I don't think the steroid era record setters should be in the Hall of Fame any more than Pete Rose. The unfortunate thing is that the Cooperstown loses something when the all time leaders are not included. Baseball is a game of numbers and statistics are the measuring stick used for the Hall. There used to be a direct correlation between statistics and the Baseball Hall of Fame. What I mean is, you could read the record book and identify the all time leaders in specific categories and almost always they would be in the Hall. Or, you could read a list of Hall of Famers and know which ones led their league or the majors in something for a season or a career. The reason I say it "used to be" is because the leaders in today's record book have no shot at the Hall.
There was a time when 714 was a magic number. When Hall of Famer Babe Ruth was passed by Hall of Famer Hank Aaron the new number became 755. That milestone was a big deal. When 755 was passed, the record now is 762, the fan fare wasn't as great. PED's may not have ruined the game but they sure ruined the record book and tainted the Hall of Fame. The all time home run king will probably never enter the Hall.
Another special number was 60, so special when it became 61 they made a movie about it. Now the guy who hit 60 is in the Hall (inaugural class). The guy who hit 61 is not. Not for reasons the guy who hit 762 is not. Seems the guy who hit 61 doesn't have the body of work to gain entrance to the Hall. I'm good with that. But the guy with 762 lifetime homeruns also hit 73 in a season. That means the single season record holder will also never be in the Hall.
61 has been bested 6 times, none of whom will be enshrined in Cooperstown.
Another PEDer, Sammy Sosa, hit more than 60 home runs in a season 3 different times. From 1998-2002 he hit 292 homeruns. How good is that? The most home runs that Babe Ruth hit in a five year period was 256.
Most home runs in a single season:
1. Barry Bonds, 73
2. Mark McGwire, 70
3. Sammy Sosa, 66
4. Mark McGwire, 65
5. Sammy Sosa, 64
6. Sammy Sosa, 63
7. Roger Maris, 61
8. Babe Ruth, 60
Most home runs over a five-year period.:
1. Sammy Sosa, 292 (1998-2002)
2. Mark McGwire, 284 (1995-1999)
3. Sammy Sosa, 279 (1997-2001)
4. Mark McGwire, 277 (1996-2000)
5. Barry Bonds, 258 (2000-2004)
I guess the most significant vacancy is the fact that the all time leader in games played, hits, plate appearances, singles and times on base will also never grace the Hall. Poor Pete.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tom Watson Ryder Cup Captain
This is a reprint of a recent Joe Posnanski Blog post I found most interesting and wanted to share.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2012
Captain Watson
I've been lucky enough to be around the next American Ryder Cup captain, Tom Watson, a whole lot in my life. He has asked me to introduce him at various functions and to be his co-host at various events. I've caddied for him. I've interviewed him hundreds of times, of course, and I've had many long and sometimes intense conversations with him about life and politics and the belly putter and journalism and what excellence really means. I don't say all this to brag (mostly).
I say all this because even after all that, I can't say that I really know Tom Watson.
All I really know for sure -- for absolute sure -- is that the son of a gun wants to win more than anyone I've ever been around.
That's a blurry and ineffable trait if you think about it. Competitiveness. You will hear people talk all the time about how competitive they are. They will usually try to prove this point by saying they cannot stand losing even at some thoroughly unimportant game -- most often tiddlywinks.
"You know me, I want to win everything, whether it's tiddlywinks or whatever," former Cubs manager Dallas Green said.
"I don't care if I'm playing you in golf, in tennis, in checkers, in tiddlywinks, I want to win," tennis star James Blake said.
"I'd love to manage Arsenal -- I hate losing at tiddlywinks, we need that mentality," tweeted longtime German soccer player Dietmar Hamann.
"These boys hate losing at tiddlywinks," said former English football star Graeme Murty to explain how hard it was on his team when they were going through a rough patch.
"I have to win at everything, even tiddlywinks," said England tennis and club mogul David Lloyd.
"It doesn't matter if we're flipping a coin or playing tiddlywinks or football, I want to win," said Chiefs quarterback Brady Quinn.
