TUESD

If you've been following my site for any length of time, you know that I worked for some time to combine the solid, sound blocking and running game of the Double Wing with the passing game of the Run and Shoot that I once ran - way back in the early 80s.  
 I came to call what resulted the "Open Wing" (thanks to my friend Brian Mackell for the idea), and in our first year of running it at North Beach High (Ocean Shores, Washington), while testing it and refining it,  we finished 7-3, only the school's second winning record in ten years.  The next two years, as we got better at what we were doing, we had back-to-back unbeaten regular seasons, finishing 10-1 and 9-1.  In the 2015 regular season, we were the highest-scoring team in the state of Washington at all levels. 

It's a series of five DVDs, each roughly an hour in length: the first one gets you started with the basics, and from there, each DVD can stand on its own - the second one offers a basic offensive package to run (if that's all you need);  the third introduces the basics of our passing game; the fourth shows how we have expanded the offense through formationing; and the fifth gets into employing the Open Wing principles with a QB under center - plus an overview of the very basic but solid Double Wing package that we jump in and out of.

I originally priced the DVDs at $39.95 each, but because I believe that the entire series is important, I decided to sell it as a set, priced so that you can purchase all five DVDs for $150 - actually less than the cost of buying four  of them separately.

LINE COACH'S SPECIAL - TWO GREAT O-LINE VIDEOS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

none of this shove-and-grab stuff that the pros call "blocking."

SHOW THE LINE COACH  WHAT TO TEACH -  AND HOW TO TEACH IT

Regularly $39.95 EACH - NOW BOTH FOR $39.95 - http://www.coachwyatt.com/LINESPECIAL.html


"DOUBLE WING DUO" -  TWO GREAT VIDEOS! ONE GREAT PRICE!

NOW ONLY $49.95 - http://www.coachwyatt.com/DYNAMICSVIDEO.html



IT'S NOT TOO LATE -
TO PRESENT THE BLACK LION AWARD TO A PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM -  COACH GREG KOENIG (ON THE RIGHT IN THE PHOTO) HAS PRESENTED IT TO PLAYERS AT THREE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS IN COLORADO AND KANSAS SINCE 2001 - AND NOW HE'S AT HIS FOURTH SCHOOL - WHERE HE STILL PRESENTS IT!  IT'S THE ONLY AWARD HE GIVES!  IT'S ABSOLUTELY FREE - YOUR PLAYER RECEIVES A CERTIFICATE AND AN OFFICIAL BLACK LION PATCH.    NOW'S THE TIME TO SIGN YOUR TEAM UP AND  - EMAIL ME THE NAME OF THE TEAM AND THE HEAD COACH'S CONTACT INFO:

 

Israel Folau, an evangelical Christian and rugby football star, was found guilty of breaching the Rugby Australia code of conduct - for quoting St. Paul’s biblical teachings against fornication and homosexuality.

A three-person independent tribunal wrapped up on Tuesday three days of deliberations and found Folau guilty of a high-level breach of the code of conduct enforced by the governing body of Australian rugby teams. So far, no sanction has been announced against Folau. However, he may face cancellation of his $4 million contract and forgo a chance to appear in the forthcoming rugby world championship.

“The panel has today provided a judgment that Israel Folau committed a high-level breach of the Professional Players’ Code of Conduct with his social media posts on April 10, 2019,” read a statement from the panel that decided his case. “The panel will now take further written submissions from the parties to consider the matter of sanction. A further update with be provided after the panel delivers its decision on sanction.”

Once a decision has been made on a sanction, both Folau and Rugby Australia will have 72 hours to offer an appeal. While Folau may face a fine and suspension instead of a contract termination, he will never play again for the Wallabies team.

Any infraction deemed less than “high level” would not have allowed Rugby Australia to terminate Folau’s contract with the Wallabies team legally, forcing the governing body to offer an expensive monetary settlement to him.

A sanction is expected within several days, even while Rugby Australia has not yet set a timeline for a decision. Folau has already rejected a $1 million settlement, and will not receive any payout now because of the finding of guilt on his part.

Folau fell afoul of Rugby Australia after he published several controversial social media posts in which he expressed his religious beliefs concerning immorality, quoting the Bible. Raelene Castle, who heads Rugby Australia, issued Folau a notice that he had committed a high-level breach of the body’s code of conduct.

The decision in Folau’s case was met with support from some members of the media and sports. For example, media celebrity Ed Kavalee said on Fox Sports’ The Back Page, “This is the most expensive social media post of all time.” He added, “It’s cost Israel $4 million.”

Journalist Robert Craddock of the Courier-Mail said on The Back Page, “We’ve seen one of the most significant moments of the sporting century in Australia, in that a powerhouse rugby union player who is Australia’s best player heading into a World Cup, will be banished from the game, probably for good.” Craddock predicted further controversy.

Cory Bernardi, who leads Australian conservatives, expressed astonishment over Folau’s verdict. He told Sky News in a reference to Folau’s quoting of the Bible, “I find it extraordinary that quoting from the bestselling book in the history of the world is a breach of contract.” He added, “There was no hate in that at all. He’s just upset a bloke who runs an airline like a kingdom.”

Bernardi was apparently referring to Alan Joyce, the openly homosexual CEO of Qantas airlines and chief sponsor of the Wallabies. Joyce told a newspaper in the run-up to the 2017 same-sex marriage campaign, “We have 580 companies involved ... If you’re unhappy with a company that’s involved with the campaign, you won’t be able to bank and you won’t be able to fly anywhere.”

Because free speech is guaranteed in Australia, Folau’s case may go to Australia’s High Court for consideration. After Rugby Australia’s initial announcement that it would cancel Folau’s contract, LifeSiteNews issued a petition asking for his reinstatement.

While Folau may never be able to play professional rugby in Australia again, a career in Europe is also in question. The president of the Toulon rugby club, Mourad Boudjellal, told French sports journal L’Equipe: “This guy’s a moron; he ought to clear out. Or he needs to buy himself a brain. He still has the Ku Klux Klan; then he’ll see what it’s like on the other side.” Also, sports shoe manufacturer Asics has announced that it is cancelling a lucrative contract with Folau.

An evangelical Christian, Folau has run afoul of gay rights campaigners in the past because of his support for traditional marriage. Asked by the Sydney Morning Herald whether he will leave professional rugby instead of apologizing for his beliefs as required by Australia Rugby, Folau said, "Whatever His will is, whether that's to continue playing or not, I'm more than happy to do what He wants me to do." Folau said rugby is important to him, “but my faith in Jesus Christ is what comes first."

IRVING, Texas (May 16, 2019) – The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced today that former UCLA quarterback Mark Harmon has been named the 2019 recipient of the NFF Gold Medal in recognition of his exceptional accomplishments, unblemished reputation and for reflecting the values of amateur football. He will be honored for his achievements during the 62nd NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 10 at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City, which will also celebrate the 150th anniversary of college football.
 
"As we prepare to celebrate the 150th anniversary of college football, Mark Harmon captures exactly what we hope to inspire in future generations of young football players, making him the perfect recipient for the NFF's highest honor," said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. "An NFF National Scholar-Athlete at UCLA in the early 1970s, Mark took that same relentless drive to succeed, applying it to his career as an actor and unequivocally becoming one of the most successful stars of his generation. He has earned this honor many times over, and we are extremely proud to add his name to the esteemed list of past NFF Gold Medal recipients."
 
The highest and most prestigious award presented by the National Football Foundation, the Gold Medal recognizes an outstanding American who has demonstrated integrity and honesty; achieved significant career success; and has reflected the basic values of those who have excelled in amateur sport, particularly football. First presented to President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the NFF Annual Awards Dinner in 1958, the Gold Medal boasts an impressive list of past recipients, including seven presidents, four generals, three admirals, one Supreme Court Justice, 29 corporate CEOs and chairmen, actor John Wayne and baseball immortal Jackie Robinson. Harmon will become the 65th recipient of the NFF Gold Medal. (See below for the full list of past recipients.)
 
"Having achieved the highest levels of success, Mark Harmon has always remained humble and focused on the things that really matter in life, which is hard work, perseverance and teamwork," said NFF Awards Committee Chairman Jack Ford. "His success on the gridiron as a student-athlete and his subsequent icon status in film and television make him exceptionally well-qualified as our 2019 Gold Medal recipient. We look forward to welcoming him back to the NFF's stage in December, poetically 46 years after his being honored as an NFF National Scholar-Athlete during an event when another famous actor, John Wayne, accepted the NFF Gold Medal."
 
Harmon was born and raised in Southern California; the son of actress Elyse Knox and Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon, a 1954 College Football Hall of Fame inductee from Michigan. He attended The Harvard School (now known as Harvard-Westlake) in Los Angeles, playing football, baseball and rugby. On the gridiron, he mostly took the field as a running back and safety, only appearing in four games at quarterback. He broke his elbow as a junior, and did not play varsity football as a senior.
 
Not recruited out of high school, Harmon headed to Pierce Junior College in Woodland Hills, California, and he quarterbacked the team to a 7-2 record in 1971, earning All-America laurels. His performance earned him multiple scholarship offers, including Oklahoma in an effort led by Barry Switzer, the offensive coordinator at the time and a future College Football Hall of Fame coach, to recruit him. Harmon opted to stay in his hometown of Los Angeles, playing for UCLA head coach Pepper Rodgers and assistant coaches Homer Smith, Lynn Stiles and Terry Donahue, also a future College Football Hall of Fame coach.
 
Playing alongside future College Football Hall of Fame inductees Randy Cross and John Sciarra, Harmon helped orchestrate a UCLA turnaround, quarterbacking the Bruins, which had finished 2-7-1 at eighth-place in the Pac-8 in 1971, to a combined 17-5 record in 1972 and 1973. In his first game ever as a Bruin, which opened the 1972 season, Harmon led an underdog UCLA to a dramatic 20-17 win against two-time defending national champion Nebraska, snapping the Huskers' 32-game-unbeaten streak.
 
