇ When the world grinds you down, bent to tear you apart, cling to what you hold dear, and stay true to your heart. For the world has a way to dismantle your cause, to exploit what you lack and expose all your flaws. But when every layer of your being is gone, and it seems there's no point anymore to go on; just remember one thing, at the end of the day, when you have self-respect they can't take that away.
ˇ Add a task to a busy person's plate, and it will get done in short order. Add a task to the plate of someone with nothing to do, and it will never get done.
ˇ Reputation is generally proof of how little one knows about a person.
ˇ In every difficult situation there is a door to opportunity for which optimism is the only key.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING WES FESLER
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: Although football fans are marveling at the unusual success this year of Rutgers, New Jersey’s state university, the Garden State has produced more than its share of great football players who went elsewhere to play college ball.
Our guy was one of them, possibly the best college running back of all time.
He played high school ball at Woodrow Wilson High in his native Camden, a tough, rundown former industrial city just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
He was very good, but he was lightly recruited, and was noticed by then-Nebraska assistant coach (and former Husker running back) Frank Solich while Solich was looking at film of another player.
He spent a year at Coffeyville (Kansas) JC, leading Coffeyvile to a 9-0 record with 1157 yards rushing.
In his first year at Nebraska, now a sophomore, he pressed starting I-back Roger Craig, who was moved to fullback before the next season.
In his junior year, he set a rushing yardage record, breaking one that had lasted for 30 years, with 1,689 yards, as Nebraska finished 12-1. Its only loss was early in the season at State College, Pennsylvania, to eventual national champion Penn State. He was named All-American.
In his senior year, he led the nation in total yardage - 2,486 - as he rushed for 2,148 yards, averaging 7.8 yards per carry. He scored 29 touchdowns, and rushed for more than 200 yards in each of the final four games of the regular season. Against Kansas, he rushed for 230 yards - in the first half.
He won the Heisman, the Maxwell and the Walter Camp Trophies and was named to every All-American team.
Despite averaging 52 points - and 401 yards rushing - per game, the Cornhuskers’ hopes for a national title were dashed by Miami, 31-30. Although he’d rushed for 138 yards in he first half, he was forced by an ankle injury to watch most of the second half.
Selected first overall in the USFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Maulers, he played two seasons in the USFL, first with the Maulers, then with the Jacksonville Bulls.
In 1985 he played in the spring for Jacksonville then in the fall for the Houston Oilers, who had taken him in a special draft of USFL players.
He played six seasons for the Oilers, and was named to the Pro Bowl twice. With the Oilers, he carried 900 times for 3171 yards, and in 1988 he rushed for 1,002 yards.
Released by the Oilers in 1990, he was signed by the Falcons, and played two years with them, carrying 249 times for 1036 yards, before retiring.
For his career, he carried 1159 times for 4462 yards and 30 touchdowns.
FRIDAY,
SEPTEMBER 27, 2024 "While parents should always
provide shelter from a storm, they should sometimes allow children to
play in the rain.“ Wes Fesler *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “For a college lineman, my size – I played at 177 pounds – was marginal even then, long before 300-pound guards and tackles became commonplace. But I knew how to use my hands on defense, and I could block much bigger defenders effectively. I considered myself very coachable. Harwood told me many of the same things I had heard from my high school coaches: as long as I was aggressive and tough, put pressure on opposing passers, and blocked hard I'd have a place in his program.
“Like most linemen I derived the most satisfaction from team success. I always believed – and this never changed when I became a coach and later athletic director – that the team comes first. I do remember one specific game against Kalamazoo College, partly because I was from Kalamazoo County. I was our team captain, and we blanked a good Kalamazoo team 20 to nothing, and in the locker room after the game I was presented the game ball. But individual recognition for me was rare.
“I looked on Coach Harwood as a nice guy, a good friend, and an advisor who was sensitive to all the nuances of the Hillsdale campus. Early in my Hillsdale years, he tried to help with my classroom problems. He suggested that I enroll in a French course. I said I didn't have much interest in French until he explained that Dr. Harold Davidson, the French professor was coach of the tennis team and our faculty athletic representative. "I almost guarantee you will pass his class if you don't cut it, “ Harwood said. So I registered for French, had perfect attendance, and although I wasn't a very good student, I passed (with a D as in dog).”
*********** It’s the Aberdeen Bobcats vs the Hoquiam Grizzlies Friday night at Aberdeen’s historic Stewart Field. Built in 1929, it’s a relic, and a treasure. I love it. There are stands - all covered, because it does rain here - on three sides (only three, because the Wishkah River runs right behind the east end zone). It’s all wood, as you might expect in a city that owes its existence to the forests of the Northwest and the port that shipped it products around the world.
The game’s been played 118 times since it was first played in 1906. The Bobcats have won 72 times, the Grizzlies 41. (Five games ended in ties.)
We may be 0-3 going into the game, but our Wednesday practice was the best we’ve had since I’ve been with the team.
Wednesday night at Aberdeen is also Bobcat Buddies Night, a relatively recent tradition in which at the end of our practice - and the end of youth football practice on an adjoining field - our players and the little guys get together on the field. Every one of our players has been assigned a youth player (in some cases, two youth players) to be his “buddy,” and it’s really cool to see them all get together after practice. (It’s also a big deal for the little kids to be able to run around on Stewart Field under the lights.)
The little guys were asked to write notes to their Bobcat Buddies before the Big Game, and one of the players, junior tackle Jayden Gladson, was so moved by the one he got that he shared it with me.
I told Jayden that it really was a wonderful and powerful thing to realize that a young guy looked up to him like that - that he could have a great effect on that boy’s life. I said he should frame it.
And then I told him about a great man who remembered, later in life, being a third grader in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when the local high school coach came to his school and introduced some of his players; how that little third grader made up his mind right then and there that he was going to be a football player and - someday - a coach. That little third grader was Eddie Robinson. (I did have to explain to Jayden the significance of the great Coach Rob.)
*********** Lynn Madsen stopped by our practice yesterday. Like our head coach, Todd Bridge, he’s a former Washington Husky - a nose guard, he was MVP of the 1983 Aloha Bowl - and like Todd Bridge (and me) he’s a great admirer of his coach, Don James. In fact, he’s planning on doing a documentary on Coach James.
When I mentioned that Mike Lude - the Huskies’ AD during those great years - and I had been friends, he lit up and told me a Mike-Lude-the-people-person story.
He said that after leaving Washington, he’d played a couple of years in the USFL and then a year with the Houston Oilers until, 5 years out of school, he was playing up in Canada (“I’d just got married and I needed the money”) when the head coach came up to him one day and said, ‘I was just talking to Mike Lude, and he asked, ‘How’s Lynn Madsen doing?’”
(Would your AD have asked about YOU five years after YOU’D graduated?)
https://www.si.com/college/washington/legends/madsen-credits-don-james-with-preparing-him-for-life
*********** COLLEGE GAMES I’LL RECORD THIS WEEKEND
To set up my recordings each weekend, I’ve made it a habit over the years of using ESPN’s college football schedule, which lists every FBS game for the upcoming weekend, as well as its kickoff time and who’s televising it.
This week, for the first time (at least it was the first time I’ve noticed), the schedule included point spreads and over/unders.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/schedule
THURSDAY NIGHT
ARMY AT TEMPLE - If Army doesn’t screw up, it should run all over a team that’s had just three days (or maybe only two?) to prepare to face its offense.
FRIDAY NIGHT
VIRGINIA TECH AT MIAMI - Oh, dear. This could get bad. Miami is favored by 20.
WASHINGTON AT RUTGERS - Wait - can this be true? Rutgers is favored by 2.5? I’ll take the points. We’ll begin to find out what happens when idiots send teams cross-country on a short week. But remember, Huskies - you asked for this.
SATURDAY
KENTUCKY AT OLE MISS - Kentucky played Georgia tough last week, but…
MINNESOTA AT MICHIGAN - Hard to believe that the Little Brown Jug was once one of the most prized trophies in all of football
OKLAHOMA STATE AT KANSAS STATE - Cowboys coming off a tough one against Utah, Wildcats coming off an ass-kicking by BYU. KSU slightly favored.
BYU AT BAYLOR - Somehow, Baylor, which totally blew last week’s game against Colorado, is somehow favored over BYU, which took Kansas State. I’ll take the Cougars.
MARYLAND AT INDIANA - Indiana must be for real, to be favored by a touchdown.
NEBRASKA AT PURDUE - Purdue is bad. Notre Dame ran on them two weeks ago, and last week Oregon State rushed for 400 yards against them.
WESTERN KENTUCKY AT BOSTON COLLEGE - Eagles have yet to play a bad game, which is what they’ll have to do to lose to the Hilltoppers.
NAVY AT UAB - Navy’s offense is looking really good. QB Blake Horvath is exciting to watch. Navy goes 4-0.
SOUTH FLORIDA AT TULANE - This could be a good one. USF may be on the road back to being the power it once was.
WISCONSIN AT USC - Trojans are two touchdown favorites.
LOUISVILLE AT NOTRE DAME - Can you believe those greedy bastards have put this game on f—king Peacock?
OKLAHOMA AT AUBURN - As bad as Auburn has played, how can OU be favored by just three points.
ARKANSAS AT TEXAS A & M - A & M is favored. Go Hogs. Save Sam Pittman’s job.
LOUISIANA AT WAKE FOREST - Go Deacs!
TCU AT KANSAS - Kansas has to be the best three-loss team in America. I’m pickling them over a team whose coach, Sonny Dykes, can’t control himself on the sidelines.
COLORADO AT UCF - If coaching has anything to do with it, UCF wins big. Gus Malzahn is twice the coach that whatsisname is.
FRESNO STATE AT UNLV - I have to root for Fresno now the they’re in the Pac-12 and UNLV is playing hard to get.
NORTH CAROLINA AT DUKE - It’s better known as a basketball rivalry but it really matters to these folks and Duke is in the rare position of being a slight favorite - over a team that gave up 70 points last week. Malik Murphy, ex-Texas starter, has been doing a good job for Duke at QB.
MISSISSIPPI STATE AT TEXAS - What’s it say about a league’s “balance” when one team - a new one at that - is favored over another by 39.5 points - and the opponent is NOT Vanderbilt?
OHIO STATE AT MICHIGAN STATE - (YOU’VE READ THIS BEFORE) Can you believe those greedy bastards have put this game on f—king Peacock?
STANFORD AT CLEMSON - Stanford’s first trip to Death Valley, and it will be culture shock for the Cardinal. On top of that, Clemson looks like the Tigers of old.
IOWA STATE AT HOUSTON - Iowa State should kill Houston.
GEORGIA AT ALABAMA - I’m rooting for Alabama. I’m over my anger at DeBoer for leaving Washington.
ILLINOIS AT PENN STATE - Illinois has been looking pretty good. Can Penn State really be 19 points better? I say no.
MIDDLE TENNESSEE AT MEMPHIS - Memphis ran into a buzz saw against Navy last week, but their passing attack is exceptional. Middle Tennessee made too many mistakes against Duke. This could be bad.
SOUTH ALABAMA AT LSU - Tigers are three TD favorites, but South Alabama showed how explosive it can be in beating App State.
FLORIDA STATE AT SMU - I have a feeling that the Seminoles are going to get their heads handed to them.
CINCINNATI AT TEXAS TECH - Texas Tech is slightly favored but I’ve watched Cinci a couple of times and I’m impressed. Cinci wins.
AIR FORCE AT WYOMING - Two of the worst teams in the Mountain West - how did it happen to two of the most consistently good programs? Wyoming is worse than Air Force.
WASHINGTON STATE AT BOISE STATE - Maybe the best game of the weekend. Boise is a one-TD favorite but I like the Cougs.
ARIZONA AT UTAH - Utes are a solid club and very tough at home. Arizona is good, but not in Utah’s class.
OREGON AT UCLA - This one starts at 11 PM Eastern so not many Easterners will watch it to the end. UCLA is 1-2. The Bruins’ only win was a 16-13 win over Hawaii at closing time, and that may be their best. Oregon has yet to play at its best. This could be over by halftime.
*********** Two former Double
Wing coaches - brothers in the fraternity - John Torres (on the
left) and Dwayne Pierce - got together recently in Arizona, where
Coach Torres now lives. Coach Torres coached teams in
California’s Central Valley and then in the far northern suburbs of
L.A., where he was instrumental in starting not only a team, but an
entire league. He hosted several of my clinics in both areas. He also
played a major role in introducing lacrosse to the area. Coach
Pierce, a Washington, DC resident, has coached youth and high school
teams in the DC area; as an example of the Double Wing
brotherhood, back around 2003, he told me that he was planning on
visiting Atlanta and asked if I knew any Double Wing coaches he
might be able to visit. I steered him to Kevin Latham, who was
then coaching at a middle school. Short story: Coach Latham was more
than happy to meet a fellow Double-Winger; Coach Pierce was
knowledgeable enough to make some very constructive
suggestions; Coach Latham was astute enough to implement
the suggestions. The result was more success for Coach Latham,
but even more important, a life-long friendship.Coach Torres and Coach Pierce are now both officials. I joke that they’re on the dark side, but in all seriousness, I’m pleased any time I learn of an official who’s had coaching experience, and I’m sure they’re good ones. In truth, the longer I’m in this game and the more that opposition to football mounts in our culture, the more I believe that coaches and officials share a common purpose in protecting our sport.
*********** By now you’ve almost certainly read about the kid at UNLV - a recent graduate transfer from FCS Holy Cross - who announced that he was going to redshirt this season, which meant playing no more games this season so that he could preserve his one remaining year of eligibility in order to play somewhere else next year. (The NCAA foolishly allows players to play as many as four games - postseason games don’t count - without actually losing a year of eligibility. This once applied to actually college freshman; it certainly never intend to apply to graduates.)
The kid says that he was promised things that are never delivered, so he’s outta here.
Somebody’s getting screwed here, and I don’t know whose side I’m on, but look…
First of all, his complaint can’t be with UNLV, the school or the football program, because as we all know, the deals players make are not with the schools but with their associated NIL collectives, which while dedicated to the schools’ success,are forbidden from working directly with the school.
That’s what the toothless NCAA says.
Meanwhile, most big football programs have begun hiring “General Managers” (that’s what they’re actually called) whose primary function is “roster management.” How they can do that without working with their collectives is today’s million-dollar question.
I would say one thing, and it’s this: Supposedly the kid had agents negotiate his deal, but nothing was in writing. WTF kind of agents would take somebody’s money to represent him - and not get everything in writing?
Actually, I’ll say another thing: in the old days, when a certain syndicate patrolled Vegas and kept business going…
The collective would not have screwed a kid (if that’s what happened). Stuff like that is bad for business.
The kid would not have left his team in a lurch (if that’s what happened). Stuff like that is bad for your health.
*********** A friend of the family is a big-time agent. He is VERY ethical and above-board. He has now begun to represent high school athletes.
*********** Following a riotous collection of “young people” at a Virginia amusement park, a Spokesman for the Hanover County Sheriff’s Department had this to say…
"We as parents, as a society, have got to do better to raise these kids to be respectful and have manners… we have got to do a better job of controlling our kids’ behavior and instilling good values in them so when they are not in our presence, they don’t behave like this."
What dream world does this clown live in? What you mean “We as parents, as a society…?”
Are people like this ever going to have the stones to point the finger at the problem?
What chance to we have to end this sh— that’s destroying our society when people in law enforcement look the other way and try to put the blame for feral kids - whose whereabouts are unknown to any adults - on people who actually do teach their kids to “be respectful and have manners”… who actually do control their kids and instill good values in them?
*********** To a Yale alumnus who, once I decided to get to work (marriage will do this to a guy), had to bust my ass for B’s and C’s, it pissed me off to learn that our “Trophies for Everybody” culture had made its way to the Ivy League.
This, from a Wall Street Journal article by a professor at Johns Hopkins named Yascha Mounk…
In 1950, the average GPA at Harvard was 2.6. Today, it’s 3.8
In 2023, at Yale, 80 per cent of the grades were A or A minus.
I’m tempted to contact the registrar (through my attorney. of course) and insist that they adjust my grades for inflation. And then, with my newly-acquired 4.00 GPA, I’ll apply to medical school at Harvard. (But just to be on the safe side, I’ll claim to be Somali.)
*********** Interestingly, in the NFL, passing stats are down
From The Athletic…
Offenses are struggling this year, especially in the passing game. Just ask any Bears fan (who must trust the process).
Entering Week 3, the league-wide averages of 193.6 passing yards and 1.1 touchdowns per game rank as the lowest marks in both categories in a single season since 1978, before the "Mel Blount rule" was introduced to the limit contact between corners and receivers to five yards. Back then, the highest-paid player was a running back (O.J. Simpson) making $733K.
Why are passing offenses reverting to the '70s?
For one, quarterbacks are younger than ever. Last year, Mike Sando noted that starting NFL quarterbacks were younger than they'd been in 60 years. At the time, their average age was just 27.8 years. This year, they're even younger, with Week 1's 32 starting QBs averaging 27.6. This comes with all sorts of growing pains, as Bo Nix is learning in Denver.
The bigger reason: After years of pass-heavy approaches, a return to the physical run game against lighter defenses (and two-high safeties) is working. Teams are averaging 4.5 yards per carry, tied with 2022 for the best mark in NFL history, and 124.9 rushing yards per game, the most since 1987. They are throwing less (just 30.3 pass attempts per game, about three fewer than last year), but not running much more (27.5 attempts compared to 26.8 last year), just running better
*********** Lee Corso may be right, but he would've been more correct if he'd added and coaches. If the head coach doesn't select able assistants, he won't succeed.
Beautiful recitation of the facts, and feelings, surrounding your relationship with Kevin Latham.
I'll never stop pointing out how much I appreciate the thoughts of Coach Lude. A friend who reads this page emailed a few days ago to say he would like to read about a connection between Coach Lude and Simon Pack.
Keep working with those Bobcats. I don't have to tell you the wins will come.
Yep, we're only a few games in, but both Army and Navy look very good. Hope some of your readers watched "The Brotherhood", a behind-the-scenes look at Army football's Fall camp. It was far too short (30 minutes), but attention-grabbing. I watched Bryson's tremendous performance, after which I thought I'd watch a little of the Navy-Memphis game. Turns out I watched more than a little. Navy's QB is as good as you claim. Happy to see both SAs hanging tough.
Re JMU: lots of institutions are trying to find the elixir somewhere in the JMU Athletic Department. They've suddenly become excellent in numerous sports.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Coach Lude’s story is the classic American fable of the kid with very little going for him in a material sense, but a lot going for him in terms of work habits and values instilled in him by solid, hard-working parents. Unlike today’s kids, he was not overly protected. He was expected to do the right thing and got no special reward for doing to. He wa spunished when he did wrong. He was given reponsibility, as well as the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. His mentors were honest in their appraisal of his talents, and he accepted their honesty and made the most of the talents that he did have.
I join you in your challenge of Coach Corso. The woods are full of programs - college and pro - that have gone to hell as soon as a coordinator leaves. I think that the constant turnover of offensive coordinators is a major reason why so many NFL offenses suck.
*********** Hugh,
So sorry to hear about the loss of Kevin Latham. His friendship with you, his relationships with his peers and players, and his teaching abilities transcended the game. Yes, he will be missed.
Army/Navy: What happens if Army AND Navy both end up in the AAC championship game??
The Group of 5 rankings currently has UNLV in the top spot followed by Memphis, Boise State, and South Florida.
Louisville at Notre Dame will have a huge impact on the playoffs for both teams. A win keeps their hopes alive. A loss doesn’t. A 2 loss ND team won’t get them in over a 2 or 3 loss SEC/BIG team. Same for Louisville.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: A native of Lake Charles, Louisiana, Tommy Mason was a star running back at Lake Charles High School, and chose to play college ball at Tulane, where he joined his older brother.
In his senior season at Tulane, he earned All-America honors after leading the SEC in rushing. He also caught 28 passes for 376 yards and five touchdowns, and returned five kicks for 314 yards and 14 punts for 99 yards to set a school record for all-purpose yards (1,475) that would last for another 28 years.
In addition to the All-America honors, he was named first-team All-SEC, and was selected to participate in four post-season all-star games: the East-West Shrine Game, the Hula Bowl, the Coaches All-American Game and the College All-Star Game.
He was the number one player taken overall in the 1961 NFL Draft, and the very first player ever taken by the expansion Minnesota Vikings (they took Fran Tarkenton in the third round). He was also the Number Two overall pick in the American Football League, chosen by the Boston Patriots, and the CFL pursued him as well, but as he said later, “I wasn’t sure the AFL was going to last, and Canada seemed a long way away for a Louisiana boy.”
In the same interview, he recalled, “My dad, Bill, was a watchman at a chemical plant, and my mom, Mary, was a nurse, and they couldn’t believe it … that this team from Minnesota was willing to pay their boy $12,000 to play football.”
He wound up playing 11 years in the NFL - six years with the Vikings, four with the Rams, and one with the Redskins.
He was voted to three straight Pro Bowls (1962-3-4) and in 1963 he became the first Viking ever to be named first-team All-Pro.
For his career, he rushed for 4,203 yards and 32 touchdowns on 1,040 carries, and caught 214 passes for 2,324 yards and 13 TDs. He also returned kickoffs and punts for 1,550 yards.
Most of his production - 3,252 yards and 28 touchdowns - came during his time with the Vikings.
After retirement from football, he owned a Coors Beer distributorship in San Bernardino, California.
Tommy Mason is in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and the Tulane Athletics Hall of Fame.
He was married four times. His second wife was well-known gymnast Cathy Rigby. They were married for nine years before they divorced
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TOMMY MASON
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was a head football coach at four colleges and a head basketball coach at three. At one of those schools he held both jobs at the same time.
He was a four-sport star in high school in Youngstown, Ohio, and at Ohio State he was one of their greatest all-around athletes.
In football he was team captain his junior and senior years, and a three-time All-American as a two way end (although at times he was also used in the backfield).
In his senior year he was named the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player, and would almost certainly be a Heisman winner had he not played before the existence of the award. In 1939, famed sportswriter Grantland Rice named him on his All-Time College Football Team.
He was captain of the basketball team as well as an All-American.
He was a star on the Buckeyes’ baseball team.
In all, he earned nine varsity letters, and in addition he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the most prestigious collegiate honor society.
Following graduation, he was hired as an assistant at Ohio State, and after two seasons - during which time he also played baseball in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization, he was hired by Harvard as head basketball coach and assistant football coach.
After nine years at Harvard, he was hired as head football coach and head basketball coach at Wesleyan College in Connecticut, but after two years, with World War II going on, the school dropped football.
In 1945, following the War, he was hired by Princeton as head basketball coach and assistant football coach, but a year later he was named head coach at Pitt.
And then, in 1947, he hit it big. He was hired as head coach at Ohio State, succeeding Paul Bixler, who had gone 4-3-2 in his one year there.
He lasted four years. His 1949 team won the Big Ten, and defeated Cal in the Rose Bowl.
In 1950, his star running back, Vic Janowicz, won the Heisman Trophy.
But following the 1950 season, despite a 6-3 finish and a Number 14 national ranking, he resigned, citing “excessive pressure for winning football games.” Well, duh.
He was almost immediately hired by Minnesota to be head coach, and he stayed there for four seasons, with an overall record of 10-13-4.
His overall record as a major college (Pitt, Ohio State, Minnesota) football coach was 34–31–8.
His overall record as basketball head coach (at Harvard and Princeton) was 67–108.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame. As a player.
He might be best known by the quality of the coaches who succeeded him at his last two posts.
At Ohio State, his successor was Woody Hayes, the greatest coach Ohio State has ever had.
At Minnesota it was Murray Warmath, whose record there is surpassed only by the legendary Bernie Bierman.
TUESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 23, 2024 "A football coach's most
important job is evaluation of players." Lee Corso 
*********** I woke up Sunday and checked my email, as I normally do. In an instant I wished I hadn’t. I read the email again and shut off the phone, as if to make the news go away.
The email was from Jeff Latham, the younger brother of my friend Kevin Latham. He said that Kevin, his “big brother and best friend,” had passed away on July 25.
July 25. The day after my wife and I had celebrated our wedding anniversary; the very same day on which my wife’s dad had died, more than 30 years earlier.
Imagine - he’d been gone for almost two months. But then, he and I had been in the practice of calling each other every two or three months - and then talking for two or three hours - so I’d had no way of knowing.
I called Jeff as soon as I could, and learned that he’d been unable to get into Kevin’s phone, and only found my contact info by searching online.
Kevin and I met at my first Atlanta clinic, which would have been around 2000, and we just hit it off from the start.
He was coaching at a middle school in suburban Atlanta at the time, and he was made to feel welcome by the other coaches there to the point that he never missed an Atlanta clinic thereafter. It became routine for a gang of coaches to get together at a place called Malone’s, near the airport, for dinner the night before, and Kevin never missed.
When he got a high school job in Decatur, Georgia, he had me come to put on a camp for his kids and coaches, and while there he took me to visit Ebenezer Baptist Church - where Dr. King’s father preached, and to Dr. King’s nearby grave.
Kevin was 59 when he died.
For half of his life adult life he’d dealt with serious health problems. He had his first heart attack before he was 40, and he had three of them before it was determined that his only chance of survival was a heart transplant. He qualified, fortunately, and when a donor was found, he underwent successful transplant surgery.
Needless to say, we talked a lot during that time.
That was twelve years ago.
And then he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He was treated and pronounced recovered.
He’d had to retire as a teacher, but he kept busy by teaching himself to play the guitar and becoming a DJ.
And then, in the last five or so years, he returned to teaching on a part-time basis, working with kids who needed extra help in math - Kevin’s area of expertise.
He’d had enough health issues to discourage most people, but only two weeks before he died he was advising friends that the way to fend off depression was to keep active.
He was a Tennessean; his late dad was a member of the first class at the University of Tennessee to admit blacks, and he graduated there as a chemical engineer. Kevin was also a Vol, and after several years in business he got his teaching certificate and became a teacher. And a coach. I saw him on the field and he was great with kids, many of whom he stayed in contact with long after he’d left coaching.
Jeff and I agreed that he’d be happy with the Vols’ success this year.
He’d played high school football at Southwest DeKalb High, and remained in close touch with his coach there, a local legend named Buck Godfrey. Coach Godfrey was a friend of the great Eddie Robinson, and Kevin would lean on him for advice. In recent years, when Coach Godfrey had health issues of his own, Kevin made sure to drive him to all his appointments. Kevin missed coaching desperately, and I’m sure being in Coach Godfrey’s company more than repaid him for his efforts.
Coach Godfrey, Jeff told me, was one of the speakers at Kevin’s funeral.
Kevin left Jeff and his mother, Kay, a wonderful lady who still teaches piano, as well as his son Kevin, Junior and his daughter Skye.
Kevin was a very bright man, a man of many talents, and one of the very best human beings I’ve ever known. We had no problem telling each other we loved each other. My wife loved him, too.
I believe I taught him some things. I know he taught me many things.
God bless him until we meet again.
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “We were all well aware of Coach Dwight Harwood, a short (five-feet-eight), stocky (200 pounds) man who ran the football program, and we always gave a little extra effort when we thought he might be watching. But our daily task master was Gordie Piatt, who coached the freshmen while finishing up his four year degree.
“Our 1940 frosh team had a good season, winning three of four games. I was a starting lineman but hardly a star. Most of us played both offense and defense. I was getting used to the obscurity of playing in the line, but this experience was extremely rewarding – the friendships, the camaraderie, and the togetherness of being a team.
“Dwight Harwood was a veteran coach who had the unenviable job of keeping the Hillsdale football program functioning. Unlike my high school coach whom I tried so desperately to imitate in every detail of mannerism and dress, Harwood was not a role model; rather he was a decent coach and a decent person. He had a fine singing voice and directed the choir at Hillsdale Presbyterian Church, not something you would expect for a football coach. He wasn't a great tactician on game day, but he got a lot out of the talent on hand.
“Harwood's most celebrated victory probably had come a decade earlier, in 1931, when he led Hillsdale against the University of Chicago team coached by the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg. Hillsdale won 7–0, rolling up fourteen first downs to two for the Maroons. The game came two seasons before the University of Chicago dropped football, ending Stagg's 41-year tenure as head coach.
“Coach Harwood seemed to appreciate my approach to football as a classic overachiever. I knew I had to make up for lack of ability and bulk with hustle, enthusiasm, and a willingness to pay the price.”
*********** Aberdeen’s homecoming game resulted in a disappointing 33-7 loss to Rochester. The Bobcats are now 0-3.
Rochester took the opening kickoff and drove for a score. Then stopped us and drove for a score. Rinse and repeat. It was 26-7 at the half, and I do have to give credit to our defensive coaches for a great halftime adjustment that, combined with our kids’ refusal to quit, got Rochester under control in th second half. But the damage was done, and a late score put the finishing tough on the ass-kicking.
As a Double-Wing coach, I could only watch and feel the frustration that other coaches have felt when we’d take the ball and put on a seven-minute drive. Rochester played old school football, rarely lining up in other than a double-tight full house - what we used to call a T formation, They seldom - if ever - pulled a lineman, depending instead on the straight-ahead line surge and the lead blocking of their big backs.
Rochester’s QB was small but quick as a cat. But the rest of the team was big. Their three running backs averaged 195 - one of them, a kid named Ethan Rodriguez, was 6-4, 200 and he could run like a deer. From tackle to tackle, their five offense linemen averaged 260. Their left tackle, a kid named Lucas McIntyre, was 6-7, 300.
This week is our rivalry week. We play neighboring town Hoquiam in what’s known as the Battle of Myrtle Street, in recognition of the street that serves as the border between the two towns. It’s the oldest rivalry in the state, and it’s got quite a history.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Aberdeen-Hoquiam game (it used to be played on Thanksgiving), here’s an article from 2005 - when the 100th game was played, and the big city media made a fuss over it…
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/high-school/hoquiam-aberdeen-kick-off-a-century-of-tradition/
And here’s a documentary from that time. It’s long, and it might seem tedious at times, but it gives a really good insight into how the San Francisca Earthquake - and the need for lumber to rebuild the city - turned Aberdeen and Hoquiam into boom towns , and how the more recent move to “save the spotted owl” wound up shutting down the local forests and destroying the towns’ lumber-based economies…
https://youtu.be/0ysdzuQnlac?si=57oDYIqivZezR79
*********** COLLEGE GAMES I RECORDED THIS WEEKEND (even got to watch some of them)
THURSDAY NIGHT
SOUTH ALABAMA 48, APPALACHIAN STATE 14- To go into the hill country - Boone, North Carolina - and beat the Mountaineers, you gotta be good. And the Jaguars ARE good.
FRIDAY NIGHT
STANFORD 26, SYRACUSE 24 - Stanford was a 2-TD dog!
ILLINOIS 31, NEBRASKA 24 (OT)
WASHINGTON STATE 54, SAN JOSE STATE 52 (2 OT) - Go Cougs!
SATURDAY
OHIO STATE 49, MARSHALL 14
CLEMSON 59, NC STATE 35
FLORIDA 45, MISSISSIPPI STATE 28
INDIANA 52, CHARLOTTE 14
MARYLAND 38, VILLANOVA 20 - Wildcats are a good FCS club!
JAMES MADISON 70, NORTH CAROLINA 50 - WOW
CINCINNATI 34, HOUSTON 0 - Bearcats are fun to watch
WEST VIRGINIA 32, KANSAS 28 - Jayhawks are 1-3. Their three losses have ben by a total of 11 points.
TULANE 41, LOUISIANA 33
ARMY 37, RICE 14 - Army held the ball for 13:04 of the first period (to 1:56 for Rice, if you’re doing the math).
MICHIGAN 27, USC 24 - Michigan had 290 yards rushing and 32 yards passing. Will somebody please tell Michigan to start throwing the ball before I find myself rooting for them?
NOTRE DAME 28, MIAMI (O) 3
LOUISVILLE 31, GEORGIA TECH 19 - YOU READ IT HERE FIRST; Coach, You may not see them regularly considering your West Coast location (yet), but keep a close eye on the Louisville Cardinals.
They play Notre Dame in South Bend the following Saturday and also play Miami FL in Louisville. They are sneaky good this year.
Jim Franklin - Flora, Indiana
ARKANSAS 24, AUBURN 14
RUTGERS 26, VIRGINIA TECH 23
TEXAS TECH 30, ARIZONA STATE 22
NAVY 56, MEMPHIS 44 - Wow. With that new “wing-T based” offense, Navy is scary good. Navy had “only” 566 yards of total offense. They needed it - Memphis had 659.
LSU 34, UCLA 17
UTAH 22, OKLAHOMA STATE 19
DUKE 45, MIDDLE TENNESSEE 17 - Sorry, but WTF is any so-called Power 4 team doing playing away at a Group of 5 team?
MISSOURI 30, VANDERBILT 27 (OT) - Vandy is for real. But after a couple of squeakers, maybe Mizzou isn’t as good as everyone thought.
SMU 66, TCU 42 - TCU’s Sonny Dykes became the first Power Conference coach to be ejected from a game since the rule was passed in 2016 providing for ejection after getting two unsportsmanlike penalties.
MIAMI 50, SOUTH FLORIDA 15 -
WASHINGTON 24, NORTHWESTERN 5 - 5? 5? 5? looks like Northwestern and Purdue will be fighting it out for 16th place in the Big Ten.
UCONN 48, FLORIDA ATLANTIC 14
FLORIDA STATE 14, CAL 9
TENNESSEE 25, OKLAHOMA 15
IOWA 31, MINNESOTA 14 - Hawkeyes take home Floyd of Rosedale (a large bronze pig).
OLE MISS 52, GEORGIA SOUTHERN 13
BOSTON COLLEGE 23, MICHIGAN STATE 19 - Huge come-from-behind win for BC’s Bill O’Brien.
COLORADO 38, BAYLOR 31 (OT) - I haven’t read anywhere about Baylor’s defensive coordinator being fired for allowing a 50-yard touchdown pass with :02 left to play. I would have had four players - very tall players - lined up along the end line.
OREGON STATE 38, PURDUE 21
BOISE STATE 56, PORTLAND STATE 14
BYU 38, KANSAS STATE 9 - Wow. Within a span of seven minutes it went from 6-3, KSU to 31-6 BYU. Cougars - now 4-0 - held the Wildcats to three field goals.
*********** The Heisman was first awarded in 1935; the first T-formation (under center) quarterback was Notre Dame’s Angelo Bertelli, whose skills so impressed Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy that he managed to persuade the president of Notre Dame - and thousands of alumni - to allow him to drop the“Notre Dame box” offense that dated back to the hallowed Knute Rockne.
I can’t be bothered counting how many quarterbacks have won the Heisman since Bertelli started it all, but the last single wing tailback to win it was Princeton’s Dick Kazmaier, in 1951.
I’d like to nominate another single wing tailback - well, actually two. Army’s Bryson Daley and Navy’s Blake Horvath.
Truly, they’re throwbacks to the days when the Heisman winner was a single wing tailback.
This past weekend, in Army’s 37-14 win over Rice, Daley completed 6 of 9 passes for 107 yards and two TDs, while carrying 23 times for 145 yards and three TDs. Horvath, in Navy’s shocking 56-44 defeat of Memphis, completed 9 of 12 for 192 yards and two TDs, while carrying 12 times for 211 yards and four TDs.
They’re not exactly identical in style, but they are both the keystones of their teams’ offenses. They’re both good passers and they’re both exceptional runners - Daley perhaps stronger, Horvath perhaps faster.
They’re both extremely tough (what a surprise, at service academies) and both carry the same heavy load as old-time tailbacks.
The way they’re playing, and the way their teams are playing - both teams are 3-0 - if the Daley and Horvath could be linked as one entry they/it would be a slam-dunk Heisman winner(s).
*********** Yogi Roth, a Pittsburgh guy who made something of a name for himself on the West Coast as a talking head on the old Pac-12 Network, is a pretty knowledgeable guy, and he appears to have found a new gig, reporting on the current doings of former Pac-12 teams.
He gives out four weekly awards to West Coast guys:
“My 5-Star QB” - whether or not you were a 5-star recruit out of high school, you played like one this weekend.
“Go Go Gone” - the most explosive player of the week. Think big chunk plays, as explosives and turnovers are the biggest predictor of wins and losses.
“That Dude!” - player who made an impact on either side of the ball. Not always about your numbers on the stat sheet.
“Headset Hero” - either a head coach or assistant coach who had their team ready and/or made the right in-game adjustments
“My 5-Star QB” - Washington State’s John Mateer
Our first repeat winner of the season of course goes to the guy who we noted in Week 2 as “coming out of high school as a 3-star recruit and the 119th ranked QB in the Class of 2022 according to the 247 Composite”. Thanks to another gutsy performance from John Mateer, Washington State is off to back-to-back 4-0 starts for the first time in more than a century.
In a 2 OT win over San Jose State, Mateer threw for a career-high 390 pass yards with 4 TDs through the air. The redshirt sophomore also ran for 111 yards, his 2nd 100+ yard game this season, with a rushing TD. In fact, Mateer is the only FBS player this season and the 1st Pac-12 player since UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson in 2020 to have 300+ pass yards and 100+ rush yards in the same game (also the 1st in school history).
While the guy he backed up last year is now the Heisman favorite in Miami, Mateer outdueled another former Wazzu QB, Emmett Brown, who threw for 375 yards and 4 scores of his own for the Spartans in the loss. Mateer now has at least 1 passing TD and 1 rushing TD in each of the 4 games this season.
“Go Go Gone” - BYU’s Parker Kingston
Parker Kingston only touched the ball once on Saturday night’s upset win over #13 Kansas State but it will likely go down as the play of the year for BYU in 2024. With the Cougars already up 24-6 in the 3rd quarter, Kingston lined up for a punt return after the BYU defense forced a 3-and-out. After initially muffing the punt reception right in front of the 20-yard line, the redshirt sophomore (whose grandmother ran track at BYU) scooped up the ball while running back to the 10-yard line and continued back to nearly the goal line before turning up the opposite sideline and sprinting 90 yards for the score. ESPN tracked 137 total yards run by Kingston on the return.
Kingston celebrating his touchdown vs Kansas State (Photo courtesy BYUCougars.com)
The return was the first punt return for touchdown by a BYU player since 2013 and tied for the 3rd longest in school history (longest since at least 1996). After Keelan Marion ran back a kickoff 100 yards the previous week at Wyoming, this marks the first time since 2011 that BYU has a punt return and kickoff return TD in the same season.
Kingston’s return capped off a run of 31 unanswered points by BYU as the Cougars improved to 4-0 for the 3rd time under Kalani Sitake.
“That Dude!” - Utah’s Micah Bernard
In Utah’s first ever Rose Bowl appearance in January 2022, defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley needed help with an injury-depleted secondary. Micah Bernard, who had not played both sides of the ball since high school, wound starting that game at cornerback. Bernard recorded a team-high 10 tackles that day while also running the ball 3 times for 31 yards and grabbing 2 passes for 15 yards including an athletic 12-yard TD catch in the 1st quarter. The next season, after a 2nd Rose Bowl loss, Bernard hit the transfer portal before deciding to stay in Salt Lake. Following an injury-plagued 2023 where he only saw action in the first and last games of the season, that decision to return is finally starting to pay dividends.
The 6th year senior set career highs with both 25 carries and 182 yard on the ground as the Utes went into Stillwater to knock off #14 Oklahoma State 22-19 in the first ever meeting of 2 coaching legends in Kyle Whittingham & Mike Gundy. Bernard had the biggest highlight of the game with a 62-yard run in the 3rd quarter that setup a field goal and a 4-yard run on 3rd & 3 with under a minute to go to extinguish the flame of the Cowboys late comeback.
The analytics also spoke volumes in this game as according to PFF College, Bernard had 142 yards AFTER contact (the most in FBS this week) while also forcing 10 missed tackles (tied for the most). 119 of his 182 yards came in the 2nd half, giving him his 3rd straight game with 100+ yards and the 5th time in his career, completely outshining preseason Heisman candidate Ollie Gordon whom the Utes defense held to 42 yards on 11 carries.
“Headset Hero” - Stanford’s Troy Taylor
For their first ever ACC Conference game, Stanford traveled nearly 3,000 miles to the Carrier Dome where they were nearly a double-digit underdog. After a close loss at home to TCU in the season-opener and then a win over Cal Poly, the experts thought the Cardinal weren’t any better than the 3-9 team they had been each of the last 3 years. Especially not against a Syracuse team that had gotten off to a 2-0 start under new head coach Fran Brown, including an upset of then #23 Georgia Tech the previous week behind 4 TD passes by Ohio State transfer QB Kyle McCord.
Taylor on the sidelines of Stanford’s win at Syracuse (Photo by Bryan Bennett/Getty Images)
But Troy Taylor’s squad started quickly with 9-play, 78-yard drive on their 2nd possession with an unbelievable one-handed TD grab by Elic Ayomanor, reminiscent of another #13 that plays on Sundays. By early 2nd quarter, the Cardinal held a 10-0 lead. After Syracuse dominated the 3rd quarter (but not the scoreboard), a McCord TD run closed the gap to 20-17 entering the final 15 minutes. McCord then drove the ‘Cuse for a go-ahead TD with 3:13 left which seemed to foretell a long plane ride back home to the Bay Area.
Down 24-23, Troy Taylor’s squad took over at their own 25-yard line before slowly matriculating down the field with a few intermediate passes to get into Syracuse territory. But a holding penalty pushed the Cardinal back on their own side of the field, putting a chance of victory in doubt. But on 4th and 9 from the Syracuse 45-yard line, Ashton Daniels once again found Elic Ayomanor with a back-shoulder throw to set up Emmet Kenney’s GW 39-yard field goal as the clock hit :00.
*********** College Game Day pointed out an unusual fact:
The combined age of the two QBs in the Utah-Oklahoma State game (49) was greater than the combined age of the starting QBs in the Bears-Colts game (44)
Cam Rising of Utah (25) and Alan Bowman of Oklahoa State (24) are both 7th year seniors
Caleb Williams of the Bears is 22 and so is Anthony Richardson of the Colts.
*********** Do you get the feeling that the world has been turned upside-down?
Not to say that I’m not over the moon about the the NFL’s using its muscle to promote flag football…
https://sports.yahoo.com/national-gay-flag-football-league-154555874.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACFtm7XA0z6-4VvX9ObYf4hodnXDoMZozqlr5YV9BmK_5Eua9KHvsjISSJ8tgn_3pqmGx4w92qELtSFti_msgcZQCzKmhOZve0nbQUw0iLbKCem_B_eVH1TtInejKsAyVcWI8r-rO4TeiKdAkttxWqZZHxrShOe9E2OGpFpv_yGg
But then I turned on the Seahawks game and was assaulted by this...
Good Lord. Do they really believe this horse crap they’re peddling to the public?
So there’s not a single thing left that the boys can have to themselves. What a bunch of turds the NFL is.
It seems as if the NFL will be perfectly okay with letting our version of the sport die off, just as long as they can use the flag version as their way of indoctrinating fans at the grass roots level.
*********** Okay, okay - I watched an NFL game. If you call it that. The fourth quarter had just begun, and the score was still 3-0, favor New Orleans - when someone (the Eagles) finally scored a damn touchdown.
And yet fans tolerate dreck like this.
Has our national preoccupation with youth soccer begun to turn us into Euros?
*********** The Pac-12’s offer of membership was rejected Monday by the Presidents of Memphis, South Florida and Tulane.
All I can say is, “whew.” That was a close one. I find I’ve become a “Western snob.” I like the West. When you look at the locations of football schools in the Far West, with the possible exception of Fresno, there isn’t a place where you wouldn’t mind spending a football weekend.
Bear in mind that it wasn’t all that long ago that the old Pac-12 was looking down its nose at Fresno - as a location, as well as an academic institution. To show how things have changed, today the Pac-12 came within a whisker of hooking up its schools, teams and fans with… Memphis. Memphis, for God’s sake!
Whew.
Writes John Canzano…
The Pac-12 Conference presented three American Athletic Conference schools terms for membership along with a midday deadline on Friday.
The schools examined the offer — and decided to sit tight.
Memphis, Tulane, and South Florida will stay in the AAC. That conference released a joint statement from the schools and said, “… we firmly believe that it is in our individual and collective best interests to uphold our commitment to each other.”
What went sideways? And what happens next for the Pac-12? A pivot to UNLV? How about Utah State? Gonzaga? Someone else?
Here’s what I know:
• The conference set out on Monday with what one conference insider described as “a cascading order of offers.” Memphis, Tulane, and South Florida were the priority. The next move — ‘Plan B’ — will include a westward look for the Pac-12. I expect that UNLV is now the Pac-12’s primary target.
• The Pac-12 has been in ongoing discussions with UNLV. The Rebels were a potential Pac-12 addition regardless of whether the AAC schools joined, but they have become even more important now. The Pac-12 needs to get to eight members by the summer of 2026. Keep an eye on Las Vegas.
• The Pac-12’s history with Las Vegas is well documented. The conference’s championship football and basketball games were regularly held there.
• UNLV wasn’t included with the four Mountain West schools that left for the Pac-12 earlier this month, but I’ve been told not to read too deeply into that. The Pac-12 may have believed it could always circle back to get UNLV. Now, though, it does so with MWC Commissioner Gloria Nevarez fully aware of the pursuit.
• Utah State is aggressively pursuing Pac-12 membership. It wants to be included, and key donors tell me they would help subsidize the school’s move. In the last week, the Aggies have garnered an increase in attention from the Pac-12.
• The Aggies have three 10-plus win seasons in the last 11 years and ranked No. 5 in Mountain West television viewership during that span. It falls into the ‘best available’ category very nicely given the geography.
• The Air Force Academy isn’t as attractive as an addition if it’s not also grouped with Army/Navy. I’ve wondered if the AAC would take it for that reason, but it appears it will be staying in the Mountain West. Ross Dellenger of YahooSports reported on Monday that the Air Force Academy is committed to staying put and “is expected to sign a new grant-of-rights deal with financial incentives.”
• Not getting the AAC schools was a swing-and-miss by the Pac-12. No way around it. The conference presented its vision. The three schools chose to stay.
• The Pac-12’s stealth approach helped get Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, and Colorado State from the Mountain West. The whole thing was treated like a top-secret mission that caught everyone off guard. The circle was kept tight. The second bite of the expansion apple, however, featured too much talking and time spent chewing on details. It gave AAC Commissioner Tim Pernetti too much time to react.
• Access to the College Football Playoff is at the center of the Pac-12’s pitch. The chance to join the conference was positioned to the AAC members (and others) as a chance to jump into an “escape chute” and improve their standing. Media dollars, like any potential negotiation, aren’t guaranteed until they’re guaranteed. The exit fees and travel costs were not insignificant, either.
• I’m not shocked that the presidents at Memphis, Tulane, and South Florida struggled with the risk involved and decided to sit tight. You don’t become a university president by rolling the dice with some entrepreneurial spirit. The world of academia is about consensus building and playing it safe. I’d have jumped onto the escape hatch and let it rip, but I’m also a guy who left the security of a newspaper newsroom to launch this independent publication.
(At press time, rumors were strong that Utah State and UNLV had been invited.)
*********** It was nice to see all those Wisconsin schools in the D3 poll. There are no D2 football programs in the state so the UW- schools are little bit bigger than the average D3 schools such as Lawrence that was mentioned in the Mark Speckman bio.
Yes about Tom Brady!
Like seeing the brighter colored uniforms by Aberdeen. Hope more go back to brighter colors (and stripes)
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
*********** Minot State and QB Randy Hedberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Hedberg
Not the first time Minot has been seen on the US Football scene.
Charlie Wilson
Brooksville, Florida
*********** EMAW! I can't remember ever seeing the rapidity of such a blow out!
I tuned in when it was 6 to 3 KState, and 4 minutes later?
WOW!
John Rothwell, DC
Corpuse Christi, Texas
*********** Coach,
I woke up this morning and realized I haven't followed through on my end of the bargain of all you've done for the double wing community - updating you on how your system is doing during the season. My apologies.
The Elmwood/Brimfield Trojans are currently 4-0, and our rival Farmington Farmers, also 4-0, will visit us next Friday night.
The double wing is rolling right now, and the reasons why are no secret. We have two outstanding wings - the kind of kids that run angry, but also have the ability to break the long run. It's rare to have two like that. As of last night one has rushed for 192ypg and the other 213ypg. Our fullback has also had a 100yd game, but teams have decided to put an end to the wedge, so he packs his lunch pail and kicks out DEs all night for his buddies with a smile on his face. But that's the stuff that gets in papers. It's the o-line, TE to TE, that are the engine to the machine. Anchored by a G-C-G trio that are two senior valedictorians (both in my Adv. Chemistry class), and one who will be our junior class's valedictorian. Talk about a group that analyzes, talks, problem solves. Smart football players. Our tackles are equally as good (one is a four-year starter), and our two tight ends, brothers, are good enough that they could play guard (in my opinion, the most important and telling position on the line...maybe even the entire offense). And our QB has 'game managed' his way to 9 of 9, 167, 2TD, while implementing a sugar huddle this year, handling an array of formations (stack, overloads, nasty, etc) and shifts. The result of all of this is we have scored 214 points in four games.
Consistency is key, and with four former players on staff (two are my sons), and the veterans that have been together for decades, our boys learn the system through one voice and message. It pays to 'keep punching.'
Have a great weekend.
Todd Hollis
Elmwood, Illinois
Coach,
Great to hear how your season is going and that you obviously are still enjoying coaching!
Success never gets old, does it? Neither does the way you earn it - hard work, sound fundamentals, good kids, sound systems on both sides of the ball, all brought together with good coaching.
Best of luck against Farmington. (I still remember having a beer in their central square’s corner tavern with an Illinois football game on the TV more than 30 years ago! Farmington’s about halfway between Chicago and St, Louis, and one outside wall of the corner building was mostly red, painted with Cardinal designs and logos while the other wall was dedicated to the Cubs. Very cool. But Go Trojans!)
*********** Good Morning Hugh,
I am continually befuddled by the offensive play calling in short yardage situations. I actually yelled at the TV. Two examples; Oklahoma backed up in their own end zone goes into a shotgun tight formation and hands the ball to a back five yard deep and he is tackled for a safety, ugh! The Falcons with the game on the line, third and one from the eleven of Kansas City and go to the shotgun hand the ball off five yards deep and stopped inches short of the line to gain . Now fourth and inches they run outside zone for a two yard loss and lose the game. Double Ugh! What is wrong with these people?
I will offer my services as a short yardage offensive coordinator to any college or pro team and guarantee 90% success rate or they done have to pay me.
So frustrating watching modern day football that it seems coaching staffs seem to have forgotten how to actually run the football when they need to.
Good luck this week at Aberdeen!
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
*********** That you're able to print a page at all is commendable, given your schedule. Best to your team.
I want to draw a tighter bead on all the teams in CFB, but the ones I'm most interested in this weekend are:
Utah-OKST
Army-Rice
Tenn-OK
Baylor-CO
Memphis-Navy
JMU-UNC
GT-Louisville
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Good picks - but what did you know about JMU-UNC???
*********** Hugh,
My mistake. Curly Lambeau was NOT an ND grad. But he did play on Rockne's first Irish team, and earned a varsity letter. Did some research on him and sent an article to you. Interesting character!
Hey, sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to get those kids fired up! At my first AD/HC job the school colors were Red/Blue. Plain white helmets, bright red jerseys, and bubble gum blue pants. They had won 3 games in the past four years wearing those Pop Warner looking uniforms. Did some research and found that in the past when they had really good teams their "blue" was more like a true blue. Well...a dad approached me before the season started to introduce himself and ask if I needed anything for the football program because his two sons were on the team. I took him to the equipment closet (literally a closet instead of a room) and showed him what I had to work with. He was appalled to say the least and told me he wasn't going to allow his boys or any boys to wear that crap! He told me to write down what I would need (a wish list) and send it to him ASAP. Next thing I knew he along with four other dads came up with the $$ to get us new equipment and uniforms. 3 doz. new shoulder pads. 3 doz. new helmets (blue helmets w/red block 'T' trimmed in white). 3 doz. new girdle/hip pads (yes in 1991 we still wore those). 3 doz. new thigh pads and knee pads. And new uniforms home and away (red jerseys w/white numbers trimmed in blue; white jerseys w/blue numbers trimmed in red; and blue pants w/red/white/blue striping).
We looked great, won a bunch of games, made two consecutive appearances in the state semi-finals, and won our first Thanksgiving Day game in 7 years against our arch-rival. Not sure if it had much to do with our new "look" but who's to argue it didn't?
Miami O is no slouch, and another MAC team. They hung with Cincinnati. Hopefully the Irish learned their lesson against NIU. They'll need another big win and some more momentum with Louisville coming to South Bend after Miami makes its visit. Louisville is legit. But the Cardinals game with Georgia Tech should be a good one.
Only a die-hard Texas fan would pay to watch the Longhorns play Louisiana-Monroe. The ones who didn't get tickets to attend the game, or the ones who know it will be another blowout. Yet...there will still likely be close to 100,000 who go to DKR stadium to watch it live!
Rice is visiting West Point. Not sure if these types of Owls will have what it takes to bring Army down at home. Army plays three different types of Owls in a row. They already beat the Florida Atlantic Owls variety last week...Rice Owls this week...and Temple Owls next week!
Iowa rolls into Minneapolis to play for the "PIG" (Floyd of Rosedale trophy) vs. Minnesota. Although I'm pulling for the Gophers I'm afraid Iowa will continue its roll.
My Fresno State Bulldogs travel to Albuquerque to face New Mexico. Has always been a tough place to play for the Bulldogs, and the Lobos are a different team with Bronco Mendenhall at the helm. The Dogs are favored by 13 but UNM isn't New Mexico State either.
QUIZ: Frank Leahy (While Rockne was the master motivator/innovator and marketing genius of Notre Dame football Leahy was the master coach and taskmaster. No one outworked Frank Leahy. So much so it was because of his tireless work ethic which contributed to his failing health and forced him to retire at the fairly young age of 45).
Enjoy the weekend, and Go Bobcats!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
With Frank Leahy in the photo on the right are two of the many All-Americans he coached: on the left, running back Emil “Six Yards” Sitko, and on the right, quarterback Bobby Williams.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Frank Leahy was born in Nebraska and graduated from high school in (appropriately-named) Winner, South Dakota. He attended Notre Dame, playing tackle on Knute Rockne’s last three Notre Dame teams, and graduated in 1931.
After a year coaching at Georgetown and another at Michigan State (both jobs obtained through Rockne’s recommendation) he was hired as line coach at Fordham by Jim Crowley, once one of Notre Dame’s famed Four Horsemen. He coached at Fordham from 1933 through 1938, and during a span from 1935 through 1937, during which the Rams lost just two games, he coached a line famed as the Seven Blocks of Granite. One of its members was a young man from Brooklyn named Vince Lombardi.
In 1939, he became head coach at Boston College, and in two years he took the Eagles to a 20-2 record and a Sugar Bowl win.
That was enough to get him the Notre Dame job.
After coaching two years at Notre Dame, he entered the Navy, and after his discharge as a lieutenant he returned to Notre Dame for the 1946 season.
He would remain the Irish coach until he resigned for health reasons in 1954.
His Notre Dame teams were national champions in 1943, 1946, 1947, and 1949.
He had a streak of 39 straight games without a loss (there was one 0-0 tie with Army) from1946-50.
When he retired, his winning percentage, .864, was second in college history only to Rockne's .881.
In 13 years as a head coach - at Boston College and Notre Dame - he posted a record of 107-13-9.
Frank Leahy was only 45 at the time of his retirement, but the job had worn him down to the point where he had to be hospitalized at halftime of a home game against Georgia Tech.
(After retirement, he lived another 19 years.)
He was selected to the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame in 1970.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING FRANK LEAHY
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
JASON MENSING - ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: A native of Lake Charles, Louisiana, he was a star running back at Lake Charles High School, and chose to play college ball at Tulane, where he joined his older brother.
In his senior season at Tulane, he earned All-America honors after leading the SEC in rushing. He also caught 28 passes for 376 yards and five touchdowns, and returned five kicks for 314 yards and 14 punts for 99 yards to set a school record for all-purpose yards (1,475) that would last for another 28 years.
In addition to the All-America honors, he was named first-team All-SEC, and was selected to participate in four post-season all-star games: the East-West Shrine Game, the Hula Bowl, the Coaches All-American Game and the College All-Star Game.
He was the number one player taken overall in the 1961 NFL Draft, and the very first player ever taken by the expansion Minnesota Vikings (they took Fran Tarkenton in the third round). He was also the Number Two overall pick in the American Football League, chosen by the Boston Patriots, and the CFL pursued him as well, but as he said later, “I wasn’t sure the AFL was going to last, and Canada seemed a long way away for a Louisiana boy.”
In the same interview, he recalled, “My dad, Bill, was a watchman at a chemical plant, and my mom, Mary, was a nurse, and they couldn’t believe it … that this team from Minnesota was willing to pay their boy $12,000 to play football.”
He wound up playing 11 years in the NFL - six years with the Vikings, four with the Rams, and one with the Redskins.
He was voted to three straight Pro Bowls (1962-3-4) and in 1963 he became the first Viking ever to be named first-team All-Pro.
For his career, he rushed for 4,203 yards and 32 touchdowns on 1,040 carries, and caught 214 passes for 2,324 yards and 13 TDs. He also returned kickoffs and punts for 1,550 yards.
Most of his production - 3,252 yards and 28 touchdowns - came during his time with the Vikings.
After retirement from football, he owned a Coors Beer distributorship in San Bernardino, California.
He is in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and the Tulane Athletics Hall of Fame.
He was married four times. His second wife was well-known gymnast Cathy Rigby. They were married for nine years before they divorced.
FRIDAY,
SEPTEMBER 20, 2024 "On the day of victory, no one
is tired." Old Arab Proverb *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “the compelling reason I went to Hillsdale, the first in my family ever to step inside a college classroom, was to play football. My high school coaches and principal were products of Hillsdale, and they convinced their former coach, Dwight Harwood, that I would help bring Glory to his program.
“Hillsdale is located in southern Michigan about 80 miles west of Detroit and twice that distance from Chicago. It reminds me a lot of the Midwestern county seats where I would travel later in life, the hub of a surrounding world of agriculture. Hillsdale College is an important part of the community but does not dominate the town the way some institutions do in smaller communities. Growth of the school – its enrollment has tripled from the 450 or so students when I first attended – has been faster than that of the city, which currently has a population of about 8,000.
“When I arrived at Hillsdale in September 1940, I had about four hundred dollars in my wallet, thanks to a summer job in construction and the sale of the hog I had raised in a Future Farmers of America project. As an athlete, I had been promised a job in the college’s building and grounds department, which would help me get through the first year.
“Like the rest of the football players, I checked in early and went through freshman orientation, including wearing a blue and white beanie and enduring some minor hazing. The frosh football players stuck together, and that good relationship helped me overcome a bad case of homesickness. This was the first time I had been away from my family for any extended time, and if it hadn't been for the friendships I made those first few weeks I probably would have quit school and gone home. A half dozen or more of us pledged the same fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, and became immediate buddies.”
*********** It’s Homecoming Week in Aberdeen, Washington, and head coach Todd Bridge started Wednesday’s practice with a “reveal” - assistant coach Macoy Gronseth dressed in the all-new uniforms that the kids will wear in the game Friday night.
They’re actually throwbacks to a day when the school’s blue was a royal blue. At some point since then the blue became Navy (how do athletic directors allow coaches to do that kind of stuff?) and in fact, the example used for these uniforms was a photo from 25 years ago of some of four Aberdeen players, one of whom is our current middle school head coach, Joe Fagerstedt.
I really like them because they remind me of the Pitt Panthers of the Dan Marino-Tony Dorsett-Hugh Green glory days.
*********** COLLEGE GAMES I’LL RECORD THIS WEEKEND
It’s 8:30 on Thursday night and I just got back from practice, and - sorry to break this to you - my dinner and a cold beer and maybe even watching a little of the college game before getting a good night’s sleep - take precedence over the usual pregame commentary on each game!
THURSDAY NIGHT
SOUTH ALABAMA AT APPALACHIAN STATE
FRIDAY NIGHT
STANFORD AT SYRACUSE
ILLINOIS AT NEBRASKA
SAN JOSE STATE AT WASHINGTON STATE
SATURDAY
MARSHALL AT OHIO STATE
NC STATE AT CLEMSON
FLORIDA AT MISSISSIPPI STATE
CHARLOTTE AT INDIANA
VILLANOVA AT MARYLAND
JAMES MADISON AT NORTH CAROLINA
HOUSTON AT CINCINNATI
KANSAS AT WEST VIRGINIA
TULANE AT LOUISIANA
RICE AT ARMY
USC AT MICHIGAN
MIAMI (O) AT NOTRE DAME
GEORGIA TECH AT LOUISVILLE
ARKANSAS AT AUBURN
RUTGERS AT VIRGINIA TECH
ARIZONA STATE AT TEXAS TECH
MEMPHIS AT NAVY
UCLA AT LSU
UTAH AT OKLAHOMA STATE
DUKE AT MIDDLE TENNESSEE
VANDERBILT AT MISSOURI
TCU AT SMU
MIAMI AT SOUTH FLORIDA
NORTHWESTERN AT WASHINGTON
FLORIDA ATLANTIC AT UCONN
CAL AT FLORIDA STATE
TENNESSEE AT OKLAHOMA
IOWA AT MINNESOTA
GEORGIA SOUTHERN AT OLE MISS
MICHIGAN STATE AT BOSTON COLLEGE
BAYLOR AT COLORADO
PURDUE AT OREGON STATE
PORTLAND STATE AT BOISE STATE
KANSAS STATE AT BYU
FCS TOP 25
D-II TOP 25
D-III TOP 25
*********** ESPN did its part to dismember the Pac-12 and get on with the process of consolidating the name-brand programs into one or two mega-conferences so that now, if people around the country want to watch the Number One team in the nation (Texas) this weekend, they’ll have to pay to watch it on ESPN+.
*********** Portland State doesn’t have enough problems, what with opening at Washington State (a 70-30 loss), then losing to Weber State (43-16). This past Saturday an outbreak of a disease that we’d all but wiped out - until we began opening our doors to people from places where inoculation is unheard of - whooping cough. That meant cancellation of their home opener against Number six-ranked South Dakota. It doesn’t get any easier this week, as they travel to play at Boise State Saturday night. Their coach, Bruce Barnum, is a great guy, and I hope he can make it through this season.
*********** Tennessee has announced it’s going to add a 10 per cent surcharge to all its season tickets next year, in order to help pay its players. (This on top of a 4.5 per cent increase in ticket prices.)
This is stupid and short-sighted because there’s nothing in it for the fans.
How about an old-fashioned 50-50? Imagine the size of the 50-50 pot in in a stadium that seats more than 100,000.
Imagine the excitement at halftime when some famous country star announces the winner!
I suppose passing the hat is out of the question.
I actually saw it done once in Frederick, Maryland, where the great Eddie Feigner and his King and His Court four-man softball team was appearing.
At some point, Feigner stood at the plate and, microphone in hand, announced that there was going to be a hat passed around, and, he began to explain, very seriously, “If I were to tell you about the worthy cause that your money was going for, you’d give generously…”
There was a brief pause and then, with a chuckle, he said, “Actually, we’re going to buy the beer with it afterwards.”
*********** Not advocating killing anyone, you understand. And without any evidence that the Israelis had anything to do with the simultaneous explosions of several thousand pagers…
What would we have given, thirty or forty years ago, for a device that would have blown up several thousand boom boxes? (Without harming their owners, of course.)
*********** If you’re a fan of triple option football, keep an eye on Minot State. That’s North Dakota, guys. Head coach Ian Shields was a triple option QB at Oregon State, and for five years he was offensive coordinator at Army, leading the nation in rushing a couple of times.
His Minot State Beavers (what are the odds of having that nickname twice in a career?) are now 3-0.
*********** Wow. Be still my beating heart. Portland has landed a coveted WNBA team. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who worked hard to land the franchise (isn’t that the sort of thing we send senators to Washington to do?), was ecstatic on hearing the news, and suggested that maybe the city should be called “Sportslandia.” (Uh, Senator Wyden, mightn’t it be a bit premature, seeing that the area doesn’t have a single major sports franchise other than the Trail Blazers?)
**********Lane Kiffin raised all kinds of hell following his team’s ass-whipping of Wake Forest, assailing Wake for backing out of their contract to play at Ole Miss next year.
Evidently this leaves Ole Miss looking for a game with a Power 4 opponent in order to comply with SEC requirements.
From Wake’s point of view (disclosure: a grandson is a Wake grad and I attended his graduation five years ago and I love the place) the move makes perfect sense. Another ass-whipping would make Wake less attractive when the inevitable next round of realignment takes place, and Wake Forest, with the smallest student enrollment of all the Power schools, has to be concerned about being stranded, the way Oregon State and Washington State were.
I know how it has hurt people out here in the Pacific Northwest, so if the move’s best for Wake and it means Ole Miss has to find another opponent next year, I say to Coach Kiffin: suck on it.
You like irony? Almost the day after pulling out of the Ole Miss deal, Wake announced a home-and-home (for the same date) with… OREGON STATE!
I love it. Maybe our grandson and some buddies will come out and see what a cool place Corvallis, Oregon is on game day!
And you like REAL irony? It’s entirely possible that the money that Wake used to buy its way out of the Ole Miss game came from Oregon State, which along with Washington State retained oodles of “Pac-12” money left behind by the ten departing schools.
*********** I’m hearing discouraging - no, make that frightening - stories from coaches around the country, telling me of their experiences with today’s kids.
Essentially, it boils down to this:
The kids have been coddled and protected… They can’t handle adversity (12-year-olds cry when things go wrong)… They have no pride… They have no heart
It comes down, of course, to the fact that football is harder and more demanding than anything these little dandies have ever faced. They have never dealt with anything hard, or for that matter, anything that they’ve HAD to do. And, since their soft daddies have turned their raising over to their mommies, whose aim is to shield the little fellows from any of life’s hardships, they are being turned into little china dolls.
Sure hope the Chinese intelligence people aren’t reading this. (Not that they don’t already know how soft we’ve become.)
In all fairness, where I’m coaching right now, Aberdeen, Washington, I haven’t seen what those coaches are describing. We have 80 kids out for football in a school of about 800 kids. Figure it out - that’s roughly 20 per cent of the boys in the student body. Pretty good. And for the most part they are hard-nosed kids who work hard and are respectful.
Aberdeen, like so many other blue-collar towns across America, has been hit hard by the loss of its staple industry - in this case forest products - and it’s possible that the very lack of overall prosperity has been a blessing in disguise.
*********** Why does Tom Brady seem perfectly cast in that Tostitos commercial as a male flight attendant?
*********** A coach who was anticipating an encounter with a “chippy” opponent asked me about a drill I mentioned some time ago.
Here's what I wrote...
The drill you’re referring to is the “Walkaway Drill.” You first explain to your kids the importance of responding properly to an attack - simply turning around and walking away.
Then you get a couple of volunteers to play-act and show how it’s done. And you have others do the same.
And from time to time, you arrange to have a couple of kids act out - and respond appropriately - during practice.
If this simple drill prevents just one case of a kid being ejected for reacting reflexively - and in my experience it has done more than that - it’s time well spent.
*********** Coach, You may not see them regularly considering your West Coast location (yet), but keep a loose eye on the Louisville Cardinals.
They play Notre Dame in South Bend the following Saturday and also play Miami FL in Louisville. They are sneaky good this year.
Jim Franklin
Flora, Indiana
I’m on it. I do like Jeff Brohm. He made Purdue competitive, and now they’re struggling.
*********** Once-powerhouse Northwest Missouri State (failing to really have any NIL at all) has grossly fallen off due to other Div. 2 schools having the money to pay players.
Pittsburgh State and Central Missouri both have a solid amount of generous boosters and therefore have gotten better players. Discussions at Northwest are around how they can once again figure out how to compete. They were NCAA 2 champs and in the finals many times. Now for the first time since the early 90's they have started 0-3.
Never figured when I was going with Jerzee to visit schools I'd ever have to inquire about how much they will pay her to come to school there.
BUT here we are…
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
*********** I started watching your recording and I had a great laugh at the wedge in 6 man football.
Like you said set it takes a set to run it. Awesome stuff.
Mike Foristiere
Marsing, Idaho
*********** Hi Hugh,
It’s 5am on the East Coast and I am getting ready to go out fishing. However wanted to check in on last night’s clinic so checked to see if the recording was up. Wow, was I glad I did as the DW stuff was so good. Sorry in my hey day I never met Greg but that DW sure was fun to watch and brought back lots of memories. There might be something there to help Todd and Aberdeen get over the top but I know in your role as an assistant coach you will do what it takes to work with him and make the team better! Anyway it was sure fun to see the DW!
Good luck this week!
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
*********** "Coaching and roster continuity" Canzano says. I'll be watching all season hoping to see it win out over the schools making the huge NIL payouts.
As I looked at the statue of Coach Lambeau, I had the feeling that the monuments to sports figures are safe, but if you're a man or woman who gave your all for your country and have such a memorial in your honor, expect it to be defaced or destroyed.
Some of the college games had long weather delays. But when they re-started they had more delays with flags, flags, flags. I think I saw more flags last Saturday than on any gameday I can recall. I'd say to both the teams and the refs, get your shit together and play the game!
John Veermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Tough to win and beat a good opponent, while beating yourself at the same time! The timing of a homecoming game doesn’t enhance the chances of bouncing back this week. Good luck!
Well…Marcus Freeman must have read your news! Finally saw an ND offense run the rock! The D looked good against a Purdue offense that had to be one of the worst I’ve seen in recent years.
Boise State, Fresno State, and San Diego State are solid choices to join the PAC. UNLV would have been a much better choice than Colorado State. I’m still thinking that Cal and Stanford will buy their way out of the ACC eventually, with UCLA not too far behind. Others to consider; UTSA, Texas State, Tulane, and Memphis.
Was formally asked to consider joining the football coaching staff next season at the school where I’m teaching PE part-time. Was on the field with them last Friday during a 36-30 win. 6 man football is something else! Gonna take some time, (and a lot of praying) to decide.
QUIZ: Why that man is none other than Earl Louis “Curly” Lambeau. A Notre Dame grad, who played on Knute Rockne’s first Irish team!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Curly Lambeau was there at the start, as founder and player, then coach, of one of the NFL’s flagship franchises, a team started in his home town and named for the company that originally provided financial backing.
An outstanding player, he is member of the NFL 1920s All-Decade Team as one of the brand-new league’s top single wing tailbacks.
From 1920 to 1949, he was the team’s head coach and general manager, and in that time he led the team to over 200 wins. His teams also won six NFL championships - only the Bears’ George Halas (his archival over the years) and Bill Belichick have won as many.
Six of his players - Cal Hubbard, Mike Michalske, Johnny “Blood” McNally, Arnie Herber, Don Hutson and Tony Canadeo - are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
As a player, he wore the Number One for two seasons, and remains the only player in the history of the franchise to wear that number.
Curly Lambeau is in the Packers’ Hall of Fame and in 1965, shortly after his death, their stadium was renamed Lambeau Field in his honor.
His long tenure with the team came to an end, however, in 1950, when he resigned after a disagreement with team ownership. After that, he coached briefly for two other teams, the Chicago Cardinals and Washington Redskins.
His overall coaching record after 33 years in the NFL is 229-134-22.
He was one of the inductees in the very first group inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CURLY LAMBEAU
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Nebraska and graduated from high school in (appropriately-named) Winner, South Dakota. He attended Notre Dame, playing tackle on Knute Rockne’s last three Notre Dame teams, and graduated in 1931.
After a year coaching at Georgetown and another at Michigan State (both jobs obtained through Rockne’s recommendation) he was hired as line coach at Fordham by Jim Crowley, once one of Notre Dame’s famed Four Horsemen. He coached at Fordham from 1933 through 1938, and during a span from 1935 through 1937, during which the Rams lost just two games, he coached a line famed as the Seven Blocks of Granite. One of its members was a young man from Brooklyn named Vince Lombardi.
In 1939, he became head coach at Boston College, and in two years he took the Eagles to a 20-2 record and a Sugar Bowl win.
That was enough to get him the Notre Dame job.
After coaching two years at Notre Dame, he entered the Navy, and after his discharge as a lieutenant he returned to Notre Dame for the 1946 season.
He would remain the Irish coach until he resigned for health reasons in 1954.
His Notre Dame teams were national champions in 1943, 1946, 1947, and 1949.
He had a streak of 39 straight games without a loss (there was one 0-0 tie with Army) from1946-50.
When he retired, his winning percentage, .864, was second in college history only to Rockne's .881.
In 13 years as a head coach - at Boston College and Notre Dame - he posted a record of 107-13-9.
He was only 45 at the time of his retirement, but the job had worn him down to the point where he had to be hospitalized at halftime of a home game against Georgia Tech.
(After retirement, he lived another 19 years.)
He was selected to the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame in 1970.
TUESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 17, 2024
“There's two types of people in the world: Those who think people can
be divided up into two types, and those who don't.” Groucho
MarxÍ*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Even with the help and guidance of Dr. Roberts, I had to work extremely hard, and my academic existence for the first two years was touch and go. I was disciplined but nothing came easy. I would go to the library and study but I might take three hours to finish something that another student would get done in a half-hour.
“At that stage of my life I never in my wildest imagination thought that in my professional career as a coach and athletic director I would work closely with college presidents and other top officials at some of the largest universities in America.
“I strongly doubt any of my professors or classmates from those college days would have suspected that many years later I would return to Hillsdale College to be a convocation speaker and have conferred on me an honorary doctoral degree.
“Many times since, I have thought about Dr. Roberts and how he and some other patient and forgiving Hillsdale professors and staff members helped me survive as a student, and I am grateful.”
*********** Our Aberdeen Bobcats played one-third of a good game on Friday night. Our defense played knockout ball, and for the second week in a row stopped an opponent on our one-yard line.
But on offense we couldn’t make a dime. We were missing two starters on our offensive line - one of them our only varsity center - and it showed. We ran for minus yardage, and although we threw for a bit over 100 yards, we also threw three interceptions. (All part of the education of a quarterback.)
In addition, we fumbled twice on special teams, once deep in our own territory on the second-half kickoff, and once on a punt return after we’d stopped them deep in their territory.
The result was an 18-0 loss to Steilacoom, a well-coached club but one that we believe we could have beaten if we hadn’t given them so much help.
We’re now 0-2, and this week we play the Rochester Warriors, a close-by (one hour away) opponent. The Rochester area happens to be the headquarters of the Chehalis Tribe, which I guess is why they haven’t had to change their nickname the way most of our state’s Braves/Chiefs/Chieftains/Warriors. etc. have had to.
Rochester is also 0-2, but they are a problem to prepare for because they run a double-tight, full-house T-formation quite similar to the Olivet “Wing-T” that a lot of high school teams in Michigan run extremely well.
It would be great if we could just concentrate on the game, but no - this is also Homecoming Week, that dreaded time in every coach’s season where all manner of things take place to distract kids from the very reason Homecoming occurs in the first place - the game itself.
*********** COLLEGE GAMES RECORDED THIS PAST WEEKEND
THURSDAY NIGHT
ARIZONA STATE 31, TEXAS STATE 28 - Very good game. ASU running back Cam Skattebo is a stud. And their QB, Sam Leavitt, a transfer from Michigan State, played for my friend Jon Eagle at West Linn, Oregon High, where he won a state title. (Jon Eagle, who also won a state title here in Camas, Washington, where I live, is undoubtedly the only coach to win state titles in both Oregon and Washington.)
FRIDAY NIGHT
UNLV 23, KANSAS 20 - Rebels played as if they were auditioning for a place in the reconstituted Pac-6.
KANSAS STATE 31, ARIZONA 7 - KSU won the Battle of the Wildcats.
SATURDAY (THERE ACTUALLY WERE A COUPLE OF SURPRISINGLY CLOSE GAMES)
ALABAMA 42, WISCONSIN 10 - The Badgers lost transfer QB Tyler Van Dyke early in the game. They have this week off, but it’s uncertain whether he’ll be ready for USC in two weeks. Meantime, in the words of Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell, it was “a good old-fashioned ass-whooping, at home, and that hurts.”
OKLAHOMA STATE 45, TULSA 10 - Cowboys are tough.
LSU 36, SOUTH CAROLINA 33 - Heck of a game. Both teams made major mistakes. Not many times does a team have a punt blocked and still win - but the Tigers had it when they needed it.
MICHIGAN 28, ARKANSAS STATE 18 - The score’s about right. If Michigan is good, they haven’t shown it yet.
MEMPHIS 20, FLORIDA STATE 12 - FSU is now 0-3. You wouldn’t mind making what Seminoles’ coach Mike Norvell’s making, but otherwise you wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. Take nothing away from Memphis - they’re good.
NC STATE 30, LOUISIANA TECH 20 - Favored by 20, the Wolfpack had to come from behind - they were down 17-6 at the half.
CINCINNATI 27 MIAMI (O)16 - Bearcats’ Blake Gabbert threw for 339, running back Corey Kiner rushed for 139.
MISSOURI 27, BOSTON COLLEGE 21: Missouri made some mistakes and the Eagles almost made them pay. BC is for real.
COASTAL CAROLINA 28, TEMPLE 20 : Hey - it’s a loss, but it’s the best the Owls have played all season!
TEXAS A & M 33, FLORIDA 20: The Aggies beat the spread and then some. And Gators’ money guys are said to be busy raising the $26 million needed to buy out Billy Napier.
OKLAHOMA 34, TULANE 19 - OU QB Jackson Arnold threw for 169 and ran for 97. It was Tulane’s first road loss after winning ten straight away games.
OREGON 49, OREGON STATE: 14: Not only was it an ugly game (if you wanted the Beavers to be competitive) but there’s something really dull and dumb about playing what has always been a bitter rivalry game so early in the season.
WASHINGTON STATE 24, WASHINGTON 19 : Karma, baby. Karma. The Washington suits not only voted to leave WSU behind when they left for the Big Ten, but they did their damnedest to empty pockets, too.
NOTRE DAME 66, PURDUE 7: Whew. The Irish gave the Boilermakers the worst defeat in their program’s history. How about 578 yards total offense - 362 on the ground? 27 first downs to six? 7/12 first down conversions vs. 1/12? They must have been listening to a certain coach in Granbury, Texas named Joe Gutilla: “RUN THE ROCK!”
PITT 38, WEST VIRGINIA 34: Exciting but ugly, what with all the penalties - and the officials could have called a lot more. Pitt QB Eli Holstein is a Louisiana kid who starts out at Alabama, and he completed 21 of 30 for 301 and three TDs. That’s the good news. The bad news? He was also the Panthers’ leading rusher, with 59 yards.
UTAH 38, UTAH STATE 21: It was just 17-14 at the half, but it was, after all, something of a rivalry game. Ute QB Isaac Wilson, a true freshman from Draper, Utah, was making his first start; filling in for injured Cam Rising, he was 20/33 for 239 yards and three TDs.
OLE MISS 40, WAKE FOREST 6: Jaxson Dart, the Utah kid by way of USC, threw for 377 (26 of 23) and two TDs. It didn’t look like a game between two power conference teams - Ole Miss is that good.
TEXAS 56, UTSA 7: Texas led 14-0 in the second quarter when starting QB Quinn Ewers left the game with an injury. Tada! Enter Arch Manning. You may have heard of him. He came in and did “okay”: completed nine of twelve for 223 yards (that’s 18.6 yards per attempt - almost unreal) and four TDs. And get this - he ran 67 yards for another score. He must have inherited his granddad Archie’s speed.
GEORGIA 13, KENTUCKY 12: I said that this could get ugly, but I didn’t have Georgia fans in mind when I said it. I call six field goals and one touchdown an ugly game, and Georgia folks have to consider a one-point loss to a team that got blown out last week by South Carolina ugly, too. But Kentucky fans have to be encouraged by their team’s showing, almost doubling the Bulldogs’ first downs (23-12) and winning the time of possession battle , 35-25
NEBRASKA 34, NORTHERN IOWA 3: Cornhuskers’ frosh QB Dylan Raiola completed 17 of 23 for 247 yards and two TDs.
TOLEDO 41, MISSISSIPPI STATE 17: Whoa. It’s not THAT unusual for a MAC team to beat a Power Conference team, but to kick their ass? 28-3 at the half? Rockets’ QB Tucker Gleason completed 23 of 28 for 285 yards and three TDs.
INDIANA 42, UCLA 13: Welcome to the Big Ten, Bruins. Wait till you see the BETTER teams!
BAYLOR 31, AIR FORCE 3: What’s the deal with the Zoomies?
COLORADO 28 COLORADO STATE 9 : Is it too late to withdraw that invitation to Colorado State to join the Pac-6? They sucked.
UCF 35, TCU 34: I said that those two coaches would give us an interesting game, and they did. UCF, down 31-20 after three quarters, outscored the Frogs 15-3 in the fourth quarter. KJ Jefferson’s pass to Kobe Hudson with 36 seconds left gave them their first lead of the game. Knights’ RJ Harvey carried 29 times for 180 yards and two TDs.
TENNESSEE 71, KENT 0: There ought to be a rule against scheduling games like this.
MARYLAND 27, VIRGINIA 13: The Terps were down, 13-7 at the half, but they shut out the Cavaliers in the second half, 20-0. Wake Forest transfer Billy Edwards completed 28 of 43 for the Terps for 263 yards and two TDs.
HOUSTON 33, RICE 7: I hope that Houston softened up Rice for Army this week.
BYU 34, WYOMING 14: Cowboys’ fans deserve better.
CAL 31, SAN DIEGO STATE 10 : Cal is good.
FRESNO STATE 48, NEW MEXICO STATE 0 : That’ll teach those Aggies to mess with a Pac-6 team!
*********** Indiana introduced UCLA and the entire Southland to regular-season Big Ten football, trouncing the Bruins 42-13 in front of 47,811 in the Rose Bowl.
The Hoosiers are now 2-0, and although at most places it would be way too early to get excited, this is Indiana after all, a place where mediocrity or worse has been the norm every football season, so let’s take a look at their remaining schedule:
CHARLOTTE
MARYLAND
AT NORTHWESTERN
NEBRASKA
WASHINGTON
AT MICHIGAN STATE
MICHIGAN
AT OHIO STATE
PURDUE
You know what? They could actually be 9-0 going into Columbus on November 23.
I know, I know. They also could be 3-6 (a win over Charlotte next week being almost ensured.)
But there’s something about their first-year head coach, Curt Cignetti. The guy is a winner. He came to Indiana from James Madison, where he was 52-9 overall. Most significantly, he took the Dukes from FCS up to FBS and scarcely missed a beat, going from 12-2 in FCS in 2021 to 8-3 and 11-1 in their first two seasons in FBS.
Counting all his wins at low levels, he has the fourth-best winning percentage among active FBS coaches, behind Ryan Day, Kirby Smart and John Sumrall (now in his first year at Tulane after moving from Troy).
*********** I knew as soon as I heard Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi tell the post-game reporter “we had to beat West Virginia and the officials” that he’d be getting a strongly-worded letter in his file. He did. And Pitt was fined a pittance - something like $5,000.
It may surprise you to learn, in these days when they’re having a terrible time getting high school officials, that guys in major conferences can make as much as $3,000 a game.
(Actually, maybe it’s not that much, when you realize that there are college players now making $100,000 a game.)
*********** Random bitches about the NFL:
*** There are few uniforms in sport more consistent and more classic than the Chicago Bears’. You can look at photos of Bears’ games from the 1930s and you’ll know - just as you would with the Yankees and their pinstripes - who you’re looking at.
So when they came out in those garish orange jerseys and helmets Sunday night, they deserved to lose.
*** On field goal attempts of 50 yards or more, NFL kickers this year are averaging almost 90 per cent made. Talk about excitement.
*** On Sunday, the Giants scored three touchdowns while their opponents, the Team Once Known as the Redskins, didn’t score a one. But the Team Once Known as the Redskins kicked SEVEN field goals, and won the game, 21-18. In the long history of the NFL, it was the first time that a team scored three touchdowns and still lost to a team that didn’t score any. The back story: the Giants’ kicker was injured on the opening kickoff, and they wound up missing all three PATs - one kicking and two on two-point attempts.
*********** John Canzano’s take…
Q: Clearly, seeing that the Ducks are on a different level than the Beavers. Also, knowing they have a larger NIL budget. How much (in your opinion) will Oregon State need to “buck up” to be at a P-4 level with, say, five more top-tier players?
A: NIL funding is a huge factor in football, but let me throw another thought at you. Jonathan Smith left OSU’s program at the end of last season. A bunch of his players immediately jumped into the portal and bolted. I thought Saturday’s 49-14 win by the Ducks said more about roster continuity than NIL disparity.
The Beavers lost a ton of momentum, talent, and continuity when Smith bolted to Michigan State. Playmakers such as quarterback Aidan Chiles and receiver Silas Bolden left. Running back Damien Martinez stuck around for a while, but only because he wanted to collect the final $100,000 installment on his $400,000-a-year NIL deal.
A school’s ability to recruit and compensate players with NIL matters. Oregon does it better than most. To lure five good starters out of the portal? You’d need maybe $2 million. But the Apple Cup provided a perfect contrast to the Civil War on the roster retention front — the Cougars had coaching and roster continuity, and the Huskies didn’t. That result tipped WSU’s way.
*********** MORE JOHN CANZANO…
I reported on Saturday that the Pac-12 wants to grow to nine schools, ideally. That helps with football and basketball scheduling. I won’t be surprised if the Pac-12 explores the top AAC schools, then circles back and takes a hard look at Air Force and/or UNLV in the Mountain West. It’s a beauty pageant now.
*********** When the guys in suits started selling their teams (and their souls) to various far-flung conferences, I doubt that they gave much thought to the extra travel required of the guys who drive their teams’ equipment trucks - bigass 18-wheelers loaded with all the helmets, pads, uniforms and other equipment. (No way they can get all that stuff on the team plane.)
As one example, in a six-game span, Washington will play four away games, with the Huskies’ truck hauling the team’s gear from Seattle to New Brunswick, New Jersey (5,660 miles round-trip), Iowa City, Iowa (3,704 miles), Bloomington, Indiana (4,520 miles) and State College, Pennsylvania (5,230 miles).
God knows what provisions teams make for the possibility of a wreck along the way. Or a break-in.
*********** I know it’s not feasible to have 22 officials on the field to watch every player individually, but it seems to me there might be an opportunity here for AI. A great test would be to have it “watch” all five offensive linemen for holding.
*********** Joe Schmidt died last week. He was 92. At a stage in the pro game when fans were beginning to understand the complexities of defense, the middle linebacker became the glamour position. Every team, it seemed, had a good one. But some were better than others, and none was better than Joe Schmidt.
I remember a story that was going around at the time - mid-to-late 50s - after a made-for-TV special called “The Violent World of Sam Huff” introduced people to the goings-on of pro defense. In the process, it also created the impression that Huff, the middle man in a very good Giants’ defense, was the ultimate player at the position.
Huff was good, certainly. But at a time when New York was the absolute center of the advertising business and all the major media, it was simply the fact that he was playing for New York’s team (the Jets were still unborn) that had caused him to be cast as the star.
Other middle linebackers around the league resented the acclaim that Huff got, and when word started circulating that the TV guys were planning another special featuring Huff, this one showing all the great plays a middle linebacker was called on to make, one of then said, “If they make it, they’re going to have to get Joe Schmidt to play Sam Huff.”
*********** 46-0 win moves us to 3-0 for the 1st time since 2005.
Thanks, coach for teaching me how to teach tackling and blocking!
Scored on wedge again but not so dramatically as last week. I will send a clip or two once we get it uploaded.
Sean Berry
Chillicothe, Texas
*********** Hi Hugh,
My Monday morning football rant, this time on the NFL! Will someone please teach NFL Lineman how to run block? Will some NFL coach have the courage to put the inside and outside zone to bed and teach some DW or Wing T blocking concepts . Will some owner say enough and if you need a yard or two get under center instead if handing the ball of to back five yards deep without blocker? Finally will some coach say the prevent defense with three rushers will lose you a game more often then save it!
The NFL is so inbred its coaches no longer dare to do anything but what everybody else is doing. My fear after watching college football this weekend they are falling into the same trap.
Thanks for the opportunity to rant!
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
Jack, I sat here reading your rant and I went “check” and “check” and “check” and so on after every point. Your “inbred” comment is especially on point, because it’s not as if there aren’t a lot of bright guys coaching in the NFL, with plenty of good ideas. But NFL jobs are scarce, and if you dare do anything that falls outside the accepted way of doing it, you risk becoming an outcast and never getting another job. Great post!
*********** Thanks for continuing to give us new perspectives on Coach Lude.
Robert Heinlein was a sci-fi writer, but his observations on the world we live in are numerous and excellent. The comment concerning the decline in rational thinking is lamentably true.
Hope you and Coach Berry will be able to praise your teams after the next one.
Still no ESPN on DIRECTV, and I'm still happy about it .
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: In Penn State’s long and storied football history, John Cappelletti is the only one of its players to win the Heisman Trophy.
He was born and raised in suburban Philadelphia and played football for Monsignor Bonner High School, where in his senior year he was first-team All-Catholic (for the entire Philadephia metro area) as a running back.
He attended Penn State, where he spent his first two seasons as a defensive back. Switched to running back as a junior, he rushed for 1117 yards and 12 touchdowns, as the Nittany Lions went 10-2 and finished 10th in the nation.
In his senior year, he rushed for 1,522 yards - second-best total in Penn State history) and 17 touchdowns, and was a consensus All-American. In the final month of the season he had three straight 200-yard games. Penn State finished the season 12-0, and ranked fifth in the nation (behind Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio state and Notre Dame). He was named the outstanding player in Penn State’s Orange Bowl win over LSU.
His coach Joe Paterno, called him “The best player I’ve ever been around. He’s strong, fast, durable, and a great leader. You know he’s going to come through for you when you need him."
His Heisman Trophy acceptance speech was one of the most memorable in Heisman history, as he tearful dedicated the moment to his younger brother Joey, who was dying of leukemia. Later, a made-for-television movie was made about the brothers and their relationship, titled “Something for Joey.”
He also received the Maxwell Trophy and was selected as Player-of-the-Year by ABC-TV, United Press International, the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association, the Walter Camp Foundation and the Washington Touchdown Club.
He was a first-round draft choice of the Los Angeles Rams (11th pick overall). He was also the Number One pick of his hometown team, the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League, but he - wisely - chose to play in the NFL.
He wound up playing 10 seasons - six with the Rams and four with the San Diego Chargers.
Overall, he rushed 824 times for 2,951 yards and 24 touchdowns, and caught 135 passes for 1,233 yards and four touchdowns.
John Cappelletti’s number 22 has been retired at Penn State.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1993.
After pro football he had a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry in California, where he and his wife raised four sons.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOHN CAPPELLETTI
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
*********** QUIZ: He was there at the start, as founder and player, then coach, of one of the NFL’s flagship franchises, a team started in his home town and named for the company that originally provided financial backing.
An outstanding player, he is member of the NFL 1920s All-Decade Team as one of the brand-new league’s top single wing tailbacks.
From 1920 to 1949, he was the team’s head coach and general manager, and in that time he led the team to over 200 wins. His teams also won six NFL championships - only the Bears’ George Halas (his archival over the years) and Bill Belichick have won as many.
Six of his players - Cal Hubbard, Mike Michalske, Johnny “Blood” McNally, Arnie Herber, Don Hutson and Tony Canadeo - are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
As a player, he wore the Number One for two seasons, and remains the only player in the history of the franchise to wear that number.
He is in the team’s Hall of Fame and in 1965, shortly after his death, their stadium was renamed in his honor.
His long tenure with the team came to an end, however, in 1950, when he resigned after a disagreement with team ownership. After that, he coached briefly for two other teams, the Chicago Cardinals and Washington Redskins.
His overall coaching record after 33 years in the NFL is 229-134-22.
He was one of the inductees in the very first group inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY,
SEPTEMBER 13, 2024
"There are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be
done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your
way.’” C. S. Lewis*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “I give Dr. Windsor H. Roberts credit for saving my academic life.
“Thanks to him, I was able to stay in school and pursue my goal of being a football coach – an ambition that had started to slip further and further from reality with each botched classroom assignment.
“Part of my problem was my background. I had attended a one-room country school. Because the vast majority of my classmates never even continued on to high school, the teacher focused almost totally on the simple basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. There was no time for anything else. The small high school I attended also had a limited curriculum.
“The other part of the problem was my approach. Studying didn't have a high priority for me. I was a happy kid who had a good relationship with the faculty at Vicksburg high school, a C-plus student who didn't have to work very hard to get by. I was more concerned with sports than academics. Going to college didn't become a goal or a possibility until I was in my senior year. I just didn't apply myself as I might have, and my lack of preparation came back to haunt me at Hillsdale - in a hurry.”
*********** It’s been a good week of practice at Aberdeen. We made a bunch of mistakes last Friday night and I think we’re on the way to correcting them.
We had a couple of injuries that mean we’re already missing a couple of key players, but I think we’ve got a decent scheme to cover for them and there’s a good chance we could have the injured players back next week.
We’re not a good team yet - not even close - but we’re going to be one.
This week, we’re playing Steilacoom, a Tacoma-area team that won its opener last week. (Ohio State wide receiver Emeka Egbuka is a Steilacoom kid.) Besides the on-field issues we face, a big concern is just getting there - the Friday afternoon traffic on I-5 between Olympia and Tacoma is a bitch.
Last week’s home game started at 7:30, a half-hour later than usual, because of the shortage of officials. (It’s a growing problem everywhere). We were actually the second game our crew worked. They’d already officiated a game in nearby Hoquiam that kicked off at 4 PM, then drove about ten minutes to our place to handle our game. Not ideal, but thanks to the arrangement, we and Hoquiam were both able to play home games on Friday, instead of on a Thursday or a Saturday. (When I asked one of the officials at halftime how he was feeling, he confessed to being a little tired.)
*********** COLLEGE GAMES I’M RECORDING THIS WEEKEND
THURSDAY NIGHT
ARIZONA STATE AT TEXAS STATE - WOW. This has to to be the first time a Power 4 team has ever played in San Marcos, a sure sign that Texas State has arrived as an FBS program. It could be really close - Texas State is good.
FRIDAY NIGHT
UNLV AT KANSAS - If you like to watch inventive offenses, this ought to be a great one.
ARIZONA AT KANSAS STATE - I like Arizona and I like Brent Brennan, but I’ve been a KSU Wildcat fan for a long time. EMAW! (Every Man A Wildcat!)
SATURDAY (DON’T BOTHER LOOKING FOR MANY CLOSE GAMES)
ALABAMA AT WISCONSIN - When was the last time Bama went north to play a game - and a game against a Big Ten team at that?
OKLAHOMA STATE AT TULSA - Cowboys are tough, as they showed against Arkansas last week. Yes, they did give up almost 650 yards of offense against the Razorbacks, but not this week.
LSU AT SOUTH CAROLINA - LSU is favored. But after the Gamecocks’ performance last week in trouncing Kentucky - and Notre Dame’s upset defeat after beating LSU in their opener - I’m not so sure.
ARKANSAS STATE AGAINST MICHIGAN - Michigan - spanked and still ranked. If a game in the big house is on your bucket list, this would be a cheap ticket: Michigan is favored by 22.
MEMPHIS AT FLORIDA STATE - FSU is favored by a score. Maybe THIS is the day the Seminoles show why they deserve a greater share of the conference revenues than all those other piddly-ass ACC teams. Or the day when they show why they should be happy any conference will even have them. Go Tigers!
LOUISIANA TECH AT NC STATE - Despite getting clobbered by Tennessee last week, State is favored by three scores.
CINCINNATI AT MIAMI (O): This is a rivalry game for the right to walk tall in southwest Ohio, and it’s the reason why Cinci is favored by only 3-1/2. The Bearcats that almost had Pitt put away last week should be favored by lots more; the ones that let Pitt come back and beat them will lose to Miami. Cincinnati does some cool stuff on offense.
BOSTON COLLEGE AT MISSOURI: Don’t let the Eagles’ surprise win over Florida State fool you. Missouri is really good, and a two-TD spread seems reasonable.
UMASS AT BUFFALO: I’ll watch, because I pull for UMass coach Don Brown, and because it’s actually on a DISH channel.
COASTAL CAROLINA AT TEMPLE: Hey Philly people - if you still watch college football live, this may be your best chance to watch a really exciting team. And it’s not Temple.
TEXAS A & M AT FLORIDA: For some reason, the Aggies are favored by just three points. Can they be that bad?
TULANE AT OKLAHOMA: Tulane, under new coach Willie Fritz, looked awfully tough against Kansas State last week, and Oklahoma had its hands full against Houston, so I suspect that the Sooners may not cover the 13-point spread.
OREGON AT OREGON STATE: For reasons of political correctness, they decided to do away with calling this the Civil War. But since the Ducks went hoity-toity and left for the Big Ten, and leaving Oregon State behind in a two-team conference, the hard feelings in Beaverland could make a civil war look like a peace rally. I like underdogs, and Oregon’s Dan Lanning has been known to choke in big games, so Go Beavers!
WASHINGTON STATE VS WASHINGTON: This one’s at a somewhat-neutral site - the home of the Seahawks - but it is in Seattle, the home of the Washington Huskies. But while WSU may be from clear on the other side of the state, there are thousands of Coug fans living in the area, and this one will be hard-fought. Typically, there are more home-state kids playing for the Cougars, and Wazzu fans are really red-assed about the Huskies going Big-Ten on them. What a damn shame that the suits who run TV had to put this on one that f—king Peacock.
NOTRE DAME AT PURDUE: Notre Dame is a ten-point favorite, but for as long as I can remember, this game has always been a tough one for the Irish. For that reason alone, if I were betting, I’d take the points.
WEST VIRGINIA AT PITT: The Backyard Brawl (the two schools are only about an hour and a half apart and have traditionally battled each other for recruits) returns to the Steel City, with the Moutaineers slight favorites. I will definitely watch this one.
UTAH AT UTAH STATE: I just want to see how the Utes do if they have to play without Cam Rising.
OLE MISS AT WAKE FOREST: I like the Deacs a lot. But the Rebels are one of the country’s best offensive teams and and I always learn something from watching them.
UTSA AT TEXAS: The match they craved is finally here, and the Roadrunners, who once thought they’d be ready for it simply aren’t. This could be a beat-down.
GEORGIA AT KENTUCKY: This could get ugly.
NORTHERN IOWA AT NEBRASKA: UNI always plays the big guys tough, so it could be an interesting game.
TOLEDO AT MISSISSIPPI STATE: Toledo (2-0) hasn’t beaten anybody as good as Mississippi State. But Mississippi State (1-1) hasn’t beaten anybody as good as Toledo.
INDIANA AT UCLA: The first Big Ten regular season game ever played in Southern California, and they give them THIS? UCLA is 1-0, having barely escaped with a win over Hawaii. Indiana has played two softies and they’re 2-0. You asked for this, Bruins.
AIR FORCE AT BAYLOR: Baylor had an easy one, and then played Utah pretty tough. Air Force, to be blunt, hasn’t played well. On the other hand, the Zoomies have beaten the last five Power 5 teams they’ve faced.
COLORADO AT COLORADO STATE: Oh please, Rams - beat the crap out of Colorado and make your new brothers-to-be in the Pac-6 proud of you!
UCF AT TCU: Two good offensive coaches - TCU’s Sonny Dykes and UCF’s ought to give us a good game.
KENT STATE AT TENNESSEE: Kent is 0-2 and may be the worst team in all of FCS. Tennessee is really good. I’ll just record this looking for big plays.
MARYLAND AT VIRGINIA: Once a pretty strong rivalry when they were both in the ACC, this could be good. I’m a former Marylander and I like the Terps, but I don’t care for the Big Ten and I like the ACC, so go Cavs!
RICE AT HOUSTON: Interesting matchup of two Houston-based teams. This would ordinarily be ugly (Rice has sucked for so long) but it could be close.
BYU AT WYOMING: The Cowboys haven’t recovered from Craig Bohl’s retirement, and the Cougars are getting better.
SAN DIEGO STATE AT CAL: I like Cal a lot, but they are deserters and the Aztecs are about to become Pac-whatevers, so go Aztecs.
NEW MEXICO STATE AT FRESNO STATE: I expect Fresno State to celebrate its entrance into the Pac-6 with a nice win.
*********** Prior to Thursday night’s Arizona State-Texas State game, the former Pac-12 is 21-2; the “Pac-2” (Oregon State and Washington State) is 4-0.
*********** Back in the early 70s, when I was coaching minor league football in Hagerstown, Maryland, I developed a nice relationship with Tim Temerario, the Redskins’ Director of Player Personnel under head coach/GM George Allen. Whenever the Skins would cut a player they wanted to keep close by (practice squads weren’t as big then as they are now, and George Allen was notorious for finding innovative ways to storehouse players), Tim would let me know about him - and let the player know about us - and in certain cases, the guy would play for us and the Skins would slip him a little money. I have no idea how much it was (we were paying everybody $50 a game, which was decent money at the time), but every week I’d go to the post office and pick up a bunch of letters from the Redskins and hand them out to the players at practice that evening. One of those players, a punter named Duane Carrell, stuck with us and did a great job. He wound up playing with the Jacksonville Sharks of the World Football League, then had a career in the NFL with the Cowboys, Rams, Jets and Cardinals.
I moved on to working for the WFL’s Philly franchise as its player personnel director, and when the WFL folded after its first year, Tim had me come to the Redskins’ offices in northern Virginia to meet with Allen. Wow. A face-to-face meeting with one of the best-known and most-respected men in the NFL! To say I was impressed was an understatement.
He wasted no time and got right to the point, asking me to tell him who I thought were the three best running backs, three best tight ends, three best centers, etc., etc. You get the idea. As he grilled me, his scouts took notes.
My main reason for remembering this is that one of the scouts was a guy who introduced himself to me as “Bob Mitchell.” Of course I knew who the hell he was. He was the great Bobby Mitchell!
What especially impressed me was, first, that HE introduced himself to ME, and second, that while “Bobby” might have been the name by which he became famous, he obviously preferred to be called “Bob.”
*********** “But there seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously—after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and sub-literate every time he opens his mouth.”
Robert Heinlein
*********** I expect any time soon to hear that some ambitious congressman has authored a Truth in Gambling bill, requiring anyone betting on a football game to first declare that he understands that the very word “gamble” implies that there is risk involved, and that any losses are totally the responsibility of the bettor.
Not that I’m big on government betting involved in anything, but at least in Alabama, there appears to be a sizable number of people in need of the most basic understanding of gambling.
Alabama is where Auburn is located. Auburn’s quarterback, Payton Thorne, said that after Auburn was upset by Cal last Saturday - in a game in which he was intercepted four times - he’s been contacted by bettors asking him to send them money to cover their losses.
Seriously.
"It's funny,” he said. “When they lose money, they want their money back. But when they win money on a parlay, no one's ever sent me any of the money.”
*********** My involvement in spreading the word about various aspects of football and football coaching has blessed me with the opportunity to meet some great people whom I would never otherwise have met.
One such person is Sean Berry, coach of a six-man team in Chillicothe, Texas. (I knew of Chillicothe, Ohio, but this was a new one on me. It’s about one-third of the way from Wichita Falls to Amarillo, and about 30 miles south of Altus, Oklahoma.)
Coach Berry and I have corresponded, and he’s bounced a couple of ideas off me, and when he sent me a couple of film clips I mentioned that it appeared he had a pretty decent fullback.
We discussed the wedge, and he was smart enough to recognize that since I start out teaching it as a triple-team on one designated opponent, he could do the same - take his three offensive linemen (that’s all he’s got) and triple-team one opponent. Voila! The wedge comes to six-man football!
He sent me a clip of his kids running the play and I loved it and told him I’d love to show it on my Zoom Tuesday night.
He said, “Let me know when and I will show the kids. They will get a huge kick out of it. It was their idea after I showed them your video on how to wedge!”
https://youtu.be/a_kziQzZ4Vo
*********** Pardon me if I seem a bit excited, but I’m a lover of underdogs, and also, although I do believe in life after death, I very much like the idea of people avoiding near-certain death.
I’m referring to the news that Oregon State and Washington State appear to have found a way to a second life for the Pac-Pick-a-Number.
It seems almost certain that Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State will be leaving the Mountain West and joining OSU and WSU in reconstituting what was once the proud Pac-12.
Geographically all four are a good fit, and while Boise is the only one that doesn’t bring a good-size market with it, the Broncos more than offset any concerns about market size with a program that’s nationally known and respected.
While they’ll still need two more members in order to satisfy the NCAA requirement that they have eight members by 2026, the word on the West Coast is that two spots were deliberately left vacant in the event that something might happen to the ACC that would result in Cal and Stanford looking for a landing place. Who knows?
As the old saying goes, sh— flows downhill, and it’s going to be tough on the Mountain West, for sure. I have no idea how it will respond, but one thing that comes to mind is looking at schools such as Montana, Montana State, North Dakota State and South Dakota State. Now FCS powers, they might be interested in a move up. One big negative for the Mountain West is that they represent minuscule TV markets, none even close in size to Boise.
*********** International soccer officials now have a new signal - one to signify a penalty for racist acts.
So there's soccer, almost certainly the world's most racially diverse sport, constantly having to deal with racism among its fans.
Could the problem be that there's just not enough action to keep the fans occupied?
*********** Every coach has a horror story or two about homecoming, but it's hard to beat the one that a friend of mine is in the middle of. Seems that without consulting him, someone scheduled the homecoming parade for 5:30 some evening next week and now he's catching all sorts of flak because he won't cancel practice so his kids can march in the parade.
*********** NFL offensive effectiveness: The Jets’ running game failed to make it on 3rd and 1. So on 4th and one, they threw. Didn’t make that, either.
*********** I have three sons-in-law, and I love them all. Great guys who’ve become great members of the family and given us ten grandkids in all.
One of them, Rob Tiffany, is a native Texan who joined the Navy and met our daughter, Cathy, when he was stationed on a submarine based in Bangor, Washington. I like to brag that Rob got his college degree underwater - it’s true.
Thanks to him, my wife and I got a tour of the ship, the USS Alaska SSBN-732. The SSBN Means “Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear”)
Rob posted on Facebook recently…
Great to see the USS Alaska SSBN-732 and its crew commemorate the submarine’s 100th strategic deterrent patrol giving pause to our adversaries. She’s a beautiful boat and I loved my time onboard with great shipmates.
One commenter asked him this question: What was life aboard like?
His answer: Living in a tube that sinks on purpose is not for everyone. You get in a routine with your job on the sub and stay in the zone.
*********** The answer is Bobby Mitchell. This is the worst trade that Paul Brown ever made.
I was livid when this trade was announced.
The prevailing reasons for the trade were that he was a fumbler. The next reason was that Paul Brown had a bad relationship with Jim Brown and he blamed Mitchell for the problem. He also wanted another big back to replace Jim Brown. (That being Ernie Davis.)
These are the reasons that I read in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
If my memory is correct, Mitchell got Washington to renegotiate his contract and pay him the same salary as Jim Brown (40,000 dollars I think).
You noted that Washington moved him to wide receiver. A number of people thought that he should have been playing that position in Cleveland. Critics noted that Brown was out of step with the direction of a more modern passing game starting to emerge in the NFL. Mitchell was a perfect fit for that type of passing attack.
See you Tuesday.
David Crump
Owensboro, Kentucky
************ I’m still thinking about the transfer portal. Maybe if it doesn't work out in enough cases, coaches will pause before using it as freely as they have. Riley Leonard's a possible case in point. Moreover, I don't like the idea of an upperclass newbie messing with my team's psyche. I therefore personally am rooting for Dabo and the service academies to have winning seasons. What if Army and Navy can play well with neither portal nor NIL? Let me have something to cling to.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
Until they outlaw the Army offense, which is quite possible, Army will have the advantage of having roster stability, which contributes to better offense, better defense, and better unit cohesion.
Until proven otherwise, it’s still a team game.
*********** Hugh,
Your ball. Second and one. Ball on opponent 40. 7 min left to play. Leading 14-13. Offense is moving the ball. Your defense has been unable to stop opponent run game. What’s your call?
I know what I call! RUN THE ROCK, get a first down, and continue moving the chains! Eventually score a TD or at least kick a short FG to go up by 8, or by 4. AND…eat clock!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
You’re talking Notre Dame, obviously. I read that Northern Illinois’ yards per completion was 10 or so - really good. Notre Dame’s was something under 4 - pathetic. So, as you say, RUN THE BALL!!!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: In 1962 Bobby Mitchell integrated the last NFL team to play black players.
A native of Hot Springs, Arkansas, he turned down a chance to play baseball with the Cardinals and instead chose to play football at Illinois.
As a sophomore running back, he replaced the starter in the third quarter of the season’s seventh game, and on his very first carry he ran 64 yards for a score. In his brief time, he gained 173 yards on 10 carries, and the Illini upset Number 3-ranked Michigan. Playing the rest of the season, he played well enough to be named All-Big Ten.
He was hurt most of his junior season, but after his senior year he was named to play in the College All-Star Game, and he was named Co-MVP, as the All-Stars upset the NFL champion Detroit Lions.
While at Illinois, he excelled as a sprinter and hurdler in track, and in his senior year he helped Illinois win the Big Ten track and field championship.
Drafted in the seventh round by the Cleveland Browns, he played halfback and his blazing speed to the outside proved the perfect complement to the power inside running of the great Jim Brown.
In four seasons with the Browns, he rushed for 2297 yards and gained 1463 yards receiving. He returned kickoffs for 1550 yards, and in all, he scored 38 touchdowns.
He was a very good runner, and he and Brown may well have been the best pair of running backs ever to play in the same backfield. But he undoubtedly would have spent his career in Brown’s shadow, except that, in 1962 he was traded to Washington for the draft rights to Syracuse’s Ernie Davis.
(Ernie Davis, as most hardcore football fans know, had just won the Heisman Trophy but tragically, would die of leukemia before ever playing in an NFL game.)
In Washington, where the club had agreed to finally integrate as a condition for using brand-new DC Stadium, he became the franchise’s first black player.
He broke the team’s color barrier in spectacular fashion: in his first game as a Redskin, he returned a kickoff 92 yards against the Cowboys.
He was moved to wide receiver, and in his first season at a new position, on a new team, he led the NFL with 72 catches for 1384 yards and 11 touchdowns, and was named to the Pro Bowl. And the once-woeful Redskins finished the season 5-7-2, their best finish in five years.
Over the next five years, his season reception totals were 69, 60, 60, 58 and 60.
In 1968, although was back to running back so that Charlie Taylor could play wide receiver, he still caught 60 passes for 866 yards and six touchdowns.
He retired after training camp in 1969, with a fantastic set of records: his total all-purpose yardage was 14,078. He scored 91 touchdowns - 18 rushing, 65 receiving, 3 on punt returns and 5 on kick returns. In all, he had 7,954 yards receiving (521 reception) and 2,735 yards rushing.
He played in four Pro Bowls and was a three-time first team All-Pro and two-time second team All-Pro.
He won three Super Bowl rings.
He is a member of the Redskins’ Ring of Fame and the Browns’ Ring of Honor.
He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
After retirement as a player, he spent 35 more years with the Redskins, beginning as a scout under Vince Lombardi, and moving up in the executive ranks to assistant General Manager before retiring in 2002.
In all, he spent 41 years with the Washington organization, but although he aspired to be General Manager, he was twice passed over in favor of an outsider.
He died in 2020, and in his honor the team retired his Number 49.
He and his wife, an attorney, made the the Washington, DC area their home, and he was active in a number of civic and charitable organizations. including the United Negro College Fund, the Howard University Cancer Research Advisory Committee, the American Lung Association of D.C., the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission, the Boys Club of Washington, the National Urban League, the NAACP, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the University of Illinois Presidents Council and the University of Illinois Foundation.
His son and namesake, Bobby Mitchell, Jr., played football at Stanford.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BOBBY MITCHELL
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: In Penn State’s long and storied football history, he is the only one of its players to win the Heisman Trophy.
He was born and raised in suburban Philadelphia and played football for Monsignor Bonner High School, where in his senior year he was first-team All-Catholic (for the entire Philadephia metro area) as a running back.
He attended Penn State, where he spent his first two seasons as a defensive back. Switched to running back as a junior, he rushed for 1117 yards and 12 touchdowns, as the Nittany Lions went 10-2 and finished 10th in the nation.
In his senior year, he rushed for 1,522 yards - second-best total in Penn State history) and 17 touchdowns, and was a consensus All-American. In the final month of the season he had three straight 200-yard games. Penn State finished the season 12-0, and ranked fifth in the nation (behind Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio state and Notre Dame). He was named the outstanding player in Penn State’s Orange Bowl win over LSU.
His coach Joe Paterno, called him “The best player I’ve ever been around. He’s strong, fast, durable, and a great leader. You know he’s going to come through for you when you need him."
His Heisman Trophy acceptance speech was one of the most memorable in Heisman history, as he tearful dedicated the moment to his younger brother Joey, who was dying of leukemia. Later, a made-for-television movie was made about the brothers and their relationship, titled “Something for Joey.”
He also received the Maxwell Trophy and was selected as Player-of-the-Year by ABC-TV, United Press International, the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association, the Walter Camp Foundation and the Washington Touchdown Club.
He was a first-round draft choice of the Los Angeles Rams (11th pick overall). He was also the Number One pick of his hometown team, the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League, but he - wisely - chose to play in the NFL.
He wound up playing 10 seasons - six with the Rams and four with the San Diego Chargers.
Overall, he rushed 824 times for 2,951 yards and 24 touchdowns, and caught 135 passes for 1,233 yards and four touchdowns.
His number 22 has been retired at Penn State.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1993.
After pro football he had a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry in California, where he and his wife raised four sons.
TUESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 10, 2024 “Total liberty for wolves is
death to the lambs.” Isaiah Berlin*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Less than a month into my career as an intercollegiate athlete, my situation at Hillsdale College resembled a quarterback scrambling with no blockers and a couple of huge linemen bearing down for the tackle.
“It didn't take me long to realize the difficulty of making the transition from a 250-student high school in Vicksburg, Michigan, to Hillsdale College, a highly respected liberal arts school. I only hoped nobody was paying much attention.
“Wrong. One morning, as I strolled out of his medieval history class, Dr. Windsor H. Roberts called me aside. His message was blunt: ‘Mike, you're in trouble academically.’
“To avoid the sack I came clean. ‘Yes sir, Dr. Roberts. I know I'm having problems,’ I said. ‘But I don't know what to do about it.’
“He threw me a lifeline. ‘Mike, you've shown me that you're a hard worker and I know you work just as hard in your athletics. I think you're disciplined. You never miss class and you pay attention.’ He volunteered to be my tutor, not only in the history class but in other courses, such as freshman English, where I needed a lot of help.
“Dr. Roberts spent many hours with me. He taught me the basics of scholastic survival – how to organize my thoughts, take lecture notes, practice effective time management, and other good-study skills.”
*********** OLYMPIC 20, ABERDEEN 6 - On their second play from scrimmage Aberdeen’s Micah Schroeder ran 50 yards around the left side for a score, only to have the play called back for a holding penalty. The Bobcats were forced to punt, but shortly after, they regained possession when the snap went over the Olympic punter’s head and the Bobcats recovered inside the ten. They were held on downs, though, and the first quarter ended 0-0.
Midway through the second quarter, the Bobcats intercepted a pass on their own ten, but on third down their quarterback was sacked on the one-yard line, and after a short punt and a return to the Aberdeen 20, it took Olympic just two running plays to score. After their two-point conversion, it was 8-0, with 4:30 left in the half.
Olympic drove close enough for a field goal attempt with four seconds remaining, but the kick was wide and the two teams went in at halftime with Olympic leading, 8-0.
Aberdeen took the second-half kickoff and was forced to punt, but after the Bobcats recovered an Olympic fumble, sophomore QB Mason Hill threw to junior wide receiver Adonis Hammond going up the right sideline for a 53-yard touchdown that made the score 8-6. The conversion failed.
It took Olympic just five plays to answer, scoring on a run from 30 yards out to extend the lead to 14-6. That’s how it stayed, going into the fourth quarter.
With nine minutes left in the game, Olympic drove to a first-and-goal on the Aberdeen two yard line, but after four shots at the Bobcats’ goal line, couldn’t get any close than the one!
With 6 minutes remaining, Aberdeen managed to drive - mostly through the air - from their own one to the Olympic eight - in position to tie the game - before finally running out of downs with four minutes left to play.
From there, it took Olympic just three plays - the final one a 75-yard run - to put the game away, with 2:19 to play.
Final score: Olympic 20, Aberdeen 6
We’ve got a lot to work on. We have a pact not to point fingers at each other, and I’m certainly not going to do it here.
We also have adopted a “no excuses” policy, so no “we’re very young and inexperienced” or “we lost so many starters from last year” allowed.
Next up: Steilacoom, a very good team from a town located between Olympia and Tacoma. A lot of its kids are from Army families stationed at nearby Fort Lewis.
*********** COLLEGE GAMES I RECORDED THIS PAST WEEKEND
FRIDAY NIGHT
BYU AT SMU - SMU is establishing itself as one of the few schools I don’t like, and I like BYU, so Go Cougars! BYU 16, SMU 15
DUKE AT NORTHWESTERN - Go Devils. Duke has had good luck against the Wildcats in recent years. First real test for Manny Diaz. DUKE 26, NORTHWESTERN 20 (2 OT)
SATURDAY
TEXAS AT MICHIGAN - I think Michigan is going to fail this test. TEXAS 31, MICHIGAN 12. Yes, but Michigan can still make the playoffs. Sure. And maybe it would mean a rematch. ZZZZZZZZZ.
ARKANSAS AT OKLAHOMA STATE - Very big one for Sam Pittman and the Razorbacks OKLAHOMA STATE 39, ARKANSAS 31 (2 OT) - Razorbacks had 648 yards of total offense, so you’d think they’d have an old-fashioned under-center play on 4th and short on their last play. (This game went more than FOUR F—KING HOURS!)
KANSAS STATE AT TULANE - Both teams coming off wins over FCS opponents but I like the Wildcats. EMAW! (Every Man A Wildcat!) WHEW. COMING FROM BEHIND IN THE FOURTH - KSU 34, TULANE 27
GEORGIA TECH AT SYRACUSE - Two formerly bottom-tier ACC teams that appear to be on the climb. Tech has already played two games. SYRACUSE 31, GEORGIA TECH 28 - If Orange QB Kyle McCord wasn’t good enough for Ohio State, how good must the Buckeyes be?
PITT AT CINCINNATI - Panthers may have had the tougher opponent last week in Kent State. PITT 28, CINCINNATI 27 - I’d given up on the Panthers when they fell behind in front of large Cincinnati crowd.
ARMY AT FLORIDA ATLANTIC - Army had an easy one against Lehigh; FAU lost narrowly to Michigan State. How will Army handle the noontime South Florida heat and humidity? ARMY 24, FAU 7 - How did they handle the heat and humidity? In true (real) Army fashion - they deliberately chose to wear all black, just to show that the heat wasn’t going to bother them. They rushed for 405 yards, and controlled the ball for 38:39.
NORTHERN ILLINOIS AT NOTRE DAME - I’m expecting a close game, but I’m becoming a fan of this Notre Dame team. NIU 16, NOTRE DAME 14 . I didn’t expect one THIS close. Very happy for NIU coach Thomas Hammock who understandably had some difficulty controlling his emotions after this one. It’s always great for the rest of us to have an example of what hard work and belief can accomplish. And my sympathy to Marcus Freeman, who seems to be a good man and a good coach but bears as heavy a burden as any coach in any sport.
BAYLOR AT UTAH - Dave Aranda may be in trouble at Baylor, and he seems like a good guy, but I’m a big fan of the Utes and Kyle Whittigham . It WILL be loud in Salt Lake City UTAH 23, BAYLOR 12 - But it looked as if a late hit may have injured Utes’ QB Cam Rising. Let’s hope it’s not a season-ender or else he’ll be back next year for a 12th year.
IOWA STATE AT IOWA - This is a rivalry game that’s impossible to pick, and I like ‘em both, so… IOWA STATE 20, IOWA 19 - at the buzzer. Quoting my friend Brad Knight, a Hawkeyes’ fan “Tailback - 25 carries for 185 yards. Yet we are trying to throw the ball in the red zone. Just keep running the damn ball and when they adjust run it somewhere else. College coaches are idiots.” Poor Kirk Ferentz - after all the complaining he finally goes soft and throws the ball, and what does he get for it?
CAL AT AUBURN - What sadistic AD would agree to send a team from California to play a game in the Deep South in early September? CAL 21, AUBURN 14. Who knew? Would the Bears have done that if they were still a Pac-12 team? Their QB, a Miami kid named Francisco Mendoza, is a year older and a lot better. How about this: in a few weeks Cal plays Miami. Mendoza and Miami coach Mario Cristobal went to the same high school.
SOUTH CAROLINA AT KENTUCKY - Are the SC people tiring of Shane Beamer? Can Mark Stoops keep it going at Kentucky? SOUTH CAROLINA 31, KENTUCKY 6. WTF? And this game was at Kentucky!
MICHIGAN STATE AT MARYLAND - (1) I used to live in Maryland and I love the state; (2) I deplore the way MSU’s Jonathan Smith stiffed his alma mater (Oregon State)… so GO TERPS! MICHIGAN STATE 27, MARYLAND 24 - at the buzzer. Damn.
EASTERN MICHIGAN AT WASHINGTON - A slightly tougher test for the Huskies than Weber State was. I’m not crazy about the Huskies’ coach, Jedd Fisch, but I like their QB, Will Rogers, who learned the trade under Mike Leach at Mississippi State. WASHINGTON 30, EASTERN MICHIGAN 9. Boring.
SOUTH DAKOTA AT WISCONSIN - Meh. WISCONSIN 27, SOUTH DAKOTA 13. Just another underwhelming performance by a Power 4 school against an FCS opponent.
TEMPLE AT NAVY - Navy’s new wing-T-type offense gets a tougher test than Bucknell gave it. And Temple gets an easier opponent than Oklahoma. NAVY 38, TEMPLE 11. Navy looks pretty good. Temple ISN’T better than Bucknell.
UTSA AT TEXAS STATE - Because UTSA is a future Army opponent. TEXAS STATE 49, UTSA 10. WTF?
MIDDLE TENNESSEE AT OLE MISS - After what the Rebels did to FCS power Furman (76-0), this could be bad, too. Ole Miss’ offense is fun to watch! OLE MISS 52, MIDDLE TENNESSEE 3. Wow.
MARSHALL AT VIRGINIA TECH - Tech could have beaten Vanderbilt, but didn’t. They’ve got to be better than Marshall. VIRGINIA TECH 31, MARSHALL 14 - Hokies managed to shake off that loss to Vandy.
SOUTH FLORIDA AT ALABAMA - I’m recording it, because it won’t stay on my live screen very long. BAMA 42, USF 16. Not so fast, my friend… Alabama was ahead just 14-13 going into the fourth quarter.
KANSAS AT ILLINOIS - The game’s a sellout. You know that Lance Leipold has about got the Kansas program turned around when the Jayhawks are 5-1/2 point favorites over any Big Ten team. ILLINOIS 23, Kansas 17. Yes, they storm the court when they beat Kansas in BASKETBALL. But storming the field for a win over the Jayhawks in football?
VIRGINIA AT WAKE FOREST - Both teams beat FCS opponents last week. Deacs are a 1.5 point favorite. Their QB, Hank Bachmeier, has played five years - four at Boise State and one at Louisiana Tech. Maybe playing in Warren Ruggiero’s unique system at Wake will help him blossom. Go Deacs! VIRGINIA 31, WAKE FOREST 30. Cavaliers came back from 17-3. Somebody at Wake Forest needs to remind their players that when the ball’s loose in the waning moments of the game, bending over the try to pick it up is NOT the most effective way to go. Put another way: FALL ON THE F—KING BALL!!!
SAN JOSE STATE AT AIR FORCE - Air Force looked lame in their opener, while San Jose opened with a good win over Sac State. SJSU’s new coach, Ken Niumatololo , had lots of success against Air Force while coaching Navy. SAN JOSE STATE 17, AIR FORCE 7. Air Force’s offense looks pathetic. For San Jose coach Ken Niumatololo, who spent years at Navy, it was his 34th time facing Air Force.
WESTERN MICHIGAN AT OHIO STATE - I’ll just look in to see what Chip Kelly’s up to this week. Looks like Will Howard might be the QB the Buckeyes needed. OHIO STATE 56, WESTERN MICHIGAN 0 - Nothing against the Buckeyes, but this kind of game is hard to watch.
TENNESSEE AT NC STATE - Vols killed Chattanooga, 69-3. Wolfpack struggled against Western Carolina. But State QB Grayson McCall, who spent a lifetime, it seems, at Coastal Carolina, threw for 318 in the win. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict a State win. TENNESSEE 51, NC STATE 10. Help. I’m out win this limb and I need to get down. Fast.
ALCORN STATE AT VANDERBILT - An FCS opponent provides Vanderbilt with the chance to go 2-0. The Commodores’ new QB, Diego Pavia, knows how to win, and I don’t think he’ll stand for any shirking. (He’s a former wrestler - how many QBs can say that?) VANDERBILT 55, ALCORN STATE 0 - It wasn’t Vandy the offense - it was the defense. It allowed Alcorn just 1.6 yards per play, and Alcorn didn’t run a single play on Vandy’s side of midfield. The average starting point for a Vandy drive was its own 48, which explains the Commodores’ rather paltry (for a team that scores 55 points) 342 yards of total offense.
COLORADO AT NEBRASKA - This will be their biggest win in years or the most devastating loss in their coach’s career. At either place. Go Huskers. NEBRASKA 28, COLORADO 10 - “Coach” (I don’t think he’s earned the title) Prime’s record, since opening 3-0 last season, is now 2-9.
HOUSTON AT OKLAHOMA - Hmmm. Poor Houston. Last week they get waxed by a Mountain West team (UNLV) and this week they face a team that’s fixin’ to play in the SEC. Hang on, Cougars. OKLAHOMA 16, HOUSTON 12 - The Sooners went into the game 27.5 point favorites and nearly lost. They led by just 14-12 until a safety with 1:42 left “padded” their lead.
APP STATE AT CLEMSON - Talk about a pivotal game for the Tigers. Another loss would almost put them in the Florida State category. And if there’s a team that can provide the upset, it’s a bunch of kids from up in the hills of Boone, North Carolina who got passed over by Clemson when they were HS kids. CLEMSON 66, APP STATE 20. So much for the upset. Not sure if this redeems the opening-game loss to Georgia, but it shows that the Tigers are dangerous.
TEXAS TECH AT WASHINGTON STATE - WSU has lost so many players in the damned transfer portal that I worry, but anyhow - go Cougs! WASHINGTON STATE 37, TEXAS TECH 16 - The Cougs may not have a conference, but they still play at the higher level of FBS.
LIBERTY AT NEW MEXICO STATE - I like to watch Liberty’s offense. LIBERTY 30, NEW MEXICO STATE 24 - Liberty paid a rare visit to Las Cruces, and needed a 21-point fourth quarter to pull out the win. Quinton Cooley’s 44-yard touchdown run with 1:05 left was the game winner.
MISSISSIPPI STATE AT ARIZONA STATE - I like the Bulldogs. But a granddaughter just graduated from ASU, so I have to go with the Sun Devils. ARIZONA STATE 30, MISSISSIPPI STATE 23 - It was over 100 degrees in Tempe. But it was a dry heat. Maybe that’s what threw the Bulldogs off. Saw a sideline interview with ASU coach Kenny Dillingham, and he seemed to be on something.
OREGON STATE AT SAN DIEGO STATE - Go Beavs! OREGON STATE 21, SAN DIEGO STATE 0. It was Oregon State’s first road-game shutout since 1983.
UTAH STATE AT USC - The Mountain West did okay last week, but the Aggies are going to run into a Trojan team that’s doing something different from most Lincoln Riley teams - playing defense. USC 48, UTAH STATE 0. This Trojans team can play defense.
*********** So incessant has been the promotional jibber jabber about The Playoff that here it is the third weekend of the season coming up and we’ve hardly heard a word about the Heisman.
*********** After seeing AAC members Florida Atlantic and Temple play against Army and Navy respectively, and look like dogs, and then seeing AAC member UTSA get walloped by Texas State and AAC member UAB lose to - are you ready for this? - LOUISIANA MONROE … I have to ask: what kind of donkey conference did Army get itself into, anyhow?
*********** Alabama fumbled at the USF three-yard-line because their QB - as good as he is - couldn’t take a snap from under center. Come to think of it, new Bama coach DeBoer’s QB at Washington (a guy named Penix - maybe you’ve heard of him) never got under center, as I recall. Now that he’s a big shot at Alabama, making ten million dollars a year, you think DeBoer’s going to waste his valuable time on something as trivial as teaching a quarterback how to take a snap?
*********** The Army-South Florida game broadcast was done on the cheap - not even a sideline reporter. You do realize, don’t you, that that meant that not a single interview went on during the play on the field?
*********** It was not only incredibly poor timing - in view of subsequent police reports from South Florida - but it was also downright ignorant and in terrible taste for one of the announcers at the Army game to say of a very fast Army back named Noah Short, “He’s the Army version of Tyreek Hill.” I would wager a large sum (for me) that Tyreek Hill would not make it through the first morning as a West Point cadet.
*********** Not saying those Army announcers were unprepared, but anybody who knows anything about the triple option knows that the guy who lines up behind the quarterback is called the FULLBACK. But these guys, whose dog must have eaten their homework, called Army’s fullback, Kanye Udoh, the “tailback.”
*********** I suppose it’s asking too much of announcers - and many, many football people - to acknowledge the vast difference between a “chop block,” which is a valid football term, clearly defined in the rule book, and is illegal, and a “cut block,” which is simply a descriptive term (not unlike “kick in the ass”) that does NOT appear ANYWHERE in the rule book and may or may not be legal, depending on where and how and by whom it’s done. (It’s mostly used for its shock value by people who don’t want other coaches to use it against them.)
*********** In one of the games - i think it was Oklahoma State-Arkansas - they informed us that we were about to watch “OVERTIME PRESENTED BY CHEEZ-IT”.
*********** With :17 to play, Tulane threw what appeared to be a winning touchdown pass, but offensive pass interference was called. The guys in the booth - Bob Wischusen and Brian Dawkins - went nuts, to the point where you might suspect they’d bet money on the Green Wave. It was a close call, but I thought that Tulane had illegally picked a Kansas State defender and that it was a good call, I certainly wouldn’t have gone after the officials the way the announcers did, with Wischusen ranting about it as a “questionable call.”
Close? Yes.
Questionable? You’re out of line, Bob.
Just call the game.
We can see everything you can see, so don’t insinuate that you can see it better than we can and we need you to tell us what we saw.
*********** I never thought I’d see an offensive lineman called for targeting, but damned if a San Jose State lineman wasn’t ejected for it, and replays showed that, yes, he’d targeted.
*********** It used to be that when a team had a good quarterback, it stood out from most of the other teams.
Now, though, it seems that just about everyone has a really good quarterback, and it’s the team that DOESN’T have one that stands out. You’ve probably seen a few of them already. Florida State is one that comes to mind. Florida Atlantic is another.
So what’s a coach who doesn’t have one supposed to do? He’s already gone out and recruited players intended specifically to run the universal offense (basically the same thing that everyone else runs) ,which means that trying to do anything radically different is out of the question.
With more and more teams running the same stuff, there’ll be no one making radical changes, such as the famous one that Bear Bryant made in the summer of 1971. That’s when he decided to find out about that wishbone they were running out in Texas, because Alabama just didn’t have any more great quarterbacks - Namaths or Stablers - in the stable. Nowadays, instead of making a radical switch to the wishbone, a school would just go out and buy a quarterback. To think how different the history of college football would be without the chapter about Alabama and the wishbone.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=alabama+wishbone#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d08b66ca,vid:eek8OxkPC6I,st:0
************ Early in our practices this season, I had to remind a couple of kids to put their mouthpieces in. Dumb me and my fashion sense - it turned out that they HAD their mouthpieces in. What I had seen - that mouthpiece that was dangling from their facemasks, just like from an NFL player’s? That was just for show. The real mouthpiece was in their mouth, covering their teeth as it should. The kids were wearing double mouthpieces, which enabled them to comply with the rule about having to wear one, while still being out in front of the fashion parade by letting the other one hang out.
Officials are on to the little game, and in the meeting we had with our officials’ association, they informed us that the double mouthpiece is illegal in high school football.
Said one of the officials, “We don’t want to have to play fashion police.”
No. Of course they don’t. Which is why it sounds as if they’re just about to give up in the battle of the rising hemline on players’ skirts - uh, pants. Uh, shorts.
*********** A woman's professional soccer player named Croix Bethune is out for the season after apparently suffering a torn meniscus (knee) while throwing out the first pitch at a Washington Nationals' baseball game last week.
Throwing a ball can be dangerous. This would never have happened if she’d just stuck to playing a game that even little kids can play…
*********** Coach,
Love the quiz today! As a lover of D3 Football Mark Speckman is a legend.... As a lover of contrarian offense his Fly was always fascinating!
Florida update, I get asked all kinds of questions everyday from Friends on it so I figured I'd share! The biggest challenge to no surprise is the weather - we have practiced in the gym 10 out of the 11 last days.
Makes me very worried about handling the heat and humidity when we get to our game Friday night.... Also makes me fascinated that we have a 5 day climatization period down here when you can then spend two straight weeks in air conditioning.... People ask if it is the heat... Nope, it is the lightning. Florida is very restrictive (rightfully so) with lightning - we have a horn and an app and if lightning is within 10 miles you’re inside. Many times it is out over the Gulf or inland and it is a beautiful day out and we are in the gym.... As you can imagine this affects prep in many ways! I will credit our kids as they are used to it and adjust quickly both when we can go in or go out!
The heat, really not as bad as I thought it would be! It feels like an August day on turf in Michigan - as a guy who has always liked the heat I like it. I'm sure being a stone’s throw from the gulf and being on an elevated practice field we have it better then most…
Many have asked about Running the T (or DW or any other old school offense) I'm not sure it has much life down here with all the transfers and the sub culture which really reminds me of metro Detroit, that schools will hire what appears to be almost a temp as a head coach who is well connected with the youth program or has a big name to get a load of transfers. He is in place for a year or two and then they rinse and repeat sometimes hitting it to get more wins, sometimes creating more problems...
NOW where I am at we are a little bit more isolated and as an old fishing town there is some pride in being tough and being different. Our community has told me since I have gotten here we won't beat the other schools with our athletes so we must be tougher than them.... With that stated we have had a large influx of midwesterners who came down from blue states during covid. I have determined we might be the last bastion of old school offense in Florida..... I believe God put me here with intent and I trust him as we go through a steep learning curve with a young team! I'm excited to see how he uses me and our community to continue and teach selflessness and grit!
Hope you are well and having a ball coaching ball!
God Bless,
Jason Mensing
Head Football Coach,
Lemon Bay High School
Englewood, Florida
After defeating Hardee, 22-6 on Friday night, the Lemon Bay Manta Rays are now 1-1 on the season, Coach Mensing’s first in Florida after years of success in Michigan, much of it as a Double Wing coach.
*********** Coach,
The Clinic last week was excellent. I watched that game and saw those same things that you were discussing about BC. Western plays BC in Boston on the 28th of this month. They will destroy us. Our defense has trouble with mobile QB's and running teams. This brings me to my long point in this e-mail.
You need to get a copy of Western's game against Eastern Kentucky from last week.The third quarter is what you need to see. My fraternity brother saw some of it on Hulu, but he didn't know what network was covering it.
This will take some space to explain. I will try to be brief. I know how busy that you are coaching again.
Western was up 17-0 at half. Eastern got the ball to start the third quarter. They put in their running QB to start the third quarter. They jammed the ball down our throats for either 13 or 14 plays. Converted two fourth down plays and got to our 3 yard line. It was third and goal from the three and they lined up in shotgun. They ran the play from shotgun and got to the 2 inch line. It was 4th and goal from 2 inches!! When the referee spotted the ball we couldn't believe that he had not scored. This team ran every play from shotgun. They took 11 minutes and 52 or 53 seconds off the clock on this opening drive of the 3rd quarter. This is where it gets really strange. They lined up in shotgun and did not snap the ball. They kept looking at the side line for a play. they waited so long that they had to take a time out. We figured that they were going to bring some bigger players to make sure that they got the 2 inches. To everyone's surprise they sent out the field goal team to kick a 17 yard 2 inch field goal!! The kick hit the left up right and no points. Western got the ball on the 20 yard line. It changed the entire game.
This is a perfect illustration of what you and we other coaches keep saying about being under center and having a short yardage offense in your spread offense.
David Crump
Owensboro, Kentucky
Unfortunately, of all the games I recorded, I did not record this one. I can’t find it on Youtube because they mostly show highlights - and a play this stupid would definitely not make the highlights reel!
*********** Hi Hugh,
Did you see the Lions in overtime? When in doubt run the ball. Pure power football! And fun to watch!
Good luck with the season!
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
Jack, I saw it and loved it. They shoved it right down the Rams’ throat. I like them for a lot of reasons, and I just learned I have another one: my head coach, Todd Bridge, is buddies with the Lions’ QB coach Mark Brunell, a former teammate of his at the U of Washington.
*********** Concerning the home phone commercial you modified, that thing bugs me when it gets to the part about costing nothing. From a special government program, we're told. I hope Elon has the chance to run his government efficiency study, and that every such program gets slashed out of existence. Besides, the man and woman in that ad have perfect dentition, and look not to have a money problem. If you want the readout device, buy it yourself.
We watched your ninth-year Canes player score the team's first TD last week. Nothing against him in particular, but I've wondered what these guys with years under their belts actually do at the school. If they're student-athletes, don't they have to be enrolled as full-time students? How about a 30-for-30 that follows them around for a year or two? Seeing what they do would entertain me. Further, I wonder if the player who transfers out mid-semester--let's say he's a soph--enrolls at his new school as a soph again, although he did nothing for a full semester?
I just spoke of ESPN. Fact: I get my television programs through DIRECTV (a subsidiary of AT&T). Fact: DTV has suspended programming of all Disney/ESPN offerings. They've told Disney many DIRECTV subscribers don't want the ESPN family of channels, and hence don't like paying for it. I know these disputes are common, but this one is definitely different. I hope DIRECTV holds its ground. I feel good not getting ESPN right now. Don't miss it a bit.
Answer = Mark Speckman, of whom I'm now a fan.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Mark Speckman was born in Belmont, California. Without hands.
Until he was 15 he used hooks, but he hasn’t used them since. From that point on, his entire life has been connected with football, and, in the process, refuting any notion that he is handicapped.
He was a standout linebacker in high school, then moved on to play JUCO ball at Menlo College, and college ball at Azusa Pacific.
He began his coaching career in northern California at Livingston and Gilroy High Schools, where he began developing the "Fly offense" for which he has become known throughout football.
His greatest success as a high school coach came in Merced, California, where in eight seasons he won 81 games, had back-to-back 14-0 seasons, won six conference and two Section titles. His 1990 Merced team was ranked No. 1 in California and No. 5 in USA Today.
When a new high school opened in Merced, he started its brand-new program from scratch, with freshmen and sophomores.
Overall, his record as a high school coach was 113-48-3, when he was offered a job as offensive coordinator and line coach at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Under head coach Dan Hawkins, Willamette won three straight conference titles, and made it to the NAIA national championship game in 1997, after which Hawkins left for Boise State to become offensive coordinator under Dirk Koetter.
Speckman then became head coach at Willamette, where he stayed for 14 years, running his Fly offense with great success: his Bearcats went 82-59, won eight league titles, and made three NCAA Division III appearances. His 2008 team was ranked fourth in the nation, and he was named AFCA Division III West Region Coach of the Year.
In 2012 he took over as head coach at Menlo College, now playing at the NAIA four-year level, but in 2013 he was hired away by Dan Hawkins to coach running backs when Hawkins was named head coach of the Montreal Allouettes. When Hawkins was fired, our guy left to become OC at Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wisconsin. He stayed at Lawrence for just one year before rejoining Hawkins at UC Davis as Assistant Head Coach and running backs coach.
Since 2022 he has been offensive coordinator at Division II Clarion University in Pennsylvania.
Coach Speckman is in great demand as a motivational speaker, and he has written a book called “Figure It Out: How I Learned To Live In A Digital World Without Digits.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MARK SPECKMAN
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JASON MENSING - ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: In 1962 he integrated the last NFL team to play black players.
A native of Hot Springs, Arkansas, he turned down a chance to play baseball with the Cardinals and instead chose to play football at Illinois.
As a sophomore running back, he replaced the starter in the third quarter of the season’s seventh game, and on his very first carry he ran 64 yards for a score. In his brief time, he gained 173 yards on 10 carries, and the Illini upset Number 3-ranked Michigan. Playing the rest of the season, he played well enough to be named All-Big Ten.
He was hurt most of his junior season, but after his senior year he was named to play in the College All-Star Game, and he was named Co-MVP, as the All-Stars upset the NFL champion Detroit Lions.
While at Illinois, he excelled as a sprinter and hurdler in track, and in his senior year he helped Illinois win the Big Ten track and field championship.
Drafted in the seventh round by the Cleveland Browns, he played halfback and his blazing speed to the outside proved the perfect complement to the power inside running of the great Jim Brown.
In four seasons with the Browns, he rushed for 2297 yards and gained 1463 yards receiving. He returned kickoffs for 1550 yards, and in all, he scored 38 touchdowns.
He was a very good runner, and he and Brown may well have been the best pair of running backs ever to play in the same backfield. But he undoubtedly would have spent his career in Brown’s shadow, except that, in 1962 he was traded to Washington for the draft rights to Syracuse’s Ernie Davis.
(Ernie Davis, as most hardcore football fans know, had just won the Heisman Trophy but tragically, would die of leukemia before ever playing in an NFL game.)
In Washington, where the club had agreed to finally integrate as a condition for using brand-new DC Stadium, he became the franchise’s first black player.
He broke the team’s color barrier in spectacular fashion: in his first game as a Redskin, he returned a kickoff 92 yards against the Cowboys.
He was moved to wide receiver, and in his first season at a new position, on a new team, he led the NFL with 72 catches for 1384 yards and 11 touchdowns, and was named to the Pro Bowl. And the once-woeful Redskins finished the season 5-7-2, their best finish in five years.
Over the next five years, his season reception totals were 69, 60, 60, 58 and 60.
In 1968, although he was moved back to running back so that Charlie Taylor could play wide receiver, he still caught 60 passes for 866 yards and six touchdowns.
He retired after training camp in 1969, with a fantastic set of records: his total all-purpose yardage was 14,078. He scored 91 touchdowns - 18 rushing, 65 receiving, 3 on punt returns and 5 on kick returns. In all, he had 7,954 yards receiving (521 reception) and 2,735 yards rushing.
He played in four Pro Bowls and was a three-time first team All-Pro and two-time second team All-Pro.
He won three Super Bowl rings.
He is a member of the Redskins’ Ring of Fame and the Browns’ Ring of Honor.
He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
After retirement as a player, he spent 35 more years with the Redskins, beginning as a scout under Vince Lombardi, and moving up in the executive ranks to assistant General Manager before retiring in 2002.
In all, he spent 41 years with the Washington organization, but although he aspired to be General Manager, he was twice passed over in favor of an outsider.
He died in 2020, and in his honor the team retired his Number 49.
He and his wife, an attorney, made the Washington, DC area their home, and he was active in a number of civic and charitable organizations. including the United Negro College Fund, the Howard University Cancer Research Advisory Committee, the American Lung Association of D.C., the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission, the Boys Club of Washington, the National Urban League, the NAACP, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the University of Illinois Presidents Council and the University of Illinois Foundation.
His son and namesake played football at Stanford.
FRIDAY,
SEPTEMBER 6, 2024 “There can be no real peace
while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of
us." Ronald Reagan********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: (Mike had just been told by his coach, his former coach, and his principal that he should go to college - and play football - but not at a Big Ten school because, they told him, he was “not big enough, fast enough, good enough.”)
“If three high school faculty members delivered that same message to a hopeful athlete now, chances are his parents wll threaten a lawsuit and have the ACLU and others raising a fuss. Fortunately for me, the advice I got was great. I was somewhat suspicious because Linton, Smith, and Rizzardi had played at Hillsdale College. But they had already arranged for me to receive a work scholarship at Hillsdale.
“My parents backed coach Linton’s plan, and the director of admissions and the registrar came to our farm house to set things up. For the first year's tuition I would sell the hog I raised in FFA. With the help of an aunt in Kalamazoo, I was hired for a summer construction job at the princely wage of eighty-five cents an hour.
“During my high school years we had become increasingly aware of the gathering storm of war in Europe. Frequently we would listen to the radio in history class, and there was a lot of talk about whether or not we would be involved. But the war seemed so distant, and we thought it was for other people, those overseas, and that President Roosevelt would never get us drawn in. Because of our age, we students talked about the possibility of being part of the military.
“Was the war menacing? Yes, but in 1940 it still seemed so remote.
“I was much more focused on the chance I would have to keep playing football. My parents were happy for another reason: I would become the first member of our family to attend college.”
*********** Once a Husky, always a Husky… Before Wednesday’s practice, the Aberdeen team was introduced to Dave Hoffman, a teammate and classmate at the University of Washington of our head coach, Todd Bridge, back in the school’s glory days.
In their sophomore year, the Huskies went 10-2 and finished ranked Number Five in the nation.
In their junior year they finished 12-0 and split the national title with Miami.
In their senior year, 1992, they went 9-3, and finished ranked eleventh.
They went to three straight Rose Bowls.
Dave Hoffman was co-captain and MVP of the ’92 team.
One of the hardest hitters I've ever seen, he was a two-time All-American, and in 1992 he was the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year.
After playing briefly in the NFL with the Steelers, he spent a career with the Secret Service.
In his brief talk with our kids, he mentioned the importance of the brotherhood that they’d experience, and then he told them about Husky coach Don James’ “Holy Sh—!” talk - how Coach James instilled in his Huskies the desire to hit an opposing player so hard on the opening play that he'd walk away (if he could still walk) saying, “Holy Shi—! I’ve never been hit like that in my life!”
(We open on Friday night at home against Olympic High, of Bremerton. We faced Olympic in a scrimmage back in the spring and they got slightly the better of us. We’re still a bit rough on the edges, perhaps because we’re so young: we start only four seniors.)
DAVE HOFFMAN - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH8Cc5mB0S8
*********** COLLEGE GAMES I’M RECORDING THIS WEEKEND
FRIDAY NIGHT
BYU AT SMU - SMU is establishing itself as one of the few schools I don’t like, and I like BYU, so Go Cougars!
DUKE AT NORTHWESTERN - Go Devils. Duke has had good luck against the Wildcats in recent years. First real test for Manny Diaz.
SATURDAY
TEXAS AT MICHIGAN - I think Michigan is going to fail this test.
ARKANSAS AT OKLAHOMA STATE - Very big one for Sam Pittman and the Razorbacks
KANSAS STATE AT TULANE - Both teams coming off wins over FCS opponents but I like the Wildcats. EMAW! (Every Man A Wildcat!)
GEORGIA TECH AT SYRACUSE - Two formerly bottom-tier ACC teams that appear to be on the climb. Tech has already played two games.
PITT AT CINCINNATI - Panthers may have had the tougher opponent last week in Kent State.
ARMY AT FLORIDA ATLANTIC - Army had an easy one against Lehigh; FAU lost narrowly to Michigan State. How will Army handle the noontime South Florida heat and humidity?
NORTHERN ILLINOIS AT NOTRE DAME - I’m expecting a close game, but I’m becoming a fan of this Notre Dame team.
BAYLOR AT UTAH - Dave Aranda may be in trouble at Baylor, and he seems like a good guy, but I’m a big fan of the Utes and Kyle Whittigham . It WILL be loud in Salt Lake City
IOWA STATE AT IOWA - This is a rivalry game that’s impossible to pick, and I like ‘em both, so…
CAL AT AUBURN - What sadistic AD would agree to send a team from California to play a game in the Deep South in early September?
SOUTH CAROLINA AT KENTUCKY - Are the SC people tiring of Shane Beamer? Can Mark Stoops keep it going at Kentucky?
MICHIGAN STATE AT MARYLAND - (1) I used to live in Maryland and I love the state; (2) I deplore the way MSU’s Jonathan Smith stiffed his alma mater (Oregon State)… so GO TERPS!
EASTERN MICHIGAN AT WASHINGTON - A slightly tougher test for the Huskies than Weber State was. I’m not crazy about the Huskies’ coach, Jedd Fisch, but I like their QB, Will Rogers, who learned the trade under Mike Leach at Mississippi State
SOUTH DAKOTA AT WISCONSIN - Meh.
TEMPLE AT NAVY - Navy’s new wing-T-type offense gets a tougher test than Bucknell gave it. And Temple gets an easier opponent than Oklahoma.
UTSA AT TEXAS STATE - Because UTSA is a future Army opponent
MIDDLE TENNESSEE AT OLE MISS - After what the Rebels did to FCS power Furman (76-0), this could be bad, too. Ole Miss’ offense is fun to watch!
MARSHALL AT VIRGINIA TECH - Tech could have beaten Vanderbilt, but didn’t. They’ve got to be better than Marshall.
SOUTH FLORIDA AT ALABAMA - I’m recording it, because it won’t stay on my live screen very long.
KANSAS AT ILLINOIS - The game’s a sellout. You know that Lance Leipold has about got the Kansas program turned around when the Jayhawks are 5-1/2 point favorites over any Big Ten team.
VIRGINIA AT WAKE FOREST - Both teams beat FCS opponents last week. Deacs are a 1.5 point favorite. Their QB, Hank Bachmeier, has played five years - four at Boise State and one at Louisiana Tech. Maybe playing in Warren Ruggiero’s unique system at Wake will help him blossom. Go Deacs!
SAN JOSE STATE AT AIR FORCE - Air Force looked lame in their opener, while San Jose opened with a good win over Sac State. SJSU’s new coach, Ken Niumatololo , had lots of success against Air Force while coaching Navy.
WESTERN MICHIGAN AT OHIO STATE - I’ll just look in to see what Chip Kelly’s up to this week. Looks like Will Howard might be the QB the Buckeyes needed.
TENNESSEE AT NC STATE - Vols killed Chattanooga, 69-3. Wolfpack struggled against Western Carolina. But State QB Grayson McCall, who spent a lifetime, it seems, at Coastal Carolina, threw for 318 in the win. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict a State win.
ALCORN STATE AT VANDERBILT - An FCS opponent provides Vanderbilt with the chance to go 2-0. The Commodores’ new QB, Diego Pavia, knows how to win, and I don’t think he’ll stand for any shirking. (He’s a former wrestler - how many QBs can say that?)
COLORADO AT NEBRASKA - This will be their biggest win in years or the most devastating loss in their coach’s career. At either place. Go Huskers.
HOUSTON AT OKLAHOMA - Hmmm. Poor Houston. Last week they get waxed by a Mountain West team (UNLV) and this week they face a team that’s fixin’ to play in the SEC. Hang on, Cougars.
APP STATE AT CLEMSON - Talk about a pivotal game for the Tigers. Another loss would almost put them in the Florida State category. And if there’s a team that can provide the upset, it’s a bunch of kids from up in the hills of Boone, North Carolina who got passed over by Clemson when they were HS kids.
TEXAS TECH AT WASHINGTON STATE - WSU has lost so many players in the damned transfer portal that I worry, but anyhow - go Cougs!
LIBERTY AT NEW MEXICO STATE - I like to watch Liberty’s offense.
MISSISSIPPI STATE AT ARIZONA STATE - I like the Bulldogs. But a granddaughter just graduated from ASU, so I have to go with the Sun Devils.
OREGON STATE AT SAN DIEGO STATE - Go Beavs!
UTAH STATE AT USC - The Mountain West did okay last week, but the Aggies are going to run into a Trojan team that’s doing something different from most Lincoln Riley teams - playing defense.
*********** As I set up my weekend’s college game recordings, a strange feeling came over me: yes, I was recording a lot of game - 33 of them - on Friday night and Saturday; but there was an awful lot of games that I wasn’t able to record.
That’s because those games are being streamed, most of them on ESPN+. In all, there’s a total of 31 games involving at least one FBS team that you won’t be able to watch on your TV - not without subscribing to ESPN+, or Peacock, or ACC Extra, or SEC Plus.
These are not all games of little interest nationwide, either - Missouri State at Ball State, Gardner-Webb at James Madison, Louisiana at Kennesaw State, to name a few.
Three of these subscription-only games involve top-ten teams. One of those teams, for pete’s sake, is Number One Georgia. Yeah, maybe they’re only playing Tennessee Tech, but they ARE the number one team in the country, and with all the non-stop jabber about the Playoff, you’d think they’ve be shoving the Number One team down viewers’ throats. (Does the NFL decide not to show us the Kansas City Chiefs because they happen to be playing the weakling Patriots?)
For the record, the other top-ten teams whose games you won’t get on your regular cable or satellite service are Number 7 Oregon against Boise State and Number 9 Missouri against Buffalo.
(Boise State, coming off a 56-45 win over Georgia Southern thanks to Ashton Jeanty’s 267 yards and six TDs, could be a real test for the Ducks, but if you want to watch it on the screen, pay up - it’s on Peacock.)
Seven of the subscription-only games involve teams in the top 22.
Fourteen of the games involve teams from Power-4 conferences: Arizona, Boston College, Central Florida, Florida, Georgia, Louisville, LSU, Miami, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Stanford, TCU, West Virginia.
There couldn’t be a clearer sign that Pay-per-View college football is inevitable. With so much of our society being turned upside-down, why should we think that every college football game we want to see will always be available to us on our cable or satellite provider, and all we need is a remote?
America needs a presidential candidiate who will promise an end to this streaming bullshit.
*********** A coach asked me about the feasibility of making a sudden switch in offenses (I think that they realized that the spread wasn’t going to get it done). He asked me how much offense they could install in a week, and I told, based on personal experience, about seven plays.
I told him that I had seen it done in two hours.
It was at my last in-person clinic - in my opinion, the best one of all the clinics I’ve put on.
It was in North Carolina, in the Raleigh area, and it was hosted by my old coaching friend, Dave Potter.
Coach Potter arranged to have a “team” on hand to demonstrate. It wasn’t really a team, but a group of 11 or 12 kids who had played for him at three or four different middle schools in the past and thought so much of him that as a favor to him they volunteered to spend a morning running plays for a bunch of coaches.
Those kids had never played together as a team, and they had never run the plays we showed them that morning.
But by the end of a two-hour morning session, we had those kids running these seven plays vs air, and doing so rather well.
Power off-tackle
Counter
Wedge
Toss Sweep
G
Sprint Out
Bootleg
They ran all those plays both to the right and to the left.
The method:
1. An offset I (actually, a training wheels formation to make teaching easier and prepare us for the next stage - going to Double Wing by moving the tailback to the wing).
2. Flip-flopping the entire team, to avoid having to teach the same play twice when we wanted to run it to the left.
3. Giving every kid a wristband card with his assignments on it. There was no memorization required.
4. Assigning every coach to teach a position. (We had a dozen or so coaches there, none of whom had taught these plays before.)
If you doubt me, I have the films to prove it, as well as the coaches who were on hand to help out and witness the results.
Two weeks later, at Aberdeen, Washington High School, using the exact same process, we installed the Double Wing in spring ball.
*********** “It seems to me that there are three stages in the evolution of a ball carrier. In high school, he learns where the play is going. In college, he learns who is blocking for him. In the pros, he learns what the defense is doing.” Frank Gifford
*********** TV COMMERCIAL…
VOICE ON THE PHONE: “Hi Grandma - I played baseball today!”
GRANDMA: “That’s great! What position did you play?”
VOICE ON THE PHONE: “DH”
GRANDMA: “That’s what Grandpa used to play!”
GRANDPA (Overhearing the conversation): “Like hell it is! DH my ass! What kind of crap are they teaching you? Back when I played you had to earn your at-bats by playing in the field!”
*********** Those of us who have permitted ourselves the delusion that football can be a great tool to help us achieve racial harmony were brought up short by these words from a former Atlanta Falcon named Roddy White:
"Clemson got way to (sic) many White dudes on the field on offense this ain’t them. U mean to tell me u only got one Black dude out there making plays that’s a recruiting problem.”
He has since apologized, telling us he’s not really racist. Whatever.
That still leaves those of us who grew up believing that the American education system - high school and college - exists to help people learn to communicate clearly and uniformly in our native language.
*********** I’ve already said how excited I was at seeing Diego Pavia playing for Vanderbilt. (Disclosure: Four of my grandkids are Vandy grads, which makes me a lifetime fan.)
He was named SEC Player of the Week for his performance against Virginia Tech Saturday. He rushed for 104 yards and passed for 190. In all, he threw for two TDs and rushed for one, plunging in from four yards out to defeat the Hokies in OT.
He had a rather incredible two-year career at New Mexico State, leading the Aggies to two bowl games, and to a 10-win season last year - only the second in the history of the program. He accounted for 3,896 yards in total offense, and was named Conference USA Player of the Year.
Despite taking his Albuquerque high school team to a state title game, he didn’t have a single FBS offer, so he went to New Mexico Military Institute and played two years of JUCO ball there. He led NMMI to a national JUCO title, but even then, New Mexico State was his only FBS opportunity.
But he made the most of the opportunity, now he’s in Nashville, playing in the SEC.
It wasn’t just happenstance that got him there from Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Back in January, Jerry Kill, his former head coach at New Mexico State, signed on as an offensive analyst at Vanderbilt.
And shortly after, Vandy hired Tim Beck, who’d been Pavia’s offensive coordinator at New Mexico State.
However things worked out to get him Pavia to Nashville, his presence in the lineup makes things exciting, and gives Vanderbilt a chance.
Says Vandy head coach Clark Lea, “When the ball is in his hands, you’re never out of the fight.”
*********** Coach Wyatt,
Synopsis from what I saw
Notre Dame's win was the biggest by a rated team.
USC is a close second...but I hate LSU and Brian Kelly
BC throttled FSU (DJU is a coach killer, he has never been impressive in my eyes) and did it by being solid in all 3 aspects of the game. BC simply outcoached FSU.
Vanderbilt...WOW! Might they be legit? QB stays healthy they just might be.
Iowa maybe has found some semblance of an offense. Maybe. I don't get excited by 40 points on an FCS opponent.
Bama might be legit still. Same as Iowa.
Georgia beats up on Dabo. As expected. Not sure Clemson is good, but not sure they are bad either. Georgia just a different level.
Nebraska was impressive over an FCS opponent as they should be.
It's early....but Florida and FSU seats are getting hot. LSU might be as well.
Hope you are well! Spread? LOL But hey, it is football right? At least you have a GL package that is real football still.
Love from us here in SW Iowa,
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
*********** We now have evidence galore that these college coaches don't really know what they have until they face someone else. Vandy topping VA TECH (i'm happy about that). Before I go on, I've just thought of Clark Lea, who in my book is one of the most interesting HCs around. Then we have FSU losing again, so maybe Mike Norvell didn't get enough high draft picks (portal) in the right places.
The CFB story for me thus far is how many talented QBs there are. Cam Ward, for example. And to think that not long ago he was at Incarnate Word before landing at Wash St. And that Diego Pavia is another thing to behold. And the Tennessee QB, Iamaleavea (just winged that spelling)....and Jaxson Dart...and Nebraska's freshman Dylan Raiola. These fantastic QBs are popping up in all corners of the land. Finally, in a wholly different category, I have the tough Army QB, Bryson Daily.
The IPTAY people are after Dabo. He's the only 'real' BCS portal holdout. Three service academies and Clemson. I'm afraid that before the midpoint of the season, he'll be forced to choose between his job and accepting portal players.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
“IPTAY,” for those unfamiliar with Clemson football, is the name for its boosters. The name, dating back to when ten bucks was a significant contribution, is an acronym for “I Pay Ten A Year.”
*********** Hugh,
One of the advantages of a jamboree is those “mini” games don’t count. Another is getting to play against an opponent in a game type atmosphere. The biggest advantage is knowing how to highlight your team’s strengths and not expose its weaknesses as you enter your first real game.
ND can play defense! But Coach Freeman needs to convince his OC to get his QB under center more often, and develop a more efficient run game.
Minnesota and Fresno State both learned the hard way that if you live by the pass, you die by the pass! Two more teams needing to get their QB’s under center more often and improve their run games.
After watching all three service academies last weekend I’ve drawn the conclusion that Army has an edge over Air Force and Navy for the CIC trophy. The latter two are fairly even, but the competition this year will be fierce.
BC, Georgia Tech, and Miami are legitimate contenders in the ACC. NC State and Syracuse could make some noise. The Big 12 shapes up as the Wild West!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: Bubba Smith grew up in Beaumont, Texas, where he played high school football for his dad, a highly successful high school coach in the Beaumont area.
He was a very good high school player, and today, he would have been highly-recruited. But those were the days before college football in the South was completely desegregated, and so, recalled Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty in his memoirs, “We had tried to recruit his older brother, Willie Ray, but he went to Iowa…so when Bubba was a senior in high school, Coach Smith called me and asked if we’d ‘take a chance on my boy and try to make a man out of him.’
“You’re his father and you’ve been his coach,” I told Coach Smith. If you can’t make a man out of him, how do you expect me to?”
We agreed to try because of Coach Smith’s pleadings, not to mention Bubba’s extraordinary talents.
It took a while for him to get with the program, but he was good enough to become a two-time All-American; in his senior year he was named United Press Lineman of the Year.
At 6-6, 260, he was extremely big for the time, and he was extremely popular with Michigan State fans, who wore large lapel buttons that read “KILL, BUBBA, KILL!”
Years later, Daugherty would recall him as “a great, if difficult, star for us.”
In the 1967 NFL draft, he was the Number One overall selection (the only Michigan State player ever taken number one) of the Baltimore Colts, who had acquired the pick from the lowly New Orleans Saints in a trade for quarterback Gary Cuozzo.
A defensive end, he played nine years in the NFL, six of them in Baltimore. He played in two Super Bowls with the Colts, and played in two Pro Bowls.
In a 1972 preseason game in Tampa, he injured his leg making a tackle on the sideline when he crashed into a first-down pole, and he was never the same afterward as a player.
He missed the entire 1972 season, and after being traded to the Raiders after the season, he finished his career in Oakland and then Houston.
After football, he enjoyed a nice career as an actor, appearing as an officer in the Police Academy movies and in a number of TV series, and he became famous once again, when he played himself in Miller Lite’s award-winning “Tastes Great! Less Filling!” commrcials.
Bubba Smith is in the College Football Hall of Fame. His younger brother, Tody, started out at Michigan State but transferred to USC, then went on to play professionally for Dallas, Houston and Buffalo.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BUBBA SMITH
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
BRAD KNIGHT - CLARINDA, IOWA (aka Moses Hightower!)
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK (Shame on any football guy who doesn’t know Bubba Smith)
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Belmont, California. Without hands.
Until he was 15 he used hooks, but he hasn’t used them since. From that point on, his entire life has been connected with football, and, in the process, refuting any notion that he is handicapped.
He was a standout linebacker in high school, then moved on to play JUCO ball at Menlo College, and college ball at Azusa Pacific.
He began his coaching career in northern California at Livingston and Gilroy High Schools, where he began developing the "Fly offense" for which he has become known throughout football.
His greatest success as a high school coach came in Merced, California, where in eight seasons he won 81 games, had back-to-back 14-0 seasons, won six conference and two Section titles. His 1990 Merced team was ranked No. 1 in California and No. 5 in USA Today.
When a new high school opened in Merced, he started its brand-new program from scratch, with freshmen and sophomores.
Overall, his record as a high school coach was 113-48-3, when he was offered a job as offensive coordinator and line coach at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Under head coach Dan Hawkins, Willamette won three straight conference titles, and made it to the NAIA national championship game in 1997, after which Hawkins left for Boise State to become offensive coordinator under Dirk Koetter.
Our guy then became head coach at Willamette, where he stayed for 14 years, running his Fly offense with great success: his Bearcats went 82-59, won eight league titles, and made three NCAA Division III appearances. His 2008 team was ranked fourth in the nation, and he was named AFCA Division III West Region Coach of the Year.
In 2012 he took over as head coach at Menlo College, now playing at the NAIA four-year level, but in 2013 he was hired away by Dan Hawkins to coach running backs when Hawkins was named head coach of the Montreal Allouettes. When Hawkins was fired, our guy left to become OC at Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wisconsin. He stayed at Lawrence for just one year before rejoining Hawkins at UC Davis as Assistant Head Coach and running backs coach.
Since 2022 he has been offensive coordinator at Division II Clarion University in Pennsylvania.
He is in great demand as a motivational speaker, and he has written a book called “Figure It Out: How I Learned To Live In A Digital World Without Digits.”
TUESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 3, 2024 “Politicians are the lowest
form of life. Democrats are the lowest form of politician.”
General George S. Patton*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “During my junior year I had a role in one of Miss Hudson's plays when Coach Linton invited me to attend a banquet honoring the undefeated football team at Hillsdale College. Miss Hudson and I had a strong disagreement over whether I could attend because the dinner conflicted with a play rehearsal. Finally, she changed the time of the rehearsal. I went to the banquet and it was sensational.
“I was disappointed to learn that Coach Linton was leaving Vicksburg to become a head coach at a larger school. His replacement for my senior season was another Hillsdale College product, Al Rizzardi, and the program remained in high gear. We lost just one game that season, and I played well enough to win All-Star recognition on the “Kalamazoo Gazette’s” All-Southwestern Michigan team.
“By this time I had convinced myself I was ready to go play in the Big Ten, one of the toughest conferences in America. I had read enough about Nile Kinnick, an All-American at Iowa, to convince me that was where I wanted to play college football. Understand that my goal at this point was not to get an education but to play more football. Linton, Rizzardi, and Hubert Smith, a former college lineman who was the Vicksburg High principal, agreed I should go to college. But not at Iowa or any other Big Ten school.
“Why not? The words were hard for me to swallow, but as I later found out, they were accurate: not big enough, fast enough, or good enough.”
The Aberdeen kids (freshmen in yellow shirts) gathered for a team photo in Orting, Washington after Friday night’s jamboree Look closely at the back middle of the photo and you’ll see 14,400-foot Mount Rainier off to the east, its snow cap colored pink by the setting sun.
*********** Friday night, at a jamboree in Orting, Washington, the Aberdeen Bobcats saw their first contact since team camp in July.
We did - uh, okay. We looked good in spots, but not so good in others. I hesitate to be critical, but we’re going to have to play a lot better. Fortunately, I believe we will.
The best part of the evening was making it home by midnight - a three-hour drive on the opening night of the Labor Day weekend - a drive that wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated because most of the traffic had subsided by then. And I was able to watch the first half of the Army game (which I’d recorded) and then get up and watch the second half on Saturday morning.
*********** THIS PAST SATURDAY’S GAMES OF INTEREST TO ME:
North Carolina at Minnesota - I recorded it but didn’t watch.
North Dakota State at Colorado - Since I’m not on the list of reporters that Deion doesn’t have to talk to, I’d like to ask him what his son was doing out after curfew. Just joking. But when I ask him why, on third-and-eight, with 1:53 remaining and Colorado holding onto a four-point lead his quarterback son wound up throwing it far downfield, I’d like him to come up with a better explanation than that he was just trying to spread the love around and get a touchdown to the one CU receiver who didn’t alreadyhave one. (That’s actually how “Coach” Sanders tried to explain it.)
FRIDAY -
WOW! Lehigh at Army - Army really HAS gone back to under center triple option!!!
EXPECTED - Temple at Oklahoma - Only to see how long the Owls can last.
UNDERACHIEVED - Florida Atlantic at Michigan State - 16-10 Spartans
EXPECTED - Elon at Duke - 26-3 Blue Devils
UNDERACHIEVED - Western Michigan at Wisconsin - 28-14 Badgers
GOOD GAME - TCU at Stanford - 34-27 Horned Frogs
SATURDAY
EXPECTED - Clemson at Georgia - 34-3 Bulldogs
EXPECTED Penn State at West Virginia - 34-12 Nittany Lions
EXPECTED - Illinois State at Iowa - 40-0 Hawkeyes
WOW! Virginia Tech at Vanderbilt -34-27 Commodores (OT)
EXPECTED - UConn at Maryland - 50-7 Terps
EXPECTED - Kent State at Pitt - 55-24 Panthers
WOW! Bucknell at Navy - 49-21 Middies
EXPECTED - Chattanooga at Tennessee - 69-3 Vols
EXPECTED - South Dakota State at Oklahoma State - 44-20 Cowboys
EXPECTED - Portland State at Washington State -70-30 Cougs
EXPECTED - Akron at Ohio State - 52-6 Buckeyes
EXPECTED - Colorado State at Texas - 52-0 Longhorns
MILD SURPRISE - Miami at Florida - 41-17 Hurricanes
SURPRISE! - FIU at Indiana - 31-7 Hoosiers
EXPECTED - UTEP at Nebraska 40-7 Huskers.
DISAPPOINTED - Eastern Michigan at UMass - 28-14 EMU
UNDERACHIEVED - North Dakota at Iowa State - 21-3 Cyclones
SURPRISE - Ohio at Syracuse - 38-22 Orange
UNDERACHIEVED - Merrimack at Air Force - 21-6 Zoomies
UNDERACHIEVED - Miami (O) at Northwestern - 13-6 Wildcats
WOW! - Boise State at Georgia Southern - 56-45 Broncos
UNDERACHIEVED - Old Dominion at South Carolina - 23-19 Gamecocks
SURPRISE! - UC Davis at Cal - 31-13 Cal
HAD NO IDEA - North Texas at South Alabama - 52-38 Mean Green
EXPECTED - Idaho State at Oregon State - 38-15 Beavers
EXPECTED Western Kentucky at Alabama - 63-0 Crimson Tide
EXPECTED Furman at Olę Miss - 76-0 Rebels
SURPRISE! UNLV at Houston - 27-7 Rebels
SURPRISE! - Sam Houston at Rice - 34-14 Bearkats
UNDERACHIEVED - Idaho at Oregon - 24-14 Ducks
GOOD GAME! Notre Dame at Texas A & M - 23-13 Irish
UNDERACHIEVED - Fresno State at Michigan - 30-10 Wolverines
UNDERACHIEVED -UCLA at Hawaii - 16-13 Bruins
EXPECTED - Southern Miss at Kentucky - 31-0 Wildcats
EXPECTED - Southern Illinois at BYU - 41-13 Cougars
EXPECTED - Georgia State at Georgia Tech - 35-12 Yellow Jackets
HAD NO IDEA - James Madison at Charlotte - 30-7 JMU
EXPECTED - New Mexico at Arizona - 61-39, Arizona
EXPECTED - Wyoming at Arizona State - 48-7 Sun Devils
EXPECTED Weber State at Washington - 35-3 Huskies
SUNDAY
GOOD GAME! USC vs LSU at Las Vegas - 27-20 USC - Those two teams are going to be okay. Both QBs showed that they’re ready for the big time.
MONDAY
Boston College at Florida State - Really? Out of all the games played this weekend, they chose this one to show to a national audience? You don’t suppose the TV guys got caught up in all the FSU hysteria from last season, do you? Anyhow, playing under new head coach Bill O’Brien - go Eagles!
*********** Maybe it’s because it was our first look at professionalized college football, but overall, after waiting an entire off-season for college football to start once again, this past weekend was one of the worst I can remember for stupid matchups whose outcome was never in doubt.
I enjoyed the Army and Navy games because I’m prejudiced in their favor, but no one would call their games exciting.
Of all the power 4 (damn, I hate writing that) teams, only Notre Dame-Texas A & M and LSU-USC gave us well-played, competitive games worth watching as disinterested football fans..
Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech was a very exciting game.
But otherwise? NFL Lite.
*********** Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty rushed for 267 yards and six TDs in the Broncos’ 56-45 win over Georgia Southern - at Georgia Southern. Jeanty, 5-2 and 215 from Frisco, Texas was last year’s Mountain West Player of the Year.
*********** Navy came out running Wing-T. They were often in what we would call “slot,” and they were in Double Wing from time to time. They ran a lot of stuff with Jet motion. They did run a few very nice plays from shotgun, but there’s no doubt about it - they’re gonna run the ball at you. They have a nice pass package and they run their QB - Blake Horvath, 6-2, 200 from Hillard, Ohio, on their power off-tackle play. Their first touchdown came on what looked like something I’ve been wondering about myself for a long time - an outside dive using wedge blocking, which essentially makes it an outside veer, a now-nearly extinct play but once one of the toughest plays I’ve ever had to defend against. I have no idea what their record will be, because I doubt that Bucknell, their opponent Saturday, is very good, but the way their line came off the ball. I guarantee you that anyone playing them will be sore afterward.
*********** I saw at least two teams run into trouble when they were running Jet motion and the center snap hit the motion man. I’ve often wondered why, on such plays where timing is crucial, nobody’s tried letting the motion man call the snap signal.
*********** Of all the transfers I’ve heard of, New Mexico State to Vanderbilt has to be one of the least likely, but the transfer in question, quarterback Diego Pavia, one of my favorite players, has instantly turned Vanderbilt into a team to take seriously. On Saturday he led Vandy to a 34-27 overtime upset of Virginia Tech. It’s not as if he’s going to be awed by playing in the SEC - last year he led the Aggies to a 31-10 win over Auburn - at Auburn.
*********** Virginia Tech was hit with a key penalty on special teams when it had two guys with the same number on the field. It’s a dumb enough penalty as it is, but these guys were both wearing Number Zero.
*********** Maryland’s Mike Locksley weighs 250 pounds - down 90 since last season. If the Terps have any kind of a season, he’s going to make a fortune telling people what product or process he used to do it.
*********** Even though they had been playing the Big Dog in company with Florida State, I was sorry to see Clemson fare so poorly against Georgia. The mystery to me is why they’ve been so in love with their QB, Cade Klubnik, when it’s clear that he’s not in a class with Tajh Boyd, DeShaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence, the QBs they built their program with.
*********** Chris Peterson said that the Big 12 was his favorite conference, because “it’s got parity and it’s deep.” I have to agree.
*********** If FSU and Clemson are so much better than the rest of the ACC schools - as their lawyers have been claiming - then Cal and Stanford are going to do fine in their new conference.
*********** Georgia Tech had a tough assignment, coming off a big win - in Ireland - and then having to take on an opponent from just around the corner in Georgia State. Tech won, 35-12, to open up 2-0 for the first time in eight years.
*********** A 27-7 loss in your own stadium is a bad enough opener, but Houston’s 27-7 loss to UNLV was worse than it looks - the Cougars’ only score came with 1:00 remaining when they scored on fourth and one.
*********** ARMY FOOTBALL IS BACK!!!
Army 42, Lehigh 7
Yes, it was “only” FCS Lehigh, but last year at this time Army got shut out offensively, losing to Louisiana Monroe. Going into the game, ULM was the worst team in FBS. So what did losing to them make Army?
The big difference: Army football - under center/triple option football - is back.
Army’s new/old offense scored every time it had the ball: six drives of 80, 76, 79, 77, 80 and 56 yards each. Their time of possession was 33 minutes.
The one time Army might have stalled was on its very first drive, when faced with fourth and two in their own end of the field, Army coach Jeff Monken called for a fake punt that went for 35 yards and (obviously) a first down.
Army rushed 56 times for 375 yards, averaging 6.7 yards per carry, and completed 5 of 8 passes for 57 yards.
They fumbled once, but didn’t lose it, and had just one penalty (a false start for five yards).
On third down conversions, Army was 7 of 9; on fourth downs it was 2 for 2.
Slotback Noah Short carried 8 times for 83 yards and a TD, QB Bryson Daily (he’s a horse) carried 17 times for 78 yards and 2 TDs, and fullback Kanye Udoh carried 15 times for 75 yards and 2 TDs.
Next Saturday, Army opens AAC play at Florida Atlantic.
(Thanks for Jack Morrison for some of the stats.)
*********** In Colorado, Battle Mountain High School, a school of about 900 kids in grades 9-12 in a rather affluent resort area, had to forfeit its entire football season - varsity, JV, freshman - when just 14 kids turned out for their first practice.
The signs are unmistakable: America is getting softer, and at an astonishing rate.
https://www.vaildaily.com/sports/battle-mountain-forfeits-remaining-varsity-football-games/
*********** Things that bring you close to tears… In a South Jersey suburb of Philly, NHL star Johnny Gaudreau of the Columbus Blue Jackets, and and his brother Matthew died after being struck by an “alleged” drunk driver while riding their bikes. They were back in their hometown to take part in their sister’s wedding the next day.
*********** Hi Hugh,
Just had to comment on the LSU and USC football game. The mistakes that cost LSU the game are all the ones you have been discussing on your blog! Two that stand out, failure to get under center in a short yardage situation cost LSU an important first down when their runner was tackled in the backfield after taking a deep hand off and being to complicated on the goaline cost them late in the game. Instead of lining up and going on a quick count a penalty forced the field goal.
I know we are a couple of old farts but those high paid college coaching staffs should be better. They often seem to over complicate which should be a fairly simple. I think taking a moment and let them listen to coach Madden on your introductions to the blog would do them some good.
All the best to you, Connie and the family this Labor Day and good luck at Aberdeen!
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
Hey! Who you calling an old fart?!?! But you are so right about the need for every college team in the country to have an under-center goal-line package!
*********** Today you gave us even more delicious dishes than normal. I guess I was like the guy at a big yard sale featuring tools and gadgets and sporting goods.
NDSU couldn't get it done last night. 504 total yards but not enough got them across the goal line. Of even more interest to me is the SDSU game vs OKST. OKST was in the news this week, beginning with the QR code story. Maybe it was Gundy deflecting attention from a game he must be at least a little concerned about.
I have no idea what Army's record will be at the end of the year, but I think they'll be improved. I'm excited to see them run tonight. I'll be dissatisfied with anything less than 400 rushing yards. He won't be the leading rusher (probably), but I think the biggest key to the team's offensive success over the full season will be B Back Jake Rendina, a big strong lad out of Montana.
3,568 graduates? How many are genuine grads?
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Pete Dawkins was the captain of Army’s last unbeaten football team. He was a consensus All-American and he won the Heisman Trophy.
At West Point, he was Brigade Commander, Class President and a “Star Man” (meaning he graduated in the top five per cent of his class academically).
He won a Rhodes Scholarship to study in England at Oxford University, where he won three “Blues” (letters) playing rugby.
He spent a distinguished career in the US Army, retiring as a brigadier general.
He was extremely successful as an executive of several large financial firms.
A Republican, he narrowly lost a race to become United States Senator in heavily-Democrat New Jersey.
He grew up in suburban Detroit. His parents, both Michigan graduates, were well-to-do, and he turned down both Michigan and Yale in order to attend West Point.
Famed Army coach Earl “Red” Blaik, in his book “You Have to Pay the Price,” said that he was not initially impressed with the young man:
As a football player, Dawkins came to West Point with average credentials. At Cranbrook, a small preparatory school near his home in Royal Oak, Michigan, he was a good left-handed and passing quarterback in the split T-formation. He applied to and was accepted by and Michigan. His father and mother both were Michigan graduates…
Dawkins’ coach sent Coach Blaik a recommendation along with a photo. The picture, wrote Coach Blaik, “that of a rather gangly 17 year old, did not impress me. I suspected then and for a long time after, that Dawkins was just another "silk-stocking" preparatory school athlete.
His first couple of seasons, wrote Coach Blaik, did nothing to indicate that he would by his senior year become one of the most celebrated college football players ever:
In his plebe season of 1955, Dawkins started most of the games at quarterback, but his passing was unimpressive and he was less than mediocre defensively. In 1956 spring practice, he was a third or fourth string quarterback, lost far back in the crowd.
It was in the spring practice of ’57 that Dawkins began to take hold. He began to demonstrate the speed, power, elusiveness, and intelligence of a top-flight running halfback and pass receiver. He was also improving on defense and even beginning to block well at times. The poise and confidence which was to be such a big part of his inspiring leadership … first began to shine through that spring.
And then came his senior year. Army went undefeated, with only a 14-14 tie at Pitt (led by an end named Mike Ditka) to mar its record. Army beat Notre Dame, 14-2, at South Bend. It was Army’s last win over the Irish - since then, they haven’t beaten Notre Dame in 15 tries.
Army became America’s most-publicized team that season, not only because the Cadets were good, but because of Coach Blaik’s innovative use of a very big, very fast and very athletic end named Bill Carpenter.
In a break with the tight formations employed universally at the time, Blaik split Carpenter out wide, and after taking the advice of a former assistant who warned him that he might run Carpenter to death just going back and forth from the huddle to his “far flanker” position, he determined to leave Carpenter out wide while the rest of the team huddled.
Army unveiled the “far flanker” attack against a Number 18-ranked South Carolina team which came in at 1-0 after a win over Duke. After Army trounced the Gamecocks 45-8, then shut out Penn State, 28-0, and then defeated Notre Dame, the new formation - dubbed the “Lonely End” by a New York sportswriter - was the talk of the football world. (After the season, Blaik would reveal the way Carpenter got his signals. In those days before Connor Stalions, no one had been able to figure it out.)
Dawkins was really good - as a runner, a receiver, and a passer, as well as having to play on defense. But it was not as if Army was a one-man team. In addition to Carpenter (who to this day prefers to be remembered as the “Lonesome (not Lonely) End,” there was big, fast running back Bob Anderson, himself a two-time All-American, and Bob Novogratz, a two-way All-American as a guard and linebacker.
With all the attention that Army football got, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for any of those others to have been awarded the Heisman, but with Dawkins’ absolutely amazing all-round career as a student and a West Point cadet, earning him feature articles in several major magazines, he was the one on which the star fell.
And thus he won the Heisman. In addition to All-time greats Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis, Pete Dawkins is one of three Army football players ever to win it, and he is now its oldest living recipient.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING PETE DAWKINS
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Beaumont, Texas, where he played high school football for his dad, a highly successful high school coach in the Beaumont area.
He was a very good high school player, and today, he would have been highly-recruited. But those were the days before college football in the South was completely desegregated, and so, recalled Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty in his memoirs,
"We had tried to recruit his older brother, Willie Ray, but he went to Iowa…so when (our guy) was a senior in high school, (his father) called me and asked if we’d ‘take a chance on my boy and try to make a man out of him.’
“You’re his father and you’ve been his coach,” I told (his father). If you can’t make a man out of him, how do you expect me to?”
We agreed to try because of (his father’s) pleadings, not to mention (his) extraordinary talents.
It took a while for him to get with the program, but he was good enough to become a two-time All-American; in his senior year he was named United Press Lineman of the Year.
At 6-6, 260, he was very big for the time, and he was extremely popular with Michigan State fans, who wore large lapel buttons that read “KILL, (Our Guy), KILL!”
Years later, Daugherty would recall him as “a great, if difficult, star for us.”
In the 1967 NFL draft, he was the Number One overall selection (the only Michigan State player ever taken number one) of the Baltimore Colts, who had acquired the pick from the lowly New Orleans Saints in a trade for quarterback Gary Cuozzo.
A defensive end, he played nine years in the NFL, six of them in Baltimore. He played in two Super Bowls with the Colts, and played in two Pro Bowls.
In a 1972 preseason game in Tampa, he injured his leg making a tackle on the sideline when he crashed into a first-down pole, and he was never the same afterward as a player.
He missed the entire 1972 season, and after being traded to the Raiders after the season, he finished his career in Oakland and then Houston.
After football, he enjoyed a nice career as an actor, appearing as an officer in the Police Academy movies and in a number of TV series, and he became famous once again, when he played himself in Miller Lite’s award-winning “Tastes Great! Less Filling!” commrcials.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame. His younger brother started out at Michigan State but transferred to USC, then went on to play professionally for Dallas, Houston and Buffalo.
FRIDAY,
AUGUST 30, 2024
“The biggest difference between Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden was that
Carter was at least trying to do the right thing by the United States
of America.” Howie Carr *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Although I came from a tiny rural school, I never was what anyone would consider shy. When I got to high school I discovered the drama program and decided I wanted to get involved. In grade school I had taken part in the Christmas plays and found it rather easy to memorize the lines.
“I told Miss Mabel Hudson, the drama coach, that I'd like to try out for one of the plays. She also was my English teacher, and I thought participating in drama might help me in class. Our makeshift stage was set up on sawhorses at one end of the tiny gymnasium, with a curtain rigged on a long wire. I enjoyed the theatrics, sometimes in a supporting role, occasionally as a lead. I guess I liked the attention that went with performing in front of a crowd.
“Being in drama helped me to develop better verbal communication skills. Besides, the best-looking girls in the school were involved, and that was exciting too.
“I don't think I had a crush on Miss Hudson, but I thought she was a special teacher. She was pretty, slender, overall very attractive. She was authoritarian in the classroom but cared about her students. During my senior year I asked her for help in improving my English skills. I was going to college but was inept at diagramming sentences. During spring semester I reported to her for extra work, and she worked hard with me. She was an excellent teacher, both in fundamental English and literature. I always thought it would be fun to see Miss Hudson in a bathing suit.”
*********** Friday night, Aberdeen sees our first action - our first heavy contact, actually, since team camp in July - when we play in a jamboree at Orting, Washington. Orting is east of the state capital of Olympia.
*********** “Both times I took over head coaching jobs, at Dartmouth and West point, I was fortunate enough to inherit low-ebb situations. A coach who comes in at the bottom of a curve has a pronounced advantage over one who succeeds to a going or even a half-going operation. In 1941 there was no place to go at West Point but up. We went up at a rate of speed that surprised a lot of people.” Legendary Army coach Earl “Red” Blaik
*********** Not sure exactly what’g going on in our society, but one coach I know has already had to deal with a kid telling him he wouldn’t be at practice because he had tickets to a concert, and then, on the Monday of the first game another kid informed him he’d be going out of state to a wedding and wouldn’t be at their first game. Another coach told me of a kid who missed practice because he was getting “an HIV test.” He is a middle-schooler. WTF?
*********** In three tries, Bronco Mendenhall has yet to win his very first game as a school's head coach. After last Saturday’s loss to Montana State, he’s now 0-3 in opening games at BYU, Virginia, New Mexico.
*********** Brent Vigen is now 33-9 as Montana State’s head coach, but the Bobcats’ win Saturday over New Mexico was his first win against an FBS opponent.
*********** THIS SATURDAY’S GAMES OF INTEREST TO ME: Only if I especially like one or the other of the teams have I included games against FCS opponents
THURSDAY -By the time you read this, these games will have been played
North Carolina at Minnesota
North Dakota State at Colorado - I WILL WATCH THIS WHEN I GET HOME FROM PRACTICE (ABOUT 8:30) - GO BISON!!! SEND PRIME PACKING. (CAN YOU IMAGINE A SCHOOL ALLOWING ITS COACH TO REFUSE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS FROM A MEMBER OF THE NEWS MEDIA?)
FRIDAY -
Lehigh at Army - Has Army really gone back to under center triple option?
Temple at Oklahoma - Only to see how long the Owls can last.
Florida Atlantic at Michigan State - After the way he stiffed Oregon State (his alma mater) I sure would love to see Jonathan Smith get whacked.
Elon at Duke - First game for Manny Diaz at Duke. Hope it’s a good one.
Western Michigan at Wisconsin - How’s Tyler Van Dyke going to do at QB for the Badgers?
TCU at Stanford - How bad is Stanford?
SATURDAY
Clemson at Georgia - Is Cade Klubnik ready for the big time?
Penn State at West Virginia - There was a time when I was a passionate Lions fan, but now - Go Mountaineers.
Illinois State at Iowa - Is this the game Kirk Ferentz is suspended for? Does it matter?
Virginia Tech at Vanderbilt - How much better is VT? Can Vandy stay with the Hokies?
UConn at Maryland - Maryland could be good. Will Mora have the Huskies ready.
Kent State at Pitt - Good scheduling, Pitt. After last year, Pitt needs to open with a win.
Bucknell at Navy - Navy will unveil its new (supposedly) wing-T based offense.
Chattanooga at Tennessee - Won’t watch this one for long
South Dakota State at Oklahoma State - Boo - Talk about no respect for the Jackrabbits - it’s on ESPN+
Portland State at Washington State - Too underdogs that I like. I go back a long way with Portland State coach Bruce Barnum, so Go Vikings!
Akron at Ohio State - Wow. Jim Knowles coaching the defense and Chip Kelly coaching the offense. An Quinshon Judkins running the ball. Now, if Will Howard can get the job done at QB, these Buckeyes woful be really tough.
Colorado State at Texas - How much longer will Arch Manning sit the bench?
Miami at Florida - Two coaches in a bit of hot water. Will Miami’s supposedly great recruiting finally pay off?
FIU at Indiana - Just to see how the Hoosiers look.
UTEP at Nebraska - BIG opener for the Huskers.
Eastern Michigan at UMass - I really like Don Brown, the UMass coach.
North Dakota at Iowa State - Tough opener for the Cyclones. Are they on the way back?
Ohio at Syracuse - I am totally ignorant about either team but I’d love to see the Orange get it going.
Merrimack at Air Force - Really, Falcons? Merrimack?
Miami (O) at Northwestern - Can Northwestern repeat last year’s pleasant surprise?
Boise State at Georgia Southern - Sure hope them boys from Idaho figured out a way to prepare for that humidity.
Old Dominion at South Carolina - Old Dominion has been known to surprise P-4 schools.
UC Davis at Cal - This is a bigger rivalry than you might think, and a real trap for Cal.
North Texas at South Alabama - Only slightly interested because Army’s in the AAC
Idaho State at Oregon State - Go Beavs!
Western Kentucky at Alabama - Not the toughest of tests for Jalen DeBoer
Furman at Olę Miss - Furman is a good FCS team, but Ole Miss should be a good FBS team.
UNLV at Houston - UNLV is very good offensively.
Sam Houston at Rice - Only because I like Rice, the Duke of the Southwest.
Idaho at Oregon - Is Dillon Gabriel the second coming of Bo Nix?
Notre Dame at Texas A & M - THIS is one game I REALLY want to see. I like Rley Leonard, who’ll be facing his former coach at Duke, Mike Elko, now the A & M head coach
Fresno State at Michigan - Tough assignment for the Bulldogs. Why can’t I like Michigan?
UCLA at Hawaii - I’m only half’s interested.
Southern Miss at Kentucky - Want to see what the Wildcats have got.
Southern Illinois at BYU - Are the Cougars going to improve enough to win in the Big 12?
Georgia State at Georgia Tech - I have GOT to watch Tech again. They sure were fun to watch against Florida State.
James Madison at Charlotte - James Madison;s under a new coach, Bob Chesney, from Holy Cross. Charlotte coach Biff Poggi may be in trouble.
New Mexico at Arizona - Lobos blew a big fourth quarter lead against Montana State last Saturday. Arizona need last season on a high note but they’ve got a new head coach in Brent Brennan
Wyoming at Arizona State - New coach for the Cowboys. I think ASU has made big strides under Kenny Dillingham
Weber State at Washington - I guess I should pull for the Huskies but they’ve lost a ton of good people and I’m not particularly a Jedd Fisch fan.
SUNDAY
USC at LSU - Both teams are replacing first-round quarterbacks. My prediction is a blowout by the Tigers.
MONDAY
Boston College at Florida State - Really? Out of all the games played this weekend, they chose this one to show to a national audience? You don’t suppose the TV guys got caught up in all the FSU hysteria from last season, do you? Anyhow, playing under new head coach Bill O’Brien - go Eagles!
*********** I confess to having lost some of my enthusiasm for Army football lately.
One reason: Army head coach Jeff Monken’s decision to junk the under-center, triple option offense that had been an Army trademark and go instead to the sort of cookie-cutter offense that appears to be mandatory at most other colleges. The experiment has been declared a failure, and it appears that Army is back to being Army. We’ll see.
Another reason, though, has been the absence of any substantial information about the Army football program.
I used to depend on Jack Morrison. Jack, a member of the undefeated 1958 Army team, used to send out a weekly newsletter that really went deeply into th goings-on in Army football, but two years ago, he hung ‘em up.
It’s been a tough two years, but now, based on an email I received, it appears Jack is back:
Having recently discontinued my Army Football Reports, several Classmates and friends have requested that I begin writing them again. Frankly, I also missed writing them.
Consequently, the link below contains my 2024 season's first report, an analysis of the up and down 2023 season and its resultant aftermath. Due to all the twists and turns which resulted in a change of OCs and Offensive formations, it is rather long but IMO necessary as a critical background to all the changes. So I apologize.
Please feel free to forward my reports to other Class Forums, other Grads, or other Army Football Friends. I would be happy to add them to my distribution list.
My next report will preview the 2024 season as Army joins the AAC Group of 5 Conference with Navy after many years as an Independent.
Glad to be back.
Beat Navy!
Regards,
Jack
https://onedrive.live.com/edit?id=A288BF383E88DA0D!s4a79ae78da9b4e80a3ad47fd5ced7ae5&resid=A288BF383E88DA0D!s4a79ae78da9b4e80a3ad47fd5ced7ae5&cid=a288bf383e88da0d&ithint=file%2Cdocx&redeem=aHR0cHM6Ly8xZHJ2Lm1zL3cvYy9hMjg4YmYzODNlODhkYTBkL0VYaXVlVXFiMm9CT282MUhfVnp0ZXVVQjRBQ215SGNmMzJFeHg2UzR5XzduS0E_ZT00OjQ4NGQwZTlmNjc4MjRiMWQ5MzVmYjcyMzg0OThmMzE1JnNoYXJpbmd2Mj10cnVlJmZyb21TaGFyZT10cnVlJmF0PTk&migratedtospo=true&wdo=2
As you can see, Jack has invited “Army Football Friends” to get on his mailing list.
If that describes you, write him at jackmorrison2614@gmail.com
And be sure to let him know I “sent” you!
*********** It’s 1999 (I just stepped out of my Wayback Machine) and I’m damned if I can picture a football coach helping to set up - and then serve as advisor to - his school’s “Gay-Straight Alliance."
***********IRVING, Texas (Aug. 28, 2024) – The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame today released a list of 3,568 student-athletes who have already earned their undergraduate degrees and will be playing college football this fall while pursuing additional diplomas.
The NFF compiled the list with the help of sports information directors from all divisions of the NCAA and NAIA who identified the players on their 2024 fall rosters who have already earned their undergraduate degrees. A total of 247 schools responded.
Notable players include Carson Beck (Georgia), Tahj Brooks (Texas Tech), Eli Cox (Kentucky and a 2024 Campbell Trophy Nominee), Howard Cross III (Notre Dame), Emeka Egbuka (Ohio State), Dillon Gabriel (Oregon and a 2024 Campbell Trophy Nominee), Garrett Greene (West Virginia), Ashton Gillotte (Louisville), Tre Harris (Mississippi), Seth Henigan (Memphis), Will Howard (Ohio State), Nick Jackson (Iowa), Haynes King (Georgia Tech) Phil Mafah (Clemson and a 2024 Campbell Trophy Nominee), Nick Martin (Oklahoma State), Jordan McCloud (Texas State), Jalen Milroe (Alabama and a 2024 Campbell Trophy Nominee), Malachi Moore (Alabama), Cameron Rising (Utah), Kaimon Rucker (North Carolina), Kaidon Salter (Liberty), Shilo Sanders (Colorado), DJ Uiagalelei (Florida State), Xavier Watts (Notre Dame).
The table below showcases the number of graduates playing college football each season since 2017. (Note: The NFF did not tally the number of graduates during the 2020 season.)
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to all 2020 fall athletes. Many student-athletes have decided to take advantage of this, and they are returning to the field in 2024, leading to another high number of graduates this season.
The numbers include 2,239 players from 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), 959 players from 68 schools in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), 245 players from 29 schools in Division II, 118 players from 27 schools in Division III and 7 players from three schools in the NAIA.
Northwestern leads all schools nationwide (as well as the FBS) with 34 players having already earned their degrees. Montana is fielding 28 players with degrees, leading the FCS. New Haven (CT) tops Division II with 27 players. North Central (IL) and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (MA) both boast 12 players, sitting atop Division III. Rocky Mountain (MT) has four graduates on its roster, the most of any NAIA school.
Nearly all 120 FBS school that responded reported a double-digit number of graduates, with the following schools joining Northwestern (34) with at least 20: Jacksonville State (32), Massachusetts (32), Louisville (31), Memphis (31), Duke (31), Oklahoma State (30), Mississippi (29) Texas State (29), UCF (29), James Madison (28), UCLA (28), South Carolina (28), South Florida (28), Houston (27), Kansas (27), Utah (27), Western Kentucky (27), Indiana (26), Texas Christian (26), Auburn (25), Florida State (25), Notre Dame (25), Toledo (25), New Mexico (24), UNC at Charlotte (24), Southern California (24), Connecticut (24), NC State (23), California (23), Southern Mississippi (23), Virginia (23), Bowling Green (22), Middle Tennessee State (22), Tulane (22), Appalachian State (22), Cincinnati (22), Nevada (22), Liberty (21), Washington (21), Vanderbilt (21), Wyoming (21), Arizona State (20), Miami, OH (20), Texas Tech (20), Iowa (20), North Texas (20), Pittsburgh (20), West Virginia (20) and Kent State (20).
Joining the FCS leader Montana (28) with at least 20 graduates on the roster this season are Maine (24), Jackson State (23), Austin Peay State (22), Albany (22), Villanova (22), Delaware (22), North Dakota State (21), Stony Brook (21), Texas A&M-Commerce (21) and Incarnate Word (20).
*********** At a minor league baseball game in Southern Maryland last week, a gust of wind lifted an inflatable “bounce house” 15 to 20 feet into the air and several children who had been inside fell to the ground. One was killed and another injured.
*********** An old friend named John Muckian (pronounced muh-KEEN) posed a question about who was the best college football analyst ever.
My answer? Four-way tie: Frank Broyles, Paul Christman, Ara Parseghian and Bud Wilkinson. They’re all from the black-and-white days. They were pioneers and no one since has matched them.
All except Broyles, Parseghian and Wilkinson had all been very successful coaches. Christman had been an All-American quarterback at Missouri and quarterbacked the Chicago Cardinals to the NFL title in 1947. He only did two years of college ball before moving to pro ball - first the AFL, then the NFL - but I included him because he was really, really good. Damn shame that the man was only 52 when he died of a heart attack.
*********** Interesting fact:
The states with the largest rural populations:
Texas (4,744,808)
North Carolina (3,474,661)
Pennsylvania (3,061,630)
Ohio (2,798,349)
Another interesting fact - Texas also has the second-largest urban population
*********** The next time you want to illustrate just how important that little bit of extra effort can be …
The difference between an inch of rain and ten inches of snow is ONE DEGREE.
*********** FROM THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL FOUNDATION:
Since 1978, when the NCAA began tracking attendance figures, the number of schools playing NCAA football has increased by 187, growing from 484 to 671 institutions by 2024. Including NAIA and independent schools, and accounting for upcoming programs, the total now stands at 774 colleges and universities offering football.
New Programs on the Horizon
This year, six institutions—Anderson University (SC), Calvin University (MI), Centenary College of Louisiana, New England College (NH), Simpson University (CA), and William Woods University (MO)—are set to field football teams for the first time. These new programs are poised to energize their respective campuses, offering students new opportunities for engagement and building stronger connections with alumni and local communities.
READ MORE
https://footballfoundation.org/news/2024/8/20/football-drives-campus-growth-774-colleges-offering-programs.
*********** Coach -
Being from the valley, (and with my grandmother living literally one block away from BHS), the answer to your trivia question is of course Frank Gifford. I didn't know about his high school coach, but it was fun to look him up - looks like he had major success at BC and Santa Ana College.
Where Gifford played in high school, the Bakersfield High School Drillers, has the most wins in state history last I checked , although Long Beach Poly was close and could overtake them if BHS has a few bad years. They were the absolute power in the valley for decades. They have 38 section titles, and won several of the few true state titles in the long ago age before WWII. As an aside, the new state "bowl" games aren't true state championships. It's awesome to win one, but if you ask kids a "valley" (section) title is the main goal.
The BHS stadium has been renovated but still has the feel of when it was built in *1923*. and is named Griffith Field after coach Dwight Griffith who coached until 1948. I was fortunate enough to see their trophy room on an accreditation visit, and it rivals anyones.
Thanks.
Mike Burchett
Woodlake, California
*********** When I think of Bakersfield and football, I think, of course, of Frank Gifford.
But I also think of Paul Briggs. Paul Briggs was the coach at Bakersfield High from 1953 to 1985, and I heard him talk at a clinic in 1977 or so.
It was obvious that he was hard-nosed. I do remember his talking about something he called the “Steel-Side Six” - six steel pipes, each at least six inches in diameter, sticking up four or five feet out of the ground, which his players had to shiver every day
It was just as obvious that he had a handle on his kids -“One-third black, one-third Hispanic, and one-third Okies from Muskogee,” he told us - and he could motivate them. He went into quite a bit of detail about his end-of-practice competitions and the awards that went to the winners. He set up “games” that were extremely competitive, for prizes that I swear were called “Raspberry Roonies.” (If there are any Valley guys who can help me out on that one, I’d be grateful.)
Coach Briggs died in 2011. He is in all sorts of Halls of Fame.
Not known by many people was that he was wounded in World War II when the ship he was serving on was attacked by Kamikazes and he was hit with shrapnel.
*********** Glad to have you back, Coach. The answer to this difficult question is Frank Gifford.
If Frank G. were alive, he could no longer claim to have been treated like an illegal alien.
Two things about the game in Dublin. First, at halftime the in-studio moderator (some nondescript guy whose name I don't know, but whose style I instantly disliked) got on his high horse about something I've thought most of adult life, to wit, we shouldn't allow polls until midseason. And the reasons are evident, especially since the portal came into wide use. But it also tied in to Coach Brent Key's comments on the field after the game. Key said he watched his team in practice, and secretly believed he had something good. But, he stressed, you never know what you have until you put them up against somebody else. Now, it's still too early to distinguish who's tops among a passel of of teams, but I sure liked the way Coach Key handled that team, and wouldn't be surprised if they surprise others in the ACC. The rundown you gave on Key's coordinators makes that even more likely.
Men in women's sports: lowest of the low...Paralympics...50-year-old man (who claims to be mostlly blind) runs against females with disabilities...he's done it before and walked off with gold medals. Can't even the Paralympics be free from these predators?
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
NC State could be the ACC powerhouse this year. Don’t count out BC and their exciting QB! But Georgia Tech will have a say when it’s all said and done.
Congrats to my buddy Mike Foristiere on that big opening day win! Enjoyed the live action on NFHS, and seeing him schooling the officials on the rules!
An ugly brawl ended the game between district rivals Central HS and Justin Garza HS in Fresno, CA last Friday night. Garza is the new school in the district, and named for highly successful former Central coach Justin Garza who died of brain cancer. Justin played for me in high school, and we knew right away that he had a bright future in coaching. He was special. One of a kind.
Unfortunately big brother Central was pounding little brother Garza in the 3rd quarter 40-0 when a frustrated Garza player got into it with a Central player and caused the benches to empty. During the melee another Garza player punched a coach. Game called. Suspensions looming.
It was the complete opposite of what Justin believed in, coached, and what he stood for.
QUIZ: Frank Gifford (his Bakersfield HS Drillers continue to be a regular in the CIF Central Section playoffs).
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: He was personable and good-looking. He socialized with the rich and famous. He was a football and media star for so long that few people ever knew of his hard upbringing.
He played his high school ball in Bakersfield, California. The school’s nickname, the Drillers, announced to one and all that Bakersfield was an oil town. A tough town.
But he didn’t grow up in Bakersfield. It was the last stop in a remarkable boyhood journey.
As he wrote in his autobiography, “The Whole Ten Yards,”
My mother once figured out that by the time I started high school, we had lived in 47 different towns.
My father started working in the oil fields at the age of 16, breaking in as a “roughneck” – the lowest job in the trade. Wherever a new field opened up, that's where my dad went. The problem was that this was the Depression, and nothing was more depressed than the California oil industry. No one was pumping oil or exploring for oil because nobody was buying oil. An oil worker’s job would last anywhere from 30 to 90 days, depending on how fast the well was dug, and then he'd have to find out where else they were drilling, assuming that there was a somewhere else.
I don't remember completing a single grade in the same grammar school.
I've read “The Grapes of Wrath,” and I guess we were part of that scenario. We just never realized it. As a little kid, growing up in the 30s, I thought everyone lived like this. It wasn't until I was eight or nine that I started to realize there were people who lived better than we did, that there were people who stayed home. Our home was wherever the job was.
My high school in Bakersfield had more than 5000 kids, definitely the bottom of the social economic ladder. Many of them were the children of farmers and oil workers. They were tough kids – black, Spanish, poor whites, kids like me. Consequently, the school enjoyed a great football tradition.
There, he ran into a high school coach named Homer Beatty who, as he related, “built his offense around me. I know I was a pretty good passer and an even better running back. In order to utilize both of those talents, Homer shifted us out of a T-formation into a single wing. As the tailback, I'd take a direct snap from center and either throw the ball or run it. I also punted, kicked conversions, and ran back kick offs. Suddenly, I was doing things I always suspected were within my capability but had never been able to bring off. Suddenly, I started to realize, I can play.
Of all the coaches I've had, from Jim Lee Howell to Vince Lombardi to Allie Sherman, I learned more about football from Homer Beatty than anyone else. All the great coaches are essentially great teachers. Lombardi taught high school mathematics. Homer taught Phys Ed. And on the field, he taught us remarkably sophisticated stuff, things none of our peers were learning. He taught us to read defenses and change a lot of plays at the line of scrimmage. He taught our offensive lineman intricate blocking techniques and how to really blow off the ball.
Most important, he taught us attitude. I learned from Homer Beatty that if you invest your heart in it and work hard enough, you can accomplish pretty damn near anything. It sounds corny and old-fashioned, yet it's true. So many people, I've noticed, aren't willing to expend the necessary perspiration. Of course, with Homer in charge, there was no other option. When he asked us to do 20 wind sprints, we knew we were going to do 20 wind sprints. And if you couldn't, you were going to stay there until you could.
As the months passed, Homer became a sort of big brother to me. We began talking to each other man-to-man. We discovered we had similar backgrounds: two blue-collar children of the oil fields. He should have become a famous college coach, but, being Homer, he refused to do the necessary butt kissing. Basically, that's what a lot of college coaches have to do: trot off to alumni dinners and ass-kiss some guy into changing his will so the university gets left a lot of money. The word got around that Homer wouldn't play that game. He'd just say, in his own way, screw you people. He was a loner, a tough guy - a Bakersfield guy. Later, as an extraordinarily successful junior college coach, he enjoyed such respect that he started doing clinics all over the country. Hundreds of high school and college coaches would attend them. He also wrote how-to books and put out how-to films. It always blew my mind that my high school coach knew more football than anyone I've ever met.
To make a short story of it, he was recruited heavily by USC, but he hadn’t taken his schoolwork seriously and he didn’t have the grades, so he had to spend a year at Bakersfield Junior College. He had a great season - he made Junior College All-American, along with a couple of other guys named Ollie Matson and Hugh McElhenny.
But he still didn’t have the grades to get into USC. His coach, Homer Beatty, convinced the people there that he was worth taking, which they agreed to do on the condition that he make up work in their “extension division.”
But first, USC had to win him away from Arizona, which had offered him a car and $500 a month - an astronomical amount at that time.
Once again, Homer Beatty intervened. “Look,” he asked. “Do you want to play for Arizona or do you want to play in the Los Angeles Coliseum for the University of Southern California Trojans?”
USC won the day, but his early adjustment there was not easy. As he told it,
“USC was sort of a rich kids’ playground, and I was poorer than a church mouse. When I arrived at midterm, a friend of Homer Beatty's and USC’s Director of alumni, Nick Pappas, rented me his converted garage across the street from the practice field. I lived there for two years. Since my scholarship paid only for tuition, not for room and board, the school gave me what they called an O & M job which stood for Office and maintenance. That's a fancy term for cleaning up the gym every morning and evening, mopping the locker rooms and such. It paid $75 a month.
Under Homer's compromise, I was attending night school, not having enough credits to get into the regular undergraduate division. Pacific Coast Conference bylaws forbid such students from participating in athletics until their sophomore year. That meant I couldn't go out for spring football practice, which was crucial for anyone hoping to make an impression on the coaches. The frustration of that didn't really hit me until my first night class. I knew that USC had also recruited Hugh McElhenny, a great junior college halfback and a friend who later became a Hall of Fame running back for the 49ers, the Vikings, and the Giants. And I knew they were also making him go the night school route. On the first night of class, I'm sitting at a desk listening to my first roll call.
“McElhenny? Hugh McElhenny? No Hugh McElhenny?”
The next morning, I picked up a newspaper and learned that Hugh had pulled a last-minute switch to the University of Washington. A smart move on his part because I later heard that Washington gave him several hundred dollars a month along with a new car. (For the way McElhenny performed over the next three years, they should have given him an entire fleet.)
Meanwhile, the guys in the USC athletic department came up with a scheme to get around my spring practice problem. "Look, we've got 130 players out there,” they said. "Who's going to notice if we have one more?” So that's what we did. I worked out with the team all week, but never during scrimmages, when the press usually came around. Whenever a reporter popped up, I had to vanish. It was humiliating. I had left Bakersfield a junior college all American for a place that was treating me like an illegal alien.
