TUESDAY

A month before, Iowa and Coe college clashed behind locked gates in front of which there were armed guards stationed to keep spectators away. An epidemic of Spanish influenza had spread over the state earlier in October, and in order to reduce the possibility of further illness Iowa authorities were advised by the War Department  that if the game were to be sanctioned it would have to be played with all doors padlocked. A number with powerful field glasses attempted to watch the play from the Iowa River bridges and from the high hills on the west side of the river, but all nonplaying personnel were barred from the field itself. Accounts of the battle were sketchy, but the bigger more experienced Hawkeyes apparently triumphed 27 to 0.

That appears to be the only game to be played before empty stands. Iowa played the full 9-game schedule, going 6-2-1, and beating Minnesota for the first time ever.

My contention holds that there was nothing about the Spanish flu in the histories most of us have  access to.  So considering what we’re now hearing about all those bodies in the streets of our big cities, was the real story hidden from us - given the Kennedy assassination treatment? How could that have happened?  Or have the recent writers been massaging the facts to advance an agenda,  feeding the fires of sensationalism?

As I once heard a guy in a Baltimore saloon say, “One a’ youse is a f—kin’ liar.” (In his best Bawlamorese, he pronounced that last word “lahr.”)

*********** As I write this, our worthless governor has announced that our school year is officially at an end.
I suppose that all the news about Washington’s curve having flattened  out caused him to panic at the realization that it could mean the end to his autocratic rule.

This latest hard-ass announcement would seem to preclude any possibility of a return to normal before June 1, since it would be sheer idiocy to end shelter-in-place policies and effectively turn all those kids loose to socialize, as kids will.

*********** Bob Zuppke, longtime head coach at Illinois, was one of the giants of our game. (I shouldn’t say too much about him because he’s long overdue as one of my QUIZ subjects, but let’s just say that he was a great innovator - many give him credit for devising the huddle - and he was the coach of one of the greatest and most important football players in the history of the game, Red Grange.)

Take a look at what he called his “T formation” - in 1930 - and you can see the ancestor of today’s pistol. You’ll notice that he’s running from an unbalanced line, and the guy taking the direct snap (he calls him his “fullback”) is offset one man.


As Coach Zuppke explained, the fullback was at 3 yards depth, directly behind the strong side guard, the tailback directly behind him at 4-1/2 yards. The wingbacks are a yard off the line; the ends are split “one half yard from their nearest teammate.”

In doing a little research on Coach Zuppke, I came across his advice on deciding what to run on offense:

1. Tailor your offense to your talent:

It is folly to develop a style of offense not suited to the material. The system must be suited to fit the men, and not vice versa. It would have been folly to have Grange tied up to a two wingback formation. What was suitable for Grange was unsuitable for Nevers. (That would be Stanford star Ernie Nevers, who, while not as elusive as Grange, was more of a bull. HW)

For obvious reasons it is advisable whenever possible to use a different style of offense than that used by other teams in your section. It is better to have a few well developed plays for each formation than to have many but partially developed ones. Too often valuable time is wasted learning too many plays. The plays of the offense should be of both the power and deceptive varieties, quick and delayed.

The coach should stress simplicity and avoid coaching complex methods of team play, or that will develop indecision on the part of the individual and destroy decisive action and the necessary positive mental attitude. The individuals using a complex offense and defense will make more mistakes than the individuals of a more simple system, and the more mistakes a man makes, the greater the tendency to lose self-confidence.

*********** The New York Times (ugh) ran an article about how Finland isn’t worried about masks.  That’s because, being Finns, they were thorough, they planned ahead, and they stockpiled things, such as masks, that might be needed in an emergency such as this one.

Finns are almost the polar opposite of Americans. They value doing things well. They would rather do one thing correctly than a dozen things half-ass.

They pride themselves on being one of the most literate nations on earth, and their teachers occupy important roles in society.

People know what their roles are and they know they will be held accountable. They respect and live by the rule of law. There are no second chances.

They are honest and they expect nothing less from others - including their government and their leaders.

They are people of their word. They take great pride in being the only nation ever to repay war debts to America in full.

Geography, as the article points out, has played a role in developing their character.  They know that they’re isolated and dependent on foreign trade so they are all multilingual, but they also realize how easily they can be cut off. They learned that in WW II when no one - including their “friends” the Swedes would come to their aid.

Sharing a long border with Russia, they despise the Russians but they   know not to poke the bear. But they maintain a fairly strong army so that the Russians know that aggression against the Finns will be costly - as they learned years ago in The Winter War - but so as not to stir the Russians,  they stress that their Army is purely for their defense. (Finns call the army  “Puolustus Voima” which means “defense force”).

There is one important thing that enables the Finnish system to work: Finland is one of the most homogeneous countries on earth, which helps reinforce the idea that they are all in it together. They resent anyone who would try to “get over” or “get around” the Finnish way. I have heard Finns many times deplore “those f—king Gypsies - they lie, they cheat, they steal. And (saving the worst for last) they don’t teach their children how to read.”

Something that I think motivates them to do things well - they have a national inferiority complex. They are very proud of their country and they seem to worry about what others think of it.

Hyvää Suomi!  (Hurrah Finland!)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/world/europe/coronavirus-finland-masks.html?referringSource=articleShare


*********** Passover is an important Jewish holiday,  the celebration of the escape of the Israelites from slavery. It starts tomorrow (Wednesday) and lasts for a week.

A Jewish friend posted this photo of a “Passover Mask” on Facebook.



 (It’s made of matzo, the unleavened bread of the Jewish people which is traditionally a part of Passover.)

*********** Max Emfinger was a rating service before there were rating services. He started out on his own, rating high school seniors (back in the days when colleges were still recruiting seniors), and he was sort of the model for all the rivals.coms and scout.coms and whatnot that are on the scene today.  He was pretty good, too.  But nobody’s perfect,

And it’s not fair to judge him by one mistake he made in misjudging a certain high school kid from Pensacola, Florida.

But it WAS a pretty big mistake.

“Emmett Smith isn’t big or fast and he can’t get around the corner, “he wrote in 1987. “I know all the folks in Pensacola will be screaming and the Florida fans will be writing me nasty letters, but Emmett Smith is not a franchise player. He’s a lugger, not a runner. The sportswriters blew him out of proportion. When he falls flat on his face at Florida, remember where you heard it first. “

*********** Paul Dietzel, who won the national championship at LSU, spent three tours of duty at West Point, his third as Army’s head coach.  In his second tour there, he was offensive line coach in 1953 and 1954, at  time when Army’s coach Earl “Red” Blaik was struggling to return Army football to the greatness it had known before the so-called “Cribbing Scandal” (concerning the exchange of information that was on tests) resulted in the dismissal of virtually its entire starting roster) turned it into a JV-type operation.

Back in 1951, on my first tour of duty at West Point as a line coach, we were assigned a house in the Army Athletic Association Circle, where most of the coaches lived. In this pleasant area of the post were eight or nine two-story, four bedroom duplexes. There was a very nice play area for children and a little creek that flowed through the grounds. As we were moving in, Anne asked me if I had met the guy next-door. I said “yes, that’s Doc Blanchard. “ She replied, “have you seen him? He’s out there unloading the car, and he’s got on shorts. I have never seen anyone with such big legs. “

Well, Doc Blanchard did have a set of legs under him. Doc was my next-door neighbor, and he had been hired to coach the plebes. As we were getting ready to play Navy that year, we were still having a hard time rebuilding after that cribbing scandal.

Navy, on the other hand, had a really good team that year. They were coached by Eddie Erdelatz and employed a 5-3 defense with the front five linemen stunting either left or right. Their stunt was really flat, so they would entertain the man they were lined up over and then would actually stunt into the man next to him.

Basically you couldn’t get to their linebackers, who were making all the tackles. The rest of the Army staff was convinced that you couldn’t run against them – it just seemed impossible. But in studying Navy’s films, I observed that their linemen would take the first step in their stunt or slant and, if the play was going the other way, would plant their feet and come right back out of the stunt.

Our coaches thought that Navy had inside information on what we were planning to run against them, and with their speed, we’d be stopped cold. Well, I just knew there had to be a way to run on them. So I devised a zone blocking scheme in which the center and the right guard charge off to their right, shoulder to shoulder, and the right tackle and end charge to their left, shoulder to shoulder, and create a funnel-like hole. If one of our linemen didn’t make contact with one of their linemen, he would continue right on and block the linebacker.

We had two running backs, Pat Uebel and Tommy Bell. They were both in the 200 pound range, both straight-ahead runners, but very tough. All we did in that game was run right through the funnel created by our blocking scheme.

One of Doc Blanchard’s favorite phrases was “Holy doodad.“  I’ve never known where he came up with that but I decided to name this zone blocking scheme, “doodad blocking” We just handed the ball off on a dive to one of those two running backs,  and he would squirt right through the hole that had been created. Navy couldn’t take the ball away from us. We went up and down the field and beat them handily. I was so proud! 

The thing that made me most proud was that I was so thrilled for Colonel Blaik. He had stayed the course. He had vindicated himself. He never lost his desire to bring West Point back. When we beat Navy, it was the indicator that we had come back. I was proud of myself because I had invented something new that had never been thought of before. I felt that I had contributed something good to the game that I love so dearly and that had given me my chance in life.

The next Monday, Colonel Blaik asked me to come to his office. The Colonel was at his desk, with General MacArthur‘s picture hanging on the wall right behind him. Several of the young assistant coaches referred to him as “El Rojo Grande," the Big Red. El Rojo invited me in and said, “Well, Paul, since you’re a line coach, I thought you might like to have this little book, written by Pot Graves, who was the Army line coach many, many years ago.“ I said, “Thank you, Sir.” And I immediately wondered why he was giving me this.

There was a paper clip about halfway back in the book, and so as I sat at my desk, I opened the book at the paper clip. There in detail was my “doodad blocking,“ diagrammed many years ago by an Army line coach by the name of Pot Graves. I thought to myself, “Well, so much for something new in football.” I learned a great lesson that day. There is nothing new in football, just a rehashing of things that have been done before. Zone blocking is now universally used by college and pro teams.

From “Call Me Coach,” by Paul Dietzel (and there's no “as told to.”)

*********** There are things football people can learn from the case of the Navy captain who commanded the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt.  The guy wrote a letter to Navy higher-ups “pleading”  (the very unmilitary word that most headline writers used) for them to do something about the fact that there were cases of Chinese Virus on board his ship, and shortly after the letter was made public, he was  relieved of his command.  Many Americans, mostly those who oppose the President and know absolutely nothing about how an Army or a Navy operates are raising hell, incorrectly calling the captain a “whistle blower” - a “hero,” even -  acting as if all he did was write a letter to his superiors because he felt they weren’t doing what he wanted done.

What these people obviously don’t understand is that there is something in the military - and in most well-run organizations - called the Chain of Command.  Smooth and effective operations depend on the organization’s members observing its protocol, and in the interest of maintaining the integrity of the chain of command, violations are treated harshly.  The higher the violator’s rank, the harsher the treatment.

The instant I read that the guy had sent out a letter to people higher-up in the command, instead of taking his concerns to his immediate superior-  as anyone who has attained the rank of captain knows is the way to handle them - I thought, “This guy’s career is over.”

And sure enough, it was.

What can this teach us? Next time you get a chance:  be the assistant coach who bypasses the head coach to complain to the AD; the head coach who bypasses the AD to take his concerns to the principal; the AD who bypasses the principal and deals directly with the superintendent; the principal who bypasses the superintendent and goes to the school board.

And if they don’t fire you, that’ll be your sign that you’re working in a sorry-ass  organization.



*********** I’m fortunate enough to have a copy of “The Herman Hickman Reader,” a collection of stories and poems published in 1953.

The foreword - introduction - was written by Charlie Loftus, who was the Sports Information Director at Yale when I was there. Charlie and Herman became fast friends.  Like Herman, Charlie was a very large man, and like Herman he was a very jovial person, a lover of literature and quick with a story.  And, like Herman, he was impossible to dislike. I’ll never forget him because my junior year, he saw me in Ray Tompkins House, the athletic department headquarters, and asked me if I was going home for Thanksgiving.  When I told him that I was, he said, “You’re from Philadelphia - how’d you like to go to the Army-Navy game?”  Before I could even answer “YES!!!” he handed me a pair of tickets.  Holy sh—!  A Philadelphian born and raised, I’d never been to the game.  I didn’t even know anybody who’d been to the game. It was something people with connections got to go to. My dad and I went, and it was an unforgettable experience for both of us. And Army won.

INTRODUCTION

It was in 1950 – a short time before Christmas. Herman Hickman was whittling away at a stack of greeting cards on his desk. One was from the board chairman of a vast American industrial enterprise. Another was from the counter man of a quick-order lunch room in an isolated section of North Carolina.

There were others. From the president of a major television network. From boys, and from parents of boys, who had played football under him. From newspapermen and hotel bellhops. From factory workers and famous educators. From clergymen, store clerks, Army generals, delivery boys. From some of the most glamorous names in the tinsel world of show business, to Broadway characters that Damon Runyon could have immortalized.

Although I had known this mountain of a man for many years, it was the first time that I grasped the full significance of what a truly giant figure he is. I realized that he knew kings, but remembered his friends, and that both kings and friends remembered him.

I learned early that Herman Hickman was a native of Johnson City, Tennessee. Playing with charming guile on my innocence, he had me believing, for a long time, that he had been born in a tree, been raised in the backwoods, and roamed with a rifle until someone lassoed him, shod him, and introduced him to civilization as a lineman with the University of Tennessee. It was three years before I knew that he was the son of an attorney and that his family background includes some of the citizens of which Tennessee is the proudest.

If radio had been more than an experiment at the time Herman was seven years old he might very well have been the original Quiz Kid. At any rate, he was a literary expert at an age when the proudest accomplishment of most Muppets is that they can tie their own shoelaces.

Johnson City kinfolk must have suspected that the Herman Hickman of some 35 years and 250 pounds ago was no ordinary individual. They became sure when the state militia from the community was activated for service in World War I. A tearfully protesting six-year-old Herman had to be dragged forcibly from the train by an early day platoon consisting of his two grandfathers. He had wanted to go to war.

Not too long after, Herman decided on a legal career. One day a factory representative enthusiastically called at his residence to see the “Mr. Hickman who has written us about furniture and filing cabinets for the law office he is going to open.”  It had been Herman‘s practice to read everything – including catalogs.

It was a little wonder, then, that within a short time this apple – cheeked zealot was winning oratorical contest with renditions of patriotic pieces. After all, he had tried to be both a soldier and a lawyer before he was 10.

I had often wondered just how good a football player Herman was. The first thing I learned back in my cub days of reporting was to take nothing for granted, so I checked. Grantland Rice told me he was the best guard he had ever seen. Newspaper clips of the games in which he played proved it. When the Associated Press, a few years ago, was naming its all – time football squad for the first half of the 20th century, Herman was voted a place on it.

Herman tells a lot of stories about his coaching and playing days. In all of them he is the goat. But one story he doesn’t tell is a yarn that Chick Meehan once related to me.

Meehan was then coach of a powerful New York University team that was playing Tennessee in a postseason game at the Yankee Stadium for the benefit of the unemployed.  NYU had a first down on the 4 yard line. Meehan sent in instructions to run it through the “fat boy.“  His quarterback was a very literal young man, and four plays were run right at Hickman. The series of downs ended with NYU back on the 14 yard line.

After the game, Meehan asked his captain, Ernie Concannon, if Hickman were really that tough. “I didn’t want to find out, “was Concannon‘s reply. “All I know is that he called me a damn Yankee, and I pretended I didn’t hear him. “

How good a football coach was Hickman? I am virtually certain that the lines he developed at West Point  were the finest ever molded in gridiron history. Yale gave him an unprecedented 10 year contract. When Hickman resigned to accept a long term television contract, the astute Lou Little, dean of  Ivy coaches and head man at Columbia termed it “a major loss the game can ill afford. Men such as Herman Hickman are not only good for, but are needed by, college football. He was one of the great coaches.”

No man ever loved football more. He loved his football players, but he loved them as boys first. He loved every minute of his work at Yale, just as he had when he coached at West Point, North Carolina State and Wake Forest. I have often thought of what a lot of pondering went into his decision to retire from the game. When he left Yale he made certain that he expressed his gratitude to everyone who had worked with him. More than that, he meant it.

But those who knew him well were not surprised at his decision. He had done the unexpected before. After he was graduated from Tennessee, he became a wrestler. He was, Jimmy Cannon once wrote, the only professional wrestler ever admitted to the human race.

“Just why, “I asked Herman years later, “did you ever wrestle?” Herman, a practical poet, gave a practical reply.

“I was graduated, “he said, “in 1932. Things were mighty tough at that point in the depression. I just didn’t know where else I could make a couple of hundred dollars a week. “

I have often thought, especially when listening to this man reciting poetry, that as a wrestler he was a remarkable paradox. Try to imagine Hickman by night, obliterating pachyderms with his “flying tackles,” and, by day, browsing in book shops, attending ballets, memorizing poetry, and discovering all of the nation’s fine eating places.

In the fall of those years he played professional football with the now-defunct Brooklyn club. He played for three years, and was an all-league guard. He then coached at Wake Forest and North Carolina State. His Army and Yale assignments followed.

Hickman could no more have avoided television than Romeo could have escaped Juliet. It was about 1949. TV was just beginning to creep. The perceptive Fred Friendly, producer of the Edward R. Murrow “See it Now” show, was packaging a quiz vehicle called “Who Said That?”

It was a panel show in which questions were based upon current news events and famous quotes from history. He suggested Herman as a guest. I shall never forget Herman‘s TV debut. As fast as the moderator could pose the questions Herman was waving his hand in the air with the enthusiasm of a fourth grader who just had to go to the bathroom.

Whether he realized it or not, Herman was in show business. Twice more he was invited back as a guest. The audience reaction each time was the same. The demand was for more Hickman. More Hickman they got, too, as a regular member of the “Celebrity Time” show. As Herman provided answers to even the most difficult questions, the letters poured in. People in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and a lot of way stations in between, suddenly realized football coaches and football players could be pretty intelligent men.

“Bless you,” wrote a mother in Iowa. “My son loves football, but never wants to study. After watching you on television, he is now an honor student.” There were many more like this. It’s safe to assume that Herman Hickman did a lot to increase the study habits of the nation’s youth. At least he provided parents with encouraging ammunition.

With the possible exception of a presidential nominee, I doubt if anyone has addressed more meetings in the past few years than has Herman. The range here is great - conventions, educational conferences, sales meetings, convocations, literary groups, alumni meetings, athletic banquets – and any other reason for which people gather.

“Automatically,” Herman says, “when I see you have a grapefruit or a fruit cup, even if on the breakfast table at my own house, I just stand up and start to speak.”

This is the Herman Hickman that audiences see. But what is the private-life Herman Hickman like?  First of all,  he is the most kindly man I have ever known. In the 10 years we have been friends, I have never heard him say one acid word about anyone or anything. Scientists have never weighed his heart, but if they ever do they might find it comprises the major portion of his 300 and some pounds. He has an enormous capacity to enjoy everything – not only food, but also people, literature, and life itself. Reciprocally, everyone who knows Herman enjoys him, and when you get to know him in this book, I’m sure you will, too.

“I’m going to give you a lot of philosophy. A 42-year-old’s philosophy. Now, I’m a third generation Bob Neyland student. By that I mean that my head coach at college played for Bob Neyland at Tennessee. So, much of his philosophy was passed on to me. “AVOID LOSING, THEN WIN” was one of the things that was always on our blackboard before a game. The first thing that went up there was, ‘The team that makes the fewest mistakes, wins. 

“Avoid losing by eliminating the mistakes - then you have a chance to win.”