A Wishbone-T quarterback who could run, pass, fake and mix plays, Harmon rushed for more yards and touchdowns than he did passing, amassing 1,504 yards rushing and 14 touchdowns versus passing for 845 yards and 9 touchdowns during his tenure in Westwood. The offensive coordinator Homer Smith's wishbone offense forced Harmon to make multiple decisions in very short time periods, distributing the ball to running backs Kermit Johnson and James McAlister. The combination created the top running game in the nation in 1973, and UCLA set school records for total yards gained (4,403), average yards per game (400) and rushing touchdowns (56).
 
A Communications major who aspired to become a doctor, Harmon excelled in the UCLA classrooms, carrying a 3.45 GPA and graduating cum laude. His accomplishments earned him Second Team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors as well as an NFF National Scholar-Athlete Award, which led to his trip to New York City where he was honored at the NFF Annual Awards Dinner the same night that John Wayne accepted the NFF Gold Medal.
 
"In today's society, the scholar-athlete is indeed a rare breed," Harmon said in responding for the NFF Scholar-Athlete Class in 1973. "Not only does he excel on the field, but he competes in the classroom as well…. As we gather here tonight to pay our respects to the men who made the great American game of football what it is today, we hope that one day in the future some of us from the Class of '74 might be fortunate enough to carry on the great tradition that has been passed down by the distinguished men in this room. If we do, it is because our universities gave us the chance and the game of football has given us the principles."
 
After UCLA, Harmon declined professional football offers to instead pursue acting. He worked in advertising, as a shoe company rep and as a carpenter between acting gigs and appearing in Coors beer commercials. His hard work eventually paid off with a big break on NBC's St. Elsewhere and the leading role of Dr. Robert Caldwell. His success continued on NBC's police drama Reasonable Doubts starring as detective Dickey Cobb and CBS's Chicago Hope where he appeared as Dr. Jack McNeil.
 
He also had memorable arcs on the hit shows Moonlighting and The West Wing before landing the lead role of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, on CBS' global favorite NCIS series, which has become part of television history, approaching its 400th episode and recently inking a deal for its 17th season. The most-watched-scripted show on American television today and consistently ranked among the five highest-rated TV shows each year, NCIS is a TV juggernaut, attracting more than 15 million viewers each week throughout most of its run.
 
In 2011, Harmon became an executive producer on NCIS, and in 2014 an idea he co-developed became the spinoff NCIS: New Orleans which premiered on CBS with Harmon as an executive producer alongside Gary Glasberg. His big-screen credits include Freaky Friday, Wyatt Earp, The Presidio, Summer School and Stealing Home. He has worked with Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jodie Foster, Allison Janney, Karl Malden, Patricia Arquette and Denzel Washington among countless other Hollywood notables.
 
Harmon has received numerous accolades and award nominations during his career, including being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Oct. 1, 2012, but he has always remained humble with an appreciation for the efforts of others. Quietly giving back, Harmon's charitable work includes Saving Bristol Bay, Stand Up To Cancer, Ronald McDonald House Charities, Kids Wish Network, Clothes Off Our Back, Entertainment Industry Foundation, Oklahoma Kidz Charities Foundation, Oklahoma City Indian Clinic and The Children's Center OKC.
 
From his time as a quarterback at UCLA until now, as an executive producer and star of the CBS hit series NCIS, Harmon has always treated teammates and production crews with familial respect and loyalty.

"I look at the show as a team," Harmon said during a previous interview. "I've always been a team guy. I'm not in [acting] for the personal part of this, and I wasn't as an athlete either. It's about the work and we all work together."

“If you have a student nearly finished with high school, see if he or she can answer a few simple questions. For instance: Name as many as you can of the founders of our country. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? What year was it written? From which country were the colonists declaring independence? How many colonies were there? Who led the Continental Armt, and the Constitutional Convention?

“It’s as if there is  concerted effort - and a successful one - to minimize our nation’s past or erase it from the thought of our present students.”

FRID

TUESD

DEVELOPING MENTAL TOUGHNESS

By Kevin Marks, Kinesiology and Health Science Professor
School of Health Science
Solano College
Fairfield, California


It’s intriguing to see individuals who have the ability to stretch themselves and push through physical and mental barriers. For example, Navy Seals, Army Rangers, athletes, business leaders, etc. These highly competent people have a “no quit mentality” and can push through the pain. Is this all mental or physical? Can we as coaches and players develop the skill of “pushing through the pain”?


How mental toughness will benefit both football players and coaches:


1.    Developing mental and physical toughness allows players to feel in control which is an essential psychological tool of highly functioning people.


2.    You will learn a lot about yourself: mentally, physically and emotionally.


3.    Consistency- those who push through pain correlate with “consistent” behavior. These players are well read, and we tend to know what we are going to get from them. They are also the players who tend to be the leaders of the team.


4.    Positive Attitude! Those who can push through pain remain confident and never complain; if fact, they enjoy the process of discomfort. Both coaches and players must constantly adapt to uncomfortable situations.
Whether it’s a staff meeting and we feel tired or the fourth quarter of a hard fought football game, many of us start to experience mental or physical pain or both. Pushing through pain is both physiological and psychological. Physically, we need to invest the time to train so our body tissues can adapt to the stress imposed on them. Mentally, we can lean into the pain if we feel we have prepared the right way. If we have not trained at all, even the most physically and mentally tough football players will tap out.


How can we learn to push through the pain?


1.    Physically prepare: as a coach, we will be able to sit through staff meetings and retain more information and engage when we are physically fit. The coach who is running the meeting will be able to deliver high quality, dynamic information. Additionally, the same goes for a two and a half hour football practice. Well-conditioned athletes can remain focused and explosive. Research is equivocal regarding what comes first: developing mental toughness or physical toughness. However, even the most mentally stable football players cannot endure the physical rigors if they are not metabolically trained. Essentially, it is effective to train hard physically, and this can improve our mental toughness and our pain tolerance (Martin & McGee, 2008).In fact, being a highly conditioned player will increase our ability to make decisions and even increase our will power.


2.    Pain is always finite. The pain will always end. In our minds eye, we must understand this. This “understanding” is a very common cognitive strategy. We gain mental control of the pain when we know the end point of the pain (end of meeting or competition). Mentally strong football players develop a mantra they repeat in their head as they break apart the pain in different segments. Repeating words like: “finish,” “Power,” “tough as nails” helps the mind to focus during distress. In addition, the coach should always tell players where they are at in practice: period 6, 8 10 etc. When I was the defensive coordinator at Solano College, I would call the defense up at the end of each quarter of practice and half time. This specificity is significant because it takes place in the game and most importantly, psychologically, the player “knows” where they are at and thus- they know the end point.


3.    Break it down to the smallest parts: a two-hour staff meeting or practice might seem daunting. This meeting should be divided into four small parts. Every 30 min, stand up and change your position. Turn the page on your notebook. Take a few deep breaths and start the next 30. This is where the coach can break up meetings and practice to keep players engaged and themselves. The player must “mentally” start a new game in their mind after each quarter during practice and games. This is how great teams and players improve as the game and practice goes on.


4.    Practice- consistently put yourself in an uncomfortable situation both mentally and physically. Repetition is the mother of skill. We can build up a tolerance and immunity to our pain threshold; we just need to embrace it (Anshel & Russell, 1994). Our bodies and minds will become stronger as a result of this.


5.    Be smart: know when to adjust. The key is to train mentally and physically day in and day out so we can learn about our minds and bodies and find the middle ground. We never quit, however, feeling acute pain in an area that continues to worsen as the race goes on is a sign that we need to adjust. Physical pain typically goes away during completion and goes somewhere else in the body. However, pain that always nags and gets worse must be addressed.


6.    Lean into the pain. As soon as we feel pain, the human tendency is to stop or avoid (because we gain control). As soon as we feel emotional pain, we might deny or suppress it to protect us. We really should lean into these. We should not try to stop, suppress or block out. Making a mental note of the pain and returning to the activity is a healthy adaptive approach. We must feel and acknowledge all forms of the pain, physical, emotional and psychological. As soon as we try to gain control by stopping the pain, paradoxically; we lose control. We want to feel the pain, keep going with the understanding it will go away and then adjust (not quit) if the pain turns into an acute issue.

Many of our writers at PressBox DFW knew Dan Jenkins, whether it was at TCU football games or in a press room at Colonial or the Masters.
A few of them shared their personal remembrances of Dan. We hope you enjoy them.

Gil LeBreton:

Truth be told, it took years before I was able to summon the courage to introduce myself to the most illustrious writer this city has known, Dan Jenkins.

I would see him at TCU games. I would observe him from afar at golf tournaments.

He would stand there, a cigarette in one hand, greeting some Augusta National member or seasoned golf scribe with the other. The legends of the sportswriting world would pause to greet him – Sherrod, Furman Bisher, Edwin Pope, Dave Anderson, Dave Kindred, Bob Ryan, et al.

But the guy from his hometown – the sports columnist whose newspaper was tossed on Jenkins’ front lawn each morning – couldn’t muster the fortitude to approach him.

After all, Dan Jenkins was famous. He was witty. In his writing, granted, he could be a little bit of a wise-ass, but he was brilliant. What was I supposed to say, “Excuse me, Mr. Jenkins, but I’m the guy on page 37 of your newspaper each day”?

I even thought about calling Sally Jenkins, Dan’s immensely talented daughter, a Washington Post sports columnist and a best-selling author herself.

I had met Sally in 1985 when we both were covering the U.S. Olympic Festival in Baton Rouge, La. She needed a ride to the basketball arena at Southern University, and I lied and said that’s where I was going, too.

I mean, this was Dan Jenkins’ kid. And every guy who ever ordered chicken fried steak for breakfast and had memorized lines from Shake Tiller and Barbara Jane Bookman knew who Dan Jenkins was. I would have driven Sally to Shreveport if she had asked, just to talk with her.

It was in the Masters media center one day, perhaps buoyed by a courtesy pimento cheese sandwich, that I finally walked up to Dan at his customary position near the edge of the press room scoreboard.

“Sure,” he said. “I know who you are.

“You need to get on Pat Sullivan’s ass more.”

Our visits became a regular thing – my choice, probably not his. Forget what heroics were taking place out on the Augusta National course. My favorite memories of those years were the few minutes I shared with Dan, usually laughing.