And so on, there are thousands of these tiddlywinks quotes -- tiddlywinks seems to be at the very heart of whatever it is that makes some people insanely ambitious and cutthroat. There are also versions of this competitive-speak where an athlete/coach talks about how they want to win so badly they never even let their child win at anything -- not tic-tac-toe, not arm wrestling, not anything -- even when their child is a toddler.
And finally there are those particularly zealous souls -- I seem to remember Bill Russell, perhaps the most famously competitive athlete, saying this -- who combine the two themes and say they would never, ever -- not in a million years -- let their child beat them at tiddlywinks.
All of this is well and good … but what kind of person really wouldn't let their three-year-old child win at tiddlywinks? Would you want to be friends with that person? Somewhere along the competitiveness spectrum there is a line between healthy and unhealthy, sane and unstable, between a relatively sane person who really wants to win at tiddlywinks and a half-crazed lunatic willing to drop a piano on a competitor so he can get the last doughnut.
Watson gingerly walks that line. Watson actually has two defining qualities -- two qualities that, on the surface, seem to clash. On the one hand, he wants to win more than I know. On the other hand, he is -- in his realm -- the most principled person I know. He's a ferocious rules follower; so much so he has written more than one book about the rules of golf. In other words, he's the most competitive person I know, and he's the least likely to cheat or take shortcuts. It's a unique combination. Watson is a unique person.
He displays this competitiveness in lots of ways -- for instance, it's fun to watch people interview him (sometimes more fun than actually interviewing him). Most of the time, Watson is a pleasant and friendly guy. He will answer any question you ask (unless you keep asking different versions of the same question). But he's not much of a small-talk guy, and he will not meet you more than halfway. Let's say, for example, he's played a round at the Masters in the rain. The first exchange will inevitably go like this:
Reporter: So, it was a wet one out there today.
Watson: Yep.
That's all. There will be a few brief seconds of awkward silence -- but Watson is done talking. The reporter is hoping that Watson will expand on the rain, how hard it was to play in those conditions, what the greens were like, how long the course played, what holes were especially tough and so on. But the reporter DID NOT ASK any of those questions. The reporter simply said it was wet out there. Watson confirmed.
Interviews will go on like this, a battle of wills. He will not just go along with storylines if he disagrees with the premise (and he disagrees with most premises). He will not anticipate the next question to make it easier on the interviewer. He will not direct traffic to a good story if he's not asked directly about it. I don't mean to make this sound like Watson is a bad interview … I find him to be a terrific interview, thoughtful, opinionated, well-spoken. But an interview is a competition. For Watson, everything is a competition.
It is this extreme competitiveness that made Tom Watson the best golfer of his day, one of the best golfers of all time. Oh, he was a great player on many levels -- great striker of the ball, remarkable imagination around the greens and, in his day, the best putter north of Ben Crenshaw -- but what made Watson a five-time British Open champion and the PGA Tour player of the year six times was his fierce unwillingness to give in. He might be the best bad-weather player who ever lived. He might be the best wind player who ever lived. He might be the best links player who ever lived.
Why? It's because those things challenge the soul, they test your patience and your willpower and your sense of fairness. A bad bounce. A gust of wind at the wrong time. A sideways rain. These things will crush your will. How do you endure? At some point, the circumstances and conditions and bad luck become so overwhelming that you just laugh and throw your hands up in the air and wonder why the fates have it in for you. The question is: At what point do you throw your hands up? For Tom Watson, that point is … never. If he's on pace for 84, he will fight like heck to shoot 83. If a perfectly struck shot hits a land mine and blows up, Watson will hit every ball fragment. I imagine he would never lose a game of chicken. Ever.
The wonderful caddy Bruce Edwards gave the best description of Watson's competitiveness. He said that some players -- you can probably think of a few -- hit a bad shot into an impossible spot and say, "Why me?' Tom hits a the same bad shot into the same impossible spot and he says, "Wait 'til you see what I do with this." Yep. Along with Seve Ballesteros and Tiger Woods, Watson probably followed up more bad shots with brilliant ones than anyone ever.*
*When I suggested this to Watson, he begrudgingly agreed. Then I said, "What about Jack Nicklaus?" He said: "Jack was as good as anyone at putting his bad shots behind him. But Jack didn't hit nearly as many bad shots as I did."