FRIDAY

Dear Andy,

I hope you and your family are doing well during this pandemic. I heard an interview earlier today on Paul Finebaum that college football administrators are terrified that a lost college football season in 2020 could sink 75 percent of the FBS. How true do you think this is, and why? I actually think all sports will be canceled in 2020, so this makes me very nervous for the future of college athletics. — KC,  Phoenix

I don’t know if it would cause all the athletic departments to go under — a few have strategic reserves that could be tapped in this kind of emergency — but a school year without a football season would wreak all manner of havoc. Departments have spent decades trying to spend every penny they make (so they don’t have to give more to the players or any to Uncle Sam), and most aren’t equipped to handle a year with no football season ticket revenue, no football booster donations and no football TV money.

Employees would get furloughed — or outright laid off — and sports would get cut. Some of those non-revenue sports wouldn’t come back. Football would come back, but not without considerable damage to each athletic department and a constriction in the number of available jobs.

Because of this, the people who run college sports will do everything within their power to get this season played. If it means moving the season to start in October, November, December or January, they’ll do it. If it isn’t safe at any point between now and next April to have huge crowds gather, they’ll play in front of no fans to get the TV money. That still would require massive budget cuts, but it probably would at least keep Power 5 programs afloat. They would have to find a way to play a season between September and the end of April 2021. The economic model they’ve created simply cannot function without a football season.

If there is no way to stage football games in empty stadiums by next spring, then the world would have much bigger problems than some college athletic departments going belly-up. Our economy would have collapsed by that point, and nations across the world would be in a full-scale depression. My guess is that won’t be allowed to happen. A return to something resembling normal would happen before that.

Which means the season probably will get played. When? We don’t know.

Be wary of anyone at this point who makes definitive statements. In my business, people are often afraid to say “I don’t know.” But “I don’t know” is the correct answer to a lot of questions these days. There is a point in the next few months when college sports leaders will have to make a decision whether the season can start on time. That hasn’t happened yet, so let’s see what the world looks like in — say — early June. Ohio State announcing Wednesday that summer school classes (which run until August) will be offered online doesn’t give me a ton of confidence the season will start on time, but it also doesn’t preclude the season starting a little later than usual.

We don’t know right now. Not just about college football, but about a lot of things much more important in the grand scheme than college football. And that’s incredibly scary. But we don’t need to panic. To paraphrase the most boring coaches I interview, we need to take it one day at a time and process information as it becomes available.

Retail Drinks Australia (the national trade organization that represents the country’s liquor stores)  has announced a voluntary national initiative to place temporary limits on the number of liquor products shoppers can purchase in one transaction.

Retail Drinks CEO Julie Ryan said the move is to address the Government’s concerns on how some customers could change their purchasing behaviours and cause supply interruptions in alcohol.

“We know that consumers like to feel certainty of supply during times of crisis, and our members want to do their part to encourage people continuing to purchase alcohol responsibly as they normally would. Our suppliers in breweries, wineries, distilleries and the wholesale and distribution of drinks continue to be fully operational and this means there are no issues of supply,” said Ryan.

“However, it was clear that uncertainty on the impact of supply following the closure of pubs, clubs and restaurants last week caused some people to purchase differently. We want to now send a clear message bottle shops remain an essential service and there are no issues of supply. These temporary measures will ensure that all consumers can continue to access their favourite drinks when they decide to make a purchase.”

“shoppers can purchase only two cases of beer, cider, pre-mix spirits/ready to drink; 12 bottles of wine”

“My friend John R. Powers, a Chicago novelist, was supposed to fly to Los Angeles in 1979 but decided to skip his flight. It crashed on takeoff at O’Hare International Airport, killing everyone aboard. He told a reporter his death hadn’t been averted, only postponed.” 



*********** Franklin, New Jersey is a town of about 5,000 people in the rural far northwest corner of the state.  Yes, rural.  In New Jersey!  In 2019, hunters killed 85 bears in Franklin’s county, Sussex.

Franklin was first settled a long time ago -in the 1600s - and named Franklin Furnace because of the iron ore deposits found there. It’s far enough away from the big cities of the East that it never got swallowed up by urban sprawl. Never grew big.  It’s a bit of the heartland, just an hour and a half from New York City (in Coronavirus-type traffic).

Back in the 1800s, zinc deposits were discovered there, and small mines cropped up. In 1897,  the New Jersey Zinc Company acquired all of the area mines, and as the company grew, it recruited workers from Eastern Europe.

I first learned about Franklin because I’d heard of a semipro football team named the Franklin Miners.  They were good.  At one time, when they had aspirations of being a professional minor league team, their coach was former Philadelphia Eagles’ great Steve Van Buren.

More recently, I heard a lot about them from the late General Jim Shelton, who helped me start the Black Lion Award.   Jim was a native of Franklin.  After high school he went on to play football at Delaware (Mike Lude was his line coach), and then to a long career in the Army.  Jim was very proud of his hometown and of the history of the Franklin Miners, even confessing to me once that while he was at Delaware, he’d played in a couple of their games.

In 1999 they held a reunion of all Miners’ players still living, and Jim, knowing my love of football history, was kind enough to send me a copy of a book presented to all the attendees, a game-by-game history of the team.

In the book’s Dedication, the author, Richard Fletcher, wrote,

“This history is dedicated to the memory of all those who in some way made it possible for the model mining town of Franklin, N.J., to field a football team that became known as the Green Bay of the East. The Old Fight, Zinctowners, Pick and Shovel Gang, Zinc Slabs and Zincos gave the residents of Sussex County thrill after thrill for many years.”

Fletcher’s research showed that in the early years of the twentieth century the town had a football team, but it wasn’t until many years later, in the depth of the Depression, that the Miners got their start.

“Sometime prior to Thursday, October 10, 1935,” Fletcher wrote,  “a group of Franklin residents, mostly young miners, got together to discuss whether or not they could get ready in time to field a competitive football team for that season…the team name was certainly not an issue since everything related to sports (in the town) seemed to take on the name Miners.

Ten days later, they played their first game.

Sunday, October 20, 1935, at 2 PM, the Miners surprised and delighted their fans with a 13-0 win over Netcong A.A.
They finished their first season 3-1-1,  and by the end of the 1941 season, they’d compiled a record of 40-4-8.  Along the way, they had four undefeated seasons.

But then came December, 1941.

As team president Roy Lent wrote at the time…

“The Miners had to cancel their last game in 1941 due to several members being too hurt to play and several others being inducted into the service. 

“As the uniforms are packed in mothballs and the “Old Fight” dies over Beaver Lake Mountain a feeling of satisfaction comes over us all. When the 1942 season dawns and the Miners again take up the fight we hope to have you all behind us.”

But then, as most of us know, came December 7 and the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the world was at war. And there was no Franklin Miners’ football for FIVE YEARS!

Wrote Fletcher, “Little did Roy Lent  know when he made the preceding statement that those uniforms would be stored for five long years.  The next game the Miners would play would have to wait until 1946.  The “Old Fight” would be running different types of plays in the European and Japanese theaters of war.”

All that was by way of setting up the following poem, "My Pals”, written by Roy Lent during World War II.  The Franklin Miners were off to war, and, although no threat to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, he did a pretty good job of expressing nostalgia for the good old days, and looking forward wistfully to their return.

(Bear in mind that most of the guys he’s talking  about worked in the zinc mines, then practiced football after their day’s work.)

“My Pals”   
 
Oft' times when I am thinking,
I go back to those pre-war days.
And wish I could live all over again
Those happy but old-time ways.
 
When I'd drop over to Moxie's,
After the day was through,
In would come Remus and Sabo,
And probably Yokie and Poo.
 
Then we'd talk some football -
About the team we'd have in the Fall.
Whether we could beat Dover or not -
How well I remember it all.
 
Then in would come Bob Hulbert,
Or Fred Phillips with Paolo Swetz.
Cubby'd be looking for Emro.
No more do we hear their footsteps.
 
Next we'd go to the diner -
Eddie Selems would great us there.
Now, a lot of the stools are empty -
My pals have gone elsewhere.
 
The happy voices at the quarry,
As swimming they would go,
Or gather in groups at the Neighb. -
It seems it must ever be so.
 
The happy smiles at noontime,
As to lunch we all would go -
Cokie would pull a wisecrack,
And then the whistle would blow.
 
Then football practice would roll around -
There was Bodnar, Kubo and Pep.
Doug Pollard and Andy Swetz were there,
Trying a block or a new side step.
 
Jackie Dobbins would be throwin' to Kelly,
And Shon would be trying a kick.
Teddy Lapotka would get some water,
And Red Trichine would throw it at Vic.
 
Then Emro would drive off-tackle,
Hezzy Lozaw would clear the way.
Buffy would get out his papers,
And show us a new trick play.
 
Then Itchy would yell, "The Old Fight!",
As he'd snare a touchdown pass.
Bud Schroeder would take out the safety man,
And his helmet would roll on the grass.
 
Then Sabo would kick the extra point,
Over the bar straight and true.
In five years he kicked fifty-one,
A good record for any one shoe.
 
Then the practice was over -
To the showers they would go.
Cubby would get some soap in his eye,
And someone would step on his toe.
 
Then I'd announce the Camptown game -
I must have had doubt in my eyes.
But they'd all yell, "The Old Fight, Gang!"
Nothing too tough for those guys.
 
And so I could name a hundred or more,
That I would like to see.
And it gives you a funny feeling inside,
When you think how things used to be.
 
The memory of their faces,
Will ever remain so clear.
Pals who wouldn't let you down -
And friends I loved so dear.
 
But somewhere they are doing a job,
For all of us - you and me.
And I'll put my bet on every guy,
To bring us victory.
 
They don't worry about sugar,
Or an extra gallon of gas.
All they want is to be home again,
And sack on their own green grass.
 
I live for the day when they return,
And parade down old Main Street.
Nothing's too good for those guys,
In victory or defeat.
 
Oft' times when you are thinking,
Don't you long for those pre-war days -
And wish you could live all over again
Those happy but old-time ways?

I’m mountain bred and I’m mountain born,
I came to town, but I’m still forlorn,
The folks up here have been nice to me,
But  I long for my home, back in Tennessee.

INTRODUCTION

It was in 1950 – a short time before Christmas. Herman Hickman was whittling away at a stack of greeting cards on his desk. One was from the board chairman of a vast American industrial enterprise. Another was from the counter man of a quick-order lunch room in an isolated section of North Carolina.

There were others. From the president of a major television network. From boys, and from parents of boys, who had played football under him. From newspapermen and hotel bellhops. From factory workers and famous educators. From clergymen, store clerks, Army generals, delivery boys. From some of the most glamorous names in the tinsel world of show business, to Broadway characters that Damon Runyon could have immortalized.

Although I had known this mountain of a man for many years, it was the first time that I grasped the full significance of what a truly giant figure he is. I realized that he knew kings, but remembered his friends, and that both kings and friends remembered him.

I learned early that Herman Heckman was a native of Johnson City, Tennessee. Playing with charming guile on my innocence, he had me believing, for a long time, that he had been born in a tree, been raised in the backwoods, and roamed with a rifle until someone lassoed him, shod him, and introduced him to civilization as a lineman with the University of Tennessee. It was three years before I knew that he was the son of an attorney and that his family background includes some of the citizens of which Tennessee is the proudest.

If radio had been more than an experiment at the time Herman was seven years old he might very well have been the original Quiz Kid. At any rate, he was a literary expert at an age when the proudest accomplishment of most Muppets is that they can tie their own shoes laces.

Johnson City kinfolk must have suspected that the Herman Hickman of some 35 years and 250 pounds ago was no ordinary individual. They became sure when the state militia from the community was activated for service in World War I. A tearfully protesting six-year-old Herman had to be dragged forcibly from the train by an early day platoon consisting of his two grandfathers. He had wanted to go to war.

Not too long after, Herman decided on a legal career. One day a factory representative enthusiastically called at his residence to see the “Mr. Hickman who has written us about furniture and filing cabinets for the law office he is going to open.”  It had been Herman‘s practice to read everything – including catalogs.

It was a little wonder, then, that within a short time this apple – cheeked zealot was winning oratorical contest with renditions of patriotic pieces. After all, he had tried to be both a soldier and a lawyer before he was 10.

I had often wondered just how good a football player Herman was. The first thing I learned back in my cub days of reporting was to take nothing for granted, so I checked. Grantland Rice told me he was the best guard he had ever seen. Newspaper clips of the games in which he played proved it. When the Associated Press, a few years ago, was naming its all – time football squad for the first half of the 20th century, Herman was voted a place on it.

Herman tells a lot of stories about his coaching and playing days. In all of them he is the goat. But one story he doesn’t tell is a yarn that Chick Meehan once related to me.

Meehan was then coach of a powerful New York University team that was playing Tennessee in a postseason game at the Yankee Stadium for the benefit of the unemployed.  NYU had a first down on the 4 yard line. Meehan sent in instructions to run it through the “fat boy.“  His quarterback was a very literal young man, and four plays were run right at Hickman. The series of downs ended with NYU back on the 14 yard line.

After the game, Meehan asked his captain, Ernie Concannon, if Hickman were really that tough. “I didn’t want to find out, “was Concannon‘s reply. “All I know is that he called me a damn Yankee, and I pretended I didn’t hear him. “

How good a football coach was Hickman? I am virtually certain that the lines he developed at West Point  were the finest ever molded in gridiron history. Yale gave him an unprecedented 10 year contract. When Hickman resigned to accept a long term television contract, the astute Lou Little, dean of  Ivy coaches and head man at Columbia termed it “a major loss the game can ill afford. Men such as Herman Hickman are not only good for, but are needed by, college football. He was one of the great coaches.”

No man ever loved football more. He loved his football players, but he loved them as boys first. He loved every minute of his work at Yale, just as he had when he coached at West Point, North Carolina State and Wake Forest. I have often thought of what a lot of pondering went into his decision to retire from the game. When he left Yale he made certain that he expressed his gratitude to everyone who had worked with him. More than that, he meant it.

But those who knew him well were not surprised at his decision. He had done the unexpected before. After he was graduated from Tennessee, he became a wrestler. He was, Jimmy Cannon once wrote, the only professional wrestler ever admitted to the human race.

“Just why, “I asked Herman years later, “did you ever wrestle?” Herman, a practical poet, gave a practical reply.

“I was graduated, “he said, “in 1932. Things were mighty tough at that point in the depression. I just didn’t know where else I could make a couple of hundred dollars a week. “

I have often thought, especially when listening to this man reciting poetry, that as a wrestler he was a remarkable paradox. Try to imagine Hickman by night, obliterating pachyderms with his “flying tackles,” and, by day, browsing in book shops, attending ballets, memorizing poetry, and discovering all of the nation’s fine eating places.

In the fall of those years he played professional football with the now-defunct Brooklyn club. He played for three years, and was an all-league guard. He then coached at Wake Forest and North Carolina State. His Army and Yale assignments followed.

Hickman could no more have avoided television than Romeo could have escaped Juliet. It was about 1949. TV was just beginning to creep. The perceptive Fred Friendly, producer of the Edward R. Murrow “See it Now” show, was packaging a quiz vehicle called “Who Said That?”

It was a panel show in which questions were based upon current news events and famous quotes from history. He suggested Herman as a guest. I shall never forget Herman‘s TV debut. As fast as the moderator could pose the questions Herman was waving his hand in the air with the enthusiasm of a fourth grader who just had to go to the bathroom.

Whether he realized it or not, Herman was in show business. Twice more he was invited back as a guest. The audience reaction each time was the same. The demand was for more Hickman. More Hickman they got, too, as a regular member of the “Celebrity Time” show. As Herman provided answers to even the most difficult questions, the letters poured in. People in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and a lot of way stations in between, suddenly realized football coaches and football players could be pretty intelligent men.

“Bless you, “wrote a mother in Iowa. “My son loves football, but never wants to study. After watching you on television, he is now an honor student.” There were many more like this. It’s safe to assume that Herman Hickman did a lot to increase the study habits of the nation’s youth. At least he provided parents with encouraging ammunition.

With the possible exception of a presidential nominee, I doubt if anyone has addressed more meetings in the past few years than has Herman. The range here is great - conventions, educational conferences, sales meetings, convocations, literary groups, alumni meetings, athletic banquets – and any other reason for which people gather.

“Automatically,” Herman says, “when I see you have a grapefruit or a fruit cup, even if on the breakfast table at my own house, I just stand up and start to speak.”

This is the Herman Hickman that audiences see. But what is the private-life Herman Hickman like?  First of all,  he is the most kindly man I have ever known. In the 10 years we have been friends, I have never heard him say one acid word about anyone or anything. Scientists have never weighed his heart, but if they ever do they might find it comprises the major portion of his 300 and some pounds. He has an enormous capacity to enjoy everything – not only food, but also people, literature, and life itself. Reciprocally, everyone who knows Herman enjoys him, and when you get to know him in this book, I’m sure you will, too.

TUESDAY

To start with, anybody with good sense who ever saw him play more than once would say he was the greatest college player who ever lived. That’s right. Ever lived. Pound for pound, sinew for sinew, fiber for fiber.

Doak Walker played both ways in an era of free substitution. He ran, passed, received, returned, punted, tackled, blocked, place kicked, and intercepted in the three seasons of 1947, 1948, and 1949 when he was a consensus all America tailback.

At 5:10 and 165 pounds, Walker was a graceful, winning, do-everything athlete who looked even more streamlined in the new low-quarter shoes. He was the first player I ever saw wear low-quarters. He seemed to thrive on the suspense, the drama of a close game. He was movie-star handsome, incredibly photogenic, which has something to do with him becoming the magazine cover king – Life, Look, Collier‘s, etc. – easily the most publicized college player ever.

For three full years, mind you. And yet his modesty never let all the acclaim move him. His teammates adored him, always looked to him for leadership, for one more miracle on the field, which he usually provided. Even his rivals admired and respected him. 

Doak Walker was the ideal post war hero.

The more devout fans of  Walker, which includes your typist, like to argue that he should’ve been the first – and perhaps the only – two time winner of the Heisman. He won it in ’48, of course, and was third in the voting in ’47 and ’49 what  Walker fans argue is that ’47 was his best season. He just didn’t have the lore strength of Johnny Lujack or Bob Chappuis which is to say  SMU didn’t have the lore strength of Notre Dame or Michigan.

Walker did win the Maxwell award in ’47 which shows at least a certain group of people weren’t swayed by South Bend or Ann Arbor.

Little-known fact: in leading SMU to a 9-0-1 season in '47,  Walker averaged 57 minutes a game, going both ways in that area of platoon ball.

Week by week, here’s all he did:

*Ran 97 and 44 yards for touchdowns in the 22 to 6 win over Santa Clara in San Francisco.

*Ran 76 and 57 yards for touchdowns in the 35 to 19 victory over Missouri.
 
*Had a 30 yard run, ran 3 yards for one touchdown, passed 15 yards for another touchdown and place kicked all three extra points in the 21 to 14 win over Oklahoma A&M. (Now Oklahoma State.)

*Had a 35 yard run, plunged 1 yard for a touchdown and kicked both extra points in the 14 to 0 win over Rice.

*Ran 3 yards for the touchdown and kicked the extra point in the 7 to 0 win over UCLA in Los Angeles.

*Caught a 54 yard pass that set up a touchdown and kicked the winning extra points that beat Texas 14 to 13 in the “Game of the Year.“

*Played brilliant defense and combined with Gil Johnson to complete 16 of 18 passes in the aerial assault that beat Texas A&M 13 to 0.

*Intercepted two passes, ran 17 yards to set up his 2 yard touchdown run, and kicked both points in the 14 to 6 win over Arkansas.

*Had dazzling runs of 76, 65, and 59 yards in his “greatest game“ as he kept bringing the Mustangs back from certain defeat to gain a last-minute 19 to 19 tie with TCU.

While Lujack and Chappuis were great players, to be sure, nothing they did that season came close to matching  Walker's exploits. It should also be stated  SMU’s schedule in ’47 was far stronger than Notre Dame’s or Michigan’s, not that it counted for anything. Seven of SMU’s 10 opponents played .500 ball or better, mostly better, and won a total of 52 games. Chappuis and Michigan met teams that won only 34 games. Lujack and the Irish went up against nine teams that won only 29 games.