I would run into Sally every now and then, frequently at Cowboys-Redskins games, and I would ask about her famous dad. It was disheartening, therefore, when she told me last November that he was struggling.

Getting around involved either a walker or a wheelchair, Sally said. His attendance at TCU football games now depended on the weather.

Dan Jenkins’ prose could be salty, but TCU had no more eloquent ambassador. He loved being a lifelong Horned Frog, and TCU loved him back.

One of his most prized possessions was the Rose Bowl ring that coach Gary Patterson presented to him.

When I walk into the press box at Amon Carter Stadium and see his name – Dan Jenkins Press Box — it reminds me how blessed I was to know the man I considered to be the poet laureate of Fort Worth.

Jenkins his ownself would have considered the title too stuffy, of course. He didn’t write poetry — he wrote sports, and the poetry just happened.

Riff, ram, bah, zoo. Give ‘em hell, Dan Jenkins.

 
Jimmy Burch:

The first time I met Dan was at the Masters Tournament in Augusta in 1995. I was writing some stories about Ben Hogan as part of a special section the Star-Telegram was planning. Dan was the ultimate authority on that subject, and we clicked instantly. He even wound up letting the S-T run an excerpt from a book he had in the works about Hogan as part of the section.

Soon thereafter, the book publisher called and asked if we could pay Dan “a little something” for using the excerpt. When Dan heard about that, he immediately shot down the idea and said he wanted the excerpt to be part of the Hogan section – as a free contribution from him — because he wanted to be a part of the effort to honor Ben in Fort Worth. If Fort Worth ever had a better ambassador than Dan Jenkins, I don’t know who it would have been.

Through the years, Dan and I became good friends. For me, one of the highlights of covering a golf major championship would be the time I’d get to spend with him, talking about college football or the state of the PGA Tour and what needed to be done to fix both. Dan had plenty of opinions, along with some great one-liners. I’ll always remember a story he told me about playing golf with Ben Hogan in front of a crowd and how nervous he was that day. After Dan struggled on the first hole, Hogan walked up beside him and said, “You know, I think you could swing a little bit faster if you really tried.” It was Hogan’s way of teasing him and urging him to slow down his swing. Dan said it was the best in-round golf tip he’d ever gotten.

As a Fort Worth native who grew up to be a sportswriter, Dan was always a hero to me. The first time he told me that he liked a story I had written, I felt about 10 feet tall because I could tell he meant it. He was a very genuine person. I’ve won a few awards through the years, but none of them ever meant as much to me as hearing “good job” from Dan Jenkins in regard to something I’d written.

Wendell Barnhouse:

I came across “Semi-Tough” by Dan Jenkins in a book store in Quincy, Illinois. The cover art was a curvaceous and scantily clad blonde astride a football. I was 21 and working at my second job at the wonderfully named Herald-Whig.

As I read it I was equally enthralled by the characters/story line and appalled at the raunchy language. My co-workers were quizzical when I kept saying “sumbitch.” With my typical lack of success, I went to bars at night “chasin’ wool.”

I had no idea who Dan Jenkins was – by then he had established himself as one of the top writers at Sports Illustrated. I was too dumb to realize or understand that I was captivated by a writer who during his career helped invent modern sports writing, the career I was pursuing.

That football season the local Catholic school I covered lost in the semifinals of the state tournament. I couldn’t resist starting my story by quoting Shake Tiller from “Semi-Tough”:

Hell, we all cried. You can take your wars and your starvation and your fires and your floods, but there’s no heartbreak in life like losing the big game in high school.

As Jenkins cranked out books, I found ‘em and read ‘em. “Dead Solid Perfect.” “You Gotta Play Hurt.” “Sports Make You Type Faster.” “Fast Copy.” “Life Its Ownself.” That’s far from a complete list. The more I read, the more familiar character types appeared but I hardly thought he was plagiarizing himself. The dialogue and the scenes were pitch perfect.

And there was this from “Baja Oklahoma,” the “ten stages of drunkenness:”
1, Witty & Charming
2. Rich and Powerful
3. Benevolent
4. Clairvoyant
5. F--k Dinner
6. Patriotic
7. Crank up the Enola Gay
8. Witty & Charming, Part II
9. Invisible
10. Bulletproof

I was always partial to No. 7.

As fate and luck and happenstance would have it, I spent over half of my career working in Dan’s hometown at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Starting in 1994 I started covering college football and a few years after that I learned Dan and his wife were moving back to Fort Worth.

Believing that he would likely be reading my stories, I fell into what should have been a career-ending habit – I started to try and write like Dan Jenkins. Thankfully, that was an unbearable burden and I went back to trying to make sure verbs agreed with subjects.

A few years after Dan had moved back to Fort Worth, I met him at Colonial. I was playing in the media event to preview that year’s PGA Tour stop. We were in the buffet line getting lunch. I introduced myself and he said, “You’ve got one of the greatest jobs covering college football.” Then he took me upstairs to show me the Hogan room.

What he said and what he did – proudly showing me and telling me about the great Ben Hogan – was one of the highlights of my career.

When I heard the news that Dan had passed away, I read the many tributes and condolences pouring across Twitter. Then I did what Dan called “typing,” a self-deprecating description of his wonderful writing style.

Soon on the No. 1 tee in Heaven there will be Dan Jenkins and his fantasy foursome Ben Hogan, Davey O’Brien and Sammy Baugh.

Hit ‘em straight and not too often, Dan.

Art Garcia:

I met Mr. Jenkins not long after assuming the TCU beat for the Star-Telegram in the fall of 1999. At first, I just thought he was another wealthy alum who for some reason just enjoyed hanging around the press box. And this was the old, scary press box at Amon G. Carter Stadium. The one with the rickety elevator and space heaters under your seats.

Having come from San Antonio, I had heard the name Dan Jenkins, but honestly didn’t know much about him. I was a fan of Sally Jenkins’ work. Her old man, I knew little.

That soon changed. Dan loved to talk TCU and writing. Not knowing much about the former and working to improve the latter, I was encouraged by our late, great sports editor Celeste Williams to nurture those sessions with Dan. I did just that.

Mr. Jenkins invited me to his home once. I have a faint memory of looking at memorabilia from his storied career. We talked about his books. He asked me what my dream beat would be. I answered the Dallas Mavericks. He shrugged. The NBA wasn’t his thing.

I soon got my wish and moved on from TCU. I didn’t see Dan much after that. But I began reading his books. For a time, I was obsessed. Dan Jenkins was alongside for many a road trip, with Semi-Tough, Dead Solid Perfect, Slim and None, Baja Oklahoma riding shotgun. Waiting for my next flight at a gate once, I remember Dan’s words forcing a real laugh-out-loud moment long before lol was a thing. I wrote about that in Postcards, a Page 2 staple of the of the old Star-Telegram sports section.

For many years, my fantasy football team was called the West Texas Tornadoes after the fictional NFL team founded by Billy Clyde Puckett. I always dreamed of playing Goat Hills.

When I’m in the Amon G. Carter Stadium press box these days, I can’t help but think of Mr. Jenkins. I’d like to think we all do. It’s always been his space.

Thank you for sharing. Rest in Peace, Dan Jenkins.

Mark Mourer:

I took a flier on “You Call It Sports,” when I was a junior at TCU, and am still laughing at how great that book was. Other than my wife, it’s the best thing I’ve picked up. That book inspired me to pursue sports writing, and still exists as a reminder that we should follow our dreams. Dan did, and we’re all better for it.

“All I ever wanted to be was a sports writer,” he said often. And he was the best. I think we are all grateful for having been literate while he was writing, either for the Fort Worth Press, or with his novels, or on Twitter.

He emailed me a little over a month ago saying that, as a result of doctor’s orders, he could no longer travel to cover golf. But he was still looking forward to tweeting during the majors courtesy of Golf Digest. Clearly, they knew they had a treasure there.

And so did I. I first met Dan when working with the TCU Frog Club. He came in to the office on a Friday afternoon with four books to autograph and give away at the next Frog Club Luncheon. This was in October of 1999, and I was able to stammer out a couple of lines from “Bubba Talks” as I nervously introduced myself to a hero and legend.

“You read that book?” Dan asked. “Not many people read that book…”

That an icon could humble himself with humor is one of the many memories that will stay with me. He remained accessible and appreciative of his fans throughout his career.

“I like people who like me,” he said in an interview once. Borrowing from our mutual friend Jim Tom Pinch in “You Call it Sports,” I was certainly “guilty.”

Thank you for the laughter, my friend. Hope you’re clacking away on a divine Smith-Corona, laughing with Blackie and them others while pinning great leads to the eternal Fort Worth Press bulletin board.

FRID

For the first time ever,  Bud Light is selling rainbow bottles for Pride Month to celebrate the LGBTQ community.

The bottle features words of inclusivity and support.

You can get the special bottle at bars nationwide from May 27 through June 30.

Bud Light will donate a dollar from every purchase to GLAAD

After a torn left anterior cruciate ligament before his sophomore season and an injured right Achilles the following spring, he called his mother, Maria LoMedico.  He was down.  He told her he felt depressed. She recommended therapy and prayer, but when he said he wanted to quit football, she offered her own personal therapy:

Stop it.

“I’m not one of those easy moms that tells him, ‘Oh, it’s OK son, you just come home, I’ll take care of you. You don’t want to do it anymore, it’s OK.’ There was none of that in my house,” LoMedico said. “You get your butt up again and you just keep on going.”

When West was 6 years old, LoMedico pulled him off the basketball team and stuck him on the football field so he could learn to be more aggressive. As a defensive lineman in Pop Warner, West would get hit by the opposition and crawl into a ball on the ground. “If you’re not going to play, if you’re not going to tackle, I’m just going to pull you out,” LoMedico yelled onto the field.

It didn’t take me long to discover that I’d married a football fan. Until our son, John, was born in Duke Hospital on June 23, 1942, Johnsie came out to the field and watched our practices. I set up a room in our house for film study with the staff and I remember the night Johnsie tiptoed into the room and asked, “If I stay quiet, can I watch, too?” The staff voted her in. Later, she said she didn’t really know what football was all about until she sat in on our film sessions.