As it later turned out, USA paid a price for its little scam. A Los Angeles reporter got wind of it and wrote a big story, and the Pacific Coast Conference fined the school $2500 for letting an ineligible player work out. That was the first time my name made the papers while in college – as a guy who’d been hiding out from the Press. Now I felt like a notorious illegal alien.
Okay. He went on to start, and play, and become an All-American at USC.
Picked in the first round of the NFL draft by the New York Giants, he played 12 years with the Giants, although he did miss one entire season as a result of an injury incurred after he was on the receiving end of one of the most vicious hits in pro football history.
The Giants of the 1950s were like gods in New York City, then the nation’s media capital. While he played for them (in the pre-Super Bowl era) they appeared in five NFL title games. As perhaps the Giants’ premier star, he was a major poster boy for the NFL as it made its climb to the top of the American sports scene.
He was six times named first-team All Pro… he played in eight pro bowls… He was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1956, and its Comeback Player of the Year in 1962… He was named to the NFL’s 1950s All-Decade Team… He is in the Giants’ Ring of Honor.
In addition to his athletic ability, he was blessed with movie-star good looks and a good voice. It didn’t hurt that he had played his entire career in New York, because shortly after retirement he wound up as the play-by-play man on Monday Night Football, the highest-rated program in television, and he spent 27 years on the job. He’s perhaps best remembered for his work in the booth with Howard Cosell and Don Meredith, adroitly managing in his highly professional manner to keep those two antagonists apart, while ever ready himself with a dry, humorous observation of his own.
He also did other major sports events, including the Olympics.
He was married three times. The first time, while in college, was to the USC homecoming queen. The third time was to a woman who was a TV star in her own right.
He is in both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING FRANK GIFFORD
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was the captain of Army’s last unbeaten football team. He was a consensus All-American and he won the Heisman Trophy.
At West Point, he was Brigade Commander, Class President and a “Star Man” (meaning he graduated in the top five per cent of his class academically).
He won a Rhodes Scholarship to study in England at Oxford University, where he won three “Blues” (letters) playing rugby.
He spent a distinguished career in the US Army, retiring as a brigadier general.
He was extremely successful as an executive of several large financial firms.
A Republican, he narrowly lost a race to become United States Senator in heavily-Democratic New Jersey.
He grew up in suburban Detroit. His parents, both Michigan graduates, were well-to-do, and he turned down both Michigan and Yale in order to attend West Point.
Famed Army coach Earl “Red” Blaik, in his book “You Have to Pay the Price,” said that he was not initially impressed with the young man:
As a football player, (he) came to West Point with average credentials. At Cranbrook, a small preparatory school near his home in Royal Oak, Michigan, he was a good left-handed and passing quarterback in the split T-formation. He applied to and was accepted by Yale and Michigan."
The player’s coach sent Coach Blaik a recommendation along with a photo. The picture, wrote Coach Blaik, “that of a rather gangly 17 year old, did not impress me. I suspected then and for a long time after, that (he) was just another "silk-stocking" preparatory school athlete."
His first couple of seasons, wrote Coach Blaik, did nothing to indicate that he would by his senior year become one of the most celebrated college football players ever:
In his plebe season of 1955, (he) started most of the games at quarterback, but his passing was unimpressive and he was less than mediocre defensively. In 1956 spring practice, he was a third or fourth string quarterback, lost far back in the crowd.
It was in the spring practice of ’57 that (he) began to take hold. He began to demonstrate the speed, power, elusiveness, and intelligence of a top-flight running halfback and pass receiver. He was also improving on defense and even beginning to block well at times. The poise and confidence which was to be such a big part of his inspiring leadership … first began to shine through that spring.
And then came his senior year. Army went undefeated, with only a 14-14 tie at Pitt (led by an end named Mike Ditka) to mar its record. Army beat Notre Dame, 14-2, at South Bend. It was Army’s last win over the Irish - since then, they haven’t beaten Notre Dame in 15 tries.
Army became America’s most-publicized team that season, not only because the Cadets were good, but because of Coach Blaik’s innovative use of a very big, very fast and very athletic end named Bill Carpenter.
In a break with the tight formations employed universally at the time, Blaik split Carpenter out wide, and after taking the advice of a former assistant who warned him that he might run Carpenter to death just going back and forth from the huddle to his “far flanker” position, he determined to leave Carpenter out wide while the rest of the team huddled.
Army unveiled the “far flanker” attack against a Number 18-ranked South Carolina team that came in at 1-0 after a win over Duke. After Army trounced the Gamecocks 45-8, then shut out Penn State, 28-0, and then defeated Notre Dame, the new formation - dubbed the “Lonely End” by a New York sportswriter - was the talk of the football world. (After the season, Blaik would reveal the way Carpenter got his signals. In those days before Connor Stalions, no one had been able to figure it out.)
Our guy was really good - as a runner, a receiver, and a passer, as well as having to play on defense. But it was not as if Army was a one-man team. In addition to Carpenter (who to this day prefers to be remembered as the “Lonesome (not Lonely) End,” there was big, fast running back Bob Anderson, himself a two-time All-American, and Bob Novogratz, a two-way All-American as a guard and linebacker.
With all the attention that Army football got, it wouldn’t have been at all unreasonable for any of those others to have been awarded the Heisman, but with our guy’s absolutely amazing all-round career as a student and a West Point cadet, earning him feature articles in several major magazines, he was the one on which the star fell.
And so, in addition to All-time greats Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis, he became the third Army football player to win the Heisman, and he is now its oldest living recipient.
TUESDAY,
AUGUST 27, 2024 “Activism is a way for useless
people to feel important.” Thomas Sowell*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “I got involved in FFA (Future Farmers of America) in high school, and the agriculture teacher convinced me I should raise a registered Berkshire hog to show at fairs. My hog’s name was Blossom, and I’d get that porker's hair shining before parading her in the ring for judging.
“But the longer I lived away from the farm the more unlikely it was that my future would involve farming. There were too many problems, too much work, and you always had a seven-day-a-week job. That wasn't the way I wanted to lead my life.
“When I went back to the farm for Christmas of my sophomore year, I was shoveling manure to clean out the stables, and the horses in the barnyard were getting frisky. I wasn't paying close attention as I wheeled a load of manure, and one of the horses blasted me in the side with his hind hooves. Reeling in pain, I went to the doctor in Athens again. This time the damage was a couple of broken ribs, and the doctor taped up my whole side.”
*********** We’re through our first week - and two-a-days - at Aberdeen, and I’m actually beginning to understand the terminology. This week, practice times settle in to the in-season schedule, which is basically 5 to 7:30. There are two reasons why we start so late: first, the soccer team has the field (and there’s only one field available); but second (and more important) like so many schools, we have a lot of coaches who have other jobs, and this works best with their schedules.
*********** COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS PAST WEEKEND!!!
Georgia Tech 24, Florida State 21 - So many observations.
First of all, Seminoles - I don’t wanna hear no excuses. They beat your asses. Now STFU. And don’t expect a big win over Boston College this weekend to atone for the monster egg you laid on national TV.
Seminole “nation” (apologies to the actual tribe) whined so loud about being “left out” of last year’s Playoff that we seldom got to hear Georgia’s rather reasonable argument about also being left out.
Then, thinking that they were USC… or Oklahoma… or Texas - they suggested that one of the two Super conferences was eager to admit them - if only they could break free from the ACC.
Finally, suing the ACC for their freedom, they argued that they’d been screwed over by the conference and its lesser members by having to take the same share of conference revenues as Boston College or Wake Forest. (The NFL wouldn’t be the Power that it is today if The Chicago Bears and the New York Giants, major market teams, had been owned by the kind of people who run things at Florida State.)
But on Saturday, when it came time for the talking to stop, Georgia Tech (one of those lesser members) pretty much cancelled out the efforts of a battalion of lawyers working on the Seminoles’ escape by impolitely revealing to the entire world (the world of college football, at least) that in fact, Florida State really WASN’T ready for the Big Ten or SEC.
Montana State at New Mexico - Bronco Mendenhall had to know what he was doing when he took the New Mexico job, and he put a decent team on the field. And he certainly wasn’t the one who scheduled the Bobcats, one of the best FCS teams out there. So the Bobcats scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to come from 17 points down and upset the Lobos, 35-31. Redshirt freshman Adam Jones, a Montana kid (from Missoula), rushed 17 times for 167 yards and a TD. (The TD was a 93-yarder with 4:35 left to pull the Bobcats to within 3.)
SMU at Nevada - What it is about SMU that’s so unlikeable? Is it maybe a player who bitch-slaps an opponent? Or is it the one who spits in an opponent’s face? Is there something about their coach, Rhett Lashley? (Am I confusing him with Snidely Whiplash?) No matter. I was pulling hard for the Wolfpack from the Mountain West. They were four-TD underdogs, and they almost pulled it off. SMU needed 16 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to win, 29-24.
*********** It was a thing of beauty the way Georgia Tech employed counter blocking to compile a good portion of its 190 yards on the ground - 6.5 yards per play. Asked after the game about his line’s play, Tech coach Brent Key, a former Yellow Jacket offensive lineman, broke into a slight smile and said, very emphatically, “RUN…THE…BALL!”
Wrote Joe Gutilla, of Granbury, Texas - Obviously Coach Key learned from the John Madden school of football. Once a lineman...always a lineman
I figured someone else had to be watching. It was almost as good as John Madden's introduction to my Zooms!
Tech could definitely be a team to watch. Coach Key has got himself quite a pair of coordinators in OC Buster Faulkner and DC Tyler Santucci.
Buster Faulkner (what are the chances he could be a northerner with a name like that?) is in his second year at Tech; in his first year, the Yellow Jackets led the ACC in rushing. Previously, he was OC at Murray State, Middle Tennessee, Arkansas State and Southern Miss before spending three seasons as an “offensive quality control” guy at Georgia.
Tyler Santucci is in his first year as DC. Last year he was at Duke, as DC under Mike Elko, and Duke had the ACC’s top scoring defense, giving up just 19 points per game. I remember noticing how well Duke tackled, and I noticed the same thing about Georgia Tech Saturday - they hit high and they stayed on their feet. Santucci came with Elko to Duke from Texas A & M, and the wonder is that he got away from Elko and wound up at Tech instead of going to A & M.
*********** Going by research done by the Wall Street Journal, you’d have to conclude that the pernicious combination of the NIL and the Transfer Portal has already begun to relegate the so-called “Group of Five” conferences - American Athletic, Conference USA, The MAC, The Mountain West and the Sun Belt - to minor-league status.
After first listing the first-team all-conference selections for all five conferences and then subtracting all those who had either graduated or left for the NFL, the Journal found that 40 per cent of last year’s all-conference selectees had already transferred to another program.
The great majority of the transfers had “moved up,” going to a team in one of the Power Four conferences.
The trend held true for second- and third-team selections as well: 36 per cent of them had transferred.
*********** What more appropriate way could there be to open the season for what many fear might be the start of the downfall of America’s game - college football - than to play its first game in a foreign country?
*********** I heard Jesse Palmer, doing the color on the FSU-GT game, say that one of the teams had “matriculated the ball down the the field.” This is a weird use of a word that has nothing whatsoever to do with football, and entered football talk as a result of an NFL films production from years ago in which Chiefs’ coach Hank Stram, mic’ed up on the sidelines, was heard exhorting his team to “matriculate it down the field.”
Anyone listening who heard that and knew what the word “matriculate” really means (to enroll at a college or university) had to go “WTF?”. Anyone else evidently just figured that was a really big word whose use marked its user as not only a football expert, but an intelligent one at that.
I have no idea which group Jesse Palmer falls into.
*********** Amid considerable hush-hush stories, a high school in a suburb south of Denver - Littleton - suspended all practices while investigating a report of “assault” among members of the school’s football team.
Fearing the worst - a black eye for our sport - a friend, a Colorado coach, commented, “This won't help those of us fighting the good fight.”
*********** It’s already started - the struggle between those who, because they’ve been playing flag football for some time think they own the sport, and those who play the big boys’ version of football and think it might be fun (and lucrative) to play flag and win an Olympic gold medal.
Some guy named Darrel Doucette, who’s 35 years old and evidently was the QB on the American team that won a world championship in 2022 (does anybody else in the world play the game?) told the Guardian that the NFL guys who try flag might be in for a surprise: We just don’t think they’re going to be able to walk on the field and make the Olympic team because of the name, right?”
Uh, Darrel, I guess somebody had to tell you, so it might as well be me - when a TV network has spent hundreds of millions for the right to televise the Olympics, it’s doing so in the expectation that lots of people will watch the games, so that it can charge advertisers large sums to advertise things to all those people. And the people - human nature - tend to watch athletes they know and like. So, Darrel, you should expect people to “make the Olympic team because of the name.” I do.
And - but you probably know this - if Patrick Mahomes decides he’d like a shot at a gold medal, it’s time for you to retire. It’s been a great career.
*********** On Reddit, I read all sorts of stories about outrageous conduct on airplanes, but I still was astounded at reading that on a recent Delta flight to Boston some former NFL lineman named Gosder Cherilus whipped it out and took a whiz on some older lady.
*********** If the article below is any indication of the quality of robot writing, I think a future full of articles written by AI is still a fair distance away. Actually it mostly depends on whether people are still able to read well enough to tell the difference.
Jamie Lissow age and Career: Jamie is well known and famous American Actor and a comedian. He is higher recognized for his full call Jamie Lissow. He becomes born in united nation. His exact date of birth is not known but approx. it is 191 – 1976. Jamie Lissow has American nationality. He has completed his faculty examine at Greece Olympia excessive school, Rochester, New York. Jamie Lissow has graduated from the state university of New York University, Fredonia.
*********** It was possibly the first Double Wing win of any team this season, but it was definitely Mike Foristiere’s first win in his new job, as his Marsing (Idaho) Huskies beat Cole Valley Christian, 28-16, Friday night.
We were able to watch the game on the NFHS Network, and considering his kids had had just ten practices, I was very impressed. The stats, provided to me by Mike, show that the Huskies rushed for 421 yards and passed for 141. (562 yards in total offense ain’t shabby.)
Most impressive to me was that Mike’s kids came from behind twice to finally take the lead and pull away for the win.
*********** There are times when a change of coaches can make a huge and immediate difference. Such was the case with the Dolphins, and the effect the hiring of Mike McDaniel has had on QB Tua Tagovailoa.
Evidently, he didn’t enjoy life under the previous coach, Brian Flores:
"To put it in simplest terms, if you woke up every morning and I told you [that] you suck at what you did, that you don't belong doing what you do, that you shouldn't be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven't earned this right, and then you have somebody else come in and tell you, 'Dude, you are the best fit for this,'" he said in the interview. "How would it make you feel listening to one or the other, you see what I'm saying?
"And then you hear it, no matter what it is, the good or the bad, you hear it more and more, you start to believe that. I don't care who you are. You could be the president of the United States, you have a terrible person telling you things that you don't want to hear or probably shouldn't be hearing, you're going to start believing that about yourself. And so that's what sort of ended up happening. It was, it's basically been what two years of training that out of not just me but a couple of guys as well that have been here my rookie year all the way until now.”
During his rookie season in 2020, Tagovailoa was replaced twice in the fourth quarter of games by veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick. Then, in 2021, there was speculation the Dolphins were interested in trading for quarterback Deshaun Watson.
The Dolphins fired Flores after the 2021 season, replacing him with McDaniel in 2022.
In his first season under McDaniel, Tagovailoa threw for 3,548 yards and 25 touchdowns despite missing four games due to multiple concussions. Last season, he led the NFL with 4,624 passing yards, threw for a career-best 29 touchdowns and earned his first Pro Bowl selection.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40918015/candid-tua-tagovailoa-calls-brian-flores-coaching-style
*********** There are 31 new head coaches in FBS football; the Mountain West has eight of them, far more than any other conference.
*********** That “two minute timeout” that’s new to college football? The name is a bit confusing - it doesn’t mean that that’s the length of the time out (although perhaps it is).
It is the college equivalent of the NFL’s two-minute warning (which once was needed, in the days when the “official” time was kept on the field by an official, and the scoreboard clock showed just the approximate time remaining. The clock may have shown 0:00 but the game wasn’t officially over until the official charged with keeping the time fired his gun. Yes, a gun. True, it fired blanks, but it was still a - gasp - gun.
*********** I cannot understand the so-called "business acumen" of the WNBA.
As George Halas said - the point of it all is to PUT BUTTS IN THE SEATS!
Here we have Caitlin Clark, who, hands down, is the most exiting & watchable player in WNBA history, and what do they do?
- freeze her out of the Olympics
(Did anybody watch the women's team? Especially after Caitlin and company beat them!)
Then, they've got her remaining 12 games on hard-to-find channels,
"ION"?
Or, pay channels "NBATV"
So here we have the most fun-to-watch/exciting player in the history of the league, and
I CAN'T FIND HER!
There's only ONE reason to watch the WNBA, & they hide her, ban her, and outright bully her.
What clueless assclown incompetents are running the show?
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
*********** CFB has for several seasons followed the NFL and NBA in scheduling games in Europe. Even MLB has gotten in on the act by playing in Mexico City and Havana. I don't like it. I can see some modicum of logic in Notre Dame playing in Dublin, but FSU-GT? And one of the reasons I don't like it is because the crowd doesn't react like an American audience...because it doesn't know the rules, and most in the audience probably know little about the schools. I wonder whose idea it was to put on these games in Dublin? Will it be Frankfurt next year?
The great Cutcliffe says down close the under center is preferable? Going Woke, David?
If only 38% of baseball fans are Dems, I'm happy to be a baseball fan.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Yes, I was one of those who were "too kind." But, it just got me fired up a little earlier is all.
Won't be long before Sam Ponders is working in sports media again, particularly football. Aside from her own abilities and knowledge her husband still has a lot of connections in pro football. FOX Sports maybe??
There already has been a few former NFL players indicating their interest in playing flag football for Team USA. Thus validating your claim that the roster will be littered with them and that they will cruise to a gold medal. Guaranteeing the NFL some games in other far off lands.
I was surprised to learn that 31% of Texas Rangers fans were Democrats. I thought it would be much lower than that. Maybe the poll was taken in Dallas only. If it was taken throughout the North Texas region I'm betting the percentage would be much lower.
Been helping out with a local six-man high school football team. After all is said and done it's still about blocking and tackling, but a LOT more running, and a LOT more scoring! Down here they say the toughest job in high school football is being a DC for a six-man football team. Shorter and narrower field (80x40). 4 pts. for a FG. 2 pts. for a PAT. 1 pt. for a run/pass conversion after a TD. Must be an exchange of hands before QB can direct run with the ball. Everyone is eligible to catch a pass. You'll see tight formations and spread formations. You'll see the QB under center and in shotgun. You'll see a lot of laterals. If at any point in a game one team is up by 45 points the game is called. I've seen games called before halftime! Mostly played by really small schools in rural communities, or really small private schools/home school teams. Yet, some of the best six-man teams have rosters of 30, but others as low as 12.
Want a good laugh? Babylon Bee has a video on YouTube called "California Fleein'". I couldn't copy the link to the email but you should check it out. Pretty funny, but spot on!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Napoleon McCallum played his high school ball in the Cincinnati area, at Milford High School. Going both ways, he rushed for 1,625 yards, scored 17 touchdowns, and intercepted 12 passes and was named all-Southwest Ohio and all-city.
Although recruited by bigger schools such as NC State, Syracuse and Tennessee, he chose Navy because it alone offered him the opportunity to play on offense and run the ball.
At Navy, he was twice a consensus All-American.
In his junior year, running, receiving and returning kicks and punts, he led the nation on all-purpose yards and finished sixth in the Heisman voting.
In the second game of his senior year he broke his ankle and missed the rest of the season. Given an extra year by both the NCAA and the Naval Academy, he returned for another year and for a second time led the nation in all-purpose yards. He was seventh nationally in rushing and tenth in kickoff returns, and finished seventh in the Heisman race.
After graduating in December with a degree in computer science, he was drafted in the fourth round by the Los Angeles Raiders, despite the fact that he was required to serve on active duty in the Navy.
It was his good fortune to be stationed in nearby Long Beach, enabling him to play an entire rookie season while on active duty. Sharing running duties with Marcus Allen, he rushed for 536 yards.
Possibly in reaction to criticism that he had received preferential treatment as an athlete, McCallum was reassigned to overseas duty, and as a result he missed three NFL seasons while serving out his service commitment.
After his discharge, he returned to the Raiders, but now he found himself playing mostly special teams, and used only sparingly as a running back behind Allen.
In one playoff game against the Broncos, he did run for three touchdowns.
In the opening game of his fifth NFL season, on a Monday Night Football game against the 49ers, he suffered a serious injury that cost him his career and - without going into the gruesome details - nearly cost him his leg.
With a return to football out of the question, he and his wife and four daughters moved to Las Vegas, where he started a graphics fabrication business, providing signage for casinos and conventions as well as local businesses.
For the last several years, Napoleon McCallum has worked for the The Las Vegas Sands Corporation as its Director of Community Development. He is deeply involved in the community, and with his connections he was able to play a major role in the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING NAPOLEON MCCALLUM
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He was personable and good-looking. He socialized with the rich and famous. He was a football and media star for so long that few people ever knew of his hard upbringing.
He played his high school ball in Bakersfield, California. The school’s nickname, the Drillers, announced to one and all that Bakersfield was an oil town. A tough town.
But he didn’t grow up in Bakersfield. It was the last stop in a remarkable boyhood journey.
As he wrote in his autobiography, “The Whole Ten Yards,”
My mother once figured out that by the time I started high school, we had lived in 47 different towns.
My father started working in the oil fields at the age of 16, breaking in as a “roughneck” – the lowest job in the trade. Wherever a new field opened up, that's where my dad went. The problem was that this was the Depression, and nothing was more depressed than the California oil industry. No one was pumping oil or exploring for oil because nobody was buying oil. An oil worker’s job would last anywhere from 30 to 90 days, depending on how fast the well was dug, and then he'd have to find out where else they were drilling, assuming that there was a somewhere else.
I don't remember completing a single grade in the same grammar school.
I've read “The Grapes of Wrath,” and I guess we were part of that scenario. We just never realized it. As a little kid, growing up in the 30s, I thought everyone lived like this. It wasn't until I was eight or nine that I started to realize there were people who lived better than we did, that there were people who stayed home. Our home was wherever the job was.
My high school in Bakersfield had more than 5000 kids, definitely the bottom of the social economic ladder. Many of them were the children of farmers and oil workers. They were tough kids – black, Spanish, poor whites, kids like me. Consequently, the school enjoyed a great football tradition.
There, he ran into a high school coach named Homer Beatty who, as he related,
“built his offense around me. I know I was a pretty good passer and an even better running back. In order to utilize both of those talents, Homer shifted us out of a T-formation into a single wing. As the tailback, I'd take a direct snap from center and either throw the ball or run it. I also punted, kicked conversions, and ran back kick offs. Suddenly, I was doing things I always suspected were within my capability but had never been able to bring off. Suddenly, I started to realize, I can play.
Of all the coaches I've had, from Jim Lee Howell to Vince Lombardi to Allie Sherman, I learned more about football from Homer Beatty than anyone else. All the great coaches are essentially great teachers. Lombardi taught high school mathematics. Homer taught Phys Ed. And on the field, he taught us remarkably sophisticated stuff, things none of our peers were learning. He taught us to read defenses and change a lot of plays at the line of scrimmage. He taught our offensive lineman intricate blocking techniques and how to really blow off the ball.
Most important, he taught us attitude. I learned from Homer Beatty that if you invest your heart in it and work hard enough, you can accomplish pretty damn near anything. It sounds corny and old-fashioned, yet it's true. So many people, I've noticed, aren't willing to expend the necessary perspiration. Of course, with Homer in charge, there was no other option. When he asked us to do 20 wind sprints, we knew we were going to do 20 wind sprints. And if you couldn't, you were going to stay there until you could.
As the months passed, Homer became a sort of big brother to me. We began talking to each other man-to-man. We discovered we had similar backgrounds: two blue-collar children of the oil fields. He should have become a famous college coach, but, being Homer, he refused to do the necessary butt kissing. Basically, that's what a lot of college coaches have to do: trot off to alumni dinners and ass-kiss some guy into changing his will so the university gets left a lot of money. The word got around that Homer wouldn't play that game. He'd just say, in his own way, screw you people. He was a loner, a tough guy - a Bakersfield guy. Later, as an extraordinarily successful junior college coach, he enjoyed such respect that he started doing clinics all over the country. Hundreds of high school and college coaches would attend them. He also wrote how-to books and put out how-to films. It always blew my mind that my high school coach knew more football than anyone I've ever met.
To make a short story of it, he was recruited heavily by USC, but he hadn’t taken his schoolwork seriously and he didn’t have the grades to get in, so he had to spend a year at Bakersfield Junior College. He had a great season - he made Junior College All-American, along with a couple of other guys named Ollie Matson and Hugh McElhenny.
But he still didn’t have the grades to get into USC. His coach, Homer Beatty, convinced the people there that he was worth taking, which they agreed to do on the condition that he make up work in their “extension division.”
But first, USC had to win him away from Arizona, which had offered him a car and $500 a month - an astronomical amount at that time.
Once again, Homer Beatty intervened. “Look,” he asked. “Do you want to play for Arizona or do you want to play in the Los Angeles Coliseum for the University of Southern California Trojans?”
USC won the day, but his early adjustment there was not easy. As he told it,
“USC was sort of a rich kids’ playground, and I was poorer than a church mouse. When I arrived at midterm, a friend of Homer Beatty's and USC’s Director of alumni, Nick Pappas, rented me his converted garage across the street from the practice field. I lived there for two years. Since my scholarship paid only for tuition, not for room and board, the school gave me what they called an O & M job which stood for Office and maintenance. That's a fancy term for cleaning up the gym every morning and evening, mopping the locker rooms and such. It paid $75 a month.
Under Homer's compromise, I was attending night school, not having enough credits to get into the regular undergraduate division. Pacific Coast Conference bylaws forbid such students from participating in athletics until their sophomore year. That meant I couldn't go out for spring football practice, which was crucial for anyone hoping to make an impression on the coaches. The frustration of that didn't really hit me until my first night class. I knew that USC had also recruited Hugh McElhenny, a great junior college halfback and a friend who later became a Hall of Fame running back for the 49ers, the Vikings, and the Giants. And I knew they were also making him go the night school route. On the first night of class, I'm sitting at a desk listening to my first roll call.
“McElhenny? Hugh McElhenny? No Hugh McElhenny?”
The next morning, I picked up a newspaper and learned that Hugh had pulled a last-minute switch to the University of Washington. A smart move on his part because I later heard that Washington gave him several hundred dollars a month along with a new car. (For the way McElhenny performed over the next three years, they should have given him an entire fleet.)
Meanwhile, the guys in the USC athletic department came up with a scheme to get around my spring practice problem. "Look, we've got 130 players out there,” they said. "Who's going to notice if we have one more?” So that's what we did. I worked out with the team all week, but never during scrimmages, when the press usually came around. Whenever a reporter popped up, I had to vanish. It was humiliating. I had left Bakersfield a junior college all American for a place that was treating me like an illegal alien.
As it later turned out, USA paid a price for its little scam. A Los Angeles reporter got wind of it and wrote a big story, and the Pacific Coast Conference fined the school $2500 for letting an ineligible player work out. That was the first time my name made the papers while in college – as a guy who’d been hiding out from the Press. Now I felt like a notorious illegal alien.
Okay. He went on to start, and play, and become an All-American at USC.
Picked in the first round of the NFL draft by the New York Giants, he played 12 years with the Giants, although he did miss one entire season as a result of an injury incurred after he was on the receiving end of one of the most vicious hits in pro football history.
The Giants of the 1950s were like gods in New York City, then the nation’s media capital. While he played for them (in the pre-Super Bowl era) they appeared in five NFL title games. As perhaps the Giants’ premier star, he was a major poster boy for the NFL as it made its climb to the top of the American sports scene.
He was six times named first-team All Pro… he played in eight pro bowls… He was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1956, and its Comeback Player of the Year in 1962… He was named to the NFL’s 1950s All-Decade Team… He is in the Giants’ Ring of Honor.
In addition to his athletic ability, he was blessed with movie-star good looks and a good voice. It didn’t hurt that he had played his entire career in New York, because shortly after retirement he wound up as the play-by-play man on Monday Night Football, the highest-rated program in television, and he spent 27 years on the job. He’s perhaps best remembered for his work in the booth with Howard Cosell and Don Meredith, adroitly managing in his highly professional manner to keep those two antagonists apart, while ever ready himself with a dry, humorous observation of his own.
He also did other major sports events, including the Olympics.
He was married three times. The first time, while in college, was to the USC homecoming queen. The third time was to a woman who was a TV star in her own right.
He is in both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fa
FRIDAY,
AUGUST 23, 2024 "You only find out who's been
swimming naked when the tide goes out." Warren BuffettI'M SORRY IT'S THIN GRUEL TODAY...It's Thursday night at 6:30 and I have to admit I'm a bit tired.
IT'S BEEN TWO-A-DAYS THIS WEEK AT ABERDEEN, and I haven't had a minute to tend to the things that normally occupy my time. Saturday will be the last of the twice-daily sessions, and next week the customary daily practices begin.
At the end of next week we'll play in a jamboree at Orting, Washington, and the following Friday we open at home against Olympic High, of Bremerton.
To be honest, I am just begining to understand the offensive terminology, but quarterback play is quarterback play, and the kids I have to work with are first rate. There isn't a dime's differnce between the two varsity contenders - they're both smart, both coachable and dependable - and both have strong arms. We have a couple of good-looking running backs, and some receivers with very good hands. And I think our line will come along.
Saturday, we'll put the pads on for the first time. We haven't had a lot of defensive work yet, but after what I saw at our team camp this past summer, I'm not overly concerned - I've seen the way these kids hit.
This a really great group of kids to work with. They are respectful and coachable and they really enjoy being together. And, frankly, they have a bit of devilishness in them.
Coach Todd Bridge runs a tight enough ship, which I really like. But we do a lot of laughing, too.
I'm having a ball, but to be truthful, I am looking forward to a little time off. . See you Tuesday.
TUESDAY,
AUGUST 20, 2024
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It
was their final, most essential command.” - George Orwell, 1984*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “When I returned to the farm for Christmas vacation during my first year in high school, I developed a terrible stomach ache; I was in excruciating pain. My dad got the doctor to come the 8 miles from Athens and he poked around my belly and said, "I'll tell you, John, he's got appendicitis. We better take him to the hospital.” They hauled me to a big house in Vicksburg that had been converted into a hospital and yanked out my appendix. My dad actually scrubbed up and observed the surgery. "Wanted to keep a watch so the doctor wouldn't take anything else out,” he said seriously.
“I was beginning to emerge socially. During my sophomore year I had my first girlfriend. Her name was Pauline Klein, and she was a senior. Her sister, Cecelia, was in my class and my best pal, Bill Miller, fell in love with her. So we were dating the Klein sisters. The family owned a mint farm that was very successful. The girls always had a new Ford to drive to school, more than a fringe benefit in the romance. But we split after Pauline graduated. Cecilia later married Joe Semyczuk, who went from Vicksburg to play football for and graduate from Notre Dame.
“One of our favorite places was the Crystal Palace at Paw Paw Lake, where many of the touring big bands came to play. I remember when Bill Miller and I hauled coal ashes in a trailer behind grandma's Chevy to earn cash to take our girlfriends to the Crystal Palace. In my senior year I was quite smitten with a red-haired Irish girl named Molly McGuire from Kalamazoo Central. We corresponded for a couple of months after I went to Hillsdale College, but soon the college girls started looking a lot better.
*********** COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS WEEKEND!!!
(How many of you besides my friend Tom Hinger, of Winter Haven, Florida noticed that I printed this a week early - but, unlike my friend Tom Hinger, were too kind to point it out to me?)
Florida State and Georgia Tech - In Dublin - Noon Eastern, ESPN
Montana State at New Mexico - 4 PM Eastern (FS1)
SMU at Nevada - 8 PM Eastern (CBSSN)
Delaware State at Hawaii - MIDNIGHT Eastern - If you get Spectrum PPV
*********** In the Pittsburgh Tribune. columnist Mark Madden predicts that if you like watching US pros destroy amateurs from small foreign countries, you’ll LOVE Olympic flag football…
False and misguided patriotism duly noted, the U.S. men’s basketball team winning gold at the Olympics (as pre-ordained by a string of double-digit point spreads) was farcical to the objective eye, best exemplified by LeBron James dunking over some swizzle stick from South Sudan, then going through his flexing and roaring routine.
On a grade-school playground, that’s bullying.
On a basketball court in Paris, it fairly drips red, white and blue.
“What could be worse?” is a question to ponder, but the answer seems obvious even now: Flag football at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Besides the U.S., who the heck plays flag football? The U.S. will use ex-pros, preferably with name value, thus giving the NFL a tenuous link with the Olympics. Because of that connection, Olympic flag football will flood TV.
The resultant dominos falling will lead to some ex-NFL receiver — might I suggest JuJu Smith-Schuster — scoring seven touchdowns against, say, Tanzania. After each of those touchdowns, he executes a made-for-TV celebration that could be strung together, all seven of them, to script a Broadway musical. Call it “The Ugly American.”
The only nation that might hang with the U.S. is Canada. If Sidney Crosby plays.
It will be an absolute excrement show but will be drowned in endless glory, because it’s a way to kind of get the NFL into the Olympics.
It’s going to be terrible.
Even more terrible, you’re going to love it. It will again prove that our way of life is better.
U-S-A! U-S-A!
*********** Sam Ponders was fired by ESPN.
You knew her time there was short when she turned out to be the only woman on staff who dared to say that men don’t belong in women’s sports.
*********** No doubt by now you’ve seen it.
But if by chance you were on Mars over the weekend…
I happened to be watching the Chiefs-Lions game when it occurred - when Mahomes threw a pass to Kelce for a first down.
It was a nice little play, a sort of tight end delay.
Oh - and Mahomes threw the ball behind his back.
*********** It wasn’t the best of weekends for big name QBs.
The Bears’ Caleb Williams’ first three series resulted in three-and-outs.
The Steelers’ Russell Wilson was sacked three times - in the first quarter alone. (Two of the sacks were by Greg Rousseau, who simply bull-rushed the man “blocking” him.) In all, Wilson averaged 1.4 yards per play.
Wrote Mark Madden in the Pittsburgh Tribune, “Russell Wilson played five series at quarterback, Justin Fields five series. If there is a competition for the starting QB job, Saturday's result was akin to a scoreless tie. Bad soccer.”
*********** One of the Steelers’ QBs was Ben DiNucci, whom you uncertainly remember from his playing in spring 2023 for the XFL Seattle Sea Dragons.
*********** Tired of Peyton Manning yet?
*********** Well Duh Department. Said the Steelers’ play by play guy about some rookie - “He was a championship wrestler, and he’s really good at that …”
*********** I don’t know the source of these figures, but evidently some survey has shown that 38 percent of Major League Baseball fans identify as Democrats. On a team-by-team basis, the New York Mets were highest, with 42 percent of their fans claiming to be Democrats, while the Texas Rangers were lowest, at 31 per cent.
*********** Headline in the Babylon Bee: "'I Will Fix Things If You Vote Me Into Office,' Says Woman Currently In Office.”
*********** The Edmonton Elks, who less than a month ago were the sorriest-ass team in the CFL, have now won three in a row after defeating Hamilton, 47-22.
It’s probably just coincidental, but at the game we were introduced to the new owner of the Elks. Actually, they were careful to introduce him as the “private owner,” since he will be the first actual person to own the team which, like some of the teams in Western Canada, was (as I understand it) community-owned.
*********** There was a nice crowd on hand in BC Place Stadium in Vancouver to see Nathan Rourke make his first start for the BC Lions this weekend. But the Winnipeg Blue Bombers had other ideas, and intercepted Rourke twice - he didn’t throw a touchdown pass - on their way to a 20-11 win.
*********** Montreal quarterback Davis Alexander, a Portland State kid from Gig Harbor, Washington, won his third straight game in relief of Cody Fajardo, as the Alouettes defeated the Saskatchewan Rough Riders, 27-24. The winning score came when Alexander tightrope walked along the sideline from 15 yards out to score with under three minutes to play.
As a passer, he was 22 of 33 for 285 yards and a touchdown.
*********** It’s not as if I’m not waiting eagerly for the start of “our” football, but I will greatly miss the CFL when it gets pushed off American TV. I do know that if all the football haters in America were ever to succeed in outlawing the sport (in today’s America, anything’s possible) I could survive if there were still a CFL.
*********** I’ve said, from time to time, that football would be a better game if offensive linemen had to wear boxing gloves.
So I had to laugh when the CFL guys began sharing remembrances of Dan Dorazio, a longtime CFL offensive line coach who’d recently passed away, and one of the guys remembered the time he got so pissed off at his guys for getting holding calls that he made them practice with oven mitts.
*********** A female reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle (at least I consider HER a female, although SHE does seem to expect others to use the pronouns “they” and “them” in referring to HER) wrote “I took a trip to Trump country. It was more bleak than I had imagined.”
Needless to say, crap like that usually make its way to the conservative site Free Republic, where its devotees then take great delight in taking shots at it.
One example, from “Trump country”:
I live in Rural Alabama.
This is what I never see:
People crapping in the street.
People pushing old folks off stairs or into subway or train tracks.
Used hypodermic needles anywhere.
Guys having public sex with each other.
People selling drugs on every street corner.
Hookers plying their wares up and down the boulevard.
Now, it’s not all fun and games. I do see:
Little country churches everywhere, usually nestled in the woods with gorgeous lawns and grounds.
Deer, bobcats, turkeys, bears, racoons, possums, armadillos, gators, buzzards, hawks, eagles, doves, mockingbirds, blue birds, yellow-billed cuckoos and lots of red cardinals.
Huge stately trees. Mostly Loblolly pine, long leaf pine, black oak, post oak, pecan, sweet gum, tulip poplar, redbud, dogwood, crepe myrtle.
Too much kudzu, Chinese privet, Japanese honeysuckle, bradford pear —all invasive species.
Too many poor folks with hearts of gold that are not at all blaming others or the man for their condition.
*********** Not too long ago I was watching a film of a clinic by David Cutcliffe in which he said that at least down in close, he thinks that having the QB under center is preferable, because with the shotgun snap, an errant snap always has the potential to disrupt the timing of a run play.
So there were the Lions, down 23-21 to the Chiefs with 2:19 to play, third and goal on the KC four yard line. And they fumbled. Reason? The QB had to reach high for a bad snap, and as a result he wound up “handing” the ball to the runner at his shoulder - way too high for him to grasp the ball.
*********** ”Only after I had graduated from college did my dad tell me that he and the coach had agreed that I needed to be more disciplined about my study habits and giving me a failing grade might be a way to get my attention. It worked." ~ That's incredible! Can you imagine parents doing this today?!
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
Today, when a kid gets a failing grade, Daddy (or Mommy) will be in the principal’s office the next day, accusing that teacher of keeping him from getting into Harvard.
*********** At last you reveal how Whitey helped young Mikey in the classroom. Those Michigander coaches sure are sneaky, ain't they? That sneakiness gets passed down to future generations.
Gotta give OKST and CU credit for taking on the FCS titans. It's not far-fetched to imagine either FBS team losing.
Great advice from Kern Tips slash Darrell Royal. Falls under the heading of Preparation, I think.
Not done listening to Rabbi Wolpe, but I've heard enough to know he has it together.
Answer = Jerry Caliborne. A quiet man, he coached in the Blanton Collier style. He was one of my favorites, because I thought he brought out the best and most in what he had.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Florida State vs. Georgia Tech in Ireland, should be a competitive game. But I have to pull for the Ramblin' Wreck and a son of Texas in QB Haynes King in this one. I'm still not sold on D.J. Uiagaleilei, and I don't think he brings the same game to the table as Jordan Travis did.
The Montana State-New Mexico game will be interesting. Bronco Mendenhall knows how to build a program and will have his Lobos prepared, but I've known MSU coach Brent Vigen since his days as an assistant and OC at North Dakota State, his Bobcats won't be intimidated in Albuquerque.
Once a Marine, ALWAYS a Marine! Give me JD Vance ANY day!
After seeing the mileage chart you put together for UCLA it validated my prediction that the Bruins won't be long for the BIG. Two years and they will be crying to get back to the west coast.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I thought DJ was a HUGE disappointment at Oregon State last year. He is definitely not an upgrade from Travis, who I really liked - a guy so good that the Playoff Committee wouldn't let FSU in without him!.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Jerry Claiborne was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the eighth of nine children. In high school he earned letters in football, basketball, tennis and track, then went on to Kentucky, where he played end, blocking back and defensive back for Bear Bryant.
After earning a degree in mathematics and physical education with high distinction, he coached football for two years at a military school, then spent nine years as a college assistant - eight of them under Bryant at Kentucky, then Texas A&M, then Alabama. (He was on the A & M staff during the famous “Junction Boys” time.)
He was a head coach for 28 years - 10 years at Virginia Tech, 10 years at Maryland and 8 years at Kentucky.
At Virginia Tech, he started the Hokies on their path to the Big Time, posting a 69-31-2 record.
At Maryland, the school had won just nine games in five years, but he had a winner his second year. From 1973 to 1978, his teams made it to six consecutive bowl games. In 1974 he was the Sporting News Coach of the Year. His 1976 team went 11-1 and ranked eighth in the Associated Press poll. In his ten years at Maryland, his record was 77-37-3.
In 1982, he returned to his alma-mater, Kentucky. The Wildcats had suffered four straight losing seasons, but he took them to bowl games his second and third years.
In his final season, Kentucky won the College Football Association's Academic Achievement Award as the major college team with the highest graduation rate.
He retired following the 1989 season, saying his heart was no longer in it. His wife would say later that she thought Alzheimer's disease was the reason.
Jerry Claiborne’s career record was 179-122-8. He took 11 of his teams to postseason bowl games.
At the time, his 179 wins ranked him fourth in victories among active major college coaches, behind only Bo Schembechler of Michigan with 234, Joe Paterno of Penn State with 219, and Bobby Bowden of Florida State with 193.
He was noted for his hard-nosed approach to the game, for his strict adherence to rules, and for his concern for the welfare of his players, on and off the field.
Said one of his former players, “He had his morals and his goals set in stone, and he never bent for them. He had a strong faith. He didn't drink. He didn't cuss.’'
Wrote John Clay in The Lexington Herald-Leader: ''He was just an old-fashioned coach with old-fashioned values who had the one thing a lot of coaches and administrators preach, but too few actually have. He had integrity.''
''I want to be remembered as a guy who did the best he could with what he had, and that we tried to run a program that was within the rules,'' Claiborne once said. ''Our rules were that if that rule didn't make the kid a better person, a better student and a better athlete, then we'd throw out the rule.''
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JERRY CLAIBORNE
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY (“His brother George was my high school coach.”)
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
*********** QUIZ: He played his high school ball in the Cincinnati area, at Milford High School. Going both ways, he rushed for 1,625 yards, scored 17 touchdowns, and intercepted 12 passes and was named all-Southwest Ohio and all-city.
Although recruited by bigger schools such as NC State, Syracuse and Tennessee, he chose Navy because it alone offered him the opportunity to play on offense and run the ball.
At Navy, he was twice a consensus All-American.
In his junior year, running, receiving and returning kicks and punts, he led the nation on all-purpose yards and finished sixth in the Heisman voting.
In the second game of his senior year he broke his ankle and missed the rest of the season. Given an extra year by both the NCAA and the Naval Academy, he returned for another year and for a second time led the nation in all-purpose yards. He was seventh nationally in rushing and tenth in kickoff returns, and finished seventh in the Heisman race.
After graduating in December with a degree in computer science, he was drafted in the fourth round by the Los Angeles Raiders, despite the fact that he was required to serve on active duty in the Navy.
It was his good fortune to be stationed in nearby Long Beach, enabling him to play an entire rookie season while on active duty. Sharing running duties with Marcus Allen, he rushed for 536 yards.
Possibly in reaction to criticism that he had received preferential treatment as an athlete, he was reassigned to overseas duty, and as a result he missed three NFL seasons while serving out his service commitment.
After his discharge, he returned to the Raiders, but now he found himself playing mostly special teams, and used only sparingly as a running back behind Allen.
In one playoff game against the Broncos, he did run for three touchdowns.
In the opening game of his fifth NFL season, on a Monday Night Football game against the 49ers, he suffered a serious injury that cost him his career and - without going into the gruesome details - nearly cost him his leg.
With a return to football out of the question, he and his wife and four daughters moved to Las Vegas, where he started a graphics fabrication business, providing signage for casinos and conventions as well as local businesses.
For the last several years, he has worked for the The Las Vegas Sands Corporation as its Director of Community Development. He is deeply involved in the community, and with his connections he was able to play a major role in the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY,
AUGUST 16, 2024 “When you have been robbed,
any strange sound in the house sounds like a thief.” Rabbi David Wolpe*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “The basketball gymnasium was even worse than the football field. The gym was so small that other schools refused to play in Vicksburg. It was impossible to shoot the ball on an arc from any distance without hitting the ceiling, and the free-throw circles overlapped the center circle. If both teams used a zone defense the final score would likely end up 2–0. It's no wonder we didn't have a basketball team.
“I played catcher on the baseball team in the spring, but I was certainly better at football. Baseball was fun, but our coaches had limited skills in teaching fundamentals, like hitting.
“My dad respected Whitey Linton’s tough, no-nonsense approach to football, and they became friends. Coach Hinton would come out to the farm in the fall, and we would all go hunting. My dad had a great springer spaniel named Duke, who flushed and retrieved pheasants extremely well.
“In addition to coaching football, Whitey Linton taught history, and I thought I was doing quite well in his class. I was only a so-so student, but I wanted to impress Clinton so I worked especially hard. To my absolute shock, in one grading period, he flunked me. I was humiliated and decided I needed to take my classroom work a lot more seriously. Only after I had graduated from college did my dad tell me that he and the coach had agreed that I needed to be more disciplined about my study habits and giving me a failing grade might be a way to get my attention. It worked. “
*********** The source of today’s quote, Rabbi David Wolpe, was once named America’s Most Influential Rabbi. Back in March, when colleges were beset by “protests,” he delivered a talk entitled “Harvard, Anti-Semitism and Resilience.” Take the time, if you can spare it, to listen. This guy is GOOD.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedidavid+wolpe+quotes.org%2Fwiki%2FDavid_Wolpe#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:09e818a5,vid:XpXTCIH06kc,st:0
*********** CFL Update: Heading into this weekend (it’s week 11 already!), only two of the nine teams will be going with their original starting quarterbacks. Calgary’s Jake Maier and Winnipeg’s Zach Collaros are the lone hangers-on.
Nathan Rourke, a native Canadian who played at Ohio U, has spent the last season knocking around the NFL, and since his recent release he has been signed by the B.C. Lions to a (by Canadian standards) record-breaking three-year contract.
The Lions now have themselves a potential quarterback controversy, since they also have an all-star in Vernon Adams, currently sidelined with a knee injury.
*********** COLLEGE FOOTBALL THIS WEEKEND!!!
ALL ON SATURDAY
Florida State and Georgia Tech - In Dublin - Noon Eastern, ESPN
Montana State at New Mexico - 4 PM Eastern (FS1)
SMU at Nevada - 8 PM Eastern (CBSSN)
Delaware State at Hawaii - MIDNIGHT Eastern - If you get Spectrum PPV
*********** After a congressman (Democratic) disparaged Ohio Senator (and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate) J. D. Vance’s service in Iraq as a Marine combat correspondent, in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel named Paul W. Steketee came to the defense of Senator Vance - and every man who now serves or has served in the Marine Corps, regardless of his “occupational specialty.”
Colonel Steketee began by citing General Alfred M Gray’s observation that “every Marine is at his core a rifleman,” and proceeded to say, among other things…
Combat correspondents are active participants in the fight. Each one is armed with a rifle as well as a camera and notepad. Combat correspondents were killed in the Pacific, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They provide security, return fire, and capture the stark and brutal reality of war.
Enlisted Marines endure the crucible of recruit training and basic infantry training before specializing. There are no shortcuts to becoming a Marine – not for Marines who specialize in food service, or electricians, or the buglers who play “Taps“ at Marine Barracks Washington. All are real Marines.
The uniform of a marine is deliberately devoid of distinctions that highlight individual roles or military occupational specialties. The prominence of the eagle, globe and anchor over the Marine’s last name is a powerful symbol of this unity. It reflects a collective identity that transcends individual roles.
*********** Found this in the files…
Football Texas Style - by Kern Tips
Darrell Royal was a product of the University of Oklahoma and its Luster-Tatum-Wilkinson years, a lad steeped in the two-way arts of offense and defense. He probably figured he was born to coach, and chased the main chance as an assistant at North Carolina State, Tulsa, and Mississippi State - then back to Mississippi state as head coach, plus another year as head man at the University of Washington.
When Dana X. Bible, in his last spring as athletic director at the University of Texas in 1957, was asked to screen candidates for Texas’s next football coach before his retirement, young Darrell Royal was on his list of interviewees.
Says Mr. Bible: “First we thought it might be wise to examine the field for possible candidates for the dual jobs of athletic director and football coach, since both would be open in 1957. But those men we would have considered seriously were well situated, with many ‘fringe benefits’ built into their jobs. We then decided to go for a young man who was a ‘comer’; we tore up the old list and made a new one.
“On that new list was Darrell Royal, and he was invited to come to Austin for an interview with our screening committee. I met him at the airport, and he asked if we could just sit in the car for a while and chat before he went to the campus to meet the committee appointed to recommend a new coach.
“He asked me to describe each of the gentlemen he was to meet shortly – their names, positions, and connections, any mannerisms, about where they would be sitting around the table, what questions they would be likely to ask him. I answered him as fully as I could, and then we drove to the meeting.
“Frankly, I was amazed. He had never seen these men before, but when a question was asked, Royal would answer: ‘why, yes, Mr. So-and-so, I hoped you would ask that question because I know its answer is important to you because…’ and so on around the table he ‘knew’ every member of that committee.
“Royal came to Austin to talk about the job; he left Austin with the job signed, sealed, and delivered. You know, I got my first coaching job that very same way – on my first visit and interview. As I put Royal on the plane back to Washington, I couldn’t help but think about the similarity of my first and last official acts in athletics.”
(Kern Tips was a sports writer for the Houston Chronicle from 1924-26, and its sports editor from 1926-34. From 1935-1946 he was general manager of Houston radio station KPRC, and for 32 years he was the radio voice of Southwest Conference football.)
*********** One game does not a season make, but should Bo Nix’s opening game performance be any sign of how well he does with the Broncos this year, it might send a message to college players: between the money to be made with NIL and the benefits of getting as much playing experience as possible, it might make a lot of sense to stay in college one more year. Or two. Or three.
*********** Could UCLA’s NIL collective somehow arrange for Bruins’ players to get frequent-flier miles this season?
Based on some calculations by The Athletic, here are the trips they’ll make:
▪ Aug. 31: Hawaii (5,110 miles round-trip)
▪ Sep. 21: LSU (3,210)
▪ Oct. 5: Penn State (4,500)
▪ Oct. 19: Rutgers (4,890)
▪ Nov. 2: Nebraska (2,550)
▪ Nov. 15: Washington (1,920)
It adds up to a bit more than 22,000 miles.
Last year, their longest trip was to Corvallis, Oregon to play Oregon State. (1,520 miles round-trip).
*********** An Internet wit, commenting on how f—ked up things have become: “At least in the old days, you could smoke.
*********** What a stroke of PR genius it was on Deion Sanders’ part, hiring Warren Sapp to coach his defensive line.
Asked by a reporter which of his players has stood out the most, he replied, “I wouldn’t single out one guy because we’re a pack… We got bullets. You get shot with a .38 or a 9 millimeter - you pick.”
*********** I’ve heard a lot about how today’s kids and parents are “different,” and I must be fortunate not to have experienced it yet, because a good friend of mine had a third of his team unable to practice the first day because their parents (or they) hadn’t done all the necessary paperwork.
*********** Maybe while they’re at it, they should let them hire the coaches, too.
In California, the school districts in Berkeley and Oakland announced that kids aged 16 and 17 can now vote to elect members of the school board.
*********** Oklahoma State and Colorado open against FCS opponents - but they happen to be the very best of FCS. The Cowboys open against South Dakota State, the Buffalos against North Dakota State.
The South Dakota State Jackrabbits are ranked number one and the North Dakota State Bison are ranked number two in the FCS preseason poll.
1 South Dakota St.
2 North Dakota St.
3 Montana
4 Montana St.
5 South Dakota
6 Villanova
8 Chattanooga
9 Furman
10 Sacramento St.
11 Southern Illinois
12 Richmond
13 Central Arkansas
14 UAlbany
15 UIW 9-2
16 William & Mary
17 UC Davis
18 Lafayette
19 Western Carolina
20 Illinois St.
21 Tarleton
22 North Dakota
23 Youngstown St.
24 Nicholls
25 Florida A&M
Others receiving votes: Weber State, 66; North Carolina Central, 53; Eastern Illinois, 50; UT Martin, 38; Austin Peay, 35; Northern Iowa, 33; Harvard, 32; Yale, 31; Mercer, 27; Holy Cross, 20; Howard, 20; Alabama State, 17; Northern Arizona, 17; Elon, 16; Alcorn State, 9; Duquesne, 7; North Carolina A&T, 6; Fordham, 5; Gardner-Webb, 4; Indiana State, 3; Missouri State., 3; Butler, 2; Eastern Kentucky, 2; Southeast Missouri State, 2; Eastern Washington, 1; Murray State, 1; Samford, 1; Utah Tech, 1.
*********** Not saying the Vikings have had bad luck with QBs, but - the Vikings have had bad luck with QBs. And now, after a very promising first game, JJ McCarthy is done for the season after knee surgery.
*********** I guess most sports sites open by quoting C.S. Lewis, who was among the greatest Christian apologists of the last century. Of course this is the only place remotely connected to sport you'll find the great Oxford don.
I haven't seen that Nike ad you described, but in my case it makes no difference...it's still a free country, and I've stuck to a personal pledge made years ago not to buy anything more from Nike.
To hell with the anti-Chinksters. Good for the kids.
The 'Greta Thunberg' ad is awful, but worse, in my humble opinion, isn't as deceptive or misleading as the 'He Gets Us' messages. When my team was playing the SL Cards last week, I noticed that printed on the mound in large letters was that message.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, FL
I don’t suppose it qualifies as a “mural” if it’s on a pitcher’s mound. Only if it’s on a street.
*********** Hugh,
Flag football is being introduced as a new sport competition in the 28 L.A. Olympics.
I wonder how they’ll select the teams??
Spent the week in CA. WOW. All political ads were about how “great” Harris is, and most of them condemned Trump. Gas prices were almost $5.00 PG…in FRESNO!
Only positives were seeing family, and the weather! Even though it was over 100 every day there was virtually no humidity.
Glad to be back in Texas, humidity or not!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, You think the NFL/NFLPA won’t have something to say about the selection of the US flag team? The fighting between agents to get their players on the US team could be an Olympic sport itself.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Ralph Neely was born in Little Rock, Arkansas but grew up in Farmington, New Mexico, where in high school he was twice named an All-State tackle in football and was a star basketball player.
At Oklahoma, playing both ways as a sophomore, he was second team All-Big Eight and was the Big Eight Conference sophomore lineman of the year. He was first team All-Big Eight both his junior and senior years, and was a consensus All-American as a senior.
He was drafted by the Baltimore Colts of the NFL and the Houston Oilers of the AFL, and although the Sooners still had to play Florida State in the Gator Bowl, he accepted a deal with the Oilers that included a signing bonus and the rights to a Houston gas station. The deal was supposed to be kept secret, but when the news leaked that he had signed with the Oilers, he was suspended, along with two other Sooners, from playing in the bowl game (which the Sooners lost).
It wasn’t over yet. When the Colts learned of his having signed with Houston, they traded his draft rights to Dallas, and when he learned of the deal, he began to talk with Dallas. And he returned his bonus check to the Oilers.
A lawsuit followed, of course, and it threatened to stall merger talks between the two leagues, until the Cowboys agreed to send four draft choices to the Oilers, and to play them in an annual pre-season game, in return for his exclusive services.
It was a very good deal for the Cowboys.
He immediately became a starter, beginning his career as a right guard. But then he was moved to left tackle where for years he was considered one of the NFL’s top offensive linemen.
He was twice named All-Pro and played in two Pro Bowls, and he won two Super Bowl rings.
He was named to the NFL 1960s All-Decade Team.
He retired after the Cowboys’ win in Super Bowl XII. In 13 seasons with the Cowboys, Ralph Neely played in 172 games and in four Super Bowls - more, incidentally, than any other former Sooner.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING RALPH NEELY
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the eighth of nine children. In high school he earned letters in football, basketball, tennis and track, then went on to Kentucky, where he played end, blocking back and defensive back for Bear Bryant.
After earning a degree in mathematics and physical education with high distinction, he coached football for two years at a military school, then spent nine years as a college assistant - eight of them under Bryant at Kentucky, then Texas A&M, then Alabama. (He was on the A & M staff during the famous “Junction Boys” time.)
He was a head coach for 28 years - 10 years at Virginia Tech, 10 years at Maryland and 8 years at Kentucky.
At Virginia Tech, he started the Hokies on their path to the Big Time, posting a 69-31-2 record.
At Maryland, the school had won just nine games in five years, but he had a winner his second year. From 1973 to 1978, his teams made it to six consecutive bowl games. In 1974 he was the Sporting News Coach of the Year. His 1976 team went 11-1 and ranked eighth in the Associated Press poll. In his ten years at Maryland, his record was 77-37-3.
In 1982, he returned to his alma-mater, Kentucky. The Wildcats had suffered four straight losing seasons, but he took them to bowl games his second and third years.
In his final season, Kentucky won the College Football Association's Academic Achievement Award as the major college team with the highest graduation rate.
He retired following the 1989 season, saying his heart was no longer in it. His wife would say later that she thought Alzheimer's disease was the reason.
His career record was 179-122-8. He took 11 of his teams to postseason bowl games.
At the time, his 179 wins ranked him fourth in victories among active major college coaches, behind only Bo Schembechler of Michigan with 234, Joe Paterno of Penn State with 219, and Bobby Bowden of Florida State with 193.
He was noted for his hard-nosed approach to the game, for his strict adherence to rules, and for his concern for the welfare of his players, on and off the field.
Said one of his former players, “He had his morals and his goals set in stone, and he never bent for them. He had a strong faith. He didn't drink. He didn't cuss.’'
Wrote John Clay in The Lexington Herald-Leader: ''He was just an old-fashioned coach with old-fashioned values who had the one thing a lot of coaches and administrators preach, but too few actually have. He had integrity.''
''I want to be remembered as a guy who did the best he could with what he had, and that we tried to run a program that was within the rules,'' he once said. ''Our rules were that if that rule didn't make the kid a better person, a better student and a better athlete, then we'd throw out the rule.''
TUESDAY,
AUGUST 13, 2024
“Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to
give us that chance. It won’t last forever. We must take it or leave
it.” C. S. Lewis*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “For a small, Class C school, Vicksburg had a strong football tradition and a top program. There were numerous Vicksburg families of Polish extraction, attracted there by jobs in the paper mill. Their kids were leading members of the football team, and several went on to play college football. One of them, Joe Gembis, competed at the University of Michigan and later was the head coach at Wayne State for many years.
“By my sophomore season I had learned most of the basics of playing guard and tackle, offense and defense, and was one of Vicksburg's most enthusiastic but hardly most talented players. The key to my success was what I later would preach as a coach: I played extremely hard, I hit hard, I was tough, and I would do whatever the coach taught me or asked me to do. I was willing to hustle and work hard, and I was extremely dedicated. I played even when I was dinged up. No one considered me a delicate eater, and I added weight through high school and was just shy of 175 pounds by my senior season.
“Great talent? No. Size, speed? No and no. Other than an occasional fumble recovery, I rarely touched the ball. Like most linemen, I took the greatest satisfaction from the success of the team, which was substantial, words of praise from the coach (“Mike, you use your hands really well on defense out there”), and making a tackle in the other team’s backfield.
“Our two biggest rivals were Comstock and Constantine, and we had a loyal following, even though our home field lacked spectator seating. The fans, who usually included both my parents and Charlie Davidson, the Spanish-American war veteran who lived near our farm, walked the sidelines. The boosters expected us to win, and we rarely sent them home disappointed. Throughout my high school career our teams were consistently successful.”
*********** The long drought is almost over… FOOTBALL IS ALMOST BACK!!!
No, not NFL pre-season stuff. REAL football. You know - Delaware State at Hawaii. Okay, okay - that was meant to be a joke.
But seriously, brace yourselves, because this coming weekend will be the last one without college football until the end of January.
This Saturday, at Noon Eastern, college football kicks off when Florida State and Georgia Tech meet. In Dublin (ancestral home of the Seminole Nation).
Ready for more excitement?
At 4 PM Eastern, Montana State is at New Mexico (FS1)
At 8 PM Eastern, SMU is at Nevada (CBSSN)
And, as mentioned earlier - if you’re still awake - at 11:59 (Eastern) there’s Delaware State at Hawaii. Actually, don’t bother staying up, because it’s on something called Spectrum PPV. You folks who subscribe - aren’t you pleased you get programming like this?)
*********** Should somebody maybe tell these people that in parts of the Middle East they throw gays off of rooftops?
In the planned pro-Palestinian March on the DNC - the upcoming Democratic National Convention - among the groups marching is one called Queer Palestinian Empowerment Network.
*********** When three of the four teams (Hamilton, Montreal and BC) that played in the two games televised this past weekend started backup QBs, you’d have to say that the CFL’s got some problems with their product right now.
You thought the drop-off from starter to backup is bad in the NFL? Edmonton was the only one of the four teams going with its starter, and the Elks (1-7 going in) beat BC (5-3 going in), 33-16. Actually, the Elks lost their starter, too, when in the first half Tre Ford went down. but Ford’s replacement, wasn’t exactly a backup. McLeod Bethel-Thompson is a veteran who’s won a Grey Cup, and he’d been the Edmonton starter for the team’s first six games.
*********** How can you tell it’s the preseason in the NFL? Because on most of the broadcasts, instead of the usual in-season format - 1/3 action on the field, 1/3 chatter, 1/3 interviews - in preseason games they simply dispense with describing the action on the field.
Unlike the regular season, in which the networks run all the broadcasts, these preseason games are local productions, with each team hiring its own local broadcast crew.
What an opportunity they’re blowing - a chance to introduce people to the game of football and to potential stars of the future. Instead, the local yokels tend to treat these games as their chance to let us in on their bar-room banter.
My wife and I agreed that by far the best broadcast pair we heard this past weekend was in Indianapolis, a guy named Greg Rakestraw doing play-by-play and Rick Venturi, longtime college and NFL coach, doing color. They did a remarkable job of telling us about the Colts’ rookies and newcomers without neglecting the play on the field, and they even told us a bit about the Broncos.
In Boston, the McCourt twins did a decent job on the Patriots-Panthers game. I have to admit I didn’t even know who they were until my wife and I did some digging.
Also making an appearance on the sideline: Boston TV sports director Steve Burton. Anybody remember his dad, Ron Burton? I wrote about him back in April:
Ron Burton was a great running back at Northwestern - when Ara Parseghian was the Wildcats’ coach. He was a consensus All-American, and he’s in the College Football Hall of Fame. Before Northwestern, he was a high school All-American and an Eagle Scout.
In 1960 he was the very first player ever drafted by the Patriots - then the Boston Patriots - and he played six years with the Pats.
After retiring from the Patriots, he stayed in the Boston area as an executive with John Hancock for 35 years.
In 1985, he invested his time, energy and funds in the Ron Burton Training Village, a camp whose mission was to help underprivileged kids aged 11-17, teaching them the values of “love, peace, patience and humility,” while attempting to build “self esteem, self reliance, love for God, love for others and racial harmony.” More than 2,000 kids have benefitted from the camp.
Steve Burton, like his dad, played football at Northwestern. His daughter, Kayla, was a college basketball player who worked as a sideline reporter during the UFL season, and she was quite good, I thought. His son, Austin, is a QB at Purdue.
In checking on Rick Venturi, I learned that his dad, Joe, coached at Pekin (Illinois) High. Until 1981, Pekin High had a very politically-incorrect nickname.
https://vault.si.com/vault/2015/11/23/pekin-choose
*********** It’s a new season, but in a couple of very important respects it’s the same old NFL (as if anyone thought it would change):
They’re still unable to block WITHOUT their hands…
And they’re still unable to tackle WITH their hands.
*********** I almost puked at the pandering Vikings TV spot showing all that they’ve been doing to promote flag ball (especially among girls, it seemed to me).
And they had the nerve to say it was part of their (and the NFL’s) “commitment to growing the game of football.”
“The game of football” my ass. Flag is to football as H-O-R-S-E is to basketball.
*********** If you doubt that we’re eyewitnesses to the coarsening of America, simply turn on the TV at any time, to any channel, and there you’ll see
*** A female (a physician, I’ve been told) showing us where to apply her deodorant (“underboobs” and “butt crack”)
*** Dude wipes (no explanation needed)
*** A male of uncertain sexual orientation looking down at his “junk,” then running an electric shaver down his fuzzy abdomen, as we’re told to “respect your pubic region.” WTF?
*********** Nike’s run a lot of dumbass commercials, dating back at least to the one that confuses cause and corollary by having little girls telling us that if they play sports they’re less likely to go on to use drugs, get pregnant “before I want to”, drop out of school, get beaten by a boyfriend, and so forth. So, one little girl tells us, you and I can help her prevent all those bad outcomes, “If you’ll let me play.”
And if we don’t, well, that means it’s OUR fault when she takes up with a bad crowd and all manner of bad sh— happens to her, because we didn’t let her play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ_XSHpIbZE
But this latest one, evidently produced for the Olympics audience, is the worst, by far.
It goes on for a minute and a half. In advertising, that’s an eon. It seems endless.
It starts off with a little girl giving us the Greta Thunberg “How dare you?” look, as the voice-over asks, “Am I a bad person?”
It drones on and on, and as the announcer reels off various sociopathic traits associated with winning (“I’m selfish”) and asks, “Does that make me a bad person?” you find yourself asking, “where TF is this going?”
There’s more of the same (remember, it’s a 90-second commercial) and there’s plenty of antisocial characteristics still left to describe. “I have no empathy… I don’t respect you… I have an obsession with power…”
This is the clincher, though… “What’s mine is mine… and what’s YOURS is mine.” Are we extolling entitlement here? Kleptomania even?
Whoa, Nike. You’re WAY out of line here. If this is your idea of sport and competition, count me out. I’ll go downstairs and shoot pool. By myself.
If after all that you’re still wondering if this makes you a bad person, I’ll break it to you like this: “Well, yes. As a matter of fact it does. Now take your shoes and get TF out of my life and stay out.”
Next Nike ad: If you'll let me play, I'll kill you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKErSswx5-o
*********** Things/people I most enjoyed watching in the NFL preseason games that I watched…
Kenny Pickett - Eagles- 14 of 22 for a TD - but just 89 yards
Josh Johnson, with the Ravens. He played for Jim Harbaugh and now he’s playing for John Harbaugh. He played for Jim at the University of San Diego. That’s right - from 2004 to 2007. He’s 38 years old. Of course I’m pulling for him.
Gardner Minshew - Raiders - a Wazzu guy - 6 of 12 for 117
J.J. McCarthy - Vikings - 11 of 17 for 188 and 2 TDs
C.J. Beathard - Jaguars - 7 of 14 for 125 and 1 TD
Sam Howell - Seahawks - 16 of 27 for 131 and 1 TD
Bo Nix - Broncos - 15 of 21 for 125 and a TD
Zach Wilson - Broncos - 10 of 13 for 117
*********** The Colts played five quarterbacks - Jason Bean, Sam Ehlinger, Joe Flacco, Anthony Richardson and Kedon Slovis - and none of them looked bad. But then there’s the Colts’ running game: 64 yards, 29 by QBs. Good luck.
*********** Jim Harbaugh’s Justin Herbert-less debut was less than impressive as his Chargers lost to the Seahawks, 16-3.
His three QBs - Luis Perez, Max Duggan and Easton Stick - were a combined 14 of 32 for 134.
*********** I couldn't make out what you thought of 'Georgia Beings'. You didn't think it was a typo? Not simply 'Georgia Begins'? Was the anagram deliberate or accidental? If it was deliberate, why? 'Beings' is even worse than the Washington Commanders.
Thank you, Coach Castro, for those poignant remarks about Steve Kragthorpe.
Re the Pit Bull story: I've seen him onstage on TV (I think he was a big part--maybe the feature--of a Super Bowl Halftime Show), but couldn't identify any of his songs. As I recalled The Athletic article, the Bull also has the rights to play his music over the stadium speakers from kickoff to final gun if he wants. Right there's my reason for going to FIU games.
Your "Go Chiefs" entry was enough to strengthen my bond with them. Maybe not Super Glue, but definitely Elmer's Kindergarten Mucilage.
There's so much to say about Timmy Walz, but I'll reserve it for later.
Especially enjoyed watching Coach Koenig's teams using the entire field out of compressed formations.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
In a nation in which fewer and fewer things can be counted on to be done well, and incompetence is no longer sufficient reason for firing, I figure anybody who’s being paid to write a simple six-word headline and can’t spell “BEGINS” still deserves some ridicule.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Curtis McClinton was one of the earliest stars of the American Football League, and an integral part of the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty whose convincing win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV proved - even more than the Jets’ surprising upset of the Baltimore Colts a year earlier - that the AFL had achieved parity with the more-established NFL.
Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he grew up in Wichita, Kansas. At Wichita North High, he was an outstanding all-round athlete. At 6-2, 215 pounds, his combination of power and speed helped him win all-state honors as a running back, he was a member of the school’s state championship basketball team, and in his senior year he was the top hurdler in the state.
He attended Kansas, which under Jack Mitchell was becoming a Big Eight power. In his three years of eligibility, the Jayhawks lost to Oklahoma 7-6, then tied the Sooners 13-13 and finally beat them 10-0. Against Nebraska, they won three straight, by scores of 10-0, 31-0 and 28-6.
In his sophomore year, the Jayhawks finished 5-5, after narrowly losing to conference champion Oklahoma. In his junior year, KU went 7-2-1, and in his senior year the Jayhawks went 7-3-1 and defeated Rice in the Bluebonnet Bowl, 33-6. It was just the second bowl appearance in the school’s history - and the first bowl win.
That Kansas team was talented, with future Hall of Fame John Hadl at quarterback, and running back Bert Coan in the backfield too, but McClinton, despite being used mostly as a blocking back, was a three-time All-Big-Eight selection and in his senior year was he named to several all-America teams.
In his junior year, he won the Indoor Big 8 Track and Field 60-yard high hurdles title.
He was drafted in the 14th round (!) by the AFL Dallas Texans, and after rushing for 604 yards and catching 29 passes for 333 yards was named AFL Rookie of the Year. That earned him a place in the AFL All-Star game, where he earned Most Outstanding Player honors.
In all, he would play in five Pro Bowl games.
Especially valued as a blocker, he was used mostly as a fullback, but he still rushed for 3,124 yards and 18 touchdowns in his career. He also had excellent hands - he caught a pass for the first score ever by an AFL player in a Super Bowl - and in his career he caught 154 passes for 1,945 yards and 14 touchdowns, no doubt a major reason why he was kept on the roster as a backup tight end for one final season. That season happened to be the one in which the team - now the Kansas City Chiefs - won Super Bowl IV.
After his football career, he earned a master’s degree from Central Michigan University and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. For a time he served as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development of Washington, D.C. and then owned and ran a large Kansas City construction company.
In 1995 he was inducted into the Chiefs Hall of Fame.
In addition, he is in the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1969, the 100th year of college football, Curtis McClnton was named to the University of Kansas’ all-time football team.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CURTIS MCCLINTON
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas but grew up in Farmington, New Mexico, where in high school he was twice named an All-State tackle in football and was a star basketball player.
At Oklahoma, playing both ways as a sophomore, he was second team All-Big Eight and was the Big Eight Conference sophomore lineman of the year. He was first team All-Big Eight both his junior and senior years, and was a consensus All-American as a senior.
He was drafted by the Baltimore Colts of the NFL and the Houston Oilers of the AFL, and although the Sooners still had to play Florida State in the Gator Bowl, he accepted a deal with the Oilers that included a signing bonus and the rights to a Houston gas station. The deal was supposed to be kept secret, but when the news leaked that he had signed with the Oilers, he was suspended, along with two other Sooners, from playing in the bowl game (which the Sooners lost).
It wasn’t over yet. When the Colts learned of his having signed with Houston, they traded his draft rights to Dallas, and when he learned of the deal, he began to talk with Dallas. And he returned his bonus check to the Oilers.
A lawsuit followed, of course, and it threatened to stall merger talks between the two leagues, until the Cowboys agreed to send four draft choices to the Oilers, and to play them in an annual pre-season game, in return for his exclusive services.
It was a very good deal for the Cowboys.
He immediately became a starter, beginning his career as a right guard. But then he was moved to left tackle where for years he was considered one of the NFL’s top offensive linemen.
He was twice named All-Pro and played in two Pro Bowls, and he won two Super Bowl rings.
He was named to the NFL 1960s All-Decade Team.
He retired after the Cowboys’ win in Super Bowl XII. In 13 seasons with the Cowboys, he played in 172 games and in four Super Bowls - more, incidentally, than any other former Sooner.
FRIDAY,
AUGUST 9, 2024 “When exposing a crime is
treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals!”
Edward Snowden*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “On the day after Labor Day I reported for early practice and had my introduction to football and, just as important, to Whitey Linton, who got his nickname from his light-colored hair. The game was a totally new experience. I had played baseball sporadically the previous year with a Sunday team in Fulton, but I had no football experience. Just putting on the shoulder pads was a challenge. The leather helmets didn't fit too well, and the other equipment took time to figure out.
“I didn't say much, but I watched the other players and learned. I'm not sure I didn't go through a practice the first week or so wondering if maybe I had something on backward.
“One of the other players suggested that I ask for a practice jersey that was used because it might fit better, even if it needed mending. Your mom can fix that, he said, and you'll be better off. It was a good tip.
“The most serious problem was football shoes. We couldn't afford a pair of new shoes. So I sorted through a box of beat-up used cleated shoes, trying to find some that fit and would work. I found one pair that had suitable cleats, but the nails came through the insoles and when I ran they cut the bottoms of my feet.
“As a freshman, I was playing end on both offense and defense. When one of the first string ends was banged up it looked as though I might get to see some action. But my feet were killing me. I told Coach Linton, and he said, "Go in and see if there aren't any other old shoes in that box.” By the time I got back, he’d moved another player into my spot, and I spent most of that freshman season on the bench.”
*********** Without going too deeply into politics, I can’t help noticing the way the Democrats have been playing up three things about their Vice-Presidential candidate, Tim Walz: (1) He’s (supposedly) a typical Midwestern white guy; (2) He’s an Army veteran; (3) Before he got into politics, he was a teacher and a football coach.
Without getting into the validity of points (1) and (2), I’m left a bit bewildered after hearing that, while defensive coordinator of his high school’s state championship football team, he also helped start, then served as advisor to, his school’s first gay and lesbian alliance (or whatever they called it then).
*********** I have paid ZERO attention to the Olympics and about all I’ve seen so far was the antics of this American sprinter, Noah Lyles, who - since I’m not going to say anything about him unless it’s good - is very fast.
*********** A major problem facing the NFL, writes Austin Mock in The Athletic: The QB market is broken.
The easiest way to know: In a sensible economy, the best player on the best team would make the most money. So, this should be simple.
The Kansas City Chiefs are the best team in the NFL. They also employ the world’s best quarterback in Patrick Mahomes. It would seem fairly obvious then that Mahomes should be the highest-paid player in football. And yet after Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and Green Bay Packers QB Jordan Love signed their megadeals recently, Mahomes ranks 11th in average annual salary at $45 million.
This is a problem.
Not for Mahomes, who doesn’t have an issue with his compensation, and certainly not for the Chiefs, but for the rest of the NFL and, in particular, the teams paying their lesser-talented quarterbacks more money than Mahomes — or are preparing to (ahem, Cowboys).
These teams are willfully, though understandably, putting themselves at a distinct competitive disadvantage. By paying their veteran QBs more money — and giving them a bigger slice of the salary cap pie — than the best player in the world, they are burdening themselves with the task of building rosters around their QBs that are good enough to bridge the gap between their QB and Mahomes — and doing it with less money.
That’s somewhat of an oversimplification of the situation but is largely the bet these teams are placing when they overpay their less-talented QBs. It’s not a great bet, and yet it’s completely understandable. Not paying these quarterbacks and choosing to enter QB purgatory with no guarantee of escape is terrifying. These front offices have livelihoods to protect, so choosing to move on from a quality quarterback in a QB-driven league is an extraordinarily difficult choice to make.
*********** Good afternoon Coach!
Wanted to let you know I have started on the Mansfield University staff in Mansfield PA as D line coach. I did two seasons as head coach at Cowanesque Valley high school in Westfield PA and ran the double wing. Its AAA PA ball and my first season we got smacked with an 0-9 season. Season 2 we got it to 5-5 which was the second best record in program for the last 30 years so very happy for the kids and community for that. Now on to "sprint" ball....there is a weight limit of 178lbs, we are a part of the CSFL (college sprint football league) and we play some great programs (Army, Navy, Cornell, Penn, etc). I'm enjoying this because to me this is an opportunity for "normal" sized kids to continue to play the sport they love at the next level.
If you could pass this info along to the coaches associated with this clinic (my Zooms) I would greatly appreciate it ! We are always on the lookout for student athletes that are around 190 lbs that we could try to contact to let them know what we have to offer . Thank you again and all the best!
Joe Leonard
Mansfield Football
Defensive Line Coach
cell : (607) 857-4195
jleonard@mansfield.edu
Glad to pass this info along. When I was in college it was called “150-pound football.” Then, at some point (probably because not enough guys could make weight) it became “lightweight football.” Now, it’s “sprint football.” Not a bad name, because as a result of that size limitation, EVERY guy on the team is pretty doggone fast. (I recall Gene McIntyre, the coach at West Point at the time, telling me that he could actually assign his center to block opposing safeties.) I’ve never seen a game (we didn’t have a 150-pound team when I was in school) but I have never run into anyone who hasn’t said after seeing one that the hitting was more ferocious than “varsity” football. Mansfield, although a state university, is a small school, with an enrollment of under 2,000 students, and has chosen to play sprint football rather than “varsity” football. I’ve printed Coach Leonard’s contact info if you ever have the kind of kid who would benefit from this kind of opportunity.
*********** I’m no fan of rap or rappers, so if someone were to tell me that there’s a rapper named Kodak Black I’d say, “that’s nice,” and then if he were to tell me that Mr. Black had some advice for a youth football team, I’d say, “WTF advice would I want a rapper giving my team?”
Turns out that Mr. Black told a bunch of young players not to get started on drugs:
“Say no to drugs, they too good, Y’all gone like em & go crazy”
The reviews are, to say the least, split. Some parents are enraged. Some are like me - might as well give it to them straight, because a lot of evil people are going to tell them the same thing without including the “go crazy” part.
While he was at it, perhaps he should have said the same thing about loose women.
(On a side note, I suppose it’s too late to mention all those missing state of being verbs.)
https://www.outkick.com/sports/kodak-black-caught-giving-youth-football-team-some-wild-advice-about-drugs-parents-furious?vgo_ee=SySi%2B4Y51%2BOsZElr3ujOGN/RhBMLsYhUa0jHL9/j:jsaTrF69GC%2BR%2B0NEErLoC/ZgbAkaoi2K
*********** First the Chiefs stood by their punter, Harrison Buttker, when the woke thing to do was to accuse him of wanting to keep women barefoot and pregnant.
Then, they went and engaged exiled coach John Gruden (is it okay for me to mention his name here?) to spend three days advising their team on sundry matters.
And to top things off, their coach Andy Reid, despite knowing full well that Gruden is persona non grata among the muckety-mucks in the NFL office, went and endorsed Gruden’s return to the game: "Hopefully, he's able to get back in and get a head coaching job. A phenomenal football coach. He touched everybody here, both sides of the ball, special teams, he got to sit down in those meetings. Just a heck of a coach.”
Go Chiefs!
https://www.outkick.com/sports/chiefs-cast-aside-narrative-jon-gruden-racist-homophobe-sexist-show-him-love?vgo_ee=E4oXraJQ6FZFQr4iZk%2B1e4kORjHsUvFDOvEnFVf5:AeW3kjKr6Dq3KLAkIs2fOw6txQkJ7/ZW
*********** This “Power Slap” sh— that I’m seeing advertised on TV… What’s next? Kicks in the balls?
Is it going to be an Olympic sport?
*********** "What do Zach Collaros, Macleod Bethel-Thompson, Bo Levi Mitchell, Cody Fajardo, Vernon Adams and Jake Maier have in common?"
These QBs are among the top 17 highest paid players in the CFL
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
(Of the group, Collaros is the highest-paid at $600,000; Mitchell, surprisingly, is only 17th-highest paid at $225,000.)
*********** The AFCA has announced that Hudl will be the “presenting sponsor” of the AFCA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), Division II and Division III Coaches Polls.
*********** Florida International - sorry, I’ll say UCLA and LSU and USC and UT and OSU and UNLV and KSU - and U-Dub - but “FIU” goes to the end of the line.
Especially after selling the naming rights to their stadium to a rapper. For what’s said to be $1.2 million a year (for five years), he and the school will force you and the news media to call their stadium Pit Bull Stadium. Gee. The old name - FIU Stadium - had such a nice ring to it.
I’m waiting for someone to change their nickname for a mess of pottage. Hell - FIU’s only been playing football since 2002, so it’s not as if they have that much invested in “their current nickname ("Panthers.” ) I think they should have gone all the way and committed to calling themselves the Pit Bulls.
*********** Go ahead, NCAA. Hit Jim Harbaugh with a “show cause” order, telling him that as punishment for his sins he can’t coach a college team for four years. Like Harbaugh really cares. He’s raking in millions of NFL dollars while, just as his predecessor Pete Carroll did, looking at you- and college football - in his rearview mirror.
Not so sure, though, about Harbaugh’s successor at Michigan, Sherrone Moore. Seems Coach Moore maybe DID know about Connor Stalions’ sign-stealing scheme after all. Seems that investigators have discovered some communications between Stalions and Moore - communications that Coach Moore thought he’d safely erased.
We’re talking here about a scheme to gain an unfair advantage, and a subsequent coverup.
To think that Jim Tressel lost his job at Ohio State - and Ohio State lost a really good coach - for covering up the fact that some of his players had sold the “gold pants” trinkets they’d gotten as rewards for beating Michigan - and then spent the money on tattoos.
https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/2024/08/report-sherrone-moore-could-face-penalty-for-michigan-sign-stealing-probe.html
*********** Georgia Beings? I’ve heard of some ridiculous nicknames, especially on MLS and WNBA teams, but this beats all. Does Kirby Smart really think he can escape scrutiny for his players’ misbehavior with this obvious disguise?
*********** Steve Kragthorpe died …
He was head coach at Tulsa and at Louisville, and his overall record after seven years as a college coach of 44-43 is better than it might sound. At Tulsa, he took over a program that hadn’t had a winning season in 12 years, and in his four years there he had a 9-win season and two 8-win seasons, enough to get him a place in the Tulsa Sports Hall of Fame.
He spent a number of years as an assistant at the college and pro level, coaching quarterbacks for the most part, and until 2011 was offensive coordinator at LSU. He was forced after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease to give up the coordinator’s job there, but he did spend one more season as the Tigers’ quarterback coach.
He was the son of a coach, born in Missoula, Montana where his dad, Dave was an assistant at Montana, and he played high school ball in Pocatello, Idaho, where his dad was head coach at Idaho State.
He got his master’s degree at Oregon State while serving as a G.A. when his dad was head coach of the Beavers. (So downtrodden were the Beavers of that era that in 1989, when they finished with a 3-4-1 conference record, Dave Kragthorpe was voted Pac-10 Coach of the Year.)
Steve Kragthorpe’s son, Brad, is now the Cincinnati Bengals’ quarterbacks coach.
My slight connection with Steve Kragthorpe is that he was head coach at Louisville when Alan Castro, son of longtime friend and fellow coach Armando Castro, played there.
Coach Castro provided a unique peek into the character of Steve Kragthorpe, a head coach who truly cared about his players…
Well, Coach, received terrible news from Alan this morning that he received from an old teammate. The passing of Coach Kragthorpe. During the whole terrible ordeals that Alan had with crushed growth plates and multiple operations, this Coach was the only D1 coach I ever met that talked to me with total fatherly compassion and honesty - and had a great follower of Christ testimony. He was God-sent. Even after he was fired he talked to me and had nothing but good things to say about Alan both as a player and most importantly as a young man. This man alongside life’s road has made a lifelong impression on both me and Alan. May God be with his family during this time of grief.https://nypost.com/2024/08/06/sports/steve-kragthorpe-former-college-football-coach-dead-at-59/
*********** Justice Gorsuch was unable to discuss politics directly. It was one of those, "I can't discuss the administrative state because I might be expected to rule on aspects of it" moments, but he certainly was willing to say federal laws have played big in creating and perpetuating it.
Of the Russian detainees released, I thought Paul Whelan got the least press attention, even though he'd been detained longer than most (all?) of them. The important fact, however, is that he seemed not to care. He stated he was aware of the number of days he spent in captivity, and on each he sang the American National Anthem.
If we ever go to Medicare for All, or UHC, do you think that dermatologist would've called you, ever?
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
I think our partial "Medicre for All" is giving us a good preview of what a full rollout will be like.
*********** Hugh,
Are the Olympic Games over yet?
Happy for Jarious Jackson. Go Irish!
If Fresno State has a banner season under Tim Skipper expect him to have the interim tag removed. On the other hand if they struggle expect the Bulldogs to go hard after another Bulldog great Trent Dilfer.
QUIZ: Lawrence Phillips (probably the greatest RB in Nebraska history…from the shoulders down).
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Nick Saban compared him favorably to Eric Dickerson. Dick Vermeil said he was the best running back he ever saw.
But so many of the stories about Lawrence Phillips started out with the word “troubled” that it began to seem as if it was his first name.
His is a story that comes to mind whenever a football coach goes to unusual lengths to try to save a player. When the player also happens to be very talented, it results in the inevitable accusation that that was the only reason the coach went out of his way to save him.
Lawrence Phillips was born in Arkansas but grew up in California. He entered the foster care system when he was 11, but during what has been described as a “troubled” childhood, he found football - and he excelled at it.
He played two years at West Covina High, where he was a two-way starter at running back and outside linebacker, then played his last two years at Baldwin Park High where he helped lead the Braves to a CIF (think state) championship his junior year.
In his final two years, he rushed for nearly 3,000 yards and 38 touchdowns as Baldwin Park went 22-3-1.
Signing with Nebraska, he sat the bench for most of his freshman year, until he got to show his potential with a 137-yard, two-TD performance in a 14-13 win over a UCLA team that would go on to win the Pac-10 title that year.
The next year, with quarterback injuries forcing Nebraska to emphasize the running game, he rushed for more than 100 yards in 11 straight games as the Cornhuskers finished as unbeaten national champions. In all, he carried for 1,722 yards and scored 16 touchdowns - third-most in the nation - and finished eighth in Heisman balloting.
The season was barely over when he appeared in court to plead not guilty to charges of assault, vandalism and disturbing the peace, charges stemming from an accusation months earlier of assaulting a fellow student. He had been placed in a “diversion” program but had violated the terms.
In the second game of his junior year, he had an outstanding game at Michigan State - then playing its first game under new coach Nick Saban - rushing for 206 yards and four touchdowns on 22 carries.
But shortly after returning to Lincoln from the Michigan State game, he climbed up the outside of an apartment building and broke into the apartment of teammate Scott Frost, where he grabbed a young woman - his ex-girlfriend - and dragged her by the hair down three flights of stairs.
He was arrested and suspended from the team - but not kicked off, a decision by coach Tom Osborne that became a source of great controversy.
Said Osborne, “I felt the only thing I could put in a place that would keep him on track was football, because that was probably the only consistent organizing factor in his life."
Whatever, Coach.
After serving a six-game suspension, Phillips was reinstated in time to play in the national championship game, where he rushed for 165 yards and three TDs in the Cornhuskers 62-24 win over Florida. (It was the Huskers’ second straight national championship, and their third in four years.)
Declaring for the NFL draft, he chose to leave school a year early, and despite red flags run up by a pre-draft psychological evaluation, he was chosen in the first round by the St. Louis Rams. So confident were the Rams that he was going to be their main running back that they traded Jerome Bettis to the Steelers (where he would have a Hall-of-Fame career).
Not long after the draft, he was pulled over for speeding and charged with drunk driving. The arrest violated a probation, and he spent 23 days in jail.
In his rookie season, he started 11 games, carrying the ball 193 times for 632 yards and 4 touchdowns. He got off to a great start in his second year, but after 10 games - in which he’d rushed for 634 yards - he was released from the team. The reason given to the media was that after being told that he was being demoted because of his inability to avoid trouble, he skipped a team meeting and that day’s practice.
Next, he was picked up by the Dolphins, but after two games he was released following his plea of no contest to assault on a woman in a local nightclub.
From there, he went to NFL Europe, where playing with the Barcelona Dragons he earned Offensive Player of the Year honors - and a contract with the 49ers.
In San Francisco, h managed to stay out of trouble, but on the field, things went south when his failure to pick up a blitz resulted in a sack of quarterback Steve Young - and a concussion that would end Young's career.
He began to miss practices, which led to a three-game suspension, which eventually led to his being waived.
He managed, despite his criminal record, to get a shot in the CFL with Montreal, but despite having a good season and helping the Alouettes win the Grey Cup, he caused troubles with his attitude, once even leaving the team. The next season, after he held out briefly in a salary dispute, he was released (it later was learned that he had been charged with sexual assault) and picked up by Calgary. His stay there was short, brought to an end when he got into it on the field with the head coach.
Thus ended a once-promising football career.
And thus began a truly downward slide, one serious offense after another.
Imprisoned finally, he was serving a 31-year sentence in Kern Valley State Prison when in April 2015 he was charged with murdering his cellmate. (There’s more to the story: while in prison, he chose not to affiliate with either the Bloods or the Crips, and - the story goes - the cellmate was a Crip under orders to kill him.)
Nine months later, facing the possibility of a death sentence, Lawrence Phillips was found dead in his cell, believed to have hanged himself. He was 40 years old.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING LAWRENCE PHILLIPS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was one of the earliest stars of the American Football League, and an integral part of the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty whose convincing win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV proved - even more than the Jets’ surprising upset of the Baltimore Colts a year earlier - that the AFL had achieved parity with the more-established NFL.
Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he grew up in Wichita, Kansas. At Wichita North High, he was an outstanding all-round athlete. At 6-2, 215 pounds, his combination of power and speed helped him win all-state honors as a running back, he was a member of the school’s state championship basketball team, and in his senior year he was the top hurdler in the state.
He attended Kansas, which under Jack Mitchell was becoming a Big Eight power. In his three years of eligibility, the Jayhawks lost to Oklahoma 7-6, then tied the Sooners 13-13 and finally beat them 10-0. Against Nebraska, they won three straight, by scores of 10-0, 31-0 and 28-6.
In his sophomore year, the Jayhawks finished 5-5, after narrowly losing to conference champion Oklahoma. In his junior year, KU went 7-2-1, and in his senior year the Jayhawks went 7-3-1 and defeated Rice in the Bluebonnet Bowl, 33-6. It was just the second bowl appearance in the school’s history - and the first bowl win.
That Kansas team was talented, with future Hall of Fame John Hadl at quarterback, and running back Bert Coan in the backfield too, but our guy, despite being used mostly as a blocking back, was a three-time All-Big-Eight selection and in his senior year was he named to several all-America teams.
In his junior year, he won the Indoor Big 8 Track and Field 60-yard high hurdles title.
He was drafted in the 14th round (!) by the AFL Dallas Texans, and after rushing for 604 yards and catching 29 passes for 333 yards was named AFL Rookie of the Year. That earned him a place in the AFL All-Star game, where he earned Most Outstanding Player honors.
In all, he would play in five Pro Bowl games.
Especially valued as a blocker, he was used mostly as a fullback, but he still rushed for 3,124 yards and 18 touchdowns in his career. He also had excellent hands - he caught a pass for the first score ever by an AFL player in a Super Bowl - and in his career he caught 154 passes for 1,945 yards and 14 touchdowns, no doubt a major reason why he was kept on the roster as a backup tight end for one final season. That season happened to be the one in which the team - now the Kansas City Chiefs - won Super Bowl IV.
After his football career, he earned a master’s degree from Central Michigan University and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. For a time he served as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development of Washington, D.C. and then owned and ran a large Kansas City construction company.
In 1995 he was inducted into the Chiefs Hall of Fame.
In addition, he is in the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1969, the 100th year of college football, he was named to the University of Kansas’ all-time football team.
TUESDAY,
AUGUST 6, 2024 "I don't have any unfulfilled
ambitions left. Maybe it's because I always set my sights really low."
Dave Barry*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “That was quite a culture shock, going from a one-room schoolhouse in the sticks to Vicksburg High. As high schools go, it was relatively small. The gymnasium was tiny, and a dozen or so classrooms housed about 250 students. That's still quite a contrast with my previous school: one teacher with two dozen kids from eight grade levels stuffed into one room. Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to be one of two students from my eighth grade class who had the opportunity to move on to high school. The others dropped out to work on the farms where they lived.
“That's what had happened to my dad years before, and he was adamant that I go to high school. He realized how much he had missed, and although he didn't have much money he was a strong supporter of taxes for better schools. My mother had graduated from Vicksburg High and wanted her son to do the same.
“My introduction to football came when I was barely settled with my grandparents in Vicksburg. My dad liked the idea of me playing football and encouraged me to turn out for the team. Reflecting back, I think he considered football a tough game; it had body contact. It was a game for men and you hit people.
“Maybe he thought I might not be tough enough, that toughness and hardness were manly, and he wanted me to be a real man. I remember when I was in the fourth or fifth grade I got into a fight with a kid on the way home and didn't fare too well. When I told my dad about it that night he said, “Now, tomorrow you get in another fight with him and you win.” And I did.
“He thought if someone challenged you, you had to stand up and be counted. If there was a fight, you had to be there, whether you won or lost the fight. You couldn't be a softy. His younger brother, Bob, had played football in high school and Dad thought it had been a good experience for him.
“Nowadays one would probably say that Dad just liked the violence of football – a simplification, perhaps, but violence is part of the game.”
*********** Google Sheronne Moore and then try telling me that Michigan didn't cheat and Harbaugh's not a phony. This is a BIG STORY.
*********** The Edmonton
Elks are now 1-7.Saturday, on the road, they upset the Saskatchewan Rough Riders, 42-31.
It had been sometime in September of last season - 323 days ago - when they’d last won a game.
It took him three games to do it, but interim coach Jarious Jackson got his first win as a pro coach.
It was no fluke. Edmonton was clearly the better team, and would have won by a more convincing 42-24 score were it not for a last-minute Saskatchewan touchdown.
The biggest factor in the win, I thought, was the return to the lineup of QB Tre Ford. From Niagara Falls, Ontario, he’s a relative rarity - a native Canadian quarterback who played his college ball at a Canadian college (Waterloo University).
He’ s the real deal - a sharp passer with the kind of speed and elusiveness that makes such a difference on the wider Canadian field.
But also making a big difference was the running of Javon Leake. Leake played at Maryland and had stays with three different NFL teams - but played in only one NFL game - before heading north.
Against Saskatchewan, he carried 12 times for 169 yards and three TDs. Two of the TDs were on runs of 61 and 51 yards.
*********** My choice of today’s QUIZ subject, Hal Mumme, made me go back and re-read “Fourth Down and Life to Go,” by Tony Franklin. Franklin was a high school coach in Kentucky who claims to have played a role in convincing Kentucky AD C. M. Newton to take a hard look at Hal Mumme. After Mumme was hired, he showed his gratitude to Franklin by hiring him as an assistant.
He started out as running backs coach, but when OC Mike Leach left for Oklahoma, he replaced Leach as the OC.
The book tells of Franklin’s progressive disillusionment with Mumme - and with college football in general.
There is a feeling by some coaches and by most fans that the most capable and best football coaches are professional and college coaches. Many Division I coaches feel they are the best and look at a pecking order that would go from NFL to division I to IAA, II, III, and then high school coaches. This is the furthest thing from the truth. A quality coach is a quality coach no matter what level he coaches. The only difference in a Division I college coach and a high school coach is opportunity and luck. Most jobs in college are obtained by knowing the right person at the right time.
As soon as Hal Mumme was dismissed as Kentucky's head football coach amidst a fiery scandal, many critics immediately jumped on the bandwagon belief he had failed because he was "just a Division II coach,” with limited Division I experience. That had very little to do with his downfall. Mumme just happened to be a one in 1 million lucky Division II coach who got an unusual opportunity. Other division two coaches may have bettered Mumme’s initial success and probably would not have blown the opportunity. It's a shame because very few division one AD’s will give another Division II coach the opportunity Mumme had.
Franklin said he didn’t go into college coaching blind, thanks to the advice of an older coach, Billy Mitchell, who’d been an assistant under Jerry Claiborne at Virginia Tech and under Fran Curci at Kentucky…
One lesson Billy taught me was invaluable. He told me many Division I college coaches would do anything to keep their jobs. The difference of integrity levels between high school coaches and Division I college coaches would be large…. A high school coach will more readily stand for principle and fight for what is right, no matter what his coaching job risk is. A Division I college coach will more than likely break from any moral responsibility which might cost him his job because he knows if he loses the Division I opportunity, he may not ever get it again.
Mitchell's advice was right. I found out early and often numerous Division I coaches wouldn't risk their jobs for a principle. If you're going to be in a foxhole with a friend for your final fight, you have a better chance of finding a high school coach to jump in with you. Many of them fight for what's right, no matter the cost.
(Since the Mumme deal blew up at Kentucky, Tony Franklin has coached at a number of colleges, most notably as OC at Auburn and Cal, and started something called The Tony Franklin System Seminar, which apparently made him some money. After becoming OC at Auburn, an SEC rule prohibiting coaches from participating in clinics not on the school’s premises forced him to sell his business, but after leaving Auburn, he took over the business again.)
*********** “Some professors say there are now so many federal laws on the books that every American over the age of 18 commits one felony a day. That’s happened in my lifetime. 1970 to the present we’ve seen maybe a doubling the number of federal crimes on the books. And this just counts within the U.S. code passed by Congress and the tip of the iceberg because federal agencies have been busy.”
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch
*********** “I’m a Marine. I’m tough. I can get through this.” A reassuring message from Paul Whelan, relayed from his Russian prison to his family in the US. Whelan was recently released after being imprisoned in Russia since Christmas, 2018.
*********** Cam Ward sure has come a long way.
Remember back in 2021 when the FCS schools were playing in the spring, and he was lighting them up for a school named Incarnate Word? A school most of us had never heard of before?
From there, he transferred to Washington State where he had two very good seasons.
He’s now at Miami, and recently, he was the overwhelming preseason pick to be the ACC’s player of the year. Good on ya, mate.
*********** BIG 12 FAMILY PHOTO
*********** My wife and I had to call our dermatologist to remind them that for the second year in a row they hadn’t notified us that it was time for our annual checkup. Now I’m not a lawyer (I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) but I wonder… wouldn’t a doctor’s office be liable if it failed to notify a patient that it was time again for his/her annual checkup - and then the patient wound up with a serious condition that might otherwise have been detected and treated?
*********** Those US Army ads on the UFL games, including - in an effort to show potential recruits that going the Army was as safe as any office job - stupid half-time interviews with “soldiers” who did everything under the sun except carry a gun?
The Army says they didn’t do a thing to help recruiting.
*********** Q: Would Oregon State football fans prefer ‘Power 4’ membership at the cost of mostly late-night games vs. a rebuilt Pac-12 with mostly afternoon games?
JOHN CANZANO: Oregon State and Washington State would kick off at midnight if it meant getting to a P4 conference right now.
*********** What do Zach Collaros, Macleod Bethel-Thompson, Bo Levi Mitchell, Cody Fajardo, Vernon Adams and Jake Maier have in common?
*********** Georgia may have the worst drivers in the SEC and the lowest graduation rate of all Power 4 schools, but evidently it draws the line at cruelty to children, so a guy named Rara Thomas (where TF do they get these names?) has been kicked off the team.
This is not to say that they wouldn’t have recruited Javier Toviano. An LSU cornerback, Toviano is back on the Tiger Team after first being suspended when he was charged with “video voyeurism.” (He “allegedly” filmed himself - and, one would assume, an unknowing partner - doing something prurient.)
Where do they FIND these people?
*********** Remember when the Hall of Fame Game was the much-awaited start of the much-awaited NFL pre-season?
Raise your hand if you even knew it was played Thursday night.
Raise your hand if you watched any of it.
Raise your hand if you stayed to the final whistle. (That’s a trick. Everybody was sent home after a lightning strike shortly into the second half.)
*********** The answer is Hal Mumme. Kentucky fans loved him. One of those years I went to KY-FL in the Swamp. That game was typical of Mumme's full tenure at Kentucky. At halftime, both teams had scored a lot and it was close. But The Old Ball Coach got his offense on track at the break, and Bobby Stoops did the same with the defense, and the final score was something like 63-38 in the Gators' favor. I've always believed Mumme took so much delight in the Xs and Os he took his eyes off his players and subordinates sometimes. A recruiting coordinator named Claude Basset did his boss in, and I don't think Mumme ever saw it coming.
As you said, he came from Copperas Cove HS, which sits just outside Fort Hood. Not many years after Mumme left UK, the Wildcats hired another coach from the same HS, but this time it was the head basketball coach...a decision that proved disastrous. At Kentucky...in basketball...you don't hire an untested basketball coach.
Thanks for another of the greatest pages on the net.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
As you might imagine, Tony Franklin has a LOT to say in his book about Claude Basset. A few of the things are actually good.
*********** Hugh,
What caught my eye immediately about that picture of Bob Blanchard diving over the Princeton defense was... the CROWD! Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...
According to that revealing academic chart 10 of the BIG schools were below 85% grad rates. 10 SEC schools were at or below 85%. Didn't see Oregon State or Washington State on that list but it would be interesting to see where they fall compared to their counterparts in Eugene and Seattle.
I've been friends with a number of people who have worked in all-boys schools and all girls schools, and every one of them believe single sex schools should be the norm and not the exception.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe - I guess OSU and WSU weren’t included because the Pac-12 is no longer considered a Power conference.
ALSO - VERY observant of you. I was at that Yale-Princeton game. It was packed. I think the announced paid attendance was 63,000-some. (The Yale Bowl at that time seated 70,000+, but that was based on 1920s-sized people.)
Yes, those were the days when Ivy League football still mattered (at least at some of the schools), and - just as important - the NCAA permitted only ONE game to be televised on Saturday.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Hal Mumme is a native of San Antonio. He played high school football in Dallas, then two years of JC ball at New Mexico Military Academy and two years of college ball at Tarleton State.
His first job was as offensive coordinator at a high school in Corpus Christi. After three years there, he got his first high school head coaching job at Aransas Pass, Texas. He was just 27.
His stay there lasted only one year, when he left for a job coaching QBs and receivers at West Texas State. After two years there, when the head coach was hired at UTEP, he went along, and served as offensive coordinator for three seasons.
He left UTEP to become head coach at Copperas Cove, Texas High, and after three years there, he was hired as head coach at Iowa Wesleyan, a small private college in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. (Iowa Wesleyan was forced to close its doors at the end of the 2022-2023 school year.)
At Iowa Wesleyan, Mumme and an assistant named Mike Leach teamed up to develop an offense he had been working on which came to be called the Air Raid System. It would gain a wide following among offensive coaches, and sprout an impressive roster of disciples.
He spent three years at Iowa Wesleyan. In his first season they finished 7-4. In his second season they went 7-5, but led the nation in passing. In his third season, Iowa Wesleyan finished second in the nation in passing, going 10-2 and making it to the NAIA playoffs for the first time in school history. Overall, his record there was 25-10.
It was enough to get him the head job at Division II Valdosta State. There, in five seasons, his teams went 40-17-1. Two of his teams made it as far as the D-II quarterfinals, and in 1994 his quarterback, Chris Hatcher, won the Harlon Hill Award – the D-II equivalent of the Heisman.
And then Kentucky AD C. M. Newton came calling. Kentucky had gone 9-24 over the three previous seasons, and Newton was looking for a coach who could win, but just as important, could do it in exciting fashion. And whoever got the job would inherit Tim Couch, one of the nation’s top quarterback recruits and a Kentucky kid.
Mumme got the job and he got Tim Couch, and together they took off.
Year One was 5-6, but it did include the Wildcats’ first win over Alabama since 1922. And Couch set several team records.
Year Two started out with a 68-34 trouncing of archrival Louisville and finished 7-5, with an appearance in the Outback Bowl. Just the second bowl game in 15 years for Kentucky, it ended in a loss to Penn State. And then Couch decided to leave a year early for the NFL.
Year three wound up 6-6 after a loss to Syracuse in the Music City Bowl, and year four wound up 2-9.
Worse, there were reports circulating about recruiting violations, and early in the new year Mumme was forced to resign. Kentucky was hit by the NCAA with a one-year bowl ban and the loss of 19 scholarships over three seasons. His recruiting coordinator was effectively banned from college coaching for eight years.
He had arrived in glory, but his departure left Kentucky in worse shape than it was when he arrived. And for all the hoopla, his overall record was just 20-26.
From there, his career went down the gurgler.
He was back into coaching two years later, at Southeast Louisiana, where in two years he went 5-7 and 7-4, good enough to get him the job at New Mexico State.
In his first year at NMSU, he went 0-12. In his second season, the Aggies went 3-9. For much of the season, they led the nation in total offense. So? Big deal.
In his third year, NMSU went 3-9 and he was fired.
Four months later, he was hired by D-III McMurry. In four years there, he went 27-16, and in his fourth year, after making the move to D-II, he went 8-3.
After a year out of football, he wound up next at Belhaven. Have you heard of it? It’s a D-III school in Jackson, Mississippi. In four years there, he was 8-33. A marvel of consistency, he won two games a season all four seasons.
And that was it for Hal Mumme as a college head coach.
He spent a couple of months as OC at Jackson State, and he knocked around a couple of the spring leagues.
Just recently, he was hired as an “offensive analyst” at a high school in Bluff City, Tennessee.
As an innovator, Hal Mumme was impressive. His air raid has made a major impact on our game. As a head coach? The overall college head coaching record of the man who invented the air raid offense is a rather unspectacular 142-152-1.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING HAL MUMME
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREON, ILLINOIS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: Nick Saban compared him favorably to Eric Dickerson. Dick Vermeil said he was the best running back he ever saw.
But so many of the stories about him started out with the word “troubled” that it began to seem as if it was his first name.
His is a story that comes to mind whenever a football coach goes to unusual lengths to try to save a player. When the player also happens to be very talented, it results in the inevitable suspicion that that was the main reason the coach went out of his way to save him.
He was born in Arkansas but grew up in California. He entered the foster care system when he was 11, but during what has been described as a “troubled” childhood, he found football - and he excelled at it.
He played two years at West Covina High, where he was a two-way starter at running back and outside linebacker, then played his last two years at Baldwin Park High where he helped lead the Braves to a CIF (think state) championship his junior year.
In his final two years, he rushed for nearly 3,000 yards and 38 touchdowns as Baldwin Park went 22-3-1.
Signing with Nebraska, he sat the bench for most of his freshman year, until he got to show his potential with a 137-yard, two-TD performance in a 14-13 win over a UCLA team that would go on to win the Pac-10 title that year.
The next year, with quarterback injuries forcing Nebraska to emphasize the running game, he rushed for more than 100 yards in 11 straight games as the Cornhuskers finished as unbeaten national champions. In all, he carried for 1,722 yards and scored 16 touchdowns - third-most in the nation - and finished eighth in Heisman balloting.
The season was barely over when he appeared in court to plead not guilty to charges of assault, vandalism and disturbing the peace, charges stemming from an accusation months earlier of assaulting a fellow student. He had been placed in a “diversion” program but had violated the terms.
In the second game of his junior year, he had an outstanding game at Michigan State - then playing its first game under new coach Nick Saban - rushing for 206 yards and four touchdowns on 22 carries.
But shortly after returning to Lincoln from the Michigan State game, he climbed up the outside of an apartment building and broke into the apartment of teammate Scott Frost, where he grabbed a young woman - his ex-girlfriend - and dragged her by the hair down three flights of stairs.
He was arrested and suspended from the team - but not kicked off, a decision by coach Tom Osborne that became a source of great controversy.
Said Osborne, “I felt the only thing I could put in a place that would keep him on track was football, because that was probably the only consistent organizing factor in his life."
Whatever, Coach.
After serving a six-game suspension, he was reinstated in time to play in the national championship game, where he rushed for 165 yards and three TDs in the Cornhuskers 62-24 win over Florida. (It was the Huskers’ second straight national championship, and their third in four years.)
Declaring for the NFL draft, he chose to leave school a year early, and despite red flags run up by a pre-draft psychological evaluation, he was chosen in the first round by the St. Louis Rams. So confident were the Rams that he was going to be their main running back that they traded Jerome Bettis to the Steelers (where he would have a Hall-of-Fame career).
Not long after the draft, he was pulled over for speeding and charged with drunk driving. The arrest violated a probation, and he spent 23 days in jail.
In his rookie season, he started 11 games, carrying the ball 193 times for 632 yards and 4 touchdowns. He got off to a great start in his second year, but after 10 games - in which he’d rushed for 634 yards - he was released from the team. The reason given to the media was that after being told that he was being demoted because of his inability to avoid trouble, he skipped a team meeting and that day’s practice.
Next, he was picked up by the Dolphins, but after two games he was released following his plea of no contest to assault on a woman in a local nightclub.
From there, he went to NFL Europe, where playing with the Barcelona Dragons he earned Offensive Player of the Year honors - and a contract with the 49ers.
In San Francisco, h managed to stay out of trouble, but on the field, things went south when his failure to pick up a blitz resulted in a sack of quarterback Steve Young - and a concussion that would end Young's career.
He began to miss practices, which led to a three-game suspension, which eventually led to his being waived.
He managed, despite his criminal record, to get a shot in the CFL with Montreal, but despite having a good season and helping the Alouettes win the Grey Cup, he caused troubles with his attitude, once even leaving the team. The next season, after he held out briefly in a salary dispute, he was released (it later was learned that he had been charged with sexual assault) and picked up by Calgary. His stay there was short, brought to an end when he got into it on the field with the head coach.
Thus ended a once-promising football career.
And thus began a truly downward slide, one serious offense after another.
Imprisoned finally, he was serving a 31-year sentence in Kern Valley State Prison when in April 2015 he was charged with murdering his cellmate. (There’s more to the story: while in prison, he chose not to affiliate with either the Bloods or the Crips, and - the story goes - the cellmate was a Crip under orders to kill him.)
Nine months later, facing the possibility of a death sentence, he was found dead in his cell, believed to have hanged himself. He was 40 years old.
FRIDAY,
AUGUST 2, 2024 "If you have people on your
staff pulling in different directions, you can bet you are going to
have it on your football team." Bill Battle, Tennessee coach*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “None of this would've been possible if it weren't for a determined, take-charge woman who was years ahead of her time. That would be my grandmother, Minnie Henderson. Without Grandma Henderson and her 1928 Chevrolet, I would have faced huge obstacles even getting to high school, much less graduating and going on to college.
“Every Sunday night my loving grandmother drove to the farm and picked me up in the Chevrolet and took me to the house where she lived with Grandpa Loren Henderson. Every Friday after school – sometimes it was after a football game or baseball game – she would drive me back to the farm and my family.
“Grandma Minnie’s influence on me was considerable. This five-feet-nine, big-boned woman was the boss of the family. She had everything organized. She was straightlaced and stern and didn't smile without a reason. Grandma was a big lady but not fat. She wore her hair very straight and used little make up. Her appearance was very plain. Grandpa Loren was totally deferential to her; he was more like my mother, compliant and sensitive. My grandparents never had much money. Grandpa Loren worked at the local paper mill and was not well paid. When I lived in Vicksburg while going to high school he got laid off. The situation turned out to be permanent.
“But Grandma Minnie made the most of what they had, and she had a great impact on me. She taught me to drive that Chevrolet when I was a mere twelve. She cooked to please my taste and insisted that I come home from school for lunch.”
*********** Coach Wyatt,
Good morning and greetings from the tropical state of New York, where there used to be mild weather.
I have a question about something in the playbook, and if I am incorrect, my apologies. On pg. 186, I was reviewing the blocking details for the trap plays, specifically the center. Both 3 trap @2 and 2 trap @ 3 tell the center to aggressively block a lineman to your right. I believe the center should go left on 3 T @ 2.
The wristband description has the center going left on 3 T @2 and Right on 2 T @ 3.
If you could clarify this for me, I would greatly appreciate it. I want to make sure that I have all these items correct as I, being the new Head Coach, am coaching up the coaches first before coaching the players.
We have had a good first summer with the team and have installed Super Power, XX - C, G, Wedge, Old school 88 Red Red, 99 Blue Blue (We have a mobile QB who can get outside quickly), Black/Brown.
We will be running that tight slot formation this season. I will keep you posted on how it works.
Thank you for all of your help, and here we go with another season.
Best wishes,
Russ Meyers
Head Football Coach
Oneida High School
Oneida, New York
Coach Meyers, who retired as head coach at Southern HS in Harwood, Maryland, is back in the saddle as head coach in Oneida, New York. New York State may seem to some a strange place to retire to, but I have always loved New York State - its cities, its towns, its farms, lakes, mountains and forests - and I think it’s a damn shame that so many people in the rest of the country think unfavorably of it because they think “New York City” (boo) and “New York State” (yay) are one and the same.
Coach Meyers has made a CATCH.
On Page 186 of the Playbook -
While the center’s assignment on the card for 3 Trap 2 is correct, the explanation below it is NOT.
It should read “block a lineman to your LEFT” (NOT “to your RIGHT”, as it reads!)
While I can’t change this in any of the books that are out there, I can at least do my best to make coaches aware.
I appreciate Coach Meyers’ pointing this out.
To be honest, I’m amazed it’s taken so long for anyone to spot this stupid error!
PS. If it matters, “aggressively” is misspelled. How come nobody caught THAT?
***********John Canzano showed a photo of new UCLA coach DeShaun Foster at Big Ten Media Days wearing a tee-shirt with a clever tongue-in-cheek message.
Included in the photo was reporter Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times, wearing another clever tee shirt. “Punting Is Winning” is the brainchild of Iowa punter Tory Taylor. An Aussie (hence the map on the tee), Taylor is an international student, and therefore is unable to benefit from NIL deals. So he’s selling the shirts and donating the proceeds to a non-profit known as “Count the Kicks.”
*********** WTF?
Some of the Olympic medals being won by former Pac-12 athletes are being claimed as “theirs” by conferences in which those athletes have never competed - and never will.
There’s the ACC, claiming that swimmer Katie Ledecky’s medals won in Paris were won by “an ACC athlete.”
Uh… Katie Ledecky graduated from Stanford in 2021.
What’s next, asks John Canzano - “Will the Big Ten claim Jackie Robinson as an alumnus?”
*********** In case you might sometimes wonder why you coach…
Got this from a friend…
…wanted to share with you a conversation with one of my players who is a receiver/ RB.
Great kid, great hands/ great speed and tough. Not big, but I have 4 or 5 kids like that.
Got a call from his step-dad who talked to me about some issues he and his mom were having with him. So last night we were out at (——) for 7 on 7 and during some down time I struck up a conversation with the kid. Found out his real father was in prison, - hard core drug addict. The point I am getting at is that we just talked about things in general.
But here comes the kicker. After we were done and I was walking to my car the kid came up to me and said, “Coach, thanks for talking to me like a person. I have never had a teacher or coach just talk to me and I’m so grateful you’re here to coach us.”
Hugh, like you and so many others, we are people coaches. Hard to understand why some never understand that building a relationship with kids brings huge benefits. Thought I would share that with you. At least I think I’m making progress.
*********** A coach who just took over the offense - the Double-Wing, of course - at a new program wrote to ask me about how soon he should be able to turn the line over - to an inexperienced offensive line coach.
Here was my response…
Coach, the line is SO important that I would consider going an entire season coaching the entire team together before I would let the line spend five minutes with a guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Let a guy shadow you, and first put him in charge of stance, splits and alignment. Have him check them on every play. Just that. When he’s good at that, and understands the importance of this things, move on - now, when you run a play, assign him just one player to watch. Over and over. If he tells you he saw something that needs correction, tell him how to correct it. See how he does. Do this position by position, play by play. It’s a slow process. But there’s no way you can microwave a line coach.
************ Coach Wyatt,
Do you sell copies of your original Dynamics of the Double Wing on DVD? My vcr copy is about 25 years old and going bad.
Thanks
Chris Hicks
Colmesneil HS, Texas
Coach-
I offer it for sale along with an “update” - a DVD showing changes since the first DVD came out. For $49.95.
http://www.coachwyatt.com/DYNAMICSVIDEO.html
(I’d be surprised to hear that any VHS tape is any good at all after all that time!)
*********** Before you write a kid off because he's too "stupid" to do things the way you'd like him to, first consider the possibility that your methods or terminology, which may be perfectly understandable to you, and maybe to most of your kids, don't necessarily mean the same thing - if anything at all - to that kid.
Unwittingly, you may be putting a roadblock in the way of the kid's - and your team's - success.
I thought of a reunion I attended in Las Vegas many years ago. The Yale team of 1960 had gathered, and after dinner several of the team members got up and told stories.
Bob Blanchard, the fullback - the guy in the photo, scoring against Princeton in 1960 - told a story that became a public confession.
Bob was an outstanding football player, a very good runner and blocker, and he got quite a reaction when he said, "For 40 years, I've kept this a secret - our entire senior year, we ran all our plays 'On Two.' The reason we always went “On Two" was because I just couldn't go on any other number - and Ollie (coach Jordan Olivar) was kind enough not to tell anyone."
Now think about this, the next you want to vary your snap count and your "stupid" kids keep jumping offside - Bob Blanchard was intelligent enough to get into an Ivy League college and graduate, and then enjoyed a successful career as a stockbroker. But there was a sticking point back there on the football field, one that could have prevented him from being the player that he turned out to be, and one that could have prevented that team from being the great team that it went on to be (Yale’s last unbeaten, untied team).
Fortunately for Bob Blanchard and his team, he had a coach who was wise enough to accommodate him - and gracious enough to keep it a secret. Perhaps Coach Olivar remembered his own college coach, Clipper Smith of Villanova, who (in those days when coaches couldn’t send in plays) entrusted his play-calling to the smartest player on the team. Even though he was a tackle - named Jordan Olivar.
*********** Uhhhh, Coach Smart… Do you mind? We’re trying to run a university here…
*********** “They tell us they want to believe but not belong; that they want Faith, but not religion; that they prefer spirituality, whatever that might mean, to communal worship. They seem to want God as a father, but to remain an only child; Jesus as a good Shepherd, if they’re the only Lamb in the flock.” Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York
*********** Q. On a power /counter the PSG rule is Gap-on-angle late. If he is uncovered doesn’t he double team with center on NG ?
A. Probably. But not immediately. Yes, he probably will wind up doubling with the center, but that’s where the “LATE” comes in. He can’t fire out and leave a gap in the play side without making sure nothing’s coming, so first he delays - very slightly - to make sure that no one - slanting lineman or blitzing backer - is likely to attack his area. I’d rather have him leave too late than leave too soon. If he leaves too late - no big harm. If he leaves too soon he leaves a gap in the line and allows possible penetration. “Penetration kills offenses.” If he takes a jab step with his up foot - his outside foot - that’s usually enough time to decide that it’s okay to go inside (“Angle”).
*********** Tom Batty, of Windsor, England, is executive director of the International Boys' Schools Coalition.
The IBSC includes 260 boys schools across the world -- in places such as North America, South Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
Batty has spent 32 of his 36 years in education in all-boys schools. For 14 years he ran an all-boys’ school in Australia.
One advantage of all-boys schools, he says, is that they don't have to tailor their curriculum to account for the fact that girls develop earlier than boys.
Also, says Batty, "We believe that boys are highly relational in their learning -- you've got to reach them before you can teach them.”
*********** Much appreciated the longer-than-usual Quiz bio, but understand, in that you had a rare chance to learn more than most about Jordan Olivar. Interesting man who proudly made the most of his opportunities in America.
You imbedded a fantastic idea in today's Page: Army should opt out of the AAC and instead help reconstitute the old PAC-12. It makes much better sense geographically than their current conference alignment.
You hammered a third baseman I like, Isaac Paredes, for his BA. Please consider, though, that the recent MLB-wide batting average was .241. Also consider that Paredes is statistically the most extreme pull hitter in all of MLB (every one of his ML home runs has been to left field).
Don't leave me in the dark...there must be a lesson for the broader public...what did Coach Linton and Milo's father do to get his attention on study habits?*
Now I gotta go. I just made $25 with my Upside app, and have to think how I'm gonna spend all that extry cash.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
* IT'S COMING!
*********** Hugh,
If I may add to Coach Whittington’s response. Not only has the college football landscape changed, and will continue to evolve, I truly believe there will be THREE college football governing bodies. NFL College Football. NCAA College Football. NAIA College Football.
(See my separate email)
There’s no way a reconfigured PAC 12 will include Army, Navy, Memphis, South Florida, or North Texas. If the PAC 12 has any intention of “national” rebirth they will wait to see what happens with the ACC. Should the ACC implode Stanford and Cal will run back home, and SMU will come with them. UTSA will be attractive. The ACC will reach out to Memphis, raid the Big 12 of UCF and WVU, and maybe talk with UAB to stabilize.
Everything about the Paris Olympics is bad. Have watched maybe 10 minutes of it.
Flying on Southwest next week. I’ll let you know how it went with the new seating arrangements.
QUIZ: Jordan Olivar (two of his only losses at Loyola wERE to San Francisco in 1950 and 1951. That ‘51 USF team was legendary . His Lions beat the Dons in 1949.)
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: For much of the following, I’m indebted to the subject’s son, Harry, a now-deceased college teammate and classmate of mine.
Jordan Olivar was born Giordano Aurelio Olivari in 1915, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Italian immigrants. His father had jumped ship in New York - later, our guy would enjoy telling people that his father was an early illegal alien. His father waited on tables and picked up a little money on the side as a boxer.
Italian was the language spoken in the home; during Prohibition, he helped his father make wine, recalling later how he hated having to stomp the grapes in his bare feet.
From Brooklyn, his family moved to Staten Island, where he attended Curtis High School, graduating in 1930. He played high school soccer and baseball, but was ineligible to play high school football - there was a minimum age requirement, and he was never old enough.
Although he graduated first in his class, college was never an option. It was 1930 and America had been hit by the Depression. Through friends, he managed to find a job cleaning up a men's gym, sweeping floors and picking up towels, and occasionally earning tips by playing handball against members when no other opponents were available. In time, members began to request him as an opponent, and, on occasion playing as many as 30 games a day, he became quite good.
So good did he become, in fact, that as his son once told me, "He would sometimes bet on the games, giving his opponent as much as 18 points to start (game is 21), as long as he could serve first. To score a point you had to be serving, so his opponent would have to win two serves - first breaking Dad's serve, then making a point on his own serve. Sometimes, if an opponent was not very good, Dad would just offer to play with his feet - which the opponent would take him up on, not knowing he was a soccer player."
One day, a wrestler showed up at the gym in search of a workout opponent, and saw him at work. Our guy was big, 6-4 and beginning to fill out. "Hey, kid!" the wrestler called out. "Let's go a few rounds!"
Things went as one might expect, until our guy grew tired of being tossed around, and suggested a game of handball instead.
Things went differently on the handball court, and the wrestler, run ragged and badly beaten, said, "Hey, kid - you're a pretty good athlete. How'd you like to play football? I know some people - I can get you a scholarship at either Notre Dame, or Fordham, or Villanova."
After giving it a little thought, he said "Villanova!" (Later in life, he would explain his logic: Notre Dame was the number one team in the country, and he might not be able to play there; Fordham was close by, in New York, where they would have known that he'd never played high school football.)
As he would later tell it, for a kid from the streets of New York, going to Villanova, with its green, leafy campus - where you ate three meals every day and all you had to do was go to classes and play sports - was like going to heaven.
Although he had never played in a game of football until he arrived at Villanova (on a football scholarship) he wound up starring on some of the Wildcats' greatest teams, playing first for Harry Stuhldreher, one of Notre Dame’s legendary Four Horsemen, and then for Maurice "Clipper" Smith, another former Knute Rockne player. It was Smith who, for one reason or another, dropped the “i” from the end of his name, doing the same for teammate Alex Belli.
In his senior year, Villanova was 8-0-1, outscoring opponents 185-7, and he was named co-MVP. The only blemish on the Wildcats' record was a 0-0 tie with Auburn. He played tackle on a defensive unit that yielded just one touchdown and shut out eight opponents, and as an indication of his football intelligence (and Clipper Smith's resourcefulness) he was entrusted with calling the offensive plays - from his position at right tackle.
He graduated second in his class, a smart player on a smart team, four of whose members (he, Alex Bell, Art Raimo and John McKenna) would go on to coach at the major college level. Playing right next to him at right guard was a Philadelphian named Dave DiFilippo, who years later would achieve a certain measure of fame as the head coach of a legendary minor league team known as the Pottstown Firebirds, and as the focal figure in an NFL Films production entitled "Pro Football, Pottstown, PA."
In his final college game, Villanova ended the season by traveling to Los Angeles to play Loyola in the Los Angeles Coliseum. While there, he and some teammates took a bus ride from the downtown hotel where they were staying, out to Santa Monica. The bus stopped on the Pacific Palisades, and looking out over the Pacific to Catalina Island in the distance, he was blown away by the sight. Then and there, in the words of his son, "he fell in love with California."
Following graduation from Villanova, already married and with his wife, Stella, expecting twins, he got a job teaching and coaching at Radnor High School, not far from the Villanova campus. He left Radnor after a year to coach at Paulsboro, New Jersey, and after two years at Paulsboro, he moved to Philadelphia's Roman Catholic High.
Exempt from the World War II draft because he had a wife and two young children, he also worked in a Philadelphia shipyard.
And then, a year later, Villanova called. He was just 28.
He was the first of three members from his Villanova squad to coach the Wildcats (Art Raimo and Alex Bell were the two others). When he took over, it was 1943, not a good time to be coaching a college team, especially one that had to play Army's Blanchard-and-Davis teams. He took his lumps for a while, once absorbing an 83-0 defeat at the hands of mighty Army, but he built well and managed to compile a 33-20 record in his five seasons at Villanova.
Two of his teams went to bowl games: in 1947, Villanova lost to Kentucky - coached by Bear Bryant - in the Great Lakes Bowl, 24-14; his 1948 team finished 8-2-1, including victories over Texas A & M, Miami and North Carolina State, and a 13-13 tie with Bryant and Kentucky, and the Wildcats capped the season with a 27-7 win over Nevada in the Harbor Bowl in San Diego.
It was on the way back from San Diego, during a change of trains in Los Angeles, that he learned that Loyola, the small Catholic school he'd once played against, was looking for a football coach. Remembering his first view of the Pacific from the Palisades, and how much he'd been taken with California, he got off the train to call Loyola and inquire about the job.
As his son told me, it was January 19, 1949, and as Olivar got off the train in L.A.'s Union Station to make the phone call, it was snowing! "In California?" he asked himself. "Who needs this? We have snow in Pennsylvania."
But he made the call anyhow. He got through to a receptionist, who told him there was no one in the athletic department. "It's Sunday," she reminded him.
He was tempted to say, "That's too bad," and get back on the train, but for some reason, he persisted. He asked, "Isn't there someone I can speak to about the football position?"
"You could probably talk to Father Connelly," she said. "The priests live on campus. He's the Athletic Director."
He managed to get hold of Father Connelly and explain who he was and why he was calling, but the priest cut him off short, telling him, "I think we've already filled the job."
Our guy asked, "Who do you have in mind?"
Father Connelly replied, "Joe Sheeketski, of the University of Nevada."
"Would it make any difference," he asked, "If I told you my team just beat his team 27-7?"
Said Father Connelly, "Maybe we should talk."
So while the Villanova team's train pulled out of Union Station without him, he took a taxi to the Loyola campus to meet with Father Connelly.
Later that same day, he called his wife back in Pennsylvania, and said, "Pack your bags. We're moving to California."
In his three years at Loyola, he built a powerhouse, at one point posting a 13-game winning streak. His 1950 Lions' team, quarterbacked by Don Klosterman, was ranked 22nd in the nation and led the nation in passing. Six members of the team went on to play professional football, the best-known among them Gene Brito, who would become an all-pro defensive end, and Klosterman, who would go on to greater renown as a pro football executive.
Ironically, the 1950 Loyola team defeated Nevada, 34-7, as Klosterman completed eight of the 11 first-half passes he threw, three for touchdowns, and the Lions outgained Nevada 423 yards to 98.
But small Catholic schools around the country were being forced to take a hard look at the rising costs of playing big-time football, with most deciding they could not longer keep up the struggle. Loyola was one of them, and when Loyola dropped football after the 1951 season, he was out of a coaching job.
Reluctant to leave the West Coast, where he and his family loved the life and where he had begun to build a thriving life insurance business in the off-season, he hired on as a part-time assistant to Herman Hickman at Yale. But before he had even had a chance to meet the players, Hickman left to take a job in television. It was already August, and Yale was in a spot, but fortunately for them, our guy had successful head coaching experience, and in desperation, they offered him the job. After hesitating - not because he didn't think he was up to the job, but because he just didn't want to have to move back East - he took the job with the understanding that he could continue to live in California in the off-season.
The decision proved to be a fortunate one for Yale. He was a godsend, turning potential disaster into triumph by coaching the 1952 team to a 7-2 record. When he left Yale 11 years later, in 1962, he had built a record of 61-32-6, making him the winningest coach in the Ivy League. Only the great Walter Camp, who retired 70 years before, had won more games as a Yale coach. His 1956 team won the first-ever Ivy League title, His 1960 team finished 9-0, the first undefeated Yale team in 37 years, and he was an American Football Coaches Association Coach of the Year. (He first became a member of the AFCA the same year as another young coach named Paul "Bear" Bryant.)
(The 1960 Yale team finished 14th in the AP poll. It was the last Ivy team to finish that high, just ahead of number 15 Michigan State and number 16 Penn State.)
His greatest thrill in coaching came in 1955, when Yale upset Don Holleder-led Army 14-12, in front of 70,000 people in a sold-out Yale Bowl. (Army and its Coach, Earl "Red" Blaik had once poured it on his undermanned World War II-era Villanova team, 83-0.)
He was an extremely loyal man, and inspired loyalty in those who worked for him. He kept the same four assistants through his entire tenure at Yale. Two of them, Art Raimo and Jerry Neri, were former teammates from Villanova, and remained lifelong friends.
His style of football would be considered conservative by today's standards, but at a time when many teams were still running the old-fashioned single wing, he was an offensive innovator.
He helped pioneer the Belly-T, or Belly Series (some people at the time called it the Drive Series or the Ride Series, but the name "Belly" won out), which one can see at first glance contained the seeds of the Wishbone T (the name that eventually won out over "Y" formation) to come along a generation later.
The Belly-T is still a highly effective offense, and his book, "Offensive Football - The Belly Series", written in 1958, is still the best I've seen on the subject, one I'd recommend to anyone interested in the offense - if you can find a copy. Perhaps remembering how he himself had called the plays while playing tackle at Villanova, his system placed a great deal of responsibility on the offensive tackles' ability to recognize defenses and adjust to them by making the appropriate blocking calls.
Now that I know more (a lot more) than I did when I was in college, I recognize Coach’s genius at never attempting things that were beyond his players' capabilities. When he had the players to do so, he did more with them. And he never did anything stupid, nor did his teams. That may sound like a "well, duh!" sort of statement at an Ivy League school, but if you believe in multiple intelligences, you will trust me when I say that an Ivy League intellect is not necessarily a guarantee of football intelligence.
Without being a whipcracker, without ever raising his voice, he had great team discipline. I recall the first team meeting I attended as a varsity player my sophomore year. As he began talking, one or two latecomers walked in. He stopped what he had been saying and said, “Those who can’t make it to meetings on time will soon be known as the late members of the team.”
I especially remember a special teams lesson he gave me that has stuck with me through the years. We had plenty of good place kickers at Yale, yet they never kicked off. Instead, I'd watch, chuckling, while our big linemen practiced kicking off. They were lousy at it, I thought, and it seemed to me that the more they practiced, the lousier they got. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd have sworn they were trying to be lousy!
After graduation, I got a job that kept me in Connecticut, and one night, my boss invited me to a banquet at which Coach was to be the featured speaker.
On arrival, I discovered that I had been seated next to him. Now, you have to understand something. We didn't really know each other all that well. He was not a cold individual by any means, but he was a man of enormous dignity and aplomb, and as was the case with most head coaches of that time, he tended to be remote with his players. And because he delegated extensively, our interaction for the most part was with our position coaches and rarely with the head coach. Couple that with the fact that I had been something of a screw-off, an underachiever who undoubtedly was a source of some frustration to the coaches during my years there, and you can understand that I didn't know what to expect.
But Coach couldn't have been more cordial and more enjoyable. I had never done a damn thing for him, but from the moment he arrived that night, he was my coach, and I was one of his former players, and he made me feel like I’d been an All-American.
He told me all sorts of stories, as if I were an old friend (I was reminded of this when I heard a former Texas player say of Darrell Royal, "Coach Royal was my coach - and then he became a friend.")
At length, I got up the courage to ask him something that had been on my mind for quite some time: why did we kick off like that?
He threw his head back and laughed. I guess he'd been asked the same question a few times before.
He told me that there was a time once when he was like everyone else - when he instructed his kickers to tee it up and kick it deep. And then one time, after an opponent had run a kickoff back for a touchdown, he had applied his intelligence to the problem, and had come up with the solution - don't kick it to the return man!
Let the opponents spend all the time they wanted to, working on their kick return, he said. They wouldn't get a chance to use it against his team.
Years later, when I first became a coach (and I knew all the answers without having to bother learning them yet), I had kickers who could boom them deep. Shoot - when I was coaching minor league ball back East, I had a guy who would go on to kick in the NFL. But coaching in high school, I began to get tired of spending all that time on kick coverage, and still having to worry every time the ball landed in a return man's arms. Once in a while - not often, but once is too often - we would have one returned on us.
So I went back to that night I sat next to him. And from that point on - some time around 1980, it was - I made the decision never again to kick it deep. I saw exactly one kick returned against one of my teams from then on. It was 1996, and the kicker got a little carried away - and kicked it deep! And less than 20 seconds into the game, we were down, 7-0.
(I did, though, do one thing that he didn't do. I carefully explained to all my players why I did it the way I did, and I explained to them why I was telling them: so they’d know what to say when Dad or Uncle Charlie complained about why we didn't kick it high and deep.)
To show how the times have changed since he coached at Yale, Coach Olivar was able to take advantage of the Ivy League's ban on spring practice and its restrictions on recruiting, continuing to coach in the summer and fall and then returning to Los Angeles - and his insurance business - after the season. Finally, though, he began to feel pressure from alumni and administration to move to New Haven full-time, even to the point of offering to arrange a transfer of his business to New Haven or nearby Hartford. He declined, however, and finally resigned following the 1962 season. He was only 47 years old, but he returned to his beloved Southern California to devote full-time to his life insurance business, and never coached again.
Never officially, that is. He was, however, instrumental in helping UCLA, one of the last of the major single-wing teams, convert to the more modern T-formation.
According to his son, he looked back on his coaching career with no regrets. He derived great satisfaction from it, and considered it a fulfilling career. And then he moved on.
He didn't need football coaching to define him. He had his business and his family, and he was a man of wide interests. He liked playing tennis, he collected Italian stamps and art objects, and he enjoyed opera. He was well-read, given to biographies, history and historical novels, and poetry. And he was a great lover of Shakespeare.
Jordan Olivar died on October 17, 1990 at the age of 75. He was survived by his wife of 54 years, Stella, his children, Harry and Harriet, and nine grandchildren. The cause of death was mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer attributed to his exposure to asbestos years earlier in the shipyards.
At his request, his ashes were scattered at the top of the Palisades, the place where he first saw the Pacific.
He is a member of the Villanova and Loyola-Marymount Halls of Fame, and was elected to the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame. (Yale has no Hall of Fame, but if it did, he would surely be in it.)
In his honor, an award is given annually to a Yale senior other than the captain who, through his devotion to Yale football, has earned the highest respect of his teammates.
A scholarship in the name of Jordan and Stella Olivar is awarded annually by Loyola-Marymount to a financially-deserving student-athlete.
Through the years, in the many inspirational speeches he gave to students and businesspeople alike, Coach Olivar would tell the story of his hiring by Loyola, and ask his audience to consider -
What if he hadn't gotten off the train in Los Angeles? What if, after seeing the snow, he'd gotten back on? What if he'd accepted the receptionist's explanation that it was Sunday, and everything was closed? What if he'd accepted the Athletic Director's explanation that he'd already filled the head coaching position?
He asked those questions to make two important points - so often, the direction of a person's life is determined by little things. And so often, success comes from pressing on.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JORDAN OLIVAR
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He’s a native of San Antonio. He played high school football in Dallas, then two years of JC ball at New Mexico Military Academy and two years of college ball at Tarleton State.
His first job was as offensive coordinator at a high school in Corpus Christi. After three years there, he got his first high school head coaching job at Aransas Pass, Texas. He was just 27.
His stay there lasted only one year, when he left for a job coaching QBs and receivers at West Texas State. After two years there, when the head coach was hired at UTEP, he went along, and served as offensive coordinator for three seasons.
He left UTEP to become head coach at Copperas Cove, Texas High, and after three years there, he was hired as head coach at Iowa Wesleyan, a small private college in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. (Iowa Wesleyan was forced to close its doors at the end of the 2022-2023 school year.)
At Iowa Wesleyan, he and an assistant named Mike Leach teamed up to develop an offense he had been working on which came to be called the Air Raid System. It would gain a wide following among offensive coaches, and sprout an impressive roster of disciples.
He spent three years at Iowa Wesleyan. In his first season they finished 7-4. In his second season they went 7-5, but led the nation in passing. In his third season, Iowa Wesleyan finished second in the nation in passing, going 10-2 and making it to the NAIA playoffs for the first time in school history. Overall, his record there was 25-10.
It was enough to get him the head job at Division II Valdosta State. There, in five seasons, his teams went 40-17-1. Two of his teams made it as far as the D-II quarterfinals, and in 1994 his quarterback, Chris Hatcher, won the Harlon Hill Award – the D-II equivalent of the Heisman.
And then Kentucky AD C. M. Newton came calling. Kentucky had gone 9-24 over the three previous seasons, and Newton was looking for a coach who could win, but just as important, could do it in exciting fashion. And whoever got the job would inherit Tim Couch, one of the nation’s top quarterback recruits and a Kentucky kid.
Our guy got the job and he got Tim Couch, and together they took off.
Year One was 5-6, but it did include the Wildcats’ first win over Alabama since 1922. And Couch set several team records.
Year Two started out with a 68-34 trouncing of archrival Louisville and finished 7-5, with an appearance in the Outback Bowl. Just the second bowl game in 15 years for Kentucky, it ended in a loss to Penn State. And then Couch decided to leave a year early for the NFL.
Year three wound up 6-6 after a loss to Syracuse in the Music City Bowl, and year four wound up 2-9.
Worse, there were reports circulating about recruiting violations, and early in the new year he was forced to resign. Kentucky was hit by the NCAA with a one-year bowl ban and the loss of 19 scholarships over three seasons. His recruiting coordinator was effectively banned from college coaching for eight years.
He had arrived in glory, but his departure left Kentucky in worse shape than it was when he arrived. And for all the hoopla, his overall record was just 20-26.
From there, his career went down the gurgler.
He was back into coaching two years later, at Southeast Louisiana, where in two years he went 5-7 and 7-4, good enough to get him the job at New Mexico State.
In his first year at NMSU, he went 0-12. In his second season, the Aggies went 3-9. For much of the season, they led the nation in total offense. So? Big deal.
In his third year, NMSU went 3-9 and he was fired.
Four months later, he was hired by D-III McMurry. In four years there, he went 27-16, and in his fourth year, after making the move to D-II, he went 8-3.
After a year out of football, he wound up next at Belhaven. Have you heard of it? It’s a D-III school in Jackson, Mississippi. In four years there, he was 8-33. A marvel of consistency, he won two games a season all four seasons.
And that was it for him as a college head coach.
He spent a couple of months as OC at Jackson State, and he knocked around a couple of the spring leagues.
Just recently, he was hired as an “offensive analyst” at a high school in Bluff City, Tennessee.
As an innovator, he was impressive. His air raid has made a major impact on our game. As a head coach? The overall college head coaching record of the man who invented the air raid offense is a rather unspectacular 142-152-1.
TUESDAY,
JULY 30, 2024 "The secret of managing is to
keep the ones that hate you away from the ones that haven't decided
yet." Casey Stengel *********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “It was Whitey Linton who inspired me to make coaching football a lifetime career, a decision that I still take immense pride in more than six decades later. Coach Linton also had the tact to tell me plain and simple that I wasn't big enough, fast enough, or talented enough to play college football at the Big Ten level and steered me to his alma mater, Hillsdale College. He delivered the message without crushing my less-than-fragile ego. It was a critical turning point in my life.
“He also conspired with my father to get my attention about complacent study habits and undisciplined effort in the classroom. What they did came as a total shock but it worked, although I never learned all the details of their ploy until years later.
“Vicksburg High School was only about nine miles from my family’s farm. That's no more than a fifteen-minute drive on today's roads in modern automobiles. But when you can't afford a car and there's no school bus, distance complicates the pursuit of education.
“That's why my parents, insistent that I stay in school and get my high school diploma, agreed to let me live with my mother’s parents in Vicksburg through the week and return to the farm on weekends.”
*********** It was a busy weekend for one of our Aberdeen quarterbacks, Luke Martin:
On Thursday night, from 7 to 9, he took part in a quarterback-receiver camp that I put on at our field.
On Friday morning, from 9 to 11, he took part in another such camp.
On Friday evening, after a three+ hour drive, he took part in a QB camp at Camas High School (the town I live in) from 6 to 8. (It would have been 5 to 8 but he and his mom got caught in the Mother of All Traffic Delays.)
On Saturday morning, after a quick breakfast at our place, he arrived at the camp at 8:15 (an optional early start) and then went till noon.
After lunch, he went to camp from 1 to 4.
Head coach Todd Bridge figured that in less than 48 hours, Luke had put in more than 12 hours of structured practice at getting better.
*********** In Canada, you get only three downs to make ten yards. But on third-and-one, the CFL guys are far more likely to go for it than the Yanks are on fourth-and-one.
That’s because in Canada, the neutral zone is one yard wide: the defense must line up one yard off the ball. And that means that with a decent line charge, the offense (in Canada, that would be the “OH-fence”) has a decent chance of gaining that yard.
So every team uses the quarterback sneak in those situations, linemen bunched tightly in four-point stances. Several teams use backup quarterbacks as their designated sneakers.
Winnipeg has a guy named Chris Streveler, who played college ball at Minnesota and then South Dakota and has had several cups of coffee in the NFL (Miami, Arizona, NY Jets) who is about as good as there is in those short-yardage situations.
In 41 games for the Blue Bombers, his stats as a passer are okay - 269 completions in 420 attempts, for 20 TD and 20 interceptions.
But they’re nothing spectacular.
On the other hand, as a runner he’s carried 259 times and scored 28 touchdowns. (I have no idea how many first downs he’s made.) He’s not just a short yardage threat, either - he’s gained 1369 yards, for a pretty impressive average of 5.3 yards per carry.
*********** Remember back before the drag queens took over, back when the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics consisted of the teams of all the participating nations marching into the Olympic stadium?
What do you suppose it’s going to look like in 2028 if, as the Babylon Bee suggests, Sodom and Gomorrah play host to the Olympics?
https://babylonbee.com/news/sodom-and-gomorrah-set-to-host-2032-olympics
*********** The French, hoping to show how important saving the planet is, may have taken it a bit too far in the way they’re hosting the Olympics.
First of all, there’s the small matter of air-conditioning (or the lack of it) in the Olympic Village.
Then there’s the food. The French are world-famous for the quality of their cuisine. But in a bow to the save-the-earth folks, they’ve evidently overdone the idea of plant-based imitation meats.
It’s become such a problem with the Brits that they’ve actually sent for extra chefs, to come over and prepare foods more to their liking.
When I first heard this, I said “Yeah! Rule Brittania!”
And then I read that one of the foods the British athletes were yearning for was something called - you’ll probably think I’m making this up - Spotted Dick.
Uh, on second thought, I’ll have a veggie burger, please.
https://www.google.com/search?q=spotted+dick&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
*********** Many, many years ago, back in the prehistoric days before the designated hitter, the great Ted Williams (last hitter to bat .400 in a season) was quoted as saying there really shouldn’t be any place in the major leagues for anyone who can’t bat at least .250.
It’s a damn shame that he died in 2002, because he could be a sardonic son of a gun, and I’d love to hear his reaction to the news that the Chicago Cubs just traded for a third baseman named Isaac Paredes. The guy’s batting .247 with16 home runs - and he was described as the “top hitter on the market.”
*********** Yogi Roth, a former Pitt wide receiver, lost his job with the Pac-12 Network when it went dark a few months ago, but managed to land another job with the Big Ten Network.
In the interim, while working at the Big-12’s media days, he caught up with Utah’s Kyle Whittingham and asked him what he thought the future of college football looked like…
Who knows where it's headed? I can tell you the transition and the changes are far from over with. My guess is there are going to be two super leagues, within the next 20 months to 4 or 5 years and you better be on the right side of that line in the sand when that is drawn because everyone else is going to be left behind. So, I think that’s where things are headed, I think it's going to be a minor league NFL model and I don’t believe the NCAA will be involved at all. They’ll have a commissioner that will do things their way. You’ll see private equity continue to come to the party and be factors in the collegiate game. So, I think the experience so far is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what’s going to be here.
*********** Southwest Airlines has just announced that it plans to do away with its unique, open-seating policy and join the other major air lines in selling fixed, reserved seats.
On Reddit, I’ve seen all sorts of complaints about people increasingly taking unfair advantage of their current system, and Southwest doing nothing about it.
Although Southwest's boarding order is based on a pre-assigned number on one's boarding pass, its policy has been to offer “preboarding” to people with disabilities or those who just “need extra help.” But recently there seem to be more and more stories of the miracles performed by “Jetway Jesus” and on phonies who show up in wheelchairs as invalids and get priority boarding, then - mirabile dictu! - show miraculous recovery on arrival at the destination.
And then there are those whose boarding passes permit them to board ahead of others in their party whose passes require them to wait their turn. They board and then, even though all seats are theoretically open to anyone, they spread out personal items on seats next to them and brazenly inform others wanting to sit there that they’re “saved.”
Needless to say, such arrogance has led to quite a few nasty disagreements - as the flight attendants stand and watch with arms folded.
Which leads me to believe that Southwest has self-sabotaged their own open-seating policy, deliberately looking the other way as some fraudsters exploit their “preboarding” system, while others have the gall to “save” seats for others in their party whose boarding passes don’t permit them to board yet.
Why would Southwest do this? Why would they piss off their loyal following - people who (1) don’t like paying extra for a better seat or (2) would rather wait to select their seat - and their seat-mate - until they’re inside the plane?
Seems pretty simple to me. Going to the reserved-seat system allows Southwest to begin charging extra for seats with extra leg room. Or seats toward the front of the plane. Or exit rows. Or even - are you ready for this? - first class.
*********** John Canzano asked Patrick Chun, AD at the University of Washington, who, besides Oregon State and Washington State, would have sufficient “TV value” to make them potential members of a reconstituted Pac-12. Chun was recently the AD at Washington State.
Chun didn’t say. So I turned to a couple of TV-world sources for some input. Their short list included: San Diego State, Colorado State, Memphis, South Florida, University of Texas-San Antonio, North Texas State, and the service academies (Air Force, Army, Navy). They may also include Boise State, Fresno State, and UNLV because of brand and geography. It’s worth chewing on this ‘best of the rest” idea because it appears the world of college athletics is.
*********** It’s every coach’s nightmare - you take a team to an overnight camp and something goes wrong there: a kid gets drunk; older kids haze younger kids.
Discipline, I once heard Woody Hayes say, is ninety per cent anticipation.
But who anticipates this?
Court paperwork submitted this week claims that a former Westview football coach, who is also a Hillsboro police officer, had been drinking in the hours before he allegedly slapped and shook student-athletes at a camp.
Jamal Jones, 32, is currently facing 12 counts of harassment in Yamhill County after allegedly waking up players around 1 a.m. while the team was at Linfield University on June 25. Athletes and coaches both claimed that Jones was crawling over students, slapping and shaking them awake. Students gave police video to back up their accounts.
The probable cause affidavit, filed in court on Wednesday, also says Jones told officers that he drank four Coors tallboys between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on the night of the incident. Tallboys are 16 oz., which is 4 oz. more than a standard can of beer. And students reported smelling what they thought was alcohol when Jones was around, according to the affidavit.
https://www.oregonlive.com/highschoolsports/2024/07/court-papers-allege-former-football-coach-had-been-drinking-before-slapping-shaking-students.html
*********** Years ago, while back in New Haven, I met a young Yale student named Kurt Schmoke. He was from Baltimore, and having lived in Baltimore, I knew his name. I was quite impressed with him.
Kurt Schmoke would become the first black man to serve as mayor of Baltimore. He was an outstanding football player in high school, and after graduation from Yale - where he played both football and lacrosse - he won a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, he served as assistant U.S. Attorney in Baltimore until being elected state's attorney (Baltimore's version of the DA).
In 1987, he was elected mayor of Baltimore.
Since leaving office he served as dean of the Howard University School of Law and, since 2014 he has been president of the University of Baltimore.
Writing in the Yale Alumni Magazine, he recalled his time as state’s attorney, and made this startling observation: "I was struck by the fact that we never prosecuted a college graduate for a violent crime.”
*********** Last June, when Harvard women’s ice hockey coach Katey Stone retired, all seemed nice and refined, as you’d expect at an Ivy League school.
But, according to a lawsuit she filed recently, suing the university for sex discrimination, her “retirement” was actually forced by the university after receiving reports of misconduct, including an annual “naked skate” ritual in which among other things, younger skaters were required to do a diving slide along the ice.
The “misconduct” that got my attention was her alleged use of a supposedly “racially insensitive” phrase. She said something that I figure I’ve heard maybe two or three hundred times - maybe even used it myself once or twice - that “there are too many chiefs … not enough Indians.”
I’ve since read somewhere that when she made that comment, it was directed at a player who actually was an American Indian.
*********** Apologies if I've noted this before. For a decade I had Tampa Bay Rays season tickets. Across the way from my seats I often saw the long, lean Monte (Kiffin) sitting alone, his feet stretched over two rows in front of him. He was gregarious, funny, raspy-voiced, a bigger hit on TV than his head coaches ever were. The public loved him. Yet there he always sat, alone. And he was sufficiently respected as an NFL DC that at one time he was the highest-paid assistant in the league.
Thanks for adding to Coach Lude's comments about Coach Whitey Linton. I think, however, that many who read this page won't be surprised, because they have similar lasting memories of their own high school coaches.
Re Pro-Hamas crap: it admittedly doesn't take much to heat me up, but it happened in a flash, and on the high setting, when I saw that riot at Washington Union Station this week. Climbing up to steal the American flag from the pole above the station, then torching it, dancing around the flames in a circle, then parading the Hamas flag. And simultaneously on the statue they spray paint, Hamas is Coming!. Did anyone see anyone, police or not, try to stop these cretins?
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Paul Robeson was one of the most accomplished Americans of the twentieth century, yet today he is largely unknown. Perhaps because he became a figure of enormous controversy, it’s almost as if his story has been deliberately erased, much in the way the Soviet Union would make unpopular figures disappear from its history books,
He was born April 9, 1898 in a then-segregated Princeton, New Jersey, the son of a black Presbyterian minister who had escaped slavery when he was 15. His mother died in a fire when he was six. His father, accused of "causing unrest" in the community, was relieved of his congregation, and the family then moved to Westfield, New Jersey. There, he would later recall, he first "came to know more white people" and developed his ability to "move between the races."
As one of only 12 blacks in a high school of 200 students, Robeson excelled academically and athletically, and began to realize that while his talents would give him a certain acceptance in the white world, they would not earn him full acceptance.
At 17, he won a statewide competition for a four-year scholarship to Rutgers, becoming the only black student on campus and just the third black person to enroll there in the school’s history. Robeson was very big by the standards of that time - 6-2, 190 - and after surviving the trials of proving himself on the football field, he became the star of the Rutgers squad.
He became only the second black player in football history to make All-America (making it twice, in 1917 and 1918). Walter Camp of Yale, who selected the All-America teams then, called him "a veritable superman."
Although he earned the respect of his teammates and most opponents, his football career was not without racial incident. Caving in to pressure from school administrators, Rutgers’ coach held him out of a game his sophomore year when Washington and Lee refused to play against a black man. But later, when West Virginia would make a similar demand, the coach would stand by his star and refuse to bench him. The game went on as scheduled.
However great he was as a football player and an all-round athlete (overall, he won 15 letters at Rutgers in four different sports), Paul Robeson was much more than that.
He also won his college's oratory prize all four years. He was named to Phi Beta Kappa (the nation's most prestigious academic honor society) as a junior, and as a senior, he was one of only four men chosen for admission to the Cap and Skull Honor Society, for best representing the ideals of Rutgers.
He was class valedictorian, and in the commencement address, urged those in attendance to strive for a government in which "character shall be the standard of excellence," and "black and white shall clasp friendly hands in the consciousness of the fact that we are brethren and that God is the father of us all." (Surely, at some point in his education, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became aware of this speech.)
Following graduation, he studied law at Columbia, paying his tuition by playing professional football and helping to coach at Rutgers. Once, after being taken to a hospital with a football injury, he met Essie Goode, the woman who would become his wife. Learning of his musical talent, she urged him to appear in a musical at the Harlem YMCA, launching what would be a long and renowned musical career.
Upon graduation from law school, he accepted an offer from a wealthy, influential Rutgers alumnus to join his New York law firm, as its first black lawyer. But his legal career did not last long - after a white secretary refused to take dictation from him, he resigned, and never practiced law again.
Meanwhile, his show business career progressed. Robeson became a sensation with his singing of "Ole Man River" in Jerome Kern's musical "Show Boat." And his portrayal of Othello, Shakespeare's dark-skinned general who is married to a white woman and tormented by his suspicion that she is unfaithful to him, was so powerful and defining that no man has ever been able to play the role since without being compared to him.
But controversy began to dog him. In some cases it was due to his being a black man playing the lead opposite white women; in others it was due to his outspokenness on the matter of America's racial inequality. And, as things progressed, to his widely-expressed belief that people of other races lived better in the Soviet Union than in the United States.
In New York, when he starred in Eugene O'Neill's “All God's Chillun Got Wings,” in which a white actress played his wife, there were threats of riots and bombing.
But in London, at the opening night of The Emperor Jones, he was called back for 12 ovations. And Essie would write that in London, unlike New York, they could, "as respectable human beings, dine at any public place," quite a contrast to concert tours in the United States, when he would frequently be denied hotel accommodations.
Once, in the middle of a concert in Kansas City he stopped, made a comment about the racial segregation of the audience, and announced that he was continuing under protest. At that, hundreds of whites walked out.
Robeson’s world travels made it clear to him that he was treated better in many foreign countries than he was in America, but unfortunately for him and his cause, the country and the system he chose as his ideal was one which most Americans viewed with great distrust - the Soviet Union.
His open support of the Soviet Union - and Communism - came to overshadow everything else about him, and despite his renown, he spent much of his adult life under investigation by the FBI.
His concerts were boycotted, and often shut down by rioters. On at least two occasions, he escaped death after a wheel on his car had been tampered with.
As a highly visible American, he made great propaganda for the Soviet Union and its ruler, Josef Stalin. What made Robeson susceptible to the Soviet line was that in his eyes, while blacks were treated as equals in the Soviet Union, they were far less than that in the United States.
Realizing that his great talent and fame uniquely positioned him as a point man for black people everywhere, he criticized, he complained and he had the courage to tell people in power things that they didn't want to hear.
In 1943, four years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, Robeson openly appealed to baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to lift the major leagues' ban against black players. (With World War II going on and baseball having a hard time finding enough fit men to fill its rosters, baseball nonetheless held fast to its color line.)
But never did he advocate the overthrow of the United States government, violent or otherwise, and he never called for racial separation or race warfare. He talked, instead, of racial equality.
It was most unfortunate that he came to be associated with Stalin - causing him to be labelled a "Kremlin stooge" by white and black leaders alike. Like most people in the world, he was unaware of what a true monster Stalin was, and it came as such a shock to him when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 revealed to the world the full extent of Stalin's butchery that he reportedly suffered an emotional collapse upon hearing the news.
(Ironically, the same United States government that hounded him, cancelled his passport and subjected him to constant FBI surveillance because of his association with the Soviet Union was itself willing to ally with Stalin in the fight against Hitler.)
Once one of the best-known Americans of his time, having achieved greatness in his field of choice, Paul Robeson wound up living a life in disgrace in the eyes of much of the America of his day. Today, far too few Americans have even heard of him.
In 1973, at the celebration of his 75th birthday, Mrs. Coretta Scott King told a capacity crowd at Carnegie Hall in New York that, decades before her husband, Paul Robeson had been "buried alive" for fighting for the causes of civil rights and human dignity.
Paul Robeson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING PAUL ROBESON
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - MARSING, IDAHO
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** What a history lesson for me.
This guy was talented beyond all belief in so many ways, not just
athletically. This one I will remember.
Mike Foristiere
Marsing, Idaho
*********** I didn't like his politics, but I really enjoyed his singing.
When he sang "Old Man River" in the play Showboat it resonated with every cell in your body. It was so powerful.
David Crump
Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: For much of the following, I’m indebted to the subject’s son, a now-deceased college teammate and classmate of mine.
He was born Giordano Aurelio Olivari in 1915, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Italian immigrants. His father had jumped ship in New York - later, our guy would enjoy telling people that his father was an early illegal alien. His father waited on tables and picked up a little money on the side as a boxer.
Italian was the language spoken in the home; during Prohibition, he helped his father make wine, recalling later how he hated having to stomp the grapes in his bare feet.
From Brooklyn, his family moved to Staten Island, where he attended Curtis High School, graduating in 1930. He played high school soccer and baseball, but was ineligible to play high school football - there was a minimum age requirement, and he was never old enough.
Although he graduated first in his class, college was never an option. It was 1930 and America had been hit by the Depression. Through friends, he managed to find a job cleaning up a men's gym, sweeping floors and picking up towels, and occasionally earning tips by playing handball against members when no other opponents were available. In time, members began to request him as an opponent, and, on occasion playing as many as 30 games a day, he became quite good.
So good did he become, in fact, that as his son once told me, "He would sometimes bet on the games, giving his opponent as much as 18 points to start (game is 21), as long as he could serve first. To score a point you had to be serving, so his opponent would have to win two serves - first breaking Dad's serve, then making a point on his own serve. Sometimes, if an opponent was not very good, Dad would just offer to play with his feet - which the opponent would take him up on, not knowing he was a soccer player."
One day, a wrestler showed up at the gym in search of a workout opponent, and saw him at work. Our guy was big, 6-4 and beginning to fill out. "Hey, kid!" the wrestler called out. "Let's go a few rounds!"
Things went as one might expect, until our guy grew tired of being tossed around, and suggested a game of handball instead.
Things went differently on the handball court, and the wrestler, run ragged and badly beaten, said, "Hey, kid - you're a pretty good athlete. How'd you like to play football? I know some people - I can get you a scholarship at either Notre Dame, or Fordham, or Villanova."
After giving it a little thought, he said "Villanova!" (Later in life, he would explain his logic: Notre Dame was the number one team in the country, and he might not be able to play there; Fordham was close by, in New York, where they would have known that he'd never played high school football.)
As he would later tell it, for a kid from the streets of New York, going to Villanova, with its green, leafy campus - where you ate three meals every day and all you had to do was go to classes and play sports - was like going to heaven.
Although he had never played in a game of football until he arrived at Villanova (on a football scholarship) he wound up starring on some of the Wildcats' greatest teams, playing first for Harry Stuhldreher, one of Notre Dame’s legendary Four Horsemen, and then for Maurice "Clipper" Smith, another former Knute Rockne player.
In his senior year, Villanova was 8-0-1, outscoring opponents 185-7, and he was named co-MVP. The only blemish on the Wildcats' record was a 0-0 tie with Auburn. He played tackle on a defensive unit that yielded just one touchdown and shut out eight opponents, and as an indication of his football intelligence (and Clipper Smith's resourcefulness) he was entrusted with calling the offensive plays - from his position at right tackle.
He graduated second in his class, a smart player on a smart team, four of whose members (he, Alex Bell, Art Raimo and John McKenna) would go on to coach at the major college level. Playing right next to him at right guard was a Philadelphian named Dave DiFilippo, who years later would achieve a certain measure of fame as the head coach of a legendary minor league team known as the Pottstown Firebirds, and as the focal figure in an NFL Films production entitled "Pro Football, Pottstown, PA."
In his final college game, Villanova ended the season by traveling to Los Angeles to play Loyola in the Los Angeles Coliseum. While there, he and some teammates took a bus ride from the downtown hotel where they were staying, out to Santa Monica. The bus stopped on the Pacific Palisades, and looking out over the Pacific to Catalina Island in the distance, he was blown away by the sight. Then and there, in the words of his son, "he fell in love with California."
Following graduation from Villanova, already married and with his wife, Stella, expecting twins, he got a job teaching and coaching at Radnor High School, not far from the Villanova campus. He left Radnor after a year to coach at Paulsboro, New Jersey, and after two years at Paulsboro, he moved to Philadelphia's Roman Catholic High.
Exempt from the World War II draft because he had a wife and two young children, he also worked in a Philadelphia shipyard.
And then, a year later, Villanova called. He was just 28.
He was the first of three members from his Villanova squad to coach the Wildcats (Art Raimo and Alex Bell were the two others). When he took over, it was 1943, not a good time to be coaching a college team, especially one that had to play Army's Blanchard-and-Davis teams. He took his lumps for a while, once absorbing an 83-0 defeat at the hands of mighty Army, but he built well and managed to compile a 33-20 record in his five seasons at Villanova.
Two of his teams went to bowl games: in 1947, Villanova lost to Kentucky - coached by Bear Bryant - in the Great Lakes Bowl, 24-14; his 1948 team finished 8-2-1, including victories over Texas A & M, Miami and North Carolina State, and a 13-13 tie with Bryant and Kentucky, and the Wildcats capped the season with a 27-7 win over Nevada in the Harbor Bowl in San Diego.
It was on the way back from San Diego, during a change of trains in Los Angeles, that he learned that Loyola, the small Catholic school he'd once played against, was looking for a football coach. Remembering his first view of the Pacific from the Palisades, and how much he'd been taken with California, he got off the train to call Loyola and inquire about the job.
As his son told me, it was January 19, 1949, and as his dad got off the train in L.A.'s Union Station to make the phone call, it was snowing! "In California?" he asked himself. "Who needs this? We have snow in Pennsylvania."
But he made the call anyhow. He got through to a receptionist, who told him there was no one in the athletic department. "It's Sunday," she reminded him.
He was tempted to say, "That's too bad," and get back on the train, but for some reason, he persisted. He asked, "Isn't there someone I can speak to about the football position?"
"You could probably talk to Father Connelly," she said. "The priests live on campus. He's the Athletic Director."
He managed to get hold of Father Connelly and explain who he was and why he was calling, but the priest cut him off short, telling him, "I think we've already filled the job."
Our guy asked, "Who do you have in mind?"
Father Connelly replied, "Joe Sheeketski, of the University of Nevada."
"Would it make any difference," he asked, "If I told you my team just beat his team 27-7?"
Said Father Connelly, "Maybe we should talk."
So while the Villanova team's train pulled out of Union Station without him, he took a taxi to the Loyola campus to meet with Father Connelly.
Later that same day, he called his wife back in Pennsylvania, and said, "Pack your bags. We're moving to California."
In his three years at Loyola, he built a powerhouse, at one point posting a 13-game winning streak. His 1950 Lions' team, quarterbacked by Don Klosterman, was ranked 22nd in the nation and led the nation in passing. Six members of the team went on to play professional football, the best-known among them Gene Brito, who would become an all-pro defensive end, and Klosterman, who would go on to greater renown as a pro football executive.
Ironically, the 1950 Loyola team defeated Nevada, 34-7, as Klosterman completed eight of the 11 first-half passes he threw, three for touchdowns, and the Lions outgained Nevada 423 yards to 98.
But small Catholic schools around the country were being forced to take a hard look at the rising costs of playing big-time football, with most deciding they could not longer keep up the struggle. Loyola was one of them, and when Loyola dropped football after the 1951 season, he was out of a coaching job.
Reluctant to leave the West Coast, where he and his family loved the life and where he had begun to build a thriving life insurance business in the off-season, he hired on as a part-time assistant to Herman Hickman at Yale. But before he had even had a chance to meet the players, Hickman left to take a job in television. It was already August, and Yale was in a spot, but fortunately for them, our guy had successful head coaching experience, and in desperation, they offered him the job. After hesitating - not because he didn't think he was up to the job, but because he just didn't want to have to move back East - he took the job with the understanding that he could continue to live in California in the off-season.
The decision proved to be a fortunate one for Yale. He was a godsend, turning potential disaster into triumph by coaching the 1952 team to a 7-2 record. When he left Yale 11 years later, in 1962, he had built a record of 61-32-6, making him the winningest coach in the Ivy League. Only the great Walter Camp, who retired 70 years before, had won more games as a Yale coach. His 1956 team won the first-ever Ivy League title, His 1960 team finished 9-0, the first undefeated Yale team in 37 years, and he was an American Football Coaches Association Coach of the Year. (He first became a member of the AFCA the same year as another young coach named Paul "Bear" Bryant.)
(The 1960 Yale team finished 14th in the AP poll. It was the last Ivy team to finish that high, just ahead of number 15 Michigan State and number 16 Penn State.)
His greatest thrill in coaching came in 1955, when Yale upset Don Holleder-led Army 14-12, in front of 70,000 people in a sold-out Yale Bowl. (Army and its Coach, Earl "Red" Blaik had once poured it on his undermanned World War II-era Villanova team, 83-0.)
He was an extremely loyal man, and inspired loyalty in those who worked for him. He kept the same four assistants through his entire tenure at Yale. Two of them, Art Raimo and Jerry Neri, were former teammates from Villanova, and remained lifelong friends.
His style of football would be considered conservative by today's standards, but at a time when many teams were still running the old-fashioned single wing, he was an offensive innovator.
He helped pioneer the Belly-T, or Belly Series (some people at the time called it the Drive Series or the Ride Series, but the name "Belly" won out), which one can see at first glance contained the seeds of the Wishbone T (the name that eventually won out over "Y" formation) to come along a generation later.
The Belly-T is still a highly effective offense, and his book, "Offensive Football - The Belly Series", written in 1958, is still the best I've seen on the subject, one I'd recommend to anyone interested in the offense - if you can find a copy. Perhaps remembering how he himself had called the plays while playing tackle at Villanova, his system placed a great deal of responsibility on the offensive tackles' ability to recognize defenses and adjust to them by making the appropriate blocking calls.
Now that I know more (a lot more) than I did when I was in college, I recognize Coach’s genius at never attempting things that were beyond his players' capabilities. When he had the players to do so, he did more with them. And he never did anything stupid, nor did his teams. That may sound like a "well, duh!" sort of statement at an Ivy League school, but if you believe in multiple intelligences, you will trust me when I say that an Ivy League intellect is not necessarily a guarantee of football intelligence.
Without being a whipcracker, without ever raising his voice, he had great team discipline. I recall the first team meeting I attended as a varsity player my sophomore year. As he began talking, one or two latecomers walked in. He stopped what he had been saying and said, “Those who can’t make it to meetings on time will soon be known as the late members of the team.”
I especially remember a special teams lesson he gave me that has stuck with me through the years. We had plenty of good place kickers at Yale, yet they never kicked off. Instead, I'd watch, chuckling, while our big linemen practiced kicking off. They were lousy at it, I thought, and it seemed to me that the more they practiced, the lousier they got. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd have sworn they were trying to be lousy!
After graduation, I got a job that kept me in Connecticut, and one night, my boss invited me to a banquet at which Coach was to be the featured speaker.
On arrival, I discovered that I had been seated next to him. Now, you have to understand something. We didn't really know each other all that well. He was not a cold individual by any means, but he was a man of enormous dignity and aplomb, and as was the case with most head coaches of that time, he tended to be remote with his players. And because he delegated extensively, our interaction for the most part was with our position coaches and rarely with the head coach. Couple that with the fact that I had been something of a screw-off, an underachiever who undoubtedly was a source of some frustration to the coaches during my years there, and you can understand that I didn't know what to expect.
But Coach couldn't have been more cordial and more enjoyable. I had never done a damn thing for him, but from the moment he arrived that night, he was my coach, and I was one of his former players, and he made me feel like I’d been an All-American.
He told me all sorts of stories, as if I were an old friend (I was reminded of this when I heard a former Texas player say of Darrell Royal, "Coach Royal was my coach - and then he became a friend.")
At length, I got up the courage to ask him something that had been on my mind for quite some time: why did we kick off like that?
He threw his head back and laughed. I guess he'd been asked the same question a few times before.
He told me that there was a time once when he was like everyone else - when he instructed his kickers to tee it up and kick it deep. And then one time, after an opponent had run a kickoff back for a touchdown, he had applied his intelligence to the problem, and had come up with the solution - don't kick it to the return man!
Let the opponents spend all the time they wanted to, working on their kick return, he said. They wouldn't get a chance to use it against his team.
Years later, when I first became a coach (and I knew all the answers without having to bother learning them yet), I had kickers who could boom them deep. Shoot - when I was coaching minor league ball back East, I had a guy who would go on to kick in the NFL. But coaching in high school, I began to get tired of spending all that time on kick coverage, and still having to worry every time the ball landed in a return man's arms. Once in a while - not often, but once is too often - we would have one returned on us.
So I went back to that night I sat next to him. And from that point on - some time around 1980, it was - I made the decision never again to kick it deep. I saw exactly one kick returned against one of my teams from then on. It was 1996, and the kicker got a little carried away - and kicked it deep! And less than 20 seconds into the game, we were down, 7-0.
(I did, though, do one thing that he didn't do. I carefully explained to all my players why I did it the way I did, and I explained to them why I was telling them: so they’d know what to say when Dad or Uncle Charlie complained about why we didn't kick it high and deep.)
To show how the times have changed since he coached at Yale, Coach was able to take advantage of the Ivy League's ban on spring practice and its restrictions on recruiting, continuing to coach in the summer and fall and then returning to Los Angeles - and his insurance business - after the season. Finally, though, he began to feel pressure from alumni and administration to move to New Haven full-time, even to the point of offering to arrange a transfer of his business to New Haven or nearby Hartford. He declined, however, and finally resigned following the 1962 season. He was only 47 years old, but he returned to his beloved Southern California to devote full-time to his life insurance business, and never coached again.
Never officially, that is. He was, however, instrumental in helping UCLA, one of the last of the major single-wing teams, convert to the more modern T-formation.
According to his son, he looked back on his coaching career with no regrets. He derived great satisfaction from it, and considered it a fulfilling career. And then he moved on.
He didn't need football coaching to define him. He had his business and his family, and he was a man of wide interests. He liked playing tennis, he collected Italian stamps and art objects, and he enjoyed opera. He was well-read, given to biographies, history and historical novels, and poetry. And he was a great lover of Shakespeare.
He died on October 17, 1990 at the age of 75. He was survived by his wife of 54 years, Stella, his children, Harry and Harriet, and nine grandchildren. The cause of death was mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer attributed to his exposure to asbestos years earlier in the shipyards.
At his request, his ashes were scattered at the top of the Palisades, the place where he first saw the Pacific.
He is a member of the Villanova and Loyola-Marymount Halls of Fame, and was elected to the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame. (Yale has no Hall of Fame, but if it did, he would surely be in it.)
In his honor, an award is given annually to a Yale senior other than the captain who, through his devotion to Yale football, has earned the highest respect of his teammates.
A scholarship in the name of him and his wife is awarded annually by Loyola-Marymount to a financially-deserving student-athlete.
Through the years, in the many inspirational speeches he gave to students and businesspeople alike, Coach would tell the story of his hiring by Loyola, and ask his audience to consider -
What if he hadn't gotten off the train in Los Angeles? What if, after seeing the snow, he'd gotten back on? What if he'd accepted the receptionist's explanation that it was Sunday, and everything was closed? What if he'd accepted the Athletic Director's explanation that he'd already filled the head coaching position?
He asked those questions to make two important points - so often, the direction of a person's life is determined by little things. And so often, success comes from pressing on.
FRIDAY,
JULY 26, 2024 “Men
are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and
ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy
ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my
staff." German General Erwin Rommel.*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Whitey Linton was the first and probably the only person I ever idolized. He became the most important and significant person in my total personal development.
“Certainly, my father was my role model for truth, honesty, hard work, determination, and love. He had raised me on our family farm, where we labored so hard and so long just to survive in the Great Depression. He taught me the values that have remained with me all my life.
“But Whitey Linton was a role model in a different way. He was handsome; he was articulate; he was an excellent coach; he was a fun person to go pheasant hunting with; he could get me to do just about anything.”
*********** Former Oregon State coach Mike Riley lost his wife, Dee, recently. She was a great coach’s wife, and the Rileys’ story was a very touching one. It’s well told here by Kerry Eggers, longtime Oregon sports writer whose roots at Oregon State run deep - his dad was once the Beavers’ Sports Information Director.
https://www.kerryeggers.com/stories/mike-and-dee-riley-it-was-a-true-love-story?mc_cid=47ed0633ec&mc_eid=6f7fbc8761
************ Seeing the magazine ad from years past showing Packers’ star Paul Hornung about to take a drag on a Marlboro reminded me of a great word-picture from “When Pride Still Mattered," Davis Maraniss' biography of Vince Lombardi.
"Cartons of Marlboros were stacked on the floor at Hornung's house, freebies that he received from the tobacco company for advertising them. The boys often took little give-away four packs downtown to hand out to young women in the bars. They smoked the rest themselves. Before every game Hornung sat alone on his stool, puffing away, gathering his thoughts. There would be time for two cigarettes during halftime, when the clubhouse was dense with smoke: Marlboros passed around (none for Starr, who never smoked), Lombardi dragging on his Salem, Henry Jordan bumming a Camel from Phil Bengston, Jimmy Taylor pulling out a cigar."
“When Pride Still Mattered,” very well researched and very well written, is on my “must reading” list for any football coach or anyone with a serious interest in football history.
*********** After Tampa Bay Rays’ shortstop Taylor Walls hit a double against the Yankees this past weekend, he celebrated by pumping his fist and appearing to shout “fight, fight” - and he caught so much flak afterward (surprise - most sports writers are flaming liberals) that he had to explain that it was all “a joke” and not intended in any way as an endorsement.
Now, if he’d said he was actually ridiculing Donald Trump, he’d be a sure first-ballot entrant to the Hall of Fame, .149 batting average and all.
*********** They haven’t even held the opening ceremonies yet, but the Paris Olympics are off to a great start. On Wednesday, Israel's national anthem was greeted with loud boos before its soccer match against Mali. And many people could be seen waving the Palestinian flag throughout the playing of the anthem.
Hey! There’s my time machine! Whaddaya say we take it for a spin, back to…
September 5, 1972. 4:30 AM. Eight Palestinian militants scaled a fence surrounding the Olympic Village. Disguised as athletes, they broke into the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team where they killed two members of the team and took nine others hostage. The hostages were later killed in an unsuccessful rescue attempt.
Wait - you mean those rascal Palestinians aren’t peace loving after all?
*********** Speaking of the Olympics… we sure had a close call. In Paris, a last-minute settlement between Olympic organizers and a dancers’ union helped prevent the almost unspeakable horror of an opening ceremony taking place without hundreds of striking dancers.
I knew you’d be happy to read this.
*********** The CFL is now six games into its season, and Chris Jones has already been fired as head coach and GM of the Edmonton Elks.
An 0-5 start, after back-to-back 4-14 seasons will do that to a guy.
It was his second stint at Edmonton. In two earlier seasons (2014 and 2015), he was 26-10, and won the Grey Cup. Then he left for Saskatchewan. I can’t tell you why.
Jarious Jackson, a former Notre Dame QB, has replaced Jones on an interim basis. Jackson played nine years in the CFL, and he’s now in his twelfth year coaching up north.
*********** Oregon wasn’t exactly meek in announcing its arrival at the Big Ten meetings in Indianapolis.
*********** If you needed any further evidence that today’s kids are, well… different, check this out.
I’ve been reading a book by a guy named Jeff Riley called “Big Time - The People, the Places and the Game of Oregon 8-Man Football.”
The title is pretty self-explanatory. The author spent the entire 2017 season traveling around the state of Oregon digging into the world of Oregon 8-man football. He goes to tiny communities in the mountains, in the desert, in the farmlands, in the forests and on the coast to talk to the people who make it go.
It’s not unlike America in miniature, in that the old-timers are almost unbelievably hard-nosed, while the youngsters are, in many cases, a good bit less so.
From the text…
The Alsea Wolverines rolled the dice when only 12 players showed up for the first day of practice in August, and those dice officially came up snake eyes in the sixth week of the season.
Injuries and academic woes left the Wolverines with only eight eligible players heading into their special district 3 contest this week against McKenzie. That meant every Alsea player would have to play both offense and defense the entire game. Fearing injury in those playing conditions, a wolverine player quit the team.
And just like that, Alsea’s season was over.
(Get this: the game in question was their homecoming game.)
*********** I was remiss in not noting the death of Monte Kiffin. Some people might only know him now as “Lane’s dad,” but Monte Kiffin was renowned as a defensive coach, in great demand everywhere in the business. He was a Nebraska guy who was already in Lincoln when Bob Devaney arrived as the Cornhuskers’ coach and turned the Huskers into a national power. After playing under Devaney, he returned, after a couple of years trying his hand as a player in the pros, to coach under him. He spent 57 years as a coach (30 of them in the NFL), but just three seasons as a head coach - at NC State, where he went 16-17 from 1980-1982. I think that Lane Kiffin has now established himself as a very good coach, but there are plenty of people (like me) who believe that back when Tennessee hired him, their real motive was to get Monte as part of the deal.
*********** The next time you pick up a newspaper, I bet you won’t get past the front page before seeing at least one reason why, according to Gerard Baker in the Wall Street Journal, Gallup found in 1979 that 51% of Americans had a great deal of confidence in newspapers, while this year the number was 18%.
*********** Things you can - and should - teach every quarterback:
Q: What’s the quarterback’s Number One job?
A: PROTECT THE FOOTBALL!
FOUR MUSTS
1. Unless you’re in the act of handing off or throwing, always have two hands on the ball
2. Always carry the ball above the elbows
3. Always keep the eyes up - and (most of the time) upfield
4. Always keep the feet moving - never have both feet on the ground or in the air at the same time
*********** Hugh,
Coach Lude's recollection of the influence that his high school football coach had on him is a powerful reminder of the importance of what we do.
Regarding Army's offense, zone blocking with triple option seems like a strange combination, but I hope they can make it work.
Both sets of my grandparents were farmers on the plains of North Dakota, and they both had outhouses until probably the mid 1970s. I can still recall the smell.
Greg Koenig
Bennett, Colorado
*********** We can be thankful for Whitey Linton. And thank you for introducing me to the man behind the name on the Campbell Trophy. I wonder what he actually told the Silicon people that was so important to them. Was it the kind of information many football coaches are familiar with?
(Hard to imagine 13 years have passed since Army's Andrew Rodriguez won it).
College football's almost here, and I tell myself to avoid passing strong judgments until at least the halfway point of the season. I expect tumult and ugliness.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
I don’t know what Andrew Rodriguez is doing now, but he graduated third in his class (2012) at West Point. His dad, General David M. Rodriguez, is Commanding General of the US Army Africa Command (AFRICOM)
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: They called Bill Campbell “The Coach of Silicon Valley.”
At places like Intuit, Apple, Google and Amazon, billionaires such as Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos - men famous for not listening to others - valued Bill Campbell’s wisdom and advice.
But unlike so many so-called “career coaches,” Bill Campbell really was a coach. An honest-to-God football coach.
He grew up in the Pittsburgh area, in a steel town called Homestead, where his first coach was his dad, a high school PE teacher.
Undersized as a lineman and linebacker in the two-way football of the time, he was smart enough to get into Columbia, where he played football for four years under Buff Donelli. At less than 170 pounds, he played both ways - lineman and linebacker - and captained Columbia’s 1961 team - the only Columbia team in school history to win the Ivy League championship.
While at Columbia, he and several football and rugby players founded the Old Blue Rugby Club, now one of the top rugby clubs in America.
After getting his master’s degree in education, he was an assistant coach at Boston College before returning to Columbia in 1974 as head coach.
In six years, his overall record was 12-41-1. He never won more than three games in a season. But to put things in perspective: Columbia had won more than three games only twice in the 10 seasons before he arrived, and after he left the Lions would go 13 more seasons (and four different coaches) before even winning as many as three games in a season.
So after six seasons, it was time to move on. To the world of business.
He started with giant advertising firm J. Walter Thompson, and made it to vice president before moving to Kodak as Director of Consumer Products in Europe.
From Kodak, he moved to Apple Computer in 1983, rising to become executive vice-president, then in 1990 founding and leading Claris Corporation, a “spin-off” software company owned by Apple.
His next stop was Intuit, the maker of Quicken and TurboTax, where he served as its CEO from 1998 to 2000.
At some point, because of the reputation he had acquired at so many places, and the trust he had engendered among so many prominent people, he began to serve as a confidante of the rich and powerful - Sergei Brin, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos - and to be called “The Coach of Silicon Valley.”
He owned a bar in Palo Alto for a time, and enjoyed coaching middle school football.
At Columbia, he joined the Board of Trustees in 2003, and two years later was named its chairman.
In 2009, in recognition of his love of football and his many achievements, the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame renamed its highest award, given to the American college football player with the best combination of academics, community service, and on-field performance (sometimes referred to as the “academic Heisman”), The William V. Campbell Trophy.
At Columbia, in 2013 the University dedicated a new state-of-the-art athletics facility in his name.
In 2014, the University retired his old football number - 67 - for all sports.
In 2015, the University introduced a new “William Campbell Performer of the Year” award, to be given to the top male and female athlete each year.
Following his death in April, 2016, two thousand mourners gathered on the high-school football field in Atherton, California (where he had coached middle-schoolers) to honor Coach Bill Campbell.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BILL CAMPBELL
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was one of the most accomplished Americans of the twentieth century, yet today he is largely unknown. Perhaps because he became a figure of enormous controversy, it’s almost as if his story has been deliberately erased, much in the way the Soviet Union would make unpopular figures disappear from its history books,
He was born April 9, 1898 in a then-segregated Princeton, New Jersey, the son of a black Presbyterian minister who had escaped slavery when he was 15. His mother died in a fire when he was six. His father, accused of "causing unrest" in the community, was relieved of his congregation, and the family then moved to Westfield, New Jersey. There, he would later recall, he first "came to know more white people" and developed his ability to "move between the races."
As one of only 12 blacks in a high school of 200 students, he excelled academically and athletically, and began to realize that while his talents would give him a certain acceptance in the white world, they would not earn him full acceptance.
At 17, he won a statewide competition for a four-year scholarship to Rutgers, becoming the only black student on campus and just the third black person to enroll there in the school’s history. He was very big by the standards of that time - 6-2, 190 - and after surviving the trials of proving himself on the football field, he became the star of the Rutgers squad.
He became only the second black player in football history to make All-America (making it twice, in 1917 and 1918). Walter Camp of Yale, who selected the All-America teams then, called him "a veritable superman."
Although he earned the respect of his teammates and most opponents, his football career was not without racial incident. Caving in to pressure from school administrators, Rutgers’ coach held him out of a game his sophomore year when Washington and Lee refused to play against a black man. But later, when West Virginia would make a similar demand, the coach would stand by his star and refuse to bench him. The game went on as scheduled.
However great he was as a football player and an all-round athlete (overall, he won 15 letters at Rutgers in four different sports), he was much more than that.
He also won his college's oratory prize all four years. He was named to Phi Beta Kappa (the nation's most prestigious academic honor society) as a junior, and as a senior, he was one of only four men chosen for admission to the Cap and Skull Honor Society, for best representing the ideals of Rutgers.
He was class valedictorian, and in the commencement address, urged those in attendance to strive for a government in which "character shall be the standard of excellence," and "black and white shall clasp friendly hands in the consciousness of the fact that we are brethren and that God is the father of us all." (Surely, at some point in his education, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became aware of this speech.)
Following graduation, he studied law at Columbia, paying his tuition by playing professional football and helping to coach at Rutgers. Once, after being taken to a hospital with a football injury, he met Essie Goode, the woman who would become his wife. Learning of his musical talent, she urged him to appear in a musical at the Harlem YMCA, launching what would be a long and renowned musical career.
Upon graduation from law school, he accepted an offer from a wealthy, influential Rutgers alumnus to join his New York law firm, as its first black lawyer. But his legal career did not last long - after a white secretary refused to take dictation from him, he resigned, and never practiced law again.
Meanwhile, his show business career progressed. He became a sensation with his singing of "Ole Man River" in Jerome Kern's musical "Show Boat." And his portrayal of Othello, Shakespeare's dark-skinned general who is married to a white woman and tormented by his suspicion that she is unfaithful to him, was so powerful and defining that no man has ever been able to play the role since without being compared to him.
But controversy began to dog him. In some cases it was due to his being a black man playing the lead opposite white women; in others it was due to his outspokenness on the matter of America's racial inequality. And, as things progressed, to his widely-expressed belief that people of other races lived better in the Soviet Union than in the United States.
In New York, when he starred in Eugene O'Neill's “All God's Chillun Got Wings,” in which a white actress played his wife, there were threats of riots and bombing.
But in London, at the opening night of The Emperor Jones, he was called back for 12 ovations. And Essie would write that in London, unlike New York, they could, "as respectable human beings, dine at any public place," quite a contrast to concert tours in the United States, when he would frequently be denied hotel accommodations.
Once, in the middle of a concert in Kansas City he stopped, made a comment about the racial segregation of the audience, and announced that he was continuing under protest. At that, hundreds of whites walked out.
His world travels made it clear to him that he was treated better in many foreign countries than he was in America, but unfortunately for him and his cause, the country and the system he chose as his ideal was one which most Americans viewed with great distrust - the Soviet Union.
His open support of the Soviet Union - and Communism - came to overshadow everything else about him, and despite his renown, he spent much of his adult life under investigation by the FBI.
His concerts were boycotted, and often shut down by rioters. On at least two occasions, he escaped death after a wheel on his car had been tampered with.
As a highly visible American, he made great propaganda for the Soviet Union and its ruler, Josef Stalin. What made him susceptible to the Soviet line was that in his eyes, while blacks were treated as equals in the Soviet Union, they were far less than that in the United States.
Realizing that his great talent and fame uniquely positioned him as a point man for black people everywhere, he criticized, he complained and he had the courage to tell people in power things that they didn't want to hear.
In 1943, four years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, he openly appealed to baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to lift the major leagues' ban against black players. (With World War II going on and baseball having a hard time finding enough fit men to fill its rosters, baseball nonetheless held fast to its color line.)
But never did he advocate the overthrow of the United States government, violent or otherwise, and he never called for racial separation or race warfare. He talked, instead, of racial equality.
It was most unfortunate that he came to be associated with Stalin - causing him to be labelled a "Kremlin stooge" by white and black leaders alike. Like most people in the world, he was unaware of what a true monster Stalin was, and it came as such a shock to him when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 revealed to the world the full extent of Stalin's butchery that he reportedly suffered an emotional collapse upon hearing the news.
(Ironically, the same United States government that hounded him, cancelled his passport and subjected him to constant FBI surveillance because of his association with the Soviet Union was itself willing to ally with Stalin in the fight against Hitler.)
Once one of the best-known Americans of his time, having achieved greatness in his field of choice, he wound up living a life in disgrace in the eyes of much of the America of his day. Today, far too few Americans have even heard of him.
In 1973, at the celebration of his 75th birthday, Mrs. Coretta Scott King told a capacity crowd at Carnegie Hall in New York that, decades before her husband, he had been "buried alive" for fighting for the causes of civil rights and human dignity.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995.
TUESDAY,
JULY 23, 2024 “We are becoming addicted to
wanting particular outcomes, not living with the outcomes we don't
like." Justice Clarence Thomas********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “I will never forget my first pair of good dress shoes. They were brown wing tips with crępe soles. They came from Thom McAn, a chain retail store, and as I recall I got them when I was a sophomore attending high school in Vicksburg, Michigan. Considering the muddy, grubby work shoes I wore on the farm, those shoes meant just as much to me as a glass slipper ever meant to another high school-aged kid named Cinderella.
“I can't remember how much the shoes cost, but my guess would be no more than two or three bucks, which was a lot of money for someone who spent his childhood in poverty on a farm in rural Michigan and attended a one-room grade school.
“What made these shoes so important was that they were the same style and color worn by Clayton F. (Whitey) Linton. In a matter of weeks from the time I met Whitey Linton he had become the most important person in my life.
“Because of Whitey Linton, who was my first football coach, I wanted to be a football coach. I wanted to emulate Whitey Linton. I wanted to look like him and talk like him and walk like him.”
*********** The statue of the great Don James outside Washington’s Husky Stadium cost $150,000. My friend, the late Mike Lude, who as AD at Kent State gave James his first head coaching job and then became James’ boss at Washington, told me they had no difficulty at all raising the money.
Mike himself donated $5,000. 325 former players donated.
So did two former Kent Staters, teammates there under Coach James. One was Nick Saban, who after his playing days began his coaching career under James as a graduate assistant there. The other was Gary Pinkel, who assisted James at Washington before going on to become head coach at Toledo and then Missouri.
Mike said that when they called Saban for a donation, he asked just one question: “How much did Pinkel give?”
He was told $5,000.
Saban said, “Put me down for $6,000.”
*********** Show me the football coach who could get away with what the head of the Secret Service tried to get away with in front of Congress Monday.
“Coach, what happened out there? What went wrong?”
“This is an ongoing investigation. It’s only been nine days since the game.”
The difference, of course, is that football coaches are accountable for their failures.
*********** ARMY: The NEW Old Offense
July 17, 2024 Posted by Danno E. Cabeza Bugle Notes
Army Football returns to the under center triple-option this year after a year in the Shotgun-Option that did not exactly go as planned. We all saw how successful this new version of the old offense could be in the game against Coastal Carolina at the end of last season, but still it’s worth spending a few moments considering how we got here.
The coaching staff insists that this isn’t just a return to The Way Things Were. We therefore need to understand what happened last year in order to develop some sense of realistic expectations about what we might see in 2024.
The Shotgun Option
Former Offensive Coordinator Drew Thatcher installed a system that attempted to make three major changes to Army’s previous offense.
1. Zone blocking scheme
2. Crackback blocking scheme with the wide receivers
3. Shotgun snap and meshpoint
Zone Blocking Scheme
Friends, this is the part of last year’s scheme that worked.
Coaches Matt Drinkall and Mike Viti developed a new zone blocking scheme for Army’s offensive line, and though there were some undoubted growing pains — especially in the opener against ULM — the team made this work with increasing power and precision as the season progressed. We saw glimpses of what this scheme could accomplish as early as the UTSA game, but the O-Line didn’t reach its full fighting form until Air Force.
From that game forward, Army won four straight.
The new scheme created a few major impacts. First, the O-Line cut down massively on blocking penalties from 2021, mostly by eliminating called chop blocks. Second, Army rediscovered its ability to run up the middle after a 2021 season in which they struggled mightily to run the Fullback Dive. Finally, since O-Linemen kept their feet, they were often able to get down field and continue blocks, leading to lots of extra yardage plays, including RB Kanye Udoh’s massive “rugby scrum” style runs last year against Troy.
This scheme proved so successful that the staff’s offseason reorganization doubled-down on it. Drinkall is now the Offensive Line Coach. Viti is now Assistant Head Coach for Offense / Offensive Line. In terms of recruiting, Army is now expliciting targeting taller, longer offensive linemen to fit this scheme.
All of this is good. More importantly, the team could not have gotten to this point without 2023’s offensive experiments.
Crackback Blocking Scheme With The Wide Receivers
Though this was by far the most interesting part of Thatcher’s scheme, alas, this is the part that did not work. James went into detail on it before the season last summer, but briefly, the idea was to bring a wide receiver off the edge on most snaps to crackback against a linebacker or safety. This would spring an outside runner to the edge against a cornerback one-on-one, allowing for a big gain if that runner could either elude or just run right over that cornerback. Alternatively, the receiver could release across the middle to catch a quick pass and move the chains. There was lots more, but this was the basic idea.
This didn’t work for two reasons. First and foremost, Army couldn’t complete those quick passes, both over the middle and to the sidelines, often enough to reliably move the chains in the second halves of games. The Black Knights usually ran hard in the first half, causing opposing defenses to bring their safeties down into the box. At that point, those quick passes should have opened up, but either pass protection or a simple inability to create completions kept everything from coming together.
The other issue was that Army flat couldn’t get outside from the shotgun often enough against better teams. They just couldn’t find enough team speed or make enough plays in other areas — again, mostly in the passing game — to force the issue and open things up.
What can you do?
We saw this scheme work more-or-less as designed against UTSA and Boston College, but it never became truly reliable, and by midseason, Army had abandoned most of it in favor of straight-up power running between the tackles. Thankfully, that did work. However, that simplified scheme put huge physical pressure on QB Bryson Daily to carry the load, and it also became entirely too predictable.
Shotgun Snap and Meshpoint
By moving the meshpoint back, you give your quarterback more time to make reads in the option, and at least theoretically, you give your O-Line an advantage in pass blocking. As noted, James covered this in detail last year.
BUT.
If you can’t pass reliably, and you’re not really getting to the outside very often, those advantages don’t mean a whole lot. At that point, you may as well go back between the tackles, and run the Hell out of the Midline Option. Indeed, this is exactly what happened last season. However, if that’s the way you’re gonna run the offense, then you might as well come back under center, hit the hole as hard and as fast as you possibly can, and just POUND THE ROCK. And hey, if you pound the rock up the middle often enough, you might also open up those outside running lanes via the triple-option pitch.
This is exactly where the team found itself against Coastal Carolina.
So Wait. This Is All REALLY About the New Blocking Scheme?
Yes. Absolutely. It’s 1000% about the new blocking scheme.
The more Army ran between the tackles last season, the more they started to really specialize in two or even three tight end sets. They’d mostly just mash folks, but they also occasionally released a tight end down the field or out to the flat for a pass, and now, if we look at who they recruited this year, it’s freaking eight tight ends. For a team that’s mostly going to run between the tackles, that ought to give them a truly surprising amount of flexibility in the way they execute this offense.
Moving to a zone blocking scheme allows the fullbacks a little more freedom to choose their holes and read what’s working and what isn’t on any given play. This may or may not be an improvement over the way Army ran the Dive when they cut-blocked, but with the rule changes, it’s become a necessary evolution. Moreover, while we tend to call every play a “Midline Option,” that’s only because it’s often some option variant that starts up the middle. As a matter of reality, there’s a world of football that exists here, and the AFF Crew thinks you’re gonna see a lot more of it in its many of its variations now that the team is running a zone blocking scheme instead of cut-blocking.
The good news is that the Black Knights have the fullbacks to make this work, and they have an experienced option quarterback returning in Daily. We’ve seen what FB Kanye Udoh can do, and based on what we saw from the Spring Game, there are several more guys waiting in the wings who can execute the Fullback Dive. In particular, we’re excited to see FB Jake Rendina hit the field, but he was hardly the only guy who looked good during the Spring Game.
Final Thoughts
This is an exciting time to be an Army Football fan. The offense may not look exactly like it did before, and the execution should change quite a bit in the details. However, this team has everything it needs to be successful on the offensive side of the football, and we’ve already seen on the field that they can make the specific elements of this offense work. We have yet to see exactly how they’ll bring it all together, but whatever else happens, we ought to be in for a fascinating season.
https://www.asforfootball.com/2024/07/17/army-football-preview-the-new-old-offense/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3buQK2AiY9paaL4kkq6hmS5KtS3qmhH_KKQsqL1iuI5tXaRnyqhBoK6hc_aem_StYgTD5jLbZ9EKyQkC-huw
My answer: I think this missed the situation entirely. I thought the blocking was THE problem. At least as unrecognizable as the shotgun snap was the lack of aggressiveness by the Army offensive line. Instead of firing straight out and OWNING the line of scrimmage, Army’s linemen took those stupid 45-degree zone steps and wound up yielding the line of scrimmage to more aggressive defenders. Instead of being the aggressors in every scrimmage play, they became the victims.
*********** Now, it’s Delta Air Lines. Before that it was the power grid in Houston (maybe still is). In between, it was the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and then withdrawal from the presidential campaign of a “President” who did so in a letter and for all we know could be dead.
WTF is going on in this country?
Maybe we should ask the Russians what's going on. Or the Chinese. THEY know.
*********** Coach- In your opinion, where would you put your linemen? Which position would be your best athlete, smartest, fastest?
Coach, In my thinking, my right guard is my best lineman. That’s partly because I’m right-handed, and so my offensive thinking tends to be right-handed. If we just ran plays in one direction, he would drive block by himself on a power play, kick out on our “G” play, kick out backside on our counter play, pull backside and protect on our bootleg, circle around end on our reach sweep, and form the apex of our wedge. The left guard is second best. Then, of the two tackles, the right tackle is more crucial because he’s at the point of attack at most power plays. Then comes the center. I’d like my center to be BIG , so he can't be driven back, and RESPONSIBLE, because everything starts with his snap. We almost never expect him to block a man who’s very far from him, so his quickness is seldom an issue.
Going back to my play-calling being affected by my being right-handed, I think I have taken a major step toward a cure - by flip-flopping my linemen. Now, we can run plays equally well to right or left. So perhaps to answer the question in a more up-to-date fashion, my best lineman is my strong side guard.
************ CAN I HOLD MY BREATH UNTIL THEN???
AP top 25 voters will reveal their preseason rankings at around 12 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, August 12.
*********** One possible explanation for why we were tough enough to win World War II:
According to Amanda Foreman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, as recently as 1940 nearly half of all the homes in the US - about 45 per cent - still had outhouses.
*********** JOHN CANZANO FIELDS QUESTIONS
Q: What number of wins keeps Oregon State and Washington State relevant? Predictions on W-L for both?
A: The athletic departments need to go all-in with branding. I know the universities have their marketing firms, but the athletic departments themselves need to sign on for a campaign that is more focused, forward-thinking, and ambitious. That said, you’re right. There’s nothing that will assist the Pac-12 teams more than a quality football season.
I have Washington State down for 8-plus wins. Jake Dickert retained more of his roster than I expected and the schedule got easier. Oregon State is in transition right now. New head coach, who happens to be in his first season. A lot of turnover in the transfer portal. None of this is OSU’s fault, but I think the Beavers need to win six and play in a bowl game to stay on the radar.
Q: The transfer portal has made me less interested in college athletics than ever. Am I the only one?
A: No. You’re not alone. The portal needs some regulation or it’s going to be no fun for anyone but the top handful of teams.
Q: With Division I Baseball expected to allow schools to offer full scholarships to every player on the roster do you think smaller schools will be forced to drop the sport? Will Oregon State be able to find the funding for ~25 extra scholarships?
A: Oregon State baseball is going to be fine. I was not surprised that the roster held together at the end of the season and they’ll find the funding to operate. I’m told the Beavers are finalizing their “independent” schedule for next season and that opponents include: Oregon, Washington, and the top WCC and Big West baseball teams.
I’m also told that at least two “other” Big Ten programs are finalizing deals to play OSU next season. Sources at Stanford and Cal tell me that those two schools won’t play the Beavers next season. They shot down a proposal. The Cardinal and Bears say they are traveling enough already with the new ACC schedule and don’t want to leave the home state for non-conference games.
Q: Any outward indication of Calford (aka Cal-Stanford) having buyer’s remorse for bolting to the ACC? I’m sure privately they’re kicking themselves, but are they secretly hoping for the ACC to implode so they can reassess the situation more rationally?
A: Nothing outward at this point, but this ACC thing isn’t sustainable for those schools. Everyone can see it. Meanwhile, Stanford spent the last six months building a production studio adjacent to Maples Pavilion. Cal is working on a similar studio investment. It’s an ACC Network requirement. All this is going on while the schools are watching Clemson and Florida State try to pry their way out.
Cal and Stanford grabbed the first life raft that was available. I get it. But I ultimately see them in a West Coast-based conference. The ACC partnership will eventually unwind and there will be further realignment. Does that happen in six months? Or six years? That’s the question.
Q: How long will it take before schools like Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Northwestern, etc. are informed that they won’t receive full shares of media rights? And schools like Ohio St., Alabama, and Texas receive disproportionate payments? What are things that could be catalysts?
A: The catalyst for that kind of consolidation will be the next media-rights deal. The Big Ten’s new deal expires in 2029-30. The SEC’s deal runs through 2033-34. I would expect the tentpole universities won’t want to share equally in the next round.
*********** Hugh
The answer is Howard Mudd. We really liked him when he was in Cleveland.
I was sad to learn of Bob Newhart's passing.
Your reference to his passing, made me go dig out his album from my collection of LP'S. Lincoln is the first selection on the album titled "The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart".
I bought the album when I was in high school. I always thought that he was a brilliant comic.
It was great to listen to it again after many years of it sitting on a shelf.
See you Tuesday.
David Crump
Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** Coach,
Love the fact that you are out on the field leading kids! That's how it should be and I find it very inspiring!
I know it is teaching spread football but teaching that stuff is still better then not teaching IMO... I have also come to the point where I realize that likely at some point in my career as the world continues to evolve that I will be teaching it as well. Of course that will likely be the day when I'm not in charge! As I value the values of team ball that old school football provide as well as the fact at my current spot we are gonna have to be REALLY GOOD at doing things DIFFERENTLY to win at the level we hope too...
With that said Quiz answer is another Michigan Man! Howard Mudd growing up I heard many stories about him! All professed him as a tough guy who was a loyal and admiral man! It makes sense him and another Michigan guy Tony Dungy fit so well together. Dungy from Jackson is only about a 1/2 hour from Hillsdale College.
God Bless,
Jason Mensing
Lemon Bay, Florida
*********** Good to have you back, Coach. Take away the heat, and you had a great experience.
You probably read The Athletic's questions to readers about all-star games, and--no surprise at all--most people are fed up with all of them. They're worse than boring to me; they're unwatchable.
Tucker Carlson's speech at the RNC spoke for millions, I believe, when he said ordinary people are noticing something different in the air. The way Tucker worded it was, "God is among us". It might not be too late.
Secret Service? The arrogance of Kimmie Cheatle drives me batty. I promise we could take 11 HS football players, issue them a few minutes' guidance, and they would have secured that fairground in Butler. The President would have been safe. But nobody in the the Administration will answer for their mistakes. What took place in Butler was as disturbing as what happened to President Kennedy in Dallas.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
Guaranteed if anything were to go wrong with those football players protecting the President, we'd have known why. And who. Immediately. And asses would be kicked.
*********** Hugh,
Envious of your recent coaching gig. It brought back a flood of memories. Especially of the summer I took my team to South Dakota State for their team camp. HOT!! And NO AC in the dorm! Yet, our boys showed well in all their scrimmage games, came away feeling like winners, and set the stage for a very successful season!
60 years from now Americans won’t know the truth about the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. Like
we still haven’t heard the truth about the JFK assassination 60 years ago!
Fresno State Head Coach Jeff Tedford has stepped down, again, due to health reasons, and this time it appears to be final. Coach Tedford has been the dean of west coast football over the past 15 years. Successful OC at Oregon, and HC at Cal and Fresno State. Former Bulldog Tim Skipper takes the reins. Best wishes Coach Tedford, and good luck Coach Skipper! And YES!! Bulldog Stadium IS a tough place to play for ANY team!
Coach Skipper’s first test will be HUGE as the Bulldogs travel to Ann Arbor in their opener against defending national champion Michigan. Anyone, anywhere, anytime!
Enjoy your weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Howard Mudd was never a head coach, but if ever an assistant coach is to enter the Pro Football the Hall of Fame, he would have to be right there near the top of the list of candidates.
He grew up in Midland, Michigan, and although he started out at Michigan State, he wound up transferring to Hillsdale College, where he played four years and was team captain his senior year. His play earned him induction into the NAIA Hall of Fame.
He was drafted by the 49ers in the ninth round of the 1964 draft, and managed to make the club and stay with the 49ers for five seasons and a portion of another.
As a guard, he made the Pro Bowl three straight years - 1966-67-68. He played all 14 games in five seasons with the 49ers, then split another season with the 49ers and Bears. He finished his career with the Bears before a knee injury forced him to retire, and he was honored by selection on the NFL’s 1960s All-Decade team.
And then he embarked on a legendary career as an offensive line coach.
His first stop was at Cal, where he was hired by Mike White (who’d just been hired there). He spent two seasons at Cal before being hired by Tommy Prothro, who had just been hired as San Diego’s head coach.
He spent three years in San Diego, then one with the 49ers before being hired by Jack Patera with the Seahawks. He spent five years in Seattle, and after Patera and his staff were fired, he landed in Cleveland, where he spent six years. He left Cleveland when head coach Marty Schottenheimer and staff were fired, but within a month he moved to Kansas City when Schottenheimeer was hired there.
Next came a return to the Seahawks, where he spent five years working first under Tom Flores and then under Dennis Erickson.
And in 1998 he was hired by the Indianapolis Colts.
Howard Mudd was now 56 years old, and he’d been an NFL offensive lineman for eight years, and an NFL offensive line coach for 24 years.
The story goes that on the day the Colts drafted Peyton Manning, Colts’ owner Jim Irsay left a note on Mudd’s desk that said, “Your job is to keep No. 18 (Manning) protected. To keep No. 18 clean.”
That he did. Taking what was considered an old-school approach to pass protection, he advocated an aggressive style that attacked defensive linemen, rather than the more conventional, passive, drop-back style, arguing that his style kept defenders from penetrating the pocket.
In 12 years in Indianapolis, his lines led the NFL in fewest sacks allowed six times.
What head coach Tony Dungy appreciated was that he did it without costing the Colts draft choices.
Only one of his linemen - tackle Tarik Glenn - was a high draft choice; the rest of them were players that he’d developed.
Said Dungy, “I’ll take Jeff Saturday off the street and make him a Pro Bowler. We can use that No. 1 draft choice to get Reggie Wayne or Joseph Addai. That’s what I loved, what I appreciated and what made him great.”
With his help, the Colts made it to two Super Bowls, and won one of them.
He retired after his stint with the Colts, but was persuaded to return to spend two more years coaching the Eagles’ offensive line.
After finally retiring for good, he died in 2020 as a result of a motorcycle accident. He was 78.
Said Peyton Manning at the time, “In my opinion, Howard Mudd was the best offensive line coach in NFL history. I would put him on that pedestal any day of the week. I know all the guys that played for him would feel the same way, and a lot of the guys that coached with him would feel the same.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING HOWARD MUDD
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JASON MENSING - LEMON BAY, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: They called him “The Coach of Silicon Valley.”
At places like Intuit, Apple, Google and Amazon, billionaires such as Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos - men well-known for being wary of advisors - valued his wisdom and advice.
But unlike so many so-called “career coaches,” he really was a coach. An honest-to-God football coach.
He grew up in the Pittsburgh area, in a steel town called Homestead, where his first coach was his dad, a high school PE teacher.
Undersized as a lineman and linebacker in the two-way football of the time, he was smart enough to get into Columbia, where he played football for four years under Buff Donelli. At less than 170 pounds, he played both ways - lineman and linebacker - and captained Columbia’s 1961 team - the only Columbia team in school history to win the Ivy League championship.
While at Columbia, he and several football and rugby players founded the Old Blue Rugby Club, now one of the top rugby clubs in America.
After getting his master’s degree in education, he was an assistant coach at Boston College before returning to Columbia in 1974 as head coach.
In six years, his overall record was 12-41-1. He never won more than three games in a season. But to put things in perspective: Columbia had won more than three games only twice in the 10 seasons before he arrived, and after he left the Lions would go 13 more seasons (and four different coaches) before even winning as many as three games in a season.
So after six seasons, it was time to move on. To the world of business.
He started with giant advertising firm J. Walter Thompson, and made it to vice president before moving to Kodak as Director of Consumer Products in Europe.