Watson once told me something funny. You already know, few people have ever loved golf as much as Tom Watson. He loves the history, the rules, the intricacies. He loves designing golf courses and studying golf equipment and breaking down the swing into the tiniest morsels. But he cannot stand playing golf on a sunny day. The very idea of many people's perfect day -- beautiful course, windless morning, a few friends, a six pack, 18 holes of joy -- strikes him as something of a nightmare.
You might think this is because golf is his business and so he cannot enjoy it the way others do, but that's not exactly it. A sunny windless day -- there's no challenge. There's no pressure. There's nothing at stake. Even if there are bets going, it doesn't matter, a few dollars are not enough to feed his competitive hunger. Give him a howling wind. Give him a big crowd. Give him crippling pressure. That's what he needs. That's what allows Watson to test himself. That's what golf means to him. Joe Montana once said that he liked driving better on icy roads. Same thing.
And that's why Watson never could quite deal with the reaction to his amazing second-place finish at the British Open in 2009 when he was almost 60 years old. He came to the final hole with a chance to win -- he needed a par -- but he hit his second shot too flush, and he kind of flubbed his first putt, and he missed the par putt. He lost in the playoff, and in Watson's mind it was a pure failure, plain and simple, nothing more or less.
Of course, that's not the way most people around the world felt. Most of us felt like it was heartbreaking to see him lose, sure, but it was an inspiration to see him come that close at age 59. It was almost the greatest sports story of the year and the greatest golf story of all time. For many, it was life-affirming beyond words. On his drive back to the hotel, Watson got a call from Nicklaus, who told him that Watson's effort had so inspired him that he actually watched golf on television, something Jack never does. Countless people from all around the world wrote and called and emailed and tweeted their appreciation to Watson for what he accomplished. Tom said all of that softened the pain of losing.
But you know what? It really didn't. He has admitted to me since that he will never get over losing that tournament, because he never gets over losing. Certainly he appreciates the support from people all around the world, and he's glad that some of them took some measure of motivation from what he did. But he doesn't really UNDERSTAND any of it. "I lost," he said. That's where the story ended for him. He won many. He lost that one. That's Tom Watson.
All of which is to say: He's an arresting and brilliant choice for Ryder Cup captain. The only choice, really, after this year's final-day meltdown. He's the first person since Nicklaus in 1983 and 1987 to repeat as captain (Watson was the captain of the U.S. Team in 1993, the last time the United States won the Ryder Cup on foreign soil). He also follows a series of pretty blasé choices -- Davis Love, Corey Pavin, Paul Azinger, Tom Lehman, Hal Sutton, Curtis Strange. All these men were excellent golfers and strong competitors and perfectly fine choices if you are trying to honor someone's career or if you want to make it comfortable for the players. Oh, those guys LOVED playing for Lehman and Love. They also lost both times.
And this is the point: If you want the Ryder Cup to be a bunch of friends playing a few rounds of golf for fun, sure, have at it. But if you are trying to WIN, yeah, you go get Tom Watson. True, captains don't win or lose Ryder Cups. True, Watson does not know these guys nearly as well as a younger player like Love, who is still active on the tour. True, Watson is not warm and fuzzy like Love -- he has never been shy about his issues with Tiger Woods, for instance.
But Watson will captain to win. Plain and simple. This is the man who in 1993 told his team during the Ryder Cup: "Remember, everything they invented, we perfected." This is the man who said that while he believes that Woods played golf better than anyone who ever lived, he would have LOVED to be young in Woods' era so he could try and crush him -- that's what it's all about for Watson. This is the man who hit the ball into the rough on 17 at Pebble Beach, told his caddy Bruce, "I'm going to make it," then made it to beat Nicklaus at the U.S. Open. There might not be much Watson can do to lead his team to victory. But you know Watson will do absolutely everything.
One last quick Watson story, one I've written before. Watson and I both sponsored teams in the Kansas City RBI program -- Reviving Baseball in the Inner City -- because we both love baseball and both want more kids to have the chance to play. It's a pretty loose thing, obviously. It isn't like they send you a stats packet after each game. They never really even tell you if your team won or lost. Such things don't matter. Unless you're Tom Watson.