The United States Army wanted a spiffy new service uniform, one that would stand out in a tough recruiting environment and polish the Army’s image after a generation of grinding and divisive wars.

So it turned the clock back. Way back.

It chose a new uniform that looks almost exactly like the old green gabardine wool field coat and khaki trousers that officers wore in World War II. Probably not by coincidence, that’s what the Army was wearing the last time the nation celebrated total victory in a major war.

TUESD

It’s a great way to get employees’ evaluations of things… or getting students’ evaluations of a teacher or a course… or coming into a new football program and finding out the things that matter to your new players.

We asked this of our returning players at Aberdeen (Washington) High  recently - write the head coach an email introducing yourself, and tell him what aspects of the football program you’d like to see started, stopped, or continued.

The results have been instructive.  Of course the answers vary, and we do have to allow for the possibility that players may have consulted with one another, but it’s a helpful guide when the same thing keeps popping up - “I’d like to see us start this…” or “I’d like to put a stop to…”

Thank you, Julia.

I also take off my hat to the teachers  at Aberdeen High. For the most part, the kids write pretty well.




*********** Last weekend I got together with former player Carson Ketter for the last time before he heads off to the CFL.  Next Wednesday, the 15th, he reports to BC Lions’ rookie camp in Kamloops, BC. Veterans report the following Sunday, and - they don’t screw around up in Canada -  a week later the Lions have their first pre-season game.

Every time I see Carson it’s tougher and tougher for me to remember him as a 5-7, 140-pound sophomore QB.  He’s now 6-3-1/2, and he’s up to a rock-hard 218.  The Lions project him as a safety, but they might start thinking “linebacker” when they see his size (and speed - at Pacific Lutheran, he was conference 100 champion and qualified for the D-III national meet).

He’s a great kid, one of the finest all-around individuals I’ve had the honor of coaching, and as his QB coach we had a very close relationship.  I can’t imagine anything much more exciting than seeing him make it in the CFL.

(The irony of this all is that in high school he was so valuable to us as QB - he was all we had - that we never let him play a down of defense.)

*********** Give… me… a… break.

Transgender powerlifter Mary Gregory recently celebrated the feat of smashing four women’s weightlifting records at the same event, but opponents cried foul since Gregory was born a man and only recently announced becoming a transgender woman.

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2019/05/01/trans-woman-smashes-four-female-weightlifting-records-one-event/






*********** Speaking of powerlifting - on Saturday I attended the state Powerlifting Meet, held (for my convenience) at North Beach High. Powerlifting is not yet a state-sanctioned sport, but it’s growing rapidly and, surprisingly, among girls.  (I didn’t see any who looked like transgenders, but in all honesty, I wasn’t looking that hard.)

Although it’s exciting watching kids do their damnedest to get that weight up in the air, powerlifting is not a great spectator sport because there’s a lot of waiting in between those brief moments of excitement.  The meet started at 9 AM with the squat event, and it wasn’t until close to noon before they finally got around to the heavyweight boys.

In the top photo, I enjoyed a mini-reunion with three former North Beach players - Ben Bridge on the far left, Tim Poplin in the middle, and Seth Bridge behind Tim.  Tim, Seth and I were there to watch Ben, now a senior at Elma High where his dad’s been AD. Ben was there as a contender for top lifter in the state (highest total pounds for the three lifts - squat, bench press, and deal lift).

In the bottom photo, Ben has just finished squatting 500 pounds. That’s his dad (and my head coach) , Todd, standing behind him. On his next lift, Ben went aggressive,  going for 550.  But he didn’t make it, so 500 stood as his best squat, and as a result he wound up in second place overall, 5 pounds behind the state champion.

It’s been a great senior year for Ben.  An outstanding thrower on the track team, he wrestled during the winter and was the starting center on Elma’s 8-3 football team. And he’s going to be the class valedictorian.

*********** Huddling after every play has long been a part of football.  Although its origin is in some dispute, it’s been a part of our game since before World War I.

Now, with the increasing appearance of no-huddle offenses, I think that football is losing something that makes the game unique.

To me, the huddle is the football equivalent of the hunting camp - guys coming together after a day of hunting with various degrees of success and sharing their experiences. (Some people might call that “bull-sh—ing.”)

The huddle can give a couple of linemen a brief chance to revel in their just having put a defender on his back… or a chance for the quarterback to remind the team, “We need this first down” ... or for a senior lineman to tell a sophomore running back, “Hang onto the damn ball!”

It's also, believe it or not, a great way to tell everybody the play call.

And sometimes,  as the great Dave Nelson, inventor of the Delaware Wing-T and longtime chairman of the NCAA rules committee, was known to say, it’s a chance to “bleed together in secret.”

*********** Imagine that you’ve just been named head coach someplace. And then imagine that your predecessor will remain on the job - with all his powers - for another three months, when you’ll officially take over.

As long as we’re going to trash the Electoral College and add five or six new justices to the Supreme Court - which  the sore-loser Democrats seem to think is necessary - here’s something that really does need changing: the length of the “transition period” between the President’s election and his inauguration, a period of time dictated by the historical fact that when the Constitution was written, and  no man could travel any faster than a horse or a boat would carry him, it would take weeks for a person to travel from one of the far-flung states to Philadelphia.

Writes Mark Steyn (perhaps the world’s wittiest Canadian):

It is forty years this weekend since Mrs Thatcher was driven to Buckingham Palace to become Britain's Prime Minister. The election was held on May 3rd,  1979, and the following morning, on May 4th, the Thatchers took possession of 10 Downing Street. (None of this three-month US-style transition period that enabled the outgoing Obama Administration to screw over the incoming Trump team and get the phony-baloney "Russia investigation" all set up.)

“Mayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman—not two men, not two women.” Reverend Franklin Graham

We have a “big brother” system at Ole Miss, with the seniors and juniors keeping an eye on the younger boys.  Bobo Uzzle, a defensive end, was Archie Manning’s big brother.  Once, in his freshman year,  Archie failed to make up Bobo’s bed, and Uzzle got out the paddle.

But before Archie came in, Bobo met another lineman, Alan Bush, and told him, “I’m going to put the board to Archie.”

“Listen Bobo,” Bush said, “defensive ends are a dime a dozen, and you know how Coach Vaught has been looking for a good quarterback since 1964.”

Archie escaped the paddle.

FRID

ESPN is ending the print version of ESPN the Magazine in September, more than 21 years after its launch. The news of the print magazine’s demise was announced to staff this morning as part of a reorganization of Senior VP/Original Content Rob King’s department. ESPN says that the move will not involve any layoffs today, though it is likely that a handful of print/publishing/circulation employees -- said to be in the single digits -- will be without jobs come September. An ESPN spokesperson said the company already had integrated the magazine’s employees across its platforms.

In an emailed statement, ESPN said, “Consumer habits are evolving rapidly, and this requires ESPN to evolve as well. The only change here is that we are moving away from printing it on paper and sending it in the mail. … Our data shows the vast majority of readers already consume our print journalism on digital platforms, and this approach will maximize our reach and impact.” ESPN said it will consider publishing print versions of special issues -- like the Body Issue -- in the future. The magazine launched in March ‘98. Sources said that it has lost money for the past several years. “It was not close to a break even proposition,” a source said.

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/SB-Blogs/Breaking-News/2019/04/ESPN-Mag.aspx

https://www.si.com/tech-media/2019/04/30/espn-the-magazine-shut-down-stop-print-edition-september



*********** Gino Marchetti died.  Hard for an old Baltimore Colts fan like me to take.  He was 93 but I was hoping he’d live forever. 

The called him Gino the Giant, and although they like to say now that he was “undersized by today’s standards,”  he was the standard by which NFL defensive ends were measured, and he’d kick serious ass today.

Born in West Virginia to Italian immigrants, he grew up in Antioch, California.

Tough?  He was 18 when he enlisted in the Army during World War II.  He was a machine gunner during the Battle of the Bulge, and he later recalled, “The first time I ever saw snow, I slept in it.”

Tough? His ankle was shattered in the late going of the so-called “Greatest Game Ever Played,” the NFL championship game in Yankee Stadium between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants.  But rather than be wheeled off to the locker room, he insisted on staying on the sidelines to watch the end of the game.

He played his college ball on the great University of San Francisco “Undefeated, Untied and Uninvited” team of 1951, which featured such future NFL stars as Ollie Mattson, Ed Brown, Bob St. Clair.

Marchetti was a leader of the Dons in their refusal to accept a bowl invitation that stipulated that their black players - Mattson and Burl Toler - could not play.

“He’s the greatest player in football,” Rams coach Sid Gillman once said. “It’s a waste of time to run around this guy’s end. It’s a lost play.”

While he was still playing, Colts’ owner Carroll Rosenbloom, who felt his players would be more successful if they stayed in the town where they became famous, convinced him to invest the money he’d earned in the 1958 championship ($4674) in a hamburger chain along with teammate Alan Ameche and former teammate Joe Campanella.

If there is such a thing as a hamburger historian, he probably knows that there are those who claim that “Gino’s Giant” was the inspiration for McDonald’s Big Mac.

The chain grew to become quite large in the Baltimore area and then expanded to Philadelphia before it was sold to Marriott.

I bet there isn’t a Baltimorean over the age of 60 who doesn’t know the jingle:

“Ev’rybody goes to Gino’s, ‘cause Gino’s is the place to go.

“Ev’rybody goes to Gino’s,  ev’rybody in the know…”


https://www.philly.com/eagles/gino-marchetti-dies-obituary-baltimore-colts-pro-football-hall-of-fame-giant-burgers-20190430.html


*********** PLAYBOOK CORRECTION!

On Page 91 in the QB’s brief instructions AND on Page 248 on  the QB’s card (play 30-2):

It should read  H/S LFT (Hockey Stick LEFT)

My apologies for your having to make that correction and my thanks to Coach Foley of Palmdale, California for this great catch.