From Kodak, he moved to Apple Computer in 1983, rising to become executive vice-president, then in 1990 founding and leading Claris Corporation, a “spin-off” software company owned by Apple.
His next stop was Intuit, the maker of Quicken and TurboTax, where he served as its CEO from 1998 to 2000.
At some point, because of the reputation he had acquired at so many places, and the trust he had engendered among so many prominent people, he began to serve as a confidante of the rich and powerful - Sergei Brin, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos - and to be called “The Coach of Silicon Valley.”
He owned a bar in Palo Alto for a time, and enjoyed coaching middle school football.
At Columbia, he joined the Board of Trustees in 2003, and two years later was named its chairman.
In 2009, in recognition of his love of football and his many achievements, the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame renamed its highest award, sometimes referred to as the “academic Heisman,” in his honor.
At Columbia, in 2013 the University dedicated a new state-of-the-art athletics facility in his honor.
In 2014, the University retired his old football number - 67 - for all sports.
In 2015, the University introduced a new “Performer of the Year” award in his name, to be given to the top male and female athlete each year.
Following his death in April, 2016, two thousand mourners gathered on the high-school football field in Atherton, California where he had coached middle-schoolers.
FRIDAY,
JULY 19, 2024 “The course of war cannot be
foreseen, and its attacks are generally dictated by the impulse of the
moment.” Thucydides*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Despite our family’s modest circumstances, I was happy most of the time in those early years. Helping my dad work the farm he didn't even own was limiting, especially when I wanted to play baseball. I had to work extremely hard. That went with the territory. I had a little bit of the dickens in me, but most of the time I did what I was told. With my father I knew the alternative wouldn't be a happy one.
“I finished eighth grade in May 1936 and attended a county-wide commencement exercise at Central High School auditorium in Kalamazoo. Until then my uniform, at school or working, was bib overalls. When dad and I went to town we wore “good” bib overalls, or newer ones. Now I had dress slacks, and I was getting ready to start high school in new surroundings.
“And if I never lived on a farm again I somehow would be able to survive.”
*********** How can I write today without writing something about the parlous state of a nation that trusts the safety and security of a President (or a President-to-be) to an organization that exemplifies the sort of incompetence that we’ve come to associate with anything our government is involved in.
As several of my friends have noted, it’s clear that the Secret Service is incompetent. What’s not clear - but not at all out of the realm of possibility - is that someone in charge of that once-respected organization might have been acting with nefarious intent.
But if the latter were true, the charge of incompetence would still hold up, because like “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” if their intent was to do evil, those clowns couldn't even carry out the job.
When Donald Trump takes over as President (assuming that such things as fair elections still exist), his first order of business should be an executive order cleaning out the Secret Service and every alphabet agency, from top to bottom. Unions be damned - we’re talking national emergency. If we can’t trust the agencies charged with protecting us and our leaders, WTF good are they? Screw them before they screw us any more.
But Donald Trump’s not President yet. So until then, he should contract out his security to Dan Bongino or somesuch - someone he trusts - because this sh— isn't over yet. Not by a long shot.
*********** Bob Newhart died. He was 93. Holy sh—. I had no idea. Unless you’re as old as I am, you aren’t likely to have known how really funny the man was.
Most of us first heard his act on records (remember them?), where he would pretend to be talking to someone on the phone, and then he’d go silent as if listening to what the person on the other end of the line was saying in reply. That, of course, was when the audience would laugh at what he’d said. An example was a phone call to Abraham Lincoln, as if he were a modern-day political advisor giving Honest Abe tips on campaigning: Definitely keep the beard and the stovepipe hat, he told Lincoln. And that speech he was going to be giving at Gettysburg? He told Lincoln to stick with that “four score and seven years ago” line instead of simply saying, “87 years ago."
*********** In Pennsylvania, a small high school called Southern Columbia, in the small (1,550) town of Catawissa, has won seven straight state football championships.
Earlier, they had a five-year state championship streak.
Overall, in the 34 years that the state has held championships, the Southern Columbia Tigers have played in 22 of them, and they’ve won the title game 14 times.
Their current coach, Jim Roth, has been there for 40 years, and his teams have won 10 or more games in 37 of those seasons. His overall record, including post-season play, is 499-68-2.
https://www.scatigerfootball.com/
This may be among the most impressive coaching achievements I’m aware of because there is practically no way I can see that Coach Roth and his staff could have “augmented” their roster with kids from outside the district. It’s a largely rural area, with few towns of any size within commuting distance, and even if the coaches were into recruiting, it’s highly unlikely that a kid from a larger urban area (the closest one of which is more than an hour away) would be excited about going there. There aren’t that many jobs to entice a kid’s parents to move there anyhow, and it would be especially tough to attract a minority kid to a town that’s 97 per cent white - and “.69 per cent” black.
In the western part of the state, little Aliquippa, whose success almost parallels that of Southern Columbia, has been rewarded for its success by twice being involuntarily moved to a higher classification.
Aliquippa is largely minority, and in my opinion, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the state was taking aim at a minority school that had overachieved,
Now, perhaps to show that Pennsylvania will punish excellence whether it’s achieved by black or white kids, a proposal called the “Southern Columbia Rule” is in front of the state association, the PIAA, stipulating that any school that wins two consecutive state championships will be automatically moved up to the next higher class.
Pennsylvania, where envy rules and success is suspect. So let’s punish the successful.
https://tribhssn.triblive.com/the-southern-columbia-rule-teams-winning-consecutive-state-titles-would-be-moved-into-higher-class-under-piaa-proposal/
*********** For the past three weeks, it’s been my great honor and pleasure to have been able to assist coach Todd Bridge at Aberdeen, Washington High School. I’ve coached with Todd at North Beach as well as Aberdeen, back in 2019, and when he told me that he was going to have to spend July without his OC, I offered to help. He took me up on my offer, and since then I’ve been coaching his quarterbacks and helping in any other way I could.
It’s just been a great experience. The kids have been great and so have the other coaches, and I do believe I’ve been helpful.
The summer practices culminated in a three-day camp this week in Wenatchee, a city of about 35,000 in Central Washington, where for the past several years coach Scott Devereaux has run a very successful team camp.
Taking 40+ kids to camp is a huge undertaking for Todd, starting with raising the money to pay for the kids’ camp fees, for their meals and lodging - and for their transportation. (I’m not going to get him in trouble by explaining the latter item.) So in addition to a bus, several coaches drove vans full of kids while Todd drove his truck with a trailer full of equipment four-and-a-half hours across the mountains to Wenatchee. There, Todd had arranged to rent the facilities of a church, whose gym had plenty of room for the kids to bunk, baracks-style. There was a full kitchen for the five moms who volunteered to come and cook for the kids, and a nice-sized meeting room where the kids could eat and watch films projected into a huge screen.
It was within an easy walk of the camp fields, and - best of all - it was air-conditioned!
Did I say it was hot?
The first day, it hit 101ş. Yes, it was a dry heat and all that, but when the sun’s beating down on you and you’re standing on an artificial-turf field - and you’ve come from a place where it seldom gets over 80ş, it can be tough to take. And that’s the kids. It’s even tougher when you’re an old fart. It seemed as if my feet were on fire.
I think I did some good coaching, but I’m not sure. Mainly, I survived, thanks to a very cold hotel room afterward, and a couple of Big-Gulp-size cups of Coke from the Circle-K.
The second day went a lot better, probably because we were on a grass field. When I noticed another coach going barefoot, I thought “what the hell” and went the rest of the way in stocking feet. BIG difference.
The morning and afternoon 7-on-7 went very well. The kids had been exposed to the basic run-and-shoot “Choice” pattern - and nothing else - for maybe an hour last week back in Aberdeen, but that was enough. There are some good receivers, and the two QBs have been quick to pick things up, and they ran the “offense” (one play, that is) extremely well. In the afternoon, we added another pattern and they picked that up without any prior exposure.
In the contact aspect of the camp, the kids did great on both sides of the ball. It was exciting to see how well they played defensively because I’d worked with the new DC, Dave Tarrance, five years ago and liked him from the start. He’s an Aberdeen guy and an Aberdeen cop, and I was really pleased to see what a good job he’s done.
On offense, mixing the spread - mostly zone and RPO - with some under-center stuff and the short-yardage package that we started working on last week, we went “full-field” during one session and, starting out on our 20, put on an 80-yard scoring drive that was about as clean as a drive could be.
That evening, at 8 PM, eight teams met in a goal-line competition, consisting of mini-games in which the two teams were given four plays from the ten-yard line. Teams could possibly score four times (once on each play), and the team with the higher score after each had run four plays was the winner. In the event of a tie, the ball was placed on the three-yard-line, with each team given one play.
It was truly a balls-out competition. The hitting was ferocious.
And to make a long story short, we won the damn thing. One of our games went to overtime and two games went down to the final play.
The final game matched us against a much bigger school, Mount Spokane, which last year won the Greater Spokane League and finished 9-2.
We shut them out when on their final play - from the one - they ran a jet sweep and three of our kids knocked the runner out of bounds inside the one. And then on offense, after incurring a false start penalty, we called a pass play that was beautifully executed by our QB and receiver.
And the kids went wild. They’re young, and not that many of them have had much varsity experience. From Aberdeen’s standpoint, it may have been just a camp competition, but it was probably the Bobcats’ most significant accomplishment in years.
The next day was - the day after. Despite the coaches’ best efforts, human nature won out. The excitement of the night before gave way to the inevitable let-down. The kids played well and they went hard, but kids are kids, and during the season they have a whole weekend to come back to normal after a big win (or a big loss).
I had to leave at noon on Wednesday. It’s a five-hour trip from Wenatchee to Camas, and even though my AC went out on me while I was up there, I found that if you’re going 70 with all four windows open it can even be comfortable when it’s in the high 90s outside. (But the road noise will leave you a bit deaf for a while.)
As with every trip I take in Washington, I’m always left with a sense of wonder and awe. The scenery ranges from beautiful to awesome. There are rivers, lakes, hills, mountains (the snow-capped kind), cliffs, gorges, forests and deserts. There are farmlands where just about anything that we eat is grown. And around Yakima they grow more hops than anywhere else in the world. One stretch of US 97 runs though the Yakama Indian Reservation for about 50 beautiful winding, hilly, wooded miles with little trace of human habitation and not a single restaurant or service station of any kind.
I made it home safely to rejoin my wife, who had encouraged me to go. God bless her. And God bless all women who support their coach-husbands the way mine does me.
*********** The Aberdeen Bobcats, after winning the Wenatchee Football Camp championship.
*********** The two Aberdeen varsity QBs whom I’ve had the pleasure of coaching the past three weeks. On the left is Luke Martin and on the right Mason Hill. They’re both juniors. They’re really good kids and they’re talented. They’re smart, and they’re tough. I have rarely had one quarterback as good as either one, and here Aberdeen is with two. It will be tough to have to choose a starter between the two of them ( I really could see going through the season with both of them sharing the job). As for their coachability - excellent. I especially appreciate their receptiveness to my coaching, knowing that it was on a temporary basis.
*********** The moms - and a sister - who out of love for the Aberdeen boys spent three days away from home cooking meals for them at camp. I interrupted them just as they were preparing to serve banana splits for desert.
********** While I slave away in front of the keyboard, my wife’s been watching the Republican Convention, and she had to call me to come watch a speaker she’d just heard. Said I had to hear him. So I came. And she replayed it. And I watched. And listened. And that was my introduction to Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, of Detroit.
Wow, I thought. This guy is GOOD. I was MOVED.
If I lived within an hour’s drive of his church, I’d be there every Sunday when the doors opened.
If we’re ever going to have a revival in America, this man is my choice to lead it.
*********** It’s astounding how little regard some people have for dignity and decorum when the moment demands them. It’s astonishing how little respect they have for the grieving family members left behind when a young person’s life has been brought to a sudden and tragic end.
So damned if there weren’t two people shot - one of them killed - at the Khyree Jackson memorial service.
*********** Oregon State may have been dumped by the Big Dogs in college football, but there aren’t any of the Big Dogs that can say that in the last five years they’ve had two baseball players taken Number One in the Major League draft. In 2019, the Beavers had catcher Adley Rutschman taken first, and this year, it was infielder Travis Bazzana (who happens to be an Australian.)
*********** Except for the seven summers I was coaching in Finland, this is the first summer in my life that I didn’t even know they’d played the (baseball) All-Star game. Back when there was a real rivalry between the leagues, unlike the NFL sort of conferences we have today, the game really meant something. Now? Ho hum.
*********** John Canzano, reporting from the recent Pac-12 (OSU and WSU own the name and they might as well use it) meetings:
I found it very interesting that Oregon State and Washington State coaches and players went to great lengths to give the MWC members respect. It was a notable shift in tone.Washington State coach Jake Dickert pointed out that Boise State was not an easier place to play than at Stanford or Cal.
“I’ve been to Fresno,” Dickert said. “It’s tough to play there. I’ve been to Boise on a Saturday night, tough to play there, too."
*********** I know Coach Wyatt is running out of Zoom topics (just messin' around), so maybe--even though we love the run as much as you--you could show real players running the "Routes on Air" drills.
Maybe I'm in the deep minority, but I don't want to see women's basketball at any level morph into a replica of the NBA with its shoving and trash-talking. It certainly seems headed in that direction, though, and if it continues one person won't be watching much longer.
I've given up wondering what constitutes acceptable speech on television. Thirty years or more ago I thought Europe's SKY-TV had set a standard of crudeness I hadn't yet seen in America. There were frequent commercials for a product called "Wind-EZ"....figure out what is was/is for.
Coach, you need to re-think your reply to Josh Montgomery. All CFB HC jobs are equal. A 6-6 record at Vanderbilt is no more impressive than 6-6 at Alabama. Aren't I correct?
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
As a matter of fact, I did reconsider my reply to Josh Montgomery. And after I read that coach Elijah Drinkwitz of Missouri had written the National Football Foundation (which administers the College Football Hall of Fame) and the best argument he could come up with was that they should simply “relax” their rules, I said, “Hell, my argument’s better than that!” and I sent it off to Steve Hatchell, Executive Director of the NFF, of which I’ve been a member for many years. (And to think that you read it here first.)
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Don McCafferty is possibly the least-known of all the coaches who have won Super Bowls.
A Cleveland native, he played at Ohio State under Paul Brown.
Because of a wartime shortage of eligible players, he was one of a very few players to play in two College All-Star games.
After service in the War, he played one year in the NFL with the New York Giants, and then embarked on a coaching career.
He spent 11 years as an assistant at Kent State before making the jump to the NFL when he was hired by Weeb Ewbank in Baltimore.
He was an assistant in Baltimore for 11 years, first under Ewbank then under Don Shula. Known by the players as the “Easy Rider” because of the way his personality contrasted with that of the hot-tempered Shula, he was Shula’s offensive coordinator for seven years, and served as a buffer between Shula and quarterback John Unitas. Unitas, who detested Shula, said of McCafferty, "He doesn't shout and scream. He's able to look at football objectively without getting carried away emotionally."
When Shula left for Miami, he succeeded Shula as head coach and had immediate success. The Colts finished 11-2-1, an he became the only rookie coach ever to win the Super Bowl when the Colts beat the Cowboys, 16-13, on rookie Jim O’Brien’s last-second field goal.
In his second season, the Colts went 10-4, losing to the Dolphins (and Shula) in the AFC championship game.
After two seasons, as an NFL head coach, his record was 21-6-1, with a Super Bowl win to his credit.
But a new owner, Robert Irsay, and a new GM, Joe Thomas, came on the scene, and in his third season, when his team got off to a 1-4 start, he was ordered by Thomas to bench Unitas. McCafferty refused to do so and was fired.
He was hired the next season by the Detroit Lions, and took them to a 6-7-1 season, good enough for second place in the NFL Central.
His record, after 2 (and a piece) seasons was 28-17-2, and he was 4-1 in post-season play. Not bad.
But then, the following July, shortly after the Lions rookies had reported to camp, he suffered a heart attack while mowing his lawn and died three days later. Don McCafferty, the Easy Rider, was just 53.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING DON MCCAFFERTY
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He was never a head coach, but if ever an assistant coach is to enter the Pro Football the Hall of Fame, he would have to be right there near the top of the list of candidates.
He grew up in Midland, Michigan, and although he started out at Michigan State, he wound up transferring to Hillsdale College, where he played four years and was team captain his senior year. His play earned him induction into the NAIA Hall of Fame.
He was drafted by the 49ers in the ninth round of the 1964 draft, and managed to make the club and stay with the 49ers for five seasons and a portion of another.
As a guard, he made the Pro Bowl three straight years - 1966-67-68. He played all 14 games in five seasons with the 49ers, then split another season with the 49ers and Bears. He finished his career with the Bears before a knee injury forced him to retire, and he was honored by selection on the NFL’s 1960s All-Decade team.
And then he embarked on a legendary career as an offensive line coach.
u
His first stop was at Cal, where he was hired by Mike White (who’d just been hired there). He spent two seasons at Cal before being hired by Tommy Prothro, who had just been hired as San Diego’s head coach.
He spent three years in San Diego, then one with the 49ers before being hired by Jack Patera with the Seahawks. He spent five years in Seattle, and after Patera and his staff were fired, he landed in Cleveland, where he spent six years. He left Cleveland when head coach Marty Schottenheimer and staff were fired, but within a month he moved to Kansas City when Schottenheimeer was hired there.
Next came a return to the Seahawks, where he spent five years working first under Tom Flores and then under Dennis Erickson.
And in 1998 he was hired by the Indianapolis Colts.
Our guy was now 56 years old, and he’d been an NFL offensive lineman for eight years, and an NFL offensive line coach for 24 years.
The story goes that on the day the Colts drafted Peyton Manning, Colts’ owner Jim Irsay left a note on our guy’s desk that said, “Your job is to keep No. 18 (Manning) protected. To keep No. 18 clean.”
That he did. Taking what was considered an old-school approach to pass protection, he advocated an aggressive style that attacked defensive linemen, rather than the more conventional, passive, drop-back style, arguing that his style kept defenders from penetrating the pocket.
In 12 years in Indianapolis, his lines led the NFL in fewest sacks allowed six times.
What head coach Tony Dungy appreciated was that he did it without costing the Colts draft choices.
Only one of his linemen - tackle Tarik Glenn - was a high draft choice; the rest of them were players that he’d developed.
Said Dungy, “I’ll take Jeff Saturday off the street and make him a Pro Bowler. We can use that No. 1 draft choice to get Reggie Wayne or Joseph Addai. That’s what I loved, what I appreciated and what made him great.”
With his help, the Colts made it to two Super Bowls, and won one of them.
He retired after his stint with the Colts, but was persuaded to return to spend two more years coaching the Eagles’ offensive line.
After finally retiring for good, he died in 2020 as a result of a motorcycle accident. He was 78.
Said Peyton Manning at the time, “In my opinion,(He) was the best offensive line coach in NFL history. I would put him on that pedestal any day of the week. I know all the guys that played for him would feel the same way, and a lot of the guys that coached with him would feel the same.”
FRIDAY,
JULY 12, 2024 “The first lesson of economics
is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all
those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the
first lesson of economics." Thomas SowellI'M GOING TO BE AT FOOTBALL CAMP FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS AND I WON'T BE ABLE TO PUBLISH UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY! SEE YOU THEN!
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “When we weren't busy on the farm (we worked most of the time) we tried to have fun (rarely). We usually went to the Centerville County fair, a gathering place for farmers every August. Occasionally we made it to the fair in Hillsdale, a big, big, big event. But we had to sandwich our morning and evening chores around the fair visit, limiting the time spent on rides, throwing baseballs at milk bottles, and watching horse-pulling contests.
“We socialized with the Harrison family who lived on a farm about a mile and a half away. We played card games, and we went to Fulton in the summertime on Saturday night to watch free outdoor movies. Without a nearby library we swapped books with our neighbors. We went on picnics in the summer, and for a special treat we would go to the old ice house in Fulton to get enough ice for home-made ice cream. That was a big, big deal.
“When I was thirteen, I had a chance to earn money at a real job with Fred Unrath’s traveling threshing operation. I was a bundle pitcher and made a dollar a day, starting at 6 AM and wrapping up about 7 PM. The first time I jumped up on the threshing machine an old-timer offered some advice: "Hey, kid, when you're up here with all this dust you gotta chew tobacco."He gave me a plug and I put it in my mouth. I chewed it and got deathly sick. I upchucked and everybody had a good laugh, except me.
“It was my first and last time chewing tobacco."
*********** One of several great tips I got from an old video put out by Hal Mumme and his crew when he was at Kentucky was the "Routes on Air "drill - a drill in which several quarterbacks and receivers simultaneously practice every one of the individual routes of a pass play.
It works really well as a way of practicing all the routes in our “Sprint Brown (or Black)” play.
To the playside, the quarterback normally reads the corner to determine whether to throw - on the run - to the C-back on his arrow, or to the Y end on his corner.
To the backside, when we tag the play with “Throwback,” the QB pulls up and throws either to the X end running a seam, or the A-Back running a wheel.
Here’s how we set up the drill:
*********** I doubt that you could say anything crude, vulgar or gross that I haven’t heard, and in my lifetime I may very well have uttered a vulgarity or two that you haven’t heard yet.
But like most guys my age, I learned really fast that there were places where you said such things, and places where you didn’t.
A locker-room was once one of the places where you could say almost anything, because first of all, it was all guys (with no adults present) and second of all, all athletes lived by an athletic omertŕ (the code of silence that’s part of Sicilian culture): “What you see here, hear here, say here - when you leave here, let it stay here.”
Well, those days are gone. Now, cell phone cameras have become the stock in trade of the locker room rat.
On the other side, TV was one of those places where coarseness was forbidden. Ordinary profanity was never heard, not to mention locker-room ugliness.
Not no more. Now, people are routinely “pissed off.” I’d be drunk if I had a drink of beer every time someone in some commercial says, “poop.”
And we’ve circled back to that time in the 70s when women were led to believe they had to buy “feminine hygiene spray.” Now, what they need is some new deodorant that works on “pits and privates.” One of them works on the "butt crack.”
I even got a laugh out of one commercial for underwear made by some outfit called Shinesty. The product wasn’t just a supporter for the family jewels. This company was selling “ball hammocks.”
*********** Women’s basketball seems to be doing its very best to blow its big chance to finally get the public to pay it some attention. Unfortunately, what that public seems to be seeing, once they pay their way into a game, is a bunch of grown women acting like they’re still in middle school. Instead of the Caitlin Clark drama of the early season subsiding by now, it seems as if every day there’s some new outrage, and it’s impossible to avoid the racial implications. Maybe what the WNBA needs right now is a few 7-foot trans players to come in and take some of the focus off of hating that other kid - that kid that all the fans have been paying to see.
*********** It was in a 1927 New York Evening Telegram column that Joe Williams, their sports editor, told of having heard once famed coach Percy Haughton say that “the stands surrounding the football fields held several hundred times as many quarterbacks as ever got into uniform.” To Williams, ever after, these types became “grandstand quarterbacks.”
*********** I have a tech savvy coach who purchased communication headsets. We want to use them this season (rare in Canadian high school). I want to be the "eye in the sky." Have you called plays from the box? If so, can you give any advice so that we can avoid miscommunications?
For the last eight years of my formal coaching career I was in the booth.
There’s no question that it is a better place to be from the standpoint of effectiveness. The one thing I really missed was the ability to talk with the QB, man to man.
I felt what made it work best for me was the simplified play-calling made possible by the wrist cards. It didn’t require a lot of words to pass between me, the head coach on the sideline, and the QB to whom he gave the call..
You have to make sure that what the coach on the sideline tells the QB is exactly what you just told him, and then, as a double-check, we always made sure the QB repeated what he’d just heard.
*********** Coach Gutilla's comments about the youth tacking videos are accurate. The reactions of the coaches are hard to watch. It has also become a trend that players will imitate while watching tackling drills in practice. Social media has influenced more than just eating disorders in females.
Tom Walls
Winnipeg, Manitoba
I think that guys who get their jollies by putting little kids in vicious, head-to-head tacking drills are even lower than people who train dogs to fight, and they should be treated similarly.
*********** One of the things that makes coaching at Aberdeen very enjoyable for me is the fact that head coach Todd Bridge has carried on a practice we started at North Beach back in 2011 - after practice, every kid shakes every coach’s hand.
Which brings me to this: It’s been almost 20 years since the Army ran a recruiting ad in which a dad told his soldier son that he’d already noticed something different in him in the short time he’d been in the Army: "You just did something you've never done before - you shook my hand and you looked me in the eye - at the same time."
*********** How long before race fans are treated to the “swish” of electric stock cars circling the track at Daytona?
It’s not a joke. Possibly in an attempt to lure the woke wealthy off their polo ponies and into the stands at Charlotte, Nascar, once the domain of he good old boys who used to run moonshine down out of the hills and hollers in their hopped-up “stock” cars, has unveiled what it calls an “EV stock car.”
Can the death of NASCAR be far off? They might as well stop selling beer and barbecue while they’re at it.
The day will come that NASCAR will be dead, and the internal combustion engine as well. But with EVs rejected by the public (and power companies unable to provide enough electricity for them anyhow), there will come a day when some old guy will remember how to build an internal combustion engine and - in secret, because by then the government will have outlawed them, he’ll produce one. The government will confiscate it, of course, but instead of destroying it, top government officials will enjoy driving it, and will order that it be reverse-engineered. And then, seeking the help of other old-timers who once worked in automobile factories, they’ll try to make more of them to meet the demand from other high-ranking politicians, who soon will be racing each other. And soon after that, the proles will be paying to watch them race.
*********** Josh Montgomery writes…
I notice the “Mike Leach Hall of Fame” question has reached The Athletic.
I liked Leach’s personality. Didn’t care for his offense, but he did manage to win at traditionally non-power schools. But the criteria is the criteria, is it not? Are we even having this discussion if he doesn’t die suddenly, and if he retired a decade from now with a 59% career win percentage?
What say you?
Ah, the damned criteria. The National Football Foundation has a very inflexible bar that a coach must clear in order to be eligible for the College Football Hall of Fame: it stipulates that he must have a career winning percentage of .600. (Actually, that’s not really a “percentage,” but that’s not the point.) And there stands Mike Leach at .596.
My answer? Having been a guy who only twice inherited a high school team with a winning record the year before, I believe that a guy such as Leach who won consistently at a place where winning has been generally tough - Texas Tech, WSU, Mississippi State - and he should be valued as much as a guy who wins where winning is expected. I think it would be reasonable to drop any guy’s first two seasons at a place from his record, and then see what his percentage is. In Leach’s first two years at TT he was 14-12; at WSU 12-16; at Miss State 11-13. That’s 37-41 at those three places. Subtract that from his overall record (158-107) and it’s now 121-66. That’s a percentage of .647 - which means he’s in.
If they must have the absolute criterion of .600, there has to be something to separate the guy who takes Indiana to respectability from the guy who keeps things going at Alabama or Ohio State. They face different challenges and oughtn’t to be measured by the same yardstick. Why should a guy who takes the job at Indiana and after a couple of seasons to get things where he needs them to be winds up winning a Big Ten title and taking the Hoosiers to the Rose Bowl (oops - I meant the CFP) not be given the courtesy of having those first two years dropped from his record?
*********** It’s not my business to be advising Spread coaches, but I’ll bet there isn’t a single Spread coach out there who hasn’t had to deal with shotgun QBs wanting to stand upright with their hands up about throat-high, as if they’re already setup in the pocket.
If you’ve watched my Zooms, you’ve seen what I mean. I’ve shown screen shots of at least a dozen representative QBs at the college and the pro level. Only one is actually prepared to handle a low snap. He’s in a crouch, almost like an infielder, ready to handle any ball that comes to him - high, low, right or left. (It’s Jaylen Hurts, of the Eagles. Actually, with a center like Kelce, a bad snap to him was a rare occurrence.)
No matter the sport or the position, all athletes find it harder as they get tired to keep their knees flexed, and if you don’t stay on their asses, they’ll begin to stand up. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, comes that low snap that they just can’t handle.
*********** Hey Coach.
I watched the recording of your last clinic and the Ram formation looks like something that would be a great change-up. This will allow us to give the defense a different look but run all our base plays. But I have one question - what is the depth of the fullback?
As always, thank you for the help because the double wing saved my program.
Dan Chery
Worcester, Massachusetts
We line him up back of the B gap, with his heels at 4 yards. Glad to have been of help!
*********** Hi Coach,
I wanted to know your thoughts on the power play where the qb just hands off and does not toss and hockey stick. I always liked the way it helped negate the backside running down the ball carrier from behind, plus, we never let go of a perfectly good football like the toss. I do see where the edge containment has to honor the hockey stick, however, the bootleg benefit sure is attractive to me! I was fortunate to have stud qb's and we ran it old school with him leading through.
Mike Norlock
Atascadero, California
I think there’s a lot to be said for the handoff. It just doesn’t fit into my purposes. I see just one negative and that is that with an outside handoff the runner is not headed quickly enough at the off-tackle hole. In addition, because I tie the “hockey stick” path of the QB into so many other plays, I think it’s important to be a part of my Power Off-Tackle play. That’s me. I would not try to discourage you if it’s working for you!
*********** The wedge is awesome! Loved running it out of the single wing and double wing!
Mike Framke
Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** John Canzano reports from Pac-12 Media Day…
LAS VEGAS — The Pac-12 Conference served alcoholic beverages in a meeting room on Wednesday night at Bellagio. As the presentation started, Commissioner Teresa Gould took the microphone and cracked the first joke, announcing that “if anyone has earned the right to drink… it’s the Pac-12.”
There was no media poll.
No preseason all-conference team.
Just a football and two helmets on the stage.
The evening’s festivities consisted of two head football coaches, four players, a panel of notable alumni, and Gould under the lights. Drinks were served. Food was served. In a variety of ways, the Pac-12’s annual Football Media Event was unlike anything else ever seen in the run-up to a football season.
Some takeaways:
— Organizers positioned the event on Wednesday evening, directly between the Big 12 and Mountain West Football Media Days in Las Vegas. I’d lobbied for the event to take place in downtown Portland, where the conference got its start 109 years ago. I’d been told the Pac-12 was aiming for a ‘cocktail hour’ vibe. I was skeptical it would work. But I surveyed the room as the main presentation started after 6 p.m. and saw media members from a variety of national publications that cover major college football.
Representatives from the College Football Playoff and a few other college sports organizations also showed up. They only attended because the Pac-12 made being there very easy for them. It was a win.
— The two head coaches, Jake Dickert at WSU and Trent Bray at OSU, informally worked the room before the event. They were accessible, and that part worked well, too. Another win.
— Former WSU quarterbacks Ryan Leaf and Jack Thompson took the stage as part of the “Past” pitch. Ex-OSU running back Steven Jackson joined them. The trio spoke candidly about watching the conference they loved come under attack last summer. It was easily my favorite segment of the event
— Leaf said he got irked watching the crew on ESPN’s College GameDay make jokes about the “Pac-2” last season. And he predicted some of the 10 departing schools would eventually have regrets.
Said Leaf: “You’ve kept the Pac-12 brand and they’re going to come scrambling back.”
— Thompson said he viewed the events of last August as “an assault on the West Coast.” He added: “College football needs us to succeed.”
— Jackson, who played 12 NFL seasons, told the story of his college recruitment by Dennis Erickson. “This is a program you can leave your fingerprints on,” he said, “like wet cement.” And he wondered where he’d be without the Pac-12.
— There were only a handful of questions from the media in attendance during the “on-stage” portion of the event. I didn’t ask a question in that setting. I much prefer to talk with people 1-on-1 so I walked the room and spoke with Dickert, Bray, two players, Washington State athletic director Anne McCoy, Michael Molinari (head of Pac-12 Enterprises), and some others before the event kicked off.
— Teresa Gould, the commissioner, was solid talking about her vision and the complicated path that stands before the Pac-12. There was no news here. Just Gould, saying that she’s into the fight.
— Gould was asked whether the Pac-12 had locked in broadcast teams for the games that will be carried on The CW. I’m told they’re close to finalizing the broadcast teams but Gould said: “We’re not there yet.” It sounded to me like she wanted the network to make that announcement.
— Here’s a bit of news — The CW will produce a studio show for the ACC and Pac-12 games that will originate in the Bay Area, per a source in the room. Pac-12 Enterprises is handling the production of that and I’m told we should expect a “familiar face” on the set. The show aims to help drive more audience to The CW games.
— The Pac-12 Network signal went dark on June 30, but the conference’s “FAST” channel (aka: Free-Ad-Supported TV) won’t turn out the lights. There had been some speculation that the Pac-12’s ad-supported streaming platform would also go dark. It won’t. Gould said the conference and Pac-12 Enterprises are focused on running it and building it out. More on this side hustle as it develops.
— There was a distinct “We’re still here” vibe that echoed throughout the event. That phrase came up a couple of times. I’ve implored Oregon State and Washington State to do a better job of marketing themselves and boosting the branding. Wednesday was a start, but I need to see that messaging continue in loud and consistent ways. I wonder if the Pac-12 schools will invest in it.
— The Pac-12 is an easy target for jokes. There are only two schools left. They’ve been squeezed out of the ‘Power 4’ by no fault of their own. Gould’s strongest remarks came when she pointed out that Oregon State and Washington State had never in their history competed at anything but the highest levels of college athletics and still belong there.
“Why is that even a question?” she said.
*********** I understand why you like Mark Madden. And his surname doesn't hurt either. There are too many bloody sports for me, but not for the one point five million people in America who make a living speaking authoritatively about sports they've never actually played. Not sure I could live without ESPN's cornhole coverage.
Among Canzano's mention of college QBs, I didn't see Arch Manning. Time is burning, yet he's not slotted to start for the Longhorns.
Thank you for Robert Service. He was a true poet, as was Wystan Hugh [Wyatt] Auden. Rhyme, meter, meaty words.
Gwon n raise the voting age, high as you want.
I enjoyed the word picture of those boys after running the Wedge.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
While coaching in the Bay Area on two separate occasions I got to know who the local legends were (see Quiz). Frankie Albert (of Stanford and 49er fame). The 1951 USF Dons football team consisting of 7 future HOFers (Ollie Matson, Gino Marchetti, Bob St. Clair among them). Oh, yeah...Buck Shaw and Y.A. Tittle. Pop Warner. Lynn "Pappy" Waldorf. Bill Russell. K.C. Jones. Joe DiMaggio. Willie Mays, and many, many more.
The Wedge was the favorite play of my linemen no matter what school. They wanted to run it on first downs! And so we did!
Poets today rhyme. Witch ryhmes with B****. Luck rhymes with F***. You get the picture.
Yes, even a few NY Democrats have been able to come up with some words of wisdom.
I'd support raising the voting age! Better than lowering the drinking age.
Agree with John V. Way too many sports, seasons way too long. In a word...GREED!
And to think, once, a long time ago I wanted to be a college head football coach. No thanks! See Blake Anderson - Utah State
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Shame on you for not mentioning the great Leo Nomellini!!!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: When we talk about graduate transfers and grants of extra years of eligibility as things that have harmed today’s game, it might help to know Les Horvath’s story.
Les Horvath was born in South Bend, Indiana, the son of Hungarian immigrants who moved to Parma, Ohio (outside Cleveland) when he was a boy. He attended Parma High School for two years, but then transferred to Hughes High School in Cleveland because he felt his teammates at Parma did not take sports seriously enough.
As a single wing tailback, he led his team to within one game of the city championship, but at less than 160 pounds, he was considered too small by Notre Dame, the school of his dreams.
Instead, he enrolled at Ohio State as what we would call a “walk-on,” but he was quick and hard-hitting enough to earn a spot on the team his sophomore year. He played sparingly as the Buckeyes went 4-4 - their worst record since 1927, ending with a 40-0 loss to Michigan, and after the head coach’s resignation, Ohio State hired Paul Brown, who had built a powerhouse program at Massillon High School.
Brown took the Buckeyes to a 6-1 record, and Horvath saw more action, mostly as a backup wingback in Brown’s single wing attack. One of the players he shared playing time with was Tommy James, who had played for Brown at Massillon High School, and was the older brother of Don James, who would go on to greatness as a college coach at Washington.
One of the starting backs was Gene Fekete, who bonded with Horvath, because “We both spoke fluent Hungarian. So whenever we were talking on the field and didn’t want anyone else to know, we spoke Hungarian. It used to drive our coaches and teammates nuts. Sometimes we would even yell at the refs in Hungarian.”
In his senior year, the Buckeyes won the national title. By now, Horvath was a starter, and in a Michigan game, a 21-7 Buckeye win, he threw for a touchdown and caught a pass for a touchdown.
The next year was expected to be a big year for the Buckeyes, but World War II intervened and Ohio State finished 3-6. Following the season, Brown left for service in the Navy, leaving his assistant, Carroll Widdoes, as “acting coach.”
Les Horvath could only watch the goings-on. He had graduated, and was enrolled in dental School at Ohio State.
But with healthy young men in short supply at colleges, the NCAA passed a special rule that allowed graduate students to come back and play an extra year if they had not exhausted 4 years of eligibility.
And Widdoes, swift to act, asked our guy, now in dental school, to return and play halfback for the team. He noted that of his 44 players, 31 were freshmen, and he would need Horvath’s leadership if he was going to turn them into winners.
For his part, Widdoes promised that Horvath could play the tailback spot (he had played wingback under Brown) and would have a lot of say in the direction of the offense.
“At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to play,” Horvath said later. “Dental school was quite taxing. But coach Widdoes said I wouldn’t have to practice all the time and agreed to fly me to the games, both of which gave me more time to study.”
So Horvath guy agreed, and the rest is history.
He had a dream season. He gained 905 yards rushing and 345 passing as he led OSU to a 9-0 season and a Big Ten Championship. The Buckeyes were invited to play in the Rose Bowl, but the Big Ten at that time had a rule against post-season play and would not make an exception for Ohio State. The Buckeyes finished ranked nationally behind only Army, and consequently called themselves the "National Civilian Champions.”
Les Horvath was named MVP of the Big Ten and first Team All-American, and he won the Heisman Trophy, becoming the first Ohio State player ever to do so.
In doing so, he beat out Army's famed “Mister Inside" (Doc Blanchard) and "Mister Outside" (Glenn Davis), who would each go on to win the Heisman over the next two years.
Acting head coach Widdoes was named "Coach of the Year" and OSU had three other players chosen as All-Americans.
After graduating from dental school, Horvath joined the Navy, and after the war he played three years professionally, first for the Los Angeles Rams (newly moved from Cleveland) and the Cleveland Browns.
After injuries forced him to give up football, he opened a dental practice in Glendale, California, where he worked until he retired.
And he coached. Youth football.
“Not very many people know that he loved coaching kids also,” recalled his wife at the time Ohio State retired his number posthumously. “That is one thing he loved to do. He took a lot of pride in coaching and was an inspiration to those young kids.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING LES HORVATH
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** I mentioned to John Vermillion that in Hungary, the fairly-common last name “Horvath” means “Croatian,” and he wrote back,
When I worked in Croatia, one of the men on my team was George Horvath (wonder why they selected him?), the former Command Sergeant Major of US Army Europe. Republika Hrvatska is, of course, the Republic of Croatia.
*********** Although I'm no Buckeye fan, when you live in Columbus for 7 years you get to know right away who the Buckeye legends are.
Joe Gutilla
*********** QUIZ: He is possibly the least-known of all the coaches who have won Super Bowls.
A Cleveland native, he played at Ohio State under Paul Brown.
Because of a wartime shortage of eligible players, he was one of a very few players to play in two College All-Star games.
After service in the War, he played one year in the NFL with the New York Giants, and then embarked on a coaching career.
He spent 11 years as an assistant at Kent State before making the jump to the NFL when he was hired by Weeb Ewbank in Baltimore.
He was an assistant in Baltimore for 11 years, first under Ewbank then under Don Shula. Known by the players as the “Easy Rider” because of the way his personality contrasted with that of the hot-tempered Shula, he was Shula’s offensive coordinator for seven years, and served as a buffer between Shula and quarterback John Unitas. Unitas, who detested Shula, said of our guy, "He doesn't shout and scream. He's able to look at football objectively without getting carried away emotionally."
When Shula left for Miami, he succeeded Shula as head coach and had immediate success. The Colts finished 11-2-1, an he became the only rookie coach ever to win the Super Bowl when the Colts beat the Cowboys, 16-13, on rookie Jim O’Brien’s last-second field goal.
In his second season, the Colts went 10-4, losing to the Dolphins (and Shula) in the AFC championship game.
After two seasons, as an NFL head coach, his record was 21-6-1, with a Super Bowl win to his credit.
But a new owner, Robert Irsay, and a new GM, Joe Thomas, came on the scene, and in his third season, when his team got off to a 1-4 start, he was ordered by Thomas to bench Unitas. He refused to do so and was fired.
He was hired the next season by the Detroit Lions, and took them to a 6-7-1 season, good enough for second place in the NFL Central.
His record, after 2 (and a piece) seasons was 28-17-2, and he was 4-1 in post-season play. Not bad.
But then, the following July, shortly after the Lions rookies had reported to camp, he suffered a heart attack while mowing his lawn and died three days later. He was just 53.
TUESDAY,
JULY 9, 2024 “Those who once claimed speech
is violence now claim violence is speech.” Wall Street Journal*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: "It didn't take being around Grandpa Chris Lude long to figure out where my dad got his toughness and his respect for discipline. I had a great relationship with Grandpa Lude but he scared me to death. I thought he was a tough, ornery son of a gun and a hard one to please.
“For my eighth birthday he gave me a registered Holstein calf. He thought I could raise the calf, breed it to a registered bull, and start a strain of registered cattle. The calf was about a yearling when I went to a horse sale with my dad and saw this hackney pony, a small thoroughbred horse, and fell in love with it. Dad said he couldn't afford to buy it but suggested trading my yearling calf for the horse, which I wanted for riding to round up cattle.
“When Grandpa heard about the deal he was furious; he thought the horse was ugly; it had been half-gelded and had a nasty disposition. To me. the pony was fast and good looking, and I soon became a good rider.
*********** The 1952 San Francisco 49ers, in their third season in the NFL after coming over from the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), got off to a 5-0 start. (12-0, if you consider that they won all SEVEN of their “preseason” games.) Two of the five wins were over the Detroit Lions, who would go on to win the NFL championship.
And then one play - a rash decision by veteran QB Frankie Albert to fake rather than punt from deep in their own territory - led to a narrow 20-17 loss to the Chicago Bears, their first loss of the year. The whole season went downhill from there. The 49ers went 2-5 the rest of the way, taking a 35-9 whipping at Los Angeles, and finished 7-5.
Needless to say, the incident led to strained relations between Albert and Coach Buck Shaw. During the downturn, Albert, a great favorite with 49ers fans, wound up losing his starting job to Y.A. Tittle and never got it back. He retired from the 49ers at the end of the season, although he did go on to play one more season with Calgary of the CFL. Tittle spent seven more years in San Francisco and the four years with the New York Giants, and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
*********** In practicing at Aberdeen High last Wednesday, I experienced a great thrill last week when I taught the Wedge to a group of offensive linemen whose entire high school experience has been running the spread offense.
We went into the weight room (taking our shoes off first, of course) and the line coach asked me how many hand shields we’d need.
Those of you who’ve coached the offense knew the answer: ONE
That’s all the offensive linemen we’re going to block. We’re going to triple-team one defender, and from that point, our only contact with other defenders comes from their trying to penetrate - trying to “infiltrate” our wedge (as legendary single wing coach Charlie Caldwell of Princeton would say).
I was able to get them to cut out their splits, move back of the ball, and put their inside hands down. How did I do it? By promising them that with what I was going to teach them, they would be able to do some serious ass-kicking.
After they went out on the field and worked on it a bit, it was team time, and after this one play I saw the linemen jumping around, excited, as the nose man lay on his back. They’d run their first actual line wedge!
Think THAT wasn’t thrilling to this old fart?
“Enjoy it now,” I told one of them, “Because you can see why we’re not able to practice it live very much against our own guys!”
*********** This one has stuck with me a long time. After winning a game in the closing minutes, Joe Paterno was asked by a reporter why he decided on the particular play call that led to the winning score, and instead of wasting the reporters’ time with “I saw their free safety cheating up” or a similar story, he said, simply
"I'm afraid I can't tell you why. After spending over 20 years on the sideline, you go with a certain call you know is right."
*********** I watched a Canadian game in which a defensive player returned a 2-point conversion and almost scored. But he didn’t, and, so much for that - his team go zero points and wound up having to receive a kickoff.
IDEA - When you return a PAT for any distance, you get your of choice of possession of the ball sport you returned it to, or receiving the kickoff as normal.
*********** How self-serving is the political class in Washington, DC? Says one of Washington’s wittiest people, Senator John Kennedy of Lousiana, “Washington will shut off your life support just to charge their cell phones.”
*********** After all the crap that’s passed off as “poetry” these days, I thought I’d give you a treat. Welcome to a world we once knew - a world of meter and rhyme.
The Men That Don't Fit In
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
*********** Some people are unerring in predicting the future.
In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, assistant secretary of Labor to President Lyndon B. Johnson, wrote: "A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, 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. Crime, violence, unrest, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure - that is not only to be expected, it is very near to inevitable.”
*********** Not so long ago, I read a letter someone had written to some editor suggesting we RAISE the voting age. Why not, this person asked, make it the same age as that required for that office?
That would make it 35 for president, 30 for the senate, and 25 for the house.
Imagine, the writer asked, what a different country it would be if only those 35 and older could vote for president.
If you don't have teenagers or young 20-somethings voting for the boards of companies, he asked, why should they be voting for president and congress?
He’s for taking the vote from 18-year-olds. The original rationale - the draft and the Vietnam War - no longer exists. And if 18 year olds aren’t mature enough to drink, how are they mature enough to vote?
*********** “If Trump wins in November, I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and did the goodest job I know I could do.”
Somehow I can’t see Ryan Day telling a Buckeye alumni luncheon, “If Michigan wins in November, I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and did the goodest job I know I could do.”
*********** In three weeks Khyree Jackson was to report to Minnesota Vikings’ camp. But at 4:30 AM Sunday, in suburban Washington, DC, Jackson, a fourth-round draft pick out of Oregon (by way of Alabama) and two high school teammates were killed when another driver hit their car and flipped it off the road. Just like that. Three young lives snuffed out. What a horrible thing for those kids, their families, their teammates, their coaches. God rest their souls.
*********** From John Canzano’s mailbag…
Q: How do you see the QB position going forward in the new world of NIL/portal? Do you see the big schools ever starting a freshman again? Is a five-star guy better off going to a G5 to start and build up his NIL value? Are donors going to be willing to pay for the backup QB?
A: I asked Jonathan Smith and Kyle Whittingham this question last season. Both coaches told me they thought some of the top programs might lean heavily on the experience of transfers. Why rely on a true freshman when you can get a more refined, older, wiser, talented, player in the portal? Schools won’t stop trying to recruit high school seniors, but I think Bo Nix, Michael Penix Jr., Cam Ward, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Dillon Gabriel, etc. have demonstrated that top programs can shop for quarterbacks in the portal every offseason and fill their need.
Deagan Rose, a highly regarded class of 2026 quarterback, committed last week to Oregon State. I visited with Rose in late May on his high school campus, talked about his mindset, and wrote a column about it. Rose has an aunt and uncle who live in Corvallis. More significantly, he told me he’d like to play right away. OSU offers him that opportunity. The job for the Beavers isn’t just to develop Rose, but to retain him.
Q: Why can’t universities via their NIL collectives sign players to multi-year contracts? It seems ridiculous that college players are free agents every year. This model would never work in professional sports, why is it this way in “amateur” sports? —
A: That kind of multi-year agreement would need to be negotiated by a player’s union that doesn’t yet exist in college sports. The way most of the NIL collectives currently protect themselves is by paying the players in quarterly installments that act as retention bonuses.
Oregon State’s Damien Martinez, for example, had a $400,000-a-year deal with the school’s collective. Martinez was paid a $100,000 quarterly payment on March 19. A couple of weeks later, the running back announced he was leaving Corvallis. He’s now set to play for Miami.
*********** Starts an article in The Athletic…
Only four times in the last 25 years has a quarterback not won league MVP. There have been 33 Super Bowl MVPs at quarterback, with the next closest position group being the wide receivers at eight.
*********** Mark Madden, in the Pittsburgh Tribune, is becoming one of my favorite columnists. He definitely has a set of stones, and he isn’t afraid to take a contrarian position. If you can remember the days when you could not only name every team on the major leagues, but also every teams starting lineup, you’ll understand this…
We are saturated with sports: too many sports, leagues, teams and games. Demand (or lack thereof) doesn't matter. All we ever get is more. Not better. More.
How many times does spring football have to fail before it never gets resuscitated again? But as long as there's somebody to sponsor it, televise it and bet on it, it will return.
The WNBA has been around since 1997 and still isn't self-sufficient. It's subsidized by the NBA. Its attendance (pre-Caitlin Clark) is on par with the American Hockey League, a Class AAA operation that doesn't have many big cities or modern buildings and isn't televised nationally. Beyond games involving Clark, that attendance hasn't increased this season. But there's a perceived obligation.
Same goes with women's hockey. Yet another attempt at a pro leapgue launched in 2023-24. The average crowd was 5,448. (Yawn.) It's reported that players will need to take pay cuts next season.
Two golf leagues aren't needed. There aren't enough good golfers to go around. The elite don't compete against each other enough anymore. (The situation has made the four major tournaments mean more. They should play those and eliminate everything else.)
Examples abound. Too much is never enough.
Every schedule is too long, too cluttered.
Every pro sport has too many teams. The talent is spread too thin. But expansion fees are free money.
Athletes, especially the best, don't get enough time off. Their performance suffers. Or load management robs some crowd of a rare chance to see a visiting megastar. (That happens frequently in the NBA.)
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Just another fantastic sports page, so thanks. I still don't understand how Phil Steele and Canzano can make their analyses and forecasts without perfect knowledge of who'll make up the teams. But what he says about most teams is so general lots of people could have written it. I have absolutely no idea whether he'll be found mostly right or wrong.
Pat Tillman himself would've been a worthy recipient of the BL Award, in my opinion.
Joe Namath to me has always had a high creep quotient. I have to mute the volume on each of his commercials these past five years or so. Who the heck would want him to hawk their product nowadays?
I can imagine the fun you're having helping Todd. Perfect for all involved, especially those kids. Wishing Aberdeen a great season.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Pat Tillman Award, Heisman Trophy, both are now meaningless. If I was Pat Tillman’s dad I’d pull the plug on the award.
Was surprised to hear Coach Bridge no longer runs the DW, or at least moved toward the Open Wing concept. What’s that about?
I give all of college football a 0. Not a lot of positives, but not all negatives.
Baseball has home run derby, but it’s NOT baseball. Basketball has H.O.R.S.E., but it’s NOT basketball. Football has flag, but it’s NOT football.
My wife showed me a YouTube video on her FB page of a youth football tackling drill. Kids looked to be 8 and under. One on one, 15 yards apart, on a full sprint at a 45 degree angle. Both crashing into one another with their heads down! The coaches whoopin’ and hollerin’ about the contact while the two boys wobbled back to their feet. Not one of the coaches pulling the two aside to coach them how to properly make a tackle! Is it little wonder why (when parents see these asinine drills and moronic coaches’ reactions) that they prohibit their boys from playing football.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
******* QUIZ ANSWER: Pete Retzlaff is almost certainly the greatest athlete ever produced by both of “The Dakotas” - combined.
The best athlete ever to come out of North Dakota is probably Roger Maris, a very good high school football player who turned down a football scholarship at Oklahoma in order to pursue a baseball career - a decision that turned out pretty well.
But our guy ranks near the top in North Dakota, and in any list of athletes from South Dakota, he’s at or near the top there, too.
He is also one of the greatest examples ever of a good natural athlete without great skills who made himself great at football by working hard at self-improvement.
He was an outstanding high school athlete in the little town of Ellendale, North Dakota, and at South Dakota State, he was a football and track star.
In football, he was an outstanding running back, rushing for a school record 1,016 yards his senior season. And in track and field, he twice won NAIA championships - setting NAIA records - in both the shot and discus. In all, he set 16 school records in the two sports.
He was drafted in the 22nd round in 1953 by the Lions, but couldn’t make it as a fullback and was cut. After serving two years in the Army, he returned to the Lions, but was put on waivers and claimed by the Eagles.
After bring tried at several different positions - including one exhibition game where he played defensive back - he wound up at wide receiver, a strange position considering he hadn’t caught so much as one pass in college.
Recalled Eagles’ teammate Dick Bielski, “When Pete got to Philadelphia he was just a body beautiful guy - big and strong with a great physique - but he wasn’t loaded with natural football talent. He didn’t know how to catch a football. I told him, ‘If you’re going to make it in this league, you’ve got to be able to catch the ball.’ I wish I hadn’t said it. He wore my ass out. He made me throw passes to him for hours. Everybody else would be long gone and the two of us would still be out on the practice field, throwing and catching. You could see Pete’s determination, though. I spent 30 years in football, 21 of them as a coach for the Colts and Redskins, and (he) was the most successful self-made player I ever saw.”
Still, in his first two years in Philadelphia, he caught a total of just 22 passes.
But then Buck Shaw arrived as head coach and Norm Van Brocklin arrived as quarterback, and his career took off. Moving inside from wide receiver, he became one of the very first of what came to be called tight ends. And Van Brocklin, perhaps because he himself had been born in South Dakota, took a liking to him.
“There’s no question that Van Brocklin started me down the road to success,” he would recall later. “Dutch thought I had potential, and just knowing that he felt that way made me start to believe in myself. The first time Van Brocklin saw me at Hershey (Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the Eagles trained), he said, ‘That guy runs patterns like Crazy Legs Hirsch.’
“‘Crazy Legs Hirsch!’ I thought. ‘That’s great!’ Hirsch was one of my idols at the time, and I gained confidence just hearing the comparison.
“Van Brocklin also said, ‘Watch that guy. He’s going to lead this league in pass catching.’ Turns out, I did. I tied Ray Berry that year for most catches. I owe a lot to Dutch.”
Indeed, in 1958, their first year working together, Retzlaff tied the legendary Berry in receptions with 56. And two years later, when the Eagles won the NFL championship in 1960, he was their leading receiver.
In 1965 he caught 66 passes for 10 touchdowns, and won the Bert Bell Award as NFL Player of the Year.
He was twice named first team All-Pro and twice second team. He went to the Pro Bowl five times, and when he retired after 11 years with the Eagles, he held the team career records with 452 receptions and 7412 yards receiving and 47 touchdown catches.
He averaged 16.4 yards per catch, and - extremely impressive - lost only four fumbles.
Said former teammate Maxie Baughan, “He was one of the first tight ends with enough versatility to be a receiver as well as a blocker. He changed the game because defenses had to alter their coverages to guard him.”
In my opinion, the fact that he was a contemporary of much better-known tight ends Mike Ditka and John Mackey kept him from being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, because his stats are comparable to theirs.
Partly because of his marksmanship developed growing up and in the Army, and partly because of his impressive bearing, he was give the nickname “The Baron” by teammate Tom Brookshier.
He was one of the founders of the the NFL Players Association and served as the Eagles’ Player Representative and for two years as President of the NFLPA.
After he retired, he spent four years as the Eagles’ General Manager.
A member of the Eagles’ Hall of Fame, Pete Retzlaff’s number 44 is one of just nine that has been retired by the team.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING PETE RETZLAFF
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
RODNEY LUNSFORD - WESTFIELD, INDIANA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: When we talk about graduate transfers and grants of extra years of eligibility as things that have harmed today’s game, it might help to know this guy’s story.
He was born in South Bend, Indiana, the son of Hungarian immigrants who moved to Parma, Ohio (outside Cleveland) when he was a boy. He attended Parma High School for two years, but then transferred to Hughes High School in Cleveland because he felt his teammates at Parma did not take sports seriously enough.
As a single wing tailback, he led his team to within one game of the city championship, but at less than 160 pounds, he was considered too small by Notre Dame, the school of his dreams.
Instead, he enrolled at Ohio State as what we would call a “walk-on,” but he was quick and hard-hitting enough to earn a spot on the team his sophomore year. He played sparingly as the Buckeyes went 4-4 - their worst record since 1927, ending with a 40-0 loss to Michigan, and after the head coach’s resignation, Ohio State hired Paul Brown, who had built a powerhouse program at Massillon High School.
Brown took the Buckeyes to a 6-1 record, and our guy saw more action, mostly as a backup wingback in Brown’s single wing attack. One of the players he shared playing time with was Tommy James, who had played for Brown at Massillon High School, and was the older brother of Don James, who would go on to greatness as a college coach at Washington.
One of the starting backs was Gene Fekete, who bonded with our guy, because “We both spoke fluent Hungarian. So whenever we were talking on the field and didn’t want anyone else to know, we spoke Hungarian. It used to drive our coaches and teammates nuts. Sometimes we would even yell at the refs in Hungarian.”
In his senior year, the Buckeyes won the national title. By now, our guy was a starter, and in a Michigan game, a 21-7 Buckeye win, he threw for a touchdown and caught a pass for a touchdown.
The next year was expected to be a big year for the Buckeyes, but World War II intervened and Ohio State finished 3-6. Following the season, Brown left for service in the Navy, leaving his assistant, Carroll Widdoes, as “acting coach.”
Our guy could only watch the goings-on. He had graduated, and was enrolled in dental School at Ohio State.
But with healthy young men in short supply at colleges, the NCAA passed a special rule that allowed graduate students to come back and play an extra year if they had not exhausted 4 years of eligibility.
And Widdoes, swift to act, asked our guy, now in dental school, to return and play halfback for the team. He noted that of his 44 players, 31 were freshmen, and he would need our guy’s leadership if he was going to turn them into winners.
For his part, Widdoes promised that our guy could play the tailback spot (he had played wingback under Brown) and would have a lot of say in the direction of the offense.
“At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to play,” our guy said later. “Dental school was quite taxing. But coach Widdoes said I wouldn’t have to practice all the time and agreed to fly me to the games, both of which gave me more time to study.”
So our guy agreed, and the rest is history.
He had a dream season. He gained 905 yards rushing and 345 passing as he led OSU to a 9-0 season and a Big Ten Championship. The Buckeyes were invited to play in the Rose Bowl, but the Big Ten at that time had a rule against post-season play and would not make an exception for Ohio State. The Buckeyes finished ranked nationally behind only Army, and consequently called themselves the "National Civilian Champions.”
Our guy was named MVP of the Big Ten and first Team All-American, and he won the Heisman Trophy, becoming the first Ohio State player ever to do so.
In doing so, he beat out Army's famed “Mister Inside" (Doc Blanchard) and "Mister Outside" (Glenn Davis), who would each go on to win the Heisman over the next two years.
Acting head coach Widdoes was named "Coach of the Year" and OSU had three other players chosen as All-Americans.
After graduating from dental school, our guy joined the Navy, and after the war he played three years professionally, first for the Los Angeles Rams (newly moved from Cleveland) and the Cleveland Browns.
After injuries forced him to give up football, he opened a dental practice in Glendale, California, where he worked until he retired.
And he coached. Youth football.
“Not very many people know that he loved coaching kids also,” recalled his wife at the time Ohio State retired his number posthumously. “That is one thing he loved to do. He took a lot of pride in coaching and was an inspiration to those young kids.”
FRIDAY,
JULY 5, 2024 “Quarterback’s
probably the worst-coached position in football because they have so
many guys coaching it who never stood back there themselves,”
Sonny
Jurgensen*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: "At school we put together a team, both boys and girls, and played games against other country schools when we could find someone to provide the transportation. I grew to be fairly proficient, and when I got to the eighth grade I was asked to play with the Sunday team in Fulton, the nearby town. I was the first baseman and did quite well.“
"Getting permission from my dad to skip work on the farm was the hard part. I'd ask Dad, "May I play baseball on Sunday?’ He would answer, "Well, if it rains you can.” I said, "Dad, they don't play baseball if it rains.’ He said, "We don't farm if it rains. “
"But he did make some concessions, and I did get a chance to play. That was my first exposure to athletics. I liked it.”
*********** For the past three days I’ve had the pleasure of working at Aberdeen, Washington High, where the head coach, Todd Bridge, with whom I’ve worked at two different places for a total of eight years, is in the middle of a transition: although it’s his fifth year at Aberdeen, he’s having to start over with new offensive and defensive coordinators.
He had to make a last-minute decision on offense to remain with what they’ve been running - a spread, RPO-based scheme - but unfortunately, the coach assigned the OC job had already made another commitment that tied him up for the whole month of July. So I offered to help Todd to the extent that I could, and he took me up on it and asked me to cover for the OC, and to coach the quarterbacks in his absence.
Aberdeen is 2-1/2 hours away from where we live in Camas, but what enables me to do this is that we still have our place in Ocean Shores, which is only 45 minutes away from Aberdeen - and not a bad place to hang out.
It’s really a nice gig for me. I have none of the responsibilities of a head coach or a coordinator, and because Todd and I have worked so closely together, I know the kind of operation he runs: the kids are treated well and respectfully, while at the same time they’re held totally accountable. It’s a well-run operation.
The team is young - of the 60 kids out, I doubt that 10 of them are seniors - and the kids are very enthusiastic and eager to learn. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that I don’t know a lot about their offense - especially the terminology that it requires. It’s not what I would run, but that’s not my call, and it would be hypocritical of me to have spent years preaching the importance of having loyal assistants and then stand around making critical remarks about anything. So while I do the best I can to learn the scheme, I am able to work on the QBs with the basics, and I’m also authorized also to deal with little things that I might see that could help receivers, running backs or linemen (without, of course, stepping on another coach’s toes).
I’ve been helped greatly by having last year’s QB on hand. He’s graduated now. He’s a great kid - he was their Black Lion Award winner last year. He’s mature and he has a good understanding of the offense. In addition, I’ve had the help of another former player, a running back when I coached at Aberdeen back in 2019 who’s playing D-III ball Cornell College in Iowa. Those two guys are really smart and eager to learn and it’s great having them there.
In addition, although in the three days I’ve been there we have yet to have all four of our potential QBs on hand (plus two incoming freshmen), one of them has been there every day, and he’s impressed me with his knowledge and leadership to the point where I’ve already been able to ask him to work with the freshmen on a few things. He also appears to have the makings of a good quarterback.
We aren’t running any Double Wing yet, but you never know. It’s only been three days, and I still have at least a week to go. (Just joking. I know my place.)
*********** Pat Tillman’s mom is understandably upset with ESPN and their plan to present the Pat Tillman Award to “Prince” Harry. Although Harry - technically a former prince, since he’s sort of been kicked out of the British royal family - is a foreigner, ESPN has justified the award by explaining that Harry did serve in combat, and he did help found the Invictus Games. The rebuttal to that is that while he may have served in combat, there was no way that the British Army was going to allow anything bad to happen to an heir to the throne. And as for the Invictus Games, it does appear that Harry and his wife - who now live in America - are drawing nice salaries from the games.
My humble suggestion - give the Pat Tillman award to an American, who has done good for American soldiers.
And to get ESPN off the hook, I am hereby offering to present Harry with a special Black Lion Award. For a price, of course.
*********** How did I manage to reach old age without forcing myself on a woman?
What is it about some other old farts who think they can?
In Philly, Howard Eskin, who since radio station WIP went all-sports in the mid-80s has been a highly controversial radio guy, has been banned from Phillies and 76ers games and practice facilities after it was confirmed that he had forced a kiss on a woman - evidently a worker at one of the sports venues.
Anybody remember when a very creepy - and very drunk - Joe Namath made a pass at Suzy Kolber, in the middle of an in-game sideline interview?
*********** There is a high school in the United States that has produced two presidents. It’s the only one that has.
Technically, it’s not what most of us would call a high school. It is perhaps the most prestigious private preparatory school in America. It’s Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts.
Most commonly known simply as “Andover,” it’s not unusual for as many as half of every class to be admitted to Harvard, Yale or Princeton. At Yale, in my freshman class of 1,000 guys, 54 were from Andover.
The two presidents are George H. W. Bush (Class of 1942) and George W. Bush (Class of 1964). The younger Bush was one of “only” 36 admitted from Andover in his class.
***********The Columbia River provides much of the border between Oregon and Washington.
Portland, Oregon is on the Columbia, and across from it is Vancouver, Washington.
There’s quite a bit of traffic between the two cities - much of it commuters living in Washington and working in Portland - but only two bridges to handle all that traffic.
One of the bridges, which carries Interstate 5, the main artery of the Pacific Coast, is an old fellow. It’s actually two parallel spans, and they’re drawbridges. and river traffic - usually a barge - can cause one hellish traffic jam.
That’s one reason why a new bridge is needed. The other is that this old geezer probably won’t withstand the next earthquake. (We seldom get earthquakes out here, but based on the scientific principle of “you never know,” EVERYTHING out here has to be earthquake-proofed.
So there you are. Every one agrees a new bridge is needed.
And that’s about all they can agree on. I won’t even get into all the things people are fighting over, but a few weeks ago another issue raised its ugly head: bridge equity.
Bet you never heard of it. I hadn’t.
It seems that 89 per cent of the current bridge’s width is devoted to carrying cars and trucks.
Well, duh.
But wait. The new bridge, as designed by the kind of people we place in charge of these things, will reduce that 89 per cent to 55 per cent - to accommodate public transit, pedestrians, bikes and “rollers” (which I believe refers to people in wheelchairs). Evidently, that’s bridge equity.
In defense of this somewhat questionable use of the public money that’s supposed to be used (I thought) to get the greatest number of people to and from places, some character named Anna Zivarts, who represents an organization called Disability Rights Washington, chimed in with this:
“So much of our active transportation design unfortunately still assumes that cars are the most important thing to move. Are we designing a system where the pedestrian and bike elements are add-ons? Or are we actually trying to design a system that’s going to reduce the number of vehicles, reduce our car dependency, reduce our climate emissions and improve our public health?”
*********** In a piece in The Athletic, writer Stewart Mandel took a new approach to “how are they going to do this year?” in college football, by assessing how all the realignment that’s taken place in the Power 5 - oops, 4 - conferences will affect individual teams: are they better off or worse off than they were before?
Here’s his scoring:
I’ve given all 67 power-conference schools a score between minus-5 and positive-5.
The score is solely about a team’s ability to win, and does not take into account the team’s current coaching staff or roster.
Scoring a 0 means the school is neither better nor worse off. A score from 1 to 5 ranges from mildly better to far better, and -1 to -5 ranges from mildly worse to … uh oh.
Like me, you will likely disagree strongly on several of his picks. Some are easy - Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State to do better. Some are borderline nuts - Oklahoma, Utah, Iowa to do worse?
Oh, well - at least we’re talking football. It would be even better if it were still college football.
ACC
SMU: +5
Has there been a bigger realignment winner in the last 30 years? SMU had not finished in the Top 25 in four decades at the time it got the call up to the big leagues last September. Now it comes in with momentum after finishing last season No. 22.
Clemson: +3
Dabo Swinney’s 2015-2020 teams had to be near-perfect to reach the four-team CFP; his 11-2 ACC title squad in 2022 would have earned a top-4 seed. His aloof portal approach doesn’t help his cause, but it doesn’t factor into this score.
Florida State: +3
The irony of FSU trying to sue its way out of the ACC is that the new system works in its favor. Would it rather be the best team in the ACC and earn a top-4 seed and a first-round bye, or the fourth-best team in the SEC and live on the bubble?
Louisville: +2
Louisville has upside. The school has the resources and recruiting footprint to be a regular ACC and CFP contender, and it helps that Louisville is no longer trapped in a division with Florida State (which it does not play this season) and Clemson.
Miami: +2
The U has been stuck in the mud for two decades, but it began flexing its muscle as soon as NIL went into effect in 2021. The program has most of the elements needed to be a 12-team CFP regular, provided the right coach is in place.
Virginia Tech: +2
The Hokies would have made a 12-team CFP nine times in a 16-year span (1995-2010) under Frank Beamer. They may never replicate that level of consistency, but there’s no reason they can’t become a semi-regular contender again.
NC State: +1
The Wolfpack have not won a conference title since 1979. That might be a tad more attainable now that they’re no longer in the same division as Florida State and Clemson. (At least elsewhere, Wolfpack vibes are high.)
Georgia Tech: 0
Recruiting has always been challenging for the Yellow Jackets, made even more so now by NIL. But based on its history, Georgia Tech could make an occasional CFP appearance. It would have gone in 1990, 1998 and 2009, and would have been the first team out in 2014.
North Carolina: 0
This unquestioned basketball school has been long considered a sleeping giant in football but has yet to wake up. If it finally does, it will more likely be due to an inspired head-coaching hire than the various changes to the sport.
Pittsburgh: -2
Pitt is nearly 50 years removed from its national heyday, but it did win the ACC in 2021, which would have garnered a 12-team berth. But star receiver Jordan Addison’s jump to USC the following spring was a window into new NIL reality.
Syracuse: -2
It’s early, but new coach Fran Brown has discovered there’s money in the banana stand. Landing Ohio State QB Kyle McCord raised eyebrows. More broadly, though, it’s hard to argue the new landscape does much to benefit the Orange.
Virginia: -2
Arguably the one thing UVA had going for it was the mediocrity of the ACC Coastal Division, which it won in 2019 while going 9-3. Now, the Cavaliers — who last finished in the Top 25 back two decades ago — risk falling into deep irrelevance moving forward.
Wake Forest: -2
The tiniest school in Power 4 has more donor support than one might assume, and it’s not a championship-or-bust fan base. But reaching a 12-team CFP could be largely unattainable. Will programs like this be able to sustain interest?
Boston College: -3
BC is the type of school that suffers in a world of roster-poaching and NIL deals. Success will also be increasingly defined by Playoff appearances, and the Eagles have finished in the top 12 only twice since World War II.
Duke: -3
Duke just lived through the downside of its new reality. It lost coach Mike Elko to an SEC school after just two seasons and quarterback Riley Leonard went to Notre Dame, likely for a seven-figure NIL deal.
Stanford: -4
The Cardinal will always attract recruits that covet that degree. But the school’s admissions process limits it to taking only a few transfers a year, which creates a big disadvantage in the new landscape. And like Cal, the ACC is not ideal.
Cal: -5
Serious question: Would Cal have been better off getting Washington State/Oregon State’d? An already lagging program must now compete in a far-away Power 4 conference while receiving 30 percent of its money (and without SMU’s boosters).
Big Ten
Ohio State: +4
Only once in the past 19 seasons have the Buckeyes lost more than two regular-season games. That means they would have made a 12-team Playoff all but once in the past 19 seasons. And probably pulled off an extra national title or two.
Michigan: +3
For the most part, Michigan will still be Michigan. The Big House will still pack in 110,000. The season will still be defined by whether it beats Ohio State. But a 12-team Playoff field certainly doesn’t hurt.
Penn State: +3
Had the 12-team Playoff been in place all along, James Franklin would have made five appearances in his first 10 seasons. The format is ideal for programs like PSU: not quite “elite,” but has the resources to compete nationally.
Michigan State: +2
While the Spartans only made the four-team CFP once, they could have made a 12-team field as many as five times from 2011-21. They also get Ohio State off the books in 2025 and 2026 after having played the Buckeyes in 14 consecutive seasons.
Oregon: +2
The Ducks are the best-positioned of the four West Coast schools joining the Big Ten. They recruit nationally and have Phil Knight’s war chest. While national titles have remained elusive, regular CFP appearances are realistic.
Maryland: +1
The Terps are free! They are no longer stuck in the Big Ten East, where their ceiling would forever be 7-5 and fourth place out of seven. But the upside may be limited until the school’s donors make a bigger splash in the NIL world.
Rutgers: +1
Like “rival” Maryland, Rutgers is finally out from under the Big Ten East. It’s also doing surprisingly well in NIL. The program’s ceiling may still be limited to 8-4 or so, but that would still be much better than its first decade in the conference.
Nebraska: 0
It may be tougher for the Cornhuskers to contend for Big Ten championships in a bigger league. But right now, that’s not even the target, given they haven’t even reached a bowl game in eight years. How much worse can it get?
Wisconsin: -1
The program has long churned out double-digit wins by “holding serve” against most of the conference while occasionally punching up against Ohio State or Michigan. That could become harder with the arrival of USC, Oregon and Washington.
Illinois: -2
This program has struggled to find its footing for more than two decades, and nothing about this new world helps it. If anything, it will be tougher. Right out of the gate, the Illini face Penn State, Michigan and Oregon this season.
Indiana: -2
The good news: no more getting clobbered by Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State in the Big Ten East. The bad news: Indiana, long known for apathy in football, is not likely to be as flush in NIL money as most of its competitors.
USC: -2
While it didn’t play like one for most of the past 15 years, USC was the most prestigious program in its former conference. In the Big Ten, it will be, at best, the third banana to Ohio State and Michigan, and possibly fifth behind Penn State and Oregon.
Washington: -2
The Huskies were the class of the Pac-12 the last two seasons, but it helped not to have an Ohio State or Michigan in their league. Now they have both, plus USC, Oregon and Penn State. Will the brief Kalen DeBoer era go down as an outlier?
Minnesota: -3
It’s unfortunate for the Golden Gophers that they have yet to reach the Big Ten Championship Game, because now it may never happen. A Playoff berth is not impossible, but Minnesota has had one top-10 season in the past 60 years.
Northwestern: -3
The new world may not be kind to overachiever programs like Northwestern. While it regularly makes bowl games and posts occasional Top 25 seasons, it has not finished high enough to make a 12-team CFP since 1996.
Purdue: -3
Not likely to contend for Playoff berths whether the field is four or 12. Purdue’s goal is to get to bowl games, and reaching six wins becomes harder without the benefit of a Big Ten West schedule.
Iowa: -4
The Hawkeyes have made a living out of grinding out mediocre Big Ten West foes while losing 42-3 to Michigan or 54-10 to Ohio State. In an 18-team league with no more unbalanced divisions and three incoming Top-25 recruiting schools, Iowa could be in for a reckoning.
UCLA: -4
Almost nothing about the new world does the Bruins any favors. UCLA is a basketball school whose donors have done little to support football’s NIL efforts. It is joining a conference full of big brands and football-first fan bases. Not a recipe for success.
Big 12
BYU: +5
The Cougars have finally climbed the mountaintop after spending their entire history either in a non-power conference or as an independent. They now have direct access to the CFP, and won’t finish ranked 16th with just one loss, as happened in 2020.
Cincinnati: +4
The Bearcats’ dream season in 2021 does not have to be an aberration going forward, as they won’t have to go undefeated to make the Playoff. And power-conference status should help them land more recruits in their fertile city and state.
Houston: +4
After nearly 30 years in the post-Southwest Conference wilderness, the Cougars are back in a major conference alongside old rivals Baylor, Texas Tech and TCU. But achieving consistent success in the Big 12 is hardly a given after up-and-downs in the AAC.
UCF: +4
Like BYU, Cincinnati and Houston, UCF got its Power 4 life raft, and it’s not like the Knights were struggling beforehand. They’ve reached three BCS/CFP bowl games since 2013. The only question is how they’ll fare as a geographic outlier in the new Big 12.
Baylor: +2
Since 2013, the Bears have won three Big 12 titles and reached four BCS bowls but have fallen short of reaching the CFP. In a 12-team field, all of those teams would make it. And that was with Texas and Oklahoma in the conference.
Kansas State: +2
K-State could thrive in the new world. It would have made the 12-team CFP four times since 2011. It has sneaky-good NIL support. The biggest challenge will be revenue-sharing. Only three public Power 5 schools made less in 2022.
Oklahoma State: +2
Mike Gundy has fielded eight double-digit win teams, all of which would have been 12-team CFP contenders. Most of those teams lost to Oklahoma, against which Gundy is 4-15. The Cowboys no longer have to deal with the Sooners.
TCU: +2
The Frogs would have made a 12-team field three times since 2014, and, thanks to the Metroplex, they have the highest recruiting ceiling among the holdovers.
Colorado: +1
Anything would be better than the Buffs’ abysmal 13-year tenure in the Pac-12. The Buffs get back into the Texas footprint, which they benefitted from in the old Big 12. But the school still faces an uphill climb in the NIL world, with or without Deion Sanders.
Texas Tech: +1
The Red Raiders have largely flailed since the late Mike Leach’s 2009 ouster, but it’s not for lack of resources and fan support. Getting out from under Texas could help, and while CFP berths might be infrequent, they’re attainable.
Iowa State: 0
The Cyclones, who have not won a conference championship since 1912, will still have all the same evergreen challenges. They could benefit from a more level version of the Big 12, but they’ll still have to perpetually overachieve.
Kansas: 0
The same Iowa State blurb can be applied to Kansas, which has finished ranked roughly once per decade. An expanded Playoff gives the Jayhawks slightly more hope for glory, but 2007 seasons may remain incredibly rare.
Utah: -1
Utah enters its new league as strong as any of its programs, but man, did the Utes have a good thing going in the Pac-12. Not only did they reach four league title games in five years, but they could lord their Power 5 membership over rival BYU. No more.
West Virginia: -1
The Mountaineers have lost a great deal of their identity since leaving the old Big East for the Big 12 in 2012, and the further dilution of the conference won’t help. But they did at least gain their first geographic partner when Cincinnati joined.
Arizona: -2
Joining the Big 12 was great for Arizona basketball. Probably not so much for football, where it has little in common with schools in football-crazed Texas. History suggests the Wildcats will rarely contend for a spot in the Playoff.
Arizona State: -3
ASU president Michael Crow had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Big 12. The pro-market school has little in common with the likes of Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, which, unlike the Sun Devils, have rabid fan bases.
SEC
Alabama: +4
I don’t expect post-Nick Saban Alabama to make a 12-team CFP nearly every single year, like I do Ohio State, simply because of the depth of the SEC. But it’s still one of a small handful of programs built to succeed in any era.
Georgia: +4
Now, even Georgia’s “down” seasons might still end in CFP berths. Kirby Smart would currently have seven straight, up from three in eight seasons. Between Smart and Mark Richt, the Bulldogs would have 13 since 2001.
LSU: +3
The Tigers have won three national championships this century, but they might have played for even more were there a 12-team field. They would have made nine by now. Of course, they may also fire coaches more frequently for missing the Playoff.
Texas: +3
Unlike rival Oklahoma, Texas has won just three conference titles this century, so that shouldn’t be the measuring stick. But Mack Brown showed what the ceiling can be. He would have reached eight 12-team CFPs in a decade.
Florida: +2
Florida must play Georgia every year while mixing in Texas and Oklahoma. But a 12-team Playoff could prove a godsend; the Gators would have made the postseason three consecutive times under Dan Mullen and 10 times since 2000.
Ole Miss: +2
Ole Miss has not won the SEC since 1963. Oklahoma and Texas won’t make it any easier. But the program can make the 12-team CFP, and its NIL collective has become one of the models in the sport.
Tennessee: 0
The Vols are still playing rivals Alabama, Florida and Georgia for the next two seasons while adding Oklahoma. That’s rough. But Tennessee’s collective is strong, and it has the resources and recruiting cachet to reach occasional CFPs.
Auburn: -1
A drawing of the history of Auburn football arcs like a roller coaster, with brief spurs of national supremacy mixed in between long stretches of middle-of-the-pack. And the league just added two more above-the-middle historical programs.
Missouri: -1
Missouri would have reached 12-team fields in 2007, 2013 and 2023. That development is good. But the Tigers have benefitted at times from being in the SEC’s easier division, which is now gone, and they are .250 all-time against Oklahoma and Texas.
Arkansas: -2
On the bright side, Arkansas gets old rival Texas back. On the downside, the Razorbacks have yet to win the SEC in its 32 years of membership, and it’s not getting easier. They would have reached a 12-team CFP three times in those 32 years.
Texas A&M: -2
The best thing the Aggies had going for them in the SEC was that Texas wasn’t in it. Alas. The return of annual matchups with the Longhorns should be fantastic for entertainment purposes but could make for a tougher schedule.
Kentucky: -3
Mark Stoops is on track to have a statue sculpted for taking the Wildcats to eight straight bowl games, but those Gator and Music City bowls might not feel as significant in the new world. They also may become harder to reach with no SEC East.
Mississippi State: -3
The Bulldogs have finished above .500 in SEC play this century just once, in 2014 with Dak Prescott. The SEC getting bigger, and possibly moving to nine conference games, is likely to be unkind for State.
Oklahoma: -3
From 1938-2021, the Sooners claimed a Big 8/Big 12 championship in 47 of those 83 seasons. No major program in the country has more league titles. Realistically, OU will not come close to enjoying that level of dominance in the SEC.
South Carolina: -3
Save for that one three-year peak under Steve Spurrier from 2011-13, the Gamecocks have rarely lived in the top half of the SEC. Now they’re losing the SEC East. It will become even more difficult to maintain relevance.
Vanderbilt: -4
Vanderbilt was already stuck playing the worst cards in the SEC deck. Now there’s a whole new set of challenges stacked against their deck: the bigger SEC, the importance of NIL and roster poaching from the portal.
The rest
Notre Dame: +2
Some might fixate on the fact that the independent Fighting Irish can never get a first-round bye in the new system, but that misses the larger point: They could reach many more CFPs. They would have made five in Brian Kelly’s 12 seasons.
Oregon State and Washington State: -5
There’s no sugarcoating it: Two historic Power 5 programs have been relegated to de facto Group of 5 status, playing de facto Mountain West schedules. And unlike actual G5 schools, they have no guaranteed access to the Playoff.
*********** John Canzano says he was at a wedding rehearsal dinner recently and…
I overheard a conversation from the other end of the table. It was fans of Minnesota and Iowa football lamenting that they didn’t like the idea of four Pacific Time Zone schools joining an already top-heavy conference.
They were particularly miffed about Oregon, Washington, and USC entering the fray because it meant that the mid-tier schools in the Big Ten now had to not only deal with Ohio State and Michigan, but also the Ducks, Huskies, and Trojans.
“In a good year,” an Iowa fan said, “what are we now, fifth or sixth, best-case?”
I hadn’t thought much about the plight of Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue, Wisconsin, and the other Big Ten schools now faced with having to climb over the new West Coast programs that are joining.
*********** Speaking of sports we invented… Baseball…Basketball… and, now, with our elimination from the U2 World Championships, Football…
We’ve been getting whipped at our own games.
And now, this - our Men’s soccer team’s elimination from the Copa Something-or-Other, in a European sport that millions of American parents thought would enable their little boys to win college scholarships and pro riches, without the pain and discomfort of football.
This, as politicians like today, is what I call an “existential crisis” (whatever that means). Why aren’t any of our presidential candidates talking about it?
I’m for plowing billions of federal dollars into paying NFL stars to play on our Olympic Flag Football team. Our national pride and prestige are riding on our winning the gold.
*********** Coach,
I hope you’re well. I'm catching up on your news as last week I flew back to Michigan where I had the honor to Coach the East All Star team for the state of Michigan. Selected prior to retiring and taking the job here in Florida, I thought about backing out but after chatting with the gentleman who ran the event and being grateful for the selection I thought it might be a nice final game if I don't coach again in Michigan... I coached the East team which is comprised of Metro Detroit and most of the very rural thumb. I was grateful they assigned the Head Coach of Detroit Cass Tech, Marvin Rushing, who is a wonderful guy and Coach as the DC. He did so much to help organize us while I was down here in Florida. Additional Steve Verburg from my staff and Josh Lindeman, who has long run the T at Addison (just took Manchester position), helped with the offense. Aren Cooper (Brown City) ran the special teams and helped with the D.
We ran the T but were asked to run some spread and other looks to show off the skills of the kids. (We were 0-3 with a pick in the spread). We were allowed 4 practices and then played on Saturday. Overall, it was a good experience despite our 13-12 defeat - we went for two and the win with 30 seconds to play which unfortunately didn't work in our favor. Of the 40 kids on our "East" Roster the vast majority were exactly what you would expect an "all star" to be - high character, good person, team mindset, and hard workers. Those few that didn't possess those attributes we gave a minimum amount of reps to, regardless of their abilities....
The flag football growth is interesting to me.... Flag Football and Tackle Football are not the same sport. My comparable is Volleyball and Beach Volleyball or Nascar and Drag Racing. Both can be interesting but very different in approach and nature. With that stated I have long wondered how, with 50% of our population (women) not truly having opportunity to participate, that would would be good for the game over the next 100 years. Flag being a growing opportunity to allow more participation and future mothers being more inclined to be fans and allowing their children to participate is a good thing in my opinion. Additionally, my father, a college Coach at the time, wouldn't allow me to play tackle until 7th grade. I played flag until then and although I enjoyed it, my hunger to hit and play "real football" grew each year. In my mind it was a lot more fun then the other alternative playing soccer. Down here in Englewood we have a major winter flag league, kids have fun with it... That is cool! I'm good with it but we will continue to remind them that being a good tackle football player requires a lot different skills than being a good flag player and those who don't buy into that likely won't EVER be good tackle players.
Soccer, USMNT gets eliminated by Uruguay.... WOW, 30 years ago there was an all out effort behind the development in youth soccer to ensure we became a national power.... Until we focus on developing (through practice) vs. playing it won't happen! It is the why TACKLE Football is the last bastion of teaching these essential values to our youth!
God Bless,
J. Mensing
Head Football Coach,
Lemon Bay High School
Right on. There is no other team sport that teaches the values football (tackle football, that is) does, precisely because football contains an element that so many well-meaning people keep trying to eliminate - danger. It’s that danger that makes football unique: learning how to deal with fear, and the need to learn how to protect yourself and to depend on your teammates, and to assure them that they can depend on you).
*********** I can't help myself from commenting each week how much I delight in the Coach Lude Wisdom. He described many of us in throwing his old baseball against the homemade strike zone on the barn.
You mentioned Jamarcus Russell, so I expected something on the two Antonios, Pierce and Brown. Personal finance is pretty simple, I think: don't invest in what you don't understand, and don't spend more than you earn. Sad to see bankruptcy strike men who've received so much in salary. At least Brown was simple, direct, and accepted his fate: "I'm f....ked." The most puzzling one to me, though, is Shedeur Sanders. How can that case be true?
Yeah, that Schlossnagle is one fine man. (I'm pausing to get my terms straight--it's called manager in pro baseball, but coach in amateur baseball, right?)
I like Al Michaels, but am disappointed he approved the AI Al.
Next week you're going to tell us how many hours a week of pickleball ESPN will provide.
Most serious story of the week: Pat Tillman's mother upset at ESPN for presenting the Pat Tillman Award (the 10th anniversary award) to Prince Harry. As you know, I have boundless admiration for Tillman.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Never felt Jamarcus Russell was a great QB. A great athlete...yes...a great QB...no. Would likely have made himself a good living in the NFL as a big WR.
IMHO I believe UCLA, Cal, and Stanford will find their way back to the West Coast. UCLA won't find life in the BIG as rosy as they thought, and Cal and Stanford will likely become casualties of a possible ACC implosion, and financial difficulties. As far as the rest of the old PAC 12 schools are concerned Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State will make good additions to the Big 12. USC, Oregon, and Washington can all go to hell.
AI Al Michaels or not I doubt I will watch more than a few hours of the Summer Olympics unless big news forces me to.
The Schlossnagle episode catapulted the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry to new heights.
Flag football will become the new national sport of the U.S.!! And we'll have low inflation, the country will be energy independent, and gas prices will get lower, and the border will be secured and closed, and we'll be able to afford groceries again, and the world will be at peace. Well...at least everything but the flag football thing if Trump is the President again.
Enjoy the weekend! Remember to teach those QB's to bend those knees, hands in front at the ready, and hide that ball.
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Fred Gehrke grew up in Salt Lake City and realized his childhood dream when he wound up as a running back and kickoff and punt returner for the hometown Utah Utes.
At the same time, he majored in art.
In 1940 he signed as a free agent with the NFL Cleveland Rams, and made the team - with a salary of $135 a game.
With World War II looming, he tried to enlist in a service but was declared 4-F (unfit physically) because of a bad knee, so, wanting to do his part, he landed a job in California with Northrup Aircraft, designing and illustrating planes.
While working at Northrup, he played football for some L.A. area teams, and when the war ended, he rejoined the Rams.
In 1945, he was named to at least one All-Pro team.
The Rams were good, but unfortunately for them, Clevelanders were more excited about the arrival of a new team in town. Set to play in the all-new All-American Football Conference, it was named the Browns in honor of their coach Paul Brown, who four years earlier had coached Ohio State to a national title.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Rams’ owner Dan Reeves asked for - and got - permission to move his Rams to Los Angeles. It worked out great for our guy, who was able to continue to work for Northrup while taking three months off to play football.
It wasn’t long before he put his illustrator’s talent to work on the football team. After showing his coach a drawing of a helmet decorated with Rams’ horns, he got the coach’s approval to paint his design on an actual helmet.
Owner Reeves liked it, but first had to ask for permission from the NFL office (actually, commissioner Bert Bell) and was told, “You’re the owner - do what you want.”
With that, he paid Gehrke $1 a helmet to paint gold Rams’ horns on 75 helmets (which first had to be painted blue). It took him the entire summer of 1948.
The grand unveiling took place in the Rams’ first home game, an exhibition against the Washington Redskins before 105,000 people in the Coliseum.
The Rams came out and went through warmups without helmets on and then went back inside. Then, with the stadium lights turned off - it was a night game - they returned to the field as the lights went back on - and the crowd went nuts, and wound up giving the team (and their new helmet design) a five-minute standing ovation.
This was not all Fred Gehrke did.
Working with engineers at Northrup, he designed a face mask intended originally for his own use after having his nose broken.
Later, he designed the first sideline kicker’s net, which he patented.
After retirement, he was asked by his old Rams’ roommate, Tom Harmon, who by then was broadcasting the Rams’ games, for help spotting. Putting his artistic talents to work again, he drew up elaborate offensive and defensive charts on which he could point out players, enabling Harmon to call out the correct names. He and Harmon worked together for 13 seasons.
He later served as a scout, then personnel director, and then general manager of the Denver Broncos, a job he had until new ownership took over and brought in their own people.
In his final job Fred Gehrke served as general manager of the Denver Gold of the USFL.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING FRED GEHRKE
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
******* QUIZ - He is almost certainly the greatest athlete ever produced by both of “The Dakotas” - combined.
The best athlete ever to come out of North Dakota is probably Roger Maris, a very good high school football player who turned down a football scholarship at Oklahoma in order to pursue a baseball career - a decision that turned out pretty well.
But our guy ranks near the top in North Dakota, and in any list of athletes from South Dakota, he’s at or near the top there, too.
He is also one of the greatest examples ever of a good natural athlete without great skills who made himself great at football by working hard at self-improvement.
He was an outstanding high school athlete in the little town of Ellendale, North Dakota, and at South Dakota State, he was a football and track star.
In football, he was an outstanding running back, rushing for a school record 1,016 yards his senior season. And in track and field, he twice won NAIA championships - setting NAIA records - in both the shot and discus. In all, he set 16 school records in the two sports.
He was drafted in the 22nd round in 1953 by the Lions, but couldn’t make it as a fullback and was cut. After serving two years in the Army, he returned to the Lions, but was put on waivers and claimed by the Eagles.
After bring tried at several different positions - including one exhibition game where he played defensive back - he wound up at wide receiver, a strange position considering he hadn’t caught so much as one pass in college.
Recalled Eagles’ teammate Dick Bielski, “When (he) got to Philadelphia he was just a body beautiful guy - big and strong with a great physique - but he wasn’t loaded with natural football talent. He didn’t know how to catch a football. I told him, ‘If you’re going to make it in this league, you’ve got to be able to catch the ball.’ I wish I hadn’t said it. He wore my ass out. He made me throw passes to him for hours. Everybody else would be long gone and the two of us would still be out on the practice field, throwing and catching. You could see (his) determination, though. I spent 30 years in football, 21 of them as a coach for the Colts and Redskins, and (he) was the most successful self-made player I ever saw.”
Still, in his first two years in Philadelphia, he caught a total of just 22 passes.
But then Buck Shaw arrived as head coach and Norm Van Brocklin arrived as quarterback, and his career took off. Moving inside from wide receiver, he became one of the very first of what came to be called tight ends. And Van Brocklin, perhaps because he himself had been born in South Dakota, took a liking to him.
“There’s no question that Van Brocklin started me down the road to success,” he would recall later. “Dutch thought I had potential, and just knowing that he felt that way made me start to believe in myself. The first time Van Brocklin saw me at Hershey (Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the Eagles trained), he said, ‘That guy runs patterns like Crazy Legs Hirsch.’
“‘Crazy Legs Hirsch!’ I thought. ‘That’s great!’ Hirsch was one of my idols at the time, and I gained confidence just hearing the comparison.
“Van Brocklin also said, ‘Watch that guy. He’s going to lead this league in pass catching.’ Turns out, I did. I tied Ray Berry that year for most catches. I owe a lot to Dutch.”
Indeed, in 1958, their first year working together, our guy tied the legendary Berry in receptions with 56. And two years later, when the Eagles won the NFL championship in 1960, he was their leading receiver.
In 1965 he caught 66 passes for 10 touchdowns, and won the Bert Bell Award as NFL Player of the Year.
He was twice named first team All-Pro and twice second team. He went to the Pro Bowl five times, and when he retired after 11 years with the Eagles, he held the team career records with 452 receptions and 7412 yards receiving and 47 touchdown catches.
He averaged 16.4 yards per catch, and - extremely impressive - lost only four fumbles.
Said former teammate Maxie Baughan, “He was one of the first tight ends with enough versatility to be a receiver as well as a blocker. He changed the game because defenses had to alter their coverages to guard him.”
In my opinion, the fact that he was a contemporary of much better-known tight ends Mike Ditka and John Mackey kept him from being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, because his stats are comparable to theirs.
Partly because of his marksmanship developed growing up and in the Army, and partly because of his impressive bearing, he was give the nickname “The Baron” by teammate Tom Brookshier.
He was one of the founders of the the NFL Players Association and served as the Eagles’ Player Representative and for two years as President of the NFLPA.
After he retired, he spent four years as the Eagles’ General Manager.
A member of the Eagles’ Hall of Fame, his number 44 is one of just nine that has been retired by the team.
TUESDAY,
JULY 2, 2024 “A complacent satisfaction with
present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of
knowledge.” Basil Liddell Hart*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: "We played baseball every day at recess, or when there was snow and ice on the ground, we would go sledding on a nearby hill. I was becoming increasingly hooked on baseball, as a player and a fan. I loved playing catch when we got together with grandpa Lauren Henderson, a left-hander who was an avid fan. He showed me how he threw his drop and curve ball.
“When I was about 10, my dad brought home a radio. It had a big horn for a speaker and was powered by what looked like an automobile battery. The radio had several dials and it squeaked and squawked before you could tune in a station and finally hear something.
“I remember listening to WSM from Nashville, which carried the Grand Ole Opry, and WLS from Chicago, which had all the crop prices and other information for farmers. Later on we listened to Tigers and Cubs baseball games, but usually we had to work in the fields. We also listened to “The Shadow” and “The Lone Ranger,” two of the most popular radio programs at the time.
"As my interest in baseball grew, I painted a strike zone on the barn, and I got an old baseball and started throwing at it. I was no Bob Feller, but my pitches were banging up the boards on the barn and my dad made me stop.“
*********** NHL coach Paul Maurice, whose Florida Panthers just won the Stanley Cup, had to do some uncharacteristic (for him) ass-chewing earlier in the season.
Ask about it by a reporter, he said it was no big deal: “I just thought they needed some profanity in their life.”
*********** JaMarcus Russell, standout LSU quarterback, turned out to be one of the all-time greatest busts in the history of the NFL draft.
Drafted first overall in 2007 by the Raiders, he had a disappointing career and had problems with drugs - specifically codeine, based as the base of a “recreational drug” called by a variety of names such as “purple drank,” and “sizzurp.”
Nevertheless, he earned - if you can call it that - more than $35 million during his NFL stay.
It apparently wasn’t enough. While coaching a high school in his native Mobile, Alabama, he (allegedly) persuaded a lock businessman to donate $74,000 to the football program for its weight room, but then (allegedly) withdrew $55,000 of the money for his own use. (Allegedly.)
*********** Today, July 1, Texas and Oklahoma officially joined the SEC.
And SMU officially joined the ACC.
On August 2, UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington will officially join the Big Ten, and Cal and Stanford will officially join the ACC.
The only date I could find for the so-called Four Corners schools - Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah - joining the Big 12 was “the beginning of the academic year.” That’s probably their way of reminding the Big-12 teams that there’s something else going on at that place they call a “campus.”
*********** This upcoming Paris Olympics could be comical.
There is always the chance that France’s large, uh, “immigrant community” could decide to, uh, “demonstrate.” (That’s actually not going to be comical.)
Sex in the Olympic Village, which is evidently so commonplace that officials keep score by the hundred (thousands, maybe?) of condoms they have to hand out, might not be so pleasant, in view of the decision not to air-condition the dorms. “Hey, madamoiselle… I have a fan in my room…”
The River Seine, for which Paris is famous, is grossly polluted, and it appears that some of the aquatic events that were optimistically scheduled to take place in it may have to be relocated.
*********** I can’t think of anything much lower than what Jim Schlossnagle, (former) Texas A & M baseball coach pulled on the school he’d coached to the College World Series Finals - twisting the knife in the wound caused by their loss to Tennessee by almost immediately jumping to another job - as head coach of their hated rivals, the Texas Longhorns.
Less than 24 hours earlier he’d jumped on a reporter for asking him about the Texas job, saying “I think it’s pretty selfish of you to ask me that question, to be honest with you,” Schlossnagle responded. “I left my family to be the coach at Texas A&M. I took the job at Texas A&M to never take another job again. That hasn’t changed in my mind. That’s unfair to talk about something like that…I gave up a big part of my life to come take this job and I poured every ounce of my soul in this job and I gave this job every ounce I could possibly give it. So write that.”
Building character, eh?
*********** For the next few weeks, I’ve got a gig as a substitute QB coach while the school’s real QB coach honors a prior commitment. It’s a lot of fun working with the kids and I’m able to help a bit. But in all fairness - it’s a spread team and I had to give my word that I wouldn’t bring the ends in tight… and narrow down the splits… and put the quarterbacks under center.
*********** The NFL’s loss of a lawsuit brought against it for - I think - charging too much for its “Sunday Ticket” package has to be really shaking the league.
It seems to have something to do with people who seem to think they’re to live anywhere they want (say, Dallas) and still watch the games of their favorite team (say, Kansas City) - at a price that they consider fair. And to get their favorite team’s “out-of-market” games, they shouldn’t have to pay for the entire package, which delivers a lot of games they don’t want.
I can’t say I understand why they won, but the result is that the award of $4.7 BILLION, when tripled because of antitrust law, could amount to almost $14 BILLION if it’s upheld on appeal. Bear in mind that the cost, spread among the teams in the league, would amount to more than $430 million per team.
I’m not fan of the NFL, but this seems ridiculous.
*********** Al Michaels will be reporting live from the Olympics.
Well, not exactly live. It’ll be an “AI-generated” Al Michaels, looking and sounding for all the world like the Al Michaels who’s done all sorts of big events, including the World Series game in San Francisco when an earthquake struck, and the “Do you believe in miracles?” Olympic ice hockey win over the Soviet Union.
The Paris “Al Michaels” has been created using old NBC broadcasts to make “him” look and sound just like the other one - the real one - we came to know and love.
At least “our” Al Michaels is still alive to collect royalties for the use of his “Name, Image and Likeness.”
What about the other great ones - Vin Scully, John Madden, Chris Schenkel, Lindsay Nelson, Keith Jackson? There are lots more, great ones who are not longer with us?
Would we rather listen to one of them - beloved and knowledgable - of listen to some live but immature and overly talkative kid fresh out of college?
I’ve got a great idea for some conference - get their tech people to create AI versions of all their football coaches so they can stand in for the real guys at halftime interviews: “We’ve got a few things we need to clean up but we’re still in this thing…”
*********** Step aside, tackle football, and make way for FLAG…
According to USA Football, the number of 6-to-12-year-old girls playing flag football has increased by more than 200% since 2014, crossing 100,000.
“What we’ve seen across all levels, from youth all the way up, is that girls and women want to play the game,” USA Football high performance and national teams managing director Eric Mayes said.
Next month, the NFL and ESPN are teaming up to air a new NFL Flag Championship competition in Canton, Ohio. It will feature more than 280 teams with players ranging from 9 to 18 years old, somewhat like football’s version of the Little League World Series. ESPN says it plans to air girls’ play as frequently as the boys on its networks.
“I’m really excited for the opportunity for people across the nation and people in other countries to see what flag football looks like and to see how competitive and elite these players are,” new NFL VP and head of flag football Stephanie Kwok said.
More than 25 states have made girls’ flag football a sanctioned high school sport, or are running pilot programs before doing so, with efforts ongoing to achieve NCAA recognition as well. The number of girls playing on high school teams jumped 86% from 2019 to 2023. At the participation level, the sport has already broken out. And at the pro level, the American Flag Football League has plans to launch a women’s competition in 2025.
“For young girls, it increases participation when they see that clear pathway,” DAZN co-CEO for women’s sports Esmeralda Negron said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, I can go to college, I can play in high school.’ It fosters that passion and development and commitment to the game.”
https://www.sportico.com/business/sports/2024/nfl-espn-women-flag-football-wnfc-participation-1234785597/
*********** Re the NBA draft: As you point out, the first two selected came from France, as did last year's number one pick. And the third overall pick was not a five-star recruit, and indeed he started only one game at Kentucky. And Zach Edey, who some of our 'experts' said wouldn't go in the first round, went number nine in round one.
I like lean staffs--which doesn't make me great--but it's a fact that historically great leaders have preferred them. I therefore lament these behemoth staffs. Maybe the objective is to have more coaches than players on the sidelines.
Guess I'll have to read up on how these U20 players are selected, and by whom. And who selected the coaches.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I would think after watching that debacle at CNN the Taiwanese must be getting pretty nervous about their immediate future.
After living in Minneapolis for 7 years I've always wondered what prompts folks in places like Edmonton, or Saskatchewan, or Calgary to stay there for an entire lifetime! Minnesota was a good place to raise our daughter, but after 7 years of 6 month long frigid winters we were relieved to move to Ohio and experience four actual seasons!
Do you realize that in the last 6 years the winners of the Stanley Cup have been from the deep south or the west (Colorado, St. Louis, and Las Vegas)? Two of them from Florida? (Tampa Bay twice and now Florida).
Apparently the Japanese youth football program coaches do a helluva lot better job of teaching the fundamentals of American football than the American coaches do. Apparently the French do the same in basketball. It's called practice.
I'm convinced the NCAA doesn't want anything to do with big-time college football so they're just going to sabotage it, and only sponsor Division 3 football.
QUIZ: Aubrey Lewis (While Lewis had productive years in '55 and '56 for Irish coach Terry Brennan, his totals fell way off in '57 with Dick Lynch and Nick Pietrosante carrying most of the load. The Irish broke Oklahoma's winning streak and finished the season with a 7-3 record and a number 10 national ranking).
Enjoy the weekend!
P.S. The AC is working
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
PS: How ‘bout those U20 Yanks representing American Tackle Football at the International Tournament!?
Lost to Japan, and lost to Austria! No medal in the sport we invented!’ In both games it appeared our guys never practiced tackling. Actually it appeared we didn’t practice much at all. Typical.
We invented basketball, too, and now there’s a chance we could lose the Olympic basketball gold to Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, France, Latvia, Spain… did I miss anybody?
At least we’re safe in football until we start seeing Austrians and Japanese playing on our college teams.
But you’re right about practice. While our kids are playing AAU games, foreign kids are running drills. And while our are playing 7-on-7, Japanese kids are no doubt working on their blocking and tackling.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Aubrey Lewis had a heart murmur from the time he was very young, and when he went out for the high school football team in Montclair, New Jersey, the doctor doing the physicals noticed that his heart was beating too quickly, and gave him a strange look. Years later, he recalled saying, “‘Oh, I ran here all the way from my house.' He said, `O.K.' "
At Montclair High he was an All-American running back, scoring 49 touchdowns and running for nearly 4500 yards in leading Montclair to two state titles. He starred on two undefeated basketball teams, and set state records in the 100- and 220-yard dashes and the discus.
He chose Notre Dame over 20 other schools offering scholarships, and when he got to South Bend, the same trick that he’d used earlier got him past the physical. "When I got to Notre Dame, they checked me," he said. "The doctor looked at me strangely and I said, `I ran here from the dorm.' "
At Notre Dame, he played football from 1955-1957, playing in the historic 1957 game in which the Irish broke Oklahoma's 47-game winning streak. As captain of the Notre Dame track team, he set several school records, and won the 1956 NCAA 400-meter hurdles championship, narrowly missing a spot on the Olympic team when he tripped over the final hurdle in the Olympic trials.
Although drafted by the Chicago Bears in the tenth round of the NFL draft, a persistent ankle injury ruled out any chances of an NFL career.
He returned to his native New Jersey to teach and coach, but in 1962 he joined the FBI as one of the first two blacks to go through its training academy.
In 1967, he was hired by Woolworth as an executive trainee. Just seven years earlier, a segregated lunch counter at a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina had been the site of a historic sit-in.
He retired from Woolworth in 1995 as a senior vice president.
"I wanted to do a lot of things, to challenge life," he once said. "I came along at a time when there were many doors to be opened by the black man, and that was a challenge to me."
He was the first black man to be captain of any team at Notre Dame.
He was the first black person to be named to Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees.
He was named New Jersey Offensive Football Player of the Century by the Newark Star-Ledger.
In 2018, the Sports Complex - stadium and field house - at Montclair High School was dedicated in his honor.
After his death, his son, who had played quarterback at Montclair High, paid tribute to him as a father.
''We lived in the south end of town and Dad had a lot of property behind the house. He built a tennis court and a basketball court, put out water jugs and that's where the neighborhood kids spent a lot of time.
''It's funny, but looking back, I can close my eyes and still hear his voice above the crowd noise , yelling at me, 'Get going, son. Get going.' But the big thing I will always remember is this:
"We lost a game at Cedar Grove. It was a game we just played so badly at the start, got better but couldn't catch them. I rode home on my bike afterward and he was waiting for me,
''How do you feel?' he asked.
''Terrible.”
''Don't. I'm really proud of you.''
''Why? We lost.''
''No, you didn't. I think of the way you didn't quit. I think of how hard you kept on playing, You didn't lose.''
And then the father in Aubrey Lewis paused before saying:
''Sometimes the winning and losing isn't measured by the numbers. That's a life lesson.''
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING AUBREY LEWIS
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Salt Lake City and realized his childhood dream when he wound up as a running back and kickoff and punt returner for the hometown Utah Utes.
At the same time, he majored in art.
In 1940 he signed as a free agent with the NFL Cleveland Rams, and made the team - with a salary of $135 a game.
With World War II looming, he tried to enlist in a service but was declared 4-F (unfit physically) because of a bad knee, so, wanting to do his part, he landed a job in California with Northrup Aircraft, designing and illustrating planes.
While working at Northrup, he played football for some L.A. area teams, and when the war ended, he rejoined the Rams.
In 1945, he was named to at least one All-Pro team.
The Rams were good, but unfortunately for them, Clevelanders were more excited about the arrival of a new team in town. Set to play in the all-new All-American Football Conference, it was named the Browns in honor of their coach Paul Brown, who four years earlier had coached Ohio State to a national title.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Rams’ owner Dan Reeves asked for - and got - permission to move his Rams to Los Angeles. It worked out great for our guy, who was able to continue to work for Northrup while taking three months off to play football.
It wasn’t long before he put his illustrator’s talent to work on the football team. After showing his coach a drawing of a helmet decorated with Rams’ horns, he got the coach’s approval to paint his design on an actual helmet.
Owner Reeves liked it, but first had to ask for permission from the NFL office (actually, commissioner Bert Bell) and was told, “You’re the owner - do what you want.”
With that, he paid our guy $1 a helmet to paint gold Rams’ horns on 75 helmets. It took the entire summer of 1948.
The grand unveiling took place in the Rams’ first home game, an exhibition against the Washington Redskins before 105,000 people in the Coliseum.
The Rams came out and went through warmups without helmets on and then went back inside. Then, with the stadium lights turned off - it was a night game - they returned to the field as the lights went back on - and the crowd went nuts, and wound up giving the team (and their new helmet design) a five-minute standing ovation.
This was not all our guy did.
Working with engineers at Northrup, he designed a face mask intended originally for his own use after having his nose broken.
Later, he designed the first sideline kicker’s net, which he patented.
After retirement, he was asked by his old Rams’ roommate, Tom Harmon, who by then was broadcasting the Rams’ games, for help spotting. Putting his artistic talents to work again, he drew up elaborate offensive and defensive charts on which he could point out players, enabling Harmon to call out the correct names. He and Harmon worked together for 13 seasons.
He later served as a scout, then personnel director, and then general manager of the Denver Broncos, a job he had until new ownership took over and brought in their own people.
In his final job he served as general manager of the Denver Gold of the USFL.
FRIDAY,
JUNE 28, 2024 “There
are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’
and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’” C. S.
Lewis*********** Writing this after watching the debacle - er, debate… Who’s going to be the one to walk out to the mound and ask Joe Biden for the ball?
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: "Mrs.. Herman was strict about discipline. She wasn't reluctant to take on those big eighth graders if they did something wrong. I didn't dare go home and say I got in trouble. Here was a little lady teaching all subjects to eight grades. Sometimes there were only two students in a grade. I had great admiration and respect for her, and I thought I'd love to have a sweetheart like Mrs. Harmon.
“Every year we had a Christmas program and sang Christmas carols. A couple of sheets served as a curtain, hung on a wire strung across the room behind the recitation bench. The teacher played an organ, one she pumped with her feet to provide the air. That was the extent of our music.
“I liked history and geography, and I enjoyed reading a lot. I was an average student, but my parents made sure I paid attention. Their goal was for me to be a C+ student and get a few Bs, and that would be OK. I certainly wasn't a nerd.
“Unfortunately, it was a rarity for any of the kids at this school to continue past the eighth grade. From my class only two of us went on to high school, and I was the only one who went to college, as far as I know. There were few eager learners. Many students dropped out in the spring to work on the farm, and others were late returning to school because of farming. The girls seemed to be the smart ones, and the boys were more eager to get outside to play ball or just horse around.”
*********** On Monday night, the Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers, 2-1, to win the seventh game of the NHL playoff finals, and win the Stanley Cup, probably the best-known of all team sports trophies.
It was quite a series, because the Panthers won the first three games, but then the Oilers came back to win the next three, tieing the best-of-seven series.
I personally was pulling for the Oilers. I’ve spent time in Edmonton and I liked the place and the people. And, too, I do think 31 years is way too long for any team from Canada - the country which gave us the great game of ice hockey - to win a Stanley Cup.
But I can’t say I feel that bad, after learning that my relatives in Florida cared very deeply about the Panthers, and after learning more about the Panthers’ coach, Paul Maurice.
He’s 57 years old. He got his first NHL head coaching job at 28, and he’d gone all that time - 1684 games, coaching numerous teams - without winning a Stanley Cup. In fact, his 803 coaching losses are the most in NHL history.
He’s paid his dues - he’s coached minor league teams called the Windsor Spitfires and the Toronto Marlies, and he’s coached in Magnitogorsk (that’s Russia, damn near in Siberia).
I liked his interview after the game. He gave credit to everybody possible. He especially praised his players, saying, “they treat each other right.”
Jason Gay in the Wall Street Journal said something very telling about Maurice when he wrote about Maurice’s talking with a couple of rookies about to play their first NHL game:
“You only get one first game in the NHL,” he told them. “And that’s not your game actually. It’s Mom and Dad‘s game, and all the volunteer coaches that helped, the teachers, everybody.”
“So when they come to the rink, I tell them I really don’t care how you play tonight. I want you to be nervous for the national anthem. Be overwhelmed. Take it all in, but do it with a smile on your face and have some fun because you only ever get one of these days.”
*********** On Tuesday I showed a pass - Sprint Brown (or Black) - that I might go to on a 2-point play. But I failed to stress the word “might.” Then, of all times, you do not want to be predictable. Then is when you want to have a special play (and/or formation) or two that opponents have never seen before.
But I was asked if there was one play I really liked, and the one I chose would certainly be at the top of my list, for a number or reasons.
One reason, brought up by Coach Josh Montgomery, of Berwick, Louisiana, is its flexibility. He suggested running the play out of “Slot Cat” formation, using what we would call “Lazer Return” motion, in much the same way as we’ve seen the Kansas City Chiefs do. Looks good to me.
*********** I was talking recently with my old friend Ossie Osmundson, whom I assisted for six years at Ridgefield, Washington. We had some great times in those early days of my Double Wing, and in 1993 Ossie put together one of the best seasons my Double Wing has ever had. Ridgefield went 12-0 and won the state Class 1A title. The Spudders (that’s right) never had a close game, and not until the state playoffs did Ossie play his starters in the second half of a game.
Ridgefield - the area - is now experiencing explosive development that makes it the fastest-growing city in Washington. The most recent population is estimated at over 14,000; when I was coaching and teaching there, it was about 1,500. Ridgefield was definitely rural. For several years in those days, Ossie was an assistant to head coach Chris Thompson, whom he would succeed when Chris became the school principal. (Those were the good old days when people still thought that high school football coaches made good principals.)
Ossie told about one Friday night when they’d returned to the school after an away game. It was especially late - finding other small schools to play often required considerable travel - and as was the custom, the two coaches, Ossie and Chris, stayed around until the last kid had been picked up by his parents.
At that point, Chris said to Ossie, “I need a favor.” Asked what it was, Chris said, “I need a ride home.” To which Ossie replied, “I was just going to ask you for a ride!”
And that’s how the coaching staff at Ridgefield High School wound up trudging 2-1/2 miles down a narrow country road in pitch darkness at 1 in the morning.
*********** Is this what they mean when they say we need to Make America Great Again?
(1) The first two players taken in the NBA draft - and three of the first six - were from France. F—king France! (Despite all the NIL money blown on American college players.)
(2) In something called the U20 American Football World Championship, taking place now in Edmonton, Canada, the USA lost to Japan, 41-20 (Japan!!!) Hey USA coaches: where did you get the idea that being on your own one-yard line and handing it to a tailback who’s seven yards deep in your own end zone is smart? Hey USA coaches: ever tried teaching tackling? It sorta keeps you from losing. (Remember a line like that in The Last Picture Show?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjCLAUZCKJg
*********** “It is time to deflate the hot-air balloon known as remote work. We have lurched, in an almost lemming-like way , from a view that work is done five days a week in an office to the fantasy that it is perfectly acceptable to stay home too, three or even five days a week.
“One learns how to manage and lead principally by watching others demonstrate how – or not – to do so.
“Time management may be the most underrated capacity of great managers. Controlling your own time well and not permitting others to dictate how you spend it is one of the determinants of successful leadership. Watching others is really the only way to develop a command of this essential practice.”
America desperately needs leadership today. Those who aspire to be part of the solution and tackle some of the great challenges we face should get their butts into the office and learn how to manage and lead others.”
Louis V Gerstner, Jr. - Retired CEO of IBM
*********** If you weren’t on Tuesday night’s Zoom and you didn’t get a link to the recording, you missed a great presentation by Brian Flinn, wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator at Princeton. Coach Flinn really knows the passing game, and he provided us Double-Wing and Open-Wing guys with some things in his comprehensive attack that we might be able to incorporate into our offenses.
Take a look. He talks fast, so take a second or third look. There are a lot of gems in his presentation.
https://vimeo.com/user174754949/154?share=copy
I mentioned the work I’ve been doing in preparing slot formation materials for those coaches who've been selected to pioneer it this season, and a lot of what Coach Flinn presented can tie in with it.
*********** Les Miles should be on this ballot. NOW do you see why he's suing those slimeballs at LSU?
************ The NCAA approved a rule change that will now allow all football staff members - including so-called “analysts” - to coach during practice and games. Until now, schools were limited to a maximum of 11 "countable" coaches who could do actual on-field coaching.
However, as is current policy, only 10 “real” assistants and the head coach may recruit off-campus.
Whoopee - those dozen or so former head coaches that Alabama and the like have been keeping around as “analysts?” Now, they can actually go out on the field and coach.
Now, an Alabama or a Georgia will have just about enough coaching talent on staff that, between actual coaches and these newly-certified analysts, it can assign an assistant to watch every single position, 1-on-1, throughout the game.
And while they’re not allowed to do “off-campus” recruiting - yet - you can be sure they’ll be working the phones talking to guys in (or soon to be in) the portal.
It’s just a further widening of the gap between the haves – the ones who can afford to pay all those extra coaches - and the have-nots – the ones who’ll keep losing coaches (and players) to the haves.
*********** 1965 was a great year for Princeton football. Running their single wing to near-perfection, the Tigers finished 8-1, outscoring opponents 281 to 100. Their only loss came to Dartmouth, also unbeaten, in the last game of the season, 28-14, in front of 45,725.
It was also a great year for immigration.
Two Princeton players were named to All-American teams:
Place kicker Charlie Gogolak was born in Hungary.
Guard Stas Maliszewski was born in Poland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_College_Football_All-America_Team
*********** “I wake up every morning with two thoughts: number one, how do I make my bosses more money? And number two, how do I get some of it?” Stephen A. Smith
*********** Funny how the same Libs who think it’s perfectly all right to suspend a kid from school for chewing a pop tart into the shape of a gun, go all defund-the-police when a cop shoots a guy who pointed a gun - a very realistic-looking airsoft gun with its day-glo orange muzzle broken off - at him.
*********** Best part of today's page is the Pride (I'm careful to capitalize it) poster. You say there's only a week left. Unh-unh...this is one of those year-long celebrations.
Great story about Seiki Murono. We really do have giants among us.
It's been a long while since I saw Homer Rice's name. When I was a kid, though, he was well known in my part of the country. Who was más macho...Homer Smith or Homer Rice or Homer Simpson?
I've followed Davey Martinez since his playing days, and thought when the Nats hired him he deserved the job. But those comments after a walk-off pitch count violation just might have been enough for me to fire him.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Not sure what your temps are up there but ours are oven-like. Especially when you lose AC. Hopefully ours gets fixed this afternoon!
Used your goal line play a number of times (very successfully). I also added a little wrinkle. I called it "Rocket Reach Delay" PSWB ran the arrow. PSTE would show reach block (delay) and run a backside Drag. BSWB would run Rocket motion. BSTE would show down block and run to the post to pull the corner out. QB would reverse out on the snap (timing of the snap with the WB motion was critical) and show a short sprint-out to PS, set his feet and throwback to the PSTE running that BS-Drag. No one home on the backside for the defense so the TE typically was all alone.
Would you consider Homer Rice to be a pioneer in today's modern spread option offense?
Found out there already is a Pac-West Conference. New name...Pacific-Mountain Conference. OSU, WSU, Boise State, California, Stanford, San Jose State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Hawaii, UNLV, Nevada, Utah State, Wyoming, Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico, UTSA, and SMU? (Assuming the ACC falls apart with FSU and Clemson eventually gone, and North Carolina and Virginia being swallowed up by the BIG, and Cal, Stanford, SMU having no where else to go).
Only one school can save the ACC. Should they decide to join a conference to enhance football playoff prospects... FSU, Clemson, North Carolina, and Virginia stay and the ACC becomes a major player in conference realignment.
Imagine football with a penalty box and power play.
QUIZ: Why those fellas are the Gogolak brothers! Pete (Cornell), and Charlie (Princeton). Both are staunch supporters of the former President, (and soon to be new President), Donald J. Trump.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe- quick reply -
It’s Tuesday - 10:30 AM and here in Camas, Washington it’s a sunny 75 degrees.
Due to get up to 85 by 4 o’clock. Whew.
But not to worry - going to hit a high of 72 tomorrow and won’t hit 80 until the 4th.
For this, we put up with left wing politics.
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MIDDLE PHOTO - CHECK THE DARTMOUTH PLAYER ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: In 1956, just days after the Hungarian revolution had been put down by the Communist government, the Gogolak family, two young brothers and their parents, made it safely across the border into Austria. The train from Budapest had left them 20 miles from the border, and they had had to walk that distance in freezing temperatures. One of the brothers, Pete, was 14, the other, Charlie, 12. In the US, they would lead a revolution of another sort - in American football.
Once in the US, the family was interned at an Army camp in New Jersey, then relocated when the father, a dentist, landed a job at a hospital in upstate New York - really, really upstate New York. It was in a town called Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence River about two hours north of Syracuse - and one hour south of Ottawa, Ontario.
The two boys had grown up playing soccer in their native Hungary, but with no soccer team at the local high school, they attempted to kick for the local high school football team.
It did not go well at first. Recalled Pete, years later, "With my instep, I hit the ball, and it was a low drive about three feet off the ground. Basically a big joke. Everybody thought it was ridiculous. But I knew it was something I could do. The next year and that first kickoff, the ball went about 60 yards into the air. So, suddenly, that's basically how the soccer-style kick started.”
They both wound up doing well enough as high school kickers that Pete, the older brother, went to Cornell and Charlie, the younger one, to Princeton. (It helped that they were smart.)
They were both highly successful in college - so successful, in fact, that unusual attempts to deal with Charlie resulted in the passing of three different NCAA rules.
The first came after Cornell had two defensive backs stand on the shoulders of two linemen to block his kicks. By the following Monday, the NCAA had passed a rule saying that all men had to have “two limbs” on the ground at the start of a play.
The second came after Charlie was called for being offside on the opening kickoff against Yale. Yale’s head coach John Pont had informed the officials before the game that because of the fact that the kicker’s plant foot was several inches in front of the 40-yard-line, he was technically offside.
The third came after Dartmouth’s Bob Blackman tried what he called the “Human Steps” stunt (Photo above) : Two linemen would crouch, and a teammate in their defensive backfield would get a running start and step up on their backs and leap into the air. Said Dartmouth assistant Jack Musick, whose idea it was, “He can’t be the type who’ll worry about how hard he comes down.” They put foam rubber padding on the backs of the two linemen, and outfitted the designated leaper with ripple-soled shoes. A Dartmouth mathematician figured out the proper launch angle. And then, the first time Princeton lined up to kick a field goal, sensing something was going on, they held up the snap count. The Dartmouth leaper, unfortunately, was in mid-air when the ball was snapped. There was a five-yard penalty, but the scheme couldn’t be considered a total failure, because on the next play, kicking from five yards closer, Charlie missed.
It happened in the last game of the year, so the rules change - that you couldn’t vault - took place in the off-season.
Charlie started out his senior year against Rutgers, kicking six field goals - one of them a 52-yarder - as the Tigers won, 24-0. Asked after the game to comment, all Rutgers coach John Bateman could say was, “we got beat by a frigging Hungarian refugee.”
Charlie was an All-American at Princeton, and became the first kicker ever chosen in the first round of the NFL draft, when the Redskins chose him with the sixth pick overall. He wound up playing three years with the Redskins and three years with the Patriots.
Pete, undrafted by the NFL, signed instead with the AFL Buffalo Bills, and became the first soccer-style kicker in professional football. After two years with the Bills - helping them win an AFL championship, he signed with the NFL New York Giants, setting off a war between the two leagues that saw AFL commissioner Al Davis making offers to NFL quarterbacks and ultimately drove NFL owners to agree to peace between the leagues.
In 2010, the Giants added Pete Gogolak to their new Ring of Honor. He still remains the Giants' all-time leading scorer with 646 points.
In October, 2016, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution,. the Washington Redskins honored the Gogolak brothers in a halftime ceremony attended by the Hungarian ambassador and numerous other dignitaries.
In 1917 a monument in their honor was dedicated at a park in Ogdensburg, the self-proclaimed “birthplace of soccer-style kicking.”
“Before them,” wrote Larry Felser in the Buffalo News of the Gogolak brothers, “Kicking had been an inexact science for the pros to say the least. Full-time players (for the Bills) such as Cookie Gilchrist and Mac Yoho did the kicking off and field goal attempts. They wore a flat-toed shoe on their kicking foot so that they could slip into their added role. A kicker who was successful half the time on field goals was considered a major asset… In the 1966 NFL draft the Washington Redskins took Charlie in the first round. Straight-ahead kicking was on a path to doom. Everyone, it seemed, had to have a sidewinder. It wasn't just the length of field goals. It was the accuracy and the longer kickoffs which produced inferior field position for the opposition.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING PETE AND CHARLIE GOGOLAK
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He had a heart murmur from the time he was very young, and when he went out for the high school football team in Montclair, New Jersey, the doctor doing the physicals noticed that his heart was beating too quickly, and gave him a strange look. Years later, he recalled saying, “‘Oh, I ran here all the way from my house.' He said, `O.K.' "
At Montclair High he was an All-American running back, scoring 49 touchdowns and running for nearly 4500 yards in leading Montclair to two state titles. He starred on two undefeated basketball teams, and set state records in the 100- and 220-yard dashes and the discus.
He chose Notre Dame over 20 other schools offering scholarships, and when he got to South Bend, the same trick that he’d used earlier got him past the physical. "When I got to Notre Dame, they checked me," he said. "The doctor looked at me strangely and I said, `I ran here from the dorm.' "
At Notre Dame, he played football from 1955-1957, playing in the historic 1957 game in which the Irish broke Oklahoma's 47-game winning streak. As captain of the Notre Dame track team, he set several school records, and won the 1956 NCAA 400-meter hurdles championship, narrowly missing a spot on the Olympic team when he tripped over the final hurdle in the Olympic trials.
Although drafted by the Chicago Bears in the tenth round of the NFL draft, a persistent ankle injury ruled out any chances of an NFL career.
He returned to his native New Jersey to teach and coach, but in 1962 he joined the FBI as one of the first two blacks to go through its training academy.
In 1967, he was hired by Woolworth as an executive trainee. Just seven years earlier, a segregated lunch counter at a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina had been the site of a historic sit-in.
He retired from Woolworth in 1995 as a senior vice president.
"I wanted to do a lot of things, to challenge life," he once said. "I came along at a time when there were many doors to be opened by the black man, and that was a challenge to me."
He was the first black man to be captain of any team at Notre Dame.
He was the first black person to be named to Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees.
He was named New Jersey Offensive Football Player of the Century by the Newark Star-Ledger.
In 2018, the Sports Complex - stadium and field house - at Montclair High School was dedicated in his honor.
After his death, his son, who had played quarterback at Montclair High, paid tribute to him as a father.
''We lived in the south end of town and Dad had a lot of property behind the house. He built a tennis court and a basketball court, put out water jugs and that's where the neighborhood kids spent a lot of time.
''It's funny, but looking back, I can close my eyes and still hear his voice above the crowd noise , yelling at me, 'Get going, son. Get going.' But the big thing I will always remember is this:
"We lost a game at Cedar Grove. It was a game we just played so badly at the start, got better but couldn't catch them. I rode home on my bike afterward and he was waiting for me,
''How do you feel?' he asked.
''Terrible.”
''Don't. I'm really proud of you.''
''Why? We lost.''
''No, you didn't. I think of the way you didn't quit. I think of how hard you kept on playing, You didn't lose.''
And then the father in him paused before saying:
''Sometimes the winning and losing isn't measured by the numbers. That's a life lesson.''
TUESDAY,
JUNE 25, 2024 “Any
great power that spends more on debt service than on defense will not
stay great for very long.” Historian Niall Ferguson (Is anybody
in
Washington listening?)*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: "Cold and snow didn't keep me from walking a mile and a half each way to school, but when the spring thaw came and the ruts turned to mud the road was almost impossible to navigate. The rural mail carriers had a hard time getting through. When I was about eight years old, I got a pair of high-top shoes. They came up about three or four inches from the knee. I wore undersocks plus long wool socks, and the leather repelled the moisture.
"The school, named for a Civil War officer, was about as primitive as our house: no running water, no electricity, no indoor plumbing. It had a big cast-iron stove for heating, but it was still cold inside. I would put my lunchbox on a shelf, and often my food would be frozen by lunchtime.
"The teacher – there were two in the eight years I attended Holcome school - sat in a big chair at a desk in front. Immediately opposite and facing the teacher was the recitation bench. Because there were so many different grades, classes were called separately for individual lessons. For example, grade one might be called for reading or grade seven for history.
"There were four rows of desks across. The smaller desks for the lower grades were in front, and the desks got larger toward the back. Each row was six deep for a capacity of twenty-four students in eight grades. In all the years I went to that school, I can't remember all the desks ever being occupied. We had a huge dictionary but not a lot of books.
"My first teacher, Walter Nidy, had also been my father's teacher. He was a big man, a very stern man. Shortly after I started school, he was replaced by Ruth Harmon, who lived in Fulton with her husband, a stone mason. Mrs. Harmon was bright and diminutive, just over five feet tall. She cared about the students and worked extremely hard at an extremely difficult job. She was still around when my brother, Ron, who is thirteen years younger than I, attended the same school."
*********** A coach wrote and asked me about a favorite pass play in a 2-point situation, and I immediately told him, “Sprint Brown.” It’s the goal-line adaptation of a base play, which is itself an adaptation of a play I saw in an old clinic talk by a very successful Baltimore high school coach named George Young (who would end up as the very successful GM of the New York Giants).
In the 2-point situation we don’t have the whole field to work with, but the defense does have to figure on the strong possibility of our running the ball.
I’m going to make one very big assumption: they will have four guys in man-for-man coverage.
Because we’re so close to the goal line and we can get four people out quick - and get it to them quick - they HAVE TO commit four people, man for man, to the pass;
At the same time, they CAN’T commit MORE than four to the pass, because then they’ll really weaken themselves against the greater likelihood of a run.
That really limits the things they can do with the seven guys who don't have coverage responsibility, so I’ve just drawn up a very aggressive defense with seven men coming.
On playside the QB reads #1 (numbering defenders from the sideline-in, not counting linemen, not counting safeties.)
Our wingback runs a quick arrow and gets his eyes around fast. If the QB sees that #1 doesn’t jump the arrow, he throws it NOW. On the other hand, if #1 does jumps the arrow - and (this is very important) the tight end breaks behind #1 and looks quick - there’s a window for the QB to hit the tight end… UNLESS
If we suspect that #2 will be overplaying the TE on the corner, we will have the wingback take three (very quick) steps of the arrow then break to the post.
There is, of course, always the possibility that the QB might keep and run.
We normally only throw to the backside when we’ve pre-called it. When we call “throwback,” the QB pulls up on his third step and re-sets his feet to look backside. He doesn’t throw blindly - he takes a quick look at #2. The TE normally runs a seam, but now he runs a quick choice based on how #2 is playing him. The wing runs a fade, and if there’s any question about the TE, we’re throwing to the corner of the end zone. We might sub or switch a player here if we have a tall kid to run the fade.
*********** Homer Rice, noted as a player, coach and athletics administrator, died June 10 at the age of 97.
A native of Kentucky, he was an All-American football player at Centre College there.
For 11 years he coached high school football in Tennessee and Kentucky, including eight years at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, Highlands High where he won state championships in 1960 and 1961 - the first of many Highlands would win over the years. In one five-year stretch at Highlands, his teams won 50 straight games. In all his high school coaching record was an astounding 101–9–7.
In 1962, he was hired as offensive coordinator at Kentucky. After four years there, he was hired as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. He was there just one year when OU head coach Jim Mackenzie died suddenly, and the people at OU wanted Rice to succeed him. But Rice had already accepted the head job at Cincinnati and had already hired his staff, and he chose to remain at Cincinnati. Instead, OU hired 33-year old assistant Chuck Fairbanks.
At Cincinnati, with Greg Cook as his QB, his offense set all sorts of records, ranked number one in passing with a then-unbelievable 335.8 yards per game. Cook threw for 554 yards in a single game, and wound up as the number one draft pick of the Cincinnati Bengals.
From 1969 to 1975, Rice served as AD at North Carolina, and from 1976 to 1977, he was AD and head coach at Rice (do you suppose there were recruits who thought that he owned the place?).
For two years he coached the Cincinnati Bengals before leaving to become AD at Georgia Tech, where he spent the final 18 years of his career. During his tenure, Tech teams won 14 ACC championships, won a national football title in 1990, and made it to the College World Series in baseball in 1994 and the basketball Final Four in 2004.
In 2021, a statue of Rice was dedicated outside of Bobby Dodd Stadium. He is one of only three athletics figures to be commemorated with a statue at Georgia Tech, joining John Heisman and Bobby Dodd.
In his honor, the Homer Rice Award is presented annually to an NCAA Division I FBS athletics director who has made significant and meaningful contributions to intercollegiate athletics.
Homer Rice and Mike Lude, I heard Mike say many times, were great friends.
https://footballfoundation.org/news/2024/6/12/football-seminal-college-athletics-leader-homer-rice-passes-away.aspx
*********** Of all my books, I consider Homer Rice’s, shown here, to be one of the most intriguing. I got really interested, many years ago, in the way he showed how he successfully married a triple option running game with a nation-leading passing game at Cincinnati, where his teams broke 58 school records and seven NCAA records. (It didn’t hurt a bit that he had Greg Cook at QB and a receiver named Jim O’Brien, who would go on to play for the Baltimore Colts and kick the winning field goal in Super Bowl V.)
*********** Nice action in the CFL over the weekend - Toronto over Edmonton 39-36 snd not a single damn field goal even attempted until the winner at :21. A pair of great QB performances by Toronto’s Cameron Dukes and Edmonton’s McLeod Bethel-Thompson.
And Saskatchewan really taking it to Hamilton after just barely squeaking by them only a week ago.
Best sighting of the weekend: Edmonton has a player named Kurleigh Gittens. Is this some hoity-toity way of spelling “Curly?”
Might he have an overweight brother named Phatzeau?
*********** A coach called me to ask if I had any Double Wing plays where the QB runs the ball. It’s obvious that he doesn’t have the latest playbook, which provides “tags” to every running play we have that enable the QB to be the runner, but I did send him a copy of Page 61, which illustrates three different ways that our QB can run “Super Power” without having to change the assignments of anyone other than the QB and the guy originally assigned to carry the ball.
*********** This week’s Best of John Canzano’s Mail…
Q: I’ve heard you call the Pac-12 settlement for WSU/OSU a ‘war chest’ to rebuild the P12, possibly Mountain West exit fees. Given WSU/OSU budget struggles, isn’t it more likely they’ll use the money to support athletic budgets? When would it make sense to blow $30M-plus on exit fees?
A: The two schools got a combined $255 million in that settlement. But to keep the entire settlement pot they have to rebuild. If they simply disband the Pac-12, some of the settlement money would revert to schools that left for other conferences.
I’m told that $65 million has been earmarked to help with the Pac-12 rebuild to eight members. That leaves approximately $190 million (or $95 million each) for OSU and WSU to subsidize their athletic department programs in the next few years. It’s why the two schools keep publicly insisting they’ll continue to fund and operate like they’re ‘Power 5’ members.
They have the resources to help do that for at least two or three years. It drives me nuts when people write “Oregon State and Washington State should just give up and join the Mountain West.” That would be a dumb move. It would not only mean accepting relegation, but also, giving settlement money back.
Q: UCLA is a great example of using scholarships for veteran college players, not incoming freshmen. With that said, are these highly touted youngsters ending up at G5 schools? And so a hotshot ends up at Saint Mary’s, for example, so that a power school can buy him in two years? Crazy, isn’t it?
A: There’s a trickle-down impact from the transfer portal here. I talked with Portland State football coach Bruce Barnum about this topic a few times. The Big Sky Conference is recruiting from a pool of more talented high school players than ever because the FBS level is hyper-focused on getting good, older, more experienced, players through the portal.
Portland State and others are signing better recruits than ever out of high school. They may play a couple of years in the Big Sky, pile up stats, and decide to jump in the portal anyway. But that’s what is happening as the major college programs are dedicating more of their scholarships to the portal. There’s even a trickle-down impact that reaches into community college football and Division II and Division III. They’re all enjoying an upgrade of talent.
It’s partly why setting roster limits is a topic for the Big Ten and SEC, in particular. The G5 schools are concerned that those two conferences will simply warehouse a line of promising young players, sit them on the bench, give them NIL deals, and try to keep them around in case they’re needed. But as your question points out, those players probably end up back in the portal in a couple of years anyway.
Q: MLB, WNBA, NHL, Olympics... there is no shortage of options for sports fans in the summer... and yet, I find myself counting the days until football season. Football (the kind with the pointy ball) is the most popular sport in the USA. My question for you is why do you think that is? What is it about American football that enthralls us more than any other sport?
A: It’s our game. We invented it, understand it, and have watched it for generations. The violence involved in football probably appeals to some. But one huge part of the success has to be how easy it is to watch on television. It’s a fast-moving, easy-to-follow game made for TV. The action is superb. The commercial breaks mostly fit into the rhythm of the game and create a good flow. If you look at the rise in popularity of the sport it coincides with the advances in TV production, cameras, equipment, and infrastructure. I think Pete Rozelle’s product in the 1970s and 1980s was in the right place at the right time.
*********** Friday, I received this:
Hello Hugh. I thought you might be interested in this interview I gave in NYC as part of an oral history project conducted by the Japanese American Citizens League. You know some of the story, but some parts might be new to you. It's a bit long so I apologize for that. All the best.
Seiki
Yes, you might say I was “interested” - I immediately started to watch and got five minutes in and was hooked. At that point I called my wife - who knows Seiki Murono and his story - and told her I thought she would enjoy it. She came in and we both dropped whatever it was we had been doing and watched it in its entirely, enrapt.
It was through Seiki Murono and my knowledge of him as the only American college football player born in a wartime internment camp that I learned so much about the experience of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Actually, his parents weren’t Japanese-Americans at all. They were Japanese-Peruvians. After the outbreak of World War II, his father, a successful businessman in Peru, was arrested, shipped to the United States, and sent to an internment camp in Texas. Only after several months’ of separation during which time he didn’t know if he’d ever see his wife and two little children again, was the Murono family reunited.
Even given the US government’s rationalization for interning American citizens of Japanese descent, what business, one is prompted to ask, did the United States have interning Japanese-Peruvians? Now, many years later, Seiki Murono can only speculate that they were taken as hostages - potential “trade bait” to be used in prisoner-of-war exchanges.
During the War, his parents were virtual slaves. Not American citizens, their Peruvian passports had been seized, leaving them effectively stateless.
Making the best of a bad situation, they traded life in an internment camp for life in a factory town, Seabrook, New Jersey, where the parents worked for frozen food giant Seabrook Farms, and where Seiki grew up. He would be an outstanding player on state championship high school teams in football and baseball, and would go on to an outstanding college football career at little Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.
And from there, he would go on to a long career in international banking.
It’s a long story, and without going into great detail, one can only marvel at the way Seiki Murono’s parents endured. Seiki frequently makes reference to a Japanese word - gaman - an aspect of the Japanese culture that means enduring great difficulties with patience and dignity; persevering in tough times.
He talks about that, and he talks about the sacrifices his parents made so that he and his older brother and sister could get good educations and realize the “American Dream.”
He talks about how driven he was to “not be different,” but instead to be like every other American, and he tells how sports played such a big role in his success.
He never whines or bitches about being kept down. He has nothing but good things to say about the teachers and coaches who helped him along the way and, now retired after a long career with Chase-Manhattan Bank, he offers himself as an example of how, with a good education and hard work, you can be successful in America. (Ironically, many people in education and government insist that to say that very thing is to be guilty of a - gasp - “microaggression.”)
I wish today’s young football players (and their parents!) could hear Seiki Murono tell about the impact sports (and his coaches) had on his life and how much he learned from sports. After watching and listening to his story, you might want to copy segments and play them for kids and parents.
https://vimeo.com/821054300/60e8bda286
*********** In football, a penalty for stupidity or carelessness can wind up costing you a score, but at least it can’t give the other team any points.
No matter how many times you’re penalized when a team’s down on your goal line, a penalty will never put them in the end zone. The penalty will be half the distance, and the next one will be half of that, and so forth, ad infinitum.
In basketball, they still have to make free throws.
In hockey, the other team might be awarded a penalty shot, but they still have to make the damn thing.
But in baseball, now that there’s a shot clock - oops, make that “pitch clock” - the penalty can result in a run for the other team.
And so it was, on Saturday night, that with the game tied, 7-7, the bases loaded, and a full count on the batter, Washington Nationals’ pitcher Kyle Finnegan committed a pitch clock violation. The penalty is an automatic ball awarded to the hitter, and in this case it walked in the winning run.
Ahem. Might it be time for the coaches/managers to earn their pay?
Listen to the Washington manager and tell me if he you’ve ever known any football coach who sounds like this: "Kyle has had some trouble lately with the clock," Washington manager Dave Martinez said. "It hadn't really cost him to that point, but it's something that we've kind of felt like might come back to haunt him at some point. He could have stepped off, but it's a tough situation. That's something that he has to be mindful of. He's just slow. So it burned him today. Typically it hasn't burned him.”
Yeah, mindful. It so happens that Finnegan leads the National League with nine such violations this season. In football, Martinez would keep giving the ball to a guy who can't stop fumbling.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40412756/rockies-win-walk-bases-loaded-pitch-clock-violation
*********** Still not entirely sure what this might have to do with sports, but what the hell - there’s less than a week to go…
********** Wrote Mike Foristiere about Willie Totten, “Amazing he never got a real shot in the NFL.”
There was the racial aspect, of course. At that time, the stereotype of the “black quarterback” (who “wouldn’t stay in the pocket”) was still a big obstacle to overcome.
Also, though, I think the NFL may have figured he was a “system QB,” whose stats reflected the system he played in more than his ability.
And, too, there weren’t a lot of examples of successful QBs coming out of HBCUs.
Give Warren Moon a lot of credit for helping break the stereotype. He had to fight it, too. He had a great career at Washington under Don James, but still he was undrafted by the NFL. And even though he had played six years in the CFL, earning the Most Outstanding Player Award his last year there, he was still an unknown in the NFL. In fact, at the same time Willie Totten was starting his pro career, Moon was just starting his third year in the NFL, with Houston. And although he had put up some big numbers, the Oilers were just 7-23 in his first two years there, and the jury was still out on him.
*********** Today’s Page was another chapter from the Garden of Earthly Delights, a smorgasbord of interesting topics, which began, of course, with the unintended homage to Coach Lude. I've never worn a cap when reading that introduction, but if I were, I would remove it before reading.
Will any college sport remain after these criminals are done? Just a couple of years ago the dissension between college and pro mostly had to do with the colleges putatively overworkiing the pitcher destined for MLB. This might be the last relatively pure CWS we see.
I'd only read the other side of the Les Miles story. Hope he prevails.
Red Grange. Thanks for explaining the vast extent of his influence.
Finally, Johannus: Just another excuse for sales. Fisker Motors closeout sale, for example. No, just messing around. That sounds like a real secular holiday a country can get into.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Willie Mays, one of my first early heroes as a young boy, lived a long enduring life that impacted many of us. RIP Willie.
Watched some old highlight videos of Red Grange (old and grainy). Not only was he big and fast he had an uncanny knack of breaking tackles which indicated how strong a runner he was. What was also interesting is how his coach Robert Zuppke had incorporated a similar pre-snap shift like Knute Rockne used at Notre Dame. Yet, those two football powerhouses (Illinois and Notre Dame), and those two coaching icons (Zuppke and Rockne) never faced one another in a game during that time period. After Rockne's death Zuppke's Illinois teams did play Notre Dame a number of times, but he never beat the Irish.
Are you aware there are a number of state high school associations that now recognize NIL? Florida being one. Can only imagine where that will lead. I wonder if NY is one of those states, and if those boys on the poster received what's due to them?
With those two pools built for the Olympic Trials in Lucas Oil Stadium does that mean they would be considered the largest above ground pools in the U.S.? We had one of those growing up, but not quite as big.
Coach Casey must be one busy guy. Not sure if he's with a public school, or a private school, but I do know if he's at a public school he's employed by the district (no off-campus coaches in public schools in Texas). Private schools do allow off-campus coaches. Either way he obviously stays very busy.
Enjoy the "Juhannus"!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
(DID YOU RECOGNIZE JERRY RICE WITH THE FLAT-TOP?)
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Willie Totten played his high school football in North Carrollton, Mississippi. and his college football at Mississippi Valley State.
Valley coach Archie Cooley (nicknamed “The Gunslinger”) was way ahead of his time, devising a spread offense with four receivers on one side and one on the other. His quarterback would call his own plays, without huddling. He called it “fast break football.”
He had the receivers to make his idea work, but he didn’t have a quarterback. Totten had gone to Valley as a punter, but Cooley said, years later, he knew Totten was going to be his quarterback “when I shook his hands and he swallowed up my hand.”
In Totten’s first game as quarterback in the new offense, the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils won, 86-0. They could only manage 77 points in their second game, and really fell off to 63 in their third. Not exactly cause to panic.
After a radio guy said, “The ball looks like it’s floating in air like a satellite,” Willie Tottten acquired a nickname - The Satellite - that stayed with him through his career.
In the 1984 season, he threw for 58 touchdowns (his favorite receiver - the one on the lone receiver side - set three NCAA records, with 103 passes for 1,682 yards and 27 touchdowns) as the Delta Devils, averaging 59 points per game, made the NCAA D-IAA playoffs (a great accomplishment for an HBCU team).
Along the way, he threw for 500 yards and four touchdowns in a 48-36 win over Grambling.
When he left college, he held 56 NCAA Division I-AA (FCS) passing records.
His career stats: 952 completions in 1629 attempts… 13,170 yards… 141 TDs
He wasn’t drafted by the NFL, and although he did play a few seasons in Canada, his only action in the NFL was as a replacement player during a strike, and he played three seasons of Arena Football.
On the other hand, his favorite receiver was a first round draft pick of the 49ers, and went on to become one of the greatest receivers in NFL history.
Deciding to get into coaching, Totten served as a graduate assistant at Grambling under the legendary Eddie Robinson, and spent two years as a high school coach and ten years as an assistant at his alma mater before serving as its head coach for eight seasons.
When he became the head coach there, the stadium had already been named for him and his favorite receiver, giving Willie Totten the distinction of being one of the few college head coaches to coach in a stadium named for him. (And, of course, for that receiver - Jerry Rice.)
Willie Totten is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
At the present time, he coaches quarterbacks at Southern U.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING WILLIE TOTTEN
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: In 1956, just days after the Hungarian revolution had been put down by the Communist government, two young brothers and their parents made it safely across the border into Austria. The train from Budapest had left them 20 miles from the border, and they had had to walk that distance in freezing temperatures. One of the brothers was 14, the other 12. In the US, they would lead a revolution of another sort - in American football.
Once in the US, the family was interned at an Army camp in New Jersey, then relocated when the father, a dentist, landed a job at a hospital in upstate New York - really, really upstate New York. It was in a town called Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence River about two hours north of Syracuse - and one hour south of Ottawa, Ontario.
The two boys had grown up playing soccer in their native Hungary, but with no soccer team at the local high school, they attempted to kick for the local high school football team.
It did not go well at first. Recalled the older brother, years later, "With my instep, I hit the ball, and it was a low drive about three feet off the ground. Basically a big joke. Everybody thought it was ridiculous. But I knew it was something I could do. The next year and that first kickoff, the ball went about 60 yards into the air. So, suddenly, that's basically how the soccer-style kick started.”
They both wound up doing well enough as high school kickers that the older brother went to Cornell and the younger one to Princeton. (It helped that they were smart.)
They were both highly successful in college - so successful, in fact, that unusual attempts to deal with the Princeton brother resulted in the passing of three different NCAA rules.
The first came after Cornell had two defensive backs stand on the shoulders of two linemen to block his kicks. By the following Monday, the NCAA had passed a rule saying that all men had to have “two limbs” on the ground at the start of a play.
The second came after he was called for being offside on the opening kickoff against Yale. Yale’s head coach John Pont had informed the officials before the game that because of the fact that the kickers plant foot was several inches on front of the 40-yard-line, he was technically offside.
The third came after Dartmouth’s Bob Blackman tried what he called the “Human Steps” stunt (Photo above) : Two linemen would crouch, and a teammate in their defensive backfield would get a running start and step up on their backs and leap into the air. Said Dartmouth assistant Jack Musick, whose idea it was, “He can’t be the type who’ll worry about how hard he comes down.” They put foam rubber padding on the backs of the two linemen, and outfitted the designated leaper with ripple-soled shoes. A Dartmouth mathematician figured out the proper launch angle. And then, the first time Princeton lined up to kick a field goal, sensing something was going on, they held up the snap count. The Dartmouth leaper, unfortunately, was in mid-air when the ball was snapped. There was a five-yard penalty, but the scheme couldn’t be considered a total failure, because on the next play, kicking from five yards closer, Princeton missed.
It happened in the last game of the year, so the rules change - that you couldn’t vault - took place in the off-season.
The Princeton kicker started out his senior year against Rutgers, kicking six field goals - one of them a 52-yarder - as the Tigers won, 24-0. Asked after the game to comment, all Rutgers coach John Bateman could say was, “we got beat by a frigging Hungarian refugee.”
The younger brother was an All-American at Princeton, and became the first kicker ever chosen in the first round of the NFL draft, when the Redskins chose him with the sixth pick overall. He wound up playing three years with the Redskins and three years with the Patriots.
The older brother, undrafted by the NFL, signed instead with the AFL Buffalo Bills, and became the first soccer-style kicker in professional football. After two years with the Bills - helping them win an AFL championship, he signed with the NFL New York Giants, setting off a war between the two leagues that saw AFL commissioner Al Davis making offers to NFL quarterbacks and ultimately drove NFL owners to agree to peace between the leagues.
In 2010, the Giants added the older brother to their new Ring of Honor. He still remains the Giants' all-time leading scorer with 646 points.
In October, 2016, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution,. the Washington Redskins honored the two brothers in a halftime ceremony attended by the Hungarian ambassador and numerous other dignitaries.
In 1917 a monument in their honor was dedicated at a park in Ogdensburg, the self-proclaimed “birthplace of soccer-style kicking.”
“Before them,” wrote Larry Felser in the Buffalo News of the brothers, “Kicking had been an inexact science for the pros to say the least. Full-time players (for the Bills) such as Cookie Gilchrist and Mac Yoho did the kicking off and field goal attempts. They wore a flat-toed shoe on their kicking foot so that they could slip into their added role. A kicker who was successful half the time on field goals was considered a major asset… In the 1966 NFL draft the Washington Redskins took (— —) in the first round. Straight-ahead kicking was on a path to doom. Everyone, it seemed, had to have a sidewinder. It wasn't just the length of field goals. It was the accuracy and the longer kickoffs which produced inferior field position for the opposition.”
Who were they?
FRIDAY,
JUNE 21, 2024 “Every great cause begins as a
movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a
racket.”Eric Hoffer*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “One of the memorable occasions of my youth was the weekly bath. It was a family ritual. In the summer we used a washtub that held about ten gallons of water. Mother would fill the tub in the morning, and the sun would hit the water. When we returned from working in the fields, extremely dirty, we would take our turn with a washrag and a bar of soap, first me, then Mother, and then Dad. There was enough water so the third person didn't have to bathe in dirty water. As for privacy, we put the tub behind the big lilac bushes in the yard. But traffic was almost nonexistent on the dirt road.
“Winter baths were in a large receptacle that held about 5 gallons of hot water, taken from the Reservoir on the cookstove. We would huddle around the dining room heating stove and go through a similar routine with the tub, pressing close to the stove while toweling off. I was glad I was the first in the water.
Michigan had winters that were severely cold. Did we sleep in our socks? Didn't everybody? We also wore flannel nightgowns that reached the floor. Our sheets also were flannel; linen and cotton were much too cold. Before we went to bed Dad would throw pieces of wood in the stove; chunks with big knots had the best chance to burn until morning although I can't remember the fire ever lasting through the night unless Dad got up and threw on more wood.
Each night we would stand by the stove to warm our backsides, and then Mom and Dad would say, “OK, time to go to bed, "and we would race up the stairs and jump in bed to try to stay warm. Then in the morning we had to build a fire before going out to the barn to milk the cows. During the winter, when we got up the windows would be frozen with ice, and the "slop jar” would be frozen too.”
*********** Whenever I would think of Willie Mays, the words grace, dignity, elegance and class would come to mind. And even though he’s gone now, they always will.
Mr. Mays truly was an inspirational baseball player - great in every aspect of the game, and great fun to watch. It was obvious that he played for the sheer joy of it, and I still remember newsreel shots of him when he was a young player, playing stickball in his spare time with adoring kids in the streets of New York. Maybe they were staged publicity shots, but knowing what we already knew about Willie Mays, they were believable.
Perhaps most important of all - he was a great representative of the game of baseball, a great model for American kids. On the field he was a sportsman - a word seldom used today - and off the field he was a gentleman whose character was beyond reproach.
God bless Willie Mays.
*********** This upcoming weekend is THE big holiday in Finland (and, I suppose, other Nordic countries). It celebrates midsummer - Juhannus, in Finnish - a celebration of the longest day of the year. Finns head to the country (it’s every Finn’s aim to own a kesämoki - a summer cottage - on a lake) for the weekend, where on the special night they’ll stay up all “night.” (Depending on how far north you are, there may not even be a sunrise/sunset, but nowhere in the country will it get really dark.) They’ll take part in a number of pleasurable activities, including going back and forth between sauna and lake. Food can vary but a lot of it will be grilled makkara - a Finnish sausage. There will be plenty of alcoholic drink, much of it olut (beer) and much of it koskenkorva, the vodka-like national spirit. I must confess to having consumed to excess myself at more than one midsummer. It may just be legend but it’s said that of the many drownings that occur in Finnish lakes over Juhannus, the victim is found n most cases withs an unzipped fly.
*********** Back in the 1920s, long before Caitlyn Clark hit the WNBA, the NFL, in its struggle to stay alive, had its own Caitlin Clark experience - when the Chicago Bears signed the biggest gate attraction the game of football had ever known, Red Grange of Illinois.
Grange finished his college career against Ohio State on November 21, 1925, in front of 82,500 people - largest crowd ever to witness an American sporting event. The next day, he signed with the Chicago Bears, and four days after that - on Thanksgiving Day - he played for the Bears against their intra-city rivals, the Chicago Cardinals. The game drew 40,000 people to Wrigley Field.
(That would lead to a long-observed NFL rule preventing the signing of a college player until his class had graduated.)
After playing another game in Chicago, the Bears hit the road, playing eight games in twelve days. Five of the games were regularly-scheduled league games, and three were hastily-scheduled exhibitions. In Philadelphia, against the Frankford Yellow Jackets (forerunners of today’s Eagles), they drew a capacity crowd of 35,000 despite pouring rain. The next day, wearing the same wet and muddy uniforms they’d worn the day before, they drew 73,000 to the Polo Grounds in New York.
That game not only bailed the Giants’ owner Tim Mara out of a financial hole, but even more important, it earned professional football a new credibility among New York’s influential sports reporters.
After returning to Chicago for a brief rest, the Bears - striking while the iron was hot - set out on a 10-game barnstorming tour of the West. One game, in Los Angeles, drew 75,000.
In less than three months, the Bears played 18 games, and Grange earned more than $125,000 - a fortune at that time.
I came across a story about Grange’s impact on the pro game when reading about the great Jimmy Conzelman, who prior to the 1925 season had been persuaded to buy an NFL franchise in Detroit. It only cost him $50, but even so he still had to deliberate long and hard before going ahead, and although his team was a success on the field, he was losing money. And then he lined up a game against the Bears…
When I heard about the crowds he was pulling in, I booked the Bears for a game in Detroit. The fans around Detroit were eager to see Grange because of that famous game in which he scored four touchdowns against Michigan in 11 minutes while he was at Illinois.
Once we broke the news the tickets began to move like mad. I figured we would make about $20,000 clear on the game. That meant we could wipe out all our debts and have a few dollars left for the beginning of the next season.
On the Wednesday before the game George Halas (owner/coach of the Bears) phoned and told me that Grange had been hurt and might not be able to play. I thought it only fair that I tell the newspapers, and I did. A few hours before the game was about to start, I looked out the window and saw a long line at the box office. I remember thinking to myself, "What a great sports town. Grange isn't going to play but they're still lining up to buy tickets.” Then I got the news from the ticket man. They were lining up to get refunds.
*********** West Virginia-born coaches have won their share of football titles. Nick Saban, of course, and Fielding Yost, and Jimbo Fisher, and Ben Schwartzwalder, and Jon McKay and Lou Holtz all won collegiate national titles, and Greasy Neale won two NFL titles as coach of the Eagles.
But here’s one that I found interesting…
“Mazzulla (Joe Mazzulla, coach of the NBA Champion Celtics) becomes just the second West Virginia University alum to have won a professional sports championship as a coach, joining Joe Stydahar, who did it in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams in 1951.”
*********** Insanity isn’t limited to college football. The NBA Detroit Pistons just fired their head coach, Monty Williams, after one season of a 6-year contract worth a total of $78.5 million. They owe him $65 million.
*********** The things you hear when you listen closely to what usually is broadcasters’ drivel… At the College World Series, the announcers talked about what had gone into the Florida State coach’s decision as to whether to use a pitcher who had last pitched just four days ago. He had to, we were told, “talk to the player… his parents… his agent…”
*********** Even when it’s just one yard to go in the US, the NFL guys are liable to throw the damn ball. But when it’s one yard to go in Canada, you’re almost certain to see a QB sneak. One reason is that in Canadian football, the defense must line up a yard back off the ball, providing an incentive to the offense (the “OH-fense” up north) to fire off the ball, and at the same time making it more difficult for defensive linemen to burrow under the charge of the offensive line. As a result, it does appear to me that Canadian offenses are far more consistently successful on short yardage plays than their American counterparts.
But this past weekend I happened to notice that Hamilton (the Tiger-Cats) were making extra sure they’d get the yardage needed by running their quarterback sneaks with a non-quarterback under center - a 6-foot, 229-pound fullback named Ante Litre.
It worked. Not that the haughty NFL might try to learn anything from those guys in Canada, but you never know…
*********** Pete Porcelli, of Watervliet, New York, sent me an ad, with a very simple comment: “WTF?”
Now, I’m not about to suggest that this is a racket, but in today’s risk-averse climate, it’s amazing what can be peddled by throwing in the phrase “prioritizing athlete safety,” implying that anyone who doesn’t buy the product is one of those win-at-all-cost guys who couldn’t care less about the safety of his players.
(Anybody remember guilt trip they put us on in promoting “Heads-up Tackling?” Or “Hawk Tackling?” )
*********** Part of the reason why LSU fans got down on Les Miles was that while he’d won them a national title, he didn’t win enough of the Big Ones. Now, years removed from his LSU days, he’s liable to win a VERY Big One - and the loser could be LSU.
Essentially, charged with violating NCAA rules at the time that Miles was their head coach, LSU copped a guilty plea to the NCAA, in hopes of getting a lighter penalty. Part of their offer was to vacate 37 football wins that took place while Les Miles was their football coach. The whole deal was settled just a year ago - eight years after Miles had left LSU, they screwed him.
The consequence of the removal of the 37 wins from Miles’ official record is that he’s no longer eligible for election to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Here’s why: The Hall of Fame requires a coach to have a career .600 win-loss percentage. With the 37 wins on his record, Miles’ percentage is .665. That, along with the fact that he won a national title (and also had a good record at Oklahoma State) ought to be enough to get him into the Hall. But without the 37 wins, his percentage falls to .597, keeping him out of the Hall.
In addition to LSU he’s also suing the NCAA and the College Football Hall of Fame.
Interestingly, the violation involved a booster’s paying a player’s father for a “no-show” job. But while the NCAA holds coaches responsible for anyone who reports to them, the booster in question was not a “staff member of LSU or its football program.” As a result, the NCAA itself did not hold Miles, as head coach, responsible for the violation - “the sole violation that occurred during his time with the LSU football program.”
Thanks a lot, Tigers. Go Les. Beat all those slimy bastards in suits who sold you down the river.
https://apnews.com/article/les-miles-lsu-lawsuit-2770d69274cafa039a7f8afb54c7a0d4
*********** The US Olympic swim team trials are being held in Indianapolis. In Lucas Oil Stadium. Wait - a swimming pool? Where the Indianapolis Colts play football?
Yes, they built a swimming pool - two swimming pools actually, one for competition and one for practice on the floor of the stadium - in the expectation of finally being able to hold the event in a place capable of accommodating all the people who wanted to attend.
The setup can accommodate a crowd of 30,000, and on Wednesday, a crowd of 22,209 attended - the largest crowd ever to attend a swim meet. The previous largest was 16,000, at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Within the swimming community - and the sports facilities industry - the accomplishment is without precedent, taking more than two years of planning, and then three weeks of actual installation work.
To fill the two pools - their decks are nine feet above the stadium floor - took 13 hours, at 1200 gallons of water a minute (from city fire hydrants).
Reflecting on the scope and difficulty of the job, the chief technical officer of the Italian company that designs and engineers competition pools said, “If I can be perfectly honest, it scared the sh— out of me.”
*********** If Coach Dan Casey is a HS assistant somewhere in Texas, I'm sure your other readers have questions, such as, Does he do this with the support of his school and HC? How would you describe the offense?
I watched Coach Lude's character develop and harden a little more through today's entry.
Cameron Dukes is further evidence there are lots of fine football players overlooked for reasons we all know.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
Although it’s hard to imagine a guy who teaches and coaches and still has the time to do all the stuff “Coach Dan Casey” does, it is possible that the school and his head coach support his outside work because he’s a really good coach.
*********** Hugh,
Whew! Grateful to still be on board!
Skip Holtz, like his dad, can coach the game of football. He, like his dad, also has a way of finding ways to motivate his players. Agree or disagree with the method, Adrian Martinez could have folded like a bedsheet when benched and getting an earful from Holtz last week. But instead he responded with a championship performance in the championship game. Oh, BTW, Martinez hails from my old stomping grounds in Fresno, CA and played high school ball at Clovis West.
I was right about the "crowd" in St. Louis. Notice how FOX didn't provide many panoramas of the stadium during the broadcast? Probably a decision that will come back to haunt the UFL's pocketbook. Playing in a smaller venue would have been a better idea.
Recent US Open champ Bryson DeChambeau played high school golf at Clovis East! One of his personal coaches (he has two) is a close friend of my youngest brother. They both played on the same Clovis High golf team that won a CIF title back in the '90's.
More old stomping grounds trivia. Oregon State University AD Scott Barnes is also a Fresno State alum, and Bulldog basketball player. If Fresno State has an ace up its sleeve to get into a conference with OSU it would be Scott Barnes.
I can see it now...the TOSTITOS SALSA BOWL live from Monterrey, Mexico! Security provided by????
Additional Non-Summer Olympic Sports (yet):
Cornhole
Slam Ball
Skimboarding
Have a great week! (Oh, I pulled my application from Wal-Mart to be a greeter since finding out I'm still on board).
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
We don’t lose many of our contributors to Wal-Mart, but I I sometimes wonder what happened to all the old Double Wing coaches!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Wally Lemm had a varied career, coaching in high school and college, and in the AFL and NFL.
He was a pro head coach for 10 years - a year as interim coach of the Houston Oilers, five as head coach of the (St. Louis) Cardinals and the four more as head coach of the Oilers.
He won the AFL championship in his first season as a head coach - then walked away from it to take another head coaching jobjob.
He stayed at that new job for five years, then returned to his original team.
And then, at the age of 51, he retired again - this time for good - and started another business.
He was born and raised in Chicago, and played football at Carroll College, in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
He graduated in 1942 and served three years in the Navy during World War II. Toward the end of the war he was assigned to teach navigation to Navy trainees at Notre Dame, and while there, head coach Hugh Devore offered him a chance to help coach the Irish jayvees.
Now hooked on coaching, he returned to Carroll College as an assistant, and after two years there, became head coach at Waukesha High School.
But after one year, John Breen, his former head coach at Carroll, was hired as head coach at Lake Forest, north of Chicago, and he hired our guy as an assistant.
He assisted Breen for two seasons, and then was named Lake Forest’s head coach. In his first season as head coach he won the conference title, and after two seasons there, with a record of 11-4-1, he left to take a job as an assistant at Montana State.
After one season as an assistant, he was named head coach, and in his first year the Bobcats won the Rocky Mountain Conference title with an 8-1 record.
And then he was hired as a defensive assistant by the Chicago Cardinals. In his first season there, the Cardinals had their first winning season in seven years, largely because of a defense that intercepted 33 passes and allowed just nine touchdowns.
But pro football didn’t pay what it does today, and after that one season he returned to Lake Forest as its head coach. His team went 6-2 and tied for the conference title.
He spent a season out of football but in 1959 he returned to the Cardinals, and then, in 1960 , was hired by the Houston Oilers in the brand-new American Football League as an assistant to Lou Rymkus.
Houston won the title that year, but following the season our guy resigned in order to start a sporting goods business.
When the Oilers got off to a 1-3-1 start the next year, and Rymkus clashed with owner Bud Adams and appeared in danger of losing the club, Adams fired Rymkus and hired our guy. (Part of the reason might have been that the Oilers’ Player Personnel Director was John Breen.)
Leaving the sporting goods business in the hands of his wife, he went to work and immediately made a difference. A major reason was his low-key, football-should-be-fun approach.
Of Rymkus, said Oilers’ QB Jacky Lee, “If you smiled it was like you had committed a crime. If a guy laughed, Lou would stop practice and lecture us on being hard-nosed… As far as I'm concerned, I think better and learn things quicker when I'm relaxed. I think most players do."
Our guy? He said, on taking the job, “Pro football players, like anybody else, do their jobs better when they like their work."
His approach was conservative and understated. He reinstated George Blanda as his quarterback, and in order to reduce the chance of errors, he simplified the offense. “Football is supposed to be fun,” he said, “and if you treat the players like adults they will usually respond like adults. The game is not really simple any more because the defenses change so much, but we try to keep it as clear, straightforward and pleasurable as we can.”
In that one season, he did a remarkable job. The Oilers went 10-0 and repeated as AFL champions, beating San Diego in the title game, and he was named AFL Coach of the Year.
And then, the following February, saying that he wanted to be closer his home in suburban Chicago, he quit to become head coach of the NFL Cardinals (who were now in St. Louis, having just moved there in 1960).
You want irony? In St. Louis he succeeded Pop Ivy, who had resigned with two games left in the season. The guy that the Oilers hired to replace him in Houston? None other than Pop Ivy.
How different was the NFL in those days? How cheap were the Bidwills, owners of the Cardinals? They gave their head coach a one-year contract.
Despite internal strife in the organization, he got the Cardinals within a whisker of the NFL title game, finishing the 1964 season with a 9-3-2 record, just a half-game behind the division-winning (and eventual NFL Champion) Cleveland Browns.
A lot went into his departure from St. Louis, including organizational problems and the club’s insistence that he move to St. Louis (he still lived in the Chicago area in the off-season), and after the 1966 season he resigned and returned to Houston as Oilers’ head coach.
In the time since he had left the Oilers in 1962, they had gone through three head coaches. In his second year there, Houston won the AFL Eastern Division, but got wiped out in the AFL Championship game by Oakland (which would go on to meet Green Bay in the second Super Bowl). Following the 1970 season, citing health reasons, he resigned and never coached again.
Wally Lemm had a career record as a pro coach of 64-64-7.
And then, just 51, he went into the home construction business in the Houston area.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING WALLY LEMM
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He played his high school football in North Carrollton, Mississippi. and his college football at Mississippi Valley State.
Valley coach Archie Cooley (nicknamed “The Gunslinger”) was way ahead of his time, devising a spread offense with four receivers on one side and one on the other. His quarterback would call his own plays, without huddling. He called it “fast break football.”
He had the receivers to make his idea work, but he didn’t have a quarterback. Our guy had gone to Valley as a punter, but Cooley said, years later, he knew our guy was going to be his quarterback “when I shook his hands and he swallowed up my hand.”
In our guy’s first game as quarterback in the new offense, the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils won, 86-0. They could only manage 77 points in their second game, and really fell off to 63 in their third. Not exactly cause to panic.
After a radio guy said, “The ball looks like it’s floating in air like a satellite,” our guy acquired a nickname that stayed with him through his career.
In the 1984 season, he threw for 58 touchdowns (his favorite receiver - the one on the lone receiver side - set three NCAA records, with 103 passes for 1,682 yards and 27 touchdowns) as the Delta Devils, averaging 59 points per game, made the NCAA D-IAA playoffs (a great accomplishment for an HBCU team).
Along the way, he threw for 500 yards and four touchdowns in a 48-36 win over Grambling.
When he left college, he held 56 NCAA Division I-AA (FCS) passing records.
His career stats: 952 completions in 1629 attempts… 13,170 yards… 141 TDs
He wasn’t drafted by the NFL, and although he did play a few seasons in Canada, his only action in the NFL was as a replacement player during a strike, and he played three seasons of Arena Football.
On the other hand, his favorite receiver was a first round draft pick of the 49ers, and went on to become one of the greatest receivers in NFL history.
Deciding to get into coaching, he served as a graduate assistant at Grambling under the legendary Eddie Robinson, and spent two years as a high school coach and ten years as an assistant at his alma mater before serving as its head coach for eight seasons.
When he became the head coach there, the stadium had already been named for him and his favorite receiver, giving him the distinction of being one of the few college head coaches to coach in a stadium named for him. (And, of course, for that receiver - Jerry Rice.)
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
At the present time, he coaches quarterbacks at Southern U.
TUESDAY,
JUNE 18, 2024 “There’s nothing that does so
much harm as good intentions.” Milton Friedman*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Something we always had was plenty of food. We never, ever, went hungry. At times the menu lacked the variety of what we now find every day at the local supermarket. I can still go for months and not miss potatoes. We had potatoes boiled, mashed, fried, hash brown and scalloped. We rarely had baked potatoes because we lacked the proper means of baking them. We had so many potatoes, at every meal, that I didn't appreciate them.
“We ate so much chicken, that I thought I was going to start clucking. Mother could fix it in a dozen different ways. We raised chickens, and I still remember my mild-mannered, self-effacing mother going out to the coop, grabbing a bird, taking a hatchet, and chopping its head off.
“Mother canned everything – vegetables, fruit, beef, pork, chicken – and stashed it away in a dirt cellar down a rickety set of stairs. In the summer we grew vegetables and we picked berries, peaches, and cherries. My dad butchered one head of beef and one or two hogs every winter. We’d grind up the throwaway parts for sausage and to stuff the sausage, we’d use the hog intestines. The carcasses would hang frozen in the woodshed, and Dad would cut off meat in pieces until spring when it started to thaw. Then Mother would can what was left of the beef and pork.
“I tasted possum at a neighbor's house, but I didn't like it. I was offered raccoon meat but said no thanks. When I was about nine, I got my first shotgun, a 410 – gauge single barrel that I used to hunt pheasants, ducks, rabbits, and squirrel. I still own the gun.
“About the only meat we didn't eat was lamb. My dad called it mutton and said flatly that mutton was not good to eat. That went for the entire family. When I was in the Marine Corps years later, an Italian girl I met invited me to a family dinner, and a leg of lamb was the main course. It was great, and to this day I love lamb chops, rack of lamb and leg of lamb.”
*********** UFL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS 25, SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS 0
Birmingham and their coach Skip Holtz will now go into the record book - If there actually are books that keep such records - as winners of three consecutive professional championships.
When the teams met three weeks ago and San Antonio won, 18-9. it was Birmingham’s only loss in the last two seasons.
Let’s see how I stacked up in my pre-game analysis…
Both teams have good defenses. True dat. The game was scoreless until just 40 seconds remained in the first half. Maybe Birmingham’s defense took umbrage at San Antonio’s defense being touted by so many as the league’s best, but they wound up delivering the ONLY SHUTOUT IN THE UFL’S ENTIRE SEASON.
After pulling his starting QB, Adrian Martinez, and replacing him with Matt Corral in last week’s semi-final win over Michigan, Birmingham’s Skip Holtz may have a quarterback problem on his hands. Martinez started and accounted for 150 yards of total offense, running for two TDs and throwing for a third and winning game MVP honors.
(San Antonio’s Wade) Philips has no such problem. He’s been getting good play from Chase Garbers, who just returned a week ago after missing most of the season with a wrist injury. Garbers did not have a very good game. He did complete 18 of 26 passes, but all those 26 passes were good for was 115 yards - an anemic 4.4 yards per attempt.
San Antonio’s Anthony McFarland may be the difference. He is a strong runner with breakaway speed. Birmingham held him to 32 yards on nine carries His mouth may have been faster than his feet, as he was seen on the sidelines late in the game rather animatedly berating his QB.
For much of the season, Martinez was Birmingham’s best runner; but if he’s not their starting quarterback, who is their best runner? It was Ricky Person, who carried 13 times for 102 yards. Martinez, though, did carry 11 times for 52 yards and two TDs.
Birmingham’s best receiver is tight end Jace Sternberger; San Antonio’s is Jontre Kirklin. Neither one was much of a factor. Sternberger caught 4 passes for 19 yards. Kirklin caught five passes, but for just 23 yards. Actually, no receiver for either team caught more than six passes or gained more thn 50 yards.
I like the way San Antonio’s been playing and if I had to bet, I’d go with the Brahmas. That’s why I sit at my computer in Camas, Washington while smarter guys than me sit in front of computers in Las Vegas.
*********** My apologies for making it sound like a question when I wrote this…
Saw Warren Moon at a CFL game - he was in Edmonton to celebrate something or other (he starred at QB for the Eskimos - now the Elks) and he looked pretty good.
Here’s a good one for you: he’s the only person who’s in both the CFL and the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player.
I didn’t intend it to be a question, so I should simply have written, “Warren Moon is the only person who’s in both the CFL and the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player.”
*********** There were 53,788 people in BC Place, the large indoor stadium in Vancouver (Canada) to watch the BC Lions play the Calgary Stampeders.
The attendance broke a 40-year-old record for attendance at a home opener.
Okay - it’s not as if as if there’s been a sudden outbreak of Lions Fever or anything like that - they had some sort of concert earlier.
*********** One thing about the Canadian game - between the three-downs-to-make-ten and the fact that in the last two minutes the clock stops after EVERY play - it’s hard to hold onto a tiny lead. The ball can change hands several times in those last two minutes.
*********** From John Canzano’s mailbag…
Q: What schools are most responsible for Pac-12 downfall? I’ve got USC No. 1 and Ducks (a close) No. 2.*********** Wow. Life is hard. Who knew?
A: If the Los Angeles schools stay — even one of them — the Pac-12 would have held onto that market’s 5.7 million television households and likely survived. USC and UCLA were both unhappy over having to share revenue equally with the other members of the conference.
Let’s go back to June 30, 2022, the day USC and UCLA announced they were leaving for the Big Ten Conference. I spoke to a high-ranking official in the USC athletic department that day who did not hold back. The LA schools were unhappy with sharing revenue equally with 10 other conference members who weren’t located in a top media market. The source told me the plan to defect to the Big Ten was set in motion more than a year earlier.
“No one ever had a conversation with us about how we felt about the revenue share,” the source said. “Nobody asked, ‘Are you OK with it? Would we like to see something different next contract?’ Not one conversation with LA schools, that was a mistake. We could’ve ended up leaving for the Big Ten regardless, but you have to have the conversation when we have a higher cost of living in LA, higher tax, and 60-70 percent of the Pac-12’s TV market.”
I have some theories on why Commissioners Larry Scott and George Kliavkoff weren’t more tuned into the discontent in Southern California. Their leadership styles were on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they ended up in the same place — in the dark. For that, both deserve blame. Keeping USC engaged and in the fold should have been priority No. 1 for the Pac-12.
Remember, Scott brought a $1 billion private equity offering to the Pac-12 CEO Group in the fall of 2019, per sources. The firm wanted a 15 percent stake in the conference’s media rights deal. The Pac-12 presidents were split but opted not to go for it. I was told by some of the presidents that the most vocal opposition came from USC President Carolyn Folt. She’s the same campus leader who shut down the Pac-12 expansion discussions (i.e. Texas, Oklahoma, and other Big 12 members) in the summer of 2021.
As one source told me: “Folt threw a bucket of water on those talks, too.” I have no other choice but to think USC’s president was either being advised to sit tight or believed that her leverage would only increase as the conference found itself in deeper trouble. Beyond that, though, UCLA still could have balked at following the Trojans to the Big Ten. If we’re performing a Pac-12 post-mortem, don’t let the Bruins off the hook.
Oregon and Washington? Those schools have blood on their hands, sure. But so does Fox and the Big Ten. Once the LA schools were gone, the Ducks and Huskies became flight risks.
I remember reaching out to UO minutes after the announcement. Rob Mullens, the athletic director, closed ranks and instructed his staff to not make public comments. Oregon President Michael Schill was in close contact with Kliavkoff and the rest of the CEO Group that day. Everyone was blindsided by the USC/UCLA move and trying to make sense of it. As one long-time UO administrator told me: “It’s not what Phil Knight had in mind 20 years ago — to end up in the minor leagues.”
Q: What do you think was the beginning of the end of the Pac-12? Mine is Feb 6, 2018, when Lynn Swann extended USC head coach Clay Helton’s contract through 2023.
A: Mine is when Commissioner Larry Scott moved the Pac-12 headquarters to downtown San Francisco. That lease cost conference members more than $92 million in rent to Kilroy Realty over 11 years. The Pac-12 got a couple of floors of office space. It could have bought the building for less.
Q: Do you foresee college programs playing one bowl or game internationally? Do you think a group such as the Public Investment Fund would sponsor a college football program or bowl game?
A: Remember the Pac-12’s China Initiative? I do. The conference made an aggressive foray into China, trying to cultivate business partnerships, and playing sporting events while also attempting to lure airplanes filled with Chinese citizens to attend college on the Pac-12 campuses.
The Big 12 has “Big 12 Mexico” — which will put men’s and women’s basketball, women’s soccer, and baseball games held in Mexico. Plans for a football bowl game that would potentially be played following the 2026 regular season have been targeted for Monterrey. As Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said at the time: “Mexico is a natural extension to the Big 12 footprint.”
The investors you mention will come along for the ride, I’m sure. Private equity started kicking the tires on college athletics a while ago. I’d tread carefully given that those firms typically enter amid desperation with an exit strategy already in hand. But that’s the reality of where we are today.
Q: Maybe this isn't a “mailbag question” and deserves a longer piece. But I’m super curious about the general profile of all these rich people who are donating to Alabama, Penn State, Clemson, Auburn, Miami, LSU, etc., and why these people don’t exist in the West.
A: I reached out to an SEC athletic director for some guidance on this question. What is the profile of the typical donor? Who are these rich people giving to those schools? What’s different about donors on the West Coast vs. South and other places? The AD told me not to overthink it.
The AD offered: “SEC tag line — ‘It just means more.’ Multi-generational, grew up with it out of the womb. Not necessarily wealthier just more part of the culture.”
If you study the zip codes of the richest people in the country, you won’t find a disproportionate number of them living in proximity to the football programs you mentioned. Nor did most of them attend any of those schools. A large number of the 735 billionaires currently living in the United States (i.e. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jensen Huang, Sergey Brin, Phil Knight, etc.) reside in the Pacific Time Zone.
Knight is an outlier. His willingness to enthusiastically fund Oregon is more like wealthy donors in the SEC and Big Ten, isn’t it? That Knight has the means to do it at a $1 billion clip without blinking makes it especially notable. But Knight’s sports-fueled motivation feels more like the stuff we see in those other conferences.
College football has a different culture in other regions of the country. Remember the Pac-12 Network’s failure to get distribution on DirecTV for all those years? Commissioner Larry Scott lost a lengthy staring contest with the distributor. During that time, I had an SEC source tell me it never would have happened in their conference.
“SEC fans would have gone into DirecTV with Molotov cocktails,” the source told me.
Q: Some of my Oregon State donor friends tell me the school has no choice but to cut some sports programs soon. Which ones are likely to be on the chopping block? Will doing so help football to be competitive again?
A: I recently asked OSU athletic director Scott Barnes about this. He said: “We have no plans to cut sports.”
Q: The remaining Pac-2 schools have a two-year grace period to bring the number to a minimum of eight schools to have a legitimate conference. What is the latest on that effort?
A: You’re thinking like I’m thinking. The two schools will run out every ground ball with other conferences (i.e. Big 12, ACC) before turning to their rebuild. But at some point, Oregon State and Washington State will need to roll up their sleeves and get busy adding schools. I’ll have more on this front later this week.
Q: I wonder if we have all gotten it wrong. It’s not jealousy coming at Caitlin Clark, it’s playing the Taylor Swift game. My daughter is convinced Taylor Swift’s relationships are all fabricated to boost her in the media, once the relationship is highly publicized, breaks up and this helps lead to another sell-out album to give the inner workings of the faux relationship. It keeps Swift relevant. It’s all marketing.
Maybe these other WNBA players realize Clark is a camera/media magnet and if they are to get seen notoriety is better than being ignored. So it is nothing personal, it is simply trying to be seen, hopefully, that can be sustained and they rise along with Clark?
A: I would love to hear Caitlin Clark get in the studio with Taylor Swift and come up with a song (or five) about her rookie year. I’d listen to it. But you’re hitting on something I’ve been talking about a lot lately. It may be possible that there’s some “Linsanity” or “Tebowism” at play here. ESPN is all-in, isn’t it? Her peers may simply be annoyed and eager to prove that the Clark coverage being shoveled like coal doesn’t match the performance on the court.
It never occurred to me that that might be the case until I heard it said in a truly inspirational speech by Mister Hard Luck Story himself, Tom Brady.
Meantime, do you suppose the reason we’re seeing so much of him lately - he presented the MVP award at the UFL title game - is that they’re promoting his regular appearances, starting this fall, as a TV “analyst?”
FEARLESS PREDICTION: He’s going to set a new speed record for growing tiresome.
Having said all that, if it gets more soft kids to do hard things...
*********** In “An Ordinary Man,” Richard Norton Smith’s biography of President Gerald R. Ford, the author tells of the advice Mr. Ford gave to his son, Steve, on how to make the high-school football team:
Success was more likely, he said, "if you can do one thing that nobody else can do.”
“There’s nobody who can snap for punts,” he said, “and I'm going to show you how.”
Just as that formula had worked for Mr. Ford himself decades earlier, when he had played center in his school and at the University of Michigan, it also worked for young Steve,
*********** I’m going to recommend a football book to anyone who loves the game, coach or fan.
It’s entitled “Trends in Offensive Football,” by Coach Dan Casey. Coach Casey, who appears to be a high school assistant in Texas, has rather quickly become a respected guy among offensive coaches at all levels because he seems to know his stuff, he has impressive access to coaching materials, and he has the ability to present and explain them clearly.
I’m greatly impressed by his ability to continue emailing his “One Play a Day” to coaches, the number of whom must now be in the thousands.
What’s cool about the “Trends in Offensive Football” book is that by scanning a QR code (one of those weird-looking squares) on a page describing a play, you can see a film clip of the play that’s being described.
(The term “film clip,” for just about any coach under the age of 60, is an anachronism, going back to the time when we used actual 16-millimeter film to actually “film” games. Filming was expensive - there was the film itself and the cost of processing it, plus the projector - the Kodak Analyst was the universally-used 16-millimeter projector and those suckers were expensive even then. Once we had our game film (very, very few schools had the money or the need to shoot more than one copy of any game), if we then wanted to make a special film of a particular group of plays to show to a particular audience, we would have to actually cut (“clip”) those plays out of the game film - and then splice the clips together (using a special machine and either cement or a type of scotch tape) to assemble our special film. One problem, of course, was that doing all that cutting and splicing was painstaking, and not every coach was as careful as he ought to be. (Yes, coaches mostly did their own cutting and splicing.) That led to the second problem: even after we had reassembled our original game film - first cutting apart that special film that we’d made and then splicing all those clips back into their original places in the master game film - we’d have a less-than-intact original game film. There was always the danger that an original film with a lot of splices in it might not make it cleanly through a complete showing without a break in the film. (I can still hear the “snap-slap-slap” of a broken-off end of the film whacking against the projector, and the coach asking someone to turn on the lights.)
*********** Is it just me or is there something wrong with a guy that a team invests millions in… a quarterback who then gets hurt early in his first season with them… who misses the entire season (for which he’s paid, just as if he’d been healthy)… and now refuses to show up for Organized Team Activity?
You ain’t in Green Bay any more, Aaron. Those fans in New York can get pretty nasty.
*********** “I remember the freshman football coach at Williams College, who, as our first game approached, appointed me captain of his team. After an undefeated season, I realized my experience on that team was my first, albeit small, leadership success.
“I never expressed my thanks to Coach Frank Navarro for his confidence in me, though I often thanked him for his skillful guidance of our little team. The significance of his encouragement has become clear as I look back. He widened my ambitions by affording me success.”
Fay Vincent, who went on to become CEO of Columbia Pictures and Commissioner of Baseball
*********** Your job: name three sports (other than those considered “winter sports”) that will NOT be represented in this summer’s Olympic games.
Here are my three:
Pool
Horseshoes
Water skiing
*********** Maybe Deion Sanders (no f—king way am I calling that four-flusher “Coach Prime”) didn’t require his players to attend a Lil Wayne (rap) concert back in April. You know - the one following the Colorado spring game at which his son, legendary quarterback Shedeur Sanders, would be making his debut as a rapper.
Maybe there’s no truth to the story in Athlon that quoted a former player as saying, "The Wayne concert was the final straw for a few players who hit the transfer portal. When Coach Prime told us we all had to be there to support Shedeur as a rapper, they were not happy at all. To be honest, it was nothing but a huge distraction and Daddy Ball was being played.”
Deion denies it ever happening.
Now, he may be right, and it may just be the word of some disaffected players against that of their head coach (who for all his boastful self-promotion, does not seem to be a habitual liar).
And perhaps he can plausibly deny having told players they had to be there since what he said was, “I can’t make you go,” without adding, “but I can make you wish you had.”
Or maybe - just maybe - it happened exactly as the former player described it.
*********** My privately-delivered advice for you to get out of your truck-driving occupation fell on deaf ears, so I am sorry to have to deliver it in this public manner. And before you say you no longer need to work, I checked, and there are a number of high-paying equity department positions available in your area.
Because I'm from that part of the country, I've known about Lindsey Wilson all my life. But there's no way I would've known about Cameron Dukes. Fascinating story. Until I look it up, I'll guess he got no major school offers out of high school.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
While Cameron Dukes may not have been playing at a big-time school, I just read that he was a finalist for the Campbell Award, the REAL best college football player award, because it recognizes scholarship and character! So give the CFL people credit for having done their homework.
*********** Despite appearances, Coach Joe Gutilla has not been laid off. I have lost his original email. We believe in fair treatment of our contributors so he will not receive a reduction in pay as a result of my error.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Robert Brazile was born in Mobile, Alabama, and went to Vigor High School in Prichard, just outside Mobile. Following a standout high school career he was named defensive MVP in the annual Alabama High School All-Star Game, and signed to play at Jackson State.
At Jackson State, he was switched from tight end to linebacker in his sophomore year. In his senior year, he led the SWAC in interceptions , and made the All-SWAC first team and Black College All-American first team. Jackson State, loaded with talent (including running back Walter Payton), won the SWAC championship in both his junior and senior seasons. He wound up setting a school record for tackles.
Following graduation, he was named to play in the annual College All-Star Game in Chicago, an honor seldom accorded HBCU players. And that’s where he acquired the nickname “Doctor Doom.” USC linebacker Richard Wood first suggested it, and it was seconded by broadcaster Howard Cosell, who said it was an acronym for “Death on Offensive Men.” He loved the nickname and would prove himself worthy of it.
He was chosen by the Houston Oilers in the first round of the NFL draft, the sixth player taken. His teammate, Payton, had been the fourth player taken, and together, they became the highest-drafted pair of teammates in Mississippi college history.
He arrived at Houston at the same time as new head coach/GM Bum Philips (whose idea it had been to draft him) and he fit perfectly into Philip’s 3-4 defensive scheme as a pass-rushing outside linebacker.
He pretty much defined the position. He was 6-4, 240, with 4.6 speed, and with the ability to rush or cover, he was so successful at the spot that Philips would later refer to him as “Lawrence Taylor before Lawrence Taylor.”
He was the defensive rookie of the year, and in ten years with the Oilers, he would start every game - a team-record 147 straight games.
By the time he was finished…
He would be selected to the Pro Bowl for seven consecutive seasons.
He would be named to six consecutive All-Pro teams - first team for five years in a row, and second team in year number six.
He would get 48 sacks. Sacks were only counted officially by the NFL for his final three seasons, during which he was credited with 11. But unofficially, his career total was 48.
He would intercept 13 passes, and recover 14 fumbles.
Robert Brazile’s honors have been many:
He is a member of the Houston Oilers All-Time Team, the Black College Football 100-Year Team, and the NFL’s 1970s All-Decade Team.
He is in the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame, the SWAC Hall of Fame, the Jackson State University Sports Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and - most significant - the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He survived quadruple heart bypass surgery in 2001, and spent more than 20 years teaching special-needs middle-school kids in his native Mobile. Reflecting on that, he said, ”I always knew what to expect on the football field. You never know what's coming next in the classroom."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ROBERT BRAZILE
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He had a varied career, coaching in high school and college, and in the AFL and NFL.
He was a pro head coach for 10 years - a year as interim coach of the Houston Oilers, five as head coach of the (St. Louis) Cardinals and the four more as head coach of the Oilers.
He won the AFL championship in his first season as a head coach - then walked away from it to take another head coaching jobjob.
He stayed at that new job for five years, then returned to his original team.
And then, at the age of 51, he retired again - this time for good - and started another business.
He was born and raised in Chicago, and played football at Carroll College, in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
He graduated in 1942 and served three years in the Navy during World War II. Toward the end of the war he was assigned to teach navigation to Navy trainees at Notre Dame, and while there, head coach Hugh Devore offered him a chance to help coach the Irish jayvees.
Now hooked on coaching, he returned to Carroll College as an assistant, and after two years there, became head coach at Waukesha High School.
But after one year, John Breen, his former head coach at Carroll, was hired as head coach at Lake Forest, north of Chicago, and he hired our guy as an assistant.
He assisted Breen for two seasons, and then was named Lake Forest’s head coach. In his first season as head coach he won the conference title, and after two seasons there, with a record of 11-4-1, he left to take a job as an assistant at Montana State.
After one season as an assistant, he was named head coach, and in his first year the Bobcats won the Rocky Mountain Conference title with an 8-1 record.
And then he was hired as a defensive assistant by the Chicago Cardinals. In his first season there, the Cardinals had their first winning season in seven years, largely because of a defense that intercepted 33 passes and allowed just nine touchdowns.
But pro football didn’t pay what it does today, and after that one season he returned to Lake Forest as its head coach. His team went 6-2 and tied for the conference title.
He spent a season out of football but in 1959 he returned to the Cardinals, and then, in 1960 , was hired by the Houston Oilers in the brand-new American Football League as an assistant to Lou Rymkus.
Houston won the title that year, but following the season our guy resigned in order to start a sporting goods business.
When the Oilers got off to a 1-3-1 start the next year, and Rymkus clashed with owner Bud Adams and appeared in danger of losing the club, Adams fired Rymkus and hired our guy. (Part of the reason might have been that the Oilers’ Player Personnel Director was John Breen.)
Leaving the sporting goods business in the hands of his wife, he went to work and immediately made a difference. A major reason was his low-key, football-should-be-fun approach.
Of Rymkus, said Oilers’ QB Jacky Lee, “If you smiled it was like you had committed a crime. If a guy laughed, Lou would stop practice and lecture us on being hard-nosed… As far as I'm concerned, I think better and learn things quicker when I'm relaxed. I think most players do."
Our guy? He said, on taking the job, “Pro football players, like anybody else, do their jobs better when they like their work."
His approach was conservative and understated. He reinstated George Blanda as his quarterback, and in order to reduce the chance of errors, he simplified the offense. “Football is supposed to be fun,” he said, “and if you treat the players like adults they will usually respond like adults. The game is not really simple any more because the defenses change so much, but we try to keep it as clear, straightforward and pleasurable as we can.”
In that one season, he did a remarkable job. The Oilers went 10-0 and repeated as AFL champions, beating San Diego in the title game, and he was named AFL Coach of the Year.
And then, the following February, saying that he wanted to be closer his home in suburban Chicago, he quit to become head coach of the NFL Cardinals (who were now in St. Louis, having just moved there in 1960).
You want irony? In St. Louis he succeeded Pop Ivy, who had resigned with two games left in the season. The guy that the Oilers hired to replace him in Houston? None other than Pop Ivy.
How different was the NFL in those days? How cheap were the Bidwills, owners of the Cardinals? They gave their head coach a one-year contract.
Despite internal strife in the organization, he got the Cardinals within a whisker of the NFL title game, finishing the 1964 season with a 9-3-2 record, just a half-game behind the division-winning (and eventual NFL Champion) Cleveland Browns.
A lot went into his departure from St. Louis, including organizational problems and the club’s insistence that he move to St. Louis (he still lived in the Chicago area in the off-season), and after the 1966 season he resigned and returned to Houston as Oilers’ head coach.
In the time since he had left the Oilers in 1962, they had gone through three head coaches. In his second year there, Houston won the AFL Eastern Division, but got wiped out in the AFL Championship game by Oakland (which would go on to meet Green Bay in the second Super Bowl). Following the 1970 season, citing health reasons, he resigned and never coached again.
When the dust finally settled, he had a career record as a pro coach of 64-64-7.
And then, just 51, he went into the home construction business in the Houston area.
FRIDAY,
JUNE 14, 2024 “Easy
street leads to a dead end. The hardest roads lead to the best
destinations.” Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of
Canada*********** HAPPY FLAG DAY! HAPPY ARMY DAY!
Long lost among all the “this” day and “that” day garbage (don’t even get me started on the “this” month and “that” month crap) are two days that I consider worth noting.
Since 1916 - before World War I - June 14 has been officially recognized as Flag Day, commemorating the day on which our flag was adopted - June 14, 1777.
It is also recognized as the birthday of the United State Army.
But - lest we forget - it’s also
National Cucumber Day
National New Mexico Day
National Bourbon Day
National Strawberry Shortcake Day
National Pop Goes the Weasel Day
National Wear Blue Day
and - in the evening - National Movie Night
*********** Happy Father’s Day. It has been perhaps the greatest experience of my life to have been a father. I truly do believe that when all’s said and done, our greatest purpose for being on earth is to produce and raise people worthy to carry on our lives - by the way they live theirs.
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “My dad was equally candid in expressing his opinions about a wide range of subjects, even those aimed at helping the country escape the Depression and helping farmers. When Franklin D Roosevelt took office, my father felt some of the programs he put in were just not right. People were getting paid to do very little work or not work hard, and that went against all of his principles. He thought you should work hard for very little. He didn't like entitlements, such as the program called soil banks. He felt it was ridiculous to get paid if you didn't till a field, if you didn't raise anything in it. You should not be paid for doing nothing. He refused any involvement.
“In contrast, my mom rarely expressed herself or asserted her opinions. Doris Henderson Lude had grown up in Vicksburg, Michigan, and finished high school, which made her a well-educated person for her generation. She was a strong believer in education and helped me with homework in reading, writing, history, and geography. Dad's strength was mathematics, a necessity in calculating the market value of farm products, even though he dropped out of eighth grade to work in the fields.
“Mother was a very loving person who never said anything unkind about anyone. Her feelings were easily wounded. Yet her determination could be unbendable. She was not raised on a farm, but when she and my dad moved from her parents’ home, she wanted to become a good farm wife, regardless of the hardships involved.
Grandpa Lude thought Dad had married a city girl who was weak and not tough enough to be a farmer's wife, and he was less than supportive of my mom. Her determination helped her reach her goal. She took a lot of pride in her cooking, and her somewhat chubby appearance was a testimonial to how much she appreciated the fruits of her rather crude kitchen equipment and difficult culinary conditions. She put on great dinners for the relatives from Kalamazoo, and invitations to the farm for a Sunday feast rarely were declined.”
*********** NEWS FLASH… I was ready to go to press when this story broke on TV…
A few miles to the west of us, in Vancouver,
Washington, is Mountain View High School. When it opened in 1981,
it adopted as its nickname The Thunder. That had been the name of
the WFL football team I’d worked for, the one that hired me and brought
me to the Northwest. Mountain View also chose our colors - blue
and green, very appropriate to the Northwest, and our logo - a “T” (for
thunder) in the shape of a lightning strike going right though a
football. I’m about to tell you something that very few people in this world know: I designed that logo. I’m not without artistic talent - spent a year of college pursuing an architecture major - and we didn’t have the money or the time to pay an ad agency to do it, so…
The Portland Thunder hasn’t been around since 1975, but ever since Mountain View High started fielding a football team, the logo’s been on their helmets. Cool. I’m glad they liked it that much, They owe me nothing.
But now - you’ll be hearing more about this, I’m sure. Mountain View opened in a brand-new building this past fall, and the student body thought it would be a nice idea to cover one of the bare walls with a gift - an AI-generated mural depicting their (unofficial) mascot, the Norse god Thor.
It’s getting late and I’ve got to wrap this up, but to be short, the school district’s equity department, insidious creatures deposited like louse eggs in practically every institution in America, moved in and said, “Oh,no, children…” and proceeded to tell them that the mural was a no-go because (being Norse) Thor was - get ready for this - WHITE.
And, ipso facto, that made the mural “white supremacist.” Furthermore, bringing Title IX into it, they said that the mural was not gender-inclusive, and - using all the big words they know - it was “colonialist,” with undertones of “allusions” to southern racism.
Equity departments. Grrrr. It's impossible for me to describe the contempt I feel for these leeches on society.
https://mynorthwest.com/3962341/rantz-school-district-mascot-thor-mural-racist-white-supremacist/
*********** UFL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME THIS WEEKEND
SATURDAY
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (10-1) VS SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (8-3)
AT ST. LOUIS
5 PM EASTERN TIME - FOX
The teams met just once during the regular season - three weeks ago, when San Antonio won, 18-9.
Both teams have good defenses. Wade Philips, San Antonio head coach, had a good career in the NFL as a defensive coach.
After pulling his starting QB, Adrian Martinez, and replacing him with Matt Corral in last week’s semi-final win over Michigan, Birmingham’s Skip Holtz may have a quarterback problem on his hands.
Philips has no such problem. He’s been getting good play from Chase Garbers, who just returned a week ago after missing most of the season with a wrist injury. Starting in Garbers’ place while he was injured, Quinten Dormady did a great job.
San Antonio’s Anthony McFarland may be the difference. He is a strong runner with breakaway speed. For much of the season, Martinez was Birmingham’s best runner; but if he’s not their starting quarterback, who is their best runner?
Birmingham’s best receiver is tight end Jace Sternberger; San Antonio’s is Jontre Kirklin.
I like the way San Antonio’s been playing and if I had to bet, I’d go with the Brahmas.
*********** Saw Warren Moon at a CFL game - he was in Edmonton to celebrate something or other (he starred at QB for the Eskimos - now the Elks) and he looked pretty good.
Here’s a good one for you: he’s the only person who’s in both the CFL and the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player.
Bud Grant’s in both, but as a coach.
*********** You learn something new every day. Until this past weekend, I’d never heard of Lindsey Wilson.
No, Lindsey Wilson is not a woman. Not a guy, either.
Lindsey Wilson is a college. In Columbia, Kentucky. It has about 2000 students. It’s going to become known as the place where Cameron Dukes played his college ball.
Cameron Dukes is 25 years old and - by default - he’s the starting quarterback of the CFL Toronto Argonauts.
He’s a native of Shepherdsville, Kentucky and before he went to Lindsey Wilson he played ball at Bullitt County High School.
In his four years at Lindsey Wilson, he threw for 10,439 yards and 114 touchdowns
In 2020, he led the Lindsey Wilson Blue Raiders to the NAIA national title
He’s just a couple of years out of college - played a year of Arena Ball and spent last year with Toronto as Chad Kelly’s back-up.
But with Kelly now serving a nine-game suspension given him as a result of the club’s investigation into a lawsuit filed by a former strength and conditioning coach - a female, as it turns out - Cameron Dukes is the Argos’ starter.
How’s he doing? Well, in the Argos’ opener, he led them to a 35-27 defeat of British Columbia, completing 21 of 27 for 254 yards (9.4 yards per attempt) and 3 TDs. He didn’t throw an interception. He was also the Argos’ second-leading rusher, carrying five times for 37 yards, and scoring a fourth TD on a sneak..
LIndsey Wilson plays its home games in Parnell Family Stadium (capacity 1,500).
Its 2024 schedule
Texas Wesleyan University
Point University
Bluefield University (Virginia)
St. Andrews University
Faulkner University
University of the Cumberlands
Campbellsville University
Cumberland University
Bethel University
Georgetown College
Other than the fact that most of these are schools not well known to even ardent fans of college football, I find it interesting how routinely and casually even the smallest of colleges find it necessary to call themselves “universities.”
In this case, Georgetown couldn’t do it because there’s already a much better-known Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
But wait - this gives me an idea. If a small school in Kentucky can get away with calling itself “Georgetown” and perhaps confuse an applicant or two…
Could I maybe get a post office box and start a college in Princeton, Indiana? Or Harvard, Illinois? Or Yale, Michigan? (At a bargain rate of $30,000 a year, my “Yale College” could offer a “Yale diploma” at half the price of the one in New Haven, and still make me money.)
The 2020 NAIA championship game highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kQKHUxbLh4
*********** I like the Canadian Football League rule that requires the defensive line to be one yard back off the line of scrimmage.
*********** The death of Jerry West reminded me of the time in Baltimore that my boss and I were out to lunch at some tavern in Highlandtown (pronounced “Hollandtown” in Baltimorese) and some guy at the bar was sounding the praises of Jerry West.
You could tell from his accent that the guy, like Jerry West, was a West Virginian (often disparagingly called “hillbillies,” there were a lot of Mountaineers in that section of town, attracted to Baltimore by work in the steel mills and automobile factories).
When the guy left, my boss, who wasn’t a big sports fan, and obviously hadn’t had much practice deciphering mountain twang, turned to me and said, “Who the hell is this Jerry Wish?”
*********** I bet you don’t have any truck drivers in your town as dumb as this one in our neighboring town…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozqCEhIu8F8
*********** It is possible that colleges will eventually have to treat athletes as employees.
And that means that even those athletes who aren’t stars and don’t have NIL deals will still have to be paid minimum wage.
It’s $7.25 in many states where college football is big: Alabama , Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin.
But in several other states, it’s more than that, in some a lot more. In Washington ($16.28), California ($16.00), New Jersey ($15.13) and Maryland ($15.00) it’s more than twice $7.25.
That’s already going to put schools in those states at a disadvantage,
And then, depending on the state, “employers” may be required to pay time-and-a-half for overtime - work in excess of eight hours a day, or 40 hours a week. Surely, for football, travel to and from a Saturday game at the end of a week would almost certainly become “overtime."
Assume Stanford playing a football game at Miami: hours spent in travel (assuming a charter flight) would be one hour to San Francisco airport, then six hours in flight, then one hour from the Miami airport.
Stanford, being in California, would be required to pay every “employee” $16.00 an hour.
That’s a minimum of eight hours @ $16.00/hour, or $128 per player. The total for a traveling squad of 70 players: $8,960.
But at time-and-a-half, that’s eight hours @ $24.00/hour, or $192 per player. The total for the 70-man squad: $13,400.
Colleges will likely reach deeper into their pockets for that kind of money, if it’s to pay “employees” of football, a sport that brings in money. But they’re also going to have to pay the softball players and the volleyball players the minimum wage, and the they only way they’re going to avoid having to do it for softball and volleyball - and all the other non-revenue sports - is to eliminate those sports altogether.
******** Spring practice update.
Watched a school with very few kids and very little apparent talent working at the usual spread offense (what a surprise), with four wide outs and one running back, and not a single offensive lineman with a hand on the ground.
What’s sad is that they’re going to get killed. And the head coach has played enough ball and coached at enough places that he has to realize this. You might think that he’d be trying something - anything - that might give his kids half a chance. But no, despite all the warnings that the bridge has been washed out, it’s full speed ahead.
The “quarterbacks coach” stood and watched as the three quarterbacks threw the ball back and forth. All of them had glaring fundamental flaws in their throwing techniques, but there was no teaching - no attempt to correct. All he did was watch them throw and catch. Well, not always “catch.” One of the kids missed more of the passes thrown to him than he caught, and yet the coach just stood and watched. No comment.
It would have taken only one drop before I walked over very close to him and reminded him of something that every quarterback I’ve coached in the last 20 years has heard me say (because I heard great quarterback coaches say it), starting on Day One: “The quarterback’s number one job is to protect the ball.”
And then I’d ask him a simple question: How can you expect receivers to catch your passes if you don’t care enough to catch the ball yourself?
And then I’d give him a drill to do on his own time - throw a tennis ball against a wall and catch it. Two hands. 100 catches. Every day.
If we’re going to develop a respect for ball security on our team it has to start with our quarterbacks.
*********** Is the day far off when a major league baseball player, one who never went to college, hangs ‘em up as a major leaguer and then decides to go play a couple of years college ball?
*********** John Canzano - Bill Walton’s reading list
Father’s Day is coming. It typically sparks a flurry of book buying. But I wonder if we might also pick one of Walton’s favorite titles for ourselves. I plan to read a lot of them. Not just because they look like wonderful, smart, interesting books, but because in some small way, it feels like a continuation of the journey Walton took us on over the years as a player and broadcaster.
The Hall of Fame basketball player did not include his book: “Back from the Dead” on the list. It wasn’t his style. But I’m adding Walton’s memoir and publishing the complete list here.
As Walton told me after his book was published: “Who would have ever thought little Billy from San Diego with his red hair, his big nose, his freckles, his goofy, nerdy-looking face, his inability to speak, little Billy — now a best-selling New York Times author.”
Bill Walton’s Favorite Books:
Studs Terkel, “Hope Dies Last”
David Halberstam, “The Children”
Irving Stone, “The Origin”
Tom Wolfe, “The Bonfire of the Vanities”
William H. Dana, “Two Years Before the Mast”
Bill Russell, “Go Up for Glory”
Robert Hughes, “The Fatal Shore”
T. Harry Williams, “Huey Long”
Robert Caro, “The Power Broker”
John Wooden, “My Personal Best”
David Halberstam, “The Coldest Winter”
Gerda Weissman Klein, “All But My Life”
Edward Dolnick, “Down the Great Unknown”
Stephen Ambrose, “Undaunted Courage”
Walter Isaacson, “Steve Jobs”
David Axelrod, “Believer”
Ashley Vance, “Elon Musk”
Phil Knight, “Shoe Dog”
Jane Mayer, “Dark Money”
John Fogerty, “Fortunate Son”
Bill Graham, “Bill Graham Presents”
Shep Gordon, “Supermensch”
Peter Cozzens, “The Earth is Weeping”
Eric Weiner, “The Geography of Genius”
Eric Weiner, “The Geography of Bliss"
Rinker Buck, “The Oregon Trail”
Kareem Abdul Jabbar, “Coach Wooden and Me”
Aili and Andres McConnon, “Road to Valor”
William George Jordan, “The Majesty of Calmness”
Sinclair Lewis, “It Can’t Happen Here”
Viet Thanh Nguten, “The Sympathizer”
Yuval Noah Harari, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”
Al Franken, “Giant of the Senate”
Jonathan Fenby, “Tiger Head Snake Tails: China Today, How it Got There, and Where it is Heading”
Brad Stone, “The Everything Store, The Age of Amazon”
Timothy Egan, “Summary of The Immortal Irishman”
Timothy Egan, “The Good Rain”
Timothy Egan, “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher”
Timothy Egan, “A Pilgrimage To Eternity”
Coleman Whitehead, “The Underground Railroad”
Christopher Lochhead, “Play Bigger”
Kenneth Brower, “The Wildness Within”
Salmon Rushdie, “The Golden House”
Matt Young, “Eat The Apple”
Ernest Callenbach, “Ecotopia”
David Talbot, “Season of the Witch”
Stephen Harrigan, “The Gates of the Alamo”
John Perry Barlow, and Robert Greenfield, “Mother American Night”
Peter Frankopan, “The Silk Roads, A New History of the World”
Robbie Robertson, “Testimony”
Joe Hagan, “Sticky Fingers: The Jann Wenner Story”
Michael Pollan, “How to Change Your Mind”
Daniel James Brown, “The Boys in the Boat”
Steve Martin, “Born Standing Up”
Roger McNamee, “Zucked”
Trevor Noah, “Born a Crime”
Jean Case, “Be Fearless”
Dick Fosbury, “The Wizard of Foz”
Jack Sheehan, “Quiet Kingmaker of Las Vegas”
Eric Schmidt, “Trillion Dollar Coach”
Alan Weisman, “The World Without Us”
Jonathan Bloom, “American Wasteland”
Peter Sagan, “My World”
Robert Iger, “The Ride of a Lifetime”
Hampton Sides, “Blood and Thunder”
Jack Nisbet, “The Collector”
Nick Neely, “Alta California”
Tim Marshall, “Prisoners of Geography”
Robert Dallek, “FDR, A Political Life”
Bill Walton, “Back from the Dead”
*********** A Double-Wing Question:
Q: Hey coach on 88 reach where do we want the a or c back on the snap to time it up right? Thanks.
A: My instruction to the QB is to (1) start RIP/LIZ motion by picking up his foot - and (2) say “GO” when his foot hits the ground.
The motion man starts on the lifting of the foot and goes full speed.
Whatever you do, don’t slow down your motion man. Make any necessary adjustments with the timing of your QB’s foot.
Ideally, the handoff will take place about behind where the playside guard lined up, so it’s important that thaeQB take the correct hockey stick steps (see pages 168 and 169).
Let me know how it goes!