I’m mountain bred and I’m mountain born,
I came to town, but I’m still forlorn,
The folks up here have been nice to me,
But  I long for my home, back in Tennessee.

FRIDAY

“I played football for a long time before I came to Penn State and I never understood why I  did certain things,”  Richie recalled. “Joe has a quarterback manual that was highly requested by a lot of schools. It was essentially why you did certain things at certain positions on the field. He broke it down into three categories – punting on third down, punting on fourth down and going for it on fourth down.

“After a ball game, at the Monday meeting, Joe would always ask me why I did certain things. You could always vary from Joe’s quarterback manual if you had a good reason for it, or if you were using the element of surprise. As I remember it, we would give the ball to each of our halfbacks about the same number of times. In other words, seldom would I give the ball to one halfback 21 times and to the other seven times.

“Well, on one particular series, I forget our opponent, it was third down and a yard to go and we were in four-down territory. I decided to give the ball to Andy Macony. He was a nice guy but he was kind of spindly-legged, not really a power runner even though he was a fullback. And he didn’t make it on third and one. So I gave the ball to Andy again on fourth and one, figuring, well he missed the chance for that self satisfaction of being responsible for something positive. I’ll give him a chance to make it up.

“He didn’t make it again and Joe asked me about it on Monday. ’Why did you give the ball to Andy in that position, knowing his lack of power?‘ I said, ‘Well, I thought the element of surprise would get them.’  He was satisfied by that explanation, but he said, ‘Okay  Richie, but when he didn’t make it on third and one why would you give it to him on fourth and one?‘ And I said ’If they didn’t think I’d give it to him on third and one they sure as heck didn’t think I’d give it to him on fourth and one.‘ The answer satisfied him.“

*********** International Virus Update (Internet Humor)

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to the recent virus threat and have therefore raised their threat level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, the level may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.”

The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.

The virus has been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let's Get the Bastard.” They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”

The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose.”

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its alert level from “No worries” to “She'll be right, Mate.” Two more escalation levels remain: “Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!” and “The barbie is cancelled.” So far, no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

*********** Back in the good old pre-Chinese Virus days, when coaches were allowed to go to clinics and sit, shoulder-to-shoulder, while listening to expert coaches pass along their wisdom, Coach Matt Ford, a Black Lion coach from Bath, New York, told me he was going to a clinic where Army running back coach Mike Viti was speaking.  Wow, I said. Make sure to introduce yourself and get a picture with him!



Coach Ford sent me a photo, and the following note:
 
As promised, here’s a pic of me and Coach Mike Viti.  I told him that you are one of my mentors- that my offense and practice schemes mirror a lot of what you preach.  He had a huge smile when I said, hey, I’ve been inspired by Coach Hugh Wyatt, Black Lion Award, double-wing etc. What an amazing person coach Viti is.   He talked about setting a culture- the right way.   To this day, his most coveted and proud achievement he tells me is receiving the Black Lion Award.  An amazing honor!

(LEFT) Mike Viti getting tough yardage  (note the Black Lion patch on his jersey)
(RIGHT) Captain Mike Viti  escorting Secretary of Defense Gates in Afghanistan


Mike Viti was an Army fullback and team captain, and a Black Lion Award winner. He served in Afghanistan where he earned a Bronze Star, and after retiring from the Army  in 2014 he hiked 4400 miles across the United States to honor Gold Star Families. Starting in Washington state and finishing at the Army-Navy game in Baltimore, the 4,400 miles of Mike’s Hike for Heroes worked out to 7,100 kilometers - one for every service member killed in action in the “global war on terror.”

Many Army fans agree with me that it’s a damn shame Army wasn’t running its current offense when he played there, but we got the next best thing:

Since 2016 he’s been coaching Army’s fullbacks. In recognition of the job he’s done, in 2019 he was named the AFCA (American Football Coaches Association) Assistant Coach of the Year.


*********** The President would like the country to resume relatively normal activity as soon as feasible, lest our economy goes to hell. On the other hand,  medical experts advising him are said to prefer that the country be shut down entirely until the Coronavirus completely disappears.

That shouldn’t surprise football coaches.  Is there one of them who hasn’t yet seen what happens when a kid turns an ankle and Mom takes him to a doctor?

The kid shows up for practice the next day with a note from the doctor saying, in as many words,  “No football for two weeks.”

Actually, it almost doesn’t matter what the “injury” is. The note could be pre-printed: “No football for two weeks.”

The answer to all our pains: just stay off it. Shelter in place.

Coaches can be forgiven for suspecting that if it were up to most doctors, no football player who comes to them would ever play football again.

There’s no truth to that, of course. The truth,  I believe, is that if it were up to most doctors, there wouldn’t even be any football.

*********** Have you noticed how the Coronavirus Crisis and the numerous press conferences it’s spawned have been serving as a full-employment act for sign-language interpreters?  Sure are some strange-looking dudes.

*********** Sent home from campus, without access to their schools’ million-dollar facilities and carefully prescribed strength and nutritional programs, college football players are facing some serious obstacles as they try to build or at least maintain their strength.

Here’s how one college - North Carolina - employs every bit of ingenuity at its disposal to help its players remotely.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/03/20/college-football-spring-coronavirus-impact-unc

*********** Challace McMillan died recently at 77. Who? you say.  His name may not have bee well known to most people, but it deserves to be.

He  built a college football program program from scratch.

It wasn’t until 1966 that Madison College, as it was then known, admitted men.

And it wasn’t until six years latter that Madison had a football team.  McMillan, a former Tennessee High School football coach, was the school’s track coach when in 1972 he was given the task of starting the school’s  football program.

In its first season, Madison, playing mostly “B” squads from other small Virginia colleges, finished 0-4-1.

In its fourth season, the team went 9-0-1, and the following year, it  began playing under a new name:  James Madison University (JMU).

In 1980, now awarding scholarships, JMU moved to NCAA Division I-AA (now called FCS).

When he retired in 1984 after 13 years, he had a 67-60-2 record and the knowledge  that he had built a program with a strong foundation.

Today, JMU is a perennial  FCS power.

http://jmusports.com/news/2020/3/8/jmu-mourns-the-passing-of-hall-of-fame-football-coach-challace-mcmillin.aspx

*********** In journalism it’s called “burying the lead”:  emphasizing something of lesser importance in the beginning of the article, while hiding   something much more important (the real “lead”) further down in the story.

Woody Widenhofer died recently.  Talk about burying the lead…

The guy who wrote the obituary started out like this…

Former Missouri and Vanderbilt coach Robert "Woody" Widenhofer has died at the age of 77 due to a stroke.

With a resume that spanned college and pro football, Widenhofer was the coach at Vanderbilt from 1997-2001 and Missouri from 1985 to 1988, though he compiled just a 27-71-1 record as a head coach at those programs. However, Widenhofer's 5-6 record at Missouri in 1987 matched the program's highest single-season win total between 1984 and 1996. Additionally, his defenses at Vanderbilt were consistently some of the best in the SEC.

In addition to his time in college, Widenhofer was a linebackers coach and later defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1973-83. He was a part of four Super Bowl-winning teams and one of the leaders behind the famous Steel Curtain defense.

Are you kidding me? 

The guy was the Steelers’ linebacker coach for six seasons - 1973 through 1978. He coached two Hall-of-Famers  (Jack Ham and Jack Lambert) and one should-be Hall-of-Famer (Andy Russell).

And then, succeeding Bud Carson as defensive coordinator, he was the DC when they won their fourth Super Bowl.

Personally,  taking the entirety of  Coach Widenhofer’s career -  putting being the coach of one of the greatest defenses in the history of the game (and three of its greatest linebackers)  up against coaching at Vanderbilt and Missouri - I’d call that burying the lead.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/former-missouri-vanderbilt-football-coach-woody-widenhofer-dies-at-age-77/


*********** “Football is what you’re doing now - but it’s not your life’s work.” That was Hall of Fame coach  Chuck Noll, reminding his players that there was a lot more to life after football.

His words ring hollow these days, when in one year a player can earn 10-20 times more than most wage-earners will earn in their lifetimes.

I was reminded of Coach Noll’s words as I was browsing through the Baltimore Colts’ 1967 Media Guide, noticing that in addition to the usual personal and professional info about the players, there was frequently a mention of their “off-season” activities.  In comparison with the rest of us working stiffs, those guys were being paid well, but certainly not well enough to set them up for the rest of their lives, as is the case with today’s pro football players.  Most of those guys, the veterans anyhow,  were already at work at - or in pursuit of - the careers that awaited them when their football days were over.

Here, listed alphabetically by player’s name, were those guys’ off-season pursuits.

Teacher  (Gerald Allen)
Insurance Sales (Bob Baldwin)
Speaker, coaching (Raymond Berry)
Sales, Canada Dry-Frostie Root Beer (Ordell Braase)
Student, Emory Law School (Bill Curry)
Real Estate Sales (Mike Curtis)
Sales Engineer (Dennis Gaubatz)
Attends Southern University (Alvin Haymond)
Forestry Service (Jerry Hill)
Ranching (Jerry Logan)
Sales - Brown & Williamson Tobacco (Lenny Lyles)
Radio & TV Sportscaster (John Mackey)
Real Estate Sales (Tom Matte)
Operates Bar (Lou Michaels)
Operates Cocktail Lounge (Lenny Moore)
Stockbroker (Jimmy Orr)
Operates Liquor Store (Jim Parker)
Owns Fast Food Restaurants (Glenn Ressler)
Christian Work (Don Shinnick)
Stockbroker (Billy Ray Smith)
Insurance Sales (Andy Stynchula)
Engineer, Bethlehem Steel (Dan Sullivan)
Sales, Canada Dry-Frostie Root Beer (Dick Szymanski)
Promotional Work (John Unitas)
Promotional Work, Allied Chemical (Bob Vogel)
Stockbroker (Jim Welch)
Teacher (Butch Wilson)

*********** “Without winners there can be no civilization, and without heroes there can be no winning. I can see a conscious or subconscious effort in our country to tear down heroes, and yet I ask: what achievements could there have been without heroes?”  Woody Hayes

*********** How have Power 5 conference teams done since switching conferences?

Of the 12 schools, 10 have done poorer in the years since switching than in a comparable number of seasons before doing so.

Rutgers, TCU and West Virginia have taken the deepest dives since switching.

Only Syracuse and Texas A & M have done better  (Syracuse only barely - from 34-52 before to 37-49 since.)

COLORADO
Realigned: from the Big 12 to the Pac-12 in 2011
Performance in nine seasons prior to moving (2002-10): 50-63 (44%)
Performance in nine seasons since moving (2011-19): 39-73 (35%)

LOUISVILLE
Realigned: from the Big East/American to the ACC in 2014
Performance in six seasons prior to moving (2008-13): 46-30 (61%)
Performance in six seasons since moving (2014-19): 44-33 (57%)


MARYLAND
Realigned: from the ACC to the Big Ten in 2014
Performance in six seasons prior to moving (2008-13): 32-43 (43%)
Performance in six seasons since moving (2014-19): 28-46 (38%)

MISSOURI
Realigned: from the Big 12 to the SEC in 2012
Performance in eight seasons prior to moving (2004-11): 68-35 (66%)
Performance in eight seasons since moving (2012-19): 58-44 (56%)

NEBRASKA
Realigned: from the Big 12 to the Big Ten in 2011
Performance in nine seasons prior to moving (2002-10): 73-44 (62%)
Performance in nine seasons since moving (2011-19): 65-50 (57%)

PITT
Realigned: from the Big East to the ACC in 2013
Performance in seven seasons prior to moving (2006-12): 50-39 (56%)
Performance in seven seasons since moving (2013-19): 49-42 (53%)

RUTGERS
Realigned: from the Big East/American to the Big Ten in 2014
Performance in six seasons prior to moving (2008-13): 45-32 (58%)
Performance in six seasons since moving (2014-19): 21-52 (29%)

SYRACUSE
Realigned: from the Big East to the ACC in 2013
Performance in seven seasons prior to moving (2006-12): 34-52 (40%)
Performance in seven seasons since moving (2013-19): 37-49 (43%)

TEXAS A&M
Realigned: from the Big 12 to the SEC in 2012
Performance in eight seasons prior to moving (2004-11): 54-46 (54%)
Performance in eight seasons since moving (2012-19): 68-36 (65%)

TCU
Realigned: from the Mountain West/C-USA to the Big 12 in 2012
Performance in eight seasons prior to moving (2004-11): 82-19 (81%)
Performance in eight seasons since moving (2012-19): 63-40 (61%)

UTAH
Realigned: from the Mountain West to the Pac-12 in 2011
Performance in nine seasons prior to moving (2002-10): 84-28 (75%)
Performance in nine seasons since moving (2011-19): 73-44 (62%)

WEST VIRGINIA
Realigned: from the Big East to the Big 12 in 2012
Performance in eight seasons prior to moving (2004-11): 78-24 (76%)
Performance in eight seasons since moving (2012-19): 56-45 (55%)

https://fbschedules.com/college-football-conference-realignment-2010-14-how-have-programs-performed-since-moving/


*********** Australians are eager punters (bettors), and they will bet on just about anything. They are also nuts about sports, so it follows that they love to bet on sports, so it’s a good thing that betting on sports has long been legal Down Under.

My son, Ed, works in marketing for SportsBet, an Australian online bookmaker, and as you can imagine, with most sports closed down worldwide, they’re pressed for action to offer their clients.

Right now, with Australian Rules Football and Rugby both shut down, they’re down to horse racing (still going on in Oz, but without spectators).  Aussies are hungry for action, and as a result Sportsbet has seen a surprising amount of betting on the weather. (Over/Under high temperatures for capital cities!)

Down the line, they’re gearing up for a LOT of action on the US presidential campaign.

But as for sports, other than perhaps the odd game of Buzkashi, about the only other action they’ve been able to find is the Belarus Premier League (soccer).

    

Personally, I like Slutsk over Dinamo, but what the hell do I know?

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

The quiz answer is Joe Bellino, but in researching this I can across Winchester Osgood. He played at both Cornell and Penn, was the Head Coach of Indiana, and volunteered with the Cuban army during the Cuban War of Independence. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1970. Interesting guy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Osgood


I read the Energy Bus this winter. There were lots of ideas that good football coaches already know: be positive, inspire your players, have a clear plan that leads to a vision. However, the part that got my attention, was how the author made it very clear that you have to get the “energy vampires” off of your bus. Explain that you would love to have them, do it clearly and without ambiguity, but if they do not agree, both in words and actions, open the doors and kick them off. I’ve made the mistake of keeping too many assistants and/or kids who have been energy vampires. It never worked out. I am sure I would have won, or lost, the same amount of games without them. They only caused me to second guess my decisions.

Have you ever thought about doing a coaching webinar?  I think it would be very popular while we are all at home. I have done the webinars before and they are not very hard. You could do it for fun, profit, or even as a fundraiser for your program.

What do you think?


Tom Walls
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Very Interesting guy, that Osgood. Killed by a sniper bullet from 1100 yards away.  Hell of a shot.

Thought about a webinar.  I was planning on doing some remote clinics as I’ve done in the past, but I put the idea on hold.  Any particular topic? I’m not particularly interested in the money.

*********** Hugh,

I found today’s blog (March 24) one of your best. Lots of good stuff in it but the piece on woman coaching football got my attention. Without question Connie would be a great coach and she probably knows more about the DW then anyone. What most of your readers probably don’t know she has filmed more DW games, practices, and skill sessions then anyone alive. Then while coaching with you in North Beach you may remember I had to return home on a personal matter. Kathy, by phone, did a play by play for me of the game I was missing. She also did a play by play analysis and I thought to myself at the time what a great coach this girl would be. I have so many fond memories and stories from that season.

We are well and decided to stay here in Calabash North Carolina through April,  after our cruise was cancelled. The golf courses and beaches here are still open but everything else is shut down. We do our shopping at Publix from 7 to 8 AM the designated old folks time, make sure our golf cart is wiped downed and only go out as a twosome , and practice “Social Distancing” at the beach. Everything in Rangeley is shut down,  they have a foot of snow on the ground and the weather here is good so here we stay.

I hope you and Connie are safe and will remain so!

Jack Tourtillotte
Rangeley, Maine

*********** Hugh,

Out of an abundance of caution we should quarantine all the democrat politicians!

California is experiencing a similar situation as Washington and New York.  The San Francisco Bay Area and the LA Basin have large Chinese/Korean populations.  They are part of the Pacific Rim business world and air travel between China/Korea and those two cities is huge.  Only a few counties in and around those cities are showing large numbers of infection from the virus.  My family lives in the Central Valley where the numbers are significantly lower.  Same with New York City.

One of the great regrets in my life is not having read more books about things other than football.  Started doing it since retirement and kick myself for not having done it sooner.  It could have enhanced my overall career knowledge, and knowledge of life in general.  Hindsight IS 20-20.

One of the best QB's I coached in high school was not the most talented, but was the most knowledgeable about our offense.  He was the only player I trusted to call plays, and I gave him that opportunity often.  I clearly remember one instance In one very close game where we were on a crucial drive toward the end of the game to win it when the QB came to me during a timeout and told me he had noticed the DE continued to crash hard on 6G and that if he could ride the FB a little tighter to make the DE bite, get the pulling G to climb to the ILB instead of kicking out, have the BSWB in motion block the corner, and have the PSWB block the FS he could keep it and outrun the others to the end zone and score.  I checked the D&D, checked with the guard and WB's, and told him to give it a shot.  He scored easily and we won the game.  After the game I told him I was afraid he was going to ask me if he could throw it.  He told me, "Coach, never crossed my mind, we just needed to run the dang ball to win it, and go home."

Ironically, the lack of a great RB lately has kept Notre Dame from being a serious contender in the national championship picture.  We've had a couple of good backs in the last few years, but they didn't have the pedigree of those mentioned in that article.

Stay well, and have a good week!

Joe Gutilla
Austin, Texas



*********** QUIZ  ANSWER- As a 5-9, 180-pound running back (with the biggest calves, proportionately, you’ve ever seen) Joe Bellino  was the Naval Academy’s  first Heisman trophy winner.
 
In the long history of Navy football, his number  (27) was the first ever retired,  and it is displayed on the field at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium - on the 27-yard line.

A native of Winchester,  Massachusetts, his great speed (he was once  called “the player who was never   caught from behind”) led his Navy teammates to nickname him  the “Winchester Rifle.”

At Winchester High he starred in  football, basketball and baseball. In his three varsity seasons, the football team lost only two games. The basketball team, with him playing point guard, won two Eastern Massachusetts championships.  As a catcher on the baseball team, he was offered a major league contract right out of high school.

Recruited by Notre Dame and a number of Big Ten schools, he chose Navy, even though it meant spending a year at a prep school first. Playing for the prep school, he led it to a one-point win over the Navy plebes (freshmen). 

In his plebe season, he was sensational.

"Had Joe been able to play on our varsity team when he was a plebe, I think we'd have been very close to winning a national championship," recalled Tony Stremic, an outstanding senior guard on the 1957 Navy team that came close, indeed,  finishing a 9-1-1 year with a 20-7 Cotton Bowl victory over Rice.
  
The next spring, playing on the Navy baseball team, he batted .428 and led the Eastern Intercollegiate  League in stolen bases.  He was team captain his senior year.

As a junior, he scored three touchdowns against Army, including a great 46-yard score.  The performance was noted by a young high school quarterback in Cincinnati named Roger Staubach. He watched  the game, and said, years later,   "Watching Joe Bellino dominate that '59 Army-Navy game helped me decide I wanted to go to the Naval Academy.  I idolized him.”

In the Army-Navy game his senior year, with Navy leading 17-12, he intercepted a pass in the end zone to seal the Navy win. After the game, the school’s sports information director told him, “That interception won you the Heisman Trophy!”

He replied, “that interception prevented me from being the goat of the game - because just prior to that interception I had fumbled the ball on our own 17-yard line, and Army was going in for a score!”