*********** Gray whales are washing up on Northwest beaches…



Came across this beached whale last weekend while walking along the beach at Ocean Shores.  It was about 30 feet long. From the sand covering it you can tell that that tide had already washed over it at least once.  The smell wasn’t too bad yet - at least my dog, Lainey didn’t think so - and it was really cool to look inside its mouth and see the ivory-like balleen.  If you look closely you can see where marine biologists had already stripped away a layer of skin and blubber.  Apparently they were checking for signs of malnourishment.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/dead-gray-whales-oregon-washington-beach/


*********** Many thanks to all the well-wishers on my new job at Aberdeen (WA) High School.

Coach:

Congratulations on the new gig at Aberdeen!  That is great news.  I always got so excited when there was an opportunity to install the double wing and its variations at a brand new place.  It is never about the wins and losses but the pride you take when you see the kids "figure it out" and the system starts to click for them.  Enjoy this season!

Enjoy your summer Coach.

Regards,

Bill Lawlor
Palatine, Illinois

(Coach Lawlor played for the great Bob Reade at Augustana College and has coached the Double Wing all the way from youth football to high school football in the Chicago area.)


***********  Good morning, Coach!

Read your News section on the Army General and the Administration of West Point, and you asked why the Administrators would listen to the handful of students...this article answers that question! Pretty scary to think the colleges are all being run by these people.

DJ MIllay
Vancouver, Washington

This is worth printing in its entirety…

Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

The ideological bent of those overseeing collegiate life is having the biggest impact on campus culture.

By Samuel J. Abrams
Dr. Abrams is a professor of politics.
    •    Oct. 16, 2018
    ◦   

I received a disconcerting email this year from a senior staff member in the Office of Diversity and Campus Engagement at Sarah Lawrence College, where I teach. The email was soliciting ideas from the Sarah Lawrence community for a conference, open to all of us, titled “Our Liberation Summit.” The conference would touch on such progressive topics as liberation spaces on campus, Black Lives Matter and justice for women as well as for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and allied people.

As a conservative-leaning professor who has long promoted a diversity of viewpoints among my (very liberal) faculty colleagues and in my classes, I was taken aback by the college’s sponsorship of such a politically lopsided event. The email also piqued my interest in what sorts of other nonacademic events were being organized by the school’s administrative staff members.

I soon learned that the Office of Student Affairs, which oversees a wide array of issues including student diversity and residence life, was organizing many overtly progressive events — programs with names like “Stay Healthy, Stay Woke,” “Microaggressions” and “Understanding White Privilege” — without offering any programming that offered a meaningful ideological alternative. These events were conducted outside the classroom, in the students’ social and recreational spaces.

The problem is not limited to my college. While considerable focus has been placed in recent decades on the impact of the ideological bent of college professors, when it comes to collegiate life — living in dorms, participating in extracurricular organizations — the ever growing ranks of administrators have the biggest influence on students and campus life across the country.

Today, many colleges and universities have moved to a model in which teaching and learning is seen as a 24/7 endeavor. Engagement with students is occurring as much — if not more — in residence halls and student centers as it is in classrooms. Schools have increased their hiring in areas such as residential life and student centers, offices of student life and success, and offices of inclusion and engagement. It’s not surprising that many of the free-speech controversies in the past few years at places like Yale, Stanford and the University of Delaware have concerned events that occurred not in classrooms but in student communal spaces and residence halls.

Intrigued by this phenomenon, I recently surveyed a nationally representative sample of roughly 900 “student-facing” administrators — those whose work concerns the quality and character of a student’s experience on campus. I found that liberal staff members outnumber their conservative counterparts by the astonishing ratio of 12-to-one. Only 6 percent of campus administrators identified as conservative to some degree, while 71 percent classified themselves as liberal or very liberal. It’s no wonder so much of the nonacademic programming on college campuses is politically one-sided.

The 12-to-one ratio of liberal to conservative college administrators makes them the most left-leaning group on campus. In previous research, I found that academic faculty report a six-to-one ratio of liberal to conservative professors. Incoming first-year students, by contrast, reported less than a two-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives, according to a 2016 finding by the Higher Education Research Institute. It appears that a fairly liberal student body is being taught by a very liberal professoriate — and socialized by an incredibly liberal group of administrators.

The severity of this trend varies among different types of academic institutions. My research found that two-thirds of administrators at public institutions and schools with religious affiliations self-identified as liberals, which was lower than the three-quarters of administrators at private, secular institutions who did. I found no real differences among school types, such as small, private liberal arts colleges as compared with large research universities. School ranking did make a small difference, with administrators at more selective institutions reporting a higher percentage of liberals than did lower-ranked schools.

The most pronounced difference was regional. New England has the most liberal college administrators in the nation, with a 25-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives. The West Coast and Southeast have ratios of 16-to-one, whereas the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes all have ratios closer to 10-to-one. The only region with anything close to a balanced ratio is the Southwest, with two-to-one.

This warped ideological distribution among college administrators should give our students and their families pause. To students who are in their first semester at school, I urge you not to accept unthinkingly what your campus administrators are telling you. Their ideological imbalance, coupled with their agenda-setting power, threatens the free and open exchange of ideas, which is precisely what we need to protect in higher education in these politically polarized times.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/opinion/liberal-college-administrators.html

TUESD

*********** RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA CLINIC:

DATE AND TIME: SATURDAY, MAY 18 - 9 TO 4

SITE: SAME AS LAST YEAR
KNIGHTDALE RECREATION CENTER
LAWSON RIDGE ROAD
KNIGHTDALE, NORTH CAROLINA
(The site is an easy 30 minute drive east of RDU International Airport)

PRE-REGISTRATION $100 - AT THE DOOR $150
(SORRY, ROOM SIZE PRECLUDES MY BEING ABLE TO OFFER A STAFF DISCOUNT)

http://www.coachwyatt.com/clinics19.html



*********** Todd Bridge and I coached together for six years at North Beach High in Ocean Shores, Washington, and now we’re back together again.  For the past two years, Todd’s been the AD at Elma, Washington, but now he’s back in the saddle as head coach at Aberdeen, Washington - and I’m on board as his assistant head coach and offensive coordinator. 

Aberdeen is a little over two hours from our home in Camas and the logistics for my wife and me are not a lot different from what they were when we were at North Beach.  We still have our place in Ocean Shores, and with Aberdeen about 45 minutes away,  we’ll stay there during the week and return to our place in Camas on weekends.

Aberdeen has been down for a long time - the Bobcats have had just one winning season - a 5-4 season in 2007 - in the last 15 years.  Last year’s record was 1-9.

First order of business was a meeting this past Saturday morning with the returning seniors - 13 of them.   They were an impressive group of kids. They caught on to “Bobcat time” immediately - we set the time for 9 AM, and  the first arrivals were 20 minutes early; the “latest” was  a lone “straggler” who was 5 minutes early. 

They’ve been in the program since they were freshmen, and they’ve been through a lot, so we took pains to assure them that they would not be overlooked.  We covered a number of topics, chief of which was that we would be giving them an exalted position, but that in return we expected them to demonstrate commitment and leadership.

We started with our Mission Statement:
1. We will treat kids right
2. We will set high standards and hold them accountable
3. We will teach them more football than they ever thought possible
4. We will give them an experience they’ll treasure for life

We told them about the three legs of the program, the Three R’s - RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, RESILIENCE. We especially stressed “Respect,” emphasizing  that when they entered our locker room or stepped on our field they would be stepping into an atmosphere in which everyone shows and receives respect: coaches respect players, players respect coaches, players respect players and coaches respect coaches.

We told them that the major criteria by which they would be evaluated were encapsulated in the acronym ACE:   Attitude, Coachability, Effort.

Todd handed out the summer schedules.  We are not going away to a team camp, as had been the practice.  There is a possibility - depending on the ACE - that at the end of spring ball we might go to a two-day team camp, one that we can commute to.

Summer workouts will be from 7 to 9 PM weeknights.  Our thinking is that instead of two daily workouts - one in the morning and one in the afternoon -  having one later session allows us to get all the kids together, reinforcing the idea that summer workouts should be a team activity.

I briefly explained what our offensive philosophy would be - basically, that we would be the team that nobody wants to play - and then, in anticipation of our first day of spring practice, we got 11 of the kids to sign up for the 11 offensive positions so that when we ask for 11 guys to demonstrate our offense, they’ll jump right in. 

They really enjoyed seeing some of our plays run  on the goarmyedge app (by players wearing Aberdeen’s blue and gold uniforms).

We said that the most we could promise them was that they would be able to claim that they were the first class to take part in the turnaround.

And then Todd hit them with a question that I’ve used several times in taking over a new program - something that I learned from a great coach and friend named Eric Bernstein.  Todd asked, “Now - do I have your permission to coach you?”

Call it touchy-feely if you will, but if you’re sincere when you tell kids that it’s “their team,” you have to have that understanding - so you might as well come right out and ask for it.

At Aberdeen, every head nodded in assent.  Those kids are in.  Those seniors are on board. (If kids ever answer “No,” you’ll know you took the wrong job.)

Todd left them with an assignment: e-mail him a letter of introduction,  addressing three points: START, STOP, CONTINUE - things regarding the program that they would like to start, stop or continue.

The 2019 schedule is really rough: Five of the nine opponents made the playoffs last season.  Three of them won ten games and three others won eight games.  Only two of them had losing seasons.

Damned if Game Number 3 isn’t against Elma, which last year whipped the Bobcats, 42-0. 

*********** So sad to hear that John Havlicek died.  What a stud.  What an athlete.

He is still the Celtics’ all-time leading scorer, but he was such a good athlete that Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown was willing to spend a draft choice on him just on the chance that he might be able to persuade him to take up football.

Sure, he probably would have made a very good wide receiver or tight end, but between you and me, if I were he and I’d had the same choice, I’d have done the same thing he did.

No way would he have lasted for 16 seasons in the NFL.  No way would have been a 13-time all star.  No way would he ever have played on eight championship teams. 


*********** One of my fellow graduates at Yale was one of the greatest song writers who ever lived, Cole Porter. 

I guarantee you that over the years,  one way or another - maybe without even knowing it (maybe in an elevator or in a dentist’s office) - you will listen to Cole Porter’s music thousands of times.