*********** I am grateful the Coach Lude vignettes keep coming. Have to smile thinking of little Milo, the convicted watermelon thief. That crime hurt him profoundly in later life.
The rather long story says Ron Rogerson left a deep imprint. And the author absolutely supports that position. And I noticed mention of, and a photo of, Dean Cain, future Superman (and brother of Will).
Re the Stallions-Panthers game: The camera caught Skip H. shortly before lifting him for Corrall. "Throw the ball to the effin' hash mark. Can you do that, son? Just throw the damned ball to that hash mark right there!" Poor Adrian replied to that televised ass-chewing with yes-sirs and no-sirs. Then Matt bailed them out. The good news is that Skippy has two good QBs.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
As you heard me say on the Zoom, I think that Skip Holtz, who’d done a masterful job all season of maintaining his composure even in stressful times, lost it against Michigan, and as a result he publicly - on TV - chewed his QB’s ass, something no coach should ever do.
*********** Hugh,
At least the two best teams in the UFL will play for the title. But I’m thinking there won’t be a whole lotta folks from Birmingham and San Antonio making that trek to St. Louis to cheer their teams on. May be the first pro championship game of any kind played in front of a dismal crowd.
Dan Hurley: probably figured out his east Coast personality and family wasn’t going to be a good fit in LaLa Land no matter how much dinero they were willing to pay him.
PAC12: The majority of MWC schools will leave to join OSU and WSU. A $$ move for the remaining PAC 2. The MWC Commissioner will be named the new PAC-West commish. She’s smart and highly thought of, will negotiate a great media deal, and look to add other schools that bring a good revenue stream. My bet is she tries to keep a geographical balance pared with lucrative media markets. UTSA will be one to watch.
Stanford and Cal will stay ACC for a couple years until either that conference blows up, or both schools finally realize cross-country budget constraints aren’t sustainable. They’ll be welcomed back by the new PAC-West with open arms.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Mike Singletary was the youngest of ten children and grew up in Houston. From the time he was a freshman, he was a standout at all-black Worthing High School, which also produced NFL greats Otis Taylor and Cliff Branch.
He starred at linebacker at Baylor, earning all-Southwest Conference honors his sophomore, junior and senior years, and All-America honors his junior and senior years. He also won the Davey O’Brien Award, given at the time to the outstanding football player in the Southwest, in each of his last two seasons. In his senior year, Baylor won 10 games for the first time in school history.
Drafted in the second round by the Chicago Bears, he earned the start at middle linebacker by the seventh game of his rookie season, and wound up winning Rookie of the Year honors. From that point, he went on to a career that would place him with all-time greats Bill George and Dick Butkus in the pantheon of Bears’ middle linebackers.
He played 12 years - all with the Bears - and started 172 games for them, second among all Bears’ players only to Walter Payton’s 184.
In his entire career, he missed just two games.
He was selected to 10 Pro Bowls, a Bears’ team record.
He was named All-Pro eight times, and All-NFC nine straight years.
For 11 straight seasons, he was either first or second among Bears’ defenders in tackles.
For his career, he was credited with making 1,488 tackles - 885 of them unassisted.
In both 1985 and 1988 he was named the AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
In 1985, as a key part of Buddy Ryan’s “Bear Defense,” he led one of the greatest defenses in NFL history to a Super Bowl win over the Patriots.
In 1991, he was named the Bart Starr Award winner, given annually to the NFL player who "best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field, and in the community.”
He was named to both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and in 1999 he was named to The Sporting News’ list of the 100 Greatest Football Players of all time.
Following his playing career, he started out as an assistant with the Baltimore Ravens, but when fellow Ravens’ assistant Mike Nolan was hired as the 49ers’ head coach, he went with Nolan as assistant head coach and linebackers’ coach.
When Nolan was fired partway though their fourth season, our guy was named interim head coach, and after going 5-4 the rest of the way, he was officially named head coach.
He went 8-8 in his first full season, but after going 5-10 in his second season, he was fired.
He coached briefly as an assistant with the Vikings and then the Rams, and most recently coached in spring leagues.
Mike Singletary is an ordained minister. In addition to being a motivational speaker, he has written or co-authored several books.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MIKE SINGLETARY
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JASON MENSING - ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** Always knew he came from Baylor, but hadn't noticed he was essentially a Bear for life.)
John Vermillion
*********** One of my favorite players, even for a Green Bay native!
Scott Mallien
*********** That picture of Mike Singletary standing across the line of scrimmage looking like a crazed pit bull still makes me shudder.
David Crump
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Mobile, Alabama, and went to Vigor High School in Prichard, just outside Mobile. Following a standout high school career he was named defensive MVP in the annual Alabama High School All-Star Game, and signed to play at Jackson State.
At Jackson State, he was switched from tight end to linebacker in his sophomore year. In his senior year, he led the SWAC in interceptions , and made the All-SWAC first team and Black College All-American first team. Jackson State, loaded with talent (including running back Walter Payton), won the SWAC championship in both his junior and senior seasons. He wound up setting a school record for tackles.
Following graduation, he was named to play in the annual College All-Star Game in Chicago, an honor seldom accorded HBCU players. And that’s where he acquired the nickname “Doctor Doom.” USC linebacker Richard Wood first suggested it, and it was seconded by broadcaster Howard Cosell, who said it was an acronym for “Death on Offensive Men.” He loved the nickname and would prove himself worthy of it.
He was chosen by the Houston Oilers in the first round of the NFL draft, the sixth player taken. His teammate, Payton, had been the fourth player taken, and together, they became the highest-drafted pair of teammates in Mississippi college history.
He arrived at Houston at the same time as new head coach/GM Bum Philips (whose idea it had been to draft him) and he fit perfectly into Philip’s 3-4 defensive scheme as a pass-rushing outside linebacker.
He pretty much defined the position. He was 6-4, 240, with 4.6 speed, and with the ability to rush or cover, he was so successful at the spot that Philips would later refer to him as “Lawrence Taylor before Lawrence Taylor.”
He was the defensive rookie of the year, and in ten years with the Oilers, he would start every game - a team-record 147 straight games.
By the time he was finished…
He would be selected to the Pro Bowl for seven consecutive seasons.
He would be named to six consecutive All-Pro teams - first team for five years in a row, and second team in year number six.
He would get 48 sacks. Sacks were only counted officially by the NFL for his final three seasons, during which he was credited with 11. But unofficially, his career total was 48.
He would intercept 13 passes, and recover 14 fumbles.
His honors have been many:
He is a member of the Houston Oilers All-Time Team, the Black College Football 100-Year Team, and the NFL’s 1970s All-Decade Team.
He is in the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame, the SWAC Hall of Fame, the Jackson State University Sports Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and - most significant - the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He survived quadruple heart bypass surgery in 2001, and spent more than 20 years teaching special-needs middle-school kids in his native Mobile. Reflecting on that, he said, ”I always knew what to expect on the football field. You never know what's coming next in the classroom."
TUESDAY,
JUNE 11, 2024 “There is nothing so stupid as
an educated man, if you get him off the thing he was educated
in.” Will Rogers********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “One of my boyhood heroes was a man named Charlie Davidson, a Spanish-American War veteran, who lived a quarter-mile down the road. Uncle Charlie would sit me on his knee and stir my imagination with story after story about the war. What a wonderful man.
“Charlie also had a watermelon patch. One of the rare childhood transgressions my dad ever admitted to was sneaking into the gardens of neighboring farms and swiping watermelons, so I guess I thought it was OK for me to do the same thing. The day after my criminal venture into Uncle Charlie's garden, he told my father that some of his watermelons were missing and there were footprints leading up the hill to our place.
“Confronted, I lied. Who me? I didn't do that. Privileges were taken away and punishment meted out with a stern tongue lashing: Dad said it was important in our family to always tell the truth, regardless of what sort of anguish the truth might create. You'll always be punished when you don't tell the truth, and the punishment will be more severe if you lie and we find out later you were dishonest. Dishonesty is not tolerated in this family.”
*********** UFL SEMI-FINAL GAMES THIS WEEKEND
The two games were, if I must say, rather ugly. Michigan played a bit over their heads, while Birmingham looked sluggish. St. Louis looked as if the game of football was new to them. Only San Antonio looked like a championship caliber team.
SATURDAY
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (10-1) 31, MICHIGAN PANTHERS (7-4) 18
This was not the blowout that the score might make it seem. Birmingham didn’t take the lead until 13:42 remained in the fourth quarter.
It was a sloppy, listless game for the most part - there were six turnovers in the third quarter.
This was the second straight sub-par game for Adrian Martinez, named the UFL’s All-Star QB, and Birmingham coach Skip Holtz saved the day with his decision to pull Martinez in favor of Matt Corall. Corall, who early in the season was sharing time with Martinez, had been relegated to a backup role as Martinez led Birmingham to a 7-1 record. But to his great credit, he stayed sharp, and when his time came Saturday, he came through: he was 9 of 11 for 120 yards and two touchdowns.
Now, in next week’s UFL title game, Birmingham meets San Antonio, the only team to have beaten them this season, and Holtz is faced with a real quarterback controversy.
SUNDAY
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (8-3) 25, ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (7-4) 15
Shocking. It may have been because last week’s meeting between the two teams went St, Louis’ way, but the difference in the way the two teams approached this week’s game was absolutely shocking. If it weren’t for the fact that nobody could have cared enough to bet that much on this game, you’d swear St. Louis had gone in the tank. Not to disparage San Antonio’s performance in any way - they rushed 35 times for 210 yards (115 of them by Anthony McFarland, who had a 69-yard TD run) and Chase Garbers completed 15 of 21 for 198 and two TDs, to go with a terrific defensive performance. But St. Louis made several mistakes of the sort that characterize poor JV games, and offensively they were a joke. They went into the game with a quarterback whose ankle was so bad that when he was asked about it before the game he answered, quite honestly, “It’s as good as it’s going to get.” But if they made any allowances for the fact that he was at less than his best, there was little evidence of it: they didn’t make any effort to come up with a running game (20 carries for 28 yards) and they didn’t make any special effort to protect the quarterback, who was sacked four times. By halftime, his ankle was reinjured.
They made some crazy-ass calls - a sort of double-reverse pass, and a play they called “Chaos” (we know that because we heard the OC call it). Chaos was aptly named. It involved a three-man bunch wide to the right, another three-man bunch wide to the left, and a center over the ball, with a guard on each side. That left the QB and a running back, and the QB wound up being forced to run when none of the hoped-for brilliant options appeared. On short-yardage plays, they looked as if someone had told them they had five downs to get 10 yards, so they could go ahead and throw the damn thing on third-and-two, or fourth-and-one. (Might as well throw, after looking at those running stats.) The idea of putting on a drive never seemed to have crossed their minds. Say what you will about AI - AI is based on learning from mistakes and making corrections. There was no evidence of that in the humans up in the St. Louis press box Sunday.
Now, here’s the best:
For almost 50 years, the NFL never played a league championship game in any place but the city of one of the two teams playing. When the NFL finally did play the big game at a neutral site, it wasn’t actually the NFL championship - it was the first of the yet-to-be-named Super Bowls, a game against the champion of a rival league.
But the UFL knew better. So next week’s championship game, between San Antonio and Birmingham, will be played in - ST. LOUIS.
*********** THE RON ROGERSON STORY - PART TWO
The “Delaware” Wing T was not invented In Delaware. It got its start at the University of Maine. The head coach there was Dave Nelson, and his two assistants were Mike Lude and Harold Westerman. When Nelson was offered the job at Delaware, Mike Lude went with him, but Westerman chose to remain at Maine and succeed Nelson as head coach.
Years later, when Mike Lude was head coach at Colorado State, he brought in a young graduate assistant named Ron Rogerson, who had played for Westerman at Maine and had come highly recommended.
After two years at Colorado State, Rogerson spent a year at Lebanon Valley (in Pennsylvania) and then spent ten seasons at Delaware before returning to Maine as head coach.
After four years at Maine, he was hired as head coach at Princeton, and there began a 2-part story…
Part one told of his unlikely climb to become head coach at one of America’s most prestigious universities. Here, in part two, is the rest of an amazing story.
https://www.princetontigersfootball.com/2018/08/for-having-just-two-years-rogersons-impact-is-ceaseless/
*********** Dan Hurley, who’s won two straight NCAA basketball tournaments, has turned down a multi-million dollar offer to coach the Lakers. Instead, he’s staying at UConn.
Coupla reactions:
1. He’ll have a lifetime job at UConn if that’s what he wants.
2. I like Connecticut - went to school there, made our first home as a couple there, and had our son there - and I have some coaching friends there. As for UConn - ever since Randy Edsall jilted them after the Fiesta Bowl and flew straight to Maryland - didn’t even fly back with the team - football’s been an uphill fight. Maybe basketball’s enough for them.
3. He joins a very exclusive club of great college coaches who have publicly turned down offers to coach professional teams. Offhand, I can think only of Joe Paterno and Mike Krzyzewski
4. Even for $10 million a year, could YOU make it through even one year dealing with all those monster egos? (I would first make sure that all the checks had cleared and I’d have enough in the bank for a couple of million after taxes - and then I’d walk into the GM’s office and say, “F—k it. I’m outta here.”
5. Maybe college sports aren’t irreparably broken. Yet.
******** It’s spring practice time in Washington. My wife and I have been out to watch four or five schools’ practices, and one thing is apparent. They’ve all got decent numbers out - 60 or so, which don’t include next year’s freshmen. But there’s another thing that’s apparent: that body count can be deceptive, because they were all spread teams, and at every one of them, at least 20 of the players were receivers!
Moral: While it seems to be conventional wisdom that going to a sexier offense will help you boost your numbers, if all it really does is get more receiver types out for football, isn’t it just fool’s gold?
*********** John Canzano on the final gasping breaths of the Pac-12…
The Pac-12 Conference as we knew it ended on a called third strike at 12:33 a.m. ET on Monday in Kentucky.
Oregon State’s baseball team outlasted its Pac-12 peers. The final breath of the 108-year-old conference was taken in the blasted Eastern Time Zone by a university now faced with the climb of its life. In a twist of irony, the Beavers played beyond every other Pac-12 team competing in every other sport.
What were your first thoughts after the final out?
Mine included Pac-12 greats such as Jackie Robinson, Bill Walton, John Elway, Jim Plunkett, Reggie Bush, Ronnie Lott, Marcus Mariota, Dan Fouts, Steven Jackson, Terry Baker, Sabrina Ionescu, Sonny Sixkiller, Napoleon Kaufman, Cam Rising, John Olerud, Drew Bledsoe, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and a host of others.
I also thought about lousy leadership, rotten governance, the nauseating influence of media companies, greed, gluttony, arrogance, a gaggle of inept university presidents, and bumbling commissioners Larry Scott and George Kliavkoff.
I also thought about geographical bias, population density in the United States, and what that has to do with conference consolidation. Let’s face it, when it came to shuttering one of the Power Five conferences — five shrinking to four — it should be no surprise that the Pacific Time Zone got the shaft. That’s not new.
Never mind that the Pac-12 has more NCAA titles than any other conference. Never mind that it produced more Olympians. Never mind that it had attractive TV markets (see: LA, Bay Area, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, etc.). The forces working behind the scenes sniffed out the vulnerability in the ecosystem and systematically went to work.
An athletic director at one of the “Four Corners” schools messaged me in August, just 48 hours before the conference’s implosion: “Peers from other conferences are trying to take the league along with TV executives trying to own it all.
The Big Ten had already snatched the Los Angeles TV market and, in the eleventh hour of the Pac-12’s overcooked negotiation, Fox added the two brands it coveted in the Pacific Northwest. The Big 12 and ACC picked over what was left, or at least what their media partners agreed to pay for.
Still, here was Oregon State baseball on Sunday night, a three-time national champion, fighting for one more inning of life. That called third strike slammed the door, not just on the OSU baseball season, but on what was at its core, a beautiful conference with some problematic leadership issues.
I’ve written several columns in recent months about the “lasts” in the Pac-12. The last football season. The last championship game. The last baseball tournament and final Pac-12 Network broadcast. Sunday marked another last.
The last… last?
Because now, we’ll get some firsts. First Big Ten and Big 12 football games for some schools. First ACC games for Stanford and Cal. And the first official day of a new quest for WSU and OSU.
*********** JOHN CANZANO AGAIN
Q: Suppose Oregon State and WSU were going to add eight G5 teams to their conference. Who would be the top choices? For me: SDSU, Boise State, Memphis, Tulane, USF, UConn, Colorado State, and UNLV.
A: I’m only adding six unless you put a gun to my head. I prefer to wait and see what happens in the ACC and the rest of the landscape. But San Diego State would be at the top of my “want” list. The geography works and you’ve got a toe back in Southern California.
After that, I’ll take Boise State, Colorado State, UNLV, Fresno State, and Air Force.
That maintains geographical integrity and gets the Pac-12 to the NCAA’s minimum of eight conference members. If Stanford and Cal are eventually available and interested, I’d want some room to add them, but I wonder if the Bay Area schools would be caught dead alongside the members I’ve noted.
For those who think that OSU and WSU should just accept relegation and join the MWC, I’d offer that they’d be surrendering more than $200 million in assets by doing so. That would be dumb. Under the circumstances, you’re either rebuilding or accepting a no-brainer invitation to a P4 conference.
I CAN’T FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIGURE OUT WHY WYOMING IS CONSISTENTLY LEFT OUT OF ANY SUCH SPECULATION.
*********** Harvard finished tied for 16th place in the NCAA Men’s Track and Field Championships. Before you pooh-pooh it, bear this in mind: It was the highest finish of any non-Power 4 conference school.
*********** If a football player is paid to do good works, is it really “good works?”
AS A MANAGER OF AN NIL COLLECTIVE TOLD THE ATHLETIC: For the traditional nonprofit, we have a deal where you get paid a certain amount a month and you have to make a charitable appearance for the work that month. It’s one appearance for a payment. If there are bonuses, he does more for that. We work out with local charities where five players will come to you this week. Some guys will help coach flag football games for local fatherless boys who want to see the players. That’s an appearance. It’s typically two to four hours in exchange for a payment from the nonprofit.
Remember when college athletes would actually spend time with fatherless boys just because it was a great thing for the fatherless boys - and, as it would often turn out, for the college athletes as well?
*********** Hi Coach Wyatt! Hope this finds you well. I am so enjoying the zoom recordings still, and hope to get in on a live one soon. As you may know, the school I coach at plays our home games at Cal Poly. I was there today for a 7on7 and saw this and thought you might like it. I will send more pics as the construction continues... As always please give my best to Mrs Wyatt.
Kurt Heinke
Atascadero, California
*********** I hope you’re well, family finally got moved to Sunny Florida! Lemon Bay Football is off and running old school (we are running Michigan Power T as our base but there is ample DW concepts that is part of the package and I'm hoping at some point we will be able to get competent enough at our core package that we will be able to run the core DW as well there are plenty of commonalities). I'm excited about our staff as I have a crew of good men and guys who are going to be outstanding Coaches. We have had 4 (including myself) added to the faculty which is of course huge as well. It is almost an entire staff turnover and roster turnover as only 2 kids on the roster started a game last year both on defense. We did "win" the quarter we played in the spring game with St. John Nuemann 14-0 and I feel our kids and staff are buying into the old school, tough minded, no diva (WR) Football that we are going to play. We won't be more athletic then most of our opponents so we are going to strive on being tougher and more disciplined. Additionally, our Youth program seems to be jumping on board and installing our schemes as well..
God Bless,
Jason Mensing
Head Football Coach,
Lemon Bay High School
Englewood, Florida
*********** Seeing Joe Gutilla's mention of Cossacks, it reminds me of my idea that I have for our Pulaski high school — I always thought it might be fun to put Oregon wings on our helmets to reference the Polish Winged Hussars. I figured it would be a perfect blend of our Polish heritage and our offense.
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
OUTSTANDING idea! GO for it!!!
*********** I shouldn't have been on edge about June rolling around, but the waving on the LBGTIA+ flag is everywhere in the sports world, nearly impossible to avoid. Hurrah for the football coach who tells his administration he's there to coach football...he won't be speaking out on behalf of the social issues the media favors. And someone in authority in the military tells the world he's preparing the American Armed Forces to fight and win America's wars, preferably through deterrence, and if you have another issue you're pushing, take it somewhere else.
From the moment I first read Butker's speech, I liked it. It was clean, clear, thoughtful. It did not diminish females in any way. Only a fool, in my modest opinion, could read it as an attack on women. Thanks for showing more than the cherry-picked 10-second clips ESPN will show you.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
On the 40th anniversary of D-Day President Ronald Reagan delivered one of his most famous speeches. On the 80th anniversary of D-Day the current President used similar words without the same effect!
Joel Klatt recently commented on why USC should drop Notre Dame from their future schedules. Well Joel, if they do, it won’t be for anything else but the fact that ND has beaten them like a drum over the past 10 years.
Never thought in my lifetime a kicker would become the standard bearer for nuclear families all over this country. I am still not a fan of the NFL, but I am a fan of Harrison Butker.
At one time the Wing-T had a formidable place in college football. Even Ara Parseghian of Notre Dame employed a very successful version of it in the late 60’s/early 70’s. Football is cyclical, and “compressed” formations are making a comeback in helping to return the game to it’s more physical roots.
Enjoy the weekend, and those playoffs!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe,
Ironic that now that USC is joining the Big Ten and Stanford is joining the ACC, and coast-to-coast trips will become routine, Joel Klatt suggests doing away with what may be the oldest intersectional rivalry in college football, one dating back to the days when USC and Notre Dame took multi-day train trips to play their game.
To me, it’s as big a game nationally as there is, going all the way back to Rockne, and Joel Klatt, a relative newcomer to the game, has no standing to suggest ending something as sacred as Notre Dame-USC.
Not only are “compressed formations" a return to the past, but so, too, is the shotgun. Today’s “quarterback” is a glorified single-wing tailback.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Ralph Friedgen’s father was his high school coach in Harrison, New York. As a senior, calling all the plays himself, he quarterbacked his team to an undefeated season.
Recruited by Maryland, he wound up having three head coaches in his first three years, playing a different position under each one. He arrived as a quarterback, was moved to fullback in his sophomore season, and moved to the offensive line as a junior. Discouraged, he considered transferring until his father told him that if he did he wouldn’t be welcomed at home: “Quitters,” Dad said, “don't live here."
He stayed, earning All-ACC academic honors, and twice winning the team’s award for having the highest academic average.
After graduation he served as a graduate assistant at Maryland, then began a long association with Bobby Ross when Ross hired him to coach the defensive line at The Citadel.
He spent seven seasons there, the last three as offensive coordinator, before moving to William and Mary as its offensive coordinator. He spent one season there, and one season as assistant head coach at Murray State, and in 1982 he rejoined Ross at Maryland as offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.
In five years at Maryland, the Terps went 39-15-1 and won three straight ACC championships (1983-85). While at Maryland, he was instrumental in developing three quarterbacks - Boomer Esiason, Frank Reich and Stan Gelbaugh - who all went on to NFL careers of ten years or more.
In 1987, when Ross moved to Georgia Tech, our guy went along as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, and in 1990, although Tech was unranked prior to the season, the Jackets won the national title.
After five seasons, Ross was named head coach of the San Diego Chargers, and named Friedgen as his running game coordinator. In his third season, Friedgen was named offensive coordinator, and when the Chargers made it to the Super Bowl - for the first time in their history - he became one of the very few coaches to have served as offensive coordinator for a national college champion and for a Super Bowl team.
In 1997, he returned to Georgia Tech as offensive coordinator under George O’Leary, and in his second season there , Yellow Jackets were co-champions of the ACC, defeated Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, and ended the season ranked in the Top Ten. In 1999, he was named the winner of the Frank Broyles Award as the top assistant coach in the country
In 2000, after being an assistant for 32 years (and an offensive coordinator for 21 of them), he finally landed his first head coaching job. It was at his alma mater, Maryland, where he’d coached twice before, as a graduate assistant, and then as offensive coordinator.
The Terps had been through five straight losing seasons, and worse yet, a span of 14 years during which the best that three different coaches could produce was two 6-win seasons.
In his first year, Maryland started out winning its first seven games. The Terps finished 10-2 with a top-ten national ranking, winning the school’s first ACC title in 16 years. For this feat, he was named national coach of the year by every single organization (there are many) presenting such an award.
By the time he was fired 10 years later - despite going 9-4 that year, ranking 23rd nationally and being named ACC Coach of the Year - he had a record of 75-50. He’d taken the Terps to seven bowl games (winning five of them), finished first in the ACC once and second four times, with four national rankings.
Ralph Friedgen’s 75 wins are the third most by a coach in school history, behind only Curly Byrd (119), and Jerry Claiborne (77). (Jim Tatum, who won a national championship at Maryland in 1953, finished with 73 wins.)
His firing by new AD Kevin Anderson was not well received. Anderson had initially retained him, although refusing to give him the contact extension he wanted. Then, when Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin left to take the head coaching job at Vanderbilt, Anderson decided to fire our guy, reasoning that no quality offensive coordinator would take the job, knowing that our guy was on shaky ground.
How monumental was our guy’s run of success? In the first ten years run after his firing, Maryland went 43-70 under four different coaches. Current coach Mike Locksley, who was on our guy’s staff as running backs coach in 2001 and 2002, has put together a current run of 7, 8 and 8 win seasons, each ending with a bowl win, so there’s hope for Terps fans.
To his credit, Locksley had Ralph Friedgen - his former mentor - serve as an honorary captain at a Maryland-Penn State game, saying at the time, “He’s a guy that I have the utmost respect for, that I’ve always looked up to as a guy that loves and has passion for this place like I do. We’re going to bring him back and honor him the right way.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING RALPH FRIEDGEN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JASON MENSING - ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** Ralph Friedgen may have had the worse ending of a Head Coaching Career ever! Kevin Anderson demonstrating the horrible leader he was by not supporting him after being the ACC Coach of the year and having a great run is one of the worst decisions an AD has ever made. Ranks up there with the Frank Solich firing….
Jason Mensing
Englewood, Florida
********** I will never forgive the old Army AD, Kevin Anderson, for letting Coach Friedgen go. Disgraceful.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
When Kevin Anderson got to Army, he had come from Oregon State where his title, everyone was told, was deputy assistant executive AD or some such. His claimed responsibilities there were, at the least, “embellished.” His biog at Army claimed among other things that he was instrumental in recruiting Mike Riley to OSU as its head coach, and, further, that he was responsible for “overseeing” the football program. First of all, before Anderson even got to Oregon State, Riley was the head coach there. Then Riley left to coach the Chargers, and was replaced by Dennis Erickson. And when Erickson left to coach the Seahawks, Riley was available and eager to return. No one needed to recruit him. The “oversight” business is nonsense, because a friend of a friend who was very close to the OSU athletic program told me that at the time Anderson was hired by Army, he’d already been given the word by OSU AD Bob De Carolis that it was time for him to start looking for another job. So Army, not aware that he was on his way out at Oregon State, in their infinite wisdom bailed his ass out by hiring him. And he parlayed the Army job into the Maryland job, where he screwed up the football program big time, before leaving under VERY strange circumstances (unless there are people who don’t think there’s anything strange about an AD taking a six-month “sabbatical” - in the middle of football season). Of course, most people on sabbaticals return to their jobs. Kevin Anderson didn’t.
https://dbknews.com/0999/12/31/arc-2s4qevchnnf33ii2rujmx2qwum/
*********** QUIZ: He was the youngest of ten children and grew up in Houston. From the time he was a freshman, he was a standout at all-black Worthing High School, which also produced NFL greats Otis Taylor and Cliff Branch.
He starred at linebacker at Baylor, earning all-Southwest Conference honors his sophomore, junior and senior years, and All-America honors his junior and senior years. He also won the Davey O’Brien Award, given at the time to the outstanding football player in the Southwest, in each of his last two seasons. In his senior year, Baylor won 10 games for the first time in school history.
Drafted in the second round by the Chicago Bears, he earned the start at middle linebacker by the seventh game of his rookie season, and wound up winning Rookie of the Year honors. From that point, he went on to a career that would place him with all-time greats Bill George and Dick Butkus in the pantheon of Bears’ middle linebackers.
He played 12 years - all with the Bears - and started 172 games for them, second among all Bears’ players only to Walter Payton’s 184.
In his entire career, he missed just two games.
He was selected to 10 Pro Bowls, a Bears’ team record.
He was named All-Pro eight times, and All-NFC nine straight years.
For 11 straight seasons, he was either first or second among Bears’ defenders in tackles.
For his career, he was credited with making 1,488 tackles - 885 of them unassisted.
In both 1985 and 1988 he was named the AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
In 1985, as a key part of Buddy Ryan’s “Bear Defense,” he led one of the greatest defenses in NFL history to a Super Bowl win over the Patriots.
In 1991, he was named the Bart Starr Award winner, given annually to the NFL player who "best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field, and in the community.”
He was named to both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and in 1999 he was named to The Sporting News’ list of the 100 Greatest Football Players of all time.
Following his playing career, he started out as an assistant with the Baltimore Ravens, but when fellow Ravens’ assistant Mike Nolan was hired as the 49ers’ head coach, he went with Nolan as assistant head coach and linebackers’ coach.
When Nolan was fired partway though their fourth season, our guy was named interim head coach, and after going 5-4 the rest of the way, he was officially named head coach.
He went 8-8 in his first full season, but after going 5-10 in his second season, he was fired.
He coached briefly as an assistant with the Vikings and then the Rams, and most recently coached in spring leagues.
He is an ordained minister. In addition to being a motivational speaker, he has written or co-authored several books.
.
FRIDAY,
JUNE 7, 2024 “If you think tough men are
dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.” Jordan
Peterson************ Wisdom from Mike Lude: “While the horses rested my father designated me to pick up stones – they came in all sizes – and throw them in piles at the end of the rows. I would say to him, "Dad, what about Mike resting?” The response was always the same. "Mike, those horses are important and we need those stones picked up.”
“As hard as he worked and as hard as he worked me, my father occasionally showed he had a sense of humor and, in his own way, attempted to motivate me. One of my jobs was cleaning out the stables, and again there was a routine: as the cow dung piled up, I filled the wheelbarrow and hauled it out to the barnyard and dumped the contents on the manure pile. In the early spring we hauled the manure out on the manure spreader and fertilized the fields.
“Cleaning the stables one morning, I discovered what appeared to be a sign hanging over the barn door. I put down my scoop and moved close to read the words: "You'll become what you do.” My father's message was clear if slightly stinky."
*********** “Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, "To Sail Beyond the Sunset "
*********** UFL SEMI-FINAL GAMES THIS WEEKEND
SATURDAY 3 PM Eastern - ABC
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (7-3) at BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (9-1)
Last weekend, Michigan missed a field goal at the end and lost, 20-19
This one could be just as close
Birmingham’s Adrian Martinez has been named All-UFL QB and Jace Sternberger All-UFL TE
Michigan edge Rusher Breeland Speaks is possibly the UFL’s top defensive player
SUNDAY 7 PM Eastern - FOX
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (7-3) at ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (7-3)
Last week, San Antonio lost, 13-12.
St Louis WR Hakeem Butler is 6-6 and fast. He’s probably the best in the UFL; Their running back, Jacob Saylors, was named All-League. Their QB, A.J. McCarron, may be the league’s best, but he’s coming back from an injury
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 7-3
SAN ANTONIO 7-3
DC 4-6
ARLINGTON 3-7
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 9-1
MICHIGAN 7-3
MEMPHIS 2-8
HOUSTON 1-9
*********** MICHIGAN’S MIKE NOLAN HAS BEEN NAMED UFL COACH OF THE YEAR.
*********** As I write this, it’s still June 6. It’s still the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and the start of the Allied invasion on northern Europe. But it’s also the 80th birthday of Seiki Murono, born (on D-Day) in a Japanese internment camp deep in southwest Texas. Seiki Murono would grow up in South Jersey and go on to attend a Division-III college in Pennsylvania where he became the only college football player born in a Japanese internment camp. I managed to get to know him and with his permission and assistance I wrote a brief biography - a short story of his impressive life.
What I found amazing in getting to know him and hear his story was the total lack of bitterness or hard feelings, the absolute refusal to think of himself or his family as victims of one of the most horrendous actions our country ever took against its own citizens.
I defy you to read it and not have enormous respect for his parents and people like them, people who endured almost unthinkable hardship and indignity in order to help their children realize the American Dream.
http://www.coachwyatt.com/SEIKI%20MURONO.html
*********** I found this, while digging through my archives from October, 2002 -
A ringing endorsement of our system... USC came out against Cal in what we would call "Slot formation," and sent four receivers out. The color analyst, whose name I didn't catch, said, "You think this isn't hard to cover?" He explained how, with everybody in tight like that, the four receivers could all spray out.
So here we are, 22 years later, and the pros have gotten around to figuring that out. Gosh - you mean you can actually keep your players in tight - and have a real running game - and STILL “attack the whole field,” just like all those spread-it-out guys whose running games are a joke?
*********** Back in my pre-coaching days, when I was selling corrugated packaging, part of my territory was the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It’s a beautiful part of the country, and it’s absolutely steeped in history. It seemed as if you couldn’t go five miles without seeing a roadside marker telling of this or that event that had taken place during the Civil War. One name that caught my attention - and my imagination - was John Singleton Mosby (pronounced MOZE-bee). He led a group of cavalrymen known as Mosby’s Rangers - independent of the regular Confederate Army - that was so able to bedevil Union forces up and down the Valley, seeming to appear and disappear so quickly, that he was nicknamed the “Gray Ghost.” His Rangers’ favorite saying was,
“Do unto the other fellow as he would do unto you – and do it first. “
https://www.nps.gov/people/john-singleton-mosby.htm
*********** Burr, Nebraska is the hometown of Dean Steinkuhler, Nebraska All-American lineman who played eight years in the NFL with the Houston Oilers. With a population in 2020 of 66 people, it’s believed to be the smallest town ever to produce an All-American football player.
*********** This is the part of Harrison Butker’s commencement address at small and unapologetically conservative, Catholic Benedictine College that offended so many easily-offended feminists (is there any other kind?)
For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.
I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.
[Applause lasting 18 seconds]
She is a primary educator to our children. She is the one who ensures I never let football or my business become a distraction from that of a husband and father. She is the person that knows me best at my core, and it is through our marriage that, Lord willing, we will both attain salvation.
I say all of this to you because I have seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God's will in their life. Isabelle's dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud, without hesitation, and say, “Heck, No.”
After all the caterwauling that followed Butker’s address, it was great to read the following, by a young woman named May Mailman. She is - I hope this doesn’t offend her - quite nice to look at, but far more important, she’s quite intelligent and well-spoken, with a lot to say on the same basic subject as Butker…
I’ll admit it, I find Women’s History Month slightly obnoxious. In my defense, for a year I was in charge of editing all the proclamations from the White House trumpeting the named months, dampening my celebratory attitude. But before I earn an anti-feminist label, hear me out.
For one, the way we celebrate seems to accomplish little, or worse. SoulCycle wants to sell me the tiniest $52 WHM tank top. Will this small piece of cloth launch women into a new era of greatness? And when we do try to accomplish something, every event, email or donation drive promoting women assumes we love the equity agenda, open borders, and expensive and unreliable energy, as if women are monolithic in our views.
And I dislike minimizing people to their genitals. If someone has done something great, why not celebrate that achievement rather than genetic facts? As in, if we’d like to celebrate Kamala Harris, is there some accomplishment (and no, titles are not accomplishments) we can celebrate rather than just pointing out skin color and sex, like the White House did?
But, I’ll be a feminist yet. Why? Because I want to celebrate womanhood. There’s just so much to appreciate.
Unfortunately, when our society finally does get around to celebrating the accomplishments of women, it’s only their most male-sounding achievements. Being rich. Being powerful. Being athletic.
To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with being a Girl Boss. I myself collected three degrees and rose the ranks at the White House, certainly worthwhile experiences, paved by Girl Bosses before me. But, is there nothing about femininity and womanhood itself to celebrate? It may not make the history books, but what about the women who raised Condoleezza Rice or Ruth Bader Ginsburg? We don’t need to know their names to be thankful for their work. And make no mistake — it is work.
By celebrating only career moves and finances, our society adopts the stance that men’s priorities must be the right ones. How misogynistic. The societal acceptance of these priorities is so invasive we barely recognize it. Netflix has a Girl Boss series right now, “Inventing Anna.” (It’s not worth watching.) The main character is a journalist who abandons her newborn so she can write a frivolous follow-up story about a criminal. I suppose this is supposed to be admirable. She is, after all, taking the steps a man would probably take. But why is the male norm the model? Is there nothing to applaud about drawing lines at work?
And in our obsession to recognize male-centric accomplishments, we’ve predictably started recognizing men. Like the first female four-star officer in the Department of Health and Human Services, who is a man. Or a female weightlifting recordholder, who is also a man.
This has gone too far. There’s more to life than the male norm. It’s OK to celebrate the innumerable facets of being a woman. Be proud if you’ve given life. Be proud if you show emotion. Be proud if your home is spotless, if only for a minute. Be proud if you’re an amazing cook. Be proud if someone likes your smile. Be proud if the kids were picked up on time. Be proud if you found the perfect heels. Be proud if you make other people happy, successful or fulfilled. Be proud of being a woman.
If we’re going to do a lady month, let’s do it right. Let’s celebrate the beauty and the joy of being a woman.
May Mailman is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. She is a former legal advisor to President Donald Trump, where she advised on a wide range of policies including healthcare, immigration, and social issues. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
By the way… if you haven’t read Harrison Butker’s speech in its entirely, you should. It is really good.
https://www.ncregister.com/news/harrison-butker-speech-at-benedictine
*********** The “Delaware” Wing T was not invented In Delware. It got its start at the University of Maine. The head coach there was Dave Nelson, and his two assistants were Mike Lude and Harold Westerman. When Nelson was offered the job at Delaware, Mike Lude went with him, but Westerman chose to remain at Maine and succeed Nelson as head coach.
Years later, when Mike Lude was head coach at Colorado State, he brought in a young graduate assistant named Ron Rogerson, who had played for Westerman at Maine and had come highly recommended.
After two years at Colorado State, Rogerson spent a year at Lebanon Valley (in Pennsylvania) and then spent ten seasons at Delaware before returning to Maine as head coach.
After four years at Maine, he was hired as head coach at Princeton, and there begins this 2-part story…
https://www.princetontigersfootball.com/2018/08/rogersons-personality-could-turn-on-a-dime-so-did-the-program/
*********** Just in case you’re looking around for an NFL team to root for…
At the time of my writing this, 10 of the 32 NFL Teams had not yet chosen to acknowledge Pride Month.
Atlanta Falcons
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Denver Broncos
Green Bay Packers
Kansas City Chiefs
New Orleans Saints
Pittsburgh Steelers
Tennessee Titans
*********** Doug Porter, who served as head coach at Mississippi Valley State, Howard, and Fort Valley State (GA), died June 5. At 94 he was the the oldest living member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
*********** There is inflation in every aspect of our society (the average grade at Harvard is now an A-) so why should All-America teams be any different? In the case of just one All-America team selector, the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), what was one team in 1945 is now FIVE teams. And what was 11 players on each team is now 25.
The AFCA has selected an All-America team since 1945 and currently selects teams in all five of its divisions. What makes these teams so special is that they are the only ones chosen exclusively by the men who know the players the best — the coaches themselves.
The five teams now chosen for each AFCA division evolved from a single 11-player squad in 1945.
From 1945 until 1967, only one team was chosen.
From 1967 through 1971, two teams – University Division and College Division – were selected.
In 1972, the College Division was split into College I and College II.
In 1979, the University Division was split into two teams — FBS and FCS.
In 1996, the College I and College II teams were renamed Division II and Division III, respectively.
In 2006, the AFCA started selecting an NAIA-only team.
From 1965-81, a 22-player (11 offensive, 11 defensive) team was chosen.
In 1982, a punter and placekicker were added to the team.
In 1997, a return specialist was added, giving us the current 25-player team. The return specialist position was replaced by an all-purpose player in 2006.
In 2016, the AFCA added a second team All-America.
*********** "If you're a great college player like Caitlin was, the delusional fan base that follows her disrespected the WNBA players by saying that she's gonna go in that league and tear it apart. ... These people are so disrespectful and so unknowledgeable and so stupid that it gives women's basketball a bad name. So the kid was set up for failure right from the beginning.” Geno Auriemma, on "The Dan Patrick Show"
*********** Real stumper today. Following more research than required for the Manhattan Project, I surmise the answer = Jon Gruden.
Among the jewels found in today's page, Wallace Wade was the standout for me. The extent of my knowledge was that he was a great HC at Bama and Duke. He was much more special than that. Thanks for opening my eyes to who he was.
All the details I've read on the saloon in Eagle, Idaho, tell me some smart guys run that place. it's not gimmicky; it's an intelligent, carefully conceived reaction to the start of "Pride" Month/Year. If I frequented bars, I would happily go there. I can't believe how quickly most of the country rolled over and became Pride acolytes. As I always ask, pride in what? What gives these people the right to have a special day?
Ah, Coach Lude, ye lived a fine life.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
After watching those UFL “preview” semi-final games last weekend I’m looking forward to the real deals this weekend.
Spent a couple of years coaching at Sonoma State (85-86). They were known as the Cossacks back then (historical reference to that part of California’s Russian influence). Dropped that mascot (too violent) for the “Seawolves”. Apparently a wolf not nearly as violent! At that time they drew more fans for ultimate frisbee tournaments than they did for football games earning the school its reputation for being called “granola u”.
No surprise to me they dropped football even after winning one conference title, and sharing another.
Of all the schools in that non-scholarship Division II conference (Sonoma State, Chico State, San Francisco State, Hayward State, Humboldt State, and UC Davis) only UC Davis continues to play football, in the Big Sky. The others blamed Title IX for their decisions to drop football so they could start to offer scholarships for the other sports.
On a similar subject, Birmingham Southern closed in May, yet its baseball team qualified for the DIII Championship tournament. Question is do they still represent the school that no longer exists?
The Texas- Texas A&M rivalry is already heating up. Can’t wait to see that one renewed no matter what conference they are members of!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Jon Gruden went to high school in South Bend, Indiana, where his father was an assistant to Dan Devine at Notre Dame. He started college at D-III Muskingum College, in Ohio, but transferred to Dayton after one year. At Dayton, he was a backup quarterback, but he played enough to earn three letters.
He spent two years as a graduate assistant at Tennessee, then spent a year at Southeast Missouri and a year at Pacific, before landing his first NFL job. It was with the 49ers, as an assistant working under offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren. He was 26, just five years out of college.
His career was on a fast track.
After a year at Pitt as wide receivers coach, he rejoined Holmgren when the latter was hired as head coach at Green Bay.
He spent three years at Green Bay before moving to Philadelphia as Ray Rhodes’ offense coordinator. He was only 32.
He was just 35 when the Raiders hired him to be their head coach three years later.
He’d been in Oakland for four years when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, desperate to make a big-name hire to quell the furor caused by their firing of Tony Dungy, arranged a trade to acquire him.
In his first season, the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl. Yes, there’s no doubt that a lot of his success was due to what Dungy had left him, but he still won the Super Bowl, and at the time, just 39, he was the youngest man ever to win one.
After eight seasons at Tampa Bay, although going 9-7 in the 2009 regular season, he was fired following a disappointing loss in the wild-card game. He was just 45.
He spent the next nine years away from the NFL, working in broadcasting, consulting and personal coaching, until in 2018 the Raiders lured him back with what was then one of the largest contracts ever given a coach.
During that time, the Raiders relocated to Las Vegas.
In October 2021, five games into the NFL season, he was forced to resign after emails between him and an NFL executive - emails written during the time he was out of coaching - were revealed, their contents described as “racist, misogynistic, and homophobic.”
He was out of broadcasting, too.
Most recently, he was hired as an “advisor” - whatever that entails - by a team in Milan, Italy.
Jon Gruden is no longer a young whiz. He’s 60 years old now, and although he’s got an overall NFL record of 117-112, including a Super Bowl win, he hasn’t been mentioned for an NFL head coaching job, and he hasn’t been seen on a TV show in years.
Could it possibly be because of what he wrote in some of those emails that were “uncovered?”
Ya think? Among other things, he referred to openly-gay draft pick Michael Sam as a “queer,” mocked the size of the NFLPA leader’s lips, and said that players who knelt for the national anthem should be fired. Oh - and he called Commissioner Roger Goodell a “faggot,” and then-Vice-President Joe Biden a “pussy.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JON GRUDEN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** Thanks to Adam Wesoloski for this interview with Mike Holmgren, talking about Job Gruden.
https://youtu.be/FSqswCpXqvs?si=81gFIpXblqNnR_RS
*********** QUIZ: His father was his high school coach in Harrison, New York. As a senior, calling all the plays himself, he quarterbacked his team to an undefeated season.
Recruited by Maryland, he wound up having three head coaches in his first three years, playing a different position under each one. He arrived as a quarterback, was moved to fullback in his sophomore season, and moved to the offensive line as a junior. Discouraged, he considered transferring until his father told him that if he did he wouldn’t be welcomed at home: “Quitters,” Dad said, “don't live here."
He stayed, earning All-ACC academic honors, and twice winning the team’s award for having the highest academic average.
After graduation he served as a graduate assistant at Maryland, then began a long association with Bobby Ross when Ross hired him to coach the defensive line at The Citadel.
He spent seven seasons there, the last three as offensive coordinator, before moving to William and Mary as its offensive coordinator. He spent one season there, and one season as assistant head coach at Murray State, and in 1982 he rejoined Ross at Maryland as offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.
In five years at Maryland, the Terps went 39-15-1 and won three straight ACC championships (1983-85). While at Maryland, he was instrumental in developing three quarterbacks - Boomer Esiason, Frank Reich and Stan Gelbaugh - who all went on to NFL careers of ten years or more.
In 1987, when Ross moved to Georgia Tech, our guy went along as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, and in 1990, although Tech was unranked prior to the season, the Jackets won the national title.
After five seasons, Ross was named head coach of the San Diego Chargers, and named our guy as his running game coordinator. In his third season our guy was named offensive coordinator, and when the Chargers made it to the Super Bowl - for the first time in their history, - it made him one of the very few coaches who have served as offensive coordinator for a national college champion and for a Super Bowl team.
In 1997, he returned to Georgia Tech as offensive coordinator under George O’Leary, and in his second season there , Yellow Jackets were co-champions of the ACC, defeated Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, and ended the season ranked in the Top Ten. In 1999, he was named the winner of the Frank Broyles Award as the top assistant coach in the country
In 2000, after being an assistant for 32 years (and an offensive coordinator for 21 of them), he finally landed his first head coaching job. It was at his alma mater, Maryland, where he’d coached twice before, as a graduate assistant, and then as offensive coordinator.
The Terps had been through five straight losing seasons, and worse yet, a span of 14 years during which the best that three different coaches could produce was two 6-win seasons.
In his first year, Maryland started out winning its first seven games. The Terps finished 10-2 with a top-ten national ranking, winning the school’s first ACC title in 16 years. For this feat, he was named national coach of the year by every single organization (there are many) presenting such an award.
By the time he was fired 10 years later - despite going 9-4 that year, ranking 23rd nationally and being named ACC Coach of the Year - he had a record of 75-50. He’d taken the Terps to seven bowl games (winning five of them), finished first in the ACC once and second four times, with four national rankings.
His 75 wins are the third most by a coach in school history, behind only Curly Byrd (119), and Jerry Claiborne (77). (Jim Tatum, who won a national championship at Maryland in 1953, finished with 73 wins.)
His firing by new AD Kevin Anderson was not well received. Anderson had initially retained him, although refusing to give him the contact extension he wanted. Then, when Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin left to take the head coaching job at Vanderbilt, Anderson decided to fire our guy, reasoning that no quality offensive coordinator would take the job, knowing that our guy was on shaky ground.
How monumental was our guy’s run of success? In the first ten years run after his firing, Maryland went 43-70 under four different coaches. Current coach Mike Locksley, who was on our guy’s staff as running backs coach in 2001 and 2002, has put together a current run of 7, 8 and 8 win seasons, each ending with a bowl win, so there’s hope for Terps fans.
To his credit, Locksley had our guy - his former mentor - serve as an honorary captain at a Maryland-Penn State game, saying at the time, “He’s a guy that I have the utmost respect for, that I’ve always looked up to as a guy that loves and has passion for this place like I do. We’re going to bring him back and honor him the right way.”
TUESDAY,
JUNE 4, 2024 “Freedom
is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from
extinction.” California Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967*********** Thursday marks the 80th Anniversary of D-Day - June 6, 1944, the day on which American and Allied forces crossed the English Channel and landed on the European continent, a massive invasion that marked the first stage of the campaign to ultimately defeat Nazi Germany.
Wallace Wade was there.
That same Wallace Wade who has to be considered one of the greatest college coaches of all time.
He essentially built the Alabama football dynasty, taking the Tide to three Rose Bowls and four SEC titles in his seven years in Tuscaloosa.
But after going 10-0 in 1930 - and winning the Rose Bowl - he stunned the football world by leaving Alabama to become head coach at Duke. (Actually, he stunned the football world before the season, which is when he announced that he had already accepted the Duke position and would stay on to coach one more season at Bama.)
At Duke, he was as successful as he was at Alabama, coaching from 1931 through 1950 - with four years off for wartime service - and compiling a record of 110-36-7. He took the Blue Devils to two Rose Bowls and three top-ten finishes.
In early 1942, not long after Pearl Harbor, he reenlisted in the Army. He’d already served in World War I as a captain in the infantry. He was now 50 years old.
At that point, his record at Duke was 85-19-3.
The last game he’d coached before rejoining the service was the Rose Bowl, which because of fears of a possible Japanese attack on the West Coast had been moved to Durham, North Carolina (Duke’s home).
Commissioned as an Army Major in field artillery - and later promoted to Lieutenant Colonel - he assembled a battalion at Fort Bragg, then commanded it overseas. He took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Crossing of the Rhine, serving the entire time without a day of leave. For his actions he was awarded the Bronze Star (the Army’s third highest award) and the Croix de Guerre (“Cross of War” - awarded by France to “individuals who distinguish themselves by acts of heroism involving combat with enemy forces”).
But back at Duke, , his record wasn’t even close to what it had been before the War: in five seasons, it was just 25-17-4. His first three seasons back were losing seasons - the first in his entire career.
Was it the War?
Years later, his friend Jack Horner, sports editor of the Durham Herald, told of a conversation he’d had during that time with coach Wade, with the coach telling him that, after the War, “I’m just not tough enough.”
"The truth,” Horner wrote, "was that Wade mellowed after seeing 135-pounders die for their country as gloriously as 200-pounders.”
https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/fromcampustocockpit/wade
********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “I was aware of the Depression and how poor we were on the farm, compared to relatives who lived in Kalamazoo, whom I looked at as being very wealthy people. One uncle worked in a fishing equipment plant, and his wife worked as a beauty operator. Another aunt was a secretary, and her husband sold auto parts. I always thought, man, they really have it made. And they don't have to milk cows or clean stables or dig potatoes. They really must be rich.
“Yet I can't say I felt deprived. There was always plenty of food and an abundance of love – discipline and love – for me. We didn't have Nike sneakers or the latest fashion wear from Nordstrom. Mom sewed her own dresses; the material came from the sacks that had contained the feed supplement Dad bought for the cattle. The sacks were printed with flower designs similar to the bolts of cloth available in the general store but out of our price range.
“So were tractors, something that appeared only in our dreams and the Sears, Roebuck catalog. When we worked the fields, the heavy muscle was provided by draft horses, and there was a prescribed routine. You would go down to the end of the field, make the turn and return to the starting point. After doing a round, down and back, the horses would be allowed a brief rest.”
*********** UFL GAMES THIS PAST WEEKEND
The UFL delivered. From the point of view of someone with no real rooting interest, every game was interesting - even the Houston-Memphis game between two otherwise-sorry teams.
Best of all, the Saturday games, both previews of next weeks’ UFL semifinal matchups between the same teams, left plenty of reason to watch the rematches.
SATURDAY (both games ended with missed field goals)
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (9-1) 20, MICHIGAN PANTHERS (7-3) 19
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (7-3) 13, SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (7-3) 12
SUNDAY (both games went down to the last minute)
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (3-7) 32, DC DEFENDERS (4-6) 31
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (2-8) 19 HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-9) 12
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 7-3
SAN ANTONIO 7-3
DC 4-6
ARLINGTON 3-7
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 9-1
MICHIGAN 7-3
MEMPHIS 2-8
HOUSTON 1-9
*********** Both Memphis and Houston went into Sunday’s game with 1-8 records and hopes of getting first pick in next year’s draft. Memphis wound up getting it - by WINNING!
It was the UFL’s rather clever way of combatting tanking - the practice, common in most sports, of deliberately losing in order to improve a team’s draft status.
*********** If you have any former players with the potential to make a UFL roster, you might want to inform them of the league’s “Summer Series” tryouts. (Okay, “showcases.”)
From the UFL office…
These showcases provide players a chance to exhibit their skills in front of UFL coaches and personnel directors. Players will be evaluated based on performance for inclusion in the UFL Draft player pool for the 2025 season.
Dates and Locations:
UFL SUMMER SERIES SHOWCASE LOCATIONS AND DATES
UFL St. Louis Showcase
Friday, July 12, 2024
UFL Washington D.C. Showcase
Sunday, July 14, 2024
UFL Houston Showcase
Friday, July 26, 2024
UFL Atlanta Showcase
Sunday, July 28, 2024
UFL Orlando Showcase
Sunday, September 29, 2024
UFL San Diego Showcase
Sunday, October 20, 2024
Registration is now open at www.showcases.theufl.com
*********** If I were an advance scout for China or Iran or North Korea, sent to assess the American ability to defend itself, and I happened to catch any of the UFL games and their halftime interviews with Army members…
I would give the all-systems-go sign. All clear to invade.
I sure haven’t seen too many of the “soldiers” they’ve interviewed who look as if they’d hold up in a fist fight.
Most of the jobs they say they do don’t sound as if they involve anything that remotely involves fighting. I suspect the purpose of selecting these people is to entice recruits by suggesting that they can get all the benefits of joining the Army without ever getting dirty, much less bloody.
*********** First of all, “Miller Time” belonged to Miller High Life. Real beer. Not Miller Light.
Second of all, they can’t even produce a decent “Tastes Great! Less Filling!” commercial without having some weenie peacemaker saying, “It’s both!”
*********** I’ll give the UFL credit for doing something the NFL simply can’t - every UFL team uniformly wore the same color stockings, without any variation or exception. The NFL used to care about the way its players looked, even employing former players to enforce uniform standards on game days, but they finally caved.
*********** Two guys in the UFL that I’d like to see get shots in the NFL, both of them small but very fast and very exciting.
Chris Rowland, of DC - 5-8, 170 from Tennessee State. 26 years old. Good receiver and return man. On Sunday, on the last day of the regular season, he produced the UFL’s first kickoff return touchdown all season.
Justin Hall of Houston - 5-9. 185 from Ball State. 25 years old. Good receiver and return man. Very good hands and speed.
*********** Next time you see a pro team in a short yardage situation and it’s lined up in its usual shotgun, watch the linemen’s first steps. Those side-steps that pro linemen usually take when zone blocking aren’t worth a crap against hard-charging defensive linemen, but it’s all they know, so it’s what they do. Combine the passive blocking that produces with the aggressive charge of the defense, then snap the ball back to a QB five yards in the backfield who’ll then hand the ball to a back, and I’ll bet the chance of success of a running play is no better than 25 per cent.
And as you watch the offensive line starting out sideways and getting its butt whipped, remember these immortal words of the great General Bob Neyland:
“If the line goes forward, the team wins. If it comes backward, the team loses.”
*********** In the UFL, holding by the offensive line is so flagrant and so common that I’d like to see them add another umpire. I think.
Actually, that just means more penalties, and I don’t want to see that. So maybe it’s time to just say the hell with it and let them use their hands and arms unrestrained, because it really gets old watching nice plays being called back for holding. (Is there any other sport in which really good plays are disallowed to the extent they are in football?)
For years I’ve advocated making offensive linemen wear thumbless boxing gloves, but in the UFL, the way some of those guys use their arms to wrap up pass rushers, it probably wouldn’t make that much difference.
*********** John Canzano writes…
Last Thursday, the NCAA settled a lawsuit with several states that challenged it in court. Under the agreement, the NCAA will grant an additional year of eligibility to Division I athletes previously deemed ineligible under the transfer eligibility rule since the 2019-20 academic year. That means Utah quarterback Cam Rising — who transferred from Texas — will get an eighth year of college eligibility if he wants it. Is Rising coming back in 2025? The door is open. Can’t wait to ask Kyle Whittingham.
Q: Oregon State will kick off a football game at 9 a.m. PT (10 a.m. local) on a Friday at Boise St. I suppose the positive is they will have little competition for viewers (it’s on FOX). But is that really the route they want to go?
A: That early kickoff may be a bummer, but it happens on Black Friday against a good opponent and should generate a healthy audience. The window helps OSU stay visible and that’s one of the prime objectives this season. That said, scrambled eggs at the tailgate?
The Oregon Ducks play two Friday night games as part of the Fox Friday Football calendar this season. They’ll have to deal with that. The first five kickoffs revealed for Washington included two Friday nights, two Big Ten Network games, and a game on Peacock. Husky fans weren’t thrilled. The Apple Cup is a 12:30 p.m. kickoff on Peacock. Blame TV. But also blame the Mariners, who play a night game that evening. Once you sell your media rights, television executives own them, strategize, and do as they please.
Q: Do you think Caitlin Clark should be a second-round NBA draft prospect?? 3-point range and an ability to sell tickets. Seems like a lot of upside to me.
A: Caitlin Clark is fine where she is. She wouldn’t make an NBA roster. Now, has anyone else noticed that the WNBA officials call Clark’s games differently? They allow a lot of unnecessary contact as she brings the ball upcourt. Almost as if the officials are letting her take her lumps as an introduction to pro basketball.
Q: Is there a bounty on Caitlin Clark?
A: Not a bounty. The opposing players are simply responding to what the officials (and Clark’s bystander teammates) are allowing to happen. For that reason, I wonder if the recent flagrant foul that got so much attention is a good thing for Clark in the big picture. The scrutiny and spotlight on it will keep everyone on their best behavior.
*********** A nice article in The Athletic about Dillon Gabriel makes him sound like just the kind of guy Oregon needed to replace Bo Nix at QB.
He’s a Hawaiian kid who’s already had successful stops at Central Florida and Oklahoma.
Now, as he makes the move from OU to UO, he sure seems to be doing his best to show that he’s a team guy - even to the point of driving a minivan.
When he first showed it to his mom, she said she thought it was a rental, but he explained: he makes his new ride - a Chrysler Pacifica - available to teammates whenever they need rides to the Eugene regional airport because “it gets the best gas mileage on the team.”
Said his Mom, “Anybody who knows him would think, ‘Yeah, he would get a minivan.”
*********** Larry Allen, 11 times a Pro Bowl selection as a Cowboy and a Hall-of-Fame guard, died in Mexico while on vacation with his family. He was 52. A son, Larry Allen III, played guard at Harvard. Interestingly, in light of our discussion of schools that no longer play football, he played at Sonoma (Cal.) State, which discontinued the sport following the 1996 season.
*********** At Old State Saloon in Eagle, Idaho - just outside Boise - Mondays from here on will be known as “Hetero Male Monday.”
Any man who comes in on Monday dressed 'like a heterosexual male' will be greeted with a free beer.
Probably as part of the gag, the bar said it’s looking for judges to determine if the clothing is “straight enough.” Judges will be paid $15 an hour plus free beer. (Or did I read “a” free beer?)
“Straight enough?”
They haven’t left the ladies out - any straight couple that comes in on Wednesdays will get 15 percent off their tab.
https://oldstatesaloon.com/
********** I’ve seen comparisons attempted between Caitlin Clark and Jackie Robinson and in my opinion it’s time for them to stop.
Jackie Robinson’s ordeal was much tougher than anything Caitlin Clark can be put through.
When Jackie Robinson entered the Major Leagues, there was definitely anti-black prejudice in much of the country, and in many locales discrimination by race was still legally sanctioned. The prejudice - anti-white, anti-heterosexual - that appears to be generating the anti-Clark movement is an entirely new phenomenon in our culture.
From a strictly business standpoint, baseball didn’t NEED Jackie Robinson. Baseball was far and away the national’s number one sport, and in no danger of folding. Jackie Robinson certainly helped business, but baseball was not like today’s WNBA - a sport on life support. Like it or not, folks, Caitlin Clark has the potential to save this league.
And it wasn’t likely Major Leaguers of those times could be convinced that allowing black players to play - even one - might be in their interest. But it shouldn’t be difficult at all to explain to today’s female basketball players (at least those of ordinary intelligence) how Caitlin Clark’s gate appeal can benefit all of them.
Finally - whose bright idea was it (1) to just go along with allowing the draft, a device designed to help bad teams rebuild, to consign an attraction like Caitlin Clark to a bad team in a small market? and (2) to allow this great attraction to come into the league without having carefully explained to all players and officials - in sufficient detail that they could understand - the importance of Caitlin Clark to all of them?
*********** How long before the Saudis make their move on college football? Do they buy SEC football? Big Ten football? Big 12 football? ACC football? Group of 5 Football? All of College Football?
Remember what they did to professional golf, and then tell me it’s not possible.
*********** Coach Lude saw great numbers of momentous events in his lifetime. I am gratified he didn't have to see what happened yesterday. Your comments about the event are appropriate.
Today you serve us standard five-star fare. You discuss issues that matter, as well as about football from every angle. Sorry to say, though, that that corrupt kangaroo court decision has made it hard for me to get beyond the damage being done to our once-luminous Republic. At least for this morning. I have to fight my way out of this ambush.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
The Democrats succeeded. They have just about guaranteed that Donald J. Trump will become the 47th President of the United States, and succeeded in bringing about the age old adage "what goes around comes around."
In response to your list of four year colleges/universities that no longer play football in the state of California:
Humboldt State
Chico State
Sonoma State
Hayward State
St. Mary's
San Francisco State
USF
Santa Clara
Menlo
Pacific
UC Santa Barbara
California Baptist
Pepperdine
Loyola Marymount
Cal State Northridge
Cal State Los Angeles
Azusa Pacific
Cal Tech
Occidental
Whittier
Long Beach State
Fullerton State
Cal Poly Pomona
UC Riverside
Vanguard
UC San Diego
Cal Western (United States International University)
But on the other hand...there are 18 four-year colleges/universities in the state of California still playing football, and SIXTY-SEVEN two-year JC's playing football throughout the state.
Unlike in Texas. Houston, Houston Christian, Rice, North American, Sam Houston, Prairie View, Texas Southern, Stephen F. Austin, East Texas Baptist, Wayland Baptist, UTSA, UIW, Trinity, Schreiner (new program), Texas State, Texas A&M Kingsville, Texas Lutheran, Texas A&M, Texas, Southwestern, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Baylor, SW Assemblies of God, SMU, Texas A&M-Commerce, Midwestern State, Texas College, Austin College, TCU, North Texas, Texas Wesleyan, Howard Payne, Hardin Simmons, McMurry, Abilene Christian, Angelo State, West Texas A&M,UT Permian Basin, UT Rio Grande Valley, UTEP. FORTY four-year colleges/universities playing FOOTBALL!!
Add to that number the 8 JC's playing football.
QUIZ: Frank Thomas
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Hahaha. That’s why I said I wasn’t ready to list all the California schools that had dropped football, so thanks for doing it for me! And there, third on the list, is Sonoma State, whose most illustrious football alumnus, Larry Allen, just died.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: When the College Football Hall of Fame was opened in 1951, 22 coaches were inducted. Only two of them were Notre Dame men. One, of course, was Knute Rockne. The other was Frank Thomas.
Frank Thomas was born in Muncie, Indiana to parents who were recent immigrants from Wales. Cardiff, Wales. Just 5-8, he was a star athlete in high school in East Chicago.
After two years at Western State (now Western Michigan), he transferred to Notre Dame, where he played both baseball and football.
His roommate and best friend was the storied George Gipp, and for two seasons - 1921 and 1922, he was Knute Rockne’s starting quarterback. Rockne called him "the smartest player I ever coached."
After graduation, with a law degree, he tuned down an offer to play baseball with the Detroit Tigers, and instead, thanks to Rockne’s recommendation, he was hired by Georgia coach George Woodruff to be his backfield coach and introduce Rockne’s Notre Dame box to the South.
"I took the job to pay off my debts," he said at the time. "Besides, I wanted to try coaching for a year. If I didn't like it, I could always quit and practice law."
He spent just two years at Georgia before taking the head coaching job at Chattanooga.
There, taking over a squad that had won just one game the year before, he led them to a 4-4 record in his first year. In his second year his team tied for the conference championship, and in both his third and fourth years, he won the conference championship. In those two years, Chattanooga lost just three games, two of them to Vanderbilt (at that time a powerhouse).
After four years at Chattanooga, his record was 26-9-2, but he was persuaded to return to Georgia as an assistant, this time under a former Notre Dame teammate, Harry Mehre, who argued that it would improve his chances at getting a better job.
Sure enough, after one year at Georgia, the offer came. Before the 1930 season, Alabama’s Wallace Wade announced that he had accepted the job at Duke and that it would be his last season. And he personally recommended our guy as his successor.
Talk about a tough act to follow. Wade had taken Alabama to the Rose Bowl and a national title - its first - four years earlier. And in 1930, Alabama went undefeated, returned to the Rose Bowl where it defeated Washington State, and won another national championship. Nine days after the Rose Bowl game, our guy became head coach of the Crimson Tide.
In his first meeting with Alabama President Mike Denny, Denny told him, “Now that you have accepted our proposition, I will give you the benefit of my views, based on my years of observation. It is my conviction that material is 90 per cent and coaching is 10 per cent. I desire further to say that you will be provided with the 90 per cent, and that you will be held to strict accounting for the 10 per cent.”
Inheriting a national championship team, he went 9-1 in his first season. There followed seasons of 8-2, 7-1-1 and 10-0.
In his third season at Alabama, the Tide won the very first championship of the SEC.
On his 1934 team, at opposite ends were Don Hutson and Bear Bryant. Hutson was an All-American and went on the a Hall of Fame career at Green Bay. Bryant, of course, would become one of the greatest of all college coaches at Kentucky, Texas A & M and Alabama.
He coached through 1946, but he did most his coaching that season from a wheelchair, and at the end of the season, faced with his own failing health and concern for his mentally-ill daughter, he had to give up coaching. He was just 47. He died in 1954 at the age of 55.
In his 15 years as Alabama’s head coach, he posted an overall record of 115-24-7 with two national championships, (1934 and 1941) four SEC titles, two Rose Bowl wins (in three appearances), and additional appearances in the Cotton, Orange and Sugar Bowls. In all, he took Alabama to six bowl games, at a time when there were only four bowls.
He had seven seasons of one loss or less, and only twice did his teams lose as many as three games in a season.
His teams allowed an average of just 6.3 points per game, and among Alabama coaches, only Bryant has a better winning percentage.
One of his greatest accomplishments was starting the first free coaching clinic in the South in his second year at Alabama.
Frank Thomas' is one of the five statues outside Bryant-Denny Stadium honoring Alabama coaches who have won national titles there; of the five, he is the only one who never had a losing season anywhere.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING FRANK THOMAS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He went to high school in South Bend, Indiana, where his father was an assistant to Dan Devine at Notre Dame. He started college at D-III Muskingum College, in Ohio, but transferred to Dayton after one year. At Dayton, he was a backup quarterback, but he played enough to earn three letters.
He spent two years as a graduate assistant at Tennessee, then spent a year at Southeast Missouri and a year at Pacific, before landing his first NFL job. It was with the 49ers, as an assistant working under offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren. He was 26, just five years out of college.
His career was on a fast track.
After a year at Pitt as wide receivers coach, he rejoined Holmgren when the latter was hired as head coach at Green Bay.
He spent three years at Green Bay before moving to Philadelphia as Ray Rhodes’ offense coordinator. He was only 32.
He was just 35 when the Raiders hired him to be their head coach three years later.
He’d been in Oakland for four years when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, desperate to make a big-name hire to quell the furor caused by their firing of Tony Dungy, arranged a trade to acquire him.
In his first season, the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl. Yes, there’s no doubt that a lot of his success was due to what Dungy had left him, but he still won the Super Bowl, and at the time, just 39, he was the youngest man ever to win one.
After eight seasons at Tampa Bay, although going 9-7 in the 2009 regular season, he was fired following a disappointing loss in the wild-card game. He was just 45.
He spent the next nine years away from the NFL, working in broadcasting, consulting and personal coaching, until in 2018 the Raiders lured him back with what was then one of the largest contracts ever given a coach.
During that time, the Raiders relocated to Las Vegas.
In October 2021, five games into the NFL season, he was forced to resign after emails between him and an NFL executive - emails written during the time he was out of coaching - were revealed, their contents described as “racist, misogynistic, and homophobic.”
He was out of broadcasting, too.
Most recently, he was hired as an “advisor” - whatever that entails - by a team in Milan, Italy.
He’s no longer a young whiz. He’s 60 years old now, and although he’s got an overall NFL record of 117-112, including a Super Bowl win, he hasn’t been mentioned for an NFL head coaching job, and he hasn’t been seen on a TV show in years.
Could it possibly be because of what he wrote in some of those emails that were “uncovered?”
Ya think? Among other things, he referred to openly-gay draft pick Michael Sam as a “queer,” mocked the size of the NFLPA leader’s lips, and said that players who knelt for the national anthem should be fired. Oh - and he called Commissioner Roger Goodell a “faggot,” and then-Vice-President Joe Biden a “pussy.”
FRIDAY,
MAY 31, 2024 “This
Pride Month, we honor the service, commitment, and sacrifice of the
LGBTQ+ Service members and personnel who volunteer to defend our
country. Their proud service adds to America’s strength.” Lloyd
Austin, Secretary of Defense (June, 2023)************ Wisdom from Mike Lude: “The owner of the property and essentially my dad's partner was a tough, tough guy. He was an immigrant from Germany who moved to the United States when he was about 15. He went to Montana and became a cowboy, then moved to Michigan, acquired some farmland in Wakashama Township, and settled down.
“The German immigrant – cowboy – farmer was my grandfather. More about him later.
“As the only offspring, I became a significant part of the labor force at a young age. I was assigned just about every menial chore that could be turned over to a kid growing up on the farm – mucking out the stalls of the animals, milking cows, planting and digging potatoes, working the horses in the fields. The hours were long, and there was not a lot of time for daydreaming or playing baseball.”
*********** "Show me the man and I will find you the crime." Lavrentiy Beria, chief of Joseph Stalin’s secret police.
“Show me the crime and I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window.” Hugh Wyatt, ordinary American.
We’ve just seen the vipers that infest New York City treat the American public to a trial the likes of which I hadn’t seen since the days of the Soviet Union. I watched in amazement and shock as a person whose major crime appears to be that he is disliked by many and happens to be a rival of the current President was railroaded in a manner seldom seen before. At least in this country.
Thanks a lot, Bill of Rights. You can go now. You had a great run.
The thought of being exposed to that sort of “justice” is chilling. I vow that I will never set foot in New York City - or any of its airports - so long as I live. (I’m old enough that I can easily make that pledge and carry it out.)
You? Your nose may be clean as a whistle, but in that den of evil, a city where career criminals are arrested and then routinely released, if somebody wants your ass bad enough, they’ll find something - anything. And as they’ve demonstrated, when you’ve got the prosecutor, judge and jury lined up against you - ex-president or ordinary American - you're gone. Off to the gulag.
*********** UFL GAMES THIS FINAL REGULAR-SEASON WEEKEND
(ALL TIMES EASTERN)
SATURDAY
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (7-2) at BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (8-1) - 2 PM ESPN
Birmingham is coming off its first loss last week, after winning 15 straight.
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (7-2) at ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (6-3) - 4 PM FOX
These two teams will play two weeks in a row. Next week it’s to get to the UFL final game; this week isn’t at all meaningless - it’s for the right to be the host team for next week’s game.
SUNDAY
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (2-7) at DC DEFENDERS (4-5) - NOON ABC
Nothing much going on except that if you like to watch slot (aka “compressed”) formation, DC’s OC Fred Kaiss does some interesting things.
HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-8) at MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-8) - 7 PM FOX
I honestly can’t think of a single reason to watch this game unless you’re into football as much as I am.
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
SAN ANTONIO 7-2
ST LOUIS 6-3
DC 4-5
ARLINGTON 2-7
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 8-1
MICHIGAN 7-2
HOUSTON 1-8
HOUSTON 1-8
*********** John Canzano on Shilo Sanders…
Q: If Shilo Sanders was in high school when he assaulted the security guard and wrecked the guy’s life, why isn’t Deion liable? Parents are liable for their children until after 18. So why weren’t Deion’s assets considered, or their personal liability insurance policies? How about the school's liability policies since this sounds to have occurred on campus? — Brian McMorris
A: I pored through the court documents and news reports. The original lawsuit was filed in 2016 against Shilo Sanders, Deion Sanders, and Shilo’s mother, Pilar Sanders. John Darjean — the victim of the alleged attack — had significant injuries.
Utica Mutual Insurance Company, Darjean’s insurer, filed a petition seeking to recover funds from the Sanders family. It alleged that Pilar and Deion Sanders failed to “control their son from engaging in foreseeable tortious conduct.”
Shilo was a no-show in court. He apparently even dropped his attorney. As a result, the court didn’t have Shilo’s forwarding address and struggled to get him notice. As we all know, closing your eyes and hoping legal troubles go away isn’t a sound strategy. Deion sat down for a deposition, but according to an attorney involved the coach eventually walked out because he didn’t like the questions.
The charter school is closed and gone. Triple A Academy was the high school branch of the since-shuttered Focus Academies charter school. Focus was shut down by the state of Texas after posting low academic performance scores. It inherited 80 students from Prime Prep Academy, a charter school that was co-founded by Deion. Prime Prep closed in January 2015 amid financial and academic woes. Deion wasn’t just a parent of a student at Focus. He was the school CEO, football coach, and marketing person.
The 160th Judicial District of Dallas County District Court rendered a judgment in the spring of 2022, ordering Shilo to pay $11.9 million in damages to Darjean, and another $215,000 to Utica Mutual. Darjean petitioned the Court to appoint a receiver to collect the outstanding funds in the summer of 2023. In October, Sanders filed for bankruptcy. This mess is just beginning.
What are the odds that “Coach Prime” will be on the Colorado sidelines against North Dakota State on August 29? Either way - Go Bison!
*********** It wasn’t an Ivy League requirement, but Yale went ahead anyhow and hired a woman as President.
Evidently Yale’s lordly Board of Trustees looked around at the great jobs being done by female presidents at Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard and Penn and said, “just what we want here."
*********** With the recent settlement of the House vs. NCAA case, pretty much opening the door to payment of college athletes, all sorts of dire consequences have been predicted. Included among the possible effects of having to pay football players are the loss of “minor” sports at some colleges, and even, at some, the shutting down of football programs entirely.
The latter is not without precedent. It’s happened a lot over the years.
Resorting to my trusty 1949 NCAA Football Official Guide - the oldest one I have - I set out to identify schools that were playing football 75 years ago but for various reasons are no longer playing the game.
A lot of the schools were Catholic schools - relatively strong and playing major schedules - that gave up the game in the early 50s, leaving Notre Dame and Boston College as the only remaining Catholic teams in FBS.
In some cases, schools such as Drake and Fordham that in 1949 played as relatively “major” colleges chose over the years to play at a lower level.
In some cases, schools such as Arnold, Milton and Tarkio no longer exist. Other schools such as Case Tech and Western Reserve have merged (Case Western Reserve).
I haven’t had the time to get into all the various California (UC and State) schools that have given up football.
Here’s a fairly complete list of schools that were playing football in 1949 and are no longer fielding football teams. Read ‘em and weep:
Adelphia
Arnold
Boston U.
Bradley
Bridgeport
Brooklyn
Butler
Canisius
CCNY
Colorado College
Davis & Elkins
Dayton
Denver
Detroit
Evansville
George Washington
Haverford
High Point
Hofstra
Iowa Wesleyan
John Carroll
Long Beach State
Loyola (Cal)
Marquette
Milligan
Milton
Niagara
Northeastern
NYU
Occidental
Oklahoma City
Omaha
Pacific
Panzer
Parsons
Pepperdine
Potomac State
Rider
Rollins
St. Bonaventure
Sr. Francis
St. Louis
St. Mary’s
Salem
San Francisco
Santa Clara
Scranton
Southwestern (TN)
Swarthmore
Tampa
Tarkio
Upsala
Vermont
Washington College (MD)
Waynesburg
West Virginia Tech
Western Washington
Whitman
Wichita
Xavier
Yankton
Of course, this list is subject to error. Please be sure to let me know if I’ve included any school that doesn’t belong on the list, or if I’ve failed to list a school that does.
In fairness, in recent years, prompted in many cases by the need to attract more male applicants, there has been a significant number of smaller schools that added football programs. And in the years since 1949 there have been several additions to the “major” powers: Air Force, Central Florida, Coastal Carolina, James Madison, Liberty, South Florida, Texas-San Antonio, UAB and UNLV among them.
*********** Somebody ought to let Ilhan Omar, a US Representative from Minnesota, know what Memorial Day is all about.
Here’s what she said on the day we honor those who gave their lives in service to our country:
On memorial day (no capitals- HW), we honor the heroic men and women who served our country.
We owe them more than our gratitude – they have more than earned access to quality mental health services, job opportunities, housing assistance, and the benefits they were promised.
Like so many Americans, we’ve done such a crappy job of teaching even the basics of our history that she has it confused with Veterans Day.
Sadly, for the people we honor on Memorial Day, mental health services (quality o not), job opportunities, housing assistance and “the benefits they were promised” won’t do them any good.
*********** Here’s something interesting: it’s how much EA Sports has decided to pay colleges for the right to include them in EA’s 2025 video game.
I don’t know what went into the formula they used - I’m told that appearances in the Top 25 polls in the last 10 years was a factor - but it’s resulted into four “tiers” into which all 130+ FBS schools fall.
The tiers, and the amounts paid by EA Sports to each school in the tier:
Tier 1: $99,875.16
Tier 2: $59,925.09
Tier 3: $39,950.06
Tier 4: $9,987.52
What? USC and Texas not in Tier 1
Assuming that there’s merit to the rankings, there’s something rotten in the Big Ten: Counting Oregon, there are FIVE Big Ten teams in the Top Tier. But there are also five Big Ten teams in Tier 4: Maryland, Purdue, Rutgers, Nebraska and Illinois. Now, will someone please try to explain to me why Indiana is up in Tier 3?
Again, not sure what’s going on here, but I have to admit being pleasantly surprised at the high ranking of Utah and Iowa.
*********** The College Football Hall of Fame, in preparation for the voting for next year’s class, has begun collecting nominations to go on the ballot. For your info, here’s how the nominating process works:
College Football Hall of Fame Criteria:*********** I have to confess that my dislike of Bill Walton - after the way he bailed on the Trail Blazers and the Portland Community - clouded my opinion of him the rest of his life, and kept me from realizing that he was something special. In the eyes of those who knew him best - his teammates and, later his co-workers on broadcasts - he was intelligent, witty, and an all-around good person.
FIRST AND FOREMOST, A PLAYER MUST HAVE RECEIVED FIRST-TEAM ALL-AMERICA RECOGNITION BY A SELECTOR RECOGNIZED BY THE NCAA AND UTILIZED TO COMPRISE THEIR CONSENSUS ALL-AMERICA TEAMS.
A player becomes eligible for consideration by the NFF's Honors Courts 10 full seasons after his last year of intercollegiate football played.
While each nominee's football achievements in college are of prime consideration, his post-football record as a citizen is also weighed. He must have proven himself worthy as a citizen, carrying the ideals of football forward into his relations with his community and fellow man. Consideration may also be given for academic honors and whether or not the candidate earned a college degree.
Players must have played their last year of intercollegiate football within the last 50 years. For example, to be eligible for the 2025 ballot, the player must have played his last year in 1975 or thereafter. In addition, players who are playing professionally and coaches who are coaching on the professional level are not eligible until after they retire.
A coach becomes eligible three full seasons after retirement or immediately following retirement provided he is at least 70 years old. Active coaches become eligible at 75 years of age. He must have been a head football coach for a minimum of 10 years and coached at least 100 games with a .600 winning percentage.
I’m going to leave the plaudits to my son, Ed and a long time friend, Kerry Eggers.
Ed, who lives and works and writes in Australia, said he heard the news of Walton’s death while riding to work on the train, and immediately began to write - freehand, lest he lose his initial thoughts :
Farewell Bill, You Were One Of A Kind
Going home, going home, By the waterside I will rest my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet songs, To rock my soul
—Brokedown Palace, Grateful Dead
Bandana-wearing hippie. Hall of Fame center. Grateful Dead acolyte. Eloquent, but out there basketball commentator. Bill Walton’s obituary could be written 10 different ways by 10 different people. He was as unique an individual as you’d find anywhere, but especially unique in the world of sports.
He dominated high school and college basketball, winning two California high school titles at Helix in San Diego and two national championships at UCLA, before being drafted with the overall #1 pick by Portland in 1974.
For longtime (read: ‘older’) NBA fans, Walton’s death will spark nostalgia-fuelled memories of the Jack Ramsay-coached Blazers, who moved the ball as well as any team in NBA history. Walton could score, play defense and when healthy, run the floor. He was as good a passing big man as the league has seen, an unselfish superstar with a team-first attitude.
In Portland, however, many fans couldn’t come to terms with the mercurial star. Yes, he helped bring the city its only NBA title in 1977 and yes, his free-spirited, outdoorsy ways fit in with the Oregon lifestyle.
But a seven-foot, red-headed mountain man was always going to stand out, his flaws – perceived or otherwise – magnified in one of the NBA’s smallest cities. Walton could be surly and incommunicative, he had a friendship with controversial activist Jack Scott and his debilitating (albeit misdiagnosed) injuries seemed vague in the eyes of fans, bringing his toughness and desire into question.
A year after the 1977 title, the Blazers were 50-10 when Walton injured his foot again. He would eventually leave Portland and embark on an up-and-down career that would pay off with a 1986 title in Boston and an NBA Sixth Man of the Year award.
What made Walton special in his post-playing years was his transformation from mumbling athlete to eloquent TV commentator. He became an entertainer, a character (critics would say caricature) who brought life to a broadcast, whether you bought his act or not.
On air, Walton rambled about the Grateful Dead, spoke lovingly of his relationship with the legendary John Wooden and religiously pumped up his beloved Pac 12, which he constantly referred to as the ‘conference of champions.’
As Portland writer John Canzano wrote in his column, “The Pac 12’s final event ended on Saturday night. Walton died on Monday. Nobody who understood the man will miss the significance of that.”
And then there’s Kerry Eggers. We go back a long ways, to the days when I was fresh off the folding of the World Football League and just starting out as a high school coach, and he was a rookie sportswriter with the now-gone Oregon Journal. Now retired, he’s the “Dean of Portland Sports writers.”
He comes by his sports journalism honestly - his dad was the longtime sports information director at Oregon State - and because he spent his entire career in this area, he’s as capable as any man alive of commenting on things that happened here.
His article on Bill Walton, whose stay in Portland he remembers as well as I do, is a tour de force.
Kerry Eggers - “Big Red is Gone.”
Big Red is gone. Bill Walton died Monday. He was 71, the victim of cancer.
Ironically, Walton’s death came two days after the final breath of his beloved “Conference of Champions,” with Saturday’s finals of the Pac-12 Baseball Tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Walton was arguably the greatest college basketball player in history. During his three years at UCLA, the Bruins won their first 73 games — the bulk of their Division I-record 88 consecutive victories — and two national championships. His final record at UCLA: 86-4.
In the NBA, Walton led the Trail Blazers to their only NBA championship in 1977, earning Finals Most Valuable Player honors and, the next season was named MVP for the NBA’s regular season. In 1986, he was honored as Sixth Man of the Year in helping the Boston Celtics to an NBA crown. Walton was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
In latter years, Walton was gregarious and outgoing, but also private when it came to health matters. Perhaps only immediate family knew he was failing. Bill’s death came as a shock even to those close to him.
“Bill is like family, but everyone is surprised,” said David Lucas, son of Maurice Lucas, Walton’s closest friend during his playing days in Portland. “Nobody knew he was battling cancer.”
It goes on. It’s a long read, but it’s well worth your time…
https://www.kerryeggers.com/stories/big-red-is-gone-no-one-did-it-like-he-did-it
*********** Coach THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
That video (Zoom Clinic 151) answered so many questions I've had for a few years now....probably the best DW video & explanations I've ever watched.
Thanks again!!
Seth Wilkerson
Head Coach
Buckingham County HS
Buckingham, Virginia
*********** Thanks for clarifying the President's remarks. I would've believed it in full absent your explanation. At one time I thought his stories were funny.
Money for a stadium? Just git 'er done, Pritzker. Taxpayers, I'm pretty sure, have money for everything. I mean, by one calculation, the student loans 'forgiven' this year amount to $172 billion. Don't think for a second we ain't got a few billion for a new stadium, mister. If you want it, you got it, babe.
I hope you have material sufficient to give us Coach Lude thoughts for a long time. I like that you're keeping his memory prominent.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I knew you would catch that latest whopper from the current President. The same guy who "starred" at Archmere Academy (I bet THAT was also an embellishment). Nothing comes out of that guy's mouth but dust.
Great turnout on Memorial Day where I live. Hundreds gathered to honor the fallen. American flags were in great abundance.
Bring back the Generals and the Maulers!!
Fox's Friday night schedule highlights absurdity of where college football is today
Nothing like biting the hand that feeds you! Do they really think fans of high school football are going to stay home to watch a meaningless college game at 11pm??
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
In the photo at right, Bill Murray is the man on the left. How many of you recognized two Arkansas legends in the photo? Third from left, holding the Cotton Bowl trophy, is Lance Alworth, and on the far right is legendary Arkansas coach Frank Broyles.
BEWARE OF WIKIPEDIA. Showing either a disdain for or an ignorance of history - or simple laziness - Wikipedia does researchers like you and me a disservice by frequently referring to notable people from the past by their given birth names, rather than the names by which they achieved fame. All it would have taken was a mere glimpse at just one single reference from the days when he coached to know that BILL Murray was never known to anyone other than perhaps his mother as “William D. Murray.” (Nor, for that matter, was Dave Nelson known as “David Nelson” or Bill Alexander as “William Alexander.”) The fact is that in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s men named David, or Joseph, or James, or Michael or William (any common anglo-saxon name) NEVER went by the formal form in an informal setting. NEVER. And football coaching was an informal setting. Wikipedia is not completely ignorant - thankfully, Babe Ruth is not “George Herman Ruth” to them, nor is Red Grange “Harold Grange.” I have permission to edit on Wikipedia, and I’ve tried to straighten them out on Murray, Nelson and Alexander - among others - but my edits have been rejected. Oh, well. Soon enough, AI will make Wikipedia obsolete anyhow.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Bill Murray was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, one of eight children. In his senior year at Rocky Mount High School he was an all-state running back.
As a single-wing tailback at Duke, he starred on the freshman team, and then for three years on the varsity. In his senior season, he rushed for 1,030 yards, was voted the team MVP, and was named to the All-Southern team, the first Blue Devil ever to be so honored.
He also ran track, and in the winter of his senior year he helped coach the freshman basketball team. As a senior he was president of the Student Government Association, and at graduation he received the Robert E. Lee Award as the school’s outstanding senior.
Following graduation from Duke, he was hired as principal and “coach of all sports” at the Methodist Children's Home in Winston-Salem. In addition, he taught history and geography. In ten years as the football coach at the home, he compiled a record of 69 wins against only 9 losses and 3 ties, including one unbeaten stretch of 36 games.
In 1940, ten years out of college, he was hired as head coach by the University of Delaware.
Delaware at the time was not good. Delaware had had five straight losing seasons, but his first team there went 5-3.
Delaware had been playing football since 1889 and had never had an unbeaten season. His second team there went 7-0-1. His third team went 8-0. His fourth team - after a three-year hiatus during World War II when Delaware didn’t field a team - went 10-0 and won the National Small-College Championship. During that span, Delaware went 32 games without a loss.
When he left Delaware after the 1950 season to take the job at Duke, his record was 49 wins, 16 losses, and 2 ties, with undefeated seasons in 1941, 1942, and 1946. He had also served as athletic director from 1940 to 1945, as director of the Division of Student Health, Physical Education, and Athletics, and as president of the faculty club.
At Duke, he replaced the legendary Wallace Wade (for whom Duke’s stadium is now named) who had resigned to become commissioner of the Southern Conference. He proceeded to post seven straight winning seasons. Starting with his second season, he had six straight nationally-ranked teams.
Recalled one of his former linemen, Dwight Bumgarner, "He liked to bring in players who had brains and talent but not a lot of money. We were a bunch of country boys but we were hungry."
He was hard-nosed, and in the words of lineman Dick Havens, “very organized, very disciplined. We joked that there was Eastern Time, Greenwich time, and (his) time. (His) time was five minutes early. The doors closed on time and the bus left on time. He left people in the parking lot. He was calm and collected but you knew there were consequences if you messed up."
Remembered quarterback Walt Rappold, "every second of every practice, you knew where you were and what you were supposed to be doing. We maintained that we played three games every week, two in practice and the third on Saturday."
He was a pound-it-out guy.
In 1956, his top receiver caught just nine passes for the entire season. One of his quarterbacks, Sonny Jurgensen, would go on to throw 4,203 passes in a Hall-of-Fame NFL career. But at Duke, he threw only 59 passes his entire senior season.
But then came some warning signs.
Duke’s 1958 team finished 5-5 - and had to win the last three games to do it. In 1959, the Blue Devils went 4-6, the most losses for any Duke team in 30 years.
He realized he had to do something, and the answer came in a loss to Army, coached by his friend Red Blaik. Army’s offense featured an innovative formation nicknamed the Lonesome End, in which split end Bill Carpenter never entered the huddle, instead receiving his play call from the quarterback by hand and body signals.
It convinced him to give the passing game a try, and he introduced it the next spring. It worked. His version of Army’s Carpenter, Tee Moorman, ended the 1960 season with 54 catches, second nationally only to Hugh Campbell of Washington State, and Duke went 8-3, winning the ACC, and beating Arkansas and its star running back Lance Alworth in the Cotton Bowl, 7-6.
For the next two years, the Blue Devils won the ACC and achieved national rankings.
He coached at Duke for fifteen seasons, only two of which were losing seasons. His teams won the Southern Conference championship in 1952 and ACC championships in 1954, 1960, 1961, and 1962. In 1953 and 1955 Duke was co-champion of the ACC. He was voted Southern Conference coach of the year in 1952 and ACC coach of the year in 1954, 1960, and 1962. Eight of his Duke teams were ranked in the final wire services' top twenty. His teams played in three bowl games: a 34–7 victory over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl after the 1954 season, a 48–21 loss to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl after the 1957 season, and a 7–6 Cotton Bowl victory over Arkansas following the 1960 season. He had twelve All-Americans included Mike McGee, winner of the 1959 Outland Trophy as the nation's best lineman.
While at Duke his teams had wins over top teams: Tennessee, Ohio State, Navy, Notre Dame and Florida. Duke defeated Ohio State in 1955, the year the Buckeyes’ Hopalong Cassady won the Heisman, and defeated Navy in 1960, the year the Middies’ Joe Bellino won it.
In all, at Duke he won 93 games, lost 51, and tied 9. Overall - Delaware and Duke combined - his record was 142-67-11.
In 1962 he served as the president of the American Football Coaches Association, and following the 1965 season, he left coaching to become its executive director, a position he held until his retirement in 1982. He also served on the board of directors of the College Football Hall of Fame.
He was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and in the late 1960s he was president of the national FCA.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the Duke Sports Hall of Fame, the University of Delaware Hall of Fame, and the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame.
For his many contributions to college football Bill Murray won the prestigious Amos Alonzo Stagg Award from the American Football Coaches Association in 1972.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BILL MURRAY
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** QUIZ: When the College Football Hall of Fame was opened in 1951, 22 coaches were inducted. Only two of them were Notre Dame men. One, of course, was Knute Rockne. The other was our guy.
He was born in Muncie, Indiana to parents who were recent immigrants from Wales. Cardiff, Wales. Just 5-8, he was a star athlete in high school in East Chicago.
After two years at Western State (now Western Michigan), he transferred to Notre Dame, where he played both baseball and football.
His roommate and best friend was the storied George Gipp, and for two seasons - 1921 and 1922, he was Knute Rockne’s starting quarterback. Rockne called him "the smartest player I ever coached."
After graduation, with a law degree, he tuned down an offer to play baseball with the Detroit Tigers, and instead, thanks to Rockne’s recommendation, he was hired by Georgia coach George Woodruff to be his backfield coach and introduce Rockne’s Notre Dame box to the South.
"I took the job to pay off my debts," he said at the time. "Besides, I wanted to try coaching for a year. If I didn't like it, I could always quit and practice law."
He spent just two years at Georgia before taking the head coaching job at Chattanooga.
There, taking over a squad that had won just one game the year before, he led them to a 4-4 record in his first year. In his second year his team tied for the conference championship, and in both his third and fourth years, he won the conference championship. In those two years, Chattanooga lost just three games, two of them to Vanderbilt (at that time a powerhouse).
After four years at Chattanooga, his record was 26-9-2, but he was persuaded to return to Georgia as an assistant, this time under a former Notre Dame teammate, Harry Mehre, who argued that it would improve his chances at getting a better job.
Sure enough, after one year at Georgia, the offer came. Before the 1930 season, Alabama’s Wallace Wade announced that he had accepted the job at Duke and that it would be his last season. And he personally recommended our guy as his successor.
Talk about a tough act to follow. Wade had taken Alabama to the Rose Bowl and a national title - its first - four years earlier. And in 1930, Alabama went undefeated, returned to the Rose Bowl where it defeated Washington State, and won another national championship. Nine days after the Rose Bowl game, our guy became head coach of the Crimson Tide.
In his first meeting with Alabama President Mike Denny, Denny told him, “Now that you have accepted our proposition, I will give you the benefit of my views, based on my years of observation. It is my conviction that material is 90 per cent and coaching is 10 per cent. I desire further to say that you will be provided with the 90 per cent, and that you will be held to strict accounting for the 10 per cent.”
Inheriting a national championship team, he went 9-1 in his first season. There followed seasons of 8-2, 7-1-1 and 10-0.
In his third season at Alabama, the Tide won the very first championship of the SEC.
On his 1934 team, at opposite ends were Don Hutson and Bear Bryant. Hutson was an All-American and went on the a Hall of Fame career at Green Bay. Bryant, of course, would become one of the greatest of all college coaches at Kentucky, Texas A & M and Alabama.
He coached through 1946, but he did most his coaching that season from a wheelchair, and at the end of the season, faced with his own failing health and concern for his mentally-ill daughter, he had to give up coaching. He was just 47. He died in 1954 at the age of 55.
In his 15 years as Alabama’s head coach, he posted an overall record of 115-24-7 with two national championships, (1934 and 1941) four SEC titles, two Rose Bowl wins (in three appearances), and additional appearances in the Cotton, Orange and Sugar Bowls. In all, he took Alabama to six bowl games, at a time when there were only four bowls.
He had seven seasons of one loss or less, and only twice did his teams lose as many as three games in a season.
His teams allowed an average of just 6.3 points per game, and among Alabama coaches, only Bryant has a better winning percentage.
One of his greatest accomplishments was starting the first free coaching clinic in the South in his second year at Alabama.
His is one of the five statues outside Bryant-Denny Stadium honoring Alabama coaches who have won national titles there; of the five, he is the only one who never had a losing season anywhere.
TUESDAY,
MAY 28, 2024 “Why do they put an expiration
date on sour cream? Does it turn good?” Gallagher************ Wisdom from Mike Lude: “The route to the farm where I grew up starts on what is now Highway 131, the paved road south from Kalamazoo. When I was a kid the road turned to gravel as it bent east to Vicksburg, a town of roughly two thousand. Another half-dozen miles the road became dirt - dust or mud, depending on the season – and two miles farther you would reach our farm.
“The farm consisted of 220 acres of rocks and Hills. My father was considered a tenant farmer, or share cropper. He provided everything it took to farm the land: seed, equipment, animals, and, of course, labor. The proceeds of everything he sold, crops or animals, he split fifty-fifty with the owner of the land.
“Our farm produced marginal amounts of wheat, oats, and corn, and a little bit of rye, barley, and clover. We milked by hand as many as 10 cows, twice a day. We also raised hogs, sheep, and chickens. I remember when hogs sold for three cents a pound, so if one weighed two hundred pounds we’d get six dollars for him. Wheat normally brought less than one dollar a bushel.”
*********** My Memorial Day story… On Sunday I spoke with a retired Army officer I know. He told me he’d just finished reading an email from people in Holland who have adopted - and tend - his father’s grave at Margraten American Cemetery. His father was drafted - at age 35 - and was killed in 1944, shortly before the end of WW II. It was very touching to learn that there are Europeans who are still appreciative of our men and their sacrifice.
*********** As they do every Memorial Day, local Boy Scouts come to our town cemetery and place flags on the graves of veterans. After doing so, they pause at each grave for a salute.
*********** UFL GAMES THIS PAST WEEKEND
SATURDAY
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (2-7) 36, ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (6-3) 22
Big shocker! Now, St. Louis hosts San Antonio next Saturday to determine who will be the home team when they meet - again - a week later in the semi-finals.
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (7-2) 18, BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (8-1) 9
This was no fluke. Birmingham had nothing to lose - other than a 15-game win streak and so chose to hold QB AJ McCarron out of action. San Antonio, on the other hand, welcomed back QB Chase Garbers, who back in April was thought to be out for the season.
SUNDAY (THE GENIUSES AT FOX - OR THE UFL - WHO SCHEDULED THESE TWO GAMES AT THE SAME TIME SHOWED US THE DC-MEMPHIS GAME ON TAPE DELAY)
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (7-2) 26, HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-8) 22
This was actually a pretty good game. Maybe if Houston’s secondary could tackle, instead of going for knockouts…
DC DEFENDERS (4-5) 36, MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-8) 21
Memphis won its opening game and now has lost eight straight. DC’s Jordan Ta’Amu was 20 of 24 (83 per cent) for 237 yards (almost 10 yards per attempt) and 2 TDs
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
SAN ANTONIO 7-2
ST LOUIS 6-3
DC 4-5
ARLINGTON 2-7
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 8-1
MICHIGAN 7-2
HOUSTON 1-8
HOUSTON 1-8
*********** I read someplace that the UFL was considering adding as many as four teams in 2025 - “if things go well this year.” Four MORE teams? At the present time, things are going so “well” that there are at most five current teams - and their five cities - worth keeping.
I know it’s football, and I should be grateful, but It’s really depressing to see the empty stands at games in Arlington, Houston and Memphis. DC is only slightly better because they play in a smaller, MLS-type stadium that at least creates the illusion that there are more people watching.
I got my start coaching minor league ball back in Maryland, and I certainly pull for guys who love the game and still harbor hopes of getting a shot at the NFL. But my experience came back in the early 1970s, when the NFL had fewer teams and much smaller rosters (and much smaller practice squads), which meant there were quite a few talented players that the NFL simply didn’t have room for. Reluctantly, I have to admit that based on what I’ve seen on the UFL fields this season, there’s not enough quality talent to stock a decent minor league of even eight teams.
*********** When’s the last time you saw an NFL team run the same play twice in a row? Against Memphis on Sunday DC Defenders’ offensive coordinator Fred Kaiss did it, but with a twist. He ran the same play - a jet sweep - twice in a row, first to the left and then to the right. (They were both successful.)
*********** The largest stadium in the CFL is Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, with a capacity of 56,302.
*********** Bob Grant died recently. Good man.
Bob was one of the first black men to play at Wake Forest. He played three years with the Baltimore Colts (where I first remember him ) and one year with the Redskins, then after a layoff of a year or so, he came out of retirement to play in the WFL. With us - the Philadelphia Bell.
IN 1974, at Bell training camp in Glassboro, New Jersey, a young sportswriter named Marty Twersky thought it would be great idea to pull a George Plimpton (remember “Paper Lion?”). He wanted to play someplace on defense, but our head coach, who had something of a sadistic side to him, said, “No, no. Running back.” I remember the look on the kid’s face. He knew what was coming. His first play was right at Bob Grant, who hit him as hard as I’ve ever seen anyone hit a guy. Asked about it afterward, Bob Grant, the consummate pro, expressed no remorse. He said he considered Twersky’s stunt an insult to career professionals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Grant_(American_football)
*********** Maybe you’ll get some ideas for your team’s workouts after a look at this Special Forces obstacle course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6siGD-_e24
The course is named “Nasty Nick,” in honor of a rather amazing soldier named Nick Rowe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_N._Rowe
*********** That beautiful new lakefront stadium that the Bears would love the taxpayers to build for them?
The Illinois House Speaker told the press, "If we were to put this issue on the board for a vote right now it would fail miserably."
The President of the Illinois Senate said, “There’s next to no appetite to fund a new stadium with taxpayer dollars.”
And Governor JB Pritzker sounded as if he’s wise to the Bears’ scheme: "They’re asking to keep all of the revenue from other events that might take place at the stadium. If there’s a Beyoncé concert, they want all of that revenue, too, and everything else that might happen there. There are aspects of this that are probably nonstarters."
TRANSLATION: This is Illinois and the big guys, who know where the money really is, are no-so-subtly letting people know that they’re waiting for the billionaires of the NFL to start crossing their palms with silver.
The billionaires may commit to putting up some of money, but ultimately, the taxpayers of Chicago will be the losers. The Bears can lever leave the Chicago area, but there’s a chance that they could leave the city itself, and that’s enough to scare the city pols, none of whom wants to be blamed for losing the Bears to some suburb.
*********** Johnny Radcliffe, a longtime neighbor and good friend of our daughter and son-in-law in North Carolina, can’t eat red meat - beef, pork, lamb. Were he to do so, he would experience an anaphylactic reaction, not unlike what happens to people who experience serious reactions to bee stings.
He’s had this condition for several years. It was purely by chance that the people at the University of North Carolina traced it to the bite of a tick, the so-called Lone Star tick, whose bite transfers something called alpha-gal into the body of its victim.
His was one of the first cases they had seen, but evidently it’s occurring more frequently.
The Lone Star tick is found mainly in the Southeast, so naturally that’s where most cases of what’s called alpha-gal syndrome have been been reported, but the range of cases reported appears to be spreading northward and westward, most likely by deer carrying the tick.
There’s no known treatment for alpha-gal syndrome other than completely avoiding red meat.
*********** When old friend Dwayne Pierce visited recently, we were looking at some Washington high school film from last season when we noticed that the umpire - the position Dwayne works as an official - was nowhere to be seen.
After spotting the ball, the umpire customarily stands on the defensive side of the ball, five yards or so downfield from the center, looking for false starts and then, once the ball’s snapped, for holding on the offensive line. But in the film we were watching, after spotting the ball, he took a position in the offensive backfield, about ten yards back of where a tight end would line up if there were one. (These measurements are not intended to be precise.)
Since Coach Pierce left, I’ve had a chance to talk with a couple of officials, and this is what I’ve been told, off the record, some of it perhaps mere opinion:
1. Washington adopted this positioning last season.
2. Washington is one of maybe a half-dozen states that have done so.
3. It was done for insurance purposes (the new position being considerably safer than being in the middle of the defense).
4. It sucks. A lot of holding is being missed.
Great. Just what football needs. Less disincentive to hold.
*********** Not saying that flying is getting worse, but a friend whose son is a veteran airline pilot told me that his son preferred being a co-pilot to being a pilot, despite a significant difference in the pay. His reasoning? “I just wanted to fly. I don’t want to deal with all the other sh—. If there’s a problem back there (in the main cabin) the pilot can handle it.” (The pilot is literally the captain of the ship.)
*********** The Army is a major sponsor of the UFL, so at some point in every game it’s customary for the sideline reporter to interview a “soldier” or two (you’ll see in a minute why I put “soldier” in quotes), asking them why they “chose to serve,” and what their job is.
I honestly have yet to hear anyone say they do anything more than remotely connected with defending our way of life.
This Saturday, at one of the games, they interviewed some burly sergeant who said he’d been in the Army for 15 years or so. Ah ha, I thought. Finally someone who kicks ass.
But when he was asked what his job was, he said, “I’m an equal opportunity advisor.”
*********** Biden’s still at it - still trying to hoodwink gullible Americans into thinking he was once one hell of a football player. Somewhere.
He actually told the graduating class at West Point Saturday that they almost had to deal with him playing for their archrival:
(1) He was “appointed” to the Naval Academy by his Senator.
(2) He thought twice about going to Annapolis after finding out, “they had a quarterback named Roger Staubach and a halfback named Joe Bellino… “
His reaction to that discovery? “I said, oh, I’m not going there. I went to Delaware, heh-heh-heh-heh (that’s not a joke).”
After sprinkling some brightly-colored truth serum powder onto his ice cream, then waiting for the drug to take effect, I asked him about those statements, and I got him to say this…
(1) “Actually, while I was nominated, I was never appointed. BIG difference.”
(2) “Let’s see… That would have been spring, 1961 - my senior year. Joe Bellino’s Navy football career was over by that time. In fact, he was getting ready to graduate from the Naval Academy. Oh, and Roger Staubach? Actually, I’d never heard of him at that time. Who had? Very few people had. He wasn’t even enrolled at the Naval Academy yet because he was just finishing up his post-graduate year at New Mexico Military Academy.”
The drug wore off before I could get him to admit that he never played a down of even freshman football at Delaware, so I guess we’ll have to hear that some more.
*********** Every year since joining your page, I've looked forward to your Memorial Day entry. I read it slowly. I think about the people described, and the situations they faced. I cannot call to mind the name of Justice OWH without mentally taking a knee in respect. How can a conscientious American read this page and afterward be unwilling to fight the forces trying to tear down this nation today?
Your Memorial Day page is peerless, and should be the model for publications that reach millions of people.
I have more to say on lighter subjects, but today is not the day. Thanks, Coach Wyatt.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Thanks again for sharing all those meaningful Memorial Day items with all of us. One of them, regarding touching the names etched on monuments, is one my wife and I will take up as there are a number of those types of monuments scattered throughout Granbury commemorating those who fought and died to secure our freedoms. In fact, during the entire year as you walk around the town square here you will see signs with pictures of vets from Granbury and surrounding towns placed outside of the businesses honoring their service.
The NCAA covered their a**. They succumbed to their own greed, and the greed of ESPN and the media, rather than go bankrupt and lose whatever influence and power they had left. If I was running the NCAA I would cut the Power Five schools loose and let them fend for themselves.
Mike Lude's prophetic words may turn out to be a saving grace for a number of Group of Five and FCS schools. The NCAA would be wise to heed those words. Otherwise those schools will be faced with two very serious considerations. A). Drop football (and watch the endowments shrink); or B). Drop the non-revenue Olympic type sports (and watch the lawsuits pile up!).
Blessings,
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Joe Foss was a World War II Marine flying ace… a winner of the Medal of Honor (seen around his neck in the photo at far left). And he was one of the few men in the history of sports who was able to successfully oversee the start of a professional league.
He grew up on a farm in South Dakota, near Sioux Falls, and his lifelong love of flying started when he saw Charles Lindbergh on a visit to his area. He was 18 when his father was killed in an accident and - in the middle of the Depression - he managed by hard work to keep the farm solvent, and while his younger brother ran the farm he worked at a service station to pay for flying lessons and for his education at the University of South Dakota.
At USD, he was on the boxing team and played guard on the football team, and was instrumental in persuading the university to start a flying course.
Just before the start of World War II, he joined the Marines, and although at 27 he was originally conquered too old to be a fighter pilot, he managed to talk his way into qualifying.
In 1942 he was sent to Guadalcanal, and although he was twice shot down, he was such a skilled fighter that in one three-month period he was credited with 26 kills, equalling the record set in World War I by the US’ top ace, Eddie Rickenbacker.
He was presented the Medal of Honor at the White House by President Roosevelt, and appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.
Following the war, he served as Governor of South Dakota for two terms, and as President of the NRA (National Rifle Association).
He was active in numerous charities, and with Campus Crusade for Christ.
Joe Foss was the first Commissioner of the American Football League, serving from 1959 to 1966, just before the AFL’s merger with the NFL.
From 1964 to 1967 he hosted ABC’s “American Sportsman.”
He’d be a lot better known if in 1956, he hadn’t refused to authorize a film based on his life when he learned the producers insisted on adding a made-up love story. He was going to be played by an old friend - John Wayne.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOE FOSS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA - Easy for us retired Marines!
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA - Joe Foss, who assuredly qualifies as a distinguished American, and who therefore is a fitting choice for today.
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TIM BROWN - FLORENCE, ALABAMA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, one of eight children. In his senior year at Rocky Mount High School he was an all-state running back.
As a single-wing tailback at Duke, he starred on the freshman team, and then for three years on the varsity. In his senior season, he rushed for 1,030 yards, was voted the team MVP, and was named to the All-Southern team, the first Blue Devil ever to be so honored.
He also ran track, and in the winter of his senior year he helped coach the freshman basketball team. As a senior he was president of the Student Government Association, and at graduation he received the Robert E. Lee Award as the school’s outstanding senior.
Following graduation from Duke, he was hired as principal and “coach of all sports” at the Methodist Children's Home in Winston-Salem. In addition, he taught history and geography. In ten years as the football coach at the home, he compiled a record of 69 wins against only 9 losses and 3 ties, including one unbeaten stretch of 36 games.
In 1940, ten years out of college, he was hired as head coach by the University of Delaware.
Delaware at the time was not good. Delaware had had five straight losing seasons, but his first team there went 5-3.
Delaware had been playing football since 1889 and had never had an unbeaten season. His second team there went 7-0-1. His third team went 8-0. His fourth team - after a three-year hiatus during World War II when Delaware didn’t field a team - went 10-0 and won the National Small-College Championship. During that span, Delaware went 32 games without a loss.
When he left Delaware after the 1950 season to take the job at Duke, his record was 49 wins, 16 losses, and 2 ties, with undefeated seasons in 1941, 1942, and 1946. He had also served as athletic director from 1940 to 1945, as director of the Division of Student Health, Physical Education, and Athletics, and as president of the faculty club.
At Duke, he replaced the legendary Wallace Wade (for whom Duke’s stadium is now named) who had resigned to become commissioner of the Southern Conference. He proceeded to post seven straight winning seasons. Starting with his second season, he had six straight nationally-ranked teams.
Recalled one of his former linemen, Dwight Bumgarner, "He liked to bring in players who had brains and talent but not a lot of money. We were a bunch of country boys but we were hungry."
He was hard-nosed, and in the words of lineman Dick Havens, “very organized, very disciplined. We joked that there was Eastern Time, Greenwich time, and (his) time. (His) time was five minutes early. The doors closed on time and the bus left on time. He left people in the parking lot. He was calm and collected but you knew there were consequences if you messed up."
Remembered quarterback Walt Rappold, "every second of every practice, you knew where you were and what you were supposed to be doing. We maintained that we played three games every week, two in practice and the third on Saturday."
He was a pound-it-out guy.
In 1956, his top receiver caught just nine passes for the entire season. One of his quarterbacks, Sonny Jurgensen, would go on to throw 4,203 passes in a Hall-of-Fame NFL career. But at Duke, he threw only 59 passes his entire senior season.
But then came some warning signs.
Duke’s 1958 team finished 5-5 - and had to win the last three games to do it. In 1959, the Blue Devils went 4-6, the most losses for any Duke team in 30 years.
He realized he had to do something, and the answer came in a loss to Army, coached by his friend Red Blaik. Army’s offense featured an innovative formation nicknamed the Lonesome End, in which split end Bill Carpenter never entered the huddle, instead receiving his play call from the quarterback by hand and body signals.
It convinced him to give the passing game a try, and he introduced it the next spring. It worked. His version of Army’s Carpenter, Tee Moorman, ended the 1960 season with 54 catches, second nationally only to Hugh Campbell of Washington State, and Duke went 8-3, winning the ACC, and beating Arkansas and its star running back Lance Alworth in the Cotton Bowl, 7-6.
For the next two years, the Blue Devils won the ACC and achieved national rankings.
He coached at Duke for fifteen seasons, only two of which were losing seasons. His teams won the Southern Conference championship in 1952 and ACC championships in 1954, 1960, 1961, and 1962. In 1953 and 1955 Duke was co-champion of the ACC. He was voted Southern Conference coach of the year in 1952 and ACC coach of the year in 1954, 1960, and 1962. Eight of his Duke teams were ranked in the final wire services' top twenty. His teams played in three bowl games: a 34–7 victory over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl after the 1954 season, a 48–21 loss to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl after the 1957 season, and a 7–6 Cotton Bowl victory over Arkansas following the 1960 season. He had twelve All-Americans included Mike McGee, winner of the 1959 Outland Trophy as the nation's best lineman.
While at Duke his teams had wins over top teams: Tennessee, Ohio State, Navy, Notre Dame and Florida. Duke defeated Ohio State in 1955, the year the Buckeyes’ Hopalong Cassady won the Heisman, and defeated Navy in 1960, the year the Middies’ Joe Bellino won it.
In all, at Duke he won 93 games, lost 51, and tied 9. Overall - Delaware and Duke combined - his record was 142-67-11.
In 1962 he served as the president of the American Football Coaches Association, and following the 1965 season, he left coaching to become its executive director, a position he held until his retirement in 1982. He also served on the board of directors of the College Football Hall of Fame.
He was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and in the late 1960s he was president of the national FCA.
He is in the College Football Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the Duke Sports Hall of Fame, the University of Delaware Hall of Fame, and the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame.
For his many contributions to college football he won the prestigious Amos Alonzo Stagg Award from the American Football Coaches Association in 1972.
FRIDAY,
MAY 24, 2024 "Those who lived have to
represent those who didn't make it.” Joe Foss, World War II flying aceMEMORIAL DAY, 2024 - More than football
FOR YEARS, IT’S BEEN MY HONOR TO OBSERVE MEMORIAL DAY WITH A COLLECTION OF WRITINGS, POEMS AND OBSERVATIONS. I HOPE YOU’LL TAKE THE TIME TO READ THEM…
*********** Memorial Day was originally known as "Decoration Day,” set aside to honor the men who died in the Civil War. (For a long time, certain southern states chose not observe it, instead observing their own state’s Memorial Days to honor their Confederate war dead.)
*********** On Memorial Day, we honor those who died fighting for our country. But it's also important to honor those who didn't die - who survived the conflict itself, then spent the rest of their lives trying to suppress memories of the horrors of war, tormented by the thought that comrades died, and they were spared.
*********** For seven summers, I coached football in Finland. On one occasion, I attended the high school graduation of one of my players. Other than the language, it wasn't all that different from those that I'd attended in the US, except that at the end, instead of some raucous celebrating, the graduates marched solemnly to the nearby town churchyard and laid flowers on the graves of soldiers - some of them young men from their town who less than 50 years before had given their lives to defend their country against the Russians, some of them young men who had died years earlier, in a civil war to decide whether the communism unleashed in neighboring Russia might also engulf their country.
I marvelled at the graduates’ devotion to their country, and at the way they unashamedly honored their fallen soldiers, and I realize how blessed we were never to have had our very country threatened. But I also realized how special our dead servicemen were, because so many of them died on foreign shores, their deaths all the more tragic because they were only remotely connected to the actual defense of their country.
I ESPECIALLY HONOR THE MEN OF THE BLACK LIONS, AND DON HOLLEDER, FORMER ARMY ALL-AMERICAN, WHO DIED IN THE VIETNAM JUNGLE IN THE BATTLE OF ONG THANH, OCTOBER 17, 1967
VIETNAM WALL... K I A ... Adkins, Donald W.... Allen, Terry... Anderson, Larry M.... Barker, Gary L.... Blackwell, James L., Jr.... Bolen, Jackie Jr. ... Booker, Joseph O. ... Breeden, Clifford L. Jr ... Camero, Santos... Carrasco, Ralph ... Chaney, Elwood D. Jr... Cook, Melvin B.... Crites, Richard L.... Crutcher, Joe A. ...... Dodson, Wesley E.... Dowling, Francis E.... Durham, Harold B. Jr ... Dye, Edward P. ... East, Leon N.... Ellis, Maurice S.... Familiare, Anthony ... Farrell, Michael J. ...Fuqua, Robert L. Jr. ...Gallagher, Michael J. ...Garcia, Arturo ...Garcia, Melesso ...Gilbert, Stanley D. ...Gilbertson, Verland ...Gribble, Ray N. ...Holleder, Donald W. ...Jagielo, Allen D. ...Johnson, Willie C. Jr ...Jones, Richard W. ...Krischie, John D. ...Lancaster, James E. ...Larson, James E. ...Lincoln, Gary G. ...Lovato, Joe Jr. ...Luberta, Andrew P. ...Megiveron, Emil G. ...Miller, Michael M. ...Moultrie, Joe D. ...Nagy, Robert J. ...Ostroff, Steven L. ...Platosz, Walter ...Plier, Eugene J. ...Porter, Archie ...Randall, Garland J. ...Reece, Ronney D. ...Reilly, Allan V. ...Sarsfield, Harry C. ...Schroder, Jack W. ...Shubert, Jackie E. ...Sikorski, Daniel ...Smith, Luther ...Thomas, Theodore D. Jr. ...Tizzio, Pasquale T. ...Wilson, Kenneth P. .... M I A ... Fitzgerald, Paul ...Hargrove, Olin Jr
*********** The Civil War soldiers called it "seeing the elephant." It meant experiencing combat. They may have started out cocky, but they soon enough learned how horrible - how unforgiving and inescapable - combat could be. By the end of the Civil War 620,000 of them on both sides lay dead.
From "Seeing the Elephant" - Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh - Joseph Allan Frank and George A. Reaves - New York: Greenwood Press, 1989
"I have never realized the 'pomp and circumstance' of glorious war before this," a Confederate soldier bitterly wrote, "Men...lying in every conceivable position; the dead...with eyes open, the wounded begging piteously for help."
"All around, strange mingled roar - shouts of defiance, rally, and desperation; and underneath, murmured entreaty and stifled moans; gasping prayers, snatches of Sabbath song, whispers of loved names; everywhere men torn and broken, staggering, creeping, quivering on the earth, and dead faces with strangely fixed eyes staring stark into the sky. Things which cannot be told - nor dreamed. How men held on, each one knows, - not I."
Each battle was a story of great courage and audacity, sometimes of miscommunication and foolishness. But it's the casualty numbers that catch our eyes. The numbers roll by and they are hard for us to believe, even in these days of modern warfare. Shiloh: 23,741, Seven Days: 36,463, Antietam: 26,134, Fredericksburg: 17,962, Gettysburg: 51,112, and on and on (in most cases, the South named battles after the town that served as their headquarters in that conflict, the North named them after nearby rivers or creeks - so "Manassas" for the South was "Bull Run" for the North; "Antietam" for the Union was "Sharpsburg" for the Confederacy).
Union General William T. Sherman looked at the aftermath of Shiloh and wrote, "The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war."
********** THE YANKEE FROM OLYMPUS - ON MEMORIAL DAY
"We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt - we still feel - the passion of life to its top.... In our youths, our hearts were touched with fire." Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr.
At a time in our history when fewer than five per cent of the people who govern us have served in our Armed Forces, it's useful to go back to another time, a time of men such as Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr.
Born in Boston in 1841, he was the son of a famous poet and physician. In his lifetime he would see combat in the Civil War, then go on to become a noted lawyer and, finally, for 30 years, serve as a justice of the Supreme Court. So respected was he that he became known as "The Yankee From Olympus."
After graduation from Harvard, with the Civil War underway, he joined the United States Army, and saw combat in the Peninsula Campaign and the Wilderness. He was injured at the Battles of Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and he was discharged in 1864 as a Lieutenant Colonel.
The story is told that in July 1864, the Confederate general Jubal Early conducted a raid north of Washington, D.C., and President Abraham Lincoln came out to watch the battle. As Lincoln watched, an officer right next to him was hit by a sniper's bullet. Holmes was nearby and , not realizing whom he was speaking to, shouted to the President, "Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!"
After the war's conclusion, Holmes returned to Harvard to study law. Admitted to the bar in 1866, he went into private practice in Boston. In 1882, he became both a professor at Harvard Law School and a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. In 1899, he was appointed Chief Justice of the court, and in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt named him to the United States Supreme Court, where he served for more than 30 years, until January 1932.
Over the years, as a distinguished citizen who knew what it meant to fight for his country, he would reflect every year on the meaning of Memorial Day, and of the American soldier’s contribution to preserving our way of life.
On Memorial Day, 1884, 20 years after the end of the Civil War, Mr. Holmes said,
Accidents may call up the events of the war. You see a battery of guns go by at a trot, and for a moment you are back at White Oak Swamp, or Antietam, or on the Jerusalem Road.
You hear a few shots fired in the distance, and for an instant your heart stops as you say to yourself, The skirmishers are at it, and listen for the long roll of fire from the main line.
You meet an old comrade after many years of absence, he recalls the moment that you were nearly surrounded by the enemy, and again there comes up to you that swift and cunning thinking on which once hung life and freedom -- Shall I stand the best chance if I try the pistol or the sabre on that man who means to stop me? Will he get his carbine free before I reach him, or can I kill him first? These and the thousand other events we have known are called up, I say, by accident, and, apart from accident, they lie forgotten.
But as surely as this day comes round we are in the presence of the dead. For one hour, twice a year at least--at the regimental dinner, where the ghosts sit at table more numerous than the living, and on this day when we decorate their graves -- the dead come back and live with us.
I see them now, more than I can number, as once I saw them on this earth. They are the same bright figures, or their counterparts, that come also before your eyes; and when I speak of those who were my brothers, the same words describe yours.
This, from Justice Holmes' address to the graduating class of Harvard University on Memorial Day, 1895…
I have heard the question asked whether our war was worth fighting, after all. There are many, poor and rich, who think that love of country is an old wife's tale, to be replaced by interest in a labor union, or, under the name of cosmopolitanism, by a rootless self-seeking search for a place where the most enjoyment may be had at the least cost.
I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.
Most men who know battle know the cynic force with which the thoughts of common sense will assail them in times of stress; but they know that in their greatest moments faith has trampled those thoughts under foot. If you wait in line, suppose on Tremont Street Mall, ordered simply to wait and do nothing, and have watched the enemy bring their guns to bear upon you down a gentle slope like that of Beacon Street, have seen the puff of the firing, have felt the burst of the spherical case-shot as it came toward you, have heard and seen the shrieking fragments go tearing through your company, and have known that the next or the next shot carries your fate; if you have advanced in line and have seen ahead of you the spot you must pass where the rifle bullets are striking; if you have ridden at night at a walk toward the blue line of fire at the dead angle of Spotsylvania, where for twenty-four hours the soldiers were fighting on the two sides of an earthwork, and in the morning the dead and dying lay piled in a row six deep, and as you rode you heard the bullets splashing in the mud and earth about you; if you have been in the picket-line at night in a black and unknown wood, have heard the splat of the bullets upon the trees, and as you moved have felt your foot slip upon a dead man's body; if you have had a blind fierce gallop against the enemy, with your blood up and a pace that left no time for fear -- if, in short, as some, I hope many, who hear me, have known, you have known the vicissitudes of terror and triumph in war; you know that there is such a thing as the faith I spoke of. You know your own weakness and are modest; but you know that man has in him that unspeakable somewhat which makes him capable of miracle, able to lift himself by the might of his own soul, unaided, able to face annihilation for a blind belief.
On the eve of Memorial Day, 1931, at the age of 90, Mr. Justice Holmes wrote to a friend:
"I shall go out to Arlington tomorrow, Memorial Day, and visit the gravestone with my name and my wife's on it, and be stirred by the military music, and, instead of bothering about the Unknown Soldier shall go to another stone that tells beneath it are the bones of, I don't remember the number but two or three thousand and odd, once soldiers gathered from the Virginia fields after the Civil War. I heard a woman say there once, 'They gave their all. They gave their very names.' Later perhaps some people will come in to say goodbye."
Justice Holmes died on March 6, 1935, two days short of his 94th birthday, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. So spry and alert was he, right up to the end, that it's said that one day, when he was in his nineties, he saw an attractive young woman and said, "Oh, to be seventy again!" A 1951 Hollywood motion picture, The Magnificent Yankee, was based on his life.
*********** Roughly 10 million men were killed in World War I. So effective had the weapons of war become by then that for about half of them - five million men - there are no known graves.
*********** Many years ago, I visited the First Division (Big Red One) Museum at Cantigny, in Wheaton, Illinois. There, I read these lines, and thought of all the young Americans who died in the service of their country - men who in the memories of those they left behind would be forever young...
If you are able
Save a place for them inside of you,
And save one backward glance
When you are leaving for places
They can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
Though you may or may not always have.
Take what they have left
And what they have taught you with their dying,
And keep it with your own.
And in that time when men feel safe
To call the war insane,
Take one moment to embrace these gentle heroes
You left behind.
by Major Michael D. O'Donnell... shortly before being killed in action in Vietnam, 1970
***********After graduation from Harvard in 1910, Alan Seeger lived the life of a bohemian/beatnik/ hippie poet in New York City's Greenwich Village.
In 1914, he moved to Paris, and when war with Germany broke out, like a number of other young Americans, he joined the French Foreign Legion to fight on the side of the Allies. On July 4, 1916, nine months before America joined the war, he was killed in the Battle of the Somme. He was 28.
A year after his death, his poems were published. The best known of them was "I Have a Rendezvous With Death," which according to the JFK Library, "was one of President Kennedy's favorite poems."
I Have a Rendezvous with Death
By Alan Seeger
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
*********** Poppies once symbolized the Great War. The World War. Or, if you prefer, "The War to End All Wars" (so-called because, in the conceit that seems to follow every war, people just knew in their hearts that after the horror of that conflict, mankind would do anything in its power to avoid ever going to war again.)
We now call it “World War I.”
Following the World War, Americans began to observe the week leading up to Memorial Day as Poppy Week, and for years after the World War ended, veterans' organizations in America, Australia and other nations which had fought in the war sold imitation poppies at this time every year to raise funds to assist disabled veterans.
It was largely because of a poem by a Canadian surgeon, Major John McCrae, that the poppy, which burst into bloom all over the once-bloody battlefields of northern Europe, came to symbolize the rebirth of life following the tragedy of war.
In the spring of 1915, after having spent seventeen days hearing the screams and dealing with the suffering of men wounded in the bloody battle at Ypres, in Flanders (a part of Belgium), Major McCrae wrote, "I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."
Major McCrae was especially affected by the death of a close friend and former student. Following his burial - at which, in the absence of a chaplain, Major McCrae himself had had to preside - the Major sat in the back of an ambulance and, gazing out at the wild poppies growing in a nearby cemetery, composed a poem, scribbling the words in a notebook. When he was done, though, he discarded it, and only through the efforts of a fellow officer, who rescued it and sent it to newspapers in England, was it ever published.
Now, that poem, "In Flanders Fields", is considered perhaps the greatest of all wartime poems. The special significance of the poppies is that poppy seeds might lie dormant in the ground for years, flowering only when the soil has been turned over. The soil of northern Belgium had been so churned up by the violence of war that at the time Major McCrae wrote his poem, the poppies were said to be blossoming in such a profusion that no one could remember ever having seen before.
In Flanders Fields... by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
*********** Robert W. Service is one of my favorite poets. I especially like his poems about the Alaska Gold Rush - who hasn't ever heard "The Cremation of Sam McGee?" - but this one, about an idealistic young English soldier going off to fight in World War I, and the grief of his father at learning of his death, is heartbreaking, especially poignant on a day when we remember our people who gave everything, and the loved ones they left behind...
"Young Fellow My Lad"
"Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad, On this glittering morn of May?"
"I'm going to join the Colours, Dad; They're looking for men, they say."
"But you're only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad; You aren't obliged to go."
"I'm seventeen and a quarter, Dad, And ever so strong, you know."
"So you're off to France, Young Fellow My Lad, And you're looking so fit and bright."
"I'm terribly sorry to leave you, Dad, But I feel that I'm doing right."
"God bless you and keep you, Young Fellow My Lad, You're all of my life, you know."
"Don't worry. I'll soon be back, dear Dad, And I'm awfully proud to go."
"Why don't you write, Young Fellow My Lad? I watch for the post each day;
And I miss you so, and I'm awfully sad, And it's months since you went away.
And I've had the fire in the parlour lit, And I'm keeping it burning bright
Till my boy comes home; and here I sit Into the quiet night."
"What is the matter, Young Fellow My Lad? No letter again to-day.
Why did the postman look so sad, And sigh as he turned away?
I hear them tell that we've gained new ground, But a terrible price we've paid:
God grant, my boy, that you're safe and sound; But oh I'm afraid, afraid."
"They've told me the truth, Young Fellow My Lad: You'll never come back again:
(OH GOD! THE DREAMS AND THE DREAMS I'VE HAD, AND THE HOPES I'VE NURSED IN VAIN!)
For you passed in the night, Young Fellow My Lad, And you proved in the cruel test
Of the screaming shell and the battle hell That my boy was one of the best.
"So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad, In the gleam of the evening star,
In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child, In all sweet things that are.
And you'll never die, my wonderful boy, While life is noble and true;
For all our beauty and hope and joy We will owe to our lads like you."
*********** Hugh Brodie, an Australian, enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in Melbourne on 15 September 1940. In 1942, Sergeant Brodie was listed Missing in Action. Before he left us, though, he wrote "A Sergeant's Prayer"
Almighty and all present Power,
Short is the prayer I make to Thee,
I do not ask in battle hour
For any shield to cover me.
The vast unalterable way,
From which the stars do not depart
May not be turned aside to stay
The bullet flying to my heart.
I ask no help to strike my foe,
I seek no petty victory here,
The enemy I hate, I know,
To Thee is also dear.
But this I pray, be at my side
When death is drawing through the sky.
Almighty God who also died
Teach me the way that I should die.
*********** From "The Beast was Out There", by Brigadier General James Shelton, USA (Ret.)
"Like many other phenomena in life, history has a tendency to be fickle. In 2001, some thirty-four years after the Battle of Ông Thanh, and the subsequent withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in 1973, which was followed by the "honorable peace" that saw the North Vietnamese army conquer South Vietnam in 1975 in violation of the Paris Peace Accords, most historians, as well as a large majority of the American people, may consider the U.S. involvement in Vietnam a disastrous and tragic waste and a time of shame in U.S. history. Consider, however, the fact that since the late 1940s, the Soviet Union was the greatest single threat to U.S. security. Yet for forty years, war between the Soviet Union and the United States was averted. Each time a Soviet threat surfaced during that time (Greece, Turkey, Korea, Berlin, Cuba, Vietnam, and Afghanistan), although it may have been in the form of a "war of national liberation," as the Vietnam war was characterized, the United States gave the Soviet Union the distinct message that each successive threat would not be a Soviet walkover. In fact, the Soviets were stunned by the U.S. reactions in both Korea and Vietnam. They shook their heads, wondering what interest a great power like the United States could have in those two godforsaken countries. They thought: 'These Americans are crazy. They have nothing to gain; and yet they fight and lose thousands of men over nothing. They are irrational.’
"'Perhaps history in the long-term--two hundred or three hundred years from now--will say that the western democracies, led by the United States, survived in the world, and their philosophy of government of the people, by the people, for the people continues to survive today (in 2301) in some measure due to resolute sacrifices made in the mid-twentieth century by men like those listed in the last chapter of this book. Then the words of Lord Byron, as quoted in this book's preface, will not ring hollow, but instead they will inspire other men and women of honor in the years to come. "
The late General Jim Shelton was a former Delaware football player (a wing-T guard) who served in Korea and Vietnam and as a combat infantryman rose to the rank of General. He was in Viet Nam on that fateful day in October, 1967 when Don Holleder was killed. Ironically, he had competed against Don Holleder in college. General Shelton served as Colonel of the Black Lions and was instrumental in helping me establish the Black Lion Award for young American football players. The title of his book was taken from Captain Jim Kasik's description of the enemy: "the beast was out there, and the beast was hungry."
*********** The late George Jones could be a rogue, but he was a heck of a singer, and his "50,000 NAMES CARVED IN THE WALL" - a tribute to the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam - may be THE American Memorial Day song.
(Warning - this one could make you cry.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpBiVpSggNs
*********** A TRIBUTE TO THE MAN WHOSE STORY INSPIRED THE BLACK LION AWARD... DONALD WALTER HOLLEDER, UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY CLASS OF 1956 -
If you doubt the axiom, 'An aggressive leader is priceless,' ...if you prefer the air arm to the infantry in football, if you are not convinced we recruited cadet-athletes of superior leadership potential, then you must hear the story of Donald Walter Holleder. The saga of Holleder stands unique in Army and, perhaps, all college gridiron lore.
Hence begins the chapter, "You are my quarterback", in Coach Red Blaik's 1960 book, You Have to Pay the Price. Every cadet in the classes of 1956, 57, 58 and 59, and everyone who was part of the Army family at West Point and throughout the world will remember, even 50 years after the fact, the "Great Experiment".
But there is much more to the Holleder story. . Holly was born and brought up in a tight knit Catholic family in upstate New York. He was an only child whose father died when Don was quite young. Doc Blanchard recruited high school All American Holleder who entered the Point just a few days after he graduated from Aquinas Institute in Rochester.
Twice turned out for academic difficulties, he struggled mightily to stay in the Corps. However as a cadet leader he excelled, serving as a cadet captain and company commander of M-2 his senior year.
Of course, it was in the field of athletics that Don is best known. Never a starter on the basketball team, he nevertheless got playing time as a forward who brought rebounding strength to a team that beat a heavily favored Navy team in the early spring of 1954. That fall, the passing combination of Vann to Holleder quickly caught the attention of the college football world. No one who watched those games will ever forget Holly going deep and leaping into the air to grab a perfectly thrown bomb from Peter Vann. Don was a consensus first team All American that year as a junior.
Three football defeats in 1955 after Holly's conversion to quarterback brought criticism of Coach Blaik and Don from many quarters but the dramatic Army victory over Navy, 14 to 6 brought redemption. Shortly thereafter, Holly received the Swede Nelson award for sportsmanship.
The fact that he had given up all chances of becoming a two time all-American and a candidate for the Heisman trophy and he did so without protest or complaint played heavily in the decision by the Nelson committee to select him for this prestigious award.
Holly's eleven year career in the Army included the normal schools at Benning and Leavenworth, company command in Korea, coaching and recruiting at West Point and serving as the commanding general's aide at Fortress Monroe.
After graduating from Command and General Staff College, he was off to Vietnam. Arriving in July, 1967, Holly was assigned to the Big Red One--the First Infantry Division-- and had considerable combat experience before that tragic day in the fall--October 17.
Lieutenant Colonel Terry Allen's battalion was ambushed and overrun--the troops on the ground were in desperate shape. Holleder was serving as the operations officer of the 28th Brigade--famous Black Lions. Hearing the anguished radio calls for help from the soldiers on the ground, Holly convinced his brigade commander that he had to get on the ground to help. Jumping out of his helicopter, Holly rallied some troops and raced toward the spot where the wounded soldiers were fighting.
The Newsweek article a few days after his death tells what happened next. "With the Viet Cong firing from two sides, the U. S. troops now began retreating pell-mell back to their base camp, carrying as many of their wounded as they could, The medic Tom "Doc" Hinger was among those who staggered out of the bush and headed across an open marshy plain toward the base, 200 meters away. But on the way he ran into big, forceful Major Donald W. Holleder, 33, an All-American football player at West Point..., going the other way--toward the scene of the battle. Holleder, operations officer for the brigade, had not been in the fight until now. ' Come on Doc,' he shouted to Hinger, 'There are still wounded in there. I need your help.' "
Hinger said later: 'I was exhausted. But having never seen such a commander, I ran after him. What an officer! He went on ahead of us--literally running to the point position'. Then a burst of fire from the trees caught Holleder. 'He was hit in the shoulder recalled Hinger. 'I started to patch him up, but he died in my arms.'
The medic added he had been with Holleder for only three minutes, but would remember the Major's gallantry for the rest of his life."
Holly died as he lived: the willingness to make great sacrifices prevailed to the minute of his death. Caroline was left a young widow. She later married our West Point classmate, Ernie Ruffner, who became a loving husband and father to the four Holleder daughters. All the daughters are happily married and there are eight wonderful and loving grandchildren.
The legacy of Donald Walter Holleder will remain an important part of the West Point story forever. The Holleder Army Reserve Center in Webster, New York, the Holleder Parkway in Rochester and the Holleder Athletic Center at West Point all help further Don's legacy. In 1985, Holly was inducted into College Football Hall of Fame.
A 2003 best selling book, "They Marched into Sunlight", by David Maraniss, tells the story of Holleder and the Black Lions. Tom Hanks has purchased the film rights to the book. An innovative high school coach, Hugh Wyatt, decided to further memorialize Don's legacy by establishing the Black Lion Award. Each year at hundreds of high schools, middle schools and youth football programs across the country, a single football player on each team is selected "who best exemplifies the character of Don Holleder: leadership, courage, devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and--above all--an unselfish concern for his team ahead of himself."
Starting in 2005, this award is presented to a member of the Army football team each year. Anyone who wishes to extend Holleder's legacy can do so by approaching their local football coaches and encouraging them to make the Black Lion Award a part of their tradition.
All West Pointers can be proud of Donald Walter Holleder; for him there were no impossible dreams, only challenges to seek out and to conquer. Forty years after his death thousands of friends and millions of fans still remember him and salute him for his character and supreme courage.
By Retired Air Force General Perry Smith, Don Holleders' West Point classmate and roommate, with great assistance from Don's family members, Stacey Jones and Ernie Ruffner; classmates Jerry Amlong, Peter Vann and JJ McGinn; and battlefield medic, Doc Hinger.
********** DON HOLLEDER'S HEROIC DEATH... "Major Holleder overflew the area (under attack) and saw a whole lot of Viet Cong and many American soldiers, most wounded, trying to make their way our of the ambush area. He landed and headed straight into the jungle, gathering a few soldiers to help him go get the wounded. A sniper's shot killed him before he could get very far. He was a risk-taker who put the common good ahead of himself, whether it was giving up a position in which he had excelled or putting himself in harm's way in an attempt to save the lives of his men. My contact with Major Holleder was very brief and occured just before he was killed, but I have never forgotten him and the sacrifice he made. On a day when acts of heroism were the rule, rather than the exception, his stood out." Black Lions medic Dave Berry
*********** A YOUNG BOY'S REMEMBRANCES OF DON HOLLEDER...
In 1954-55 I lived at West Point N.Y. where my father was stationed as a member of the staff at the United States Military Academy. Don Holleder was an All American end on the Red Blaik coached Army football team which was a perennial eastern gridiron power in 40s and 50s.
On Fall days I would run home from the post school, drop off my books, and head directly to the Army varsity practice field which overlooked the Hudson River and was only a short sprint from my house. Army had a number of outstanding players on the roster back then, but my focus was on Don Holleder, our All-America end turned quarterback in a controversial position change that had sportswriters and Army fans buzzing throughout the college football community that year. Don looked like a hero, tall, square jawed, almost stately in his appearance. He practiced like he played, full out all the time. He was the obvious leader of the team in addition to being its best athlete and player. In 1955 it was common for star players to play both sides of the ball and Don was no exception delivering the most punishing tackles in practice as well as game situations.
At the end of practice the Army players would walk past the parade ground (The Plain), then past my house and into the Arvin Gymnasium where the team's locker room was located. Very often I would take that walk stride for stride with Don and the team and best of all, Don would sometimes let me carry his helmet. It was gold with a black stripe down the middle and had the most wonderful smell of sweat and leather. Inside the helmet suspension was taped a sweaty number 16, Don's jersey number.
While Don's teammates would talk and laugh among themselves in typical locker room banter, Don would ask me about school, show me how to grip the ball and occasionally chide his buddies if the joking ever got bawdy in front of "the little guy".
On Saturdays I lived and died with Don's exploits on the field in Michie Stadium. In his senior year Don's picture graced the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine and he led Army to a winning season culminating in a stirring victory over Navy in front of 100,000 fans in Philadelphia. During that incredible year I don't ever remember Don not taking time to talk to me and patiently answer my boyish questions about the South Carolina or Michigan defense ("I'll bet they don't have anybody as fast as you, huh, Don?").
Don graduated with his class in June 1956 and was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Coincidentally, my Dad was also assigned to the 25th at the same time so I got to watch Don quarterback the 14th Infantry Regiment football team to the Division championship in 1957.
There was one major drawback to all of Don's football-gained notoriety - he wanted no part of it. He wanted to be a soldier and an infantry leader. But division recreational football was a big deal in the Army back then and for someone with Don's college credentials not to play was unheard of. In the first place players got a lot of perks for representing their Regiment, not to mention hero status with the chain of command. Nevertheless, Don wanted to trade his football helmet for a steel pot and finally, with the help of my Dad, he succeeded in retiring from competitive football and getting on with his military profession.
It came as no surprise to anyone who knew Don that he was a natural leader of men in arms, demanding yet compassionate, dedicated to his men and above all fearless. Sure enough after a couple of TO&E infantry tours his reputation as a soldier matched his former prowess as an athlete.It was this reputation that won him the favor of the Army brass and he soon found himself as an Aide-de-camp to the four star commander of the Continental Army Command in beautiful Ft Monroe, Virginia.
With the Viet Nam War escalating and American combat casualties increasing every day, Ft Monroe would be a great place to wait out the action and still promote one's Army career - a high-profile job with a four star senior rater, safely distanced from the conflict in southeast Asia.
Once again, Don wanted no part of this safe harbor and respectfully lobbied his boss, General Hugh P. Harris to get him to Troops in Viet Nam. Don got his wish but not very long after arriving at the First Division he was killed attempting to lead a relief column to wounded comrades caught in a Viet Cong ambush.
I remember the day I found out about Don's death. I was in the barber's chair at The Citadel my sophomore year when General Harris (Don's old boss at Ft Monroe, now President of The Citadel) walked over to me and motioned me outside. He knew Don was a friend of mine and sought me out to tell me that he was KIA. It was one of the most defining moments of my life. As I stood there in front of the General the tears welled up in my eyes and I said "No, please, sir. Don't say that."
General Harris showed no emotion and I realized that he had experienced this kind of hurt too many times to let it show. "Biff", he said, "Don died doing his duty and serving his country. He had alternatives but wouldn't have it any other way. We will always be proud of him, Biff." With that, he turned and walked away.
As I watched him go I didn't know the truth of his parting words. I shed tears of both pride and sorrow that day in 1967, just as I am doing now, 34 years later, as I write this remembrance.
In my mind's eye I see Don walking with his teammates after practice back at West Point, their football cleats making that signature metallic clicking on concrete as they pass my house at the edge of the parade ground; he was a leader among leaders.
As I have been writing this, I periodically looked up at the November 28, 1955 Sports Illustrated cover which hangs on my office wall, to make sure I'm not saying anything Don wouldn't approve of, but he's smiling out from under that beautiful gold helmet and thinking about the Navy game. General Harris was right. We will always be proud of Don Holleder, my boyhood hero.
Biff Messinger, Mountainville, New York, 2001
*********** A retired Navy captain wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the strict criteria for awarding the Medal of Honor (frequently called the "Congressional" Medal of Honor)...
"Remember the Marine Corps requirement: Fall on a hand grenade to save your fellow Marines and the grenade fails to explode, you get a Navy Cross; if the grenade explodes, you might get the Medal of Honor."
The Medal of Honor was meant to be awarded sparingly, Of the hundreds of thousands of men who fought in our Twentieth Century wars, here are the numbers of Medals of Honor Awarded: WW I - 124; WW II - 464; Korea - 135; Vietnam - 246. There were 1522 Medals of Honor awarded as a result of the Civil War. (Actually, there were more than that, but over 900 were later rescinded.) One reason for the late number was that in the Civil War, the Medal of Honor was the only medal awarded for valor. Another reason, though, was the enormous number of casualties suffered by Americans in that war.
http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/corrections/purge_army.html
*********** Other nations lost men in the same wars we did, of course, and they, too, honor, in poem and song, their men who gave all.
What can be sadder than the loss of a young man, one of his country's finest, in a distant war? One such song is known by some as "No Man's Land" and by others as "The Green Fields of France" - but either way it's a sad lament about a young soldier named Willie McBride, killed in battle in 1916 while still a teenager.
Fair warning: This is VERY sad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_mBJgsaxlY
Another very sad ballad, "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda," is the story of a young Australian sent off to fight in World War I. He was shipped off to Gallipoli (Turkey) where thousands of "Anzacs" (Australians and New Zealanders) were slaughtered by enemy machine-gun fire. (I highly recommend the movie, "Gallipoli") Although he escaped death, his legs were blown off, and his story in the song is told from the perspective of an embittered, now-old man.
Fair warning: So is this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VktJNNKm3B0
*********** Trophies for everybody. There really was a time when most Americans knew why we put aside one day a year called Memorial Day: to honor - to memorialize - those who lost their lives in service of their country.
Not - as people who buy ads in our local paper seem to think - to remember a loved one who, no matter how sorely missed, never died in battle - never even served in the Armed Forces, in many cases - but simply did what we’re all destined to do one day. They died. I hate to be the one to spoil their grieving by telling them that Memorial Day is not about them, or about dear, departed Uncle Charlie.
But somebody's got to tell them, and it might as well be me.
There are other days for that - 364 others, if you’re really sincere. And there's a special one, called Veterans’ Day, when our nation honors and thanks all the people who served.
Actually, come to think of it: is there even one holiday - one single holiday - that hasn’t been given another meaning, one whose new meaning often obscures the original one?
Think of it:
New Year's Day? Bowl Games
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday? Come on - how many people really take the time to honor the man?
Presidents’ Day? Sale! Sale! Sale! (Used to be two separate holidays. Now, few school kids could even tell you which two presidents it refers to.)
St. Patrick's Day? Although it’s scarcely observed in Ireland, in much of the US it’s a time-honored excuse to get drunk
Easter? (Wherever it's still allowed to be called "Easter") It's about Bunnies and Easter eggs. Mostly, though, it's part of Spring Break.
Mother's Day? This is the one holiday that remains as designed. If anything, it's grown stronger. Traditionally, this was the day when the phone company’s circuits failed. Warning: Do NOT schedule anything else on this day. And definitely - do NOT get drunk.
Cinco de Mayo? A holiday that means next to nothing in Mexico, it's been turned into a Hispanic-themed St. Patrick's Day
Memorial Day? The end of the school year. The start of summer. The Indy 500.
July 4? Fireworks and beer and hot dogs. (Once - you may be old enough to remember - patriotic parades and baseball double headers)
Labor Day? The end of summer; and, now, the end of the first week of college football
Veterans Day? It used to be called Armistice Day, way back, several wars ago, when we commemorated the end of a horrible world war
Hallowe'en? Used to be for kids to go trick-or-treating. But now that that's no longer safe, adult partiers have taken it over and turned it into the second-biggest beer-sales day of the year
Thanksgiving? Don't you mean “Turkey Day?” You know - the day before Black Friday?
Christmas - aka "Winter Holiday." For those who don't know, it's the “holiday” when people refer to when they wish you “Happy Holidays.”
*********** In a Wall Street Journal article back in 2015, a writer named Jerry Ciancolo urged us, the next time we pass a War Memorial with the names of dead Americans on it, to stop - and “Touch the names of those who never came home.”
He asked that we dispense with “hollow abstractions” such as “ultimate sacrifices,” and to think in everyday terms.
Many of those young guys, he noted...
… never set foot on campus. They never straightened a tie and headed to a first real job. They never slipped a ring on a sweetheart’s finger. They never swelled with hope turning the key to a starter home. They never nestled an infant against a bare chest. They never roughhoused in the living room with an exasperated wife looking on. They never tiptoed to lay out Santa’s toys. They never dabbed a tear while walking their princess down the aisle. They never toasted their son’s promotion. They never rekindled their love as empty nesters. They never heard a new generation cry out, “I love you, Grandpa!”
A lifetime of big and little moments never happened because of a bullet to the body one day in a far-off land. For those who crumpled to the ground, the tapestry of life was left unknit.
A moment’s reflection is all it takes to realize that every name on your town’s monument was a real person. One who bicycled the same streets as you, who sleepily delivered the morning Gazette, who was kept after school for cutting up, who sneaked a smoke out back, who cannon-balled into the local pond in the dog days of summer.
On Memorial Day - with your smartphone turned off - pay a visit to your local monument. Quietly stand before the honor roll of the dead, whisper a word of thanks, and gently run your finger across their names. The touch will be comforting.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/touch-the-names-of-those-who-never-came-home-1432332593
********** Memorial Day also happens to coincide with the anniversary of the World War I Battle of Cantigny, in which Americans of the 28th Infantry Regiment earned the nickname “Black Lions of Cantigny.”
Cantigny, in France, was the first battle fought and won by American forces in World War I. It began on May 28, 1918. Under the command of Colonel Hanson Ely - a former Army football player - some 4,000 men of the 28th Infantry Regiment, US First Division, American Expeditionary Forces, seized and then defended the town of Cantigny against German opposition. In the four-day battle, nearly 900 members of the regiment were killed or wounded. For their efforts the regiment earned the French Croix de Guerre as well as the designation “The Lions of Cantigny.”
Although it was not a major battle, Cantigny was of great significance in demonstrating the worth of the American soldier, as well as establishing the principle that American troops would serve only under American leadership. Until Cantigny, there had been great pressure from our Allies to employ the newly-arrived American troops merely as fill-ins - replacements for Allied soldiers who’d been lost in battle. But once the “doughboys” proved their worth in combat, the debate was settled - American men would remain - and fight - under American command.
http://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=27&MemID=75
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “We had no electricity, no central heating, no indoor plumbing. A car was out of the question. So was a telephone. I remember my mother telling me she couldn't write a note to her mother because we couldn't afford three cents for a stamp.
“The nearest village of Fulton didn't even have a stoplight. It had four corners and consisted of a general store, a creamery, a hardware store and a filling station. That was pretty much it – not exactly the bright lights of, say, Kalamazoo.
“At the school I attended, a few skips longer than a mile down the dirt road, all eight grades were jammed into one room with one teacher. My wardrobe consisted of bib overalls and sturdy work shoes, standard for all my classmates. The other thing we had in common was working hard and long on the farms where our families we're trying to eke out a living.
“We were all poor. We were like millions of other Americans attempting to survive as the country went tumbling into the abyss of the worst economic depression in United States history.”
*********** There are plenty of reasons why I wish Mike Lude was still with us, one of which is the sense that we’re very close to the realization of what I’d heard him say many, many times: that the only way to save college football was to adopt the Ivy Model - no scholarships - and go to 2-way football, with smaller rosters and smaller staffs.
Check that. Mike didn’t foretell the professionalization of the college game (he couldn’t imagine it happening) and it would kill him, after all the work he’s done on behalf of college football as we once knew it - to see it.
But for the rest of college football - FCS, D-II, and all the FBS left-behinds who won’t make the cut when the SEC and the Big Ten finally open the store as AAA pro football - the option is going to be to (1) try to emulate the big guys, throwing good money after bad and going broke in the process; or (2) adopt the Ivy Model - no scholarships - and go to 2-way football, with smaller rosters and smaller staffs.
*********** UFL GAMES THIS WEEKEND - ALL TIMES EASTERN
SATURDAY
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (6-2) at ARLINGTON RENEGADES (1-7) - NOON - ABC
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (8-0) at SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (6-2) - 3 PM - ABC
SUNDAY (UNLESS FOX IS GOING WITH SOME SORT OF SPLIT SCREEN, IT LOOKS LIKE WE WON’T BE WATCHING BOTH OF THESE GAMES)
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (6-2) at HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-7) - 2:30 PM - FOX
DC DEFENDERS (3-5) at MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-7) - 2:30 PM - FOX
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 6-2
SAN ANTONIO 6-2
DC 3-5
ARLINGTON 1-7
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 8-0
MICHIGAN 6-2
MEMPHIS 1-7
HOUSTON 1-7
*********** (THIS IS FROM NEWS YOU CAN USE - OCTOBER, 2002)
A Florida State receiver caught a pass for a first down and, not trusting the officials to give us the sign, jumped to his feet and very dramatically gave the sign himself. He was right in front of the official. Bingo. Unsportsmanlike conduct.
While FSU coach Bobby Bowden brought the young man to the sideline and administered a little "coaching," play-by-play announcer Brad Nessler said, "I don't know why he'd do that."
Answered his partner, Bob Griese,"You know why they do it? Because they see it on Sunday afternoon and Monday night."
Oh, thank you, Bob Griese.
And thank you so much, ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, CBS, and FOX for always following up a play with a closeup of the antics of the guy who just made that play, so that our younger players can study and perfect their celebrations and dance moves.
UPDATE: I must have missed it, but evidently the rules now specify that a runner or receiver MUST signal that he’s made a first down before it’s official.
*********** Thanks to Josh Montgomery, of Berwick, Louisiana, for this article on longtime coach Terry Bowden, and its moral: (1) you should be ready at all times to re-invent yourself and (2) it’s never too late to do so.
https://geauxpreps.com/home/terry-bowden-still-rooted-in-northeast-louisiana-but-turns-interests-to-outside-of-coaching/
*********** There must be many Danny Harmons, so I can't say if I know the one you refer to or not. When I was researching hobo life a few years ago, I started a "Railroad" Folder, and the trainspotting Mister Harmon is in it.
In my mind, regardless of the House vs NCAA ruling, problems remain unsolved. If, as Coach Lude averred, big college coaches don't deserve their fat salaries, I think the same is true for most players. I still question whether this will be the proper way to start them on life's journey.
Sorry, my mind's not on 7-on-7 today. Must get back to work deciding whether to accept entry into GWU or Columbia.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Damn. This guy knows everything. I’m a train fan, and railfan Danny Harmon is the host of “Distant Signal,” my favorite “trainspotting” show on Youtube.
*********** Hugh,
00-Jim Otto. Another HOF player they could make a football movie about. A GOOD movie!
Those of us peons in the know can see the impending disaster coming to college athletics. Yet those in charge, who SHOULD see it, are complicit in its demise.
I had the privilege to coach a number of Polynesian and Hawaiian kids during my career. They would fall all over themselves to please their coaches, and always respectful. I really enjoyed my relationships with them.
As much of an Army fan I have been over the years may change a little, as my niece just enlisted in the Navy.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Tim Brown didn’t play high school football until his sophomore year (his mother didn’t want him playing football).
His high school (Woodrow Wilson High, in San Antonio) was only 4-25-1 in his three years as a player. Nevertheless, he was heavily recruited, and he chose Notre Dame over Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa and SMU.
In his first three years at Notre Dame, despite his outstanding play as a receiver and a returner, the Irish were just 17-17.
In his junior year - Lou Holtz’s first as the Irish coach - he broke out, with 910 yards receiving, 254 yards rushing and 773 yards on returns. He set a school record with 1973 all-purpose yards, and he was named to most All-America teams.
In his senior year, the Irish record improved to 8-4, and his role in the turnaround (he caught 34 passes for 846 yards, returned 34 punts for 401 yards, rushed for 144 yards, returned 23 kickoffs for 456 yards, and scored eight touchdowns) helped earn him the Heisman Trophy and the Walter Camp Award as well as consensus All-America honors.
He was the first receiver ever to win the Heisman.
(His win - along with that of fellow alumnus Davey O’Brien in 1938 - made San Antonio’s Woodrow Wilson the only high school to have produced two Heisman winners. )
He was taken by the Los Angeles Raiders in the first round of the 1988 NFL draft - the sixth player taken overall.
In his rookie season, he led the NFL in kickoff returns, yards returned, and average yards per return.
By his fifth year, he had established himself as one of the NFL’s top receivers, and from 1993 through 2001, he had nine straight 1,000-yard seasons.
He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
He is the Raiders’ all-time leader in games played - 224 - and he was the last of the former Los Angeles Raiders to play in Oakland.
He holds the Raider franchise records for receptions, receiving yards, and punt return yards.
After being released by the Raiders, he ended his career with Tampa Bay - coached by former Raiders’ coach Jon Gruden. But after being released by the Buccaneers, he signed a one-day contract with Oakland so he could retire as a Raider. Nevertheless, there were hard feelings between him and Raiders’ owner Al Davis that never were resolved.
His career 14,934 receiving yards are the second-highest total in NFL history, and his 1,094 receptions are third.
His 3,220 punt return yards are fifth in NFL history
His 19,682 all-purpose yards were 5th all-time.
He is the only player who at retirement was in the NFL’s all-time top five in both receiving yards and return yards.
He scored a total of 105 touchdowns - 100 receiving, three on punt returns, and one on a kickoff return.
When he scored on an 88-yard punt return against the Chiefs in 2001 he became the oldest NFL player ever to return a punt for a touchdown.
Tim Brown is a member of both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and in 2012 he received the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in recognition of his accomplishments in the 25 years since his college class graduated.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TIM BROWN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS QUIZ: One of Notre Dame’s greatest, and likely one who will never be duplicated.
TIM BROWN - FLORENCE, ALABAMA (Who not only shares the name, but also the school - this Tim Brown is an alum of Wilson High in Florence)
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was a World War II Marine flying ace… a winner of the Medal of Honor (seen around his neck in the photo at far left). And he was one of the few men in the history of sports who was able to successfully oversee the start of a professional league.
He grew up on a farm in South Dakota, near Sioux Falls, and his lifelong love of flying started when he saw Charles Lindbergh on a visit to his area. He was 18 when his father was killed in an accident and - in the middle of the Depression - he managed by hard work to keep the farm solvent, and while his younger brother ran the farm he worked at a service station to pay for flying lessons and for his education at the University of South Dakota.
At USD, he was on the boxing team and played guard on the football team, and was instrumental in persuading the university to start a flying course.
Just before the start of World War II, he joined the Marines, and although at 27 he was originally considered too old to be a fighter pilot, he managed to talk his way into qualifying.
In 1942 he was sent to Guadalcanal, and although he was twice shot down, he was such a skilled fighter that in one three-month period he was credited with 26 kills, equalling the record set in World War I by the US’ top ace, Eddie Rickenbacker.
He was presented the Medal of Honor at the White House by President Roosevelt, and appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.
Following the war, he served as Governor of South Dakota for two terms, and as President of the NRA (National Rifle Association).
He was active in numerous charities, and with Campus Crusade for Christ.
He was the first Commissioner of the American Football League, serving from 1959 to 1966, just before the AFL’s merger with the NFL.
From 1964 to 1967 he hosted ABC’s “American Sportsman.”
He’d be a lot better known if in 1956 he hadn’t refused to authorize a film based on his life when he learned the producers insisted on adding a made-up love story. He was going to be played by an old friend - John Wayne.
TUESDAY,
MAY 21, 2024
“Remember that foreign service officers get to the top by not getting
into trouble. They are therefore more interested in covering their
asses than in protecting yours.” Richard Nixon, in a 1994 letter to
Bill Clinton*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Since we didn't have a choice, living without most of the things taken for granted now by many Americans was more of an inconvenience than a hardship. By present standards (heating and air conditioning, indoor plumbing, electric lights) and the myriad of appliances (stoves, dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers, television sets and stereo equipment), life was extremely primitive.
“From the back door of our house it was about three first downs - 30 yards - to the backyard privy. The toilet tissue was an out-of-date Sears, Roebuck catalog or any other kind of available paper. If you had a bathroom call at night we had what was called a slop jar inside the house.”
“Our drinking water came from a well powered by a windmill next to the house, which pumped water into a storage tank. An overflow pipe ran underground to a pair of open tanks, one inside and one outside the barn, where the animals could drink.
“The house was heated by two wood-burning stoves, one in the dining area and one in the living room, and the cooking was done on a third wood stove in the kitchen. To conserve wood we didn't fire up the living room stove in the winter. All winter we cut wood and stacked it in a shed next to the house, a never ending chore."
*********** Read today's quote and ask yourself if that doesn't apply to a lot of today's school administrators.
*********** JIM OTTO - The Ultimate Raider. RIP
He was a Wisconsinite, almost certainly recruited to The U over the years by longtime Hurricanes’ coach Walt Kichefski, a native of Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
His number - OO - was actually his name: “Aught-OH.”
He was the All-AFL Center for the entire 10 years (1960-1969) that the league was in operation.
He played in 223 games - including playoffs - and never missed a game.
He was one of only three players (George Blanda and Gino Cappelletti were the others) to play in all 140 regular-season games of the AFL’s existence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c37n4Ib_aJI&t=396s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNxHfZxYuQ
*********** UFL GAMES THIS PAST WEEKEND -
There actually were some good games this weekend - the greatest margin of victory in any of the four games was seven points - and that was between the league’s best team - Birmingham - and one of its worst - Houston.
Still, the league, now going into its ninth week, was pretty much sorted into good, bad and so-so by the third week, and by the seventh week there were four “haves”and four “have-nots.”
The problem with this sort of imbalance is that when a good team plays a bad team, the result is predictqble. When a bad team plays a bad team, the game might be close, but the football is bad. Only when a good team plays a good team is there the likelihood of a good game. But unfortunately, when there are only four good teams...
SATURDAY
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (6-2) 24, MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-7) 18
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (8-0) 35, HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-7) 28
SUNDAY
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (6-2) 26, DC DEFENDERS (3-5) 21
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (6-2) 20, ARLINGTON RENEGADES (1-7) 15
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 6-2
SAN ANTONIO 6-2
DC 3-5
ARLINGTON 1-7
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 8-0
MICHIGAN 6-2
MEMPHIS 1-7
HOUSTON 1-7
*********** It’s a bit confusing to try to decipher the goings-on and the potential results of a current lawsuit that goes by the name House vs. NCAA (House being the last name of one of the persons suing the NCAA) but it sure seems to have the potential to blow college sports to smithereens.
Whatever happens, it’s almost certain that the losers will be the college football that we’ve known and loved, and the non-revenue college sports currently being supported by football revenues that'll have to be cut once football players become paid employees.
The winners will be a handful of highly talented “college” athletes, who would eventually have made their big money anyway as professionals.
And, of course, the lawyers for both sides. Win or lose, they’re paid by the hour.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/40182310/looking-ahead-week-house-v-ncaa-settlement-votes
*********** If anybody can keep things in perspective, it's a farmer.
From the Spokane Spokesman-Review:
When the fuel pump on Nathan Wood’s truck started making strange noises last week, he pulled in to the nearest gas station, Arnie‘s Payless Gas on Highway 200 in Kootenai, Idaho, to see what the trouble might be. Because he was already there, Wood purchased a few lottery tickets.
A few days later, the farmer from Sandpoint found out he had won $2 million when his wife told him one of the Powerball tickets matched the five white balls. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “And then, I went back to planting onions.”
*********** Going through some old programs, I found the names of a couple guys - TuiTamaha Hala’ufia, Tuufuli Uperesa - obviously of Polynesian ancestry, who were playing football stateside - Halaufia at Utah State and Uperesa at Montana - well before players from the islands were so well-represented in our game.
And that got me to doing some research into the Polynesian pioneers - the guys from the islands who blazed the trails that so many other young men would follow. Here, in chronological order, were the most prominent ones I could find:
1. Al Lolotai - generally believed to be the first Samaon to play pro football. Played college ball at Weber JC (now Weber State), then played in 1945 with the Washington Redskins, and 1946-1949 with the Los Angeles Dons of the AAFC. (Interestingly, Redskins’ owner George Preston Marshall, the last NFL owner to sign a black player, seemed to have no objection to signing Lolotai, despite his dark skin.)
2. Herman (“Squirmin’ Herman”) Wedemeyer - played at St. Mary’s (Moraga, California) and in 1945 finished fourth in the Heisman voting (behind Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis of Army and Bob Fenimore of Oklahoma A & M). He played briefly in the AAFC. (And later starred in Hawaii Five-O.)
3. Charlie Ane (AH-nay) - After high school in Hawaii, played at Compton JC, then starred at guard for two years at USC (1951-1952) - All-Pacific Coast Conference in 1952. Fourth round pick of Detroit Lions. Played with Lions (1953-1959), on their last two NFL championship teams (1953 and 1957).
4. Ray Schoenke (SHONG-key) - Mother was Hawaiian and married a serviceman from Minnesota. Went to HS in Hawaii and - for his senior year - in Texas. Played at SMU (1960-61-62). Played 13 years in NFL - Cowboys-Packers- Browns - Redskins (1963-1975)
5. Rocky Freitas - Oregon State (1965-67) Played 10 years with the Detroit Lions - First native Hawaiian to be named All Pro.
Next one - I think - would be Bob Apisa, two-time All-American running back at Michigan State.
*********** Just as it was inevitable that the College Football Playoff would expand, it was also inevitable that there would be a conflict between early-round playoff games and NFL games, which customarily begin to be televised on Saturdays once the regular college season has ended.
Stewart Mandel, in The Athletic, was asked how much of a problem the conflict will be for the CFL, and he responded…
It’s not great!
Last year, 93 of the 100 most-watched television broadcasts were NFL games. College football does better ratings than almost anything that’s not the NFL, yet even its most-watched game of the year, Ohio State vs. Michigan(19.1 million viewers), came in 58th on that list. I’d venture to guess NBC and Fox could put even the crappiest regular-season game in one of those windows and it will still siphon viewers away from those early CFP games, which ESPN valued at $25 million per game in its new deal — around a fourth of what Amazon paid to show one Black Friday NFL game last season.
Now … it’s unclear whether any of this really matters.
People who care about college football are going to tune in for those CFP games regardless — especially given the novelty of them being the first-ever on-campus tourney games at the FBS level. The concern for the CFP and ESPN will be whether they can draw in more casual fans — the people I refer to as diehard New York Jets or Philadelphia Eagles fans who might turn on college football on a Saturday if they see Texas is playing Michigan. The CFP would want to suck in as many of those people as they can in the early rounds to drive interest in the later ones.
However, there is one other possibility at play here. The CFP’s extension with ESPN announced earlier this year allows ESPN to sublicense a few games to other networks. If by chance NBC or Fox ends up being one of the networks that lands one of those games and then airs it either going into or coming out of their NFL game that day, it might actually help boost viewership rather than detract from it.
*********** According to the Federal Reserve, more than half of all the coins in the US are out of circulation, sitting in peoples homes.
*********** Dick Cavett told about the time he and Groucho Marx were walking along a street in New York City when a couple recognized them, and the man asked Marx, well known for his ability to cut anyone to the quick, to say something insulting about his wife.
Marx paused briefly, then said, “Well, with a wife like that, you should be able to think of your own insults.”
*********** Anybody else out there a fan of Danny Harmon? (If you know who he is.)
*********** Okay, okay - I’m a glutton for punishment. I just had to find out how our local middle school could possibly be 3-0, so my wife and I took in their game on Friday evening.
1. It’s not that much different from 7-on-7 in that it’s mostly passing. As a result, there are lots of incompletions and quite a few sacks and interceptions. But the pass defense is bad enough that they complete just enough long passes to keep them throwing.
2. Tackling was horrendous.
3. Ball handling was sloppy.
4. Blocking was non-existent.
5. A couple of shotgun snaps almost hit the moon.
6. Talk about the pro influence - a team facing third and goal from the two threw a fade. And completed it. (See bad pass defense above)
7. The officiating was pretty good and - the pro influence again - they sent a kid off the field to get some knee pads - and pull his pants down over this knees. If only college officials had the guts to do it.
There was a decent crowd on hand, which made me think that maybe high schools should consider playing spring football - not as an alternative to fall football, but in addition to it. Why not? Most football players in most large high schools don’t play another sport anyhow, and in fact when they do play any sport other than football they’re likely playing it year-round. Go ahead - make me change my mind.
*********** Hi Coach!
Mike Lude's story about growing up on the farm reminded me of the time when my grandpa shared one of his experiences of growing up on a farm. He got beat up by 3 kids at school. When he got home, his father asked what happened. After my grandpa explained how he got roughed up, his dad grabbed a horsewhip and told my grandpa to hitch the wagon. He then told my grandpa that he had two choices-find the boys that roughed him up and beat them or get lashed with the horsewhip. Long story-short-My grandpa found the guys and beat them soundly as his father watched while sitting on the wagon. At first, I didn't believe my grandpa about getting horse whipped until he showed me the scars on his legs. Talk about motivation through fear!
Mike Framke
Green Bay, Wisconsin
*********** Your "Wisdom' from Coach Lude is just that. The words you chose for today stir me. I read them three, four, five times. I ache because I doubt they would produce such an effect on millions of Americans. Powerful stuff, you ask me.
Mike Freeman...my favorite sportswriter of all time? Don't think so. And the NFL? Well, they quickly divorced themseves from Butker's views. Let's remember, however, the NFL did no such thing when Kaepernick took a knee. Sorry, but to me Roger Goodell's no higher than Freeman.
Here's Coach Wyatt's next money-making venture: he makes matrices (exactly replicating the playcards worn on the wrist) to show fans where they can find every game on a given day. You'll also want to include the price of the streaming subscription. The complications are just beginning. Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Peacock, etc.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, FL
Answer = Terry Robiskie, whose Boston-accented words I can hear now. No, we talkin' some good south Louisiana speech even Coach Steve Jones can't keep up with.
*********** Hugh,
That MS team you’ve been watching is likely 3-0 because the other schools could likely be a combined 3-6, or 2-7, or 1-9. Yep! They must be pretty bad!
Gotta give Dabo credit for his loyalty to his HS recruits. Can’t say the same for a few of them who bailed on him.
Many parents today get too caught up in the latest fad sports, and how cool it would be to watch little Joey or Jenny playing that “new” game without taking into serious consideration the necessary “basics” it takes to make it even work!
The woke NFL is alive and “kicking!”
Paraphrasing Lou Holtz: Today people think about their rights and privileges. Years ago people thought about their responsibilities and obligations.
Enjoy your weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: In 39 years as a coach in the NFL, Terry Robiskie worked for eight different teams.
In all that time, he was never out of work.
He served as offensive coordinator for three different teams, one of which won a Super Bowl, and he served as interim head coach for two different clubs, after their head coach was fired.
It’s not as if he jumped from pillar to post, either. He spent 12 years with one team, and eight, seven and six years with three other teams - 33 years (an average of eight years) with just four teams. Only at the end of his career was he a short-timer.
But he never got a shot at being a head coach.
He came out of Edgard, Louisiana, a small town on the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
There, he quarterbacked his small, all-black high school to 33 straight wins and two state titles. In his high school career, he accounted for 6,470 yards in total offense, and 90 touchdowns running and passing.
At LSU, he was converted to running back as a freshman, and for three years he was the staple of the LSU offense, the first in a long string of great LSU running backs, the likes of Charles Alexander, Dalton Hilliard, Kevin Faulk and Leonard Fournette.
In 1976, his senior season, he rushed for 1,117 yards, and became the first Tiger to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season since 1943, breaking All-Timer Steve Van Buren’s record of 1,007 yards.
An eighth-round pick by the Raiders, he played three seasons in Oakland and two seasons with the Miami Dolphins before being forced by injuries to retire.
He immediately embarked on a coaching career when he was hired by Raiders’ owner Al Davis to coach special teams. He spent 12 years with the Raiders, the last five as their offensive coordinator, and his offense was a major factor in the Raiders’ 38–9 victory over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII.
The next season, he joined Norv Turner, who’s just been hired as coach of the Redskins. In his seventh season in Washington, Turner was fired with three games left in the season, and our guy was appointed interim coach . He went 1-2. He did not get the full-time job, which went to Marty Schottenheimer, and he moved on to Cleveland.
He spent six seasons in Cleveland. In his fourth season, while our guy was serving as offensive coordinator, head coach Butch Davis was fired, and once again our guy was called on to be interim coach. This time, he went 1-4. He was interviewed for the head job, and when Romeo Crennel was hired instead, he stayed on for two more seasons as wide receivers’ coach.
And then he moved on again. He was 53 years old. He had spent 25 years as an assistant, six of them as a coordinator. He had twice served as an interim head coach. It had to be apparent that he wasn’t going to be a head coach.
He spent a year with the Dolphins, then in 2008 he moved to Atlanta when Mike Smith was hired there. It was Matt Ryan’s rookie season, and the Falcons had a decent run for a while, but then Smith and his staff were fired after eight seasons.
Next came short stays in Tennessee (two years), Buffalo (one year) and Jacksonville (two years), and then retirement.
Terry Robiskie. 39 years an NFL coach. Eight different teams. A Super Bowl ring. But never a head coach.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TERRY ROBISKIE
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He didn’t play high school football until his sophomore year (his mother didn’t want him playing football).
His high school (Woodrow Wilson High, in San Antonio) was only 4-25-1 in his three years as a player. Nevertheless, he was heavily recruited, and he chose Notre Dame over Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa and SMU.
In his first three years at Notre Dame, despite his outstanding play as a receiver and a returner, the Irish were just 17-17.
In his junior year - Lou Holtz’s first as the Irish coach - he broke out, with 910 yards receiving, 254 yards rushing and 773 yards on returns. He set a school record with 1973 all-purpose yards, and he was named to most All-America teams.
In his senior year, the Irish record improved to 8-4, and his role in the turnaround (he caught 34 passes for 846 yards, returned 34 punts for 401 yards, rushed for 144 yards, returned 23 kickoffs for 456 yards, and scored eight touchdowns) helped earn him the Heisman Trophy and the Walter Camp Award as well as consensus All-America honors.
He was the first receiver ever to win the Heisman.
(His win - along with that of fellow alumnus Davey O’Brien in 1938 - made San Antonio’s Woodrow Wilson the only high school to have produced two Heisman winners. )
He was taken by the Los Angeles Raiders in the first round of the 1988 NFL draft - the sixth player taken overall.
In his rookie season, he led the NFL in kickoff returns, yards returned, and average yards per return.
By his fifth year, he had established himself as one of the NFL’s top receivers, and from 1993 through 2001, he had nine straight 1,000-yard seasons.
He was named to nine Pro Bowls.
He is the Raiders’ all-time leader in games played - 224 - and he was the last of the former Los Angeles Raiders to play in Oakland.
He holds the Raider franchise records for receptions, receiving yards, and punt return yards.
After being released by the Raiders, he ended his career with Tampa Bay - coached by former Raiders’ coach Jon Gruden. But after being released by the Buccaneers, he signed a one-day contract with Oakland so he could retire as a Raider. Nevertheless, there were hard feelings between him and Raiders’ owner Al Davis that never were resolved.
His career 14,934 receiving yards are the second-highest total in NFL history, and his 1,094 receptions are third.
His 3,220 punt return yards are fifth in NFL history
His 19,682 all-purpose yards were 5th all-time.
He is the only player who at retirement was in the NFL’s all-time top five in both receiving yards and return yards.
He scored a total of 105 touchdowns - 100 receiving, three on punt returns, and one on a kickoff return.
When he scored on an 88-yard punt return against the Chiefs in 2001 he became the oldest NFL player ever to return a punt for a touchdown.
He is a member of both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and in 2012 he received the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in recognition of his accomplishments in the 25 years since his college class graduated.
FRIDAY,
MAY 17, 2024 “Leadership involves
getting people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t.” Louis
Gerstner, Jr. retired CEO of IBM*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “To be very frank, I was frightened of my dad. I always refer to him as being very tough. I thought he was the toughest guy around, and I didn't want to cross him.
“John E. Lude stood a half inch under 6 feet. He was husky, about 200 pounds, and very strong. He had sandy hair and bright blue eyes. He rarely made jokes. He was quite serious because of the times, the Depression and having to work seven days a week, every week of the year. He worked hard and he worked with his hands. Our neighbors and the people in Fulton he did business with would say, ‘John Lude is a damn good farmer. He works hard and takes good care of his animals and his farm machinery.’
“My dad's unbending insistence on honesty, truthfulness, and hard work left an indelible mark on his older son. He told me time and again, supported by my mother, that honesty was absolutely essential; a man's word was the most important thing, and it had to be a truthful word.”
*********** UFL GAMES THIS WEEKEND - ALL TIMES EASTERN
SATURDAY
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-6) AT MICHIGAN PANTHERS (5-2) - 4 PM FOX
Michigan has a playoff spot locked up. Memphis is out of it.
HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-6) AT BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (7-0) - 8 PM ESPN2
Houston has no shot at a playoff spot; Birmingham has won 14 in a row over the last two years
SUNDAY
DC DEFENDERS (3-4) AT ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (5-2) - NOON ABC
DC may be without QB Jordan Ta’Amu; St. Louis is in a fight for first place in the XFL Conference.
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (1-6) AT SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (5-2) - 4 PM FOX
Arlington is coming off its first win; San Antonio is tied for the conference lead with St. Louis after coming off a last-second win over 1-6 Houston.
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 5-2
SAN ANTONIO 5-2
DC 3-3
ARLINGTON 1-6
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 7-0
MICHIGAN 5-2
MEMPHIS 1-6
HOUSTON 1-6
*********** Everyone starts learning somewhere.
"I got hurt in my rookie year with the Philadelphia Eagles - a knee injury - and I couldn't play. While I was rehabbing, Norm Van Brocklin (Eagles’ QB) would be watching films and would explain what was happening.” John Madden
*********** I wrote last time about the farce of a middle school practice that Coach Dwayne Pierce and I had watched.
On Wednesday, my wife and I dropped by to watch (it’s just up the street from us) and nothing had changed. Still a lot of standing around. Still a lot of mistakes going uncorrected (probably because they were unnoticed by the coaches.)
Wondering how long this had been going on, I asked a guy standing nearby - probably a parent - how long they’d been practicing. (Since Dwayne and I had watched them last week, I figured that meant they’d been going for maybe two weeks.) “About six weeks,” the guy said.
Concealing my shock, I asked if they’d played any games. (They play middle school football in the spring.) “They’re three-and-oh,” he said.
“Wow,” was all I could say.
Now, I’ve seen plenty of middle-school and junior-high practices and games, and I’ve seen some pretty doggone good coaching, so if this bunch is 3-0, how bad must the coaching must be at those other places?
What’s worse, those 3-0 coaches are probably so pleased with themselves that they’ll never see any need to get better.
(It’s the Dunning-Kruger Effect: Incompetence doesn’t recognize itself.)
*********** A poster on Reddit, commenting on the pro-Palestinian campers: “I’m not saying bullying should make a return, but Jesus Christ - some of these people needed to be a little more challenged to join actual society when they were younger instead of surrounding themselves with a bunch of other nobodies and deciding their group is actually important.”
*********** Clemson has been catching crap for what some consider its stubborn refusal to use the transfer portal, and when asked about it, Dabo Swinney said, “Every player is technically a transfer. We just signed a whole class of guys transferring from high school.”
*********** The new president of Argentina, Javier Milei, said that getting the country out of the economic mess was going to be painful for a lot of people. But, he said, although people may be experiencing some temporary pain as a result of measures designed to combat inflation, the country’s economy is “going to go up like a scuba diver’s fart.“
*********** Bob Greene, a writer and a Chicago guy, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal about the kind of brotherhood that - done right - playing football can instill in young men.
In the early morning hours of April 21, just days before his 31st birthday, a Chicago Police officer named Luis Huesca was murdered, shot ten times as he got out of his car in his driveway.
The guy who shot him stole his car and, of course, his gun.
It took them ten days to find the bastard, but when they did - he was hiding under a sink - they cuffed him, using Officer Huesca’s department-issued handcuffs.
Wrote Greene, “It was his last official act at the end of his police career, courtesy of grateful officers, proud to have served with him.”
*********** Lives there a native Philadelphian who doesn’t remember, as a kid, riding down the Parkway and laughing at the sight, off in the distance, of William Penn, standing high atop City Hall and letting it all hang out?
*********** A guy wrote to The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel noting that nine of FSU’s 10 NFL draft picks were transfers, and wondering whether that was a sign of the future.
Mandel pointed out that FSU Coach Mike Norvell had faced an unusually daunting rebuild, and as a result had been quite aggressive in using the portal.
At the same time, though, he noted that of Michigan’s 13 draft picks, 12 had been at Michigan since high school.
Similarly, with both Alabama and Washington eight of ten were long-timers, and with Texas it was eight of 11.
*********** Christmas is no longer going to belong solely to the NBA. This coming December 25, the NFL is going to play two games.
If that’s good news - if you’re a big NFL fan - then here comes the bad news: Netflix has lined up the exclusive rights to stream both games. You wanna watch? Pay up.
They’re not working any harder on the cancer cure than the NFL is, trying to figure out ways to squeeze every last dime out of us for things we’d always assumed were free. Silly us.
I’m sure that somewhere in Vegas they’re taking bets on who will be the first congressman to propose free streaming for underserved/marginalized communities.
*********** Girls’ flag football will not be a state-sanctioned sport in Washington next year.
There were a couple of issues that the people voting - school administrators - very wisely took into consideration. One was the additional costs another sport would entail, at a time when most schools in the state are having to make budget cuts.
The other was the proposal to play it as a winter sport. Fall would be tough because there are already two main girls’ sports - soccer and volleyball - and fields are already in use by football and girls’ soccer; spring is tough because there’s softball and track and field and the fields are used by boys’ soccer and track.
That left winter, where there’s only girls’ basketball and - recently - girls’ wrestling. But, um, while the temperatures on the west (or “wet”) side of the Cascades might permit an outdoor sport in January, to the east of the Cascades there’s winter - real winter, with snow ’n’ ice ’n’ all that - and an outdoor sport other than skiing is out of the question.
While I’m sorry for girls who wanted to play flag football, I have to wonder - if they want to play it so badly - if there isn’t some way they can play without it being a school-sponsored sport. After all, they played community-sponsored soccer around here for years before the schools officially adopted it. At present, lacrosse exists as a club sport, played where kids want it badly enough (and can afford it). Flag football, with almost no equipment requirements would be easy to get going as a club sport. Hey - let’s find out if they really want to play!
*********** Until the other day, if you’d asked me the name of the kicker for the Super Bowl champions, I’d have given you a blank look.
But now I know, because he’s the guy who had the stones to stand up and - without a mask on his face, either - deliver a commencement speech at a Catholic College calling for a more conservative Catholicism, and suggesting that certain events taking place during “Pride Month” (that’s June) promote “deadly sins.”
His name’s Harrison Butker, and although the Chiefs probably already have orders from Headquarters to cut him, they won’t won’t be able to do it until camp opens in July, so when you see his name all next month on signs and banners at Pride Parades, you’ll know why.
Butker also said a few things about - gasp - a woman’s “vocation” having something to do with making the home and raising children. Imagine!
You might want to read what a guy named Mike Freeman had to say about Butler’s speech. Or you might not. Read it at your risk. Freeman is the “Race and Inequality Editor - Sports” of USA Today. At least with a title like that, you can’t say you weren’t forewarned.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/mike-freeman/2024/05/15/harrison-butker-commencement-speech/73682471007/
*********** I had a longer to-do list today than normal, no time to spare. Then I watched the Coach Lude video, and didn't regret a second of the 49 minutes or so. You're right, Coach, about it feeling like a personal conversation with him. So, so good, and so valuable for any coach or administrator. Thanks for letting us see that podcast.
Silly nostalgia, I guess, is how many would write off your days of following sports in Philly. It's harder to do today, but a determined person can create his own little world similar to that. I still prefer listening to MLB games on radio. I shun Little League games on ESPN, well, just because I think it's too early for kids that age to be on TV. I enjoy a radio announcer painting a picture of a football stadium on Saturday night--almost anywhere, but say, Autzen or at the Bayou Bengals, places where it's loud and the fans early in the season are steaming.
Dwayne Pierce sounds like a great fellow. Glad you had a good time. I would've had the same request--show me some of the places you coached.
I notice you were silent on Seinfeld. I understand your reason. That said, I'd like to know what corrective measures the Duke president instituted. Were I in charge, I would let them know you don't demean and debase our university and walk away unpunished.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
Interestingly, because of the reach of powerful AM stations, radio broadcasts of LSU home games - traditionally played on Saturday nights - were long the favorite listening of over-the-road truckers all over the South, Midwest and Southwest.
I didn’t write anything about Seinfeld because you don’t survive as a professional comedian without a well-developed ability to deal with assholes in the audience determined to make their bones at your expense. (If they were to start an “encampment” at Duke, the administration would just think it was Krzyzewskiville getting off to an earlier-than-usual start.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krzyzewskiville
ALERT: Just received my copy of John Vermillion’s latest thriller, entitled, simply, “47.” Unfortunately, I won’t be reading it for a few days, because my wife always gets to John’s books before I do.
*********** Hugh,
Yes, we have to get a new roof. Three hailstorms with baseball-sized hail will force you to get that done.
Sorry to hear you couldn’t make it to Mike Lude’s services. Losing a good friend is tough, and being unable to be there to say your good-byes makes the loss even harder. Though inclusion of his anecdotes on your page certainly helps to soften the blow, and I for one really appreciate reading them!
Everything you mentioned regarding how things were for us growing up validates my point about how the things that surround kids is what changes, and it is/are those things that effects changes in kids.
Regarding your question about punts: If after scouting our opponent’s punter, if he wasn’t any good we wouldn’t bother with attempting to field the punts. If he was good we would always call for a fair catch and let it go. When we punted I always instructed my punter to punt to the sidelines.
I’m still holding on to hope that WSU and OSU will bring the MWC schools (and a couple others) into a new PAC-West Conference.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Reggie Williams played college football for an Ivy-League school and then played 14 seasons for the Cincinnati Bengals.
He never made it to a Pro Bowl, but…
He was on the 1976 All-Rookie team
He won the NFL’s Whizzer White Award for Humanitarian Service in 1985.
He won the NFL Man of the Year Award 1986
He was Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year in 1987
He was named to the Bengals’ 50th Anniversary Team.
A native of Flint, Michigan, he attended Dartmouth on an academic scholarship. He was a three-time All-Ivy League linebacker in football and the 1975 Ivy League heavyweight wrestling champion, and he graduated in 1976 with a BA in psychology.
In 1976, he was taken in the third round by the Bengals (whose owner, Mike Brown, by coincidence was a former Dartmouth quarterback).
He wore number 57, although he had requested the number he had worn at Dartmouth - number 63 - in honor of his idol, Willie Lanier. (The number 63 was given, instead, to another Bengals’ rookie, Greg Fairchild, who was taken in the fourth round of the draft.)
In 14 years with the Bengals, he played in 206 games. He played in two Super Bowls, and his 16 interceptions and 23 fumble recoveries are still franchise records. His 62.5 career sacks are second most among all Bengals.
After retiring from the NFL, he served as Vice President/General Manager of the New Jersey Knights of the World League of American Football, then returned to the NFL where he opened the league’s first Youth Education Town (YET) in Los Angeles.
In April 1993, he became the Director of Sports Development for Walt Disney World. He oversaw the creation of Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, and spearheaded Disney's involvement in sports, and in 1998, he was named Vice President of Disney Sports Attractions.
In May, 2003, Sports Illustrated ranked him Number 88 on its list of the "101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports.” In 2005, he was named by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the 50 Most Powerful Blacks in Sports.
After incurring a number of leg injuries while playing, he has suffered since from a long series of problems after retirement, and nearly lost one leg to amputation. In 2007, although only 53, he retired from Disney to concentrate on rehabbing his legs.
He has long been active in his communities. While still a player, he was appointed to an open seat on the Cincinnati City Council, and he was elected to serve a second term,
Taking proceeds from various awards, he established a scholarship fund in his name which helps students from Cincinnati's public high schools. He has also done work for the National Association of Speech and Hearing, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, United Way, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Teen Challenge, and Athletes in Action.
In 1990 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Dartmouth, and in 2007 he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING REGGIE WILLIAMS
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: In 39 years as a coach in the NFL, he worked for eight different teams.
In all that time, he was never out of work.
He served as offensive coordinator for three different teams, one of which won a Super Bowl, and he served as interim head coach for two different clubs, after their head coach was fired.
It’s not as if he jumped from pillar to post, either. He spent 12 years with one team, and eight, seven and six years with three other teams - 33 years (an average of eight years) with just four teams. Only at the end of his career was he a short-timer.
But he never got a shot at being a head coach.
He came out of Edgard, Louisiana, a small town on the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
There, he quarterbacked his small, all-black high school to 33 straight wins and two state titles. In his high school career, he accounted for 6,470 yards in total offense, and 90 touchdowns running and passing.
At LSU, he was converted to running back as a freshman, and for three years he was the staple of the LSU offense, the first in a long string of great LSU running backs, the likes of Charles Alexander, Dalton Hilliard, Kevin Faulk and Leonard Fournette.
In 1976, his senior season, he rushed for 1,117 yards, and became the first Tiger to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season since 1943, breaking All-Timer Steve Van Buren’s record of 1,007 yards.
An eighth-round pick by the Raiders, he played three seasons in Oakland and two seasons with the Miami Dolphins before being forced by injuries to retire.
He immediately embarked on a coaching career when he was hired by Raiders’ owner Al Davis to coach special teams. He spent 12 years with the Raiders, the last five as their offensive coordinator, and his offense was a major factor in the Raiders’ 38–9 victory over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII.
The next season, he joined Norv Turner, who’s just been hired as coach of the Redskins. In his seventh season in Washington, Turner was fired with three games left in the season, and our guy was appointed interim coach . He went 1-2. He did not get the full-time job, which went to Marty Schottenheimer, and he moved on to Cleveland.
He spent six seasons in Cleveland. In his fourth season, while our guy was serving as offensive coordinator, head coach Butch Davis was fired, and once again our guy was called on to be interim coach. This time, he went 1-4. He was interviewed for the head job, and when Romeo Crennel was hired instead, he stayed on for two more seasons as wide receivers’ coach.
And then he moved on again. He was 53 years old. He had spent 25 years as an assistant, six of them as a coordinator. He had twice served as an interim head coach. It had to be apparent that he wasn’t going to be a head coach.
He spent a year with the Dolphins, then in 2008 he moved to Atlanta when Mike Smith was hired there. It was Matt Ryan’s rookie season, and the Falcons had a decent run for a while, but then Smith and his staff were fired after eight seasons.
Next came short stays in Tennessee (two years), Buffalo (one year) and Jacksonville (two years), and then retirement.
39 years. Eight different teams. A Super Bowl ring. But never a head coach.
TUESDAY,
MAY 14, 2024 “All of it began the first
time some of you who know better and are old enough to know better let
young people think that they had the right to choose the laws they
would obey as long as they were doing it in the name of social
protest.” Ronald Reagan*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Living on a farm developed a serious personal philosophy in me. I learned that hard work was not wrong, that hard work was not made up of two dirty, four-letter words. My dad was strong on discipline and gave no quarter when it came to truth and honesty.
“I well remember the first time I tested his resolve. I was probably eight or nine. He told me to fetch the milk pails down by the hog pens. I told him, no, I didn't feel like doing it. That was a mistake. Dad came running after me with his strop, the piece of leather he used to sharpen his straight-edge razor. I knew when he caught me I'd get what for – my first lesson in the discipline of following orders.”
*********** Last Thursday, Mike Lude’s Memorial Service was held in Tucson. I wasn’t able to attend, which causes me great pain and regret.
I did, however, come across something absolutely beautiful, something that almost brought him back. It was an interview he did back in May, 2021 with a former Washington Husky football player named Jimmy Rodgers. Rodgers was captain of Washington’s 1984 Rose Bowl team, and he now hosts a podcast called “Downtown Dawgs.” (“Dawgs” being a long-used nickname for the Huskies.)
In the interview, Mike’s sitting in his apartment in Tucson, and it’s the Mike I remember, from the nearly 20 years in which we spoke weekly. In it, he expresses many of the same opinions I use to hear from him, almost word-for-word in fact, a sure sign that Mike’s opinions were well thought-out and strongly held.
I watched and listened in amazement. It was as if he’d just stepped outside the room for a few minutes and would be right back, as he’d sometimes do on our Zooms, when he’d say, “Well, I’m going to turn off my mic now…” And then, no amount of persuasion on my part could get him to address the guys on the Zoom. It wasn’t that he felt he was too good to talk to the other coaches. It was that Mike didn’t want to be seen as upstaging me.
When he and I would talk, as we were talking I was the most important person in his life, and nothing was more important than our conversation. But here’s the amazing thing about Mike - he was that same way with hundreds of people, and it wasn’t the slightest bit phony. Making others feel important is a gift that great people have, and it’s why Mike was able to make and keep so many warm friendships over the years.
I strongly urge you to click on the link and enjoy the interview! Hang on all the way to the end because there are some bonus interviews afterward.
https://www.google.com/search?q=mike+lude&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:6cb33855,vid:fQ7WS5IjuYw,st:0
*********** UFL GAMES THIS PAST WEEKEND -
The theme that I heard from some announcers this weekend was that this year’s league - the UFL - is SO much better than the two leagues of last year, the XFL and USFL. Sorry, I just don’t see it that way.
Look - I doubt that many people other than players and coaches want this operation to succeed any more than I do, but I think the UFL has been a downer. The year, we’re getting half the number of games we got last year with the two leagues. The quality of football isn’t a damn bit better, and the interesting games have been few.
With three weeks left, the only issue left to settle is whether St. Louis or San Antonio will finish first in the XFL conference. (Hint: try hard to finish first. Second place means you have to play Birmingham.)
SATURDAY
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (1-6) 47, MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-6) 23
Arlington finally got the win, and it was convincing. Memphis is really sad.
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (7-0) 30, ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (5-2) 26
It was a good game and could have gone either way, and as I said, it probably was a good preview of the championship game. Birmingham has now won 14 games in a row.
SUNDAY
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (5-2) 22, DC DEFENDERS (3-4) 9
Panthers won this with two guys alternating at QB. Only a week ago, neither one was on any team’s roster. DC may have lost QB Jordan Ta’Amu, which is really bad news. While we’re on the subject of bad news - DC has converted just one fourth down all season.
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (5-2) 15, HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-6) 12
Down by nine late in the game, the Brahmas pulled it out with a little help from Houston. The Brahmas tied it at 2:24 with the first TD of the game, then Houston cooperated by fumbling the following kickoff at their own 43. San Antonio finally won it with a 51-yard field goal at the gun.
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 5-2
SAN ANTONIO 5-2
DC 3-3
ARLINGTON 1-6
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 7-0
MICHIGAN 5-2
MEMPHIS 1-6
HOUSTON 1-6
*********** In introducing us to the rules unique to the UFL, they must have just forgotten to tell us about the one that outlaws the use of arms by defensive backs trying to make a tackle.
*********** The interviewer at the DC-Michigan game, in talking with the Defenders’ defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, mentioned that he’d just run the “Bear” defense (so-named for the Chicago Bears, who won a Super Bowl with it back in 1985-86). Williams, whose defense had really been playing poorly, saw a chance to be funny - on national TV - and said, “A few more missed tackles and I’m gonna put my ‘bare” foot up somebody’s ass.”
*********** I’ve known Dwayne Pierce since 2000, when he first showed up at my Philadelphia clinic. Based in Washington, D.C., he got on board with the Double Wing, and as he progressed he’d share with me his experiences - common to many Double-Wingers - of first being scoffed at for even thinking about running an offense that “had no chance of working,” then to beating the asses off the some of the same people who’d ridiculed him, and finally to earning the eternal enmity we all get when we prove someone wrong.
We soon became friends, and Coach Pierce began to attend my Durham, North Carolina clinics as well. And when he did, he’d bring his family along, too. (His wife, Darlene, a Wake Forest grad, was happy to go.) Afterward, when my daughter, Julia, who lives in Durham, would host the coaches who’d attended the clinic and hadn’t gone home yet, Dwayne and Darlene and their three kids, Xavier, Kharan and Apollo, would come, too. They all got along great with our grandkids and our daughter and son-in-law, Rob Love, and as the years went on we all became more family than friends.
Dwayne’s coaching career advanced from youth football to coaching Coolidge High in D.C., to his present situation where he oversees several area stores and, for the last three years, has gotten his football fix as an official.
A month or so ago Dwayne told me he would be accompanying Darlene to a convention in Los Angeles (she’s a physician) and - in response to our long-time invitation to come visit us - would like to do so. If it was possible. If it was possible? Was there any way it wouldn’t be? I cleared the decks of everything I needed to do so we could spend three days together and we had a blast.
One of the things he wanted to do was visit some of the places I’d coached - especially the ones shown in some of the old videotapes! In all, we visited five schools in the Portland-Vancouver area. We watched the local middle school practice (they play in the spring), and on Saturday morning we watched a 7-on-7 competition in which the son of one of his former high school buddies was playing. After having lunch with his buddy in Portland, he did get to spend a little time (and money) in Powell’s, the legendary Portland bookstore where you could easily spend a day.
Dwayne and Darlene have a couple of dogs themselves, so he and our dog, Rhodey, got along great, and Dwayne accompanied Rhodey and me on our morning walks. We customarily wind up at the local alternative high school, where every day Rhodey and I join the principal in greeting the kids as they enter the building. (Needless to say, Rhodey gets plenty of attention.) Dwayne was so impressed by the effect it all had on the kids that it only took him a minute or so before he was joining us in greeting them.
All in all, we had a wonderful time with Dwayne, and when we dropped him off at the airport we had the same sort of let-down feeling we have when our own kids leave.
********** Congratulations to our granddaughter, Caroline Tiffany, who last week graduated (ahem - with honors) from Arizona State. I guess that's some kind of "forks" sign.
*********** On Saturday, along with old friend Dwayne Pierce, who was visiting us for a few days, I drove to Canby, Oregon to watch a 7-on-7 tournament.
It was a pretty big deal, with what appeared to be 10 or 12 teams participating.
Overall observation: it is AAU football
1. There’s money being made because they are filling a need.
2. It was pretty well organized.
3. There is ZERO coaching taking place. For the “coaches” it is all about running plays, and if kids have any bad habits, they are getting deeper ingrained with every play.
4. Fundamentals are seldom seen.
A. With receivers, the concept of protecting the ball after a catch appears not to be of any concern, so the ball-handling is often street-ball careless.
B. With quarterbacks there’s no sense of urgency, and they handle the ball way too casually.
There’s no acknowledging the reality that there will be linemen in front of the QB, and as a result, there was a surprising number of short passes completed with the so-called “tackle box” that in the real world would have hit an offensive lineman in the ass.
They are definitely filling a need. The state of Oregon - like many states - forbids high school coaches from working with their kids out-of-season. And with the demand from kids and parents for someone to help their kids make it to the NFL (or at least a Power 4 school), somebody’s going to do it. For a price.
I thought it was great the way Dwayne - who’s been officiating for three years now - approached the young guys who had been “officiating” and afterward, very professionally, counseled them to stay in control of the situation and ignore the coaches. (One of the young guys had earlier engaged in a nasty exchange with a coach who had been baiting him.)
*********** More than three years after the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the Biden administration is still locating, arresting and locking up people who may have been within 50 miles of the US Capitol on that date. Talk about a great manhunt.
Then there’s Canary Mission. Canary Mission may not have the resources of the US Government, but that hasn’t prevented it from performing a public service almost as useful as “protecting our democracy,” by identifying and exposing “individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.”
In its own words:
“Canary Mission believes that we all have the right to know if an individual has been affiliated with movements that routinely engage in anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions, promote hatred of Jews and seek the destruction of Israel."
http://canarymission.org
*********** Billionaire Nelson Peltz gave Fox Business’ Lawrence Richard the reasons why he is backing Donald Trump for President
* the ongoing migrant crisis: Biden’s mishandling of the U.S.-Mexico border; “We can’t go on letting everyone into this country. We have an immigration problem. I want some boundaries put on it so we know at least who we’re bringing in.”
* Biden’s mental condition is “really scary. I don’t know what he knows and I don’t know what he doesn’t know. I don’t know who’s speaking for him and that’s troubling.”
* The criminal charges against Trump are a “miscarriage of justice.”
*********** Today’s sporting public sure is a lot more fickle than it was when I was a kid. Even allowing for the decline of boxing and horse racing, there are so many more sports to follow, so many more teams in each sport, and so many more ways to stay tuned in.
When I was a kid, I could name the starting players on every major league (baseball) team. This was despite having seen only a few of them in person, and fewer still on TV. Nowadays, though, despite all the media at my command, I can't even name a single player on some teams.
In fairness, though,… when I was a kid, there really was only one truly major professional team sport - baseball. Pro football definitely played second fiddle to college football, and pro basketball was in its infancy. And in all of Major League Baseball there were just 16 teams. Rosters were smaller (far fewer pitchers) and with free agency nowhere in anyone’s vision, they seldom changed.
There was almost no movement of players between leagues.
And fans now are nowhere near as parochial as we were then. I followed only Philadelphia teams because that's what everyone did. I never knew anyone who rooted for, say, the Yankees or the Dodgers (except at World Series time, when none of our teams were ever in it, and we had to pull for somebody).
Even if you were willing to do something as traitorous as root for a team in another city - how could you? There was no cable, no satellite, no SportsCenter, no USA Today, no Sports Illustrated, no Internet.
Instead, we had newspapers, as parochial a medium as you can find. Every major city had at least two daily newspapers, and their sports pages were full of stories about the local team, with maybe an occasional feature on a star player from the opposing team that was in town for a series.
We read our newspapers faithfully - which means in Philadelphia we read about the A's and the Phillies. And we listened to their games on the radio.
Every game was on the radio, and on a summer night, in the days before air conditioning when people left their windows open to try to cool off, you couldn't walk anywhere in the neighborhood without hearing a baseball game on somebody’s radio.
If you were fortunate enough to own a television, and your team was on TV, of course you watched. And you liked it, good game or not. No hitting the remote and surfing until you found a better game. (Remote? What’s that? If you wanted to change the channel, you had to get up and walk over to the TV and turn the dial.)
Not that there would have been a better game on, anyhow - there were only three channels available (the local affiliates of ABC, NBC and CBS). If you lived in a really big city, there might be a fourth, an independent station. The only sports on TV were local sports - there was no way yet to televise faraway sports events.
So there was no such thing yet as a “sports bar” with dozens of TVs, tuned to every type of sports event imaginable.
There was the local tavern - a friendly home-away-from-home place where people who lived in crowded homes in crowded neighborhoods, homes without air conditioning or TV, would gather to cool off, to drink and socialize, and watch the games on the TV. It had just one TV set - (small and black-and-white) mounted high enough for everyone in the place to see. And of course, when the home team was playing, its game was on.
Nowadays, it's easy to root for a team other than your home town’s. Back then, it was unthinkable. Philadelphia was all the world we ever knew or cared about - and while we knew all we could about opposing teams, Philadelphia’s teams were all we cared about.
Those days built strong ties to the local teams that lasted for generations, surviving bad times and bad teams, because no matter what, they were our teams. What option did we have, anyhow?
Those ties - and that fan loyalty - have been crassly capitalized on by greedy owners, greedy agents, and - now - greedy players, and in my gut I fear that we are nearing the point where one day the fans will wake up, and those ties won't mean a thing.
*********** I tend to be conservative in my daily life and in my politics, and that conservatism extends to my coaching philosophies.
My approach to coaching has become one of first considering the potential downside before taking any action, whether it be hiring an assistant (what if he doesn’t work out?), adopting an offense or defense (what if we don’t have the player or players to make it work?), giving a responsibility to a player (what if he can’t do it?), calling a play (what could go wrong?).
It means playing a lot of “What if?"
Overarching everything is my dedication to this principle: “First eliminate the ways you can lose - then try to win.”
There are those who would call it negativity - I call it conservatism.
This brings me to the astonishing number of bobbled punts I’ve seen in the UFL - the spring pro football league.
Most of the bobbles have resulted in recoveries by the kicking team, and most of those recoveries have resulted in scores.
Think of it: in an instant, a team has gone from making a defensive stop to having to go right back onto the field again to defend its own goal, and to eventually giving up a score - a score that it thought it had just prevented.
In tennis terms, you’ve given up your serve. In baseball terms, you’ve just had three of your batters take nine straight strikes.
Unless I had absolute faith in a return man, I have very seldom had a kid field a punt unless he had a clear field in front of him. Yes, it’s ultra-conservative, but every stop in a game is precious, and so is every offensive series - they’re too precious to piss away simply because you don’t want a punt to roll another ten yards. Me, I don’t care if it rolls to the one - it’s still OUR BALL.
So here’s a special teams question to help tell whether you and I might share the same overall philosophy:
Do you believe that the chance of having a great punt return - or at least keeping the ball from bouncing another 10 yards or so - is worth the risk of a fumble deep in your own territory?
*********** The best of John Canzano’s Monday newsletter…
Q: Do you think Oregon/WSU and Oregon State/Washington will schedule non-conference games against each other in football?
A: The Beavers and Ducks will play the Civil War football game on Sept. 14 at Reser Stadium. The Cougars and Huskies will play the Apple Cup on the same day at Lumen Field (in Seattle).
Officials at OSU and Oregon tell me they’d like to continue to play the rivalry series. The Ducks bought their way out of two games and traded a game (See: Hawaii, Texas Tech, Boise State) to make that happen in the next two seasons.
It makes sense for both schools to keep playing the Civil War. Oregon avoids having to get on a plane next season for a non-conference road game. The Ducks get to host the game in 2025, avoiding having to travel by plane for a non-conference game.
Meanwhile, OSU gets a premium home game for the season-ticket package every other season.
The Apple Cup is guaranteed to continue for the next five years. This season’s game is at a neutral site. After that, it will alternate between the schools: 2025 (Pullman), 2026 (Seattle), 2027 (Pullman), and 2028 (Seattle).
Q: Any chance Washington State and Oregon State end up getting compensation like Cal did with their sister schools going to the Big 10?
A: Cal stands to collect as much as $10 million a year from UCLA over the next six years. The UC Regents are expected to vote and approve that “Calimony” figure this week. The regents determined in December that UCLA’s decision to leave the Pac-12 negatively impacted Cal.
WSU and OSU may be public schools in the same state as Washington and Oregon, but they operate independently. The UC system is comprised of 10 campuses and while each campus has a chancellor, the schools operate under the same umbrella.
Oregon State and Oregon were never in such a position. However, for years the rival schools were governed by the same board of trustees. In 2011, Senate Bill 242 was passed by a 29-1 vote. It decentralized the state’s higher education system. Each public school in Oregon got its own board vs. a single board that oversaw all the state-funded schools. Legislators believed that doing so would help the larger public universities save time and money. Nobody thought the move would open the door for Oregon’s trustees to vote on a matter (i.e. leaving for the Big Ten) that would harm OSU in such a consequential way.
“The discussion didn’t include athletics,” one lawmaker who worked on that bill told me.
I found it interesting that the Oregon Legislature appropriated an extra $10 million to OSU at the very end of the last legislative session in March. The funds are earmarked for “athletic scholarships” and this was the first time the state did such a thing.
Q: Is it possible that the Big 12 only offers an invite to one of the “Pac-2” schools?
A: Sure, if we’ve learned anything in the last year it’s this — anything is possible. That said, I’m told both schools have kept in communication with the Big 12 and ACC since last August. Lots of people expect more change. Oregon State and Washington State are focused on a two-year rebuild of their conference (if that’s what they have to do) while also trying to keep their options open.
The ACC and Big 12 could both be in play. I could see a scenario where one or both conferences develop an appetite for creating a “Pacific Division” that might include Stanford, Cal, and others. For now, OSU and WSU are trying to build strategic alliances and stay associated.
The Beavers scheduled Houston (2025/2026) and Kansas State (2030/2031) in football. I asked Athletic Director Scott Barnes about that. He said: “We want to do that. We want to continue to foster relationships there. That is certainly part of the strategy.”
Look for more tentacles of the relationship to develop in the coming months.
*********** Our local middle schools play their football season in the spring. It started back in the scamdemic when even the high schools played a spring schedule, and it’s carried over. The high school coaches like it because - theoretically - they can go coach those younger kids, and get to know them before they start practice with the high school three months from now.
At a practice I saw at one of our two middle schools, though, I doubt that any of the coaches were from the high school, because we have a very good program there. What I saw were four guys who only appeared to be coaches because they were bigger than the kids. Two of them did absolutely nothing. I’m guessing they were the defensive coaches, because the team was practicing offense and except when they ran a play - every two minutes or so - the kids on defense also did absolutely nothing.
There wasn’t a lick of coaching taking place. One kid went through an entire practice with his mouthpiece dangling out. Not a frigging word from a coach the entire time.
On offense - what can I say? - they were running (“trying to run” is more accurate) the universal spread, but when they finally did agree on what to run and, they had a hell of a time with high center snaps. Clearly , no one knew a thing about snapping the ball.
Overall, I’ve never seen so much standing around by so many kids in my life.
It was a good thing that I wasn’t a parent, because I’m afraid that what I saw would have tuned me into one of “them.”
I am thinking of contacting the head high school coach to suggest, as a friend of the program, that he stop over and take a look at what’s being done in the name of football.
*********** The Joe Biden story is good, but not quite as good as Corn Pop.
Thanks for the analysis on Hornung's Heisman. I thought Majors was a lock, but I was looking through the eyes of a little kid who was a big Vols fan.
'Scouting America': Just another way the Marxists are ripping us apart, although their retort is that they're making the Scout experience more inclusive.
Answer = Billy Wilson. Here's the 100% accurate answer to your question why he isn't in the NFL HOF: unless you're Jim Brown, you're typically at a disadvantage with your too-common name. Or unless you have a nickname, like Billy "White Shoes" Johnson. But look at Hugh 'Wyatt' McIlhenny, Yelverton A. Tittle, Bob St. Clair (future mayor of what, Santa Clara?). No Bill Wilson for those guys. Even Willie Wilson would've been more memorable.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Whizzer White may have been a good name for a football player but it just didn't sound right for a supreme court justice.