He did win the Heisman, more than doubling the number of votes for Penn State’s Richie Lucas. In his senior season he rushed for 834 yards and 18 touchdowns, and completed three touchdown passes. In all, he accounted for 1497 all-purpose yards. During his three-year career at the academy, he scored 31 touchdowns, rushed for 1,664 yards on 330 carries, returned 37 kicks for 833 more yards and altogether set 15 Naval Academy football records.

Following graduation, he spent four years of active duty. Following that, he spent three years with the Boston Patriots, but he was hampered by ankle injuries, and he went on to a career as a businessman in the Boston area.

Right after he had won the Heisman Trophy, a sportswriter asked him if there was anything else he would like to accomplish.

He said, “Another guy from Massachusetts did pretty well this year, President-elect Kennedy, so I would like to meet him.”

The next day, a headline in The Washington Post   read “Bellino  wins Heisman Trophy; now wants to meet President-elect Kennedy.”

A day later, he received a telegram from JFK saying, “Congratulations, I will send a limousine to the Naval Academy next Saturday, and I want you and all the other boys from Massachusetts to come and have lunch with me at my residence in Georgetown.”

They went, and for the rest of his life he kept a photograph from that day.

Asked what other leaders he admired, he said, “Bill Belichick, whom I have known since he was 5 years old when his dad, Steve, was my assistant coach at the Naval Academy… By knowing the weaknesses and strengths of his own team – and accentuating the strengths – Bill changes his game plan depending on who he is playing. The key is making people believe their leader will help them win the game by being prepared, having a plan and executing the plan.”

To start with, anybody with good sense who ever saw him play more than once would say he was the greatest college player who ever lived. That’s right. Ever lived. Pound for pound, sinew for sinew, fiber for fiber.

(— —) played both ways in an era of free substitution. He ran, passed, received, returned, punted, tackled, blocked, place kicked, and intercepted in the three seasons of 1947, 1948, and 1949 when he was a consensus all America tailback.

At 5:10 and 165 pounds, (— —) was a graceful, winning, do-everything athlete who looked even more streamlined in the new low-quarter shoes. He was the first player I ever saw wear low-quarters. He seemed to thrive on the suspense, the drama of a close game. He was movie-star handsome, incredibly photogenic, which has something to do with him becoming the magazine cover king – Life, Look, Collier‘s, etc. – easily the most publicized college player ever.

For three full years, mind you. And yet his modesty never let all the acclaim move him. His teammates adored him, always looked to him for leadership, for one more miracle on the field, which he usually provided. Even his rivals admired and respected him. 

(— —) was the ideal post war hero.

The more devout fans of  (— —), which includes your typist, like to argue that he should’ve been the first – and perhaps the only – two time winner of the Heisman. He won it in ’48, of course, and was third in the voting in ’47 and ’49 what  (— —) fans argue is that ’47 was his best season. He just didn’t have the lore strength of Johnny Lujack or Bob Chappuis which is to say  SMU didn’t have the lore strength of Notre Dame or Michigan.

 (— —) did win the Maxwell award in ’47 which shows at least a certain group of people weren’t swayed by South Bend or Ann Arbor.

Little-known fact: in leading SMU to a 9-0-1 season in '47,  (— —) averaged 57 minutes a game, going both ways in that area of platoon ball.

Week by week, here’s all he did:

*Ran 97 and 44 yards for touchdowns in the 22 to 6 win over Santa Clara in San Francisco.

*Ran 76 and 57 yards for touchdowns in the 35 to 19 victory over Missouri.
 
*Had a 30 yard run, ran 3 yards for one touchdown, passed 15 yards for another touchdown and place kicked all three extra points in the 21 to 14 win over Oklahoma A&M. (Now Oklahoma State.)

*Had a 35 yard run, plunged 1 yard for a touchdown and kicked both extra points in the 14 to 0 win over Rice.

*Ran 3 yards for the touchdown and kicked the extra point in the 7 to 0 win over UCLA in Los Angeles.

*Caught a 54 yard pass that set up a touchdown and kicked the winning extra points that beat Texas 14 to 13 in the “Game of the Year.“

*Played brilliant defense and combined with Gil Johnson to complete 16 of 18 passes in the aerial assault that beat Texas A&M 13 to 0.

*Intercepted two passes, ran 17 yards to set up his 2 yard touchdown run, and kicked both points in the 14 to 6 win over Arkansas.

*Had dazzling runs of 76, 65, and 59 yards in his “greatest game“ as he kept bringing the Mustangs back from certain defeat to gain a last-minute 19 to 19 tie with TCU.

While Lujack and Chappuis were great players, to be sure, nothing they did that season came close to matching  (— —) exploits. It should also be stated  SMU’s schedule in ’47 was far stronger than Notre Dame’s or Michigan’s, not that it counted for anything. Seven of SMU’s 10 opponents played .500 ball or better, mostly better, and won a total of 52 games. Chappuis and Michigan met teams that won only 34 games. Lujack and the Irish went up against nine teams that won only 29 games.

TUESDAY

***********  President Trump said on Monday that in the fight against the Virus, “The cure may be worse than the problem itself” - that there is the possibility that we could come out of this current crisis with the virus defeated but an economy in ruins, a classic pyrrhic victory.

A Greek general named Pyrrhus (“PEER-us”) defeated the Romans in a battle that cost him heavily.  After being congratulated on the victory, he supposedly said, “One more such victory and we shall be utterly ruined.” 

From that comment came the term “pyrrhic (PEER-ick) victory” - one achieved  at so great a cost that it may well not have been worth it.

*********** You may have read that in Italy and elsewhere, the Coronavirus is going after men more than women - 70 per cent of deaths have been men.

I’m smarter than you think.  I’m going to trick that damn Virus by identifying as a woman.

*********** The showboating governors loved their time in the spotlight, and they had their fun playing Tsar, but their chickens are about to come home to roost once  they realize how their shutdowns have shut off their state’s tax revenues.

*********** They were still playing Australian Rules Football Friday night (their Saturday night), but they were doing it in front of empty stands, and the talking heads were practicing proper social distancing (but not, apparently, the folks in the background.)



*********** “Out of an abundance of caution” – An overused phrase that explains a lot of what’s wrong with our culture

July 22, 2015

By Tara Kirk Sell and Crystal Boddie

Last October, when fear about Ebola was at its height in the US, we saw the phrase, “out of an abundance of caution” being used to justify just about anything under the sun.  Want to ban kids from schools because they shared a continental land mass with Ebola victims?  Go ahead and do it out of an abundance of caution. Want to confine anyone who gets sick on an airplane to the bathroom for a whole flight?  Go ahead and do it out of an abundance of caution.  In fact, out of an abundance of caution, we should really plan to never read anything online again, so that we can be sure that the phrase never takes hold in our brains.

Now that the fear around Ebola has died down, it’s a saner moment to think about what that phrase really does.  It allows businesses, schools, leaders in the government, and others in charge to enact policies that are scientifically unfounded but potentially irrational and, sometimes, to infringe upon the rights of others.

We are hardly the first to complain about over-reaching policies set out of an abundance of caution, but it’s a recurring problem worth considering.

Making decisions in a responsible way means weighing potential outcomes with the chances that those outcomes might occur.  The phrase, “out of an abundance of caution,” is often used when explaining an action that isn’t necessary, but is going to be done anyway because you want to be extra careful.

Unfortunately, this throws the whole decision making process for a loop, because it assumes that there are no consequences for overly cautious and unnecessary actions.  Yet these actions always have a cost – in money, resources, time and, sometimes, civil liberties.

Further, using the phrase undermines the science-based messages surrounding risk.  During the Ebola outbreak, public health officials repeatedly cited science-based messages that the disease could only be transmitted by people experiencing symptoms of the disease and that there was no science-based rationale for putting asymptomatic individuals in quarantine.  The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals highlighted these points in a manual on Ebola (the link to the document has since been removed from the website) then noted that quarantine would be used in Louisiana regardless of risk category.

What the phrase really suggests to the public is that these actions were actually needed, otherwise they wouldn’t be done.  Either something is necessary, and should be done, or is unnecessary and shouldn’t be done. One justification for acting out of an abundance of caution is calming public fears.  But do these actions actually calm public fears, or do they make a threat seem bigger than it really is? A better approach is to be transparent about what we know about risks, what science says we should do to minimize those risks, and maybe most importantly, be clear about what we don’t know. A transparent approach to communicating risk has been shown again and again to be more effective than trying to obfuscate the facts and make one sweeping decision “out of an abundance of caution.”

Using the phrase to justify our actions is tempting, especially when we are a little scared and not sure what to do. But let’s be honest with ourselves and others about the risks we face and act accordingly, rather than out of an abundance of caution.

It would be crazy to think that thousands of Americans could be rounded up, out of an abundance of caution, to spend the next few years in the middle of our country in internment camps.  Yet, that happened to thousands of Japanese-American citizens during World War II.  So let’s avoid falling into the “out of abundance of caution” mindset.  It’s often used to justify actions on the margins of advisability, and in reality it usually serves to signal a dangerous combination of fear and rashness.

1. King County (Seattle’s home county) with 1,036 cases
2. Snohomish County (bordering King County on the north) with 480
3. Pierce County (bordering King County on the south) with 107

This is no secret — there’s a reason UW athletic director Jen Cohen included “best book recommender” in her opening remarks at Petersen’s farewell news conference. Several titles I’ve heard or seen Petersen recommend or reference, many of them more than once:

• “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t,” by Jim C. Collins

• “The Slight Edge,” by Jeff Olson

• “The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business,” by Patrick Lencioni

• “The Energy Bus,” by Jon Gordon

• “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

• “Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life,” by James Kerr

• “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

• “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” by Daniel Pink

• “Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons and World-Class Performers,” by Timothy Ferriss

• “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” by Stephen Covey

• “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation For Failure,” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

As you can see, Petersen is big on topics of leadership and organizational health, and is endlessly intrigued by how successful people became the way they are. He is a fan of Gordon, in particular, and he’s not alone in the sports world. Gordon is tight with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, and has consulted with numerous college and pro sports organizations over the years. Petersen recommends “The Energy Bus” to his players, and actually brought Gordon in to speak with the team during preseason camp before the 2018 season. When Petersen wore his “Stay Positive” shirt to a news conference after UW’s loss to Cal that season, it was at Gordon’s urging (the man did, after all, write a book called “The Power of Positive Leadership”).

“They’re very intentional about what they’re there to do and create,” Gordon told me over the phone last year about his visit to UW. “And then the kind of student-athletes they bring to their program — like, off-the-charts character. Incredible conversation. I don’t think I ever received so many questions in Q-and-A from a team before — almost like an Ivy League kind of mentality in terms of just awareness and understanding and willingness to want to talk and share. Just really sharp guys. (I was) really impressed with the way they were thinking and asking, and the critical thinking they were doing.”

My dad had a policy he followed through most of his coaching career. It was to put the play calling in the hands of the boy he felt had the best instincts for the game and for directing the offense-the player who had the best grasp of leadership. It didn’t make any difference what position he played.

In one of his best years, he had his center, Luke Abbett, call the plays. When I was a senior, he had me call the plays. We had only about 12 plays, so I guess he figured I could handle it. No signals from the sideline, either. My dad had a philosophy that the players had a better feel of what was happening. In that particular stage of the evolution of football, coaches weren’t into calling plays so much.

In his first game he ever coached in Paris, he deliberately did not name the player he wanted to call the plays. They were a very young and inexperienced team, so you can imagine the scene the first time they got in the huddle that night. I’m sure it was the first time they realized that nobody had been put in charge of the play calling responsibilities. After the game, my dad asked who wound up calling the plays. It was Barney White who had called the plays, a natural leader who had great football instincts. My dad had figured Barney would take charge, and Barney had done what needed to be done. This incident was typical of my dad – he had greatest confidence in his boys being able to think on their own, and he believed in doing things that encouraged it.

Granted, in those days, when players had to play both ways, offenses were not nearly so complex.  Neither were defenses.  But it is cool to contemplate a return to a game where coaches prepared their players - then let them play.

Fat chance.  Today’s kids seldom have the opportunities to develop leadership and organizational skills that we old farts had. It’s not their fault.  Most of them have never grown up getting together with other kids to play games on their own.  They’ve never ridden their bikes to the field, chosen up sides, and decided on the ground rules. Instead, from the time they were first strapped into car seats, they’ve been totally  dependent on parents and coaches to get them to practices and games. If most of today’s kids were playing on one of Coach Berry’s Paris, Texas High School teams, they might never have come out of the huddle with a play.

*********** Raymond Berry’s relating how his dad, a high school coach, let his sharpest player call the plays, whatever his position, reminded me of our college head coach, Jordan Olivar, who as an offensive tackle called the plays for his Villanova team.  

Coach Olivar was an amazing man.  You might want to read what I wrote about him…

http://coachwyatt.com/FOOTBALL%20HISTORY/jordanolivar.htm

*********** This was sent to me by Coach Sean Murphy, who’s now head coach and AD at John Paul II Catholic High School, in Greenville, North Carolina.  When we first met, it was many years ago, and he was head coach at Baltimore’s Archbishop Curley High School.  On his staff were some really good Double Wing guys. One of them, Brian Mackell, worked closely with me on some projects, and gave the Open Wing its name.



Coach,

This is Sean Murphy, hope you are doing well and staying busy. Since I am home from school because of the Coronavirus scare, figured I would send you some information about one of my former DW players that I thought you would enjoy.

If you get a chance, google Deonte Harris and check out his highlights from high school and college. He was my C- back at Archbishop Curley HS. His senior year we went 11-0, won the conference championship and finished in the top 10 in the state of Maryland. Deonte was my leading rusher, receiver (11 receptions) lol!  and scored 30 plus touchdowns. A great player with speed and the ability to make people miss in space. During his senior year, I couldn’t get any D1 or FCS schools to offer him. Deonte was only 5’6” /150 pounds but ran a legit 4.4. All the big schools passed on him because of his size and concerns of his durability. However, several D2 schools jumped on him immediately.  He choose to attend a little Catholic College in Worcester, Massachusetts- Assumption College. Assumption offered him a 90% scholarship and their new head coach at the time, Bob Chesney (Holy Cross HC) did a great job recruiting him. Assumption had an average at best football program, but were very strong academically. One of the things I admired about Deonte was the maturity he displayed when it came to his college choice. He  wasn’t influenced by what others thought. He was his own person and saw the advantages of attending a small Catholic college with a solid academic reputation and the chance to play right away. He chose a place that really wanted him and didn’t allow his ego or D1 aspirations to play a role in his decision. His goal was to play college football and get as much of his education paid for as possible.

Anyway, Deonte goes to Assumption and tears it up! He is a four year starter in the slot along with being their kick and punt returner. He leads them to the D2 playoffs his sophomore and junior years and they go as far as the  semifinals in 2017 losing  22-27 to IUP. He was named All Conference (4 years), All American, (3 years) and the Conference player of the year his junior year and set an NCAA record for punt and kick returns touchdowns in a career.

As the draft neared, several NFL teams stopped by Worcester to work him out. Again, he ran consistently a low 4.4 and even hit a high 4.3 mark. However, everyone was afraid of his size, 5’6”/165. The draft comes and he is passed, but gets a call about 20 minutes after it concluded by the NO Saints. He signs with them and the rest is history.

This past season, he returned 3 punts for td’s. One was is in the preseason vs the Jets that cliched his roster spot. He returned one for a td vs Seattle and had another called back during the regular season. He was named first team All Pro and played in the Pro Bowl as a return specialist. If you watched the playoff game vs the Vikings, he had a big catch for 50 yards on a post route before halftime.

It’s crazy, I must have told 15-20 college coaches and a couple of NFL scouts that his size was actually an asset. Because he is small with great speed and change of direction, it’s very hard to get a clean shot on him. He is the smallest player in NFL and in some ways reminds me of one my favorite All Time Small College players, Billy Johnson from Widener and the Houston Oilers. Both were small, fast with great change of direction!

Deonte is the perfect example of the saying, “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog!”  This kid always had the fight and the determination to be the best he could be and never stopped believing in himself! What’s funny, he would  tell you first hand that DW offense made him a better football player!  He learned how to be tough and physical from this system!

Finally, I see him after their game vs the Carolina Panthers. I ask his mom how he is doing with the money he is making? Mom tells me he likes looking at his paychecks more than he likes spending. He was in need of a car, instead  of buying a $70,000 or $80,000 dollar Range Rover or BMW, he purchases a $25,000 Honda Accord!  It’s Smart, practical and a reliable vehicle! As I said, he is his own man!

Check him out when you have a chance. Stay safe and avoid listening to the media when it comes to this Coronavirus! They sensationalize everything for ratings and most of the time are full of BS!

Sean Murphy
Athletic Director
Head Football Coach
John Paul II Catholic HS
Greenville, North Carolina


*********** I stand by my comments that I do not believe that in hiring a female to coach its quarterbacks, Brown University could not possibly have hired the most qualified person for the job.

It’s not that the person was a female. It’s that the hiring was forced - made to happen - by these “prep camps” that the NFL and other do-good organizations have set up to advance affirmative action.   Affirmative action - hiring someone of a specific race or sex in order to bring about a social outcome - is a zero-sum game.  When a job is given to someone for a social reason, it means somebody else was denied the opportunity.  And in the case of Brown, that “someone else” may very well have been a gifted young football coach - a black man possibly - who’s put in his time and paid his dues and would have given his left nut for the chance to coach at the college level.

My daughter, Cathy, is a volleyball coach.  She’s also coached basketball. She knows her football, too.  If I ever needed a coach and she was available, I’d hire her in a heartbeat, because she checks all the boxes: she’s hard working, she’s organized, she’s loyal, she’s good with kids, she can work with the other people on a staff, she’s willing to handle whatever assignment I’d give her.  And after coaching with me for a couple of years, she might even be able to move on to a college job.  But if and when she does, she’ll have earned it.

Actually, I’ve often felt that my wife would be a great assistant.  As with my daughter, she checks all the boxes, and on top of all that, she’s not afraid to tell me when she thinks I’m wrong.  (But I would have to step in at the point where she considered leaving me to take a college job.)

And then there was Nancy Fowlkes.  Back in 2004, I was working with a team in Virginia Beach.  It was Frank W. Cox High School, and its coach, Steve Allosso, was a think-outside-the-box coach. (Of course he was - why else would a guy run the Double Wing at a big school in a very competitive league?)  Coach Allosso was late to the game as a teacher-coach - he’d spent most of his adult life in business -  and he wasn’t constrained by conventional thinking. 
One of the unconventional moves he made was to hire Nancy Fowlkes as an assistant. But he wasn’t hiring her because she was a woman. She was a coach!  For years, she’d been the school’s field hockey coach.  She’d won 394 games and 13 state championships (!) and was five times Virginia Field Hockey Coach of the Year. So she could coach. And as a PE teacher at the school, she knew the boys and  had their respect.  I worked with her and admired her work and I’m sure she proved to be a good football coach.

(After a few more years in Virginia Beach, Coach Allosso moved back to his native Massachusetts, and recently moved again to take a head coaching job in Maine.)

*********** Not exactly ready for the end times, you understand, but I watch what’s going on and I can’t help thinking of these lines from a T.S. Eliot poem…

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

*********** Walking the dog around the neighborhood, I’m reminded of the novel “On the Beach, “ by Nevil Shute.  As I recall,  nuclear war has wiped out most of the earth, except for Australia.  As I walk, the absence of traffic and people gives me the feeling that we’re the only survivors of a nuclear war that killed all the people but left all the buildings intact.