Some of his best-known songs - but by no means all of them:

Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love… What is This Thing Called Love… You Do Something To Me… Anything Goes… All Through the Night… I Get a Kick Out of You… “You’re the Top… Don’t Fence Me In… Begin the Beguine… Just One of Those Things… It’s De-Lovely… Night and Day…You’d Be So Easy to Love… I’ve Got You Under My Skin… In the Still of the Night… My Heart Belongs to Daddy… I Concentrate on You… You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To… Be a Clown… Always True to You in My Fashion… Why Can’t You Behave?… So In Love… From This Moment On… I Love Paris… C’est Magnifique… It’s All Right With Me… True Love… Who Wants To be a Millionaire?

Actually, Cole Porter had graduated from Yale many, many years before me (in 1913) and he was receiving an honorary degree. And in fact, he wasn’t even on hand to receive it, because he wasn’t sufficiently recovered from having a leg amputated as a result of a horseback riding injury suffered years earlier.

The highly-unusual presentation of his degree had taken place in his New York apartment a few days before.  The citation, which I recall being read at graduation:

"As an undergraduate, you first won acclaim for writing the words and music of two of Yale's perennial football songs. Since then, you have achieved reputation as a towering figure in the American musical theatre. Master of the deft phrase, the delectable rhyme, the distinctive melody, you are, in your own words and your own field, the top.”

The two songs referred to are “Bingo, Bingo Eli Yale,” and the far better known “Bulldog,” which for years has been played after every Yale touchdown.

The way “Bulldog” was first introduced to the Yale students was dramatized in “Night and Day,” a 1946 movie based on Cole Porter’s life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UXZ1cR1Qo0

*********** Mike Foristiere wasn’t given credit for identifying Mike Nolan because he had an unfair advantage.  Mike wrote…

Hugh, I met Mike my first year at the U of O. He was a very undersized free safety, but as I remember he was always around where the ball was.  In time as I got to know him and I asked him how he did it. His speed was average yet he made plays. In time he took me aside and we went into the film room and he would show me how he would watch opponents films, tendencies, formations, even how a guy would position his feet.This is when I learned the value of watching film of your opponent and as you well know I was average at best, but if you study your opponent it sure helps to have a good idea of what they are doing.  Mike always seemed to be 3 steps ahead of the play.  Of course I knew of his dad, but I then also knew what he learned from his dad and how much it helped him.  I have not seen Mike since the 1980 season when I was a senior. Though I know of his journey  as a coach, the funny part is when I  became a coach myself  I still remembered those days years ago and how he taught a very average O lineman how to compete a little bit better. I still use some of those things today and share them with my players. Mike was a great teammate who really didn't know me and taught me some things. I wish all teammates could be like that. It is one of the biggest things i am trying to teach here. In time I hope to accomplish that here at Highland Park or we will never be very good.

*********** The Chinese are worried about a loss of masculinity among their boys, and they're trying to do something about  it - using football!!

It is 14 degrees the morning two dozen boys gather at a Beijing park to be transformed into alpha males. A reluctant winter sun casts silver light between treacherously cold shadows. The wind bites, worsening nerves as the boys — the youngest 7 — prepare to strip to their waists for a run.
One of the watching mothers is worried. She wants her son to grow into a macho male, but it’s so cold. She tells him he can keep his shirt on, or perhaps skip the run through Olympic Forest Park.

This is the kind of “feminine” parenting that coach Tang Haiyan fears can ruin boys. Tang, a former schoolteacher, founded the Real Man Training Club to combat what he and others in China see as a masculinity crisis — part of a backlash against the makeup- and earring-wearing male TV, film and pop idols who have gained immense popularity here.

“If you are promoting these effeminate figures,” Tang said, “it’s a calamity for our country.”

***

Influenced by K-pop idols in Korea, China’s boy bands and celebrities — with their delicate beauty, dyed hair and haute couture wardrobes — have a massive following among women here. But China’s state-run media condemns the young idols, calling them “sissy pants" and “fresh young meat.”

***

A Professor at the University of Hong Kong says,  “They’re worrying that if Chinese men are so effeminate… then we will become a weak country in future and we cannot compete with our rivals. There’s anxiety about the virility of the nation being harmed by those effeminate male images.”

***

Tang designed the club — which he says fluctuates between 2,000 and 3,000 members — to get boys to face tough physical challenges “in a manly way,” which he defines as being brave, responsible and committed.

He said he was inspired by his love of American football and a visit to California in 2006 to see how teams were trained. He came away with the idea that U.S. parents wanted their sons to play football “so they could become alpha males.” He decided the sport could transform Chinese boys.

Memorandum
To: David Low, President - MMFA
From: Bill Johnson, Executive Director – Football Manitoba

After consultation with Football Canada it has been confirmed that the intent of the pass every third play rule modification was motivated by both developmental appropriateness and safety. With safety being involved, and with Football Canada being our governing body in this regard, this rule will be in play at the U14 and U12 levels in the 2019 season.

I ask that you please share this with all your member clubs. Thank you.

In the 10 years since he left the playing fields of Wake Forest, Karl Sweetan has worked as a quarterback—mostly intermittently and inauspiciously—for the Toronto Argonauts, the Pontiac (Mich.) Arrows, the Detroit Lions, the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angeles Rams. A fortnight ago, having been released by the Rams and having failed to make it with the Edmonton Eskimos, he decided to change careers and try his hand at selling. He did not distinguish himself in that field, either.

Sweetan , along with a cousin, attempted to peddle a 1971 Ram playbook for $2,500 to J. D. Roberts, the head coach of the Saints. Roberts pretended to go along with the deal and informed the league, it called the FBI, which wired him up with a transmitter in one of football's more unusual plays. "All I did was ask questions," Roberts said after completing his agent's role. "The FBI did a helluva job." U.S. Attorney Gerald J. Gallinghouse said Roberts had, too, adding that the coach "executed each play the FBI called to perfection."   Sweetan and his cousin were jailed, charged with interstate transportation of stolen property and fraud by wire and released on $5,000 bond each.

The case shocked pro football's coaches, largely because they could not see why a playbook could be thought to have such value. Dan Devine of the Green Bay Packers says he would not pay $5 for one. Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins says, "What secrets are there, really? A book gives you a system, not a game plan."

What is a pro team's playbook, and could it have any value to a rival coach? Presumably, what  Sweetan would have had to sell was an offensive playbook (pro teams have two—one for the offense, one for the defense). The books—usually loose-leaf notebooks—contain plays and variations, formations, audibles, nomenclature, house rules and, in some cases, exhortations to the players to give 110%.

The book Sweetan was accused of trying to sell was compiled by Tommy Prothro (see cover) after he took over the Rams last year. Ironically, Prothro is not an advocate of playbooks. "I believe in them less than anybody," he said last week. "I really don't learn by reading things. I learn by seeing something and talking about it. Consequently, I've never believed in writing it all down. But all our other coaches believe in it, and if these young, smart guys believe in it, I'm all for having one."

Prothro said that the most valuable information to be gleaned from a rival's playbook is not what a team does, but what it doesn't do. "You never know when they are going to do something," he said, "but if you know something they won't do, then you don't have to protect against it."

FRID

Hello Hugh and thanks for checking in.  My quadruple bypass surgery was performed on March 4 and I have been home recuperating since March 12.  My rehab, which allows me to walk 3 times a day for 20 minutes each, has been slow but steady.  It will probably be between 4-6 months before I can shoot hoops and play golf again.  Interestingly, I had played 3 full court games of basketball just 3 days before being hospitalized. I am confident that I will be able to make a full recovery and resume a normal life.  Needless to say, I am very grateful that my doctors diagnosed the problem correctly and moved quickly to have me undergo the bypass surgery.

Son of a local school official, Campbell was born and raised in Homestead, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. He attended Columbia University where he played football under coach Buff Donelli from 1959 to 1961.[3] In his senior year, he was named to the All-Ivy Team. He graduated in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in economics. In 1964, he obtained a master's degree in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.[4] He was head coach of Columbia's football team, the Columbia Lions from 1974 to 1979. Prior to this he was an assistant at Boston College for six years. He met his first wife, the former Roberta Spagnola, while she was the assistant dean in charge of Columbia's undergraduate dormitories.

He joined J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency, and then Kodak, where he rose to run Kodak's European film business. He was hired by John Sculley, became Apple's VP of Marketing, and then ran Apple's Claris software division. When Sculley refused to spin Claris off into an independent company, Campbell and much of the Claris leadership left. Since 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Campbell had served as a corporate director on Apple's board of directors.

Campbell became CEO of GO Corporation, a startup pioneering a tablet computer operating system. After successfully selling GO Eo to AT&T Corporation in 1993, Campbell was CEO of Intuit from 1994 to 1998. Campbell announced that he would be retiring as the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Intuit starting January 2016.

Campbell was an adviser to a number of technology companies, and was elected chairman of the board of trustees at Columbia in 2005.

Joseph Mason Reeves was born on November 20, 1872 in the village of Tampico, Illinois.

He received an appointment in 1890 to attend the Naval Academy, where he became a football hero. In addition to his on-field heroics, he is credited with the invention of the modern football helmet, which he had a shoemaker create for him after being told by a Navy doctor that another kick to his head could result in "instant insanity" or death.* Reeves graduated from the Academy in 1894.

In 1950 the Rams had a divisional championship team, but they could not seem to beat the Philadelphia Eagles, coached by Greasy Neale and quarterbacked by one-eyed Tommy Thompson. By assiduous study of Eagle movies, they discovered something about Thompson. If he was going to hand off for a run to the right, his right foot was in back of his left, and vice versa. If he was going to pass, his feet were parallel to one another. It was a perfect tip-off since it was visible to the defense well before the snap of the ball.

But at the half the Eagles led the Rams 28-0; at the end of the game it was 56-20. "We knew where they were going," said Ram Linebacker Don Paul, "but they went there anyway." Which brings to mind something an NFL scout said after watching one of Vince Lombardi's Green Bay teams dismantle an opponent. When the game ended, he was asked what he had discovered. "Hell," he said, sadly, "how do you scout blocking and tackling?"