********** Bring the Stars and Maulers back!!
The story I heard was that Joey told Sidney he took those boys behind the gymnasium and beat the snot out of them. Then Sidney found out he lied.
An impeachment would only accelerate the crowning of the other clown in the line of succession. But understand that her position is to be understanding, and it is understood she would accept her new position, and that America would understand that!
Twenty years ago? I disagree. This country started going over to the soft side about 30+ years ago. Youngsters haven’t really changed, their surroundings have.
Like many of us OG’s we were coached by veterans. Tough guys who drilled us in the same manner they only knew.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Coach Gutilla is right . Maybe even 40 years ago. Most of my high school teachers and coaches had fought in World War II. They were the young guys. The ones who hadn’t were the older guys - they’d fought in World War I.
He also sent along a photo of a hailstone that was about the size of a baseball. I hope he was kidding when he said they may need a new roof!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Billy Wilson was born near Sayre, Oklahoma in 1927, and when he was three, his parents, like so many people from the Dust Bowl, moved to California. They settled in Campbell, at that time a tiny town near San Jose, and he grew up to play football and basketball for the local high school.
In 1945 he entered San Jose State (then San Jose State College) and was a standout in both football and basketball. After time off to serve in the Navy, he returned to San Jose State to help lead the football team to a span in which they won two conference titles and met Texas Tech in the 1949 Raisin Bowl. In basketball - at 6-3, he played center - the 1950 and 1951 Spartans were the first San Jose team to play in the postseason, and the first to play in Madison Square Garden.
He was drafted by the local team - the 49ers - in the 22nd round of the 1950 NFL draft. He was the 283rd player taken - and the sixth receiver taken by the 49ers.
Against all odds, he made the team - rosters then were limited to 35 players - and went on to become the 49ers’ top receiver.
The 49ers were good. They finished second in the NFL West three times - 1951, 1953 and 1960. Their offense was tops in the NFL in scoring in 1953. In 1957 they tied Detroit for first in the Western Conference, but lost, 31-27, to the Lions in the playoff game. The next week, the Lions would beat the Browns, 59-14, to win the NFL championship - the last NFL championship Detroit has ever won.
He was not only the 49ers’ top receiver - he was one of the top receivers in the entire NFL for the decade of the 50s.
He led the NFL in receptions three times - with 60 catches in 1954, 60 in 1956 and 52 in 1957.
His 407 receptions were the most of any receiver for the decade of the 50s. He was second in TD receptions with 48 (to Elroy Hirsch’s 49).
During his career, he was in the top 10 in the NFL in …
Receptions - seven times (1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958 & 1959)
Receiving Yards - six times - (1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957 & 1958)
Receiving Touchdowns - four times - (1953, 1955, 1956 & 1957)
Receiving Yards per Game - six times - (1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957 & 1958)
Touchdown receptions - three times - (1953, 1955 & 1957)
Points Scored - one time - (1953)
His career statistics - 407 receptions, 5,902 yards, 49 touchdowns - are especially impressive in view of the fact that:
the NFL during his time played 12-game seasons…
rules changes advancing the passing game had yet to be passed…
despite having Hall-of-Fame passer Y.A. Tittle at QB, the 49ers, with their "Million-Dollar Backfield" of Tittle and running backs Hugh McElhenny, John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry, were a run-first team.
He was named first team All-Pro in 1957.
He was second team All-Pro in 1954, 1955 and 1956.
He was named to the Pro Bowl (when it still meant something) six straight times (1954-1959) and he was MVP of the 1955 Pro Bowl.
Only three 49ers - Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens and Gene Washington have caught more touchdown passes than his career total of 49.
After spending his entire 10 year playing career with the 49ers, he spent another 30 years with the organization as an assistant and then as a scout. For two years - 1974 and 1975 - he coached receivers for The Hawaiians in the World Football League.
“He’s probably one of the most underrated players in NFL history,” said former teammate, Hall of Fame tackle Bob St. Clair.
Bill Walsh, the late 49ers’ Hall of Fame coach, called him “the top pass receiver of his time and one of the finest blockers.”
Said his quarterback, Y. A. Tittle, "He was one of the fiercest competitors I ever played with. He was our number one receiver. Whenever we needed a big catch, I went to him, because I knew he would make the play."
Hall of Fame Coach Tom Landry, then a New York Giants’ DB, recalled him as “almost impossible to cover. He was a great receiver who had a great mind and understanding of the game."
Coaching great Don Shula, who as a defensive back knew him well, said at the time of his death in 2009, “He's one of the few players of another era that would excel today.”
Why isn’t Billy Wilson in the Hall of Fame?
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BILLY WILSON
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He played college football for an Ivy-League school and then played 14 seasons for the Cincinnati Bengals.
He never made it to a Pro Bowl, but…
He was on the 1976 All-Rookie team
He won the NFL’s Whizzer White Award for Humanitarian Service in 1985.
He won the NFL Man of the Year Award 1986
He was Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year in 1987
He was named to the Bengals’ 50th Anniversary Team.
A native of Flint, Michigan, he attended Dartmouth on an academic scholarship. He was a three-time All-Ivy League linebacker in football and the 1975 Ivy League heavyweight wrestling champion, and he graduated in 1976 with a BA in psychology.
In 1976, he was taken in the third round by the Bengals (whose owner, Mike Brown, by coincidence was a former Dartmouth quarterback).
He wore number 57, although he had requested the number he had worn at Dartmouth - number 63 - in honor of his idol, Willie Lanier. (The number 63 was given, instead, to another Bengals’ rookie, Greg Fairchild, who was taken in the fourth round of the draft.)
In 14 years with the Bengals, he played in 206 games. He played in two Super Bowls, and his 16 interceptions and 23 fumble recoveries are still franchise records. His 62.5 career sacks are second most among all Bengals.
After retiring from the NFL, he served as Vice President/General Manager of the New Jersey Knights of the World League of American Football, then returned to the NFL where he opened the league’s first Youth Education Town (YET) in Los Angeles.
In April 1993, he became the Director of Sports Development for Walt Disney World. He oversaw the creation of Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, and spearheaded Disney's involvement in sports, and in 1998, he was named Vice President of Disney Sports Attractions.
In May, 2003, Sports Illustrated ranked him Number 88 on its list of the "101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports.” In 2005, he was named by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the 50 Most Powerful Blacks in Sports.
After incurring a number of leg injuries while playing, he has suffered since from a long series of problems after retirement, and nearly lost one leg to amputation. In 2007, although only 53, he retired from Disney to concentrate on rehabbing his legs.
He has long been active in his communities. While still a player, he was appointed to an open seat on the Cincinnati City Council, and he was elected to serve a second term,
Taking proceeds from various awards, he established a scholarship fund in his name which helps students from Cincinnati's public high schools. He has also done work for the National Association of Speech and Hearing, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, United Way, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Teen Challenge, and Athletes in Action.
In 1990 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Dartmouth, and in 2007 he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2024 “God intends to give us
what we need, not what we now think we want.” C. S. Lewis*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “(Introduction to football - Vicksburg, Michigan, 1936) On the day after Labor Day I reported for early practice and had my introduction to football and, just as important, to Whitey Linton (the coach), who got his nickname from his light-colored hair. The game was a totally new experience. I had played baseball sporadically the previous year with a Sunday team in Fulton, but I had no football experience. Just putting on the shoulder pads was a challenge. The leather helmets didn't fit too well, and the other equipment took time to figure out. I didn't say much, but I watched the other players and learned. I'm not sure I didn't go through a practice the first week or so wondering if maybe I had something on backwards. One of the other players suggested that I ask for a practice jersey that was used because it might fit better, even if it needed mending. Your mom can fix that, he said, and you'll be better off. It was a good tip.”
*********** I’M BEGINNING TO GET THE SENSE THAT WE’RE WATCHING THE DEATH OF SPRING FOOTBALL.
THEY’VE DONE SUCH A BAD JOB OF BUILDING A COMPETITIVE LEAGUE THAT GOING INTO THE SEVENTH WEEK OF THE SEASON THERE ARE THREE TEAMS WITH ONLY TWO WINS AMONG THEM. THEIR COMBINED RECORD IS 2-16.
A LOOK AT THE STANDINGS SHOWS THAT THE ONLY THING RESEMBLING A RACE IS THE CONTEST BETWEEN 4-2 SAN ANTONIO AND 3-3 DC FOR SECOND PLACE IN THE XFL CONFERENCE.
WITH EXCITEMENT ALMOST TOTALLY ABSENT, NO MORE THAN FOUR TEAMS ARE ABLE TO DRAW A CROWD LARGE ENOUGH TO MAKE BACKGROUND NOISE.
DO YOU SUPPOSE IT'S TOO LATE TO RESURRECT SOME OF THE TEAMS FROM THE NOW-DEFUNCT USFL AND XFL? GIVEN A WEEK TO GET READY, A TEAM BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD COULDN’T BE MUCH WORSE THAN ARLINGTON, HOUSTON OR MEMPHIS.
UFL GAMES THIS WEEKEND - ALL TIMES EASTERN
SATURDAY
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-5) AT ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-6) 1 PM - ESPN
I am picking Arlington to win this one. But I might sleep through it.
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (5-1) AT BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (6-0) 4 PM FOX
This one is likely a preview of the UFL championship game.
SUNDAY
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (4-2) AT DC DEFENDERS (3-3) NOON ESPN
Michigan has been better since Danny Etling took over at QB and has a playoff spot just about locked up. DC is not the team that it was last year and it needs San Antonio to lose if it’s going to have any hope of landing a playoff spot.
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (4-2) AT HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-5) 3 PM
San Antonio played poorly last week against DC, but they can play poorly and beat Houston.
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 5-1
SAN ANTONIO 4-2
DC 3-3
ARLINGTON 0-6
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 6-0
MICHIGAN 4-2
MEMPHIS 1-5
HOUSTON 1-5
*********** “My fellow Americans - There’s no room in America for antisemitism. Listen - I know all about anti-semitism. My first experience with it was back in high school when the Weiss family moved into our neighborhood in Wilmington. This is the truth. They were Jews. Jewish people.
One day I was out on my daily half-marathon and I saw a bunch of teenage guys standing around a little kid, shouting at him. I didn’t recognize the guys - they weren’t from our neighborhood - but when I got closer I could see that the little kid was one of our new neighbors - Sidney Weiss. I guess he was about ten. I didn’t know him, but I knew who he was. And as I stopped to listen I could hear the guys calling the kid all kinds of ugly names, most of them ending with the word “Jew.”
Of course I had to step in - it’s what a Biden does - so I forced myself right into the middle of the group, and I stood right next to Sidney and shouted as loud as I could, “Stop! Right now! C’mon, Man!”
The leader - the biggest one of the bunch - came and got right up in my face and said, “Who the f—k are you?”
But before I could even answer, one of the other guys shouted, “It’s Biden! From Archmere! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
The leader looked at me quizzically and said, “You Biden? Really?”
“Yeah,” I told him. “Thats me. Joe Biden. From Scranton. Ever heard of it? Scranton, Pennsy;vania. Coal mining town. Tough people, those coal miners. And listen, pal - there’s no room here in Scranton - uh, Wilmington - for antisemitism.”
“For what?” the guy asked.
“Antisemitism,” I repeated. “Hatred of Jews. And there won’t be any of that in this neighborhood as long as I’m living here.”
I could tell the guy wasn’t listening to me because he kept turning his head, looking over one shoulder and then the other, watching see his buddies taking off without him.
Suddenly, he did a quick about-face and dashed off in their direction. This is no lie.
With the bigots gone, I turned to Sidney, who was pretty shaken up by the whole thing. I extended my hand, I said, “Sidney, I’m Joe Biden.”
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Everybody knows who you are. You’re the big star running back at Archmere. Gosh - the way you chased off those antisemites - this sure would be a better country if maybe someday you could be President.”
“Well, Sidney, ” I said, “That’s my dream. To someday become President. To fight for the litle people. And when I'm President, you have my word as a Biden - Jewish people will never have a better friend than Joe Biden.”
And that’s the truth.
*********** I remember hearing the great Bud Wilkinson speak at a clinic many years ago.
He said that he rarely talked to his players about the opponent, no matter who it was - that his players' real opponent was themselves, and as long as they worked to be the best they could be, they wouldn't have to worry about opponents.
He said that our opponent was just out there to help us see how good we can be.
I really took that to heart, and beyond explaining what a particular opponent was likely to do on offense and defense, and what players we should watch for, I have rarely talked about the upcoming team, and I never got into how good they were or bad they were.
It was just understood on any of my teams that no matter who it was, anybody could beat us - if we gave them enough help. On the other hand, we could beat anybody - if we didn't give them any help.
Coach Wilkinson said he never talked about winning, just about getting better. I bought into that completely - the idea that if you just worried about yourselves, making yourselves mistake-free by taking care of all the little things, the winning would take care of itself.
*********** Living as we do in a grove of trees, we get plenty of visits from woodpeckers. All kinds. Big and small. It’s amazing to watch those suckers climb up and around trees and then hammer away. How do they do it and not knock themselves out? As hard as they hit - and as repetitively - why in the hell don’t they even get woozy? Why isn’t the NFL funding research into this???
*********** At just about this time 20 years ago I noted that around the country there were eight Double-Wing coaches who had taken new jobs: Greg Meyers, Lake Region HS, Eagle Lake, Florida; Larry Harrison, Nathanael Greene Academy, Siloam, Georgia; Kevin Latham, Columbia HS, Decatur, Georgia; Jon McLaughlin, Crystal Lake Central HS, Crystal Lake, Illinois; Steve Cozad, Washington HS, Washington, Kansas; Greg Koenig, Colby HS, Colby, Kansas; Chris Davidson, LaPlata HS, LaPlata, Maryland; Mike Schlosser, Miller HS, Corning, Ohio.
*********** An organization in Denver is working to get migrants off the streets and into homes of host families across Colorado, and a new partnership is making that task easier than ever before.
Since late 2023, a Denver organization called Hope Has No Borders has been pairing migrant workers and their families with host families. Now, they say, “with help from the United Way,” paired up with migrants in need of shelter is just a matter of calling 211.
What could possibly go wrong?
https://kdvr.com/news/local/hosting-a-migrant-family-in-your-home-is-now-as-simple-as-a-phone-call/
*********** Who hasn’t heard a power sweep led by a host of blockers referred to as "Student Body Right," a clever word picture that implied that a school’s entire student body seems to be leading the runner.
Some of us are old enough to remember the phrase being used to describe John McKay's I-formation power sweep at USC back in the 1960s. To the strongside he called it "28 pitch," and to the weakside he called it "39 Toss", and either way, he pulled both guards and the strongside tackle. (And yes, he led with the fullback - and his QB tossed and led also.) That was a lot of beef out in front of the runner, and some sportswriter, most likely from the LA Times, came up with a name for it: "Student Body Right” (at least when it was run to the right.)
But was the sportswriter as clever as people thought? In "Great College Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties," (1973) Tim Cohane wrote about Dartmouth’s wingback reverse, when Red Blaik was coaching the Big Green (actually, at the time, they were still the “Indians”). It was 1937, and Dartmouth's Bob McLeod was driving opponents crazy running a deep reverse with the tailback and three linemen leading him. Yale assistant coach Greasy Neale (who would later win back-to-back NFL titles as coach of the Philadelphia Eagles) referred to it as "that play in which the student body comes down out of the stands and gets into the interference."
*********** In 1956, Paul Hornung won the Heisman Trophy, narrowly edging out Tennessee's Johnny Majors and Oklahoma's Tommy McDonald. A fellow from Syracuse named Jimmy Brown came in fifth. Hornung did go on to be a very good pro - maybe even a great one - but there has never been a less deserving Heisman winner.
First of all, he’s still the only winner to have played on a losing team. “Losing" team? How about going 2-8 at Notre Dame! Even Navy beat them. Didn’t just beat them - waxed them - 33-7. The Irish gave up 40 or more points in three different games, and they were outscored by their opponents, 289 to 130!
So surely, to win the Heisman Trophy while quarterbacking a team that bad - one of the worst in Notre Dame's history - he must have put up some amazing numbers, wouldn’t you think? Impossible - The Irish never scored more than 21 points in any game, and they managed to score as many as three touchdowns in only three of their games.
Maybe he had a “Heisman moment?” - a huge game on national television, with all the Heisman voters watching? Like Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary against Miami?
Never happened. For months prior to Oklahoma’s visit to Notre Dame, their nationally-televised meeting (these were the days before there were dozens of games on TV every Saturday) had been hyped as the "TV Game of the Year.” But Oklahoma humiliated the Irish, 40-0, and the Heisman winner-to-be "rushed" 13 times for seven yards (sacks were deducted from rushing totals). He fumbled three times, and threw four interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns.
One possible explanation for Hornung’s cheesy win was the fact that two Sooners - third-place McDonald (who actually received more first-place votes than Hornung) and fourth-place center/linebacker Jerry Tubbs - cannibalized each other’s voting. They had more than enough votes between them to trounce Hornung.
But by far the most plausible explanation for Hornung's selection was the marketing genius of Notre Dame publicist Charlie Callahan, well-known and well-liked by influential newspapermen all over the country.
*********** Boy Scouts of America is now “Scouting America.”
In other news, the Roman Catholic Church has announced that in the interest of inclusivity, the priesthood will now be open to women, and the Church will no longer require its priests to believe in the Holy Trinity. “Two out of three is plenty,” said Pope Nancy.
*********** A friend of mine who lives in another part of the country has been officiating football for three years now. Recently, he reffed a girls’ flag game (they play in the spring where he lives). He said that skills were sorely missing, and when he talked to a few people about it, he was told that they didn’t practice. They played two games a week - bus transportation, school uniforms, paid officials and all the rest - but they didn’t practice!
*********** If you, like me, are up to here with the progressives who insist that - aside from plumbing - there’s no difference between men and women, you'll like this story I came across a while ago.
It seems some guy had gone over Niagara Falls - without a barrel - and survived. While visiting his parents in Oregon, he told the Portland Oregonian that as a result of his feat he’d learned a very interesting thing about people:
"Ninety per cent of the women ask me why I did it, and 90 per cent of the guys want to know what it was like.”
*********** I just ordered a book from Amazon entitled “Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling” by Michael Barone. It’s 20 years old and it helps explain the predicament we find ourselves in.
A synopsis:
A peculiar feature of our country today is that we seem to produce incompetent eighteen-year-olds but remarkably competent thirty-year-olds. Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scientifically, technologically, and militarily.
The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps.
Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly figure out that how they do depends on what they produce.
Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.
Hmmm. In today's America, don’t see all those “remarkably competent thirty-year-olds” he described. He may have nailed it 20 years ago, when “the boundary between Hard America and Soft America” may have been moving back and forth, but it sure seems to me that the recent movement has been in one direction: “Soft America” has been creeping upward, as the softies grow older. Answer me this: since he wrote the book, have we made kindergarten harder? Or have we made the Marine Corps softer?
*********** I’m still crying after reading the 'tear-jerker' story. If you have 17 kids, I think you ought to be able to commit any crime you like.
All these stories hailing girls' flag football appear on the same day a male (claiming, of course, to be a female) wins the 200- and 400-meter races against girls. As was pointed out, that male would've finished last by more than two seconds if he'd competed in the boys' events. The stories I love most are those including the words 'empowerment' and 'breaking barriers'. Nothing's worth doing if it doesn't conduce to empowerment, and if it doesn't permit me to say I've broken a barrier.
Appreciate your thoughts on Drew Cronic's hybrid Wing-T. I don't see him bringing an offense similar to his namesake Drew Thatcher.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
(Drew Thatcher is the young coach who was given the mission of trying to convert Army’s under-center triple option to a shotgun option type attack.)
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Lucious Selmon grew up on a farm near Eufaula, Oklahoma, one of nine children - six boys and three girls.
He played high school ball at Eufaula, and as an Oklahoma Sooner he was so dominant at nose guard that in his senior season he was a consensus All-American.
In addition, he was the Chevrolet/ABC National Defensive Player of the Year, and the Big 8 Conference Defensive Player of the Year.
He finished second in the voting for the Outland Trophy and seventh in the voting for the Heisman Trophy.
In his career at OU, he made 255 tackles (31 for losses).
Two of his younger brothers, Lee Roy and Dewey, followed him to OU, and during his senior year there were times when all three brothers played on the Sooners’ defensive line.
Drafted in the 16th round of the 1974 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots, he chose instead to sign with the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League.
He played two years for the Southmen (1974–75), and after the WFL folded, he returned to Oklahoma in 1976 as an assistant.
He stayed at Oklahoma coaching various defensive positions for 19 years, 13 under Barry Switzer and six under Gary Gibbs.
In 1995, after having taken part in the NFL’s Minority Coaching Fellowship Program, he was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Tom Coughlin, and he spent eight years there coaching first outside linebackers and then defensive linemen.
For a number of years he worked camps around the US, and in 2005 he coached the defensive line at Michigan State.
His two younger brothers both were named All-American and Oklahoma and both went on to highly successful pro careers.
In 2022, the Selmon brothers - Lucious, Lee Roy and Dewey - were honored with a statue near the OU stadium.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING LUCIOUS SELMON
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born near Sayre, Oklahoma in 1927, and when he was three, his parents, like so many people from the Dust Bowl, moved to California. They settled in Campbell, at that time a tiny town near San Jose, and he grew up to play football and basketball for the local high school.
In 1945 he entered San Jose State (then San Jose State College) and was a standout in both football and basketball. After time off to serve in the Navy, he returned to San Jose State to help lead the football team to a span in which they won two conference titles and met Texas Tech in the 1949 Raisin Bowl. In basketball - at 6-3, he played center - the 1950 and 1951 Spartans were the first San Jose team to play in the postseason, and the first to play in Madison Square Garden.
He was drafted by the local team - the 49ers - in the 22nd round of the 1950 NFL draft. He was the 283rd player taken - and the sixth receiver taken by the 49ers.
Against all odds, he made the team - rosters then were limited to 35 players - and went on to become the 49ers’ top receiver.
The 49ers were good. They finished second in the NFL West three times - 1951, 1953 and 1960. Their offense was tops in the NFL in scoring in 1953. In 1957 they tied Detroit for first in the Western Conference, but lost, 31-27, to the Lions in the playoff game. The next week, the Lions would beat the Browns, 59-14, to win the NFL championship - the last NFL championship Detroit has ever won.
He was not only the 49ers’ top receiver - he was one of the top receivers in the entire NFL for the decade of the 50s.
He led the NFL in receptions three times - with 60 catches in 1954, 60 in 1956 and 52 in 1957.
His 407 receptions were the most of any receiver for the decade of the 50s. He was second in TD receptions with 48 (to Elroy Hirsch’s 49).
During his career, he was in the top 10 in the NFL in …
Receptions - seven times (1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958 & 1959)
Receiving Yards - six times - (1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957 & 1958)
Receiving Touchdowns - four times - (1953, 1955, 1956 & 1957)
Receiving Yards per Game - six times - (1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957 & 1958)
Touchdown receptions - three times - (1953, 1955 & 1957)
Points Scored - one time - (1953)
His career statistics - 407 receptions, 5,902 yards, 49 touchdowns - are especially impressive in view of the fact that:
the NFL during his time played 12-game seasons…
rules changes advancing the passing game had yet to be passed…
despite having Hall-of-Fame passer Y.A. Tittle at QB, the 49ers, with their "Million-Dollar Backfield" of Tittle and running backs Hugh McElhenny, John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry, were a run-first team.
He was named first team All-Pro in 1957.
He was second team All-Pro in 1954, 1955 and 1956.
He was named to the Pro Bowl (when it still meant something) six straight times (1954-1959) and he was MVP of the 1955 Pro Bowl.
Only three 49ers - Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens and Gene Washington have caught more touchdown passes than his career total of 49.
After spending his entire 10 year playing career with the 49ers, he spent another 30 years with the organization as an assistant and then as a scout. For two years - 1974 and 1975 - he coached receivers for The Hawaiians in the World Football League.
“He’s probably one of the most underrated players in NFL history,” said former teammate, Hall of Fame tackle Bob St. Clair.
Bill Walsh, the late 49ers’ Hall of Fame coach, called him “the top pass receiver of his time and one of the finest blockers.”
Said his quarterback, Y. A. Tittle, "He was one of the fiercest competitors I ever played with. He was our number one receiver. Whenever we needed a big catch, I went to him, because I knew he would make the play."
Hall of Fame Coach Tom Landry, then a New York Giants’ DB, recalled him as “almost impossible to cover. He was a great receiver who had a great mind and understanding of the game."
Coaching great Don Shula, who as a defensive back knew him well, said at the time of his death in 2009, “He's one of the few players of another era that would excel today.”
Why isn’t he in the Hall of Fame?
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2024 “Take
a strong horse and give him one weak and clueless rider after another,
and pretty soon the horse is no longer strong.” Mark Helprin, novelist
and journalist************ Wisdom from Mike Lude: “My introduction to football came when I was barely settled with my grandparents in Vicksburg. My dad liked the idea of me playing football and encouraged me to turn out for the team. Reflecting back, I think he considered football a tough game; it had body contact. It was a game for men and you hit people.
Maybe he thought I might not be tough enough, that toughness and hardness were manly, and he wanted me to be a real man. I remember when I was in the fourth or fifth grade I got into a fight with a kid on the way home and didn't fare too well. When I told my dad about it that night he said, "Now, tomorrow you get in another fight with him and you win." And I did.
He thought if someone challenged you, you had to stand up and be counted. If there was a fight, you had to be there, whether you won or lost the fight. You couldn't be a softy. His younger brother, Bob, had played football in high school and dad thought it had been a good experience for him. "
*********** UFL GAMES THIS WEEKEND -
SATURDAY
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (6-0) 39, MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-5) 20
B’ham QB Adrian Martinez (23/36/348, 4 TDS) looks really, really good. Memphis QB Case Cookus just can’t seem to get rid of the ball fast enough - their line is that bad. 115 yards on 23 attempts is sorry.
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (5-1) 22, HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-5) 8
STL QB A.J. McCarron (24/37/255, 3 TDs) is the best in the UFL, and 6-6 receiver Hakeem Butler is probably the best receiver. For Houston, 135 yards is pitiful production when you throw 34 passes.
SUNDAY
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (4-2) 28, ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-6) 27
The Renegades were :54 away from their first win when they kicked a 48-yard field goal, but they gave up a long kick return and added 15 yards to it with a face mask penalty, and Michigan kicked the winning field goal with no time remaining.
DC DEFENDERS (3-3) 18, SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (4-2) 12
San Antonio could throw for only 79 yards (on 26 attempts: 3.0 yards per attempt!). But John Lovett ran 23 times for 153 yards, tops in the league this weekend. DC’s Jordan Ta’amu completed 14 of 22 for 179 yards and a TD.
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 5-1
SAN ANTONIO 4-2
DC 3-3
ARLINGTON 0-6
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 6-0
MICHIGAN 4-2
MEMPHIS 1-5
HOUSTON 1-5
*********** “Universities must say what they mean and then do what they say. Empty threats make everything worse. Any parent who has endured a two-year-old tantrum gets this. You can’t say, “don’t make me come up there” if you aren’t willing to walk up the stairs and enforce the rules. You don’t make a threat until you’ve decided to follow through if necessary. In the same way, universities make things worse with half–hearted appeals to abide by existing policies and then immediately negotiating with 20-year-old toddlers.”
“Actions have consequences. At the University of Florida, we have repeatedly, patiently explained two things to protesters: we will always defend your rights to free speech and free assembly – but if you cross the line on clearly prohibited activities, you will be thrown off campus and suspended. In Gainesville, that means a three–year prohibition from campus. That’s serious. We said it. We meant it. We enforced it. We wish we didn’t have to, but the students weighed the costs, made their decisions, and will own the consequences as adults. We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.”
Ben Sasse, president of the University of Florida
*********** Coach Wyatt,
Recently I was inducted into the Maryland Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame. It was a great honor and the ceremony was held at the University of Maryland this past week. I had to reach out to you and thank you for sharing your knowledge of the DW offense. My success as a head football coach is directly attributed to the Double Wing offense along with your clinics and tapes!
In 1997, I was named head football coach at Archbishop Curley HS in Baltimore. After doing some research, I found out that the school hadn’t had a winning football season since 1978. They also went through a dozen coaches during that time frame. Anyway, like most young coaches, I thought for some reason, I had all the answers and would change the course of the program immediately. I was wrong! When I took the job, I installed the spread offense. I ran the offense for four years with some success in 2000. My first three years running the spread we won just 10 games. After the 2000 season (7 wins), we graduated most of the offense including our QB and top receivers. As a result, I began looking at several different offenses that I thought could match the ability of what we had returning. My Jv coach at the time, Mike Dison came across your tape and playbook and encouraged me to consider. After attending your clinic in Philadelphia, I was committed. I ran the Double Wing from 2001 to 2016 at Archbishop Curley with success. Our record from 2001-2016 was (110 -61) with 5 championships and 13 winning seasons. In addition, we were able to place 60 plus players on the collegiate level with success.
I am still running the DW while coaching at John Paul II in Greenville, NC. We are a small Catholic HS that play a combo of 8 man and 11 man football games. The program started in 2019 and we have run the DW out of the I with tremendous success. We are 35-18 during those 5 years and have competed in the NC 8 man state championship game 3 times in just 5 years. None of this would have been possible had I not been introduced to you and this offense. Thanks for sharing your experiences, knowledge and all that you do for high school football.
Sean Murphy
Athletic Director/Head Football Coach
John Paul II Catholic High School
Greenville, North Carolina
With Coach Murphy’s permission I printed that. But first, I wrote him back…
Coach,
Thank YOU for taking the time to write.
First of all, congratulations on the great honor. Maryland is a really good football state and it’s had lots of really good coaches. One of them that I remember from my early days in Baltimore, George Young, went on from City College to become GM of the Giants. And a great Maryland high school coach, Adam Craven of Frederick High, was a tremendous help to me, a mentor when I found myself coaching a minor league team in Hagerstown without any real coaching experience.
Second of all, you have my respect for staying and building at Curley, where kids needed good strong men and the stability and leadership that they could provide, and where parents have made significant investments to get their kids a good education.
And third, you have my great respect for having shown the wisdom to recognize the need to do what you believed was best for the kids’ success, and not what you felt most comfortable doing. That decision means having to leave your comfort zone and take a leap of faith, something few coaches at any level are willing to do.
I’m grateful for any part that I played in your success. But all I did was provide a tool. A tool only works when it’s in the hands of someone willing to make the effort to learn how to use it properly.
I’m certainly glad that you made the decision you did, but it’s quite possible that you might have achieved the very same success with some other system, given your willingness to put the kids’ success first, and given the staff and team buy-in that you achieved.
I’m also grateful for having had the chance to meet you, and the chance to meet your staff, and especially for the opportunity to work with Brian Mackell, who has become a lifelong friend.
I wish you all the best at John Paul II, and if there’s ever any way I can ever be of help you know I’m willing to do my best.
Again, thanks for taking the time to write.
It’s understandable that Coach Murphy would have started out his career as head coach running the spread offense. That was what he knew
In 1997, the same year he took over as head coach at Archbishop Curley High, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Towson University.
A two-time All-American wide receiver, he caught 154 passes for 2524 yards and 23 touchdowns, and helped lead the Tigers to two Division II playoff appearances and two Lambert Awards as the top Division II team in the East.
After graduation and prior to taking the Archbishop Curley job, he assisted at Towson and and McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland.
It’s to his credit that he was willing to “leave his comfort zone” for the sake of his program’s success.
It’s a major reason why so many football teams look identical - it’s all that their coaches know, and they’re either unwilling or unable to learn anything else.
I recently quoted Jon Bon Jovi: “Be smart enough to know what you don’t know.”
*********** A coach whom I worked with a few years ago has been coaching his town’s middle school team for the past couple of seasons - very successfully, I should add - and he wrote me…
I was thinking as a I drove to work today how we start each junior high practice with correct stance and starts. And then we go into blocking. It is something I took from you.
As the season progresses you can see the muscle memory of practice within the game.
I think we spend maybe 10-15 minutes at beginning of practice doing the bench drill and correct stances. It seems like a simple thing but I believe that's what football is. Simple things done correctly by the whole team.
You will hear me yell the phrase all season: “everyone on this team blocks!”
I wrote him back…
I’m pleased that you were astute enough to pick up on that. Just like in the classroom, you start them out with the basics and as they get better they get more confident and from that point it’s amazing what you can accomplish.
But you’ve got to build that foundation. A former assistant who painted houses in the summer told me he loved painting but he hated all the prep work. But he knew that if he didn’t do the prep work right, he couldn’t do a good job of painting.
*********** Girls flag football will become the 33rd sport sanctioned by CHSAA and the 18th sanctioned sport for girls in Colorado. It will join the fall sports lineup, with the first state champion being crowned in the fall of 2024.
“Thrilled doesn’t even begin to cover it,” CHSAA Commissioner Mike Krueger said about the council voting to sanction girls’ flag football. “This isn’t just about the game; it’s about empowerment, teamwork, and breaking barriers. By embracing this sport, we’re not only fostering athleticism, but we’re remaining among the nation’s leaders in providing opportunities for female athletes to participate.”
“Thrilled?” Do you, like me, find it a sign of the “fundamental change” that a certain president promised us that tackle football comes under attack as part of an overall campaign to neuter our boys, while society wets its collective pants with excitement over girls playing flag football?
*********** I haven’t had the chance to be in the Tuesday night clinics but I’ve watched everyone of them on the link you send us. Just wanted to say hi and thank you for all you do. I will be in my 51st consecutive season coaching football in Illinois this season. I’m very proud of that. Thanks again.
Paul Parpet
Lisle, Illinois
Football needs old-timers! Yes, it’s “a young man’s game,” and it needs a constant supply of eager young men to provide the energy and enthusiasm so important to coaching kids - but the game also needs wisdom and perspective, and those things, as the popular saying goes, can’t be microwaved.
*********** Navy has a new offensive coordinator, and while he isn’t going to be running the usual triple option that was once synonymous with Navy football, it appears that Navy is definitely not going the cookie-cutter route offensively.
The new OC is Drew Cronic, and he runs what he calls a “hybrid wing-T” offense.
He most recently was head coach at Mercer (FCS) where in four years he had a record of 28-17, including an 8-3 record and an appearance in the FCS post-season playoff. Prior to that, he was head coach at Division II Lenoir-Rhyne, where he was 25-3 in two seasons, and in 2018 was national D-II Coach of the Year. His previous experience as a head coach was at NAIA school Reinhart, in Georgia, where in two seasons he was 22-3.
That’s an overall career record of 75-23 as a head coach. Not too shabby.
He credits the origination of his scheme to the Wing-T run by his father, a Georgia high school coach, but notes that his version includes “a lot of shifting, motions, movement and formations.”
Mercer played Alabama in 2021, and Nick Saban explained the Mercer offense this way:
“There are a lot of bunch formations, and there’s a lot of motions and adjustments that players have to make. So this is totally unique to anything that we’ve played against and will play against the rest of the season.”
For what it’s worth, the last guy to run the Wing-T at Navy was George Welsh. He coached there from 1973 through 1981, and went 55-46-1. In his last four years at Annapolis, te Middies went 9-3, 7-4, 8-4 and 7-4-1. In that span, he took them to their first bowl in 15 years - and then to two more.
A look at Mercer film shows that some of the stuff Cronic was doing there - including shifting the entire line to one side or another once it’s up on the ball - is a very inventive spin on the traditional wing-T.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CChF1tasZv8
*********** From the Pittsburgh Tribune comes this hard-luck story…
A Hempfield man was ordered to serve up to six years in prison for a series of crimes that included an assault against a police officer, two high-speed chases and possession of cocaine in his cell at the Westmoreland County Prison.
As Antjuan Dewayne Smith, 41, pleaded guilty Thursday, his lawyer, Milton Raiford, asked for leniency, suggesting that, as a father of 17 children, Smith’s responsibilities merited consideration for a lesser sentence. Raiford also noted the bulk of his client’s prior criminal record dates to his teen years.
“I am a big comic book fan, and I was always afraid Spider-Man and Thor would die at the end, so I would start at the end and know everything would be OK. My client’s life is like that, a real tear-jerker,” Raiford said.
Smith faced 20 charges in four separate incidents dating to April 2022 that culminated as part of an investigation at the county jail last year.
A real tear-jerker, all right. Poor guy can’t buy a break. And I can just see those 17 kids sitting at the dining room table, sobbing because Daddy won’t be home for dinner for “up to six years.”
*********** Cal isn’t in the Pac-12 any more, and as a Stanford dad I’m supposed to see the Golden Bears as the arch rival anyhow, but John Canzano wrote a nice article about a couple of Cal football players putting on a football camp for a bunch of special-need kids in the Bay Area, and you gotta like that…
https://youtu.be/M64tPBLytBs?si=hNJMgLJyA65MfYja
*********** Coach,
A friend of mine makes a different helmet protection product and we just ordered his product and we were talking about the Guardian and NFL. He brought up the point the owners may not be as on board with this as people may think.
He isn't sure that the owners will willingly cover up their logos.
Tom Davis
San Marcos, California
Makes sense to me. Those waffle caps are butt-ugly.
In their spring game, Pitt players were wearing a completely different scrimmage cap from the waffle-type Guardian caps. They looked like actual football players. If these caps are anywhere close to being as effective as the gooney hats (assuming that the waffle hats are actually effective), I’m all for them:
An article on the development of the Guardian Cap…
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32140546/guardian-caps-soft-shelled-football-helmet-covers-effective-limiting-head-injuries
*********** The Washington Huskies’ “Dawgs After Dark” spring game was… okay.
The crowd was - what? - maybe 20,000? Hard to say. The announcers all called it “great,” but it didn’t come close to completely filling the lower bowl.
The play-by-play announcer was a female named Elise Woodward, and she lost me right at the start when she talked about the Huskies playing Michigan in the “Natty.” Grrrr.
The Huskies’ coordinators are interesting. In this corner is a guy with a Santa-Claus beard. He’s the offensive coordinator. His name’s Brennan Carroll, and he’s Pete’s son.
The defensive coordinator has a man-bun. His name’s Steve Belichick, and yes…
Will Rodgers, formerly of Mississippi State, looked decent at QB. I like the guy. I hope he has a great year. But is Washington a good Big Ten team? I doubt it. Hey - considering all the guys they lost to the NFL draft, I’m not sure this is even a good Pac-12 team.
*********** Coach (actually Corch):
The sack totals stopped me in my tracks. Yes, it isn't easy to know for sure what the numbers mean, but if you say each of the QBs teams averaged 27 games total those two seasons, that means NIX got sacked only about once every three games, and even Maye 2 1/2 times a game.
Re Toxic Masculinity: You might have seen one male protestor being arrested by a young, strong cop. The guy being arrested walked a few steps, then dropped to the ground. The cop picked him up and carried the guy in an awkward, uncomfortable one-legged cradle for quite a distance until the cop fell out of camera view. OOh, mister cop, i'm gonna sue you to the sky, mister! I think you strained my groin!!!
I didn't know Northwestern had agreed to those demands. Honest, can supposedly well-schooled people get any dumber?
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: A native of Pocatello, Idaho, Merril Hoge played his college ball at nearby Idaho State, where he was a three-time All Big Sky running back. In his junior year, his 2,113 all-purpose yards set a new NCAA record. In his career, he had 5,453 all-purpose yards and scored 31 touchdowns.
He was taken by the Steelers in the 10th round of the 1987 NFL draft, the 261st player taken. He made the team and played seven seasons with them.
Signed by the Bears in 1994, he suffered two concussions within weeks of each other, the second one resulting in his requiring resuscitation.
The brain injury he suffered caused memory loss and headaches, and he had to learn to read all over again.
In his career, he gained 3,139 rushing yards and 2,133 receiving yards, scoring 34 touchdowns. In one season, 1990, he scored 10 touchdowns, an amazing total for a fullback.
Unable to return to football, he landed a job with ESPN as an analyst, and he worked for the network for 21 years.
He has been active in research into concussions and the prevention and treatment of brain injuries, and has testified at a congressional hearing on football head injuries.
He is chairman of the board of the Highmark Caring Foundation and on the board of the Chuck Noll Foundation for Brain Injury Research.
Merril Hoge is an author/co-author of two books, whose descriptions I’ve printed word-for-word.
He is author of “Find a Way - Three Words That Changed My Life” -
When (he) talked about his dream of playing in the NFL all he heard was, that will be too hard, you can't beat those odds, it's impossible, and son don't put all your eggs in one basket! That inspired him to write Find a Way and put it on the top of the wall above all his goals. Find a Way would become a life-long philosophy that helped him achieve his dream of playing in the NFL, but also has helped him deal with the near loss of his hand as a young boy, the loss of his mother at a young age, overcome severe head trauma and battle and beat cancer. It has also become a parenting tool and helped him realize the magic that exists in all of us!
He is also co-author of Brainwashed: The Bad Science Behind CTE and the Plot to Destroy Football.
When post-concussion syndrome forced star NFL running back Merril Hoge into early retirement in 1994, research on football-related head injuries wasn’t a priority. At the time, football was heavily influenced by a tough guy culture, and little was known about concussions and their potentially dangerous effects.
Then the tragic death of his ex-teammate Mike Webster in 2002 launched a wave of fear after an autopsy determined he suffered from an obscure brain disease—chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The media pounced. Concern over player safety soon became a war on football at every level, with one scientist even declaring youth football “child abuse.”
In an effort to set the record straight, (— —) and board-certified forensic neuropathologist Dr. Peter Cummings explore the hidden agendas and misinformation fueling the CTE hysteria machine. Armed with extensive research, critical insight, and expert interviews, they address some of the common myths surrounding the disease, examining significant flaws in the often-cited studies and exposing the sensationalistic reporting that dominates today’s CTE dialogue.
Compelling, accessible, and ultimately revelatory, Brainwashed exposes the biases and unsubstantiated claims crippling true scientific advancement in the area of CTE research. This is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of youth sports and the survival of our nation’s most beloved game.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MERRIL HOGE
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He grew up on a farm near Eufaula, Oklahoma, one of nine children - six boys and three girls.
He played high school ball at Eufaula, and as an Oklahoma Sooner he was so dominant at nose guard that in his senior season he was a consensus All-American.
In addition, he was the Chevrolet/ABC National Defensive Player of the Year, and the Big 8 Conference Defensive Player of the Year.
He finished second in the voting for the Outland Trophy and seventh in the voting for the Heisman Trophy.
In his career at OU, he made 255 tackles (31 for losses).
Two of his younger brothers followed him to OU, and during his senior year there were times when all three brothers played on the Sooners’ defensive line.
Drafted in the 16th round of the 1974 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots, he chose instead to sign with the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League.
He played two years for the Southmen (1974–75), and after the WFL folded, he returned to Oklahoma in 1976 as an assistant.
He stayed at Oklahoma coaching various defensive positions for 19 years, 13 under Barry Switzer and six under Gary Gibbs.
In 1995, after having taken part in the NFL’s Minority Coaching Fellowship Program, he was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Tom Coughlin, and he spent eight years there coaching first outside linebackers and then defensive linemen.
For a number of years he worked camps around the US, and in 2005 he coached the defensive line at Michigan State.
His two younger brothers both were named All-American and Oklahoma and both went on to highly successful pro careers.
In 2022, the three brothers were honored with a statue near the OU stadium. BE SURE THAT YOU NAME THE CORRECT ONE AS YOUR ANSWER!
FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2024 “No
king was more blatantly endowed with the right to rule without the
fitness for it than these puffed up and well-connected children.”
Daniel Greenfield*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “ For a college lineman, my size – I played at 177 pounds – was marginal even then, long before 300-pound guards and tackles became commonplace. But I knew how to use my hands on defense, and I could block much bigger defenders effectively. I considered myself very coachable. Coach Harwood told me many of the same things I had heard from my high school coaches: as long as I was aggressive and tough, put pressure on opposing passers, and blocked hard I'd have a place in his program. Like most linemen I derived the most satisfaction from team success. I always believed – and this never changed when I became a coach and later athletic director - that the team comes first.”
*********** UFL GAMES THIS WEEKEND - ALL TIMES EASTERN
SATURDAY
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (5-0) AT MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-4) - NOON - ABC
HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-4) AT ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (4-1) - 3 PM - FOX
SUNDAY
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-5) AT MICHIGAN PANTHERS (3-2) - 1 PM - FOX
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (4-1) AT DC DEFENDERS (2-3) - 4 PM - FOX
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 4-1
SAN ANTONIO 4-1
DC 2-3
ARLINGTON 0-5
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 5-0
MICHIGAN 3-2
MEMPHIS 1-4
HOUSTON 1-4
BEER SNAKE OR NO BEER SNAKE, WHEN PEOPLE PAY TO WATCH A MINOR LEAGUE FOOTBALL GAME, THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PAY $12 FOR A F--KING BEER!
*********** The Canadian Football League held a draft of some sort Tuesday night, and the first player taken was an Aberdeen, Washington kid. He’s former Cincinnati linebacker Joel Dublanko, who was taken with the first pick overall by the Edmonton Elks.
The CFL’s first preseason game is Monday, May 20 when Winnipeg plays at Saskatchewan.
*********** When you hear both sides of the protest chanting “F—k Joe Biden!” you have to admit that he has delivered on his promise to unite America.
*********** These are the sack totals from the last two seasons for the top QB prospects in the recent draft:
Drake Maye 69
Jayden Daniels 65
Caleb Williams 63
J. J. McCarthy 31
Michael Penix 19
Bo Nix - 10
I’m not sure what you can deduce from this other than the fact that Drake Maye isn’t that mobile, and Bo Nix had the benefit of playing on a team smart enough to build their offense around his skills, with a strong running game to go with him. Caleb Williams' totals are a surprise, given his amazing athleticism, as is Michael Penix's, indicating, in my opinion, his exceptional decisiveness and quick release.
*********** One interesting division in our already highly-divided society is on display in the widespread college tantrums that occupy the news these days: the predominance of females over males in the groups of protesters.
One explanation is quite logical: the ratio of female-to-male enrollment in most colleges is approaching 60-40. (The need to attract male applicants is a major reason why many small colleges that had never had football programs have decided to field teams.)
Another explanation is polls that show a deep and growing political division between the sexes: increasingly large numbers of younger women strongly devoted to progressive causes, with younger men increasingly losing interest.
(Maybe this helps to explain the declining birth rate among American whites. Writes Mark Steyn, "We have made a world of men that women don't want and women that men don't want, and that doesn't seem likely to end well.” He’s at least half right: if I were young and single, I can’t imagine going into one of those tents with any of those gruesome women I’ve been seeing in the protests.)
A further explanation is the war that the progressive cause has declared on “toxic masculinity” (at least insofar as white men are concerned - black and Hispanic men, it appears, are still permitted to be traditionally masculine).
So with traditional males either uninterested or excluded from protests, there a relative lack of males among the protestors, and those males who are on hand tend to be - shall we say - somewhat other than traditionally masculine.
From an entertainment standpoint, we’re getting to see some rather hilarious scenes when those weeny guys encounter the police, and experience physical contact for the first time in their lives.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
*********** They used to talk about people who were so casual about money they’d light their cigars with $100 bills.
Now, the way to show how much money they can afford to waste is to toss it at high school football players.
At the Arizona State spring game, I saw a lot of a redshirt freshman QB. A transfer from Michigan State, I happened to know a little about him because he played high school ball in the Portland area.
I don’t know anything more than what I heard, but what I heard is that once he committed to Michigan State, the kid was assured of making $15,000 a month in NIL money - base, with incentives to come - before he ever took a snap at MSU.
Again, strictly hearsay.
He originally committed to Washington State, but MSU managed to change his mind. He got into four games for the Spartans last season, and he looked pretty good, but it was decided to curtail his play in order to preserve his red shirt.
But then, Michigan State fired Mel Tucker, and replaced him with Jonathan Smith, whom they hired away from Oregon State.
Uh-oh. The kid apparently resented the fact that Smith hadn’t recruited him back in Oregon, so he hit the transfer portal and wound up at Arizona State, whose head coach, Kenny Dillingham, had previously been offensive coordinator at Oregon - and had recruited him.
Anyhow, the kid’s at Arizona State and some money guy (or a “collective” of money guys) at Michigan State is out somewhere around quite a bit of NIL money, with nothing to show for it.
Now, I don’t know what they teach in the business courses at Michigan State, but I’m still thinking a race horse is a much better investment than a high school kid.
*********** Remember “Pac-12 After Dark?” Washington’s spring game will be held at 6:30 (Pacific Time) on Friday and it’s being billed as “Dawgs After Dark.”
*********** Found this in an interview with Jon Bon Jovi in the Wall Street Journal…
Q. What’s a piece of advice you’ve gotten that’s guided you?
A. Be true to who you are. And be smart enough to know what you don’t know.
*********** Why do tornadoes pick on red states? Damn shame, because tornadoes would do a great job of breaking up all those “student” protest” encampments - that are mostly taking place in blue states.
*********** Might there any be connection between the actions of Colin Kaepernick and what we’re now seeing on college campuses? Just asking.
*********** It’s looking more and more as if the masks are coming off at Colorado, and (1) Deion Sanders is proving that without the considerable edge in talent that he enjoyed at Jackson State he simply can’t coach. (2) He runs on chaos, not order. He continues to run players in and out of Boulder; (3) He is in it primarily to promote his own son, Shedeur, whom he has already anointed as the number one QB in next year’s draft; (4) Shedeur, who has never played for a coach other than Daddy, has said some highly disrespectful things about teammates, never a good thing when you depend on them to block for you, or when you need to convince NFL General Managers that they can entrust you with their offense.
*********** Northwestern University, an Ivy-type school in the Big Ten, has the answer to dealing with student takeovers - give in to all their demands.
In return for students agreeing to leave their “encampment,” Northwestern has agreed to build a house for Muslim student activities and to provide scholarships for Palestinian students. Student protests may continue through June 1.
It’s not as if the students aren’t giving up anything. Oh, no. All tents must be gone except for one for “aid supplies.” Only people with ties to Northwestern may participate in on-campus protests, and loudspeakers may not be used without school permission.
Giving in to an aggressor like this is called appeasement.
It worked out really well for England back in the fall of 1938, when its prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, agreed to allow Hitler’s Germany to keep a portion of what would become Czechoslovakia. In exchange, he got Hitler’s promise to be good. Chamberlain was quite proud of the deal he’d struck, and his action was popular among the English because, as he’d told them, he’d negotiated “Peace for our time.”
Six months later, Hitler’s forces invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, and six months after that, England and Germany were at war.
But this will work out better at Northwestern, I’m sure, because the protestors will be completely satisfied with what they’ve been offered and will give up the encampment and return to their studies.
Uh-oh. Maybe I spoke too soon. According to one of the leaders of the Northwestern protest, “We have much work ahead of us and we will not stop now.”
Good luck, Wildcats.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-britain-hoped-to-avoid-war-with-germany-in-the-1930s
*********** In 13 seasons at Oklahoma, from 1947 through 1959, Bud Wilkinson’s record as head coach was 114-11-2. Think of that - an average of less than one loss a season!
In that time, during a five-season span from 1953 through 1957, his Sooners won 47 straight games. Since then, only two major college teams, Miami and USC, have come any closer than 34 straight - an entire undefeated season less!
And before that, from 1948 through 1951, Oklahoma ran off a 31-game winning streak.
They won national titles in 1950, 1955 and 1956.
But his greatest coaching achievement may have been going 5-5 in 1961.
In 1960, he had experienced his first losing season as a player or a coach. His Sooners lost four of their last five games, and finished the season 3-6-1.
And then, in 1961 they lost their first five games.
In his book, “Dear Jay, Love Dad,” Bud Wilkinson’s son, Jay, who at the time was on his way to earning All-American honors at Duke, tells about it…
Despite my father's optimism, the Sooners lost at home to Colorado 22-14 to go winless through the first half of the year. As a head coach, he had had his teams go undefeated during four seasons and had lost no more than one game in 10 of his first 12 seasons. Now Dad had dropped nine out of 10 games dating to the second half of the 1960 season. This was indeed uncharted territory for him, and not only as a head coach. In his three years of varsity football at the University of Minnesota, the Golden Gophers won three national championships, going 8–0, 8–0, and 7-1 under legendary coach Bernie Bierman.
And then, at perhaps the lowest point of his coaching career, Dad did something that surprised everyone. On his weekly Sunday afternoon television show he told viewers that his team would win the remainder of its games! He stated this to viewers as matter-of-factly as any other evaluation he had made through the years. His prediction may have seemed foolhardy to many, considering that the second half of the Sooners’ schedule included the likes of Missouri, Army, and Nebraska. And no team has ever lost five straight games and then won its next five.
They did it. Won five straight.
Kansas State 17-6
Missouri 7-0
Army (at Yankee Stadium) 14-8
Nebraska 21-14
Oklahoma State 21-13
They finished 5-5.
He had righted the ship. In 1962 the Sooners went 8-3, ranked 7th in the nation, and in 1963 they went 8-2, ranked 8th nationally.
And then he retired.
*********** When we saw that Detroit had 270,00 people at the draft on Thursday, my wife and I asked each other where is Green Bay going to put that many people when we host the draft next spring?
Good question. As I recall, there’s that extremely large parking lot/plaza outside Lambeau that would contain an awful lot of people. But the stage would take up a lot of that space. And then there’s the problem of access and parking. Parking? The homes in the area will easily get $100 a day and up for use of their driveways. And $1000+ a day to rent the house. (3 days minimum.)
They've built up the area on the west side of the stadium. The NFL runs the operation so who knows. What we've heard for the draft is that it could be on the east of the stadium which faces the practice facility and that area. Stage would be near the Johnsonville Tailgate Village area. Armed Forces Dr is a popular area and they've held events in the past that faced that direction. People in the surrounding communities are definitely planning to rent their homes. My wife's school is a few blocks from Lambeau and they are planning to not have school those days. The weather held up nicely for Detroit. NE WI in late April is still a crapshoot. It will interesting to see how it comes together.
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
*********** Thanks for the "How to Speak Virginian" guide. That's one I might've passed.
Today's page is filled with great stuff, greater than normal, for me. My favorite entry has to be John Silber's (imo, he was the first incarnation of Larry Arnn) commentary on how to handle protestors. I'll remember his questions to ask the students. Pair your "what happens in a world without adults" with Silber's challenge to the students, and you could deliver a great film about what's actually happening on campuses.
I'm sure you saw this new NFL draftee who played two years at Mich St and two at Florida St. If he's a good guy, I don't much care if he can't construct a sentence. But he's had four years of college? If we have near-illiteracy on display now, do we think it'll get better when the NCAA starts paying them even more money?
I doubt many NFL players will voluntarily wear the Guardian Caps. Too uncool. So maybe they'll ship their unused helmets down to high schools.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
NFL draft observations:
The ABC crew (College Game Day w/Nick Saban) did a good job with interesting stories of a number of draftees.
Enjoyed listening to Saban’s commentary.
A few of the first-rounders no doubt had already cashed in on their NIL deals.
Kool-Aid?? His actual first name is more in line with today’s first names.
There were A LOT of “strange” fans in attendance. Makes you wonder.
7 ND players drafted. Most in one year for a very long time. Joe Alt’s fiancée’s facial expression said a lot. Ugh! Oh great! We’ll be living in LA. Wonderful.
Regarding Stanford football: I seriously doubt David Shaw’s departure had anything to do with football.
Those Guardian Caps helped in practices.
Helped the fear factor. The school didn’t purchase them (budget limitations), the parents did. Not all players wore them.
Governor Abbott and the University of Texas president got together and decided UT Austin protesters should get a chance to meet the campus police, APD, and state troopers up close and personal.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER - Roman Gabriel grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he went New Hanover High School, the same school as the great Sonny Jurgenson. He was all-state in football basketball and baseball, and actually turned down an offer from the Yankees in order to go to N.C. State, where he hoped to play three sports.
He played all three as a freshman, and considered basketball to be his best sport, but before his sophomore year, much to the consternation of State’s famed basketball coach Everett Case, he decided to play just football and baseball.
Playing both ways, he was twice named ACC Player of the Year, and was a two-time All-American as well as an academic All-American.
With the AFL and NFL at war, he was the first player drafted by Raiders - and the first overall by the AFL. He was the first player drafted by the Rams and the number two overall choice in the NFL draft. He chose the Rams and played 11 seasons for them before being traded to the Eagles, where he played another five years.
He was big - 6-5, 235 - and one of the first of the really big pocket-style quarterbacks favored for so long in pro football. Vince Lombardi once called him “a big telephone pole.”
He started only 23 games in his first four seasons. Interestingly, his record was 11-11-1; in the 33 games started by other quarterbacks, the Rams went 4-27-2. Hmm.
But before his fifth season, 1966, George Allen was hired as Rams’ coach, and named him the starting quarterback, and his career took off.
In 1969, he was the NFL’s MVP. He played in four Pro Bowls and twice led the NFL in passing touchdowns.
Similarly, when Allen left to become coach of the (trigger alert) Redskins, Chuck Knox replaced him. Knox traded with the San Diego Chargers to get quarterback John Hadl, and sent our guy to Philadelphia.
The Eagles were really bad, but In his first two seasons as their starting quarterback, he helped and in 1973 he led the league in completions, yards passing and touchdowns, and was named NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
In his 16-year career, he completed 2366 of 4498 attempts for 29,444 yards, and 201 touchdowns (with just 149 interceptions). and had a record as a starter of 86-64-7.
More than 50 years after he last played for them, he still holds Rams’ team records for a starting quarterback: passes thrown (3,313), touchdown passes (154); and wins (74).
The son of a Filipino-immigrant father, he was the first Filipino-American to play in the NFL.
His mother was a woman of Irish ancestry. Her maiden name was Wyatt (which undoubtedly explains where her son got his athletic ability).
After his playing career, he had a number of parts in movies such as “The Undefeated,” and “Skidoo, ” and he had roles in TV shows “Gilligan’s Island,” “Ironside” and “Wonder Woman.”
He also was the last head coach at Cal Poly-Pomona before the school gave up football.
Roman Gabriel died just over a week ago.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ROMAN GABRIEL
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK
JOHN ZELLER - TUSTIN, MICHIGAN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK
*********** QUIZ: A native of Pocatello, Idaho, he played his college ball at nearby Idaho State, where he was a three-time All Big Sky running back. In his junior year, his 2,113 all-purpose yards set a new NCAA record. In his career, he had 5,453 all-purpose yards and scored 31 touchdowns.
He was taken by the Steelers in the 10th round of the 1987 NFL draft, the 261st player taken. He made the team and played seven seasons with them.
Signed by the Bears in 1994, he suffered two concussions within weeks of each other, the second one resulting in his requiring resuscitation.
The brain injury he suffered caused memory loss and headaches, and he had to learn to read all over again.
In his career, he gained 3,139 rushing yards and 2,133 receiving yards, scoring 34 touchdowns. In one season, 1990, he scored 10 touchdowns, an amazing total for a fullback.
Unable to return to football, he landed a job with ESPN as an analyst, and he worked for the network for 21 years.
He has been active in research into concussions and the prevention and treatment of brain injuries, and has testified at a congressional hearing on football head injuries.
He is chairman of the board of the Highmark Caring Foundation and on the board of the Chuck Noll Foundation for Brain Injury Research.
He is an author/co-author of two books, whose descriptions I’ve printed word-for-word.
He is author of “Find a Way - Three Words That Changed My Life” -
When (he) talked about his dream of playing in the NFL all he heard was, that will be too hard, you can't beat those odds, it's impossible, and son don't put all your eggs in one basket! That inspired him to write Find a Way and put it on the top of the wall above all his goals. Find a Way would become a life-long philosophy that helped him achieve his dream of playing in the NFL, but also has helped him deal with the near loss of his hand as a young boy, the loss of his mother at a young age, overcome severe head trauma and battle and beat cancer. It has also become a parenting tool and helped him realize the magic that exists in all of us!
He is also co-author of Brainwashed: The Bad Science Behind CTE and the Plot to Destroy Football.
When post-concussion syndrome forced star NFL running back (— —) into early retirement in 1994, research on football-related head injuries wasn’t a priority. At the time, football was heavily influenced by a tough guy culture, and little was known about concussions and their potentially dangerous effects.
Then the tragic death of his ex-teammate Mike Webster in 2002 launched a wave of fear after an autopsy determined he suffered from an obscure brain disease—chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The media pounced. Concern over player safety soon became a war on football at every level, with one scientist even declaring youth football “child abuse.”
In an effort to set the record straight, (— —) and board-certified forensic neuropathologist Dr. Peter Cummings explore the hidden agendas and misinformation fueling the CTE hysteria machine. Armed with extensive research, critical insight, and expert interviews, they address some of the common myths surrounding the disease, examining significant flaws in the often-cited studies and exposing the sensationalistic reporting that dominates today’s CTE dialogue.
Compelling, accessible, and ultimately revelatory, Brainwashed exposes the biases and unsubstantiated claims crippling true scientific advancement in the area of CTE research. This is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of youth sports and the survival of our nation’s most beloved game.
TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2024 ““My concern is not whether
God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's
side.” Abraham Lincoln*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “When a head coach starts getting attention as Dave Nelson did at Delaware, his assistants normally become targets of athletic directors looking for would-be head coaches. It was an exhilarating experience. At one point I was offered the Bucknell job, but Nelson pointed out that I'd be facing Delaware every year. I wasn't sure I wanted that.”
*********** UFL GAME RESULTS THIS PAST WEEKEND
SATURDAY
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (4-1) 25, ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-5) 15
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (5-0) 32, HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-4) 9
SUNDAY
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (4-1) 45, DC DEFENDERS (2-3) 12
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (3-2) 35, MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-4) 18
Every single home team lost this past weekend
The games were not exactly nail biters: the narrowest margin of victory was 10 points
The teams have clearly separated themselves in three categories:
Good teams: Birmingham, San Antonio, St. Louis
Bad teams: Arlington, Houston, Memphis
So-so teams: DC, Michigan*
* Michigan, with a new QB - Danny Etling - at the controls, looked much better on offense than I’d seen them look this year. But, of course, they were playing Memphis.
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 4-1
SAN ANTONIO 4-1
DC 2-3
ARLINGTON 0-5
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 5-0
MICHIGAN 3-2
MEMPHIS 1-4
HOUSTON 1-4
*********** I remember Detroit during better times. In fact, I spent a fair amount of time in Detroit just before it began its plummet to the bottom. My company, the National Brewing Company in Baltimore, had purchased the Altes Brewery in Detroit, and with other breweries in Miami and Phoenix, we had a company jet that was constantly on its way between Baltimore and one of the other locations.
That was in the mid-60s, and Detroit was still a big, vibrant city. Often, we’d fly out and back in one day, but whenever we stayed over, we’d normally stay at the Fontainebleu, a new, luxurious hotel right on the river. Two of the restaurants I remember best were the Rooster Tail (so named because of the wakes thrown up by the unlimited hydroplanes that used to race on the river that you could see right out the windows) and the London Chop House. They were first-rate. (It was the company’s money, not mine, so what the hell?)
I do remember the riots that took place in 1967 - there were national guardsmen with machine guns on the roof of our brewery.
We all know how hard Detroit has been hit since those riots. From that time - the mid-60’s - until now, the city has lost A MILLION PEOPLE!
So it was kind of amazing - encouraging, almost - to see that the NFL draft, something that wasn’t even an event back in the days when Detroit was among the top ten US cities, was able to attract such an enormous crowd to downtown Detroit to join in the festivities.
For a fascinating read about Detroit just before the fall (the Detroit of Motown), I highly recommend David Maraniss’ “Once in a Great City.”
*********** Still on the draft… Somebody did the work here. All I did was cut and paste.
Think talent doesn’t matter? Take a look at the correlation between top half dozen teams in terms of players taken and the composition of the playoff.
To me, the two biggest surprises were two OSUs: Ohio State, with only four players drafted; and Oklahoma State, completely whiffing.
What’s that say about the coaching of Ohio State’s Ryan Day (11-2) and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy (10-4)?
Michigan Wolverines – 13
Texas Longhorns – 11
Alabama Crimson Tide – 10
Florida State Seminoles – 10
Washington Huskies – 10
Georgia Bulldogs – 8
Oregon Ducks – 8
Penn State Nittany Lions – 8
Notre Dame Fighting Irish – 7
USC Trojans – 7
Clemson Tigers – 6
LSU Tigers – 6
Missouri Tigers – 6
Auburn Tigers – 5
Utah Utes – 5
Illinois Fighting Illini – 4
Iowa Hawkeyes – 4
Kentucky Wildcats – 4
Louisville Cardinals – 4
Miami (FL) Hurricanes – 4
Ohio State Buckeyes – 4
South Carolina Gamecocks – 4
Texas A&M Aggies – 4
Arizona Wildcats – 3
Duke Blue Devils – 3
Kansas State Wildcats – 3
Mississippi State Bulldogs – 3
North Carolina Tar Heels – 3
Oklahoma Sooners – 3
Ole Miss Rebels – 3
Oregon State Beavers – 3
Pittsburgh Panthers – 3
TCU Horned Frogs – 3
Tennessee Volunteers – 3
Wake Forest Demon Deacons – 3
Washington State Cougars – 3
Arkansas Razorbacks – 2
Boston College Eagles – 2
Kansas Jayhawks – 2
Marshall Thundering Herd – 2
Maryland Terrapins – 2
NC State Wolfpack – 2
Purdue Boilermakers – 2
South Dakota State Jackrabbits – 2
Texas Tech Red Raiders – 2
Troy Trojans – 2
Tulane Green Wave – 2
UCF Knights – 2
UCLA Bruins – 2
UTEP Miners – 2
Wisconsin Badgers – 2
Air Force Falcons – 1
British Columbia, U of – 1
BYU Cougars – 1
Cal Golden Bears – 1
Cincinnati Bearcats – 1
Colorado State Rams – 1
Eastern Kentucky Colonels – 1
Findlay Oilers – 1
Florida Gators – 1
Georgia State Panthers – 1
Holy Cross Crusaders – 1
Houston Christian Huskies – 1
Houston Cougars – 1
International – 1
Iowa State Cyclones – 1
Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns – 1
Michigan State Spartans – 1
Minnesota Golden Gophers – 1
New Hampshire Wildcats – 1
Northern Iowa Panthers – 1
Rice Owls – 1
Rutgers Scarlet Knights – 1
SE Missouri State Redhawks – 1
South Dakota Coyotes – 1
Stanford Cardinal – 1
Temple Owls – 1
Texas A&M-Commerce Lions – 1
Toledo Rockets – 1
Toronto Argonauts (CFL) – 1
UAB Blazers – 1
UConn Huskies – 1
Virginia Cavaliers – 1
West Virginia Mountaineers – 1
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers – 1
Western Michigan Broncos – 1
Yale Bulldogs – 1
*********** You know how I feel about tradition, and to me, few things represent a school’s football tradition more than its helmets.
You see the likes of Michigan, Alabama, LSU, Texas, USC, Nebraska, Penn State, Clemson, Georgia, Auburn, Texas A & M, Washington, Iowa - and you know who you’re watching.
Even Cal, which struggles to be mediocre on the field, has a distinctive helmet.
Kansas State, which once had absolutely zero football tradition, is now widely recognizable by the “Power Cat” on the silver helmets.
Stanford has a long a storied tradition. It used to have distinctive helmet, too. In fact, as a kid growing up on the East Coast, one of the first things I remember about West Coast football was Stanford in its all-white helmets. Bill McColl, Gary Kerkorian, Harry Hugasian. Chuck Taylor was the coach.
Down through the ages, there was a certain consistency to the Stanford logo. John Brodie, John Elway, Andrew Luck - all wore the white helmet with a red stripe down the middle and red “S” logos on each side. Over the years, a green tree - a redwood - has grown up through the “S”.
And yet out for their spring game came a Stanford team looking for all the world like the Hoosiers of the West - red helmets, white stripes down the middle, and some sort of generic script “Stanford” on the sides that might look okay - on the front of a baseball jersey.
Nothing wrong with the red hats on the Indiana Hoosiers. But they’re simply not Stanford.
Evidently Stanford wore them against Notre Dame in the season finale last year (I wasn’t interested enough to watch) but evidently they said at the time that it was a one-off. Sure hope so: Notre Dame 56, Stanford 23.
If for some reason they’re planning to stick with the red hats, I’d almost rather they wear white Guardian caps over them.
*********** My son Ed, as big a Pac-12 fan as I was (I hate writing that in the past tense), wrote
Dad, Not like we needed another punch in the gut, but watching Pac 12 players get drafted right and left was so depressing.
A terrible gut punch. Six of the first 15 players taken were from the Pac-12.
If nothing else, though, it’s a last laugh for all of us who had grown tired of listening to the no-offense Big Ten and their derisive comments about the Pac-12’s lack of defense, blah, blah, blah.
*********** My son passed along a tweet (is it now a “Twix?”) by a broadcaster named Jimmy Dykes, who wrote “In the short era of NIL...lotta big S$$ boosters have gotten an AWFUL rate of return on their investment. Awful... as in embarrassing awful.”
Dykes is right. What could be a dumber use of a rich guy’s money than basically renting a college athlete for a year? I could understand if it meant investing in the athlete in return for a piece of his or her future earnings, like investing in a boxer. Or owning a piece of a race horse.
At least when you own a piece of a race horse, when it wins it makes you proud - and maybe makes you a little money. It doesn’t go win a race and then jump the fence and go someplace else where it thinks the life will be better.
Also, when it “covers” a mare, YOU get paid your share of the stud fee.
*********** On display at these college “protests” are not just spoiled, entitled, narcissistic children. We’re also seeing that what happens in a world without adults.
Parents want to be their children’s “best friends”
Rules (if there are any) are rarely and unevenly enforced
Children are defended when they ignore other peoples’ rules
Parents don’t have the guts to say “No” to their kids and make it stick
Children make major family decisions (where to go on vacation)
Children - however poorly behaved they may be - are taken to places where adults gather
Children call all adults by their first names
Children on airplanes kick the backs of the seats in front of them
Children throw tantrums in super markets
Children are told they can “make a difference” - including changing the world
Children are taught they have a right to “be heard”
Children are taught to be activists
Children learn that they can make demands and get results
MORAL: Where children are given all the rights, privileges and powers of adults, there are no real adults.
*********** The late John Silber, who as president of Boston University, told how he broke up the “shanty village” that protestors of South African apartheid had built on university property:
Then they put up the shacks. I told the police, “Go ask them three questions:
Do you have a title to the property? (They built them on our property, not theirs.)
Do you have a building permit? We have to have building permits.
Have you got a clearance with the historical commission, because this is a historical district?
If the answer is no to those three questions, then you tell them, ‘We’ll give you about 15 minutes to remove your shanty. And if you don’t, you’ll be arrested.’ ”
I said, “Now, none of them are going to remove their shanty, so you’re going to have to arrest them. . . .”
Because one point I want to get across to these students is, I do not take them seriously.
This is not some very deeply felt, high moral cause on their part; this is showboating of a very insincere kind by most of these students, and I want them to understand that I see through their pretensions.
*********** Spring Ball: At Nebraska, Matt Rhule spent the better part of a quarter in the press box answering questions and making observations. It was a whole lot better than the drivel we’re used to hearing at other spring games from the professional bullshitters.
*********** More Spring Ball: Oregon is going to be GOOD. QB Dillon Gabriel - formerly of UCF and Oklahoma - looked sharp, and he has a bunch of good receivers to throw to. Also looking good at QB was Dante Moore, a UCLA transfer and before that a highly-recruited HS kid out of Detroit.
*********** With the US Army a major sponsor of the UFL, it’s customary at breaks in the action for the sideline reporters to do boring, trite interviews with an assortment of Army National Guard members.
At halftime of one of the games this weekend, they interviewed some guy who said it was the first football game he’d ever been to.
The guy was an American, I was pretty sure - he spoke unaccented English.
And he was a staff sergeant which means he’s probably been in the Army for three years or so.
So please tell me - how can this be? Where has this guy been that until this past weekend he’d NEVER been to a football game?
*********** It wasn’t exactly Ivy League football players teaming up with Jewish schoolmates, but it was a nice gesture by fraternity kids (referred to in the pussy lib media, of course, as “white frat boys”) at Arizona State to help clear the area of the encampment.
Which brings me to wondering how come those punks who take over common areas for their own use don’t clean up after themselves once they disperse.
*********** If anything is going to kill our sport in a hurry, it’s a field full of players looking as if they just stepped out of a space ship from a faraway galaxy.
The NFL has just announced that it is going to permit players to wear the gooney caps (aka Guardian caps) in actual games this season. (It already requires all players except QBs and kickers to wear them in any practice situation that involves contact.)
Famed tycoon J. P. Morgan once said “A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.”
That would apply to the NFL in this case.
The good reason is to show how concerned it is about the long-term health of its players. You might say that virtue signaling has come to the NFL.
The real reason, though, is to try to fend off the hundreds of future lawsuits, real and spurious, that have yet to be filed.
But as a consequence, this is going to do collateral damage to high school football. State high school associations will outdo each other to be the first to show that they share the NFL’s concern about concussions, scrambling to require their states’ high schools to equip every player with these cranium cushions.
If I were a cynic I would accuse the NFL of being in cahoots with the makers of the damn caps - “you provide them to us free of charge and we’ll make it a rule that our players have to wear them in practices and are free to wear them in games…”
Can’t beat that for advertising.
With roughly a million kids playing high school football across the country, one cap per kid is a large order of scrimmage caps.
At about $75 apiece, that’s an added cost to US high schools - few of which are swimming in money - of some $75 million.
It won’t be a one-time purchase, either. Soon enough, just as with helmets, they’ll have to be replaced or recertified every year.
(I find it extremely interesting to see whether certain players, stylists that they are, take to wearing the lollypop hats.)
*********** The Seattle Seahawks have proudly announced that they’ve committed $250,000 to funding girls’ flag football. All 32 NFL teams are similarly on board in their areas of influence.
As someone who’s coached at a Washington high school whose entire outdoor athletic facilities consisted of just one turf field that had to accommodate boys’ football and girls’ soccer - practices and games…
Thanks a lot, NFL. Sure was nice of you to throw another sport in there.
*********** I was sorry to hear of the death of Bob Casciola, who served as the president of the National Football Foundation (NFF) and College Hall of Fame from 1995 to January 2005 and as executive director of the NFF from 1991 to 1995.
Before joining the NFF he was Executive Vice President of the New Jersey Nets, and before that he was a successful bank executive in New Jersey.
But even before that, he was a college football coach.
He was an All-Ivy League tackle at Princeton, where he played for Hall of Fame coaches Charlie Caldwell and Dick Colman. He then spent 20 years as a college coach, first as an assistant at Princeton and at Dartmouth, under Hall of Fame head coach Bob Blackman, and then at UConn. After two years as an assistant at UConn, he became head coach there in 1971. In 1973 he returned to Princeton, this time as head coach, and led the Tigers for five years.
While as head coach at Princeton, he was involved in one very unusual ending.
From “Ivy League Football Since 1972,” by John McCallum…
Princeton's game with Rutgers ended in a 6-6 tie because the Tigers failed to complete a two point conversion pass after tying the game with 22 seconds left. Why was Princeton going for two? It seems that the visiting Rutgers fans were so certain of victory that they tore down the goal posts with two minutes left. After the referee refused to wait for an extra set to be erected, Princeton had no other choice. The Tigers coach Bob Casciola said he would not protest, but even Rutgers coach Frank Burns admitted that Princeton should have been allowed to kick for the extra point. The tie was the first in the history of the nation’s oldest collegiate rivalry.
Along with co-author Jon Land, Coach Casciola wrote “1st and Forever: Making the Case for the Future of Football.” (“Part memoir and part homage to the game he loves, former National Football Foundation president Bob Casciola mounts a persuasive case in support of football’s relevance to life.”)
*********** I’m disappointed Coach W. didn't stay up late to give us an analysis of NFL Draft Round 1. You might be the only person who writes about sports who hasn't talked incessantly about the draft since the Super Bowl ended.
Since Dave Pecker appeared in the news, I'm like most males, I guess, in wondering why any guy with that name wouldn't spend a few bucks to change it to something better, like maybe Peckerhead.
I would expect to see Pete Carroll next leading a Free Palestine rally somewhere, maybe back there on his beloved USC campus.
In broad outline, I understand the three levels of AI the experts anticipate. Also understand we're in the foundational level at present. But I'm concerned. About a month ago Amazon said they were going to convert all 15 previous books to Audio. I would need to fill out several forms to authorize the action. I did it, then was told to stand by for 24-72 hours. Within a half-hour, they informed me job complete, about 1.4 million words converted via AI to Audio. I only listened to a few paragraphs, but the following blew me away: Botetourt County was pronounced correctly--and the locals pronounce it unlike you might expect.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
To help with the pronunciation of “Botetourt” and other Virginia places…
http://cohp.org/va/notes/placenames_pronunciation.html
*********** Hugh,
Seen any Hamas/Palestinian protests at Hillsdale College lately??
You may be onto something regarding Ivy football players.
When I coached in NH many HS football players chose to play lacrosse in the spring instead of playing baseball. Even a number of football coaches coached lacrosse as their “spring” sport. But…attendance was not the same.
Enjoy your weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
When there are anti-American protests at Hillsdale, it’s time for all of us to bend over and kiss our asses good-bye.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Gail Cogdill was born in Worland, Wyoming, in 1937. but when he was young his family moved to Spokane, Washington, where he attended Lewis and Clark High School. He didn’t play football until his junior year, and the team wound up losing every game, but in an amazing turnaround, the very next year, Lewis and Clark won the state championship. That same year, he was all-state in football, basketball and track.
At Washington State, playing end in those days of two-way football, he was named second-team All-Coast, and played in the East-West Shrine Game, the Senior Bowl, and the College All-Star Game. He was also an outstanding hurdler on the WSU track team.
He was taken by the Detroit Lions in the sixth round of the NFL draft. (With only 13 teams in the NFL at the time, that would be the equivalent of a third-round selection today.)
In his rookie season (the NFL played 12 games then), he had 43 receptions for 642 yards, one touchdown and a 14.9-yard average per catch. He was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and was named to the Pro Bowl, the first of his three appearances in his career as a Lion.
He was big - 6-3, 200 pounds - with great speed and hands, an unusual combination in that era, and after eight years with the Lions he left as the team’s all-time leader in receptions and receiving yards.
His best season was 1962, when he had career highs of 53 catches and 991 yards, along with 7 touchdowns and an average of 18.7 yards per catch. He was named the MVP of a Lions’ team that included future Hall of Famers Joe Schmidt, Dick “Night Train” Lane, Yale Lary and Dick LeBeau.
His next season was just about as good: 48 receptions for 945 yards and 10 TDs - a career high - and 19.7 yards per catch, also a career high.
In all, he played 11 NFL seasons. After eight full seasons in Detroit, he was released by the Lions during the 1968 season and finished that season with Baltimore. He played his last two seasons with the Atlanta Falcons and retired after the 1970 season.
His career stats, including his time with Baltimore and Atlanta, were 356 catches, 5,696 yards, 34 TDs and 16.0 yards per catch.
In addition to his three Pro Bowl appearances, he was named first team All-Pro once and second-team twice.
At the time of our guy’s death, the Detroit Free Press quoted several teammates.
“Gail was simply a great football player, an outstanding receiver and teammate," said Hall of Fame teammate and former Lions coach coach Joe Schmidt. "Frankly, we didn’t take advantage of his ability.”
“It was an honor to have played with Gail Cogdill and I learned a lot from him," said former Lions receiver and punter Pat Studstill. "I used to watch him like a hawk, how he came off the line of scrimmage, the way he ran his out patterns, everything. He had such great hands and was strong as an ox and I don’t believe there was a better athlete on the team. He was so good that he often was double covered and I was the beneficiary of that. Gail was nice to everyone, his teammates, and the fans and I will miss him.”
And former Lions defensive tackle Roger Brown told about their time as teammates…
“Gail and I became close friends when we arrived together in Detroit as rookies," Brown said. "We wanted to be roommates on the road, but back then they wouldn't allow a black person and white person to room together, so I ended up with Night Train Lane.
"One time when we played in Miami for the Runner-Up Bowl, Night Train, Danny Lewis, Willie McClung and I had to stay in a black hotel in the black section of Miami. When the team bus came to pick us up, (he) and Nick Pietrosante asked 'What are you guys doing out here?' (He) said, 'We came as a team, we play as a team and we'll leave as a team.' That night we all stayed together in the same hotel.
“Gail was a helluva receiver and just a beautiful person. He was such a good friend, and I am lost by his passing."
In 2008, Gail Cogdill was named, along with Herman Moore, as one of the two wide receivers on the Lions’ 75th Anniversary All-Time team.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING GAIL COGDILL
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS - My dad loved the guy and was always heard saying “The Bears need to trade for him!”
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON - Lewis and Clark high school in Spokane is my alma mater. Go Tigers!
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ - He grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he went New Hanover High School, the same school as the great Sonny Jurgenson. He was all-state in football basketball and baseball, and actually turned down an offer from the Yankees in order to go to N.C. State, where he hoped to play three sports.
He played all three as a freshman, and considered basketball to be his best sport, but before his sophomore year, much to the consternation of State’s famed basketball coach Everett Case, he decided to play just football and baseball.
Playing both ways, he was twice named ACC Player of the Year, and was a two-time All-American as well as an academic All-American.
With the AFL and NFL at war, he was the first player drafted by Raiders - and the first overall by the AFL. He was the first player drafted by the Rams and the number two overall choice in the NFL draft. He chose the Rams and played 11 seasons for them before being traded to the Eagles, where he played another five years.
He was big - 6-5, 235 - and one of the first of the really big pocket-style quarterbacks favored for so long in pro football. Vince Lombardi once called him “a big telephone pole.”
He started only 23 games in his first four seasons. Interestingly, his record was 11-11-1; in the 33 games started by other quarterbacks, the Rams went 4-27-2. Hmm.
But before his fifth season, 1966, George Allen was hired as Rams’ coach, and named him the starting quarterback, and his career took off.
In 1969, he was the NFL’s MVP. He played in four Pro Bowls and twice led the NFL in passing touchdowns.
Similarly, when Allen left to become coach of the (trigger alert) Redskins, Chuck Knox replaced him. Knox traded with the San Diego Chargers to get quarterback John Hadl, and sent our guy to Philadelphia.
The Eagles were really bad, but In his first two seasons as their starting quarterback, he helped and in 1973 he led the league in completions, yards passing and touchdowns, and was named NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
In his 16-year career, he completed 2366 of 4498 attempts for 29,444 yards, and 201 touchdowns (with just 149 interceptions). and had a record as a starter of 86-64-7.
More than 50 years after he last played for them, he still holds Rams’ team records for a starting quarterback: passes thrown (3,313), touchdown passes (154); and wins (74).
The son of a Filipino-immigrant father, he was the first Filipino-American to play in the NFL.
His mother was a woman of Irish ancestry. Her maiden name was Wyatt (which undoubtedly explains where her son got his athletic ability).
After his playing career, he had a number of parts in movies such as “The Undefeated,” and “Skidoo, ” and he had roles in TV shows “Gilligan’s Island,” “Ironside” and “Wonder Woman.”
He also was the last head coach at Cal Poly-Pomona before the school gave up football.
He died just over a week ago.
FRIDAY,
APRIL 26, 2024 “Democracy never lasts
long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.” John
Adams*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “How can athletics be part of the educational system when a coach is getting paid millions of dollars a year and at the same time the athletic budget is operating in the red?”
*********** UFL GAMES THIS WEEKEND
ALL TIMES EASTERN
SATURDAY
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (3-1) at ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-4) - 7 PM - FOX*
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (4-0) at HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-3) - 7 PM - FOX*
* One of these games will be on Fox and the other will be on FS1. Kudos to the marketing genius who was presented with four games to be played on a weekend and arranged to have two of them played at the same time.
SUNDAY
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (3-1) at DC DEFENDERS (2-2) - 12 NOON - ESPN
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (2-2) at MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-3) - 3 PM - ESPN
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 3-1
SAN ANTONIO 3-3
DC 2-2
ARLINGTON 0-4
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 4-0
MICHIGAN 2-2
MEMPHIS 1-3
HOUSTON 1-3
*********** Please raise your hand if, like me, you find TV is being flooded with ads that leave you wondering what, exactly, they’re trying to say - what it is that they’re selling and/or what they want you to do.
*********** The former publisher of the National Enquirer has been in the news lately.
Guy’s name is David Pecker.
There. I set you up. You furnish the punch lines.
That shouldn’t be too hard.
*********** So the long arm of amnesty reaches back to fetch Reggie Bush’s Heisman. What he did may have been wrong when he did it but it’s cool now (like drug possession), so we should expect to see a Heisman House commercial where he rolls up in his Lamborghini as the fellas all shout “Where ya bin?”
As a history major, I’m not much for revisionism - going back in time to try to right wrongs that most definitely were “wrongs” at the time they were committed.
So now, what about all those coaches who were fired for cheating, then blackballed for life? We can’t give them their jobs back, but should we at least expunge their records?
Does this mean that Pete Carroll’s no longer blacklisted by the NCAA? How long before he’s back in the hunt for a college coaching job?
While we’re at it - what about the old-time quarterbacks? What about all those sacks they took, back in the days before linemen were allowed to hold and passers were given the liberty of throwing the ball away without an intentional grounding penalty? Can they - or their heirs - at least sue for all the broken bones and concussions they endured?
*********** We throw out books and pare the curriculum to make sure that not a single student in a single American school is made to feel “uncomfortable.” We put out the welcome mat for people who illegally enter our country. But college after college allows an entire group of Americans to be treated like outcasts in their own country and our “President” says not a word. This wouldn't be happening if Joe Biden were still alive.
*********** What do you suppose the football players at Ivy League colleges think about all this “Free Palestine” shit that’s going on?
I can’t believe that the vast majority of them - guys who are good athletes who had the desire and ability to go to a good school yet still take football seriously - aren’t embarrassed as hell by the goings-on.
If I were the head coach at, say, Yale, it would probably cost me my job, but I’d go down swinging, by “strongly suggesting” that my players each “adopt” Jewish schoolmates as “honorary teammates,” and accompany them to and from classes and meals - running the gauntlet, so to speak, through the protestors.
Oooooh, I can hear the AD telling me as I sit in his/her office afterward. “Your actions just alienated the student body.”
Yeah, I’d say - the tiny part of the student body that you've allowed to paralyze the entire university - not to mention disgracing it.
Ooooooh, I can hear him/her saying. “And now they won’t come to any games.”
To which I’d respond, "Uh… it’s not as if they’ve been coming anyhow. Last season, the average attendance at our home games was 11,581 - that's 18th place in FCS. And that includes a home game against Harvard, which is always good for about 40,000 (most of whom, I should point out, are alumni, and not overly fond of the protests).”
Ooooooh. I hear. “What if they come and picket outside our home games this fall?”
After stifling laughter and an urge to say, “Get real,” I’d simply point out that the Yale Bowl is out on the edge of town, about three miles from campus, and none of them would have the slightest idea how to find it.
*********** The day before the NFL draft, in which they’ll have the first selection, the Chicago Bears unveiled a proposal for an enclosed stadium next door to their current home at Soldier Field.
Naturally, they’re asking for “public funding.” The whole deal is estimated to cost around $5 billion. The team says it’s prepared to come up with more than $2 billion toward building the stadium. The rest - of course - would come from “the public.” But in return, the taxpayers would get to own a nifty new stadium.
The building would be expected to host concerts, Super Bowls, Final Fours and Big Ten championship games. Did you catch that last one, Indianapolis?
According to the architects’ rendering above, the “Stadium” (if you have the money, we can name it for you!) will have a translucent roof, with “massive glass panels that would bring in sunlight and allow for views of Chicago's famed skyline.”
That big yellow circle in the photo? That’s where Soldier Field has sat, since 1926. Oh, yes. Soldier Field. Poof. Gone.
Although Soldier Field's famed colonnades would be preserved, the spaceship-like stadium that was installed in the renovation two decades ago would be torn out and replaced by playing fields and park space. The plan calls for a pedestrian mall, food and beverage options, a promenade and a plaza.
Chicago’s mayor is all for it, saying that the project will not entail "any new taxes on the residents of the city of Chicago.” And when a Chicago politician says something like that, you can take it to the bank.
Actually, he’s not necessarily lying. It’s the people who fly to Chicago, rent cars in Chicago, stay in hotels in Chicago and eat in restaurants in Chicago who’ll be picking up a major portion of the tab.
The governor says he’s not for it. At least not just yet. “I remain skeptical about this proposal,” he said, “and I wonder whether it's a good deal for the taxpayers.”
The Illinois house speaker’s not for it either, saying, ”If we were to put this issue on the board for a vote right now, it would fail, and it would fail miserably.” Right now.
Reading between the lines, then, the Bears are going to get their new stadium, once certain politicians learn more - like how much of that $5 billion is for them.
*********** Beginning next school year, six high schools in the Hagerstown, Maryland area - which I consider a sort of hometown - will field girls’ flag football teams this fall.
The announcement was made by the Baltimore Ravens, who have partnered with Under Armour to provide funding and uniforms to 51 high schools in Maryland for their girls flag football programs.
Along with the six schools, all 25 public high schools in Montgomery County (a Washington, DC suburb) and 10 public high schools in Baltimore City will be starting girls’ flag programs this year.
Unlike other Hagerstown-area high school sports, girls flag football won't be a state-sanctioned sport, putting it under the jurisdiction of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association.
There was some concern expressed that the addition of girls flag football might adversely affect other falls sports programs, such as soccer. (Make me laugh. If you can harm soccer, you could cure cancer.)
Actually, the experience in adjoining Frederick County, which inaugurated girls’ flag football in its ten high schools last fall, was that 70 per cent of the girls participating had never played another sport.
*********** I know that lacrosse is one of our fastest-growing sports, but based on average attendance at “Big Ten” lacrosse games last season, it’s got a long, long way to go before it ever approaches revenue-sport status. (Only five actual Big Ten schools field teams. Lacrosse power Johns Hopkins - yes, there is an “s” at the end of both names - is a member for lacrosse only.)
IN 2023, the average attendance of all six lacrosse-playing Big Ten schools was just 2029. Only two schools exceeded that average - and both of them were from the state of Maryland, long a lacrosse hotbed.
Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State all have football stadiums seating more than 100,000 and all are consistently among the leaders in college football attendance. But in lacrosse, none of them averages even 2,000 people per game.
*********** Not to say that the New York Jets’ best days are way in the far distant past, but in doing some research, I discovered that an awful lot of their most significant individual records have quite a bit of age on them…
Career yards passing - Joe Namath - 27,057 - 1965-1976 - 48 years old
Single-season yards passing - Joe Namath - 4,007 - 1967 - 57 years
Career TDs passing - Joe Namath - 170 - 1965-1976 - 48 years
Career yards receiving - Don Maynard - 11,732 - 1960-1972 - 52 years
Career TDs Receiving - Don Maynard - 88 - 1960-1972 - 52 years
Single-Season Yards Rushing - Curtis Martin - 1997-2004 - 20 years
Career interceptions - Bill Baird - 34 - 1963-1969 - 55 years
Single-Season interceptions - Dainard Paulson - 12 - 1964 - 60 years
Career Sacks - Mark Gastineau - 74 - 1988 - 36 years
Single-Season Sacks - Mark Gastineau - 22 - 1984 - 40 years
Career Points Scored - 1,470 - Pat Leahy - 1974-1981 - 43 years
Single-Season Points Scored - Jim Turner - 145 - 1968 - 56 years
*********** Evidently, one of the uses of AI will be saving us time.
For example, AI can watch a video on YouTube and summarize it for you.
Or - wouldn’t this have come in handy in college? - it can “listen” to a lecture and “take notes.”
As for the accuracy/thoroughness of the notes, well, ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances. I’m reminded of Woody Allen, saying, “I took a speed-reading course and read “War and Peace” in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
*********** Nice to know there are still people with a sense of humor…
*********** The NHL finally found a home for the Phoenix Coyotes. It’s Salt Lake City, and when the team arrived in SLC Wednesday, more than 12,000 people were on hand in the Delta Center to greet them at a special “launch event.”
The team doesn’t even have a name yet - although a group of 1,000 or so youth hockey players on hand to greet their plane at the airport seemed to have settled on “Yetis.”
The new team owners said that they have already received deposits from more than 29,000 people for season tickets for next year.
Uhhh - not sure whether that was such a great idea, seeing as how there’s going to be an awful lot of disappointed people when the tickets are mailed out.
*********** Re Quotation: HST lived in a day in which individual crises were more clearly delineated. "That ole Estes Kefauver about to bring down the guvmint, Paul." Then in a few months we saw we had survived. Now, however, one crisis connects to another, and to another, leaving us feeling that we're always dealing with a mega-crisis, We're always dealing with a hurricane, it seems, one that loses strength occasionally, but never ceases to carry high, potentially lethal, winds.
Re Trent Bray comment: Making that statement is his backhanded way of saying he himself is one smart cookie. Not cool, Trent.
Re college protests: I woke up today thinking I've lost patience with two things--my favorite MLB team and college students in general. Little dimwits who couldn't draw anything resembling a map of the Middle East. Expel them or arrest them, or both. The president of Coumbia, the last Ivy president to testify before Congress, knows only platitudes. Fire her too. I've lost patience because so many of these people seem to have forgotten they're in a results business. Not results-oriented, but results.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, FL
Good point on the serial interconnectedness of crises. And then there’s the theory held by a friend of mine that almost every so-called crisis is actually contrived, with the intention of distracting us from something REALLY bad going on in the background.
*********** Hugh,
The anti-Semitic protesters we’re witnessing on a number of college and university campuses is disgusting, disgraceful, and appalling. I applaud Robert Kraft for his decision to withdraw all his support for Columbia. I applaud ALL Ivy League alums who choose to do the same, and ALL alums from the other schools being held hostage by these idiots!
On the topic of college spring football games…Texas has Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning. Nuff said. Notre Dame has Riley Leonard (who didn’t suit up b/c of an ankle injury), but freshman C.J. Carr (grandson of former Michigan HC Lloyd Carr) was impressive in his debut.
The concept of meshing the DW with the Open Wing is something that I think will make the offense even more formidable.
That latest “list” of a super league would never fly in ANY discussion.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Not only did Jerome Barkum spend 12 years in the NFL as a receiver/tight end - but he spent his entire 12-year career with one team.
A native of Gulfport, Mississippi, he played four years at Jackson State, and in his senior season he was first team wide receiver on both the Little All-American team and the Pittsburgh Courier Black College All-American Team.
He was taken in the first round of the 1972 NFL draft by the New York Jets, the ninth pick overall.
He was tall (6-3) and fast, and in his rookie season he showed big-play potential, averaging 19 yards per catch.
In his second season he established himself as a genuine deep threat, with 44 catches for 810 yards and six TDs, earning him a Pro Bowl appearance.
In the latter stages of his career, he was able, because of his size, to transition to tight end, where he continued to be an important part of the Jets’ offense.
He was durable. When he was finally waived after the 1982 season, he had played in 158 games - an average of 13 games a season - and started 137 of them.
His 40 career touchdown receptions are fourth-highest among all Jets’ receivers, behind only Don Maynard, Wayne Chrebet and Wesley Walker.
His 4,789 yards receiving is eighth among all Jets’ receivers, and his 326 receptions are ninth. Among Jets’s tight ends, only Mickey Shuler has more career yards receiving.
After being waived by the Jets, he was signed by the Giants, but after just one seemingly positive morning workout, he met with head coach Bill Parcells, then left camp before the afternoon session.
Said Parcells at the afternoon practice, ''He's not here. We talked about a few things, and he left.'' Asked whether he might return, Parcells said, ''I'm not sure.''
''We're very surprised,'' said quarterback Jeff Rutledge. ‘’He seemed to be happy to be here. No one saw a problem.''
His father, contacted at his home in Mississippi, had no idea what was going on, saying, “I really don't have a guess.”
Said Giants’ GM George Young, “There were no indications, and even his agent couldn't enlighten us.''
The agent, Gary Wichard, was as surprised as anybody. ''He was happy with the contract,'' said Wichard. ''He was looking forward to the Giants.''
Years later, in 2011, Jerome Barkum and two other players, Harry Jacobs and Tommy Mason, sued the NFL, claiming that they suffered from brain injuries resulting from repeated blows to the head during their NFL careers.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JEROME BARKUM
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Worland, Wyoming, in 1937. but when he was young his family moved to Spokane, Washington, where he attended Lewis and Clark High School. He didn’t play football until his junior year, and the team wound up losing every game, but in an amazing turnaround, the very next year, Lewis and Clark won the state championship. That same year, he was all-state in football, basketball and track.
At Washington State, playing end in those days of two-way football, he was named second-team All-Coast, and played in the East-West Shrine Game, the Senior Bowl, and the College All-Star Game. He was also an outstanding hurdler on the WSU track team.
He was taken by the Detroit Lions in the sixth round of the NFL draft. (With only 13 teams in the NFL at the time, that would be the equivalent of a third-round selection today.)
In his rookie season (the NFL played 12 games then), he had 43 receptions for 642 yards, one touchdown and a 14.9-yard average per catch. He was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and was named to the Pro Bowl, the first of his three appearances in his career as a Lion.
He was big - 6-3, 200 pounds - with great speed and hands, an unusual combination in that era, and after eight years with the Lions he left as the team’s all-time leader in receptions and receiving yards.
His best season was 1962, when he had career highs of 53 catches and 991 yards, along with 7 touchdowns and an average of 18.7 yards per catch. He was named the MVP of a Lions’ team that included future Hall of Famers Joe Schmidt, Dick “Night Train” Lane, Yale Lary and Dick LeBeau.
His next season was just about as good: 48 receptions for 945 yards and 10 TDs - a career high - and 19.7 yards per catch, also a career high.
In all, he played 11 NFL seasons. After eight full seasons in Detroit, he was released by the Lions during the 1968 season and finished that season with Baltimore. He played his last two seasons with the Atlanta Falcons and retired after the 1970 season.
His career stats, including his time with Baltimore and Atlanta, were 356 catches, 5,696 yards, 34 TDs and 16.0 yards per catch.
In addition to his three Pro Bowl appearances, he was named first team All-Pro once and second-team twice.
At the time of our guy’s death, the Detroit Free Press quoted several teammates.
“(He) was simply a great football player, an outstanding receiver and teammate," said Hall of Fame teammate and former Lions coach coach Joe Schmidt. "Frankly, we didn’t take advantage of his ability.”
“It was an honor to have played with (him) and I learned a lot from him," said former Lions receiver and punter Pat Studstill. "I used to watch him like a hawk, how he came off the line of scrimmage, the way he ran his out patterns, everything. He had such great hands and was strong as an ox and I don’t believe there was a better athlete on the team. He was so good that he often was double covered and I was the beneficiary of that. (He) was nice to everyone, his teammates, and the fans and I will miss him.”
And former Lions defensive tackle Roger Brown told about their time as teammates…
“(He) and I became close friends when we arrived together in Detroit as rookies," Brown said. "We wanted to be roommates on the road, but back then they wouldn't allow a black person and white person to room together, so I ended up with Night Train Lane.
"One time when we played in Miami for the Runner-Up Bowl, Night Train, Danny Lewis, Willie McClung and I had to stay in a black hotel in the black section of Miami. When the team bus came to pick us up, (he) and Nick Pietrosante asked 'What are you guys doing out here?' (He) said, 'We came as a team, we play as a team and we'll leave as a team.' That night we all stayed together in the same hotel.
“(He) was a helluva receiver and just a beautiful person. He was such a good friend, and I am lost by his passing."
In 2008, he was named, along with Herman Moore, as one of the two wide receivers on the Lions’ 75th Anniversary All-Time team.
TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2024 “Nearly every crisis seems
to be the worst one, but after it’s over, it isn’t so bad.” Harry
S. Truman*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Athletic directors, anxious to wrap up the services of a successful coach, are extending the length of contracts beyond reason, sometimes for 10 or 12 years, resulting in commitments of millions of dollars.”
*********** UFL GAMES THIS PAST WEEKEND
SATURDAY
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (3-1) 32, MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-3) 17 - St. Louis had another good crowd - at least 30,000. A.J. McCarron continues to play well. I don’t know what’s happened to Memphis QB Case Cookus - maybe it’s Memphis’ horrible defensive line - but he’s not half the passer he was in Philly last season.
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (3-1) 19, MICHIGAN PANTHERS (2-2) 9 - It’s official. Michigan is a bad team. I do want their QB E. J. Perry to play well - he’s from Brown - but I just don’t think he’s a professional-caliber passer. And they had a guy at left tackle who might as well have not suited up - he was that bad. The Brahmas lost starting QB Chase Garbers for the season, but in stepped Quinten Dormady, a Texas kid who played at Tennessee, Houston and Central Michigan - he was 23 of 37 for 269 yards and a TD.
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (4-0) 20, DC DEFENDERS (2-2) 18 - DC was driving for the winning field goal but on a third-and-two they got cute and tried a hard count and it backfired. They didn’t make the resulting third-and-seven, which meant that when they kicked the go-ahead field goal, they left enough time on the clock for Matt Corral - this week’s star Birmingham QB - to drive the Stallions into position for the winning field goal.
SUNDAY
HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (1-3) 17, ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-4) 9 - When you lose to the worst team in all of professional football, what does that make you? Lord, what an awful game. To think that with all the choices we had on Saturday - three UFL games plus countless college spring games - this was the one lone game we could watch on Sunday.
STANDINGS
XFL CONFERENCE
ST LOUIS 3-1
SAN ANTONIO 3-3
DC 2-2
ARLINGTON 0-4
USFL CONFERENCE
BIRMINGHAM 4-0
MICHIGAN 2-2
MEMPHIS 1-3
HOUSTON 1-3
*********** Mike Pereira, one of the officials at headquarters of some UFL games, has the power to overrule calls made on the field. But he as good as admitted that he’s going to allow “a little” pass interference - so evidently defensive backs are going to have to undress receivers before he’ll ever call it pass interference. And he said that he has to look at things “in real time,” to see what the official on the field saw. Excuse me if I’m wrong, Mike, but it seems to me that the reason there’s replay is so that you can slow things down to maybe see something that happened so fast that the officials on the field DIDN’T see it.
*********** Spring game stuff - Sorry, Michigan. Charles Woodson may be a Heisman Trophy winner, but he is really hard to listen to. He’s not a great spokesman for a Michigan education.
*********** Spring game stuff - As vain as today’s players are, I’m amazed that they can get them to wear those gooney-looking scrimmage helmets.
*********** Spring game stuff - bare white legs along with “football pants” that are really shorts halfway up the thighs is a really bad look.
*********** Spring game stuff - Cal has a backup QB named Chandler Rogers who has already been to Southern Miss, Blinn JC, Lousiana-Monroe and North Texas. Cal makes stop number FIVE.
*********** Spring game stuff - A new wide receiver at Cal is Notre Dame transfer Tobias Meriweather. He was highly recruited as a high schooler. In fact, Brian Kelly was in his house, recruiting him for Notre Dame, when it was announced that he, Kelly, was off to LSU. How do I know this? Meriweather is from Camas, Washington - the town where I live.
Now, if somebody will just tell those fools at the Pac-12 Network that it isn’t pronounced “KAY-miss.” It’s “CAM (as in “camera”) -iss.”
Oh, well - they’ve got about three or four more weeks before they’re out of work anyhow.
*********** Spring game stuff - I heard someone say that Oregon State’s new head coach, Trent Bray, was into “hiring people smarter than he is.”
That’s a lot easier to do if you just hire a stupid head coach.
*********** "It was through the full academic scholarship Columbia gave me that I was able to attend college and get my start in life and for that I have been tremendously grateful. However, the school I love so much – the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity – is no longer an institution I recognize.”
That was a statement issued by Mr. Robert Kraft, best known as the owner of the New England Patriots.
Change “Columbia” to “Yale” and it could have been written by me, with a few additional corrections…
(1) While ALL Ivy League scholarships are “academic scholarships,” mine was not a “full” scholarship. Like all Yale financial aid at the time, part of the aid was a “gift,” part was payment for a university job, and part was loan. At graduation, I had a couple thousand bucks of loan to repay. (a) None of the loan money had been spent on spring breaks - it never passed though my hands - and it all went to tuition; (b) In those days, it never occurred to most Americans to hold off on repaying loans in the hope that the American taxpayers (in the form of a pandering politician) would come along and bail us out.
(2) Where’s Mr. Kraft been? I may not be able to match net worth with him, but I was years ahead of him in “no longer recognizing” the school I went to. I gave up on Yale long before any of this crap that’s going on right now. It was a long, sad, process, and I still have my moments of feeling ungrateful after the school’s generosity to me and my parents, but at what point am I still obligated to support things which my very Yale education taught me are subversive of our country and our Western culture?
*********** Just in case you wondered who’s really calling the shots at a place like Yale - it’s the incoming first-year (they don’t say “freshman” at Yale) counselors - mostly recent or soon-to-be recent graduates who haven’t even started their jobs yet. They may not be calling the shots - yet - but like so many narcissists of their generation, they truly believe that all they have to do is make their wishes known and the people in power will comply. Tragically, they might be right.
This is from today’s Yale Daily News - 6:22 p.m.:
The incoming first-year counselors of all 14 residential colleges have released a “Letter of Support” for student protesters. The letter is addressed to Dean Lewis, Dean Lafargue, Dean Peck and Dean Boyd and demands that the Yale administration “fully and immediately disclose its investments and divest from any and all weapons manufacturing.”
In it, the writers “fully and unequivocally condemn the University administration’s decision to authorize the arrest of at least 47 peaceful student protesters on the morning of April 22, 2024.”
The protesters were charged with Class A Misdemeanors, which is the highest class of misdemeanors in Connecticut — the same degree applies to third-degree assault.
The letter cites the given responsibilities of first-year counselors by Yale College. FroCos wrote that they object to the arrests of protesters and found “this action fundamentally incompatible with what it means to be a student at Yale.”
The letter also cited the Guidance Regarding Free Expression and Peaceable Assembly at Yale, writing that the arrests go against the University’s commitment to free expression.
The incoming first-year counselors demanded “that Yale drop any and all misdemeanor or criminal charges and refrain from disciplinary action against peaceful student protesters and that the University substantively and sincerely engage with student protesters’ demands.”
While you were reading that, did the thought even occur to you of “incoming graduate assistants” at Alabama “condemning” Nick Saban for disciplining players for breaking team rules, and “demanding” that he “refrain from disciplinary action” against them?
*********** At an Oregon invitational track meet, a high school boy, posing as a girl, beat a field of girls by five seconds in a 200 meter race.
No, I will not fall for the sham and refer to HIM as a “transgender female.”
You have to see the race to see how farcical the whole thing was. And afterward, as the guy walked around, you’d swear you could see facial hair on him.
The Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) seems to think that’s just fine, stating that it “endeavors to allow students to participate for the athletic or activity program of their consistently asserted gender identity while providing a fair and safe environment for all students.”
Yeah, right - “fair” except for the real girls whose competition the OSAA allows poseurs like this one to pervert for their own gratification.
The boy whom the OSAA is accommodating represents McDaniel, a Portland High School where I once coached. When I coached there, it was still Madison High School, named for that James Madison, once revered as the Father of the Constitution. But - James Madison being a dead, white male who had helped establish our racist country - Portland has since made amends by renaming the school for a Portland “educator” (“of color,” of course) named Leodis V. McDaniel.
https://nypost.com/2024/04/15/us-news/trans-runner-sparks-outrage-at-high-school-competition/
*********** Mike MacDonald, new head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, evidently sides with those who would tear down statues and rewrite history.
Look - it’s not as if the Seahawks have the illustrious history of an original NFL team. But they did win a Super Bowl and, were it not for the coaching malpractice of one P. Carroll, would have won another.
But Henry Ford once said, “History is bunk,” and evidently MacDonald has this idea that none of that stuff from the past matters.
So he got this bright idea of removing wallpaper showing big moments from the Seahawks’ past - Marshawn Lynch running, Richard Sherman’s interception against the 49ers, Russell Wilson holding up the George Halas trophy, coach Pete Carroll, GM John Schneider, and owner Paul Allen accepting the Lombardi Trophy. (I don’t think he’s ready to trash the “12th Man” business just yet.)
See, history is bunk. We’re going to make our own tradition.
I would say to him, Mac - I know this is going to surprise you, but this isn’t your team. First comes the owner, of course. But then come the fans. When you trash the past, you’re disparaging things that are very dear to them. (Things they’ve paid good money to watch.) The chances are that in four or five years, you’ll be looking for another job anyhow, and those fans will be looking back fondly at those good times before you arrived.
And former players have a stake in this, too.
Look, we all know of college coaches who’ve pulled this crap - who’ve come into a program and given the cold shoulder to players from the school’s past. And we also know of coaches at those same places who’ve come in a few years later and, discovering that their predecessors had been treating players from the past like dirt, have made extra special efforts to bring them back into the fold.
I know that that’s college, and the pros are different, but I’ve also heard many former New York Giants people say, “once a Giant, always a Giant.” I don’t know how that attitude influences the performance of the Giants at any given time, but in a time and a profession where it seems that everything is for sale, it has to mean something in the bigger picture.
And if the past doesn’t matter, how come the Irsays took all the Baltimore Colts’ records with them when they absconded to Indianapolis?
*********** Doing research into Jay Wilkinson prompted me to start reading his book, “Dear Jay, Love Dad,” published in 2012 and based on letters that his dad, coaching great Bud Wilkinson, wrote to him while he was in college. It provides a great insight into the private man who at the time he wrote these letters was perhaps the best-known football coach in America.
One of Dad’s letters - and Jay’s comments after reading it - seemed especially appropriate after reading that the Seattle Seahawks’ new head coach had seen fit to erase the accomplishments of past Seahawks’ teams.
On May 5, 1961, Bud Wilkinson wrote…
Our team is pretty well set for the Alumni game. We have more alumni back than ever before. I guess they all want to be on TV! They do have quite a lineup. Their defensive backfield is Harris, Baker, Boyd and Thomas – not a bad group. On offense they have those men plus McDonald, Pricer, Gautt, etc. Tubbs, Harrison, Ed Gray, Ross Coyle, etc. are here too. I'm sure we'll cut them to ribbons!
Wrote Jay, years later…
One of OU's greatest football traditions in Dad’s era was the annual varsity – alumni football game that brought an end to the program’s rite of spring drills. Just as the name suggestions, the game pitted the Sooners’ current varsity squad against a team of alumni, many of whom were by then playing professional football, either in the National Football League or in Canada. Football fans of the time readily recognized the names in my father's letter, former Sooner greats Jerry Tubbs, Tommy McDonald, Clendon Thomas, Bob Harrison and Prentice Gautt, to name just a few.
Today the NFL prohibits its players from participating in such games due to the possibility of injury. But in the 1950s and 1960s varsity–alumni games were almost as important to football fans as a school’s regular-season schedule. The annual game in Norman enabled OU partisans not only to measure the progress made by the Sooner varsity squad during spring workouts but also to thrill at the return of past greats, the alumni players who had earlier brought Sooner fans so much enjoyment and pride.
My father felt there was another important benefit to the contest. The game helped foster a connection between past and present. In a real sense the program’s tradition of excellence was forged, and a symbolic torch was passed, during the skirmishes that took place in these exhibition games pitting season professionals against young men striving to live up to the legacy their predecessors had helped to create.
*********** The day after Michigan beat Washington in the title game, John Canzano asked Chip Kelly what to make of the fact that Michigan outrushed Washington 303-46.
Replied Kelly, “Big people beat up little people.”
*********** Three new rules will apply to NCAA game conduct this season:
(1) Teams will be allowed to have one player on the field at a time with helmet communication technology. The player in question will be identified by a green dot on his helmet, the same as the NFL.
Communication between the sidelines and the player will be cut off with 15 seconds left on the play clock, or at the snap, whichever is first.
The NCAA was careful to point out that the rule’s addition had noting to do with Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal.
Many coaches wanted the helmet technology to be expanded to more players, but the rules committee chose not to go beyond the current one-player limits employed by the NFL.
(2) The rules panel also caught up with high schools in many states, which allow the use of tablets to view in-game video only. Get this - teams can use up to 18 tablets!!!
(3) As with the pros, there will now be a two-minute warning at the end of each half. A key point here is that it will provide a clear point of separation for the application of certain rules, such as the running clock after first downs. It will also make it slightly more difficult for teams wanting to run out the clock.
*********** In case you needed something to talk about - how about another “Super League” proposal?
This one doesn’t stand a chance…
*** “BIG TEN?” - Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers out - Cincinnati, Louisville, Missouri in
*** “SEC?” - Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas out - Georgia Tech in (Bobby Dodd would rise from the dead to vote against it)
*** “ACC?” - BC, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech out - Central Florida, Florida, South Carolina in
*** Pac-10 is re-formed
*** South Bend, Indiana is now in the “Northeast”
*** Great eastern rivalries are rekindled
*** The old SWC is back, plus Oklahoma and Oklahoma State
*********** In Michigan, 30% of students were chronically absent at the end of the last school year, a big increase from just under 20% just before the pandemic.
(“Chronically absent” means they missed 18 or more days in the school year - or 10 per cent of the school days scheduled.)
In the Detroit public schools the chronic absenteeism rate was 66% last year.
(Just in case you might have thought that the answer is more taxpayer funded “pre-schooling” - for kindergartners it was was more than 70 per cent.)
*********** From Don Holleder’s high school, Aquinas Institute in Rochester, New York, Jay Polston of the school’s office of advancement sent this photo from the school’s Black Lion Award assembly.
Aquinas’ Black Lion Award winner, senior Trent Hill, is accompanied by three of Don Holleder’s high school teammates: (from left to right) Joe Miller, Ron Mack, and Charlie Schiano
An excerpt from head coach Mo Jackson’s letter nominating Trent Hill:
Trent has been the epitome of what an Aquinas student athlete should be. He has maintained a grade point average in the 90s throughout his academic career, and possesses a leadership quality that one can only be born with. Trent uses this strength every day whether on or off the field and is the kind of young man that makes those around him better. He is a leader who leads by example first.
For the past three years, Trent has been a very important part of the Aquinas Varsity Football Team. He understands that leadership comes in many forms. Starring in many different roles, Trent was often asked to play positions that he wasn’t familiar with because of the level of trust we all had in him. He made sure to prepare himself in whichever role was needed and excelled because it was for the greater good of the team. As a first-year head coach, Trent added a level of comfort and trust that was needed for our success. He always respected the decisions I made as a coach and motivated his teammates whether at practice or during a game. That kind of leadership was vital, and ultimately led to our successful season.
Trent was more than deserving and was named Varsity Captain in his junior and senior years. He never missed practice or lifting sessions and he participated in film study, always asking questions to make sure other players understood their responsibilities and assignments. Trent has shown and spoken to younger players about the importance of having a team-first mentality. His message has always been “we before me” and he’s lived up to that message each day he enters the building.
*********** It’s no secret that the US Army has been falling short of its recruiting goals.
Now, I’m for the Army meeting its goals, and I love football.
But I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how spending taxpayer dollars to sponsor some bogus “National Youth All-Star Championships” for kids ranging in age from eight to 13 years old is going to help meet today’s goals.
*********** Hi Hugh,
I did enjoy this weeks clinic and looking back on it now can see how combining the Open Wing with the Dw would have made our base DW so much more effective. For one thing the Open Wing would have neutralized those defenses who ran four down lineman in a“crabbing technique” trying to cut offensive line. They could not afford to do that losing pass rushers against the Open Wing but would allow us to jump back into a base package of DW concepts. For another it would have put those who said the DW was old fashioned and we needed to be more open to rest. Looking back on it now with the Open Wing, DW , combination I believe we would have one at least one more state championship, a game we lost by less than a TD .
Thanks Again,
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
*********** I had the same thoughts as you when the Jontay Porter story emerged. You listed the biggest names, but I think Silver and company wouldn't have banned for life the vast majority of players in the league. Similar to the way the NCAA basketball people have handled the likes of UNC and Kansas versus Coe College.
Bravo for your comments on the Heisman. Not that long ago it was a big deal, something guys could argue about for weeks. Now, my care factor isn't much above zero. I go to the gym the next day, and no one mentions who won, in part because the question now is which QB won?
Thanks for showing the 2023 College Football HOF inductees. I looked at that list in light of the recent Heisman trends. Could be the HOF is heading in the same direction. Hope not.
That story about the Burton family was the kind of thing we always say we need more of. Thanks for giving us that uplifting story, and I wish much more good for every contributing member of that family.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
A Fox News host who served in Iraq, and also is a graduate of Harvard, returned his diploma to the university.
Still on the topic of Ivy League universities...you couldn't pay me enough money to live in NYC, or attend Columbia. Matter of fact I wouldn't choose to attend ANY of the Ivy League schools no matter what city they are located in. Too blue for my blood.
I imagine New Haven used to be a lot like MANY small U.S. cities in CT, NY, CA, and WA back in the day.
Even Austin, TX was...a long time ago.
NIL will become the "legitimate" stepping stone for many young athletes to succumb to the lure of money, and not know how to handle it. (See below). And we won't have to look far to find those responsible for it. Unfortunately, like most everything these days, accountability for it will be blamed on others.
Most people I meet who find out I was a football coach ask me what my opinion is regarding NIL and the transfer portal. My answer...I'm retired, and glad I am. They say, "No,No, really...what is your opinion? Good, bad?" My response is, "Nick Saban also retired."
QUIZ: "Jefferson Street" Joe Gilliam (one of the casualties the lure of money and drugs has on young athletes. Bad mix).
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
When I was in school, New Haven was a tough, blue-collar city with lot of good manufacturing jobs. The biggest employer was Winchester (the firearms company). Now, most of the good working-class jobs are gone, and a lot of the workers have been replaced by “newcomers.” At that time, New Haven had the highest percentage of Italian-born of any city in America, and it still stakes a legitimate claim to making the best, most authentic pizza in America. Frank Pepe’s, on Wooster Street, is world-famous.
Frank Pepe was the quintessential American immigrant with a quintessential American story. He immigrated to America as a teenager in 1909. After returning to Italy for a few years to fight in World War I, he returned to New Haven to work in a pasta factory and then in a bakery on Wooster Street. While working at the bakery, Pepe started making his version of the classic "apizza" (pronounced A-beets), a style of pizza from his hometown of Naples. Frank Pepe began selling his "tomato pies" off a special headdress, walking through the Wooster Square market with several pies perched atop his head. He eventually saved enough money to buy a wagon and continued selling the increasingly popular "apizza." In June of 1925, Frank Pepe took over the bakery's operation and established "Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana" on Wooster Street. The rest, as they say, was history.
https://pepespizzeria.com/about-us
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Joe Gilliam died on Christmas Day, 2000, just four days shy of his 50th birthday. For almost half his life he had been in a downward spiral of alcohol, drugs and homelessness.
But for one brief spell he was the starting quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, at the very dawn of what would become one of the great dynasties in NFL history.
Not only that, but - after Marlin Briscoe of the Broncos and James Harris of the Los Angeles Rams - he was just the third black man to start at quarterback for any NFL team.
He grew up in Nashville, where his dad, Joe Gilliam Sr., was defensive coordinator at Tennessee State, and as a high schooler he served as a ballboy at Tigers’ games.
As a quarterback at Tennessee State, he led the Tigers to a 20-1 record his last two seasons there. They were Black College National Champions both years, and he was named first team quarterback on the Pittsburgh Courier’s Black College All-American team.
He was taken by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 11th round of the 1972 draft - the 273rd overall pick - and made the team as their number three quarterback, behind Terry Bradshaw and Terry Hanratty. He didn’t see action until November of his rookie season when Hanratty was injured and he entered the game in relief of Bradshaw near the end of a blowout win.
His first start came toward the end of his second season, and it did not go well.
But in his third season, 1974, he earned the starting job, and opened the season on Monday Night Football by leading the Steelers to a 30-0 win over the Baltimore Colts. He was 17 of 31 for 257 yards and two TDs. One of the touchdown passes, to Lynn Swann, went 60 yards in the air.
After six games, the Steelers were 4-1-1, but his performance in that time had been in steady decline.
Steelers’ coach Chuck Noll was unhappy with his insistence on throwing when he should have been running (and throwing deep when he should have been throwing short), and with his lateness to team meetings. He had, it would turn out, been introduced to heroin.
That was enough for Noll. In game seven, Bradshaw was reinstated as the starter.
Said Dick Haley, the Steelers’ personnel director, "We could've put anybody at quarterback and won some games. We didn't even have to throw it. You could've just run the ball and play defense. But there was nobody in the league that should've played ahead of Terry Bradshaw. "
With Bradshaw as their quarterback, the Steelers made it to the Super Bowl - and won.
Gilliam suggested that race had played a part in coach Chuck Noll’s decision to bench him, but his argument was weak. Steelers to a man declared that Noll was not racist in any way. Our man clearly had substance abuse problems, he had performance issues (perhaps related to drug use), he disregarded game plans, and he missed meetings.
Recalled Art Rooney, Jr. one of the owner’s sons, “Bradshaw, when he had his tough times, he’d read his Bible and let his beard grow. Gilliam would have a problem, he'd go out and find a good strong drug."
He lasted one more season with the Steelers, but it became obvious that drugs had taken control of him, and after a drug-addled debacle in the final game of the regular season he became the only player on the roster not to play in the Super Bowl. The following June, after he’d missed several more team meetings, he was finally cut. Although he was signed by the Saints he never made their roster and never played in another NFL game.
He made several attempts at playing for various semi-pro teams, but he could not overcome drug addiction and he was arrested on numerous occasions for an assortment of crimes.
And then, while watching football on TV with some friends, he died.
His dad had finally resigned himself to being unable to help his son, and told him that until he was ready to go straight, he couldn’t come home.
"I learned early on," Dad told the New York Times’ William Rhoden, "that the one thing you cannot do is be an enabler for an addict.
"Everybody makes mistakes,” he went on. “It behooves those of us who make fewer mistakes to be tolerant of those who make more mistakes. Maybe we have better judgment. Maybe we have better discipline. That does not make us better people. That makes us luckier people."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOE GILLIAM
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: Not only did he spend 12 years in the NFL as a receiver/tight end - but he spent his entire 12-year career with one team.
A native of Gulfport, Mississippi, he played four years at Jackson State, and in his senior season he was first team wide receiver on both the Little All-American team and the Pittsburgh Courier Black College All-American Team.
He was taken in the first round of the 1972 NFL draft by the New York Jets, the ninth pick overall.
He was tall (6-3) and fast, and in his rookie season he showed big-play potential, averaging 19 yards per catch.
In his second season he established himself as a genuine deep threat, with 44 catches for 810 yards and six TDs, earning him a Pro Bowl appearance.
In the latter stages of his career, he was able, because of his size, to transition to tight end, where he continued to be an important part of the Jets’ offense.
He was durable. When he was finally waived after the 1982 season, he had played in 158 games - an average of 13 games a season - and started 137 of them.
His 40 career touchdown receptions are fourth-highest among all Jets’ receivers, behind only Don Maynard, Wayne Chrebet and Wesley Walker.
His 4,789 yards receiving is eighth among all Jets’ receivers, and his 326 receptions are ninth. Among Jets’s tight ends, only Mickey Shuler has more career yards receiving.
After being waived by the Jets, he was signed by the Giants, but after just one seemingly positive morning workout, he met with head coach Bill Parcells, then left camp before the afternoon session.
Said Parcells at the afternoon practice, ''He's not here. We talked about a few things, and he left.'' Asked whether he might return, Parcells said, ''I'm not sure.''
''We're very surprised,'' said quarterback Jeff Rutledge. ‘’He seemed to be happy to be here. No one saw a problem.''
His father, contacted at his home in Mississippi, had no idea what was going on, saying, “I really don't have a guess.”
Said Giants’ GM George Young, “There were no indications, and even his agent couldn't enlighten us.''
The agent, Gary Wichard, was as surprised as anybody. ''He was happy with the contract,'' said Wichard. ''He was looking forward to the Giants.''
Years later, in 2011, he and two other players, Harry Jacobs and Tommy Mason, sued the NFL, claiming that they suffered from brain injuries resulting from repeated blows to the head during their NFL careers.
FRIDAY,
APRIL 19, 2024 “Before
O.J., American blacks lacked confidence in the legal system. After
O.J., everyone lacked confidence in the legal system.” Peggy Noonan.*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Want to know the most shameful and disgraceful trend of intercollegiate athletics in the last decade or so? It's the so-called arms race. I called it immoral. That's the most precise word I can think of to describe the mammoth salaries that are being paid to head coaches by universities and colleges across America.”
*********** UFL GAMES THIS WEEKEND (TV schedules apply everywhere but Portland, where football games are always subject to preemption by women’s soccer games.)
THERE SEEMS TO BE A CONFLICT ON THE SATURDAY EVENING GAMES - BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR LOCAL PAPER (UNLESS YOURS IS AS BAD AS MINE)
(ALL TIMES EASTERN)
SATURDAY
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-2) AT ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (2-1) - 12:30 PM ABC
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (2-1) AT SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (2-1) - 7 PM FOX
DC DEFENDERS (2-1) AT BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (3-0) - 11 PM FS1
SUNDAY
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-3) AT HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (0-3) 2 PM FOX
*********** One reason to watch the UFL - Kayla Burton is a fox.
But she’s more - she’s a sideline reporter on the ESPN broadcasts and she’s not only very pretty, she also has a nice manner in interviewing, putting at ease guys who in many cases have never before been on camera.
Interestingly, it took some digging to find that she has quite a background.
She went to Lehigh (a good school, which means she’s got brains) and she played basketball there (so she’s an athlete). She comes from an athletic family: her dad played football and her mother swam - both at Northwestern - and a sister played basketball at Northwestern (and now plays in the WNBA). Her brother played QB at Purdue.
Her dad played football, and he's now an executive with the Red Sox.
But here’s the best: her grandfather was Ron Burton, whom I’m old enough to remember. Ron Burton was a great running back at Northwestern - when Ara Parseghian was the Wildcats’ coach. He was a consensus All-American, and he’s in the College Football Hall of Fame. Before Northwestern, he was a high school All-American and an Eagle Scout.
In 1960 he was the very first player ever drafted by the Patriots - then the Boston Patriots - and he played six years with the Pats.
After retiring from the Patriots, he stayed in the Boston area as an executive with John Hancock for 35 years.
In 1985, he invested his time, energy and funds in the Ron Burton Training Village, a camp whose mission was to help underprivileged kids aged 11-17, teaching them the values of “love, peace, patience and humility,” while attempting to build “self esteem, self reliance, love for God, love for others and racial harmony.” More than 2,000 kids have benefitted from the camp.
The things you learn.
https://espnpressroom.com/us/bios/kayla-burton/
https://www.ronburtontrainingvillage.org/who-we-are/
*********** Always look for the bright side…
In August, 2022, as author Salmon Rushdie lay near death in his hospital bed, recovering from a stabbing by an Islamic radical that left him with wounds in the neck, chest, face, eye and hand, a doctor found something good to say: “You’re lucky that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife.”
*********** Dear HR Department:
I’m an elite Ivy Leaguer and I have the diploma (if not the grades) to prove it, I may not have had the best of grades, but that’s because I was so busy having fun, so partly for that reason, I never once took part in a BLM, Antifa or Pro-Palestine protest. I never blocked a highway or bridge or burned the American flag or chanted “Death to America.”
Now, then. I promise that if you give me one of the big-money jobs that you were planning on giving to all those Ivy Leaguers that I see demonstrating, I’ll never tell you who to hire or fire, or how to invest the company’s money, and I’ll never sit on the floor of your main office (unless you ask me to).
(Not to take too much credit for my relatively good behavior at college - in those days, no matter how strongly one might have felt about this cause or that, no semi-intelligent Yalie would have messed with the New Haven cops.)
*********** Anyone else notice how many of these pro-Palestine protestors are females?
*********** NEWS RELEASE FROM THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL FOUNDATION…
The ARIA Resort & Casino played host to an all-star cast of history's greatest football legends and the sport's most promising student-athletes during the 65th National Football Foundation (NFF) Annual Awards Dinner Presented by Las Vegas on Dec. 5, 2023.
More than 1,800 people in attendance and countless more watching on ESPN+ saw the induction of the star-studded 2023 College Football Hall of Fame Class, which took center stage as its members received college football's ultimate honor. The NFF also honored 16 of the game's current-leading student-athletes, who collected $295,000 in postgraduate scholarships as members of the 2023 NFF National Scholar-Athlete Class Presented by Fidelity InvestmentsŽ.
The festivities began with Oregon quarterback Bo Nix being declared the recipient of the 34th William V. Campbell TrophyŽ as college football's top scholar-athlete and receiving a $25,000 postgraduate scholarship. The evening culminated with the 2023 College Football Hall of Fame induction.
The 65th edition marked the third consecutive year the NFF Annual Awards Dinner was held in Las Vegas. Renowned broadcaster Charles Davis, a member of the NFL ON CBS broadcast team, entertained the crowd as the emcee for the annual celebration, which lived up to its historic role of bringing the college football community together at the end of the regular season to pay tribute to the game and its greatest legends.
The 2023 College Football Hall of Fame Class featured Eric Berry (Tennessee), Michael Bishop (Kansas State), Reggie Bush (Southern California), Dwight Freeney (Syracuse), Robert Gallery (Iowa), LaMichael James (Oregon), Derrick Johnson (Texas), Bill Kollar (Montana State), Luke Kuechly (Boston College), Jeremy Maclin (Missouri), Terance Mathis (New Mexico), Bryant McKinnie (Miami [FL]), Corey Moore (Virginia Tech), Michael Stonebreaker (Notre Dame), Tim Tebow (Florida), Troy Vincent (Wisconsin), Brian Westbrook (Villanova), DeAngelo Williams (Memphis), and coaches Monte Cater (Lakeland [WI], Shepherd [WV]), Paul Johnson (Georgia Southern, Navy, Georgia Tech), Roy Kramer (Central Michigan) and Mark Richt (Georgia, Miami [FL]).
*********** I was corresponding with old coaching friend Armando Castro. He started in youth coaching in Roanoke, Virginia and moved up to high school coaching, and he told me about the time the coach at Northside High, who would go on to coach at Ferrum College, was quoted in the local newspaper after a game as saying that Coach Castro’s Double Wing reminded him of “a Volkswagen with the doors open going downhill.”
*********** My friend Mike Foristiere, who recently was hired as head coach at Marsing, Idaho, said he was talking with one of his former players, now a Marine stationed in the Philippines, who’s looking to return to his home town of Mattawa, Washington and coach at the local high school. Mike says that whenever he talks to his former players they all say that there’s one play they wish they could run just one more time (if you’ve read this far, you know what it is) - WEDGE.
*********** Wow. Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors - banned from the NBA for life.
First he gave out info about his physical condition to a guy who then made a parlay bet of $80,000 that included a bet on something involving his performance - and then he took himself out of the damn game using some health excuse or another (leaving little doubt that he was working with the gambler).
Gee - ya think an $80,000 bet like that might have drawn some attention?
He evidently has been betting regularly on NBA games - a no-no. He’s said to have bet around $54,000 - and won some $76,000. Wow. He won $22,000.
But wait - yes, that may be a lot of money to you and me. But even though this guy was working on a sort of temporary contract, he was still making $400,000 or so. And with any kind of decent season, he’d probably make have made three times that next season. So what the hell was $22,000 to him?
A few questions:
1. If it had been LeBron James who’d tried to fix things, or Joel Embiid, or Giannis Antetokounmpo - would the NBA have banned him for life?
2. Why doesn’t the NBA do something about the current practice of star players’ being held out of games for the purposes of resting their bodies? Shouldn’t the league give refunds to disappointed fans who’d bought tickets in expectation of seeing a visiting team’s star players?
3. What about losing teams’ annual race to the bottom in hopes of getting the top lottery pick?
4. Should the NBA try to control proposition bets the way the NCAA has?
5. Do sports leagues really believe they can lie in bed with “gaming” companies without more such incidents?
6. Does the guy have a gambling problem?
We know Jontay out here in the Northwest. He was a heck of a high school player. After winning a state title in Columbia, Missouri, he came out here along with his older brother, Michael, after their dad was hired as an assistant coach at Washington.
Surprise - the brothers committed to Washington. Coincidence?
Jontay averaged 14.3 points and 13.6 rebounds per game, and the brothers helped Seattle’s Nathan Hale High, coached by former Portland Trail Blazer Brandon Roy, to a 29-0 record and the state 3A title.
But then, their dad got offered an assistant coaching job back at Missouri, and the brothers headed back to Columbia with him. Surprise - no longer committed to Washington.
That’s where I lost track of him. Until recently.
*********** Honk if you think the Heisman Trophy has become a farce.
In 1955, FIVE of the top ten vote getters in the Heisman balloting were linemen. Half of them! Yes, two - Ron Beagle of Navy and Ron Kramer of Michigan - were ends, but there was no such thing as a “receiver” then. All ends were “tight,” and all of them played both ways, so they could legitimately be called “lineman.”
Until 1970, at least one lineman made it into the top ten every single year.
But from 1970 through 1999 - 30 years - there were eight years in which not one single lineman made the top ten.
And in the 24 years since then, there have been 11 years in which no lineman made the top ten.
In this century, just three linemen have finished in the top five:
in 2009 Ndamakong Suh of Nebraska finished fourth;
in 2019 Chase Young of Ohio State finished fourth;
in 2021 Aidan Hutchinson of Michigan finished second.
Think the game’s become too much about one position? In 2022 - EIGHT of the top ten Heisman vote-getters were quarterbacks.
*********** Josh Montgomery, of Berwick, Louisiana, noting that I’d mentioned playing the single wing in high school, asked me what sort of single wing it was, and whether my coach was “Princeton-influenced.”
Good question. My answer:
My high school coach, Ed Lawless, played QB (blocking back) for George Munger at Penn. Although Penn and Princeton were rivals and played each other every year, Munger and Princeton’s Charlie Caldwell were good friends and shared information, and their systems were virtually identical - both unbalanced.
Ken Keuffel, who became a famous high school and college single wing coach, played at Princeton under Caldwell, and then after graduation, while doing graduate work at Penn, he coached the Penn frosh for George Munger.
Today, Princeton’s single wing is better known because of Caldwell’s book (“Modern Single Wing Football”), but Penn was the bigger, stronger program at the time. Penn played a big-time schedule and was second only to Ohio State in attendance every year. In the East, Army was the only program stronger than Penn. That includes Penn State.
We were very basic. Straight stuff. Off tackle, wedge, counter, run-pass option. As JVs we screwed around - but that’s all - with Buck lateral. Our arch rival was coached by a Penn teammate of our coach. The Penn influence was strong. There were a lot of former Munger guys coaching around the Phila area at the time.
*********** Anybody who remembers all the great “Tastes Great! Less Filling!” Miller Light commercials of the 1970s has to think it a little weird to see Reggie Miller in one of the recent renditions.
Nice guy and all that. Damn good basketball player, too. He’s definitely no Dylan Mulvaney. But he’s also not what you think of when you think “beer drinker.” In fact, to look at him, I suspect the next beer he has will be his first one.
************ There’s really something to these coaches whose sons do well. If you're a Hurley, you can diagram basketball plays, but your dad also taught you about knowing people, and what qualities you need to assemble a high-performing team. Because Dan learned well at his father's feet, I'm afraid UCONN will be strong for many years.
I thought today you might mention the female to male person who got knocked out in 21 seconds. But, who cares?
That UW running back facing charges? He just had a few issues to work through off the field. A little counseling ought to square that away.
Regarding that local sports writer, aka journalist. I heard a Hillsdale teacher give me another reason to love his school. There is no possibility to major in journalism. See, they do have a J-school, but it teaches primarily the mechanics of the business. Hillsdale wants the student to have actual knowledge about many subjects before writing about them.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Arlington lost their game to D.C. They gave it away. Give D.C. credit for hanging around though. They were more than grateful to accept that gift.
Some of the great female golfers playing in the LPGA are from South Korea. They dress well.
Met Craig Bohl some years ago when coaching in Minnesota. Brought my team to the NDSU football team camp when he was the HC there. One of those evenings camp coaches were invited to a cookout hosted by his staff (some of the absolutely best steak I've had). Soon after we sat down to eat here comes this bald guy wearing his leathers riding a big ol' hog. It was Coach Bohl. Quite a character.
At one time sports scribes wrote about relevant topics to those of us who looked forward to their insights. Today they write about topics irrelevant to most of us who view their words as drivel.
I bet someone could still find a really nice house for a reasonable price in places like Stillwater, Ames, Lincoln, Abilene, etc. etc. 8 million in California will get you 2,000 square feet with an above ground pool, and close enough to your neighbor to share a cup of coffee through your kitchen window.
Apparently the photo of the Navy officer shooting a rifle - with a backwards mounted scope with the lens still on it - was photoshopped. Hmmm. I wonder if Princess Kate had anything to do with it?
Loved those additional nicknames!
QUIZ: Jay Wilkinson (doing some research on him I found that scribes "knowledgeable" of Duke football don't rate him as one of the Duke's 10 best football players. Hmmm. I guess the term "knowledge" is nebulous when it comes to sports journalism).
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, I’d want to check the credentials of anyone claiming to be “knowledgeable” about Duke football, especially Duke football since the days when Jay Wilkinson played. Since World War II, that was as close as Duke has had to a golden age of football. Since 1960, Duke has had exactly one streak of four straight winning seasons - and Jay Wilkinson played on three of those teams. Since Jay Wilkinson left, they’ve had only one streak of three straight winning seasons - 2013-2015 under David Cutcliffe. That’s another way of saying that in all that time since he played there, Duke has had a lot of bad teams - which, I’m sorry to say, equates to a dearth of really good football players. In the years since 1963, when Jay Wilkinson was named ACC Player of the Year, seven other Blue Devils have been so honored. But only two of those seven were, like Jay Wilkinson, first-team All-Americans. So if they’re better than Jay Wilkinson, they probably played before his time. And I rather doubt that very many of today’s experts are “knowledgeable” enough about those days to rate those players.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Jay Wilkinson grew up the son of one of the most famous football coaches in America.
He was five years old when his dad, Bud Wlkinson, just 31, became head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. He was eight when OU won their first national title. He was 11 when the Sooners began what would become a 47-game winning streak - a streak that didn’t end until he was 15.
Growing up around football and coaching, he got to know the likes of Bear Bryant, Darrell Royal - who’d played for his dad - Frank Leahy and Woody Hayes, all of whom visited with his dad from time to time.
He was an outstanding athlete himself, earning high school All-American honors in football, and leading his Norman High School team to the state finals in both football and basketball.
His father, not wanting him or his older brother to experience the pressures of playing for him, felt it was best for them to go elsewhere to school. His older brother chose Stanford, and our guy narrowed his list down to Stanford, UCLA, Ole Miss, Illinois and Army. But late in the recruiting game he was contacted by Duke, who convinced him that while coming east to visit West Point, he should swing by Durham, North Carolina.
He was impressed by Duke athletically - he had seen them, as ACC champions, play Oklahoma in the 1958 Orange Bowl - but even more so because, as he would later write, “Duke was the only college to recruit me academically.”
He chose Duke, and in his sophomore year, his first year of eligibility, he scored on a 63-yard punt return the first time he touched the ball in a varsity game.
Prior to his junior season, he was on the cover of Street and Smith’s magazine - a huge national honor. In the season opener against USC in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, he scored Duke’s only touchdown on a 25-yard pass reception as the Trojans upset the Blue Devils, 14-7. (Yes, that’s correct. Duke was favored.)
In his senior season, he led the ACC in total yards - rushing and receiving - and in total touchdowns from scrimmage.
During his three years of eligibility at Duke, the Blue Devils went 20-9-1, and they won ACC titles in 1961 and 1962 - his sophomore and junior years. (They remain the last two ACC titles that Duke has ever won outright. In 1989, under Steve Spurrier, they tied for first.)
During his senior season in 1963, he earned All-American honors, was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, and finished eighth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy.
All told - runs, receptions and returns - he averaged an amazing 8.5 yards every time he touched the football. At graduation, he held every significant Duke kick return record.
After graduation from Duke he chose to pass up the NFL, instead going on to earn a divinity degree from the Episcopal Theological School in 1967.
Then, after serving as an executive assistant to the governor of Oklahoma, and as a White House aide during Richard Nixon’s first term, in 1970, just 28, years old, he returned to Oklahoma to run for Congress. Running as a Republican in a heavily-Democrat district, he faced an experienced incumbent who’d held the seat for 22 years. When an out-of-state marketing company hired to help run his campaign produced a commercial showing him walking through a cow pasture, his opponent slyly noted that while he might not be as smart as Jay Wilkinson, he at least knew that when you walk through a cow pasture, you need to be looking down. (Wilkinson didn’t win. Reflecting on lessons he’d learned from his dad, he said, “We hadn’t prepared well enough.”)
Entering the business world, he spent more than 30 years as a partner in a multi-billion-dollar investment management firm, as executive vice president for one of the nation’s leading life insurance companies and as president of a leading company in designing deferred compensation plans.
In 1989, he received the NCAA’s Silver Anniversary award recognizing distinguished former student-athletes on the 25th anniversary of their college graduation.
He is a member of the Duke University Sports Hall of Fame.
Jay Wilkinson lives in Norman. He is a nationally-known motivational speaker and is the author of two books about his father.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JAY WILKINSON
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He died on Christmas Day, 2000, just four days shy of his 50th birthday. For almost half his life he had been in a downward spiral of alcohol, drugs and homelessness.
But for one brief spell he was the starting quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, at the very dawn of what would become one of the great dynasties in NFL history.
Not only that, but - after Marlin Briscoe of the Broncos and James Harris of the Los Angeles Rams - he was just the third black man to start at quarterback for any NFL team.
He grew up in Nashville, where his dad, for whom he was named, was defensive coordinator at Tennessee State, and as a high schooler he served as a ballboy at Tigers’ games.
As a quarterback at Tennessee State, he led the Tigers to a 20-1 record his last two seasons there. They were Black College National Champions both years, and he was named first team quarterback on the Pittsburgh Courier’s Black College All-American team.
He was taken by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 11th round of the 1972 draft - the 273rd overall pick - and made the team as their number three quarterback, behind Terry Bradshaw and Terry Hanratty. He didn’t see action until November of his rookie season when Hanratty was injured and he entered the game in relief of Bradshaw near the end of a blowout win.
His first start came toward the end of his second season, and it did not go well.
But in his third season, 1974, he earned the starting job, and opened the season on Monday Night Football by leading the Steelers to a 30-0 win over the Baltimore Colts. He was 17 of 31 for 257 yards and two TDs. One of the touchdown passes, to Lynn Swann, went 60 yards in the air.
After six games, the Steelers were 4-1-1, but his performance in that time had been in steady decline.
Steelers’ coach Chuck Noll was unhappy with his insistence on throwing when he should have been running (and throwing deep when he should have been throwing short), and with his lateness to team meetings. He had, it would turn out, been introduced to heroin.
That was enough for Noll. In game seven, Bradshaw was reinstated as the starter.
Said Dick Haley, the Steelers’ personnel director, "We could've put anybody at quarterback and won some games. We didn't even have to throw it. You could've just run the ball and play defense. But there was nobody in the league that should've played ahead of Terry Bradshaw. "
With Bradshaw as their quarterback, the Steelers made it to the Super Bowl - and won.
Our guy suggested that race had played a part in coach Chuck Noll’s decision to bench him, but his argument was weak. Steelers to a man declared that Noll was not racist in any way. Our man clearly had substance abuse problems, he had performance issues (perhaps related to drug use), he disregarded game plans, and he missed meetings.
Recalled Art Rooney, Jr. one of the owner’s sons, “Bradshaw, when he had his tough times, he’d read his Bible and let his beard grow. (——) would have a problem, he'd go out and find a good strong drug."
He lasted one more season with the Steelers, but it became obvious that drugs had taken control of him, and after a drug-addled debacle in the final game of the regular season he became the only player on the roster not to play in the Super Bowl. The following June, after he’d missed several more team meetings, he was finally cut. Although he was signed by the Saints he never made their roster and never played in another NFL game.
He made several attempts at playing for various semi-pro teams, but he could not overcome drug addiction and he was arrested on numerous occasions for an assortment of crimes.
And then, while watching football on TV with some friends, he died.
His dad had finally resigned himself to being unable to help his son, and told him that until he was ready to go straight, he couldn’t come home.
"I learned early on," Dad told the New York Times’ William Rhoden, "that the one thing you cannot do is be an enabler for an addict.
"Everybody makes mistakes,” he went on. “It behooves those of us who make fewer mistakes to be tolerant of those who make more mistakes. Maybe we have better judgment. Maybe we have better discipline. That does not make us better people. That makes us luckier people."
TUESDAY,
APRIL 16, 2024 “I have certain rules I live
by. My first rule - I don’t believe anything the government tells
me.” George Carlin*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude: “Because football makes a lot of money doesn't mean every player is a shareholder and should be getting part of the revenue.”
*********** UFL RESULTS THIS PAST WEEKEND
SATURDAY
DC DEFENDERS (2-1) 29, ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-3) 28
Arlington isn’t as bad as their record. Two of the losses were tough ones. The third was to Birmingham, clearly the league’s best team.
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (3-0) 33, MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-2) 14
Adrian Martinez threw for 334 and rushed for 44 more; threw for two TDs and ran for a third.
I’m too old to move, but… the dirty bastards at the local Fox affiliate in Portland pre-empted this game so that we could have the thrill of watching our beloved Portland Thorns play the “Carolina Courage” in - I guess - women’s soccer. I was displeased.
SUNDAY
MICHIGAN PANTHERS (2-1) 34, HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (0-3) 20
Panthers are looking a lot better offensively. Of course, Houston had something to do with it. Houston is really, really bad. On one long MichiganTD run there were at least five Houston “tacklers” left lying pathetically on the ground. Michigan QB E. J. Perry now leads the league in running touchdowns.
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (2-1) 31, SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (2-1) 24
Brahmas’ QB Chase Garbers threw 41 times for 143 yards - an unbelievable puny 3.5 yard per attempt. (Good spotting award to Tom Walls, who texted me from Winnipeg to say “St. Louis Battlehawks just lined up in West and ran bubble!”)
*********** Interesting fact from the Wall Street Journal…
The world’s largest market for golf apparel is…
South Korea. And not the largest per capita, either. The absolute largest.
The nation of 52 million people has fewer golf courses than Florida (22 million) but that doesn’t matter. Whether on golf courses or at simulators or driving ranges, Koreans are into dressing well, and for many of them, that “dressing well” means golfing attire.
*********** Bet you didn’t know that the new Executive Director of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) is Craig Bohl, who recently retired as head coach at Wyoming.
Coach Bohl is just the sixth executive director in more than 60 years:
Tuss McLaughry (1960-1965)
Bill Murray (1966-1981)
Charlie McClendon (1982-1993)
Grant Teaff (1994-2015)
Todd Berry (2016-2023)
Craig Bohl (2024 - )
*********** I’m not sure if there are any more woke people nowadays than sports writers, who can’t pass up a chance to send us virtue signals.
In our local fish wrapper, we were treated to a story about a girl who happens to be playing on a local high school’s JV baseball team. Basically, the kid said she couldn’t even bear the thought of playing - ugh - softball.
Forget for a minute that in our county’s 13 high schools, there are at least 500 boys playing varsity or JV baseball. I’ll bet there’s a few interesting stories there. But wait - there’s one girl who’s playing! Let’s write a story about her!
Noting that some members of the community - even some members of her own team - oppose her playing on a boys’ team, the reporter refers to baseball as “a traditionally male-dominated sport.”
Well, yeah. I guess it still is. No thanks to jerks like you.
*********** Just in case you might be a humble high school football coach, teaching five or six classes a day, painting houses in the summer and taking classes yourself in order to earn a graduate degree and move up on the salary scale - it’s important that you know that not everyone has to take a vow of poverty before getting into coaching.
In Stillwater, Oklahoma (home of Oklahoma State University), Mike Gundy, coach of the local college team, has put his house up for sale.
For EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS.
Just in case you’re wondering why it’s up for sale, well, now that his two sons are grown, Gundy told a reporter from The Oklahoman, “It’s too big of a house for two people. It needs to be for a young family that has a lot of energy and wants to be on a ranch and goof around, have a swimming pool and all that stuff. That’s kind of past my time.”
Just in case you might have wondered what eight million dollars will buy you in Stillwater, Oklahoma - the house is 13,853 square feet on 80-acres and includes a backyard pool, a theater room and stocked ponds.
Have a look…
https://www.oklahoman.com/picture-gallery/lifestyle/features/2024/04/10/mike-gundy-house-for-sale-stillwater-ok-photos/73274736007/?itm_medium=recirc&itm_source=taboola&itm_campaign=internal&itm_content=ExploreMore?itm_medium=recirc&itm_source=taboola&itm_campaign=internal&itm_content=ExploreMore
*********** I read a cool article about a guy named Steve Preece, who was a good college quarterback at Oregon State back in the 1960s, when the Beavers upset OJ and the Trojans (good name for a band, as Dave Barry would say), 3-0.
Although he had only played quarterback in college and wasn’t generally considered good enough to play quarterback in the NFL, he was a very good athlete, and on that basis New Orleans signed him as a free agent.
In the 10 days of rookie camp they then were allowed, he spent two days each at quarterback, running back, receiver, safety and cornerback, and although he hadn’t played defense since his sophomore year in high school, in Boise, he was invited to training camp as a corner.
When he asked Saints’ defensive coordinator Jack Faulkner how much his inexperience at the position would hurt him, Faulkner said, “It’s the best thing that could have happened. You don’t have any bad habits.”
He wound up playing nine seasons in the NFL.
*********** Maybe “diversity is our strength” wouldn’t be such a f—king joke if diversity looked like this…
After knocking out his opponent on Saturday, MMA star Renato Moicano told the fans in Las Vegas, "I love America. I love the Constitution. I love the First Amendment . I want to carry and own f---ing guns. I love private property.”
He’s a Brazilian. So what? Send him to the front of the citizenship line.
*********** It’s not just the Army…
The Navy’s official Instagram page showed a photo of an officer shooting a rifle - with a backwards-mounted scope. And with the lens cap still on, at that.
Obviously, the kind of marketing geniuses who do this stuff can’t be expected to know which end of a gun to shoot with, but what’s scary is that you’d think that a Navy commander would have said, “Uh, guys…”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/04/11/us-navy-mocked-image-captain-firing-gun-back-to-front-scope/
*********** It appears that at least SOMEBODY at the University of Washington was fully aware that it had a potential double rapist on its roster - a guy with two recent rape accusations against him.
No matter- he played in the national championship game.
But hey - how was the Huskies’ then-head coach, Kalen DeBoer, supposed to know that?
Besides, he’s innocent until proven guilty, isn’t he? So how could they deprive him of his chance to become a pro?
Oh - and he’s a running back. And he was needed because the starter, you might remember, got hurt at the end of the semifinal win over Texas, so…
https://apnews.com/article/uw-football-player-rape-charges-rogers-2ed3783f1285f2dc37cee918736bb09b
*********** You had to admire UConn’s performance throughout the recent NCAA tournament. They were well-coached. They had lots of good players, but they played unselfishly. They played as a team.
It didn’t just happen. It all started, as it always does, with recruiting. But in this case, it was recruiting parents as well as players.
Said UConn coach Dan Hurley, after winning his second NCAA title in a row, “Are they going to be fans of their son or are they going to be parents? Are they going to hold them accountable, have an expectation that when something goes wrong that it’s not the coach’s fault? That their son’s got to work harder, he’s got to do more, he’s got to earn his role.
“We’ve got a real old-school culture here of accountability. I’m an old-school coach in terms of the tone that I take with my players in practice. The expectations I take with effort, the focus on winning and ‘we’ over ‘me.'
“Have they played on seven different travel teams? Have they transferred to four or five different high schools? When you talk to the parents in the recruiting process, are they constantly complaining about the coaches after a bad game or are you having a conversation where their son has got to do more, got to play harder, he’s got to work on his skills.
“They tell on themselves. They drop hints. [If] you’ve got the wrong type of people around the inner circle of your players, they’ll sink your program.”
https://nypost.com/2024/04/12/sports/dan-hurley-reveals-how-he-scouts-uconn-recruits-parents/
************ SPRING BALL
Ohio State opened its spring game by shifting from single wing into a full-house T formation, and running off-tackle. No doubt new OSU offense coordinator Chip Kelly paying tribute to the great Woody Hayes, who called it his “Robust” formation.
The Buckeyes had a HUGE crowd in the Shoe.
Assuming he doesn’t enter the portal, BC’s Thomas Castellanos will be one of the nation’s top QBs.
The guy with the most pressure on him in Tuscaloosa may be Kalen DeBoer, but close behind, I’d say, is the groundskeeper - the guy who’s got a little more than four months to have this field ready for big-time college football.
*********** Homer Smith's History...
*********** Interesting, but not odd, that you connected the Thunder's travel to what will soon be for select members of the former Big Ten. As an aside, does the school get all those air miles?
Why have you, like LinkedIn and numerous other sites, insisted that coaches be unable to view your posts only after disclosing their preferred pronouns? You have let us down.
"We're monitoring the situation very carefully. I assure you I'm in close contact with all relevant parties." That's government speak, of course. We hear it almost every day. How long until it becomes coach speak? Words that mean nothing.
Great quiz subject today. Love those men who coached two and three sports.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Not sure if O.J. will even find the road to the Pearly Gates!
The Stoops brothers aren't the only football guys to come out of Youngstown, OH. Add Bo Pelini, Carl Pelini, Jim Tressel, Mark Mangino, Mark Dantonio, Mark Snyder, and Tim Beck among others.
Speaking of travel...USC and UCLA. Washington and Oregon. Cal and Stanford. They all better get comfortable with each other as travel mates, and then face off as rivals in competition with each other. I wonder how it will work for ALL teams (men's AND women's) having to share long plane trips with one another? Fun times ahead!
A list of some classic nicknames starting with your suggestions:
Woody
Bo
Greasy
Bear
Lone Star
Then there's:
Lefty
Skip
Shorty
Bull
Squints
Blackie
Peanut
I'm sure there are more! Feel free to add!
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Red, Reds (in Philly), Whitey, Beans, Dumbo, Whip, Pee Wee, Specs, Muggsy, Sarge, Scrap Iron, Cap, Pop, Tug, Pepper, Tex, Dutch, Buddy, Squeaky, Fats, Pooch, Jumbo, Baldy, Rowdy, Footsie, Windy, Skeeter, Bingo, Dodo, Smiley, Slats, Dude, Blazer, Flea, Bush, Bo, Rope, Gibby, Gabby, Rabbit, Goober, Duke, Chops, Turkeyfoot, Moose, Brownie, Downtown, Buckshot, Happy, Black Jack, Buck, Slug, Possum, Bullet, Babe, Kid, Skippy, Slim, Chico, Scoops, Dizzy, Daffy, Doc, Rough, Wheels, Shotgun, Dynamo, Cy, Noisy, Cat, Schoolboy, Cocky, Buck, Bash, Jocko, Irish, Hooks, Runt, Crabby, Flit, Cactus, Shorty, Squack, Crunchy, Workhorse, Roxy, Dingle, Chick, Tomato Face, Tacks, Junior, Dim Dom, Divvy, Stinky, Scat, Hummer, Pudgie, Oats, Thumper, Deep, Skeets, Jiggs, Dummy, Scroggy,
That’s mostly taken from the Baseball Encyclopedia - and I only got through the D’s.
In “The Great American Novel,” by Philip Roth, a young baseball player who feels out of it because he doesn’t have a nickname tries all kinds of stunts designed to get himself one until finally the team calls him - “Nickname.”
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Hugo Bezdek was born in Czechoslovakia (then known as Bohemia), and came at the age of five to the US. His family first settled in Cleveland, but when he was 12, they moved to Chicago where they lived on the South Side and his father found work as a butcher.
His high school did not have a football team, so he played for a neighborhood team that in time would become the forerunner of the NFL Chicago Cardinals; to the extent that winning teams would customarily share in a pool of prize money afterwards, he may technically have been a professional.
It’s good that his coach at the University of Chicago, who was staunchly opposed to professionalism, didn’t know about that. The coach was the great Amos Alonzo Stagg, and Bezdek, short and stocky, turned out to be a great fullback for him.
He played five years at Chicago, and in his senior year, 1905, Chicago went 11-0. In the season finale, it defeated Michigan, 2-0, to end the Wolverines’ 56-game unbeaten streak. He was named third-team All-American.
After college, he embarked on a career that would take him to Oregon, then Arkansas, then back to Oregon, and then to Penn State. His overall record was 127-58-16.
And he also had a very unique involvement in professional sports.
As for uniqueness:
He is the only man to coach three different teams in the Rose Bowl. (Oregon, 1917; Mare Island Marines, 1918; Penn State, 1923)
For 95 years - until 2012 - he was the only coach in Oregon football history to win a Rose Bowl game.
The 1923 Rose Bowl game - Penn State vs USC - was the first game played in the “new” Rose Bowl Stadium.
The Penn State buses were caught in a huge traffic jam and despite hiring a fleet of taxis and getting police permission to drive on sidewalks and on residents’ lawns, they arrived 15 minutes late to the game, and the USC coach accused him of doing it deliberately. The two coaches nearly came to blows on the floor of the stadium. It was just as well for the USC coach that they didn’t - our guy had been a boxer in college and was believed by some to have fought professionally.
His Penn State football teams went unbeaten (with three ties) in 30 straight games from 1919-1922. He was also State’s head baseball coach, and his guys won 29 straight from in 1920 and 1921.
In 1922, he was the Penn State head coach when the Nittany Lion mascot made its first appearance - at the Polo Grounds in New York when Penn State faced Syracuse.
After Penn State’s appearance in 1923, the Lions wouldn’t play in a bowl game for another 25 years.
Hugo Bezdek gave Arkansas its nickname, one of the most colorful in all of college athletics. In 1909, according to University of Arkansas history, he stepped down off the train after returning from a 16-0 upset win over LSU, and told the crowd of students that had gathered at the station that the Arkansas team had played "like a wild band of razorback hogs." (The nickname caught on, and in 2009, as part of the celebration of “100 Years of the Razorback” they staged a reenactment of the train’s arrival in Fayetteville, culminating with his address to the students, given by a local actor.)
He is the only man to have served as manager of a major league baseball team and also as head coach of an NFL team. While coaching football in Oregon he had also served as a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and when the great Honus Wagner, deciding that he preferred to play and not manage, resigned as manager, our guy was named to replace him.
Taking over a losing Pirates team in mid-season 1917, he took the team to a 50-99 record. But by applying football principles - aggressive play and better conditioning through tougher practices and fitness drills - his Pirates finished above .500 in both 1918 and 1919.
Out of work in 1937, he signed on with the Cleveland Rams, who had just joined the NFL, as their first head coach. (His record was 1-13.)
He’s credited with inventing the screen pass, the spinner series, and the roving center (think “middle linebacker”).
In 1954, Hugo Bezdek was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING HUGO BEZDEK
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He grew up the son of one of the most famous football coaches in America.
He was five years old when his dad, just 31, became head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. He was eight when OU won their first national title. He was 11 when the Sooners began what would become a 47-game winning streak - a streak that didn’t end until he was 15.
Growing up around football and coaching, he got to know the likes of Bear Bryant, Darrell Royal - who’d played for his dad - Frank Leahy and Woody Hayes, all of whom visited with his dad from time to time.
He was an outstanding athlete himself, earning high school All-American honors in football, and leading his Norman High School team to the state finals in both football and basketball.
His father, not wanting him or his older brother to experience the pressures of playing for him, felt it was best for them to go elsewhere to school. His older brother chose Stanford, and our guy narrowed his list down to Stanford, UCLA, Ole Miss, Illinois and Army. But late in the recruiting game he was contacted by Duke, who convinced him that while coming east to visit West Point, he should swing by Durham, North Carolina.
He was impressed by Duke athletically - he had seen them, as ACC champions, play Oklahoma in the 1958 Orange Bowl - but even more so because, as he would later write, “Duke was the only college to recruit me academically.”
He chose Duke, and in his sophomore year, his first year of eligibility, he scored on a 63-yard punt return the first time he touched the ball in a varsity game.
Prior to his junior season, he was on the cover of Street and Smith’s magazine - a huge national honor. In the season opener against USC in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, he scored Duke’s only touchdown on a 25-yard pass reception as the Trojans upset the Blue Devils, 14-7. (Yes, that’s correct. Duke was favored.)
In his senior season, he led the ACC in total yards - rushing and receiving - and in total touchdowns from scrimmage.
During his three years of eligibility at Duke, the Blue Devils went 20-9-1, and they won ACC titles in 1961 and 1962 - his sophomore and junior years. (They remain the last two ACC titles that Duke has ever won outright. In 1989, under Steve Spurrier, they tied for first.)
During his senior season in 1963, he earned All-American honors, was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, and finished eighth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy.
All told - runs, receptions and returns - he averaged an amazing 8.5 yards every time he touched the football. At graduation, he held every significant Duke kick return record.
After graduation from Duke he chose to pass up the NFL, instead going on to earn a divinity degree from the Episcopal Theological School in 1967.
Then, after serving as an executive assistant to the governor of Oklahoma, and as a White House aide during Richard Nixon’s first term, in 1970, just 28, years old, he returned to Oklahoma to run for Congress. Running as a Republican in a heavily-Democrat district, he faced an experienced incumbent who’d held the seat for 22 years. When an out-of-state marketing company hired to help run his campaign produced a commercial showing him walking through a cow pasture, his opponent slyly noted that while he might not be as smart as our guy, he at least knew that when you walk through a cow pasture, you need to be looking down. (Our guy didn’t win. Reflecting on lessons he’d learned from his dad, he said, “We hadn’t prepared well enough.”)
Entering the business world, he spent more than 30 years as a partner in a multi-billion-dollar investment management firm, as executive vice president for one of the nation’s leading life insurance companies and as president of a leading company in designing deferred compensation plans.
In 1989, he received the NCAA’s Silver Anniversary award recognizing distinguished former student-athletes on the 25th anniversary of their college graduation.
He is a member of the Duke University Sports Hall of Fame.
He lives in Norman. He is a nationally-known motivational speaker and is the author of two books about his father.
FRIDAY,
APRIL 12, 2024 “God
has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. You are as much
alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created.” C.
S. Lewis*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude. (Before the Pac-12 blew up) “Oregon State, Washington State - and probably Cal - can’t keep up with the big spenders in NIL.”
*********** UFL SCHEDULE THIS WEEKEND
SATURDAY - APRIL 13
DC DEFENDERS (1-1) at ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-2) - 1 PM EASTERN - ESPN
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-1) at BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (2-0) - 7 PM EASTERN - FOX
SUNDAY - APRIL 14
HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (0-2) at MICHIGAN PANTHERS (1-1) - 12 NOON EASTERN - ABC
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (1-1) at SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (2-0) - 3 PM EASTERN- ABC
*********** A coach whose expertise and interest cause us to go back and forth on a number of subjects asked me a few questions recently that I thought might be of interest and or help to others…
Q: Do you find yourself using the true "head in front" down block in your system a lot? Like for the G play?
A. Yes. First a “gap step” (inside foot) to make sure we get into the intersection first, then hitting with a combination of backside step and high backside arm and shoulder, aiming to pin the defender between the blocker’s shoulder/upper arm and helmet. Notice that we are NOT blocking with our hands. We are using PADS.
Notice also how in photo 5 below the blocker hasn’t simply “blocked” the defender - merely obstructed him by getting in the way. He has continued after contact to drive his feet, and has MOVED the defender out of the way.
Q. Is your gap step pretty flat down the LOS?
A. It’s a short side step, turning the foot in the direction we want the body to turn. Actually, it’s more of a turn than a step. The toe winds up pointed between 45 degrees and flat down the line, but the foot has not moved forward at all. It is back there because that’s where we draw the line on penetration. Defenders will not get any deeper than that. Also, from this point, I feel like we can deal with a guy who tries to come over the top instead of penetrating.
Remember, when we block down, we are blocking in the direction of our down hand, which means that the foot we are stepping with is already back somewhat.
We definitely do not take a step back, as you see in a lot of zone blocking.
Q. Do you end up having to use it a lot when you run power and counter? Or do those end up being double teams.
A. On powers and counters I prefer a double-team at the point of attack, but that’s not always possible, so we’re always prepared to use down blocking.
We use it a lot. A major emphasis in everything we do up front - splits/alignment/stance - is gap protection, and down blocking is a major part of making sure we can protect our inside gaps.
If we’re running into a lot of blitzing or gap defenses, we may just use “Down” all the time on the frontside of powers and counters.
Combined with our zero splits, we often wind up with something not unlike wedge blocking on the frontside.
In fact, down blocking is almost the technique we use at the start of wedges, in order to eliminate “infiltration” (penetration).
*********** O.J. is dead. God will deal with him as He sees fit.
O.J. was definitely one of the greatest runners football has ever seen - capable of changing a game in a heartbeat.
Was he a murderer? Now, only God knows. If he was, perhaps he was one of the millions of men who since time began were driven to kill by a passion-induced rage.
It’s more likely, though, that his legacy will be the bumper crop of pampered, entitled, sociopaths - and their almost total lack of accountability for their actions - born out of our worship of false gods masquerading as athletes.
*********** In 1975 - God, was it that long ago? - I was the Assistant GM and PR director of the Portland Thunder in the World Football League, and one of my first projects was putting together the media guide. It was a lot tougher then, before computers and data bases and cut-and-paste. One of the things that struck me as being unique about us was that while we weren’t isolated the way the Hawaii franchise was, we had an awful lot of flying ahead of us. (Making the travel arrangements was another one of my responsibilities.) What I couldn’t have foreseen at the time was that this sort of travel was almost precisely what USC/UCLA, Oregon/Washington and Cal/Stanford have brought on themselves.
*********** The great Jim Brown once said that the ideal NFL running back would have
1. Earl Campbell’s power
2. Walter Payton’s heart
3. O.J. Simpson’s speed
4. Gale Sayers’ moves
*********** Hmmmm. Who would have thought?
According to a paper written by some Canadian social scientist, “job applicants who include “non-binary pronouns” (they/them) on their resumes get fewer call-backs.”
*********** There’s one thing I really hate about Wikipedia, and that’s its habit of ignoring important nicknames in some of its biographies.
As one example, Lone Star Dietz, a famous coach who may or may not have been an American Indian, is listed as “William Henry Dietz.”
Now here’s a man who was known by millions of sports fans as “Lone Star”, being represented to fans of another era by a named by which he was seldom, if ever, known.
It’s almost like rewriting history, and we see enough of that being done as it is.
In the meantime, I’m still trying to decide who was the best coach: Wayne Woodrow Hayes, Glenn Schembechler, Alfred Earle Neale or Paul W. Bryant.
Come to think of it, whatever happened to nicknames?
*********** Ron Stoops was a long-time high school football coach in Youngstown, Ohio.
He’s best known outside Youngstown as the father of four sons who became coaches, three of them at major colleges - Bob at Oklahoma, Mike at Arizona, and Mark at Kentucky.
All three of them played college football at Iowa, and all three wore the same number there - 41.
When Ron died at the young age of 54, his boys saw to it that a number 41 Iowa jersey was placed in his casket next to him.
And Bob, the oldest, included his Rose Bowl ring.
*********** Homer Smith’s description of the evolution of our game since World War II…
*********** If transgenders make up fewer than 1% of Americans, how do they become a subject in a postgame press conference by the winning coach? Which leads me to MTV, where a commercial tells us the network is where you can find the future of drag. I wonder what that means.
That "willing and able" has been going on for a while, and each time I hear it, I want to...well, you can guess. Selfish, selfish people who've probably never sacrificed on behalf of their neighbors.
Did you hear Dan Hurley will replace Calipari? I didn't either.
Concerning the WPIAL coach's comment about size, we saw it in the SC-Iowa game. From memory, I think SC had a 51-29 rebounding advantage, including 18 offensive boards, which meant a lot of extra shots. And, as then usually happens, the team that's trailing thinks it must take chances, mostly in the form of wild shots, to get back in the game. Iowa fought valiantly, but couldn't offset SC's interior size, especially Cardoso’s.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
You nailed it on the rebounding disparity. Iowa got just one shot at the basket. SC got three or four. You don’t have to shoot nearly so well when you can rebound the way they did. A great Washington basketball coach (yes, the Huskies were once decent in basketball) named Marv Harshman once said, “Fast players get tired; big players don’t get smaller.”
*********** Hugh,
That last play sack of Michigan QB EJ Perry was comical. LT #77 completely blew his assignment! Even at the HS level we had a pass pro call when a Tackle had a wide rusher that told the Tackle to take him, the Guard would block the B Gap, the Center would block the A gap, and the back would block the opposite A gap. It would at least slow the rush down especially when the QB would be rolling out to the opposite side.
Vanderbilt has become a school I can cheer for. Kudos to their Chancellor for having a set.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, surprises me about what goes on in California. My brothers still live there and are about done with it. All of them are about to retire, and all all of them are strongly considering taking their conservative values to other locales.
Speaking of the NCAA and its woke agendas... The NAIA's recent overwhelming vote to not allow transgender athletes to compete was certainly not based upon a woke agenda. Kudos to the NAIA!
The failure of government schools in the cities is a direct result of the growing interest in private/parochial/charter schools. Charter schools in particular because they don't require tuition like the others. Good charter school systems are popping up everywhere. Hillsdale College sponsors one such charter school system. There are others, and most of them are fostering good athletic programs.
Calipari and his ilk could sell ice to eskimos. (Oh, wait, my bad. Indigenous Alaskans).
I did watch the men's and women's championship games. South Carolina wore down Iowa with a deeper bench and more physical players inside. Same with Connecticut's win over Purdue. Deeper bench, and more athletic.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER - His given first and middle names were William Henry, but he went his entire life by his “Indian name,” Lone Star Dietz.
He may indeed have been an American Indian. Although there is strong evidence that he was not, he nevertheless “identified” as a native and sure did a convincing job of presenting himself as one.
Claiming to be one-quarter Sioux, he enrolled at Carlisle Indian School at the age of 23, and was a teammate of Jim Thorpe. For his entire adult life - and throughout his long career as a coach - he went by an Indian name that he was accused of taking from someone else in a case of stolen identity.
After graduating from Carlisle, he assisted Carlisle coach Pop Warner for three years, and in 1915, when Warner left to coach Pitt, he could have had the Carlisle job. But, largely on Warner’s strong recommendation, he was hired instead as head coach at Washington State.
There, claiming (perhaps rightly) to know more about Warner’s offense than any man alive, he installed Warner’s still-new Single and Double-Wing attack. In his first season there, the Cougars went unbeaten. At the end of the season, with the Rose Bowl game started up again after a 14-year hiatus, Washington State was chosen to represent the West Coast against Brown and its star running back, Fritz Pollard. The Cougars’ 14-0 Rose Bowl win remains, to this day, the only Rose Bowl win in their history.
While in California, he managed to get bit parts in a movie for his entire team, earning each player a then-very-generous $100.
After three years, his record was 17-2-1, but when Washington State had to give up football during the war/pandemic, he found himself out of a job.
Meanwhile, in a sensational trial that made national headlines, he was tried on charges of having posed as a “non-citizen Indian” in order to avoid the draft. As a result of a hung jury, his claim to American Indian ancestry was left in question - and remains so to this day.
In 1919, he coached the Mare Island Marines to 10-0 record and a spot in the Rose Bowl (service teams, made up of former college stars, were drawing bigger crowds than college teams). Mare Island lost, 17-0 to Great Lakes Naval Training Base. The player of the game was Great Lakes’ George Halas, who scored on a 75-yard interception return.
Following the War, he was hired as head coach at Purdue, but was fired after one year for recruiting irregularities.
He went on to be head coach at Louisiana Tech, Wyoming, and Haskell Indian Nations University (which evidently was convinced of his legitimacy) and in 1933 he was hired as head coach of the NFL’s Boston Braves. When Braves’ team owner George Preston Marshall moved the team from Braves Field to Fenway Park, he decided to change the team name, and although the story is in dispute, there is some evidence that their new name - Redskins - was a tribute to their new coach.
He lasted just two years as coach there, then moved to Ole Miss as an assistant for one season, and finished his career as head coach at Albright College, in Reading, Pennsylvania.
His overall record in 15 years as a college head coach was 103-59-7. His two-year record as coach of the Boston Redskins was 11-11-2.
Many years after our guy coached them, Dan Snyder, then the owner of the Washington Redskins, attempted to rebut charges that the team’s name defamed Native Americans by resurrecting the claim that the team had been named in his honor.
A little known story is the role he played in saving Washington State as an educational institution.
Prior to his being hired as the coach their, the state legislature had assigned a “duplicity committee” to determine whether the state of Washington really needed two public colleges. Only a year earlier, Washington coach Gil Dobie had dropped Washington State from his schedule, saying that playing them was “too much like kindergarten.” So if only one of the colleges were to remain, it would surely have been the bigger, better-funded and better-situated (in Seattle) University of Washington.
But the Cougars’ surprising unbeaten season and their shocking win in the Rose Bowl brought them national attention, and put an end to any thoughts of closing down the school. (Their selection to play in the Rose Bowl instead of Washington, since it was Washington’s decision that they not play each other, came down to their comparative scores against a common foe, Gonzaga. Washington had won earlier in the season 21-7, but with a Rose Bowl berth on the line, the Cougars piled it on in their regular season finale, winning 48-0.)
At the height of the renaming-the-Redskins controversy, Tom Benjey, author of a biography of Dietz, said, “He is still probably the most controversial coach the game has ever had. He’s been dead since 1964 and he’s still controversial.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING LONE STAR DIETZ
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Czechoslovakia (then known as Bohemia), and came at the age of five to the US. His family first settled in Cleveland, but when he was 12, they moved to Chicago where they lived on the South Side and his father found work as a butcher.
His high school did not have a football team, so he played for a neighborhood team that in time would become the forerunner of the NFL Chicago Cardinals; to the extent that winning teams would customarily share in a pool of prize money afterwards, he may technically have been a professional.
It’s good that his coach at the University of Chicago, who was staunchly opposed to professionalism, didn’t know about that. The coach was the great Amos Alonzo Stagg, and our guy, short and stocky, turned out to be a great fullback for him.
He played five years at Chicago, and in his senior year, 1905, Chicago went 11-0. In the season finale, it defeated Michigan, 2-0, to end the Wolverines’ 56-game unbeaten streak. He was named third-team All-American.
After college, he embarked on a career that would take him to Oregon, then Arkansas, then back to Oregon, and then to Penn State. His overall record was 127-58-16.
And he also had a very unique involvement in professional sports.
As for uniqueness:
He is the only man to coach three different teams in the Rose Bowl. (Oregon, 1917; Mare Island Marines, 1918; Penn State, 1923)
For 95 years - until 2012 - he was the only coach in Oregon football history to win a Rose Bowl game.
The 1923 Rose Bowl game - Penn State vs USC - was the first game played in the “new” Rose Bowl Stadium.
The Penn State buses were caught in a huge traffic jam and despite hiring a fleet of taxis and getting police permission to drive on sidewalks and on residents’ lawns, they arrived 15 minutes late to the game, and the USC coach accused him of doing it deliberately. The two coaches nearly came to blows on the floor of the stadium. It was just as well for the USC coach that they didn’t - our guy had been a boxer in college and was believed by some to have fought professionally.
His Penn State football teams went unbeaten (with three ties) in 30 straight games from 1919-1922. He was also State’s head baseball coach, and his guys won 29 straight from in 1920 and 1921.
In 1922, he was the Penn State head coach when the Nittany Lion mascot made its first appearance - at the Polo Grounds in New York when Penn State faced Syracuse.
After Penn State’s appearance in 1923, the Lions wouldn’t play in a bowl game for another 25 years.
He is the one who gave Arkansas its nickname, one of the most colorful in all of college athletics. In 1909, according to University of Arkansas history, he stepped down off the train after returning from a 16-0 upset win over LSU, and told the crowd of students that had gathered at the station that the Arkansas team had played "like a wild band of razorback hogs." (The nickname caught on, and in 2009, as part of the celebration of “100 Years of the Razorback” they staged a reenactment of the train’s arrival in Fayetteville, culminating with his address to the students, given by a local actor.)
He is the only man to have served as manager of a major league baseball team and also as head coach of an NFL team. While coaching football in Oregon he had also served as a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and when the great Honus Wagner, deciding that he preferred to play and not manage, resigned as manager, our guy was named to replace him.
Taking over a losing Pirates team in mid-season 1917, he took the team to a 50-99 record. But by applying football principles - aggressive play and better conditioning through tougher practices and fitness drills - his Pirates finished above .500 in both 1918 and 1919.
Out of work in 1937, he signed on with the Cleveland Rams, who had just joined the NFL, as their first head coach. (His record was 1-13.)
He’s credited with inventing the screen pass, the spinner series, and the roving center (think “middle linebacker”).
In 1954, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY,
APRIL 9, 2024 "If
you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice
versa, you should be able to play.” Dawn Staley, coach of South
Carolina’s NCAA champion WOMEN’S team*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude. (Back in March 2022) What he told me he would have said if he’d been the AD at Washington and the Seahawks had asked to use UW’s facilities for a tryout for Colin Kaepernick (as happened) : “You can’t work out here.”
*********** UFL SCHEDULE THIS WEEKEND
I loved this one, from a commentator describing the league’s teams: “They’re scattered across this great country of ours…”
Uhhh… you realize how much of this great country is west of San Antonio, right?
SATURDAY
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (2-0) 20 MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (1-1) 19
San Antonio, shut out for three quarters, scored 20 points in the fourth quarter, with a final TD on 4th and 12 with :03 to play. Brahmas’ QB Chase Garbers ,who played college ball at Cal, was 29 of 40 for 287 yards and 3 TDs. San Antonio’s all-yellow away uniforms are clownish.
ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (1-1) 27 ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-2) 24
St. Louis had a crowd of 40,317 - a Spring football record. St. Louis’ Andre Szmyt kicked a 22-yard FG to win as time ran out.
SUNDAY
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (2-0) 20 MICHIGAN PANTHERS (1-1) 13
Birmingham has a nice pair of QBs in Matt Corral and Adrian Martinez. The game ended with Michigan deep in Birmingham territory but on the final play their left tackle totally failed to block his man, and, unmolested, the guy sacked Michigan QB EJ Perry.
DC DEFENDERS (1-1) 23 HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (0-2) 18
DC has won 10 straight at home over the past two seasons. Best news: the beer snake is back!
*********** Can you imagine that DEI president of Harvard saying something like this?
The University remains one of the last places in society where people with diverse viewpoints can engage in the kind of civil dialogue that allows them to explore complex topics – and find innovative solutions to difficult problems – together. To this end, university students should debate one another respectfully. They should challenge each other’s ideas, as well as their own. If part of that process involves protest, then they should engage in that, too.
Vanderbilt supports, teaches and defends free expression – but to do so, we must safeguard the environment for it. Students can advocate BDS. That is freedom of expression. But they can’t disrupt university operations during classes, in libraries, or on construction sites.
In these difficult times, each university will be tested. And each university will follow its own path. Our approach is clear: we clearly state the principles and rules that support our mission as a University. Then we enforce them.
Daniel Diermeier
Chancellor
Vanderbilt University
From “Free Speech is Alive and Well at Vanderbilt University” Wall Street Journal, April 3
*********** In California, where fast-food places now have to pay people $20 an hour to ask customers if they’d like fries with their order, the legislature has in front of it a bill calling for a “right to disconnect” - that is, a legal right for employees to ignore communications from the boss after working hours.
Only calls, emails or texts for emergencies or work scheduling purposes would be permitted without the worker’s approval.
If you’re a head football coach, you have a hard time even immediate comprehending such an attititude, because you’re on constant call - there’s scarcely a minute in the work week that you might not be called on for some matter or other that needs tending to. And if you’re an assistant coach, you’re not going to keep your job very long once the head guy learns that he can’t get hold of you when he needs something done or needs to talk to you about something.
In California, where cluelessness is a prerequisite for holding office, lawmakers obviously haven’t given a lot of thought to the fact that these days an awful lot of people are working flexible schedules and doing work remotely, but there you go.
Assuming that the California legislature hasn’t already put you out of business with its ridiculous laws, shame on you for hiring people that are going to pull that kind of work-to-rule sh—.
*********** Not saying that the NCAA is a bunch of pussies, afraid of their own shadow, but when it comes time for the national anthem, and the P.A. announcer says…
“At this time we ask those willing and able to please rise…”
“I think, "Willing?” WTF exactly is the supposed to mean?
How about, “Unless you’re physically unable to do so, get up off your lazy ass and for a minute and a half or so at least pretend you’re a f—king American.”
Okay - two and a half minutes - if it’s being “performed” by some “grammy-award-winning artist.”
*********** I doubt that Pennsylvania is all that different from a lot of bigger states.
In basketball, of the 12 state titles won last month, only three were won by “traditional” public schools - some call them “boundary” schools, because their student body is limited to kids who live within certain geographic boundaries. The other nine were won by either private of charter schools. One such charter school, Imhotep of Philadelphia, won its 10th state title in the last 15 years.
Only twice this century have traditional public schools won a majority of the state championships in a season.
The head of the state association, the PIAA, didn’t make many friends among public school coaches when he called their criticism “sour grapes.”
Jesse Reed, whose Franklin Regional High made it to the state final before losing, took exception.
“I disagree with how some people’s arguments are like, ‘Well, develop your program better. Work harder in the offseason,’” he said. “I can promise you, every high school coach in the WPIAL (Western Pennsylvania) is working their butt off all summer with their guys. No matter how hard you work or how good your players are, if they’re 6-foot and you’re going against 6-8, there’s a disadvantage.”
(One of the three public school winners this year was Aliquippa in 2A boys’ basketball. I’ve already noted that The Quips are so good in football that they play three levels above what their size dictates - and they still dominate.)
*********** A sign that we’re in the End Times?
The Kentucky basketball coach leaving - on his own - for another college?
But wait. Try to follow this:
SMU fires its coach, then hires USC’s coach.
USC then hires Arkansas’ coach.
Arkansas then hires Kentucky’s coach.
Logically, then: SMU is a better basketball coaching job than Kentucky???
*********** No doubt you’ve noticed the “please drink responsibly” messages somewhere in a beer commercial, or the warnings about side effects at the bottom of the screen on the pharmaceutical ads.
Now, it’s hit football.
After giving us every indication that a major reason for televising the preceding game is to satisfy the lust of the gambling public, the UFL concludes its post-broadcast credits with this little disclaimer:
All forms of gambling and sports betting involve risk. Please only use funds you are prepared to lose. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, please call 1–800 – GAMBLER
*********** I dislike watching basketball because there’s almost never a play that takes place without multiple rules being flagrantly ignored - by both players and officials. Traveling and palming are constant, yet so completely tolerated, that I think for the integrity of the game they should be formally legalized in the rule book.
Another area is physicality, and the discretion officials seem to have in the amount that they allow. I sort of enjoyed watching the women’s basketball games over the weekend, but I do think their game is being infected to the point that contact is being considered normal, which in effect makes it subject to the whims of the officials - the basketball equivalent of each baseball umpire having his own strike zone.
So it was quite a relief to turn on the UFL football games and realize how much actual football “game” we get to see without officials intruding. Of course, that’s because they simply ignore the interference on almost every pass play and the offensive holding on literally every play. Sort of like traveling and palming.
*********** So you bought a ticket to San Francisco and you landed in… Oakland?
It could happen.
It’s being suggested that Metropolitan Oakland International Airport be renamed the “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.”
Hey, all a man has to do is say he’s a woman and we’re expected to buy it, right?
I don’t know how the operators of the Oakland airport managed to say it without breaking up in hysterical laughter, but according to them the proposed name change is simply “to make it clear how close Oakland is to San Francisco.” I see.
Needless to say, they’re getting pushback from the REAL San Francisco International Airport.
Wait - come to think of it, there’s precedent for it. Baltimore’s airport is officially named in honor of the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, but everybody calls it by its initials: BWI - for Baltimore-Washington International. (And, truthfully, Baltimore is actually pretty close to Washington.)
To really make their scheme work, the Oakland people are going to need enforcement. That means going to the state legislature and getting them to make it a hate speech crime to say anything disparaging about Oakland (especially openly stating a preference for flying into San Francisco International rather than San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.)
In the meantime, if this goes through - be sure to read that ticket to San Francisco very carefully.
************* What if some 60 years ago we’d been able to look ahead and see that if we hadn’t committed troops to keep communists from taking over all of Vietnam…
It wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference in Vietnam or in our relations with the country today?
The Chinese would be just as big a problem today?
We’d have had the benefit of having 60,000 young men live their lives here in America - instead of being killed in action?
How much would those young men - and the children and grandchildren they’d have sired - have contributed to our country in the years since they gave their lives?
How many from among their number might have served us better in our government than the worthless poltroons we elect?
*********** Hi Coach
Sorry it’s taken me so long to send my condolences.
I always enjoyed telling people about Coach Lude’s UMaine connection and his role in the Delaware Wing-T, and how fortunate we were to have him on our zoom calls.
Unfortunately, I also recently had some sad news…one of my first Black Lions died at the end of March. He was only 29. It happened at the end of my time in NZ, so I wasn’t able to attend his services unfortunately. By any measure, he was successful, a traveling nurse, just accepted to Nurse Practitioner school, recently married, etc. Beth and I reached out to his parents and his mom told Beth that “Sam loved to make me proud”. It really hit home how important our roles as football coaches are and how even seemingly little things that we do can be important for the kids that we coach. Sam was one of my favorite kids of all time, and it was really sad to hear from his parents that he had struggled with mental health issues, and reading between the lines, Sam took his own life. Still hard to process it. I’ve attached Sam’s Black Lion photo, he’s on the left nearest me. His parents told me that his Black Lion plaque was displayed prominently at his memorial service.
Beth and I are settling back into life back home and I’ve been meeting with my new head coach. This coming Thursday, we’ll spend 2+ hours just on power, his adjustments, etc. I can tell that he’s pleased to have someone on his staff who is so into coaching the DW, and I certainly have you to thank for all the knowledge and advice that you’ve passed on to me over the years. I’m just hoping that I can meaningfully contribute to the team’s success this season, and will work hard towards that goal.
Hi to Connie.
Rick Davis
Duxbury, Massachusetts
***********Hi Hugh,
Here it is another April and Maine is having an early spring Nor’easter. It reminded me of one nearly thirty years ago when you arrived in Boothbay Harbor to put on a DW clinic for us and changed the course of SeaHawk football forever and began an association with you that has stood the test of time.
Your presentation on short yardage offense was, in my opinion, one of the the best things you have done. I always thought we should have approached a college or pro team with an offer to coach short yardage situations and our pay based on how successful we were. Heck, we would have been rich especially after seeing how college teams today approach this situation.
Thanks again and it’s not overstated to say that April Nor’easter nearly 30 years ago changed the course of my coaching career.
Jack Tourtillotte
Plymouth, Maine
As he notes, Jack and I go way back. That sure was a memorable trip to snowy springtime Maine! And it sure did launch a long and rich and mutually productive relationship!
*********** Coach,
Saturday was the day. It was surreal to see my name and that subtitle. The group picture sums up how the whole deal happened - family, players (turned coaches), and coaches. For those of us who can sustain this career for a long time it has to be a family affair, and my family has become very large over the years.
Again, thank you for everything. Had I not seen "Dynamics" in a box, and then found "News," and then gone to a clinic in Chicago and one in Kansas City, my path would not have been the same.
Todd Hollis
Elmwood, Illinois
Coach Hollis was inducted into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame recently, and he sent me the photo. It’s awfully gracious of him to thank me, but all I did was provide the tool. It still takes a master craftsman to build something with it.
*********** Connor Sports courts are made at their manufacturing facility in Amasa, MI which is in the U.P. I'm sure the mistake was made at their company offices in Illinois.
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
I didn’t want to be too tough on them, considering how many people they must employ. Just goes to show the importance of checking and double-checking and double-double-checking. And even then defects get out the door.
*********** A few (7-8?) years ago I was as familiar with Gilbert, AZ, as most non-residents could be. Was there to attend an Independence Day event, which felt small-town patriotic even though its population was more than 200,000. The mayor was a West Point guy. In short, I liked almost eveything about the city. Attended HS football games there. So, reading the account of the Goons beating the kid to death is another story that both angers and depresses me. I'm thinking more and more these days about favoring purely retributive justice, meaning, in most cases, killing the offender by the same means he killed his victim. Beat those bastard Goons to death.
I might slightly part ways with Coach HW once in a million times. This Altimore list makes a little sense to me. But who cares, because it doesn't sound as if it's being used anyway.
More reasons to like Rutschman.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Short yardage for us IS what WE do ALL the time! Long gains are just the icing on the cake! At times I would run our stuff with a few different looks (Open Wing comes to mind), and wrinkles (unbalanced, no motion), but in essence we were still who we always were. Short yardage? Heck, in one game we ran Power 6 times in a row on one drive to the SAME SIDE. On the 7th play of the drive we ran Power to the other side and scored.
In another game we ran G very well on a few plays in one drive. Scored on a G Keep!
Yet, in another game, we had been running Power and Counter so well we ended up scoring on a Counter Pass from the 20 and NO ONE was even close to the TE.
Football is not rocket science. My advice to young coaches out there...KISS!!
That "draft list" of college football teams gets more ridiculous the more I look at it.
Me thinks all this "retrofitting" of WWII battleships is just another way of our "government" to take our eyes off the ball. Recently it was reported that the building of two brand-new state of the art aircraft carriers has been put on hold. In the meantime China continues to build its navy. While those old battlewagons helped us win a war, carriers and submarines are likely to win the next one. I pray to God for our kids and grandkids it never comes to that.
But I have to admit it was fun watching the "resurrection" of the battleship Missouri take out the aliens in the movie "Battleship!"
The story about that "white gang banger" doesn't surprise me. Frankly, NOTHING surprises me anymore.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Benny Friedman is credited with being the first player in college football and then in pro football to popularize the forward pass.
No less an authority than George Halas said that he “revolutionized football.”
He remains the only person in the history of the NFL to lead the league in touchdowns passing and touchdowns rushing in the same season.
He was born in Cleveland, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia.
When he was told by his high school coach that he was too small for football, he transferred schools. At his new school he played baseball, basketball and football. And in his senior year he led that school’s football team to the city championship.
At the University of Michigan, after a year of playing on the freshman team, he earned a starting position midway through his sophomore season, and immediately drew notice because of his ability to pass. (The ball used then was rounder and fatter than today’s ball and considerably more difficult to hold and throw with one hand.)
In his junior year, Michigan coach Fielding Yost moved him to quarterback, and he led the Wolverines to a 7-1 record and the Big Ten championship. Michigan outscored opponents 227-3, and Coach Yost called this team “the greatest football team I ever coached.” (The single loss was by 3-2 to Northwestern on a muddy field in a downpour.)
In a 63-0 defeat of Indiana, Friedman accounted for 50 points, throwing five touchdown passes, running for a sixth, and kicking eight PATs and a field goal.
For the season, he threw for a total of 14 passes, and he and his main receiver - end Benny Oosterbaan - were both named first-team All-Americans.
Elected captain by his teammates, as a senior he led the Wolverines to their second straight Big Ten title and a 7-1 record, the only loss coming to number one-ranked Navy. He was a consensus All-American, and was honored by the Chicago Tribune as the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player.
He signed to play pro football with his hometown Cleveland Bulldogs, and in his rookie season he led the NFL in passing yardage and passing touchdowns, and was named first team All-NFL.
Despite having gone 8-4-1, the Bulldogs moved to Detroit after the season and (for some reason) renamed themselves the Wolverines. They went 7-2-1, and he again led the NFL in both yards passing and touchdown passes. He also led the league in touchdowns rushing. (The year was 1928 and no man since has led the NFL in both touchdown passes and touchdowns rushing in the same season.) Again, he was first team All NFL.
In 1929 he played for the New York Giants. Giants’ owner Tim Mara had purchased the Wolverines, partly at least - with New York’s large Jewish population in mind - to acquire their quarterback.
He didn’t disappoint. For the third straight season he led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns and was named first team All NFL. The Giants went 13-1-1, finishing second to Green Bay (12-0-1) who had given them their only loss. They scored what was then an astounding 300 points, and our guy threw 20 touchdown passes - a season record that would last for 13 years.
The following season, 1930, the Giants went 13-4, and again he led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns and was named first team All NFL. That was four straight years.
In 1931 he agreed to assist at Yale, but he still managed to play nine games with the Giants. At the end of that season he asked Giants’ owner Tim Mara for a piece of the club, and when Mara said, “No, I’m keeping it all for my sons,” he decided, in his own words, “I felt I should move along.”
He was approached by the owner of the new Brooklyn Dodgers (another original name), and agreed to become player-coach.
He spent all of 1932 and 1933 with the Dodgers but after one game in 1934 he retired.
His NFL career stats, as best as they could be determined, given the lack of care sometimes taken with the record-keeping at the time:
5326 yards passing (and NFL career record at the time), 66 passing TDs (also a record), plus 18 rushing TDs, 1000+ yards rushing and 400+ yards in punt returns (he also played safety on defense).
He was head coach at CCNY from 1934 to 1942, when he joined the Navy.
He coached one season at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, and after the war he owned a car dealership in Detroit until in 1949 he became AD at Brandeis. He started their football program, and was their head coach until the school discontinued football in 1960.
For the rest of his life he ran a very successful summer camp for young aspiring quarterbacks, and ran a series of on-location camps around the country.
In 1951, he was among the first group of inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame.
He is in the University of Michigan Athletics Hall of Honor - the first quarterback inducted - and he is in the National Jewish Hall of Fame.
But he was not inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame until 2005 - 23 years after his death.
Why did it take so long?
It wasn’t for a lack of effort on his part. He was, by most estimates, a relentless self-promoter.
But he was considered opinionated and arrogant.
It certainly didn’t help his cause any when in 1953 he wrote an article for Sport magazine (then a very popular publication), entitled "I Could Play Pro Football – And I'm 48."
He didn’t earn himself any friends in The League with statements like this: "I have been out of the National Football League for 20 years, but I’m confident I could do the job as well as, if not better than the present-day big-league quarterbacks, most of whom are half my age.”
As a player, he was aloof. He didn’t socialize with teammates and left little doubt that he preferred the company of people higher up on the social ladder than mere professional football players..
How unpopular was he? In 1932, when he was with the Dodgers and playing safety on defense, a former Giants’ teammate, in the clear and on his way to a touchdown, instead changed course just to take a shot at him.
In his later years, he endured numerous health problems, including bouts with cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and 1979, his left leg had to be amputated below the knee.
In November, 1982, Benny Friedman was found dead in his room as a result of a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
He left a note saying that he was “severely depressed.”
The note went on to state that he didn’t want to become “the old man on a park bench.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BENNY FRIEDMAN
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ - His given first and middle names were William Henry, but he went his entire life by his “Indian name,” and that’s the only one I’ll accept.
He may indeed have been an American Indian. Although there is strong evidence that he was not, he nevertheless “identified” as a native and sure did a convincing job of presenting himself as one.
Claiming to be one-quarter Sioux, he enrolled at Carlisle Indian School at the age of 23, and was a teammate of Jim Thorpe. For his entire adult life - and throughout his long career as a coach - he went by an Indian name that he was accused of taking from someone else in a case of stolen identity.
After graduating from Carlisle, he assisted Carlisle coach Pop Warner for three years, and in 1915, when Warner left to coach Pitt, he could have had the Carlisle job. But, largely on Warner’s strong recommendation, he was hired instead as head coach at Washington State.
There, claiming (perhaps rightly) to know more about Warner’s offense than any man alive, he installed Warner’s still-new Single and Double-Wing attack. In his first season there, the Cougars went unbeaten. At the end of the season, with the Rose Bowl game started up again after a 14-year hiatus, Washington State was chosen to represent the West Coast against Brown and its star running back, Fritz Pollard. The Cougars’ 14-0 Rose Bowl win remains, to this day, the only Rose Bowl win in their history.
While in California, he managed to get bit parts in a movie for his entire team, earning each player a then-very-generous $100.
After three years, his record was 17-2-1, but when Washington State had to give up football during the war/pandemic, he found himself out of a job.
Meanwhile, in a sensational trial that made national headlines, he was tried on charges of having posed as a “non-citizen Indian” in order to avoid the draft. As a result of a hung jury, his claim to American Indian ancestry was left in question - and remains so to this day.
In 1919, he coached the Mare Island Marines to 10-0 record and a spot in the Rose Bowl (service teams, made up of former college stars, were drawing bigger crowds than college teams). Mare Island lost, 17-0 to Great Lakes Naval Training Base. The player of the game was Great Lakes’ George Halas, who scored on a 75-yard interception return.
Following the War, he was hired as head coach at Purdue, but was fired after one year for recruiting irregularities.
He went on to be head coach at Louisiana Tech, Wyoming, and Haskell Indian Nations University (which evidently was convinced of his legitimacy) and in 1933 he was hired as head coach of the NFL’s Boston Braves. When Braves’ team owner George Preston Marshall moved the team from Braves Field to Fenway Park, he decided to change the team name, and although the story is in dispute, there is some evidence that their new name - Redskins - was a tribute to their new coach.
He lasted just two years as coach there, then moved to Ole Miss as an assistant for one season, and finished his career as head coach at Albright College, in Reading, Pennsylvania.
His overall record in 15 years as a college head coach was 103-59-7. His two-year record as coach of the Boston Redskins was 11-11-2.
Many years after our guy coached them, Dan Snyder, then the owner of the Washington Redskins, attempted to rebut charges that the team’s name defamed Native Americans by resurrecting the claim that the team had been named in his honor.
A little known story is the role he played in saving Washington State as an educational institution.
Prior to his being hired as the coach their, the state legislature had assigned a “duplicity committee” to determine whether the state of Washington really needed two public colleges. Only a year earlier, Washington coach Gil Dobie had dropped Washington State from his schedule, saying that playing them was “too much like kindergarten.” So if only one of the colleges were to remain, it would surely have been the bigger, better-funded and better-situated (in Seattle) University of Washington.
But the Cougars’ surprising unbeaten season and their shocking win in the Rose Bowl brought them national attention, and put an end to any thoughts of closing down the school. (Their selection to play in the Rose Bowl instead of Washington, since it was Washington’s decision that they not play each other, came down to their comparative scores against a common foe, Gonzaga. Washington had won earlier in the season 21-7, but with a Rose Bowl berth on the line, the Cougars piled it on in their regular season finale, winning 48-0.)
At the height of the renaming-the-Redskins controversy, Tom Benjey, author of a biography of our man, said, “He is still probably the most controversial coach the game has ever had. He’s been dead since 1964 and he’s still controversial.”
FRIDAY,
APRIL 5, 2024 ““One
of my Democratic colleague’s witnesses testified that there are three
biological sexes and an infinite number of genders. I’ve heard better
answers on The Dating Game.” Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude. Mike was such a positive person and so warm and friendly that once, I just happened to ask him, “Mike, do you even have any enemies?” He was 101, and he answered, “Not now.”
*********** FOUND THIS IN THE ATHLETIC…
17 of the 32 NFL teams used motion on at least 50 percent of their offensive snaps in 2023, ESPN analytics found. And some of the league’s top offenses — the Dolphins, Rams, 49ers, Chiefs, Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions — used motion the most.
*********** UFL SCHEDULE THIS WEEKEND
Last week’s four losers play each other, which means last week’s winners do the same.
And that means that after Sunday, there will be two unbeaten teams, and two winless teams.
SATURDAY
12 NOON EASTERN - ESPN
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (1-0) AT MEMPHIS (1-0) SHOWBOATS
8 PM EASTERN - ABC
ARLINGTON RENEGADES (0-1) AT ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (0-1)
SUNDAY
12 NOON EASTERN - ESPN
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (1-0) AT MICHIGAN PANTHERS (1-0)
4 PM EASTERN - FOX
HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (0-1) AT DC DEFENDERS (0-1)
*********** I’m getting tired of hearing about this guy or that who played on a Super Bowl team and now he’s being called a “Super Bowl Champion.” Ditto “NBA Champion.”
He is NOT a “champion.”
Those are TEAM sports, where the TEAMS are the champions. (Of their league, conference, sport, etc.)
Championship trophies are awarded to TEAMS.
*********** The social-science types in our country haven’t discovered it yet, but get ready for it: “Pasifika.” No, it’s not a misspelling of the Mexican beer. It’s a created word - yes, it comes from “Pacific” - and it’s been in use in New Zealand and Australia since the 1980s.
It’s a term created by government types to refer to communities of peoples from such places around the Pacific as Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.
*********** A World War II battleship has to be one of the largest moveable things ever created by man, and I’ve really become absorbed by the latest story involving the Battleship USS New Jersey. It’s our most decorated war ship, and it’s been serving as a museum in Paulsboro, New Jersey - on the Delaware River, across from Philadelphia, where it was built.
What brought it to my attention was the news that it was going to be transported upriver to a dry dock at the former Philadelphia Navy Yard, where among other things, its hull was going to be painted.
Obviously, it’s not matter of firing up the engines and steaming across the Delaware.
That’s when I found its story on Youtube, and I’ve been following it ever since.
It’s in dry-dock now, and the steps they’ve had to take to get to this point are absolutely mind-boggling.
Be careful, though - watching this stuff can be addictive.
https://www.youtube.com/@BattleshipNewJersey
*********** As if Boeing wasn’t the perfect example of nobody ever being so good at what they do that they can afford to let their guards down, along comes a Michigan company named Connor Sports.
Connor Sports makes the hardwood courts (hey- a rhyme) used by the NCAA in its various tournaments, and it proudly announces that on its web site.
So after all the good work it’s done, it had to be extremely embarrassing for it to learn that one of its courts - the one used in the recent Portland regional of the women’s NCAA tournament - was improperly marked. The three-point shot lines were not identically distant from the baseline.
Fortunately, all’s well that ends well.
Meanwhile, John Canzano did a great job of getting the story from the guy who first noticed the error…
I tracked down Michael McGrath at work on Tuesday. He’s a family law attorney who has had a very busy couple of days in the office.
McGrath ends up an important figure in the women’s NCAA Tournament Regional held in Portland. He’s the fan who noticed the 3-point-line discrepancy from his seat at Moda Center.
“It’s a nice 15 seconds of fame,” he said.
McGrath rode his bicycle to the arena on Sunday. He had a ticket in the 300-level and was surprised at what he observed shortly after he settled into his seat to watch warm-ups. He looked and noted that the 3-point-lines weren’t identical.
“My first thought was ‘This can’t be. I can’t be the one who sees this first,’” he told me. “I looked at it. I took two pictures comparing the left side and right side and posted it on Reddit and sent it to my wife and said ‘Am I crazy?’”
Turns out, he’s not.
The apex of the three-point line at one end of the court was, in fact, nine inches closer to the basket than the other end. A fan seated directly in front of McGrath happened to know an arena employee working on the floor, who then got the attention of the game officials.
A few minutes later, coaches from both teams walked off the distances using the length of their shoes to measure. Then, someone produced a measuring tape and NCAA officials huddled around. At this point, McGrath called his wife and two sons and told them to turn on the television.
“The start of the game is delayed,” his wife told him.
“I think that might be my fault,” McGrath said.
McGrath’s job as an attorney has him trained to examine details and take nothing for granted. Maybe he was the right person, perfectly positioned to see the error. Or maybe it’s just one of these quirky things — that eight basketball teams, a line of game officials, scorekeepers, tens of thousands of fans, and droves of media never noticed the problem until McGrath pointed it out.
“We were all laughing up there (as they were measuring),” McGrath told me. “I was explaining to people what they were doing and nobody believed it. Everyone kept asking me: ‘How did you see that?!?’ But my question was, how did you guys not see it?”
The coaches of both teams agreed to play the game on Sunday, as is. North Carolina State beat Texas, advancing to the Final Four. And McGrath came away with a story to tell his friends and co-workers.
Connor Sports, the court manufacturer, apologized for the error and accepted responsibility. The 3-point-line was fixed for Monday’s Regional final in Portland. Still, the issue goes down as one of the most embarassing moments in NCAA Tournament history.
“I think the NCAA should make me undercover boss and fly me around to inspect football fields and basketball courts and things like that,” McGrath told me. “That would be a great gig.”
*********** Kerry Eggers, who was a young writer when I first got to Portland (come to think of it, I wasn’t such an old fart then myself), is now retired, and now, as the “dean of Portland sports writers, he puts out a really nice newsletter.
In his latest, he was a “fly on the wall” as four former Linfield College coaches got together recently for a two-hour lunch in McMinnville, Oregon.
Linfield, a small liberal arts school, is well-known in the Pacific Northwest for its long tradition of winning football. Long, did I say? The Linfield Wildcats have a string of winning seasons that started in 1957. That’s 67 straight winning seasons. And in all that time, they’ve had just 5 coaches.
The longest-tenured of them was Ad Rutschman (yes, the grandfather of Orioles’ catcher Adley Rutschman), who in 24 years as the Wildcats’ head coach won 183 games (including three national titles) while losing just 48 and tieing four. For 13 of those years, he was also Linfield’s head baseball coach, and he won a national title there, too.
After he retired, three of his former assistants would serve as Linfield’s head coach themselves - Mike Riley, Ed Langsdorf and Jay Locey. None of them had played under him - Riley had played at Alabama, Langsdorf at Concordia (Minnesota) and Locey at Oregon State - and he talked about the process of hiring them:
With those three guys, I knew before they showed up for an interview that’s who I wanted to hire. I had done my research. The only way that could change is if they screwed up bad in the interview. I had a rule that I would talk to a minimum of three but hopefully five or six people who knew them well. I wanted to find out what kind of people they are. My belief is, you hire people, you don’t hire paper. I’m not necessarily interested in their high school or college grades, their SAT scores or whatever. I want to find out if I can trust them, if they have a work ethic. Once they got on campus, it confirmed they were the people I wanted to hire.
*********** A friend who just took a new job told me about his recent interviews of potential assistants. Said he had a couple of guys in their 20s who asked him, as their interviews were winding down, what position they would coach.
He said he would decide and let them know the next time they met.
At that, he said that they both told him, in so many words, “If I’m not a coordinator, I don't want to coach.”
He said he told them, “Well, you just made my decision easier.”
*********** In a time when our world seems upside down - when the most unimaginably awful things are happening - it has to take something really ugly to stand out the way this story does.
It’s a story of gang violence. But not inner-city gang violence. Not illegal immigrant violence.
No, not what you usually think of when you hear “gang violence.” Not this time.
This is the story of a gang (excuse me - a “consortium”) of well-to-do white kids - with maybe a token hispanic or black kid, I don’t know - in Gilbert, Arizona (median household income: $115,179). They call themselves the Gilbert Goons. Several of them are alleged to have beaten another kid to death at a Hallowe’en party - pummeling him, kicking him in the head, mockingly “humping” his lifeless body as it lay on the ground.
And then - of course - they had to boast about it online.
It gets worse still - the father of the kid alleged to be the killer appears to have hidden the kid until the bruises and cuts on his hands - the signs that he’d beaten the other kid -were less evident.
And then - ready for this? - the “alleged” murderer continued to play on the school’s football team.
An opposing coach said his player’s parents were aware of what was going on - so why not the Gilbert Goons’ coaches? And principal?
But even if they did know, who cares about a dead kid anyway, when there’s a football game to play? Besides, innocent until proven guilty, right?
And wouldn’t you know - three weeks after the killing, taking advantage of the opportunity to play the game he loves, the accused killer was named player of the game.
What - you think he should miss an important game, and all the future NIL opportunties a good performance could mean?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13268535/amp/gilbert-goons-victim-preston-lord-family-breaks-silence-talan-renner-arizona.html
*********** Joe Gutilla sent me this bit of lunacy from the Football Scoop and I had to tie into it…
As the article went…
Tony Altimore, a strategy consultant, attempted to rank every FBS program along roughly 50 factors that a television executive and/or university president would find important.
"It takes about 50 factors (broken down in the groups described in the summary), balances into points, and then weights them (based on input from experts) to create a broad-based look at overall attractiveness," Altimore told me.
In short, Altimore found long-term football success and television viewership to be highly correlated (turns out TV executives might know what they're doing.)
Setting aside the statistical mumbo jumbo, if every FBS program were put into a pot for ESPN and Fox to draft, who gets taken first and who gets taken last?
(I have no idea what the numbers mean.)