*********** The Globalization of American sports (from Axios)
.
The NBA (491 players) has the highest percentage of Americans, but also the greatest global reach, despite being the smallest of the three leagues:
    •    U.S.: 363 players (73.9%)
    •    Canada: 21 (4.3%)
    •    France: 13 (2.6%)
    •    Australia: 7 (1.4%)
    •    Serbia, Germany, Croatia: 6 (1.2% each)
    •    Turkey, Spain, Latvia: 4 (0.8% each)
    •    Slovenia, Nigeria, Italy, Greece, Brazil: 3 (0.6% each)
    •    11 countries: 2 (0.4% each)
    •    20 countries: 1 (0.2% each)
    •   
MLB (1,192 players) just barely trails the NBA in terms of American representation:
    •    U.S.: 822 players (69%)
    •    Dominican Republic: 150 (12.6%)
    •    Venezuela: 91 (7.6%)
    •    Cuba: 28 (2.3%)
    •    Puerto Rico: 23 (1.9%)
    •    Mexico: 16 (1.3%)
    •    Canada: 11 (0.9%)
    •    Colombia: 9 (0.8%)
    •    Japan, Panama: 8 (0.7% each)
    •    Curaçao: 6 (0.5%)
    •    South Korea: 4 (0.3%)
    •    Four countries: 2 (0.2% each)
    •    Eight countries: 1 (0.1% each)
    •   
The NHL (731 players), as you could have guessed, has by far the largest non-American contingent:
    •    Canada: 305 players (42%)
    •    U.S.: 201 (27.5%)
    •    Sweden: 83 (11.4%)
    •    Russia, Finland: 35 (4.8% each)
    •    Czech Republic: 32 (4.4%)
    •    Switzerland: 10 (1.4%)
    •    Denmark: 8 (1.1%)
    •    Germany: 6 (0.8%)
    •    Latvia: 4 (0.5%)
    •    France, Austria: 3 (0.4% each)
    •    Six countries: 1 (0.1% each)
   
 
*********** Look, I know people are dying.  But I still find this, from Axios, on the impact of the Shutdown on Sports Bars, to be interesting (and depressing)

In San Francisco:

    •    On the timing: "Being a sports bar is very seasonal. During the lean winter months, we just have to make it through. But come March, that's where we start to actually make some profit. With St. Patrick's Day leading into March Madness, this week was supposed to be one of the busiest of the year."
    •    On closing the kitchen: "We were hoping to still do to-go food, but as a sports bar, we're not top of mind when people are ordering takeout. Unfortunately, we've had to close the kitchen and throw out lots of perishables."
    •    Big picture: "We have to keep our electrical on because we have freezers full of food and kegs full of beer. We pay $1,500 a month for every sports package known to man and we have lots of other bills. I don't think many businesses, especially in the service industry, can last a whole month like this."
    •   
In New York:

    •    On the timing: "March is one of our two busiest months of the year. This past weekend when we were still open, we probably lost 80% of our business that would be there on a normal weekend in March. So that seemed like a lot at the time, but of course now we're shut down entirely, so it's even crazier."
    •    On the other "storms" he's weathered: "During 9/11, we stayed open to give people a place to congregate. But this is weird, because you can't congregate with anybody!"
    •    On being more than just a bar: “(Our place) is a lot of people's living room. Being in New York where apartments are smaller, it acts as an extension of their living room. And now they don't have that."

*********** Told you that ESPN was getting hard-up for content…

7-hour special: ESPN will air a seven-hour special on Sunday highlighting Tom Brady's 20-season career with the Patriots. The marathon will consist of all six Super Bowl wins and more memorable games, all condensed for time.

*********** You can tell the people in Tampa are excited…


*********** Found an interesting study entitled “Running Back U”, by a sports historian named John Baranowski. Doing some impressive research, he’s ranked colleges according to the total yards gained in the NFL by their graduates (okay, okay - by guys who played there):

Which school has gained the most yards rushing all-time in the NFL you ask? The answer might surprise you. Looking at schools that have produced many professional running backs, and then starting with the lowest number of yards to the highest (for suspense purposes), they are listed below. I listed, for the sake of article length, only those running backs for that school that gained 3,000 yards or more in their pro career.

 

Is there a Baltimore fan alive
That will forget Tom Matte in 65
The Colts by crippling injuries vexed
Twas Unitas first and Cuozzo next
What would become of the Colts famed pass attack
And then in stepped Matte at quarterback
He beat the Rams to their great dismay
He did and he damned near beat Green Bay
If you need a man who can run or block
Matte's the one who can roll and rock
In Tokyo they call it Karatte
In Baltimore they just say Tom Matte!

Candy is dandy,
But liquor is quicker.

FRIDAY

“I quarterbacked 16 years in the pros,” Babe Parilli said, “and I called my own plays for 15 of them. That one year I played for (Paul) Brown, I felt like a robot, like most quarterbacks are today. Young pro quarterbacks now don’t want to call their own plays. They didn’t in college. Ask them if they’d like to call them now, and they’ll say, ‘No way. I got enough to think about.’ But the best ones are good at checking off at the line, though the decisions they make there are still programmed by the coaches - (If you see this, this, this or that, you may do this, this, this or that.) To be honest with you, I was kind of programmed by Bear Bryant at Kentucky. We met every day after practice to play this little game of his, ‘down and distance,’ on a board. When the real game started, he never sent me a play, but I always knew exactly what he wanted. I remember once, we’re playing at Georgia Tech, and it comes down to a fourth and one. If we make a first down, we’re going to win the game. He sends a fullback in, and I asked the kid, ‘What did he say Tom?’ ‘Nothing.’ OK. So, I called the play, the kids slips and falls, and we don’t get the first down. We lose the game. 10 years later, at a Bear Bryant reunion, I said, ‘Coach why didn’t you send me a play in the Georgia Tech game?’ When you don’t lose many games you tend to remember the ones you did. ‘Bear looked at me and smiled. “Babe, he said, I did send you a play. I sent you the one you called.”

“I knew exactly what he meant.”

By Ari Wasserman Mar 18, 2020

Located in northern Indiana, Notre Dame doesn’t have the geographic fortune of being in a talent-heavy state, so it has used its history, tradition and academic prowess to recruit every corner of the country. Notre Dame can’t escape how reliant it is on prospects finding a way to visit campus — which almost always involves a long drive or an airplane ticket.

With the precautions being taken with the COVID-19 pandemic, nobody is going anywhere. And that’s hurting Brian Kelly’s program.

Consider who was supposed to visit Notre Dame this weekend: five-star running back Will Shipley of Matthews (N.C.) Weddington, five-star offensive tackle Nolan Rucci of Lititz (Pa.) Warwick, four-star defensive end Aaron Armitage of Blairstown (N.J.) Blair Academy and four-star defensive end David Abiara of Mansfield (Texas) Legacy, among others. Expected to visit in early April were four-star offensive tackle Landon Tengwall of Olney (Md.) Good Counsel and four-star guard Rocco Spindler of Clarkston (Mich.) High. That’s six players from six states, with four of them (all but Abiara and Armitage) national top-50 prospects.

On Senior Day at McKale Center on March 7, the loudest ovation wasn’t for a departing Arizona ballplayer. It came during a first-half TV timeout as Tucsonan Mike Lude walked to center court wearing his Marine Corps cap and T-shirt.

For a full minute, Lude was engulfed by the ovation. He stood on the A at midcourt and gave a military salute to 13,604 fans.

Before leaving the court, Lude nodded toward the Washington bench. It was sort of a “remember me?” moment.
Lude was the Huskies’ athletic director from 1976-91, a period in which he was widely viewed as the league’s most effective AD, turning a $400,000 deficit into an $18 million surplus, becoming chief of the league’s most profitable organization; the Huskies played in five Rose Bowls, won the 1991 national co-championship, set Pac-10 football attendance records and established the template for building modern athletic facilities before Nike spent a dime at Oregon.

Monday afternoon, Lude wasn’t into building $12 million football scoreboards, as the Ducks are, or lamenting the cancellation of March Madness. He was looking for solutions.

TUESDAY

Built in 1903, the stadium has a significant place in the history of the game. Not long after its construction, there was a movement to widen every football field in the land to induce a more wide-open game. The idea had wide support until someone measured the grounds at Harvard Stadium and saw it could not accommodate the proposed new field. Harvard Stadium was too important, so the field was not widened. It remains 160 feet (53 and one-third yards). The rules committee instead adopted the forward pass.

The close proximity of the stands to the field at the Stadium led to one of the most successful innovations in football history. In 1906, debate raged about the sport’s roughness and several colleges had dropped football in favor of rugby. When the football rules committee met to discuss changes, Walter Camp proposed widening the field by 40 feet. However, that idea would require considerable alterations to the Stadium. Ultimately, the committee adopted the forward pass.  And to this day, the field remains 160 feet wide.

The NCAA saw this coming more than 15 years ago.

Not the outbreak of a deadly virus that would become a global pandemic and force the association to cancel its Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

But the NCAA did have the foresight to begin planning for an unknown catastrophic event that would threaten its biggest and most lucrative event.

The NCAA depends on the basketball tournament for nearly all of its annual revenue, more than half of which gets distributed directly to Division I schools and conferences. The money comes mostly from a multi-billion-dollar media and marketing contract with CBS and Turner, but it also comes from ticket and merchandise sales.

By 2014, the association had accumulated a nearly $400 million cushion as a hedge against a massive loss of revenue from the tournament. However, at the direction of its governing board of college presidents, the NCAA distributed that money to schools to help them with increasing costs and spent it on their behalf in other ways, including a $208.7 million legal settlement.

The community of Chinese people in Italy has grown rapidly in the past ten years. Official statistics indicate there are at least 320,794 Chinese citizens in Italy, although these figures do not account for illegal immigration, former Chinese citizens who have acquired Italian nationality or Italian-born people of Chinese descent.

Many of Italy’s garment factories are owned by Chinese entrepreneurs, and employ low-paid Chinese workers, many of them in Italy illegally…

Prato, which lies 25 km (16 miles) from the Renaissance jewel of Florence, is also a thriving hub of illegality committed by both Italians and Chinese, a byproduct of globalization gone wrong, many people in the city say.

Up to two thirds of the Chinese in Prato are illegal immigrants, according to local authorities. About 90 percent of the Chinese factories - virtually all of which are rented out to Chinese entrepreneurs by Italians who own the buildings - break the law in various ways, says Aldo Milone, the city councilor in charge of security.

Haynes also alleges that between 2017 and 2018 white staff made comments about her hair, attire, appearance and food. On occasions when she wore her hair in an Afro or wore a black suit, white staff joked that it was “Angela Davis Day, “a reference to the revolutionary black activist, according to the lawsuit. Some also raised their fists and yelled “black power,“ referred to her as an “angry black woman,“ or called her “Little Miss Black Panther,” the suit states.

FRIDAY

(Todays quote was submitted by Tim Brown, of Florence, Alabama)



*********** XFL WEEK 6 GAMES

SATURDAY’S GAMES

HOUSTON (5-0) AT NEW YORK (3-2)
HOUSTON FAVORED BY 6.5
HOUSTON NEARLY BLEW IT AGAINST SEATTLE LAST WEEK - I’M TAKING THEM AND GIVING THE 6.5


ST. LOUIS (3-2) AT TAMPA BAY (1-4)
ST. LOUIS FAVORED BY 3.5
ST. LOUIS DID NOT PLAY THEIR USUAL GAME LAST WEEK.  I THINK THEY’LL BOUNCE BACK AND COVER

SUNDAY’S GAMES

DALLAS (2-3) AT DC (3-2)
DALLAS FAVORED BY 4
DC PLAYED THEIR TAILS OFF LAST WEEK; DALLAS HAS A NEW OC BUT UNLESS HE MAKES A QB CHANGE (ERIC DUNGEY?) DC WILL WIN

LOS ANGELES (2-3) AT SEATTLE (1-4)
LOS ANGELES FAVORED BY 3
I EXPECT SEATTLE TO FINALLY GET THE JOB DONE SO I’LL TAKE THE POINTS
IF THIS GAME IS PLAYED, THAT IS
BY UKASE OF JAY “SNAKE” INSLEE,  TSAR OF ALL THE WASHINGTONS, IT WILL BE PLAYED IN AN EMPTY STADIUM

*********** Interesting writeup on Coach Jags, who now has another booster.

Ditto on every comment about the XFL. If they don't fix some of their incipient problems, they might be doomed to take the path their predecessor leagues took. I watched "the game that ended early" and it hurt seeing such a glaring error, so glaring it did feel bush league.

John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida


*********** TO MY FAITHFUL READERS, ESPECIALLY THOSE UNDER SELF-QUARANTINE:
Vulnerable as I am, a senior citizen, to this latest scourge of the planet known as the coronavirus, I’m writing  from the confines of my virus-proof bunker.   My prayer is that those on high will permit the Internet will to remain in operation through this dark time, or at least long enough for me to dispense my twice-weekly pearls of essential wisdom.

*********** Say this for old age: it does give one a sense of perspective.

I’ve lived through World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, and through the assassination of  President John F. Kennedy…  I was in a black tavern in Washington, DC  on the night of Dr. King’s assassination, and I was in Baltimore during the riots that followed…  I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, thinking, “Is this it?” … And I’ve seen one health crisis after another (our parents didn’t allow us to swim in public pools because of “polio scares”) come and go.

You’re probably all old enough yourselves to remember the once-unimaginable acts of 9-11 (remember our wussy politicians and news media calling it a “tragedy?”) and their aftermath.

So as the hysteria mounts… as leaders of government, educational institutions and sports leagues hasten to one-up each other with this cancellation or that closure… count me among those referred to by the great statesman Joseph R. Biden as being “overly dismissive.”

*********** Once we started to see our schools being closed at the mere mention of a snowstorm, we should have been able to foresee the current  reaction to the news of The Killer Virus From Across the Sea.

*********** Actually, we could have seen this coming when we saw them removing the slides from playgrounds and the diving boards from swimming pools.  It’s all out of fear of being sued, and God knows nobody wanted to take a chance and be the only commissioner to let his conference play in the NCAA tournament.

*********** Josh Montgomery, staff Cajun, writes, “The NBA let Magic Johnson play with HIV, but shut down for the coronavirus.  Interesting.”

To which I would add, Good point. How about this: It’s been 10 years since the H1N1 (Swine Flu) “pandemic.”
That one, according to the CDC, resulted in an estimated 60.8 million Americans infected, and 224,000 hospitalizations.

Remember that?  I didn’t think so.

Maybe that’s because  life went on.  But that was a different America.

Ah, those were the days.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html

*********** Considering the possible after-effects of the Great Coronavirus Shutdown:

Wait till college administrators look around at their empty campuses and realize that with online learning they can still collect tuition and fees without having to pay all those professors or open all those buildings or dorms or dining halls.

And with the students off-campus and “learning” at home, nobody will know what any of them look like, which means the schools will be able to save huge sums of money by laying off all those “Diversity and Inclusion” types.

*********** Despite numerous advanced degrees in various fields of medicine,  I am not the expert I ought to be on the Coronavirus (or, as some xenophobic racists persist in calling it, The Red Chinese Communist Menace), but I do have a few questions…

With companies asking/telling employees to work from home, is this going to increase the potential of hacking or data breaches?

With schools closing down, what are working parents going to do for day care?

Given that many of today’s “parents” have been conditioned expect public schools (i.e., taxpayers)  to feed their kids,  who’s  going to provide them  breakfast and lunch?

Would it have been wiser to keep college kids semi-quarantined on campuses, rather than sending them off to their thousands of hometowns?

In the future, to prevent a recurrence - no contact football?  Oh, wait.  They already have it.  It’s called soccer.

Will a quarterback be penalized for licking his fingers and then touching the ball?


***********  A guy named Matt Johnson, on a site called yard barker, very graciously suggested “Five Things the XFL Must Do to Save Itself From Collapse.”

Not sure what signs he has that it's nearing collapse, because  I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps this is one new league that’s sufficiently funded to last at least another year.

One sign, he says - “the novelty has worn off."  Well, yeah. Doesn’t that happen even in romances?

Oh - and TV ratings and fan attendance are down.  So? Is it not fixable?

That doesn’t mean, as Mr. Johnson so boldly states, “the XFL is operating on borrowed time.”

Nevertheless,  proceeding on that premise, he proposes “five changes the XFL must make.”

FIVE THINGS THE XFL MUST DO TO SAVE ITSELF FROM COLLAPSE
 
1. Keep P.J. Walker at all costs

WRONG.  (P.J. Walker is the Houston QB.) There is no way they can keep a talent like him from going to the NFL - other than matching the NFL money.  No chance of that.

Being a minor league is all about developing players who can move up to a higher level of play.

And the XFL is a minor league;  it doesn’t pretend to be otherwise.

There are two types of college fans: The ones who think the Name-Image-Likeness movement needs to be avoided at all costs and the ones who have accepted that it’s a matter of when, not if, student-athletes start profiting off their “brand.”

Nebraska is in the latter group, and not only have the Huskers accepted the reality of the situation, they have gone all-in to make sure they are innovative in terms of putting their athletes in the best position to succeed financially.

Tuesday, Nebraska announced a partnership with Opendorse to launch a program to help student-athletes build their individual brands, whether that means during their college careers (if the rules change) or after. The first-ever program of its kind will be available to all 650-plus Nebraska student-athletes, who will be given tools to maximize the development of their personal brands with a heavy emphasis on social media strategies.

***
Ohio State began doing this in 2018, when it created “Brand U” for its high-profile recruits who were famous before enrolling in college, and the Buckeyes give personalized brand presentations to those athletes during visits.

***

With brand development programs, that means more development of nicknames — the way Nebraska has done with defensive back Cam Taylor-Britt, known as “Cam Juice.” Taylor-Britt already has his own logo, a juice box with the letter “C” in it.


You and one of your players could be in this picture.  See below how to submit your nomination, and your player might win the Black Lion Award  (one award per team).

It’s getting late, but it’s not too late…

Enroll your team now:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/blenrollnow.htm

Find out what to do next:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/BLfaq.htm

TUESDAY

*********** XFL WEEK 5 RESULTS

SATURDAY’S GAMES
HOUSTON 32, SEATTLE 23
Spread: Houston by 13.5
Over/Under: 45.5 - OVER WINS
IF I WERE BETTING: I’d take Seattle and the points - GOOD TIP

NEW YORK 30,  DALLAS 12
Spread: Dallas by 8
Over/Under:  37 - OVER WINS
IF I WERE BETTING: I’d take New York and the points GOOD TIP

SUNDAY’S GAMES

DC 15,  ST LOUIS  6
Spread: St Louis by 3.5
Over/Under:  39 - UNDER WINS
IF I WERE BETTING: I’d take St. Louis and give the points  BAD TIP

LOS ANGELES 41,  TAMPA BAY 34
Spread: LA by 1.5
Over/Under:  40-5 - OVER WINS
IF I WERE BETTING: I’d take Tampa Bay and the points BAD TIP

*********** AROUND THE XFL…

SATURDAY'S GAMES

SEATTLE AT HOUSTON

*** On a play in which it turned out that the runner was on top of opponents and wasn’t actually down yet, the replay official said, “He was surfing bodies.”

*** Nice sideline interview with Indianapolis QB Jacoby Brissett, who was at the game to watch former Colts’ teammate, Houston QB PJ Walker.

*** Also on hand to watch Walker: the Seattle Seahawks. They had people at Saturday’s game looking at the Houston QB. Makes a lot of sense to me because it appears that he and Russell Wilson have quite a bit in common, and at the present time Seattle’s got no one behind Wilson. Geno Smith, who beat out Paxton Lynch for the backup spot, is now a free agent.

*** The XFL’s transparent review process, with the viewers in on it, is SO much better than the NFL’s, which is cloaked in secrecy.

*** Seattle jumped out to an early lead, and midway through the second period the Dragons were 2-point favorites.

***  Houston scored on an 80-yard pass play to slot receiver Nick Holley (I really like him). It was a classic Run-and-Shoot play, called generically the “GO” pattern.