TUESD

*********** CLINIC NEWS:  Thanks once again to the efforts of coaches Dave Potter and Olu Williams, I’m excited to announce a clinic in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, Saturday, May 18, at the same location as last year.

Those of you who attended last year remember how great it was having players on hand to demonstrate things, and what great kids they were.

That’s because they’d been coached by coaches Potter and Williams, who once again will have kids there so that the clinic can be very hands-on.


DATE AND TIME: SATURDAY, MAY 18 - 9 TO 4

SITE: SAME AS LAST YEAR
KNIGHTDALE RECREATION CENTER
LAWSON RIDGE ROAD
KNIGHTDALE, NORTH CAROLINA
(The site is an easy 30 minute drive east of RDU International Airport)

PRE-REGISTRATION $100 - AT THE DOOR $150
(SORRY, ROOM SIZE PRECLUDES OFFERING A STAFF DISCOUNT)

http://www.coachwyatt.com/clinics19.html

FORMAT:

AM: OUTDOORS, WITH KIDS ON THE FIELD
With kids on hand to demonstrate, I’ll “install” the same offense that I will actually be installing in a little over a week at my new job. (More about that later since it’s not completely official yet.)

With a lot to cover, I’m forced to deal in a cursory fashion with the basics of quarterback play and line play.  I hope you’ll understand that that’s not the way I’d like to do things.

Then, we’ll get into how I’ll teach the individual plays.

My goal is to show the line seven blocks
    FIVE running blocks
        Power/O, G-O, C, Wedge, Reach (and maybe TRAP and X)
    TWO passing blocks:
        Brown/Black and Green/Gold

We would then run
    Running Plays
        Power Off-Tackle
        G-O in two different ways
        Counter in two different ways
        Reach
        Wedge & Option
    Pass Plays
        Power Action
        Bootleg
        Sprint Out
        Drop Back

I should point out that while this is Double Wing all the way - Double-Tight with the QB under center and using the blocking right out of the book -  we’ll be running primarily from RAM and LION backfields.

To expedite things, we’ll have the plays on wristbands.
(You’re welcome to help explain to the kids what the terms mean)

We will flip-flop the offense, which you may not be familiar with

COMPLIMENTARY LUNCH

PM: REVIEW OF THE MORNING’S WORK

    (It’s my hope that we’ll have video from the AM session)

    Play-by-play, we’ll go over details and coaching points

    We’ll go over the same plays from different formations

REGISTER: http://www.coachwyatt.com/clinics19.html





*********** I FOUND THIS IN AN OLD HELMET DECAL CATALOG…  It's a helmet sticker, the kind coaches would use  to motivate and reward players, the way Ohio State has for years with its Buckeyes.  Nowadays, though, apart from the fact that based on the current hysteria about football injuries it would amount to professional misconduct for you to glorify “headhunting,” it is just a trifle culturally (and racially) tone deaf, and it  could get you charged - ex post facto - as a racist.  God help you, coach, if one of your enemies gets hold of an old yearbook and sees one of these on one of your kids’ helmets.





*********** When you come across a place that loses and loses, year after year, the reason is probably more than bad players or bad coaches.

Most often, there’s a problem at the top. 

I was talking the other day with a former Army football player, a guy from my generation, who after a long and successful career in the military and then in business was called to Washington to go to work for President Reagan.

In his own words:

While serving as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs in the early eighties, I accompanied President Reagan to West Point for graduation ceremonies. President Reagan wanted a winning football team at West Point.

He authorized the Army to make that happen. He wanted a winner so that he could send an effective winning message to the American people and to the USSR.
 
The President played football in college and was a sports announcer in Chicago following his graduation. His presidency, in his opinion expressed to me, was shaped by the US Hockey team that defeated the Russian hockey team in the winter Olympics of 1980. That game sent a message to the American people that we could be a winner once again. President Reagan also believed that a winning football team at West Point would further advance this message.

Before Jim Young was hired as the coach in 1982, the US Army intervened in the process of hiring a new head coach after a loss to Navy. The leadership at West Point was reluctant to interview Jim Young. So, the Army then insisted that Young be interviewed. He was interviewed and was hired. Jim had a pedigree in Winning Football. A disciple of Bo Schembechler, he had successfully refurbished failed football programs at Purdue and Arizona.

Jim Young challenged the Corps, his team and the staff at West Point. He was demanding and determined. He is now honored at the College Football Hall of Fame (HOF). He breathed new life into Army Football, his players, the Corps., and the US Army. We competed and won games against football powerhouses; Tennessee, Boston College, Alabama, Michigan State, Navy, Air Force and many others. No longer was the Army football team a door mat in college football. We were winners!

“For me I’d prefer our guys didn’t do that. I would prefer that our guys would act like they’re going to do it again. I would prefer that the generation, the younger group right now, doesn’t need to see demonstrations like that in order to feel like they can watch baseball, that baseball is more interesting because somebody bat flips really well and (thinking) ‘I kind of dig it because if I watch it I might see a bat flip.’

“I’d prefer kids watch baseball because it’s a very interesting game and it’s intellectually stimulating. And when it’s played properly it’s never too long. I’d prefer kids learn that method as opposed to becoming enamored with our game based on histrionics. I’d prefer that, but it seems to me we are catering to that a bit.”

FRID

It was around 10 o’clock on a Thursday night in January. Jamey Chadwell had wrapped up another day on the recruiting trail. He was in South Carolina, making his way back from Georgia, where he visited some high schools.

There would be more high schools in South Carolina to hit Friday before he returned to Coastal Carolina’s campus in Conway, S.C., for a weekend of recruit visits. As the Chanticleers’ offensive coordinator, Chadwell played a big role in recruiting, and with his previous experience as a Charleston Southern assistant and head coach, this area was his bread and butter.

His phone rang. It was head coach Joe Moglia.

“Hey, what are you doing? Can you come up tomorrow?” Moglia asked in his thick New York accent.

Chadwell asked how urgent it was that he return to campus so quickly. He worried that a player had gotten in trouble or something worse. He told Moglia he could be back on campus by 1 p.m. Friday.

“OK, get here by 1,” Moglia said. “By the way, I’m resigning, retiring from football, and I want to name you head coach.”

***

Joe Moglia, born in New York to Italian immigrant parents, began coaching high school football in the Northeast from 1968-78. He then worked as the defensive coordinator at Lafayette and Dartmouth before leaving coaching in 1983 at 34 years old to work on Wall Street and provide for his family. He spent 17 years at Merrill Lynch, then left to become CEO at what is now TD Ameritrade in 2001. Under his leadership, TD Ameritrade’s assets grew from $24 billion to around $300 billion.

He successfully guided the company through much of the 2008 financial crisis, then surprised many when he stepped down that year because he wanted to get back into football. Having made millions of dollars, he certainly didn’t need to.

TD Ameritrade is headquartered in Omaha, and Moglia joined Bo Pelini’s Nebraska staff as a volunteer assistant, with hopes of becoming a college head coach. In late 2010, he became head coach of the Virginia Destroyers in the UFL, then president and head coach of the Omaha Nighthawks in January 2011 instead. The league fell apart that year, and DeCenzo decided to make an outside-the-box hire at Coastal Carolina.

***

“The reality was, when I first met Joe, he certainly didn’t need to be working,” DeCenzo (David DeCenzo, the university president)  said. “For somebody that could have simply decided to go off on his own private island and relax, he didn’t. He had a passion for coaching, a passion for working with the players and people around him. That really is what sold me. He had coached before he left for Wall Street. It wasn’t like coaching was foreign to him. He had many years of experience, but I saw something in that passion where I knew he was going to be successful.”

The move paid off immediately. The Chanticleers went 8-5 with a share of the Big South championship in his first year in 2012. That was followed by consecutive 12-win seasons and FCS quarterfinal appearances. The program grew to such heights that it was invited to join the Sun Belt in 2015 and begin FBS play in 2017.

Moglia’s CEO background gave him a different coaching approach. There wasn’t much tackling in practice. Drills were set up for maximum efficiency and less standing around. Reps for backups increased, and injuries went down. Assistants were not to burn the midnight oil working; they had to go home to their families. Decisions were made based on philosophy, not gut feeling. Being a CEO made him a better coach, and vice-versa.

“Something like this had never happened,” Moglia said. “It took the right athletic director to understand what was going on, because there’s no precedent for it, and most people in academia aren’t out there breaking new ground.”

But there was one coach and one program that had been a thorn in Moglia’s side. Rival Charleston Southern, led by Chadwell, went 3-1 against Moglia from 2013-16. That included two Charleston Southern wins against Coastal Carolina teams ranked in the FCS top five.

***
In 2016, Moglia took the entire Coastal Carolina team to vote in the presidential election. The program had held mock debates with players impersonating the candidates. He says no program in college football history had ever done that. He regularly spent 30 minutes with players to talk about issues outside football, like politics, racism and terrorism.

He pushes back on the idea that football is like life. “Football is a game,” he said in a passionate explanation of his philosophy at Sun Belt Media Day last year. “My guys know what ‘ISIS’ stands for. I bet 90 percent of students in the nation don’t.”

Easter is Sunday.

Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral is left smoldering.

And Monday night across DFW, fans of both the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers prayed – not in church, mind you, but on social media – for a third-period goal and/or 10-run rally, all in the name of divine intervention.

Loosen your Bible Belt a notch or two and sit a spell. This is going to be uncomfortable. Because, sorry, after multiple conversations over several years with those that should know – the Almighty was unavailable for comment – I’ve come to this conclusion:

God doesn’t give a rat’s ass about sports.

“I think God cares about sports in that he cares how athletes carry themselves and represent themselves, sure,” Ed Young, best-selling author and pastor of the Fellowship Church in Grapevine, told me a couple of years ago. “But does he swoop down and affect the outcome of games? Of course not.”

That fact, er, educated opinion, will not deter, however, sports fans from holding hands, bowing heads, clutching their crosses and going over their quota of “Just this one time!!” pleas with the game on the line. Nor will it prevent athletes from believing – and professing – that they or the games they play are touched by an angel, or someone higher up the pay grade.