1. Ohio State -- 356
2. Michigan -- 337.4
3. Alabama -- 301.4
4. USC -- 296.4
5. Texas -- 282.2
6. Notre Dame -- 279.7
7. Georgia -- 269.9
8. Penn State -- 263.1
9. Florida -- 261.9
10. UCLA -- 260.4
11. Oklahoma -- 254.2
12. LSU -- 243.5
13. Texas A&M -- 242
14. Wisconsin -- 241.9
15. Stanford -- 225.7
16. Washington -- 224.5
17. Michigan State -- 223.9
18. Tennessee -- 220.6
19. Florida State -- 216.6
20. Clemson -- 211.1
21. Iowa -- 208.9
22. Cal -- 202.8
23. Nebraska -- 200.3
23. North Carolina -- 200.3
25. Minnesota -- 199.7
26. Miami -- 198.3
27. Oregon -- 197.1
28. Pitt -- 181.9
29. Maryland -- 180.6
30. Arkansas -- 180.5
31. Auburn -- 179.5
32. Utah -- 178
33. Kentucky -- 172.7
34. Illinois -- 176.1
35. Arizona State -- 172
35. TCU -- 172
37. Oklahoma State -- 171
38. Indiana -- 166.5
39. Purdue -- 165
40. Duke -- 164
41. Colorado -- 162
42. NC State -- 159.7
43. Ole Miss -- 159.5
44. Virginia -- 158.4
45. Northwestern -- 158
46. Virginia Tech -- 157.9
47. Missouri -- 157.6
48. Arizona -- 156.6
49. Rutgers -- 155.5
50. South Carolina -- 153.1
51. West Virginia -- 150.5
52. Georgia Tech -- 150.1
53. Louisville -- 144.2
54. Syracuse -- 143.1
55. Iowa State -- 137.1
56. Kansas -- 137
57. Texas Tech -- 136.2
58. Mississippi State -- 130.5
59. Kansas State -- 128.1
60. Boston College -- 127.7
61. Army -- 124.2
62. Houston -- 123.5
63. Washington State -- 123.2
64. Vanderbilt -- 118.4
65. Baylor -- 116.7
66. Cincinnati -- 116.4
67. Navy -- 116.2
68. Oregon State -- 115.5
69. UCF -- 114.4
70. Wake Forest -- 113.9
71. BYU -- 111.8
72. South Florida -- 104.7
73. SMU -- 102
74. UConn -- 99.8
75. Temple -- 93.8
76. San Diego State -- 93.2
77. Boise State -- 90.6
78. Memphis -- 88.8
79. Tulane -- 88.7
80. Air Force -- 86.8
81. Colorado State -- 83.6
82. Fresno State -- 79.8
83. Buffalo -- 73.5
84. Hawai'i -- 72.7
85. Wyoming -- 72.4
86. Tulsa -- 72.2
87. UAB -- 70.1
88. Rice -- 70
89. Nevada -- 69
90. Utah State -- 67.2
91. Appalachian State -- 64.6
92. UMass -- 63.6
93. Toledo -- 62.3
94. New Mexico -- 62
95. Miami (Ohio) -- 60
96. San Jose State -- 58.9
97. James Madison -- 57.7
98. Marshall -- 56.2
99. East Carolina -- 55.9
100. UNLV -- 54.9
101. Ohio -- 54.2
102. North Texas -- 53.8
103. Florida Atlantic -- 50.7
104. Western Kentucky -- 49.8
105. Georgia State -- 48.4
106. Troy -- 46.5
107. Louisiana -- 46.1
108. UTSA -- 45.4
109. Louisiana Tech -- 44.9
109. FIU -- 44.9
111. Western Michigan -- 44.5
112. Southern Miss -- 44.3
113. Northern Illinois -- 44.1
114. Coastal Carolina -- 43.8
114. Georgia Southern -- 43.8
116. Central Michigan -- 42.1
117. UTEP -- 41
118. Old Dominion -- 40.9
119. Ball State -- 39.7
120. Bowling Green -- 38.7
121. Middle Tennessee -- 38.6
122. Texas State -- 38.1
123. Kent State -- 37.7
124. New Mexico State -- 37
125. Charlotte -- 35.4
126. Arkansas State -- 33.6
127. South Alabama -- 32.8
128. Jacksonville State -- 31.5
129. Eastern Michigan -- 31.1
130. Liberty -- 29.1
131. Akron -- 24.9
132. Sam Houston -- 19.1
133. ULM -- 14
What a crock.
Just a few examples of the sheer idiocy this list represents:
UCLA in the top 10? Seriously? A program that last won a Pac-12 championship in 1998? That one?
Stanford at #15? Ahead of Washington at #16?
Cal at #22? WTF? Have you been following them? They haven’t played in the Rose Bowl since 1959. (Oregon State was last there in 1965. They're ranked 68th)
Is there an ACC bias? I mean, Duke at 40? Virginia - Virginia, for God’s sake - at 44. Syracuse at 54? BC at 60? Really? You put all those schools ahead of Wake Forest, at 70?
Army at 61? Give me a break. There are at least a dozen programs ranked lower that outdraw Army at the gate and could have - or have - beaten them recently it in football.
Seriously - if you were drafting teams for your league, would you really take Army ahead of Houston, Washington State, Baylor, Cincinnati, Oregon State, UCF, Wake Forest, BYU -- 111.8
Likewise Vanderbilt at 64. Ahead of Oregon State? Wake Forest?
Air Force 17 spots below Army? Come on, man.
The low ranking for BYU and the unbelievably low ranking for Liberty (ahead of only Akron, Sam Houston and ULM) is a joke, and almost certainly a reaction to their religious affiliations.
If this isn’t just a rough draft that accidentally got published before he could run it by people who really know their college football - if he’s really serious about this whole thing - then as the late great William F. Buckley once said, “there’s no lunacy of which he’s incapable.”
https://footballscoop.com/news/every-fbs-school-ranked-by-how-attractive-theyd-be-in-conference-realignment
*********** One of the things that Homer Smith shared with me was a photocopy of what he titled “HISTORY OF FOOTBALL CONCEPTS.” I don’t think it has ever been published.
I wrote his daughter, Kim Smith Hall, whom I’d dealt with in the past, to ask for her permission to reprint it here, and she very graciously gave it. She did say that while she no longer “actively” sells her dad’s manuals, she would be glad to put together a set for anyone interested in purchasing.
If anyone is interested, her email address is kimhall@mindspring.com
In the meantime, below are the next four pages of Coach Homer Smith’s work.
*********** I always thought the move "Everybody's All-American" was somewhat based on Bill Cannon. However Frank Deford said it was not:
Despite the fact that the novel was written about the University of North Carolina (which refused to allow filming because they suspected the story defamed campus legend Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice), when it was filmed at LSU, rumors started that Gavin Grey was based on the former LSU All-American Billy Cannon. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1959 and played eleven seasons for three professional teams, but served two and a half years in federal prison in the mid-1980s for his role in a counterfeiting ring. Deford himself denies this, saying: "Never met Cannon and knew nothing about him personally," he says. "Gavin was strictly a composite of many athletes from several sports that I had covered.”
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
Good story. I’m a big DeFord fan and I knew it was Choo-Choo. (Well, sort of.) And by reading it I did learn the words to Carolina’s fight song, which at the time happened to be the fight song at the school where I coached.
*********** Some days.... I don't recall ever being pandered to, but there's no doubt how I would react to it. I hope the tens of millions of Americans being pandered to today will detect the pandering and instantly reject it. If we don't reject the pandering, well...within a few years the NIL and the Portal will be so far down on our list of concerns we won't worry about them.
Thanks for recognizing your responsibility to us bettors. My bumper sticker (I designed it) says "I'm a better man for being a bettor!!!"). I just left this page for a minute for a brief test. I went to the home page of a sports site I frequent to see if it contained any references to wagering. Honest, I was stupefied, in that I found the site littered with betting information.
For good reason, how we'll meet near-term energy demands is moving, as you say in the Great Northwest, "top of mind". No AI without more energy. There's hope for coal once again.
Thanks for the finest sports bundle in America.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Not to pander, but your free subscription to this site has been extended for as long as you continue to write complimentary things.
*********** Hugh,
IMHO there is a quiet storm building in this country. With all the foolish decisions being made by this president EVERY DAY is April Fools Day! The silent majority grows larger and larger with every mumbled gaffe, stumbled walk, and asinine edict.
Watched the Birmingham game, and the first half of the St. Louis game. That was all I needed to see. Enjoyed a relaxing Easter day, and grilled a Tri-Tip at dinnertime for friends.
Like you I don't have a dog in the fight in the men's Final Four but I also like that Nelson kid!
Was glad to see Iowa's women beat LSU.
I'm still pulling for a PAC-West conference that will return Cal and Stanford to the Pacific coast, and keep the conference divided into two divisions with a conference championship game. WEST: WSU, OSU, Cal, Stanford, San Jose State, Fresno State, Hawaii, San Diego State. MOUNTAIN: Boise State, Utah State, Nevada, UNLV, Wyoming, Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe, I think only a storm like the one you describe can save us. I really fear that we are screwed. Knowing that I won’t see the worst of it is one of the benefits of being old. That and being able to get away with certain sh— because of my age.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Billy Cannon was a Baton Rouge high school star in football and track. He was evidently no angel, and according to legend he wound up at LSU at the “suggestion” of a juvenile judge.
He was one of the very first premier football players to lift weights seriously. By the time he was a sophomore and eligible to play varsity ball, he was 6-foot-1, 200 and he could bench press 270 pounds - just 10 pounds off the Olympic record at the time. He ran a 9.4 100-yard dash, and put the 16-pound shot 55 feet.
Called alternately "The World's Strongest Sprinter" and "The World's Fastest Shot-putter, “ as halfback in Coach Paul Dietzel’s Delaware Wing-T offense, he led LSU to its first national title.
One of the most famous plays in college football history was his long, electrifying fourth-quarter punt return that gave LSU a 7-3 win over arch-rival Ole Miss on Hallowe'en night.
He is still considered by many to be best football player ever to play for LSU, and was their first Heisman Trophy winner ( until Joe Burrow won in in 2019, he was the only Tiger to win it). He was just the second player from the SEC to win the Heisman. (Georgia’s Frank Sinkwich was the first.)
He was at the the center of a contentious bidding war between the AFL and the NFL, and his signing with the Houston Oilers - after first seeming to have signed with the Los Angeles Rams - was a major coup for the new league. He enjoyed a successful pro career, first as a runner, then as a tight end.
As a rookie, he was named MVP of the AFL’s first championship game, won by the Oilers. In all, he played on three AFL championship teams, and was twice named MVP of the title game.
He was twice named First Team All-AFL and twice named Second Team.
He was a running back for four years with the Oilers and one year with the Raiders after being traded to Oakland, but in 1965 Al Davis converted him to the relatively new position of tight end, and he became one of the best in the business.
In his career, he rushed for 2,455 yards and 17 touchdowns, and he caught 236 passes for 3,656 yards and 47 touchdowns.
He had studied dentistry on the off-season, and practiced dentistry after retiring from pro football.
He had some ups and downs in later life, including a serious scrape with the law that resulted in his two and a half years in prison.
In the eyes of most LSU people, he more than redeemed himself by serving for years after that as a dentist at the State Penitentiary.
Billy Cannon is a member of the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and the College Football Hall of Fame, and his number 20 was retired by LSU.
Ironically, the other two running backs on LSU’s national championship team - fullback Jim Taylor and wingback Johnny Robinson - are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and Billy Cannon’s not.)
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BILLY CANNON
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He is credited with being the first player in college football and then in pro football to popularize the forward pass.
No less an authority than George Halas said that he “revolutionized football.”
He remains the only person in the history of the NFL to lead the league in touchdowns passing and touchdowns rushing in the same season.
He was born in Cleveland, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia.
When he was told by his high school coach that he was too small for football, he transferred schools. At his new school he played baseball, basketball and football. And in his senior year he led that school’s football team to the city championship.
At the University of Michigan, after a year of playing on the freshman team, he earned a starting position midway through his sophomore season, and immediately drew notice because of his ability to pass. (The ball used then was rounder and fatter than today’s ball and considerably more difficult to hold and throw with one hand.)
In his junior year, Michigan coach Fielding Yost moved him to quarterback, and he led the Wolverines to a 7-1 record and the Big Ten championship. Michigan outscored opponents 227-3, and Coach Yost called this team “the greatest football team I ever coached.” (The single loss was by 3-2 to Northwestern on a muddy field in a downpour.)
In a 63-0 defeat of Indiana, our guy accounted for 50 points, throwing five touchdown passes, running for a sixth, and kicking eight PATs and a field goal.
For the season, he threw for a total of 14 passes, and he and his main receiver - end Benny Oosterbaan - were both named first-team All-Americans.
Elected captain by his teammates, as a senior he led the Wolverines to their second straight Big Ten title and a 7-1 record, the only loss coming to number one-ranked Navy. He was a consensus All-American, and was honored by the Chicago Tribune as the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player.
He signed to play pro football with his hometown Cleveland Bulldogs, and in his rookie season he led the NFL in passing yardage and passing touchdowns, and was named first team All-NFL.
Despite having gone 8-4-1, the Bulldogs moved to Detroit after the season and (for some reason) renamed themselves the Wolverines. They went 7-2-1, and he again led the NFL in both yards passing and touchdown passes. He also led the league in touchdowns rushing. (The year was 1928 and no man since has led the NFL in both touchdown passes and touchdowns rushing in the same season.) Again, he was first team All NFL.
In 1929 he played for the New York Giants. Giants’ owner Tim Mara had purchased the Wolverines, partly at least - with New York’s large Jewish population in mind - to acquire their quarterback.
He didn’t disappoint. For the third straight season he led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns and was named first team All NFL. The Giants went 13-1-1, finishing second to Green Bay (12-0-1) who had given them their only loss. They scored what was then an astounding 300 points, and our guy threw 20 touchdown passes - a season record that would last for 13 years.
The following season, 1930, the Giants went 13-4, and again he led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns and was named first team All NFL. That was four straight years.
In 1931 he agreed to assist at Yale, but he still managed to play nine games with the Giants. At the end of that season he asked Giants’ owner Tim Mara for a piece of the club, and when Mara said, “No, I’m keeping it all for my sons,” he decided, in his own words, “I felt I should move along.”
He was approached by the owner of the new Brooklyn Dodgers (another original name), and agreed to become player-coach.
He spent all of 1932 and 1933 with the Dodgers but after one game in 1934 he retired.
His NFL career stats, as best as they could be determined, given the lack of care sometimes taken with the record-keeping at the time:
5326 yards passing (and NFL career record at the time), 66 passing TDs (also a record), plus 18 rushing TDs, 1000+ yards rushing and 400+ yards in punt returns (he also played safety on defense).
He was head coach at CCNY from 1934 to 1942, when he joined the Navy.
He coached one season at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, and after the war he owned a car dealership in Detroit until in 1949 he became AD at Brandeis. He started their football program, and was their head coach until the school discontinued football in 1960.
For the rest of his life he ran a very successful summer camp for young aspiring quarterbacks, and ran a series of on-location camps around the country.
In 1951, he was among the first group of inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame.
He is in the University of Michigan Athletics Hall of Honor - the first quarterback inducted - and he is in the National Jewish Hall of Fame.
But he was not inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame until 2005 - 23 years after his death.
Why did it take so long?
It wasn’t for a lack of effort on his part. He was, by most estimates, a relentless self-promoter.
And he was considered opinionated and arrogant.
It certainly didn’t help his cause any when in 1953 he wrote an article for Sport magazine (then a very popular publication), entitled "I Could Play Pro Football – And I'm 48."
He didn’t earn himself any friends in The League with statements like this: "I have been out of the National Football League for 20 years, but I’m confident I could do the job as well as, if not better than the present-day big-league quarterbacks, most of whom are half my age.”
As a player, he was aloof. He didn’t socialize with teammates and left little doubt that he preferred the company of people higher up on the social ladder than mere professional football players..
How unpopular was he? In 1932, when he was with the Dodgers and playing safety on defense, a former Giants’ teammate, in the clear and on his way to a touchdown, instead changed course just to take a shot at him.
In his later years, he endured numerous health problems, including bouts with cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and 1979, his left leg had to be amputated below the knee.
In November, 1982, he was found dead in his room as a result of a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
He left a note saying that he was “severely depressed.”
The note went on to state that he didn’t want to become “the old man on a park bench.”
TUESDAY,
APRIL 2, 2024 “The strong do what they
will and the weak suffer what they must.” Thucydides*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude. “I like Bob Bowlsby. He’s a good guy. I was quite surprised when he left the AD business and took a job as commissioner (of the Big-12). As an AD you have one boss.”
*********** The sh— that’s actually gone on in sports this past year puts to shame anything I could make up as an April Fool's spoof.
So… How about this, seen on a walk around town this morning? At least the guy said it was an April Fools’ joke.
*********** “Today, on Transgender Day of Visibility, I have a simple message to all trans Americans: I see you. You are made in the image of God, and you’re worthy of respect and dignity.” Joseph R. Biden
Actually, I think what Mr. Biden meant to say was, “You were BORN in the image of God. But what you decided to do after that is on you.”
Meanwhile, leave it to The Babylon Bee to put this sh— in proper perspective:
“Biden Grants Day Of Visibility To Segment Of Population With Most Visibility In All Of Human History”
And
“Biden Condemns Jesus For Rising Again On Trans Day Of Visibility”
*********** UFL OPENING WEEKEND…. Hahaha. Silly me. Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote about how “pure” it would be, after watching the slow death of a conference I’d become attached to, along with the crass professionalism of college football, and a full season of NFL excess, to watch the UFL.
Boy, was I wrong. Yes, it’s football. I guess. And I shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth. But…
(1) Same old empty stadiums. You mean to tell me that in the nation that gave us P.T. Barnum, in the football-mad state of Texas, in an area the size of the Dallas-Fort Worth “Metroplex,” they couldn’t find a way to persuade 30,000-some people to sit in all those empty seats and watch a football game? Yes, yes, I know - it’s all about the eyeballs watching the tube. But the optics are horrible, and their meaning is unavoidable: if the people in that area don’t care, what makes it important enough for me to watch on my television?
(2) Same tasteless, goony-looking home uniforms that looked like they were designed by people with no sense of color (Michigan still wearing jerseys the color of red wine stain and pants the color of pus), who’d never seen real football teams play a real football game. (Maybe because they were made in China?) And Houston’s silly helmets haven’t changed - they look like the team owner’s three kids gave up fighting over whether to paint them red, white or blue and just decided to compromise with a section all their own.
(3) No more FSN or CBSSN or ESPNNews. You know you’re in the big-time when you’re on ESPN and Fox, which everybody knows by now means that their double-header scheduling always allows the first game to go too long and cut into the start of the second game.
(4) Did I say “pure?” Now, instead of boring us with heartwarming stories about this guy’s home life or giving us updates on that guy’s injury, they bore us with the up-to-the-moment odds of either team winning, and how the over/under’s looking.
(5) With the US Army a main sponsor, we see plenty of in-game interviews with currently-serving Army personnel, always saying good-bye to them with the mandatory “thank you for your service.”
(6) Although there were no kickoffs into the end zone, the kickoffs were still boring.
(7) Not that we have any reason to expect top-of-the-line broadcast talent on spring football games, but one color guy, Devin Gardner, must have thought he was being paid by the word. Wouldn’t think of taking just a few words to explain something simple when several sentences would do.
(8) Sorry, but The Rock doesn’t do a damn thing for me. Neither does that ex-wife of his. If their involvement is so special, why can’t they figure out a way to sell their damn product?
(9) The League (The UFL) has an app, but I defy you to go on there and find the scores of the weekend’s games.
(10) I did see one thing I hadn’t seen before: with :08 remaining in the Michigan-St. Louis game, Michigan’s kicker, a guy named Jake Bates, who hadn’t kicked in a game since he was in high school - in 2016, made a 64-yard field goal to win the game. But wait - St. Louis had called one of those bogus timeouts just before the ball was snapped, so the kick didn’t count. Oh, well. After the time out, he simply kicked a second 64-yarder, and this one counted.
Random observations: almost every team seems to have a decent quarterback. I was most impressed with Matt Corral, of Birmingham. The former Ole Miss QB looked really sharp. E.J. Perry, of Michigan, can run pretty well, but his passing is suspect.
The teams all seem to have good head coaches.
There is some really unseemly behavior that they’d better jump on fast. A San Antonio defensive back was called for taunting after seeming to go quite a bit overboard in celebrating an injury to the DC quarterback as he lay on the ground motionless; and on another play, an offensive lineman from D.C. was ejected for spitting. To add insult to injury, replay revealed that he was also guilty of a false start on the same play.
The announcers didn’t elaborate at the time, but it appeared that a penalty that occurred inside the 15 was marched off to the two-yard-line, and not just half the distance. If this is so, it pleases me, because I’ve long felt that penalties shouldn’t be mitigated simply because they occur close to the goal line. If it’s a major penalty and it occurs to the defense on, say, the nine-yard-line, put that sumbitch on the one.
SATURDAY
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS 27, ARLINGTON RENEGADES 14
MICHIGAN PANTHERS 18, ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS 16
SUNDAY
SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS 27, D.C. DEFENDERS 12
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS 18, HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS 12
Not to be a hypocrite, but I do have to cater to the hard-core gamblers on this site:
The “OVER” bettors lost on all of the games. The Birmingham-Arlington game was the only one that was even close.
And St. Louis was the only favorite that failed to cover.
*********** I can’t say I have a serious rooting interest in any of the teams in the Final Four, so I’m not going to be disappointed no matter who wins it.
I like NC State - I REALLY like DJ Burns. And I appreciate the loyalty of the Wolfpack fans, who spend most of their lives in the shadow of nearby UNC and Duke.
I like Purdue because they’re not glamorous, and - at least in football - they’re often seen as one of the Big Ten’s have-nots. (But I sure do wish that Zach Edey would keep his mouth shut about settling scores with all the people who didn’t recruit him.)
I like Alabama because it’s their first time in the Final Four and they play a fast, up-tempo game. And I like that skinny white kid, Grant Nelson, from Devils Lake, North Dakota.
I like UConn. First of all, I went to college in Connecticut, and our son was born there. A cousin of mine was a professor at UConn. I like the fact that they are very good at both men’s and women’s basketball. I like Danny Hurley. And I like their big guy, Donovan Clingan, a local kid from Bristol, Connecticut.
*********** Can the people running our country really be so f—king stupid that they haven’t realized that to handle the demands of electric cars - and on top of that, AI - they’re going to need to generate, and then transmit, an awfully lot of electricity?
From The Wall Street Journal, March 25
Former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz said the size of new and proposed data centers to power AI has some utilities stumped as to how they are going to bring enough generation capacity online at a time when wind and solar farms are becoming more challenging to build.
He said that utilities will have to lean more heavily on natural gas, coal and nuclear plants, and perhaps support the construction of new gas plants to help meet spikes in demand.
*********** And you thought all trainers had to do was tape ankles.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Anticipation bubbled over inside MVP Arena as the first NCAA Women's Sweet 16 game tipped off between No. 3 Oregon State and No. 2 Notre Dame. However, there was a stoppage 32 seconds into the game to fix a shot clock issue. Another clock review in the dying seconds of the first quarter came when Notre Dame freshman Hannah Hidalgo committed an undisciplined body foul with less than a second left.
Hidalgo wouldn't been seen on the court again until the 5:51 mark of the second quarter. That was because her training staff was using what appeared to be pliers to remove her nose ring. Before the start of the second quarter, Hidalgo had a small piece of tape covering her nose ring.
Apparently the young woman had been allowed to wear the jewelry all season. If so, shame on the lazy refs.
After the game, the NCAA explained why Hidalgo was required to leave the game:
"Head decorations, head wear, helmets, and jewelry are illegal," the statement read. " ... At the first dead ball, [the player] shall be required to remove the jewelry immediately or be required to leave the game and not return until after removing the jewelry. [The player] cannot 'buy' the right to wear the jewelry by being charged with a technical foul."
Ms. Hidalgo was unrepentant. ”Next season,” she said, “I'm going to play with it still until they tell me to take it out.”
As the trainers stand by, pliers in hand…
https://www.cbssports.com/womens-college-basketball/news/hannah-hidalgo-nose-ring-controversy-notre-dame-coach-freshman-speak-out-after-forced-removal-of-jewelry/
*********** I’m seeing stuff in Facebook advertising organized flag football in our area - leagues for grades 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, all being promoted not by any of the local Pop Warner people, but by something called Next Level Sports.
I couldn’t find out anything about them locally, so I did some searching. Turns out they’re out of California, and damned if they’re not starting several leagues in the Portland area.
Further investigation shows that they’re doing this EVERYWHERE.
Okay - who’s behind them?
Who’s funding an operation of this size?
Why isn’t the NFL in on it?
(Or is it?)
*********** Women’s college basketball, driven not only by the enormous popularity of Caitlin Clark but also by a number of slightly lesser-known (but no less able) stars is growing in fan interest.
The question in my mind is, will this eventually translate into increased interest in the WNBA?
Or - will the WNBA’s reputation for lesbianism put a damper on it?
*********** Found this on the WFL Facebook page, posted there by longtime WFL fan Richie Franklin. Quite a collection of guys, all with impressive resumes.
*********** On the 20th anniversary of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” Mark Steyn writes…
In this environment, if Jesus came back today he'd most likely be a gay Anglican bishop in a committed relationship driving around in a hybrid with an "Arms Are For Hugging" sticker on the way to an interfaith dialogue with a Wiccan and a couple of Wahhabi imams. If that's your boy, Mel Gibson's movie is not for you.
Instead of Jesus the wimp, Mel gives us Jesus the Redeemer. He died for our sins – ie, the "violent end" is the critical bit, not just an unfortunate misunderstanding cruelly cutting short a promising career in gentle teaching. The followers of Wimp Jesus seem to believe He died to license our sins – Jesus loves us for who we are so whatever's your bag is cool with Him.
Strictly as a commercial proposition, Wimp Jesus is a loser: the churches who go down that path are emptying out and dying. Those who believe in Christ the Redeemer are, comparatively, booming, and in 2004 Mel Gibson made a movie for them. If Hollywood was as savvy as it thinks it is, it would have beaten him to it. But it isn't so it didn't. And as most studio execs had never seen an evangelical Christian except in films where they turn out to be pedophiles or serial killers, it's no wonder they were baffled by The Passion's success.
https://www.steynonline.com/14170/the-passion-of-the-christ
*********** Michael Penix (sorry - until his father does something to make him famous, I refuse to pretend that “Junior” is part of his last name) answered a couple of questions at Washington’s pro day:
(1) Speed? He ran a 40 somewhere “between 4.46 and 4.53”
(2) Arm strength? HIs last pass went 75 yards in the air and on the money
His accuracy and judgement have never been in question
The only thing that remains is his durability. Negative?: Never completed a season at Indiana. Positive?: Finished the last two seasons at Washington without serious injury.
*********** From John Canzano:
Q: The ACC seems to be on the verge of collapse, even as Cal and Stanford have yet to play a conference game. Does this revive hope of a Pac-4 reconstituting the conference? A merger with the Mountain West? Or would Cal and Stanford be more appealing to the Big 12 or even the SEC, leaving OSU and WSU out in the cold again?
A: Oregon State and Washington State would welcome Stanford and Cal back with open arms if they had the chance. The Big Ten might be into adding Stanford and Cal, but its appetite for expansion may be tapped out.
There are some huge systemic issues that surface should the Grant of Rights of the ACC be broken. It would essentially mean that none of the contracts between the conferences, schools, and television partners would hold up. As one commissioner told me last week: “If the lawsuits prevail, it hurts all leagues as it may make our bylaws moot.”
*********** It’s hard to believe that Jimmy Johnson hasn’t coached since 1999.
At the time, he told USA Today's Gordon Forbes why he was hanging ‘em up: free agency, he said, and what it had done to players’ attitudes.
”One thing free agency has done is dilute the loyalty of fans and players. I had players that played for me in college that (in the pros) held out and missed games. And all the injury grievances when you knew the players were not hurt. It's just a shame. There were real quality people who came up as free agents. All of a sudden, they sign huge contracts, and just go to crap. You don't see the same effort. You don't see the same hunger, even with borderline players.”
He was talking about pros. How could any know then that soon enough the day would come when college players would “opt out” of their teams’ games?
*********** One of the things that Homer Smith shared with me was a photocopy of what he titled “HISTORY OF FOOTBALL CONCEPTS.” I don’t think it has ever been published.
I wrote his daughter, Kim Smith Hall, whom I’d dealt with in the past, to ask for her permission to reprint it here, and she very graciously gave it. She did say that while she no longer “actively” sells her dad’s manuals, she would be glad to put together a set for anyone interested in purchasing.
If anyone is interested, her email address is kimhall@mindspring.com
In the meantime, below are the next four pages of Coach Homer Smith’s work.
*********** I winced at the video of the tackling drills in the wrestling room. It also got my attention that some of those boys didn’t have shirts on. No wrestling coach worth his salt would allow that. Impetigo can shut down an entire team. We also rarely tackle without a pad between us and never to the ground.
Your quote from the Ohio St. wrestling coach was similar to something I wrote about last week on parent criticism. If you have a few moments to take a look, I would love to hear what you think.
Tom Walls
Winnipeg, Manitoba
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomaswalls/p/criticisms?r=34ncxk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
*********** I love any page where you figure a way to mention the Bootlegger's Boy. Another great page, beginning with the Great Lion, Sir Winston. The fight he described as necessary in his time is no less called for today. There will be no substitute for victory...well, that's untrue, there will be, and it will be indescribably ugly for our descendants.
Francis Scott Key, the bridge, and more. The drive has already begun to abolish our National Anthem. This is the chance they've been looking for. And the City of Baltimore is already counting its windfall from the 'bridge replacement costs'. All the shenanigans about to occur might prompt another five seasons of The Wire.
During 7 1/2 years in the Balkans, I got introduced to the works of Croatia's Nobel laureate novelist, Ivo Andric. I found a passage I had marked in one of his books. It concerns bridges:
From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living, nothing in my eyes is better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. -Ivo Andric, novelist, Nobel laureate (9 Oct 1892-1975)
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
It’s guys like Mark Smith who lead folks to believe that football coaches are Neanderthals, and have given our sport a permanent black eye. No wonder our participation numbers are dwindling.
Thanks for nothing Mr. Smith!
I used your Safer and Surer Tackling DVD for years. My players were better tacklers for it, and always looked forward to the pancake drill.
Re: The FSK Bridge. There have been efforts in some small rural Texas towns to rename buildings or remove statues, or even change the names of the towns. To no avail. The buildings still have the same names, and the statues still stand, and the towns are still called what they’ve been called for years. What has changed is the folks who called for those changes no longer live in those towns. They now live Austin.
Re: Homer Smith’s Concepts. A number of schools still employ the single wing offense, or derivatives of it (shotgun DW for example), and very successfully! Don’t see the old ND Box anymore, BUT…what if?
Enjoy the UFL opening weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ: Jack Mitchell grew up in Arkansas City, Kansas, where he played football, basketball and tennis in high school.
He started out at Texas, recruited there by legendary Longhorns coach Dana X. Bible, but he entered the military during World War II, and after the war he was lured to Oklahoma by then-coach Jim Tatum, who suggested that he at least turn out for spring practice.
Thinking that he’d try spring practice at both OU and Texas before deciding where to go, he agreed.
Although more than 300 players showed up for OU spring ball, he made the team after being switched from halfback to quarterback by backfield coach Bud Wilkinson - who told him that in OU’s split-T offense, the quarterback did more of the running. It sounded good to him. “I never made it back to Texas,” he said later.
When Tatum left for Maryland after one year, Wilkinson succeeded him as head coach.
Mitchell became the first of a long string of great Oklahoma split-T quarterbacks. In his senior year he was Oklahoma’s first All-American quarterback, on what Wilkinson called "the first good team we had here."
In his final game, a 14-6 Sugar Bowl win over North Carolina, he was named the Player of the Game.
(His successor at QB for the Sooners was a young fellow from Hollis, Oklahoma named Darrell Royal.)
After a year as head coach at Blackwell, Oklahoma High School, he served as an assistant at Tulsa and then at Texas Tech before being hired as head coach at Wichita State.
In two years there he went 4-4-1 and then 9-1, and that was enough to interest the people at Arkansas when Bowden Wyatt left there for Tennessee.
One of the players he recruited to Arkansas was Barry Switzer.
I hadn't signed with Arkansas when Bowden (Wyatt) left, so I didn't know if I really had a scholarship. But Jack Mitchell, a flamboyant kind of guy, took Bowden's place and sent George Cole down to Crossett to see me. George, a great player and assistant coach who later became athletic Director at Arkansas, took me out to the Wagon Wheel café. After we ate our chicken-fried steak, he gave me his recruiting speech: "I'll tell you what, son. I'm going to give you a bed to sleep in and a plate to eat off of, and as long as you make your bed and behave yourself, I won't break your plate. "
He did a decent job at Arkansas - going 17-12-1 in three years - and wound up being hired by Kansas. (He was succeeded at Arkansas by Frank Broyles.)
Kansas isn’t an easy place to win at now, and it wasn’t then, but he managed to recruit some outstanding players - John Hadl, Bert Coan, Curtis McClinton, Gayle Sayers - and from 1960 through 1961 Kansas had a nice run in which the Jayhawks were 20-8-3.
His 1961 team defeated Rice in the Bluebonnet Bowl. It would turn out to be Kansas’ last bowl win until 1992.
A pair of two-win seasons in 1965 and 1966 cost him the Kansas job,
Overall, he was 44-42-5 in nine seasons at Kansas.
In Big Eight conference play he was 29-28-4. Only one other Kansas coach since World War I has left Kansas with a winning conference record - and that was famed basketball coach Phog Allen, who was 3-2 in 1920, his only season as a football coach.
He never coached again. For 20 years he was publisher of the Daily News of Wellington, Kansas.
In Dave Camerer's "Winning Football Plays" (1962), the author writes that when Mitchell was an assistant at Texas Tech, he had promised scholarships to 12 kids in his recruiting area, then learned that because of budget considerations Tech had to cut his scholarships back to six. Mitchell got on the phone to deliver the bad news - but then continued to work the phone until he'd managed to place those six disappointed kids in good programs. "Sure, it took him days," Camerer wrote, "but he stuck with that phone until that twelfth boy was taken care of."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JACK MITCHELL
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was a Baton Rouge high school star in football and track. He was highly recruited, but he was evidently no angel, and according to legend he wound up at LSU at the “urging” of a juvenile judge.
He was one of the very first premier football players to lift weights seriously. By the time he was a sophomore and eligible to play varsity ball, he was 6-foot-1, 200 and he could bench press 270 pounds - just 10 pounds off the Olympic record at the time. He ran a 9.4 100-yard dash, and put the 16-pound shot 55 feet.
Called alternately "The World's Strongest Sprinter" and "The World's Fastest Shot-putter, “ as halfback in Coach Paul Dietzel’s Delaware Wing-T offense, he led LSU to its first national title.
One of the most famous plays in college football history was his long, electrifying fourth-quarter punt return that gave LSU a 7-3 win over arch-rival Ole Miss on Hallowe'en night.
He is still considered by many the top be best football player ever to play for LSU, and was their first Heisman Trophy winner ( until Joe Burrow won in in 2019, he was the only Tiger to win it). He was just the second player from the SEC to win the Heisman. (Georgia’s Frank Sinkwich was the first.)
He was at the the center of a contentious bidding war between the AFL and the NFL, and his signing with the Houston Oilers - after first seeming to have signed with the Los Angeles Rams - was a major coup for the new league. He enjoyed a successful pro career, first as a runner, then as a tight end.
As a rookie, he was named MVP of the AFL’s first championship game, won by the Oilers. In all, he played on three AFL championship teams, and was twice named MVP of the title game.
He was twice named First Team All-AFL and twice named Second Team.
He was a running back for four years with the Oilers and one year with the Raiders after being traded to Oakland, but in 1965 Al Davis converted him to the relatively new position of tight end, and he became one of the best in the business.
In his career, he rushed for 2,455 yards and 17 touchdowns, and he caught 236 passes for 3,656 yards and 47 touchdowns.
He had studied dentistry on the off-season, and practiced dentistry after retiring from pro football.
He had some ups and downs in later life, including a serious scrape with the law that resulted in his two and a half years in prison.
In the eyes of most LSU people, he more than redeemed himself by serving for years after that as a dentist at the State Penitentiary.
He is a member of the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and the College Football Hall of Fame, and his number 20 was retired by LSU.
(Ironically, the other two running backs on LSU’s national championship team - fullback Jim Taylor and wingback Johnny Robinson - are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and he’s not.)
FRIDAY,
MARCH 29, 2024 “You
ask what is our aim. I can answer in one word. Victory. Victory at all
costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory no matter how long and
hard the road may be. For without victory there is no survival.”
Winston Churchill, 1940HAPPY EASTER: “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain” 1ST CORINTHIANS 15:17
*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude. Mike said that in the words of his boss Dave Nelson (credited with inventing the Delaware Wing-T), “This offense represents 80 per cent single wing and 20 per cent T.”
*********** FOOTBALL! THIS WEEKEND!
(QBS IN PARENTHESES)
SATURDAY, 1 PM ET (FOX)
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (MATT CORRAL, ADRIAN MARTINEZ) AT ARLINGTON RENEGADES (LUIS PEREZ)
SATURDAY, 4 PM ET (FOX)
ST LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (AJ MCCARRON, BRANDON SILVERS) AT MICHIGAN PANTHERS (DANNY ETLING, BRIAN LEWERKE)
SUNDAY 12 NOON ET (ESPN)
D.C. DEFENDERS (DEONDRE FRANCOIS, JORDAN TA’AMU) AT SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (TOM FLACCO, CHASE GARBERS)
SUNDAY 3 PM ET (ESPN)
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (CASE COOKUS, JOSH LOVE) AT HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (JARRETT GUARANTANO)
************ Shelton, Washington, about two hours to the north of where I live, is looking for a new head coach. Seems that the former head coach, a local guy who’d won a state title in Arizona then returned to his home town, conducted what appear to be tackling drills in a PE class.
The state of Washington is pretty strict about what forms of out-of-season practice are permissible, and God only knows what would prompt an experienced head coach to think that he could get away with “practicing tackling” in a PE class.
But as if cheating wasn’t bad enough - evidently some kids were injured as a result.
SHELTON, Wash. — The Shelton School District accepted the resignation of high school head football coach Mark Smith during Tuesday’s regularly scheduled school board meeting.
Coach Smith is one of the people at the center of controversary after he supervised a tackling drill during PE back in January and none of the students were wearing pads. Several students sustained some pretty significant injuries, including concussions and dislocated fingers.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/shelton-high-head-football-coach-out-job-after-tackling-drill-injures-several-students/A7VLDSZJFVHD5PX2HMDLIOLSXU/
SHELTON, Wash. — The Shelton School Board has accepted the resignation of the Shelton High head football coach months after an unsanctioned drill left several students with serious injuries.
Shelton High School parents and an attorney said in a span of 30 minutes during a surprise drill on Jan. 31, at least five students were injured.
They said football coaches came into a weightlifting class and took the students to a wrestling room to practice a new tackling drill without pads or helmets.
"I was trusting my coach and as it kept going it got worse and worse and more aggressive and I thought it was unsafe," said Masyn Gard, a player at Shelton High School.
"I saw someone get their head slammed into a wall and then after that my finger got dislocated. The doctor told me the bones were shaved together and it could not work the same for rest of my life," said Marshall Gard, who also plays football at Shelton High School.
Some players suffered serious head injuries like 15-year-old Jackson Leth, who said he's recovering from a concussion.
"Coach told the other players no one was tackling me and they needed to do better. I was running to the other wall and got off a tackle from another kid and another kid grabbed from the back and picked me over his head and slammed me on my head," said Jackson Leth.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/shelton-high-school-football-coach-resigns/281-0511f9b9-7ed1-4e32-990c-953641e73c32
I saw the video and I couldn’t believe my eyes - there were kids, in shorts and tee-shirts. in a wrestling room, practicing what looked like full-speed tackling - with the apparent object of taking a “runner” to the ground.
I’m going to go on record right now: even in season, even with pads - it’s dangerous and unproductive and unnecessary to take players to the ground when practicing tackling. If you’ve been doing it - it’s time to stop.
Not since the 1980s have I run any tackling drill in which the object was to take the runner to the ground, and I bet I can teach how to tackle at least as well as anyone who’s still doing that. And if anyone doubts that that’s the way I’ve taught tackling, It wouldn’t take me long to round up a couple of dozen former players - some of them now in their 50s - who will attest to having heard Old Coach Wyatt chew some serious ass after someone took a runner to the ground in a drill.
(1) It’s dangerous; (2) It’s not necessary.
In my “Safer and Surer Tackling” DVD, which I introduced in 1999 (and which is currently undergoing an update), I’ve shown how players can be taught sound tackling without even wearing pads. Also, how they can be taught safely. Experience with my own players and with those at various camps have proven the worth of the method.
Amazingly, after being taught - and practicing - the basics of our form tackle, without having incurred the risk of practice injuries that come from taking a man down, our players are absolutely effective, hard tacklers in game condition
(Okay. True confession. There is ONE drill I like - the “pancake drill” - in which the tackler drives the runner to the “ground,” which in this one case is a port-a-pit, or a number of large dummies arranged to provide a soft landing. As with most high-speed collisions in our drills, the “runner” holds a hand-held shield so that players can hit at full speed, holding nothing back, and still minimize the chance of injury. Actually, this drill’s main purpose is not to teach tackling, but mostly to let the experienced kids have some good clean fun, and to help the less experienced kids overcome fear of contact.)
*********** Joe Lieberman was four years behind me at Yale. The son of a Jewish liquor store owner, he was the first in his family to graduate from college. He graduated from law school, went on to be elected US Senator from Connecticut, and ran for Vice-President with Al (gag me) Gore as President.
Now that he’s gone, I can’t think offhand of any Democratic politicians that I’d call 9-1-1 for if I noticed they were on fire. But I really did respect Joe Lieberman as a man of intelligence and good manners who seemed actually to put his country ahead of his tribe - er, party.
Rest in Peace, Joe.
*********** Sent me by Greg Koenig (story originally attributed to someone online called “The Green Bay Guy”)
During a practice in 1960, a steel coaching tower, weighing around 1000 pounds, blew over and fell on top of Ray Nitschke. The tower had a bolt sticking out that pierced Ray’s helmet.
Coach Lombardi rushed over to see what happened. Upon realizing that it fell on Nitschke, he proclaimed, "He'll be fine. Get back to work!”
*********** Bridgegate?
From Business Insider: In an emailed statement to BI, a Danish engineering and architecture consultancy called COWI said that bridges are not usually designed to withstand a direct impact from a ship.
Instead, engineers would create structures near the bridge supports that a ship would hit first, absorbing the impact.
They’re talking about fenders, or bundles of pilings driven into the sea floor, called breasting dolphins.
*********** Now that we’ve seen the real cost of foregoing the use of tugs to get ships out of the Baltimore Harbor and past the Francis Scott Key Bridge… was it worth the savings?
*********** Apart from the tragic loss of life, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge is going to have three major effects, two of them long-lasting.
First is the effect on the local economy Baltimore is a major port city and until the harbor entrance can be cleared of all the wreckage, the local economy is really going to suffer.
Then there is the effect on road transportation. There are two tunnels under the Baltimore Harbor that allow north-south travelers to avoid city traffic. But hazmat cargoes aren't permitted through them, so now with the bridge gone, in order to bypass Baltimore traffic, hazmat trucks will have to swing north around the city on the beltway, meaning an additional 30 or so miles of travel, while contributing to huge traffic congestion. With the prospects of a replacement bridge maybe ten years away, life in the Baltimore area is going to become very difficult for a very long time.
And, finally, there is the loss of confidence in… everything. The loss of a bridge seems of a piece with a growing lack of overall governmental competence.
*********** One thing we know for sure… The “Francis Scott Key” Bridge is gone forever.
Maybe its replacement will be the Frederick Douglass Bridge. Or the Harriet Tubman Bridge. (They were both Marylanders.) Or the Beau Biden Bridge (didn’t he die in a bridge collapse?). Or even, since it’ll take years to complete - the Joseph Biden Bridge, in honor of a president who said he used to ride trains over the old one (which, someone should have told him, was so steep no locomotive in the world could have climbed it).
But since it’s no longer possible to see any good in anyone who ever owned slaves - er. “enslaved people” - there’s no chance that any replacement bridge will be named for Francis Scott Key.
*********** Who to believe?
The Biden who tells us, shortly after the demolition of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, that it was not an act of terrorism?
Or the Biden who tells us that he’d been over the FSK Bridge many times - on a train?
*********** While browsing through Barry Switzer’s autobiography, “Bootlegger’s Boy,” I came across this description of Earl Campbell...
In high school at Tyler, Texas, Earl was just totally unfair to the opposition. He was a man playing against children. In high school Earl was 220 pounds and ran a 4.5 40. He would take the football and move the whole pile of players down the field with him. It was awesome. It was close to murder. Nobody could tackle him. I think Earl is the only player I have ever seen who could've gone straight from High school into the NFL and become a starter and a star immediately.
*********** We hear a lot about draft busts, and how often the pro scouts miss, but when you see this stat, you have to respect them a little.
Of the current 32 projected NFL starting QBs…
21 were taken in the 1st round of the draft
4 were taken in the 2nd round
2 were taken in the 3rd round
4 were taken in the 4th round
And 1 (drum roll, please) was taken in the 7th round
*********** Ohio State wrestling coach Tom Ryan says that when looking for wrestlers at Ohio State, “I want kids whose mom says ‘it’s always my kid’s fault’ as compared to the one who says ‘It’s never my kid’s fault.’”
*********** The NFL may or may not have managed to minimize the sheer boredom of touchbacks on kickoffs. We’ll see.
But in making the surprise onside kick a relic of the past, it has removed a very rare but extremely exciting bit of strategy.
*********** Back in December the NFL said that it would only play on Christmas if Christmas happened to fall on “an NFL day.”
This year, Christmas falls on a Wednesday.
But in a world in which men can identify as women, Wednesday now identifies as an NFL day, so the NFL will play two games on Christmas.
I think I know why.
This past Christmas’ Chiefs-Raiders game drew 29.2 million viewers.
The NBA, which used to own Christmas Day, could draw no better than 5.1 million viewers to its top-rated Christmas Day game (Lakers-Celtics).
*********** One of the things that Homer Smith shared with me was a photocopy of what he titled “HISTORY OF FOOTBALL CONCEPTS.” I don’t think it has ever been published.
I wrote his daughter, Kim Smith Hall, whom I’d dealt with in the past, to ask for her permission to reprint it here, and she very graciously gave it. She did say that while she no longer “actively” sells her dad’s manuals, she would be glad to put together a set for anyone interested in purchasing. She said I should feel free to say that if any of you were to email her, she would “certainly respond.”
If anyone is interested, her email address is kimhall@mindspring.com
In the meantime, below are the first four pages of Coach Homer Smith’s work. I guarantee you that there’s stuff in here that you didn’t know, and stuff that will make you look at things you thought you knew - in a different light.
*********** As you pointed out, you've shown the Walter Camp stat at least twice. You're clearly trying to use it to cover your own eight years at Yale. Don't be embarrassed. Think of it as your having had time to learn twice as much.
Many years ago I was near Philly and watched the Mummers Parade on tv. I don't recall anything controversial. If the Wikipedia is correct, though, a lot of what went on was objectionable.
Warren Buffet's offer of one billion dollars to the person who produced a perfect NCAA BB bracket still stands. I'm making plans now to fly to Omaha to pick up my money. At the same time, there's been so much about this year's tourney to dislike, including the worst officiating imaginable. And most of those obvious officiating errors were never corrected.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
No way they would have kept me around for eight years.
In June, 1960 (“ANNO DOMINI MDCCCCLX”) - in return for my pledge to leave and never return - I received a Yale diploma. I was disappointed that it took me all of FOUR YEARS to convince them it was a good deal for them.
*********** Hugh,
Auburn’s a football school. San Diego State is a basketball school. Yale is…well…Yale.
Greg Sankey is the commissioner of the SEC…frankly…after the performances of their men’s “basketball” schools the SEC women’s basketball teams fill that void.
Otherwise Sankey is the commissioner of a football conference, with the possible exception of Vanderbilt.
In football broadcasting Beth Mowins drives me crazy. Especially since she seems to do almost every Minnesota game.
At least the Iggles still have their own song! What happened to “Hail to the Redskins??” Hello??
What will they call law students in the state of Washington who practice law??
“Lawyers??” What will they call obese people in Nashville wearing a badge?? “Cops??” What will they call passengers flying on Southwest Airlines flights?? (What passengers??).
Me thinks the powers that be in college football are sending Notre Dame a very loud message.
The “hip-drop” tackle. Is that the result of the NFL’s “hawk tackling” approach to “safer” football that has now lost its luster due to the atrocious tackling found at all levels of the game??
QUIZ: Otto Graham (now there’s a boy’s first name you don’t see much anymore).
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Actually, the bit about Southwest was made up. It was the only one. The worst part is that considering what’s happening in this country, it’s so believable!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Otto Graham first began playing pro football in 1946, following World War II, and was one of the first of what could be called “modern-day” quarterbacks. He retired in 1955, but he is still considered one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
In five of his ten seasons as a pro football player, he was his league’s MVP - twice in the AAFC, three times in the NFL.
For ten straight years - every one of his ten pro football seasons - he took the Cleveland Browns to their league’s championship game, and won seven of them (four in the AAFC, three in the NFL).
He grew up in Waukegan, Illinois. His parents were both music teachers, and he grew up playing four instruments. He went to Northwestern on a basketball scholarship. and he played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman.
He didn’t play football until his sophomore year when coach Pappy Waldorf saw him playing intramural football and invited him to try out for the team. He looked good in the tryout and Waldorf was able to convince him to play football.
In his first game, a 51-3 win over Kansas State, he returned a punt 90 yards for a touchdown and, playing tailback in the single wing, he passed and ran for two more touchdowns.
A few weeks later, he threw for two touchdowns against Ohio State, giving the Buckeyes their only loss of the season and leaving a permanent impression on Ohio State coach Paul Brown.
With World War II under way and Northwestern’s roster depleted, his junior season was unspectacular. But in his senior year, with a roster fortified with service members assigned to train there, Northwestern was good. And so was he. The Wildcats finished 8-2 and ranked ninth in the national rankings. He was named the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player, was an All-American, and finished third in the Heisman voting.
He also played baseball and basketball. As a junior he was named to The Sporting News All-America basketball team, and as a senior he was a consensus All-America pick.
Having enlisted in the Coast Guard, he was assigned to North Carolina Pre-Flight, where he was approached by Paul Brown, now coaching another service team, with an offer he couldn’t refuse. Brown was contracted to coach a new professional team in a new professional league (the All-American Football Conference) in Cleveland, and he offered our guy a contract calling for $7500 (good money at the time). But since he wouldn’t receive any pay until the team started playing, Brown agreed to pay him $250 a month for the duration of the war. That was an amazing amount of money then, and he remembered saying, at the time, “Where do I sign?”
With the war over, while waiting for the AAFC's first season to start, he played professional basketball for the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League , and in his one season with them, the Royals won the NBL title.
He had an amazing pro football career.
With him as their quarterback, the Browns won 105 games and lost just 17, with 4 ties. In the post-season, their record was 9–3. His 81 per cent career winning percentage remains a record for NFL starting QBs.
He holds the NFL record for career average yards per attempt (8.63).
He attempted 2626 passes and competed 1464 (55.8 per cent) for 23,584 yards and 174 touchdowns.
He threw 135 interceptions.
In addition, he rushed for 882 yards and 44 touchdowns.
In the 1953 season, he took a forearm to the face that required 15 stitches, and Brown, ever the innovator, devised a clear plastic bar that attached to the helmet and protected his quarterback's face.
Paul Brown’s passing attack was really advanced in comparison to what most other football coaches were doing, and he was derided by some for playing what they suggested was a sissified type of offense. After the Browns, in their first game in the NFL, beat the defending NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles, 35-10, Eagles’ coach Greasy Neale said “all he (Brown) does is put the ball in the air.” When the two teams met again, 11 weeks later, the Browns won, 13-7, without throwing a pass. Granted, it was rainy and field was muddy, but Brown was just the sort to do something like this to prove a point.
At a time when most quarterbacks called their plays, he did not, Brown choosing instead to send in plays with his guards - “messenger guards” as they came to be called. In the eyes of some experts, this made him less of a quarterback, but today, with coaches able to communicate with quarterbacks by in-helmet radio (something Brown experimented with in the 1950s), no NFL quarterback calls his own plays.
For all but the last four seasons of his pro career, he wore number 60. In 1952, the NFL required offensive linemen to wear numbers from 50 through 79 to make it easier for officials to identify eligible receivers, and from that point on he wore number 14.
After he retired from playing football in 1955, he coached in the College All-Star Game and became head football coach at the US Coast Guard Academy.
After seven years there, he was hired as head coach of the Washington Redskins in 1966. (He had been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame a year earlier.)
Following three unsuccessful years in Washington, he was let go to make room for Vince Lombardi. He had two years left on a $50,000 a year contract. (Just to put things in perspective.)
He returned to the Coast Guard Academy, and served as athletic director there until his retirement in 1984.
He was the first of only two people to have played on championship teams in two of our four major professional sports. (Gene Conley was the second.)
He is on the NFL’s 1950s All-Decade Team.
He is on the NFL’s 75th Anniversary All-Time Team and its 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2013, Northwestern created an organization in his honor to promote financial support of its athletics programs.
How important was Otto Graham to the Browns? They won back-to-back NFL championships his last two seasons as a player (1954, 1955). They’ve played 68 seasons since then, and in all that time they have only one NFL title (1964) to show for their efforts.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING OTTO GRAHAM
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO - One of the greats - a giant in our game. Did you know that he didn’t want a new jersey when he had to change from 60 to 14?
https://www.si.com/nfl/2014/06/17/nfl-history-in-95-objects-otto-graham-jersey
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS - Now there’s a boy’s name you don’t see much any more!
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA -
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOHN ZELLER - TUSTIN, MICHIGAN - 10 championship games in 10 years - Take that, Aaron Rodgers!
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY - Your quiz choice was my favorite Cleveland Brown player as a boy.
If I was home I would send you some of framed pictures of him and other Brown favorites that I collected. I have one picture that has six Cleveland hall of famers in one picture.
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** Talk about football innovators…
There was Art Michalic - the guy whose hit on Otto Graham resulted in his wearing a facemask…
https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/art-michalik-whose-hit-led-otto-graham-to-wear-a-facemask-dies-at-91
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Arkansas City, Kansas, where he played football, basketball and tennis in high school.
He started out at Texas, recruited there by legendary Longhorns coach Dana X. Bible, but he entered the military during World War II, and after the war he was lured to Oklahoma by then-coach Jim Tatum, who suggested that he at least turn out for spring practice.
Thinking that he’d try spring practice at both OU and Texas before deciding where to go, he agreed.
Although more than 300 players showed up for OU spring ball, he made the team after being switched from halfback to quarterback by backfield coach Bud Wilkinson - who told him that in OU’s split-T offense, the quarterback did more of the running. It sounded good to him. “I never made it back to Texas,” he said later.
When Tatum left for Maryland after one year, Wilkinson succeeded him as head coach.
He became the first of a long string of great Oklahoma split-T quarterbacks. In his senior year he was Oklahoma’s first All-American quarterback, on what Wilkinson called "the first good team we had here."
In his final game, a 14-6 Sugar Bowl win over North Carolina, he was named the Player of the Game.
(His successor at QB for the Sooners was a young fellow from Hollis, Oklahoma named Darrell Royal.)
After a year as head coach at Blackwell, Oklahoma High School, he served as an assistant at Tulsa and then at Texas Tech before being hired as head coach at Wichita State.
In two years there he went 4-4-1 and then 9-1, and that was enough to interest the people at Arkansas when Bowden Wyatt left there for Tennessee.
One of the players he recruited to Arkansas was Barry Switzer.
I hadn't signed with Arkansas when Bowden (Wyatt) left, so I didn't know if I really had a scholarship. But (———) a flamboyant kind of guy, took Bowden's place and sent George Cole down to Crossett to see me. George, a great player and assistant coach who later became athletic Director at Arkansas, took me out to the Wagon Wheel café. After we ate our chicken-fried steak, he gave me his recruiting speech: "I'll tell you what, son. I'm going to give you a bed to sleep in and a plate to eat off of, and as long as you make your bed and behave yourself, I won't break your plate. "
He did a decent job at Arkansas - going 17-12-1 in three years - and wound up being hired by Kansas. (He was succeeded at Arkansas by Frank Broyles.)
Kansas isn’t an easy place to win at now, and it wasn’t then, but he managed to recruit some outstanding players - John Hadl, Bert Coan, Curtis McClinton, Gayle Sayers - and from 1960 through 1961 Kansas had a nice run in which the Jayhawks were 20-8-3.
His 1961 team defeated Rice in the Bluebonnet Bowl. It would turn out to be Kansas’ last bowl win until 1992.
A pair of two-win seasons in 1965 and 1966 cost him the Kansas job,
Overall, he was 44-42-5 in nine seasons at Kansas.
In Big Eight conference play he was 29-28-4. Only one other Kansas coach since World War I has left Kansas with a winning conference record - and that was famed basketball coach Phog Allen, who was 3-2 in 1920, his only season as a football coach.
He never coached again. For 20 years he was publisher of the Daily News of Wellington, Kansas.
In Dave Camerer's "Winning Football Plays" (1962), the author writes that when our guy was an assistant at Texas Tech, he had promised scholarships to 12 kids in his recruiting area, then learned that because of budget considerations Tech had to cut his scholarships back to six. Our guy got on the phone to deliver the bad news - but then continued to work the phone until he'd managed to place those six disappointed kids in good programs. "Sure, it took him days," Camerer wrote, "but he stuck with that phone until that twelfth boy was taken care of."
TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2024 “We
see no Hitlers or Stalins on the horizon, forgetting that our forebears
did not see them either.” Robert Kagan, Wall Street Journal*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude. (Talking about his days as a Wing-T coach) “We never drew our plays up with a defense in it. Our rules took care of it.”
*********** I don’t ordinarily bet on sports, but when I got up last Friday something told me to bet everything I had on Yale to beat Auburn. I had to trick my wife into coming with me to the bank to take out a second mortgage (I told her it was to buy a ranch in Montana, and she was cool with that) but as soon as I dropped her off at home I went for a little ride so I could call Vinny the barber and tell him I wanted to make a large bet on the Yale game. He said, “Football season’s over.” But when I told him that this was basketball, he said, “Who they playin’ - Columbia? Harvard?” When I told him it was Auburn, he said, “Okay. Auburn to beat Yale, right? Money line?” He almost choked when I told him, “No - on Yale. To win. Money line. 200 large.”
And then I woke up.
But it was cool - really cool - to watch those Yalies upset Auburn Friday night. For a brief time it made me forget how Yale (the university) has turned into a leftwing cesspool, and in my mind I drifted back to an earlier, better time.
I really laughed at the fun the guys in the studio - Clark Kellogg, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley - were having with Yale’s unexpected success. Smith really acted as if he wanted Yale to win.
Barkley, an Auburn guy, took the loss pretty well, although he did admit that he’d told a former teammate - Yale alum Chris Dudley - ““No way we losin’ to the smart kids!”
Since then, I’ve heard at least one ex-Yalie say: “It just meant more.”
*********** Maybe Greg Sankey should stick to football.
He’s the SEC Commissioner, and he sort of made a fool of himself before the basketball tournament by suggesting that the NCAA cut back on the automatic bids to champions of smaller conferences.
Oh - and give those spots instead to members of his conference, which “only” got eight spots this year.
And then Oakland (a 14 seed) went out and beat blue blood Kentucky.
And Oregon beat South Carolina.
And Michigan State beat Mississippi State.
And Colorado beat Florida.
And Yale - Yale, for God’s sake - beat Auburn, the SEC tournament champion.
What was that you were saying, Commissioner Sankey?
*********** Women’s basketball has progressed well past the point where it was just UConn and Tennessee and everyone else. Now, there’s more talent, and the talent’s better spread out, so there are lots more good teams.
But there still isn’t enough talent for the sort of parity the men’s tournament enjoys, and in my opinion it’s going to be quite a while before the women’s tournament has anything comparable to a Duquesne over BYU, an Oakland over Kentucky, a Yale over Auburn.
*********** It was painful enough watching San Diego State beat Yale as badly as they did, but what made it even more painful was having to listen to one Lisa Byington do the “play-by-play” or whatever they call that non-stop chatter.
*********** Listening to Tracy Wolfson is like listening to fingernails scraping down a blackboard. (Uh-oh Does anyone remember blackboards?)
*********** AHEM. ANYBODY NOTICE THAT I JUMPED THE GUN ON THE UFL’S OPENING WEEKEND BY A WEEK?
MY WIFE DID. SHE GOT TIRED OF HEARING ME RANT ABOUT THE GAMES NOT BEING ON TV AS PROMISED, AND DECIDED TO DO SOME RESEARCH. (IT WAS SO HELPFUL THAT I’M EVEN CONSIDERING TRYING IT MYSELF.)
ANYHOW… TUNE IN THE UFL THIS WEEKEND. YES, THIS WEEKEND!
(QBS IN PARANTHESES)
SATURDAY, 1 PM ET (FOX)
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (MATT CORRAL, ADRIAN MARTINEZ) AT ARLINGTON RENEGADES (LUIS PEREZ)
SATURDAY, 4 PM ET (FOX)
ST LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (AJ MCCARRON, BRANDON SILVERS) AT MICHIGAN PANTHERS (DANNY ETLING, BRIAN LEWERKE)
SUNDAY 12 NOON ET (ESPN)
D.C. DEFENDERS (DEONDRE FRANCOIS, JORDAN TA’AMU) AT SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (TOM FLACCO, CHASE GARBERS)
SUNDAY 3 PM ET (ESPN)
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (CASE COOKUS, JOSH LOVE) AT HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (JARRETT GUARANTANO)
*********** The story behind the “Fly Eagles Fly” song…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXKEzGgOiXs
On the night before the 2018 Super Bowl, the Philadelphia Orchestra played it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFClAV6JaF8
A bunch of old guys sing it in Pennsylvania Dutch (“Flieg Adler Flieg”)
https://www.youtufly eagles flybe.com/watch?v=TFClAV6JaF8
Two long, truly Philly traditions come together as only they can when “Fly Eagles Fly” is played by Philly string bands.
Nothing is more Philly than the New Year’s Day Mummers’ Parade, and at the heart of the festivities are the uniquely-Philly string bands, often representing neighborhoods and in some cases, ethnicities. I should mention that the Mummer’s Parade from its start was very white, and as the city changed demographically, it lost some of its popularity. It’s still big - as many as a dozen string bands will participate - but it’s nowhere near as big as it once was.
String bands and their distinctive sound are authentically “Philly,” and they’re often seen year-round at area parades and festivals. (And, of course, on the way to Eagles’ games and at pre-game tailgates.)
Notice that when marching, the leader of the band - the captain - will often break into the “Mummers’ strut,” a sort of march-and-dance that’s typical of all string bands.
“Fly Eagles Fly”, Played by the Pennsport String Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8eNhDp-e3Y
By the Uptown String Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPqc8CZZ6wM
By the South Philly String Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouaObGOBlmI
By the Ferko String Band
https://youtu.be/4B_Fmn7OH7s?si=r-NrAsTTNWLpDMHZ
Philly string bands, made up of real, down-to-earth, born-and bred Philly guys (with all that that entails), have never been noted for their political correctness or sensitivity, and as a result the Mummers Parade has been at the center of a fair amount of civic controversy over the years.
This, from Wikipedia:
The parade has been accused of including hate speech, racist, sexist, anti-LGBT, and culturally insensitive costumes, makeup, and images.
The wearing of blackface carried over from minstrel shows in the early 20th century. Growing dissent from civil-rights groups and the objections of the black community led to most clubs phasing out blackface in the early 1960s.
In 1963, one week before the parade, concerned about their image for a nationwide broadcast, the Mummers banned blackface for the parade. Angry Mummers picketed the parade magistrate's home, leading to a reversal of the decision. Concerned about a possible riot, the city called in extra police for the parade. A 1964 city policy officially banned blackface, but some groups have continued to wear blackface into the 21st century over growing protests. However, as of 2017, the use of blackface is extremely uncommon amongst the parade.
In 1985, the South Philadelphia String Band petitioned to use blackface and was denied.
In 1987, Philadelphia mayor Wilson Goode had Mummers photos removed from City Hall because the Mummers appeared to be wearing blackface. Saying the Mummers were not in blackface, a petition resulted in the photos being restored, though not near the mayor's office.
In 1996, half of the string bands reported having female members. The bands' captains, though, made it clear to reporters that they did not want to let women in the bands, but felt they had to, due to declining membership.
In 2003, word spread that Slick Duck Comic Brigade was working on a skit involving priests chasing altar boys. Protests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Diocese of Camden and the Catholic League, and WPHL-TV announcing they would not air the skit led to the group's cancelling of the skit and claiming it was just a prank.
Goodtimers Comic Brigade's 2003 entry highlighted the Mummers' continued use of blackface, skirting of the rules with brown, red, purple and blue makeup and strong references to minstrel shows. Mummers have declared the alternate color choices as a direct protest of the longstanding and frequently flouted ban. The Goodtimers' stand-in for Al Jolson wore dark blue makeup with kinky hair, backed by "a minstrel in blackface on a large poster with 'Gone Yes — Forgotten Never'"
In 2009, B. Love Strutters Brigade referenced the charges of discrimination filed against Joey Vento of Geno's Steaks in the city's Commission on Human Relations. In the skit, "Aliens of an Illegal Kind", Arabs had long beards and turbans, Mexicans wore sombreros, and Asian women were depicted as geishas", The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
In 2013, The Ferko String Band offered "Ferko's Bringing Back the Minstrel Days".
In 2013, Venetian NYA club presented "Indi-sourcing", showing a call center with members dressed as Indians being raided by members dressed as Native Americans and moving the call center to New Jersey.
The 2015 parade again featured blackface, along with a satire of the Black Lives Matter titled "Wench Lives Matter".
In 2016, a group presented a Mexican-themed skit, with all of the performers wearing brownface. Parodies of Black Lives Matter continued.
The same year, Finnegan New Years Brigade performed a Caitlyn Jenner skit showing her pre-transition on the cover of Wheaties box and after transitioning on the cover of a Froot Loops box. A male Mummer, dressed as Jenner, appeared, mocking her Vanity Fair cover announcing she was transgender. News reports showed a Mummer with the Wheaties/Froot Loops sign screaming “f- - k the gays!" Social media posts led to two of the Mummers being fired from their day-to-day jobs and ousted from the club.
In 2020, two Mummers were banned from future parades after wearing blackface. In response, mayor Jim Kenney said the city would end the parade "if Mummers leadership does not make immediate changes to better control the parade". City Councilmember Cindy Bass introduced a bill that Mummers who wore blackface risk a $75 fine and a five-year banishment.
*********** On St. Patrick’s Day, a Philly string band marches down Broad Street playing the Notre Dame Victory March. (Philly is a BIG Notre Dame town.)
https://youtu.be/Y1bAAGBMyLg?si=amrEll-Zs7J4qlBa
*********** I mentioned this before, but just in case someone starts getting obnoxious about some “six-year guy” still playing college ball, it’s only fair to point out that Walter Camp, generally acknowledged as the father of American Football, was a six-year guy - and then some.
I recently came across a list of all the men who’ve ever won a letter at Yale, including the years that they won the letter(s).
Yale’s played football since 1872, so it’s a long, long list, but there it is: Walter Camp, Class of 1880.
I’ll save you the counting. He won SEVEN letters.
************ Which of the following is NOT true:
1. In order to attract more lawyers from “marginalized groups” the Washington State Supreme Court has ordered the state bar association to no longer require passing the bar exam.
2. To enable more females to qualify for the police force, Nashville has proposed doing away with physical testing.
3. To meet the current shortage of airline pilots, Southwest Airlines is considering waiving vision testing.
*********** Lest we get so wrapped up in football that we ignore great accomplishments in other sports…
Penn State just won the Nittany Lions’ third consecutive NCAA wrestling title.
It was their 12th wrestling title ever, and - get this - their 11th since Cael Sanderson became their head coach in 2009. (Their first one came in 1953 - 56 years before Sanderson arrived.)
The Lions had an entrant in every one of the 10 weight classes, and six of those wrestlers made it to the championship round. Penn State finished with an NCAA record 172.5 points (the old record was 170), a full 100 points ahead of the second-place team (Cornell).
Four Nittany Lions wrestlers won individual titles, and two of them - Carter Starocci and Aaron Brooks - became four-time national champions. They joined only five other wrestlers in the history of the college sport (including Coach Cael Sanderson) to have done so.
Brooks, from - ahem - my old hometown of Hagerstown, Maryland, was named the most outstanding wrestler of the tournament.
https://gopsusports.com/sports/wrestling/roster/aaron-brooks/15256
*********** One thing overlooked in the story about the Pac-12’s demise is the power that its departure gave the SEC and Big Ten, the (now) so-called Power 2.
So long as there were five “power” conferences, each with one vote, the SEC and Big Ten couldn’t bully the other three, and as a result, the revenues from the CFP were shared equally among the Power 5.
But with the new contract, the SEC and Big Ten will now receive 58% (29% each) of the revenue that comes into the CFP. The ACC will receive 17.25%, the Big 12 will receive 14.75%, the entire Group of Five will receive 9%, and independent Notre Dame will receive 1%.
*********** I have no comment on this…
Salaries for Alabama’s 2024 football coaching staff.
HC Kalen DeBoer - $10M
DC Kane Wommack - $1.55M
OC Nick Sheridan - $1.35M
WR JaMarcus Shephard - $1.1M
DL Freddie Roach - $1M
DB Maurice Linguist - $875K
OL Chris Kapilovic - $875K
RB Robert Gillespie - $850K
OLB Christian Robinson - $650K
DB Colin Hitschler - $625K
TE Bryan Ellis - $550K
S&C David Ballou - $950K
STC Jay Nunez - $250K
Well, actually, I do have a comment. It looks to me as if they might not be taking special teams as seriously as they should.
*********** Our local newspaper did a review of a recently-opened craft brewery, and based on what I read, I don’t think it’ll be around long.
The owner evidently was a Midwesterner, and, he told the interviewer, “I grew up on Miller Light. There’s something special to me about a fizzy, yellow beer.”
His “signature brew,” according to the reviewer, “gives that classic clear, smooth Miller Light crispness with craft brewery refinement.”
Wow. Yellow and fizzy. Clear, smooth Miller Light crispness. Just what everybody’s looking for in a craft beer.
*********** In the NFL, just 22 percent of kickoffs were returned last season. (For the mathematically challenged, that’s about one in five). And as you read this, the NFL rules guys are dithering on whether to tamper with something rather just do away with it entirely.
But if there’s one thing the rules guys are really good at, it’s making rules that nobody can explain (what, exactly, is a catch?) and this time they’ve come up with a doozy.
You’ve probably never heard of a “swivel hip-drop tackle” before today, but you’re going to hear it a lot from now on. It’s just been outlawed, and it’s going to take up a lot of announcers’ time explaining what exactly it is and why it was called, and it’s going to create a lot of down time at stadiums while it’s reviewed (If, God help us, it’s reviewable.)
Perhaps it really will mean removing one more dangerous tactic from the game, but if that were the real intent, they’d have done something long ago about leading with the head, launching, and hitting defenseless players.
Personally, I suspect the rules interpretation guys back at league headquarters - the ones who always come on whenever the announcers need help with the rules - went out and formed a union, which immediately lobbied to get this rule passed so there’d always be plenty of work for their members.
*********** Jonathan Winters may have said it best:
"Somebody tell the world to stop - or just slow down"
1. This is late. When the "Charley Pell Quiz " came up on the Wyatt Quiz a few weeks ago, , I was in Tampa International Airport waiting to get to Wifey in Michigan. I snagged a ride through a friend who could only get me to TIA by 11:30 the previous night.
Now, there's an entire industry devoted to designing Low-Back Seats that prevent people from sleeping in them and it's now about 5:30 AM-IN THE MORNING and I'm getting grumpy.
Suddenly, a Text comes through from the Nameless Airline through which I booked the flight (Hint: "Frontier"). "All flights cancelled". Massive Blizzard. I managed to get an old family friend to get me. Believe me, there's more to this but no Certificate of Participation this time for Charlie for this week's Wyatt Quiz.
Here is Charley Pell and, as you can see, he is set tighter than a snare drum in a rain storm. Virtually every sentence he utters is spoken with pain and tension. "We want our players to get ahead on their studies..." Sure, Coach. Special Guest appearance: Chris Collinsworth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBc9O3xjc0Q
I was at this game. "Ooohh, My", as a Gator Announcer might say. This was at the Height of the Alabama Wishbone. Florida was in collapse after Doug Dickey and Ken Hatfield left. Soon, Mike Shanahan would come on board.
2. Unbalanced Line: There was a question recently concerning how to best use Unbalanced Formations. There are many smart and sturdy Coaches who are quite happy to march the Split End over to the Tight End Side and be done with it. I do not denigrate these Coaches at all.
All I ask is that you consider moving the Tackle over next to the other Tackle. Doodle ALL PLAYS on paper - especially the Power Plays - and COUNT Defensive Players. Then, consider what hath God wrought:
A. Your Split End (Your Best Receiver) forces their best Defender to cover the field. If the DC uses the Safety (# 2, Outside Inside Count) to help, you are facing a Maximum of 4 Defenders Off-Tackle. With No-Splits and Power Pulls, you "Get there Fustest with the Mostest."
B. The Defensive Shifts to counter the Outnumbered Attack puts 4 Defenders on the Short Side and you need to scheme your Bucks 'n Such to that side. The Half Roll by the QB into the Power Side provides a nice pocket for a Quick Attack against one or two Defenders into open space.
I could go on and on - and have. Let me just say that the Tackle Over Unbalanced is a thing of Beauty.
Thanx, HW,
Charlie Wilson
Brooksville, Florida
*********** I wish every university were headed by a replica of Ana Mari Cauce. Her wife admires her as much as I do. The more I read about this woman, the less I like her. Seems that not far in the future, every college and university in America will have a female head...just because.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Looking forward to the new UFL and the opening weekend.
I really hope OSU and Wazzu can breathe life into a PAC-West affiliation, and come up with a lucrative TV rights contract.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** I knew Homer Smith. Not well, but he and I exchanged correspondence in his later years, and I clearly recall the day he stopped in on one of my clinics. He was living in Tuscaloosa at the time, and I had off-handedly told him that I was going to be doing a clinic in Birmingham and he was more than welcome to attend. (I didn’t have the courage to ask a coach of his stature if he would care to say a few words.) It was midway through the afternoon session when I saw a man come in and take seat in the back, and I knew him immediately. I’d seen him speak at clinics. I also knew of him from when I was a kid and he was the fullback on those great Princeton teams, and I’d followed him over the years.
I have a wealth of materials that he sent me, as well as materials that he’d shared with a former player whom I’d become friends with who then shared them with me. One of the things I find most valuable is a photocopied “HISTORY OF FOOTBALL CONCEPTS.” I don’t think it has ever been published.
I wrote his daughter, Kim Smith Hall, whom I’d dealt with in the past, to ask for her permission to reprint it here, and she very graciously gave it. She did say that while she no longer “actively” sells her dad’s manuals, she would be glad to put together a set for anyone interested in purchasing. She said I should feel free to say that if any of you were to email her, she would “certainly respond.”
So if anyone is interested, her email address is kimhall@mindspring.com
In the meantime, here is the table of contents of the “HISTORY OF FOOTBALL CONCEPTS.” It’s really a good read and it covers stuff that I don’t believe you could find anyplace else. I’m willing to make the effort to scan and print a couple of pages at a time - provided enough people show interest.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Homer Smith was born in Independence, Missouri and grew up in Omaha, where his father was a car dealer. At Princeton, he was a single wing fullback who was twice named All-East. His 273 yards rushing against Harvard was a school record that lasted for nearly 40 years.
After service in the Army, he entered Stanford Business School and while there coached the freshman football team. He wound up spending four years at Stanford,
From 1961-1964 he coached running backs at Air Force, and in 1965 he became head coach at Davidson. After five years there, he moved to University of the Pacific, and after two years at Pacific he went to UCLA as an assistant to Pepper Rodgers.
With him coaching the offensive backfield, the 1973 Bruins, running the wishbone, led the nation in rushing, averaging 400.3 yards a game.
The book on the Wishbone that he and Rodgers co-authored is still considered the ultimate guide to coaching the offense.
That got him the head coaching job at Army. The Vietnam War was still going on, and although his teams showed some improvement - his 1977 team won seven games, including wins over Air force and Navy - he was fired after losing to Navy in 1978.
One good thing came from the time at West Point - his star quarterback, Leamon Hall, would meet and marry his daughter.
From there, he entered Harvard Divinity School, but after finishing the two-year program there, he returned to UCLA, this time as offensive coordinator under Terry Donahue. In his seven seasons there, the Bruins would go 59-12-4.
He spent just one year in the NFL - a season as offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs, then returned to coach college football at Alabama under Bill Curry, then UCLA again (under Donahue), then Alabama again (under Gene Stallings) until finally going to Arizona (under Dick Tomey) where he retired after the 1997 season.
Homer Smith was considered a brilliant offensive mind, and a great quarterbacks coach. At UCLA he coached several QBs who played in the NFL, including Steve Bono, Tommy Maddox, Jay Schroeder and Rick Neuheisel,
And he was a perfectionist. Recalled Leamon Hall, his son-in-law, in a New York Times interview, “He wouldn’t just tell a running back, ‘Go off the butt of the guard’; he’d get down on the ground and point to a blade of grass, and he’d say, ‘Straddle that!’ ”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING HOMER SMITH
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO - What an impact he had on offensive thinking in our game
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS - Has there ever been a more knowledgeable offensive coach in football than Homer Smith?
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS - A former teammate of mine in JC (Ed Kezirian) later played OT for UCLA, and later on became the OL coach under Coach Smith at UCLA when Smith was the OC.
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE BURCHETT - WOODLAKE, CALIFORNIA - His handbook on clock management should be required reading for aspiring football coaches!
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS - When I got into coaching in the early 80’s he was already a legend among many of the older coaches
*********** QUIZ: He first began playing pro football in 1946, following World War II, and was one of the first of what could be called “modern-day” quarterbacks. He retired in 1955, but he is still considered one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
In five of his ten seasons as a pro football player, he was his league’s MVP - twice in the AAFC, three times in the NFL.
For ten straight years - every one of his ten pro football seasons - he took the Cleveland Browns to their league’s championship game, and won seven of them (four in the AAFC, three in the NFL).
He grew up in Waukegan, Illinois. His parents were both music teachers, and he grew up playing four instruments. He went to Northwestern on a basketball scholarship. and he played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman.
He didn’t play football until his sophomore year when coach Pappy Waldorf saw him playing intramural football and invited him to try out for the team. He looked good in the tryout and Waldorf was able to convince him to play football.
In his first game, a 51-3 win over Kansas State, he returned a punt 90 yards for a touchdown and, playing tailback in the single wing, he passed and ran for two more touchdowns.
A few weeks later, he threw for two touchdowns against Ohio State, giving the Buckeyes their only loss of the season and leaving a permanent impression on Ohio State coach Paul Brown.
With World War II under way and Northwestern’s roster depleted, his junior season was unspectacular. But in his senior year, with a roster fortified with service members assigned to train there, Northwestern was good. And so was he. The Wildcats finished 8-2 and ranked ninth in the national rankings. He was named the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player, was an All-American, and finished third in the Heisman voting.
He also played baseball and basketball. As a junior he was named to The Sporting News All-America basketball team, and as a senior he was a consensus All-America pick.
Having enlisted in the Coast Guard, he was assigned to North Carolina Pre-Flight, where he was approached by Paul Brown, now coaching another service team, with an offer he couldn’t refuse. Brown was contracted to coach a new professional team in a new professional league (the All-American Football Conference) in Cleveland, and he offered our guy a contract calling for $7500 (good money at the time). But since he wouldn’t receive any pay until the team started playing, Brown agreed to pay him $250 a month for the duration of the war. That was an amazing amount of money then, and he remembered saying, at the time, “Where do I sign?”
With the war over, while waiting for the AAFC's first season to start, he played professional basketball for the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League , and in his one season with them, the Royals won the NBL title.
He had an amazing pro football career.
With him as their quarterback, the Browns won 105 games and lost just 17, with 4 ties. In the post-season, their record was 9–3. His 81 per cent career winning percentage remains a record for NFL starting QBs.
He holds the NFL record for career average yards per attempt (8.63).
He attempted 2626 passes and competed 1464 (55.8 per cent) for 23,584 yards and 174 touchdowns.
He threw 135 interceptions.
In addition, he rushed for 882 yards and 44 touchdowns.
In the 1953 season, he took a forearm to the face that required 15 stitches, and Brown, ever the innovator, devised a clear plastic bar that attached to the helmet and protected his quarterback's face.
Paul Brown’s passing attack was really advanced in comparison to what most other football coaches were doing, and he was derided by some for playing what they suggested was a sissified type of offense. After the Browns, in their first game in the NFL, beat the defending NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles, 35-10, Eagles’ coach Greasy Neale said “all he (Brown) does is put the ball in the air.” When the two teams met again, 11 weeks later, the Browns won, 13-7, without throwing a pass. Granted, it was rainy and field was muddy, but Brown was just the sort to do something like this to prove a point.
At a time when most quarterbacks called their plays, he did not, Brown choosing instead to send in plays with his guards - “messenger guards” as they came to be called. In the eyes of some experts, this made him less of a quarterback, but today, with coaches able to communicate with quarterbacks by in-helmet radio (something Brown experimented with in the 1950s), no NFL quarterback calls his own plays.
For all but the last four seasons of his pro career, he wore number 60. In 1952, the NFL required offensive linemen to wear numbers from 50 through 79 to make it easier for officials to identify eligible receivers, and from that point he wore number 14.
After he retired from playing football in 1955, he coached in the College All-Star Game and became head football coach at the US Coast Guard Academy.
After seven years there, he was hired as head coach of the Washington Redskins in 1966. (He had been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame a year earlier.)
Following three unsuccessful years in Washington, he was let go to make room for Vince Lombardi. He had two years left on a $50,000 a year contract. (Just to put things in perspective.)
He returned to the Coast Guard Academy, and served as athletic director there until his retirement in 1984.
He was the first of only two people to have played on championship teams in two of our four major professional sports. (Gene Conley was the second.)
He is on the NFL’s 1950s All-Decade Team.
He is on the NFL’s 75th Anniversary All-Time Team and its 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2013, Northwestern created an organization in his honor to promote financial support of its athletics programs.
How important was he to the Browns? They won back-to-back NFL championships his last two seasons as a player (1954, 1955). They’ve played 68 seasons since then, and in all that time they have only one NFL title (1964) to show for their efforts.
FRIDAY,
MARCH 22, 2024 “Crows cluster where
scarecrows fail." Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal*********** Wisdom from Mike Lude. Although Mike made it to the top of college sports, he always remained a football coach at heart. He said that after he’d retired as an AD he’d conduct sessions for young sport administrators who had ambitions to become ADs themselves, and he’d tell them that the best thing they could do to prepare themselves to be ADs was “first be a head football coach.” He thought the job of head football coach at a college gave a person more of the real-life experience of being an AD than any other position in an athletic department.
*********** In less than eight months the University of Washington has…
Cut a backroom deal enabling it to join the Big Ten, essentially dooming the Pac-12 conference…
Lost its athletic director, Jennifer Cohen, to USC…
Hired another athletic director, Troy Dannen, from Tulane…
Lost its football coach, Kalen DeBoer, (after two seasons) to Alabama…
Hired another football coach, Jed Fisch, who has worked at 12 different places since 2000…
Lost its athletic director, Troy Dannen, to Nebraska, after five months on the job…
In short, it’s a time of chaos for a great university that deserved better.
Forget all the nonsense about a lack of commitment and all that old-fogey baloney.
The fish rots from the head down.
The head of the fish is the university president, Ana Mari Cauce. She, more than anyone else, started this mess by bringing down the hatchet on the neck of the Pac-12.
According to the Seattle Times, “Cauce, as chair of the Pac-12’s board for the 2022 academic year, helped lead the search for a deal. But she was, of course, wearing two hats: leader of the Pac-12 and leader of UW.”
And ultimately, while outwardly going through the motions of trying to save the Pac-12, she was covertly selling out the remaining members of the conference by negotiating a deal with the Big Ten.
There are those of us who would call that “double-dealing.”
Should Karma come a'calling.. It’s impossible for me, knowing the role she played in the undoing of the Pac-12, to feel a lot of sympathy for this in-over-her-head former professor of “gender studies.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/college/inside-the-frantic-final-days-of-the-pac-12/
*********** My wife and I spent seven football seasons in Finland. (Their “seasons” went basically from Mid-May to Mid-August.)
Finland is quite far north - we played a couple of games north of the Arctic Circle - so it seldom got really hot during the daytime.
But when it did… whew! Very few buildings were air-conditioned, and because of the severe winters they experience there, windows were few and small. For a few days, it would get rough, reminding me of growing up in Philly before air conditioning.
And then I read that in France, someone had made the decision that this summer, there would be no air conditioning in the Olympic Village. (To save the planet, if you didn’t know.)
I don’t suppose that anyone brought up the matter of the Olympics bigwigs and their private jets.
I have a hard time believing that the athletes, as pampered and spoiled as they are, won’t bitch loudly.
Now, If I were a young guy (and good enough to make it to the Paris Olympics) I would find a way to smuggle a portable air conditioner in my equipment bag, and then I’d plug it in and let the word get out to the ladies that it was a cool 70 degrees in my room. (I would probably have to change that to “20 degrees Celsius” to avoid being misunderstood by most of the women in the village.)
*********** Late in the 2022 season, before any of its teams had yet fired their head coach, the NFL informed its teams that altogether they’d spent $800 million over the past five years just to pay off coaches that they’d fired.
*********** Clemson, like Florida State, would love to get out of the ACC. But they’re locked into the conference by a contract (which we all know they were forced at gunpoint to sign) that requires them to stay in the conference or pay a rather large sum of money (which apparently they weren’t aware of because they didn’t read the large print, much less the fine print) back when they signed (under duress, as mentioned).
If it weren’t for the damage that their leaving would do to the ACC, I’d almost like to see them get their freedom, because I have my doubts that either one of them has a landing spot awaiting it in either the Big Ten or the SEC.
The snooty Big Ten is said to have its eyes on North Carolina and Virginia, two schools that get it into new markets, and bring with them a fair amount of academic prestige (if you can forget for a moment that Carolina once invented imaginary classes designed to keep athletes eligible).
The SEC isn’t at all concerned about academics, but there is the matter of whether it would gain anything by bringing in Clemson, when it’s already got South Carolina, and whether Florida would have the necessary allies to keep out rival FSU.
But here’s the great irony in their trying to break a contract that they both freely entered into: should they succeed in breaking free, will they then turn around and try to put an end to the transfer insanity - by requiring players to sign binding contracts?
*********** And you wondered why most NFL offenses suck?
Not a single NFL offensive coordinator from the 2021 season is in the same position with the same team as he was then.
Which means that on average, every year half of the NFL’s teams are learning a new offense.
*********** Scott Mallien, old friend and longtime reader, has accepted the head coaching position at Southern Door High in Brussels, Wisconsin. (The “Door” refers to Door County, which occupies the Door Peninsula. You’ve probably seen 100 times on maps without knowing you were looking at it. It’s outlined in red here. ) Coach Mallien is not new to the assignment. He teaches at Southern Door and last season he coached the defense. His challenge is the opposite of what most new coaches face: this past season, the Southern Door Eagles were 9-2.
*********** Sick of watching $10 million-a-year NFL players? Getting more disgusted with each new bit of evidence that the people in charge of big-time college football - and the people who coach it and play it - are obsessed with making money to the point where for the right price they’ll sacrifice all the traditions that make our game unique?
F—k ‘em all.
Tune in the UFL this weekend.
UFL players are professionals. They are getting paid for their efforts. But not that much.
Their pay? During training camp, they were paid $850 a week. During the season, active players will get paid $5,500 a week, plus $400 a week for housing and $150 a week 401K contribution. When they go on the road, they’ll receive $55 per diem.
So they’re not getting stinking rich.
Why are they playing, then? Well, just like a lot of college players, some of them think that they have a shot at an NFL roster. But that’s a delusion.
Unless they’re totally delusional, their real reason for playing is the same as once motivated NFL players. And the same one that not so long ago we thought motivated college players: because they love the game.
Me, I can settle for that.
THIS WEEKEND’S SCHEDULES (QBS IN PARENTHESES)
SATURDAY, 1 PM ET (FOX)
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (MATT CORRAL, ADRIAN MARTINEZ) AT ARLINGTON RENEGADES (LUIS PEREZ)
SATURDAY, 4 PM ET (FOX)
ST LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (AJ MCCARRON, BRANDON SILVERS) AT MICHIGAN PANTHERS (DANNY ETLING, BRIAN LEWERKE)
SUNDAY 12 NOON ET (ESPN)
D.C. DEFENDERS (DEONDRE FRANCOIS, JORDAN TA’AMU) AT SAN ANTONIO BRAHMAS (TOM FLACCO, CHASE GARBERS)
SUNDAY 3 PM ET (ESPN)
MEMPHIS SHOWBOATS (CASE COOKUS, JOSH LOVE) AT HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS (JARRETT GUARANTANO)
*********** Among the NFL rules changes being proposed in the league’s winter meetings, the most radical - by far - is a change in the kickoff itself. Here’s a link to a decent explanation by Pat McAfee.
https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/39771964
*********** You still thinking about being a college coach?
Any time you get the urge, say the name “Kadyn Proctor.” Keep saying it until the urge goes away
Kayden Proctor is an Iowa kid, from outside Des Moines.
Back in 2022, he committed to Iowa, but at the last moment he flipped and signed with Alabama.
After starting at left tackle for the Tide this past season, he entered the transfer portal right after the Rose Bowl, and enrolled at Iowa.
But a short time ago, just before the start of spring practice at Iowa, he re-entered the transfer portal, and all indications are that he is returning to Alabama.
My guess is that he wasn’t happy with his advanced calculus course at Iowa and only entered the transfer portal when he was assured that there would be room for him in the course at Alabama.
What’s that I hear you saying, over and over? It sounds like “Kayden Proctor.”
https://www.si.com/college/2024/03/20/kadyn-proctor-transfer-back-alabama-joining-iowa-via-portal-report
*********** “Once you lower standards for hiring administrators or admitting students, you are forced to lower standards for evaluating their conduct and performance. For purposes of window dressing, people who have no business running elite institutions such as Harvard have been put in charge of people who have no business teaching or matriculating there. What could go wrong?” Jason Riley, Wall Street Journal
*********** Hi Coach -
The answer to your quiz is Ted Marchibroda……the brains behind the Buffalo BIlls K-Gun Offense which propelled them to 4 straight Super Bowls (although they lost all 4) in the 90’s.
Thanks, Coach!!
Joe Bremer
West Seneca, New York
*********** For the last three Christmases, I have gotten cards from Coach Lude, and I feel sure one or two might've come from a family member. Nonetheless, I do have a couple of other handwritten letters from him I treasure. Six or eight weeks ago, I had a few minutes to chat with Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale. My only regret is that I didn't fully apprise him of the event that cemented my deep respect for Hillsdale...the moment I learned Coach Milo Lude was a graduate and after WW II coached there. I wrote to the Coach, at the risk of being trite, that God granted him additional years because he had more life coaching to do down here. My association with him was shallow and quite short, but I can say he made an impression. He was a Patriot in the truest and most profound sense. God doesn't need me to tell him how to handle Coach Milo Lude.
You mentioned another person I can recall hearing about for the first time, too. I wanted to know all I could about Terry Baker. For a kid, TB (the original, not Bradshaw or Brady) was a doggoned good example.
Answer = Ted Marchibroda. I'd never noted his physical likeness to John Wooden until now.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
After reading more articles on the life of Mike Lude it became more obvious to me with each article I read the impact Mike had on so many lives, and institutions. A truly remarkable man.
Will there be a replay of that Summit you spoke in available to us?
McFarland HS is also the same school featured in the movie “McFarland, USA” about its cross-country team and coach Jim White.
Rick Stewart is credited with coming up with the Shotgun Wing-T. Or, was he inspired to??
For us DW coaches the entire field is our “red zone.”
Have a good week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
There was a replay of one of my two talks on Tuesday night. You should have received it in the mail today
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Ted Marchibroda came out of Western Pennsylvania and starred at quarterback for St. Bonaventure, a small Catholic school in Western New York State.
He was the first draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, even though they knew he had two years of compulsory military service in front of him, and played in Pittsburgh for one year, before leaving to serve in the Army. He returned to the Steelers in 1955 and played two years for them and then one year with the Chicago Cardinals before retiring.
And then he embarked on a 28-year career as an NFL coach, 12 as an offensive coordinator and 12 as a head coach.
He was head coach of the Baltimore Colts from 1975 through 1979. Inheriting a 2-12 team, his first teams went 10-4 and earned him NFL Coach of the Year honors. His next two teams went 11-3 and 10-4, but working for possibly the worst owner in then history of the game - Bob Irsay - and one of the worst general managers - Joe Thomas - he was fired after five seasons, and it would be 12 years before he got another NFL head coaching job.
His successful stretch in Buffalo as quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator got him another shot with the Colts - this time in Indianapolis.
He went 30-34 in four years and when he was refused a contract extension, he left. For Baltimore again.
This time it was coach of the brand-new Ravens, formerly the Cleveland Browns. He went 16-31 in three years there.
He sure built a heck of a coaching tree: he gave Bill Belichick his first NFL job.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING TED MARCHIBRODA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Independence, Missouri and grew up in Omaha, where his father was a car dealer. At Princeton, he was a single wing fullback who was twice named All-East. His 273 yards rushing against Harvard was a school record that lasted for nearly 40 years.
After service in the Army, he entered Stanford Business School and while there coached the freshman football team. He wound up spending four years at Stanford,
From 1961-1964 he coached running backs at Air Force, and in 1965 he became head coach at Davidson. After five years there, he moved to University of the Pacific, and after two years at Pacific he went to UCLA as an assistant to Pepper Rodgers.
With him coaching the offensive backfield, the 1973 Bruins, running the wishbone, led the nation in rushing, averaging 400.3 yards a game.
The book on the Wishbone that he and Rodgers co-authored is still considered the ultimate guide to coaching the offense.
That got him the head coaching job at Army. The Vietnam War was still going on, and although his teams showed some improvement - his 1977 team won seven games, including wins over Air force and Navy - he was fired after losing to Navy in 1978.
One good thing came from the time at West Point - his star quarterback, Leamon Hall, would meet and marry his daughter.
From there, he entered Harvard Divinity School, but after finishing the two-year program there, he returned to UCLA, this time as offensive coordinator under Terry Donahue. In his seven seasons there, the Bruins would go 59-12-4.
He spent just one year in the NFL - a season as offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs, then returned to coach college football at Alabama under Bill Curry, then UCLA again (under Donahue), then Alabama again (under Gene Stallings) until finally going to Arizona (under Dick Tomey) where he retired after the 1997 season.
He was considered a brilliant offensive mind, and a great quarterbacks coach. At UCLA he coached several QBs who played in the NFL, including Steve Bono, Tommy Maddox, Jay Schroeder and Rick Neuheisel,
And he was a perfectionist. Recalled Leamon Hall, his son-in-law, in a New York Times interview, “He wouldn’t just tell a running back, ‘Go off the butt of the guard’; he’d get down on the ground and point to a blade of grass, and he’d say, ‘Straddle that!’ ”
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2024 “It's
easier to fool people than to convince them that they've been fooled."
Mark Twain
*********** College football lost a
giant last week when Mike Lude passed away. He was 101 (and a
half). That photo is of Mike, as an assistant coach at the University
of Maine. It was 1949. What a career he had:
WW II Marine… Captain of the Hillsdale College football and baseball teams… Head baseball coach - Hillsdale College and U of Maine… Assistant Football Coach - Hillsdale, Maine and U of Delaware… Line Coach and co-inventor of the Delaware Wing-T… Head Coach, Colorado State… Athletics Director, Kent State (gave Don James his first head coaching job, gave Nick Saban his first college coaching job), U of Washington, Auburn University…President of the National Collegiate Athletic Directors Association… Recipient of the National Football Foundation’s John L. Toner Award (outstanding Athletic Director – 2001)… Chairman of NCAA Football Rules Committee (1989-1995)
Mike astounded me with his ability – which he kept to the end - to recall details from years past about many of the men who shaped our game – men whom he’d known personally.
Mike was a dear friend who no matter what lofty position he held remained at heart a football coach.
In sum, Mike was the greatest man I’ve ever known – a man of wisdom, integrity and intelligence, with a great sense of humor. And a man so positive in his outlook that even in his final days, when I asked him how he was doing, he answered, “I’ve felt better.”
He was a blessing to our game, and we were blessed to have known him.
*********** Mike Lude’s Book, “Walking the Line,” was published in 2004. It’s a must read for any coach.
I’ve included a couple of paragraphs from the end, when he’s wrapping things up…
On my Christian faith and ethics – I am very sincere about my religious faith. I don't wear it on my sleeve and pretend to be evangelical and push my faith on others. But it's been important in my marriage to Rena and the way we raised our three wonderful daughters. I’m not ashamed to say I pray about decisions, and I've benefited so much from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and from the pastors at churches I attended wherever I worked. I remember talking with an assistant pastor when I was coaching at Delaware. He was a graduate of Wheaton College and Princeton Theological Seminary. I told him I wasn't sure I was a true Christian because I'd heard others talk about having a mountaintop experience with cymbals or drums or something like that, and I hadn't. He told me that not everybody has to – and he hadn’t, either.
Having a great day, every day – in my personal and professional life I have adopted an approach most eloquently expressed by Norman Vincent Peale in his book, Have a Great Day Every Day: “A sure way to a great day is to have enthusiasm. It contains a tremendous power to produce vitality, vigor, joyousness. So great is enthusiasm as a positive motivational force that it surmounts adversity and difficulty and, moreover, if cultivated, does not run down. It keeps one going strong, even when the going is tough. It may even slow down the aging process for, as Henry Thoreau said, ‘None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.’”
I've lived a full and wonderful life. I still have a lot of enthusiasm. I've had the privilege of experiencing a world of intercollegiate sports that many can only read about or participate in as spectators. I've been blessed in so many ways, the best of which is Rena, my beautiful wife and three beautiful daughters. The many friends I've made along the way have made it a rich experience. If I've been able to give back a small portion of the abundance I have received then I have accomplished more than anything I could have hoped for when I left that family farm in rural Michigan.
*********** Hugh…… thanks for sending out the information on Mike Lude passing away. I met him once and he was so influential. I couldn’t believe it. It was like he knew me all my life. it was at the high school and you did a clinic and he was there and I got a book and he signed it - came all the way out to the parking lot to my car to sign it and talk to me about Michigan and Bo Schembechler. I was so impressed. I would’ve loved to know him better thanks for the info - you have a good week.
Ossie Osmundson
Woodland, Washington
************ I had a really interesting time presenting at the “2024 Option-SW-DW Summit” this past Saturday.
Probably the most interesting part of it was learning that Rick Stewart, the organizer of the event, and I go back to 1998, in McFarland, California…
This is from my Web site back then…
MCFARLAND, CALIFORNIA - COACH JIM BELTRAN has the great privilege of coaching at his alma mater - also the great challenge of building a winning tradition at a school that has had 23 "OH-fer" seasons in its history (last year, McFarland was the chosen opponent at five different homecomings!). And I had the great privilege of working with his staff and kids for two days recently. Among the people sponsoring the two-day camp were his local Pop Warner coach, Mike Hernandez, who also brought his kids to the camp. You can imagine my delight on discovering that Jim's offensive coordinator, Ernie Cabrera, was as knowledgable and enthusiastic about the offense as if he had been running it for years.He claims he's seen my videos dozens of times - and you know what? I believe him. Enrique Perez and Tony Medina make up the rest of Jim's varsity staff. Talk about an easy teaching assignment - Coach Beltran is a Spanish teacher in a school that is 90 per cent Hispanic! (Not so fast - it's not as easy as it sounds! "Hispanic" doesn't necessarily mean "Spanish-speaking," and Jim often finds himself teaching Spanish to youngsters who don't speak the language of their ancestors.) Coach Beltran finds time to be a lot of things to the kids at McFarland High, and his "Ivy League Project" - an annual spring tour of Ivy League colleges for high school students from the San Joaquin Valley, will produce its first Ivy League graduates this spring - two from Yale and one from Brown! With a large group of sophs who were 7-3 last year as jayvees, the McFarland COUGARS could surprise a lot of people in the Valley this year! AS A FOLLOW-UP...COACH BELTRAN HAS E-MAILED ME TO SAY THAT THE KIDS LEARNED SO MUCH FROM OUR TWO-DAY CAMP THAT NOW THEY SOMETIMES CORRECT THE COACHES!
Coach Stewart had just been hired at McFarland, fresh out of the Marines, and that was his first coaching job. He recounted how McFarland went 2-8 that first year, but went 8-2 the second year!
From there, Rick Stewart has gone on to quite a career himself. Check him out online.
*********** Kerry Eggers, whom I first met when he was a rookie reporter for the Portland “Oregon Journal” - and who’s now regarded as the Dean of Oregon Sportswriters - wrote a really nice piece recently on Jimmy Anderson, longtime Oregon State basketball coach who died recently.
In doing his research, one of the people Kerry spoke to was former Beaver Terry Baker, whom some may recognize as a Heisman Trophy winner. But few know that he was the first Heisman winner from west of Texas, and fewer still know that he is the ONLY athlete ever to play in a Rose Bowl and a Final Four. It’s almost a lock that nobody knows that he wasn’t even recruited to Oregon State for football, but for basketball.
Wrote Kerry Eggers…
It was a different era of recruiting. There were no NCAA regulations. Baker was recruited by Oregon State for basketball first, not football. Gill (OSU head coach Slats Gill) got help from a benefactor named Ken Crookham. Terry was the product of a broken home, living with his mother. An older brother, Gary, was already at Oregon State.
“I saw virtually all the home games of Oregon State my senior year in high school,” Baker recalls. “Slats had Ken take care of me. He was an older gentleman. He would pick me up from practice at Jeff and drive us down to watch the basketball games. He became like family. He would take my mother and me out to dinner now and then.
“When I got the Heisman, I didn’t own a suit. Ken told me to go into Phil Small’s and get a suit. First time I’d ever worn one.”
*********** I have to admit that I’m not nearly as familiar with AI as I might be, but from what I do know, it does seem to me that if it can already replace certain workers at the bottom of the skills chain - say, sports writers - it’s probably just a matter of time before AI gets more and more proficient at doing ever more complex human tasks.
How long, then, until life-size, pass-for-real-human automatons are playing football?
How long before those life-like figures in Madden are actually playing games on “real” fields, in front of “real” crowds?
Considering that real NFL teams are worth billions now, my prediction is that the next rival to the NFL will be virtual. Anybody wanna buy a franchise?
*********** Lou Orlando, of Rye, New Hampshire, wrote, “Hugh, I’m reminded of you every day on my way to work.” And he sent me the photo above.
WTF is a boat on the East Coast doing with that name?
Our football team at North Beach High, in Ocean Shores, Washington, was the Hyaks. The word means “Fast” or “Quick” in Chinook Jargon.
Chinook jargon was a “pidgin” language (a common tongue that enables people who speak different languages to converse with each other) developed in the Pacific Northwest to allow “bostons” (Americans), “pasiooks” (French) and “king chautsh” (English) to trade with and among the area’s many native tribes. It consisted of words taken variously from native languages such as Chinook and Chehalis in addition to English and - because of the many French fur trappers and traders in the area - French.)
Many geographic and place names in today’s Northwest, especially in Washington, originated in Chinook Jargon.
Sample Chinook Jargon vocabulary…
Apple: le pome
Bag: le sak
Cat: puss’-puss
Chicken: la pool
Chief: ty-ee’
Fast (quick): hy-ak’
Head: la tet
Heart: tum’-tum
How are you: kla-how’-ya
If: spose
Large: hy-as’
Looking-glass: she-lok’-um
Man: man
Mast: ship stick
Moccasins: skin-shoes
My, mine: ni’-ka
Nuts: tuk’-wil-la
Paper: péh-pah
Peas: le pwau
People: til’-i-kums
Potato: wap’-pa-too
Pull: haul
Quick: hy-ak’
River: chuck
Sailor: ship’-man
Salmon: salmon
Salt: salt
Scissors: le see’-zo
Sheep: le moo’-to
Strong: skoo’-kum
Sturgeon: stutch’-un
Table: la tahb
Vomit, to: wagh
Water: chuck
Waterfall: tum’-water
Win: to, to’-lo
Woman: klootsh’-man
Worthless: cul’-tus
Yes: áh-ha; e-éh
https://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/Website/Classroom%20Materials/Curriculum%20Packets/Treaties%20&%20Reservations/Documents/Chinook_Dictionary_Abridged.pdf
*********** I watched Brown lose the Ivy League basketball championship game to Yale in the final seconds, largely because they missed three of their last four field goal attempts.
They’d held the lead most of the way, and the way they lost reminded me of all the football teams we see that move the ball up and down the field, until they get inside the 10. And then, pffft.
Just like free throw shooting, short-yardage football is a game inside the game, a fact that teams seem not to understand.
They won’t acknowledge that it’s a different game down close from the one they’ve been playing out on the other side of the 10, so they still play with wide splits, they still line up in the same shotgun they ran back upfield, and they’ve still got the same linemen in the game, the ones who are great at pass protection but can’t fire out worth a crap.
After all these years, I’m still not sure what the significance of all this “Red Zone” crap, but I sure know that for some teams it makes sense to call the area inside the 10 the “Brown Zone.” (For the university, of course; not for the quality of the strategy.)
*********** When asked, do you say, “I coach football?”
Or do you say, “I’m a football coach?”
*********** Maybe if Boeing paid just a little more attention to making airplanes…
https://www.boeing.com/sustainability/diversity-and-inclusion
*********** I did not type the following paragraph, written four years ago during the early stages of the Democratic primary. I simply cut-and-pasted.
If I’d been typing, you’d have found me, face planted in the keyboard, dead of a stroke before I finished that last sentence.
Gillibrand (New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) is married to Jonathan Gillibrand. The United States has never had a first gentleman in the White House, but Jonathan is one of several male spouses who might earn that title, including Kamala Harris's husband Douglas Emhoff, Elizabeth Warren's husband Bruce Mann, and Pete Buttigieg's husband Chasten.
*********** I hope that new Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore realizes where he is. Where he is, is at a fork in the road. (Yogi Berra would say, “Take it.”). It’s his first real test as a head coach, and I hope he passes it.
It’s been about a week since Michigan football announced the hiring of former Wisconsin defensive line coach Greg Scruggs to oversee the same position in Ann Arbor. And he’s already put that job in peril.
According to The Detroit News’ Angelique Chengelis, Scruggs was arrested in Ann Arbor for operating a vehicle while impaired on Saturday morning.
Michigan defensive line coach Greg Scruggs was arrested for allegedly operating a vehicle while intoxicated early Saturday morning in Ann Arbor.
Scruggs, 33, recently joined first-year Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore’s staff.
“I can confirm he was arrested for OWI by our department just before 3 a.m.,” Chris Page, strategic communications manager for the Ann Arbor Police Department, sent in a text to The Detroit News on Saturday.
A police report is not yet available, but has been requested by The News. Michigan has not immediately provided comment.
According to Chengelis’ report, Scruggs was kicked off the Louisville team during his playing days for a similar incident.
It’s unclear what the University of Michigan brass will do and whether Scruggs will retain his new position given he’s had this issue in the past — even if it was long ago.
As Alabama legend Nick Saban often used to say, nothing good happens after midnight. As a leader of young men, one would hope a position coach would heed that warning.
Update:
Michigan football head coach Sherrone Moore announced Scruggs has been suspended indefinitely while the program investigates.
“Greg made an unfortunate mistake and was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated,” Moore said. “He made no excuses and has taken accountability for his actions. The football program and athletic department have suspended Greg indefinitely while we review details of the incident.”
Fork #1 - The “forgiveness” fork. He gives the guy a second chance (or in this case, a third?). Hey, everybody deserves a chance to redeem himself. (Realizing, of course, that this will come up the first time he has to discipline a player for a similar incident.)
Fork #2 - The “thankfulness” fork. He cuts ties and moves on, thanking his lucky stars that it happened when it did, and not later, like in mid-season.
Gee. Really tough call. But I have a suspicion that Coach Moore might be leaning toward Fork #1 with his comment about “No excuses,” as if there were any. About taking “accountability for his actions.” WTF does that mean? Were you expecting him to blame someone else? What “Details” do you have to review? Was he or wasn’t he?
Come on, Coach Moore. Make the right decision. For the program. And your job.
https://wolverineswire.usatoday.com/2024/03/16/new-michigan-football-dl-coach-greg-scruggs-arrested-for-owi/
*********** Money in sports: I want Kansas to lose every basketball game they play, but Bill Self's a great coach, and I don't like them in the way every fan thinks of his favorite's school's biggest rival. So now KS has lost its top two players, and has suffered bad defeats back to back. Okay, let's say that 7'2" center, who's putatively injured, lets the people who dish out the money know he's not really hurt that bad, and if you'll just sweeten my NIL package, I'll be back in time for the Big Tournament. Point is, as time passes, these players and their advisers will come up with hundreds of ways we haven't even thought about yet to extort more money from these 'collectives'. Come to think of it, these NCAA collectives aren't staying true to their communist model at all, are they?
Changing the USMA mission statement angers me. Would that General MacArthur were here to impart some wise advice in a friendly fashion.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Without a contract to hold him to a standard of performance, what’s to keep that 7-footer from resting his sore hamstring unless they get somethng to ease the pain? The thought is sickening.
*********** Hugh,
Duty, Honor, Country!
UNC has a duty as a founding member of the ACC to honor its commitment to the conference!
My heart goes out to you and Connie and the many others in Washington like you who have to put up with the nonsense of the political climate in that state.
Used to be prep stars would have to prove their merit in high school to earn a valued athletic scholarship and be grateful for it. College stars would have to prove their merit for three or four or even five years to earn a valued professional contract and be grateful for it. Professionals would have to prove their merit for a number of years to earn a substantial salary increase and be grateful for it. Not anymore! Those days of simple gratitude are gone forever.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Mel Renfro was born in Houston, but he grew up in Portland, Oregon and starred in football and track at Jefferson High.
With him at running back on the same team as future Heisman Trophy winner Terry Baker, Jefferson High won back-to-back state championships in 1957 and ’58, and in his senior year, with Baker having graduated and gone on to Oregon State, “Jeff” missed a third straight state title by a single point, losing 7-6.
His senior spring, he won the state low hurdles, high hurdles and long jump to help Jefferson win the state track title.
At Oregon, playing both running back and defensive back, he led the Webfoots in scoring all three seasons (no freshman eligibility). As a senior, he won the Maxwell Award as the nation’s top running back and helped the Webfoots to an 8-3 record and a Sun Bowl appearance. (Oregon football would embark on a dry spell that wouldn’t see them in a bowl game again for 26 years.)
(Not until 1978 did Oregon officially replace the Webfoots with the Ducks. The term “Webfoots” was originally given to Oregonians in the 1800s by Californians who’d been exposed to Oregon’s wet and muddy winters. It became a matter of pride for native-born Oregonians to boast that they’d lived there so long they “had webbed feet.”)
In track, in his junior year he helped Oregon win the NCAA track and field championship. He finished second in the high hurdles and third in the long jump and ran a leg on their 440-yard relay team that set a world record (40.0 seconds).
Selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the second round of the 1964 NFL Draft, he played 14 seasons for them, mostly as a cornerback. He stood out as a kick returner in his early days, and as a defensive back he established a franchise record of 52 career interceptions.
Mel Renfro was named All-Pro five times and was named to ten Pro Bowls.
He played in four Super Bowls and won two rings.
He was the fifth Cowboy inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor at Cowboys Stadium.
He is in the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame and the University of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1996 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MEL RENFRO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He came out of Western Pennsylvania and starred at quarterback for St. Bonaventure, a small Catholic school in Western New York State.
He was the first draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, even though they knew he had two years of compulsory military service in front of him, and played in Pittsburgh for one year, before leaving to serve in the Army. He returned to the Steelers in 1955 and played two years for them and then one year with the Chicago Cardinals before retiring.
And then he embarked on a 28-year career as an NFL coach, 12 as an offensive coordinator and 12 as a head coach.
He was head coach of the Baltimore Colts from 1975 through 1979. Inheriting a 2-12 team, his first teams went 10-4 and earned him NFL Coach of the Year honors. His next two teams went 11-3 and 10-4, but working for possibly the worst owner in then history of the game - Bob Irsay - and one of the worst general managers - Joe Thomas - he was fired after five seasons, and it would be 12 years before he got another NFL head coaching job.
His successful stretch in Buffalo as quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator got him another shot with the Colts - this time in Indianapolis.
He went 30-34 in four years and when he was refused a contract extension, he left. For Baltimore again.
This time it was coach of the brand-new Ravens, formerly the Cleveland Browns. He went 16-31 in three years there.
He sure built a heck of a coaching tree: he gave Bill Belichick his first NFL job.
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2024
“I was chairman of the rules committee for six years. If I were still
chairman we wouldn't be blocking with the hands." Mike Lude*********** As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be making a couple of presentations at the "2024 Option-SW-DW Summit."
It takes place over several days, with a couple dozen coaches presenting.
I’ll be presenting on Saturday, March 16
The first talk, at 10:35 AM (Pacific) is for all coaches - a condensed package they could use in short-yardage or goal-line situations.
The second, at 11:50 AM (Pacific) is aimed at Double-Wingers - a direct-snap spread Double-Wing. No, not the Open Wing. Think Wildcat.
https://2024optionsummit.coachesclinic.com/
*********** These words are as close to being immortal as any spoken by an American...
"Duty, Honor, Country" — those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.Those words are General Douglas MacArthur’s - delivered to the Corps of Cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on May 12, 1962.
Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.
They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action; not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
They give you a temper of the will,ş a quality of theş imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease.
They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
*****
And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes,ş all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment;ş but you are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.
*****
The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
*****
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished — tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory alwaysş I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.
I bid you farewell.
The General’s words are especially poignant now that - without getting into the hows and whys and wherefores, the United States Military Academy has just removed its motto - Duty, Honor, Country - from its mission statement.
It may not mean what many people suspect it does. I haven't heard a good reason why. As with everything that comes from government (and the military) these days, we’ve been given long-winded explanations, full of big words, that in the end said nothing.
But considering the state of our military right now - struggling to get the budget it needs, facing the possibility of war on two fronts, its arsenal depleted by our sending weapons to Ukraine, not meeting recruiting quotas, and facing (well-founded) accusations of its prioritizing wokeness over preparedness - you’d hardly think that it would do anything (even trivial, as its defenders suggest this is) to antagonize those who still believe MacArthur’s words.
And in an election year yet.
But there we are.
Anybody think that this bright idea actually started with the Superintendent at West Point? Nah.
Or some with general in the Pentagon? Nah.
Or with some genius in the White House? Nah.
Or - you don’t suppose - with someone beyond that?
https://nypost.com/2024/03/14/us-news/west-point-military-academy-drops-duty-honor-country-from-mission-statement/
*********** North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham is caught between two worlds. He of course has to do what’s best for North Carolina. But with Carolina as a charter member of the ACC, he does have an interest in doing what’s best for the conference.
Cunningham, who is in his 13th year as UNC’s athletic director, offered his opinion on alternative options. The first being for the ACC to stay at 15 teams. The second being even more expansion to 21 teams, which would allow for three seven-team regional divisions that would reduce travel requirements during the regular season before bringing the entire conference together for postseason play.
“That's what I was hopeful of,” Cunningham said. “Either stay where we were, stay regional, or expand so big that you could create regionality within a bigger league."
One thing, he says, is certain: “I don't know what’s going to be the tipping point, but there's going to be something that will trigger significant change in college athletics."
https://247sports.com/college/north-carolina/article/unc-athletic-director-bubba-cunningham-taking-measured-approach-as-national-landscape-shifts-tar-heels--228513295/
*********** Not to get too deep into basketball, but when Oakland takes the floor in the NCAA Tournament, it’ll be their fourth time in the Big Dance.
And it means that Oakland coach Greg Kampe, now in his 40th year as the school’s coach, will become just the fifth coach to coach 40 years at one school and take it to the NCAA Tournament four or more times. He joins:
Mike Kyzyzewski - Duke
Jim Boeheim - Syracuse
Adolph Rupp - Kentucky
Ray Meyer - Depaul
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/forty-years-in-beloved-oakland-coach-greg-kampe-is-back-in-the-ncaa-tournament-after-a-one-of-a-kind-career/
*********** I love Washington for its natural beauty, but living here in the Massachusetts of the West comes at a price. As if $5 a gallon gas (to save the planet, don’t you know?) weren’t enough, now there’s talk about a “hate speech hotline,” allowing any asshole who doesn’t like something you say to call and report you to the Stasi. And then there’s a proposal to REQUIRE those of us who heat our homes with gas to convert to electric heat - at our expense, of course. I could go on, but right now, I’m relishing just about the only sort of success a Republican can enjoy in a one-party state:
IT WAS WASHINGTON THAT GAVE TRUMP THE VOTES HE NEEDED TO LOCK UP THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION
Suck on that one, Washington Dems.
*********** Yeah, sure - Vice-President Aaron Rodgers.
With Rodgers’ name being mentioned as a possible running-mate for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chris Branch in The Athletic brings up the matter of a minor conflict.
Considering, he notes, that the campaigning begins to pick up in July, just about the time that NFL teams open training camps, and considering that running-mates do spend a lot of time campaigning, the Jets might have some concern about their starting quarterback not being available for any practice reps today because he’s off making a speech in Paducah.
*********** When Notre Dame played Tennessee State this past season, it left USC as the only remaining FBS school that has never played an FCS opponent.
*********** Straight from the pages of The Athletic…
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott filed a civil lawsuit Monday in which he accuses a woman and her attorneys of attempting to extort $100 million from him by making false allegations of sexual assault.
Prescott is seeking monetary relief in excess of $1 million, according to the suit, which was filed in Collin County, Texas, and obtained by The Athletic.
According to the suit, Bethel and Yoel Zehaie, the woman’s representatives, sent a letter to Prescott’s attorneys on Jan. 16 detailing an alleged encounter between Prescott and the woman that took place on Feb. 2, 2017, in Plano, Texas, after the end of Prescott’s rookie season in the NFL. Per the suit, the woman said she was willing to forgo pursuing criminal charges against Prescott and disclosing that information to the public in exchange for $100 million.
There is no way that I’m coming in on anyone’s side here. Let the lawyers earn their money. But since we’re told so often that the woman never lies, I wonder why this woman’s name is never mentioned in the article. I also wonder if Dak Prescott realizes, no matter how right he is, the amount of dirty laundry that could come out once her lawyers get started on him.
*********** Nick Saban had a few interesting things to say to a Congressional committee looking into NIL…
“All these things that I believed in, for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics. It was always about developing players, it was always about helping people be more successful in life.”
He told about his wife, Terry, saying to him (before he retired): “All they care about is how much you’re going to pay them. They don’t care about how you’re going to develop them, which is what we’ve always done, so why are we doing this?”
*********** Talk about being born on third base… Talk about legacy admissions at elite colleges...
Still think sports is a pure meritocracy?
Three of the athletes on the list - James, Sanders and Manning - came from well-to-do, well-known families. Surely all the politicians who argued for sharing the sports revenues with the players had other players than these in mind.
Actually, Arch Manning would have been better served by his advisers if they’d told him to very politely decline any participation in NIL until he’s actually accomplished something.
*********** How’d you like to be Matt Rhule? As most of you know, he’s the coach at Nebraska.
Right now, it’s hard to say whether he’s got the administration’s backing.
Primarily, that’s because there IS no administration.
Not really.
Not after AD Trev Alberts - himself a former Husker player - gave notice Wednesday that he’s off to Texas A & M to be their AD.
For seven months now - since August, when the president announced he was leaving for Ohio State and the University Board of Regents launched their search for a replacement - Alberts has been reporting to an interim president.
So now, the only person in charge of the athletic department is an interim president - and it wouldn’t really make sense not to leave the hiring of the new AD to the new president. If they ever get around to hiring one.
Nebraskans can’t be happy with the current non-state of affairs.
*********** I am NOT going to attempt to tell someone how to vote, but I’m not above pointing out some things that people who love our country ought to be aware of.
This is from Gerard Baker, in The Wall Street Journal
“People voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 (and again in 2020) because he was the most plausible champion of those of us no longer prepared to tolerate the trashing of our culture and nation by an elite that despises us.”
*********** I DID have fun reading up on the Oorang Indians. (I spent a good portion of my childhood near LaRue/Marion. It was a great place to grow up).
Turns out, they were rather hard partiers.
This from: http://www.daytontriangles.com/oorang2.htm
They partied so hard on one particular occasion, that when a Chicago bartender at a place called "Everyman's Saloon" took it upon himself to stop serving drinks since Illinois law prohibited the sale of alcohol after 2 a.m., they stuffed him in a telephone booth and turned it upside down. The Indians were trounced by the Bears a few hours later on game day.
And don't forget the afternoon in St. Louis when several of the Indians who were out raising havoc, decided it was time to return to their hotel. Unfortunately for them, the trolley was headed in the opposite direction. Not to worry. The Indians soon rectified the situation. They picked up the trolley, turned it around on the tracks, and told the conductor where they wanted to go. Instant express.
"White people had this misconception about Indians," said the late Leon Boutwell, a Chippewa who quarterbacked the Oorangs for a short time. "They thought we were all wild men, even though almost all of us had been to college and were generally more civilized than they were. Well, it was a dandy excuse to raise hell and get away with it when the mood struck us. Since we were Indians, we could get away with things the white men couldn't. Don't think we didn't take advantage of it."
LOL! To be alive in those days!
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
*********** For more than five years I watched cricket matches every now and then, and despite listening closely to the announcers, I never figured out what was going on. I'm not so good with games that can sometimes go on for days. But that's okay, because if .09% of people in the areas you mentioned want it, go ahead...you can't build a much-needed school, and you're in debt $14 Billion, but by all means, build that freakin' cricket pitch.
The proposed Oregon practice facility is handsome indeed, but I've long wondered whether it's good to coddle young guys with such fixtures. It's a never-ending arms race, with the new coach saying we can't recruit without improved facilities. That could be true, but if so, it's a shame.
Best wishes for a great Zoom summit.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
If I was still coaching I would be all over your playcards idea. Simple is beautiful.
Drew Pyne transfers to Missouri. Hopefully Eli Drinkwitz can get him to be a better QB in his system.
I guess you could call the ND Box formation the Double Wing of its time! Sounded like Neyland didn’t want much to do with it anymore!
Watched about 10 minutes of a cricket match once. Was like watching paint dry.
I give Cal and Stanford two years before crawling back to the PAC-West.
As long as Oregon has Phil Knight the Ducks will weather the NIL/Transfer Portal nightmare that has changed the college football landscape and build even more elaborate facilities.
Old Soldier Field once held the largest crowd to ever watch a HIGH SCHOOL football game in 1937. The Prep Bowl pitted the Chicago Public School Champ against the Chicago Catholic School champ. Austin (my dad’s school) beat Leo 26-0 in front of 85,000, but the crowd was estimated to be closer to 100,000.
In today’s America NOTHING is not about politics!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Joe Guyon was born in 1892 on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. His father was a French Canadian, and his mother was Chippewa.
He spent three years at Haskell Institute, an off-reservation school in Lawrence, Kansas for young Indians, and at 19 he entered the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
He played two years of football at Carlisle under the legendary Glenn “Pop” Warner. His first year there was his first year ever playing organized football, but because he was good-sized - about 5-10, 200 - and because he was very athletic and very tough, Warner put him at tackle, and he stood out.
In his first season, led by the great Jim Thorpe, the Carlisle Indians went 12-1-1, beating such schools as Syracuse, Pitt and Army, and losing only to Penn, 34-26. They led the nation in scoring, outscoring opponents 454-120.
And then Thorpe graduated. But Warner, recognizing hidden talent, moved Guyon from tackle to Thorpe’s vacated halfback position. That year, losing only to Pitt and tying Penn, the Indians went 10-1-1. They finished second in the East only to unbeaten Harvard, and Guyon was named by Walter Camp as a second-team All-American halfback.
Although normally expected to stay at Carlisle for five years, he left and returned to Minnesota, and then, although having already played two years of college ball at Carlisle, he enrolled in Keewatin Academy in Wisconsin - essentially a high school - in order to earn enough credits to play college football.
Years later, he explained the situation to Myron Cope in “The Game That Was: “The funny thing, Carlisle wasn't nothing but an eighth grade school, but they called us a college. Of course, some of us were pretty old by the time we got there, because those reservation schools weren't always real good, but anyhow, those Carlisle schools used to beat Harvard, Pittsburgh, Army, Pennsylvania, and a lot of those big universities. They didn't want to have to say, ‘well some damn grammar school beat us,’ so they just called us a college.”
He next wound up at Georgia Tech, where his older brother was an assistant to head coach John Heisman.
In his first year at Tech, they went 9-0 and won the national championship, and he was named All-South at halfback.
In his second year, Tech went 6-1. He played some on the line, enough to be named as a tackle on at least one All-American team.
At the time, Ralph McGill, longtime publisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who was then a sports writer, wrote, "There is really no argument about the identity of the greatest football player who ever performed in Dixie. There is a grand argument about second place, but for first place there is Joe Guyon, the Chippewa brave. "
In 1919, at the age of 27, he was talked into playing for the newly-organized Canton Bulldogs, the coached by his old Carlisle teammate, Jim Thorpe. And the next year, 1920, the year the National Football League began play, he got off a 95-yard punt that stood as a league record for more than 50 years.
In an eight year NFL career he played for eight different teams, only one of which is still in existence today. (He ended his career in 1927 with the New York Giants.)
His most unusual time had to be the 1922 and 1923 seasons when he played for a team originally called Jim Thorpe’s Indians. Coached by Thorpe, its roster was 100 per cent Indian. When a Marion, Ohio kennel owner - who raised airedales (and sold them for $150 each, a fortune at that time) - bought an NFL franchise, he named the team the Oorang Indians, after his Oorang Kennel.
The team was purely a medium for advertising and selling the owner’s prize dogs. The players earned money working in the kennels, training the dogs and building crates for shipping them. For the purpose of showing them, the dogs traveled with the team whoever it went. (Which was almost everywhere, because the team played most of its games on the road - the better to show the dogs.) Halftimes of games often consisted of exhibitions including the Indians and the dogs.
The biggest problem with the Oorang Indians, apparently, was that the players knew that winning wasn’t uppermost on the owner’s mind, and as a result they paid little mind to training rules. Between that and the strain of travel, they wound up 1-10 their second year, and that was that.
(Marion, Ohio, remains the smallest town ever to have an NFL franchise.)
He shared one great story with Cope, a story that George Halas, Chicago Bears’ owner and coach, also enjoyed telling in later years:
"Halas knew that I was the key man. He knew that getting me out of there would make a difference. I was playing defense one time and I saw him coming after me from a long ways off. I was always alert. But I pretended I didn't see him. When he got close, I wheeled around and kicked him, goddamn. I brought my knee right up into him. Broke three of his ribs. And as they carried him off, I said to him, ‘What the hell, Halas. Don't you know you can't sneak up on an Indian?’”
Joe Guyon is in both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
He was best man at Jim Thorpe’s wedding, and he was a pallbearer at his funeral.
His son and namesake, Joe Guyon, Jr. became a doctor, after playing football at Catholic University in DC, and after World War II service as the first Native American to become a Navy pilot.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JOE GUYON
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN ROTHWELL - CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Houston, but he grew up in Portland, Oregon and starred in football and track at Jefferson High.
With him at running back on the same team as future Heisman Trophy winner Terry Baker, Jefferson High won back-to-back state championships in 1957 and ’58, and in his senior year, with Baker having graduated and gone on to Oregon State, “Jeff” missed a third straight state title by a single point, losing 7-6.
His senior spring, he won the state low hurdles, high hurdles and long jump to help Jefferson win the state track title.
At Oregon, playing both running back and defensive back, he led the Webfoots in scoring all three seasons (no freshman eligibility). As a senior, he won the Maxwell Award as the nation’s top running back and helped the Webfoots to an 8-3 record and a Sun Bowl appearance. (Oregon football would embark on a dry spell that wouldn’t see them in a bowl game again for 26 years.)
(Not until 1978 did Oregon officially replace the Webfoots with the Ducks. The term “Webfoots” was originally given to Oregonians in the 1800s by Californians who’d been exposed to Oregon’s wet and muddy winters. It became a matter of pride for native-born Oregonians to boast that they’d lived there so long they “had webbed feet.”)
In track, in his junior year he helped Oregon win the NCAA track and field championship. He finished second in the high hurdles and third in the long jump and ran a leg on their 440-yard relay team that set a world record (40.0 seconds).
Selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the second round of the 1964 NFL Draft, he played 14 seasons for them, mostly as a cornerback. He stood out as a kick returner in his early days, and as a defensive back he established a franchise record of 52 career interceptions.
He was named All-Pro five times and was named to ten Pro Bowls.
He played in four Super Bowls and won two rings.
He was the fifth Cowboy inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor at Cowboys Stadium.
He is in the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame and the University of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1996 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2024 “In the
land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Desiderius
Erasmus*********** As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be making a couple of presentations at the "2024 Option-SW-DW Summit."
It takes place over several days, with a couple dozen coaches presenting.
I’ll be presenting on Saturday, March 16
The first talk, at 10:35 AM (Pacific) is for all coaches - a condensed package they could use in short-yardage or goal-line situations.
The second, at 11:50 AM (Pacific) is aimed at Double-Wingers - a direct-snap spread Double-Wing. No, not the Open Wing. Think Wildcat.
https://2024optionsummit.coachesclinic.com/
*********** Coach, A question about flipping linemen out of double wing: obviously "tight is right." What is your call to denote flipping the strong/quick sides? Is it something as simple as "Flip 77 Super Power?"
Actually, Coach, it’s even simpler than that. It’s all taken care of by the playcards.
For all I know, the kids may not even know what formation we’re in and what we call the play.
The main thing is that they know where to line up and what to do, and that’s on the cards.
You’’ll notice that the play names and assignments are mostly printed in RED or BLUE
If the lettering on their card is RED, they line up on the RIGHT side.
If it’s BLUE, they’re on the LEFT.
EXAMPLE:
(10-1) is in BLUE - Tight Tackle’s on the left - and we’re running 77-POWER
(10-5) is in RED - Tight Tackle’s on the right - and we’re running 66-POWER
Hope that makes sense. It’s very simple for the kids, which is the most important thing.
*********** Former Notre Dame quarterback Drew Pyne has just transferred to Missouri. Mizzou will be his third school (after Notre Dame and Arizona State). And get this - he still has three years of eligibility left!
But before anyone screams “WTF has happened to college football?” - I think it’s fair to mention that the great Walter Camp, who is rightly called the Father of American Football for his efforts in creating our game from rugby, played varsity football at Yale from 1877 through 1882. That’s six years, guys. (There went college football. Right down the drain.)
In those days, before there were coaches, the team captain performed most of the duties of a coach, and Camp was captain of the 1878, 1879 and 1881 Yale teams. While he was a player, Yale’s record was 25-1-6.
(Camp would return to Yale in 1888 as its formal coach, and in five years as coach of the Bulldogs, his record was 67-2, with three undefeated seasons.)
*********** Famed Tennessee coach General Bob Neyland was a very powerful and influential person in southern football. He and A. C. “Scrappy” Moore were longtime friends, going back to the early 1920s when Moore was an assistant to head coach Frank Thomas at Chattanooga.
Thomas had played for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame so naturally, he ran Rockne's Notre Dame box formation at Chattanooga. When Thomas left Chattanooga to take the Alabama job, his successor at Chattanooga, Red Drew, continued to run the Notre Dame box. And so, too, when he eventually succeeded Drew, did Scrappy Moore.
For 15 straight years, from 1939 through 1957, Tennessee had arranged to play Chattanooga the week before playing Alabama (on the traditional third Saturday in October). Neyland was no fool - he deliberately scheduled Chattanooga, which ran the Notre Dame box, a week before playing Alabama, which also ran the Notre Dame box.
But when Thomas retired at Alabama after the 1946 season, Red Drew, who succeeded him, decided to go to the more in-vogue T formation.
Years later, famed sportscaster Lindsay Nelson, a Tennessee guy, told of a phone call that General Neyland made to Scrappy Moore at Chattanooga after learning that Drew had installed the T.
“Scrappy,” Neyland asked, “do you like playing us the second Saturday in October?”
“Hell, yes,” Moore replied. “It makes our budget.”
After a pause, Neyland spoke again: “Scrappy, did you ever consider switching to the T formation?”
The next season, Scrappy Moore’s Chattanooga Moccasins ran the T-offense against Tennessee, the week before Tennessee faced it against Alabama.
*********** Are you old enough to remember when soccer was new on the scene and soccer people were demanding that communities provide them and their kids with places to play?
At the time, did you scoff at the absurdity of soccer ever amounting to anything?
If so, you’ll get a big laugh from the news that groups in Northern Virginia (near DC), the New York City area, the Chicago suburbs and Sacramento are pressing local governments to build cricket fields. CRICKET.
Don’t bet against those groups. Cricket, you may not know, is one of the world’s most popular sports. Yes, yes, I know - for years we’ve been hearing that that’s the reason why we’re all supposed to stop watching football/baseball/basketball/hockey and get in step with the rest of the world and worship soccer.
But it is THE sport in India and Pakistan, and there are in the US at least 5.5 million people from those two Asian countries alone. Not to mention all the others from Commonwealth countries.
On the other hand, a cricket field - or ground, or whatever it's called - is HUGE. It’s roughly round in shape, and with a diameter of 160 yards or so, its area is about that of four football fields.
*********** A QUESTION PUT TO JOHN CANZANO: I still can’t wrap my head around Cal/Stanford choosing the ACC over a reformed Pac-12. The complaints from Olympic athletes and their well-connected parents will be loud when the reality of midweek cross-country trips sets in.
A: Cal and Stanford are smart institutions. But they acted out of desperation on this one and grabbed the only available life raft offering a media deal. None of the sources at those schools are thrilled with what is happening or believe it’s a long-term solution.
Stanford and Cal joined the ACC with an agreement that entitles them to 30 percent of media revenue through the first seven years.
They don’t get a full share until the 10th year of membership. They’ll get full shares of postseason revenue and distributions from the ACC Network. That helps. But Cal and Stanford have to pay Oregon State and Washington State a total of $6.5 million each as part of the settlement reached last December. I have to wonder if the Bay Area schools are already having regrets and wondering how sustainable the ACC affiliation is.
Former football coach David Shaw told me before he left Stanford that he thought geography would eventually win and the conferences would return to more regional affiliations someday. I think he’s right when it comes to the Olympic sports. But I also think the next 12-24 months are going to stink for those two schools and their athletes.
*********** ANOTHER QUESTION PUT TO CANZANO - Since the College Football Playoff is just an event created by the media companies why doesn’t Apple just create their own 12-team invitational for non-SEC/Big Ten teams? Money talks.
What do you think? I think it’s a hell of an idea. You could probably make money just by promoting the idea to the point where ESPN (and whoever else holds broadcast rights to the f—king playoff) would come to you offering wheelbarrows full of money to get you to call it off.
*********** Say this about Oregon: when they set out to do something, they don’t half-ass it. EXHIBIT A: Their new (they already have a nice one) indoor practice facility. From the story: “Current plans call for an exterior shell made from Northwest timber, in a curved form inspired by the Oregon “O.”
https://around.uoregon.edu/content/university-releases-plans-future-indoor-practice-facility
*********** Just a little over a year ago, the Chicago Bears paid close to $200 million to buy a 326-acre property in suburban Arlington Heights where they expressed intentions to build a new domed stadium. But this being the NFL, where backup quarterbacks earn millions, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that the Bears have changed directions.
They’ve done a complete about-face, now saying that they actually like the idea of playing in a stadium - a new, domed stadium - on the lakefront. Right next to where Soldier Field is now.
It’s hard to believe that Soldier Field, which in an earlier phase was once the largest stadium in the US - capable of playing football games in front of crowds well in excess of 100,000 - is now the smallest stadium in the NFL.
The big hangup some 20 years ago when the current Soldier Field was build, overtop of the original one, was (1) the Bears’ plan to sell naming rights, and (2) retaining the colonnade that stood atop the stands on both sides.
They settled the uproar by not selling the name (it was going to be something like “Bud Light Stadium at Soldier Field”) and by incorporating the colonnade into the design.
Now, the plans call for tearing down old Soldier Field, but keeping the Colonnade. (?) I’ve read nothing about what they’re going to call it.
The Old Stadium’s got a big birthday coming up. In two years, it’ll be 100. To dedicate the field as a monument to Americans who had fought in World War I, the 1926 Army–Navy Game was played there. (PHOTO BELOW)
Before a crowd of more than 100,000 - largest crowd up to that point ever to watch a sporting event - the two teams played to a 21-21 tie.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39704677/source-bears-planning-new-stadium-south-soldier-field
*********** If you haven’t heard about the Oklahoma high school that thought toe-sucking would be an appropriate way to raise funds, it’s because you depend for your news on the New York Times, Washington Post, or Associated Press (which writes the stories for 90 per cent of the nation’s other papers), and they don’t think there’s anything wrong with most of what goes in our public schools.
Video of the “event” shows kids “going down” (yes, the comparison is unavoidable) on one another, heads bobbing up and down in actions that closely resemble something a good deal more sexual in nature, as they (we’re told) lick peanut butter off schoolmates’ big toes.
Good God. Are there any adults in charge any more? Anywhere?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13147747/Oklahoma-high-school-students-toe-licking-challenge-video.html
*********** I don’t know where you’re going to be on July 20, but I know where I’ll be - right smack in front of the old TV. Watching a boxing match.
In this corner, wearing black trunks with a white stripe, Jake Paul.
And in this corner, wearing white trunks with a black stripe - Mike Tyson?
You heard that right.
July 20, in AT&T Stadium (Jerry World) in Arlington, Texas, 27-year-old Jake Paul will fight a man more than twice his age.
But Mike Tyson isn’t exactly your ordinary 58-year-old.
He’s still close to his fighting weight at 220 (he’s 5-10) and never forget - in his career as a heavyweight fighter, he knocked out 44 men. He hasn't lost everything. (In all, his record as a pro is 50-6).
Paul is 6-1, 200. And, yes, he’s younger. But he’s had only 10 fights. (He’s 9-1.) There was a time when throwing a guy with just ten fights into the ring with a seasoned pro - even one 58 years old - would be unthinkable.
For example, Rocky Marciano had had 43 fights as a professional before he finally got his shot at the heavyweight title.
The fight isn’t sanctioned, and as a result betting on it is disallowed in many states.
It’s a brutal sport, of course, and hard on the body of even strong young men, so it seems to me that if Tyson can’t take him out fast - if Paul can somehow avoid Tyson’s blockbusters for a round or two - Tyson’s arms are going to get weary and he’s going to lower his guard and start to take a beating.
But I’ll be watching. I suppose that makes me no better than people who watch bullfights or people who go to a hockey game hoping to see a fight or to a stock car race hoping to see a wreck.
*********** "This is not about politics.”
The NAACP asked Black student-athletes to reconsider their decisions to attend public colleges and universities in the state of Florida, in response to the University of Florida and other state schools recently eliminating their diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
But, wrote NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson, "This is not about politics.”
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39710283/naacp-asks-black-student-athletes-reconsider-florida-colleges
*********** I am seriously considering speaking with the appropriate ruling bodies--all of which recognize me as probably their most influential member--to argue that each team's opening offensive possession be executed with the original center snap.
Coach Wyatt has expended stupendous resources to give us the Zooms at no cost. HW is our shepherd, a man to whom we give thanks, but Coach Flinn did a job even Coach Wyatt appreciates. Of course, (joking now) the only thing I learned was: I'm F-1, I sprint out on my route, find I'm capped, so I return toward the passer following my route stem.
Fascinating that Army will play Owls in three consecutive outings, with a distant possibility of four in a row. Only on NYCU.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Took time to watch the Rugby League Vegas opener on FOX. After a tackle (I think that’s what it’s called) the guy tackled snaps the ball back with his foot to a team mate who starts another play.
I really enjoyed watching both games!
Rugby League (Aussie based) is different than Rugby Union which is what is played by the famous NZ All Blacks.
Think I mentioned before that I have a football history book of sorts written by Fielding Yost in 1918 presenting how the game of football was played back then. Photos and diagrams of drills, plays, and original college game venues. Harvard, Penn, Chicago, Princeton, Drake, Illinois, Michigan.
One look at the left side of the aisle during the SOTU (if that’s what it was called) told me all I needed to know why the numbers of youth abandoning tackle football is what it is!
My wife has always mocked me when I take out my college fight songs CD and start listening.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
I also watched the Rugby League doubleheader (four Aussie teams). It appeared to be a very good crowd - I think I heard 40,000. I’m sure it drew a lot of the Aussies who live in Southern California, and my son said a lot of Aussies flew over for the dual chance to watch rugby - and watch it in Las Vegas. As you pointed out, “League” is different from “Union,” and there isn’t a lot of back-and-forth among players or fans. “League” is much closer to our game in that there is something like “downs,” to assure that a team can’t remain indefinitely on offense. (Fortunately, my wife likes college fight songs, too.)
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Dennis Erickson grew up in Everett, Washington, the son of a high school coach. (But he wound up playing quarterback for his dad’s crosstown rival.)
At Montana State, playing under Jim Sweeney, he was an All-Big Sky Conference QB.
After four jobs as an assistant coach - first Montana State (under Sweeney), then Idaho, Fresno State (under Sweeney again), and San Jose State (under Jack Elway) he got his first head coaching job at Idaho at the age of 35.
Over the next 34 years, he would be a head coach at six different colleges and two NFL teams.
At Idaho, he took a job at a place that had had only four winning seasons in more than 40 years, and had not had back-to-back winning seasons in that time.
He went 9-4 his first year and in his four years there he became the winningest coach in Idaho history. And - he was 4-0 against Boise State.
From there, he went to Wyoming - going 6-6 - but after one season left to take the head job at Washington State.
He spent just two years at WSU, and then, after going 9-3 his second season, was hired by Miami to succeed Jimmy Johnson. It seemed like a strange hire - a guy from the far corner of the country - but Miami AD Sam Jankovich was a Butte, Montana guy who had coached under Jim Sweeney at Montana State and Washington State and had been AD at WSU before coming to Miami - so he knew his man and he knew what he was getting.
In six years at The U, his man won two national championships and went 63-9.
Among Miami coaches, only Andy Gustafson has won more games, and no Hurricanes’ coach can match his winning percentage (.875) or his two national titles.
He left Miami for the Seattle Seahawks, but after going 31-33 in four years, he was fired.
He immediately reappeared on the college scene, at Oregon State, where the Beavers had gone 28 years without a winning season. He won in his first season - the Beavers went 7-5 - and in is second season they finished 11-1. Their 41-9 defeat of Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl shocked the football world, and their #4 ranking remains the highest finish in OSU history.
He stayed four years at Corvallis, and went 31-17 - extraordinary for Oregon State - but left to try the NFL again.
This time it was San Francisco, but he stayed just two years, and was let go with three years remaining on his contract.
He returned to coaching a few years later, taking a second turn at Idaho, but after a year there, he was off to Arizona State. He started out with a 11-2 first season, but he left after five seasons in Tempe with a record of 31-31.
Since then, he served four years as co-offensive coordinator at Utah, and spent a short time with an ill-fated spring football league.
His overall record as a college coach is 179–96–1.
Dennis Erickson has been named a Conference Coach of the Year on seven different occasions and was twice named National Coach of the Year - once at Miami and once at Oregon State. He is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING DENNIS ERICKSON
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born in 1892 on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. His father was a French Canadian, and his mother was Chippewa.
He spent three years at Haskell Institute, an off-reservation school in Lawrence, Kansas for young Indians, and at 19 he entered the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
He played two years of football at Carlisle under the legendary Glenn “Pop” Warner. His first year there was his first year ever playing organized football, but because he was good-sized - about 5-10, 200 - and because he was very athletic and very tough, Warner put him at tackle, and he stood out.
In his first season, led by the great Jim Thorpe, the Carlisle Indians went 12-1-1, beating such schools as Syracuse, Pitt and Army, and losing only to Penn, 34-26. They led the nation in scoring, outscoring opponents 454-120.
And then Thorpe graduated. But Warner, recognizing hidden talent, moved our guy from tackle to Thorpe’s vacated halfback position. That year, losing only to Pitt and tying Penn, the Indians went 10-1-1. They finished second in the East only to unbeaten Harvard, and our guy was named by Walter Camp as a second-team All-American halfback.
Although normally expected to stay at Carlisle for five years, he left and returned to Minnesota, and then, although having already played two years of college ball at Carlisle, he enrolled in Keewatin Academy in Wisconsin - essentially a high school - in order to earn enough credits to play college football.
Years later, he explained the situation to Myron Cope in “The Game That Was: “The funny thing, Carlisle wasn't nothing but an eighth grade school, but they called us a college. Of course, some of us were pretty old by the time we got there, because those reservation schools weren't always real good, but anyhow, those Carlisle schools used to beat Harvard, Pittsburgh, Army, Pennsylvania, and a lot of those big universities. They didn't want to have to say, ‘well some damn grammar school beat us,’ so they just called us a college.”
He next wound up at Georgia Tech, where his older brother was an assistant to head coach John Heisman.
In his first year at Tech, they went 9-0 and won the national championship, and he was named All-South at halfback.
In his second year, Tech went 6-1. He played some on the line, enough to be named as a tackle on at least one All-American team.
At the time, Ralph McGill, longtime publisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who was then a sports writer, wrote, "There is really no argument about the identity of the greatest football player who ever performed in Dixie. There is a grand argument about second place, but for first place there is (————), the Chippewa brave. "
In 1919, at the age of 27, he was talked into playing for the newly-organized Canton Bulldogs, the coached by his old Carlisle teammate, Jim Thorpe. And the next year, 1920, the year the National Football League began play, he got off a 95-yard punt that stood as a league record for more than 50 years.
In an eight year NFL career he played for eight different teams, only one of which is still in existence today. (He ended his career in 1927 with the New York Giants.)
His most unusual time had to be the 1922 and 1923 seasons when he played for a team originally called Jim Thorpe’s Indians. Coached by Thorpe, its roster was 100 per cent Indian. When a Marion, Ohio kennel owner - who raised airedales (and sold them for $150 each, a fortune at that time) - bought an NFL franchise, he named the team the Oorang Indians, after his Oorang Kennel.
The team was purely a medium for advertising and selling the owner’s prize dogs. The players earned money working in the kennels, training the dogs and building crates for shipping them. For the purpose of showing them, the dogs traveled with the team whoever it went. (Which was almost everywhere, because the team played most of its games on the road - the better to show the dogs.) Halftimes of games often consisted of exhibitions including the Indians and the dogs.
The biggest problem with the Oorang Indians, apparently, was that the players knew that winning wasn’t uppermost on the owner’s mind, and as a result they paid little mind to training rules. Between that and the strain of travel, they wound up 1-10 their second year, and that was that.
(Marion, Ohio, remains the smallest town ever to have an NFL franchise.)
He shared one great story with Cope, one that George Halas, Chicago Bears’ owner and coach, also relished telling in later years:
"Halas knew that I was the key man. He knew that getting me out of there would make a difference. I was playing defense one time and I saw him coming after me from a long ways off. I was always alert. But I pretended I didn't see him. When he got close, I wheeled around and kicked him, goddamn. I brought my knee right up into him. Broke three of his ribs. And as they carried him off, I said to him, ‘What the hell, Halas. Don't you know you can't sneak up on an Indian?’”
He is in the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
He was best man at Jim Thorpe’s wedding, and he was a pallbearer at his funeral.
His son and namesake became a doctor. He played football at Catholic University in DC, and during World War II he was the first Native American to become a Navy pilot.
FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2024 “The only
known cure for presidential ambition is embalming fluid.“ John McCain*********** I wrote earlier that there aren’t many people that I’d turn a clinic over to, but Brian Flinn - receivers coach and passing game coordinator at Princeton - is one for sure.
I sure made the right call on Tuesday night.
Coach Flinn’s topic was the “four verticals passing game,” and he put on a presentation that in a little under one hour gave coaches the “what” (as everybody does) but also the “why” and the “how,” (which is what we really want) of a topic that might ordinarily be of little interest to Double Wingers, but in this case was.
A couple of quotes that I found especially memorable:
“One deep ball will change your life.”
“If you’re wrong, you’d better be right.” (If you swing away when you’ve been given the “take” sign, you’d better hit a home run.)
“If you miss something early in the game - go back to it.” (Don’t give up on a play just because it didn’t work the first time.)
(I hope to be able to send out a link to the recording by Friday.)
*********** As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be making a couple of presentations at the "2024 Option Summit."
It takes place over several days, with a couple dozen coaches presenting.
I’ll be presenting on Saturday, March 16, and no, I’m not going to be talking much about options.
The first talk, at 10:35 AM (Pacific) is for all coaches - a condensed package they could use in short-yardage or goal-line situations.
The second, at 11:50 AM (Pacific) is aimed at Double-Wingers - a direct-snap spread Double-Wing. No, not the Open Wing. Think Wildcat.
https://2024optionsummit.coachesclinic.com/
*********** In doing a little research on the history of the center snap, you'll find that the ball originally was “snapped” by the center’s foot.An original rule:
A scrimmage takes place when the holder of the ball, being in the field of play, puts it down on the ground in front of him, and puts it in play while onside, first, by kicking the ball; second, by snapping it back with his foot. The man who first receives the ball from the snap-back shall be called the quarterback, and shall not then rush forward with the ball under penalty of foul.
Got that? In this case, a "scrimmage" is what we now call a "play." (The concept of "downs" had yet to be introduced.) The "holder of the ball" - the “center” (as he came to be called because he was in the middle of everything), “snapped” the ball with his foot, and the quarterback - the man he snapped it to - then had to hand the ball or toss it laterally to one of the other backs.)
From “Football Through the Years” by Dean Hill (1940)
In the early days, play was started by putting the ball on the ground, all players closing around it, and then kicking at it until it rolled out into the open. This method of putting the ball in the play had its disadvantage, for it also gave the opponent a chance to secure the ball. Someone suggested that a player be stationed a short distance behind the scrimmage and that the ball be kicked back to him whenever possible. This was tried and proved so successful that the man behind the scrimmage many times was able to secure the ball and run around the mass of men before they realized that the ball had come into the open. From this time on the player stationed behind the scrimmage was called the quarterback.From “The History of American Football” by Allison Danzig (1956) - Notice the references to “Stagg” (Amos Alonzo Stagg)
Soon an inventive genius discovered that he could so place his foot upon the ball that by pressing suddenly downward and backward with the toe of his shoe, he could roll the ball back to the quarterback along the ground. This was the second step in the evolution of putting the ball in play. Until the style of play began to call for a lower charging linemen, the ball was put in place by this means of rolling back with the foot.
However, when lower line play called for the center to be down over the ball, he found it impossible to use his foot for snapping the ball back to the quarterback. This resulted in the third step in the evolution of putting the ball in the play, namely, the center using his hand to roll the ball back to the quarterback, end over end along the ground. By this time the backfield had developed, and it took great skill on the part of the quarterback to pick the bounding ball up from the ground and hand it to one of the backs.
The fourth step in the evolution of putting the ball into play came when the center discovered that greater speed and accuracy could be secured by passing the ball between his legs with both hands to the quarterback, not allowing the ball to touch the ground. This method of putting the ball into play speed it up the game and fumbles were eliminated to a great extent.
The last stage of putting the ball into play came with the “direct snap,” the passing of the ball by the center directly to the man who was to run with the ball.
In the seventies, under the Rugby rules, then in force, the ball was thrown in between the two opposing packs or rush lines, and they endeavored to pass the ball back with their feet to their half-tends, who then picked it up and tossed it backward or laterally to other backs for a kick or run. In 1880 the Rugby scrummage gave way to the scrimmage, and possession of the ball now took on importance as the quarterback made his appearance. Instead of the ball’s being heeled out in a mass of scuffling feet, it was now passed back by the center. He snapped it back not with his hands but with his foot. The backs were stationed well back, and were spread out, ready to receive a backward pass from the quarterback, after he got the snapback from the center’s foot.
In 1889 came a change. Burt Hanson, the Yale center, “bent over and bounced the ball back between his legs with his hand,” said Stagg. In 1894, as coach at Chicago, Stagg had his quarterback in a standing position behind center to receive a lift-up pass from center. It saved the time of rising from the stoop position, said Stagg, and reduced the chance of fumbling the snapback. So the ball was now passed back with the hand, instead of the foot, and it was handed up directly, instead of bounced on the ground, to the quarterback, who took the standing position, comparable to that of the present-day T quarterback, instead of crouching back of the center.
In 1899 the Chicago Post said, “in the East the ball is put to the ground and rolled over to the quarterback, who is kneeling directly behind the center. Western coaches abandoned the roll, because it gave away the direction the play would go. They followed the example of Stagg, who instructed the center to snap the ball to the outstretched hands of the quarterback, who gave the signal by either the foot or leg. The pass from center to the fullback direct for a punt or goal from field, was not known to the East until Stagg Introduced this play in 1896.
All passes from Center, except on a punt, had to be indirect, that is, passed from Center to the quarterback, and then given to the ball carrier, by a handoff or a lateral.
The punter, in order to receive a direct pass from center, had to be at least 5 yards back of the scrimmage line. Usually he was from 8 to 10 yards back.”
THIS, from “Anatomy of a Game” ((1994) - a history of the rules of the game published posthumously by David Nelson (inventor of the Delaware Wing-T and longtime chairman of the NCAA Football Rules Committee):
The designation of players other than the snapper and quarterback were not in the rules until 1909; however, students named the players next to the snapper “guards.” These players were called guards because they allowed the snapper to release the ball without being molested. The snapper did not have the protection of the rules has provided in later years. The ends were so called for the obvious reason that they were on the end of the line…The lineman were known as “forwards” or “rushers” and the “next-to-ends” became “tackles” because most of the tackles were made by players in that position.
*********** American football can trace its source to Rugby School, in Rugby, England where in 1823 a schoolboy soccer player named William Webb Ellis, instead of catching a kick in the air and then, as the rules permitted, attempting a free kick, caught the ball on the dead run - and kept running. He didn’t get away with it, of course, but the idea of running with the ball - and tackling the runner - caught on at Rugby School, and it spread, as "Rugby Football.".
It spread to American colleges as well. But in 1880, a Yale player-coach named Walter Camp dramatically changed the game by doing away with the “scrummage,” or “scrum,” the mass of men pushing against one another in an attempt to “heel” the ball out into the open where a teammate could pick it up and start a new play. Camp’s objection was that no matter how great a gain a runner might have made, once he was “down,” his team now had to roll the ball into the “scrum” and take its chances that when it rolled out of the scrum they could get the ball once again. This seemed to him too much a matter of chance.
Camp’s innovation - the “scrimmage” - meant that the runner who was “down” could start another play by getting up and, dispensing with the “scrum,” merely kicking the ball back to a teammate. Camp had introduced the modern-day concept of “possession.”
A little too much possession, as it turned out. Soon enough, teams realized that so long as they didn’t fumble or kick the ball away, they could play “not to lose” and possess the ball for an entire half of play. Unfortunately, when their opponents would employ the same strategy in the second half, scoreless ties would result. Ugh.
Camp’s solution was to require a team to gain 5 yards in three “downs,” or give up possession. (Which would lead to the 10 yards in four downs that we think it’s always been.)
*********** In his book “The Yale Football Story” (1951), Tim Cohane tells of the initial reaction to Camp’s “three downs” proposal at the rules committee’s 1882 meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Why Springfield? Because - no joke - it was equidistant from Yale and Harvard.)
How, asked the representative from Harvard, “Do you propose to tell when 5 yards have been made?”
Replied Camp, “We’ll have to rule off the field with horizontal chalked lines every 5 yards.”
“Why,” said the representative from Princeton, “The field will look like a gridiron!“
“Precisely,” said Camp.
*********** STILL ON MY HISTORY KICK… This is also from “Anatomy of a Game,” by David Nelson…
As college football waited for the deluge of talent (coming back from serving in World War II) to hit the campuses, the United States Military Academy was crushing opponents in a men-against-the-boys scenario. The wartime West Point team was part of a football rules historical footnote. On October 13, 1945 the University of Michigan came to Yankee Stadium with a team manned by a number of seventeen-year-old freshmen with everything to win and nothing to lose. In keeping with the time honored axiom, that “necessity is the mother of invention,” platoon football came to football for the first time on that October afternoon.
It had been four and a half seasons since the unlimited substitution rule took effect, and no coach had seen fit to utilize what now appears to have been obvious. Even Army coach Earl Blaik, with the best player personnel in the country and probably the finest coaching staff ever assembled, failed to see the possibilities of the 1941 substitution rule.
Michigan had won three games and lost to Indiana when they traveled to New York to play the cadets. The Wolverine staff, including Benny Oosterbaan and Biggie Munn, knew that they were in for a long afternoon. Head coach Fritz Crisler decided to play eight players offensively and another eight defensively to keep the score as low as possible. The game was tied 7-7 going into the fourth quarter; football has never been the same since Crisler’s innovation. Michigan ultimately lost the game, but managed to hold the score to a respectable 28-7. Blaik was so impressed by the separate offensive and defensive contingents that he later moved to the same operation and called his units, what else, “platoons.”
*********** Of the 130-some FBS teams, only four are nicknamed Owls.
Next fall, Army will play three of them - and in a row!
Sept 7 - at Florida Atlantic Owls
Sept 14 - Open
Sept 21 - Rice Owls (HOME)
Sept 26 - at Temple Owls
The lone outlier - the Kennesaw State Owls - have a date at San Jose State on September 14 that I bet they could get out of. (In case Army’s AD, Mike Buddie, gives a hoot.)
*********** John Canzano notes… Chris Petersen left Washington. David Shaw threw in the towel at Stanford. Nick Saban announced he had enough at Alabama. Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley left to be a defensive coordinator in the NFL.
And to that I add Chip Kelly, who at last report is delighted to be done with the headaches of head coaching in these chaotic days and VERY happy to be “back coaching again.” Really coaching.
*********** In case you’ve been wondering why you’re seeing and hearing so much about flag football, this is from a recent article in the Washington Post…
The NFL, which is among the most influential cultural institutions in the United States, has long viewed the slow decline in high school participation rates — beginning in 2006 and accelerating amid the avalanche of negative storylines in the 2010s regarding traumatic brain injuries — as an existential threat. The league has targeted it with a series of responses, most notably an embrace of flag football as an alternate pathway, geared toward coaxing families back into the game.
“Where we were fighting the negative health and safety narratives seven, eight years ago, we were saying, ‘Okay, well, let’s evolve,’ ” said Roman Oben, an offensive tackle for 12 seasons in the NFL, who now serves as the league’s vice president for football development. “... It’s okay to admit that we had to evolve.”
The league’s efforts have helped: More kids ages 6 to 12 now play flag football than tackle, and flag participation has remained stable. But the introduction of a safer alternative also has sown divisions, with flag football more frequently being adopted in wealthier communities, according to interviews with football organizers and experts around the country. It is a dynamic the NFL and USA Football have tried to address by focusing efforts to expand access to flag in underserved areas.
But the divide between specific demographic groups changed far more dramatically. This year, for example, 75 percent of Americans who identified as conservatives said they wuld recommend football to kids, but a much smaller 44 percent of liberals did. That gap represented a striking change from the 2012 poll, when the margin was only 70 percent to 63 percent. The gap between White conservatives (72 percent) and White liberals (36 percent) in 2023 was even wider, much larger than a 67 percent-57 percent gap in 2012.
Just 7.5 percent of White boys ages 6 to 17 played tackle football last year, the lowest rate since at least 2014, according to data from USA Football, the sport’s governing body, which is funded in part by the NFL. It’s a trend that has prompted headlines about “White flight” from football.
In fact, though Black males still play at higher rates (11 percent), their participation rates have fallen in recent years, too. Meanwhile, another historically marginalized group appears to be filling the vacuum: Participation by Hispanic boys nearly matched that of White males last year.
*********** In 1983, in a much-publicized report entitled “A Nation at Risk,” the US National Commission on Excellence in Education stated
“If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America, the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might have viewed it as an active war.“
To show how seriously Americans took the warning, fast-forward to 2024…
In Seattle Public Schools, teachers are not allowed to give a grade lower than 50 (out of 100) - even if an assignment hasn’t been turned in.
*********** Not many people know that I am a HUGE fan of college fight songs. One guy who does know how much I like them is Norm Maves, a longtime Portland sportswriter, now retired. Just before I travelled to Finland for the first time, Norm gave me a cassette (remember them?) of college fight songs. I knew most of them, and I listened to them all the way over on the plane (10 hours). And while I was away, listening to them, they were a constant reminder of home. And of college football, which after all is the reason why they exist.
I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite. I couldn’t pick a Top Ten. Or even a Top 25. There are so many that I really like, and so few that I don’t care that much for.
One of the many that I like is the very first of all college fight songs: Boston College’s “For Boston.” It was written and composed in 1885.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBwkc-x8dYs
And the Dropkick Murphys version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ArP3D_LX5w
*********** Great stories all around today. It's important, most will agree, to take time out to show respect to (in this case, former football associates) people we once depended upon and cared about. You've had more than your share of football friends.
I don't have a way to confirm or deny, but several pubs reported last week that C. Clark has taken zero collective money. On the other hand, she brought in more money to Iowa athletic coffers than any athlete this season. Although I agree about Pistol Pete's unassailable stats, here's one not often mentioned in relation to Caitlin: Pete took twice as many field goal attempts per game as Caitlin, roughly 38 to 19.
Love the way Connie looks at the Combine (Caterpiller or John Deere?). And I was thinking the same thing about the 40 time. Wow, he broke the previous record by .01 second, which...means what exactly? But the writers scream out that his performance has vaulted him into a first round top ten pick.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Caitln Clark has not taken any collective money, but she certainly hasn’t needed to. She is said to be making millions in endorsement money - from legitimate endorsements - which is exactly the way NIL was sold to the courts, and not as inducements to high school kids to commit or rivals’ players to transfer, regardless of any actual value they might have as endorsers.
*********** Hugh,
Great news about Trish! A number of his former Manchester Bears played for me at Trinity in the mid-90’s, and contributed greatly in our huge upset of Manchester Central in the Turkey Bowl.
Caitlin Clark is a GREAT female basketball player. Female being the operative word. I’ve enjoyed following her college career. She might even become one of the greatest women to play in the WNBA. Period. End of story.
Austin, TX is quickly becoming Portland. In fact they are “sister” cities in many ways. Bad ways. Only difference is Portland is in Oregon. Austin is in Texas.
And THAT is a BIG difference!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Until Juaun Jennings’ TD pass to Christian McCaffrey in this year’s Super Bowl, Antwaan Randle El was the only wide receiver ever to throw a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl.
As a high school senior, he was selected in the 14th round of the MLB draft by the Chicago Cubs.
At Indiana, he was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
In his senior year he was named Big Ten Most Valuable Player and Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year.
He was the first player in D-I history to run for 40 touchdowns and throw for 40 touchdowns in a season.
He was the first player in D-I history to post four seasons of more than 2,500 yards total offense.
He finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting his senior year.
He played on the Indiana basketball team (under Bob Knight) following his freshman season, and on the Indiana baseball team during his junior year.
Drafted as a wide receiver in the second round (62nd pick) by the Pittsburgh Steelers, he had 47 receptions for 489 receiving yards and two TDs and was named to the NFL All-Rookie Team.
In four seasons with the Steelers he was also used as a return man, and in his fourth season, he was named first-team All-Pro and won a Super Bowl ring. In the Super Bowl, he threw a 51-yard touchdown pass to Hines Ward.
And then, a free agent, he signed with the Washington Team Whose Name Shall Not be Spoken, and had three consecutive seasons with 50 or more receptions.
After four seasons with Washington, he returned to Pittsburgh for one season, and after playing in the Steelers’ Super Bowl loss to Green Bay, he retired.
Following retirement he did some TV work, then got into coaching, and at the present time he is wide receivers’ coach of the Detroit Lions.
Although his last name might have some Islamic connotations, Antwaan Randle El is actually a devout Christian.
In a 2016 interview with a Pittsburgh newspaper, he referred to some memory problems he was having and expressed regret at not having chosen to play baseball instead of football: “If I could go back, I wouldn’t (play football). I would play baseball. I got drafted by the Cubs in the 14th round, but I didn’t play baseball because of my parents… Don’t get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now (at 36), I could still be playing baseball.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ANTWAAN RANDLE EL
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
RODNEY LUNSFORD - WESTFIELD, INDIANA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** Played basketball at Thornton HS in Illinois for an outstanding team,
On the court for a state quarterfinal game in 1995 were the following future professional athletes. 1995 Thornton vs Farragut
Farragut:
Kevin Garnett NBA
Ronnie Fields CBA and overseas
Thornton:
Melvin Ely NBA
Antwaan Randle-El NFL
Napoleon Harris NFL
Tai Street Michigan and NFL
https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/march-2015/the-best-of-illinoiss-high-school-basketball-archives/
John Bothe
Oregon, Illinois
*********** QUIZ: He grew up in Everett, Washington, the son of a high school coach. (But he wound up playing quarterback for his dad’s crosstown rival.)
At Montana State, playing under Jim Sweeney, he was an All-Big Sky Conference QB.
After four jobs as an assistant coach - first Montana State (under Sweeney), then Idaho, Fresno State (under Sweeney again), and San Jose State (under Jack Elway) he got his first head coaching job at Idaho at the age of 35.
Over the next 34 years, he would be a head coach at six different colleges and two NFL teams.
At Idaho, he took a job at a place that had had only four winning seasons in more than 40 years, and had not had back-to-back winning seasons in that time.
He went 9-4 his first year and in his four years there he became the winningest coach in Idaho history. And - he was 4-0 against Boise State.
From there, he went to Wyoming - going 6-6 - but after one season left to take the head job at Washington State.
He spent just two years at WSU, and then, after going 9-3 his second season, was hired by Miami to succeed Jimmy Johnson. It seemed like a strange hire - a guy from the far corner of the country - but Miami AD Sam Jankovich was a Butte, Montana guy who had coached under Jim Sweeney at Montana State and Washington State and had been AD at WSU before coming to Miami - so he knew his man and he knew what he was getting.
In six years at The U, his man won two national championships and went 63-9.
Among Miami coaches, only Andy Gustafson has won more games, and no Hurricanes’ coach can match his winning percentage (.875) or his two national titles.
He left Miami for the Seattle Seahawks, but after going 31-33 in four years, he was fired.
He immediately reappeared on the college scene, at Oregon State, where the Beavers had gone 28 years without a winning season. He won in his first season - the Beavers went 7-5 - and in is second season they finished 11-1. Their 41-9 defeat of Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl shocked the football world, and their #4 ranking remains the highest finish in OSU history.
He stayed four years at Corvallis, and went 31-17 - extraordinary for Oregon State - but left to try the NFL again.
This time it was San Francisco, but he stayed just two years, and was let go with three years remaining on his contract.
He returned to coaching a few years later, taking a second turn at Idaho, but after a year there, he was off to Arizona State. He started out with a 11-2 first season, but he left after five seasons in Tempe with a record of 31-31.
Since then, he served four years as co-offensive coordinator at Utah, and spent a short time with an ill-fated spring football league.
His overall record as a college coach is 179–96–1.
He has been named a Conference Coach of the Year on seven different occasions and was twice named National Coach of the Year - once at Miami and once at Oregon State. He is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2024
“Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for
it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.” Sun Tzu, '"The
Art of War"*********** There aren’t many people that I’d turn a clinic over to, but Brian Flinn is one for sure.
He’ll be the featured presenter at my Zoom Clinic (#146) tonight (Tuesday).
Many of you will remember my interview with him back in November.
Coach Flinn is the wide receivers coach and now, in addition, newly-named as passing game coordinator at Princeton University.
He’ll be talking about the “four verticals passing game,” and to allow him as much clinic time as possible, I’m dealing with the introductions now:
Coach Flinn is a native of Youngstown, Ohio - a real coaching hotbed - where he attended Ursuline High School.
At D-III power Mount Union, he played on two national championship teams (1993 and 1996), and captained the 1996 team.
He has coached at Mt. Union, Drake, Maryland (under Ralph Friedgen, when the Terps were really good), and Eastern Illinois, then moved east to Villanova. He coached the Wildcats’ receivers for 14 years, and in 2009, they won the FCS National Championship.
In 2020, he moved to Ivy League power Princeton, where he has coached wide receivers. In his time there he has coached five All-Ivy receivers - five wide receivers, including AJ Barber (Tiki Barber’s son) and Andrei Iosivas, who played this past season as a rookie with the Cincinnati Bengals. As I’ve already mentioned, Coach Flinn recently given the additional responsibilities of passing game coordinator.
He has presented at my Philadelphia clinics, and he was very helpful to me in developing the Open Wing, especially when it came to teaching wide receivers how to block!
*********** Several guys have asked me about it, so I guess I might as well answer here:
Yes, I’m going to be presenting at a massive Zoom clinic.
It takes place over several days, and it’s called the 2024 Option Summit, but to be honest, I’m not going to be talking much about option(s).
I’ll be presenting on Saturday, March 16.
I’ve been asked by the organizer, Rick Stewart ,to make two presentations:
One, at 10:35 AM (Pacific) Saturday - is for all coaches - a condensed package they could use in short-yardage or goal-line situations.
And a second, at 11:50 AM (Pacific) Saturday - is aimed at Double-Wingers - a direct-snap spread Double-Wing. No, not the Open Wing. Think Wildcat.
https://2024optionsummit.coachesclinic.com/
*********** What a great message to find on my phone on a recent morning - John Trisciani’s back as a head coach!
“Coach Trish” and I became early friends, back in the late 1990s when I started my Web site. He was an early-adopter of my system, and began killing people in the youth leagues around his home in Manchester, New Hampshire.
He never missed one of my Providence, Rhode Island clinics, and we’d often have dinner afterwards.
His coaching career took him to high school assistant jobs, then to a successful head coaching stint at Trinity High School in Manchester and finally - where we began to lose touch - to an assistant coaching job at St. Anselm’s College.
He spent last season as an assistant at Manchester Central High, but he had the urge to be a head coach again and he recently landed the head job at Hollis-Brookline High.
“I was just looking for a head job, and this was open,” he said. “This will be my 45th year coaching, and I still have a passion for it.”
I can’t be sure, but I have an idea what Coach Trish will be running offensively.
https://nhfootballreport.com/2024/02/19/hollis-brookline-hires-trisciani/
*********** Greg Koenig, at Bennett, Colorado High, outside Denver, is looking for a DC and/or an offensive line coach. Experience in those spots is preferred, but I suspect that Greg would consider a guy with less experience but with a great work ethic and a great desire to learn.
In addition, Bennett Schools have several openings for teachers:
• Elementary Paraprofessional
• Elementary (K-5th) Teacher
• MS ELA Teacher
• MS Art Teacher
• MS PE Teacher
• HS Business Teacher
• HS ELA Teacher
I don’t need to tell you how much respect I have for Greg Koenig as a man and as a coach, so I have no reservations whatsoever about urging you to contact me for Greg’s contact info - coachhw@mac.com
*********** Tom Walls is an American, teaching in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada), and the founder and head coach of the Springfield Collegiate Institute (High School) Sabers. He and his wife, Shandy, have two children, Aiden and Tommy. Tommy is a quarterback at Eastern University outside Philadelphia. They also have a dog named Tubby – (Tom’s dad played for both Tubby Raymond and Dave Nelson at the University of Delaware). Together, Tom and Shandy have founded two football clubs in Canada.
I’ve known Tom for more than 10 years. Back in May of 2013 I paid him a visit in Winnipeg, and then in the spring of 2015 he came and observed our practices in Ocean Shores, Washington.
I just finished reading his story, written for a magazine called “Headsets,” about learning under fire in Canada. I enjoyed it, and I think you will, too.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e19517e2fe45c7fdf0ef64d/t/65e50089b38aae363aedbade/1709506698202/Volume+4-Issue+2.pdf
“THAT WON’T WORK HERE” - EXPERIENCES OF AN AMERICAN WING-T COACH IN CANADA
By Tom Walls
Three Wing-T coaches walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and asks, “What’s your go-to on 3rd and medium?” The Traditional Wing-T’er says, “Buck Sweep, maybe Waggle.” The Gun Wing T’er says, “Jet, maybe Smash.” The Canadian Wing T’er looks into his beer and mutters, “Punt.”
That last coach is me. I’m an American Wing T coach who moved up to Canada thirteen years ago. and if I had a dollar for every time someone told me “that won’t work up here,” I would be ready to retire. My experience in bringing the offense that originated in my native Delaware to the Great White North has been anything but smooth. Although we have found consistent success in our unique system, the process of getting there was one that caused me to question and really test my ability to coach. Through this experience I learned to have the courage to be different, but to also have the common sense not to be obstinate.
When my wife (a Canadian) announced that she “wanted to go home” I had to remind her that I was an American history teacher and a football coach. I was sure that Canadian schools didn’t teach American history and I wasn’t sure if they played football. They do. Just with one too many players and too much moving around. After summoning the courage to jump without a net, we moved to her hometown of Winnipeg, Canada, population 900,000.
Besides being considered one of the coldest cities in the world, Winnipeg has a vibrant high school football league with over 30 teams. I was hired as a teacher for “at risk youth” and as the Head Football Coach at Churchill High School.
Now, it would probably be helpful to know a few things about coaching in Canada. First, there’s no money in it. We’re all volunteers. Let that sink in for a moment. Second, players pay a fee to play. Football is an expensive endeavor, even with free health care. Any deficit from player fees has to be made up in fundraising.
Finally, league alignment follows the model of English professional soccer. You get promoted or relegated based on performance. School population doesn’t matter. When I came to Churchill they had just finished a semi- final appearance in the premier division and although the cupboard was bare, this school of 500 students was scheduled to play schools of over 2000 the next season.
Things did not go well. I installed a double wing offense, and although I was taught it by one of the best (Hugh Wyatt), we failed miserably. Maybe it was the kids, maybe it was the staff, maybe it was me. Regardless, it was a very difficult three years with lots of questioning and soul searching. Finally, after going 0-8 in 2013, I resigned.
It wasn’t particularly unexpected or unwelcome. The program was ready to go back to what was familiar and I was ready to stop banging my head against the wall. (My wife was also tired of taking my belt and shoelaces away following each game.)
Then, as it often does, fate intervened. My wife decided that we were not finished with football.
My son had become of age to play and she decided that we were going to start a youth football club in our town. “How hard can it be?” she reasoned. Turns out that it was pretty hard. Besides the herculean logistics in running five teams, I also had to revisit coaching with a team of 35, twelve to thirteen year-olds, most of whom had never put on a helmet.
No way was I going to repeat my past mistake. I was going to do what everyone else in Canada was doing: run a one back offense and throw the ball on
every other down.
It sucked. We won only two games that first year, and one was a forfeit. I was unhappy, the kids were unhappy, and the parents were unhappy. I began to feel that I was a failure no matter what offense I ran.
Then fate stepped in yet again. I found myself looking through Hugh Wyatt’s website and noticed that he had a new take on the Double Wing: the Open Wing.
In this system you move a TE and Wing out as a wideout and slot. It gives you the ability to both run power and a spread game. He calls it a “Mullet Offense” – business up front and party in the back. It was exactly what I had been looking for.
After adding the 12th player as a jet back (inspired by Rick Stewart) and incorporating some Canadian adjustments (receivers running forward before the ball is snapped) I had something very different - but not so different that it couldn’t be used in the land of three downs. Hence, the Canadian Wing was born.
It worked. The first year we went 4-4, and in the six years since we have lost only six games. In that time, we started a high school team (Springfield Collegiate Institute), won two championships, and have had countless Canadian linemen learn what G.O.D. stands for.
I learned a lot as well. I learned that certain football fundamentals stand up to both the test of time and borders. I also learned that some concepts will only work if you have superior athletes, and no amount of study or great halftime speeches will change that.
Moving to Canada has been very good for me as a coach and person. I initially failed, and that failure turned from a setback into a setup. As we move into the 2024 season the lessons from these past years are still echoing. We are not fooling defenses as much as we used to with our old fashioned offense. It’s time for us to recognize what isn’t working, while still keeping our unique identity.
Now, if I can just remember to stop going for it on third down!
*********** This photo was taken in the fall of 1968, after practice in Frederick, Maryland. It’s three Frederick Falcons’ teammates. Yes, that’s a younger me on the right. On the left is Clarence “Motts” Thomas, with whom I would become lifelong friends. Motts had roomed with Willie Lanier at Morgan State, and after a couple of high school coaching jobs, he served as head coach at Bowie (Maryland) State then went on to Williams College in Massachusetts as an assistant, and then returned to Morgan State as head coach (and once coached in Yankee Stadium against Eddie Robinson). Finally, he moved west to Pomona-Pitzer College in California, where he served until retirement. Sadly, he scarcely got to enjoy retirement, dying of cancer in 2011. In the middle is Gene Snowden, a very strong, very tough offensive lineman. (Somehow I remember him as bigger.) Gene was a rock-solid guy, a fount of wisdom and good sense, who always kept his head about him, no matter how tough things got. He had a great sense of humor and was fun to be around, but he also had a serious, dignified side, and in the years after football he became a pillar in Frederick’s black community. It hurt a great deal to learn from Don Shipley, son of the late Falcons’ coach, Dick Shipley, that after a long illness, Gene passed away last week. Losing a teammate is always a blow.
*********** My high school classmate and teammate, Stan Stevenson, died last week at his home in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
This is from his obituary: Stan was a long-time season-ticket holder of the Philadelphia Eagles and a passionate Philadelphia sports fan, a passion that he both inherited from his parents and passed on to his children. He would often recount the stories of his beloved 1960 NFL Championship Eagles and his personal favorite, Tommy McDonald.
Stan was a great guy. This says it all: on our high school team (we were pretty good) he was a 150-pound single-wing fullback.
*********** It’s official: Jason Kelce has announced his retirement. It’s fair to say that he’s an honorary Philly guy, like other out-of-towners who had life-long love affairs with the Philly fans - guys like Richie Ashburn… Tommy McDonald…Tom Brookshier… Pete Retzlaff… Vai Sikahema. Guys who came and stayed. And then there’s the one who got away - Reggie White. That broke peoples’ hearts.
*********** Look - Caitlin Clark is great. No denying it.
But …please… enough of this “breaking Pete Maravich’s record” business
It didn’t happen. It can’t happen.
It’s been more than 50 years since Pistol Pete Maravich played his last college game - yet many of his records have withstood the best efforts of the countless great male players who’ve played the game since then. And these have been men playing aginst men. Would Caitlin Clark - any woman - average double figures playing an entire season against men?
Pete Maravich’s records are carved in stone. They were set under conditions that will never even be approximated, let alone duplicated. They will never be broken, by a woman or a man.
From Wikipedia (which is often wrong but in this case is right)…
In only three years playing on the varsity team (and under his father's coaching) at LSU, Maravich scored 3,667 points—1,138 of those in 1967–68, 1,148 in 1968–69, and 1,381 in 1969–70—while averaging 43.8, 44.2, and 44.5 points per game, respectively. For his collegiate career, the 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) guard averaged 44.2 points per game in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring for each of his three seasons.
Maravich's long-standing collegiate scoring record is particularly notable when three factors are taken into account:
• First, because of the NCAA rules that prohibited him from taking part in varsity competition during his first year as a student, Maravich was prevented from adding to his career record for a full quarter of his time at LSU. During this first year, Maravich scored 741 points in freshman competition.
• Second, Maravich played before the advent of the three-point line. This significant difference has raised speculation regarding just how much higher his records would be, given his long-range shooting ability and how such a component might have altered his play. Writing for ESPN.com, Bob Carter stated, "Though Maravich played before [...] the 3-point shot was established, he loved gunning from long range.” It has been reported that former LSU coach Dale Brown charted every shot Maravich scored and concluded that, if his shots from three-point range had been counted as three points, Maravich's average would have totaled 57 points per game and 12 three-pointers per game.
• Third, the shot clock had also not yet been instituted in NCAA play during Maravich's college career. (A time limit on ball possession speeds up play, mandates an additional number of field goal attempts, eliminates stalling, and increases the number of possessions throughout the game, all resulting in higher overall scoring.)
*********** PORTLAND CITY OFFICIALS RESPONDED PREDICTABLY TO POLLS SHOWING THAT 2 OF 3 PORTLAND VOTERS SAY GRAFFITI IS A BIG PROBLEM IN THEIR CITY…
Portland officials will now have an easier time slapping fines on people who don’t clean up graffiti on their property.
An ordinance the Portland City Council unanimously approved this month lets city officials skip the lengthy process they used to follow to prod property owners to paint over unsightly tags. Under the new rule — another effort in the city’s uphill battle with graffiti — officials can go straight to the city’s Code Hearings Office to open a case and seek penalties for property owners who don’t comply with the city’s 10-day deadline.
As graffiti has spread in Portland, police and prosecutors have not kept pace with taggers, but representatives of the Police Bureau have said that cleaning up existing graffiti is one of the best deterrents. Many property owners in Portland, though, find themselves caught in an endless cycle of cleaning their buildings only to see them tagged again overnight.
AND TO SHOW HOW ASS-BACKWARDS THINGS ARE IN THE ROSE CITY…
The 22-year-old man accused of causing at least $20,000 worth of damage by tagging property in Portland and Vancouver took a plea deal Wednesday.
Emile Laurent, who allegedly left the tag “TENDO” across multiple Portland buildings, pleaded guilty to one felony count and three misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief. In exchange, Multnomah County prosecutors dropped 21 additional charges, according to court records.
A county circuit court judge sentenced Laurent to three years of probation, 100 hours of community service and $6,815 in restitution distributed amongst four victims.
Laurent, a high-profile skateboarder who has been featured in Thrasher magazine, turned himself in to police Aug. 22. Officials announced the day before that they were searching for the “prolific graffiti vandal.”
He was accused of damaging various locations owned by the city of Portland and the Oregon Department of Transportation, as well as several private businesses and properties in Portland and Vancouver.
(There's no truth to the rumors that the City Council has voted to give women who have been raped 10 days to apologize to the rapist for being female, wearing women’s clothing, and walking unescorted on city streets.)
*********** After a teaser of a headline, here’s how the story read…
The Canadian Football League is investigating allegations made by a former Toronto Argonauts strength and conditioning coach, who alleges to have been wrongfully dismissed after being harassed by quarterback, Chad Kelly, the league announced Wednesday.
The coach filed a statement of claim with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last week alleging a pattern of harassment by Kelly that began with unwanted, romantic advances, and escalated into instances of threatening language.
Now, if you’re like me - and if you know anything about Chad Kelly’s background - you’re thinking, “Damn. I knew the guy had some issues in his past… but making romantic passes - at a strength coach?” Sheesh.
But I read on. Turns out, way down in the story, it mentioned that the “strength coach” was, unlike 99.9 per cent of all strength coaches, a “she,” who had been an assistant strength and conditioning coach.
Okay. Now that we have a better idea of what happened, a coupla questions:
1. Given that professional football players are in general very strong men who hold weaklings in contempt, who in the world thought there was any upside to having a female strength coach?
2. Not to condone any harassment that might have happened… but who in the world couldn’t see the potential downside?
*********** I keep hearing people deploring the fact that their legislatures “aren’t getting anything done,” and I say, “Lucky you.”
Watch out for the ones who do get things done. They’re the ones that'll give you cashless bail, ranked-choice voting, legalized drug possession and penalties for using the wrong pronouns.
Also year-round daylight saving (or standard) time.
In Oregon, they’ve proposed a bill to adopt year-round standard time.
Forget the fact that if that were to occur - if clocks were no longer “sprung forward” every spring, the sun would rise as early as 4:21 in June, and there would be 97 days of sunrises before 5 AM. (At present, there are none.)
Fortunately, the bill, even if it were to pass, would only go into effect if both Washington and Oregon were to pass similar laws. (And we all know that we can count on those two states to act rationally, don’t we?)
*********** Chris Mortenson has died, and he’ll be missed. He was a real pro, one of the few non-shouters among the pro football “experts.” For some reason - I have no idea why - I always thought of him as a former player (which he was not).
*********** I was watching the NFL combine when the kid from Texas ran a 4.21 40, and to listen to the yahoos on TV, you’d think he had just been the first human to run the 4-minute mile, high jump seven feet, pole-vault 15 feet, run the 100 meters in 10 flat and put the shot 60 feet - all at the same time. And at the summit of Mount Everest.
Meanwhile, many of the experts are actually beginning to question the relevance of the 40 yard dash in evaluating players. My wife, who’s not an expert but is brighter than most of them, asked me why offensive linemen have to run it, and I couldn’t tell her why. Aren’t there other tests and drills far more important than having somebody do something that he’ll never - not one time - have to do in a game in an entire NFL career?
********** Coach:
The answer is Jim Halpert of "The Office". Actual name is John Krasinski. He's the true "Big Tuna", right?
No, context matters, so I'll go way out there and guess Bill Parcells. I might have mentioned before that his on-post quarters (at West Point) was a duplex, the other half occupied by Bob Knight.
Some on the Army FB MB have said Monken's choice was to make Cody Worley OC or lose him to Navy.
Please excuse me for taking up too much of your page's space, but your mention of MacArthur's 1962 speech moves me to show an excerpt from my next book, tentatively titled 47: High-Living Lowlifes. It's about Simon Pack's run for the presidency. The following is Pack speaking (unedited words I wrote 2-3 weeks ago) to a gathering on the campaign trail:
“This speech means nothing. That’s what I think most of the time. But saying that it means nothing is an obvious exaggeration, else why speak to the public at all? Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was important, Eisenhower’s ‘military-industrial complex’ speech was important, President Kennedy’s calling Americans to individual action was important, General MacArthur’s ‘Duty-Honor-Country’ speech has influenced West Pointers since the early Sixties, and so on. But most speeches are, in a word, silly. Nearly all college commencement addresses are forgotten before the students have made off with their diplomas. Actions count far more than words. We’ve been told that since the age we could talk. Turn on television any day and listen to these politicians. I hear some fine speeches, dripping from honey-coated tongues, but I check back in a month and they’ve taken no action. You have do-nothing Senators who appear on C-Span grilling someone they’ve hauled in. Keep in mind these people have no executive duties at all. They sit high up in their seats like Roman proconsuls about to pass judgment on their inferiors. Just one problem, namely, that they don’t get much done for their working citizen taxpayers. They’re too busy throwing our money away, seemingly to anyone anywhere in the world who has his hand out."
Coach, we see how easily the public at large has become one big trained seal. Not me. Words matter, and if you've come into the country unlawfully, you're an illegal alien. I will not say migrant unless someone meets the definition.
Concerning the combine: I read this morning that Andy Reid took himself and his staff back home early. Are we heading to a time when the event will be held mainly for the talking heads?
Coach Wesoloski turned up a gem of a video capture.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Thanks for that link to General MacArthur’s farewell speech to the Corps at West Point. Awesome!
F Nike and the horse they rode in on!
If only Johnny Cash knew when he wrote the song “My name is Sue!”
Those UMass basketball folks should be cheering the move to the MAC. They’re currently 9-7, fifth in the A-10, and MAYBE looking at an NIT bid. At least now they’ll be playing in a REAL athletic conference.
Last I heard the “newcomers” were space aliens.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: His college - Wichita State - doesn’t even play football anymore.
He was taken in the seventh round of the NFL draft by the Lions but was released before ever playing in a game.
He spent 14 years as an assistant at six different colleges before finally getting a college head coaching job.
When he finally got one (Air Force) he lasted one season, after posting a 3-8 record. His .273 record is by far the worst of any coach in Air Force football history.
He was hired by the Giants to coach linebackers, and after two years was promoted to defensive coordinator. After two years in that position, he was hired as the Giants’ head coach.
And then… in his fourth season in New York, Bill Parcells won a Super Bowl. And four years later, he won another one.
He took his next team to a third Super Bowl, but after losing it, he left following a disagreement with the owner.
He coached two more teams, taking both to the playoffs.
In all, with a couple of “retirements” along the line, he was head coach of four different teams for a total of 19 seasons, and took teams to the playoffs ten times.
He is the only coach in NFL history to have taken four different teams to the playoffs.
His overall career record as an NFL head coach is 183–138–1 (.570). In the postseason, his record is 11-8.
Following his final retirement from coaching, he served as a TV analyst, and has worked as a consultant or executive for a number of NFL teams.
Seventeen of his former assistants have gone on to become head coaches at the college or NFL level. Three of them - Bill Belichick, Sean Payton and Tom Coughlin - have won Super Bowls themselves.
Lions’ coach Dan Campbell played for him with the Giants and the Cowboys.
Bill Parcells is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Perhaps you’ll remember him by his nickname: The Big Tuna.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BILL PARCELLS
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
RODNEY LUNSFORD - WESTFIELD, INDIANA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
BRAD KNIGHT - CLARINDA, IOWA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** The REAL “Big Tuna” was Tony “Tough Tony” Accardo, once the Capo di tutti capi (boss of all the bosses) of the Chicago Mob. For all you sports fans out there: if he were alive today, you would know him better as the great-grandfather of the Bosa boys. Maybe he’d have been their agent. (“Nice stadium you got here. Be a damn shame if something were to happen to it.”)
*********** In the spring of 1978 I attended a football clinic at Lewis and Clark College (just outside Portland) and sat in on a presentation by the recently-hired coach at the Air Force Academy. The session was lightly attended, so when he was finished talking I stayed around and got to speak for an hour or so, one on one, with Bill Parcells. After that first year at AFA, he was off to the NFL, where he would go on to win two Super Bowls and earn election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Based on that meeting, I thought he was a great guy.
But years later, a friend who’d been a longtime coach in the NFL and was, like Parcells, a “Jersey guy,” said that Parcells’ success in the NFL had gone to his head to the point that he no longer had time for all the “little guys” he’d passed on his way to the top. If so, it’s a damn shame. But I still have my good memories of the guy.
*********** QUIZ: Until Juaun Jennings’ TD pass to Christian McCaffrey in this year’s Super Bowl, he was the only wide receiver ever to throw a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl.
As a high school senior, he was selected in the 14th round of the MLB draft by the Chicago Cubs.
At Indiana, he was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
In his senior year he was named Big Ten Most Valuable Player and Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year.
He was the first player in D-I history to run for 40 touchdowns and throw for 40 touchdowns in a season.
He was the first player in D-I history to post four seasons of more than 2,500 yards total offense.
He finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting his senior year.
He played on the Indiana basketball team (under Bob Knight) following his freshman season, and on the Indiana baseball team during his junior year.
Drafted as a wide receiver in the second round (62nd pick) by the Pittsburgh Steelers, he had 47 receptions for 489 receiving yards and two TDs and was named to the NFL All-Rookie Team.
In four seasons with the Steelers he was also used as a return man, and in his fourth season, he was named first-team All-Pro and won a Super Bowl ring. In the Super Bowl, he threw a 51-yard touchdown pass to Hines Ward.
And then, a free agent, he signed with the Washington Team Whose Name Shall Not be Spoken, and had three consecutive seasons with 50 or more receptions.
After four seasons with Washington, he returned to Pittsburgh for one season, and after playing in the Steelers’ Super Bowl loss to Green Bay, he retired.
Following retirement he did some TV work, then got into coaching, and at the present time he is wide receivers’ coach of the Detroit Lions.
Although his last name might have some Islamic connotations, he is actually a devout Christian.
In a 2016 interview with a Pittsburgh newspaper, he referred to some memory problems he was having and expressed regret at not having chosen to play baseball instead of football: “If I could go back, I wouldn’t (play football). I would play baseball. I got drafted by the Cubs in the 14th round, but I didn’t play baseball because of my parents… Don’t get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now (at 36), I could still be playing baseball.”
FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2024
“We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom
are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are
tempted.” Ronald Reagan*********** In preparing myself to address the congregation at my grandson’s wedding, I went for inspiration to a speech I’ve heard many times - possibly the finest speech I’ve ever heard - and I listened to it again. It’s masterful.
It was General Douglas MacArthur’s final address to the Corps of Cadets at West Point, the United States Military Academy, where he’d once been a student, and then its Superintendent. It was given May 12, 1962, and the entire Corps - more than 4,000 strong - assembled in the Academy’s giant dining hall to hear one of its most distinguished graduates.
The title and theme of the address was the Academy’s motto: “Duty, Honor, Country.” It was delivered without any notes.
His closing words are especially powerful, as he frankly admits that his time here is short:
“The shadows are lengthening for me… the twilight is here…”
And he confesses to a certain nostalgia for long-ago battles:
“In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns… the rattle of musketry… the strange mournful mutter of the battlefield…”
And finally, he concludes:
“Today marks my final roll call with you… but I want you to know… that when I cross the river… my last conscious thought… will be… of the Corps… and the Corps… and the Corps.
I bid you… farewell.”
It’s just under 14 minutes, and it’s worth your time to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lafPwwmRvf0
*********** HOT OFF THE PRESS FROM BLACK KNIGHTS NATION
Sal Interdonato discloses the latest news from Army football, and offers an excellent summary of what happened in the last 12 months…
Drew Thatcher, Army’s 2023 offensive coordinator, has left the program.
Black Knight Nation has confirmed Thatcher’s departure after one season. No word on whether Thatcher has landed another coaching position.
“We did offer coach Thatcher an opportunity to stay on the staff and be a position coach,” Army coach Jeff Monken said during his Thursday Zoom call. “He chose not to do that. He’s left the staff. We wish him well.”
Thatcher brought his gun option from Division II Nebraska-Kearney as Army sought a new look after running the under-center flexbone as its base offense in Jeff Monken’s first nine seasons. The offense was viewed as an alternative to newer cut-blocking rules and a hopeful scoreboard spark in service-academy games against Navy and Air Force.
The gun offense started to fizzle after three games of 2023 season. Army went 159 minutes without scoring including back-to-back shutout losses to Troy and LSU.
Monken moved to quarterbacks coach Cody Worley as the play caller in a win over Coastal Carolina in late November. Thatcher returned to calling plays against Navy as the Black Knights captured the Commander in Chief’s trophy. Ironically, Army defeated both Navy and Air Force predominantly operating out of the shotgun but only scored a total of three offensive touchdowns.
But, Monken permanently made the move to Worley as full-time offensive coordinator in January with an aim of bringing back the under-center option on a more regular basis. Thatcher was demoted to H-backs, a position that was used in the gun option.
Thatcher was given one season, essentially 11 games, to make the gun option work without some key offensive talents (Isaiah Alston, Tyrell Robinson) for part of 2023. Unfortunately, the production wasn’t what expected.
http://blackknightnation.com/drew-thatcher-leaves-army-football-coaching-staff/
A WHOLE SENIOR CLASS' SEASON RUINED, AND A YOUNG COACH OUT AFTER JUST ONE SEASON.
TO THINK HOW EASILY THIS ALL COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED
*********** On the subject of even the most obscure teams having three or more combinations of uniforms, John Canzano asked, “should we blame the University of Oregon for any of this?”
Sportswriter Ethan Strauss thinks so. Strauss told me in an interview on Monday that he believes the Ducks pioneered a cool uniform trend that is now off the rails across sports.
“They made their thing constantly changing uniforms and maybe we’re looking at why this started to become so widespread in sports,” Strauss said. “People wanted to be like Oregon with the Nike backing and they thought they would be regarded as just as cool, but I think we only have room for one Oregon.”
*********** As a teacher I always made it a point to learn kids’ names - what they preferred to go by, and the proper pronunciation - as soon in the school year as possible.
But names were once much more conventional than today’s designer names, and it was normally just a matter of asking the kid if he preferred that I call him “JAMES” (as shown on the roster print-out I was given), or “Jim,” or maybe “Jimmy.”
Pretty soon, though, if you’re a teacher in Colorado and you ask the kid named “JAMES” (as it’s shown on your roster) for the preferred name and the kid says, “Lucy” - Lucy is what it had better be from then on, or you could be out of a job.
(Actually, if the kid wants to go by “Lucy” and the roster still says “JAMES,” somebody in the office in charge of printing rosters is going to catch hell, too.)
To slightly paraphrase Patrick Henry: Kill me.
The Colorado state legislature advanced a bill on Friday aimed at mandating K-12 schools statewide to implement policies requiring educators to address transgender students by their preferred name in all school settings – including in records and documents – independent of parental approval or a formal legal name change.
The bill will need one more round of voting before advancing to the Senate floor.
House Bill 1039 — a bill largely backed by the progressive group Colorado Youth Advisory Council — would also impact charter schools and mandates that educators use students' non-legal names in all school-related functions, including extracurricular activities, rosters, attendance lists, yearbooks and student ID cards.
In its proposal to lawmakers, the youth council said many "school administrative systems cause humiliation for transgender Colorado youth when schools use the students’ deadnames (birth names that do not align with their gender identities)."
"When schools keep a student’s former name and gender marker on school transcripts and records, it outs transgender students to their peers, thereby violating their privacy," the group wrote prior to the legislature's vote.
One Colorado, a progressive LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, also supports the bill, alongside the Colorado School Counselors Association.
The bill would also deem that "intentional use of a name other than a student's chosen name is discriminatory.”
State Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Republican, called the bill "open-ended and ill-defined" that could lead to "many, many paths.”
"We open up Pandora's Box for discernment on what is discriminatory and what is not, what is intentional and what is not," Hatsook said on the House floor. "Who starts deciding that when and where do we start deciding that? When and where do we bring the parents into that discussion?"
Republican State Rep. Brandi Bradley agreed with Hartsook and urged colleagues to vote "no" on the legislation.
"And now we have told the teachers that they're being discriminatory," Bradley said of the bill. "I have four teenagers. They are awesome kids, but sometimes they like to play games. So tell me how codifying or putting this bill in is not going to go against teachers and their rights in a field where we already have so much shortage?”
Republican State Rep. Rose Pugliese added she does not want schools to know more about her kids than she does.
"Parents have the right to know," said Pugliese.
Other Republican lawmakers argued students would be allowed to change their names more than once, furthering burdening teachers to remember their new names.
Meanwhile, State Rep. Stephanie Vigil, a Colorado Springs Democrat co-sponsoring the bill, contended that some transgender kids who may not have come out to their parents yet would be in danger if the legislation is not approved. On the other hand, parents who support their transgender children would also have their parental rights usurped if they approve of the name change.
(Colorado House Bill 1039 has one more round of voting before moving to the Senate floor.)
"And so I would just suggest to you all as we talk through this bill today that we bear in mind that there is such a thing as a kid who's not safe with their own parents," said Vigil. "Certainly, kids belong with their parents – that relationship is precious. But I do not accept the premise that a child is anyone's property or that their safety isn't to be prioritized, even when the person who is a danger to them is their own parents.”
The bill was also sponsored by Democratic State Sens. Faith Winter, of Westminster, and Janice Marchman, of Loveland. State Rep. Brianna Titone, an Arvada Democrat and the legislature's only transgender member, is also a co-sponsor.
If cleared by the Senate and signed by the governor, the bill would go into effect in July 2025.
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, Tennessee and Utah are several states that have passed laws restricting pronoun use in schools.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/colorado-house-advances-trans-bill-mandating-schools-use-a-students-preferred-pronouns-name
*********** I find it distressingly typical that all the co-sponsors of Colorado’s “You VILL use zese names und zese pronouns!” bill are women. Well, three of the four are. The fourth is named Brianna Titone. You decide.
*********** Good morning Coach - Thank you for reaching out - I am a past customer of yours from 2004 - I coached a youth team from 5th grade, then 6th, then 7, then 8th - I got your playbook and VHS on the system and became a DW expert haha - My teams played in a travel league against other towns in mid Missouri. We went 45 wins to just 5 losses winning 4 championships - running the DW we avg 300 yards of offence in some games A,B, and C would have 100 yard games each. The other teams were very good teams, but between the athletes I had and the DW system executed on every detail from small as making sure the wing stays engaged at the wall built on 88 and 99 to as big as putting in the mind set of the OL to work hard to give the backs the first 5 yards. Thank you for putting this out there so long ago -
I was asked to help coach our HS team this past year in which I was just an assistant so had very little say on things, RB coach and DE Coach plus Down and Distance in Booth on Friday nights , it was a great experience by some great coaches although the team has struggled on both sides of the ball to even get one win , I realized that things in our youth level has gone downhill over the past 8 years or so. My grandsons are going to be coming up in the years to come so I have decided to get back involved with the youth program and start coaching at that level again. Over the years I have lost my materials all though I can still draw them out ha ha. So I will be running the DW to its full potential once again at the youth level and hope it will change some mind sets in our Town football as a whole - Thank you for your help coach. I look forward to your zoom clinic
Doug Matchell
Cuba, Missouri
*********** There was an interesting article in our paper about the upcoming NFL combine. Now, you might ask, what could possibly be interesting about a bunch of guys running 40-yard dashes?
Well, it seems that the Seahawks’ new coaching staff won’t be attending. The reason we were given was that they’ll be so busy learning their new system that they won’t have the time.
“They're just focused on implementing their system, so they're not going to be down to the combine next week,” explained Seahawks president of football operations John Schneider.
What appears to be happening with the Seahawks is a transfer of power to Schneider, who will continue with the personnel department under him, but without the restrictions of the veto power that Pete Carroll had.
But, the article went on, the head coaches of the 49ers, Jets, Packers and Cowboys won’t be in attendance, either.
I continue to find it strange that head coaches don’t have the final say in personnel matters.
On an awful lot of the cooking shows I watch on TV, the cooks go out personally and find and buy the ingredients - at least the most crucial ones - for the meal they’re about to prepare.
I can only surmise that the clear line of demarcation that often exists between personnel and coaching is intentionally drawn by GMs who are afraid of a coach gaining too much power. Allowing him too much leeway to build a team to his specifications means that it will be that much more difficult to replace him - and to avoid a painful rebuild - when the time comes. As it always does.
*********** Air Force Academy has had just three coaches in the last 55 years of football - Ken Hatfield (15 years), Fisher DeBerry (23 years), and Troy Calhoun (17 years).
And here’s an amazing fact about the last two coaches, DeBerry and Calhoun:
DeBerry’s record: 169-109-1 - .608
Calhoun’s record: 121-78 - .608
*********** Not so long ago, Shep Clarke, a transplanted Northwesterner now living in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, sent me the great article about a former Washington State football captain named Chris Rumburg, who in World War II, as Lieutenant Colonel Ira “Chris” Rumburg, gave his life saving others in a remarkable display of valor.
https://news.wsu.edu/news/2007/05/25/the-epitome-of-courage/
Now, attempting to go “2-for-2” (in his words), he has sent me another inspiring story about another former WSU football captain, this one named Jerry Sage, the captain immediately following Chris Rumburg:
Jerry Sage, a two-way end, was the captain of the 1938 Cougar football team (after having fulfilled the same role at North Central in Spokane).
After having developed a personal antipathy for Adolph Hitler, he was recruited to join the OSS even before that organization was officially established. After a personal meeting with “Wild Bill” Donovan, Sage went through the legendary OSS training course and was so adept at William Fairbairn’s “silent killing” techniques that he was given the code name “Dagger”.
Sage conducted several behind-the-lines sabotage missions in North Africa before being wounded by artillery fire and captured by the (German) Afrika Korps. For his repeated attempts to escape various Stalags, he was put in solitary so often that other POWs called him “The Cooler King”.
He worked for 15 months on a huge three-tunnel escape plan, and thus served as the inspiration for the Steve McQueen character in “The Great Escape”. On his final try, Sage evaded the Germans and walked across half of Poland to get to Allied lines.
These experiences made Sage a natural fit for Army Special Forces when that organization was established in 1952. And he rose to command the 10th Special Forces Group in Bad Tolz, Germany. The unique and stressful culminating exercise of the Green Beret qualification course was named in his honor.
Later in life, Sage visited the WSU campus and spoke to the team at the behest of coach Jim Walden. He demonstrated some “silent killing” moves for the team, and Walden recalled: “What an impressive man and a real hero. He’d have been a great coach if he’d wanted. I told our coaches: I wish we could get this guy to talk to the team every week.”
The unique and stressful culminating exercise of the Green Beret qualification course was named in his honor:
https://www.businessinsider.com/robin-sage-is-final-test-for-army-special-forces-hopefuls-2021-1
*********** If you run the Double Wing and pull your linemen, it’s not at all unusual to face defensive linemen who’ve been ordered to bear crawl.
One of the purposes is to have the crawlers grab the legs of your pulling linemen - so the first solution is to make sure that your linemen are lined up as deep as legal (“head or foot breaking an imaginary plane drawn parallel to the line of scrimmage through the waist of the snapper when the ball is snapped” is how the rule reads. This also very helpful in allowing your pullers to get past your center).
The other goal of the tactic - penetration - is answered by
(1) Our zero-splits (hard to get through)
(2) Our inside hand down, inside foot back stance (enabling us to “get into the intersection first” - to step into the defender’s path quicker).
(3) Down-blocking. A man who’s crawling isn’t as able to fight against the pressure of a block coming from the side. He’s a one-trick pony - his power is one-directional. He’s not much of a threat as a pass-rusher either , and he’s unable to pursue. He’s also likely to be very trappable, because the main reason he’s employing this tactic is so he can penetrate.
*********** UMass is back in the MAC. This time, all the way.
In 2012, after upgrading to FBS status, UMass joined the MAC. But, largely because its men’s and women’s basketball teams were already contact with competing in the Atlantic 10, it joined the MAC as a football-only member.
Its football-only status was tied to that of another non-Midwest member, Temple, which was also admitted for football-only, and when Temple left the MAC in 2015 to join the AAC, the MAC gave UMass a choice:
Remain in the MAC, but as a full-time member in all sports, or withdraw.
UMass, in deference to its basketball programs, chose to remain in the Atlantic 10 - a much stronger basketball conference - and play football as an independent.
But its independent status in football has made for difficulties - in scheduling and in on-field success. And after the most recent round of realignment, it was one of just three remaining independents (Notre Dame and UConn being the others).
So after getting out of (“reworking”) existing contracts - UMass football was fully scheduled through 2025 - the Minutemen will play a full MAC football schedule this season.
Its hockey team will still play in Hockey East, and it will still need to find conferences for men’s lacrosse and women’s rowing, two sports not offered by the MAC.
The move to the MAC is not completely welcome. As the nearby Greenfield, Mass. Recorder put it,
“At the crux of the issue, the response is pretty simple: if you’re a UMass football fan, you’re probably happy. If you’re a die-hard basketball fan, you probably aren’t.”
Football fans realize that without conference tie-in, with its guaranteed schedule, its TV revenue and its bowl tie-ins, UMass football will be increasingly in peril.
On the other hand, basketball fans can’t be happy about moving from what’s considered the eighth best basketball conference in the country to the 24th best.
*********** WORD MECHANIC WANTED! WORK IN THE WHITE HOUSE! MUST BE SKILLFUL IN INVENTING NEW AND MORE ACCEPTABLE WAYS OF DESCRIBING OTHERWISE REPUGNANT THINGS, PERSONS AND ACTS.
We've converted the public from saying ILLEGAL ALIENS
To saying UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
And then to saying MIGRANTS
YOUR ASSIGNMENT?
NOW we're going to teach the public to say (are you ready for this?) NEWCOMERS
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13142249/biden-fury-politically-correct-newcomers-illegal-migrants.html
*********** In reference to the article about Paul Johnson’s response to the things that Geoff Collins, his successor at Georgia Tech had to say about him, Adam Wesoloski, of Pulaski, Wisconsin, writes…
"I had another coach who called me late on Saturday night who just beaten them and he said I even lined up in your formation at the end just to stick it in."
When I read this in your piece about Paul Johnson, I wondered if this is what he was referring to (see attachment).
Coach Wesoloski sent me a video clip of a play that Duke ran late in the third quarter. Duke led, 38-17, when the Devils came out in what under Paul Johnson had been GT’s trademark formation (the left split end is out of the picture) and ran a (very well executed) toss sweep to the right for about 10 yards. It was unquestionably the work of Duke Coach David Cutcliffe, and unquestionably a dig at Geoff Collins.
It’s especially ironic because I once spent a very delightful five minutes or so talking with Coach Cut down at Duke - great person - and I can assure you that in that short time he made it quite clear that he was no fan of Paul Johnson’s offense. Yet there he was, sticking up for PJ.
Just goes to show what he and other coaches thought of Geoff Collins!
*********** Morning, Coach, or should I now say "Your Excellency, the Right Reverend"?:
Today's answer is Earl Faison. Used to love hearing announcers say his name. Still like the sound of FAZE-ahn. Give me some more of those 1960s names like Merlin Olsen, Babe Parilli, Rosey Grier. Today, the announcers try to turn most players' names into initials, with the general exception of the very best...I don't hear Mahomes being called PM much (in fact, don't think ever heard it). Occasionally, TB, but mostly just 'number 12'. Point is, each to his own, but I prefer names.
Always liked Paul Johnson. Sure, he had competent assistants like other good coaches, but when I looked at the sideline of a Paul Johnson squad, I knew who the head coach was. He was an intense, in-charge man who made average players into good players. I approve his poke-back at Gentleman Geoff.
To Nick and Molly, congratulations. Except for the overnight disturbance, it sounded wonderful.
My hope is to die still fighting against the corrupters coming at us from all directions. Your de-construction of the 7-on-7 event is a brilliant description of the de-constructors at work.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
Bless you, my son. Peace be unto you.