Basically, the #2 and #3 receivers (counting from the sideline-in, line up fairly close to each other and their routes cross. The QB, expecting to throw to the #3 receiver on his “arrow” route, looks at the #2 defender, the only guy who can stop it. If #2 jumps the arrow, the QB expects  to hit the #2 receiver, in this case Nick Holley, running a “seam.” In all likelihood, Holley will be able to beat the #3 defender, who is a slower linebacker type,  but what happened Saturday was a gift from the gods - #3 jumped  the arrow!  That meant that there were two defenders covering the arrow - and no one  covering Holley.  Walker hit him in the dead area behind the linebackers and in front of the Free Safety. Holley put a move on the safety and was off to the races.

*** I sure like the one-foot-in-bounds rule.  There’s a lot less to have to look at on a debatable catch.

*** With close to 90 per cent of XFL kickoffs being returned - as opposed to under 40 per cent in the NFL - I’m surprised that the teams don’t have better kick return guys.

*** Here I go again - a one-point PAT should be more makable than it is.

*** Starting to see signs of the kind of behavior - taunting, etc. - that makes the NFL near-unwatchable for me.  Sure hope the league higher-ups get a handle on it.

*** The NCAA has changed the ejected-player rule this year and no longer requires the miscreant to be escorted off. (Tsk, tsk.  It’s “humiliating!”) So there was a Houston player ejected for throwing a punch.  And, since the XFL doesn’t require a player to leave the field…
1. He was interviewed by the sideline reporter
2. He proceeded to sign autographs

*** 0:03 - that’s how much time was on the clock when Houston ran out of downs and Seattle took over. 0:03. But the officials scooted. Problem is, Seattle was down by nine points and had time for one play.  There was the admittedly unlikely possibility of scoring a touchdown and a three-point conversion, but they never got the chance. How does ANY league allow that to happen?  VERY bush league.

NEW YORK AT DALLAS

*** Finally, a good kick return (by New York), abetted by a chicken-sh— soccer-style “tackle” by Dallas’ kicker, one Austin MacGinnis.

*** Dallas OC Hal Mumme was up in the booth because, we were told, he had been injured last week in a sideline collision. No matter - wherever he is when he makes the calls, Dallas’ offense sucks.

*** Color guy Joel Klatt must think “holding your water” (when referring to resisting the urge to jump offside) is really cool because he used it twice in the first half.

*** Had a new sideline guy named Cam Jordan, a big guy with a topknot.  Took him way too long to get out a “question,” which really was a statement designed to show us how bright he is.

*** New York’s field goal kicker Matt McCrane has yet to miss.

*** New York center Ian Silberman stayed true to form - yanked an opponent’s helmet off.

*** New York’s QB Luis Perez continues to look good.  Dallas’ Phillip Nelson, who blew a chance to win last week’s game because he chose to hook slide on the Houston three instead of diving for the score, looked about the way you’d expect a QB like that to look.

SUNDAY’S GAMES
ST. LOUIS AT DC

*** A decent crowd - 16,000 announced - on a nice, sunny day.

*** Cardale Jones got the start for DC and he made it 6 full minutes and 33 seconds into the first quarter before throwing an interception. It wasn’t long before he was replaced by rookie Tyree Jackson (from Buffalo) and the DC offense took off.

*** I’ve seen more sound, heads-up, chest-to-chest tackles in a half season of the 8-team XFL than I would expect to see in an entire season of the 32-team NFL.  I suspect it’s because NFL tacklers are doing whatever they can to avoid solid contact (except, of course, for when they’re launching against helpless opponents).

*** The score was tied 6-6 at the half. The two teams between them threw just 18 passes.  DC’s Jackson was just 3 of 4 for 134 yards.

*** I don’t know what happened to St. Louis’ ground game, but it seemed to me they asked QB Jordan Ta’Amu to do what he’s less good at - throw from the pocket - instead of sticking with the attack I’d been seeing.

*** DC had a long TD called back on an RPO because, we were told, they had an ineligible man downfield.  Turned out it was a lineman who had been double-teaming a St. Louis defender and driven him upfield, never losing contact with the man.  WTF?

*** A St. Louis runner got the yardage for a first down, but he was called for a face mask penalty - and damned if the replay didn't show him grabbing and  twisting the tackler’s face mask!

*** It’s enough to make you wonder how (if)  some of these coaches made it through high school math…



Two minutes to play, fourth down, and this is how St. Louis lined up - to get ONE F—KING YARD. It may be hard to see, but there is no QB under center.  They are going to snap it to a QB who’s five yards deep, and he’s going to hand it to a running back who’s 7-1/2 yards deep.

Needless to say, they didn’t make it.



TAMPA BAY AT LOS ANGELES

6 PM KICKOFF - BAD CROWD

*** LA QB Josh Johnson throws an interception on the first play, and Precious Molly, the sideline reporter, sticks a mic in his face and, showing how woke she is, asks, “Josh, how do you change your ju-ju?”

*** The play-by-play guy tried to excuse some poor play by allowing for the fact that “It’s played late at night.”

Uh, dude, it was 7 PM Pacific Daylight time. Just 24 hours earlier, it would have been 6 PM Pacific Standard time.  It may be a bit late for you East Coasters, but they tell me NFL players do this bicoastal stuff all the time.

*** Is there some sort of federal privacy rules that prevent us from going into the medical tent?  Wouldn’t that be cool?

“Does it hurt when I do this?”

“Aiyeee!”

*** As in the NFL, there is a lot of sloppy ball-handling. LA’s kick return guy fumbled when he carried the ball in one hand - the wrong hand at that - and swung the ball away from the body.

Carry the ball in the arm farthest from the tackler.

Ball should be touching the four points of contact:

1. Hand (point of the ball covered by fingers)
2. Forearm
3. Biceps
4. Ribs

*** Tampa Bay’s Taylor Cornelius continues to look good.

*** The score at the half was 24-20.  The Over-Under was 43.5.

*** It was halftime, and there was Precious Molly, at the entrance to the official’s locker room.

“And the coolest thing about the XFL,” she started out, was not the kickoff, or the extra points, or the speed-up of play, but “the fact that every single officiating crew does have a female official!”

Control yourself, Hugh.

After all, it was International Women’s Day.  (How long do you suppose it will be before some politician - Democratic, of course -  proposes it be a Federal holiday?)

*** We were privy to a most unusual phone call. We saw Josh Johnson come off the field and pick up the phone. The camera cut to the press box, where we saw LA offensive coordinator Norm Chow pick up the phone, and it quickly became clear that it was Johnson on the other end.  It became even clearer why Los Angeles is the 19th team Johnson has been with since 2009 when he started berating Chow - told him basically to stop making calls and leave the game in his QB’s hands.

Chow must have realized that the “conversation” was going out on national television, because he resisted the urge to tell his 30-year-old Payton Manning wannabe to put the phone where the sun don’t shine.

Me?  I kinda like having a few guys to root against.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/09/los-angeles-wildcats-josh-johnson-norm-chow-phone-call-video/


*** Tampa Bay was driving in the final minute when the quarterback and the receiver - wide open on the goal line - got their timing mixed up, and LA intercepted with :33 to go.


*********** Evidently it started in cricket, where matches can go for a long time, and copious amounts of beer are consumed, but the Beer Snake has made it to the XFL - to DC at least.  The snake is made of many, many empty plastic beer cups, contributed by many, many beer drinkers and fitted inside one another until the “snake” begins to grow to a considerable length.
 
XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck even contributed an empty cup.  Can you imagine Roger the Dodger doing that?

Seems like a great activity for young  football fans on a nice sunny day in a stadium where beer’s sold. Just so long as somebody else is driving home.


A GUY IN A RED CAP ADDS TO THE DC BEER SNAKE

FANS AT AN AUSTRALIAN CRICKET MATCH SET THE STANDARD


*********** What does it say about the beer business when the most humorous commercials on TV are selling insurance…

Liberty Mutual’s “struggling actor” who keeps blowing his lines (“Liberty Bibberty”).

Liberty Mutual’s sidewalk sign guy.

Progressive’s commercial-in-a-commercial, (“are you that Progressive guy? they ask the waiter) shot at a “restaurant” called “Portabella’s,” where the manager is - Flo. End with the Jingle: “Come on down to Portabella’s,  for food, family and fun!”)

*********** A reader asks…

Q. Is it wrong that I think kids who are walk-ons shouldn’t have a “signing day” photo op? Doesn’t that cheapen people who earn scholarships? Or am I just a dick?

A. Yes, you’re a dick. You obviously haven’t bought into the Trophies for Everybody concept. You just don’t appreciate the “Preferred walk-on” BS that’s become so fashionable. See, this way everybody wins - the kid gets his picture in the paper, the high school has a “signing ceremony,” the college gets a photo op (without costing them a scholarship), and the local newspaper gets a “story.”

Sure, it’s a sham, like celebrating an eighth place finish in the district basketball tournament. But who does it hurt?

*********** BALTIMORE — In the first U.S. sports event held without fans due to the coronavirus, Yeshiva University beat Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 102-78, in the D-III men's basketball tournament Friday at Johns Hopkins University.

Dozens of disappointed fans from the two teams were turned away.


*********** Stewart Mandel’s Top 25 College Football Coaches In The Athletic
1. (TIE) Nick Saban, Dabo Swinney
3. Ed Orgeron
4. Lincoln Riley
5. Kirby Smart
6. Brian Kelly
7. James Franklin
8. Dan Mullen
9. Paul Chryst
10. *Bill Clark (UAB)
11. Kyle Whittingham
12. P.J. Fleck
13. Mario Cristobal
14, Jimbo Fisher
15. *Ken Niumatololo
16. Mark Stoops
17. *Jeff Monken
18. Scott Satterfield (Louisville)
19. Kirk Ferentz
20. Mike Leach
21. Brian Shaw
22. *Brian Harsin
23. Mike Norvell (FSU)
24. *Luke Fickell
25. Matt Campbell
* Non-Power 5

TOO HIGH:
Brian Kelly - He’s good, but not that good.
Kyle Whittingham - He lost me with that bowl trouncing by Texas
Mario Cristobal - Too soon yet.
Jeff Monken - Yes, he put together back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2017 and 2018, but the schedules have been embarrassingly soft. In 2019, Army was 5-8 , without a single quality win. Wins were over  Rice, Morgan State, UTSA, UMass, VMI

TOO LOW?
Kirk Ferentz - #19? Come on.
Luke Fickell - He’s close to top ten.  Let’s see where he is after this season
Matt Campbell - Three straight winning seasons and two straight Big 12 finishes - at Iowa State, for Pete’s sake

https://theathletic.com/1654673/2020/03/05/stewart-mandel-ranking-the-top-25-coaches-in-college-football/?source=shared-article

********** I’m not one to say that Hal Mumme’s injury in a sideline collision over a week ago is why he was relived of his position as offensive coordinator for the Dallas Renegades: “Unfortunately, it prevented him from performing in the way we needed for the Renegades,” said Dallas head coach Bob Stoops.

Maybe the injury wasn’t the real reason, but it sure came at a convenient time for Stoops, because it gave him cover for doing what was becoming inevitable to anyone who’s been watching the Dallas offense spin its wheels.  Mumme had to go.

I think it’s fair to say at this point that Mumme’s coaching record doesn’t match his reputation.   Yeah, the guy’s something of a mad genius,  and when he’s up at the blackboard he has all the answers. And he does have an impressive coaching tree.  But at some point, a coach has to go out and get it done on the field, and by that measure, Mumme comes up short.

Since the 1996 season, when he left for Kentucky after taking Valdosta State to the D-II quarterfinals, he has been a head coach for 18 years at several places - Kentucky, Southeastern Louisiana, New Mexico State, McMurry, Belhaven - and he has only four winning seasons to show for his efforts.

His Air Raid offense continues to work at many levels of football - even in the NFL (when you have Patrick Mahomes as your quarterback).

But not in the XFL, where neither Landry Jones or Phillip Nelson have been up to the job.

He’s being replaced by Jeff Jagodzinski, who’s been coaching the Dallas offensive line.

“Jags” hasn’t been a head coach since 2008, when he was fired by AD Gene DeFilippo for interviewing with the New York Jets without receiving permission to do so.

In his two years at Boston College he had gone 20-8 (.714).  Boston College has had some good coaches over the years - Mike Holovak,  Joe Yukicka, Jack Bicknell, Tom Coughlin, Tom O’Brien - but Jags’ is the best record of any BC coach since Frank Leahy went 20-3 in 1939-1940 (before moving on to coaching immortality at Notre Dame).

In retrospect, DeFilippo’s move looks worse with each passing year: in the 11 years since he pulled the pin on Jeff Jagodzinski, BC has gone 65-74. 

I have no idea why Coach Jags never landed another big job.   Since BC, he’s knocked around a bit.  The last three seasons, he was an assistant coach at a Catholic high school in Chattanooga.

I heartily approve of his new assignment, but I admit to a certain amount of prejudice.  I’ve followed his career ever since he called me  (got that? HE called ME!) back in 2009 to ask me about the Double Wing.  He was helping a young coach at a small college in Florida, and he wanted to learn.  Any guy who’s coached in the NFL and at the major college level who’s not too proud to call a high school coach to try to learn something is okay in my book, so I’m pulling hard for him to be successful.

https://www.xfl.com/en-US/teams/dallas/renegades-articles/renegades-promote-jagodzinksi-to-offensive-coordinator

*********** Until 10 years ago, college lacrosse was dominated by a  small handful of schools. In the 30+ years from 1978 to 2009, Division 1 national championships were controlled by Johns Hopkins, North Carolina, Princeton, Syracuse and Virginia.

But in the last 10 years, those powerhouses have won only three national titles. Four of the other teams that have won titles - Duke, Denver, Loyola of Maryland and Yale - had never won before.

More schools are becoming powers, and for that they can thank Title IX.

With lacrosse  growing rapidly at the youth and high school level, there is more talent being produced than there has ever been.  But at the same time, the number of men’s college programs has scarcely increased: since 2000, only three colleges - Michigan, Marquette and Utah - have added D-1 men’s lacrosse teams.

In the meantime, while men’s D-1 lacrosse remains frozen at 75 teams, women’s lacrosse continues to grow, with 118 teams at last count.

The reason? 

Title IX again.  It says, in effect, that colleges had better have relatively similar numbers of male and female athletes on their teams.

The problem?

Football. Before even counting any other sport, football means the men’s side of the equation starts out roughly 100 athletes ahead of the female side.  And since there is no comparable female sport with numbers approaching football’s, that means that  to comply  with Title IX’s requirement of relatively equal numbers overall, colleges have been forced in some cases to devise women’s sports and, in other cases, to eliminate men’s sports.

Women’s lacrosse makes an ideal addition to a school’s program, raising female numbers. But the very idea of adding another men’s sport, such as lacrosse, is unthinkable in most college athletic departments.

So there we are: there’s roughly the same number of colleges playing lacrosse as 10 years ago, and the pool of gifted recruits has increased tremendously.


THE BLACK LION AWARD IS OPEN TO NOMINATIONS FOR THE PAST SEASON!




You and one of your players could be in this picture.  See below how to submit your nomination, and your player might win the Black Lion Award  (one award per team).

It’s getting late, but it’s not too late…

Enroll your team now:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/blenrollnow.htm

Find out what to do next:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/BLfaq.htm

*********** Hugh,

Next thing you know some XFL team will come up with that A-11 formation designed and used by Piedmont high school coach Kurt Bryan in the SF Bay Area some years ago.  That formation was eventually made illegal by the NFHS.  The formation took advantage of the scrimmage kick (punt) rule allowing each player on the field to wear an eligible number which made linemen able to go downfield and catch a pass.

Small hands or not Joe Burrow  still meets the pro football height measurement requirement at 6'4.

James Carville is a true old-school dyed in the wool Democrat, but first and foremost he's an LSU Tiger!

If I'm a big-time money alum at MSU I'm likely going to hedge my bet on the hiring of Mel Tucker.  Since the Spartans are desperate to become relevant again in the Big 10 the Spartan administrators better have included a non-compete clause in his contract should he bolt for a better opportunity after year one.

Speaking of the Belly Series...There is another good book on the Belly Option.  "Attacking Modern Defenses with Belly Option Football" by Bill Manlove.  Manlove was the head coach at Division III Widener University (PA), Delaware Valley College (PA), and LaSalle University (PA). His Widener teams were considered some of the best in the nation (won two national championships  in 1977 and 1981).

Have a great weekend!

Joe Gutilla
Austin, Texas

Bill Manlove is a Philly guy (from South Jersey, actually), well-known and respected in  Philly football circles.  He made a great contribution to football lore when he took a chance on a little guy that nobody else wanted - Billy “White Shoes” Johnson!

*********** QUIZ ANSWER - Lamar Lundy was a native of Richmond, Indiana, where he was all-state in both  football and basketball.

At Purdue, where was the first black athlete to earn an athletic scholarship he again played both football and basketball.  At 6-7, he was the MVP of both teams in his senior year, earning All-Big Ten honors in football and third team honors in basketball.

He was drafted by both the NBA and NFL, taken in the fourth round in 1957 by the Los Angeles Rams. (In those days of a 12-team NFL, he was the 47th player taken;  these days, that would make him a mid-second round pick).

He originally played tight end, and caught 35 passes for 584 yards and six touchdowns, but it became apparent that his best position was defensive end, where he made all-pro in 1959.

He was joined on the defensive line by David “Deacon” Jones in 1961, Merlin Olsen in 1962 and Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier in 1963, forming one of the best - and most famous - defensive lines in NFL history.

When Jones joined the Rams from all-black South Carolina State, he at first had a difficult time handling ass-chewings, and Lundy was instrumental in helping him learn to deal with it. “It wasn’t easy for me at that time to take a tongue-lashing from a white person,” Jones told The Los Angeles Times in 1991. “He was right there with coolness and calmness. If it had not been for him, I would have probably been out of it right there.”

Usually overshadowed by his more famous teammates, he was a rock at his position.  “He used those long, long arms to keep the offensive linemen away from him,” Olsen told The Los Angeles Times. “He was an extremely effective pass rusher.”

He did make All-Pro in 1967.

He retired after the 1969 season, after playing in 152 games - 142 as a starter.  In his career, he had three interceptions, all of them returned for touchdowns.

Not long after retirement, he was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, desired by the Mayo Clinic as “ a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease that causes weakness in the skeletal muscles.”  In addition, he suffered from diabetes and then prostate cancer.

He died in 2007 at the age of 71 in his native Richmond, Indiana.

He is a member of both the Indiana Football Hall of Fame and the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
 
A bridge in Richmond, Indiana has been named in Lamar Lundy's honor.


CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING LAMAR LUNDY

JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
TOM DAVIS - SAN CARLOS, CALIFORNIA
JOHN VERMILLION - ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
TIM BROWN - FLORENCE, ALABAMA
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOE GUTILLA - AUSTIN, TEXAS
RALPH BALDUCCI - PORTLAND, OREGON
BILL NELSON - THORNTON, COLORADO
MARK KACZMAREK - DAVENPORT, IOWA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
JOE DANIELS - STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA
KEN HAMPTON - RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY


*********** QUIZ:  He 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.

Although admitted to Yale, he became the first male in his family in three generations not to go to there, instead choosing to play football at Rice.

There,  he majored in physics while sharing play-calling duties with another future NFL quarterback, King Hill.

Drafted by the Rams and later traded to the Browns, he continued his graduate studies in the off-season,  earning his PhD from Rice in mathematics.  (It took him seven years of work. His dissertation was entitled "Characterization of the Set of Asymptotic Values of a Function Holomorphic in the Unit Disc.”

As many of you probably know, it started out like this…

“As is well known, a Blaschke product, f(z) in (z-x1) has radical limits of f(e) of modulus one almost everywhere on (z=1).”

(I used to know the rest of it, but after all these years that’s as much as I can remember.)

That same year, he was selected to play in the Pro Bowl.

For four years after receiving his doctorate, he quarterbacked the Browns while teaching 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 his point with their new coach, Vince Lombardi, who agreed to fund a project.  Unfortunately, when Lombardi succumbed to cancer not long after, 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.

After Yale, he returned to Rice as Vice-President for External Affairs (fund-raising) while also serving as professor of computational and applied mathematics.

He now lives in retirement in 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, then joining the sports department at the Washington Post.