"Hey, my team is playing your team tomorrow night and ..." I told him.
"We're going kick your ..." he said instantaneously.
He didn't smile. He didn't smirk. He didn't blink. He just glared at me, his eyes flaring. I remember thinking at that moment that, deep down, he was joking, but he showed no sign of it. And he never showed any sign of it. Not too long ago, I was interviewing Watson at an event, and I told that story, and looked for a smile from him. I got none. He glared at me again.
"I wasn't joking," he said. 'We did kick your …"
I say all this because even after all that, I can't say that I really know Tom Watson.
All I really know for sure -- for absolute sure -- is that the son of a gun wants to win more than anyone I've ever been around.
That's a blurry and ineffable trait if you think about it. Competitiveness. You will hear people talk all the time about how competitive they are. They will usually try to prove this point by saying they cannot stand losing even at some thoroughly unimportant game -- most often tiddlywinks.
"You know me, I want to win everything, whether it's tiddlywinks or whatever," former Cubs manager Dallas Green said.
"I don't care if I'm playing you in golf, in tennis, in checkers, in tiddlywinks, I want to win," tennis star James Blake said.
"I'd love to manage Arsenal -- I hate losing at tiddlywinks, we need that mentality," tweeted longtime German soccer player Dietmar Hamann.
"These boys hate losing at tiddlywinks," said former English football star Graeme Murty to explain how hard it was on his team when they were going through a rough patch.
"I have to win at everything, even tiddlywinks," said England tennis and club mogul David Lloyd.
"It doesn't matter if we're flipping a coin or playing tiddlywinks or football, I want to win," said Chiefs quarterback Brady Quinn.
And so on, there are thousands of these tiddlywinks quotes -- tiddlywinks seems to be at the very heart of whatever it is that makes some people insanely ambitious and cutthroat. There are also versions of this competitive-speak where an athlete/coach talks about how they want to win so badly they never even let their child win at anything -- not tic-tac-toe, not arm wrestling, not anything -- even when their child is a toddler.
And finally there are those particularly zealous souls -- I seem to remember Bill Russell, perhaps the most famously competitive athlete, saying this -- who combine the two themes and say they would never, ever -- not in a million years -- let their child beat them at tiddlywinks.
All of this is well and good … but what kind of person really wouldn't let their three-year-old child win at tiddlywinks? Would you want to be friends with that person? Somewhere along the competitiveness spectrum there is a line between healthy and unhealthy, sane and unstable, between a relatively sane person who really wants to win at tiddlywinks and a half-crazed lunatic willing to drop a piano on a competitor so he can get the last doughnut.
Watson gingerly walks that line. Watson actually has two defining qualities -- two qualities that, on the surface, seem to clash. On the one hand, he wants to win more than I know. On the other hand, he is -- in his realm -- the most principled person I know. He's a ferocious rules follower; so much so he has written more than one book about the rules of golf. In other words, he's the most competitive person I know, and he's the least likely to cheat or take shortcuts. It's a unique combination. Watson is a unique person.
He displays this competitiveness in lots of ways -- for instance, it's fun to watch people interview him (sometimes more fun than actually interviewing him). Most of the time, Watson is a pleasant and friendly guy. He will answer any question you ask (unless you keep asking different versions of the same question). But he's not much of a small-talk guy, and he will not meet you more than halfway. Let's say, for example, he's played a round at the Masters in the rain. The first exchange will inevitably go like this:
Reporter: So, it was a wet one out there today.
Watson: Yep.
That's all. There will be a few brief seconds of awkward silence -- but Watson is done talking. The reporter is hoping that Watson will expand on the rain, how hard it was to play in those conditions, what the greens were like, how long the course played, what holes were especially tough and so on. But the reporter DID NOT ASK any of those questions. The reporter simply said it was wet out there. Watson confirmed.
Interviews will go on like this, a battle of wills. He will not just go along with storylines if he disagrees with the premise (and he disagrees with most premises). He will not anticipate the next question to make it easier on the interviewer. He will not direct traffic to a good story if he's not asked directly about it. I don't mean to make this sound like Watson is a bad interview … I find him to be a terrific interview, thoughtful, opinionated, well-spoken. But an interview is a competition. For Watson, everything is a competition.