*********** Hugh,
You are truly a Renaissance Man!
Court storming: I remember years ago when students stormed a court/field it was to celebrate a massive upset over a highly ranked team, or a rival they had not beaten in awhile, and share in the team’s accomplishment and glory. Today it has more to do with the narcissistic capture of one’s mug on instagram damned if anyone gets in my way!
At some point in a coach’s life his true feelings surface. Usually after his career is over, and after his achievements have been validated by those who didn’t pay attention.
No surprise that 7 on 7 (basketball on grass) would eventually become the gateway for a higher level of “AAU” club football, run by the self-proclaimed “experts” who pimp young men to the “big-time” to make themselves more money, and feed the egos of those youngsters.
I’m a proud “OG” who enjoyed watching the exploits of guys like Chamberlain, Russell, Jabbar, Jordan, Bird, etc. because it was a privilege to watch them play. Sorry, I can’t give you the names of those playing today.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: At all-black Huntington High School, in Newport News, Virginia, Earl Faison (FAZE-ahn) starred in football, basketball and track. He played on State Football Championship teams in 1955 and 1957, was an all-state basketball player, and as a weight man in track he helped his team win state championships.
At Indiana, as a 6-5, 265 pound two-way lineman, he earned All-Big-10 honors and second-team All-America recognition in 1960.
Chosen in the seventh round by the Lions and in the first round by the Los Angeles Chargers, he chose Los Angeles - which that very season would move to San Diego.
As defensive tackle, he combined with teammate Ernie Ladd and a succession of others to form the first (of many) “Fearsome Foursome” defensive line units, and had such a good season that he was the AFL Rookie of the Year and was named All-AFL.
His height and his amazing ability to knock down passes earned the nickname “Tree” among his teammates. Said his offensive line coach, Joe Madro, “He must have tipped or batted down 25 passes during the season. I’ve never seen a rusher get his hands on the ball as often. If he didn’t touch it, he made the passer lob it over his rush and ruined a lot of patterns that way.”
But in that rookie season he suffered a knee injury that slowed him down the rest of his career, so instead of being a Hall-of-Famer, he was a very good football player. How good? He was a five-time AFL all-star.
After his pro football career ended in 1966, he spent nearly 40 years as an teacher/coach/principal. From 1970-1975 he served as head coach at San Diego‘s Lincoln High School, where his best-known player was future NFL Hall of Famer Marcus Allen.
He also found some side work as an actor, appearing in two episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies and one episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.
A product of the segregated South, he took pride in having played a role in desegregation. The Chargers were then owned by Barron Hilton, heir to the Hilton hotel fortune, and he recalled, years later, was a contributor to the civil rights movement during the turbulent, racially-charged 1960s, “The Chargers used to stay at those Hilton hotels and we were the first blacks to ever stay in many of them in the South.”
He is a member of the Chargers Hall of Fame and the Chargers’ 50th Anniversary Team, and he is a member of the Indiana University Hall of Fame and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING EARL FAISON
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
RODNEY LUNSFORD - WESTFIELD, INDIANA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
SORRY - NO PHOTOS OF THIS GUY! IF I GAVE YOU PHOTOS YOU WOULDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO READ THE CLUES!
*********** QUIZ: His college - Wichita State - doesn’t even play football anymore.
He was taken in the seventh round of the NFL draft by the Lions but was released before ever playing in a game.
He spent 14 years as an assistant at six different colleges before finally getting a college head coaching job.
When he finally got one (Air Force) he lasted one season, after posting a 3-8 record. His .273 record is by far the worst of any coach in Air Force football history.
He was hired by the Giants to coach linebackers, and after two years was promoted to defensive coordinator. After two years in that position, he was hired as the Giants’ head coach.
And then… in his fourth season in New York, he won a Super Bowl. And four years later, he won another one.
He took his next team to a third Super Bowl, but after losing it, he left following a disagreement with the owner.
He coached two more teams, taking both to the playoffs.
In all, with a couple of “retirements” along the line, he was head coach of four different teams for a total of 19 seasons, and took teams to the playoffs ten times.
He is the only coach in NFL history to have taken four different teams to the playoffs.
His overall career record as an NFL head coach is 183–138–1 (.570). In the postseason, his record is 11-8.
Following his final retirement from coaching, he served as a TV analyst, and has worked as a consultant or executive for a number of NFL teams.
Seventeen of his former assistants have gone on to become head coaches at the college or NFL level. Three of them - Bill Belichick, Sean Payton and Tom Coughlin - have won Super Bowls themselves.
Lions’ coach Dan Campbell played for him with the Giants and the Cowboys.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Perhaps you’ll remember him by his nickname: The Big Tuna.
TUESDAY,
FEBRUARY 27, 2024
"The primary challenge of coaching in the National Football League can
be boiled down to a one-sentence job description: to get people to do
what they don't want to do in order to achieve what they want to
achieve." Tom Landry
********** It was one of the great honors of my life to have served this past Saturday as the officiant at the wedding of my grandson, Nick Tiffany, and his bride, the former Mollie McDonald, in beautiful old St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in the beautiful little coastal town of Port Gamble, Washington. (It’s the church where Mollie’s parents were married.)
It’s not that I haven’t had a lot of experience speaking in front of an audience, but when it’s your own grandson, and your granddaughter-to-be… well, let’s just say that there’s no room for error.
But as all coaches know, Proper Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance, and we (the bride and groom and I) were properly prepared. We’d planned. And practiced. And repped.
Thanks to several Zoom sessions (we live 150 miles apart) we were able first to agree on the general format of the ceremony, and then to add and delete and rearrange until things were just as the couple wanted. And then after several run-throughs at the rehearsal, we had it down. (Nothing like reps.)
The church was just about full by kickoff time, when I started things off by strolling up the aisle to take my place in front of the altar. I kept my eyes straight ahead the whole time, making sure not to look to the “groom’s side,” where my kids and grandkids and their spouses sat. None of them had been let in on the secret that Old Coach was going to be playing parson, and I could just picture one of them staring at me as if to say, “WTF???”
The ceremony went as smoothly as would a game where everybody knows the plan and you’ve repped it to perfection - and there’s no opposition. Nick and Mollie, although understandably nervous, handled their parts beautifully.
I did spend a fair amount of time preparing my talk - whose emphasis was that marriage is a team - and after I’d finished, and we prepared for the exchange of vows, I remember thinking, just as coaches will do on those occasions when we realize there’s no way we’re going to lose - “we’ve got this sucker!”
It was an awesome experience.
It really was a beautiful thing to watch happen from the inside, and it really made me feel fulfilled to watch those two happy kids kiss out in front of the church afterward.
The whole weekend was a fantastic time for my wife and me, serving as it did for a reunion of our entire family, other than the Aussies, who couldn’t make it. The bridal party and members of both the bride’s and the groom’s families stayed at the same location - the resort/casino of the Suquamish tribe, and Friday night, after a great rehearsal dinner in the nearby town of Poulsbo, we all gathered in the casino. That was a new experience for several of the “East-coasters,” many of whom had never been in a casino before.
The reception following the wedding ceremony was held in Kiana Lodge, a beautiful, tribal-owned facility located - as are so many places around Puget Sound - on the water. It’s a magnificent example of the architecture and workmanship of a people who from the earliest times were able to make creative use of the giant trees so abundant in the area.
At the reception, we sat next to two young high school boys from Texas, the sons of our son-in-law’s sister. They live in Waco and go to a small Christian school there, and they were very excited about playing tackle football for the first time, as their school launches a football program. They seemed proud and pleased that they’d convinced their mom to let them play, and I did my best to assure her that the benefits of playing football - the fraternity and camaraderie, the teamwork and discipline - would more than offset any risks, especially when you consider all the other risky things young boys do.
After dinner, my wife and I won a dance contest to determine which couple had been married the longest. But when we learned that the “prize” was just a bunch of good wishes, we left in disgust. (Just kidding. Actually, if we had, no one would have noticed - they were having such a good time partying.) But instead, we said our good-byes (or good-nights), which took us maybe an hour, and went back to the hotel.
We slept well. We hadn’t slept so well the night before, after being awakened at 4:20 (that time is burned in my brain) by loud voices in the hall, followed by an atomic door-slamming, followed by what likely were bodies being slammed against walls and loud, extremely profane shouts, mostly “Get the F—k off me!”, and more slamming noises (bodies? furniture?) and more shouts. The guy who seemed to be getting the worst of it was doing most of the shouting. I figured the guy on top of him must have been a 300-pounder because we kept hearing “Get the F—k off me!”
I couldn’t persuade my wife to stick her head outside the door and ask them to be quiet, so I called the front desk. Twice. The first time they told me that security was on its way, and when I called the second time - 20 minutes later - to tell them that evidently security hadn’t arrived yet because the guy was now shouting that he was being strangled, they said that an ambulance was outside. I said that if they took much longer they’d need a hearse.
Finally - it was 5:15 - things quieted down. I don’t know how. But it had a happy ending. When we came downstairs and I expressed my displeasure with the episode and the way it was allowed to drag on, they asked me if a $20 credit toward breakfast would help any and when I agreed, that was that.
Our final “party” was at breakfast Sunday, when 17 family members gathered for one final meet before we dispersed and headed on our separate ways home. We decided to pick up the tab. (We got $20 off.)
To give you an idea of the Puget Sound area… On the east (right) side of the water is Seattle, and circled are Bothell, the Seattle suburb where Nick and Mollie will live, and SeaTac, the location of the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.
But it was on the left side of the water where all the activity took place. (Assuming that you’ve flown into SeaTac, your options were to drive to Seattle and take a ferry to Bainbridge Island and drive the rest of the way to the lodging sites, or to drive around the Sound. The ferries are run by the state, and they’re actually designed more to serve commuters and provide essential transportation among waterfront communities than to serve tourists. But they aren’t cheap and they aren’t quick, and at the present time a couple of them are in dry dock, which has meant some unpredictable schedules, so the best bet for most people going from SeaTac to, say, Suquamish is by car, south to Tacoma, then across the water (in the twin suspension bridges at the famous spot where in 1940 a giant suspension bridge nicknamed “Galloping Gertie” collapsed in high winds) and north to the beautiful little town of Poulsbo. Circled are the various locations - Port Gamble, Suquamish, and Kiana Lodge. I also circled Bangor, which is significant because it’s the location of the Trident Submarine Base for the US Pacific Fleet, and it was while he was stationed there on a sub that my son-in-law Rob Tiffany (father of the groom) and my daughter, Cathy, met.
*********** The next Zoom Clinic - next Tuesday (March 5) ought to be as good as any I’ve ever done. Actually, I’m not going to be doing it.
I’ve managed to arrange for a repeat performance by Coach Brian Flinn, wide receivers coach at Princeton University, who spoke to us earlier on the general topic of football in the Ivy League. Now, we’re getting into the nuts and bolts. He’s agreed to talk about an aspect of the passing game as it can apply to us: the “Four Vertical Pass Game,” with emphasis on doing it from these formations that most of us are familiar with…
Just one caveat (that’s Latin for “warning” if you didn’t know that): You might want to make sure that you tune in “live” because there might be issues with my making a recording available.
*********** Sorry I haven’t been on top of much that’s been going on, but a few things do need mentioning:
THE STORMING OF THE COURT AT WAKE FOREST. Poor Wake Forest. Their basketball’s been down, and they win one against Duke, but in storming the court some Wake kid unknowingly and unthinkingly injures Duke’s 7-foot Kyle Filipowski. And now Wake is the poster child for the insanity of ordinary college students coming into overly close contact with large, strong, angry athletes.
Writes John Canzano…
I didn’t like that a Duke player got hurt on Saturday. Wake Forest’s fans shouldn’t have sprinted onto the court before time expired. But I love the idea of people being allowed to celebrate. The reasonable solution is to keep fans off the court (or field) until players have been allowed to safely exit.
Once, as Oregon fans jumped the rails at Autzen Stadium, I stood beside 85-plus-year-old Phil Knight on the field. Fans were sprinting past him. I wondered if someone accidentally knocked Knight off his feet how long it would be before that practice was banned. It was dicey.
Also, after a Civil War football game a couple of seasons ago an Oregon player exiting the field threw a punch at an opposing fan. Linebacker DJ Johnson was caught on camera clocking someone. You don’t want that dynamic, either.
I’m all for letting “college kids be college kids” in that setting. But there has to be a more thoughtful approach from the home security team for high-profile games. It probably means additional staffing, using ropes, and warning the crowd in the final five minutes that violators will be banned from future events. But if you can delay the celebration by even 30 seconds you can probably avoid a serious injury.
*********** I appreciate Paul Johnson’s role in advancing the cause of option football - the real, under-center kind. I have heard that he can be abrasive and caustic and hard to deal with and work with, but there’s no question that he was a great coach at every stop, and certainly at his last stop - Georgia Tech.
At the same time, I think that his successor at Tech, Geoff Collins, was one of the worst major college coaches I’ve seen come down the pike.
He got virtually nothing out of his players at Tech, winning ten games in his four years there. Sure, one of those seasons was a short one - he was fired after four games, with the Yellow Jackets’s record 1-3 - so he might have won a couple more, but come on - compare that with Paul Johnson, who went 82-61 in 11 seasons and took the Jackets to bowl games in nine of those seasons.
I took a quick dislike to Collins back in December 2020 when he got the redass after losing to Pitt, and walked right through the postgame handshake with Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi, without so much as looking Narduzzi in the eye. What a prick, I thought. He’d better be an awfully good coach to get away with a stunt like that at a classy place like Georgia Tech. Turns out he wasn’t, and he didn’t.
THE HANDSHAKE THAT WASN'T : https://vimeo.com/916893321?share=copy
It seems that on arrival at Tech, Collins evidently took some uncalled-for (as they say in the South) shots at the departed Johnson, and now the latter, evidently having stewed over it long enough, decided it was his turn at bat. Here’s the story:
Georgia Tech had one of its most successful runs in program history under Paul Johnson, who coached in Atlanta from 2008-2018. He led the Jackets to nine bowl appearances and three Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Games and was named ACC Coach of the Year three times (2008, 2009, and 2014) during his 11 seasons at Tech. He was selected as National Coach of the Year by CBS Sportsline in 2008, marking the second time in his career that he received National Coach of the Year honors (Bobby Dodd National Coach of the Year – 2004, Navy).
The coach that followed him had one of the worst runs in program history.
Geoff Collins finished with a record of 10-28 as the head coach of the Yellow Jackets and 0-2 against Georgia, losing by a combined score of 97-7 in two meetings.
In a recent interview on the Bill Shanks Radio Show, Johnson did not hold back on his feelings about Collins:
"Well, he wanted to reinvent history a little bit and he kept going back to when Georgia Tech was relevant, this, that, and the other, and I was trying to think back to when they were better than when we were there, I gues maybe the 50s, but if you went back and looked, I kept looking for all the championships they had won and it was like... you know he just distorted everything when he got there, I will just call a spade a spade, I don't care, I got no respect for the gu, I can say what I want. He went in and distorted everything that was there and acted like we had not won a game and lied about who he inherited, lied about the offensive line, lied about us not going to the high schools in Georgia. He went and told a bunch of whoppers and it came back to get him because there was not much substance there."
Johnson did not stop there though.
"You know what was really amazing... I probably should not say this, but I will, I have never been one to hold much back, but the opposing coaches in the league would call me and they were laughing. I had one particular coach who called me who had really pounded them at home in Atlanta and he told me, Paul it is a circus and he goes I told my kids after the game in the locker room, he said congratulations, you just beat a team that physically had kicked our ass for the last three years and he goes, I am just not saying that to you. When we got through with those games, he said it was hard for us to play the next week because of the physicality and the way you played. I had another coach who called me late on Saturday night who just beaten them and he said I even lined up in your formation at the end just to stick it in. I think the people who knew, knew.
Not only did it frustrate... I know I got frustrated with it, he frustrated a lot of the former players who played there. There were kids who had played and won double-digit games and played in Orange Bowls and played in ACC Championship Games and just totally disrespected what they had done and the tradition and the history. I told somebody that the team he inherited had won seven games and finished second in the Coastal, had four of the five offensive lineman coming back... Now I could go into the story that one of their dads told me, one of the ones who left, and that sort of things but to say those kids averaged 250 LBS, it was backhanded at them and I don't know why you would do that.
I followed a lot of coaches who have been in the profession and knows that when you go in, if you don't have anything good to say, just don't say anything. But, when I went into Georgia Tech, I was very appreciative of what Chan (Gailey) had done. We had some really good players in the program, and we had holes like you do, there were some positions where we needed more guys or whatever but it would not have done me any good to go in there and bash Coach Gailey, plus I had a lot of respect for him, I thought he did a good job. So it was like... I had never done that. I inherited a program at Navy that had gone 3-30 the three years before I got there and I did not go in and bash the coaches or the players who were there and I think the year before I went to Georgia Southern, they had won four games so I think you are just making a lot of excuses when you do that and you are trying to alibi... I was more disappointed in the administration for letting it go on.”
Johnson was asked about his current relationship with Georgia Tech and he spoke about that:
"It's good. I went back for the North Carolina game and was honored for the College Football Hall of Fame. You can't stay at a school for 11 years and not... I pull for them, I hope Brent (Key) can do a good job, he is on the right track and hopefully, I think they are coming with some support and those are guys are getting a lot of stuff that we did not get and hopefully they will be successful. I want nothing but success for Georgia Tech. I don't have any ill will towards the school. I was just disappointed... I had image of what would happen when I retired or what I thought I am leaving this thing the right way and I will be in a position where if we stay in Atlanta, I will drive over to practice or hangout or whatever. "
https://www.si.com/college/georgiatech/football/former-georgia-tech-head-coach-paul-johnson-tears-into-geoff-collins-in-recent-interview-i-got-no-respect-for-the-guy
*********** Hard to believe that Dallas Cowboys’ defensive tackle Mazi Smith, a 2023 first round pick out of Michigan, couldn’t come up with the rent on a storage unit, but when he didn’t do so enough times, the contents were sold at auction.
They went for under $2,000, but seem to be worth a lot more…
https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/news/finders-keepers-dallas-cowboys-mazi-smith-storage-unit-sold-viral-video-claim
*********** Has anybody else seen the “Ice Football” video from Germany? I’m in.
ttps://www.essentiallysports.com/nfl-active-news-american-ice-football-rules-teams-championships-popular-players-more-on-the-new-sport-taking-nfl-world-by-storm/
*********** Coming soon to a city near you (if it isn’t there already).
It’s what they’re doing to our game - and our kids - in the off-season.
Perhaps you’ve read about Cam Newton getting into a fight at a “youth football event” this past weekend.
Now, I have nothing but contempt for Newton, and I really don’t care about the fight. But there are a couple of issues, beside the fight itself, that came up in the story.
First of all: “Youth football event” did they say? There were Under-15 teams and Under-18 teams competing in 7-on-7. Youth football my ass. Those are high school-age kids. Sound a little like a football version of AAU (aka “Who Needs High School Coaches”) basketball, does it?
Naturally, it’s “for the kids.” Yeah. And also for the organizer, a self-described “apparel and sports media company” named We Ball Sports.
And for organizations such as one named TopShelf Performance, a “wide receiver training facility in Atlanta.” It had teams playing in the event.
And for Newton’s organization, something called C1N.
Evidently there was quite a bit of “trash-talking’ (God, I hate that very word) going on between players of the two organizations and between their coaches as well. (Just in case you actually believed anything they might have said about being dedicated to improving the whole person, and not just the football player.)
And then there was this, quoted verbatim from The Athletic:
"There were 16 teams in each division, with the top under-18 team earning a $5,000 prize and the top under-15 team receiving $1,500. Over 1,500 people attended the event."
Question 1. How’d you like to be a high school offensive coordinator with a couple of their “graduates” on your team?
Question 2. How’d you like to be a high school head coach and learn that two of your best kids have been playing on one of those teams - and they’ve decided they’ll have a better chance of getting a Power 4 offer if they go to another school? (And their 7 on 7 coach knows just the right school.)
Question 3. What do you suppose happens to the prize money?
https://theathletic.com/5299018/2024/02/25/cam-newton-physical-scuffle-atlanta/
*********** C’mon, Coachman. Are you seer-ee-uhs? Rilly? Tradition? Onliest ones think tradition's real is them ole dudes at the bar, the ones with the tears drippin' inta beer steins the size of 10-gallon buckets. 'Tradition' have went the way uv history....Back to being serious again. Today, this morning, I was talking with a know-it-all (like me) guy at the gym who claimed one of the current NBA players is the greatest of all time. I asked if he'd ever seen Wilt Chamberlain play? That dude's been dead forever, right? That's right, he has, but you can still find videos of him playing. Can you give me any of his stats? Stats don't matter in his case. Weren't many good players back then....I used to think more people believed if it didn't happen in their lifetimes it doesn't matter. Nowadays, it's more like if it didn't happen in the past five years,
Mick Scanlan's letter to his son's coach is priceless, more valuable than bars of gold.
Any young coach willing to make the effort (which should be every manjack one of them) can mine a dozen nuggets of coaching wisdom from this 'encore' production. Thanks, Coach.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
“Recency” bias is the byproduct of the devaluation of all aspects of history as if nothing of importance happened until WE came on the scene. God must be having a good laugh.
Wilt Chamberlain would still kill them today. He was an amazing athlete. In high school, with no training, he was Philadelphia public league champion in the high jump, shot put and 440 (now the 400 meters).
*********** Hugh,
After your note to Stephen A. Smith I’m convinced you could qualify as an ND fan!
On that topic, do you think the powers that be in college football just ratcheted up the pressure on ND to reconsider their Independent status after altering the 12 team CFP format? My prediction of ND joining the ACC is becoming more clear.
Enjoy the wedding!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Fred Dean was born in Arcadia, Lousiana, and grew up in nearby Ruston. He started out attending an all-black high school there, but following school integration, he spent his last two years at newly-integrated Ruston High School.
Passing up nearby Grambling, which in pre-integration times had established a pipeline to the NFL, he went instead to Lousiana Tech, right in Ruston. He was four times named All-Southland Conference linebacker and was named Southland Conference Defensive Player of the Year his final two seasons. During his time at Louisiana Tech, the Bulldogs were 44-4.
The San Diego Chargers selected him in the second round, 33rd player overall, of the 1975 NFL Draft, and despite his relatively small size - 6-2, 227 - moved him to defensive end.
As a rookie for the Chargers in 1975, he recorded seven sacks, 93 tackles (and four fumble recoveries. In 1978, he recorded 15.5 sacks as the Chargers posted a winning record. He added nine sacks in 1979 and 10.5 in 1980, as San Diego won two straight AFC Western Division titles.
And then, early in the 1981 season, he was traded to the 49ers, and in the first half of this first game with them - against the Dallas Cowboys - he seemed to turn the entire team around.
Wrote the 49ers in a statement at the time of his death, "From the minute he joined the 49ers, (he) immediately helped to change the team's fortunes. In just his first game with the team, he put in an all-time performance against the Dallas Cowboys that not only helped defeat a nemesis but propelled the 49ers to our first Super Bowl Championship later that year.”
In the first half of that game he drove Cowboys’ QB Danny White nuts. But what may have really flipped the season for the 49ers was when, at halftime, he pulled out a pack of Kools and lit one up. According to future Hall-of-Famer Ronnie Lott, the whole team just stared at him, as if to say, “who IS this guy?”
The 49ers wound up trouncing the Cowboys, winning, 45-14. In all, he contributed 12 sacks in 11 games, earning the nickname “The Closer” from his teammates, on the way to the 49ers’ first Super Bowl victory.
Said 49ers’ coach Bill Walsh, “he gave us the single greatness we have to have.”
He spent his final five seasons with San Francisco. His best year was 1983, when he recorded 17.5 sacks. The following year, he won his second Super Bowl with 49ers, and then played one final season in 1985.
He played on five division winners and in three NFC championship games, and he played San Francisco’s first two Super Bowl victories.
He earned all-conference honors four times – twice with the Chargers and twice with the 49ers, and was named to four Pro Bowls.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008, and into the College Hall of Fame in 2009.
After his football career, he became a minister in his hometown, Ruston.
He died at 68 from Covid while being airlifted from a hospital in West Monroe, Louisiana, to Jackson, Mississippi, in October, 2020.
He is one of more than 345 former NFL players to be diagnosed after death with (CTE).
The 49ers won five Super Bowls in 14 years, but according to former 49ers owner Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., “We wouldn’t have won five if we hadn’t won the first two. And we would not have won the first two if it weren’t for Fred Dean.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING FRED DEAN
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** Fred Dean (met him while working a football camp in NorCal. Watching him demonstrate DLine techniques to the youngsters was amazing). Joe Gutilla
*********** QUIZ: At all-black Huntington High School, in Newport News, Virginia, he starred in football, basketball and track. He played on State Football Championship teams in 1955 and 1957, was an all-state basketball player, and as a weight man in track he helped his team win state championships.
At Indiana, as a 6-5, 265 pound two-way lineman, he earned All-Big-10 honors and second-team All-America recognition in 1960.
Chosen in the seventh round by the Lions and in the first round by the Los Angeles Chargers, he chose Los Angeles - which that very season would move to San Diego.
As defensive tackle, he combined with teammate Ernie Ladd and a succession of others to form the first (of many) “Fearsome Foursome” defensive line units, and had such a good season that he was the AFL Rookie of the Year and was named All-AFL.
His height and his amazing ability to knock down passes earned the nickname “Tree” among his teammates. Said his offensive line coach, Joe Madro, “He must have tipped or batted down 25 passes during the season. I’ve never seen a rusher get his hands on the ball as often. If he didn’t touch it, he made the passer lob it over his rush and ruined a lot of patterns that way.”
But in that rookie season he suffered a knee injury that slowed him down the rest of his career, so instead of being a Hall-of-Famer, he was a very good football player. How good? He was a five-time AFL all-star.
After his pro football career ended in 1966, he spent nearly 40 years as an teacher/coach/principal. From 1970-1975 he served as head coach at San Diego‘s Lincoln High School, where his best-known player was future NFL Hall of Famer Marcus Allen.
He also found some side work as an actor, appearing in two episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies and one episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.
A product of the segregated South, he took pride in having played a role in desegregation. The Chargers were then owned by Barron Hilton, heir to the Hilton hotel fortune, and he recalled, years later, was a contributor to the civil rights movement during the turbulent, racially-charged 1960s, “The Chargers used to stay at those Hilton hotels and we were the first blacks to ever stay in many of them in the South.”
He is a member of the Chargers Hall of Fame and the Chargers’ 50th Anniversary Team, and he is a member of the Indiana University Hall of Fame and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2024
"Asking 'who ought to be the boss?' is like asking 'who ought to be the
tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor." Henry
Ford We have a big family wedding coming up this weekend, and I’m more involved than usual, so I find myself doing what the great Rush Limbaugh and others have done when they just don’t have the time to produce fresh material - provide an “encore show.”
*********** BUT BEFORE I START… Stephen A. Smith could make a Notre Dame fan out of me.
I usually ignore him, but when he steps into an area he knows nothing about - college football - and starts mouthing off, I can’t help listening.
And when he gets headlines because he’s opened his yap and attacked Notre Dame, asking “Why are they even relevant?” I actually take the time to hear what he’s saying.
Which isn’t much. His problem seems to be his failure to understand why they occupy so much of our attention when they “haven’t won a national championship since 1988.”
Well.
Stephen A., old buddy, you obviously have a lot to learn about college football. It happens to be our second-oldest sport (baseball being first) and, along with baseball, it’s one of only two sports that have any tradition. It has history and tradition, which the current promoters of the game seem to be ignoring. They do so at heir peril, because this, Mister Smith, is why Notre Dame is “still relevant.”
Notre Dame has history and tradition, and more important than that, Notre Dame plays an important role in the history and tradition of college football itself.
Notre Dame has won more national championships than any other school.
Notre Dame has won national titles under five different coaches.
Notre Dame has produced more All-Americans than any other school.
Notre Dame has produced seven Heisman Trophy winners - tied for most with Ohio State, Oklahoma and USC.
Notre Dame was the first team in ANY sport to be truly “national.” The Irish started playing Army in 1913, and first played USC in 1926.
Partly because they didn’t belong to a conference, partly because of some anti-Catholic bias, and partly because of the smaller size of their Cartier Field, Notre Dame played so many games at considerable distances from South Bend that some writers nicknamed them the “Ramblers.”
This was their AWAY schedule in 1928 - AT Wisconsin; Navy AT Soldier Field (Chicago); AT Georgia Tech; Penn State AT Philadelphia; Army AT Yankee Stadium; AT USC. (They played just three games on their home field.)
Southern schools - with the sole exception of Georgia Tech making reciprocal visits to Notre Dame - never left the South.
Mr. Smith, Notre Dame was getting out and “building the brand” long before it occurred to other schools to do such a thing.
Knute Rockne at the time of his death was one of the most famous sports figures in America.
Notre Dame has been popularized by at least two famous movies - “Rudy,” and “Knute Rockne, All-American” (in which future president Ronald Reagan played Irish legend George Gipp.)
I could go on, but why? Suffice it to say that Notre Dame may not have won a “national title” since 1988, but it’s not as if they’ve actually sucked since then. Yes, they had some down years between Lou Holtz and Brian Kelly, but in the 36 years since 1988, they’ve finished in the Top Ten nine times. I’ll bet most of you reading this would be happy if your favorite team were to finish in the Top Ten 25 per cent of the time.
But the main thing, Mr. Smith, is that college football was being played, building history, for a long time before 1988, and there’s a great portion of the American public that still understands that, and appreciates Notre Dame’s place in it.
As a result, there are to this day passionate Notre Dame fans in every part of the country. And no matter where the Irish play, they pack the house.
Other colleges would love to be able to be as “relevant” as Notre Dame, but they can’t go back and remake history.
So, please, Mr. Smith, since you don’t understand and can’t appreciate the importance of history - go back to pro basketball.
https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/39569029
TIME CANNOT DIM THE WORDS… I went back to February, 2024 - 20 years ago - to find a few items that I thought you might enjoy. See you Monday!
*********** "It has been said that fight fans would not spend 20 cents to watch Van Gogh paint sunflowers but they would fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground (capacity 100,000) to see him slice off an ear." Roy Masters, in the Melbourne Age
*********** I am beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable with how much credit one or two of my assistants is taking for our winning year. We are all proud of our year, and I want them to feel proud about their contribution...but I don't want it leading down the wrong road to disloyalty. Any thoughts on this? Thanks
I think that at your banquet, you need to make a point of recognizing everyone, stressing that it was a total team effort - mention the Moms and dads, and managers and everybody else. Keep stressing the fact that no one person made the team successful - that it was a true joint effort by the players and assistants.
And when you get to the assistants, stress the specific area each guy worked in (so that people don't get the idea that he was more important than he really was) and mention that the job he did with the defense - or the linebackers - or the running backs, or whatever, was a very important part of the overall success of the team.
Keep dwelling on the fact that teams are successful only when people forget about who gets the credit, and all work together - players and coaches - for the common good. As Blanton Collier, championship coach of the Cleveland Browns once said, "you can accomplish anything if you don't care who gets the credit."
You get the idea.
*********** Just had to comment about the guy worried about his assistants taking too much credit for the good season. I loved your response, but think you might have left out a pointed comment to the writer. The remark from Coach Collier is right on. Who cares who gets the credit. I've learned through the years that it's a whole lot more about making other people feel good than worrying who gets the credit... I'm not talking about PC feel good, but real, "you've worked hard and you deserve it" feel good. (of course the flip side of that is feeling bad when you don't do well) I really think as a Head Coach it's part of my job to let people think they were a huge part of our success. Lack of loyalty is a huge problem, and one that should be addressed swiftly and seriously. But what difference does it really make if an assistant takes credit for success...sounds to me like a head coach who is insecure in his abilities and is trying to take the credit himself...Mike Waters, Phoenix, Arizona (I am distrustful of anyone who takes credit for a team's success. HW)
*********** Hello Hugh, Looking forward to the clinic in Atlanta and hope all is going great. I have accepted a head coaching position at a small private school and am totally excited about getting started. The school has struggled in football for 30 years and I love the challenge of making a dramatic change happen there. It reminds me of your LaCenter Team from a few years ago.
I wanted to respond to your News column when you were talking about a thoroughbred offense that gets weakened by delusions of mixing non- related pieces of other things (you referred to like a Dog Show). You remember my strange experience from last year and the constant berating I had to endure, while I was racking up yards and wins with the pure DW. By the way, My offense led our county last year in rushing and turned a dismal program around to a real force in the league.
I have mentioned keeping the DW pure and sound before, and I just think that you can do different things from time to time according to your talent, but you best make sure that the offense is has its vitals. When one starts experimenting with the splitting of ends and wings and even line splits etc., you lose the integrity of the offense and the reason for running the thing in the first place. My thinking is: if you don't want to stay tight and get down in the double wing completely, You are best to do Something Else, because you probably won't be very successful with your new concoction. You could call it the Broken Wing. Any way, I'm looking forward to the clinic and seeing the local wingers again. I'm going to have a small web page soon that will be a little something to play with. I am learning, ever so slowly about web pages and it will be something, mainly for my kids and whoever is related to check in on our football team, and various NGA football related things. I'm not going to make it a double wing page so much, but I'm sure it will be mentioned quite frequently,
I'm sure. I hope you will allow me to put your picture on there. Have a great trip to the "Big A" and we'll see you there.
Larry Harrison, Head Football Coach, Nathanael Greene Academy, Siloam, Georgia
*********** Heading into the final round of last year's British Open, Mark Roe was two strokes off the lead. He'd be playing the final round paired off with Tiger Woods. And then, as will sometimes happen in golf, it developed that he'd committed some stupid scorecard infraction (no, he didn't change his score) which, the rules of golf being what they are, called for his disqualification. And that was that. No agent standing in front of a forest of microphones, no players' union automatically appealling. And, most significant of all, no Mark Roe bitching about the tough break. He understood the rules, he violated one of them, and he accepted the consequences without complaint.
And that's what makes golf a special game.
Roe said a youngster came up to him later and said, "You made me proud to be a golfer the way you handled it."
Now, looking back, I can see a kid saying that to Roger Staubach. But how many of today's NFL football players will ever have a kid come up to him and say, "you made me proud to be a football player?”
*********** It seems as if we can not "close" the deal when we get in the second half. Conditioning may be one factor that I can address. Any suggestions on how I can approach this for the team from a mental stand point? If this were you what "theme" would you use for the week? Any psychological advantages? Anything you can suggest would be appreciated. NAME WITHHELD
We all fear the emotional let-down that comes from getting a big early lead. I feel that if we get a quick early score, it usually means that we will have a hell of a battle on our hands because the kids will get the idea that it's going to be easy and it's not going to require much effort.
One thing that I have found is somewhat effective is to equate it to a boxing match. We are going 15 rounds for the championship of the world. This is why we train - so we can be just as tough in the late rounds as in the early rounds. A fighter can't get out to an early lead and then expect to coast, because he could find himself on his back. And you don't want to leave it up to the judges, either.
We want a knockout or a unanimous decision. No matter what the score, no matter what the round, we have to "keep punchin'."
When we score an early touchdown, our approach is, "Okay - we just won round one... Now the bell's getting ready to ring for round two, and you'd better come out swinging.”
*********** I want to run unbalanced. So do I run "Tackle Over" by moving the left Tackle over and leaving the tight end in place so I am not called for being "uncovered" on the left side? An official called me for that last year as we shifted a TE and did not have an eligible guy left there.
That official was totally wrong about having to have an "end" on the line. You and I may call a guy a tackle, and he may wear an ineligible number, but if he is on the end of the line, he is referred to in the rule books as "the end man on the line." The guy you referred to must have wanted to sound brilliant by using that "uncovered" business. There is no rule that stipulates that the end man on your line must have an "eligible" number. The rules merely stipulate that you must have at least seven men on the line and at least five of them must have ineligible numbers; only the end men on the line are eligible to catch a pass, and then only if they are wearing eligible numbers. (Except in the NFL, of course, which for some reason refuses to do away with the farcical "tackle eligible" play.) In other words, all seven of your linemen can wear ineligible numbers - even both ends. In fact,
everybody on your entire team can wear ineligible numbers. You just can't send any of them out on a pass play.
*********** Suppose your daughter is away at college, and you learn that she's dating a running back for the school's nationally ranked football team. You know nothing more about the fellow. Do his athletic credentials make you worry more or less?
I'm a huge sports fan, but the sad fact is I'd worry more, a lot more. Despite the great character-building potential of sports, far too many modern day athletes develop a "can't touch me" entitlement attitude about life that is more likely to stunt than stimulate the development of virtues like self-restraint, unselfishness and fidelity.
We are doing horrible things to our fine young athletes. As early as elementary school exceptional youngsters are pegged and then preened for their role as stars. The expectations and demands on their lives outside of sports become lower and lower. Parents, coaches and boosters often make excuses for them, get them out of trouble and otherwise run interference for their journey through life. So we can't really be surprised when an uncomfortably high percentage of them become instinctively self-indulgent and egocentric. What's really amazing is how many quality youngsters emerge from this process.
We promote overconfidence and the delusion that wealth and fame are inevitable. Consequently, many young athletes shortchange their education and ignore the development of other critical life skills. And when injuries or the sheer crush of competition eliminate all but a select few from the race, most of them have to rebuild a self-concept without athletics and fight the fear that their futures are behind them.
We owe youngsters much more than that. That's why the national Pursuing Victory With Honor campaign is so important. It makes it clear that coaches are first and foremost teachers, and that responsible sports programs go well beyond teaching techniques and strategies of enhanced athletic performance. Youth sports should, above all, foster the development of character and enhance the mental, social and moral development of athletes to help them become personally successful and socially responsible. Michael Josephson, Character Counts (Mr. Josephson wrote that two years ago. Things certainly haven't gotten any better since then. HW)
*********** Why we coach...
John Lambert, of La Center, Washington, a former student, former player, former assistant of mine and now an excellent head coach in his own right, took his team to the state Class 2A semifinals this year. Only one team from our section of the state - Ridgefield High School in 1993, another Double-Wing team - has ever gone further. On top of that, one of John's players was awarded one of two scholarships given every year by the local chapter of the National Football Foundation. The young man's dad cared enough to write John a great letter, which John was kind enough to share with me. (John writes. "He is the type of guy you love to have as a parent. It certainly helps reinforce one of the reasons we coach." After reading it, I would have to say, "No kidding." The letter starts off dealing with some "inside" matters, but it concludes:
As you continue your coaching and teaching career....You will have many ups and downs. When you are winning, it will be easy and when you're losing you will have to put up with the "comments", and such, from the parents!
I KNOW you didn't enter this profession for the money. It is definitely a labor of love. However, I just want you to know this....*********** A coach wrote me about his frustration at seeing teams not executing as well as his, but nonetheless doing very well - because they had "the horses." I see this all the time, watching tape of inner-city schools whose execution isn't always sharp, but who have the talent to break a big one at any time. The only solution, I tell the guys who coach the farm kids and small-town boys, is that they're just going to have to "score slower."
Some year, when the team is losing, and the twins are wondering why Daddy is at work soooo long, and he comes home in a bad mood. You can show them this email.
You made a difference in a student's life. You made a difference in a young man's life. You MADE a difference!
I work for Delta airlines. It is a good job. I work in Operations at the airport at PDX. I enjoy it. However, when I retire ...I won't be able to look back on it with the same pride that you will be able to look upon your job. For that , I envy you. And if nothing else as exciting as going to the Tacoma Dome in 2003!... Or winning the sportsmanship award in 2001/2003!...or anything that comes close to your accomplishments in the future. Know this...
There will be a man, who WILL remember the impact you had on his life. He was the kid... who was not the strongest, not the fastest, and not the most gifted athlete you will have ever coached. But, he will be the man who will look back at this time of his life and smile. And be forever grateful for what you did for him.
Thanks John, Thanks again for everything! And good luck next year! Mick Scanlan
The disadvantage to that, of course, is that they're going to have to execute the offense quite well, hang onto the football, and not commit stupid penalties. The advantage to scoring slower is that they'll remain on offense - and keep the ball away from those talented guys on the other side - a lot longer.
*********** I am the O-line coach at ----- High in --------- . I often read your web page and am impressed with the tips that you give and I would like your opinion about my o-line for next year.
I have a pretty good group on the o-line, but I have two kids that are above and beyond the others in size speed and just raw power. I was wondering if you would recommend putting one at each tackle, or putting them both on the right side.
I am leaning towards putting them side by side, because if teams overload our right then they will both be pulling leading our toss left. I am also sure that the kids that would end up on the other side would do a pretty good job.
I would really appreciate your opinion on the subject.
I'm asked this a lot, and my answer is always - "put them at the guards."
For one reason, it has been my experience that we can get by with less talent, speed and strength at the tackles, but we will only be as good as our guards. Our system depends heavily on the Wedge and the fullback G-play, which both depend on good guard play, not to mention the rest of the offense. There is much more technique required of the guards than of the tackles.
For another reason, I believe that the major asset of a Double-Wing system is its balance - its ability to threaten the defense with the same thing to the right as to the left. I think that a good defense, once its scouting reports show that you are one-handed, will take that into account and will present you with overloads that can cause problems (remember that if you put your best linemen on one side, so as to make them the playside on a power play, your weakest linemen would be on the playside when you wanted to run the power the opposite way.
************ I read an old Darrell Royal book in which he drew on his CFL experience and said that it makes no sense to him to give the opponents the ball on the 20 if a kick goes into the end zone. He argues that that is giving the defense too much of an edge, when it is the offense that should receive a bonus of some sort for moving the ball as far as it did.
That's where Canadian rules come in, of course, with the single. (Canadian football still has the 'return kick" rule, so a guy can field a punt in his end zone and punt it back out again.)
Royal argued that at the very least, the ball should be brought out no farther than the five.
I might like the idea of awarding one point any time the defense can't run it out, even with the smaller American end zone. Even if the ball is punted out of the end zone. Maybe two points if it's punted through the uprights. Think of the way it would change strategy - will they pass up the sure one, the possible two, to go for a field goal?
*********** Good morning coach: We are the number one sports city in Michigan, voted as such by Sports Illustrated. A magazine, in my opinion that hasn't been worth a s--- for at least ten years now. When we were awarded said honor last week, Mooch was there, Lem Barney, ALL the local politicians, and the heads of each organization. All mugging for tv and feeling so good about themselves. No coaches of course. So what does the number one sports city in Michigan do? Build soccer field after soccer field, that's what. We have dozens of the cursed things. The biggest waste of real estate, that's what I tell our kids every year. Don't call it a soccer field, a spade is a spade, it's a "waste." "Coach, why do they do that?" I say, "I don't know Jimmy. Sometimes life just isn't fair."
Our practice field doubles as our game field. Our game field is so bad we only schedule three home games per season (11 game season). We are the Gypsies of the league. Our field is so bad, when we hosted the playoffs in 2001, we rented the damn Silverdome and hosted the playoffs there. Our field is so bad, we rented another cities High School field for the Super Bowl in 2002, which we were the host of. Most of the two high schools starting backfields, and captains, are our ex-guys. You see coach, the number one sports city in Michigan as voted on by SI has two major high schools in the city that charge us $3000.00 per day to use their football fields! If we were females and played with that little black and white ball, the fields would be free. Our practice/game field is situated to where we look at three empty soccer fields six days per week. In my eights years coaching the Troy Cowboys, the best organization, year after year in our league, I have never seen a soccer game on those three fields. The only time they are used is when a bunch of guys are out there playing a pick up game of football.
Why am I venting to you coach? Because, the number one sports town in Michigan is building a CRICKET field in our park! Where we practice and play our games! You see our city counsel recognizes CRICKET as the number two sport in the world, behind soccer, and GOD DAMN IT, we need to get these guys a field. We have been waiting for our "new field" since 1979. Well, enough is enough. We showed up in force at the last city counsel meeting. Not to fight the Crickets, as we know call them, but to point out that football is still the number one sport in America, yes? We are not saying, not in our backyard, but just get us a damn field. Make one of the many empty soccer fields a football field. The mayor did point out to us that Cricket was, in fact here before football in this city, and country. Please help on that one coach so we can make a proper reply. All I thought of while hearing this nonsense was I wish I had Wyatt's historical mind here to counter that one. We thought surely Rod Serling is going to pop out at anytime, because we must be in the Twilight Zone. Anyway, more to come on this little fight in our neck of the woods. Take care coach. David Livingstone. Troy, Michigan (Do you realize how big a cricket field is? Maybe four acres - four football fields? As for cricket being the number two sport in the world - based on what? Attendance? And what, exactly, does the world have to do with how you spend money on parks designed for the people of Troy Michigan? The American Indians were playing lacrosse long before the Europeans arrived - so tell the city you want them to build a lacrosse field - and you can use it in the fall. HW)
*********** LSU just signed Nick Saban to a seven-year contract that makes him the highest-paid college football coach.
He is guaranteed at least $2.3 million this year, with a chance to earn an extra $400,000 based on bowl bonuses and team graduation rates. He could make as much as $3.4 million in 2010, the final year of the contract.
This is what coaches get when they win. When they lose, they wind up selling insurance. The difference often comes down to "skill" in recruiting. (Just in case you wondered why there is a sex-and-booze scandal just waiting to be exposed at the your favorite college.)
*********** One of the reasons why Penn State is Penn State is its long tradition of stability. Not enough of the credit for it belongs to Rip Engle, who arranged with the president of the university for brash, cocky (mouthy?) young Joe Paterno to succeed him. That way, all Rip had to do once he decided to retire (he didn't have to) was to step aside and let Joe, his long-time assistant, step in. You couldn't have asked for a smoother transition.
Paterno himself certainly deserves a great deal of credit for maintaining that stability. For years, his staff rarely turned over, and, consisting as it did of mostly Penn Staters, it was assumed that at some point the torch would be passed to one of them, and the winning would continue forever. There was defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, a former PSU end, producer of so many great linebackers that Penn State was (once) called "Linebacker U." And there was offensive coordinator Fran Ganter, former running back. Sandusky turned down the Maryland job in order to stay at State College, partly, it must be pointed out, because of his involvement in a project to help troubled youngsters. He finally retired, apparently convinced that Coach Paterno was going to outlast him.
And now Ganter has been relieved of his coordinator position, and "reassigned" within the athletic department.
The new offensive coordinator is apparently going to be Galen Hall, also a former Penn Stater and once offensive coordinator for Barry Switzer at Oklahoma and then a successful head coach at Florida. (Successful on the field, that is. There were some NCAA problems, as I recall, but the guy can coach.)
But Galen Hall is as old as I am, and he's not going to be Coach Paterno's successor, so any hope for another smooth transition appears to be gone. Penn State is staring at a changeover that could be as traumatic as the one Nebraska's undergoing.
But there's Joe, the Old Lion, his hands lashed to the wheel to weather the storm, telling recruits that he'll be there until they graduate. If that's true, he'll be 82.
How'd you like to be the AD at Penn State - the one who has to walk out to the mound and ask JoePa for the ball?
*********** Some sound advice from a veteran coach...
I'm 90% sure going to be back at at my present school next year, but a few openings have caught my eye of late. I guess I'll always have the itch to take on new challenges... either that or I'm a complete moron. I've applied for a three or four head coach vacancies and the interview process has begun... so I'm hitting the road every so often. I just got back from one that had me smacking my forehead with a Homer Simpson "DOH!"
Three hours to get there and just a 30 minute interview (yes, I brushed my teeth before the interview and, yes, my fly was zipped when I walked in the room!). They had a sheet of 15 questions candidates were to address, but at the beginning of the interview the principal informed me that for the sake of brevity I should pick 7 of the 15 out to answer since he wanted to keep the interview under 30 minutes.
There was a definite lack of follow-up questions from the get-go, so I don't think I managed to blow the interview. I got the distinct impression the principal had pretty much made up his mind earlier, but just wanted to finish the interview process. (!) It sure would have been nice to know that ahead of time... sigh.
I told this yesterday to the basketball coach, who chuckled and told me something he used to ask A.D.'s before heading out for an interview. Feel free to pass it on!
FYI, If you're called in for an interview which involves traveling more than a couple of hours, do yourself a favor and ask the A.D. the following question first: "I'm a professional and you're a professional, so I'm going to ask you flat-out - is this more than just a token interview? I'm interested in the job but if you honestly think someone else has it sewn-up, please let me know before I spend the time traveling back and forth." You would think that the question shouldn't need to be asked, but I've recently been reminded that, yes, it does need to be asked at times! Sheesh.....
Have a great week, NAME WITHHELD
*********** A coach responded to my suggestion that, since some interviewers might hold your offensive system against you, there’s no harm in calling it by another name. He pretty much took the tack that "this is what I run, and if you don't like it..." Having an edge of maybe 30 or so years of hard knocks on him, I felt I had to write him back. You see, I was once a "this is what I run, and if you don't like it..." kind of guy myself...
Ideally, you show enough success in your background and people will be so hungry for a change that they won't care what you're running.
But the reality is that nowadays people feel they have to ask those questions. But who's kidding who? Very few of them have any idea what it's really all about, and if you can't have their heads spinning within 30 seconds or so, you're not much of a coach.
However - the reality also is that when you don't have a job and you're in the running for one, you shouldn't go out of your way to alienate anybody. Not when it only takes one red-ass on the interview panel to veto you. Never forget - you can have six votes for you and one against and still not get the job. If there is just one guy on the panel who is dead set against hiring you, you won't get the job. It has happened to me.
Back in 1988 I interviewed for what I thought would be a decent job. It happened to be in the town I now live in. In the interview I talked about my offensive philosophy - running the ball with my wing-T offense, etc. I had something of a reputation locally, having had some success with it at a bigger school in a nearby town. The group seemed interested enough, but I did notice that one guy kept asking me questions about passing the ball and I kept answering that passing was part of the plan but it wasn't our main objective.
I thought I had nailed the interview, which even included having to teach a mini-classroom lesson right there in front of the interview committee. And I knew I had better credentials than anyone else who'd applied. But when I talked to a friend who lived in the town, and I described the guy who'd asked me about passing, he laughed and said, "Oh, sh--. That's --- -------. He's the president of the school board, and his son's the quarterback."
I didn't get the job. And damned if the guy who did get the job didn't come in and run - the wing-T! Same as I would have done. (Except, if I may say so, not as well.) And apparently he never came under a great deal of pressure to change, because he was there eight years - and had only one winning season.
The main thing is, he got the job. And I didn't. In retrospect, I didn't get it because in explaining and defending my offense, I got sidetracked, and lost sight of my main objective - which was getting the job. It simply wasn't necessary to get that deeply into my philosophy. I could have said that my offense was multiple (which is true), and versatile enough to accomModate the talents of any gifted player (which is true) and let it go at that.
The immediate objective is not to defend yourself or your offense, or explain it in great detail. It’s to get the job.
*********** I’ve kept up with Oregon football for a long time, including knowing Autzen well. But now I'll think of them differently, in a more positive way, after hearing Coming Home. Traditions are valuable. Hope they will survive the destruction of CFB.
Appreciate your remarks about Coach Aurich. I suppose I had taken the side of those saying Harvard itself had several 30-somethings with coaching experience, but who had also performed well as players at Harvard. Why take a Princeton, they were saying, when you could have one of your own?
I'd have to guess Georgia State was sorry to lose Shawn Elliott. Seemed to me he did a fine job there. He was instrumental in getting the school its own stadium, an Atlanta Braves discard the school bought and modified.
Glad it's you and not me reporting on that female soccer player. I swore never to type her name again.
Great to witness all those people at the wrestling tournament.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
I’m jazzed to watch the UFL this spring. In the meantime I’m filling the void with hockey.
Megan Rapinoe is (among other things) a bimbo.
Credit to the MWC Commish for having the foresight (and financial smarts) in creating that agreement with OSU and WSU. Eventually the MWC and PAC 12 will no longer exist, and the PAC-West will emerge from their ashes with Ms. Nevarez the commissioner.
Apparently this year’s NBA “All-Star” game had lower ratings than last year.
Watch for a combined NBA-WNBA game to boost the ratings.
Met Tim Murphy years ago when I was in MN. Harvard was interested in my QB, and so was Penn. Both schools had him rated in their 2nd tier. Murphy was an honest broker and said if they could land the tier 1 RB they wanted my guy would drop to 3rd tier. Penn jerked my kid around which prompted him to sign with Holy Cross.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: I almost threw in the towel on this one because Bill McCartney’s story is quite complicated and I simply don’t have the time to do more than just a meager biography, leaving out some very interesting parts.
He was born and raised in Detroit, the son of an automobile worker whom he described as “Irish, Catholic, Democrat, Marine and blue collar.”
He was a good linebacker at Missouri, where he met and married his wife, and after graduation he spent time as a graduate assistant at Missouri and a high school coach in Missouri, before returning to Detroit. There, he first assisted his older brother at a Catholic High School, then moved to another area Catholic High School - Dearborn Divine Child - where after two years he became head coach of both football and basketball as well as serving as AD. In the same school year, he coached both football and basketball teams to state titles.
And then he was hired by Bo Schembechler at Michigan.
As Schembechler tells it, in “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” by John U. Bacon,
When I arrived in Ann Arbor, he was the head football and basketball coach at Dearborn Divine Child, a Catholic high school about 30 minutes from Ann Arbor. I'd recruited his players, we talked a lot, and I had watched him win state titles in football and basketball. Now, you just knew, this was a guy who could coach!
But because I was around a lot – talking to his players, talking to other coaches, and sometimes just watching him – I knew what was going on. After games, (he) would head for the bar, have a few beers, light up a smoke, and the first guy who said something he didn't like, he’d take him out back! Obviously, That wasn't something I needed at Michigan.
So one day in 1974 I went down to see him. I sat across from him and laid it on the line. “(——), you're obviously one hell of a coach, and I'd like to hire you at Michigan. But I'm going to tell you something right now: you're going to quit smoking and going to bars – and without an ironclad guarantee from you about all of that, I'm not going to take you on."
He looked me in the eye, he gave me his word, and because I knew him, I felt I could trust him. I also knew his wife, and she was rock-solid. So I hired him on the spot. Well, (——) came up here to Ann Arbor and not only did he quit smoking and drinking, before you knew it, he was born again. He started coaching the outside linebackers, then I promoted him to defensive coordinator, and I wasn't surprised when Colorado came calling for him in 1982. I encouraged him to take the job, and he had the best run of any football coach in Colorado history.
It’s true. By his own admission, and that of his wife, he had been a hell-raiser, one who frequently drank to excess. But while at Michigan, through Campus Crusade, he was born again.
As head coach at Colorado, he succeeded Chuck Fairbanks, who had been lured away from the New England Patriots - where he was coming off a three-year run of 11-3, 9-5, 11-4 seasons - by big-money CU alums, only to go 3-8, 1-10 and 3-8 at Boulder.
Our guy’s own stay at CU didn’t get off to a promising start, either. In his first three seasons he went 2-8-1, 4-7 and 1-10.
But Colorado AD Eddie Crowder, himself a former Colorado head coach (and a very successful one), gave him a contract extension, and it proved to be a great decision.
Starting with a 7-5 record in his fourth season, Colorado would go 86-30-4 in his remaining time there. And after a nine-year CU bowl drought, he would take his Buffs to nine bowl games.
His final six years at CU were especially impressive: the Buffs went 58-11-4, with three first-place Big-8 finishes and three second-place finishes.
They were nationally-ranked every one of those six seasons, with three finishes in the top four.
His 1990 Buffs went 11-1-1 and shared the national title by winning the AP vote (Georgia Tech won the Coaches’ Poll).
And then, in November 1994 - before wrapping up an 11-1 season (including a Fiesta Bowl win and a Number 3 national ranking) he called a news conference and announced he was quitting coaching - with 10 years remaining on his contract - to spend more time with his family.
The “career idolatry” - the time he’d devoted to football - had come at the expense of his family.
''Even though he knew to say God was first, family is second and football is third, the truth is that football came first,'' said his pastor, who also served as team chaplain for the Buffaloes.
He had plenty to keep him busy after retiring from coaching. In 1990, while still head football coach at Colorado, he had founded Promise Keepers, a Christian group calling for “courageous, bold, leadership” from men, and he remained active in it after coaching. Needless to say, its opposition to same-sex marriage made it controversial in many areas, and its advocacy of the man being the head of the household found opposition from other areas. He resigned as president of Promise Keepers in 2003.
Bill McCartney won three different national Coach of the Year Awards, and was three times named Big Eight Coach of the Year. He is in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2016 his family announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BILL MCCARTNEY
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
BRAD KNIGHT - CLARINDA, IOWA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*** We remember the split title in 1990, the one his Buffs had to share with the Yellow Jackets. John Vermillion
*** Bill McCartney (I still have the CU offensive playbook that his OC Gary Barnett sent me in 1990. The power I wishbone look that the Buffs used to run roughshod over their opponents). Joe Gutilla (Shame on you, a good Italian boy, for not mentioning Gerry DiNardo, who was McCartney’s OC the year they split the title.)
*** His 30/30 was outstanding. Arguably one of the best coaches who figured out to get the ball in the hands of playmakers often, realized a strong run game was good if you could play defense and for sure lived by his principles learned after being a tad wild. (didn't realize any of this)
Also did not know he had Alzheimers. How he handled the situation between his QBand his daughter. How he handled the "racism" issues on campus. And how he sold recruits to come to Colorado. (I mean Colorado should sell itself with the mountain views...but I guess some may not enjoy it as much as I do.) Brad Knight
*********** QUIZ: He was born in Arcadia, Lousiana, and grew up in nearby Ruston. He started out attending an all-black high school there, but following school integration, he spent his last two years at newly-integrated Ruston High School.
Passing up nearby Grambling, which in pre-integration times had established a pipeline to the NFL, he went instead to Lousiana Tech, right in Ruston. He was four times named All-Southland Conference linebacker and was named Southland Conference Defensive Player of the Year his final two seasons. During his time at Louisiana Tech, the Bulldogs were 44-4.
The San Diego Chargers selected him in the second round, 33rd player overall, of the 1975 NFL Draft, and despite his relatively small size - 6-2, 227 - moved him to defensive end.
As a rookie for the Chargers in 1975, he recorded seven sacks, 93 tackles (and four fumble recoveries. In 1978, he recorded 15.5 sacks as the Chargers posted a winning record. He added nine sacks in 1979 and 10.5 in 1980, as San Diego won two straight AFC Western Division titles.
And then, early in the 1981 season, he was traded to the 49ers, and in the first half of this first game with them - against the Dallas Cowboys - he seemed to turn the entire team around.
Wrote the 49ers in a statement at the time of his death, "From the minute he joined the 49ers, (he) immediately helped to change the team's fortunes. In just his first game with the team, he put in an all-time performance against the Dallas Cowboys that not only helped defeat a nemesis but propelled the 49ers to our first Super Bowl Championship later that year.”
In the first half of that game he drove Cowboys’ QB Danny White nuts. But what may have really flipped the season for the 49ers was when, at halftime, he pulled out a pack of Kools and lit one up. According to future Hall-of-Famer Ronnie Lott, the whole team just stared at him, as if to say, “who IS this guy?”
The 49ers wound up trouncing the Cowboys, winning, 45-14. In all, he contributed 12 sacks in 11 games, earning the nickname “The Closer” from his teammates, on the way to the 49ers’ first Super Bowl victory.
Said 49ers’ coach Bill Walsh, “he gave us the single greatness we have to have.”
He spent his final five seasons with San Francisco. His best year was 1983, when he recorded 17.5 sacks. The following year, he won his second Super Bowl with 49ers, and then played one final season in 1985.
He played on five division winners and in three NFC championship games, and he played San Francisco’s first two Super Bowl victories.
He earned all-conference honors four times – twice with the Chargers and twice with the 49ers, and was named to four Pro Bowls.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008, and into the College Hall of Fame in 2009.
After his football career, he became a minister in his hometown, Ruston.
He died at 68 from Covid while being airlifted from a hospital in West Monroe, Louisiana, to Jackson, Mississippi, in October, 2020.
He is one of more than 345 former NFL players to be diagnosed after death with (CTE).
The 49ers won five Super Bowls in 14 years, but according to former 49ers owner Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., “We wouldn’t have won five if we hadn’t won the first two. And we would not have won the first two if it weren’t for (him).”
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2024 "Politics is
the art of achieving power and prestige without merit.” P.
J. O’Rourke*********** Congratulations to Mike Foristiere, who has accepted the job of head coach at Marsing, Idaho High School. Mike has been coaching the line at Santa Fe Trail High outside Topeka, Kansas, and before that was head coach at Wahluke High in Mattawa, Washington. He’s a native of Fresno, California and played college ball at Oregon. Although he’s been around a bit, he calls Boise, Idaho home, and Marsing is just 40 minutes away.
*********** From the start of the CFL season in early June to the final play of Super Bowl overtime, it had been almost nine months - an entire pregnancy - since I went a whole weekend without any football at all.
The fast will last just about as long as Lent - 40 days and 40 nights - until March 30.
Guess I’ll give up football until then:
March 30: Birmingham Stallions at Arlington Renegades at Choctaw Stadium (1:00 PM ET, FOX)
March 30: St. Louis Battlehawks at Michigan Panthers at Ford Field (4:00 PM ET, FOX);
March 31: D.C. Defenders at San Antonio Brahmas at the Alamodome (12:00 PM ET, ESPN);
March 31: Memphis Showboats at Houston Roughnecks at Rice Stadium (3:00 PM ET, ESPN)
The United Football League schedule - Key details:
• 43 UFL games (40 regular season games, two Conference Championship games, one Championship game)
• The League is divided into two conferences: USFL (Birmingham Stallions, Houston Roughnecks, Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers) and XFL (Arlington Renegades, D.C. Defenders, San Antonio Brahmas, St. Louis Battlehawks)
• Each team will play six in-conference games and four inter-conference matchups
• The Conference Championships will pit the top two teams with the best records in their respective conferences against each other
• UFL games will be broadcast on ABC, FOX, ESPN, FS1 and ESPN2. Games on ESPN and ABC will be streamed on ESPN+ and FOX games will stream on the FOX Sports App. All games will be streamed via TV Everywhere
• 72% of all UFL games will air on broadcast television (ABC or FOX)
*********** Back in November, when she tore an Achilles tendon in her final game, Megan Rapinoe, always one to push the envelope, had to bring God into her postgame press conference.
“I mean, I’m not a religious person or anything, and if there was a God, this is proof there isn’t,” she said. “This is (expletive) up. So, yeah, this is (expletive) up.”
Well. Who would have guessed she wasn’t “a religious person” from the way she said that the existence of God depended on whether or not she tore her Achiles - and at the time she did?
Anyhow, she got pissed because believers called her on her blasphemy.
“Somebody needs to check on the Christians,” she said. “They’re not OK. They also missed the whole joke.”
Evidently - maybe because she’s simply one of those people who just can’t tell a joke.
Her reaction to it? “I’m like, ‘Wow, you guys are in a special place in hell that you’re celebrating this.’”
Strange that she’s as least given some thought, even if it’s hell, to the idea that there might be an afterlife.
https://www.pennlive.com/sports/2024/02/megan-rapinoes-somebody-needs-to-check-on-the-christians-comment-has-social-media-fired-up.html
*********** Marv Levy and Bud Grant each lost four Super Bowls. But they were men, and they were consummate professionals.
And then there’s Kyle Shanahan. He’s lost three Super Bowls, and - not to take anything from the fact that it’s quite an achievement even to get to three Super Bowls - he didn’t exactly show professionalism by throwing his DC overboard almost immediately following the game. (Well, at least he waited until Wednesday to do it.)
Deadspin nails him:
There are two ways for a head coach to navigate a crushing Super Bowl loss: Take accountability for what went wrong, galvanize the unit and return with vengeance, or engage in friendly fire and burn the walls down. The San Francisco 49ers have opted for finger-pointing and scapegoating each other.
https://deadspin.com/kyle-shanahan-49ers-steve-wilks-super-bowl-nfl-1851260340
*********** Gloria Narvaez, commissioner of the Mountain West, sounds like one sharp negotiator.
In return for a decent sum - $14 million - Mountain West teams will provide the Pac-2 (Oregon State and Washington State) with six games each - three home and three away.
Now, that sounds to me like $14 million for four home games, or $2.333 million per game.
Sounds a bit steep - Michigan State just cancelled a game with Lousiana that it had agreed to pay $1.1 million for.
But lest you think the deal's totally lopsided, it’s not. There’s more.
In addition, the Pac-2 agrees to “negotiate in good faith” a way in which “all MWC Member Institutions join as Pac-12 member institutions with no MWC exit fee…”
Should the Pac-2 invite some but not all Mountain West schools, the Pac-2 would pay withdrawal fees on a sliding scale: adding one school would cost $10 million; adding six would cost $67.5 million; and adding 11 would cost $137.5 million.
BUT: Adding ALL TWELVE Mountain West teams would cost ZERO.
Said Commissioner Nevarez, ”We wanted to make sure what happened to the Pac-12 didn’t happen to us.”
There is, as The Athletic points out, “one wild-card scenario”: If nine or more MWC schools were to agree to bolt, they have enough votes to dissolve the conference, in which case there would be no exit fees.
https://theathletic.com/5257005/2024/02/08/mountain-west-oregon-state-wazzu-pac-12/
*********** This shot of Washington’s state high school wrestling championships - called Mat Classic XXXIV - is courtesy of Steve Bridge, from Elma, Washington. Steve, a longtime AD is dad of Todd Bridge, with whom I coached for several years. It’s in the TacomaDome, which is big enough to accommodate a football field, and as you can see, there are 16 wrestling mats on the floor.
Six separate WIAA state wrestling tournaments took place (five boys, one girls).
Looking over the previews of each class, I couldn’t help noticing that in every single class - girls, too - the defending champion is going for at least a three-peat:
4A - Is this the year four-time defending state champion Chiawana goes down?
3A - Greater Spokane League powerhouse Mead is on track for its third consecutive state title.
2A - The Orting locomotive to a third consecutive Mat Classic championship is full speed ahead.
1A - Toppenish is on a historic run of four consecutive Mat Classic titles (two in 2A; past two in 1A)
B - Tonasket has won the 2B/1B tournament in five of the past six seasons - and is the front-runner against this weekend.
GIRLS - Last winter, Toppenish became the fifth school in state history to repeat as Mat Classic team champions on the girls side. And the Wildcats are clear 2A/1A/B favorites this week
What does this tell you? It tells you, “They have a coach!”
I can’t think of a sport that’s as coach-dependent as wrestling.
*********** Unlike “Country Roads’ - written by people who’d never actually been to West Virginia before they wrote it, and sung by a guy who’d never been there before he sang it - “Coming Home” was actually written by an Oregon guy, and it’s sung (by him) during the break between the first and second quarters at all Oregon home games…
Notice how a native pronounces it: “I Left My Heart in OR-e-gun”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K3w7CKkeOQ
https://eugeneweekly.com/2023/02/02/singing-a-song-of-eugene/
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/john-denver/take-me-home-country-roads
*********** There have been eight new head coaches hired in the NFL.
Brian Callahan - Titans - 39 - 4 yrs NFL OC (Bengals)
Dave Canales - Panthers - 42 - 1 yr NFL OC (Buccaneers)
Jim Harbaugh - Chargers - Nuff Said
Mike Macdonald - Seahawks - 36 - 2 yrs NFL DC (Ravens) 1 yr U of Michigan DC
Jerod Mayo - Patriots - 37 - 0 yrs as HC or Coordinator; 5 yrs total coaching experience
Raheem Morris - Falcons - 47 - 3 yrs NFL HC (Buccaneers) 1 yr DC (Falcons); 3 yrs DC (Rams)
Antonio Pierce - Raiders - 45 - 1 yr NFL HC (Raiders interim)
Dan Quinn - Redskins - 53 - 5 yrs NFL DC (Seahawks, Cowboys); 6 yrs NFL HC (Falcons)
For the most part, they’re young - three are in their 30s
Four - counting Antonio Pierce, who was the Raiders’ interim head coach - have been head coaches
Two hires scare me:
The Patriots’ Jerod Mayo, a former player , has only been a coach for five years, has never been a head coach or a coordinator.
The Panthers’ Dave Canales spent 13 years with the Seahawks, eight of them coaching wide receivers. He’s spent just one year as a coordinator. And he’s going to be working for perhaps the most unhinged owner in the NFL.
*********** I wrote a few weeks ago about Packers’ CEO Mark Murphy, and to follow up, Adam Wesoloski, of Pulaski, Wisconsin, passed along something that he’d found online. It shows that Murphy has a very sly sense of humor as well as the patience to deal with some off-the-wall things.
Here’s what a guy wrote:
My cousin BIll applied for the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator opening. He received a handwritten letter back from president and CEO Mark Murphy. It reads:
BIll,
Thanks so much for your cover letter and résumé regarding our defensive coordinator position. While your fantasy football experience is impressive, I regret to inform you that we have decided to go in a different direction. I hear the Bears have an opening – you look to be a perfect fit for them.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Mark
*********** RIP Lefty Driesell. We were living in Maryland when Lefty arrived and brashly announced that he’d turn Maryland into the “UCLA of the East.” Knowing how dominant UCLA was then and how irrelevant Maryland basketball was in the ACC, I read that in the Washington Post and said, “this guys’ crazy as hell.”
But he almost did it, and in the process, he put Maryland basketball on the map, and made Maryland games in Cole Field House THE place to be.
He just passed away at the age of 92.
He was a heck of a coach who happened to be going up against the likes of Coach K, Dean Smith and Norm Sloan. He's also one of a very few coaches who won 100 games at four different schools: Davidson, Maryland, James Madison and Georgia State.
He was quite the character - very colorful, very quotable - and his Hall of Fame Induction speech, when he was 86, showed that while his body was failing, he still had his wits (and his wit) about him.
https://youtu.be/qTSZxE73aHQ?si=eaywjFYSsqJYJsMW
*********** When a dog bites a man - that’s not news.
And when an assistant coach at an FBS school leaves to take a head coaching job at an FCS school, that’s not news, either.
But when a man bites a dog… When a head coach leaves his job to take an assistant’s job - that’s news.
When the news broke that Shawn Elliott, the head coach at Georgia State, had left to take a job coaching tight ends at South Carolina, the speculation was that it was for money… or out of frustration with a lack of facilities or resources… or out of disgust with NIL and the Transfer Portal.
The answer sounds like “None of the Above.” While those things may all have played a part in his decision, it sounds as if for once a coach is actually making a move “to spend more time with my family.”
A South Carolina native, he had been on the staff at South Carolina for seven years when he took the Georgia State job, and he and his family decided that when he went to Atlanta, they would stay behind in Columbia.
"This was not a professional move, but a personal move," he told ESPN. "We've made it work for seven years with my family still living in Columbia, and I even thought about not coaching this year. I had promised my daughter that I would be there for her senior year of high school and when this opportunity came up to go back to South Carolina and coach again, it was something I couldn't pass up. I've always loved South Carolina.”
*********** To show you how Ivy League football has declined in importance - I follow football as closely as anyone I know, and I just learned that Tim Murphy had retired. A month ago!
Tim Murphy had been the head coach at Harvard since 1996. The winningest head coach in Ivy League history, his record in 30 years there was 232–134–1.
He won 10 Ivy League championships, and, while at Maine, a Yankee Conference title.
His success, while impressive, should not have been surprising. He had a solid coaching background when Harvard hired him.
Before coming to Harvard, he’d been head coach at Maine for two years and at Cincinnati for five years. And before becoming head coach at Maine, he’d spent eight years as an assistant at Brown, Lafayette, Boston U. and Maine.
"Harvard University has been a very special place for my family and me," Murphy said. "I am graduating from a profession that has not only been my job, but other than my family and close friends, it has been my passion and my life for the past 45 years.
"It has been an incredible honor to be the football coach at Harvard, and I am forever grateful to have been blessed to work with so many amazing people starting with the 1,000 student-athletes and 80-plus assistant coaches during our tenure here," Murphy added. "Sometimes, at the end of your career someone will ask, 'Do you have any regrets?' And my simple answer is no, because in any endeavor, any relationship, if you give it absolutely everything you have, there can be no regrets."
I didn’t learn that Tim Murphy had retired until I read that Harvard had just hired a head coach. WTF???
Tim Murphy’s successor, Andrew Aurich, 39 years old, is a native of St. Paul, Minnesota and played his college ball at Princeton. Most recently, he’s been tight ends coach at Rutgers, where he’s coached since 2020. For seven years prior to that, he was an assistant coach at Princeton, where at first he coached the offensive line, but for his last few years was associate head coach and offensive coordinator.
Prior to that he was a defensive assistant with the Buccaneers.
Many Harvard people - especially former Harvard football players - are up in arms over the recent hiring of Andrew Aurich, much of the discontent seemingly the result of what they feel was a lack of the transparency they’d been promised in the selection process.
While I would agree with the Harvard guys that Aurich’s credentials, since he’s never been a head coach, are not nearly as strong as Murphy’s were when he was hired, I have it on authority that I trust that he is a “great guy and coach.”
*********** Remember when the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest was a big deal? Dr. J? Michael? Kobe?
Now, like the rest of the NBA All-Star Weekend - which last year posted its lowest ratings in more then 20 years - it’s a dud.
Part of the problem with the contest has to be the lack of stars. Until this year, when the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown took part, it had gone five years without a single All-Star participating.
Why is that?
For one thing, concern about getting injured and jeopardizing a multimillion-dollar career.
For another, fear of looking bad: “I think social media ruined it,” said three-time slam dunk champion Nate Robinson. “Guys don’t want to be on the sh——y end of the stick when it comes to the memes and all the posts if you mess up. I don’t blame them, but you got to take the good with the bad.”
And finally, there’s the almost-ludicrously low payoff: $105,000 to the winner. Big money to you and me, but couch-cushion change to guys making $30 million a year (or more).
$105,000 just doesn’t go as far as it used to. I bet if they’d up the ante to maybe $2 million they could convince a couple more All-Stars to join in.
https://www.sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2024/nba-slam-dunk-contest-stars-say-risk-not-worth-reward-1234766946/?cx_testId=9&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=3&cx_experienceId=EXAKGDTXOYL0#cxrecs_s
*********** Re Alex Volkanovski: Watched a "UFC Down Under" the other day and discovered just how good he is. Announcers were lauding him as they once did Roberto Duran and a few others: "The Greatest Pound for Pound Mixed Martial Artist in the World.”
On the positive side, Kelce (actually both of them) seems exceptionally good to his parents, Ed and Donna, neither of whom appears to have come from the upper crust of society. But I certainly disapprove his behavior toward Reid. Wonder if Ed had any words for Travis about that after the game?
A decades long fan of Wilford Brimley, I'm happy the man finally got his Super Bowl win.
Loved the brief interview on the porch of the man who tackled a KC shooter. Hispanic surname, ashamed I can't recall it at the moment. Looked like he could deliver a good hit. All it takes is one man to do the right thing….
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
There’s definitely a Wilford Brimley-Andy Reid connection.
As for Volk - fate was not kind to him. He lost his title on Saturday on a second-round TKO to Ilia Topuria, a Georgian (as in Asian Georgia, not Southern Georgia). As for Volk’s age - maybe there’s something to it: the sad truth is that from the lightweight class and lower, the record in title fights of fighters 35 and over is now something like 2-29.
*********** Hugh,
ESPN owns college football, and the media rights that go with it. The NFL is very aware of this and in time will strike a deal with them to have the NFL’s hands in the “new” college football pie.
I’m not Andy Reid. If I was I would have handled Travis Kelce very differently. Very, Very differently!
The shooting perps at the KC Chiefs SB celebration have ties to a Venezuelan gang. As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.”
You can bet the NY Yankees will have Yankee Stadium’s turf in tip-top shape for the Irish-Army football game on November 23rd.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
PS: And congratulations to our good friend Mike Foristiere on his new job
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Bobby Bell was one of the stars of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win. The one over the Vikings. 55 years ago. In Super Bowl IV (actually, long before they started getting hoity-toity and adding Roman numeral suffixes to them).
In fact, as a linebacker, he was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year that season (1969). And that was while backing up the Chiefs’ line along with Jim Lynch and future Hall-of-Famer Willie Lanier.
Before that, he had been five times named All-AFL; once the Chiefs became part of the NFL, he was named to the Pro Bowl three straight years. In 1970, he was named All-Pro.
A native of Shelby, North Carolina, he was an all-state quarterback at his all-black high school there.
Recruited to Minnesota by Murray Warmath, he was among the first wave of southern black players to play in the Big Ten.
Warmath, in his biography, “The Autumn Warrior,” recalled how he first heard of the player.
"We got wind of Bell through my old friend Jim Tatum, who was at North Carolina at the time,” Warmath recounted. "Jim called me one day and said there was a black kid playing in a small town in western North Carolina who was the talk of the state. In those days, of course, southern schools still were segregated, so Jim was alerting his friends in the north about Bobby Bell. I remember Jim saying, ‘if you’re looking for films, there ain’t any, and if you’re looking for scouting reports, there ain’t any, but take my word for it, this kid is something, and if you aren’t interested I’ll call Forrest Evashevski at Iowa.'
“No, God, don’t do that, I shot back,” Warmath said. “We’ll get somebody on this kid right away.”
His recruiting visit to Minnesota was his first time on an airplane.
"I fell in love with the Twin Cities and the U of M, “ he said, “And called my dad back in Shelby and said I wasn't coming back. I wanted to stay.”
He was big and strong and very fast. He’d played quarterback in high school, and at a time when the freshmen weren’t eligible to play varsity ball, he played quarterback, halfback and end on the Minnesota freshman squad.
And then he found out he was going to be a lineman.
"I remember when Warmath called me into his office to tell me about the change," Bell said. "It was just before spring practice of 1960. As a freshman, I was concerned with just holding my own on the team and staying ahead in my studies. I was in awe of Warmath.
“He asked me to sit down and started telling me that he and the coaches needed to shore up the line, especially at tackle with the graduation of Wright. He said the decision was made to move me to tackle. I was shocked, but didn't dare say anything.
“While he was telling me this, he reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a rolled up tube sock. In the sock was a pearl-handled revolver and he started twirling it around his finger as he was telling me about moving me to tackle. I was listening, but I was distracted by that gun. I couldn't imagine being a tackle but in no way was I going to argue. I just said ‘yes, sir’ and promised to do my best and left the meeting.”
His best was plenty good. And so were the Gophers. In his sophomore year they were national champions, and in 1961 and 1962 they went to back-to-back Rose Bowls. (They haven’t been back since.) He was twice named All-American, and in his senior year he won the Outland Trophy as the nation’s top interior lineman and finished third in the Heisman balloting.
When he was taken in the second round of the NFL draft by the Minnesota Vikings, AFL teams figured that there was no sense wasting a draft pick on him, so he wasn’t taken until the seventh round of their draft, when the Kansas City Chiefs took him.
Surprisingly, though, he signed with the Chiefs - and he played with them for his entire 12-year NFL career.
Tall (6-4) and fast, he made the Chiefs as a defensive end, and because of his athletic ability, Coach Hank Stram stood him up and used him as an outside linebacker in his innovative “Stack” defense. After three years, he was moved to the outside linebacker position full-time. There, for seven straight seasons he was named All-AFL and then ALL-NFL.
When he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983, he was the first Kansas City Chief ever inducted, and just the second former AFL player to be inducted (Lance Alworth was the first).
He was also the 15th black player to be inducted - and the first outside linebacker (all linebackers to that time - Joe Schmidt, Bill George and Ray Nitschke - had been middle linebackers. Chuck Bednarik, who had played some at outside linebacker, was primarily a center).
He is in the Pro Football and College Football Halls of Fame.
He is in the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame, and in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.
He was named to the AFL All-Time Team, and to the NFL’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
In May, 2015, at the age of 74, having completing all his course work, Bobby Bell graduated from the University of Minnesota, almost 50 years after he’d left school to embark on a pro football career.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING BOBBY BELL
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
*********** QUIZ: I almost threw in the towel on this one because this man’s story is quite complicated and I simply don’t have the time to do more than just a meager biography, leaving out some very interesting parts.
He was born and raised in Detroit, the son of an automobile worker whom he described as “Irish, Catholic, Democrat, Marine and blue collar.”
He was a good linebacker at Missouri, where he met and married his wife, and after graduation he spent time as a graduate assistant at Missouri and a high school coach in Missouri, before returning to Detroit. There, he first assisted his older brother at a Catholic High School, then moved to another area Catholic High School - Dearborn Divine Child - where after two years he became head coach of both football and basketball as well as serving as AD. In the same school year, he coached both football and basketball teams to state titles.
And then he was hired by Bo Schembechler at Michigan.
As Schembechler tells it, in “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” by John U. Bacon,
When I arrived in Ann Arbor, he was the head football and basketball coach at Dearborn Divine Child, a Catholic high school about 30 minutes from Ann Arbor. I'd recruited his players, we talked a lot, and I had watched him win state titles in football and basketball. Now, you just knew, this was a guy who could coach!
But because I was around a lot – talking to his players, talking to other coaches, and sometimes just watching him – I knew what was going on. After games, (he) would head for the bar, have a few beers, light up a smoke, and the first guy who said something he didn't like, he’d take him out back! Obviously, That wasn't something I needed at Michigan.
So one day in 1974 I went down to see him. I sat across from him and laid it on the line. “(——), you're obviously one hell of a coach, and I'd like to hire you at Michigan. But I'm going to tell you something right now: you're going to quit smoking and going to bars – and without an ironclad guarantee from you about all of that, I'm not going to take you on."
He looked me in the eye, he gave me his word, and because I knew him, I felt I could trust him. I also knew his wife, and she was rock-solid. So I hired him on the spot. Well, (——) came up here to Ann Arbor and not only did he quit smoking and drinking, before you knew it, he was born again. He started coaching the outside linebackers, then I promoted him to defensive coordinator, and I wasn't surprised when Colorado came calling for him in 1982. I encouraged him to take the job, and he had the best run of any football coach in Colorado history.
It’s true. By his own admission, and that of his wife, he had been a hell-raiser, one who frequently drank to excess. But while at Michigan, through Campus Crusade, he was born again.
As head coach at Colorado, he succeeded Chuck Fairbanks, who had been lured away from the New England Patriots - where he was coming off a three-year run of 11-3, 9-5, 11-4 seasons - by big-money CU alums, only to go 3-8, 1-10 and 3-8 at Boulder.
Our guy’s own stay at CU didn’t get off to a promising start, either. In his first three seasons he went 2-8-1, 4-7 and 1-10.
But Colorado AD Eddie Crowder, himself a former Colorado head coach (and a very successful one), gave him a contract extension, and it proved to be a great decision.
Starting with a 7-5 record in his fourth season, Colorado would go 86-30-4 in his remaining time there. And after a nine-year CU bowl drought, he would take his Buffs to nine bowl games.
His final six years at CU were especially impressive: the Buffs went 58-11-4, with three first-place Big-8 finishes and three second-place finishes.
They were nationally-ranked every one of those six seasons, with three finishes in the top four.
His 1990 Buffs went 11-1-1 and shared the national title by winning the AP vote (Georgia Tech won the Coaches’ Poll).
And then, in November 1994 - before wrapping up an 11-1 season (including a Fiesta Bowl win and a Number 3 national ranking) he called a news conference and announced he was quitting coaching - with 10 years remaining on his contract - to spend more time with his family.
The “career idolatry” - the time he’d devoted to football - had come at the expense of his family.
''Even though he knew to say God was first, family is second and football is third, the truth is that football came first,'' said his pastor, who also served as team chaplain for the Buffaloes.
He had plenty to keep him busy after retiring from coaching. In 1990, while still head football coach at Colorado, he had founded Promise Keepers, a Christian group calling for “courageous, bold, leadership” from men, and he remained active in it after coaching. Needless to say, its opposition to same-sex marriage made it controversial in many areas, and its advocacy of the man being the head of the household found opposition from other areas. He resigned as president of Promise Keepers in 2003.
He won three different national Coach of the Year Awards, and was three times named Big Eight Coach of the Year. He is in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2016 his family announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2024 “Governments
don’t like to govern, but they like to control.” Andy Kessler,
Wall Street Journal*********** I hope you enjoyed the video that my son, Ed, sent me. (The company he works for partners with an Australian UFC fighter named Alex “Volk” Volkanovski, and after his next opponent called him “old,” the company put together the video in which he plays an old man and invokes all kinds of “old man” stereotypes.) Here’s a photo Ed sent me of “Volk” showing up at the pre-fight press conference dressed as the old man.
PS- If you missed the video… (You may have to watch it a couple of times to understand some of what he says, but it's worth it. And he really is a good actor!)
https://vimeo.com/912347194?share=copy
*********** ESPN and the College Football Playoff are said to be close to a deal on a six-year, $7.8 billion extension of their rights contract, making ESPN the home of the 12-team tournament through 2031-32.
All that remains now is for the CFP leadership to decide how the next edition of the Playoff will work.
The six-year extension, which works out to $1.3 billion per year, will pay out more than twice the $608 million currently being paid for the semifinals and the championship game, plus the other four New Year’s Six bowl games.
ESPN has two years remaining on the current deal, and with the 12-team format set to begin next year, it has yet to be determined what additional fees it will pay for the rights to broadcast additional games: first-round games, played at on-campus stadiums, and quarterfinal games at New Year’s Six bowl game sites.
ESPN will have the right to “sublicense” games - to sell the rights to televise them - to another network or streamer.
The total value of the contract - $7.8 billion - would be enough to buy any professional sports team in the world with one exception - the Dallas Cowboys.
********* I’ve tried to like Travis Kelce. I really have.
For quite some time I thought he acted like a jerk on the field, but I changed when I saw him with Taylor Swift.
Okay. I lied. I didn’t even know who the hell Taylor Swift was when they started to be a thing.
I started giving him the benefit of the doubt when I read some article about him in The Athletic. Yeah, it said - maybe he was coarse and boorish and all that, and maybe he did like the weed a little too much and get thrown off the team at Cincinnati - but he’s a great teammate. The guys all love him.
All of them? I doubt that.
Not the one he insulted on the most-watched television show of all time, by angrily chewing out his coach on the sidelines for having that teammate on the field, and not him?
Look - he’s a great receiver. No, he’s not the greatest tight end of all time - not unless they’ve eliminated blocking as a criterion. Ever seen him block? As a writer named Dakota Randall of NESN put it, he’s “a receiver who moonlights as a tight end.”
Yet there he was, so proud of his blocking that he was in Andy Reid’s face (after bumping him) and berating the coach for not having him in the game. See, if he had been in the game, instead of that other guy, he’d have blocked the man who wound up causing Isiah Pacheco to fumble.
What kind of teammate insults a teammate while boasting of his own superior prowess?
What kind of player other than a selfish, undisciplined lout thinks he’s so important that he can angrily accost the head coach on the sideline, in the middle of a game?
To Andy Reid’s credit, he took the incident in stride at the time. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. He had a game to play, and like a ship’s captain, he had to keep his hands on the wheel. I like him and admire him, and I can understand why he didn’t react at the time. And afterward, in the post-game, he seemed to dismiss the whole thing, which was understandable.
But since then - nothing. Maybe he doesn’t get it. Or maybe thinks he’s dealt with it. But by not doing so publicly - by not letting he public know that this sh- simply can’t be allowed to go on - he’s going to show that he’s morphed into a modern-era, feel-good coach. Not so very long ago, no coach would have tolerated conduct like Kelce’s. (Not that it was ever necessary for any coach to do so, because no player would have dared to be so insubordinate - and in public yet.)
Kelce, by his conduct, and Andy Reid, by his acceptance of it, have done coaches everywhere a great disservice. By letting this seem simply a player getting too carried away by his emotions, they’re condoning and encouraging similar conduct by kids - and parents - at all levels of football.
Good luck with this, Ms. Swift.
*********** Joe Biden was pushed out into the public eye at Super Bowl time to do a TV rant about “shrinkflation” (putting less food in the bag while keeping the price the same).
Probably because it was Super Bowl time, bags of familiar snack foods were used as props. Off he went...
"While you were Super Bowl shopping, did you notice smaller-than-usual products where the price stays the same? Folks are calling it Shrinkflation and it means companies are giving you less for every dollar you spend."
We know that he’s just mouthing the words supplied him by his “advisors,” but can they really be so stupid that don’t realize that putting fewer Skittles in the bag so they can keep charging the same price - rather than leaving the contents the same and increasing the price - is actually helping to keep the prices of goods down, and making inflation seem lower than it actually is?
*********** From your last Zoom clinic, you mentioned hurdling. I think this may be why you see more TEs hurdle than most football players -- low hits by DBs.
https://www.si.com/fannation/bringmethesports/vikings/lions-safety-who-injured-vikings-hockenson-hits-rams-higbee-in-knee
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
You make a good point. In fact, in the Super Bowl, The 49ers’ Kyle Juszczyk successfully hurdled a Chiefs’ defender whose helmet was headed toward his knee. (I find i funny that there’s all the talk about targeting rules being “as much for the protection of the hitter as the player being hit” but - college or pro - I have yet to see a man penalized for taking a shot with his helmet at any place on an opponent other than his head. So much or concerns for the tackler’s safety.)
*********** With all the post-Super Bowl hubbub about the 49ers’ OT decision… Mahomes’ elevation to All-Timer status… The official designation of the Chiefs as a dynasty… the number of times Taylor Swift’s privacy was invaded so that teenage girls could get a glimpse of her… and Travis Kelce’s boorish sideline exchange with Andy Reid…
Have we become so jaded that we've already forgotten the thrill of seeing a Super Bowl-record 57-yard field goal?
*********** I confess to not watching much NFL during the season, so I have to be careful not to go off half-cocked here, but after the wild-ass way the 49ers' defense played against the Chiefs - holding them to one touchdown in regulation time, I'm not able to understand the seemingly precipitous firing of defensive coordinator Steve Wilks after just one season.
*********** I’m not a fan of Kyle Shanahan, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a good coach, and it doesn’t mean that he’s to blame for the 49ers’ loss to the Chiefs.
And I understand and agree with his decision to receive at the start of overtime.
First of all, if you disagree, make sure that you understand the difference between college and pro overtime. Essentially, in the college overtime, if you are tied after both teams have had a possession (considered one period), you go into a second overtime period and repeat the process, with each team getting a possession.
In pro ball, it doesn’t work that way. If the game is tied after each team has had a possession, it becomes sudden death: the first team to score wins.
Here was Shanahan's thinking, which wasn’t spur-of-the-moment, but had been developed in game planning:
1. If San Francisco scores first and KC doesn't score, Game over. San Francisco wins.
2. If on its first possession San Francisco kicks a Field goal, but then KC scores a TD, Game over. San Francisco loses.
3. If neither team scores on its first possession - or if San Francisco scores (field goal or TD) and KC ties it up - they’ve both had a possession. And with the game now tied, it’s now old-fashioned sudden-death, and the first team to score wins. And at that point, it would be San Francisco’s ball, needing only to kick a field goal to win.
#2 is what actually happened. But the way the 49ers defense had been playing - KC had scored just one offense TD in 60 minutes of regulation - it didn’t seem that likely.
There was one oddball possibility: that San Francisco would score a TD on its opening possession and then kick the extra point, but then KC would answer with a TD of its own - and then go for two
But overall, based on the percentages going in, I’d have made the same call that Shanahan did.
*********** I’m glad that 49ers’ fullback Kyle Juszczyk said it so I didn’t have to spend much time on it, but really - WTF difference did it make whether the 49ers’ players were informed about the rules for over time, or not?
Said Juszczyk, “That changes nothing for me as a player, whatsoever. If I know the rule or don't know the rule, I'm trying to do the exact same thing on the field.”
https://www.si.com/nfl/2024/02/13/kyle-juszczyk-passionately-defends-kyle-shanahan-over-49ers-misunderstanding
*********** You might call this “picking at the scab.”
A Group of Penn State trustees met school administrators, possibly in violation of open meetings regulations, to bring up the possibility of naming the football field (at Beaver Stadium) after Joe Paterno.
(The answer to the lack of transparency is that these weren’t actually “meetings” of the board, and nothing was actually “discussed.)
I love Joe Paterno, and I miss him. I can remember when he started to show his age and I began to dread the day when we’d lose him. I just never imagined that his end would be so unseemly and tragic in so many ways.
And I deplore the way his memory was so quickly trashed, almost as a form of virtue signaling.
And I worry that the people most supportive of restoring Coach Paterno’s good name and reputation get older by the day, and when they go, their cause dies with them.
But it’s impossible to sway the thinking of the people who remain completely convinced that in some way Joe Paterno was complicit in a coverup of former assistant Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of young boys.
Talk about a hot-button issue. This one has the potential to reopen wounds that sill haven’t healed - and maybe never will.
(By the way, Beaver Stadium is not named for a rodent. It’s named for James Beaver, a long-ago governor of Pennsylvania who for a time served as president of the school’s board of trustees.)
https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/group-of-penn-state-trustees-push-to-name-football-field-after-joe-paterno-in-private-meetings/
*********** Since it doesn’t appear that the Kansas City shooter(s) are straight, white, Christian, Euro-American, males, we may never learn any more about them or their motives.
But we can be pretty sure, since they have two young sons that they brought to the Chiefs’ celebration, that the guy who tackled one of the (alleged, of course) shooters, and his wife, who took the (alleged) shooter’s gun while he was otherwise occupied with her husband, are heterosexual.
“I was just yelling, ‘F your gun!’ and I was just hitting him in his ribs,” the guy said afterward. “It was great. You know, America stuff.”
Did you get that? They were doing “America stuff.” And fortunately, there are still places in “America” where people still do “America stuff,” like taking down bad guys without first calling 911. And then being charged afterward with fighting crime without a license.
(In New York, a sure way to ruin your life is to try to stop some demented guy who says he intends to kill the people in a subway car.)
https://nypost.com/2024/02/14/us-news/kansas-city-chief-fan-and-wife-stopped-gunman-in-viral-video/
*********** I bet the shooters in Kansas City got their guns legally. (For those who are sarcastically challenged, no, I DON’T think they did, and I DON’T think that a law making it difficult for them to buy guns legally would have made a damn bit of difference.)
What they really needed there in KC - what really would have prevented that ugly occurrence - was a law against shooting other people. Oh, wait - that’s sarcasm, too. So if there are any liberals reading this: I KNOW that there are already laws against shooting people, and what I’m getting at is the shooters simply ignored them - the same way they’d ignore gun laws that would only disarm us law-abiders.
*********** IT”S OFFICIAL:
WEST POINT, N.Y. – The Army West Point football team and the University of Notre Dame football team will square off this upcoming season on November 23, 2024, at Yankee Stadium, in what is considered a home game for Notre Dame.
The game will be broadcast nationally on NBC and Peacock with kickoff time to be announced at a later date.
Army's full American Athletic Conference (AAC) schedule will be announced in the coming weeks.
Army and Notre Dame have met at the home of the Yankees 23 times, including 22 times at the original Yankee Stadium (1925-29, '31-46, '69) and once at the current Yankee Stadium. The most recent contest in 2010 also marked the first college football game played at the current Stadium, which opened its doors in 2009.
Army and Notre Dame last met in 2016, a 44-6 Irish win at the Alamodome.
Army and Notre Dame have also played at the famed Polo Grounds, which was located across the Harlem River from where Yankee Stadium is, Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Shea Stadium in Queens and Giants Stadium in New Jersey.
The announcement of the game is a part of the return of Notre Dame's Shamrock Series which began in 2009, to "take a home game on the road' as the Irish celebrate the 100th anniversary of the fabled Four Horsemen backfield of Jim Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher.
Army will be meeting Notre Dame for the 52nd time overall (The Irish lead the all-time series 39-8-4).
The game marks the third Shamrock Series game to be played at Yankee Stadium. Notre Dame is 11-0 all-time in the Shamrock Series.
*********** Hey Coach Wyatt,
Thought this might interest you, not sure if any other states are on board with the NFL trying to make flag football more popular.
Mike Benton
Colfax, Illinois
TO SPARE YOU WHAT SCHOOL COACHES AND AD’S HAVE TO UNDERGO WHEN THEY GET COMMUNICATIONS FROM MUCKETY-MUCKS, I’VE DONE SOME EDITING…
IHSA Member School Administrators & Coaches,
I am excited to inform you that the IHSA Board of Directors recently approved the formation of an IHSA State Series in the sport of Girls Flag Football, beginning in the fall of 2024!
The IHSA was proud to partner with the Chicago Bears today in making a formal announcement at a press event at Halas Hall. It is also worth noting that you can now add a Girls Flag Football Coach to your school directory in the IHSA Schools Center. Adding that information will be very helpful, as it will help us provide direct communication/seek feedback from the coaches when needed. We will have much more to come on Girls Flag Football in the coming weeks and months, but for now, I simply wanted to share the news and press release with all of you…
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is proud to announce that Girls Flag Football will be the latest sport to debut an IHSA State Series, as the IHSA will conduct its inaugural postseason, culminating with an IHSA Girls Flag Football State Champion being crowned, in the fall of 2024.
Girls Flag Football joins a growing list of sports and activities that have recently conducted their inaugural IHSA State Series, including Girls Wrestling (2022), Esports (2022), Boys and Girls Lacrosse (2018), and Competitive Dance (2013).
The IHSA has commitments from over 100 schools to participate in the inaugural State Series in 2024, while nearly 40 other schools have expressed that they anticipate fielding a team in 2025.
“The official sanctioning of girls’ flag football in the State of Illinois is exciting news. Next year, we will witness a state championship in the sport. By providing opportunities for talented girls and women, we will be able to follow some of the world’s best athletes competing on local, national and international platforms, leading to the 2028 Summer Olympics,” said Chicago Bears President & CEO Kevin Warren. “The Chicago Bears remain committed to aggressively championing the growth of girls’ flag football. This is the beginning, but access and equity begin with these historical first moments that make the Chicago Bears, and me personally, inspired for the future of girls’ flag football for generations to come."
“There is a lot of work to done before we crown the first IHSA Girls Flag Football State Champion,” said IHSA Assistant Executive Director Tracie Henry, who will serve as the IHSA Girls Flag Football administrator. “We have a group of people who are dedicated to seeing the sport flourish and putting on a first-class state tournament. One area where we know we will need help is with officiating. We hope we can recruit some new officials to the sport, while also having current IHSA officials in other sports, including 11-player and 8-player football, add licenses to referee girls flag football as well.”
Individuals interested in becoming IHSA Girls Flag Football officials can begin licensing on May 1, 2024.
The inaugural IHSA Girls Flag Football State Finals will take place on Friday and Saturday, October 11-12, 2024.
Coach-
Great to hear from you!
Yes, other states are getting on board. It’s one more way for the NFL to get its tentacles deeper into other areas of football, and the NFL admits it.
Several other states are on board with this. New Jersey already has close to 100 schools playing girls’ flag. It was a going thing in Florida well before the NFL saw its opportunity and moved in.
I imagine one reason behind the NFL’s thinking is to lock in young females as fans of pro football. (Last year, 47% of the Super Bowl TV audience was female, and this year, with Taylor Swift following the Chiefs around, it’s likely to be close to 50%.}
It’s also likely part of the NFL’s move to take over boys’ youth football, given recent moves to eliminate tackle football until age 12 or even older. The idea there is that they’ll start out playing flag ball but once they’re old enough, they’ll just transition over to tackle. Maybe so, maybe not. But what about all the big, overweight kids who aren’t fast enough to play flag? What are they supposed to do until they’re old enough?
I’m not in any way opposed to girls flag ball. I think it’s great they they get some chance to play a form of football - even if it’s totally passing.
And maybe it will prevent girls from playing on boys’ high school teams, which I’m totally opposed to, but it might have the completely opposite effect.
We may eventually see flag ball begin to replace tackle football for boys in high schools. I think the NFL believes that can happen. I also predict that the day is not far off when boys and girls are playing on the same flag teams.
One thing is for sure: in Illinois, with flag ball starting in the fall, between football (real football), soccer, and now flag, high school ADs are going to be scrambling to find fields. And officials.
And football (real football) coaches are going to find themselves having to move practice around to accommodate the girls flag teams. (Title IX, don’t you know?)
Thanks for the article. Appreciate your thinking of me.
*********** Just wanted to let you know that I laffed my ass off at your "realignment map"...
...where you had the state of Ohio covered with the initials "TOSU" -
That was - all at the same time - 1. subtle, 2. "in your face", and 3. HILARIOUS!
What a great Dig! KUDOS!
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
Bless you for noticing. That was my little prize that I hid inside the king cake.
*********** Hugh,
SB: 49ers gave it away. How does a few professional football players NOT know the OT rules? No, Brady may be in the rear view mirror but Mahomes needs a few more years to be better than the GOAT.
Travis Kelce: Threw a much better fit than my four year old grandson! What a turd.
Kudos to your son Ed! That Volk video was too funny, and likely more appreciated by us “OG’s”.
Regarding your QB list: Not the first time MaxPreps screwed up. My apologies.
Although I’m no longer coaching I can’t wait to see your forthcoming playbook!
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Richard Dent remains one of the greatest pass rushers in the history of the game.
A native of Atlanta, he played his college ball at Tennessee State, after being recruited there by the great Big John Merritt.
At Tennessee State, he lettered for four years and was twice named All-American.
He set school records for sacks in a single game and sacks in a career, and was drafted in the eighth round in 1983 by the Chicago Bears.
Bill Tobin, director of the Chicago Bears’ personnel department at the time, might have said it best while expressing astonishment that he wasn't taken until the eighth round.
“I don’t know why teams stayed away from him so long. I had a very high grade on him,” Tobin said. “We thought he was the best pass rusher in the draft that year.”
He was the 203rd player taken in the draft, and by coincidence, he would up playing in 203 games in his career.
During his rookie season, he saw action in every game, and started three of them as defensive end.
In his second season, he nailed down a starting position, and wound up leading the NFC with 17.5 sacks, then a team record. In seven of the next nine seasons, he would record at least 10 sacks.
He was a major factor in the Bears’ famed “4-6” (or simply “Bear”) defense, that in the 1985 regular season allowed just 198 points - 12.4 points per game.
In three postseason contests that year, the Bears allowed just one touchdown - and 10 points overall. They shut out the Giants (21-0) and the Rams (24-0) and defeated the Patriots, 46-10 in the Super Bowl.
In that Super Bowl, he had three tackles, 1.5 sacks and two fumble forces, and was named game MVP.
He was also a soloist in the hugely popular Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” music video.
He played with the Bears though the 1993 season, then spent a season with the 49ers - and won another Super Bowl ring, even though he saw no action at all due to injuries.
He returned to Chicago for a year, then spent a year each in Indianapolis and Philadelphia before retiring.
At the time he retired, he ranked third in career sacks, behind only Reggie White and Bruce Smith.
In all, he was named to the Pro Bowl four times. He was first team All-Pro in 1985, and second team All-Pro on three other occasions.
He was the twelfth man named to the list of the 100 Greatest Chicago Bears ever, named to observe the team’s 100 anniversary. (For the record: 1. Walter Payton; 2. Dick Butkus; 3. Bronco Nagurski; 4. Sid Luckman; 5. Gale Sayers; 6. Mike Ditka; 7. Bill George; 8. Bulldog Turner; 9. Doug Atkins; 10. Danny Fortmann; 11. Dan Hampton)
Richard Dent is one of the two defensive ends (Doug Atkins is the other) on the Bears’ All-Time team.
He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of fame in 2011, and caused a bit of a stir when he neglected to mention former Bears’ head coach Mike Ditka and former Bears’ defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan in his acceptance speech.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING RICHARD DENT
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** QUIZ: He was one of the stars of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win. The one over the Vikings. 55 years ago. In Super Bowl IV (actually, long before they started getting hoity-toity and adding Roman numeral suffixes to them).
In fact, as a linebacker, he was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year that season (1969). And that was while backing up the Chiefs’ line along with Jim Lynch and future Hall-of-Famer Willie Lanier.
Before that, he had been five times named All-AFL; once the Chiefs became part of the NFL, he was named to the Pro Bowl three straight years. In 1970, he was named All-Pro.
A native of Shelby, North Carolina, he was an all-state quarterback at his all-black high school there.
Recruited to Minnesota by Murray Warmath, he was among the first wave of southern black players to play in the Big Ten.
Warmath, in his biography, “The Autumn Warrior,” recalled how he first heard of the player.
"We got wind of (him) through my old friend Jim Tatum, who was at North Carolina at the time,” Warmath recounted. "Jim called me one day and said there was a black kid playing in a small town in western North Carolina who was the talk of the state. In those days, of course, southern schools still were segregated, so Jim was alerting his friends in the north about (him). I remember Jim saying, ‘if you’re looking for films, there ain’t any, and if you’re looking for scouting reports, there ain’t any, but take my word for it, this kid is something, and if you aren’t interested I’ll call Forrst Evashevski at Iowa.'
“No, God, don’t do that, I shot back,” Warmath said. “We’ll get somebody on this kid right away.”
His recruiting visit to Minnesota was his first time on an airplane.
"I fell in love with the Twin Cities and the U of M, “ he said, “And called my dad back in Shelby and said I wasn't coming back. I wanted to stay.”
He was big and strong and very fast. He’d played quarterback in high school, and at a time when the freshmen weren’t eligible to play varsity ball, he played quarterback, halfback and end on the Minnesota freshman squad.
And then he found out he was going to be a lineman.
"I remember when Warmath called me into his office to tell me about the change," (he) said. "It was just before spring practice of 1960. As a freshman, I was concerned with just holding my own on the team and staying ahead in my studies. I was in awe of Warmath.
“He asked me to sit down and started telling me that he and the coaches needed to shore up the line, especially at tackle with the graduation of Wright. He said the decision was made to move me to tackle. I was shocked, but didn't dare say anything.
“While he was telling me this, he reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a rolled up tube sock. In the sock was a pearl-handled revolver and he started twirling it around his finger as he was telling me about moving me to tackle. I was listening, but I was distracted by that gun. I couldn't imagine being a tackle but in no way was I going to argue. I just said ‘yes, sir’ and promised to do my best and left the meeting.”
His best was plenty good. And so were the Gophers. In his sophomore year they were national champions, and in 1961 and 1962 they went to back-to-back Rose Bowls. (They haven’t been back since.) He was twice named All-American, and in his senior year he won the Outland Trophy as the nation’s top interior lineman and finished third in the Heisman balloting.
When he was taken in the second round of the NFL draft by the Minnesota Vikings, AFL teams figured that there was no sense wasting a draft pick on him, so he wasn’t taken until the seventh round of their draft, when the Kansas City Chiefs took him.
Surprisingly, though, he signed with the Chiefs - and he played with them for his entire 12-year NFL career.
Tall (6-4) and fast, he made the Chiefs as a defensive end, and because of his athletic ability, Coach Hank Stram stood him up and used him as an outside linebacker in his innovative “Stack” defense. After three years, he was moved to the outside linebacker position full-time. There, for seven straight seasons he was named All-AFL and then ALL-NFL.
When he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983, he was the first Kansas City Chief ever inducted, and just the second former AFL player to be inducted (Lance Alworth was the first).
He was also the 15th black player to be inducted - and the first outside linebacker (all linebackers to that time - Joe Schmidt, Bill George and Ray Nitschke - had been middle linebackers. Chuck Bednarik, who had played some at outside linebacker, was primarily a center).
He is in the Pro Football and College Football Halls of Fame.
He is in the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame, and in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.
He was named to the AFL All-Time Team, and to the NFL’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
In May, 2015, at the age of 74, having completing all his course work, he graduated from the University of Minnesota, almost 50 years after he’d left school to embark on a pro football career.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2024 “Never say die
until you’ve done it.” Malcolm Forbes*********** As I write this, it’s February 12, which just happens to be Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. You’ve probably heard of him. Our 16th President. I think that most people who know a scintilla of American history would agree that he is among our top three Presidents, which gives me a great idea that I bet no one has ever thought of: why not make his birthday a national holiday, just as we did with George Washington’s?
*********** I suppose this makes me the world’s biggest freeloader. Like I care.
CBS spent hundreds of millions for the rights to televise the Super Bowl, and then spent a small fortune on televising the game itself.
And I watched it all for free.
There were all those advertisers, who’d paid millions to produce commercials and then buy the on-air time to show them so that people would buy their products…
And there I was, either not interested in the slightest in what they had to sell or, literally, not even knowing what it was they were selling.
*********** While I enjoyed the Super Bowl, and found it somewhat entertaining, I didn’t think it was particularly exciting. Nor, other than Patrick Mahomes - who in my estimation has put Tom Brady in his rear view mirror as the so-called Greatest - did it do much to showcase the great offensive talent on both sides. For that, credit has to go to great play by both defenses.
But still - three offensive TDs? Versus seven field goals? How long can they keep up the pretense that this is the best they have to offer? Is the NFL competition committee going to have to start searching for new rules changes to help goose the offenses? My suggestion: put boxing gloves on everyone except QBs, running backs and eligible receivers. Oh (I’ve been saying this for maybe 20 years) - and widen the field to Canadian size. Their field is 65 yards wide, or 195 feet. Ours is 160 feet. That’s almost 12 yards difference - 6 yards on each side of the field. Think that wouldn’t open things up?
What this Super Bowl really did, for me, was to highlight the things that I’ve obsessed over as a coach: the ways that good teams beat themselves.
1. ELIMINATE TURNOVERS - EDGE TO KC - There was one 49ers’ turnover at the wrong time: I think McCaffrey’s first-quarter fumble to kill a drive set a tone for the game. And there was one at the wrong place: the bobbled punt return deep in 49ers territory that set up the Chiefs’ first TD.
2. ELIMINATE MISSED ASSIGNMENTS - BIG EDGE TO KC - In OT, on 3rd and 4, SF had Purdy back in shotgun. There was a cursory fake of a jet sweep to McCaffrey, but the entire SF offensive line showed “pass.” For no apparent reason, the RG blocked to his left , while the RT blocked to his right, completely ignoring Chiefs’ DT Chris Jones, who’d been lined up between them (either in the B gap - or maybe in a “4-eye”) and giving him a direct line to the QB. Purdy, under duress, threw incomplete. Replay showed that had he been able to hold the ball a split second longer the receiver would have been open in the end zone. In a post-game interview, Jones alluded to what he assumed had to be a “missed assignment.” He was right. And as Vince Lombardi was fond of saying, there are maybe five or six plays in a game that make the difference, but you never know which ones.
3. ELIMINATE STUPID PENALTIES - EVEN. KC had one stupid big one. SF had several small but costly ones.
4. ELIMINATE THE BIG PLAY - EDGE TO KC - They completed a long pass in the second quarter, and Mahomes got loose a couple of times, and there was McCaffrey’s TD pass, but that was only 21 yards.
5. TACKLE WELL - EVEN. There were far less than the usual number of missed tackles, especially those when tacklers shoot for the ankles.
6. BE TOUGH ON THE GOAL LINE - SLIGHT EDGE TO SFO
7. HAVE A SOLID KICKING GAME - BIG EDGE TO KC. Well, there was the punt that hit a 49ers’ blocker - no one told him to get out of the way - and after it hit him, the returner kept trying to scoop the ball up, instead of falling on it. If he wasn’t told to fall on it, that’s on coaching. And then there was the blocked extra point. Classic example of the tall man in the middle getting his hand in the air at the precise time to block it. Was the kick’s trajectory that low?
8. AVOID STUPID CALLS - SLIGHT EDGE TO KC. I can’t say there were any truly stupid individual calls - although the 49ers’ double pass to McCaffrey for a TD could very well have fallen into that category if it had failed. But in the 49ers’ drive in OT, I did get the sense that they might finally have gotten around to their I-formation attack, and that this might be it - that the Chiefs’ defense was getting tired and it was time to pound. But no. Back to the passing game. I guess the “pound-it” mindset is gone forever, or at least until some time in the future when some 25-year-old prodigy gets hired as an offensive coordinator and brings back power-I and full-house formations and runs all over teams that have no idea how to defend against him, and he’s hailed as the “Future of Football.”
The moral to all this? First avoid losing. Then work on winning.
*********** An Oregon high school basketball game resulted in a double forfeit when it was learned both teams had used Ineligble players.
https://www.oregonlive.com/highschoolsports/2024/02/ineligible-players-from-both-teams-results-in-rare-double-forfeit-between-north-bend-and-the-dalles-boys-basketball-teams.html
*********** I paid for ESPN+ in order to see FCS college games, so as long as I have it, my wife and I watch some of the ESPN special programs. One series is called “Eli’s Places,” and it features Eli Manning at various places of some historical importance to the game of college football.
In one of the segments, “The Granddaddy of Them All,” Eli goes to the Rose Bowl to do a feature on Jackie Robinson.
I have to admit I was a little taken aback to see a statue of Jackie Robinson in a football uniform outside the Rose Bowl. Now wait, I thought - Jackie was a very good player at UCLA, but in his time there, UCLA never played a game in the Rose Bowl. Not one. The statue appeared to be wearing a plastic helmet like the ones that UCLA didn't begin to wear until long after Jackie Robinson had left. And he was wearing a number - 55 - that was definitely not the number he wore at UCLA.
So I had to dig. The statue was at the Rose Bowl, I learned, because he had played four games there as a high schooler, and nine games there while playing for Pasadena Junior College. Okay, I guess. But in his two years at UCLA, he played SIXTEEN games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and that’s where he began to gain national acclaim.
The helmet? Evidently it was also from his high school-JC days, but it doesn’t look like any leather helmet of the time (plastic helmets were a by-product of wartime protective equipment, and didn’t appear on football teams until Army started wearing suspension helmets during the war).
The number 55? It was his number at Pasadena JC.
Okay, okay. I get it. I could think of better places for the statue, but I get it.
But there was one thing I had to get Eli on: he referred to Jackie Robinson’s being “denied a chance to play in the NFL.” Yes, while true to the extent that had he actually wanted to play pro football they certainly would have denied him the chance, it was a total crock otherwise. At that time, professional baseball was far and away the National Pastime, while professional football was held in such low repute, and paid so poorly, that no athlete capable of playing baseball professionally would have given a second thought to playing pro football. And Jackie Robinson, as the world would learn, was definitely capable of playing professional baseball.
*********** Count me among those who think that Chip Kelly is a smart coach. That he’s a very, very good offensive mind. And that he marches to his own drummer.
His teams at Oregon merged his warp speed offense with seemingly limitless flashy uniform combinations to put the Ducks on the minds of high school players around the country, and helped build a national brand.
He didn’t get it done in the NFL at Philadelphia and San Francisco - I don’t know why - and he never did get UCLA into contention in the Pac-12.
Most people attribute the shortcomings at UCLA to his disdain for recruiting, but I sure did like some of the still-innovative stuff he was doing offensively.
And now he’s out from under UCLA - a situation he wanted out of and they wanted him out of - and he’s the new OC/quarterbacks coach at Ohio State. (The OSU position came open on very short notice when recently-hired Bill O’Brien left to take the head coaching job at Boston College.)
With Ryan Day’s announcement that he would no longer be calling the offensive plays at Ohio State, the hiring of Kelly gives him not only a highly-qualified OC, but one he ought to be able to trust with the position: they are both from Manchester, New Hampshire, Day played at the University of New Hampshire when Kelly was the OC there, and Day was Kelly’s QB coach at both Philadelphia and San Francisco.
It’s been 15 years, though, since Kelly was last an assistant coach, and the one question in my mind about what otherwise looks like a great hire is whether the flipping of their roles, with Day now the boss, might lead to some problems.
*********** My son, Ed, lives in Australia and works in marketing for Sportsbet, a large international concern whose business, as its name suggests, is sports betting (which, unlike in the US, has been legal in Oz for decades).
He sent me a great video clip with this description:
Thought you’d get a kick out of this video we did – it’s gone viral thanks to the UFC community. Alex “Volk” Volkanovski is a world champion Australian UFC fighter and we have a partnership with him. His next opponent called him “old” so our guys whipped up a script and shot this last week. He’s playing an old ethnic guy – lots of Aussie cliches around this – but you’ll get the gist of it. He does a heck of a job of acting.
Ed’s right. This is hilarious. You may have to watch it a couple of times to understand some of what he says, but it's worth it.
https://vimeo.com/912347194?share=copy
*********** “The Epitome of Courage” is a tragic but inspirational story of the bravery that once won wars and built our great nation…
It’s the story of the captain of the 1937 Washington State football team - who was also president of the student body - who went on, as Lieutenant Colonel Ira “Chris” Rumburg, to fight, and die, in World War II.
Many thanks to Shep Clarke, of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee for sending me the story.
https://news.wsu.edu/news/2007/05/25/the-epitome-of-courage/
*********** I suppose it’s possible that he simply liked Seattle more than Tuscaloosa, or maybe he just thought that the Seahawks had more talent to work with than Alabama, but Ryan Grubb evidently decided he’d rather be the offensive coordinator of the Seahawks than of the Crimson Tide.
This leaves new Bama coach Kalen DeBoer in a bit of a spot, since Grubb, acknowledged to be one of the nation’s best college OC’s - Saban had tried to hire him to Alabama before this past season - had been his right-hand man most of their careers.
I liked DeBoer when he was at UW - small town Midwest guy makes good and all that, and he is a very good coach, but in terms of UW’s roster strength his emphasis on transfers at the expense of recruits left the place in worse shape than when he found it, so f—k him.
*********** It’s not all that unusual for a guy who’s coached more than 25 years - 21 at the same place - to hang ‘em up. Even if his team just won its state championship.
But it is a bit unusual for the guy to leave and take another head coaching job at another big-time high school in the same area, especially when he’d built a program so solid that the state title it just won was his fifth.
So it was rather big news in the Portland area when Portland Central Catholic coach Steve Pyne announced he was resigning to go across the Columbia River and become head coach at Union High School in Vancouver, Washington.
The Central Catholic head coach since 2003, Pyne had a record of 196-54. In all, his Rams won 14 conference championships, made eight state semifinal appearances and six Class 6A (largest) final appearances, and won five state tities. He was named Oregon Athletic Coaches Association Coach of the Year four times.
He moves to Union, a large high school in a rapidly-growing area in East Vancouver, which has experienced two consecutive losing seasons. But as recently as 2018, Union went 14-0 and won the state Class 4A (largest class) title, paced by QB Lincoln Victor (now at Washington State) who averaged 229 all-purpose yards per game and was named AP State Player of the Year.
Most recently, Union produced highly-recruited wide receiver Tobias Merriweather, whose signing with Notre Dame became famous because then-Irish coach Brian Kelly was in the Merriweather home, eating barbecue with the kid and his family, when news broke that he was going to LSU.
*********** Maybe it’s the feminization of our society, but it would be nice we could put our sentimental feelings aside once in a while and actually apply sound judgment. Even if it means disappointing people.
Mark Madden, in the Pittsburgh Tribune, who strikes me as an old-time, hard-nosed sports writer, writes that he’s heard from a number of people who didn’t think that Cleveland QB Joe Flacco should have been named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year.
You’ll remember that Flacco, 38 years old, joined the Browns late in the season when they were desperate for a quarterback - any quarterback - and won four of five starts to get them into the playoffs. Not bad for a guy who was out of work and, the writers like to say, “came off the couch” to play again.
Why were people upset? Well, they thought Damar Hamlin of the Bills, and not Joe Flacco, should have won the award.
Hamlin, as everyone knows, suffered cardiac arrest in a game in Cincinnati early last year, and not only survived, but came back to play in five games this year, and make two tackles.
But Comeback of the Year? Put your feelings aside and get serious. As Mark Madden writes, “Hamlin is alive, thank heaven. But he barely got on the field in 2023. Buffalo might have cut Hamlin if not for his circumstance.”
*********** John Bothe, of Oregon, Illinois, wrote to ask, “How helpful were formation shifts in your career? Did you use them consistently?”
My Answer: Coach,
Maybe it’s my background as a Delaware Wing-T coach, but I would to say that I have probably used changes in formation to a greater extent than any Double Wing coach I know of.
It’s always been a major part of my offensive thinking. I’ve always gone into a game with at least a couple of alternate formations, if only to “unclog” things.
I’d like to go into a game prepared to run a basic package of plays from Double Wing, Double Slot, Wing-I, and Stack-I - with the possibility of an offset fullback and/or a tackle-over with each. And then, where possible, I might add a formation I haven’t shown before, which after I ran it I’d put away for several weeks before bringing it back again.
That way, although I might run just three or four formations in any game, over the course of a season I might run as many as a couple dozen.
As a matter of fact, I’ve been working on a playbook covering all the different ways - and reasons why - I’ve attempted to use a change in formation without any radical change in the plays themselves.
*********** PEW RESEARCH: Football is “America’s Sport”
By John Gramlich, Anna Jackson and Michael Rotolo
Baseball is known as “America’s favorite pastime.” But for the largest share of the U.S. public, football is “America’s sport,” according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
In August 2023, we asked nearly 12,000 U.S. adults the following question: “If you had to choose one sport as being ‘America’s sport,’ even if you don’t personally follow it, which sport would it be?” The question was part of a broader survey about sports fandom in the United States.
More than half of Americans (53%) say America’s sport is football – about twice the share who say it’s baseball (27%). Much smaller shares choose one of the other four sports we asked about: basketball (8%), soccer (3%), auto racing (3%) or hockey (1%).
We also included the option for Americans to write in another sport. The most common answers volunteered were golf, boxing, rodeo and ice skating. Other respondents used the opportunity to have some fun: Among the more creative answers we received were “competitive eating,” “grievance politics,” “reality TV” and “cow tipping.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/05/by-a-wide-margin-americans-say-football-not-baseball-is-americas-sport/
*********** Your Modest Proposal is fascinating. You could count on a lot of squawking about the fairness of out of division schedules, but that's unpreventable. And the loudest squawking would concern the ins vs outs, haves vs have-nots. So, this is a great thought piece, very sensible, and generally appealing, probably better than any of the current guys can produce....BUT it's shameful you, we, anyone has to flatten the CFB world so many of us have thought was a sport as near perfect as any could be. Vandy's been an SEC loser for many decades, but so the hell what? If you were a Vandy fan during even the dimmest years, you could get excited the week before the Saturday game, and maybe you took a little kid to his first game, and you'd both watch a 62-0 loss to Bama, but it was by gosh your team, and your team had put some valiant players on the field to represent the university. In fact, given their probable disadvantages in size and talent, your team was much more valiant. Damned right you could cheer for your 'Dores. And a damned shame CFB's so screwed up its putative governing body can't figure out a way to repair it.
MaxPreps has already been called on the carpet for one major error in its lists. KJP bellowed from her podium yesterday that the greatest SB QB of them all, the one she speaks for, hails from Delaware (not Scranton for HS).
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, FL
John, I agree with you 100 per cent on the Vandy business (as the granddad of four ‘Dores. Actually, after having put that “Modest Proposal” together, if anything like that were to come to pass, I would ignore it to the extent that I ignore the NFL, and throw my allegiance to the “left-outs,” whose players might - might - still be playing football for the love of the game. As for KJP’s favorite QB, many Americans probably think that FJB actually played football at Delaware, as he has sometimes claimed. There is no truth to it. At Mike Lude’s 100th birthday party, when a group of his former Delaware players (from the 50s) presented him with a Number 100 Delaware football jersey, you should have seen the looks I got when I (jokingly) asked them if they got it at “the same place where they got Biden’s.”
*********** Hugh,
Eight of those SB QB’s on your list came out of Catholic high schools. You left one of the Texas boys out…Jalen Hurts.
Overall there are 16 NFL QB’s out of the state of Texas.
The National Collegiate Football League (co-sponsored by the NFL and ESPN) will make its debut in 2025. The league will pay an annual usage fee to the colleges for naming rights whose football teams opt to play in the league. Players in the league will receive a minimum NIL amount, and must be enrolled in the college in at least 6 credit hours with a declared major. Each team will field a player roster of 60. More information TBA.
Go Niners! I like the way Shanahan operates in this “every man for himself” world of professional football. And - like Alabama in college football - I’d like to see another team sitting on the throne.
Bill O’Brien is a natural for BC. He’s a tough, no-nonsense guy whose teams will no doubt reflect his ways, and will also reflect his compassionate family side.
Ryan Day and Chip Kelly. Two NH guys working together again in a role reversal.
Day was the UNH QB when Kelly was the UNH OC. Should be interesting to see how those two handle it!
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Joe - Not guilty! I didn’t leave Jalen Hurts off my list - because it wasn’t my list. It was MaxPrep’s and I made sure to credit them, for two reasons: one, it’s a mortal sin to claim someone else’s work as your own, and two, I can always deflect the blame for any mistake. If it had been my list, I probably would have missed more than one!
Good catch, by the way!
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Marvin Lewis was born and raised in little McDonald, Pennsylvania, west of Pittsburgh, and started playing football when he was nine. At Fort Cherry High School in McDonald, he was an all-conference quarterback and safety, and lettered in wrestling and baseball as well.
Without any scholarship offers, he was planning on walking on at Purdue until Idaho State came through with an offer. He played linebacker there, and earned All-Big Sky Conference honors three straight years, while also seeing occasional action at quarterback and free safety. He was inducted into Idaho State’s Hall of Fame in 2001.
He began his coaching career coaching the Idaho State linebackers, and in his first season there ISU went 12-1 and won the NCAA D I-AA national championship. After five years he moved on to Long Beach State, then to New Mexico, and then to Pitt.
In 1992, 11 years after graduating from college, he got his first NFL job as linebackers coach with the Steelers. After five years with the Steelers - during which time they made it to a Super Bowl - he was hired as defensive coordinator by the Baltimore Ravens, the newly-relocated former Cleveland Browns.
With him as their defensive coordinator, the Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV over the New York Giants, 34-7 in large part because of the play of his defense. Now considered one of the best NFL defenses ever, it set a record for fewest rushing yards (970) and fewest points allowed (165) in a 16-game season.
After six seasons with the Ravens he was in consideration for a number of NFL head coaching positions, but after none of them panned out, he moved to the Washington Redskins as defensive coordinator and assistant head coach to Steve Spurrier.
And then, after the one season with the Redskins - and several more head coaching interviews - he was hired in January 2003 by the Cincinnati Bengals as their head coach.
They were down. They hadn’t played in the post-season since 1990, and they had just finished a 2-14 season, the worst in club history.
After two 8-8 seasons, the Bengals finally broke through in his third season. . Led by Carson Palmer, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, and Chad (Ochocinco) Johnson, they went 11-5, and won their division title, making it to the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.
In all, he would coach the Bengals for 16 years, the longest tenure of any coach in their history, until 2018, when he and the Bengals announced their mutual agreement to end his tenure there. His record of 131-122-3 made him the first coach to leave Cincinnati with a winning record since Bill Johnson in 1978 - 40 years earlier.
Sixteen years was an exceptionally long stay with any one NFL club, and he won 131 games for the Bengals - the most in team history. He also took them to four division titles and seven playoff appearances (five in a row from 2011-2015). In 2009, he was named NFL Coach of the Year - the only Bengals’ coach to be so honored other than team founder Paul Brown in 1970.
But the playoffs. Oh, the playoffs. Despite the 131 wins, he had to deal with the stigma of being 0-7 in playoff games, making him the winningest NFL head coach never to win a playoff game.
He had a respectable coaching tree: Five of his former assistants: Jay Gruden (Washington Redskins), Hue Jackson (Cleveland Browns), Leslie Frazier (Minnesota Vikings). Mike Zimmer (Minnesota Vikings since 2014), and Vance Joseph (Denver Broncos) became NFL head coaches.
Not missing a beat, by the next season after his leaving Cincinnati, he had signed on with Herm Edwards at Arizona State as a “special advisor,” and a year later was named co-defensive coordinator working with a young assistant named Antonio Pierce.
And just recently, he rejoined Antonio Pierce in Las Vegas. With Pierce officially named the Raiders’ head coach, Marvin Lewis became his assistant head coach, having served as his informal advisor this past season.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MARV LEWIS
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN IRION - ARGYLE, NEW YORK
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He remains one of the greatest pass rushers in the history of the game.
A native of Atlanta, he played his college ball at Tennessee State, after being recruited there by the great Big John Merritt.
At Tennessee State, he lettered for four years and was twice named All-American.
He set school records for sacks in a single game and sacks in a career, and was drafted in the eighth round in 1983 by the Chicago Bears.
Bill Tobin, director of the Chicago Bears’ personnel department at the time, might have said it best while expressing astonishment that he wasn't taken until the eighth round.
“I don’t know why teams stayed away from him so long. I had a very high grade on him,” Tobin said. “We thought he was the best pass rusher in the draft that year.”
He was the 203rd player taken in the draft, and by coincidence, he would up playing in 203 games in his career.
During his rookie season, he saw action in every game, and started three of them as defensive end.
In his second season, he nailed down a starting position, and wound up leading the NFC with 17.5 sacks, then a team record. In seven of the next nine seasons, he would record at least 10 sacks.
He was a major factor in the Bears’ famed “4-6” (or simply “Bear”) defense, that in the 1985 regular season allowed just 198 points - 12.4 points per game.
In three postseason contests that year, the Bears allowed just one touchdown - and 10 points overall. They shut out the Giants (21-0) and the Rams (24-0) and defeated the Patriots, 46-10 in the Super Bowl.
In that Super Bowl, he had three tackles, 1.5 sacks and two fumble forces, and was named game MVP.
He was also a soloist in the hugely popular Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” music video.
He played with the Bears though the 1993 season, then spent a season with the 49ers - and won another Super Bowl ring, even though he saw no action at all due to injuries.
He returned to Chicago for a year, then spent a year each in Indianapolis and Philadelphia before retiring.
At the time he retired, he ranked third in career sacks, behind only Reggie White and Bruce Smith.
In all, he was named to the Pro Bowl four times. He was first team All-Pro in 1985, and second team All-Pro on three other occasions.
He was the twelfth man named to the list of the 100 Greatest Chicago Bears ever, named to observe the team’s 100 anniversary. (For the record: 1. Walter Payton; 2. Dick Butkus; 3. Bronco Nagurski; 4. Sid Luckman; 5. Gale Sayers; 6. Mike Ditka; 7. Bill George; 8. Bulldog Turner; 9. Doug Atkins; 10. Danny Fortmann; 11. Dan Hampton)
He is one of the two defensive ends (Doug Atkins is the other) on the Bears’ All-Time team.
He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of fame in 2011, and caused a bit of a stir when he neglected to mention former Bears’ head coach Mike Ditka and former Bears’ defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan in his acceptance speech.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2024 “Just as a
sword has cut deep and has carved many an arm in two, dear son, just so
a tongue can cut a friendship.”Geoffrey Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale
*********** If anyone's offended by anything I've written, please bear in mind that I'm an old man and I'm not responsible for my actions. And I don't remember writing it anyhow. In other words, tough tiddy.
*********** Considering its importance to our country, couldn’t they send Air Force One to Japan to make sure Taylor Swift makes it to Las Vegas in time for the Super Bowl kickoff?
Or, failing that, couldn’t the NFL hold up the kickoff while we all watched a live TV feed from inside her plane?
*********** “I pledge allegiance to… ONE NATION… INDIVISIBLE”
Shame on any so-called American whose actual allegiance is to any “nation” other than ours, and shame on any so-called American who would actually expect other Americans to honor any “national anthem” other than ours.
*********** Interesting facts from MaxPreps…
When Super Bowl LVIII takes place Sunday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas it will feature a starting quarterback from Arizona for the first time ever. San Francisco's Brock Purdy graduated from Perry (Gilbert, Ariz.) in 2018.
Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes is one of four quarterbacks from Texas to start a Super Bowl. The former Whitehouse standout is the only one from the Lone Star State to start multiple Super Bowls. Terry Bradshaw, Tom Brady, John Elway, Jim Kelly, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana and Roger Staubach are the only other quarterbacks to start at least four Super Bowls.
California has produced the most starting signal callers in Super Bowl history with 13. Some notable names include Brady, Elway, Jim Plunkett and Aaron Rodgers. Brady holds the record with 10 starts.
Pennsylvania has the second-most with nine headlined by five Pro Football Hall of Fame members in Kelly, Dan Marino, Montana, Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas.
Louisiana was the only other state with more than five. Terry Bradshaw, Eli Manning and Peyton Manning are among the seven from the Pelican State.
Ohio and Texas tied for the fourth-most with four each. Joe Burrow, Len Dawson, Ben Roethlisberger and Staubach represent the Buckeye State. Drew Brees, Nick Foles and Matthew Stafford join Mahomes from Texas.
Only two high schools have had more than one quarterback start a Super Bowl. Brees and Foles both graduated from Westlake (Austin, Texas) while the Manning brothers both went to Newman (New Orleans).
In total, 22 different states have produced at least one quarterback. Thirty states along with Washington, D.C. have not had a quarterback start a Super Bowl and some notable ones include Florida, Maryland, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Alabama (2)
Ken Stabler, Foley: Super Bowl XI
Bart Starr, Lanier (Montgomery): I, II
California (13)
Tom Brady, Serra (San Mateo): XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII, XLVI, XLIX, LI, LII, LIII, LV
Trent Dilfer, Aptos: XXXV
Tony Eason, Delta (Clarksburg): XX
John Elway, Granada Hills Charter (Granada Hills): XXI, XXII, XIV, XXXII, XXXIII
Vince Ferragamo, Banning (Wilmington): XIV
Jared Goff, Marin Catholic (Kentfield): LIII
Colin Kaepernick, Pitman (Turlock): XLVII
Joe Kapp, Hart (Newhall): IV
Billy Kilmer, Citrus Union (Azusa): VII
Daryle Lamonica, Clovis: II
Craig Morton, Campbell: V, XII
Jim Plunkett, James Lick (San Jose): XV, XVIII
Aaron Rodgers, Pleasant Valley (Chico): XLV
Connecticut (1)
Steve Young, Greenwich (Greenwich): XXIX
Georgia (2)
Cam Newton, Westlake (Atlanta): 50
Fran Tarkenton, Athens: VIII, IX, XI
Illinois (3)
Ken Anderson, Batavia: XVI
Jimmy Garoppolo, Rolling Meadows: LIV
Donovan McNabb, Mount Carmel (Chicago): XXXIX
Indiana (2)
Bob Griese, Rex Mundi (Evansville): VI, VII, VIII
Rex Grossman, Bloomington South (Bloomington): XLI
Iowa (1)
Kurt Warner, Regis (Cedar Rapids): XXXIV, XXXVI, XLIII
Kentucky (1)
Phil Simms, Southern (Louisville): XXI
Louisiana (7)
Terry Bradshaw, Woodlawn (Baton Rouge): IX, X, XIII, XIV
Jake Delhomme, Teurlings Catholic (Lafayette): XXXVIII
Stan Humphries, Southwood (Shreveport): XXIX
Eli Manning, Newman (New Orleans): XLII, XLVI
Peyton Manning, Newman: XLI, XLIV, XLVIII, 50
Doug Williams, Chaneyville (Zachary): XXII
David Woodley, Byrd (Shreveport): XVII
Massachusetts (1)
Matt Hasselbeck, Xaverian Brothers (Westwood): XL
Michigan (1)
Earl Morrall, Muskegon: III
Mississippi (2)
Brett Favre, Hancock (Kiln): XXXI, XXXII
Steve McNair, Mount Olive: XXXIV
New Jersey (3)
Joe Flacco, Audubon: XLVII
Neil O'Donnell, Madison: XXX
Joe Theismann, South River: XVII, XVIII
New York (2)
Boomer Esiason, East Islip (Islip Terrace): XXIII
Ron Jaworski, Lackawanna: XV
North Carolina (1)
Brad Johnson, Owen (Black Mountain): XXXVII
Ohio (4)
Joe Burrow, Athens (The Plains): LVI
Len Dawson, Alliance: I, IV
Ben Roethlisberger, Findlay: XL, XLIII, XLV
Roger Staubach, Purcell Marian (Cincinnati): VI, X, XII, XIII
Oklahoma (1)
Troy Aikman, Henryetta: XXVII, XXVIII, XXX
Pennsylvania (9)
Kerry Collins, Wilson (West Lawn): XXXV
Rich Gannon, St. Joseph's Prep (Philadelphia): XXXVII
Jeff Hostetler, Conemaugh Township (Davidsville): XXV
Jim Kelly, East Brady: XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII
Dan Marino, Central Catholic (Pittsburgh): XIX
Joe Montana, Ringgold (Monongahela): XVI, XIX, XXIII, XXIV
Joe Namath, Beaver Falls (Beaver Falls): III
Matt Ryan, William Penn Charter (Philadelphia): LI
Johnny Unitas, St. Justin's (Pittsburgh): V
Texas (4)
Drew Brees, Westlake (Austin): XLIV
Nick Foles, Westlake: LII
Patrick Mahomes, Whitehouse: LIV, LV, LVII
Matthew Stafford, Highland Park (Dallas): LVI
Utah (1)
Jim McMahon, Roy: XX
Virginia (1)
Russell Wilson, Collegiate (Richmond): XLVIII, XLIX
Washington (3)
Drew Bledsoe, Walla Walla: XXXI
Chris Chandler, Everett: XXXIII
Mark Rypien, Shadle Park (Spokane): XXVI
*********** Last summer, well before any of the news came out about their recent “advisory” meeting I was asked by the commissioners of the SEC and Big Ten if I’d consider setting up a “super conference” that they were planning to set up, and before I had a chance to decline, they made me any offer I couldn’t refuse.
I’m not at liberty to disclose the amount of their offer, but let’s just say that I’ll never again have to worry about writing this page twice a week, or preparing for a Zoom clinic every two weeks. And my children and grandchildren, should they choose, will be able to live lives of indolence.
Of course, I was sworn to secrecy, with is why none of your know about it. Not even my wife knows what I’ve been doing, (She thinks I’ve been working on a new playbook.)
But now that the word’s out that the two commissioners have met for “advisory" talks,” I figured the cat’s out of the bag, and I might as well let you, my faithful readers, know what I’ve been working on.
The first thing I had to do - and it wasn’t easy - was to convince the commissioners that the idea of a simple merger of their two conferences was not the way to go. Why? Because, I told them bluntly, it made no sense to create a “super conference” and include teams such as Vanderbilt and Indiana. And yet, as charter members of their conferences, there would almost certainly be legal - not to mention public relations - difficulties involved in jettisoning those schools.
My suggestion was that they instead create an entirely new conference., and simply not invite the poorer teams. They would begin by incorporating as a brand-new entity, and eventually the members of the corporate board would elect a President to run the new conference.
They thought it was a great idea, and moved on to the nuts and bolts of building their new league. That’s here I came in. They charged me with putting together a coast-to-coast league, including as many major TV markets as possible, making sure to include as many teams from their current conferences as feasible. And then, one the word approved the plan, they’d issue the invitations.
Using the structure of the NFL as my guide, and working with 32 teams as the ideal number, I broke the new conference into eight four-team “divisions.” The commissioners thought it was a brilliant idea, but in fairness I had to point out to them that the NFL had come up with it way before me. The brilliance, I pointed out, was that in breaking a large 32-team league into eight divisions of four teams each, the NFL had created a scheme that tricked the public into thinking that, even well into the season, virtually every team had at least an outside chance to get to the Super Bowl. And even a bad team could finish no worse than fourth place in its division.
And then, with their approval of the 32-team format, I went to work. Consulting constantly with the commissioners (and those of their underlings who could be trusted to keep the project a secret), I began to evaluate every current “power 4” conference team on the basis of several criteria:
Resources: Can they/will they spend what’s necessary to be competitive long-term?
Fan Base: Do they have a large following that can immediately factor into our TV ratings?
Market Size: Are they in a large enough TV market, and do they matter to the viewers in that market?
Recent Performance: Have they, in the past 5 years, shown consistent ability to be competitive?
Tradition: Do they have a history of excellence in the not-too-distant past?
Brand Recognition: Are they known and admired outside their own market and fan base?
Potential (if they’re not now up to standards): Is there strong reason to believe that this team can quickly become competitive?
Feeding this info into my giant IBM 360 Super Computer, the map below is what I submitted to the commissioners for their consideration. (I have to stress that it’s not final.)
As you can see, by following the color codes, there are eight “divisions” of schools. The most important consideration in putting the divisions together was proximity. In some cases, it was impossible to keep certain long-time rivals (Alabama-Tennessee, Georgia-Auburn for example) in the same divisions, but the conference can still schedule those schools to play each other annually. Oklahoma-Oklahoma State is another pair of rivals that I had to put in different divisions, mainly because I had to find division partners for Utah and BYU.
In stressing that it’s not final, there are some schools that for various reasons might yet wind up in the picture.
CALL THEM MAYBES:
Arizona State (for the Phoenix market, potential)
Central Florida (for the Orlando market, plus some recent success, plus potential)
Houston (for the market, potential)
Kansas State (for strong recent performance)
Minnesota (for the market)
Missouri (for the KC-St Louis market, recent performance)
And, yes, there are a few schools whose presence in the current configuration might be questioned.
CALL THEM MAYBE NOTS:
Arkansas (good fan base, good resources, small market, poor recent performance)
BYU (good fan base, good resources, good brand- strong national following, poor recent performance)
Miami (good market, good brand, poor recent performance, small, apathetic fan base)
Michigan State (good brand, good tradition, good resources, poor recent performance)
North Carolina (decent recent performance, fair fan base, medium market)
Oklahoma State (good recent performance, good fan base, small market)
Virginia Tech (good brand, good resources, good fan base, small market, poor recent performance)
I must point out to anyone there who’s disappointed by the plan that I feel your pain. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be a party to anything that would cut out my kids and grandkids’ schools - Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest - but this was a career opportunity I just couldn’t pass up, and the money was good. So I trust you understand.
I’ve shown you this in confidence. Please respect my position by not calling or writing to the commissioners in protest.
To indicate that it’s a combination of colleges that play American football (as opposed to soccer) I suggested it be called the University Federation of Football Distinctly American - so it could be called, in short, UFF DA
*********** Because 1956 was the first year of Ivy League play, I was looking up some things in the NCAA Official Collegiate Football Record book for that year, and found that this past year’s so-called Power 5 looked a lot different then:
There was no Pac-12 (what’s new?). There was, instead, a Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. There was no Arizona or Arizona State to be found. But there were nine teams, because Idaho was still a member. And according to the guide, the Vandals had a couple of good players coming back - one named Jerry Kramer. (Yes, the Packer. He was pretty good, as it turned out.)
The Big 8 (now the Big 12) had - duh - eight teams. Wise guy sportswriters liked to call it “Oklahoma and the Seven Dwarves.”
The Big Ten - I am not making this up - had exactly TEN teams.
The ACC didn’t yet have Florida State or Miami (they were independents) or any of the northern schools, but it did still have South Carolina. And Maryland.
The SEC? It still had Georgia Tech and Tulane.
The Eastern schools - Army, Boston College, Navy, Penn State, Pitt, Syracuse, West Virginia - were all independent.
And then there was the Southwest Conference. The SWC, made up of Arkansas, plus all the bigger Texas schools except Houston and Texas Tech, lasted another thirty years or so before widespread cheating brought it down. It would have been funny as hell to watch the goings-on among those schools with today’s absence of rules.
*********** I had a reason to look at the NCAA Official Collegiate Football Record Book for 1956, and I happened to look at Miami’s schedule.
The Hurricanes, like every other major college team then, played ten games.
Eight of them were at home, and seven of those home games were on Friday nights.
I’m assuming that heat was a major reason for the night starts. Not sure why Friday, though.
The only “day” game was the final game of the season - against Pitt, on December 8.
Florida was away, and TCU was away, which meant that the ‘Canes played just one game outside the state of Florida.
*********** John Canzano talked recently with Washington State head coach Jake Dickert, and the impressive success he’s had retaining players…
When the first college football transfer portal window opened on Dec. 4, most expected Dickert’s roster would be raided. Why not? WSU will play in the “Pac-2” next season and the schedule features seven games against Mountain West Conference opponents.
Dickert’s pitch to his roster?
• Stick around.
• Control of your environment.
• Don’t forget why you started playing football in the first place.
Said Dickert: “To me, there are two buckets: There are people who play for the love, passion, the camaraderie, and the life lessons you get. That’s one bucket. There’s another bucket that is transactional. The transactional deal takes away the joy.”
His starting quarterback, Cam Ward, left for Miami. That aside, WSU did a remarkable job holding the rest of the roster together. Partly, Dickert said, because fans responded, opened their checkbooks, and helped the Cougar Collective boost the war chest. But also because Dickert said all 10 of his full-time assistants are coming back. The staff stayed focused on cultivating 1-on-1 relationships with players.
Said Dickert: “I told the staff not to take it lightly. The players are sending us a big message that we’re doing things right.”
On December’s National Signing Day, the Cougars signed 23 high school seniors. It was a strategic play. With so many Division I football programs camping in the portal looking for experienced upperclassmen, there are fewer scholarships available to high school athletes. Dickert hopes to capitalize on that deep pool of high school talent.
“We want to put people in the slow cooker,” Dickert told me. “We live in a microwave society. They want instant access. Instant success. Instant opportunity. Life doesn’t work that way. We’ve to got to find specific traits we love and then help players work on their deficiencies.”
*********** In an article in The Athletic, Kalyn Kahler tells how Kyle Shanahan makes sure that things are done the way he wants them done - by watching position meetings remotely, in his office. It’s something that he got from his dad, Mike, a former NFL head coach.
From the tone of a lot of the letters commenting on the article, there are plenty who deride this as “Big Brother” stuff, right out of 1984.
They don’t seem to understand what a head coach has to deal with. It’s the head coach who’s ultimately to blame for anything and everything that goes wrong. I can’t imagine any NFL head coach, with the technology readily available, not taking advantage of every opportunity to ensure that mistakes are being corrected, and that the things he wants are not only being taught that they’re being taught the way he wants them taught…
In spring 2010, Washington’s new offensive coaching staff met for the first time. Coordinator Kyle Shanahan was leading a conversation about blocking the back side of a run play when tight ends coach Jon Embree offered up a suggestion.
Embree had worked for head coach Mike Shanahan, Kyle’s father, with the Denver Broncos 10 years earlier. Kyle liked Embree’s approach. He agreed with the suggestion, and the group moved on to the next play. Not 30 seconds later, the door to the room flew open. “No, no, no, no, no — nuh-uh,” Mike Shanahan said, according to Embree. “I don’t want to do it that way. And here’s why …”
“All the coaches were like, ‘Where did he come from?” Embree said.
Mike came from his office. He knew he didn’t like the blocking variation, intervening at the moment to fix the error before the staff wasted any more time, because he’d watched and listened to the entire discussion on a live feed from the meeting room that was playing out on screens in his office.
The elder Shanahan set up his facilities this way since his head coaching tenure with the Broncos, which included two Super Bowl victories. Kyle has taken a lot from his dad’s career and applied it to his own, including watching over his players and coaches from a perch high atop the organization. As Kyle prepares to coach his San Francisco 49ers in their second Super Bowl in five years, the surveillance state is just as much a part of the Shanahan tree as the outside zone run game.
It might not seem like an ideal workplace setup, but the majority of players and coaches interviewed for this story didn’t find the cameras intrusive. For current Niners and former Shanahan guys, this is just part of the job. Many said they assume they are being recorded and listened to at all times.
“I mean, you already know (Kyle) watches,” San Francisco left tackle Trent Williams said, laughing. “It’s like being on ‘Big Brother.'” Williams started his career under Mike Shanahan in Washington in 2010, so he’s used to this level of oversight. “I did some dumb rookie mistake and (Mike) busted in the room as soon as that play came on the screen afterward,” he said.
In 2020, COVID protocols forced teams to update their video technology and make every meeting virtually accessible. When players and coaches were allowed to meet in person again, Kyle kept using the Zoom feature. Now, he can speak in a meeting room from his own office simply by unmuting himself. If he’s not physically in the room, he can be listening in — and he pays close attention to the quarterbacks.
“We always call that screen in our room the voice of God,” said third-string quarterback Brandon Allen.
“His voice just comes in from heaven,” said run game coordinator and offensive line coach Chris Foerster.
“We’d be talking about something, and he’d unmute and say, ‘Actually, you read it this way,’ and then he would mute again,” said quarterback Nate Sudfeld, who played for San Francisco in 2021. “So you gotta be careful what you say.”
The roots of the Shanahans’ video system took hold in another era of 49ers football.
When Mike Shanahan was hired as San Francisco’s offensive coordinator in 1992, he spent several weeks cramming. Bill Walsh had left to coach Stanford, and he left behind an enormous video library of teachings to help new coaches and players catch up quickly to his West Coast offense.
Shanahan saw the value in having material to refer back to, and when he got his second chance at a head coaching gig (in Denver in 1995 after a short-lived stint in charge of the L.A. Raiders from 1988-89) he made one important upgrade to Walsh’s method. The cameras in the Broncos’ meeting rooms didn’t just record for posterity; Shanahan created a live feed. He outfitted each position room with a CCTV-style camera aimed at the screen that showed the film players watched every day. Each of those cameras fed into his office, where he could toggle the audio from room to room.
“Mike was totally committed to it and took it to another level,” said Gary Kubiak, a longtime Shanahan assistant before taking over in Houston and Denver himself. “As a head coach, you can’t be everywhere. But if you’re sitting in your office and you want to know what’s going on in the receiver meeting or what’s going on at the linebacker meeting, you can flip on and just watch your coach teach or watch him handle his players.”
*********** What plays in Vegas doesn’t stay there…
The game might be in Vegas, but the 49ers and Chiefs have been staying in a place called Lake Las Vegas - 25 miles (and 45 minutes) from The Strip.
Obviously, they want to keep the player away from “distractions.”
But as NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller says, it’s not all that different from the way they’ve always done things: “We traditionally have teams stay a distance from the stadium and from a city where there’s room enough for the club and family.”
*********** Jeff Hafley said a major reason why he “stepped down” from being head coach at Boston College to being defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers is that he missed the actual coaching, telling reporters that at Green Bay, “I get to coach again.”
He said that as a college coach he had found himself spending too much of his time worrying about the transfer portal and trying to raise NIL dollars.
Comparing the job of a college coach to that of an NFL GM, he said, “I’m the ‘general manager’ and you’re trying to manage the cap and you don’t really know what the cap is.”
*********** Hot on the agenda of the WIAA, the Washington state high school sports administrative body, is an amendment to allow any and all high school players one free transfer - for any reason - without having to sit out a year, as is the case now if a kid doesn’t move with his parents.
*********** Coach:
Elvis's old manager, Colonel Parker, used to counsel his young charge to avoid overexposure. I think that's happening with the Mannings. I'd like them better if they went away for a while. I saw a few minutes of Payton on the McAfee show last week, and remember feeling I couldn't wait for his time to be up.
We've observed--and you've commented from the start--on the cumulative decline in CFB occasioned by NIL (a meaningless expression now) and the Portal. Now, in a matter of a few years, we're well beyond the direct fallout. We see the indirect fallout in what those guys did at the Senior Bowl, and it's uglier even than the direct. How can anyone in authority not understand the damage being done?
Although I don't know all the details, I tend to think the Athletic Department at Tennessee has a point. How can you accuse us of an NIL violation when you cannot cite a rule we've broken, because you haven't established such rules? The NCAA continues to look weak and pathetic.
Apologies for being unable to see the original ZOOM tonight, but look forward to seeing it in a few days. Thanks for all you do.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER : Henry "Hank" Gremminger was a holdover from the sorry Green Bay Packers team that Vince Lombardi inherited, but he met Lombardi’s high standards, and he wound up playing playing with him for seven years, and playing on three Packers NFL championship teams.
He grew up in Weatherford, Texas, and played his college ball at Baylor. As a two-way player for the Bears, he was an end on offense and a safety on defense, and was an All-Southwest Conference selection in both his junior and senior years. As a senior, he was a co-captain of the team.
He was drafted in the seventh round - the 80th player taken - by the Green Bay Packers, as an offensive end, but he earned the job as the Packers' starting left cornerback as a rookie, and held the spot until his third season, when he broke his leg and missed the final two games. The next year, Lombardi's first season, he had to win his job back, but he did, and played there until 1962, when Herb Adderley moved in at corner, and he moved to safety.
There, his good size (6 foot, 205) served him well, as he played on the left side and usually found himself up against a new breed of player - the tight end. That meant covering athletes like Mike Ditka of the Bears and John Mackey of the Baltimore Colts, but it also meant coming up to meet pulling linemen as the force man on power sweeps.
"In coach Lombardi's defense,” said former teammate Gary Knafelc, “You had to come up hard on the outside to make tackles, so you had to be versatile to play for coach Lombardi and (he) was as good as any of them. He could run. He was a very aggressive guy. All his teammates liked him. He was very much a team player." In 1964 he was named the captain of the Packers’ defense.
He played in 121 games in his 10 seasons with the Packers, and on three NFL championship teams. He intercepted 28 passes and recovered seven fumbles. Following the 1965 season, after losing his starting position to Tom Brown, he asked to be traded, and Lombardi traded him to Dallas for a future draft choice.
After a salary despite with Dallas, he left camp and was traded to Atlanta, an expansion team whose head coach, Norb Hecker, had been his defense backfield coach in Green Bay. He retired before the start of the season, but later came out of retirement to play eight games with the Los Angeles Rams before retiring for good.
After football he became a building contractor in his native Weatherford and became active in the Republican Party and at the time of his death he was a county commissioner.
Hank Gremminger is in both the Baylor Football Hall of Fame and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.
On his headstone is a quote from Vince Lombardi: "The greatest accomplishment is not in and never failing, but in rising again after you fail.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING HANK GREMMINGER
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born and raised in little McDonald, Pennsylvania, west of Pittsburgh, and started playing football when he was nine. At Fort Cherry High School in McDonald, he was an all-conference quarterback and safety, and lettered in wrestling and baseball as well.
Without any scholarship offers, he was planning on walking on at Purdue until Idaho State came through with an offer. He played linebacker there, and earned All-Big Sky Conference honors three straight years, while also seeing occasional action at quarterback and free safety. He was inducted into Idaho State’s Hall of Fame in 2001.
He began his coaching career coaching the Idaho State linebackers, and in his first season there ISU went 12-1 and won the NCAA D I-AA national championship. After five years he moved on to Long Beach State, then to New Mexico, and then to Pitt.
In 1992, 11 years after graduating from college, he got his first NFL job as linebackers coach with the Steelers. After five years with the Steelers - during which time they made it to a Super Bowl - he was hired as defensive coordinator by the Baltimore Ravens, the newly-relocated former Cleveland Browns.
With him as their defensive coordinator, the Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV over the New York Giants, 34-7 in large part because of the play of his defense. Now considered one of the best NFL defenses ever, it set a record for fewest rushing yards (970) and fewest points allowed (165) in a 16-game season.
After six seasons with the Ravens he was in consideration for a number of NFL head coaching positions, but after none of them panned out, he moved to the Washington Redskins as defensive coordinator and assistant head coach to Steve Spurrier.
And then, after the one season with the Redskins - and several more head coaching interviews - he was hired in January 2003 by the Cincinnati Bengals as their head coach.
They were down. They hadn’t played in the post-season since 1990, and they had just finished a 2-14 season, the worst in club history.
After two 8-8 seasons, the Bengals finally broke through in his third season. . Led by Carson Palmer, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, and Chad (Ochocinco) Johnson, they went 11-5, and won their division title, making it to the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.
In all, he would coach the Bengals for 16 years, the longest tenure of any coach in their history, until 2018, when he and the Bengals announced their mutual agreement to end his tenure there. His record of 131-122-3 made him the first coach to leave Cincinnati with a winning record since Bill Johnson in 1978 - 40 years earlier.
Sixteen years was an exceptionally long stay with any one NFL club, and he won 131 games for the Bengals - the most in team history. He also took them to four division titles and seven playoff appearances (five in a row from 2011-2015). In 2009, he was named NFL Coach of the Year - the only Bengals’ coach to be so honored other than team founder Paul Brown in 1970.
But the playoffs. Oh, the playoffs. Despite the 131 wins, he had to deal with the stigma of being 0-7 in playoff games, making him the winningest NFL head coach never to win a playoff game.
He had a respectable coaching tree: Five of his former assistants: Jay Gruden (Washington Redskins), Hue Jackson (Cleveland Browns), Leslie Frazier (Minnesota Vikings). Mike Zimmer (Minnesota Vikings since 2014), and Vance Joseph (Denver Broncos) became NFL head coaches.
Not missing a beat, by the next season after his leaving Cincinnati, he had signed on with Herm Edwards at Arizona State as a “special advisor,” and a year later was named co-defensive coordinator working with a young assistant named Antonio Pierce.
And just recently, he rejoined Antonio Pierce in Las Vegas. With Pierce officially named the Raiders’ head coach, our guy became his assistant head coach, having served as his informal advisor this past season.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2024 “Big
opportunities come infrequently. When it’s raining gold, reach for a
bucket, not a thimble.” Warren Buffett************ Back in the 60s, when we lived in Baltimore, I really got to watch and admire Raymond Berry, and in all the years since I have yet to know or hear of anyone more dedicated to constant self-improvement. I remember one time watching a very popular weekly TV show called “Corallin’ the Colts,” where they’d show highlights (you couldn’t televise home games in those days) and interview different players and on this particular night Raymond Berry was one of the players. At one point, the host appeared to be taken aback by something he noticed, and he said, “Raymond, what are you doing with your hands?” Berry had been sitting at a table, and when he lifted up his hands to show them to the camera, there was a pinkish substance in one of them. He explained that it was therapeutic putty that he’d been the squeezing to strengthen his hands. Never passing up an opportunity to get better!
*********** THE RUMOR MILL -
CHIP KELLY is said to be as anxious to get outta UCLA as the AD is to see him go. Problem is, he’s got time left on his contract. They can’t pay him off and he isn’t going to walk away from the money. Evidently, the AD was planning to fire him before the USC game, but then UCLA went and upset USC, which saved his bacon temporarily. But then the Bruins went out the next week and lost to Cal. So now the AD is waiting, hatchet nice and sharp. Consider for a moment - with your head on the block, would YOU like to be taking UCLA into the Big Ten? Where’s he going to go? BC? It’s possible. He’s a New Englander - from Manchester, New Hampshire.)
BILL O’BRIEN would be a natural for BC. He’s a Boston-area guy, went to a Boston Catholic HS, went to college in New England (Brown), has a lot of experience with the Patriots, did a great job of pulling Penn State out of the mire of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, and was a winner as head coach of the Houston Texans. Only one problem - he just hired on as OC at Ohio State.
JEFF MONKEN of Army is said to be in the running for the BC job. Maybe this time my wish will come true and he’ll get the job - and instead of messing with a new offense at Army he’ll take his shotgun-spread guys with him to some other place where he can run that godawful offense to his heart’s content. And then meanwhile - I can have two wishes, can’t I? - Army will hire the head coach at Harding (D-II champ, running flexbone) and get back to playing Army football. (Other candidates for BC - Jason Candle, now HC at Toledo. Good coach, good experience. Also, Al Golden, former HC at Temple and Miami. Good coach. Except BC’s AD was the guy who fired him at Miami. Also, Brian Flores, former Dolphins HC. But he’s never coached college ball. And BC might be leery of the fact that he’s got a racial discrimination suit going against the NFL. In his favor - he’s a BC guy.)
*********** What are the chances of our ever seeing something like this?
BAYLOR 13, WASHINGTON 7
Oct. 15, 1955, at Seattle
Baylor snapped UW’s four-game winning streak in front of 42,000 at Husky Stadium. The crowd included UW quarterback Sandy Lederman, suspended by head coach John Cherberg one hour before kickoff for his “uncooperative attitude.”
*********** I’ve met Mark Murphy, President and CEO of the Green Bay Packers. Former NFL player (safety, Redskins) and very smart. Of the many good things you could say about him, one is that he is a stand-up guy.
He writes a monthly column for packers.com, and he does his best to answer mail, even mail like this…
Justin M. from Tucson, AZ
I am emailing today to express my disappointment and dissatisfaction with the franchise and its direction during your tenure as CEO. I believe it is long overdue for you to retire and give control of the organization to someone else who is more properly prepared to take the team into the future.
Your leadership has been inept. You do not deserve to lead such a storied franchise. Please disappear into retirement ether. Nobody likes you. You have never been a good executive. I wish you the worst in your twilight years.
Thanks for sharing your opinion, Justin. I also appreciate the 11 other emails you've recently sent with similar suggestions. I get your point. You will be pleased to know that I am required to retire in July 2025 under our by-laws.
*********** When I read the local paper I’m left wondering how in the hell those people doing the writing could have spent four years majoring in “journalism” without first learning how to write. I’ve seen AI samples that read better.
I’ve read better writing by robots, but until the newspapers turn the writing itself over to AI, maybe they could at least hire some robots to proofread, something that most newspapers discontinued long ago.
*********** In one play, the East-West Shrine game brought together a confluence of two of the things that peeve me the most about college football today.
A tight end caught a screen pass and headed upfield, and then, as he was about to be tackled, he attempted to hurdle a defender (hurdling - one of the peeves).
The defender he attempted to hurdle was standing up, and he drilled the tight end and dumped him to the ground.
The tight end then lay on the ground for a little while before being administered to and helped off the field, obviously in discomfort.
He had obviously hurt one of his legs, and - not to be cruel or anything - I was hoping that he’d suffered a painful bruise (painful, but not serious) to his knee. His bare, unpadded knee. (Peeve number two.)
*********** When did this “miles per hour” crap start, and what’s its purpose? In a nation where we routinely go 10 miles an hour faster than the posted 70 mph speed limit, are we really supposed to get excited at learning that a player is running upfield at the breathtaking speed of 22.4 miles per hour?
*********** If 7-on-7 flag as we saw it played during the “Pro Bowl Games” is the future of our sport, we are doomed as a culture. It’s just a matter of time before some doctor at Johns Hopkins notices an outbreak of arthritis among teenagers and traces it to repetitive grabbing of flags, and America’s mothers take a stand against youth flag football.
Actually, we may live to see the day when youth tackle football becomes like cockfighting, its games played covertly, late at night in out-of-the-way locations, with local law enforcement paid off if necessary.
*********** I think the Manning guys seem to be good folks, and they come from good parents, and they were very good football players, but jeez - they’re still young with plenty of years in front of them and I’m already getting tired of seeing them. Am I the only one?
*********** One nice thing about the two alleged “all-star” games over the weekend - the East-West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl - was that there was no swapping of helmet decals. It used to make me wonder what schools thought about having players “represent” them - and then stick two or three other schools’ decals on their helmets.
Which also makes me wonder about liability. When schools allow players to wear their helmets in All-Star games - over which they have no control - what exposure do they have?
*********** Are you old enough to remember when alumni - former players at a school - would come back to play in the school’s spring game? Some of them were actually NFL players at the time. But those were the days when players still played football for reasons other than money. It was a great time to get together with their old pals, play a little football again the kids, and toss down some cold ones afterward, accompanied by a liberal amount of BS-ing.
(Good thing the NFL guys weren’t playing for the money, because they weren’t making that much anyhow.)
But now? The pursuit of the buck has become so dominant that not only are college players almost expected to “opt out” of bowl games, it’s just a matter of time before the important ones - the ones who know that they’re needed - decide to opt out of spring games.
We saw it this weekend in the Senior Bowl. Once, it was billed as the seniors’ “first game as a pro.” The winners would make a little money, the losers a little less. But the main thing was, it was a chance to be seen on the field by pro scouts. And to play some more of the game they loved.
This year? Michael Penix (“JUNIOR”), Washington’s big star, was what the racing crowd calls a “late scratch.” He practiced all week and was set to start - until he announced just before game time that he wasn’t playing.Classy, Michael.
He’d used the entire week as a glorified combine, getting coached, being observed under near-game conditions - and then he bailed.
Not that he was the only player pulling that stunt:
• QB Michael Penix Jr.
• WR Roman Wilson
• WR Jacob Cowing
• DB Quinton Mitchell
• DB Khyree Jackson
• WR Ricky Pearsall
• LB Payton Wilson
• WR Brenden Rice
• DL Laiatu Latu
• DL Braiden McGregor
• RB Rasheen Ali
• DB Johnny Dixon
• DB Sione Vaki
• OL Trevor Keegan
• DL Michael Hall
• OL Jackson Powers-Johnson
• OL Zach Frazier
• DL Brennan Jackson
• DL Tyler Davis
• RB Marshawn Lloyd
• DB Max Melton
• OL Ladarius Henderson
• OL Taliese Fuaga
• WR Malachi Corley
• DL Brandon Dorlus
I don’t know most of the names, but I did see and hear one Payton Wilson, a linebacker from North Carolina State, being interviewed during the week after a practice, telling the interviewers about what a great opportunity this was to “showcase my talents.” He must have meant the practices, because he blew off the game. Big surprise. He also opted out of NC State’s bowl game.
It’s dirty dealing by those players, and a real slap in the face to the promoters of the game and the fans who bought tickets - not to mention the charity that the game’s proceeds go to.
Money is killing the game at the pro and college level. Is high school next?
*********** I can understand celebrating a touchdown. I can even understand kids going a bit overboard in the celebration - until it’s obvious that it was orchestrated.
And then there’s the player who intercepts or recovers a fumble and then, not content with getting a gold turnover chain when he reaches the sideline, he has to assemble a posse to ride with him to the end zone to celebrate. If I were king, his team would be docked a timeout.
If coaches don’t have the balls to deal with it, put it on me.
*********** Dartmouth College, the small but prestigious Ivy League school in Hanover, New Hampshire, has announced that it is bringing back the SAT for the Class of 2029 (next year’s high school seniors).
The decision goes against a trend by many well-known colleges in their attempts to get around the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action.
A Dartmouth faculty research group determined that “standardized test scores are an important predictor of a student’s success in Dartmouth’s curriculum” no matter what the applicant’s background or family income might be.
A Dartmouth administrator noted that contrary to the belief that standardized test scores discriminate against minority applicants, they’re actually a way for Dartmouth’s admissions people to identify such students, especially those “at a high school where admissions has … less information about the high school and therefore less information about the transcript.”
In other words, without the SAT, they wouldn’t otherwise know about kids stuck in schools that don’t have much of a record for turning out college prospects.
*********** As the coaching carousel went around, my wife asked a very good question: why would a coach leave a place like, say, Seattle, to take another job someplace not so nice? Doesn’t quality of life enter in somewhere?
I had to laugh. Not disrespectfully, you understand. But she was talking about guys who are used to working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. For long stretches, the only time they’re “out” is when they’re going to and from their cars. Otherwise, they could be anywhere in the United States. In the world, for that matter.
But my wife’s question made sense. She was thinking like a wife, not like a coach. The coaches don’t care where they live. Their wives do. They probably bought the house and handled all the details of the move. But I’m willing to bet that without having to take a few moments to think it over, most college coaches couldn’t even tell you where they live.
*********** I remember when it was announced that Oklahoma and Texas were off to the SEC, and my friend Mike Lude, who as a college AD - Kent State, Washington, Auburn - had plenty of experience with the inner workings of college athletics, wondered how such a blockbuster of a move, which had to take months to work out, could possibly have been done in secret.
And then later, once the Pac-12 began coming apart, the speed with which Washington and Oregon were adopted by the Big 10 (which had publicly announced that it had no intention of any further expansion) showed that plenty of work had already been done behind the scenes - also, obviously, in secret.
You had to wonder - how were they able to prevent leaks, when our government can’t do it?
At a time when the ability to slip inside information to the news media is a means of gaining status - and sometimes material things - it was shocking that such information could be kept a secret.
So now, when the SEC and the Big 10 (or whatever) do something totally open - when their commissioners meet and they actually announce it - and then they say that they’ve decided to form an “advisory committee” - you have to wonder WTF they HAVEN’T told us?
*********** LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Nebraska is facing a shortage of sports officials, and experts say the turnover rate has gotten higher.
The Nebraska Schools Activities Association found that about 80% of sports officials quit within their first three years due to poor sportsmanship, according to a 2022 survey.
Nate Neuhaus, the NSAA’s supervisor of officials, said the scarcity of referees means they don’t have the luxury of getting much practice before being thrust into varsity games.
“Harsh reality is they’re not very good yet; they’re learning,” he said. “And they get run off because of a negative experience or something of that nature. Or they get put in a game that was overwhelming to them.”
Ray Manske, an officiate for baseball and basketball games, said he’s been doing the job since he was 15 years old.
He said he enjoys training younger officials, but it’s not for the faint of heart.
“They’re just not battle-tested enough, and you have to develop some very tough skin,” he said. “Learn what to address, what not to, what to ignore.”
Manske said the last thing he wants to do is eject spectators, coaches or players from the game, but the environment around sporting events can get emotional.
He said judging close plays puts a lot of pressure on an official to make the right call.
“Out of the 100% of people that are there, you’re going to make 50% of them happy,” he said.
Neuhaus said the NSAA is trying to incentivize and retain officials, but the lack of help has started to have an effect.
“If you don’t have enough officials, you lose contests,” he said. “You don’t play the games. Or like in football, instead of playing on Friday night, you play on Thursday night. That’s not ideal. If we had more officials, we could play all our games on Friday nights.”
Neuhaus said it takes everyone working together to make the game enjoyable.
Manske added that adults should be a positive role model for the kids by showing respect no matter the outcome of the game.
“To me, the ultimate compliment is when you get a compliment from the losing team,” he said.
https://www.klkntv.com/a-majority-of-nebraska-sports-officials-quit-due-to-poor-sportsmanship-survey-finds/
If it's true that players aren't as tough as they once were, why wouldn't this apply to officials, too?
*********** You’ll recall another well-known athlete from Georgia who also founded a home for youth in his native state. Big Paul Anderson from Toccoa. Interestingly, Anderson died where Mel Blount grew up, in Vidalia.
Re Hafley leaving BC: Implicit in the 'No Transfer Portal' is, as you said in another place, keeping your players. With the lightning-velocity changes in CFB, the big group who aren't in the P-3 (ACC could be out of that club soon) will be the farm teams for the Major Leaguers. Now the question is, how much peril is Clawson in from that standpoint? We already saw it with his QB. And who, right now, is more impervious to snipiing, BC or WF? Probably Wake, but only by an eyelash. If his players get ripped off in big lots, how long will even Dave Clawson stay there? What I most dislike about all this is that excellent coaching becomes less of a factor. It is indeed becoming which school's collective has the most money to buy the best players.
Re T. Swift: During the past week some pup on the DNCC--already making plans to use her or them--says he thinks a late-campaign Swift endorsement, coupled with a trashing of DJT, can result in a 15% shift Biden's way. Some said 5% months ago, but who the heck knows, 15% might be more accurate.
Jimmy Johnson sounded awfully wise.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
I actually saw Paul Anderson (The World’s Strongest Man) lift when I was in HS. I was mildly interested in weight training and a schoolmate who was really into it talked me into going downtown (two busses, a subway and a trolley) to Convention Hall to see a show that turned out to be mostly body building and one small part lifting. The lifting part was totally Paul Anderson. He was definitely not a body builder (he was a bit paunchy) but I remember seeing him press (the military press was a big lift then) some outrageous weight, and the place went wild. And yes, the Toccoa part stayed with me all these years.
*********** Hugh,
Have you caught any of the Senior Bowl practices? Pathetic.
As a youngster growing up in CA in the late 60’s/early 70’s I had the privilege of attending a couple of East/West Shrine football games. Saw some of the greatest college football players of that time play in front of a packed house in Stanford’s old stadium. Watched about 10 minutes of this latest edition in Frisco. So sad to see such a historic event for such a great charity be reduced to what it is now.
I will watch the Super Bowl. Pulling for the 49ers and Brock Purdy. Will skip all the pre-game hype, and the woke NFL version of halftime.
Jeff Hafley must have had an epiphany when he weighed the pros and cons of either coaching college football or pro football. Can’t say I blame him, BUT…dealing with high paid entitled pros is a whole other battle.
Apparently there are a number of college football coaches down here in Texas who have left for high school jobs here or in Oklahoma. Young guys to boot! Maybe you could consider them for membership in the Old Farts Club!
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Mel Blount may be the best cornerback ever to play the position. (Sorry, Deion.) He was big and fast and so tough and aggressive in playing against receivers that the NFL changed its coverage rules to prevent defensive backs from playing bump-and-run coverage down the field. Said Pittsburgh Steelers’ president Dan Rooney in introducing him at his Hall of Fame induction, “Scouts say they don't even look for corners like him anymore because you don't get corners with his size or his speed or who can jump like him.”
As he put it in his Hall of Fame induction speech, he came from “the cotton fields and tobacco fields of Vidalia, Georgia.”
He played high school football in Lyons, Georgia, and played his college football at Southern University in Baton Rouge. In his senior year at Southern he was named to the Pittsburgh Courier Black College All-American Team. (The Pittsburgh Courier began naming its All-American team since 1927, and this one, the 1969 team, included, along with our guy, future pros Ken Burrough, Doug Wilkerson, Hubert Ginn, Joe “Turkey” Jones and Bivian Lee.)
On the recommendation of Bill Nunn, Jr., a sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Courier who had become a part-time scout for the Steelers, he was taken by Pittsburgh in the third round of the 1970 draft. That also happened to be the draft in which the Steelers took Terry Bradshaw as their Number One pick.
Very big for a corner at 6-3, 210, he was also quite fast, and he played a very physical style of coverage unlike anything the NFL had seen before.
In fact, after several years of dealing with his play, the NFL passed a rule (nicknamed for him) which restricted the amount of defender-to-receiver contact permitted downfield. It didn’t greatly hamper his play, and it had the unintended consequence of helping the Steelers’ passing game.
In his 14-year career with the Steelers, he earned four Super Bowl rings.
He was a four-time All-Pro and he played in five Pro Bowls.
In 1975 he was the AP’s NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
He had 57 career interceptions, returned for 736 yards and two touchdowns. In 1975 he led he NFL with 11 interceptions.
.
In his entire 219-game career, he missed only two games.
After retiring as a player, he served eight years as Director of Player Relations for the NFL, and in his native Georgia, he founded a Christian mission dedicated to serving victims of child abuse.
Mel Blount is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, inducted in the same class as teammate Terry Bradshaw.
He is also a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the Black College Football Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was named to the NFL's 75th anniversary All-Time team.
In his acceptance speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he acknowledged the role his parents played, saying, “If the odds were against anybody, they were against me. Being the youngest of 11 kids, brought up on a farm in Georgia, a family who lived and prayed and hoped that they would feed 11 kids off the land and out of 11 kids, seven of us were able to go to college because we had the kind of parents that America is thirsty for today, parents who are committed, parents who will instill in their kids that they strive to be the best.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MEL BLOUNT
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN ROTHWELL - CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was a holdover from the sorry Green Bay Packers team that Vince Lombardi inherited, but he met Lombardi’s high standards, and he wound up playing for him for seven years, and playing on three Packers NFL championship teams.
He grew up in Weatherford, Texas, and played his college ball at Baylor. As a two-way player for the Bears, he was an end on offense and a safety on defense, and was an All-Southwest Conference selection in both his junior and senior years. As a senior, he was a co-captain of the team.
He was drafted in the seventh round - the 80th player taken - by the Green Bay Packers, as an offensive end, but he earned the job as the Packers' starting left cornerback as a rookie, and held the spot until his third season, when he broke his leg and missed the final two games. The next year, Lombardi's first season, he had to win his job back, but he did, and played there until 1962, when Herb Adderley moved in at corner, and he moved to safety.
There, his good size (6 foot, 205) served him well, as he played on the left side and usually found himself up against a new breed of player - the tight end. That meant covering athletes like Mike Ditka of the Bears and John Mackey of the Baltimore Colts, but it also meant coming up to meet pulling linemen as the force man on power sweeps
"In coach Lombardi's defense,” said former teammate Gary Knafelc, “You had to come up hard on the outside to make tackles, so you had to be versatile to play for coach Lombardi and (he) was as good as any of them. He could run. He was a very aggressive guy. All his teammates liked him. He was very much a team player." In 1964 he was named the captain of the Packers’ defense.
He played in 121 games in his 10 seasons with the Packers, and on three NFL championship teams. He intercepted 28 passes and recovered seven fumbles. Following the 1965 season, after losing his starting position to Tom Brown, he asked to be traded, and Lombardi traded him to Dallas for a future draft choice.
After a salary despite with Dallas, he left camp and was traded to Atlanta, an expansion team whose head coach, Norb Hecker, had been his defense backfield coach in Green Bay. He retired before the start of the season, but later came out of retirement to play eight games with the Los Angeles Rams before retiring for good.
After football he became a building contractor in his native Weatherford and became active in the Republican Party and at the time of his death he was a county commissioner.
He is in both the Baylor Football Hall of Fame and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.
On his headstone is a quote from Vince Lombardi: "The greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising again after you fail.”
FRIDAY,
FEBRUARY 2, 2024
“If a younger generation emerges in America that supports the
headchoppers, it is a problem for civilization.” Benjamin Netanyahu *********** Watched a half-hour or so of the so-called “Pro Bowl Games.” Whew. What a f**king joke.
There was a hole-in-one contest between a bunch of “NFL Stars,” few of whom I’d even heard of. You’d think that an organization that tries to sell excellence in athletic performance would have been able to find a dozen or so guys out of the 2000 players on its rosters who golf seriously. Naaah.
Then there was the “snap shot” - centers and long-snappers competing to see who could score the most points by snapping balls at various-sized holes in a big billboard, with scores based on the size of the hole. They were given a certain amount of time, and away they went.
They were awful. I’m going to say they each snapped 25 or more times, and only one of them snapped it though the smallest (and most valuable) hole.
In fairness to the players, the target board was 10 yards away, farther than centers are accustomed to snapping, but 3-5 yards closer than the long snappers snap.
But still, they were awful. Note to NFL - next time your marketing geniuses come up with a stunt like “snap shot” - have them be like the football teams that make your money: try it out first before you go live with it in a game.
*********** Only in New Orleans. My daughter, who’s in New Orleans busily helping get a float ready for some Mardi Gras parade or another, sent these photos
On the left, candles celebrating the canonization of Saints Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce; And on the right, , a signboard outside the store, expressing the the owners’ displeasure with the city's other Saints - specifically the coaching …
*********** It was in 1925, in San Francisco, that a retired Navy Captain named Jack Spaulding came up with the idea of the nation’s first real All Star football game, one that came to be known as the East-West Shrine game.
According to the official history of the game, “Football’s Finest Hour,” by Maxwell Stiles…
In 1925, remember, American football had been resumed for only a few years in California, although those years had produced the California Wonder Teams and Stanford’s great team that was led by Ernie Nevers. At that time there were little or no intersectional rivalries between California and Stanford and colleges from other sectors. The great players of the East, Midwest, South and Southwest were merely names and legends to Californians.
Spaulding's second proposal was that Islam Shrine sponsor a game between squads of collegians representing the East and West. He was in fact asking that Walter Camp's All America stars be transported from the pages of a magazine and set down for competition on a San Francisco gridiron.
Noble Sam Goodman immediately proposed that all profits from the game be given to the San Francisco Unit of the Shriners Hospitals for Crippled Children. Thus the purpose of the game in which "Strong Legs Run that Weak Legs May Walk” was established.
And thus started the East-West Shrine Game. First played in December, 1925, it came to be called “Football’s Finest Hour.”
It’s fair to say that the game has declined - on Thursday, as I write, they’re getting ready to play the East-West Shrine Game. Not in San Francisco, though. The game hasn’t been played in the Bay Area since 2005. In the years since, it’s been an itinerant. This year’s game will be played at a place called Ford Center at the Star, in Frisco, Texas. It’s where the Cowboys train, and it seats 12,000.
Find me one All-American on either team’s roster. (What star would want to risk injury with the NFL combine just around the corner?)
Find me one head coach on either staff. (The coaching staffs, by the way, are massive - 16 each - so large that each staff even had to include a female assistant, because as we all know there is a dire shortage of qualified male assistant coaches.)
All-star games, as we know, are so last-century.
*********** Jimmy Johnson on Analytics
"In some ways, coaches use analytics as a crutch," Jimmy Johnson told USA TODAY Sports. "There's more that goes into it than analytics give you.”
"I love the job that Dan Campbell did this year," he went on. "But if you kick the field goal on that second fourth-down try, now San Francisco's mentality is going to be different if it's a tied game, rather than being ahead. There's a lot of factors going in.”
Yes, Campbell had success during the season going for it on fourth down. That’s what we keep hearing. But how successful was he? How successful would you call 21 of 40? Did the analytics tell Campbell that that works out to 52.5 per cent?
Did they tell him what the downside was? Did they tell him about all the guys who’ve played in The League and never made it to a Super Bowl, before he went and bet the house on something with a 52.5 per cent chance of success?
Analytics is not foolproof, Johnson pointed out. "It doesn't tell you the strength of your offense, the strength of the opponent. It doesn't give you the weather. It doesn't give you a lot of factors. It doesn't give you momentum. It doesn't give you the risk and the reward. And that's what I always said. Yeah, it's a 70% positive to go for it on fourth down. But the risk is that you lose the game if you don't make it.”
Johnson also said analytics don't figure in the ups and downs - “the potential psychological lift and psychological letdown” - that result from decisions.
"You're going for it on fourth down,” he says, “and if you don't make it, that opponent now has a tremendous psychological lift. And the percentage of a team scoring after a turnover (on downs) is higher than getting the ball at the same spot through a kick, because of the psychological lift."
Johnson also took exception to the way the 49ers ended the game with Detroit. Apparently unaware of the way Kalen DeBoer almost pissed away Washington’s win over Texas by running plays rather than just taking a knee, the 49ers ran two plays, then finally took a knee to end the game.
"I see so many screw-ups on time management," Johnson said. "Rather than run it when you're trying to kill the clock, then running it again and then taking a knee, you're better off to take a knee, let them get a timeout, take another knee, let them run out of timeouts, then run it. Because if they fumble on the third run, they're out of time. I see this time after time. I don't understand it. So many times, coaches get caught up in the emotions and they really aren't thinking straight.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/columnist/bell/2024/02/01/nfl-coaches-overuse-analytics-risky-dan-campbell-jimmy-johnson/72432740007/
*********** It’s unavoidable. It’s as certain as old age. If you’ve been a fan of a sport from the time you were young, there will come a time when you begin to notice changes in the game; changes that you don’t like. Changes that make you miss the game you grew up loving. And you join the Legion Of Old Farts that you remember from when you were a kid - old codgers who turned every conversation about the game into harangues about how much better the game was “back in my day.”
Now, on behalf of my fellow members of the Legion of Old Farts, it’s with mixed emotions that I induct a very special group into the Society’s Class of 2024: every young American male college football fan between the ages of 18 and 29.
While it’s a first for us to induct members so young, things are changing so rapidly and radically - what with the effects on college football of realignment and the NIL and the Transfer Portal - that many of them have already begun to exhibit signs of early-onset old-fartism. The first signs are usually complaints about the way the game has changed. Younger men with little experience yet with college football are usually the first to notice, as these inductees begin to bore them with stories about how much better college football was back before 2020.
*********** Jeff Hafley, who until today was the head coach of Boston College, is walking away from the head coaching job that presumably he once craved, and taking the job of defensive coordinator for the Packers.
He’d been making $3 million a year at BC. I doubt that Green Bay will pay a DC that much, so you have to figure there’s something other than money luring him away:
1. No more NIL
2. Nor more Transfer Portal
3. No more recruiting, period
4. No more coaching under the pressure of having to win this year
5. A year or two at Green Bay puts him in a better position for the next job than a year or two more at BC
All I'm reading about in the Internet is how this affects the Packers.
But hey - what about BC?
Is there a coach on-staff, ready and able to take over?
If they have to go outside for the new head coach, could this start another coaching carousel?
Yes, the portal’s now open to BC players for the next 30 days, but it’s possible at this point that there may not be too many landing spots for transferees on other rosters.
There will be a spot somewhere, though, for their QB, Thomas Castellanos, if he wants to bolt. He is really good.
*********** If the late NFL Commissioner Bert Bell were to come back to life, the NFL people would have to explain to him what the Super Bowl is. He died in 1959, and he’d be delighted to see how successful his beloved NFL had become. But out of concern for the fact that he would be 128 years old and probably not in the best of health, they’d have to be very careful how they break the news to him that the game’s being played in Las Vegas.
Having had a little experience with gambling himself, and knowing that at least two other founding fathers of the NFL - Art Rooney of the Steelers and Tim Mara of the Giants - were well-known gamblers, he was aware of the large number of sharpies even then who were eager for a chance to fix football games. He even hired retired FBI agents to spy (there’s no other way too put it) on NFL players suspected of getting too close to known gamblers.
Bell’s successor, Pete Rozelle, was every bit as careful to keep a wall between the NFL and gamblers, to the point where he once suspended two stars of the game - Paul Hornung and Alex Karras - for an entire season for betting on NFL games.
Yet here the NFL is, in bed with legalized betting operations, with a franchise in Las Vegas, and getting ready to play its biggest game in Sin City.
There hasn’t been much talk about the subject, certainly not by NFL people, but they are at the absolute pinnacle of success, and they know that if there’s anything that can bring it all to an end, it’s anything that can make the public suspect that its games are not on the up-and-up.
*********** On the subject of NFL conspiracies…
First of all, full disclosure: While an inveterate skeptic, I admit to being taken in by the appearance that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are in some semblance of love and not faking it.
But here’s the way the rumor works:
The Chiefs win the Super Bowl.
Kelce is the MVP.
When they ask him where he’s going, he says, “I’m going to Walt Disney World,” and, going to a knee and looking up at Taylor Swift (who has been escorted down to the field from her luxury box), he takes her hands in his and says “with my bride - if she'll have me!”
She falls into his arms, leaving no question what her answer is.
And then, both turning to the camera, they say, “AND THEN WE’RE GONNA VOTE FOR BIDEN! HOW ‘BOUT YOU?”
Now, look - I already said that I’ve bought in to the whole “Taylor’s in love” deal, so I’m not the one suggesting that this is going to happen. But it is America, and it’s 2024, and anything’s possible. We all know that the NFL is a devilish bunch that’s not above such a scheme, and since we all know where they stand politically…
*********** Hi coach,
Have you ever used any form of scripting plays?
Thanks,
John Bothe
Oregon, Illinois
Hi Coach,
The short answer is no.
To me, running a play from a script that’s basically intended as exploratory is at odds with my focus on controlling the ball. To me, it’s like wasting plays.
I understand the reasoning behind scripting, and maybe if our games were 60 minutes long it would make some sense to me. But when the intent is to control the ball, to me that means getting the first score. And that means receiving, if possible, and taking the opening kickoff and going right into our first offensive drive, without any thought other than getting first downs.
I’m not inclined to run a play - or a formation - just to see how an opponent defends it. If a play’s successful, I’m as likely as not to repeat it.
I once answered your question at a clinic by asking another question: “What if I’m running off of a script and I run Play Number One and it gains nine yards? Do I have to run Play Number Two?”
A guy called out, “Run One-A!”
*********** At a recent Zoom clinic, I spent some time showing Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson talking to the press after signing day.
I have a lot of respect for Coach Clawson and the job he does at the smallest Power 5 school (bet you didn’t know that), a private school with strong academics.
He is a rarity - a graduate of highly selective, academically rigorous Williams College who chose to enter the hurly-burly world of college football coaching.
He’s paid his dues. He’s been an assistant at Albany, Buffalo, Lehigh and Villanova.
He’s been a head coach at Fordham, Richmond, Bowling Green and, now, at Wake. He has had at least one 10-win season at all of those places, making him the only coach ever to have won 10 or more games at four different D-I schools.
And I like the way he thinks and talks.
Coming off a down season…
When you’re a 4-8 team - we’re all four and eight. Right now, I’m a four and eight head football coach, and our two coordinators are four and eight coordinators, and our players are four and eight players, and so we all have to own that, and we have to make everything competitive…
We had a great run of seven straight bowl games, but it’s over, and when you have a year like that it makes you look back and evaluate what you’re doing, and sometimes that’s a very healthy exercise that allows you to get better and improve.
The NIL at Wake Forest
The priority with the collective is keeping our own players.
We’re going to have more success recruiting high school players and developing them and keeping them than getting into an open bidding war in the Portal…
We’re better off with guys that know our program and like our program and want to stay here.
*********** Do you really think that the people who made that weight-loss ad - and now run it on TV - had no idea how a lot of us would react to the woman who acts amazed, after taking an injection, at “How a little tiny prick can be so powerful?”
Or maybe she had just come from seeing “Napoleon.”
*********** I’ve heard about fighting for one’s country, or for freedom, or for one’s hometown, but here’s one I never considered. A young woman named Karine Jean-Pierre, who speaks for the President on occasion and sometimes has a strange way of saying things, came out after the deaths of the three American soldiers in Jordan and expressed condolences to "three folks who are military folks who are brave who are always fighting, who were fighting on behalf of this administration…”
“military folks?” What’s the matter, Karine? Can’t bring yourself to say “soldiers?”
“fighting on behalf of this administration?” Only in a civil war would “military folks” fight for (or against) an administration.
*********** From “The Thursday Speeches,” by Peter Tormey.
The great Don James believed that the intense focus for a game began 48 hours before, and a major part of his preparation was the “Thursday Speech” that he gave his teams. Author Tormey, a former Washington Huskies player, assembled the best of Coach James’ many Thursday speeches.
One of the things I found in the book was his description of what can only be called football plagiarism. We all know that coaching is an open book, and as fast as someone can come up with something new and useful, a dozen other coaches will “appropriate” it and incorporate it into their systems. But as common as the practice of “theft” is, so also is the practice of giving credit where it’s due, and it’s a serious breach of ethics not to steal an idea but to do so and claim it as one’s own.
James developed another key innovation, the 5 under, 2 deep defensive coverage. In it, two players covered the deep half zones of the field while five other players covered the underneath zones, aggressively hitting the receivers as rules allowed.
Toward the end of his tenure at FSU, James asked LSU defensive coordinator Bill Beals if he had any ideas about defending Baylor, which spread the field well and threw the ball. James took the basic idea from Beals, refined it, and deployed it to help beat Baylor.
As the defensive coordinator at Michigan, James kept his little-known defensive scheme close to the vest until he needed it most: to stop passing phenomenon and future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese of Purdue, who was racking up massive passing yardage against his befuddled opponents.
“We held him to 63 yards and shut him down," James said. His secret was out.
That year, Purdue won the (Big Ten) championship and went to the Rose Bowl and John McKay called (Michigan head coach) Bump Elliott and said, "I see this coverage. I've never seen it before.” My office was right outside and he says, “Well, I’ll get Don in here.” So I spent 30 -40 minutes giving it to John McKay to use in the Rose Bowl, 5-under, 2-deep.
And in John McKay’s book he says, “Yeah, we were preparing for Purdue in the Rose Bowl and as I was walking through campus it was like a bolt of lightning had struck me and hit me in the head and I thought of the 5-under coverage with 2-deep.” He took the credit for it. I got the original idea from LSU. But that was funny.
*********** Berry’s comments about his dad by themselves make today's page worth reading.
Zay Flowers got the spotlight on himself with his taunt, but holy moly, I think even the most casual viewer saw instantly the strategic (in the context of the game) blunder he'd committed. What happened to players, especially all not a lineman, running scenarios through his mind before the play? And that would include keeping emotions in check. It's hard to imagine a well-paid player could be so tuned out to the game situation.
Dan Campbell: Detroit fans wanted more, Dan Campbell wanted more. Victory was there to take. But the Lions lost. I'm going with what Berry's dad, and Ray himself, said about learning from losing. Everything Campbell said postgame leads me to believe he learned major lessons the hard way, and won't be inclined to repeat them.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Answer = Raymond Berry. 'Raymond' because memory says he was so called at least half the time and probably more.
Spot-on. I followed the Colts from our arrival in Baltimore in 1961 and I was following them when he retired after 1967 and I never heard ANYONE in Baltimore - including his teammates - ever call him anything but RAYMOND. (Just as no one ever said “Johnny” Unitas - that was his name outside Bawlmer.) It seemed strange at first, in a time and a town where everybody had a nickname - but not those two.
As for Campbell - It’s my belief that by the time a man is hired to coach an NFL team he should already have learned those lessons. I’m reminded of General Braddock’s last words (supposedly) after his disastrous defeat in the French and Indian War: “Next time we shall better know how to deal with them.” Too late, General Braddock. Will there be a “next time” for Campbell? Who knows? I don’t think he realized how rare it is to have an opportunity even to play in a Super Bowl.
*********** Hugh,
In the shoulda woulda coulda department the Ravens shoulda beat KC. The Lions woulda beat SF. Taylor Swift coulda found a soccer player. But…if wishes were fishes we’d all have a fry.
Think I’m gonna stop buying Gronk shoes.
Yep, those PIAA optics sure aren’t good!
I’m all in on ND playing Army again. Especially if Army continues running their old offense. Would be a great test for the Irish. And play the game in NY!
Wishing Coach Mensing the very best at his new gig in Florida! Big adjustment, but if anyone can adapt it’s Jason.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury Texas
I’ve heard that an Army-ND game would likely take place in San Antonio. Please - no more football games in Yankee Stadium!
********** QUIZ ANSWER: Imagine any of today’s sportswriters calling any of today’s professional football players “the finest man to have walked the earth since Jesus Christ.” That’s what a Baltimore sportswriter once said about Raymond Berry.
Although it’s been nearly 60 years since he last caught a pass in the NFL, Raymond Berry remains one of the greatest receivers in the history of the game.
He was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, where his dad was the high school football coach, but after his dad was fired, the family moved to Paris, Texas, where he grew up - and where his dad coached for 25 years until he retired.
Tall and very skinny and not particularly fast, he didn’t start until his senior year. Playing both ways - offensive and defensive end - in his dad’s single wing attack, he was named All-District, and Paris won their district championship for the first time in school history.
“Believe it or not,” he said years later, “I rank the thrill of winning that game as highly as winning my first championship in the NFL.”
He spent one year at a junior college, then transferred to SMU on the promise of a chance to earn a scholarship. SMU was coached by Rusty Russell, who unlike most coaches of the time believed in a pass-first offense.
Because he transferred after just one season of JC ball he was ineligible at SMU, but after a season in the scout team, he earned a scholarship and a starting position. But after his sophomore season, Rusty Russell was fired. The new coach, Woody Woodard, scarcely threw the ball at all, and as a result, our guy caught just 33 passes in his entire college career.
In his autobiography, he reflected on the positive side: "I was a good blocker in the NFL because I learned that skill in college well in that T-formation. I had to block defensive ends and linebackers who were head up on me or inside of me."
And because of the rules at the time, he also played on defense in college. As he recalled, “If you weren't a good defensive player, you didn't get to play much. They picked players based on defensive ability. They couldn't have a hotshot offensive guy who gave up more points than he scored. The coaches learned that having some great offensive talent on the field who couldn't play defense meant getting your butt beat. That was the nature of the game.”
He was drafted by the Baltimore Colts in the 20th round as a “future” (he still had a year of eligibility left, but because of his year at JC his original class was graduating so he was eligible for the draft).
Although he had just average speed, he developed, by his own count, 88 different moves to get open, and he ran patterns as precisely as they were diagramed. Together he and Johnny Unitas gave the Baltimore Colts one of the greatest passing-and-catching teams of all time.
In the Colts’ 1958 overtime win over the Giants in the NFL title game he caught a record 12 catches for 178 yards and a touchdown.
He was selected to play in six Pro Bowl games.
He led the NFL in receptions three straight years, and at his retirement after 13 years he held records for 631 passes caught, 9,275 yards receiving, and 68 touchdowns.
He fumbled just once in his 13 years.
After retirement, he coached receivers for the Cowboys under Tom Landry, the University of Arkansas under Frank Broyles, the Detroit Lions under Don McCafferty, the Cleveland Browns under Forrest Gregg, and the New England Patriots under Chuck Fairbanks and Ron Ehrhardt. Then, when Ron Meyer was fired as head coach of the Pats, he took over.
How’d he do? I’d say pretty good. Taking over midway through a season (which he finished 4-4) he had an overall record of 48-39.
In his second season he took the Patriots to their first-ever Super Bowl, where they lost to the Bears. Except for a guy named Belichick, he got his team to more playoff games - and had more playoff wins - than any other Patriots’ coach (which includes Bill Parcells and Pete Carroll).
And he’s the only coach - other than Belichick - to take the Patriots to four straight winning seasons.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was named to the NFL’s 1950s All-Decade Team, its 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, and - 25 years later - to its 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
Former teammate Alex Hawkins, who played the same position, told of his intensity:
*** Raymond wasn't much to look at, but what he didn't know about catching passes wasn't worth talking about. He was the most detailed, precise person I had ever known. He was a perfectionist. With Raymond Berry, football was a full-time profession. He spent 11 months a year at it. During the month of January he put football aside, answered his mail, and rested. The rest of the year was all football.
I listened to everything Raymond Berry had to say. He was meticulous and organized. He washed his own practice pants, and on the road he carried his own scales with him to monitor his weight. He had a drill for every conceivable type of pass. He was busy during every minute of the practice sessions. He would practice catching low balls, high balls, balls thrown behind him, and deflected balls. To any other receiver in football a dropped pass was one that he could not get both hands on. To (———) a dropped ball was one that could be touched with one hand only. Anytime that Raymond dropped the ball in practice, he would catch that same ball for 20 times without a miss before he left the field.
In a preseason game Raymond had gotten one hand on a deflected pass that was thrown behind him. He was running one way and dove headlong backwards, but couldn't hold onto it. It was an impossible pass to catch, but I laughingly told Jimmy Orr that I was willing to bet that Raymond would have us practicing that catch on Monday.
That Monday when we reached the practice field Raymond had already dug a pit, and at his own expense had ordered a truckload of sawdust. All week we practiced diving catches of deflected passes, with the sawdust coming out of our ears. I never managed to catch one, but as I recall, Raymond hung on to two or three.
He was one of the first players to study game films on his own:
*** I even studied other receivers – tried to learn what they were doing to get open, how they caught the football, the moves they had, and what they did in general to be successful. If I saw them do something that really bothered a defensive back, then I got that in my head to try to duplicate it.”
On being a coach’s son:
*** My father was a very successful football coach in Texas. He was coaching in Corpus Christi when I was born, five years before we moved to Paris, Texas. As is the case with all football coaches, the move was not voluntary, but you get fired every four, five years, so you move. He defied the odds – he coached in Paris for 25 years, then retired from coaching. In all he coached 35 years and only got fired once. He also taught math and physical education. After my dad retired, a building at the Paris High School was named after him.
*** The significance of the Texas playoff system in my day was that at the end of the football season there would be only a few undefeated teams in the entire state. My dad said that meant you learned most of your football from getting beat. That stuck with me. He stressed that the lessons you really soak in are the ones that come from defeat. I applied all of the lessons that I absorbed from my dad throughout my career.
*** The most important lesson I absorbed from my dad was his unshakable conviction that he never met an opponent he couldn't beat.
I’ve never understood exactly where this came from; I puzzled over it for years. But one of the biggest parts of my dad's makeup – which obviously I absorbed without realizing it – was that he never felt inferior to anybody. He could've sat down with Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill – the great men of his day – and been perfectly at ease. He could have had a conversation with them and he wouldn't think they were any better than he was – or any smarter. That was the way he was, and he wasn't even aware of it, wasn't even conscious of it..
As I got older, I began to realize that he didn't even understand that part of his makeup. But when that lesson was communicated to a football team, it was the most powerful thing he brought to the job. When you played for my dad – and I didn't realize this until I played for other coaches who didn't feel like this - you never thought you were going to lose a game. That confidence absolutely became a part of my makeup. There was always a way to get it done, one way or another. My dad didn't always get it done, but he knew there was a way to do it.
That way of thinking was the greatest asset I had later as a head coach, one of the greatest things I inherited from my father. I spread that message to my players because I believed it, and you can't fool the boys – they know what you believe and what you don't.
My dad was the greatest influence in my life, and as I grew into maturity and went through life, I realized that having him for my father was one of the biggest breaks I ever got. His values and his discipline that he passed on to me meant that I couldn't have had a better home to grow up in.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING RAYMOND BERRY
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN ROTHWELL - CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** QUIZ: He may be the best cornerback ever to play the position. (Sorry, Deion.) He was big and fast and so tough and aggressive in playing against receivers that the NFL changed its coverage rules to prevent defensive backs from playing bump-and-run coverage down the field. Said Pittsburgh Steelers’ president Dan Rooney in introducing him at his Hall of Fame induction, “Scouts say they don't even look for corners like him anymore because you don't get corners with his size or his speed or who can jump like him.”
As he put it in his Hall of Fame induction speech, he came from “the cotton fields and tobacco fields of Vidalia, Georgia.”
He played high school football in Lyons, Georgia, and played his college football at Southern University in Baton Rouge. In his senior year at Southern he was named to the Pittsburgh Courier Black College All-American Team. (The Pittsburgh Courier began naming its All-American team since 1927, and this one, the 1969 team, included, along with our guy, future pros Ken Burrough, Doug Wilkerson, Hubert Ginn, Joe “Turkey” Jones and Bivian Lee.
On the recommendation of Bill Nunn, Jr., a sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Courier who had become a part-time scout for the Steelers, he was taken by Pittsburgh in the third round of the 1970 draft. That also happened to be the draft in which the Steelers took Terry Bradshaw as their Number One pick.
Very big for a corner at 6-3, 210, he was also quite fast, and he played a very physical style of coverage unlike anything the NFL had seen before.
In fact, after several years of dealing with his play, the NFL passed a rule (nicknamed for him) which restricted the amount of defender-to-receiver contact permitted downfield. It didn’t greatly hamper his play, and it had the unintended consequence of helping the Steelers’ passing game.
In his 14-year career with the Steelers, he earned four Super Bowl rings.
He was a four-time All-Pro and he played in five Pro Bowls.
In 1975 he was the AP’s NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
He had 57 career interceptions, returned for 736 yards and two touchdowns. In 1975 he led he NFL with 11 interceptions.
.
In his entire 219-game career, he missed only two games.
After retiring as a player, he served eight years as Director of Player Relations for the NFL, and in his native Georgia, he founded a Christian mission dedicated to serving victims of child abuse.
He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, inducted in the same class as teammate Terry Bradshaw.
He is also a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the Black College Football Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was named to the NFL's 75th anniversary All-Time team.
In his acceptance speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he acknowledged the role his parents played, saying, “If the odds were against anybody, they were against me. Being the youngest of 11 kids, brought up on a farm in Georgia, a family who lived and prayed and hoped that they would feed 11 kids off the land and out of 11 kids, seven of us were able to go to college because we had the kind of parents that America is thirsty for today, parents who are committed, parents who will instill in their kids that they strive to be the best.”
TUESDAY,
JANUARY 30, 2024 “There's always
some kid who may be seeing me for the first and last time. I owe him my
best.” Joe DiMaggio *********** THE SUPER BOWL IS SET
AFC
CHIEFS 17, RAVENS 10
I hadn’t watched much NFL for some time, and last week was the first I’d watched the Ravens. I was impressed by Lamar Jackson and by their defense. But I must have caught them on a good-behavior day last week, because on Sunday, between the pre-game antagonism, the repetitive pushing, the gross taunting (that arguably cost them the game), they were a hard team to like. It was almost as if it was pro wrestling and they were the designated heels. (What happened to Ravens’ receiver Zay Flowers - fumbling at the goal line shortly after screwing his team over with a juvenile taunting penalty - is almost the definition of karma. There was a time, when rosters were smaller and jobs were scarcer, that he’d have been shopping around for another team before they turned off the showers in the locker room. But today’s NFL is run by the players, and a coach doesn’t dare to even consider disciplining a player.)
NFC
49ERS 34, Lions 31
You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em…
It’s easy to pinpoint exactly when the game was won and lost: at the point, midway through the third quarter, when Detroit, leading 24-10, faced a fourth-and-two, in 49ers’ territory and within field goal range.
A successful kick would have put the 49ers three scores behind. Instead, either because “I’m aggressive,” or because a little analytics guy whispered “Go For It!” in Detroit coach Dan Campbell’s ear, Detroit went for it. They’d been running the ball pretty effectively, but the decision was to pass - and the pass was dropped.
Within five plays, the score was 24-17.
On the very first play after the kickoff, Detroit fumbled the ball away, and this time it took San Francisco just four plays to score - and tie the game, 24-24. And then go on to put the game away.
Final score, 34-31. Hmmm. Wonder where we could have come up with three more points.
*********** Artificial Intelligence comes to pro football.
It’s fourth-and-two, and Analytics (notice how the word starts with “anal?”) says you have a 90.3 per cent chance of winning if you try a field goal (you’re in range), vs a 90.5 chance if you go for the first down.
Well, why didn’t you say so? You mean to tell me, without knowing who we’re playing against, or what our strengths are, it’s that clear cut? Well, hell then - let’s go for it.
And while we’re at it - let’s throw the damn ball!
Personally, other than Tom Brady in his prime, I’ve never had that much faith in anyone’s passing game.
*********** Dan Campbell
would take a hit when he’s holding a face card and an eight.
would break open the rack when others would play safe…
would call for the squeeze bunt when there’s two out…
Okay, okay - it’s not that bad.
But I’ll be surprised if he's not on the comp list of every Vegas casino…
*********** Gronk, as I’ve said, is pretty good when he’s playing the big, lovable, punchy ex-jock in commercials.
But as I’ve also said, he’s really a fish out of water when it’s time to talk football.
But even so, with the slightest amount of preparation he'd learn that the Kansas City quarterback’s name is not “McHomes.”
*********** Anybody here paid their $45 for a ticket to watch the Flag Football at the Pro Bowl Games? (How much you gonna bet they pack the damn place?)
*********** You’ve more than likely read what I’ve written before about the Quips - the kids from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, a former steel town whose economy has cratered, but whose football teams just keep on winning state titles, no matter how many hurdles the state association throws in their path. Hurdles, did I say? Aliquippa, a small school, won the PIAA state title this past season playing three classes up - in Class 4A. The PIAA’s reaction? Move ‘em up again. To class 5A. Let’s see how they like that.
Before I print Mark Madden’s column on the subject (from the Pittsburgh Tribune), I should preface it by saying that whenever I see or hear the race card played, my skepticism automatically kicks in. But look - It’s a fact that Aliquippa’s teams are mostly black, and the way they’re being treated by the people at the PIAA makes you begin to wonder if there might actually be something going on.
I can’t imagine anything much dumber than bullying a bunch of kids who have been beating the odds - excelling, and seeming to do it the right way, but Madden makes you wonder it it’s even occurred to the PIAA how it looks. as he writes, “The racial optics are terrible.”
A major question he asks: Has any member of the PIAA executive board ever been to Aliquippa?
I think he already knows the answer.
By Mark MaddenKnowing what TV can do wirh a race-based story like this one, expect to see something on Netflix by summer.
There are usually two sides to every story.
But not in the case of Aliquippa High School football being forced to play at the 5A level despite having 2A enrollment. The Quips are getting railroaded by the PIAA.
Consider Southern Columbia, a school in Central Pennsylvania that has won the last seven state football championships in 2A.
Southern Columbia’s success dictates being bumped up as per the PIAA’s classification method. But the team hasn’t absorbed enough transfers to trigger promotion. The formula requires three transfers over two years.
Southern Columbia is a predominantly white school district.
Aliquippa, which won 4A state titles in 2023 and ’21, is a predominantly Black school district. It had five transfers over the past two seasons. So the PIAA is moving them up to 5A.
But these transfers weren’t star players. There wasn’t athletic intent.
“Most of the students being labeled as transfers were born and raised in Aliquippa,” said Tina Miller, an attorney representing Aliquippa. “None of these students came to Aliquippa with athletic intent, nor did they contribute to competitive balance.
“Under the competition formula, a school is penalized for having transfer students who never get one minute of active play.”
Aliquippa’s five transfers combined for one touchdown, 136 passing yards and 4 rushing yards over the past two seasons.
Aliquippa is a transient, low-income community. It’s not like a rich family moving into Upper St. Clair because dad got an executive position. Aliquippa is very different. People come and go. Family situations dictate. So does employment, but not like in white suburbia.
Aliquippa is good people, but a tougher life. It’s no storybook. It’s often just about finding a place to live.
The PIAA decision ignores all that. It’s not cognizant of problems specific to a community like Aliquippa. One size doesn’t fit all.
Has any member of the PIAA executive board ever been to Aliquippa?
Aliquippa currently has 156 boys in grades 9-11. Class 5A schools have hundreds more. Upper St. Clair has 504. Peters Township has 497. The enrollment disparity is enormous.
The talent disparity isn’t.
Aliquippa is an old-fashioned WPIAL football powerhouse. Has been for decades. Aliquippa’s best 11 will be able to compete with any school in 5A’s best 11. The Quips will battle like wolverines and win their share.
But, in the context of 5A, Aliquippa will lack depth.
When injury and happenstance dictate that depth gets utilized, Aliquippa will face physical mismatches. Aliquippa’s second-string linemen figure to be primarily underclassmen and might weigh 30 to 40 pounds less than, say, Peters Township’s backups at those positions.
That could (and will) lead to kids getting hurt. The PIAA isn’t taking safety into account.
Then there’s funding. How much does Aliquippa have to spend on football compared to 5A schools?
One report says that Aliquippa spends $97,981 on athletics.
Upper St. Clair spends $774,337. South Fayette spends $676,738. Peters Township spends $547,481.
The implications of this are ugly, especially given the comparison with Southern Columbia.
The white school gets to win at the same low level forever. The Black school keeps getting bigger obstacles put in its path.
The PIAA can cite its “formula” ad nauseam. But that formula was devised by an organization clearly insensitive and unknowing when it comes to the harsh reality a community like Aliquippa faces.
The formula isn’t carved into stone tablets. It can be flawed and is.
Aliquippa will challenge the decision in court. It’s regrettable when the legal system gets mixed up in sports, but it’s a last resort.