In the days when NFL quarterbacks had to be as tough as any man on the field - he once was knocked cold in the first half by Bears’ linebacker Dick Butkus, but returned in the second half to throw three touchdown passes to lead the Browns to victory - he was a very good one:  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, and in 1964 he led the NFL in touchdown passes.

Oh -  he’s the last quarterback to take the Cleveland Browns to a championship.

FRIDAY

*********** XFL WEEK 5

SATURDAY’S GAMES

SEATTLE ( 1-3) at HOUSTON  (4-0)
Spread: Houston by 13.5
Over/Under: 45.5
IF I WERE BETTING*: I’d take Seattle and the points

NEW YORK (2-2) at DALLAS (2-2)
Spread: Dallas by 8
Over/Under:  37
IF I WERE BETTING*: I’d take New York and the points

SUNDAY’S GAMES

ST LOUIS (3-1) at  DC (2-2)
Spread: St Louis by 3.5
Over/Under:  39
IF I WERE BETTING*: I’d take St. Louis and give the points

TAMPA BAY (1-3) at LOS ANGELES (1-3)
Spread: LA by 1.5
Over/Under:  40-5
IF I WERE BETTING*: I’d take Tampa Bay and the points

* WHICH AFTER LAST WEEK'S BLOODBATH IS NOT LIKELY

*********** Tampa Bay QB Quinton Flowers was unavailable last weekend for what we were told was personal reasons. Turns out the “personal reasons” included wanting to be traded.  Hard to persuade anybody to trade for you when you skip a game, and to top it all off, the guy who plays in your place leads the team to its first victory.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/xfl/2020/03/04/xfl-tampa-bay-vipers-qb-quinton-flowers-requested-trade/4954462002/

*********** Poor Joe Burrow.  The dream is over.  The NFL guys, who truly believe that if they get enough "measureables" they can somehow predict whether a guy can play football,  found that his hand - from tip of thumb across to tip of pinkie - measured (gasp) only nine inches.

That’s a trifle above normal for the average male,  but  guys - we’re talking about a pro quarterback here, and according to what the Book of Measurements tells us, a nine-inch hand is tiny.

Oh, dear. Then -  after all we've seen him do -  this means the guy can’t play, right?

Stupidity of this level requires a response, and Burrow was up to the challenge with this tweet:

Considering retirement after I was informed the football will be slipping out of my tiny hands. Please keep me in your thoughts.

I want to give you an example of the problem here. A few weeks ago, Binyamin Appelbaum, an economics writer for the New York Times, posted a snarky tweet about how LSU canceled classes for the National Championship game. And then he said, do the “Warren/Sanders free public college proposals include LSU, or would it only apply to actual schools?”

You know how f—king patronizing that is to people in the South or in the middle of the country? First, LSU has an unusually high graduation rate, but that’s not the point. It’s the goddamn smugness. This is from a guy who lives in New York and serves on the Times editorial board and there’s not a single person he knows that doesn’t pat him on the back for that kind of tweet. He’s so f—king smart.

Appelbaum doesn’t speak for the Democratic Party, but he does represent the urbanist mindset. We can’t win the Senate by looking down at people. The Democratic Party has to drive a narrative that doesn’t give off vapors that we’re smarter than everyone or culturally arrogant.








********** A beverage delivery truck pulled up next to me at a light and I couldn’t avoid noticing the giant cans depicted on the side. Bright and colorful,  they contained something called BANG, which research disclosed was an energy drink.

Yeah, “energy” -  about the caffeine of four cups of coffee in one can.  Also something called "Super Creatine."  WTF?  I thought we got rid of that.

What really got me, though, was the rather extravagant claim on the can: “POTENT BRAIN AND BODY FUEL.”

WTF?  Brain fuel? Can they really make that claim?

And if it really works - if it really is brain fuel -  can I send a few cases to some  politicians without getting arrested?

So while y’all at it right now, take care of y’all’s bodies, take care of y’all’s chicken*, take care of y’all’s mentals. Because look, we ain’t lasting that long. I had a couple players that I played with that they’re no longer here. They’re no longer. So start taking care of y’all mentals, y’all bodies and y’all chicken*, so when you’re ready to walk away, you walk away and you can be able to do what you want to do.

* chicken=money

For what it’s worth, the speaker at Yale’s Class Day last year was someone named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  I know nothing about him (or her), but I am going to go out on a limb and say I think I’d prefer to listen to Marshawn Lynch.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8060119/Angry-Princeton-students-pen-open-letter-Marshawn-Lynch-announced-guest-speaker.html


*********** An old coaching friend who’s currently out of work has landed a job as an analyst at an FBS school.  He’s been a head coach but his emphasis his entire career has been on the offensive side of the ball, and now he finds himself as a defensive analyst. He says, “I’m looking at everything upside down and learning how the other half lives - it’s like being dyslexic and learning Chinese at the same time.”


*********** A reader named Bill Statz wrote me:

Dear Coach Wyatt,

Do you have a diagram of Bobby Dodd's 92, 96, and 98 Belly? His 90 series?

I immediately went to my copy of Bobby Dodd on Football, published in 1954, when Coach Dodd and his offensive coordinator, Frank Broyles, were in the midst of a six-year run in which their Georgia Tech offense,  powered by the Belly Series, ran up a record of 59-7-3.

I took a few shots, cropped them, and sent them off.

And then, for the hell of it, I checked the price of the book on Amazon.

Whew.




*********** Hugh,

I'm reading your blog. The part about the 'Bama S&C coach leaving does seem interesting. From the little that I have read about it, it seems that Saban may not have been pleased with the recent issues that they had with injuries and that he felt that they were falling behind in terms of explosive ability of their players compared to other SEC teams.

Greg Koenig
Colorado Springs, Colorado


THE BLACK LION AWARD IS OPEN TO NOMINATIONS FOR THE PAST SEASON!


You and one of your players could be in this picture.  See below how to submit your nomination, and your player might win the Black Lion Award  (one award per team).

It’s getting late, but it’s not too late…

Enroll your team now:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/blenrollnow.htm

Find out what to do next:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/BLfaq.htm

*********** Hugh,

Maybe some XFL and NFL teams can take a page out of the Battle Hawks playbook and learn how to run the ball more effectively.

Cardale Jones is an Ohio State guy.  Nuff said.  Ian Silberman is TRULY a Florida guy.  Nuff said.  Both recruited by one Urban Meyer.  Nuff said.

In today's world of Division 1 college football and numerous new coaching "titles" for staff positions don't be surprised to see Cochran as Georgia's "Field Associate" (PC for players get back coach) to keep them from getting out of control during practices and games.

Have a great week!

Joe Gutilla
Austin, Texas

*********** QUIZ ANSWER: Paul Lowe played for Oregon State in a Rose Bowl game - that in itself would make him unique.  But in addition, he played on an AFL championship team with the Chargers, and he won a Super Bowl championship ring with the 1969 Chiefs.  Nobody else ever accomplished those three things.

After playing tailback in Tommy Prothro’s single wing attack at Oregon State, he had a cup of coffee with the 49ers, but after being cut he got a job working for a credit card company.  The company was owned by the Hilton family, one of whose members, Barron Hilton, owned the Los Angeles Chargers (get it? Charge card, Chargers?) in the brand-new American Football League.

He tried out for the Chargers and made the club, and the first time he touched the ball, in an exhibition game, he returned a kickoff 105 yards for a touchdown.

In his rookie season, 1960, he was the team’s leading rusher with 855 yards on 136 carries, and he caught 23 passes for 377 yards.

His 87-yard run from scrimmage in 1961 remains a Chargers’ franchise record.

His best year was 1965, when he rushed for 1,121 yards (in 14 games) and was named MVP.

He would go on to play all ten years of the AFL’s existence, and is one of just 20 men to do so.

His 4.9 yards per carry was the best in the AFL’s history, and his 4,995 yards gained rushing in a career were the league’s second-best.

To show his versatility, he caught 111 passes for another 1,045 yards.

He was twice named first team All-AFL, and twice named second team All-AFL.

He had the interesting distinction of winning the AFL’s Comeback of the Year Award - twice.

He spent the last year of his career in Kansas City, after being traded to the Chiefs, and as a special-teamer he earned his ring when the Chiefs beat the Vikings in the Super Bowl.

In 1970, he made the All-time AFL team as a running back, despite the fact that in his most productive years he shared the running duties with another All-Star, Keith Lincoln - and he played for a pass-first coach in Sid Gilman.

Paul Lowe is a member of the Chargers Hall of Fame and in my opinion is worthy of membership in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.


CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING PAUL LOWE

MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
BILL NELSON - THORNTON, COLORADO
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
JOE GUTILLA - AUSTIN, TEXAS
TIM BROWN - FLORENCE, ALABAMA
GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
JOHN VERMILLION - ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
MARK KACZMAREK - DAVENPORT, IOWA
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS
KEN HAMPTON - RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
JOE DANIELS - STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA
KEVIN MCCULLOUGH - LAKEVILLE, INDIANA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY

*********** Paul Lowe could use a break - from Greg Koenig

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/columnists/bryce-miller/sd-sp-miller-paul-lowe-nfl-afl-concussion-20190206-story.html

*********** Josh Montgomery, of Berwick, Louisiana, proudly noted that Paul Lowe was a native of Homer, Louisiana - way up north near the Arkansas line - and mentioned two other “Homer Pelicans” - Gaynell Tinsley, who played and coached at LSU, and Fred Miller, another LSU alum whom I remember fondly as a Baltimore Colts defensive lineman in the 1960s.

Coach Montgomery also sent along a clip to a story about Homer’s 1957 “18 Iron Men,” who made it to the state title game. One of the players on that team was Fred Miller; another was a fellow named James Andrews, who went on to become the most famous sports surgeon in the nation.

https://www.nflalumni.org/news/nfl-alumni-joins-celebration-iron-men-homer-la-1957-football-team/

TUESDAY

*********** THE XFL THIS PAST WEEKEND

MEA CULPA - I fear that I may have given the impression that I am some sort of expert on the subject of betting on XFL games. No, my good friends (which may no longer include anyone who based on my “advice”  actually put some money down on one or more of these games), I must confess that careful observation of every XFL game has not in any way qualified me to make recommendations, even in jest.  If you are out money because of anything I have suggested, please accept my apologies and my offer of a free one-year subscription to NEWS YOU CAN USE.

SATURDAY
NEW YORK 17, LOS ANGELES 14 -
(LOS ANGELES WAS A 7-POINT FAVORITE)
FEARLESS PICK:LA TO COVER.  IN FACT, THEY MIGHT KILL NY
BOO: IF ANYBODY GOT KILLED, IT WAS ME.

*** Not only did LA not kill NY - the Guardians, behind a new QB, Luis Perez, won.

*** Perez won a D-II national title at Texas A & M-Commerce.

*** As expected when the home team is 0-3 - and a bad 0-3 at that - the crowd was poor (12,000 announced). Scattered around massive Metlife Stadium, it looked even poorer.  What a stroke of marketing genius it was to decide to play there.

*** Last week I gave NY’s center, Ian Silberman, the benefit of the doubt.  No longer.  The guy is a dirty player.  And poor Boston College - the guy plays  most of his college career at Florida, then spends a graduate-transfer season at BC, and guess who gets the credit for producing him?

*** I should add that Silberman wears #69.  It figures.   Me, I’ve never had such a player. Not that I’d know - I never had a #69 jersey to give out.  For what it’s worth,  over the years  very, very few good players  have worn the number.

 https://www.ranker.com/list/best-athletes-who-wore-69/ranker-sports

*** A NY DB named Dravon Askew-Henry was called for two penalties on the same play: first, he got 5 yards for defensive holding, and then he got 15 more yards (unsportsmanlike conduct) for throwing the flag at the official.

*** There’s a lot to be said for the multiple sideline interviews, but not much to be said for going up to a guy who moments earlier dropped a sure touchdown pass and asking him, “What was going through your mind…?”

*** I kept waiting for LA to throw to Nelson Spruce, one of the XFL’s leading receivers.  Turns out he was out with a knee injury, but I’ll be damned if I heard the announcers say anything about it.  Not to make excuses here, because that had nothing to do with the fact that NY finally showed something on offense, but if I’d known Spruce wasn’t going to play, I wouldn’t have had so much confidence in LA.

ST. LOUIS 23, SEATTLE 16
(ST. LOUIS WAS A 12.5 POINT FAVORITE)
FEARLESS PICK: ST. LOUIS TO COVER
BOO: ST. LOUIS IS GOOD, BUT SEATTLE IS BETTER THAN I GAVE THEM CREDIT FOR

*** Another good, enthusiastic St. Louis crowd, announced at 27,500.

*** St. Louis QB Jordan Ta’Amu runs, runs the option, and executes RPO’s beautifully.

*** St. Louis’ OC is Chuck Long, who in the early 2000s was QB coach and then OC at Oklahoma under Bob Stoops.

*** St. Louis likes to run the ball, and has two good RBs in Matt Jones (Florida) and Keith Ford (Texas A & M)

*** Seattle DB Muhammad Seisay lowered his head to make a tackle and injured his neck.  He had to be carted off and taken to a hospital, and was unable to return to Seattle with the team.

*** St. Louis scored on a nicely-executed speed option. Well, at least nicely executed by QB Jordan Ta’Amu.  The pitch man bobbled it, but managed to hang on for the score.

*** For the PAT, St, Louis faked the option and pitched to the playside WR on a reverse. There was absolutely no one in front of him, but evidently it was designed as a reverse pass, and - by damn - he was going to throw the damn thing. So he did, and the pass fell incomplete. GOOD COACHING POINT: Said color guy Joel Klatt, “When you’re rolling out and you can run - YOU are #1 in the progression!”

*** Ta’Amu’s final stats: Passing 20/28/264/1TD, plus 68 yards rushing

*** I really like St. Louis coach Jonathan Hayes. I like his manner and I like the way he talks.

SUNDAY
HOUSTON 27, DALLAS 20
(HOUSTON WAS A 1.5 POINT FAVORITE)
FEARLESS PICK: HOUSTON TO COVER

ALL RIGHT!!!: YES, I CAN PICK THEM, CAN’T I? (ONLY CORRECT PICK OF THE WEEKEND)

*** Overall, this may have been the best XFL game so far

*** Greg Olsen, for some reason, was nowhere near as annoying as he had been in the first three weeks

*** Dallas’ Air Raid offense sucks.  They ran the ball well right from the start, then threw the first pass and it was intercepted. 

*** Interceptions would become such a part of the Dallas offense that their  QB Landry Jones threw THREE in the first quarter alone.

*** Houston slotback Nick Holley, from Kent State, almost made the Rams. He is an extremely versatile player, a receiver with great hands who has also been used as a running back.

*** A questionable scoring play was allowed without  review (unlike in the NFL, where every scoring play is reviewed.) The head of officials, Dean Blandino, came on and said that play “should have been stopped” (to review). So why couldn’t he have just ordered it reviewed?

*** Landry Jones was really playing poorly, and Houston OC Hal Mumme, asked about it, played a tune that’s starting to get old - “he’s only had nine workouts.”  Jones went out and in Dallas’ first series of the second half, he threw his fourth interception.

***  Houston QB P.J. Walker is 5-11.  I don’t normally consider a QB’s height as that big a deal, but he did have some trouble with a high shotgun snap, more than a guy 6-2 would have.

*** Dallas faced a 3rd and 1 near midfield - and passed.  That meant they had to go for it on 4th and 1, and they ran a sneak. Jones got the first down, but wound up injuring his knee in the process.

*** Jones’ replacement, one Philip Nelson, pissed the game way. With Dallas down, 27-20, but driving  with two minutes to play, he elected to run out of the pocket and, at the three-yard line - he f—king slid!  Talk about leading from behind.  Words can’t describe what I think of a guy who could have sacrificed his body and helped his team win a game, but instead took the wussy way out.  One the next play, from the three, genius OC Mumme called a smoke screen which was bobbled by the receiver and miraculously intercepted. Dallas’ fifth interception.  Game over. (Earlier in the game, Houston QB Walker ran for a first down, then lowered a shoulder and knocked a tackler backward.)

TAMPA BAY 25, DC 0
(DC WAS A 1.5 POINT FAVORITE)
FEARLESS PICK: DC TO COVER - EASILY (UNLESS SOMEBODY KNOWS SOMETHING, THIS ONE IS A LOCK)
BOO:  SOMEBODY DID KNOW SOMETHING

*** Yes, somebody DID know something that I didn’t know.  But I do now:  I know why Cardale Jones isn’t in The League.

*** TB RB Jacques Patrick can play. Asked about his TD on Tampa Bay’s first drive, he said it was important because it was “my first pro touchdown - and I had to bury my father last week.”

*** Tampa Bay played ball control, using mostly runs and split end screens, with an occasional play action pass.

*** TB QB Taylor Cornelius passed up a chance to hook slide and instead played big boy football, taking a shot from a tackler as he crashed over the corner pylon for a TD.

*** Something’s going on with Cardale Jones. It appears that the child that tweeted “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain't come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS” back in his freshman year at Ohio State hasn’t done a bit of growing up.

Having contributed generously to his team’s shutout Sunday - going 9 of 22 while  throwing four interceptions and overthrowing wide-open receivers at least twice - he was pulled, then was overheard on the sidelines openly dissing a teammate.

First, as the teammate, a receiver, stood nearby, he told a coach,  “Bench him!”

Next, he said “One ain’t ready! He ain’t ready!” (“One” was Number One, wide receiver Deandre Thompkins.)

What a teammate.  What a leader. 

Uh, Cardale, was it you or “One” who went 9 of 22? Who threw those four interceptions? Who missed those wide open receivers?

*** I get sick of listening to political candidates talking about “income inequality,” but I have to admit I was really pissed when I heard a quarterback, who makes ten times more than any other player on his team, openly disprespecting one of his receivers. I understand why the XFL feels that it has to pay its QBs quite a bit more than the rest of the players - it makes sense - but you’d think that someone would explain to them, very slowly and carefully, that in return for the extra money, they accept some responsibility as leaders.

*** Thompkins, to his credit, reacted rather mildly to Jones’ intemperate insults when asked afterward.  It should be noted that the last time DC won a game,  two weeks ago,  Thompkins caught six passes for 92 yards.  Sure sounds to me like he was ready.

OVERALL COMMENTS

*** This business of allowing a catch when the ball hits the ground, just so long as the receiver has two hands on it (“and the ball doesn’t move”) is BS. Well of course the ball doesn’t move - when it’s pinned to the ground.


CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT SECRET CODE-O-GRAPH

*** When I was a little kid, I pestered my mother to buy a product called Ovaltine - because Captain Midnight told me to.  He told me - on his radio program - that if I sent in a couple of Ovaltine labels (plus a sum of money) I could get my Captain Midnight secret Code-O-Graph, which would enable me to decode the secret messages he sent out to kids at the end of every program.

It was pretty slick, and I could get one today on eBay - for a couple of hundred dollars.

I mention it because with our ability to hear the XFL coaches call in the plays, I’d love to have a Code-O-Graph that would help me make sense of the calls.  It would be a fantastic sales gimmick for the XFL - if only there were some way to keep defensive coaches from breaking the code.

*** I think that one thing that hurts football in marketing its product, especially to women, is the fact that except when they’re on the sidelines acting like jackasses, the players wear helmets, and nobody knows what they really look like.

That’s why I like the XFL’s sideline interviews.  Yes, the interviewers can be dumb and they  can be intrusive. And, yes, they can put guys in some tough spots.

But overall, I’ve enjoyed “meeting” the players - not so much the coaches, because football coaches at any level tend to speak in cliches - and finding out that by and large they’re pretty good guys. Well, of course they are - few of them have ever gotten any star treatment, so they’re unspoiled, and they seem to be grateful for the attention.