   God smiled down on us tonight.

   This was God’s will.

   The man upstairs was looking out for us.

If that’s the case, wouldn’t that mean, for whatever reason, God also took stock of the game and decided to screw the losers?

In a God-fearing state where football is religion and Sunday sermons merely serve as appetizers to noon kick-offs, we all know why there was a hole in the roof of Texas Stadium. But legendary University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal leaned toward a separation of God and gridiron by rarely leading his team in prayer before games.

“Because,”’ reasoned Royal, “I’m pretty sure the Lord is neutral about things like football.”

Still, from Friday nights in Allen to Sunday afternoons in front of the Zenith, football fans from the four corners of belief will continue asking/begging for a block, bounce or bomb from God’s divine praybook. And with it, the human race will further advance our spiritually suspect quest to dilute He/She/It into just another jersey-wearing, pizza-munching sports fanatic.

We are obsessed with melding sports and scripture.

In the holy traditions of The Hail Mary, Miracle on Ice, Hand of God Goal and The Immaculate Reception, our commitment to tie results to religion as compatible teammates has led to an unwavering belief in at least divine attention.

Augusta has Amen Corner. Touchdown Jesus watches over Notre Dame football games. The Angels have won a World Series. Even with Zion, the Duke Blue Devils didn’t win college basketball’s national championship.

With our stadiums more crowded than our sanctuaries, major championships decided on supposedly Sabbath Sundays, boastful Christians like Quincy Carter and Josh Hamilton experiencing fizzled careers, Holy Cross never getting so much as one vote in the Top 25 and those surly scandals down at Baptist Baylor, we can assume God’s state-of-the-sports address from atop his pearly-gated luxury suite would be equal parts negativity and heated brimstone.

“God loves everybody equally, so it’s ridiculous to think he would favor one team or one player over another,” said one of the most religious players in Mavs history, Shawn Bradley. “I’ve heard people directly praying for victories, and in my opinion that’s just not right. It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. I think that’s God’s only rule when it comes to sports.”

At the Mesquite Rodeo and Texas Motor Speedway, participants meet for pre-event chapel. For most of his life, John Weber balanced God’s will and athletes’ skill.

Weber once held pre-game services for the Rangers, Cowboys and Arena League Dallas Desperados. A religious sounding board/security blanket for the likes of former Rangers manager Johnny Oates and veteran NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall, the former director of the Grapevine-based Athletes in Action prayed with Jimmy Johnson before Super Bowls and Jerry Jones after heart-breaking losses.

“God cares about everything, including sports,”’ Weber once told me. “With sincere Christians on both sides of the field, it’s tough to decide if he has a rooting interest. I think he’s interested in the outcome, but more so in the behavior and the actions of his children. Whether it’s winning a Super Bowl or raking leaves in your yard, he wants you to do it with all your heart.”

From WWJD? bracelets to post-game prayer circles, we are desperate to believe an omnipotent God is a puppeteer knowing and controlling every pitch, pass and point. That philosophy becomes tricky and awkward, however, if you play it forward.

As in, why would a God that magically directs a field goal inside – or outside – the goal posts sit idly and watch as one of Earth’s most holy structures goes up in smoke and almost comes down in flames? How could he reconcile orchestrating a late-game rally on the ice or the diamond while also witnessing a gunman waltz into a Sutherland Springs church and commit the deadliest shooting (26 victims) in a Texas house of worship?

“God has a plan, for all of us,” Young said. “It’s just not always easy for our tiny human brains to comprehend. Sometimes we get lessons from the losses.”

Some of the most Christian sports figures I encountered in DFW included Tom Landry, A.C. Green, Bradley, Carter and Hamilton. Though their success greatly varied, their faith remained solid on generally the same foundation.

   God doesn’t care about sports, but he cares about the people who play them.

Despite all our attempts to integrate entities, it seems most likely that the highest being created “born-again” and left “sudden-death” up to us? Perhaps, in the end, God is indeed more concerned with final judgments rather than final scores.

Joked Summerall, “Let’s hope he has better things to do.”

In Jesus’ name we play, Amen.

Then, after going through the book, I went to take a look at the taped rendition of Macaulay’s story.  Alas, I could only find my original VHS cassette, and as old as it is, it has degraded considerably.  (The tape, not the story.)

Fortunately, I found  it on Youtube.  If you’re teaching a class, or if you’re just curious, I think you’ll really enjoy this story about  the building of a cathedral.

https://youtu.be/MZpOd2pHiI0

***********  The devastation of Notre Dame had an impact on me. I believe the first stone was laid around 1163. It is the journalist's job to ask questions. Given that chiefly Catholic churches in France have been attacked about a hundred times in recent weeks, and given that Islamists tried to bring it down about three years ago, we'd be remiss if we didn't reckon this was just a remarkable coincidence. I'd be pleased if it were some freakish accident; we don't need more chaos in the world. Your friend Shep Smith, however, cut off a guest who wondered if if an Islamist attack was the origin. He's not alone. The 'journalists' generally have already begun their 'conspiracy theory' chants. We'll see.

Ken Follett himself leans left, but his four volumes beginning with one of my favorite books of all time, "Pillars of the Earth", tell in fictional format the story of the construction of the great cathedrals of Europe. Mere boys with little formal education ran the calculations required to build those incredible edifices. Notre Dame is one of those awesome (I use the word carefully) achievements. So many people working so painstakingly for so long. My heart hurts to think it's been desecrated this way. I noticed that Macron told his people in florid language it will be rebuilt (at an estimated cost of a billion Euros or more). That's fine, but what will he do about whoever did this?

John Vermillion
St. Petersburg, Florida

*********** On the subject of the burning of the cathedral of Notre Dame, Rush Limbaugh was quick to note the hypocrisy of the mainstream media as they immediately took up the chorus: “This is not the time for politics…”

“But,” he went on,  “let there be a black church burning… let there be a mass shooting… and it’s time for politics.”


***********  Hugh,

Your commentary on the direction of our country - and Western Civilization in general - was spot on. 

Yes...we're old.  I remember those first Wilson hard shell helmets!  Hip girdles?  Riddell cleats?  I also remember having to take salt tablets after each practice!  How about those khaki coaching practice pants that were gathered below the knee and above the calves?  Or those ridged sole coaching shoes?  I've been looking for those coaching pants!

Many schools in the upper midwest (in particular Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan) run Wing-T, Straight T, or Double Wing offenses.  And not coincidentally many of the boys that play football up in those parts, in those styles of offense, are pretty tough hombres!

Have a great week!

Joe Gutilla
Austin, Texas

*********** "...Alejandro Villanueva, who happens to be an offensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers."

Q: What was his position at the “University of Army?”

A: Split End.

1. Whenever you want to "Convert" a Glory Back to a Line Position and you get the usual B, P and Moanin', think of Villanueva.

2. It is the Great Secret of the Run Offenses:  The more people involved in stopping the run, the fewer involved in covering a good receiver.  In fact, if the object of the Pass is to get One-on-One in open space, you can get it (almost) every time.  "It's like stealin' !"

Look at the number of "1 - 2 - 3 throw" plays.  Yes, I know John Wooden's greatest sports quote of all time( "You can teach anyone to play basketball but you cannot teach anyone to be seven foot two...") but if they played Villanueva one-on-one, it's their fault.

It was FUN to watch him at Army.

Charlie Wilson
Crystal River, Florida

(6-10 was a pretty decent target, wasn’t it?)


*********** QUIZ ANSWER:  Marv Hubbard grew up in Red House, New York, whose current population of 38 makes it the smallest town in the state.  He played high school ball in the much larger town of Randolph (population 2600), in far western New York State - six hours west of New York City.

At Colgate,  in Hamilton, New York, he grew into a bruising runner with impressive quickness, and was the leading rusher his sophomore and junior season. He  graduated as the second-leading rusher in school history. 

After being drafted in the 11th round by the Oakland Raiders (and listed as a tight end), he was cut by the Raiders and then by the Broncos. He spent the entire 1968 season with the Hartford (Connecticut) Knights of the Atlantic Coast Football League,  and wound up leading the league in rushing, and the following year, he was back with the Raiders.

He would stay with them for eight seasons, and with his bullish running, he became emblematic of those Raider teams, which featured a pounding ground game to go with the passing of Ken Stabler.

He led the Raiders in rushing for four straight seasons (1971-1974), and was named to the Pro Bowl team in 1971, 1972 and 1973.

“(He) was one of the toughest players we ever had," John Madden once said. "There are people that will have contact and people that won't have contact, but only a few that will have it and really enjoy it. (He) was one of those guys who truly enjoyed the collision. He would look for it."

In his career he rushed for 4544 yards, and although much of that  was “tough yardage” he averaged 4.82 yards per carry, putting him ahead of more noted backs such as Eric Dickerson, Marshall Faulk, Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith and OJ Simpson.

After retirement Marv Hubbard wrote some country songs, the best known being "Fullbacks Ain't Supposed to Cry,” and as a golfer, in 1975 he teamed with baseball player Sal Bando to win the American Airlines Golf Classic.


CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING MARV HUBBARD:

MIKE FORISTIERE - TOPEKA, KANSAS (I believe after him it was Mark Van Eeghen. my childhood home was Fresno, Calif and of course I was a fan of those rebels the Oakland Raiders.)
KEN HAMPTON - RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
JOSH MONTGOMERY - BERWICK, LOUISIANA
TOM DAVIS - SAN CARLOS, CALIFORNIA
GREG KOENIG - CIMARRON, KANSAS
MIKE FRAMKE - GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
ADAM WESOLOSKI - PULASKI, WISCONSIN
JOHN VERMILLION - ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
KEVIN MCCULLOUGH - LAKEVILLE, INDIANA
JOE GUTILLA, AUSTIN, TEXAS
BILL NELSON - THORNTON, COLORADO
MARK KACZMAREK - DAVENPORT, IOWA
DAVID CRUMP - OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY
OSSIE OSMUNDSON - WOODLAND, WASHINGTON
PETE PORCELLI - WATERVLIET, NEW YORK