This situation stinks. It’s not remotely fair. The racial optics are terrible.
https://triblive.com/sports/mark-madden-piaa-officials-are-clearly-insensitive-to-aliquippas-reality/
*********** Heard the rumors that Harbaugh is planning to hire Colin Kaepernick as an assistant? Sure. Hire a guy who’s never coached at any level. Makes a lot of sense. Look - call Harbaugh what you want (I admit that I sometimes have) but there’s one thing he’s not, and that’s a bad coach who hires weak assistants.
*********** From the very depths of my WTF file comes the International Football Alliance.
International what???
If it’s true that nature abhors a vacuum so, too, it seems, do wannabe pro football leagues.
They seem to pop up like mushrooms, with about the same life expectancy.
This league (the IFL, they seem to call it) appears to be based in Mexico, and it claims that when it starts play (in 2025) it will have nine or 10 teams, with at least three of them in Mexico.
Mexican:
Cancun Sharks
Chihuahua Rebellion (playing in Ciudad Juarez - next to El Paso)
Tequileros de Jalisco (playing in Juarez)
North American:
Alabama Beavers
Dallas Pioneers
Gulf Coast Tarpons
Las Vegas Kings
Tampa Bay Tornadoes
Portland Whatchamacallits (No name yet. It looks as if Alabama and Dallas already grabbed off two of the more appropriate names for a Portland franchise. “Alabama Beavers?” Really?)
I bet you didn’t know about it. I didn’t, either, and yet they claim to be planning on having a team right across the river from me in Portland.
I don’t want to be a Negative Nancy, but Portland is sort of lacking in one major respect - the only decent-sized stadium in the entire area is monopolized by a f—king soccer team, which won’t even let Portland State, located just a couple of blocks away, use it for football.
As for travel… why do I envision busloads of cartel members crossing the border, masquerading as football players?
According to its web site, the “IFA” will be holding a “Global Draft” on January 13, 2024.
Wait - not to be an asshat, but wasn’t that two weeks ago?
If they intended to create the impression that they’re just another fly-by-night operation, they couldn’t get off to a better start.
https://www.ifa.football/
*********** With all the newspapers closing shop all over the US, you’d think the ones still in business would have an easy time finding people who could rite good. But you’d be rong.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that anyone who has had Covid – 19, even if the illness was mild or if the person had no symptoms, can suffer long-term effects, including children.Do you or someone you know suffer from children? With your generous donation of just $19.95 a month we can stamp out children in our lifetime.
*********** Notre Dame has one spot to fill on next year’s schedule and so, on the same date, does Army. And so the rumor is hot that a once-storied rivalry might be restored, if only for one game.
The teams haven’t met since 2016 - a 44-6 Irish win in San Antonio - and they’ve played just three times in this century.
They first met in 2013, and with the exception of one year (1918, during World War I) they met every year from 1913 through 1947. From 1923 on, most of their games were played in Yankee Stadium, where rabid Notre Dame rooters - few of whom had any idea where Notre Dame was even located - earned the nickname “subway alumni.”
The series has produced three of college football’s greatest stories…
*** The 1946 game in Yankee Stadium between two undefeated teams may still be one of the most-hyped college football games ever played. The final score - 0-0 - left no one satisfied, and the fact that they both finished their seasons unbeaten, but Notre Dame at 8-0-1 was ranked First by the AP over Army at 9-0-1 did not settle the question. (Georgia, at 11-0, was ranked third.)
*** The very first game, at West Point in 1913, between mighty Army and the team from the little Catholic school in the Midwest, is the stuff of legend. It’s the game in which the Notre Dame passing attack that quarterback Gus Dorais and end Knute Rockne had developed during their summer vacations at Cedar Point, Ohio blew out the heavily favored Cadets, 35-13. Dorais completed 14 of 17 pass attempts for 243 yards and three touchdowns and brought national attention to the forward pass as a weapon.
*** It was a halftime of the 1928 game, with the score tied, 0-0, when Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne chose to play a card he’d been saving for nearly eight years: George Gipp’s dying wish. Back in 1920, Rockne had been at the bedside of the great George Gipp when he died, and now, in the locker room at Yankee Stadium, he told his players of “The Gipper’s” last words:
“Before he died,” Rockne said, speaking much slower and lower than normal, “Gipp said to me, ‘I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Sometime, when things are going wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out and win one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock, but I’ll know about it. and I'll be happy.’”
And then Rockne is believed to have said (there were no recorders then, no iPhones) something like “and this is the time, and you are the team.”
Tears streaming down their faces, the Irish went out and built a 12-6 lead, then held on at the end, stopping Army inches from the goal line to upset the favored Cadets.
Although the two schools jointly announced that they had agreed to break off the rivalry after 1947, it’s generally believed that it was Army’s doing. There were “good” reasons given - the ticket demand had gotten out of hand, there was too much gambling on the game, there was too much emphasis on the game - but Tim Cohane, in his book “Gridiron Grenadiers,” seemed to hit the nail on the head:
In normal peacetime, West Point does not and cannot assemble football material comparable to Notre Dame's, which is, year after year, the best in the country. As a result, a continuance of the series promised nothing more for Army than a series of defeats. When the element of competition is removed from a contest, there can no longer exist any reason for the contest.
Even more to the point, though, especially during the war years when Army twice pounded Notre Dame, a certain ugliness had overtaken some of the subway alumni. Among Notre Dame fans, estimated by Army coach Earl Blaik to make up 90 per cent of the Yankee Stadium crowds, many had resorted to calling Army football players “slackers” and “draft-dodgers.”
The series was resumed, off-and-on, in 1957, but Cohane’s prediction of the lack of competition has proved spot-on. The teams have met 17 times since then, and Army has won just once - in 1958. Since then, Notre Dame has won 15 straight.
*********** For years, hockey players - one per team - wore the prized “C” - for Captain - on the fronts of their jerseys.
And then football started to copy the idea. Syracuse was the first team that I noticed doing it.
And since then the NFL has not only adopted the idea, but seems to have turned it into something about as significant as a good conduct medal.
In 2007, the league established a policy regarding captains:
1. A captain may wear a “C” patch on his jersey. (It’s not required. Some teams - the Patriots and the Steelers - have voted not to wear the “C”.)
2. If you see little stars under the “C,” they designate the number of years a player has been a captain.
3. When a player has been captain for five years, he gets to wear a GOLD “C.”
4. If a player changes teams, he takes his “captain’s years” with him. This includes the right to wear the gold “C” (unless his new team is the Patriots or the Steelers.)
5. Teams can have as many captains as they wish, and they may choose them as they wish.
6. Teams may have only six captains per game.
7. Captains’ game-time duties are not exactly excessive
A. One captain from the visiting team calls the toss of the coin
B. One captain from the team winning the toss declares their option
C. One captain may declare his team’s penalty option
*********** Coach,
I wanted to let you know that I have taken the Head Coaching Position at Lemon Bay High School in Englewood, Florida.
I am at a point in my career in which I can retire and collect my pension, plus the reality that Englewood is where my parents winter and we have been down there many times through the years made it a no brainer.
It will be a challenging opportunity despite them being 10-2 last year and their prior HC doing a great job they are graduating 26 Seniors... This is the first position since my first position that I have taken over coming off a winning season, my hope is this will be my last stop...
If you can put out to any coaches in that area that are looking to get back in I am in the process of putting together a staff wmensing@yahoo.com
God Bless,
Jason Mensing
Head Football Coach
Lemon Bay High School
Englewood, Florida
Coach Mensing is a longtime Double Winger. His 2017 team at Ottawa Lake Whiteford HS went 14-0 and won a state title, and this past season, his second at Westland (Michigan) Glenn High, his team went 7-3 - the school’s first winning season in 10 years.
*********** Good Morning Hugh,
I really enjoyed this weeks clinic Zoom and especially the comments from Paul Johnson and the Wake Forest coach. It’s hard to argue the success of a man who won 60% of his games and did so essentially running wedge 40% of the time or what flexbone coaches call the “zone dive”.
Two observations on the NFl playoffs. One has to wonder if they are teaching tackling at that level anymore given how fundamentally unsound they are at this skill. There have been so many missed tackles during the playoffs , and players leading with their heads it begs the question if they are spending anytime on this fundamental. Second, offense lineman spend so much time pass blocking they don’t know how to drive block, or in our terminology “ the 12 step cure” . Even the double teams on inside and outside zones are often so poor they get split by defensive tackles and ends. Many NFL coaches could benefit from the advice Coach Madden gives at the beginning of each blog!
All the best,
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
Jack, You’re absolutely right. On the very basics of the game - blocking and tackling - they are very weak. All you have to do is look at the tiny, flimsy shoulder pads they wear to realize that they have no intentions of hitting with their shoulders.
*********** Coach: This page is once more competitive in the battle for best sports section in Ocean Shores. Or, we may safely add, America.
I also did not get the last Zoom invitation, but I waited, calmly confident it would come in time. HW doesn't fumble in the big moments.
On one hand, I'm happy Niumatololo gets another chance. I always thought he was far better than most at imposing his will on his team. On the other hand, I regret that he has apparently agreed to the conditions SJSU demanded.
From the moment I heard Jim Harbaugh had signed with San Diego, I predicted that in a little more than a year from now we'll be seeing lots of commercials featuring Justin Herbert.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Jim Kiick was born on Aug. 9, 1946, in Lincoln Park, New Jersey. . His father had played football at Bucknell, then played fullback for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1940 before leaving to fight in World War II; after the war he played one more year with the Steelers, then became a high school coach.
Jim played football, basketball and baseball at Boonton (NJ) High School before going to Wyoming to play college ball.
For three straight years he was the Cowboys’ leading rusher. He was the only player ever to lead the WAC in rushing for three straight years, and was the first ever to earn first team All-WAC honors three straight years. In his junior year, he was named MVP of the Sun Bowl after rushing for 135 yards and two TDs in their 28-20 win over Florida State.
In his senior year, as team captain, he led the Cowboys to an undefeated regular season and a fifth-place finish nationally, and to a Sugar Bowl appearance against LSU (where the Cowboys lost, 20-13).
He was taken by the Miami Dolphins, then in the AFL, in the fifth round of the NFL-AFL common draft, then in its second year.
He made the club and, as halfback in the two-man backfield then employed by pro football teams, he teamed with another rookie, fullback Larry Csonka, whom he’d met at the previous summer’s College All-Star game. (Later, they would be joined by another runner, Mercury Morris.
He was extremely versatile. Not only was he a tough runner with a nose for the end zone, but he was a good receiver and a very good blocker. And he was extremely tough, often playing with injuries that would have sidelined most players.
In his first two seasons he led the team in rushing, and he played in the AFL All-Star game both seasons.
In his second year he led the AFL in rising touchdowns, and in his third season he led the AFC (the leagues had merged) in rushing yards, and led the Dolphins in receiving.
In his fourth season - 1971 - he was the only player in the NFL to be in the top 15 in rushing and pass receptions.
Following the 1972 and 1973 seasons, the Dolphins won back-to-back Super Bowls , and he scored six touchdowns in post-season play. One of those touchdowns came in the Dolphins’ 14-7 win over the Washington Redskins’ in Super Bowl VII that wrapped up the only perfect season in NFL history.
He and Csonka were not only running mates in the backfield, but they were close friends. Their friendship started when they were teammates on the College All-Star team before their rookie year, and they became roommates and drinking buddies. Their off-the-field capers earned him the nickname Butch Cassidy and Csonka the nickname Sundance Kid, after the characters in the popular movie at the time, and they were on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
In 1974, he, Csonka, and star receiver Paul Warfield, played out their options. (The rule at the time required a player whose contract had expired to play one final year - an “option year” - for his current team before becoming a free agent.)
This was not a common practice at the time, but in their case they had an unusual incentive to do so. They were paid extremely large bonuses to sign “future” contracts, calling for them to play, after they’d played out their options in the NFL, for a new league being formed - the World Football League. The news of their signing made front-page headlines all over the country, and spurred interest in the WFL among fans, players - and investors.
They played for Memphis in the WFL for as long as the league lasted - which was less than a full season - and in 1976 they all returned to the NFL.
Jim Kiick played two seasons in Denver and Washington and then hung them up.
In later life he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for several years and died in August, 2020 in Florida in an assisted living center.
Because of the coronavirus, his daughter had been unable to enter his room.
“It’s pretty hard when you’re sitting on the outside of the glass and can’t do anything to cheer him up,” she wrote on Twitter shortly before he died. “He’s lost the spark in his eyes, as anyone would in this situation.”
A former Wyoming teammate remembered him fondly. "I believe Jim Kiick was one of the toughest Cowboys ever to play," he said. "He was double tough, period. I remember him playing games with broken ribs when it killed him to even breathe. But he had Jack (trainer Jack Aggers) rig up a make-shift girdle and tape it to those ribs so he could play.
"I can tell you whoever got in the way of that toss sweep was going to get punished. He had the mentality of a defensive player. He attacked. He was the ultimate competitor. He was just a very special football player.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING JIM KIICK
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: Imagine any of today’s sportswriters calling any of today’s professional football players “the finest man to have walked the earth since Jesus Christ.” That’s what a Baltimore sportswriter once said about him.
Although it’s been nearly 60 years since he last caught a pass in the NFL, he remains one of the greatest receivers in the history of the game.
He was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, where his dad was the high school football coach, but after his dad was fired, the family moved to Paris, Texas, where he grew up - and where his dad coached for 25 years until he retired.
Tall and very skinny and not particularly fast, he didn’t start until his senior year. Playing both ways - offensive and defensive end - in his dad’s single wing attack, he was named All-District, and Paris won their district championship for the first time in school history.
“Believe it or not,” he said years later, “I rank the thrill of winning that game as highly as winning my first championship in the NFL.”
He spent one year at a junior college, then transferred to SMU on the promise of a chance to earn a scholarship. SMU was coached by Rusty Russell, who unlike most coaches of the time believed in a pass-first offense.
Because he transferred after just one season of JC ball he was ineligible at SMU, but after a season in the scout team, he earned a scholarship and a starting position. But after his sophomore season, Rusty Russell was fired. The new coach, Woody Woodard, scarcely threw the ball at all, and as a result, our guy caught just 33 passes in his entire college career.
In his autobiography, he reflected on the positive side: "I was a good blocker in the NFL because I learned that skill in college well in that T-formation. I had to block defensive ends and linebackers who were head up on me or inside of me."
And because of the rules at the time, he also played on defense in college. As he recalled, “If you weren't a good defensive player, you didn't get to play much. They picked players based on defensive ability. They couldn't have a hotshot offensive guy who gave up more points than he scored. The coaches learned that having some great offensive talent on the field who couldn't play defense meant getting your butt beat. That was the nature of the game.”
He was drafted by the Baltimore Colts in the 20th round as a “future” (he still had a year of eligibility left, but because of his year at JC his original class was graduating so he was eligible for the draft).
Although he had just average speed, he developed, by his own count, 88 different moves to get open, and he ran patterns as precisely as they were diagramed. Together he and Johnny Unitas gave the Baltimore Colts one of the greatest passing-and-catching teams of all time.
In the Colts’ 1958 overtime win over the Giants in the NFL title game he caught a record 12 catches for 178 yards and a touchdown.
He was selected to play in six Pro Bowl games.
He led the NFL in receptions three straight years, and at his retirement after 13 years he held records for 631 passes caught, 9,275 yards receiving, and 68 touchdowns.
He fumbled just once in his 13 years.
After retirement, he coached receivers for the Cowboys under Tom Landry, the University of Arkansas under Frank Broyles, the Detroit Lions under Don McCafferty, the Cleveland Browns under Forrest Gregg, and the New England Patriots under Chuck Fairbanks and Ron Ehrhardt. Then, when Ron Meyer was fired as head coach of the Pats, he took over.
How’d he do? I’d say pretty good. Taking over midway through a season (which he finished 4-4) he had an overall record of 48-39.
In his second season he took the Patriots to their first-ever Super Bowl, where they lost to the Bears. Except for a guy named Belichick, he got his team to more playoff games - and had more playoff wins - than any other Patriots’ coach (which includes Bill Parcells and Pete Carroll).
And he’s the only coach - other than Belichick - to take the Patriots to four straight winning seasons.
He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was named to the NFL’s 1950s All-Decade Team, its 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, and - 25 years later - to its 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
Former teammate Alex Hawkins, who played the same position, told of his intensity:
*** (———) wasn't much to look at, but what he didn't know about catching passes wasn't worth talking about. He was the most detailed, precise person I had ever known. He was a perfectionist. With (———), football was a full-time profession. He spent 11 months a year at it. During the month of January he put football aside, answered his mail, and rested. The rest of the year was all football.
I listened to everything (———) had to say. He was meticulous and organized. He washed his own practice pants, and on the road he carried his own scales with him to monitor his weight. He had a drill for every conceivable type of pass. He was busy during every minute of the practice sessions. He would practice catching low balls, high balls, balls thrown behind him, and deflected balls. To any other receiver in football a dropped pass was one that he could not get both hands on. To (———) a dropped ball was one that could be touched with one hand only. Anytime that (———) dropped the ball in practice, he would catch that same ball for 20 times without a miss before he left the field.
In a preseason game (———) had gotten one hand on a deflected pass that was thrown behind him. He was running one way and dove headlong backwards, but couldn't hold onto it. It was an impossible pass to catch, but I laughingly told Jimmy Orr that I was willing to bet that (———) would have us practicing that catch on Monday.
That Monday when we reached the practice field (———) had already dug a pit, and at his own expense had ordered a truckload of sawdust. All week we practiced diving catches of deflected passes, with the sawdust coming out of our ears. I never managed to catch one, but as I recall, (———) hung on to two or three.
He was one of the first players to study game films on his own:
*** I even studied other receivers – tried to learn what they were doing to get open, how they caught the football, the moves they had, and what they did in general to be successful. If I saw them do something that really bothered a defensive back, then I got that in my head to try to duplicate it.”
On being a coach’s son:
*** My father was a very successful football coach in Texas. He was coaching in Corpus Christi when I was born, five years before we moved to Paris, Texas. As is the case with all football coaches, the move was not voluntary, but you get fired every four, five years, so you move. He defied the odds – he coached in Paris for 25 years, then retired from coaching. In all he coached 35 years and only got fired once. He also taught math and physical education. After my dad retired, a building at the Paris High School was named after him.
*** The significance of the Texas playoff system in my day was that at the end of the football season there would be only a few undefeated teams in the entire state. My dad said that meant you learned most of your football from getting beat. That stuck with me. He stressed that the lessons you really soak in are the ones that come from defeat. I applied all of the lessons that I absorbed from my dad throughout my career.
*** The most important lesson I absorbed from my dad was his unshakable conviction that he never met an opponent he couldn't beat.
I’ve never understood exactly where this came from; I puzzled over it for years. But one of the biggest parts of my dad's makeup – which obviously I absorbed without realizing it – was that he never felt inferior to anybody. He could've sat down with Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill – the great men of his day – and been perfectly at ease. He could have had a conversation with them and he wouldn't think they were any better than he was – or any smarter. That was the way he was, and he wasn't even aware of it, wasn't even conscious of it..
As I got older, I began to realize that he didn't even understand that part of his makeup. But when that lesson was communicated to a football team, it was the most powerful thing he brought to the job. When you played for my dad – and I didn't realize this until I played for other coaches who didn't feel like this - you never thought you were going to lose a game. That confidence absolutely became a part of my makeup. There was always a way to get it done, one way or another. My dad didn't always get it done, but he knew there was a way to do it.
That way of thinking was the greatest asset I had later as a head coach, one of the greatest things I inherited from my father. I spread that message to my players because I believed it, and you can't fool the boys – they know what you believe and what you don't.
My dad was the greatest influence in my life, and as I grew into maturity and went through life, I realized that having him for my father was one of the biggest breaks I ever got. His values and his discipline that he passed on to me meant that I couldn't have had a better home to grow up in.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2024 “That
(Wonderlic) test says he's dumb as a fence post, but when he hits he
looks like Einstein to me.” Bum Phillips*********** THE GAMES THAT DECIDE WHO GOES TO THE SUPER BOWL (OR WHATEVER THE NFL CALLS THEM)
AFC
CHIEFS AT RAVENS
If it were the Baltimore Colts, there’d be no problem. We lived in Baltimore for five years - during the height of Colts Fever - and we lived in Western Maryland (Frederick and Hagerstown) for nine years, and there’s a part of me that still misses the place. I like the Ravens, and it’s great to see the people so excited about their team. It does remind me a bit of those great times.
But I also admire the Chiefs. I like Mahomes and I like Andy Reid, from his days with the Iggles. And when I first started coaching, I really fell for the Chiefs and Hank Stram’s operation. I started coaching in 1970, right after they won the Super Bowl, shocking the Vikings. I copied everything I could, from their shifting from a Stack-I, to their triple-stack defense (definitely the forerunner of today’s 3-5-5), to their stockings, to their team photo (Stram sat the team in numerical order).
Both quarterbacks are about as dangerous to a defense as they can get. I think that the edge might go to the Ravens and that defense.
NFC
LIONS AT 49ERS
I like Brock Purdy, and I’ve almost forgiven McCaffrey for being the one who killed the bowls by being the first star to opt out. He really is good. And I like the fact that they have a real fullback, with a great Polish name - Kyle Juszczyk. Kristin Juszczyk, his wife, is very creative. She has made the Chiefs’ jackets that Taylor Swift and Mrs. Mahomes have been wearing. She also offers a great way to spell their last name: “J-U-S Zebra-Cat, Zebra-Yellow-Kitten.” Where was she when I was struggling to spell Krzyzewski?
https://people.com/who-is-kristin-juszczyk-kyle-juszczyk-wife-8426959
So I like the 49ers, but unless you live in their part of the Bay Area, I don’t see how you can root against the Lions, a team that hasn’t played for the NFL championship since 1957 - ten years before there was a Super Bowl!
It would disappoint me but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Niners were to win by a couple of scores.
*********** A couple of examples of near fumbles from last weekend as a result of the NFL’s inattention to details…
At left, a nearly-bobbled exchange caused by Stroud’s pulling his hands apart just before the snap. Failure to keep the hands together until the ball is secured is a common problem with younger QB’s that even pros can be guilty of if they’re not watched constantly. At right, the runner is grabbing the ball instead of letting the QB “insert” it into a “pocket.” A major cause of fumbled exchanges is ball carriers trying to grab the ball immediately, instead of “opening wide” and then, as the ball hits the belly, “folding” over it and grasping the opposite points.
*********** I learned a long time ago - back in the days of direct mail advertising - to be sure to send myself a copy of whatever it is I’m mailing. For the nearly four years that I’ve been doing Zoom clnics, I’ve done that religiously whenever I’ve mailed the invites.
So that’s what I did on Monday night, and when I received my own invitation I knew everything was going the way it should.
And then, at 6 AM Tuesday, I received an email from a coach who hadn’t received his invite. I quickly sent him one.
A couple of hours later, I got a similar email from another coach, and I sent him one.
But when the third such email arrived, I figured that just to be safe, I’d better re-send an invite to everyone on the list. At that point, it was 3 PM Pacific Time (6 PM Eastern), just two hours before kickoff.
I think I’ve figured it out. I mailed out the link to the recording, and the feedback I get is that they’ve been delivered.
Whew.
*********** I admit to not having paid much attention to the NFL until the end of the college football season. So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by anything I've seen the last two weekends. But I was shocked by the great use of “tight” (or “compressed,” if you prefer) formations that I’ve seen most teams using.
It’s definitely ironic because for years we Double Wingers have been the object of disrespect of what’s been dismissively called our “football-in-a-phone-booth” approach to formationing. Disrespect from people boasting that their spread offense "attacks the whole field.” Yet here I’ve seen the pros, lining up in anything but spread. Quite often, they're in what we call “slot” formation and, you know what? They’re actually able to attack the whole field!
Over the past two weekends, I’ve assembled a compilation of clips from every one of the teams, in which they’ve employed some variation of these three basic formations:
They make extensive use of a tight slot, a lot of it in one of these three forms: (1) a double slot; (2) a bunch formation to the left, created by aligning, shifting or motioning the right slot back to the left; (3) a bunch formation to the right, created by aligning, shifting or motioning the left slot back (our A Back) to the right.
My diagrams here show a QB under center, but they’re just as likely to run from shotgun.
Look for this stuff in this weekend’s games. The team, in order of their use of these formations: Detroit, Kansas City, San Francisco, Baltimore.
More about slot in the next Zoom clinic.
Here’s the link to the recording -
https://vimeo.com/user174754949/143?share=copy
(You’ll miss the exchanges between us coaches that take place before and after we get started. Actually, some of them are so much fun that I’ve often thought what an interesting video they’d make!)
NEXT ZOOM CLINIC (#144) - TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 - 5 PM PACIFIC
*********** John Canzano’s take on Jim Harbaugh’s hiring by the Chargers…
Justin Herbert scored a victory this week when Jim Harbaugh became coach of the Los Angeles Chargers.
They’ll win together.
In four seasons of college football at Oregon, Herbert played for Mark Helfrich, Willie Taggart, and Mario Cristobal. Let’s face it, the quarterback made them all look better than they were.
In the run-up to the 2020 NFL Draft, all the questions from scouts were about Herbert’s ability to lead and be more vocal. Could he command respect in the huddle? Would the soft-spoken kid from Oregon raise his voice in a pro setting?
I don’t think nearly enough was made about Herbert’s proof of performance under less-than-ideal circumstances. He demonstrated an ability to succeed in college despite utter chaos, volatility, and turnover going on around him.
Helfrich got fired.
Taggart bailed after one season.
Then, Cristobal put the offense in a strait-jacket.
None of it mattered. Herbert thrived. When he was healthy, he made everything look passable, effective, and pretty. When he left for the NFL I wondered if what he’d endured in Eugene was lost on scouts. I’ve covered the NFL. It’s a league of mercenaries. Colleges love to say they’re in the business of preparing young people for the real world. Well, Oregon did exactly that by cycling through coordinators and head coaches in Herbert’s four years.
Herbert is now on his third full-time NFL head coach and sixth coach since enrolling at Oregon in 2016. Harbaugh is easily the most qualified of the bunch. Part of what made the Chargers’ job more attractive than the other vacancies was the proven commodity at quarterback. And therein lies the beauty in what finally happened for Herbert — he got an ally who will stick around.
Not one clinging to his job like Helfrich was when he started the true freshman out of desperation. Not one looking for a ticket out of town, like Taggart was. Not one who wanted to run the ball on first and second down, and ask Herbert to bail the operation out on third down and 8, as Cristobal often did.
Harbaugh is going to be great for Herbert because he knows how to build around a proven commodity, not just lean on it.
*********** Think of all the successful coaches you’ve heard about over the years who seemed to be biding their time where they were, passing up other job opportunities while they waited for Harbaugh to jump to the pros and the Michigan job to come open.
And now, with Harbaugh on his way to the Coast, the job probably isn’t going to come open. Not if Michigan’s smart.
If they’re smart, the job will go to offensive coordinator Sheronne Moore or defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, if for no other reason than to keep that damn portal from opening up.
They’ve both already had auditions, as fill-ins for Harbaugh, and presumably hiring either one would help to keep the staff and - more importantly - the roster together.
*********** Shakespeare (a dead white European male writer, for those who attend American public schools in the Twenty-first Century and get to enjoy more “diverse” literature) wrote, in “Much Ado About Nothing” - “An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.”
And so it goes. One of them’s got hind tit. And when there are two professional sports team in a city, one team is nearly always favored over the other.
Chicago Bears > Chicago Cardinals
Chicago Cubs > Chicago White Sox
Boston Red Sox > Boston Braves
St. Louis Cardinals > St. Louis Browns
And then there’s Los Angeles
Lakers > Clippers
Dodgers > Angels
Might the Chargers, now that they’ve hired Jim Harbaugh, be the exception?
*********** Texas’ Governor Abbott has very cleverly put the Biden administration in a position where any action it takes to cut through the razor wire is sure to be seen by most people as directly aiding and abetting an invasion of a state.
*********** Ken Niumatalolo has been named head coach at San Jose State, succeeding Bryan Brennan, who left to take the Arizona head coaching job.
Most recently, he has been at UCLA as Director of Leadership.
At Navy, he won 109 games - most of any coach in Navy history - led Navy to 10 bowl games over 15 seasons and was a three-time American Athletic Conference (AAC) Coach of the Year.
His 10 wins over Army are the most of any coach in the history of the rivalry. His 2019 team was the first Navy team in 60 years to finish in the top 25.
Under him, Navy won the Lambert Trophy in 2015, awarded to the best team in the East, for the first time since 1963 (when Roger Staubach was their quarterback). He is the only coach in Navy history to win three consecutive bowl games. His six bowl wins and six Commander-In-Chief trophies are the most in Navy history.
In 2015, he was a finalist for the Dodd Trophy and the Paul “Bear” Bryant National Coach of the Year Award. In 2016, he was a Dodd Trophy finalist again and in 2019, he was a Paul “Bear” Bryant National Coach of the Year Award finalist for the second time.
He’s a native of Hawaii and played quarterback at the University of Hawai’i. After graduation, he joined coach Paul Johnson’s staff at Hawai‘i as a graduate assistant and then as a full-time assistant.
In 1995, he went with Johnson to Navy as the running backs coach and then after two years was named offensive coordinator. He left briefly to go to UNLV but returned to Navy in 2002 as assistant head coach under Johnson, and became head coach when Johnson left for Georgia Tech.
Okay. And now the question we’d all like to have answered: what’s he going to be doing on offense?
Based on this, from a press release, I don’t expect to see any flexbone.
He is expected to tailor his staff around youthful energy and West Coast ties. San Jose State officials prioritized a wide-open system to take advantage of the Bay Area's recruiting resources of strong quarterbacks and skill position players.
Wide-open system? Strong quarterbacks? Skill position players? Aaargh.
*********** The ACC master schedule…
New rivalries in the making? Or ho-hum?
Cal has never played NC State, Florida State or Wake Forest.
Stanford has never played Syracuse, NC State or Louisville.
*********** Gun control is the answer! According to Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, most homicides in Sacramento County involving a firearm are committed by people who are not legally allowed to have a gun.
*********** Bud Light’s struggle to return to where it was before going tranny has been heavily dependent on advertising during NFL games (Peyton Manning buying a round for the house), and they’re planning a 60-second spot for the Super Bowl. (That’s twice the length of the usual commercial, so it had better be good. Maybe they’ll bring back Spuds McKenzie.)
Bud Light brewer Anheuser-Busch also plans to run a 30-second spot featuring Clydesdales (remember them?) in a Budweiser commercial as it continues to pose as an American company (it’s not).
And in what has to be the dumbest expenditure ever of endorsement dollars, it’s going to treat the American football public to 60 seconds of a Michelob Ultra ad featuring a soccer star. (I bet no more than 10 per cent of the people that are even watching will say, in astonishment, “Look! It’s Lionel Messi!”)
*********** NIL is taking some funny twists and turns…
During testimony in a trial over college athlete employment on Wednesday, a high-ranking USC athletic department employee claimed ignorance over one of the most well-known concepts in Division I college sports: shoe deals.
Ryan Cohan, assistant AD for women’s basketball operations, testified that he was unsure whether women’s basketball players were permitted to wear Adidas shoes during games, given that USC has an apparel contract with Nike. He was asked in the context of whether USC forces athletes to wear certain apparel—and, after a long pause and a request for “clarification,” he determined that he did not know the answer.
The National Labor Relations Board case, brought by an advocacy group called the National College Players Association, is examining whether USC football and basketball players should be deemed employees of the school, the school’s conference, and the NCAA. Rules about minute details of athletes’ lives—including what shoes they can wear—could speak to whether USC exercises enough control over players to constitute an employee-employer relationship. Cohan, as well as other USC witnesses, evaded direct answers to other questions that relate to the control issue.
Cohan’s testimony was particularly shocking coming from a longtime college athletics administrator and current USC athletics employee, given that rules surrounding apparel contracts are common knowledge in college sports. Across D-I basketball, players cannot wear a shoe brand that directly competes with their school’s apparel contract during games. Often, players can’t wear these brands in other official capacities, such as when engaging in team activities. In some cases, they’re prohibited from inking name, image, and likeness deals with competing shoe companies, even if they vow not to wear these brands in competition.
https://frontofficesports.com/at-trial-over-college-athlete-employment-ins-and-outs-of-shoe-deals-take-center-stage/
*********** DOES THIS EVEN PASS THE SMELL TEST? You will NOT believe the results, published at the start of this past season, of a survey attempting to rank college football schools according to the size of their fan base:
1. Ohio State - OK
2. Michigan - OK
3. Penn State - OK
4. Duke - Are you sure you didn’t mean basketball?
5. Florida State - Hmmm. Of course, this was before they sued their own conference and flopped in the bowl game.
6. Alabama - This low?
7. Georgia - Really?
8. UCLA - Hmmm. Then where’s the “fan base” hiding when the Bruins are playing at home?
9. Notre Dame - I thought a team that can sell out the place no matter where they play would be ranked even higher.
10. Wisconsin - Okay, I guess.
But no Tennessee? No LSU? No Clemson? No Texas? No USC? No Oklahoma? No Oregon?
I checked it and double-checked it. And no one else seems to be the slightest bit skeptical. I mean, come on - Duke ahead of Alabama? UCLA ahead of Notre Dame?
https://www.foxsports.com/stories/college-football/ohio-state-michigan-ranked-most-popular-college-football-teams-per-study
*********** Travis Kelce sponsored a football camp for an organization that works with some of Kansas City’s poorest kids.
Afterward, the organization’s CEO asked the kids to tell him what their highlight was.
Said one, “He remembered my name.”
*********** Management advice from the ages…
”People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.”
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
*********** Will Rogers, former Mississippi State QB who transferred to Washington just before the Huskies played in the championship game, then entered the portal as soon as Kalen DeBoer slipped out of town, has announced that he’s going to stay at Washington after all.
It probably came about when new UW coach Jedd Fisch found out that Noah Fifita, his QB at Arizona, wouldn’t be coming along with him to Washington; and UW probably had to sweeten the deal a little, too.
Either way, I’m glad. I liked the kid when he was at Mississippi State, and Mike Leach’s death had to hit him as hard as it did anyone.
*********** Might it be actionable if…
Oregon State were able to prove that Jonathan Smith was dickering with Michigan State when he should have been devoting all his efforts to preparing for the Civil War game with Oregon?
Washington were able to prove that Jalen DeBoer was already committed to Alabama when he was preparing for Michigan?
*********** Until recently, Dave Heeke was the AD at the University of Arizona. My friend Mike Lude, who lives in Tucson, always spoke highly of him. I trust Mike’s judgment.
But because of some sort of fiscal mismanagement (a “budget miscalculation,” they call it) the University of Arizona is short $240 million.
So they fired Dave Heeke, their AD.
The missing $240 million caused the U of A president to suggest, back in November, that it might be necessary to cut some of the school’s 23 sports, which threw things into a tizzy. Cut sports? Omigod.
So they fired Dave Heeke.
Back during the pandemic, when no one was attending sports events, the university lent the athletic department $55 million to keep things going. Yes, lent. You’d think it would have been a grant, but it wasn’t, and since the U of A athletic department hasn’t been able to repay the loan yet, that’s evidently Heeke’s fault.
So they fired Dave Heeke.
It’s not as if Heeke was a spendthrift. According to public data from the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database, the U of A athletic department’s total expenses in 2022 were $124.94 million, and it brought in $124.35 million in revenue in 2022. The department lost a rather minuscule $600,000.
So they fired Dave Heeke.
$240 million is a lot of money. It’s almost twice the athletics department’s annual budget. If they were simply to dissolve the athletic department and drop all sports and use the savings to pay it off, they’d save just $124.94 million a year. They’d still be missing almost $120 million a year - after enraging powerful alumni, athletes and the Tucson community - and almost certainly cutting off alumni donations.
So they fired Dave Heeke.
In the sports that count, Dave Heeke has made great hires. He hired basketball coach Tommy Lloyd, whose Wildcats are a national power, and he hired football coach Jedd Fisch, who in three years built the Wildcats into a Pac-12 title contender. But Fisch, who had been making $2.1 million a year at Arizona, just left for Washington and a reported $7 million a year. No way Arizona, in the condition they’re in, could have matched that. But Arizona fans blamed Dave Heeke for not “trying.”
So they fired Dave Heeke.
Arizona, it appears, has an administration that would like the public to believe that Dave Heeke is the reason why the university’s so deeply in the hole. But at the same time, he’s also to blame for losing their football coach to Washington and more money. A lot more money.
So they fired Dave Heeke.
It all seemed to come down to fiscal misfeasance/nonfeasance/malfeasance someplace else in the university, but they needed a scapegoat.
So they fired Dave Heeke.
You sure you still want to be an athletics director?
*********** Hot off the Quinnipiac polling press: 91% of Americans are highly pleased with the state of college football. So your diatribe against our college student-athletes is unfounded. In the words of (former) Harvard President Claudine Gay, "Never has there been a stronger nexus between university football players and academic excellence."
No, you summed it up in two words, "Selfish decadence".
In most of the weekend NFL games, there wasn't much difference in total yards rushing. Still, I believe that in all cases the higher-yardage rushing team won. And, to add to your notes about Josh Allen being too near to a one-man show, he was the Bills' leading rusher.
Great page, Coach.
John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Your sentiments regarding the state of Division 1 college football is spot on! No need to expand since you pointed out everything wrong with it so eloquently. Thank you!
Frankly, I can’t think of anything right about it!
Like you I forced myself to watch the 4 NFL “Divisional” games. Still feel the same about the NFL overall but since it’s time for championship games here goes:
SF needs Purdy to bring his “A” game in order to beat the Lions. If he plays like he did last week the Lions play in their first Super Bowl. KC must play great defense against the Ravens. If it becomes a QB duel the team that has the ball last goes to the SB.
Speaking of the Super Bowl the NFL is going to highlight the TWO “anthems” in their pre-game ceremonies. You know…the new racial one… and the old racist one written by Francis Scott Key.
Sports Illustrated was always a favorite of mine as a kid, especially in the Spring! Then they went woke and got CNN involved and that was it for me! The other print magazine I still look forward to is Street and Smith’s Football edition in the Fall, and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Austin, Texas
Dave Campbell’s is really good!
It would only be fair if black people had to listen to a bunch of no-talent “grammy-award-winning” types f**king with their “Black National Anthem” the way they’ve all but ruined that one that everyone used to stand for.
He’s the guy on the far left (with Alan Ameche, Johnny Unitas and Lenny Moore)
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: As Alex Hawkins told it…
"In football I was what is known as an overachiever. I wasn't big, I wasn't fast. But for 10 years I had managed to stay in the national football league. Hell, I would've played for nothing. More than that, I would've paid the Colts for allowing me to play."
His dad was named Catfish, and in the coalfields of McDowell County, in southwest West Virginia, at the age of 33, he met and married a local girl 17 years younger than he was. She was also taller. He was 5-6 and she was 5-11. Everyone called her Big Lou.
They started raising their family in a coal patch called Stringtown.
I’ll let Hawkins himself describe it:
There was one road into and one road out of the valley. The mountains went straight up both sides at a 90° angle. A small creek run alongside the road. On the western side of the road there were small shacks and honky-tonks. The houses were built on the backs of the creeks with the front doors opening onto the road. The backs of these shanty' were supported by poles driven down into the creek bed. Just a few feet beyond the creek was the base of the mountain.
Saturday nights we would sit on the upstairs porch and watch and listen to the miners in the honky-tonks across the road taking out their frustrations on each other. Fights and shootings were routine on paydays. Law, if enforced at all, was by whim. By Monday, after the bills were paid and the whiskey consumed, the miner's were broke again. You didn't just die of old age in the coal fields, you simply wore out.
All was fine, until one Saturday night in 1938 some of the local miners started shooting up the town. Several of the stray bullets went through our house, and Big Lou stated flatly that this was no place to raise a family. In less than a month, Catfish had moved his family of four to South Charleston, 145 miles north.
By the time he was high school age, he wanted to play football, but at 16, he was 5-3 and weighed 115 pounds. He was missing a front tooth, and in his own words, had “no public hair.” And then, the following spring, he grew seven inches taller and added 50 pounds.
He developed into a great athlete, and in his senior year, he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball. After lettering in track as well, he became the first athlete in his school ever to letter in four sports in the same year.
Despite the near-stranglehold that West Virginia coach Pappy Lewis had on in-state talent, South Carolina managed to steal him away, and his decision to go south was not well-received by the home folks.
My leaving the state bordered on treason. People passing by in cars would roll down their windows and curse me. How could I do such a thing? Who did I think I was, anyway? Wasn't West Virginia good enough for me? Huh? Overnight, friends and fans of mine had turned violently against me. I was hurt and disillusioned that friends woutd change their attitudes so quickly.
In South Carolina’s run-heavy split-T offense and 5-4 defense, at one point or another he played every non-line position on both offense and defense and in his senior season was named the conference (South Carolina was then in the ACC) player of the year. For three seasons he led the Gamecocks in scoring. For his junior season he led the team in both receiving yardage and interceptions, for his senior season he led the team in passing yardage, and for both his junior and senior seasons he was their leading punt returner.
With it all, he was a wild colt, and not at all easy for the head coach to deal with.
After his senior season came the Senior Bowl, in Mobile. He played for the South team, whose coach was (in his words) “a little man named Paul Brown.”
The North team was coached by Joe Kuharich, then head coach of the Redskins.
“When we studied under Paul Brown, we did just that. He was brilliant. This was the first classroom that I ever paid attention in. There were no plays handed out. We took notes at every position, offense and defense. His meeting room was his classroom, and Paul Brown was the professor of football.
We had only 25 players on each team, so everyone was expected to learn every play from every position. I was scheduled to start at defensive cornerback, but I was told I would also play offensive halfback.
One day Paul Brown was going over the ofensive guards’ assignments when he noticed I wasn't taking notes. "Why aren't you taking this down?” He inquired. "Because I don't play offensive guard,” I shot back. "If I have to play offensive guard, we might as well forfeit,” I said.
Brown studied me silently for a moment, then softly he said, “Hawkins, you're a dog, and you'll never make it in the NFL.” I’ve admired him ever since for being the first person to realize that.
He was drafted by Green Bay, the first player in the second round of the NFL draft - which meant, in a time when the NFL had only 12 teams, that he was the 13th player drafted. He didn’t know where Green Bay was. He didn’t even know where Wisconsin was.
It was Vince Lombardi’s first year in Green Bay, and camp was tough. But he survived until the final cut, following which he went from the worst team in the NFL to the best - the defending champion Baltimore Colts.
He stuck, and for a brief time, following an injury to starter L.G. Dupree, became a member of a backfield that included Johnny Unitas, Alan Ameche and Lenny Moore. But he was injured himself, and was done for the season , including their second straight NFL championship game win over the Giants.
He spent time as a running back but also - in a time of smaller roster sizes - as a defensive back, but it was as a balls-out special teams players that he excelled, and won the hearts of Baltimore fans.
He was almost certainly the first NFL player specifically designated as a special teams captain, a role he relished, according to former teammate Bill Curry:
“He was a great special-teams player, a great locker room guy, great for morale,” Curry said. “Every week, he’d give out the Cutty Sark special-teams award, a bottle of Cutty Sark scotch. He would stand up and make a long speech about all these plays people made ... but for the 35th time in a row he’d win the award.”
And then came the nickname. As he himself told it over the years - it came about when Colts’ Coach Don Shula thought it would be a good idea to have a third captain - one to represent the special teams - to accompany Johnny Unitas (offense) and Gino Marchetti (defense) for the coin toss.
“Well,” he told it, “the officials came over to the sidelines and met us and said hello to Unitas and Marchetti. Shula said, ‘Here’s our special-teams captain, Hawkins.’ and the referee said, ‘Captain Who?’”
Captain Who. If you ever meet someone who claims he was a Baltimore Colts fan and he can’t tell you who Captain Who was, he’s a fraud.
Our guy was well known around town as a rogue - he liked to drink and gamble and keep late hours - which vexed his coaches but even further endeared him to Baltimore fans, who came to refer to him as “Captain Who.”
For seven seasons he was a valued member of the Colts, but in 1966 he was taken in the expansion draft by the Atlanta Falcons. It was said that coach Norb Hecker was hoping he’d provide leadership. Hecker clearly didn’t do his due diligence.
He didn’t last long with the Falcons. Three games into the second season he was traded back to the Colts. Most insiders believe it was because Hecker was tired of his antics.
“I knew this was not going to work at one of our early team meetings,” he said in a 2007 magazine interview. “Norb threatened to take away my BB gun. He opened the team meeting with a question, ‘Who shot out the big light in front of the dorm?’ Since I was the only one with a Red Ryder, all eyes turned on me.”
He returned to the Colts’ lineup for the remainder of that season, and all of the following season, and his last NFL game was the Colts’ upset loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III.
In his ten-year NFL career, he carried 208 times for 787 yards and 10 touchdowns, caught 129 passes for 1,751 yards and 12 touchdowns, returned 52 punts for 358 yards, and six kickoffs for 86 yards.
After retirement he spent several years as a broadcaster (I met him in Jacksonville in 1974 when he was doing WFL games), and he could always be counted on to say some totally off-the-wall thing at any time. After one particular inane comment, his broadcast partner, the legendary Vin Scully, asked him on-air if he’d worn a helmet when he played.
Finally, the network suits had enough.
He never lost his boyish irreverence, as he showed years later, at a 2004 Colts’ reunion.
“We had a reception at one nice place,” Bill Curry recalled, “and we were going to get on a bus and go to another nice place. The head coach always sits in the front seat, as if there was a big sign there.
“Shula comes to get on the bus, and Hawk is sitting there. Everybody just cracked up, and Shula just says, ‘Some things never change.’
Hawkins' memoir - “My Story (And I’m Sticking To It)" - is a classic.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING ALEX HAWKINS
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: He was born on Aug. 9, 1946, in Lincoln Park, New Jersey. . His father had played football at Bucknell, then played fullback for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1940 before leaving to fight in World War II; after the war he played one more year with the Steelers, then became a high school coach.
The son played football, basketball and baseball at Boonton (NJ) High School before going to Wyoming to play college ball.
For three straight years he was the Cowboys’ leading rusher. He was the only player ever to lead the WAC in rushing for three straight years, and was the first ever to earn first team All-WAC honors three straight years. In his junior year, he was named MVP of the Sun Bowl after rushing for 135 yards and two TDs in their 28-20 win over Florida State.
In his senior year, as team captain, he led the Cowboys to an undefeated regular season and a fifth-place finish nationally, and to a Sugar Bowl appearance against LSU (where the Cowboys lost, 20-13).
He was taken by the Miami Dolphins, then in the AFL, in the fifth round of the NFL-AFL common draft, then in its second year.
He made the club and, as halfback in the two-man backfield then employed by pro football teams, he teamed with another rookie, fullback Larry Csonka, whom he’d met at the previous summer’s College All-Star game. (Later, they would be joined by another runner, Mercury Morris.
He was extremely versatile. Not only was he a tough runner with a nose for the end zone, but he was a good receiver and a very good blocker. And he ws extremely tough, often playing with injuries that would have sidelined most players.
In his first two seasons he led the team in rushing, and he played in the AFL All-Star game both seasons.
In his second year he led the AFL in rising touchdowns, and in his third season he led the AFC (the leagues had merged) in rushing yards, and led the Dolphins in receiving.
In his fourth season - 1971 - he was the only player in the NFL to be in the top 15 in rushing and pass receptions.
Following the 1972 and 1973 seasons, the Dolphins won back-to-back Super Bowls , and he scored six touchdowns in post-season play. One of those touchdowns came in the Dolphins’ 14-7 win over the Washington Redskins’ in Super Bowl VII that wrapped up the only perfect season in NFL history.
He and Csonka were not only running mates in the backfield, but they were close friends. Their friendship started when they were teammates on the College All-Star team before their rookie year, and they became roommates and drinking buddies. Their off-the-field capers earned him the nickname Butch Cassidy and Csonka the nickname Sundance Kid, after the characters in the popular movie at the time, and they were on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
In 1974, he, Csonka, and star receiver Paul Warfield, played out their options. (The rule at the time required a player whose contract had expired to play one final year - an “option year” - for his current team before becoming a free agent.)
This was not a common practice at the time, but in their case they had an unusual incentive to do so. They were paid extremely large bonuses to sign “future” contracts, calling for them to play, after they’d played out their options in the NFL, for a new league being formed - the World Football League. The news of their signing made front-page headlines all over the country, and spurred interest in the WFL among fans, players - and investors.
They played for Memphis in the WFL for as long as the league lasted - which was less than a full season - and in 1976 they all returned to the NFL.
Our guy played two seasons in Denver and Washington and then hung them up.
In later life he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for several years and died in August, 2020 in Florida in an assisted living center.
Because of the coronavirus, his daughter had been unable to enter his room.
“It’s pretty hard when you’re sitting on the outside of the glass and can’t do anything to cheer him up,” she wrote on Twitter shortly before he died. “He’s lost the spark in his eyes, as anyone would in this situation.”
A former Wyoming teammate remembered him fondly. "I believe (he) was one of the toughest Cowboys ever to play," he said. "He was double tough, period. I remember him playing games with broken ribs when it killed him to even breathe. But he had Jack (trainer Aggers) rig up a make-shift girdle and tape it to those ribs so he could play.
"I can tell you whoever got in the way of that toss sweep was going to get punished. He had the mentality of a defensive player. He attacked. He was the ultimate competitor. He was just a very special football player.”
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2024 “Credulity and
falsehood copulate, and give birth to opinion.” Paul Valéry*********** Today - Monday - it was finally safe for us to walk up the hill to the street, and to drive our car on the streets. It wasn't so bad. We had a warm house, plenty of food (and beer and wine), books to read and football on TV. And we had each other. Actually, it was kind of fun.
*********** I never thought I would say this after the frequency and fervor with which I’ve expressed my dislike of the NFL and its workings, but my disgust with college football and the f**king joke it’s becoming may be driving me into the arms of the devil: this past weekend I watched every single NFL game, all four of the conference semi-finals, in their entirety.
“College” football? College? Give me a break.
The fairy tale that we lived in not so very long ago, the one in which college kids in the stands cheered, praised and hailed a team made up of other college kids from their school - extolling it to fight on, march down the field, hit harder, defend our honor, bear down, conquer, etc. has become a joke. And we’re the butt of it. We fell for it, because we so desperately wanted to believe what we thought we were seeing.
What we’re seeing now is the removal of the mask: the elimination of any pretense of players’ playing out of loyalty, respect, commitment, devotion, whatever - and becoming venal mercenaries.
In the process, the great masses are being sucked into believing that unless they contribute large enough sums of money to pay those college kids to play those college games, why - horrors - their team will no longer dominate, conquer, rule, etc.
It is an absolute fact that certain outstanding football and basketball players are being paid seven figure sums, and the joke is that it’s for the use of their “Name, Image and/or Likeness.” Yeah, right. It’s so dishonest. At least when you watch an NFL game, you know that those players you’re watching are being paid to play football. Period. And when you see them tout State Farm or USAA on commercials you know they’re being paid for the use of their Name/Image/Likeness. At least it’s an honest business transaction.
(Has any college athlete other than Bryce Young or Caleb Williams actually made a bona fide national commercial?)
I wish I could say this to the big money people whose conscience doesn’t bother them when they make a millionaire out of a college kid simply for playing football or basketball: unless you also give the same amount to such as St. Jude’s, or Shriners’ Hospitals, or Boys Town, or Hillsdale College, or your local no-kill pet shelter, I think it’s the epitome of selfish decadence to hand exorbitant sums of money to a college kid for nothing more than the expectation that he (or she) will play well enough to win games for your team.
*********** THE NFL QUARTERFINALS (OR WHATEVER THEY’RE CALLED)
AFC
RAVENS 34, TEXANS 10 - Texans’ QB C. J. Stroud came back down to earth - 175 yards on 33 attempts. The Texans’ “running” game? 38 yards. Baltimore’s defense is really tough, and unless I see something spectacular in the next few weeks, Lamar Jackson is the league MVP. I will be a (Baltimore) Colts fan until I die, but it’s gratifying to me to see a great team in Baltimore and to see Baltimore people excited about it.
CHIEFS 27, BILLS 24 - I feel terrible for the fans of Buffalo. I like the town and I like the Bills and I like Josh Allen, but sheesh, guys - Allen can’t be the whole offense. They ran 78 offensive plays - 39 running and 39 passing - and Allen was either the runner or passer on 51 of them. You’d think that a team that fired its offensive coordinator during the season would have found one that could develop a running game that involves more than the QB, and a passing game that got them more than a pathetic 4.8 yards per pass attempt. The Chiefs are just better, and even though I’m sick of Mahomes on those State Farm commercials, I think he’s a better QB than Allen.
NFC
LIONS 31, BUCCANEERS 23 - Another nice QB story - the QB the Rams didn’t want (Jared Goff) against the QB nobody wanted (Baker Mayfield), and both acquitted themselves well. Goff completed 30 of 43 for 287 and two TDs. Mayfield completed 26 of 41 for 349 and three TDs. The Bucs’ running game was anemic, while the Lions’ Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery accounted for 107 yards between them. Add in receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and tight end Sam LaPorta and the Lions have the people to give the 49ers a game next week. I like both coaches - Dab Campbell who looks like he came out of Central Casting when they asked for a “tough guy,” and Todd Bowles, who exudes calm.
49ERS 24, PACKERS 21 - It was a good game and the better team won. Both young QBs are impressive, and both teams have good running attacks. (The Packers’ Aaron Jones rushed for 108, the 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey for 98.) The 49ers had the better defense, and they showed they can come from behind. It will be interesting to see how quickly and how well Niner’s WR Deebo Samuels recovers.
I think that either of the AFC teams - Ravens or Chiefs - will win the Super Bowl because they’ve got those super-mobile QBs.
*********** The big news from overseas is that a Welsh rugby player named Louis Rees-Zammit has decided to walk away from professional rugby to try his hand at American football.
Why would he do it? Why did the college football player cross the road? Money.
If he makes an NFL roster as a backup, he’ll still make a lot more money.
It’s a consequence of something the NFL calls its International Player Pathway Program, designed to help a foreign athlete transition to football. And in preparation for the draft, he’s coming to the States to spend 10 weeks preparing for the American game.
He’s got decent size - he’s 6-3, 215 - and he’s very fast - apparently on the order of Tyreek Hill fast.
Here’s a YouTube compilation of every try (touchdown, in rugbyspeak) he’s ever scored. He’s scored a bunch, so it goes for 15 minutes, but I only had to watch 5 minutes of it to say that Louis is in for the shock of his life.
He hasn’t taken a hit. Not a football hit. (Tough as rugby is, don’t you believe for one minute that they hit as hard.) Nor did I see him break a tackle. He’s never had to block - blocking’s illegal in rugby. So that rules out running back.
And since the only “passes” that rugby players ever catch are laterals, and there’s no such thing in rugby as “running a route,” or “getting open," he’s got a lot to learn there as well. And then there’s all that football jargon to learn.
So much for offense. On defense, he may be able to tackle, but he’s never had to cover a receiver or try to intercept a pass.
I’ve seen so many great athletes with zero football experience get chewed up and spit out by the NFL that while this is big news on the rugby scene, it deserves a big ho-hum over here.
*********** Only one thing wrong with seeing Jason Kelce, bare-chested up in the box at the Bills-Chiefs game - it looked like that was a can of Bud Light in his hand.
*********** I’m getting pissed at the NFL’s promotion of flag football, with the guy in the audio saying, “there’s a position for everybody.”
Look, fool, I want to say - I’m wise to your game. I know that you want to replace tackle football with flag.
But one of the beauties of football - tackle football, that is - is it’s the ONE team sport that the big, heavy kids who haven’t yet grown into their bodies can play.
But, despite what the guy in the ad says, there isn’t a position in flag football for them.
*********** My wife loves to watch what goes on down on the field after the game - who’s talking to whom, what guys seem to be friends, the lasting friendships that playing the game has forged - and I agree. I think it would be great promotion for the game itself and the benefits it provides if parents (especially mothers) could see more of that.
*********** Erin Andrews, prefacing her post-game interview with 49ers’ QB Brock Purdy: “It wasn’t pretty…”
Hey Erin, I’m pretty sure they won. Nobody’s interested in your style points.
*********** Is anybody else tired of this Mayhem a**hole?
*********** It’s great for the NFL and great for the people of the Detroit area to see the Lions just one win away from the Super Bowl. They’re the only NFC team never to have played in the game. (In the AFC, Cleveland, Houston and Jacksonville have yet to play in it.)
*********** I’m old enough to remember the last time the Lions won the NFL title (1957). And in front of me I have a copy of the November 15, 1954 issue of Sports Illustrated (back when it was a real sports magazine), in which there’s a feature article on the Lions.
Opening paragraph:
“Buddy Parker is tall, taciturn and Texan. His Detroit Lions have won the national professional football championship two years in a row and have a good chance of winning again this year.”
(But they didn’t. They did win again - in 1957 - but when this was written no one could possibly have foreseen that they would win just once more in the next 70 years.)
*********** A Bridgeport, Texas high school soccer coach was arrested Friday for “felony theft.” He’s charged with using the school district credit card at a strip club, specifically - charging $5,455.81 worth of something (?) at “The Men’s Club of Houston” back in July, while in the city for a coaching clinic.
Actually, he’s been the former soccer coach since back in September when the district “found evidence” that he’d used the card.
Wouldn’t you like to have been a fly on the wall when the superintendent called the guy in and said, “This item for $5,455.81 at the Men’s Club of Houston - could we see what you purchased?”
*********** There was a post circulating on social media by some guy in Tucson claiming to be an Arizona booster, informing former Arizona coach Jedd Fisch, who’d bolted for Washington, that he wouldn’t be getting any more Arizona players - that he, the booster, would see to that. See, right after Fisch left, Arizona’s QB and their leading receiver entered the portal together, saying that they were for sale as a team (actually, they didn’t say they were for sale - they said they were for rent. No, they didn’t say that, either. Just joking. Sort of.) It was assumed that they would wind up in Seattle, with Fisch. Now, maybe it was just BS, but right after our booster made his claim, shazam! - the QB and receiver announced (as a team) that they were removing themselves from the portal, and staying at Arizona.
*********** Very few people knew the ins and outs of college football the way the late Beano Cook did. He also knew the ins and outs of betting on sports, and while he insisted that he seldom bet himself, he openly admitted that he knew - and liked, and socialized with - bookies.
He loved football, but he didn’t allow himself to be kidded into thinking that betting didn’t play a huge role in TV viewership.
I found this in his biography, “Haven’t They Suffered Enough?”
If it weren’t for betting, the ratings for TV sports would be 30, maybe even 40 per cent lower. I firmly believe that of all the teams and all the sports, only Notre Dame and Southeastern Conference football could survive on sheer fandom alone.”
*********** The prestigious New Orleans private school that’s produced two generations of Manning football players has been hit hard by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association for basketball recruiting violations.
The Isadore Newman School has been placed on “restrictive probation” and will be ineligible to play in postseason tournaments this season; The school will forfeit all basketball games during the past three seasons; the head coach will be suspended from “all coaching related duties” for one calendar year.
*********** Sports Illustrated - What a treasure it once as. What a POS it became.
It started out covering all sports - not just those that catered to mass audiences but those that would appeal to the upscale readership that advertisers craved. It spent a lot of money on photographers and the best of sports journalists, sometimes going outside the world of sports journalism.
It became the standard by which the importance of sporting events and sports figures were measured. To be on the cover of Sports Illustrated was to have arrived - you were BIG.
My sister-in-law-to-be gave me a subscription to Sports Illustrated in 1954, when it first came out. Until recent years, I looked forward to every issue.
I’ve kept most of them over the years, and my wife, bless her, put a lot of time into cataloging them. It’s really fun to go back and grab an old copy and browse through it. But at the same time, it’s sad to see what we once were, compared to what we are now.
Talk about shrinkflation - today’s Sports Illustrated has been greatly thinned down, and it’s gone from weekly to monthly publication. Its content has definitely become “inclusive.” From publishing an annual swimsuit issue once eagerly awaited by teenage boys because of the semi-nudity of its glamorous models (this was before online porn), it’s taken to showing photos of males (who “identify as female”) in bikinis.
Anyhow, having just informed its staff that it’s time for them to look elsewhere for work, it’s as good as gone now.
I feel sorry for the workers, but I won’t miss Sports Illustrated. I got over it long ago. It’s been dead for years.
*********** Good Morning Coach!
I hope this message finds you doing well! What a shame college football has become. I share many of your sentiments about it.
I’m reaching out to you as I’m looking for my old DW playbook and can’t seem to come across it, but what it had in it that the dynamics 3.0 doesn’t have is a page with all of your formations and how you would label them like the old book had. Wondering if something like that exists still for the double wing and also if you’ve finished work on or have anything more to add to the open wing since I purchased that a few years back.
We’re looking at tweaking a few things this season within the system. We’ve ran primarily out of tight formation but would like to utilize other formations within your trusted system.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
Josh Cole
Schuyler County Storm Football
Watkins Glen, New York
Hi Coach,
You bring up a good point and one that I’ve heard several times.
There simply wasn’t space in the 3.0 Playbook to cover formations other than the base, and because multiple formations are a VERY important part of my personal system, I have been working on an entire additional playbook that covers the subject.
In fact, I’m going to touch on that on my Zoom tomorrow night. Let me know if you’d like an invite.
Here’s a shot of one of the pages from the new book, dealing with just one change in formation.
Also, as you inquired, I’m trying to work on an addition to the Open Wing digital playbook.
Please be patient with me if you would because it seems as if I’m always pressed for time to devote to these projects.
*********** A guy asked me whether NFL players still kneel during the Anthem. That stumped me. I don't think they are, but we typically don't see what happens before kickoff. And I disappoint myself when I note how casually I drifted back to watching it. The very sight of Roger Goodell (did you know we're having games in Antarctica--what's the capital of that place again?--and Nepal next season in our neverending quest to carry football to the outer boundaries of the world) causes me to turn away. I know my problem's personal, but as I bemoan having succumbed again to NFL and Big Media titans, you remind us they've devised even more ways of making money. Within five years, the rookie minimum salary will be $50 million. And perhaps worse, they'll be taking over CFB in short order. On days like this, I wish football had never been invented. Morons are leading me by the nose. But after scoring a 3 on my fourth try at the Wunderlic, I am a certified Omega-Minus myself.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: After moving around a good bit while he was growing up, Steve Spurrier’s family located in Johnson City, Tennessee when he was 12. At Johnson City’s Science Hill High School, he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball. As a pitcher, he was undefeated in three seasons; as a quarterback, he was a high school All-American.
He was heavily recruited by most major southern schools - with the exception of Tennessee, which was still running the single wing and had no use for a passing T-formation quarterback. He chose Florida, whose coach, Ray Graves, was a former Tennessee football great. (Ironically, after our guy’s freshman year at Florida, Tennessee fired its coach, and the new coach, Doug Dickey, junked the single wing and installed his T-formation offense.)
At Florida, our guy was an All-American quarterback and won the Heisman Trophy in his senior year.
He was a first-round draft pick of the 49ers, and played ten years in the NFL, mostly as a backup.
After retirement as a player, he spent five years as a college assistant, then three years as head coach of the Tampa Bay Bandits in the USFL, until that league folded.
In 1987 he became head coach at Duke, which had had only two winning seasons (both of them 6-5) in the previous12 years. The Blue Devils went 5-6 in his first season, then, with his wide-open passing game, broke through with a 7-3-1 season, followed by an 8-4 season in 1989. They finished 6-1 and tied for first in the ACC, making it to their first bowl game in 24 years. (They lost the bowl game, incidentally, in no small part because instead of preparing his team for the game, he was on the road recruiting for his next job, which he’d already accepted, at Florida.)
He spent 12 seasons in Florida. Placing a then-unconventional emphasis on the passing game, he had one of the greatest tenures of any coach in college football history.
Although ineligible to play in a bowl game his first season because of NCAA violations by the previous coach, the Gators finished 9-2, good for first place in the SEC.
Once the Gators were bowl eligible the following year, he took them to a bowl game every season thereafter. They won ten or more games nine times, and the other three times they finished with nine wins. They finished in the top 15 every one of his seasons, and eight times in the Top Ten. He won six SEC championships, and was named SEC Coach of the Year five times. In 1996, the Gators won the national title.
His six straight years winning ten games of more (1993-1998) are second only to Nick Saban’s 16 straight 10+ win seasons.
After 12 seasons, with a record of 122-27-1, he took his “fun and gun” offense to the NFL, as head coach of the Washington Those Who Must Not Be Named.
It didn’t go well. After 7-9 and 9-11 seasons, working with notoriously meddlesome owner Dan Snyder, he stepped down.
His biggest mistake, he told Paul Finebaum: "I went to the team that offered the most money instead of the best situation.”
Later, in an interview with The Washington Post, he said, “I did a lousy job. The GM did a lousy job. He happened to be the owner, so who needed to go?"
He was out of work for exactly one year, until he succeeded Lou Holtz at South Carolina.
In his first season there (2005) he took the Gamecocks to an unexpected 7-5 season, earning SEC Coach of the Year honors. One of the wins was over Tennessee in Knoxville for the first time ever, and over Florida for the first time since 1939.
In 11 years at South Carolina, he was 86-49 (44-40 in the SEC). Nine of his teams went to bowl games. In 2011-12-13 he had three straight 11-2 seasons - and three Top Ten finishes.
Perhaps of most importance to South Carolina people, he was 6-5 against Clemson, and from 2009 through 2013, Carolina defeated Clemson five years in a row - something that hadn’t been done before in the history of the rivalry.
In 2014 South Carolina went 7-6, and in 2015, with a 2-4 mark, he resigned in mid-season.
His overall record was 228–89-2. In 26 years as a college head coach, he had only two losing seasons: his first one (at Duke) and his last one (at South Carolina).
Steve Spurrier is one of only four people to have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach. (The others: Amos Alonzo Stagg, Bobby Dodd, Bowden Wyatt).
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING STEVE SPURRIER
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
RODNEY LUNSFORD - WESTFIELD, INDIANA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
BRAD KNIGHT - CLARINDA, IOWA
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
He’s the guy on the far left (with Alan Ameche, Johnny Unitas and Lenny Moore)
*********** QUIZ: As he told it…
"In football I was what is known as an overachiever. I wasn't big, I wasn't fast. But for 10 years I had managed to stay in the national football league. Hell, I would've played for nothing. More than that, I would've paid the Colts for allowing me to play."
His dad was named Catfish, and in the coalfields of McDowell County, in southwest West Virginia, at the age of 33, he met and married a local girl 17 years younger than he was. She was also taller. He was 5-6 and she was 5-11. Everyone called her Big Lou.
They started raising their family in a coal patch called Stringtown.
I’ll let our guy describe it:
There was one road into and one road out of the valley. The mountains went straight up both sides at a 90° angle. A small creek run alongside the road. On the western side of the road there were small shacks and honky-tonks. The houses were built on the backs of the creeks with the front doors opening onto the road. The backs of these shanty' were supported by poles driven down into the creek bed. Just a few feet beyond the creek was the base of the mountain.
Saturday nights we would sit on the upstairs porch and watch and listen to the miners in the honky-tonks across the road taking out their frustrations on each other. Fights and shootings were routine on paydays. Law, if enforced at all, was by whim. By Monday, after the bills were paid and the whiskey consumed, the miner's were broke again. You didn't just die of old age in the coal fields, you simply wore out.
All was fine, until one Saturday night in 1938 some of the local miners started shooting up the town. Several of the stray bullets went through our house, and Big Lou stated flatly that this was no place to raise a family. In less than a month, Catfish had moved his family of four to South Charleston, 145 miles north.
By the time he was high school age, he wanted to play football, but at 16, he was 5-3 and weighed 115 pounds. He was missing a front tooth, and in his own words, had “no public hair.” And then, the following spring, he grew seven inches taller and added 50 pounds.
He developed into a great athlete, and in his senior year, he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball. After lettering in track as well, he became the first athlete in his school ever to letter in four sports in the same year.
Despite the near-stranglehold that West Virginia coach Pappy Lewis had on in-state talent, South Carolina managed to steal him away, and his decision to go south was not well-received by the home folks.
My leaving the state bordered on treason. People passing by in cars would roll down their windows and curse me. How could I do such a thing? Who did I think I was, anyway? Wasn't West Virginia good enough for me? Huh? Overnight, friends and fans of mine had turned violently against me. I was hurt and disillusioned that friends woutd change their attitudes so quickly.
In South Carolina’s run-heavy split-T offense and 5-4 defense, at one point or another he played every non-line position on both offense and defense and in his senior season was named the conference (South Carolina was then in the ACC) player of the year. For three seasons he led the Gamecocks in scoring. For his junior season he led the team in both receiving yardage and interceptions, for his senior season he led the team in passing yardage, and for both his junior and senior seasons he was their leading punt returner.
With it all, he was a wild colt, and not at all easy for the head coach to deal with.
After his senior season came the Senior Bowl, in Mobile. He played for the South team, whose coach was (in his words) “a little man named Paul Brown.”
The North team was coached by Joe Kuharich, then head coach of the Redskins.
“When we studied under Paul Brown, we did just that. He was brilliant. This was the first classroom that I ever paid attention in. There were no plays handed out. We took notes at every position, offense and defense. His meeting room was his classroom, and Paul Brown was the professor of football.
We had only 25 players on each team, so everyone was expected to learn every play from every position. I was scheduled to start at defensive cornerback, but I was told I would also play offensive halfback.
One day Paul Brown was going over the ofensive guards’ assignments when he noticed I wasn't taking notes. "Why aren't you taking this down?” He inquired. "Because I don't play offensive guard,” I shot back. "If I have to play offensive guard, we might as well forfeit,” I said.
Brown studied me silently for a moment, then softly he said, “(——), you're a dog, and you'll never make it in the NFL.” I’ve admired him ever since for being the first person to realize that.
He was drafted by Green Bay, the first player in the second round of the NFL draft - which meant, in a time when the NFL had only 12 teams, that he was the 13th player drafted. He didn’t know where Green Bay was. He didn’t even know where Wisconsin was.
It was Vince Lombardi’s first year in Green Bay, and camp was tough. But he survived until the final cut, following which he went from the worst team in the NFL to the best - the defending champion Baltimore Colts.
He stuck, and for a brief time, following an injury to starter L.G. Dupree, became a member of a backfield that included Johnny Unitas, Alan Ameche and Lenny Moore. But he was injured himself, and was done for the season , including their second straight NFL championship game win over the Giants.
He spent time as a running back but also - in a time of smaller roster sizes - as a defensive back, but it was as a balls-out special teams players that he excelled, and won the hearts of Baltimore fans.
He was almost certainly the first NFL player specifically designated as a special teams captain, a role he relished, according to former teammate Bill Curry:
“He was a great special-teams player, a great locker room guy, great for morale,” Curry said. “Every week, he’d give out the Cutty Sark special-teams award, a bottle of Cutty Sark scotch. He would stand up and make a long speech about all these plays people made ... but for the 35th time in a row he’d win the award.”
And then came the nickname. As he himself told it over the years - it came about when Colts’ Coach Don Shula thought it would be a good idea to have a third captain - one to represent the special teams - to accompany Johnny Unitas (offense) and Gino Marchetti (defense) for the coin toss.
“Well,” he told it, “the officials came over to the sidelines and met us and said hello to Unitas and Marchetti. Shula said, ‘Here’s our special-teams captain, (——).’ and the referee said, ‘Captain Who?’”
Captain Who. If you ever meet someone who claims he was a Baltimore Colts fan and he can’t tell you who Captain Who was, he’s a fraud.
Our guy was well known around town as a rogue - he liked to drink and gamble and keep late hours - which vexed his coaches but even further endeared him to Baltimore fans, who came to refer to him as “Captain Who.”
For seven seasons he was a valued member of the Colts, but in 1966 he was taken in the expansion draft by the Atlanta Falcons. It was said that coach Norb Hecker was hoping he’d provide leadership. Hecker clearly didn’t do his due diligence.
He didn’t last long with the Falcons. Three games into the second season he was traded back to the Colts. Most insiders believe it was because Hecker was tired of his antics.
“I knew this was not going to work at one of our early team meetings,” he said in a 2007 magazine interview. “Norb threatened to take away my BB gun. He opened the team meeting with a question, ‘Who shot out the big light in front of the dorm?’ Since I was the only one with a Red Ryder, all eyes turned on me.”
He returned to the Colts’ lineup for the remainder of that season, and all of the following season, and his last NFL game was the Colts’ upset loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III.
In his ten-year NFL career, he carried 208 times for 787 yards and 10 touchdowns, caught 129 passes for 1,751 yards and 12 touchdowns, returned 52 punts for 358 yards, and six kickoffs for 86 yards.
After retirement he spent several years as a broadcaster (I met him in Jacksonville in 1974 when he was doing WFL games), and he could always be counted on to say some totally off-the-wall thing at any time. After one particular inane comment, his broadcast partner, the legendary Vin Scully, asked him on-air if he’d worn a helmet when he played. Finally, the network suits had enough.
He never lost his boyish irreverence, as he showed years later, at a 2004 Colts’ reunion.
“We had a reception at one nice place,” Bill Curry recalled, “and we were going to get on a bus and go to another nice place. The head coach always sits in the front seat, as if there was a big sign there.
“Shula comes to get on the bus, and (our guy) is sitting there. Everybody just cracked up, and Shula just says, ‘Some things never change.’
His memoir - “My Story (And I’m Sticking To It) - is a classic.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2024 “If you don’t
know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Yogi Berra*********** It’s now Thursday night and we haven’t been out of the house since Monday. Last Saturday we got hammered with a combination of snow/wind/cold - took out a lot of big trees in the Portland area - but at least we were able to get of the house a couple of times a day for short walks with the dog. But then the freezing rain came on Monday, and since then, with the temperatures staying below freezing, we haven’t been out of the house at all. Haven’t been able to go anywhere. I’m just not in favor of falling on my ass, and now, with the temperature at 34 and a light drizzle falling, I can’t imagine anything more slippery than a thin coat of water, on top of a thick crust of ice, on top of snow. Yeah. Global climate change.
*********** Okay. I confess. I pungled up the money to pay Peacock so they’d let me watch the Chiefs play the Dolphins on Saturday night. And so, according to Nielsen, the rating service, did another 23 million or so viewers.
By comparison, the three college football playoff games averaged 23.6 million viewers. And they were free. (Okay, you actually paid for ESPN, but it doesn’t feel like pay TV.)
What’s scary is that now that the NFL and various streaming services have seen that great numbers of the American public will pay to watch individual games, we’ve seen the future of pro football on TV.
*********** A little background in The Athletic on Arizona’s new coach, Brent Brennan, who’d been head coach at San Jose State for the past seven seasons…
Brennan’s 34-48 career record isn’t impressive but that requires some serious context. San Jose State is one of the toughest places to coach in the country. Brennan has to fundraise to ensure his players can have breakfast in the football facility every day because the school can’t afford it — players receive swipe cards to eat lunch and dinner on campus. The Spartans practice on a field with broken field goal posts. In the 26 seasons before Brennan took over in 2017, San Jose State made just three bowl games. He’s led the Spartans to three bowls in the past four seasons with little-to-no resources — position coaches have to set up their own drills — competing against programs with much bigger budgets like Boise State, Fresno State and San Diego State."
Brent Brennan’s wife is a graduate of Arizona, and he’s coached in the past with Arizona favorite Dick Tomey. I’m not the biggest Washington fan in the world, but I do care about the Huskies, and personally, I’d have preferred they hire Brennan instead of the guy he’s replacing at Arizona, Jedd Fisch. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but there’s something about Jedd Fisch that I just don’t like.
Meanwhile, the butterfly continues to flap its wings and San Jose State is now in the market for a coach.
*********** Sports Business Journal asked sports business executives and others what changes they would make in the industry if they were in charge. One of those who responded was Maggy Carlyle, Senior V-P of Legal Affairs and General Counsel of the Detroit Lions…
With college football on the cusp of moving to an employment model, and conference realignment further consolidating media broadcast rights, there is no better time for the NFL to take an ownership stake in its primary development league. Acquiring the CFP, the NFL will be best positioned to launch a College Football League, inviting the current top-tier FBS schools who have the resources and make the investment to compete nationally. The NFL can use the CFP and CFL to directly develop coaches, refs and players; test out new rules; improve scheduling for the NFL and CFL; extend its international reach; and grow the game of football.
It may sound wacky at first, and there would probably be antitrust hurdles to overcome, but this is actually the most sensible response I’ve yet seen to the anguished pleas for “somebody” to “do something” to stop the runaway college football train before it gets to the washed-out bridge.
It sure isn’t going to be the feckless NCAA. And it sure isn’t going to be anyone from among the current “Power 4” schools, obsessed as they are with destroying each other in order to enrich themselves.
Not that money would be a problem, but the NFL wouldn’t have to acquire teams - only the Playoff itself. I have no idea who actually “owns” it, but let the NFL start talking money and we’d soon find out.
And once it did that, controlling access to the playoff would enable it to decide which teams to admit to its new college league - which teams were best prepared, based on their resources, recent on-field and financial success and, perhaps, market size.
It would seem to me that the NFL might use its current 32-team, 8-division setup as its template, which would leave 100 or so FBS teams out in the cold. (More on that later.)
*********** After all the things that the environerds have done to try to save the planet, you’d think Mother Earth would be more grateful.
But there are all those wonderful people who’d bought EVs - who’d done their part to “make a difference” as they say - and what did Mother Earth do?
Why, she sent them bitter cold weather, rendering their batteries, their charging stations, and - yes - their cars useless.
That ungrateful bitch.
*********** Jason Kelce may or may not be retiring. I hope he doesn’t, but he’s had a heck of a career and could wind up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
So, too, could his brother, Travis.
If so, they would make great additions to my list of guys who played a different position in high school from the one that earned them lasting fame in the NFL.
Jason played linebacker in high school. Travis played quarterback. Both changed positions at Cincinnati.
Two guys that I know of who are in the Hall of Fame but played quarterback in high school:
Russ Grimm, who made it as an offensive lineman.
Jack Lambert, who made it as a linebacker.
Two others who have an excellent chance of making it into the Hall of Fame:
Kam Chancellor, who played QB in HS and safety with the Seahawks
Julian Edelman, who played QB at Kent State and WR with the Patriots
In this age of players and their parents obsessing over “preparing for the next level,” this list might come in handy the next time you ask a kid to change positions.
*********** From the sports pages of The Babylon Bee
PIERRE, SD — According to reports, young Martin Durfling had his dream of being an NFL referee completely crushed after learning he was born with a genetic condition that would prevent him from ever reaching the big leagues. After multiple visits, doctors confirmed that Durfling was born with 20/20 vision.
"Martin's taking it well, but we're in a daze as a family," said Martin's father while his wife wiped away tears with one of Martin's toy yellow flags. "How do you adjust to a new life that is suddenly void of your child's lifelong dream, simply because he was born with the unfortunate gift of sight?”
The Durfling family Optometrist said the family should have seen the warning signs in Martin early on, including his ability to make out large objects like trucks and houses. "The fact that he could watch a football game on television and know what was happening - we should have known," cried his mother, Donna. "If only he had suffered some terrible accident, like acid being splashed into his eyes, his dream would be alive. Why, Lord?”
At publishing time, Martin Durfling had embraced a new dream of becoming an NBA referee after learning to accept bribes.
*********** Do titles mean anything? You decide.
From our nation’s founding until 1947, we had a Secretary of War. It was a cabinet-level position, fifth in line (after the Vice-President, Speaker of the House, President pro tem of the Senate and Secretary of State) to succeed the President.
In 1947, that position was split into the Secretary of the Army and Secretary of the Air Force, and replaced by the newly-titled Secretary of Defense.
Wars won under a Secretary of War (Before 1947):
Revolution
1812
Mexico
Civil War
Spanish-American War
World War I
World War II
Wars won under a Secretary of Defense (After 1947):
*********** “DUH” Department
I found these gems in an article about avalanches, written by one Rebecca Boone, AP
Last winter, 30 people died in avalanches in the US. They all were skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers, snowshoers, climbers, or hikers.
Hmmm. No surfers or tennis players?
Where do most avalanches occur? The vast majority occurred in the wilderness.
Hmmm. Not downtown Chicago?
*********** Governor Gavin Newsom, of California, who has aspirations of running for higher office, evidently figured out that trying to ban youth football (for kids under 12) is a losing issue in a lot of places, so he has announced that even if such a bill were to reach his desk, he wouldn’t sign it into law.
*********** Many liberals disgust me with their attitude that because they are so assured that they’re in the right, that their opinions are accepted as gospel by any intelligent person, they can say the most outrageous things, even among strangers, without concern for the consequences.
One such individual is a gross female named Joy Reid, who somehow has convinced someone in power at a TV network that they should pay her large sums of money for saying those outrageous things on the air.
And that’s how I came to hear Ms. Reid, a black woman, dismiss the recent election results in Iowa by saying, “This is a state that’s over-represented with white Christians.”
Wow. Having nothing against white Christians - in fact, I confess to being one myself - and having had a lot of good experiences in Iowa, I take offense at Ms. Reid’s insinuation that that means there’s something wrong with the state.
She obviously is ignorant of the fact that Iowa, that state that’s so full of white Christians, has two state universities that have been in the forefront of integrating college football and honoring black football players.
In his book, “Footsteps of a Giant,” Emlen Tunnell, New York Giants’ great who was the first black man (and the first defensive player) inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, tells of getting out of the service after World War II and trying out for the football team at the University of Iowa.
“I had never seen so many Negro guys in one place in my life. This was on the University of Iowa practice field in the autumn of 1946. There were 325 candidates for the football team. Many of them were veterans, and 58 were Negroes…
“Most of those Negro boys had come to Iowa for the same reason I had. They knew they would be given a chance to play. Great Negro players were part of the tradition at Iowa, going way back to the days around World War I. Fred (Duke) Slater, who is a judge now in Chicago, was an all American tackle at Iowa right after the first war.”
Duke Slater? The playing field at the University of Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium is named in his honor.
And at Iowa State University, the football team plays its home games in Jack Trice Stadium, the only major college stadium in America named for a black man.
Iowa has been doing its part in making America the kind of country most of us would like it to be, and it displays ignorance of Iowa and its people - not to mention racist bigotry - to disparage it because it is happens to be largely white and its people predominantly Christian.
*********** This is what I call a bare cupboard… It’s the Washington Huskies’ 2023 two-deep.
Those names crossed out in RED are GONE - transferred, out of eligibility, declared for the NFL draft; those crossed out in BLUE are IN THE PORTAL (and theoretically capable of being saved)…
Good luck in the Big Ten next year, Coach Fisch.
*********** More and more nowadays, we hear the question, “What’s the value of a college education?”
In a recent letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, a writer named Louis DeLeon, from Saint Joseph, Missouri, provided one of the best answers I’ve ever read…
In over three decades of recruiting at universities, I found three significant reasons that college graduates, as a group, out-earn non-college graduates. Graduates had the ambition or initiative to go to college in the first place; the intelligence or mental horsepower to gain admittance; and, most important, by graduating, they proved they could finish what they had started.
The population with those traits inevitably will outperform the population missing one or more of them. What they study in the process is of little relevance.
*********** Based on its GDP, the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington metro area is ranked 25th in the nation. By that measure, it has a stronger economy than 1/3 of the areas that have NFL franchises.
(in order)
26 - Cincinnati
27 - Pittsburgh
29 - Nashville
30 - Indianapolis
33 - Kansas City
34 - Cleveland
42 - Jacksonville
49 - New Orleans
50 - Buffalo
?? - Green Bay
(But it’s also the largest metro area in America without a stadium large enough for either an NFL team or a Major League baseball team.)
*********** I recently published the obituary of Bill Gunlock, who coached at a number if places and then went on to a very successful career in business. Jack Morrison, a member of Army’s unbeaten 1958 team (of which Bill Gunlock was an assistant coach) was at Bill Gunlock’s funeral, and shared this with friends…
The highlight of the Service was a rousing, passionate, and animated eulogy by one of Bill's best friends, Jack Harbaugh, the ex-Western Kentucky Head Coach. Bill had recruited Jack to Bowling Green Univ. in 1957 when Bill was the BGSU line coach. Jack is the Father of this season's National Champ Michigan Wolverines HC Jim and the NFL's Baltimore Ravens HC John, who won a Super Bowl against his brother when Jim coached the San Francisco 49ers.*********** I really liked the Jerry Carle clips on your last Zoom clinic. I had been thinking of trying a half spin series with our open wing stuff. Got my wheels spinning. I have a playbook of his in my stuff.
Adam Wesoloski
Pulaski, Wisconsin
Coach Carle, longtime single wing coach at Colorado College, had some very inventive ways of moving the ball.
*********** Sonny Lubick followed Earle Bruce
Earle Bruce (not a good name at my alma mater UNI)
People in Cedar Falls still dislike Coach Bruce. He bailed after just one season and he will never be liked for it....even though he seemed to be a pretty damn good football coach.
Hope you are well. Polar Vortex 4.0 here in Iowa. Why do I live where the air hurts my skin?
Brad Knight
Clarinda, Iowa
*********** Good find on Press Maravich, Coach. When I see a name ending in 'ch', I know odds are it was formerly ć. Among the legions from the former Yugoslavia who've starred in the US are Tony Kukoć, Luka Dončić, and the one who gets my vote as the greatest basketball player on the court today, Nikola Jokić. Maybe Sonny Lubick's family came from the Balkans, too.
I didn't watch him much in college, but Houston's CJ Stroud is phenomenol. Seeing some of these guys (Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Mahomes) play so well as rookies leads me to believe there's nothing to playing QB in the NFL. That's opposite-talk. I watch in awe of their talent, which is much more than physical.
Like many around the nation, I'm sure, I was pulling hard for Joe Flacco. Near the top of the best football stories of the year. And you're so right, Coach: I felt sorrry for him as he threw those awful interceptions.
Favorite FB commercial: Dr Pepper's hurricane/tornado, with the Boz chiming in on "the transfer portal's out of control. It's taking all our players. There goes our D-Line.”
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
Great commercial - and to think that the rescuer might have kept their QB from being swept away if he’d just given him his other hand to hold onto - but he couldn’t, because, “THAT'S MY DOCTOR PEPPER HAND!!!”
*********** Hugh,
Like you I was hoping for a better ending for Joe Flacco and the Cleveland Browns. At the same time I was happy for Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions, Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, and Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
I watched Jordan Love when he played at Utah State. He was good, but it took a few years of being an understudy to Aaron Rogers (what used to be the norm in football at ANY level) to hone his talent and take him to where he is today. He and his Packers will give the 49ers all they can handle.
Actually, the REAL "threat" to "our" democracy currently occupies the WH. He and his ilk have cultivated the lack of consequences for breaking rules...PERIOD!
Will be interesting to see how that Alabama line of coaching changes works out for those involved, and I hope and pray that 8 man HS team in Wyoming finds a coach. BTW...it was announced today that Brent Brennan of San Jose State will be the new HC at Arizona. Barry Odom is staying put at UNLV. Former UNLV HC Tony Sanchez takes over at New Mexico State for Jerry Kill.
Speaking of coaching changes. Fresno State HC Jeff Tedford stepped away from the Bulldogs again due to another health issue. Sources close to me say it is heart related...again. Rumor has it Tim Skipper who served as HC during the Bulldogs New Mexico Bowl victory is the favorite to replace Tedford. Not saying anything negative about former Bulldog great and NFL player Skipper, but IMHO former Bulldog great and Super Bowl champ QB with the Ravens Trent Dilfer who is currently the HC at UAB would be a slam dunk pick.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Sonny Lubick was born and raised in a mining town - Butte, Montana - where growing up he was a close friend of daredevil Evel Knievel.
After graduating from Christian Brothers High in Butte, he attended Montana Western, a small NAIA school in nearby (65 miles away, which in Montana is “nearby”) Dillon, Montana.
Right out of college, he taught and coached for two years at Beatty, Nevada, another mining town with a population of 400 and a school with 39 students in grades 7-12. They played flag football. He also helped coach the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams. And taught a full class load. But it was a job, and it paid $5,000 a year.
From there, he returned to Butte and coached at Butte High for eight years, six as an assistant and two as the head coach. In 1968 he took his team to a 10-1 record, winning the state Class AA title and AA Coach of the Year honors.
He was hired at Montana State, where from 1970 through 1977 he was defensive coordinator. Under head coach Sonny Holland, the Bobcats won the National Title (then known as Division II) in 1976.
After Holland’s retirement following the 1977 season, our guy took over, and in his very first season as head coach, Montana State finished 8-2 and took second place in the Big Sky Conference. In his second year, they went 6-1 and won the conference title, but in years three and four the record tailed off, and he was fired. His record in four years was 21-19.
For three years, he served as offensive coordinator at Colorado State, then spent four years assisting Jack Elway at Stanford.
In 1989, he caught a big break when Dennis Erickson hired him to coach the defense at Miami. (Erickson had been an offensive assistant at Montana State while our guy was the DC, and Erickson had assisted Jack Elway at San Jose State.)
In his four years as Miami’s DC, the Hurricanes went 44-4, twice ranked Number One and twice ranked Number Three.
And then he left to return to Colorado State, this time as head coach.
The program was as bad as it could get. It had been almost 40 years since it had won a conference title. Since 1960, it had had seven winning seasons, and three winless seasons. In its entire history, it had played in just two bowl games. Among major colleges, it was in the bottom 10 in all-time winning percentage.
“I thought that if we were lucky, every third or fourth year we could win seven games and get to a bowl game,” he said later. “I was just hoping to keep my job for a few years.”
He kept it for 15 years. In that time, his teams won 108 games and lost 74. They won or shared six conference championships, played in nine bowl games, and won 10 or more games four times.
His 1992 went 11-2 - still the best record in school history - and after beating Missouri in the Holiday Bowl, they wound up ranked 16th nationally.
Only one coach in CSU history, Harry Hughes, won more games (125), and it took him from 1911 through 1941 - 31 seasons - to do it.
Thanks to him, the annual game with Colorado became a major event, played in Denver’s packed Mile High stadium. He went 4-4 in the rivalry.
In 1994, he was named by Sports Illustrated as its Coach of the Year.
In he 2005 joined Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden and Frank Beamer as the only four active Division FBS coaches with 100 or more career wins at their current schools.
The field at CSU’s stadium is named in his honor.
Since stepping down as coach following the 2007 season, he has remained in Fort Collins and stayed active in university affairs.
For the past 15 years, he has owned and operated a popular Fort Collins Steakhouse that bears his name.
Sonny Lubick has been inducted into the Montana and Colorado Sports Halls of Fame.
In an interview at the time of his induction into the Montana Sports Hall of Fame, he summed up his career - “Some of us are just born to be coaches.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING SONNY LUBICK
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
BRAD KNIGHT - CLARINDA, IOWA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** QUIZ: After moving around a bit while he was growing up, his family located in Johnson City, Tennessee when he was 12. At Johnson City’s Science Hill High School, he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball. As a pitcher, he was undefeated in three seasons; as a quarterback, he was a high school All-American.
He was heavily recruited by most major southern schools - with the exception of Tennessee, which was still running the single wing and had no use for a passing T-formation quarterback. He chose Florida, whose coach, Ray Graves, was a former Tennessee football great. (Ironically, after our guy’s freshman year at Florida, Tennessee fired its coach, and the new coach, Doug Dickey, junked the single wing and installed his T-formation offense.)
At Florida, our guy was an All-American quarterback and won the Heisman Trophy in his senior year.
He was a first-round draft pick of the 49ers, and played ten years in the NFL, mostly as a backup.
After retirement as a player, he spent five years as a college assistant, then three years as head coach of the Tampa Bay Bandits in the USFL, until that league folded.
In 1987 he became head coach at Duke, which had had only two winning seasons (both of them 6-5) in the previous12 years. The Blue Devils went 5-6 in his first season, then, with his wide-open passing game, broke through with a 7-3-1 season, followed by an 8-4 season in 1989. They finished 6-1 and tied for first in the ACC, making it to their first bowl game in 24 years. (They lost the bowl game, incidentally, in no small part because instead of preparing his team for the game, he was on the road recruiting for his next job, which he’d already accepted, at Florida.)
He spent 12 seasons in Florida. Placing a then-unconventional emphasis on the passing game, he had one of the greatest tenures of any coach in college football history.
Although ineligible to play in a bowl game his first season because of NCAA violations by the previous coach, the Gators finished 9-2, good for first place in the SEC.
Once the Gators were bowl eligible the following year, he took them to a bowl game every season thereafter. They won ten or more games nine times, and the other three times they finished with nine wins. They finished in the top 15 every one of his seasons, and eight times in the Top Ten. He won six SEC championships, and was named SEC Coach of the Year five times. In 1996, the Gators won the national title.
His six straight years winning ten games of more (1993-1998) are second only to Nick Saban’s 16 straight 10+ win seasons.
After 12 seasons, with a record of 122-27-1, he took his “fun and gun” offense to the NFL, as head coach of the Washington Those Who Must Not Be Named.
It didn’t go well. After 7-9 and 9-11 seasons, working with notoriously meddlesome owner Dan Snyder, he stepped down.
His biggest mistake, he told Paul Finebaum: "I went to the team that offered the most money instead of the best situation.”
Later, in an interview with The Washington Post, he said, “I did a lousy job. The GM did a lousy job. He happened to be the owner, so who needed to go?"
He was out of work for exactly one year, until he succeeded Lou Holtz at South Carolina.
In his first season there (2005) he took the Gamecocks to an unexpected 7-5 season, earning SEC Coach of the Year honors. One of the wins was over Tennessee in Knoxville for the first time ever, and over Florida for the first time since 1939.
In 11 years at South Carolina, he was 86-49 (44-40 in the SEC). Nine of his teams went to bowl games. In 2011-12-13 he had three straight 11-2 seasons - and three Top Ten finishes.
Perhaps of most importance to South Carolina people, he was 6-5 against Clemson, and from 2009 through 2013, Carolina defeated Clemson five years in a row - something that hadn’t been done before in the history of the rivalry.
In 2014 South Carolina went 7-6, and in 2015, with a 2-4 mark, he resigned in mid-season.
His overall record was 228–89-2. In 26 years as a college head coach, he had only two losing seasons: his first one (at Duke) and his last one (at South Carolina).
He is one of only four people to have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach. (The others: Amos Alonzo Stagg, Bobby Dodd, Bowden Wyatt).
TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2024
"I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest,
sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines.
They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got
up.“ Charlie Munger, billionaire partner of Warren Buffett********** REMEMBER THIS?
In 2018, Coach Mark Richt told ESPN that he felt that it was unethical for a coach, having made a long-term commitment to his players, to pursue other jobs,
"I never once have tried to leverage another job for more money. I don't think that's right. The day we took the job, my mentality has always been, 'If you're the head coach, too many lives depend on you.' If I just say on a whim, 'You know, I think I'd rather go here,' well, all these recruits you said something to, all these coaches you said something to, what about them? Every time you hire a coach, you're taking the coach, his wife and his kids on an adventure. They're trusting you and believing in you enough to become a staff member. I don't want to just walk into a room and say, 'Hey, guys, thanks for helping me get to where I really want to be.' It's the same thing with these kids. They've had enough disappointment, enough men leave their lives. You're trying to build trust, and then you bolt on them because of money or because of whatever? I've just never been able to get past that part of it.”
Coaches are always going to bolt. That’s a given. And now, so, too, are players.
Below the level of pros and colleges - and increasingly at larger high schools - whatever justification there may once have been for football as a “character builder” is gone. What we are witnessing is the death of idealism and the birth of cynicism.
Time to take down all those corny locker-room signs about loyalty, family, commitment, teamwork, dedication (“I will give my all for Tennessee today”) and put up realistic ones…
My suggestion (With apologies to Michigan): THOSE WHO STAY WILL BE CHUMPS
*********** Not that football coaches are going to be needing the money anyhow, but I don’t see a lot of continued demand for them as motivational speakers, as if they had secrets they could share with automobile dealers, or beer distributors, or realtors to get their sales forces to be more effective (without, the idea is, having to pay ‘em more).
No, instead of the business people learning from the coaches, the coaches are about to learn what the business people have known for years: you want performance - you’ve got to be prepared to pay for it.
*********** I also think we’ve heard the last of the “he taught me about life” garbage when players describe a big-time coach. Yeah. A guy who never had to spend a dime on his college education, who never had a summer job while he was in school, a guy who became a graduate assistant right out of college and from then on never worked at anything other than football. A guy who, if he was lucky enough to find the right woman, has been able to rely on her to do anything and everything regarding the house, the kids and the family budget. A guy who could send all his kids to an Ivy League college and pay full tuition and never miss the money. That guy. He’s a great one to be telling young guys about life.
*********** No, I’m not working on the sly as the PR Director of the City of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania… but after writing about some of the football greats who came from there - Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett, Darelle Revis, etc. - and the many state football titles the Aliquippa High “Quips” have won, I happened to be reading a book in which another son of Aliquippa was mentioned.
It was Press Maravich. Press Maravich, who was once the head basketball coach at Clemson, NC State, LSU and App State.
He was born and raised in Aliquippa. For three seasons early in his career he was the head basketball coach at Aliquippa High, and he is buried in Aliquippa.
.
And Aliquippa is also the birthplace of his son, Pete. Pete Maravich, though, didn’t go to Aliquippa High because Press’ jobs took him elsewhere. Pete went to high school in North Carolina, while Press was coaching at NC State, and he played his college basketball at LSU. (How great was Pete Maravich? He averaged 44.2 points per game in his college career, and had there been a 3-point shot when he played college basketball, he would undoubtedly have set scoring records that would never be broken.)
*********** I keep hearing that a certain Republican ex-President is a threat to “Our democracy,” and other than wondering why Democrats insist on calling it “our” democracy, as if each party has its own “democracy,” I question how much that frightens people in a nation where an election turnout of 66 per cent is considered exceptional and 35 per cent is routine.
*********** I’ve heard people bellyaching about all the Taylor Swift sightings at Kansas City Chiefs games, and while I have to admit that at first I found them a bit annoying, I now have a very different take on it. Surveys show that her presence at Chiefs’ games has attracted a large new audience of young females, and while the NFL already enjoys a reasonably large female following, I think that anything that can get more young women watching football games - possibly leading to an interest in the game that would give them and young men a common interest - is a net gain for our society.
*********** I believe that the pros no longer have to wear mouthpieces, although some guys still let them dangle from their face masks, like a piece of plastic jewelry.
In college football, though, the rules stipulate that a player whose mouthpiece is not in during a play must leave the field for one play or, in order to allow him to stay in the game, his team must take a time out. It seems, however, that officials have interpreted the rule as stipulating that a player must have a mouthpiece in his possession.
Oh, well. In a country where you and a hundred or so of your best friends can get together and block an interstate highway without any consequences, it seems sort of silly to be enforcing sports rules.
*********** I was listening to an old coaching friend, Emory Latta, being interviewed on a podcast. Emory is now the head of school at Providence Chrstian High School in Dothan, Alabama - in the southeast part of the state - and I heard him say that when he was in college, there were several other guys there, like him, from “the Wiregrass.”
That was a new one on me - was this a region, a part of the country, like The Palouse, the Eastern Shore, the U-P, the Low Country, the Delta, the County?
Sure enough: “The Wiregrass region, also known as the Wiregrass plains or Wiregrass country, is an area of the Southern United States encompassing parts of southern Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle.”
*********** Boy, talk about conflicted…
How am I supposed to react when the anti-semitic scum protesting outside the White House on behalf of Palestinians start to chant “F**k Joe Biden?”
*********** A butterfly flaps its wings, and football starts to die…
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama’s long-time coach retires.
So Alabama hires its new coach - the coach at Washington
In Seattle, Washington hires the coach at Arizona
In Tucson, Arizona hires the coach at UNLV
In Las Vegas, UNLV hires the coach at South Dakota State
In Brookings, South Dakota State hires the coach at Harding
In Searcy, Arkansas, Harding hires the coach at Cortland
In Cortland, New York, Cortland hires the coach at Iowa Western Community College
In Council Bluffs, Iowa Western hires the coach at IMG Academy
In Bradenton, Florida, IMG Academy hires the coach from St. Thomas Aquinas
And so on, down the chain, until a tiny school playing 8-man football in rural Wyoming
loses its football coach to a bigger school, and when it can’t find another coach it offers the job to its soccer coach…
And when he refuses, the school has to cancel its season
*********** Gronk is pretty good on all those self-effacing commercials he does, but as a studio analyst, he is a total stiff.
*********** Don’t know how many snow shovelers the Bills had to hire at $20 an hour, but given the conditions and the time constraints they were working under, they sure did an amazing job of getting that stadium ready for a playoff game.
*********** When two football players’ heads collide and a chunk of plastic from one of their helmets goes flying, it seems to me it’s time to change helmet manufacturers. And it’s probably too cold to be playing football.
*********** It’s been too damn cold around here to do much of anything other than watch NFL football, so that’s what we’ve been doing in our house.
I felt sorry for Joe Flacco. He had a heck of a run and it would have been a great story.
You have to be VERY impressed by Packers’ QB Jordan Love.
Rams’ rookie wide receiver Puca Nacua put on one really great display of receiving (9 catches, 181 yards, 1 TD)
I know he’s making millions, and I know he can get another job at the drop of a hat, but didn’t you feel just a tiny bit sorry for Mike McCarthy, as the Packers manhandled his Cowboys and the cameras kept cutting to Jerry Jones up in his box?
Did you think, as I did, that something was wrong with Cowboys’ receiver CeeDee Lamb?
Lions-Rams - Pretty good game. Two teams going at it as if it actually mattered. Two quarterbacks who’d switched teams
WTF is wrong with the Iggles???
Much of the tackling in the playoff games has been as horrible as ever. Good runners like the Texans’ Devin Singletary and the Packers’ Aaron Jones broke a lot of half-hearted tackles. Defensive backs, especially, appear either unwilling to sacrifice their bodies or unfamiliar with the basics of tackling - or both.
I’m seeing a lot (I refuse to say “a ton”) of what we call “slot” formation - essentially a Double Wing with the wings moving in next to the tackles and the ends moving out a couple of yards. In the pros’ case, their B-Back (their running back) is much deeper than ours, but it’s nice to see them confirming that what we do isn’t so obsolete after all. I’ve run it off and on over the years, and I really am getting to like it more and more all the time.
Down on the goal line (and maybe elsewhere, but I haven’t checked) the Lions’ splits were a foot or less.
*********** There is so much holding in the NFL - on both offense and defense - that it’s ruining the game. It interferes with the way the game was designed to be played, and it’s so prevalent - and - blatant that the officials seem reduced to penalizing it at random, much like the way state cops pull over one poor schlub and write him up while dozens of vehicles speed by.
Penalties, if their intent was to eliminate the fouling, are clearly not working. In most cases, teams and players seem to treat them as mere traffic tickets.
And penalties punish the TEAM. I don't think you’re going to make guys stop doing this crap - correct what they’ve been doing - until you punish THEM.
I can fix it all in a heartbeat: in addition to the usual yardage penalty, anyone caught holding - offense or defense - has to wear boxing gloves for the rest of the game. PINK boxing gloves.
************* John Canzano nails it…
Concerning Kalen DeBoer’s bailing for Bama…
The true indicator probably came months earlier, halfway through the regular season when DeBoer hired Jimmy Sexton as his agent. Sexton is the co-head of the Creative Arts Agency’s football division. He’s one of the most influential people in sports. He not only has DeBoer as a client, Sexton represents Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, and Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, among dozens of others.
Think carefully about what happened this week. Saban, also repped by Sexton, announced his retirement on Wednesday. In the next 12 hours, Lanning used the Alabama opening to gain leverage at UO. Then, Sarkisian’s name surfaced as a possible candidate, leading to a four-year contract extension at Texas. And Norvell’s name also surfaced as a replacement, right up until he got an eight-year extension at FSU. His salary is now north of $10 million a year.
DeBoer was just the next chess piece.
https://open.substack.com/pub/johncanzano/p/canzano-no-business-like-college?r=1diaj2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
**************** I know you didn't intend your list of coaches to be comprehensive, but another one of Croatian extraction is Brian Billick. I admire three of the four.
My money, if I had any, would be on Lane Kiffin for Alabama. He might've maxed out at Ole Miss. And speaking of father-sons, there's another pretty good one. Monte was once recognized as the top DC in the NFL, and he'd also had a head job in college. Lane was absorbing it all.
Almost forgotten is that dad Jack Harbaugh, although he retired in 2006, has come out of retirement several times to become an assistant to Jim. He was running backs coach at Stanford, and this season was assistant head coach at Michigan. But at first the situation was flipped. During his off seasons from the Bears, Jim asked his head coach dad to be an unpaid assistant on his staff.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
While many of us may have tired seeing an Alabama team in the national playoffs/championship I don’t think many of us can deny its coach, Nick Saban, is likely the GOAT in college football.
Won’t surprise me to see Belichick back on an NFL sideline next year. Seattle?
No comment on Pete Carroll. Never liked him, never will.
Happy to see Army making those moves. Especially moving Viti back to coaching the “B” backs, where he set the standard as a player.
Hopefully the merger between the old XFL and USFL (the new United Football League) will give us football junkies an exciting product to watch in the spring.
My advice to young guys seeking a HS HC job- - NEVER agree to accepting a job with built-in assistants before meeting with them. Then, after meeting with them, demand you bring your own people on.
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
Shrinkflation comes to football! The problem with the new UFL is that instead of last year - two leagues with 8 teams each, with each league playing its own separate season - we’ll get one league with eight teams, playing just one season. And here’s what pisses me off: an amount of money equal to the salaries of a half dozen or so Power 4 coaches would have been enough to keep both of those leagues in operation.
THE LEGACY OF CHARLIE PELL - I strongly recommend watching
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=charlie+pell#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3ed7715b,vid:xTHOex94tew,st:0
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Charlie Pell was born in 1940 in Albertville, Alabama in what could best be called a hard environment. He was the fifth of eight children. His father never went past fourth grade, and his mother dropped out after fifth grade. He never saw a television until he was 15.
He didn’t play high school football until his senior year, but he played well enough as a fullback that his coach brought him to the attention of Bear Bryant. When he was recruited by Bryant he had to admit that he had never heard of the Alabama coach.
At Alabama, at 187 pounds, he played guard and defensive tackle, and was an All-SEC guard.
After graduating in 1964, at the suggestion of coach Bryant, he set out to be a coach, starting out as a graduate assistant at Alabama.
Then, after four years coaching the defensive line at Kentucky under former Bryant assistant Charlie Bradshaw, he was hired as head coach at Jacksonville State
From 1969 to 1973, he went 33-13-1 there.
There followed two years as defensive coordinator at Virginia Tech (under former Bryant assistant Jerry Claiborne) and one at Clemson, then he was promoted to become head coach at Clemson.
In his first year there, he took the Tigers to their first bowl game in 18 years, and in his second year, he took them to their first ACC title in 11 years, and a Number 7 ranking nationally. He was named ACC Coach of the Year both of those years. And then, after going 18-4-1 over two years, he left Clemson for Florida.
He fired up the Gator booster clubs around the state, staying in touch with them and letting the head of every club know that he was expected to help recruit the best high school players in their area.
He wasn’t bashful about asking boosters to help, and he got Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, to donate enough money for a new, state-of-the-art weight room for the football team.
He went 0-10-1 in his first season, but then the Gators caught fire. The next year, they finished 8-4 and played in a bowl game. In 1983, the Gators went 9-2-1, their sixth-place finish in the AP rankings the school’s highest ranking ever.
But the year before, the NCAA had begun to look into rules violations in the Florida program, and early in the 1984 season it charged the Gators with more than 100 infractions, including spying on the practices of at least seven opponents, making cash payments to players, and permitting walk-ons to live in the athletic dormitory.
The university president immediately fired our guy and replaced him with his offensive coordinator, Galen Hall, as the Gators’ interim coach. Under Hall, the Gators would win the school’s first-ever SEC football title, but because of the infractions, the Gators were banned by the conference from playing in the Sugar Bowl.
His record as Florida was 33-26-3. He was only 43, but he never coached college football again.
In the meantime, Florida was placed on two years' probation and banned from playing in bowl games and appearing on television for two years. In addition, the Gators lost 20 scholarships over three years, and the SEC vacated the Gators’ SEC title.
In addition, the NCAA found violations that occurred during his tenure at Clemson, and as a result it put the Tigers and new coach Danny Ford on two years probation.
Unable to get another coaching job, Pell tried a number of business ventures, without success. Ten years after leaving Florida, he attempted suicide.
He was saved by a friend who had found the suicide note he left, then rushed to the remote scene and pulled him, half-conscious, from the car where he’d run a hose from the exhaust pipe through a barely-open rear winsow.
He recovered and was determined to be clinically depressed.
As a business associate and former swimming coach at Florida said, "Coaching was his life. He had found the one thing he loved to do, and he wasn't able to do it anymore, and that was very difficult for him to deal with."
He learned to deal with his depression, and in 1995 he actually spent a season coaching at a newly-opened high school near Lakeland, Florida. With undersized and inexperienced players, the team finished 1-9.
That year, appearing on NBC’s "Dateline," he said, "Did I violate some rules? Yes. Does that make me a cheater? If it does, yes I am. There wasn't room for anything but winning. Nothing. Winning was the sole obsession, to a fault."
Charlie Pell died of lung cancer in 2001. He was 60 years old.
In 2012 he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING CHARLIE PELL
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** QUIZ: He was born and raised in a mining town - Butte, Montana - where growing up he was a close friend of daredevil Evel Knievel.
After graduating from Christian Brothers High in Butte, he attended Montana Western, a small NAIA school in nearby (65 miles away, which in Montana is “nearby”) Dillon, Montana.
Right out of college, he taught and coached for two years at Beatty, Nevada, another mining town with a population of 400 and a school with 39 students in grades 7-12. They played flag football. He also helped coach the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams. And taught a full class load. But it was a job, and it paid $5,000 a year.
From there, he returned to Butte and coached at Butte High for eight years, six as an assistant and two as the head coach. In 1968 he took his team to a 10-1 record, winning the state Class AA title and AA Coach of the Year honors.
He was hired at Montana State, where from 1970 through 1977 he was defensive coordinator. Under head coach Sonny Holland, the Bobcats won the National Title (then known as Division II) in 1976.
After Holland’s retirement following the 1977 season, our guy took over, and in his very first season as head coach, Montana State finished 8-2 and took second place in the Big Sky Conference. In his second year, they went 6-1 and won the conference title, but in years three and four the record tailed off, and he was fired. His record in four years was 21-19.
For three years, he served as offensive coordinator at Colorado State, then spent four years assisting Jack Elway at Stanford.
In 1989, he caught a big break when Dennis Erickson hired him to coach the defense at Miami. (Erickson had been an offensive assistant at Montana State while our guy was the DC, and Erickson had assisted Jack Elway at San Jose State.)
In his four years as Miami’s DC, the Hurricanes went 44-4, twice ranked Number One and twice ranked Number Three.
And then he left to return to Colorado State, this time as head coach.
The program was as bad as it could get. It had been almost 40 years since it had won a conference title. Since 1960, it had had seven winning seasons, and three winless seasons. In its entire history, it had played in just two bowl games. Among major colleges, it was in the bottom 10 in all-time winning percentage.
“I thought that if we were lucky, every third or fourth year we could win seven games and get to a bowl game,” he said later. “I was just hoping to keep my job for a few years.”
He kept it for 15 years. In that time, his teams won 108 games and lost 74. They won or shared six conference championships, played in nine bowl games, and won 10 or more games four times.
His 1992 team went 11-2 - still the best record in school history - and after beating Missouri in the Holiday Bowl, they wound up ranked 16th nationally.
Only one coach in CSU history, Harry Hughes, won more games (125), and it took him from 1911 through 1941 - 31 seasons - to do it.
Thanks to him, the annual game with Colorado became a major event, played in Denver’s packed Mile High stadium. He went 4-4 in the rivalry.
In 1994, he was named by Sports Illustrated as its Coach of the Year.
In 2005 he joined Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden and Frank Beamer as the only four active Division FBS coaches with 100 or more career wins at their current schools.
The field at CSU’s stadium is named in his honor.
Since stepping down as coach following the 2007 season, he has remained in Fort Collins and stayed active in university affairs.
For the past 15 years, he has owned and operated a popular Fort Collins Steakhouse that bears his name.
He has been inducted into the Montana and Colorado Sports Halls of Fame.
In an interview at the time of his induction into the Montana Sports Hall of Fame, he summed up his career - “Some of us are just born to be coaches.”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2024- "If the enemy
leaves a door open, you must rush in.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War*********** Take pity on me. This job’s not easy. See, twice a week I need to have a bunch of things to write about, and sometimes they’re not easy to find. During football season, of course, there’s always plenty to write about. But once the season’s over, it really drops off.
There’s not much going on worth writing about now, other than the usual coach here and there getting the axe or deciding to hang ‘em up. Nothing much going on…
Okay, okay…I lied. For many Americans, Wednesday, January 11, 2024 was one of those “I remember exactly where I was” days.
It wasn’t quite the attack on Pearl Harbor, or the assassination of President Kennedy, or the attack on the World Trade Center, but it was one of those days that you’ll remember, the day that - in order of occurrence - Pete Carroll’s job “evolved” into something other than being head coach of the Seahawks… Nick Saban announced his retirement at Alabama… and Bill Belichick and the Patriots broke up after 24 years together.
*********** Brain Droppings (credit for the term to the late, great George Carlin)…
CARROLL: First of all, I don’t give a sh— about the Seahawks, so there’s that.
Second of all, I thought his ass should have been fired after he cost the Seahawks a Super Bowl ring. Remember when they were down on the goal line in the closing moments, and instead of giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch he called - or allowed to be called - a pass? Remember what happened? (An interception.)
Third of all, I was disgusted that he had the gall to try to foist his “Hawk Tackling” on the rest of us, as if someone from the NFL - the place where football fundamentals go to die - had any standing to lecture us on how to teach the basics to our players.
Successor? I don’t give a sh—. Maybe Harbaugh? Seattle has a bit of an ownership problem in that the franchise is being run by Jody Allen, the sister of the late Paul Allen who’s administering his estate. Just as with his other property, the Portland Trail Blazers, she’s supposed to be looking for a buyer, but just as with the Blazers, she seems to enjoy things the way they are, and is in no hurry to sell. In addition, I’m told she’s being well compensated for her “efforts.”
***
SABAN: I feel bad for Alabama fans. Assuming that a youngster might be precocious enough to begin to follow football at the age of six, there’s not a Bama fan under the age of 23 who’s known anything other than success in football. They don’t know about the long, mostly dry run between Bear Bryant’s last year (1982) and Saban’s first year (2007). They don’t know that in that 24-year span, Alabama went through six coaches (seven if you count Mike Price, who was hired but never got to coach a game there), and during that time the Tide won exactly one national title. In that same time, they had SEVEN losing seasons. To put things in proper perspective, in Saban’s 28 years as a college head coach at four different schools, he never had a losing season. (Technically, because Alabama was forced to vacate several wins owing to NCAA violations under his predecessor, his first season’s record at Alabama is shown as 2-6. But on the playing field it was 7-6).
Why would Saban retire?
(1) He’s a notoriously hard worker and that’s the only way he knows how to do it. And at 72 he could be running out of gas.
(2) The combination of instant-transfer and NIL, and the resultant need to re-recruit every player on the roster - every year - has made every head coach’s job a whole lot tougher. (And a lot less fun - if he was ever in it for fun.)
(3) He just went through a tough year - successful, yes, in the win-loss column, but an uphill climb all the way - and in my opinion he doesn’t have great talent coming back.
Who succeeds him? This is a tough one. Certainly the people in Alabama will demand the very best. But those few coaches who fall into that “very best” category may very well weigh the benefits of staying right where they are against the perils of trying to follow in the steps of The Greatest There Ever Was - and decide it just ain’t worth it.
For sure, boosters who yearn for influence but were kept at a distance by Saban will try to take advantage of the vacuum created by his leaving, and it will be a major job for his successor to try to get them under control.
One thing the incoming coach must deal with immediately: with Saban’s retirement, a 30-day window has just opened - for Alabama players only - to enter the transfer portal.
Possible replacements (alphabetical):
Kalen DeBoer, Washington - He’s done a great job at Washington, but is a small-town guy from South Dakota up to dealing with the big-money boosters at Alabama who will be hard for any new guy to keep at arm’s length? At least if they hire him, he’ll be able to afford keep his OC, Ryan Grubb, who’s in great demand.
Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame - I’ve heard his name mentioned and I didn’t give it a second thought. I think he’s got the makings of a very good coach, but he’s only been a head coach - anywhere - for two years, and any Alabama AD who hired a guy with such scanty credentials would have a hell of problem defending his choice.
James Franklin, Penn State - Is he good enough? He did do a good job at Vanderbilt. Not a great job, but a good one. Likewise at Penn State. He’s not under any pressure at Penn State and he’s got at least seven years left on his contract, and with the Big Ten dropping its divisions, he’s finally got Michigan off his 2024 schedule. But he has picked up Washington.
Jim Harbaugh, Michigan - In Michigan, he walks on water now. Why would he trade that for the pressure of having to prove himself all over again - with recruiting, NIL and the transfer portal thrown into the mix? If he’s going anywhere, it’s to the NFL.
Brian Kelly, LSU - He’s been a winner everywhere he’s gone. And he’s proven, as head coach at Notre Dame and LSU, that he’s thick-skinned enough. I also think he’s driven to win a title. Yes, he’s 62. But Nick Saban took Alabama to the national title game six times and won it three times - after he turned 62.
Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss - He’s no longer the brash, obnoxious brat he once was. He’s outgrown that. He’s shown that he can coach - that he can do so at different places and at the highest level. He’s been doing it with a great emphasis on transfer talent - which may be the future of big-time football. How far can he take Ole Miss if he stays? How much better can he do with Bama’s resources? Those are the big questions. He’s got Bama connections. Would he have Saban’s blessing? (And is that important?)
Dan Lanning, Oregon - He could be a good choice. But it would be a risky hire. Yeah, he’s been a GA at Bama, and he was a very good DC at Georgia, and he’s done a good job at Oregon. But he’s only been a head coach for three years, and he’s still got a lot to learn before he’s ready for such a big stage. Besides, in games that really matter, his Ducks are 0-3 against Kalen DeBoer’s Washington Huskies - and in my opinion, his coaching has been the reason why. Eugene, Oregon is a relatively low-pressure place. Is he going to be able to say “No” to the big money guys, and keep the howling masses at bay so he can focus on football? (At press time, he made a big deal about announcing that he wasn’t going anywhere, which is coachtalk for “I haven’t been offered the job yet.”)
Mike Norvell, Florida State - He’s shown he can coach. He was quite successful in four years as head coach at Memphis and he took a Florida State team from the dregs to playoff contention in a short time. But if he’s interested in winning a national title, he’s probably hit the ceiling at FSU. He’s making $8 million, which Bama can easily top, and he’s got a $4 million buyout, which in today’s college football is pocket change.
Bill O’Brien, Currently unemployed - He’s got Bama connections, and good pro experience. His stay at Penn State was short, but he helped pull the program out from under the shadow of the Sandusky scandal. In six years as coach of the Houston Texans he went 52-44, and made the playoffs four times. But he started out 0-4 in his seventh year and he was fired. He has most recently been offensive coordinator of the Patriots.
Steve Sarkisian - He’s got the Bama connection and all that, but he’s got things going at Texas, and I doubt that Bama can offer him anything that Texas can’t.
Kirby Smart - Not a chance that he leaves Georgia. Would you?
Dabo Swinney - I know he’s a Bama guy originally, and I think he’d be a great hire for Alabama. He’s hit some speed bumps in the last few seasons - partly, some think, because of his resistance to using the Transfer Portal. But he’s been at Clemson for 21 years - 16 as head coach - and unless there are some problems between him and his bosses, I can’t see him picking up and moving assistants (and their wives and families) who’ve also been at Clemson for years.
HERE’S MY DARK HORSE CANDIDATE -
Ryan Day, Ohio State - He has five seasons under his belt at one of the most demanding jobs in college football. He’s 58-8 in that time. In his five seasons, he’s won fewer than 11 games just once - and that was 2020, when the Buckeyes played just eight games. Anybody who can coach at a place that calls for the head coach’s firing after they make it to the playoffs and then lose is certainly thick-skinned. He’s a very good recruiter. He has had to deal with the critics who say that all he did was step into the successful situation that Urban Meyer built, so there’s the possibility that he might be driven to prove himself elsewhere. His buyout is a “relatively” low $4.5 million.
***
BELICHICK: Is he done? Is that it? I hope not. On the other hand, he’s enjoyed an enormous amount of control in New England, and things might not work out so well, now that he’s out there among the great mass of stupid, egotistical owners who think whatever made them billions makes them smart about football. I admire what he’s accomplished, but I do have to admit that like many others I wonder how good a coach he is without Tom Brady.
*********** Betcha didn’t know that Carroll, Saban and Belichick are all of Croatian extraction.
*********** How quickly they forget. Michigan wins a national title on Monday night and on Wednesday Saban retires - and just like that, the Wolverines are yesterday’s news.
*********** At the news of Saban’s retiring, the Auburn people t-p’d the trees at Toomer’s Corner.
*********** Tough times lately for Seattle.
The Washington Huskies’ loss to Michigan was bummer enough.
But maybe you also read about the door blowing out of the side of the Alaska Air Lines plane. Alaska is based in Seattle.
And the plane was built by Boeing in Renton, Washington, just outside Seattle.
*********** On the ESPN GameDay preceding the title game (will somebody please come up with a name for the sucker?) there was a nice feature on the Harbaughs, father and sons.
What struck me was their saying that dad Jack Harbaugh, who was a college coach for 40 years (he won the NCAA I-AA title at Western Kentucky) is such a valuable resource for them, John with the Baltimore Ravens and Jim at Michigan. Think about what an advantage it is for any coach - and the Harbaugh brothers are at the top of their profession - to have someone they can turn to for help, advice or even criticism. Someone they can trust. Someone who knows his football. Someone who doesn’t have any ambitions, or any agenda other than wanting to help.
*********** On a Facebook page devoted to the WFL I read something by a former WFL player named Paul Johnson, one of three brothers from Cleveland, TN who played center for Tennessee.
I recognized the name and I thought I’d seen him in one of my old media guides (they called ‘em "press guides" back then) , and sure enough, I found this,
I showed him, and told him that based on who he shared the page with, he’d kept very good company in that media guide.
He wrote back… "whole year he had his hands behind me reaching for that ball. He was a leader and a wonderful player, my junior year and his senior year”
And now I can tell people I met a guy who snapped the ball to Condredge Holloway.
*********** The dominos fall…
Army joined the AAC and had to cancel its game at Wake Forest, originally scheduled for September 28.
Wake Forest, looking for a home game on that date, managed to get one with Louisiana.
But to make it work, Louisiana had to get out of its game at Michigan State.
It did, but that left Michigan State looking for an opponent.
It so happens that Oregon State is scheduled to play at Cal on that date, but if I were the Oregon State AD, I would move mountains - hang the cost! - to get the Spartans to come to Corvallis.
That’s because, when former Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith - an Oregon State alum - left to take the Michigan State job almost immediately following the Beavers’ last game, it left a very bad taste in the mouths of Oregon Staters. Now, he’s viewed by many of the Beavers’ faithful as a traitor, and I’d wager that if Oregon State could arrange to play Michigan State in Corvallis, they could charge $1,000 a ticket and the place would sell out an hour after they went on sale.
*********** Jeff Lamy, originally from Evanston, Illinois, was a roommate of mine in college, and a teammate on the football team. In 1982 he got involved in the development of the Oregon wine industry, and grew professionally along with it, to the point where he was involved as a consultant with at least 400 vineyards and wineries. But for the last several years of his life, he had to deal with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a relatively rare autoimmune disorder that attacks the nerves and can cause paralysis. Jeff passed away in 2014.
Recently, I posted something on Facebook to which his wife, Judy, responded, and I found it very moving.
“My husband Jeff spent 18 years in a wheelchair getting up every day to play a new game, largely because of his training in football. He loved the game, played and watched it his whole life. Thanks for teaching young people how to play the game of life and sometimes win. He was honored to play the game with you.”
*********** Claiming it was out of concern for the safety of young people, a California legislator has introduced a bill that would outlaw tackle football for children under 12.
There wasn’t any mention of outlawing surgery on children under 12 who’ve been convinced they need to transition to another “gender.”
*********** The Saints were close to the Falcons’ goal line, and Saints’ backup QB Jameis Winston was told by his coach to take a knee and run out the clock.
The Saints lined up in the take-a-knee formation, but Jameis Winston, instead of taking knee, handed the ball to a back, who ran in for a run-it-up score.
In spite of his insubordination, Jameis Winston, the last I heard, still had a job.
His stupid action could end up injuring a lot of players in the future, if defensive coaches decide that “take a knee” formation no longer means that, and instruct their players to disregard the formation and go hard.
Ironically, several years ago, when Greg Schiano was coaching the Buccaneers, several opposing teams took umbrage at his telling his defenses to go hard at “kneel-down” time.
As for the insubordination - actions like Winston’s were absolutely unheard of when there were only 26 teams and teams had only 40 players on their rosters, when there was no union, and even stars worried about keeping their jobs.
*********** Here’s a good one for ya: Only one college head coach has won 10-games in a season at four different NCAA Division I schools. (Hint 1: He is currently coaching. Hint 2: “Division I” can also include FCS)
Answer: Dave Clawson, of Wake Forest. Getting it correctly was Adam Wesoloski, of Pulaski, Wisconsin. Here are Coach Clawson’s records:
Fordham - 10-3 in 2003 (29-29 in 5 yrs)
Richmond - 11-3 in 2007 (29-20 in 4 yrs)
Bowling Green - 10-3 in 2013 (32-31in 5 yrs)
Wake Forest - 11-3 in 2021 (63-61 in 10 yrs)
Overall record: 153-141 in 24 years
Josh Montgomery of Berwick, Louisiana gets 1/2 credit because, being a devoted LSU fan, he first guessed Brian Kelly before getting Dave Clawson.
Brian Kelly was a good guess. He won 10 games or more at Cincinnati, Notre Dame and LSU. But he came up one win short at Central Michigan, where he went 9-4 in 2006.)
*********** One of the bits of advice I always give a young coach who’s applying for a job is to make sure that he has the right - with the approval of the AD, of course - to hire and fire his assistants.
How in the world are you going to be successful unless the assistants all believe that their success depends on your success?
So I found this bit of information in an article on our local paper announcing the resignation of the coach at Camas High. He has been successful in the short time he’s been at the job, and by all accounts he’s a good coach.
Jack Hathaway, who led the Camas Papermakers to three consecutive football league championships, has resigned as head coach but is expected to remain on staff as an assistant.
And then there was this quote by the AD: “We are grateful that Coach Hathaway will continue to coach as part of our varsity staff, and continue to impact our student-athletes.”
And I thought, hmmmm. Good coach or not, unless you’ve already got your next coach lined up and you’ve cleared it with him, it’s a hell of a thing to tell the new guy, “Oh, by the way, we’ve already got one assistant for you - the former head coach.”
*********** Hi Coach -
I wouldn't have known this otherwise, but because of you,
I believe Don James truly watered and nurtured the Nick Saban seedling. That's worth remembering.
God bless you coach!
John Rothwell, DC
Corpus Christi, Texas
It’s true and it’s worth remembering. And without Mike Lude, the AD at Kent State who gave Don James his first head coaching job, there might not have been a Don James!
*********** That Michigan OL opened such broad holes most of the game I would've liked to have seen somebody line them up for an interview--just a minute or so of recognition. No doubt about how well Coram, McCarthy, and Edwards played, but let's give those hole-openers just a little credit, please. It's a T-E-A-M, more than just the fleet-footed 'skill players'. Anyway, I had hoped the Huskies would win, but the better team won last night.
So, the shuffle in coaches at Army apparently has begun, and the list just presented is as baffling as the former one. Former OC Drew Thatcher is now the 'H Backs' coach. Huh? And Viti hasn't been moved back to his B Back role. Hope it works out. I've never understood the mumbo-jumbo regarding coaching assignments. Just tell us the guy's primary area of responsibility. When I read 'Assistant Head Coach and co-Offensive Line coach' I wonder what the HC really expects him to do.
I cannot disagree with your bowl summaries. But I think we also saw the beginning of the end for many lesser bowls. We didn't know until game time which players had opted out. And in some of the bowls the opt-outs, I believe, made the difference in deciding the winner.
Yeah, SDSU was the better team, but anyone watching noticed the talent difference between the Montana and SDSU quarterbacks.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
At one point during the National Championship game (second quarter and early third) I felt Michigan got away from their run game which riddled the Husky defense in the first quarter. I also noticed how Washington stacked the front in order to make it difficult for Michigan to run their zone scheme. Finally, Michigan went to more of a gap scheme in their run game later in the second half and POOF, it was over for Washington.
Yes, Jim Harbaugh is a quirky enigma. But no one can deny his football genetics. Jack Harbaugh was a helluva successful championship coach whose two competitive sons have also become championship coaches. Like father, like sons. Would love to see THAT movie!
Michigan's defense did a great job of keeping Michael Penix on his back foot all night. He was throwing off balance most of the time, and hurrying those throws. Dillon Johnson was not at full speed, and when Penix started playing hurt it obviously affected the Husky game plan. DeBoer should have watched your Zoom Clinic intros with John Madden.
Despite all the negativity surrounding the venue I thought Houston's NRG stadium turned out to be a viable location for the national championship game.
Speaking of game locations...South Dakota State and Montana filled Toyota Stadium in Frisco, TX for the FCS championship. Nice venue, but could we find a FOOTBALL stadium somewhere that could be better?
Army's 2024 schedule:
Lehigh H
at UNLV
Air Force H
Wake Forest H
Navy @ Landover, MD
UAB H
East Carolina H
Rice H
UTSA H
at Florida Atlantic
at North Texas
at Temple
at Tulsa
7 of their first 9 games are at home. 4 straight road games to end the regular season, then a possible conference championship game, before the Army-Navy game. Wait a minute...didn't they already play Navy earlier in the year?? That should NEVER happen. What happens if Army and Navy play for a conference championship? Fill that 5th game with another opponent...PLEASE!!
In my first head coaching stop our school (300 students) played football in Division 1. Our opponents included schools with enrollments over 2000. Because our school had been an all boys school for many years before (600 boys) the state association forced them to play up. Problem was when the school's enrollment went from 600 boys to 300 coed the school's administration and influential boosters chose to remain in Division 1. Well...while the other sports programs remained fairly competitive the football program wasn't. When I got there we spent two years in Division 1. After going 5-15 for those two years and seeing our participation continue to decline the new Principal and I made the decision to drop down to Division 2 in football. The old-timers weren't happy about it at first but after making two straight appearances in the Division 2 state semi-finals we put a lot of smiles back on those faces.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
For what it’s worth - Army had to cancel the Wake Forest game. And the “real” Army-Navy game (last game of the year) is a conference non-counter. I hope the fact that they played earlier in the season doesn’t take away any of the game’s luster.
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Levi Jackson was the first black man to play football at Yale, and the first to become captain of any Yale varsity sport. He nearly became the first black player in the modern NFL.
His father worked as a chef at the university, and he was born not far from New Haven in Branford, Connecticut. The first football game he ever saw was in the Yale Bowl in 1937, watching a Yale team whose star tailback Clint Frank, would win that year's Heisman Trophy.
After playing two years of high school ball at Branford High, he moved with his family to New Haven, where he finished his schooling at Hillhouse High. (Years later, Hillhouse would produce another football great in Floyd Little). His coach at Hillhouse, a former Yale player and coach named Reggie Root, encouraged him to apply to Yale, but with World War II going on, he instead joined the Army following graduation.
While in the Army, he played service football, and after his team beat the New York Giants, the Giants were so impressed that they offered him a sum said to be $10,000 to sign with them.
It would have made him the first black man to play in the modern NFL (post-1933), but his parents insisted that he go to college after the Army, and he rejected the Giants' offer. Instead, with the GI Bill paying $500 of the $600 tuition, he entered Yale in the fall of 1946, one of only three black men in an undergraduate student body of 8,500.
Eligible to play as a freshman, he started at fullback and punted, as Yale finished 7-1-1 and ranked 12th in the nation. His 806 yards rushing ranked fifth in the nation, and he was named third team All-American in addition to being named the outstanding football player in New England.
He was injured most of his sophomore year, but in his junior year a highlight of his career was scoring a touchdown in Yale’s 17-7 upset of Wisconsin.
Following the season, he was named to the All-East team.
But it was his election as captain of the next year’s Yale team that made national headlines. A black man even playing on a previously all-white Ivy team was news in itself, but for him be voted captain? By his teammates? The story was on the front page of the New York Times. Racial integration in sports was still new - Jackie Robinson had broken baseball’s color barrier less than two years earlier.
In a tradition dating back to 1880, Yale has never had co-captains. The football captaincy is a position of no little prestige, and his election was a sign of the great esteem in which he was held by his teammates.
Years later, he recalled the moment he learned of his election. “Bill Conway, who was the captain in 1948, raised a glass of champagne and said, 'Here's to the 1949 captain.’ When he mentioned my name, I almost fell out of my seat.''
So loved and respected was he by his fellow students that on the night before the opening game of his senior year, 3,000 of them took part in a torchlight parade in his honor. And in his farewell game, the traditional season-ender against Harvard, he ran 34 yards for the first touchdown and caught a pass for the second as Yale won, 29-6.
When his Yale football career came to an end, he held 13 different school records. He also lettered twice in basketball, playing as a reserve on Yale's 1948-49 team that made it to the NCAA tournament.
He majored in engineering and excelled academically, and one of his classmates, William Clay Ford, an heir to automobile fortune, persuaded him to sign on with the Ford Motor Company after graduation. Thus began a 32-year career with Ford, during which he would become the company’s first black executive, and finally retire as a vice-president.
Specializing in the area of personnel and labor relations, he spent nearly a year after the Detroit riots in 1967 "on loan" to a special committee of business and government people dedicated to helping the city recover; as a result of his proposals to improve the hiring and training of minorities, Ford hired 10,000 new people. In 1969, in recognition of his efforts, Ford named him its Citizen of the Year.
Among his other noteworthy accomplishments was his role in spearheading Ford's minority dealership program.
"We were classmates," William Clay Ford told the Detroit News. "He was extremely competent and talented. He did an outstanding job at Ford."
He served under two different presidents - Johnson and Nixon - on the Presidential Commission on White House Fellows, and the Selective Service Appeals Board.
In 1987, he received the Walter Camp Man of the Year Award for outstanding accomplishment in football and in citizenship.
He remained close to Yale by serving as a member of an alumni advisory group, and was active in interviewing prospective Yale students from Michigan, one of whom, it turns out, would go on to gain national fame as Dr. Benjamin Carson.
Wrote William N. Wallace, a Yale classmate who would go on to a long and respected career as a writer…
“I went on to become a sportswriter in New York and in future years dealt with countless stories that involved race, not all of them pleasant. There were more 'firsts', then numbers, percentages, countless counting of blacks and whites, along with the inevitable playing of various race cards.
“My finest racial moment had been back at Yale the time that no one gave white or black consideration when it came to Levi Jackson sitting on the Yale fence for the routine captain's photograph, the white Y on the blue jersey over his human body.”
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING LEVI JACKSON
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
*********** QUIZ: He was born in 1940 in Albertville, Alabama in what could best be called a hard environment. He was the fifth of eight children. His father never went past fourth grade, and his mother dropped out after fifth grade. He never saw a television until he was 15.
He didn’t play high school football until his senior year, but he played well enough as a fullback that his coach brought him to the attention of Bear Bryant. When he was recruited by Bryant he had to admit that he had never heard of the Alabama coach.
At Alabama, at 187 pounds, he played guard and defensive tackle, and was an All-SEC guard.
After graduating in 1964, at the suggestion of coach Bryant, he set out to be a coach, starting out as a graduate assistant at Alabama.
Then, after four years coaching the defensive line at Kentucky under former Bryant assistant Charlie Bradshaw, he was hired as head coach at Jacksonville State
From 1969 to 1973, he went 33-13-1 there.
There followed two years as defensive coordinator at Virginia Tech (under former Bryant assistant Jerry Claiborne) and one at Clemson, then he was promoted to become head coach at Clemson.
In his first year there, he took the Tigers to their first bowl game in 18 years, and in his second year, he took them to their first ACC title in 11 years, and a Number 7 ranking nationally. He was named ACC Coach of the Year both of those years. And then, after going 18-4-1 over two years, he left Clemson for Florida.
He fired up the Gator booster clubs around the state, staying in touch with them and letting threhead of every club know that he was expected to help recruit the best high school players in their area.
He wasn’t bashful about asking boosters to help, and he got Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, to donate enough money for a new, state-of-the-art weight room for the football team.
He went 0-10-1 in his first season, but then the Gators caught fire. The next year, they finished 8-4 and played in a bowl game. In 1983, the Gators went 9-2-1, their sixth-place finish in the AP rankings the school’s highest ranking ever.
But the year before, the NCAA had begun to look into rules violations in the Florida program, and early in the 1984 season it charged the Gators with more than 100 infractions, including spying on the practices of at least seven opponents, making cash payments to players, and permitting walk-ons to live in the athletic dormitory.
The university president immediately fired our guy and replaced him with his offensive coordinator, Galen Hall, as the Gators’ interim coach. Under Hall, the Gators would win the school’s first-ever SEC football title, but because of the infractions, the Gators were banned by the conference from playing in the Sugar Bowl.
His record as Florida was 33-26-3. He was only 43, but he never coached college football again.
In the meantime, Florida was placed on two years' probation and banned from playing in bowl games and appearing on television for two years. In addition, the Gators lost 20 scholarships over three years, and the SEC vacated the Gators’ SEC title.
In addition, the NCAA found violations that occurred during his tenure at Clemson, and as a result it put the Tigers and new coach Danny Ford on two years probation.
Unable to get another coaching job, our guy tried a number of business ventures, without success. Ten years after leaving Florida, he attempted suicide.
He was saved by a friend who had found the suicide note he left, then rushed to the remote scene and pulled him, half-conscious, from the car where he’d run a hose from the exhaust pipe through a barely-open rear winbow.
He recovered and was determined to be clinically depressed.
As a business associate and former swimming coach at Florida said, "Coaching was his life. He had found the one thing he loved to do, and he wasn't able to do it anymore, and that was very difficult for him to deal with."
He learned to deal with his depression, and in 1995 he actually spent a season coaching at a newly-opened high school near Lakeland, Florida. With undersized and inexperienced players, the team finished 1-9.
That year, appearing on NBC’s "Dateline," he said, "Did I violate some rules? Yes. Does that make me a cheater? If it does, yes I am. There wasn't room for anything but winning. Nothing. Winning was the sole obsession, to a fault."
He died of lung cancer in 2001. He was 60 years old.
In 2012 he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2024- “ The trouble
with experience is that by the time you have it, you’re too old to take
advantage of it.” Jimmy Connors*********** Congratulations to Michigan. They are true national champions.
But I've never seen Michael Penix play so poorly. But he had a great career and it's been fun watching him.
And give Michigan's defense credit.
But something was wrong with that guy.
I have no idea what it might have been, but I do know that that performance is going to cost him a lot of money.
I think that Oregon might have beaten Michigan. And I think Georgia probably would have.
And as for Washigton - I feel terrible for them, but to sum it up - as John Madden says on my Zoom every time -
"I know you think you can win by passing all the time... BUT YOU CAN'T!"
*********** You KNOW it was a big game when Rece Davis makes the trophy presentation instead of the usual shrill female sideline reporter.
*********** I can’t be bothered with minor matters like the whereabouts of the Secretary of Defense, or the tsunami of illegals crossing our border. I’m way too busy dealing with a matter of much more import - the news that (apparently) Army is going back to the triple option.
It appears they’ve conceded what we’ve been saying here for almost a year: the formula for failure at a service academy is trying to do what everybody else is doing, when you have to do it with guys willing to go to class, willing to put up with rigid regulations, and willing to serve in the military for five years when they’re done college.
The answer, of course, is to do something that few others care to do - run the ball - and do it in a way that no one else dares to do - with an under-center, triple option offense. That way, you can be the best at what you do. And you can be so different from other teams - so radical in your approach - that for opposing teams, as Army coach Jeff Monken himself has said, it’s almost like playing another sport!
Here’s the way the report came out, in Black Knight Nation, written by long-time Army reporter San Interdonato…
Cody Worley new OC?
The clock for Army’s 2024 football season may have started ticking during Jeff Monken’s postgame press conference following a win over Navy almost a month ago.
Monken was asked about Army’s transition from the under-center flexbone to a shotgun option this past season. The results (a 6-6 season) and scoring weren’t what Monken wanted and hoped in the new scheme. Monken indicated then that “there’s probably a need to have some of (under-center) elements in our offense.”
It appears Army will be making that move. Monken told ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg that Army is “switching to an offense that incorporates both traditional under-center option and some shotgun.” He also confirmed an earlier report by Matt Zenitz of 247 Sports of quarterback coach and run game coordinator Cody Worley’s promotion to offensive coordinator.
Worley was masterful in play-calling when Army switched to an under-center offense for one game against Coastal Carolina, a 28-21 win in November.
Drew Thatcher, Army’s offensive coordinator in his first season at West Point, is still on staff. There is likely to be some shuffling of position assignments among the coaching staff with the use of fullbacks and potentially slotbacks with more under-center option plays.
Both Rittenberg and Zenitz reported that running backs coach Darren Paige will not return after one season.
The decision to bring back more under-center option isn’t shocking. Army scored two offensive touchdowns or less in seven of its nine 2023 games against FBS teams when operating the gun option. The Black Knights went 159 minutes without scoring a point in the middle of the season.
And with the success of the under-center option and a season-high 365 rushing yards) in Coastal Carolina win, it seems logical to go back. Worley has the most experienced on Army’s offensive coaching staff in the under-center option.
Much of Army’s roster was recruited to play in the offense. Quarterback Bryson Daily didn’t miss a beat running the scheme against Coastal Carolina. Kanye Udoh, Hayden Reed, Markel Johnson and Jake Rendina can certainly fill the fullback (B-back) role. Tyrell Robinson and Miles Stewart should be equally as effective or more effective as slotbacks.
Have to wait and see what impact the offense move has on recruiting. Army has commitments from some accomplished throwing quarterbacks.
http://blackknightnation.com/reports-worley-promoted-to-oc-offense-bringing-back-under-center-option/
*********** A typical reaction to the Army news from hard-core Army fans, this one a former Army player who for years has written a very informative newsletter sent out to fellow hard-cores…
Guys:
Good news! (No, GREAT news!)
Black Knight Nation just posted that Army 2023 QB Coach and Run Game Coordinator Worley has been promoted to OC for 2024, based primarily on the sterling job he did guiding the old under-center Triple Option vs Coastal Carolina after just one week's prep.
Following that game I said it was the best game plan I had seen in several years. Worley called all the plays vs CC since new OC Thatcher did not know the under-Center Triple Option playbook or terminology. Worley adeptly called mis-direction, jet sweeps, play-action rollouts, quick bubble screens/slants, all things that old OC Davis did not call for the past several years, which IMO contributed greatly to his being let go more so than the weak claim that the new cut block rules killed the Triple Option. (New blocking rules didn't seem to impact AF's Triple Option run game.)
Kudos to HC Monken for quickly admitting that the Shotgun Offense new OC Thatcher brought with him from Division II Nebraska-Keaney simply did not work in Div. I. The new Shotgun Offense scored just 2 TDs in 7 of 9 games. It went for 159 straight minutes without a score.
IMO, the Army D played well enough in 2023 that with a better Offense we could easily have been 8-4, 9-3, or, (with a little bit of luck) even 10-2. Woulda/Coulda!
Can't wait to see what new OC Worley will bring to the Army Offense in 2024 against several new CUSA foes, many who have not faced the old Triple Option.
Hopefully over the off-season OC Worley can improve QB Daily's throwing mechanics over the off season/Spring Drills and design some easier throws to help him with his accuracy. Worley also needs to come up with some better designed OL pass protections to cut down on too numerous QB sacks/pressures.
In addition, IMO the under-Center Triple Option better utilizes the current personnel, as the Black Knight Nation suggests.
Beat Navy!
I wrote him…
Very well written.
The new blocking rules also didn’t prevent Harding from running the Triple Option and winning the Divison II championship and setting an all-time All-Level NCAA rushing record (6000+ yards).
My only concern is that Monken MUST get rid of the shotgun gurus on staff. He simply must have everyone on board.
One item in favor of the return to the “Army offense” is that to a certain extent it makes Army’s offense transfer-portal-proof because no other college (except other academies) has any interest in your triple option QBs, linemen or fullbacks.
Beat Navy!
*********** Is South Dakota State the new North Dakota State? The Jackrabbits won their second-straight NCAA FCS title with a 23-3 win over Montana. 23-3 doesn’t sound like much of a beat-down, but it was. Montana was never in the game.
The Jackrabbits controlled the game as they won their second straight NCAA FCS title, and extended their winning streak to 29 games.
And next year, if they have to play that game in a f—king soccer stadium, can they at least cover that “SOCCER HALL OF FAME” sign behind one of the end zones???
*********** You think, do you, that things are purer down there in FCS?
Writes Montana sports reporter Bill Speltz in The Missoulian, Montana’s future is bright, because being in the title game and getting national exposure means…
“boosters and businesses pony up more money for name, image and likeness. Money that bolsters a program, attracting recruits and preventing proven players like South Dakota State running back Isaiah Davis, an NFL prospect, from bolting to an FBS team.”
*********** The conniving continues with the College Football Playoff (CFP) expected to change its 12-team format from 6 + 6 (six conference champions + six at-large entries) to 5 + 7, effectively declaring the Pac-12 dead, and giving its once-automatic berth to an additional at-large team (undoubtedly one from either the SEC or the Big Ten).
It requires a unanimous vote by all conferences, which would give the Pac-2 a veto, but evidently they’re going to use the fact that the Pac-2 has fewer than eight members to remove it as a conference. And there go any hopes the Pac-2 might have had of reconstituting.
Truthfully, the idea of five conference champions - which will mean including one from the Group of 5 - seems ridiculous, considering the vastness of the gap between Power 5 and Group of 5 that was made abundantly clear this past bowl season…
OREGON 45, LIBERTY 6 - Liberty was Conference USA Champion and the highest-ranked Group of 5 team. Oregon could have scored more.
BOSTON COLLEGE 23, SMU 14 - SMU was American Athletic champion. BC was barely bowl-eligible.
UCLA 35, BOISE STATE 22 - Boise was Mountain West Champion. UCLA was the Pac-12’s seventh-place team.
DUKE 17, TROY 0 - Troy was Sun Belt Champion. Duke started out 4-0, then lost starting QB Riley Leonard and finished the regular season 7-5.
KANSAS 49, UNLV 36 - UNLV was Mountain West runner-up. Kansas tied for seventh in the Big 12.
VIRGINIA TECH 41, TULANE 20 - Tulane was American Athletic runner-up. Tech was barely bowl-eligible at 6-6.
MINNESOTA 30, BOWLING GREEN 24 - Bowling Green was 7-5. Minnesota, at 5-7, wasn’t even bowl-eligible
ONLY TWO GROUP OF FIVE TEAMS DEFEATED POWER 5 OPPONENTS
SOUTH FLORIDA 45, SYRACUSE 0 - USF finished 5th in American Athletic. Syracuse was the worst team in all the bowlss
MEMPHIS 36, IOWA STATE 14 - Memphis finished 4th in American Athletic. Memphis won this one, fair and square.
Meanwhile, a Group of 5 AD has seen the light, and realizing that there’s almost zero chance of a Group of 5 team ever winning so much as one playoff game, he’s suggested that maybe it’s time for a playoff for Group of 5 teams only.
Great idea. The first step in breaking up FBS football into two clear divisions - pro and semi-pro.
*********** Without getting into it at great length, I had to laugh at the kerfuffle over the Lions’ being penalized for an offensive lineman’s “failure to report” as an “eligible receiver” for a 2-point play.
Is there any really good reason why the NFL continues to ignore the very simple rules of eligibility that apply to the high school and college game?
(1) You must wear an eligible number. No exceptions.
(2) You must line up off the line (in the backfield) or on the end of the line.
I fail to understand why, with 53-man rosters and plenty of tight-end types around, teams see a need to insert players with ineligible numbers into eligible spots - after first announcing to the world what they’re doing.
*********** It’s hard for me to watch Michael Penix throw for 430 yards against Texas in a playoff game or Bo Nix going 28 of 35 for 5 TDs against unbeaten Liberty without getting angry at the Heisman’s having been awarded weeks ago to some guy who, having won it, couldn’t even be bothered to play in his team’s bowl game.
The obvious way to prevent a repetition of this farce is to hold the Heisman voting after the championship game.
Nice try, Wyatt.
Diplomatically but firmly, ESPN replied to the suggestion that it had the rights to the Heisman Award Show, and it was scheduled - for all eternity, evidently - for the last Saturday of the college season, when the only other major college football going on was the Army-Navy game, and there was no chance of its being moved.
Anybody else see the opening I see?
Time to create an award for what happens after the Heisman’s been forgotten - in the playoffs. Time to recognize the MVP of the Playoff, just as the NHL does with its Conn Smythe Trophy for the MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
My prediction? As big as The Playoff is going to be, within ten years the Heisman will be a poor second to the (this space for sale) Trophy.
*********** When did they decide to replace “before” with “ahead of?”
*********** Before (sorry - “ahead of”) the West Virginia-North Carolina game (sorry - no plugs for your stupid sandwich spread) we were treated to a demo of the helmet/headset that is supposed to put an end to sign-stealing. Dan Mullen stood on a sideline and babbled “instructions” while another announcer held a microphone next to the speaker inside the helmet. I couldn’t understand a damn thing I heard.
*********** During bowl season - as during the regular season - I saw counter blocking being used effectively in a lot of ways. Even as a screen. On Tuesday night’s Zoom I’ll show a sampling of the different uses for counter blocking that I saw during the bowls. The counter play itself is one of the main reasons why I went to the run and shoot offense - 40+ years ago - and soon transitioned to the Wing-T.
*********** Lots of Las Vegas Raiders players have come out publicly saying that they’d like interim head coach Antonio Pierce to become their head coach. But not so fast, fellas. We don’t operate like that around here. Even if they do simply want to promote Pierce to their head coaching job, the Raiders will still have to go through the NFL’s hiring process which, because of the so-called Rooney rule, includes interviewing a “minority.” Wait - you mean you can’t simply remove the “interim” from the title of the “minority” (Antonio Pierce) who’s been your interim head coach for the last nine games of the season? No. You can’t. Here in the NFL we have a process, you see, and you must go through it. So, yes, this really does mean that even if the Raiders already know that they want him as their head coach, they still have to make Antonio Pierce go through the whole damn interview process.
(Watch - after my little rant here, they’ll go ahead and interview Antonio Pierce. And then hire Jim Harbaugh.)
*********** Back in November, the Quips of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, playing up three classes, took home the PIAA Class 4A state title. It was the fifth state championship in the school’s history.
Back in 2019, although its boys’ enrollment should have placed it in Class 1A, the school voluntarily agreed to move up two classes, to 3A.
But in 2021, despite their already playing against schools two classes higher, the state association, the PIAA, using a formula intended to use factors other than just enrollment to equalize competition, moved them up another class - to 4A. This meant that with an enrollment of 117 boys, they were playing schools three times their size.
So what happened? The Quips won the 2021 4A State Championship. Ever quick to recognize and reward excellence, the PIAA moved them up another class - to Class 5A. But this time Aliquippa appealed.
“We were not comfortable playing 4A, that was not something we wanted to do, and expressed our frustration with the 4A cycle,” said the Aliquippa superintendent at the time. “Then we get a letter now saying we have to play 5A, which is even more ridiculous than playing 4A.”
In their appeal, Aliquippa argued that the safety of their players would be at risk if they had to play against 5A schools with much larger enrollments and more resources.
They won their appeal, and stayed in 4A.
But then they went and screwed up. They won the 4A state championship again this year, and as you might expect, the PIAA was waiting for them again: welcome to 5A, Quips.
Said the PIAA:
“Aliquippa has the opportunity to appeal that determination pursuant to the policy. The school has until January 10, 2024 to submit an initial appeal.”
Aliquippa said it plans to appeal this decision.
*********** Just in case you had any question about what a behemoth the NFL is…
*********** In a recent Wall Street Journal article about Travis Kelce, writer J. R. Moehringer told of a moment in Kelce’s career that had a major impact on him.
When Travis Kelce was a young man, his college football coach pulled him aside one day, and told him the secret of life: everybody you meet in this world is either a fountain or a drain.
“I need fountains,” the coach growled at Kelce. “I don’t need f——king drains. Travis, you’re f——king draining me! “
(I’m guessing that the “college football coach” was Brian Kelly, then at Cincinnati.)
*********** Here’s a good one for ya: Only one college head coach has won 10-games in a season at four different NCAA Division I schools. (Hint 1: He is currently coaching. Hint 2: “Division I” can also include FCS)
*********** Two awards that deserve a lot more respect than the phony-ass Heisman are the Joe Moore Award and the Burlsworth Trophy.
The Joe Moore Award, named for the late, great offensive line coach at Pitt and Notre Dame, goes to the “Most Outstanding Offensive Line Unit in College Football,” and the selection committee consists mostly of guys who’ve played on the offensive line themselves. (This year’s award winner: The Washington Huskies’ offensive line.)
The Burlsworth Trophy is awarded to “the most outstanding FBS college football player who began his career as a walk-on,” and it’s named for Brandon Burlsworth, who walked on at Arkansas, eventually became an All-American, then tragically was killed in an automobile accident shortly after being drafted by the Colts. This year’s winner was Missouri running back Cody Schrader.
*********** Don Read, former coach at Portland State, Oregon, Oregon Tech and Montana, died this past weekend at 90. He was very well respected anyplace he coached, and was a pass-first coach at a time when everyone else was running the ball.
By Ryan Clarke | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Don Read, the former football coach at Portland State and University of Oregon who went on to win a national championship with the University of Montana, died Wednesday at 90.
Read’s son, Bruce, confirmed his father’s passing to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Memories of his father as a coach, mentor and grandfather stand out as tributes to Read are sprouting up across social media, particularly in Montana circles as the Grizzlies prepare to play for the FCS national championship on Sunday.
“We met at 7:30 every morning as a football staff and he would tell each coach what he was supposed to do that day,” said Bruce Read, who was the special teams coach for his father at Montana prior to stints at Oregon State and in the NFL. “He was very organized and motivated, and did a great job of coaching the coaches.
“He was a great person who touched many hearts and lives in a positive way. I can’t tell you how many people have reached out.”
Don Read is a member of the Portland State athletics hall of fame class of 1999, having coached the Vikings for two stints, from 1968-71 and 1981-85. He was the first winning football coach in Portland State history, and in his second stint was among five finalists for national coach of the year after leading the Vikings to what was then the school’s best-ever record (8-3) in football.
“I was a student when he was first there, but I was working in the athletic department,” former Vikings softball coach and fellow PSU hall of fame inductee Teri Mariani said. “The football coach at a university is often held in such high esteem, and for me, he was one of the friendliest coaches in our athletic department. He was so friendly, always had a smile on his face. I just loved how kind he was, because people I knew at other schools never even saw their football coach, let alone talked to them.”
In between his stints with PSU, Read was an assistant coach with the Oregon Ducks for two seasons before serving as head coach from 1974-76. He then spent four seasons at Oregon Tech before returning to Portland State.
“When he came back the second time, I was already coaching, so he was kind of like a peer,” Mariani said. “But I could never look at him that way. I just held him in such high regard because he helped me as a young coach. He was always willing to talk, and always made time for me, and that’s the thing that really stood out. Here I was, just a little peon softball coach, and if I had a question or I needed a moment of his time, it was always, ‘you bet.’ He was a mentor to me.
“It made me realize how important that was, to help other coaches. Any time we had new coaches, especially young head coaches where it was their first job, I always tried to make sure to be there for them. I would sometimes even be the one to reach out, ask how their games were this weekend, whether they had any issues. I knew how important (Read’s) role was for me, and I tried to follow that model.”
Read took the Montana job in 1986, eventually leading the Grizzlies to three consecutive seasons of 10-plus wins — capped off by a 13-2 record and the program’s first national title in Read’s final year of coaching in 1995. He is credited for establishing something of a dynasty in Missoula, with the program achieving 25 consecutive winning seasons from 1986 to 2011 and winning another national title in 2001 after Read’s departure.
“It wasn’t a surprise at all that he had the success he did at Montana,” Mariani said. “There are some people who you root for to have that opportunity because of the person they are, the coach they are, how they treat their coaches and athletes. You were always going to root for Don Read. That guy could warm your heart the moment he said hello.”
https://www.oregonlive.com/sports/2024/01/former-portland-state-oregon-football-coach-don-read-dies-at-90.html
*********** Every so often I come across an obituary of a man who lived such an amazing life that I just have to share it. This one was sent to me by a member of the 1958 West Point (Army) football team, of which this man, Bill Gunlock, was a coach…
William L. (Bill) Gunlock, age 95, of Kettering, Ohio, went to be with the Lord on January 2, 2024. Bill was a strong-willed, passionate, patriotic, and generous man who loved life, believed in the value of hard work, and cherished his family above all else. Bill had a quiet but strong belief in God, and in recent years he had commented often on being content and satisfied with his life.
Bill was born in Chillicothe, Ohio on September 20, 1928 to Walter and Ethel Gunlock. He graduated from Chillicothe High School in 1948 where he was named an All-Ohio Lineman in football and was selected to play in the 1947 Ohio All- Star game in Canton, Ohio. This is where he met his lifelong friend, future teammate, and coaching associate, Glenn "Bo" Schembechler. Bill received a full football scholarship to attend Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and was a three-year letterman as an offensive guard. Bill was a member of the 1948 and 1950 Mid-American Conference championship teams, the latter of which won the 1951 Salad Bowl (now known as the Fiesta Bowl). This victory propelled Miami’s head coach Woody Hayes to The Ohio State University's head coaching job beginning in 1951. Bill graduated from Miami University in 1951 with a BS degree in Education and dreamed of a career in teaching and coaching high school football.
Following college, the Army came calling. After completing basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Bill served a two-year stint at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas where he was assigned to special services and played football for the military team. Following discharge, Bill began his football coaching career as an assistant coach at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio under Coach Paul Hoernemann. In the ensuing decade, Bill quickly ascended the college football coaching ranks. He coached the offensive line at Bowling Green State University in 1955-57 under Coach Doyt Perry where Bill was recognized as an outstanding recruiter and credited with bringing in Jack Harbaugh (father of John, head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, and Jim, head coach at the University of Michigan) and Ron Blackledge (father of Todd, a star at Penn State). Dayton-based team members Ed Phillips, Bob Colburn, and Bob Zimpher, and all other players on the 1959 Championship Team were all inducted into the Bowling Green Hall of Fame.
Bill moved on to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York as the offensive line coach and coordinator under the famous Coach Earl "Red" Blaik. Bill was instrumental in developing Army's "Lonesome End Offense" and helped lead the 1958 team to an undefeated season and third place national ranking. Some of the outstanding players on the 1958 team were Pete Dawkins (Heisman Trophy winner and Rhodes Scholar), Bob Anderson (All-American halfback), Bill Carpenter (the "Lonesome End" All-American), and Bob Novogratz (hailed the nation's outstanding lineman and All-American).
Following his three years at West Point, Bill became the defensive coordinator at The Ohio State University under Coach Woody Hayes and alongside a lifelong friend, fellow Miami University lineman, and future University of Michigan head football coach Bo Schembechler. As Hayes's first defensive coordinator during his tenure at Ohio State, Bill played a pivotal role in the Buckeyes 8-0-1 1961 national championship winning team by installing the formidable Army defensive formation "The Offset 5-4". He coached great players including Daryl Sanders and Bob Vogel (first round draft choices), Paul Warfield (All-American), Bob Ferguson, Gary Moeller, Dave Tingley, Billy Joe Armstrong, Bill Mrukowski, John Mumme, and many others. Bill claimed that Billy Joe Armstrong was the best two-way football player he ever coached. After returning to Ohio State for the 1962 season, Bill decided to leave coaching in February 1963. He often reminisced fondly about his days on the gridiron, the lives he touched, and the wonderful group of friends that he had the good fortune to meet as a player and a coach. He was particularly proud of having the privilege of coaching three undefeated teams and working with four coaches who ultimately were inducted into the National College Football Hall of Fame.
In March of 1963, Bill embarked on a career in real estate appraisal, which began at the Cole-Layer-Trumble Company (CLT) in Dayton, Ohio. After several years learning the appraisal business from his mentor John Cole, in 1970 Bill became CLT's president. Following CLT's merger with American Appraisal Company, the combined company went public. Bill departed the combined company to start his own full-service appraisal services and data processing company, Sabre Systems and Service, Inc. Through Bill’s leadership, Sabre pioneered the development of a computer assisted appraisal program called Sabre Market Data Analysis (SMDA), as well as many other software programs that were used by local governments. Sabre grew rapidly to become a leader in the appraisal industry and was acquired in 1989 by a New York Stock Exchange-listed company. Bill noted often that his time as a business owner was the most exciting and rewarding period of his professional career. He thrived on competition, whether it came on the football field or in the boardroom.
Beginning in 1985 and continuing until 2000, Bill returned to his rural roots, where he owned and managed a 5000-acre farming operation near his childhood home in Chillicothe, Ohio. The farm grew grain and raised registered Polled Hereford beef cattle and registered American Quarter Horses for cutting events. Bill enjoyed plowing his fields on his prized John Deere tractors and hauling grain to market with his semi-trailer truck. He also took time for long contemplative horseback rides with his son Brad along the scenic banks of the Scioto River.
In 2000, Bill sold his farm in Chillicothe and replaced it with a 700-acre ranch in Jacksboro, Texas where he and Sandy continued their horse breeding operation with the highly successful breeding stallion SR Instant Choice. While in Texas, Bill helped Sandy restore their home, a historic 1860s Victorian home in Jacksboro, and he became quite adept at trapping wild boar, clearing mesquite trees, and building ponds (called “tanks” in Texas) on his property with his Caterpillar D6R bulldozer, a machine that was very much near toˇhis heart. Bill's affinity for his bulldozer was no surprise to those who knew him. He once summed-up his interest in all things mechanical with the statement, "If it has an engine, I like it".
True to his maxim, Bill also enjoyed riding motorcycles and snowmobiles with his boys at the northern Michigan cottage "Pine Stump", driving speed boats, sports cars, and flying airplanes. Bill held a multi-engine instrument rated pilot's license for over 30 years and clocked over 5,000 hours in his own Beechcraft King Air.
Bill's professional successes cultivated a deep commitment to giving back to the institutions that had helped to shape him throughout his life. At Miami University, Bill formerly served as a member of the Board of Trustees, was a member of the Prodesse Society, and was inducted into Miami University's Athletic Hall of Fame. He was also a member of The Ohio State University's President's Club and the Canfield Society, a life member of the National College Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, trustee emeritus of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, a member of the Foundation Board for the Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, a life member of the American Quarter Horse Association and the National Cutting Horse Association, the Former Texas Rangers Foundation, and the National Rifle Association, and a member of the association of Ohio Commodores, Moraine Country Club, the Dayton Agonis Club, and a former member of the Dayton Bicycle Club.
Throughout his life, Bill was a generous supporter of his churches, Far Hills Baptist Church under Dr. Kenneth Mahanes and Fairhaven Church under Dr. David Smith. He also supported the Dayton arts community, including the Victoria Theatre, the Dayton Art Institute, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, The Schuster Performing Arts Center, and the Dayton History Museum and Carillon Historic Park. Just recently, Bill was inducted into the Chillicothe High School Hall of Fame. Bill's enthusiasm for life and his vibrant spirit will be forever in the hearts of his family and friends. He will be a Miami "Redskin" "as long as the wind blows". He will be greatly missed. God Bless and Rest in Peace.
A memorial service and celebration of life officiated by Pastor Dr. David Smith will be at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 13, 2024 at Fairhaven Church, Centerville, Ohio and will be followed by a burial service at David's Cemetery. Family and friends are invited to attend the burial service or may choose to go directly to the reception at the Moraine County Club immediately following the memorial service. Funeral preparations will be handled by Routsong Funeral Home, Kettering. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Fairhaven Church or Miami University's Athletic Red and White Club.
Damn. The man sounded like a protagonist from one of John Vermillion’s adventure novels. A “Most Interesting Man in the World” kind of guy. Personally, I’d like to see a TV series based on the him at various stages in his life. I’ve even got a name for the show: “GUNLOCK”
*********** Coach:
I had a wager (in my head only) that Frank Ryan would be today's quiz subject. Couple of things to add to your writeup: after sitting the bench in LA for four seasons and doing mostly the same in his first two seasons with the Browns, Blanton Collier replaced Paul Brown. It's said that Ryan found his math Muse in Collier, who had taught Algebra in HS. Ryan loved Collier's calm, patient way of explaining things (as did Jim Brown, who said exactly that). Second, the cause of death sadly was Alzheimer's, which, as we know, is no respecter of mental capacity. Third, throughout his 10 years as Yale AD, he continued to teach. While playing for the Browns, he spent offseasons teaching at Case Western Reserve. So, in all, he taught at Rice, Case, and Yale. Fourth, in the job working on behalf of Congress, he had 200 people in his employ. Fifth, in his final season or two, he was getting two or three cortisone injections a week--one on Wednesday, so he could practice and one on Sunday so he could play. The injections themselves did considerable damage; for example, a needle struck a bone in his arm, doing permanent damage to it. Quite a man.
Names of Bowl Games: How many viewers were thinking what I was when they first read "TransPerfect'? And why no mention of SoFi, whose CEO is former great Army LB Anthony Noto? If you haven't looked into his background, it's rich.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
Montana’s offense must have forgotten how to get the ball to that Bergen kid. QB is having a rough day.
SDSU has an outstanding football team, and a Governor to boot!
Have to disagree with you on your Top 10.
Michigan, Washington, Georgia, Texas, Oregon, Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State, Ole Miss, and Penn State would have been my picks.
Analytics, maybe. I’d still go with my gut.
Clock management. Ever attend a clinic where THAT was a presentation topic?
Gotta admit, South Dakota State and North Dakota State DO have the chops to play with the big boys.
Speaking of big boys… I give it two years before Oregon State and Wazzu officially hook up with some of the MWC and call it the PAC-WEST.
Have a great week!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Frank Ryan may well be the most brilliant man ever to play in the National Football League.
Famed sportswriter Red Smith once wrote that his team’s offense was made up of “a quarterback who understood Einstein’s Theory of Relativity - and ten guys who didn’t even know there was one. “
He played high school ball at Paschal High School in Fort Worth, and although he was admitted to Yale, he became the first in his family not to go there, choosing instead to go to Rice. There, he majored in physics while sharing play-calling duties with another future NFL quarterback, King Hill.
Drafted by the Rams, he played a backup role for four seasons while continuing with his graduate studies, earning his Ph.D from Rice in mathematics. (His dissertation was entitled "Characterization of the Set of Asymptotic Values of a Function Holomorphic in the Unit Disc.”
Eager to play more, he threatened to quit unless he was traded, and got his wish and was sent to the Cleveland Browns. There, he became the starter when Jim Ninowski was injured.
In 1964, his third year with the Browns, he established himself as one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks.. He threw for 2,404 yards, and led the NFL with 25 touchdown passes. The Browns went 10-3-1, and in the NFL championship game against the Baltimore Colts, he threw three touchdown passes to Gary Collins to upset the heavily favored Colts, 27–0.
While quarterbacking the Browns, he taught mathematics classes in the morning at Case Western Reserve University.
He was way ahead of anyone else in seeing the value of what are today called “analytics.” Having learned how to program a computer, he tried to persuade his coaches of the potential advantage of using computers to dig more deeply into statistics, but found no interest. Only after being acquired at the end of his career by the Redskins was he able to make headway with their new coach, Vince Lombardi, who agreed to fund a project. But when Lombardi succumbed to cancer, the idea died with him.
After retirement from football, he was hired by the US House of Representatives as its Director of Information Services, and played a major role in installing the electronic voting system that is still in use today.
He finally managed to make it to Yale when in 1977 he was named its athletic director, a position he held for 10 years. The school got its money’s worth - he also taught math classes.
In 1990, he returned to Rice as Vice-President for External Affairs (essentially, fund-raising) while also serving as professor of computational and applied mathematics.
After retirement he moved to rural Vermont with his wife, Joan, whom he met while they were undergraduates at Rice. She became one of the first female sportswriters, writing a weekly column for a Cleveland newspaper before joining the staff of the Washington Post.
In the days when NFL quarterbacks had to be as tough as any man on the field, he was knocked cold in the first half of a game by Bears’ linebacker Dick Butkus, but returned in the second half to throw three touchdown passes to lead the Browns to victory.
In his career, he completed 1,090 passes in 2,133 attempts, for 16,042 yards and 149 touchdowns. He made it to the Pro Bowl three straight years.
Frank Ryan was the last quarterback to take the Cleveland Browns to an NFL championship.
He died on New Year’s Day (2024) at the age of 87
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING FRANK RYAN
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
*********** Hugh
I appreciate you making the first quiz of the new year a Cleveland Brown.
He is definitely the smartest man to play for my Browns. Maybe ever in the NFL.
Doctor Frank Ryan was his name and a player that has never received his proper due as quarterback of the Browns. He and Gary Collins certainly destroyed the Colts in the 1964 championship game.
We are still waiting for a quarterback to get us another championship. Maybe his name is Flacco!
See you Tuesday.
David Crump
Owensboro, Kentucky
*********** QUIZ: He was the first black man to play football at Yale, and the first to become captain of any Yale varsity sport. He nearly became the first black player in the modern NFL.
His father worked as a chef at the university, and he was born not far from New Haven in Branford, Connecticut. The first football game he ever saw was in the Yale Bowl in 1937, watching a Yale team whose star tailback Clint Frank, would win that year's Heisman Trophy.
After playing two years of high school ball at Branford High, he moved with his family to New Haven, where he finished his schooling at Hillhouse High. (Years later, Hillhouse would produce another football great in Floyd Little). His coach at Hillhouse a former Yale player and coach named Reggie Root, encouraged him to apply to Yale, but with World War II going on, he instead joined the Army following graduation.
While in the Army, he played service football, and after his team beat the New York Giants, the Giants were so impressed that they offered him a sum said to be $10,000 to sign with them.
It would have made him the first black man to play in the modern NFL (post-1933), but his parents insisted that he go to college after the Army, and he rejected the Giants' offer. Instead, with the GI Bill paying $500 of the $600 tuition, he entered Yale in the fall of 1946, one of only three black men in an undergraduate student body of 8,500.
Eligible to play as a freshman, he started at fullback and punted, as Yale finished 7-1-1 and ranked 12th in the nation. His 806 yards rushing ranked fifth in the nation, and he was named third team All-American in addition to being named the outstanding football player in New England.
He was injured most of his sophomore year, but in his junior year a highlight of his career was scoring a touchdown in Yale’s 17-7 upset of Wisconsin.
Following the season, he was named to the All-East team.
But it was his election as captain of the next year’s Yale team that made national headlines. A black man even playing on a previously all-white Ivy team was news in itself, but for him be voted captain? By his teammates? The story was on the front page of the New York Times. Racial integration in sports was still new - Jackie Robinson had broken baseball’s color barrier less than two years earlier.
In a tradition dating back to 1880, Yale has never had co-captains. The football captaincy is a position of no little prestige, and his election was a sign of the great esteem in which he was held by his teammates.
Years later, he recalled the moment he learned of his election. “Bill Conway, who was the captain in 1948, raised a glass of champagne and said, 'Here's to the 1949 captain. When he mentioned my name, I almost fell out of my seat.''
So loved and respected was he by his fellow students that on the night before the opening game of his senior year, 3,000 of them took part in a torchlight parade in his honor. And in his farewell game, the traditional season-ender against Harvard, he ran 34 yards for the first touchdown and caught a pass for the second as Yale won, 29-6.
When his Yale football career came to an end, he held 13 different school records. He also lettered twice in basketball, playing as a reserve on Yale's 1948-49 team that made it to the NCAA tournament.
He majored in engineering and excelled academically, and one of his classmates, William Clay Ford, an heir to automobile fortune, persuaded him to sign on with the Ford Motor Company after graduation. Thus began a 32-year career with Ford, during which he would become the company’s first black executive, and finally retire as a vice-president.
Specializing in the area of personnel and labor relations, he spent nearly a year following the Detroit riots in 1967 "on loan" to a special committee of business and government people dedicated to helping the city recover; as a result of his proposals to improve the hiring and training of minorities, Ford hired 10,000 new people. In 1969, in recognition of his efforts, Ford named him its Citizen of the Year.
Among his other noteworthy accomplishments was his role in spearheading Ford's minority dealership program.
"We were classmates," William Clay Ford told the Detroit News. "He was extremely competent and talented. He did an outstanding job at Ford."
He served under two different presidents - Johnson and Nixon - on the Presidential Commission on White House Fellows, and the Selective Service Appeals Board.
In 1987, he received the Walter Camp Man of the Year Award for outstanding accomplishment in football and in citizenship.
He remained close to Yale by serving as a member of an alumni advisory group, and was active in interviewing prospective Yale students from Michigan, one of whom, it turns out, would go on to gain national fame as Dr. Benjamin Carson.
Wrote William N. Wallace, a Yale classmate who would go on to a long and respected career as a writer…
“I went on to become a sportswriter in New York and in future years dealt with countless stories that involved race, not all of them pleasant. There were more 'firsts', then numbers, percentages, countless counting of blacks and whites, along with the inevitable playing of various race cards.
“My finest racial moment had been back at Yale the time that no one gave white or black consideration when it came to (—— ——) sitting on the Yale fence for the routine captain's photograph, the white Y on the blue jersey over his human body.”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 2024- “ I grew up in
a completely different time. I go in the other room to
brush my teeth, I come back and the world’s changed.” David Mamet,
playwright and author*********** I want to thank all y’all for sticking with me while I opted out of Tuesday’s News You Can Use. I had entered the Transfer Portal, but after considering all the offers for my services, I have decided to remain here with NEWS YOU CAN USE nation for another season.
*********** CONFERENCE BOWL RECORDS
• Pac-12: 5-3 (.63%) AHEM
• Big 12: 5-4 (.55%)
• SEC: 5-4 (.55%)
• Big Ten: 5-4 (.55%)
• AAC: 3-3 (.50%)
• Conference USA: 2-2 (.50%)
• ACC: 5-6 (.45%)
• Mountain West: 3-4 (.43%)
• Sun Belt: 5-7 (.42%)
• MAC: 2-4 (.33%)
*********** To think that not so long ago, people back east were making fun of the quality of football being played in the Pac-12. Well, the laugh’s on them. They won’t have the Pac-12 to kick around any more. (Watch out, ACC.)
*********** The Big Ten sure has a lot of nerve, pretending that this upcoming final game is between “two Big Ten teams.” That’s what a conference top-heavy with losers has to resort to when four of its top five teams - Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, Wisconsin - lose their bowl games. The mighty Big Ten had to depend on the middle of the pack - Maryland, Minnesota, Northwestern and Rutgers - to combine with Michigan to give them a 5-4 record. (Imagine - Minnesota, which wasn’t even bowl eligible, covering for the conference powers!)
*********** The Sun Belt has to be the best conference. Why do I say that? It’s because 12 of its 14 teams played in bowl games:
Winners: App State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia State, South Alabama, Texas State
Losers: Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, James Madison, Lousiana, Marshall, Old Dominion, Troy
Left Out: Lousiana-Monroe (2-10), Southern Miss (3-9)
*********** We all know about the two Obnoxious Bowls - Dukes Mayo and Pop Tarts - the broadcasters of which spent the better part of the games as shills for the sponsors. But what about all those bowls sponsored by - and named for - concerns that most of us knew nothing about before the game, and didn’t know a whole lot more afterwards? I decided to go to the Internet and find out for myself about some of them.
Starco Brands - Starco Brands only invents consumer products with behavior-changing technologies that spark excitement in the everyday. If it’s not truly new, if it doesn’t change behaviors, and if it doesn’t spark enjoyment, then we won’t make it. (Does that help any?)
RoofClaim - RoofClaim.com is more than a roofing company. We coordinate your project needs from inspection through warranty. Our Mission is to provide a simple and painless solution for all your roofing needs.
Union Home Mortgage (At least I have an idea of what they do) Since our inception in 1970, Union Home Mortgage has guided hundreds of thousands of aspiring homebuyers through the process of achieving homeownership. Driven by the belief that homeownership should be accessible for everyone, we go the extra mile for every customer, while providing a personalized experience unmatched in the industry.
68 Ventures - 68 Ventures is a change agent for growth along the Northern Gulf Coast and adjacent markets. As one of the largest developers and investors in the area, we have generated tens of thousands of jobs and facilitated billions of dollars in capital improvements.
SRS Distribution - SRS Distribution is the fastest-growing network of independent roofing and building supply distributors serving the United States.
Easy Post - EasyPost's industry-leading reliability means your worries about downtime are over. Our best-in-class multi-carrier shipping API removes the technical complexities of logistics while making shipping more reliable, efficient, and affordable.
Quick Lane - Quick Lane offers routine vehicle auto services including oil and filter changes, light repair services such as brake repairs and tire replacement.
Guaranteed Rate - Guaranteed Rate, founded in 2000 and based in Chicago, offers mortgage options including conventional loans, FHA loans, jumbo loans and interest-only loans to customers in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
TaxAct - TaxAct offers tax preparation software for individuals, small businesses, and tax professionals.
Taxslayer - TaxSlayer helps you easily file your federal and state taxes online. Learn about our tax preparation services and get started for free today!
TransPerfect - We enable our clients to reach new markets globally by connecting with their audiences and providing the best possible customer experience—in any language.
ReliaQuest - We are a force-multiplier for your security team that helps increase visibility, decrease complexity, and manage risk.
Cricket - Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 22-yard (20-metre) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. Oh, wait - just kidding. I think it’s a wireless provider.
FRIDAY’S GAMES.
NOTRE DAME 40, OREGON STATE 8 - What I said: "I’m calling for an upset." What I got: Maybe the ugliest bowl game I’ve ever seen. No - that would have been South Florida against Syracuse. But this was bad. Question: why wasn’t Oregon State’s new head coach - a guy who was already on the staff - not coaching? Haha. (A) He knew how bad this was going to be, and he didn’t want to start off with a beat-down; (B) He knew how bad the Transfer Portal had left them and he was busy recruiting; (C) Both (A) and (B)
Also, considering the job ND QB Steve Angeli did - 15 of 19 for 232 and 3 TDs - after Sam Hartman pussed out, they gave the offensive MVP award to a ND receiver who caught five passes. WTF?
MEMPHIS 36 IOWA STATE 26 - What I said: “Can’t go against Matt Campbell in a bowl game.” What I got: A lesson in not playing a bowl game against a team that’ll be playing in its own home stadium. The Cyclones gave up two long TD passes - and 19 points - in the first quarter, and this one was over fast.
CLEMSON 38, KENTUCKY 35 - What I said: “I’m afraid that Kentucky will take this one.” What I got: I was not a Cade Klubnik fan going in, but after the final, game-winning drive, I’m becoming one.
MISSOURI 14, OHIO STATE 3 - What I said: “I really think that Mizzou has a good chance. Who knows what the Buckeyes will do offensively, with their (former) starting QB already off to Syracuse?” What I got: An unbelievably ugly game. It’s sad to think that in the interests of promoting the excitement of the forward pass, the people who make the football rules have transformed our game into total dependence on one position. And it’s hard to believe that weakness at that one position could so affect a program as solid, top to bottom, as Ohio State. Did I hear Matt Rhule say that you could get a QB for as little as $2 million? Sign that sumbitch.
SATURDAY
OLE MISS 38, PENN STATE 25 - What I said: “From a guy who once lived and died with Penn State football - Hotty Toddy!” What I got: Ole Miss, putting 540 yards of offense on a Penn State team that had one of the nation’s best defenses. Hey, Big Ten - this was your third best team. They looked like they’d never seen a passing attack before. (Come to think of it, maybe they hadn’t.)
MARYLAND 31, AUBURN 13 - What I said: An SEC team that lost to New Mexico State - at home - is in a bowl game? Really? I’m pulling for the Terps. What I got: There Maryland was, playing without star QB Taulia Tagovailoa, and they had the Tigers down, 21-0 after one quarter. Wait - wasn’t this the Auburn team that only three weeks ago had Alabama on the ropes? Too bad the playoff committee was at the movies instead of watching that one.
GEORGIA 63, FLORIDA STATE 3 - What I said: “still think that overall, Georgia is the best team in the country.” What I got: Confirmation
WYOMING 16, TOLEDO 15 - What I said: “America needs more Cowboys.” What I got: A great Cowboy comeback and a last second win to send Craig Bohl out with a .500 record at Laramie. His final speech: “Cowboy up! Ride for the brand!”
MONDAY
LSU 35, WISCONSIN 31 - What I said: I sure hope that LSU doesn’t let a guy who wins the Heisman and then opts out of the bowl game stand around on the sideline building his brand. What I got: They let him stand around and watch. And with his backup, Garrett Nussmeier, doing a very good job (31 of 45 for 395 yards and 4 TDs) , LSU won what was a good, competitive game. The Tigers twice came back from 14-point deficits.
OREGON 45, LIBERTY 6 - What I said: “I hope more people in the rest of the country get to see how good this guy (Bo Nix) is.” What I got: Oregon gave up an opening-drive score then scored 45 straight points. Bo Nix? He didn’t have to play, but instead of going the opt-out route, he completed 28 of 35 for 363 yards and 5 TDs. For the season: 364 of 470 (77.45%) for 4,508 yards with 45 touchdowns and just three interceptions, plus 54 carries for 234 yards and six scores.The guy has been around so long that he has set some career records that no one is likely to ever break.
TENNESSEE 35, IOWA 0 - What I said: “If Iowa had any offense at all - say, a few Double Wing plays - it would beat the Vols.” What I got: An absolutely disgraceful offensive performance by Iowa. I like the Hawkeyes and I like Kirk Ferentz, but that was really awful. A Big Ten QB completing 7 of 18 for 56 yards and two interceptions? 113 yards rushing? 11 first downs? 2 of 15 on third down conversions? And, unfortunately, a lot of the offense’s ineptness carried over to the defense.
MICHIGAN 27, ALABAMA 20 - What I said: “I’m not the world’s biggest Bama fan, but I respect Saban and the fact that Bama seems clean. No way I can root for anything that Jim Harbaugh has anything to do with.” What I got: Respect for the job Harbaugh and his staff did. Michigan was far better prepared, on both sides of the ball. (Okay, maybe not special teams.) Alabama played as if they didn’t respect a non-SEC team. It was the worst I’ve ever seen Alabama play in a big game, and the spin that’s now being put on it is that this was a not-very-good Alabama team that the coaches got the absolute most out of. Maybe so. But if this was true, how come none of the experts on the Playoff Committee dug deep enough to find that out? (I already know the answer. Just asking rhetorically.)
WASHINGTON 37, TEXAS 31 - What I said: “I doubt that Texas has seen a group of receivers anywhere close to Washington’s. For sure, Sarkisian (remember, he coached at Washington, and we know him) will not outcoach DeBoer.” What I got: Proof of the first part . The receivers were great. (And so was Michael Penix.) The second part? Washington’s insane clock management almost cost them a game that was 99 per cent won, calling into question for the first time Jalen DeBoer’s up-to-now impeccable game management savvy.
*********** Alabama’s final play was not, as most armchair experts were quick to declare, a “quarterback draw,” nor, in my opinion, was it a stupid call. It was, I believe, a good call - but one poorly executed.
Essentially, the Alabama QB, Milroe, was to run off-tackle to the left, with the line blocking down and the right guard pulling left to lead him. But the success of the play depended on Milroe’s not starting immediately for the off-tackle spot, but instead running forward for a step or two and then breaking off-tackle.
(1) With twins set to the left and a split end to the right, Bama sends the running back in motion to the left, making him the fourth receiver (including the tight end) to that side.
(2) A Michigan safety goes with the motioning back. The outside backer, rather than aiming directly for Milroe, comes straight across and getting initial depth (probably to contain QB Milroe in the pocket). The play side of the Alabama line blocks down, and the right guard pulls to the left. The right tackle(#65) hinges to block any chase from the backside.
(3) The line blocking appears to be holding up, as the left guard (#77) begins to wrap around the pack. Milroe has now gone forward about a yard, at which point he should begin to veer off-tackle. If he does so - right now - he has a chance to score. The unblocked outside linebacker, who came across deep, may have a shot at him, but he’s a little wide, and as deep as he is, he will likely have a difficult time tackling Milroe as he passes by.
(4) But no-o-o-o. Milroe is now four yards closer to the line than he was at the snap, but he’s only now begun to head off-tackle. The left guard (#77) has not “scraped paint” as he rounded the pack, and he may be too wide to block the edge man, but the bigger problem is Milroe’s failure to make his break sooner - it’s going to trip him up. Literally. That’s because Alabama’s right tackle - the guy who was hinging - has been blown back by the Michigan lineman, to where he’s now a full four yards to the inside of where he lined up. That means, because Milroe has run too far straight ahead, the tackle’s legs are now right in Milroe’s path, and he trips over one of them. I look at what appears to be sufficient running room to the left of the pile, and I say that’s a good call.
Definitely a game ball should go to Michigan’s #5, edge rusher Josiah Stewart, a junior from Everett, Massachusetts, for a spectacular effort in driving that tackle back into Milroe’s path.
*********** CLOCK MANAGEMENT, THE WASHINGTON HUSKIES’ WAY
TIME REMAINING 2:50
WASHINGTON 34, TEXAS 28
WASHINGTON 3 TIMEOUTS, TEXAS 2
(2:50) THIRD AND GOAL, WASHINGTON THROWS INCOMPLETE (IF WASHINGTON RUNS INSTEAD, TEXAS HAS TO USE A TIMEOUT. INSTEAD, THE CLOCK STOPS AT 2:44
WASHINGTON HAS ALLOWED TEXAS TO SAVE A TIME OUT
(2:44) WASHINGTON KICKS A FIELD GOAL - SCORE NOW 37-28, WASHINGTON
TEXAS DRIVES TO WASHINGTON 8 YARDS LINE, KICKS FIELD GOAL, SCORE NOW 37-31
TEXAS ONSIDE KICK FAILS
(1:09) WASHINGTON HANDS OFF, GAINS 2 - TEXAS CALLS TIME OUT AT 1:06
(1:06) WASHINGTON HANDS OFF, GAINS 3 - TEXAS CALLS LAST TIME OUT AT 1:02
THIS IS A TIMEOUT THAT TEXAS WOULD HAVE HAD TO USE EARLIER, AT 2:44
(1:02) WASHINGTON HANDS OFF, GAINS THREE. BUT AT :50 CLOCK IS STOPPED FOR INJURED WASHINGTON PLAYER
(:50) WASHINGTON PUNTS. FAIR CATCH INTERFERENCE MOVES BALL AHEAD 15 YARDS
(:45) AFTER TWO INCOMPLETIONS, TEXAS COMPLETES A THID-DOWN PASS TO WASHINGTON 28 AND THE RECEIVER GOES OUT OF BOUNDS
(:27) AFTER ONE INCOMPLETION, TEXAS THROWS COMPLETE ONE SECOND DOWN TO 12-YARD LINE WHERE RECEIVER GOES OUT OF BOUNDS
(:15) AFTER A COMPLETION LOSES ONE YARD - BUT THE RECEIVER GOES OUT OF BOUNDS -
(:10) TEXAS THROWS THREE STRAIGHT INCOMPLETIONS, THE LAST ONE WITH :01 ON THE CLOCK.
GAME OVER - WASHINGTON 37, TEXAS 31
SOME SERIOUS CONCERNS:
(1) 2:50 REMAINING, YOU’RE LEADING BY SIX - AND, LIKELY, SOON TO BE NINE - WHY WOULD YOU PASS?
(2) NEEDING TO KILL THE CLOCK…
(A) WHY WOULD YOU BE TAKING CHANCES WITH A HAND OFF TO A BACK? YOUR QB SHOULD BE THE ONLY ONE HANDLING THE BALL AT ALL
(B) WHY RUN THE BALL AT ALL? A RUN BY THE BACK WILL TAKE 4-5 SECONDS OFF THE CLOCK. SIMPLY TAKING A KNEE WILL TAKE 2-3 SECONDS OFF THE CLOCK. IS RUNNING OFF TWO EXTRA SECONDS WORTH THE RISK OF INJURY OR A FUMBLE??
(C) WHAT’S SO TOUGH ABOUT TEACHING YOUR PLAYERS AN UNDER-CENTER SNAP?
*********** Looking back: Considering the cold-hearted way the Playoff Committee took the loss of Florida State QB Jordan Travis into account in leaving the Seminoles out, shouldn’t it also have considered the possibility that the real Alabama team might not be the one that upset Georgia in the SEC title game but instead the one that barely beat a poor Auburn team, and only because of a last-second prayer? Based on what I’ve seen - conference championship game be damned - Georgia should not have been left out.
*********** Considering the insular nature of the SEC itself and the impression an outsider gets that its fans don’t pay a lot of attention to football anywhere else in the country, I would imagine that without an SEC team in the final game, the TV ratings will be the lowest since 2015, when Ohio State played Oregon.
*********** It is rather fitting, now that Florida State and Liberty have both been obliterated in their bowl games, that Monday night’s final game should be between the last two remaining unbeaten teams in FBS. No chance of anyone whining that they were deprived of a shot.
*********** And isn’t it interesting that if we didn’t have this stupid playoff, the teams meeting in the Rose Bowl (the real one) would have been unbeaten Michigan and unbeaten Washington.
*********** Back in the days of the polls and bowls, Florida State and its unbeaten record and conference championship would have been recognized - injured QB or not - and the Seminoles would quite probably have been in the Top 4, following the conference championship games and going into the bowl season.
Here’s what would have been my Top 10 if there were no playoff:
1. Michigan
2. Washington
3. Florida State
4. Ohio State
5. Texas
6. Alabama
7. Georgia
8. Oregon
9. Ole Miss
10. Penn State
*********** I don’t feel any sympathy for the SEC and its absence from this year’s finals - they blew all their capital lobbying for the Heisman for a guy who in my opinion couldn’t carry his team the way Michael Penix and Bo Nix carried theirs. Both Penix and Nix put on Heisman-winner performances in their teams’ bowl games, while the Heisman winner, Jayden Daniels, stood on the sidelines and watched his understudy lead LSU to victory.
*********** Except possibly in the case of Jason Kelce, playing center is one of the most thankless and anonymous jobs in all of sports.
But it’s one of the toughest. And one of the most important.
Quarterbacks can throw 35 or 40 passes a game, and people will marvel at 70 per cent accuracy.
But today’s centers throw 60 or more passes a game - between their legs, without even looking - and if they happen to miss their target just once a game they’re the object of scorn and derision.
Once a quarterback throws a pass he immediately joins a protected class. Let a defender so much as look at him cockeyed and there’s hell to pay.
But a center has two jobs. He throws his pass - that’s his first job - and then his second job begins. After he’s thrown his pass, he’s not shielded from contact the way the quarterback is. In fact, as often as not, he instantly becomes the personal target of the biggest, strongest man on the opponent’s defense. The opposing nose guard. And in the cases when he’s not, he has to go find someone to block. Maybe, if he’s as athletic as Kelce, he’ll even pull out and lead a runner.
Most coaches understand how difficult a center’s job is.
Most fans don’t, as in the aftermath of the Alabama-Michigan game so many of them seem to be blaming Bama’s loss on its center.
Granted, Bama’s snaps weren’t perfect, but they weren’t as bad as the amateur experts have been claiming. Yes, there was an errant snap that cost the Tide 13 yards. It was slightly off center, but it would have been catchable had it not been snapped before the QB - and the rest of the team - was ready. Ever snapped a ball with 100,000 fans screaming? Me neither. So I can’t say how tough it is to snap the ball at the proper time under those conditions. But from what I’ve been reading - one mistake out of 66 snaps? String him up!
I undertook to look at every one of Alabama’s snaps - all 66 of them - in slow motion, side view and top view, and I’m here to say that in my judgement Alabama’s center, Seth McLaughlin, is getting WAY too much blame for Alabama’s poor performance.
Yes, there was the one snap that was uncatchable. And he was guilty of one false start when he moved the ball slightly.
But at most I saw three other snaps that the QB, Milroe, had to make any extra effort to catch. But - none of the TV guys mentioned this - there were several decent snaps that Milroe mishandled, chiefly because of his highly unorthodox manner of catching them.
Hey, Alabama - if that’s the best way to be catching snaps (hands apart, one hand over the other, trying to clamp the ball between them as it arrives) how come you’re not teaching that technique to your receivers?
Maybe you’re on to something, but now that I’ve printed the photos, your secret’s out. And who knows - maybe next year every quarterback will be catching snaps this way. But I doubt it.
Check out next Tuesday’s Zoom and see what I mean.
*********** Very simply, here’s what I believe about the so-called national championship:
Michigan, top to bottom, may be a better team than Washington. Probably on defense, definitely in the running game.
But Michigan has yet to see a team with a passing attack remotely close to Washington’s. Maryland may be the closest anyone came, and Michigan only beat the Terps 31-24. So if the old adage is true - that there’s no defense against the perfect pass - then I think that Washington has a slight edge.
Anyhow - Go Huskies!
*********** Whose bright idea was it to schedule the FCS Championship game on a Sunday?
Info from Sioux Falls (SD) Live
MONTANA (13-1) VS SOUTH DAKOTA STATE (14-0)
WHEN/WHERE: 2 p.m. (Eastern) Sunday at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Tex.
TV: ABC
LINE: SDSU by 13.5
RECORD LAST YEAR: SDSU 14-1 (FCS champions); UM 8-5
SERIES: Montana leads 8-0
LAST TIME: Montana won 24-17 in 2015, in the first round of the FCS playoffs in Missoula
HOW THEY GOT HERE: SDSU beat Mercer 41-0, Villanova 23-12 and Albany 59-0; Montana beat Delaware 49-19, Furman 35-28 in overtime and North Dakota State 31-29 in double-overtime
RANKINGS: SDSU is ranked No. 1 in FCS, Montana is No. 2
COACHES: SDSU - Jimmy Rogers (1st year, 14-0); UM - Bobby Hauck (13th year, 129-35)
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS CLAIMED: Montana 2, SDSU 1
ALL-TIME RECORD: Montana 637-514-26; SDSU 656-477-35
CONFERENCE AFFILIATION: Montana - Big Sky; SDSU - Missouri Valley Football Conference
LOCATION: Montana - Missoula, Mont.; SDSU - Brookings, S.D.
ENROLLMENT: Montana - 11,000; SDSU 11,500
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
South Dakota State
Passing: Mark Gronowski - 2,883 yards, 28 TD
Rushing: Isaiah Davis - 1,491 yards, 17 TD
Receiving: Jadon Janke - 52 rec., 891 yards, 9 TD
Tackles: Jason Freeman - 96
Sacks: Cade Terveer - 6
INT: Tucker Large & Dalys Beanum - 4
Montana
Passing: Clifton McDowell - 1,861 yards, 13 TD
Rushing: Eli Gilman, 951 yards, 12 TD
Receiving: Junior Bergen - 55 rec., 766 yards, 5 TD
Tackles: Braxton Hill - 116
Sacks: Riley Wilson - 8.5
INT: Trevin Gradney - 5
TEAM STATS
South Dakota State
Points per game: 38.4
Points against: 9.7
Total offense: 456.1
Total defense: 257.1
Rushing offense: 230.5
Rushing defense: 92.6
Passing offense: 225.6
Passing defense: 164.4
3rd downs: 54.8
4th downs: 81.8
Special teams touchdowns: 2
Defensive touchdowns: 3
Turnovers: 11
Takeaways:26
Sacks: 24
Sacks allowed: 10
Red zone scoring: 96.3
Penalties: 91 for 880 yards
Field goals: 17-23
Punting average: 43.7
Blocked kicks: 4
Blocked kicks against: 2
Montana
Points per game: 32.2
Points against: 16.8
Total offense: 382.9
Total defense: 311.4
Rushing offense: 186.1
Rushing defense: 102.9
Passing offense: 196.8
Passing defense: 208.4
3rd downs: 42.9
4th downs: 50.0
Special teams touchdowns: 4
Defensive touchdowns: 3
Turnovers: 12
Takeaways: 22
Sacks: 34
Sacks allowed: 36
Red zone scoring: 82.7
Penalties: 90 for 892 yards
Field goals: 17-26
Punting average: 39.7
Blocked kicks: 1
Blocked kicks against: 4
https://www.siouxfallslive.com/sports/college/what-to-know-about-the-fcs-national-championship-between-montana-and-south-dakota-state
*********** See, the people at the Washington Post are better than you, and so whatever you might believe, if they disagree with you, it must be a “falsehood.” And since you still don’t know that it’s a “falsehood,” they consider it essential that they include that “fact” in their story.
It really, really bothers our betters at the Washington Post that despite their best efforts to convince people that Joe Biden, who never left his basement to campaign for President, actually got 81 million votes, there are still some people who don’t believe them.
I'm not saying that the FBI instigated the (so-called) riot, or that Joe Biden wasn't fairly elected. But the skeptic in me refuses to accept "because we said so" as proof of anything.
*********** Happy New Year Coach Wyatt! I sure am enjoying the zoom clinics, though I haven't been on live yet, I turn it on the next day at work. I always enjoy your perspective on so many things. I watched a couple of Harding games, Holy Smokes they're good! We ran a similar play to the one you discussed but we ran it like the old 5X Lead. I wonder what the advantage of having the wingback go before the guard is? Since you brought up the fact that basically players are wearing shorts these days, have you noticed that the "skill players" are not using their mouthpieces? They let them dangle like a fashion statement. You would think with that college education they would know that those mouth guards are for more than just protecting their teeth. Just my thoughts. And Go Blue! Please give my best to Mrs Wyatt.
Kurt Heinke,
Atascadero, California
Hi Coach-
Happy New Year to you!
Good question. Below, I've shown 4-X Lead
Good question regarding Harding, and (Upper Drawing) if we had the kind of splits that their offense requires, it would make sense, because if, say, the end were to pinch and the inside linebacker to scrape into the C gap, the wingback would get the end and the guard would see that had happened and he’d be able to kick out the scraping backer.
With our zero splits, (Lower Drawing) our wingback couldn’t possibly go first without colliding with the guard, so we have to have him take a counter step first.
I have noticed the use of mouthpieces as forms of adornment and I don’t understand. I also see guys playing with their mouthpieces (always brightly colored ones) sticking out of the vents in their helmets.
I would say that the inmates are definitely taking over the asylum except some parent would be offended by my calling her little baby boy an inmate. But I stand by my use of “asylum.”
GO HUSKIES!
Hugh
*********** Good morning, Coach Wyatt!
I have a Black Lion recipient. What would be the best way for me to submit the letter? I have it as a google doc, wasn’t sure if that works on your end. I can convert to a word document or PDF if needed.
Also, I appreciate the recorded zooms. Unfortunately I’m not able to tune in live, but I always watch the recordings. The recent zoom highlighting the Cortland game was special. I’m less than an hour from Cortland so to see them win was a thrill. I watched them play vs. Ithaca a few weeks prior and wow, that QB is talented.
All the best,
Matt Ford
Bath, New York
It’s nice to hear from you. I hope that you had a good season and a nice Christmas.
Please send the letter via Word. That would be best for us.
You’ve been though this before so you know what we expect as a nomination.
Glad you like the Zooms. Cortland was very impressive and I wish more people were aware of the quality of football played at the “lesser” levels!
*********** Good day!
Regarding the tighter splits for Air Force; could they be attempting to not have to run Inside Veer but always Outside Veer?
Dennis Metzger
Richmond, Indiana
Coach,
From what I can see - the TV people don’t give us many end-zone views - they will run 1-foot center-guard splits and 2-foot guard tackle splits.
Not exactly what the true veer people recommend, so maybe you’re right.
The fullback seems to have three basic paths - midline (or trap option), B gap (inside veer) and C gap (outside veer).
They seldom run a true triple but when they do they run it as well as if it were an every-down play. They run the trap as phase one of trap option, and from the faking it’s obvious that they have the ability to run trap option.
And they do run what we would call outside veer. It’s not necessarily as we’ve known it, but there’s a down block to the inside of the C gap.
I have seen them line up in a Double-Wing set and run a wedge, which indicates that at least in that case they may have tightened their splits even more.
I’d love to have a sit-down with their offensive coordinator, who’s been at this a while.
*********** Happy New Year Hugh,
John Madden’s introduction to your Zooms was never truer than this Bowl season. Teams that could run the ball did well from Harding and Air Force to Michigan. And another of the principles you always preached, ball security and how to carry the ball, was sure on display from QBs not holding the ball with two hands to Texas that lost to Washington when their star running back could not hold on to the ball. It reminded me of the time you pulled our all state running back when he fumbled twice in the same game. The second time he finished the game on the bench with the game still very much in question.
As a football junkie I don’t mind all the meaningless bowl games but it would be nice to see if something could be done around the Transfer Portal, players opting out, and head coaches jumping teams. I am not smart enough to know what the solution is but after Georgia’s beating of FSU I would like to see something done.
Hope the new year brings you, Connie, and the family much happiness and of course lots of football!
Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine
Jack,
You are so right. The running stats from most of the games are pathetic. And some of the most successful running plays - the jet sweeps - go down in the books as passes because they ball is flipped forward two feet.
The opt-outs drive me nuts, but it’s either that or guys faking injuries after a down or two, because all the money at stake outweighs such trivial things as loyalty.
As for coaches, I sure wish we could go back to the days when there were no buyouts. A coach served out the length of his contract AT THE SCHOOL. Maybe in fund-raising, maybe as a PE teacher, maybe as the director of intramurals. And then, once his contract was fulfilled, he was free to go.
As it is right now, they’re in can’t-lose situations. If they want to leave for a better job, their new school will pay their buyout. If they get fired, they’re owed a considerable sum simply for going away.
Happy New Year to you and Susan.
*********** Mebbe Under Center isn't so bad, ehhh? As soon as the low snap happened, reality for Milroe shrank to a 1 ' radius centered on the ball. We've had quite a bit of motions with the ball going opposite but Alabama pulled the Right Guard and if Milroe takes one step forward and then runs left, he runs in untouched.
After the snap, there appeared only one thing that Milroe could see to do - Run straight into the pile.
Michigan had a "Misdirection" game with their Offense. They also had Corum. You can run a QB in a "Standard" Offense at times but which would you rather run, Milroe into a Pile or Corum around the corner when he's free to run?
Michigan out coached Alabama this day.
Charlie Wilson
Brooksville, Florida
Coach, As you’ll see, I saw the same thing you did and we’re in agreement. Except on the low snap. I don’t see how that in any way should have affected his course. But then, he’d probably only repped the play two or three times in practice.
*********** I’ve always recalled those LaVell Edwards ideas you've posted before. And because I believe he was right, I'm troubled by every post on the Army FB Message Board urging the BKs to go with a hybrid of the Option Gun and triple under center. I don't think you can just turn those offenses (and the detailed coaching each requires) on and off--you can only become excellent at one, and most of us know they don't have the talent to run one of them.
You posted a note from someone without attribution. I think I know who it is, and if I'm right, I welcome him to your site. Hope to see him on a Zoom.
That Eastern Michigan sucker puncher should not see a college football field again. And speaking of the college 'leaders' without spines, I'll flip back to Professor Sowell and say if I were the EMU president, I'd tell the EMU coach "Because I rhave eservations about allowing you to think you'll suffer no consequences for your actions," you, sir, are on probation yourself.
Unless a great deal changes, many will lose interest in the bowl games. When I said to someone at the gym that Heisman winner or not, I wouldn't let him preen around on my sideline, the reply I got was that he's only testing the portal, see, he's not actually in it. If he doesn't like the NFL team that drafts him, he'll hang around LA for another season. I see something new and crazy almost every game. Some will recognize the team, but one was coached by the DC when the head coach packed up to go elsewhere. Then, right after that game the DC himself was boarding a plane to become the DC at Syracuse.
Answer, of course, is Mark Richt. I was unaware he'd contracted Parkinson's. I've seen too many people disgnosed with that recently.
Sincere best wishes to our beloved Coach Mike Lude.
John Vermillion
St Petersburg, Florida
*********** Hugh,
For the first time in many years I have not watched many of the bowl games. Used to try and watch as many as I could, but nowadays I'm discovering I enjoy doing other things. So much so that even watching a depleted Notre Dame team play in a bowl game against a depleted Oregon State will take a back seat to a round of golf.
Kudos to the guys who have declared for the NFL draft that opt IN to their teams' bowl games.
If I was playing football today as a grad student I would choose to play in my team's bowl game because that's just how I was raised. My dad always taught me that whatever I started I should finish. Once, later in my life, I chose not to adhere to his advice and have regretted that decision ever since. If I could be given another chance I wouldn't make that mistake again.
We often hear from progressives, "You must adapt to the changes, or else you'll be left behind." I say, "I'll adapt to the good changes, but learn to stay in front of the bad ones."
Did you notice the conspicuous absence of the University of Mary Hardin Baylor from the Division III rankings?? UMHB has made a number of national championship appearances in the last few years. Legendary UMHB coach Pete Friedenburg retired after last year. Without him UMBH finished 6-4 this year. Lost to #17 Hardin Simmons in the conference championship game, lost to #11 Trinity (TX), #7 Wisconsin Whitewater, and unranked UW River Falls in the opener.
Enjoy the weekend, and Happy New Year!
Joe Gutilla
Granbury, Texas
*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Mark Richt was born in Omaha, but moved with his family to Florida and played his high school ball in Boca Raton.
Highly recruited as a quarterback, he chose to play at Miami under head coach Howard Schnellenberger and quarterbacks coach, former NFL QB Earl Morrall.
Although he spent his college career backing up an all-time great - future Pro Football Hall of Fame Jim Kelly - he did manage to see some action (most of it his senior season) and in his career he threw 229 times for 1431 yards and 9 touchdowns.
In 1985 he was offered a position as graduate assistant by Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, who had recruited him when he was in high school.
After four years at FSU, he was hired by East Carolina as their offensive coordinator. He was 29.
But after just one year at East Carolina, Coach Bowden hired him to be his quarterbacks coach, and four years later he was promoted to be the Seminoles’ offensive coordinator.
In five of his seven years as their offensive coordinator, the Seminoles ranked in the nation's top five scoring offenses, and in the top twelve in total offense and in passing offense.
In his eleven years at FSU, the Seminoles won seven straight ACC titles and two national championships.
He coached two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks - Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke - and six quarterbacks who went on to play in the NFL.
In 2001 he was hired as head coach at Georgia, replacing Jim Donnan.
In 15 years as the Bulldogs’ coach, he posted a record of 145-51 (83-37 in SEC play). His 145 wins are second only to the legendary Vince Dooley’s 201 among all Georgia coaches, and his winning percentage (73.98) is actually better than Dooley’s.
Two SEC championships
Six SEC Eastern Division championships
Nine bowl games
Seven Top Ten finishes
But following the 1998 season - the day after the Bulldogs defeated Georgia Tech to finish the season 9-3 - he was fired.
He was immediately snapped up by his alma mater, Miami. His hiring generated great enthusiasm in the Miami community and in three seasons there, his teams went 9-4, 10-3 and 7-6 before he stepped down.
The following season, he began work as an analyst on the ACC network, work he continues to do to this day.
In October of that season, he suffered a heart attack, from which he fully recovered.
He is a devout Christian, and he and his wife, whom he met when he was a GA at Florida State and she was a cheerleader, have been involved in missionary work.
His sister married one of his FSU QBs, Brad Johnson, and their son, Max, has played QB at LSU and at Texas Tech and has just transferred to North Carolina.
In July, 2021 he announced that he had Parkinson’s disease.
Mark Richt was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in the Class of 2023.
In 2018, Coach Richt told ESPN that he feels that it’s unethical for a coach to pursue other jobs, since he has made a long-term commitment to his players: "I never once have tried to leverage another job for more money. I don't think that's right. The day we took the job, my mentality has always been, 'If you're the head coach, too many lives depend on you.' If I just say on a whim, 'You know, I think I'd rather go here,' well, all these recruits you said something to, all these coaches you said something to, what about them? Every time you hire a coach, you're taking the coach, his wife and his kids on an adventure. They're trusting you and believing in you enough to become a staff member. I don't want to just walk into a room and say, 'Hey, guys, thanks for helping me get to where I really want to be.' It's the same thing with these kids. They've had enough disappointment, enough men leave their lives. You're trying to build trust, and then you bolt on them because of money or because of whatever? I've just never been able to get past that part of it."
CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MARK RICHT
GREG KOENIG - BENNETT, COLORADO
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
TOM DAVIS - SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
SCOTT MALLIEN - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
JOE GUTILLA - GRANBURY, TEXAS
JOHN BOTHE - OREGON, ILLINOIS
TOM WALLS - WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
JOE BREMER - WEST SENECA, NEW YORK
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
TUESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2024- HAPPY NEW
YEAR! SEE YOU FRIDAY!