*********** I know that Black History Month is over, but I don’t give a sh—. I had to chime in with my contribution. One of my very first mentors when I started coaching was a black man from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

His name was Adam Craven, and he was the head coach at Frederick (Maryland) High School.  I was living in Frederick at the time, and we became fast friends. His son, Bill, was a very good football player on what was maybe the best high school team I have ever seen.  Their tight end was a kid named Chuck Foreman (the same) who wasn’t the best running back on their team.  He had to wait until he got to Miami to become a running back.

Frederick was a decidedly southern town, its schools not far removed from the days of segregation, and when it built a new high school, Thomas Johnson High, most of the white kids went there, and most of the black kids remained at Frederick High.  Who knows why, but Adam Craven, a black man, was hired to be its coach. He was the first black man in the league, made up of the larger schools in that area of Maryland,Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

I was playing on a semipro team at the time, and I contacted Adam and asked if there was anything I could do to help. He sent me out scouting, and I don't know how much good I did him, but in that one season of working with him, I learned a lot of football.

Read about the great 1968 Frederick High team:

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/sports/level/high_school/untouchable-frederick-high-set-to-honor-the-stacked-undefeated-cadets/article_839e7b23-5fd1-5307-b022-9b1cf15d3c87.html

Bill Craven was a very good student, and I worked like hell to get him to Yale. This was back when the Ivy League allowed alumni to recruit.  I even drove Adam  and Bill up to New Haven for a weekend visit. We had lunch with Carm Cozza - just the four of us.  Yale wanted him bad - that was when Calvin Hill was playing there - and we thought we had him, but Harvard found out about him, and on his visit there, he met a bunch of guys he liked, including a basketball player from DeMatha named James Brown (the guy you see on TV now) and he went there.  Had a great career there.

In the meantime, I took a job as general manager of a semi-pro football team in Hagerstown, Maryland, and when my coach quit on me, I immediately turned to Adam and asked him if he’d be interested in the job.  Dumb me - he was making decent money as a high school teacher and coach, and we had almost nothing to offer him.  The short story is that I wound up hiring myself.   Adam was a great help to me in getting started, and we remained friends until he died.

As for Bill, I signed him to play for Philadelphia in the WFL, and when the league went under he played a year or two with the Cleveland Browns.

Then he went to UCLA Medical School, and went on to Johns Hopkins to become an orthopedist.

He did a fellowship under Doctor James Andrews  (probably the most famous sports surgeon in the world) in Birmingham, and went on to launch his own practice in Atlanta.

I am very proud of him.  It’s been more than 50 years since our trip to New Haven.  We remain in touch and I never fail to let him know how much I owe his late dad.

This is from Bill’s hospital biog - and I can vouch for it all...

I was born in Harpers Ferry, W.V. As a small town person, I always dreamed of traveling. I first traveled to Cambridge, Mass. and graduated with honors from Harvard University. I then moved to Los Angeles, graduating from UCLA Medical School. My next travel adventure was in Baltimore, Md. I had the honor of completing my orthopedic residency training at Johns Hopkins Medicine. I then ventured to Birmingham, Ala., to spend 15 months with James Andrews, MD, in his sports medicine fellowship program. In 1990, I moved with my wife and three daughters to one of the best cities in the country - Atlanta - to start my orthopedic/sports medicine practice.

About my practice

I love practicing orthopedics. I knew this the first time I saw an x-ray. I am a visual and mechanical person by nature. I started playing sports in the second grade. I was coached by my father in high school on our championship teams. I was an All-Ivy League football player at Harvard and went on to play professional football in both the World Football League (Philadelphia Bell) and the National Football League (Cleveland Browns). Because of my experiences and training, I specialize and enjoy treating complex sports injuries, especially of the knee and shoulder.   

*********** THE 1968 FREDERICK HIGH CADETS - Coach Adam Craven is standing on the right


THIS WAS A REAL “REMEMBER THE TITANS” - A TRUE STORY OF A BLACK COACH FROM RURAL WEST VIRGINIA TAKING OVER AS HEAD COACH AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN A SMALL SOUTHERN TOWN JUST A FEW YEARS REMOVED FROM SEGREGATION; A TOWN THAT ONLY TWO YEARS EARLIER HAD OPENED ANOTHER HIGH SCHOOL ON THE OTHER END OF TOWN THAT DREW AWAY MOST OF THE AFFLUENT WHITE STUDENTS        

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/sports/level/high_school/untouchable-frederick-high-set-to-honor-the-stacked-undefeated-cadets/article_839e7b23-5fd1-5307-b022-9b1cf15d3c87.html

***********  I got this from a coach (who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons):

Your description of how today's offenses "resemble" the single wing, in particular those with an H Back, is what I found out we will be using for an offense this coming year.  The very same offense that 6 of our district opponents are using.  I guess our HC feels we'll be better able to defend the offense better now that we'll be running it too.  Only problem...we'll be doing that with an O Line that averages 5'11-185 pounds, and only one H Back with any ability.  Go figure.  

THE BLACK LION AWARD IS OPEN TO NOMINATIONS FOR THE PAST SEASON!


One of your players could be in this picture.  See below how to submit your nomination, and your player might win the Black Lion Award  (one award per team).

It’s getting late, but it’s not too late…

Enroll your team now:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/blenrollnow.htm

Find out what to do next:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/BLfaq.htm

FRIDAY

*********** THE XFL THIS WEEKEND

SATURDAY

LA WILDCATS AT NEW YORK GUARDIANS (+7)
OVER/UNDER 40
FEARLESS PICK:
LA TO COVER.  IN FACT, THEY MIGHT EVEN KILL NY

SEATTLE DRAGONS(+12) AT ST. LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS
OVER/UNDER 39
FEARLESS PICK:
ST. LOUIS TO COVER

SUNDAY

HOUSTON ROUGHNECKS AT DALLAS RENEGADES (+1.5)
OVER/UNDER 50
FEARLESS PICK:
HOUSTON TO COVER

DC DEFENDERS AT TAMPA BAY VIPERS (+1.5)
OVER/UNDER 44.5
FEARLESS PICK:
DC TO COVER - EASILY
(UNLESS SOMEBODY KNOWS SOMETHING, THIS ONE IS A LOCK)

*********** In the screen shot below of the DC Defenders’ offensive formation last week,  the tackles are circled.

High school coaches have probably seen this at one point or another: three guys split out to each side. But one of those guys is a tackle.  Other than possibly to confuse an inexperienced defense, I’ve never figured out the purpose. What good, exactly, is a 300-pound guy who’s employed mainly to block an edge rusher, going to do way out there in space?


*********** Keep up the XFL commentary. I watch all I can, and enjoy it--except for some of the sideline stuff like "take us through" and "how did you feel after (name the play)." But even in Tampa they claimed 19,000 attendees, who unfortunately were in Raymond James Stadium. The extra point possibilities do require further thought, but I believe the original idea was good. I hope the league survives.

John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida

*********** Things haven’t been going so well for the Pac-12 lately.  Washington State lost its coach to another Power 5 school, and a few weeks ago, so did Colorado.  Increasingly, the top high school talent in California is leaving for other conferences. The TV rights payouts to member teams are some $20 million a year less than those of SEC or Big Ten schools, and the gap is likely to widen with the next round of negotiations.

So you have to admire Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott for coming up with an idea to take our minds off the conference’s problems: another bowl game!

With the public clamoring for more bowl games, Commissioner Larry just had to know that the LA Bowl would be greeted with wild acclaim.

It’s going to match the Pac-12’s fifth-place team with the Mountain West champion!  What a stroke of genius! You just know that if a team was strong enough to place fifth in a 12-team conference, its fans will be lining up for tickets!

And what a huge honor for the Mountain West champs! They've made their way through conference play and they've won the conference championship game, and now the real prize awaits: a chance to play a fifth-place Power Five team!  Be still, my beating heart.

Yes, there will be the naysayers who’ll say that it’s not that big  an honor for a 12-2 Boise State team to play a Pac-12 team that was 4-5 in conference play. Actually, they’ll be right - there were five Pac-12 teams tied for fourth, including Oregon State and UCLA. 

But as if the matchup weren’t enticing enough, there’s also the venue: the SoFi Center, the multibillion-dollar soon-to-be home of the Rams and Chargers!

Nick Saban, Alabama head coach

"I don't know how you manage a roster when this goes into effect. I can't manage our roster now. Last year, we had eight seniors on our team. We had seven guys go out for the draft and three graduate transfers or guys that ended up transferring. So instead of having 18 seniors, you've got eight. You really have a three-year program at a place like this. I'm not necessarily saying it's going to hurt our program because we'll do a hell of a job recruiting players leaving other places to come here. But is that good for college football?"

Todd Berry, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association

"We don't want to lower graduation rates, we don't want recruiting off other campuses. I don't think I'm talking irrationally here, because history already tells us what's going to happen. What would be the motivation for universities to recruit from high schools any more? You're basically going to recruit off other campuses. Dependent upon where you are on that food chain, it's going to affect how many high school athletes you would actually take. From a coaching perspective, many times it's easier to take a proven player off another campus. I don't think the fan bases are going to enjoy this, either.

"We already know the reality of it. The reason of the rule being put in place was a concern, rightfully so in my opinion, from an academic standpoint. Students were transferring all over the place because everyone was recruiting off other campuses. That is a concern based off graduation rates. Secondarily, then it becomes less about the academics and more about football opportunities and so on. That's why the rule was put in place, to mitigate that. Our proposal, which was unanimously supported for the third straight year across all NCAA levels at our convention, we support the idea of if you're transferring across or up, if you sit a year. It's mandated. Most of those people need that time frame. And then when they graduate, which is the whole reason for this, they get the year back, so they have an extra year."

A Power 5 head coach

"Group of 5: It's going to kill them. They're going to be our G League. They'll be our little amateur league where we'll draw good players from. Every kid wants to play in the Power 5. I don't care what you say, that's what you want."

Bob Bowlsby, Big 12 commissioner

"Everybody thinks they make a plausible case for a waiver, and when they lawyer up, they probably make more progress than they do if they don't lawyer up. But I think the criticism has been that it's been arbitrary and people who represent student-athletes transferring, they know what buzzwords to put into the appeal so they can be successful in their appeal."

Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame athletic director

"The flip side of a one-time transfer is the second transfer ought to be really difficult, only under extraordinary circumstances. The waiver window on that for me would be really, really small. It would be small and specific and we get out of this whole nonsense we have now with the waiver process."

Joe Castiglione, Oklahoma athletic director

"I've had people from other universities -- I won't tell you which ones -- we've had a student-athlete leave to go to that university, which was fine, they left in good standing academically. They wanted to have a chance to play more than perhaps they were getting here, we get that. They transferred to another school but they had to sit out. ... People are calling, saying, 'Well, could you write a letter to say that that student-athlete was prevented from something and that's why they felt they had to leave?' I was speechless. Basically asking for us to lie about the reason they left because it would help in their case to become immediately eligible. I know for a fact it's happened in many cases.

"That one absolutely made me angry. I was just taken aback that somebody would actually ask us to do that.

"Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray both sat a year. I'm sure if you asked either one of them and their families, they would've preferred to be eligible to compete immediately. I get that. But that wasn't part of the rules. We have people on any one of our rosters who transfer here knowing they have to sit a year in residence. In many cases, one could argue that the opportunity to grow in that year was really positive. I know in today's world that doesn't make sense for a lot of people -- it's gotta be now -- I understand an argument for that, but those rules were in effect. Now we have all the different reasons -- many which have been exaggerated -- just to be able for some to be immediately eligible."

A Mid-major assistant Men’s Basketball coach

"It's free agency with no salary cap. Kids transferring up are way better than kids transferring down. It's a rich-get-richer type of thing. Nobody wants to stand up for the rules. We're always trying to find ways to circumvent rules. At the top, nobody wants to look like they're anti-player. But there has to be a way to make it fair. It's not the wild west out here. It's not a free-for-all. It's not professional sports."

A Second Mid-major assistant Men’s Basketball coach

 ”The rules make it so you have to recruit a new team every year. There is no more, 'This guy could be a star in two years.' There's no time for potential. You have to sign a couple of good high school kids in the fall and then refresh the transfer portal every hour on the hour."

Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame women’s basketball coach

"What we're saying is with this is, 'That's the way society is, let's let them do what they want.' The really scary part is, I feel like you're going to be in the handshake line after a game with people saying, 'Hey, you didn't play much today, why don't you come over here?'

"I like the way it is now, so I think it would be a terrible thing to do."

(I WROTE) There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a back - or two - do the job of the pulling linemen in a single-wing attack.  Somewhere - I can’t find it - is a quote by (I think) Red Sanders, great UCLA single-wing coach, saying basically that pulling linemen was a waste most of the time, because they never blocked anybody anyhow. (And those were the days when the big guys at least had a chance - when they could block low downfield.)

 
I remember hearing a coach say long ago that in small schools you end up putting your top athletes in the backfield and will need to coach up a lot of kids to play the line.  So you might as well use your best kids as blockers as well as runner.

John Bothe
Oregon, Illinois


*********** It's been nice seeing and reading all the stories about the Miracle on Ice - the US teams’ defeat of the mighty Soviet Union ice hockey team in the 1980 winter Olympics.

What I haven’t seen anyone mention was the thing that made the win so “miraculous” - if we must use that word. It was that it was so pure (if I can use that word).  The Olympics then were for amateurs, and most of the players on the US team were current or former college players.

Even the Soviets were amateurs - by their extremely loose definition of the term.  The Soviets were some of the world’s best hockey players, on the level of the NHL’s best, yet none of them was, strictly speaking,  a professional - there was no professional league in the Soviet Union, and none of their players was able to leave the Soviet Union to make a living in the NHL.  But the team and its dominance in world competition played an important role in promoting the Soviet way of life, and a grateful Soviet government took very good care of the players and coaches, giving them bogus “jobs” that enabled them to play hockey full-time while enjoying a standard of living few could afford in a country where luxuries were in short supply.  But they weren’t pros. Oh, no. Not much.

The idea that a bunch of American college kids could beat the mighty Soviet Union was absolutely unthinkable, and yet there it was.  It really happened.  It was thrilling to Americans who had never seen a hockey game before - and may not have seen one since.

In a sense, looking back,  it was the last stand of the Olympic ideal against the ugliness of professional sports.

The Olympics used to be a great test of our youngsters against the world’s youngsters.

And now what do we get?  30-year-olds making a nice living in sports events so trivial we only hear of them in Olympic years… professional athletes who can’t be bothered with playing on an Olympic team… “National” teams - men’s and women’s - who bitch about how much more they ought to be paid to “represent their nation.”

I’d sure love to see a day when the Olympics are for amateurs once again.  Do you believe in miracles? 


THE BLACK LION AWARD IS OPEN TO NOMINATIONS FOR THE PAST SEASON!


One of your players could be in this picture.  See below how to submit your nomination, and your player might win the Black Lion Award  (one award per team).

It’s getting late, but it’s not too late…

Enroll your team now:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/blenrollnow.htm

Find out what to do next:

http://www.coachwyatt.com/BLfaq.htm


*********** Hugh,

Like anything else attendance for pro sports events also depends upon the team's won-loss record, even in the XFL.  Also, if the XFL stays the course with its product, and doesn't get greedy (like the USFL did), it will make it through their inaugural season relatively unscathed.  The league still needs to find venues for a few of the teams that can accommodate crowds without the stadium looking half empty.  That is especially important for TV viewing, but also for the fans and players in providing the type of ambience that help make the games exciting.

I have an extra copy of Bob Reade's book.  Let me know if that former player of yours can't get his hands on one and I'll send you one of mine you can forward to him.

Hate to brag, but I was right about Colorado.  Karl Dorrell is a former Power 5 head coach.  Coached pro ball.   Didn't have to steal him away from another school.  Won't do worse than the former coach.  Has ties to recruiting the west coast.  Will take the Buffs to bowl games (regardless of which ones).  Administration will be happy.  That's all that matters in Boulder.

Enjoy your week!

Joe Gutilla
Austin, Texas

*********** QUIZ ANSWER: In the mid-60’s, northern college football had been integrated for some time, but for southern black football players, except for those talented few who were recruited to play at northern schools (Michigan State among the  most prominent), there was no option other than to play at a black college - which accounted for the great number of NFL players coming out of schools such as Grambling, Florida A & M, Jackson State, Tennessee State. The list of schools is long.

But Elvin Bethea totally reversed the pattern.  He was a northerner, a black player from New Jersey who could have gone to a number of northern schools,  but instead attended an all-black southern college.

He wound up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and he attributes a lot of his success to having attended that small black college. He grew up in Trenton, New Jersey, the oldest of nine children, and by his own admission, he grew up tough. “The toughness came from my father,” he told Jackson Michael, in “The Game Before the Money.” “He didn’t let up on you; you worked.  Football and track, he called that foolishness.”

But in college, he said, “I learned more about toughness. Our motto used to be, ‘If you go to a black college, you can make it anywhere in the world.’”

At Trenton Central High School, he didn’t play football until the 10th grade. “I didn’t know what football was, had no idea. I went out and made the JV that morning, and by that afternoon they put me on the varsity squad. I had no idea what I was doing. I made it because of my size. I was like 235, 240.”

He was good in  football and really good in track - New Jersey state champion in the shot put (with a throw of 64-4) and the discus - and he had numerous scholarship offers. “I really wanted to go to Villanova for the shot  put,” he said, “but my grades weren’t where they should have been.”

Enter Mom.

“My mother made the decision to go to North Carolina A & T.  She went to school with Mel Grooms, one of their coaches, who was also from Trenton.  I came home after work on a Saturday, and next thing I know, I’m in the station wagon with Coach Grooms and his family, off to North Carolina.  It was all my mother’s doing.  As they say, ‘Always do what your mother tells you.’”

Asked, “What if you’d said ’No’ to your mom?” he replied, “There was no such thing back then.”

For a black youngster from an integrated high school in the North, the South of that time was a different world: “Our high school’s offensive line included two blacks, an Italian and a Polish guy. As far as segregation is concerned we knew nothing about it. Then  I went to college at A&T, where four students sat in at Woolworth’s in 1960 to protest segregation and Jesse Jackson became student body president. I was just thinking about going to school and knew nothing about ‘You can’t go there.’”

Things were not easy playing at a black school in the segregated South.  Travel was tough, with few places to stay or eat, and playing conditions were less than ideal.  Practice facilities were “worse than we had at our high school.”  But in looking back, he suggests that those conditions helped make him into the player he would become. “We didn’t think about it,” he said. “That’s what you were dealt with.  That’s where mental toughness comes in.”

He had four successful years at A & T, and was drafted in the third round by the Houston Oilers - as an offensive lineman.

(“I had no idea who the Houston Oilers were,” he said.  He was waiting to hear from Dallas, who were said to be going to make him their number one choice.)

He didn’t hear from Dallas - they never drafted him -  so he signed with Houston. “I signed for a $15,000 salary and a $15,000 bonus, so $30,000. I gave half of that to my parents.”

During his rookie camp, he played guard, offensive tackle, defensive end and linebacker.

“I never left the field,” he recalled. “The Oilers had me play  half the practice on offense, then they’d put a red shirt on me and I’d play defense. For $15,000 they got a hell of a deal - they got two players.”

He finally settled in at defensive end, and from the first game of his rookie season - 1968 -  he didn’t come out of the lineup until late in the 1977 season, 135 games later, when he broke his arm trying to tackle the Raiders’ Mark Van Eeghan (“I clotheslined him but he ducked his head…”)

In all, in 16 seasons - all with the Oilers - he played in 210 games.

He played in eight Pro Bowls, and he was five times named All-Pro.

Although sacks weren’t an official NFL statistic until 1982, he is credited with 105 career sacks, still the highest in the history of the Oilers/Tennessee Titans franchise.

The Oilers didn’t begin to count tackles until 1974, but even so, despite missing the stats from his first six seasons, his 691 career tackles are also a franchise record.

In 2003 Elvin Bethea was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and his presenter was Hornsby Howell -  his  college coach at North Carolina A & T.


CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING  ELVIN BETHEA

GREG KOENIG - COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO

TUESDAY