It is this extreme competitiveness that made Tom Watson the best golfer of his day, one of the best golfers of all time. Oh, he was a great player on many levels -- great striker of the ball, remarkable imagination around the greens and, in his day, the best putter north of Ben Crenshaw -- but what made Watson a five-time British Open champion and the PGA Tour player of the year six times was his fierce unwillingness to give in. He might be the best bad-weather player who ever lived. He might be the best wind player who ever lived. He might be the best links player who ever lived.
Why? It's because those things challenge the soul, they test your patience and your willpower and your sense of fairness. A bad bounce. A gust of wind at the wrong time. A sideways rain. These things will crush your will. How do you endure? At some point, the circumstances and conditions and bad luck become so overwhelming that you just laugh and throw your hands up in the air and wonder why the fates have it in for you. The question is: At what point do you throw your hands up? For Tom Watson, that point is … never. If he's on pace for 84, he will fight like heck to shoot 83. If a perfectly struck shot hits a land mine and blows up, Watson will hit every ball fragment. I imagine he would never lose a game of chicken. Ever.
The wonderful caddy Bruce Edwards gave the best description of Watson's competitiveness. He said that some players -- you can probably think of a few -- hit a bad shot into an impossible spot and say, "Why me?' Tom hits a the same bad shot into the same impossible spot and he says, "Wait 'til you see what I do with this." Yep. Along with Seve Ballesteros and Tiger Woods, Watson probably followed up more bad shots with brilliant ones than anyone ever.*
*When I suggested this to Watson, he begrudgingly agreed. Then I said, "What about Jack Nicklaus?" He said: "Jack was as good as anyone at putting his bad shots behind him. But Jack didn't hit nearly as many bad shots as I did."
Watson once told me something funny. You already know, few people have ever loved golf as much as Tom Watson. He loves the history, the rules, the intricacies. He loves designing golf courses and studying golf equipment and breaking down the swing into the tiniest morsels. But he cannot stand playing golf on a sunny day. The very idea of many people's perfect day -- beautiful course, windless morning, a few friends, a six pack, 18 holes of joy -- strikes him as something of a nightmare.
You might think this is because golf is his business and so he cannot enjoy it the way others do, but that's not exactly it. A sunny windless day -- there's no challenge. There's no pressure. There's nothing at stake. Even if there are bets going, it doesn't matter, a few dollars are not enough to feed his competitive hunger. Give him a howling wind. Give him a big crowd. Give him crippling pressure. That's what he needs. That's what allows Watson to test himself. That's what golf means to him. Joe Montana once said that he liked driving better on icy roads. Same thing.
And that's why Watson never could quite deal with the reaction to his amazing second-place finish at the British Open in 2009 when he was almost 60 years old. He came to the final hole with a chance to win -- he needed a par -- but he hit his second shot too flush, and he kind of flubbed his first putt, and he missed the par putt. He lost in the playoff, and in Watson's mind it was a pure failure, plain and simple, nothing more or less.
Of course, that's not the way most people around the world felt. Most of us felt like it was heartbreaking to see him lose, sure, but it was an inspiration to see him come that close at age 59. It was almost the greatest sports story of the year and the greatest golf story of all time. For many, it was life-affirming beyond words. On his drive back to the hotel, Watson got a call from Nicklaus, who told him that Watson's effort had so inspired him that he actually watched golf on television, something Jack never does. Countless people from all around the world wrote and called and emailed and tweeted their appreciation to Watson for what he accomplished. Tom said all of that softened the pain of losing.
But you know what? It really didn't. He has admitted to me since that he will never get over losing that tournament, because he never gets over losing. Certainly he appreciates the support from people all around the world, and he's glad that some of them took some measure of motivation from what he did. But he doesn't really UNDERSTAND any of it. "I lost," he said. That's where the story ended for him. He won many. He lost that one. That's Tom Watson.
All of which is to say: He's an arresting and brilliant choice for Ryder Cup captain. The only choice, really, after this year's final-day meltdown. He's the first person since Nicklaus in 1983 and 1987 to repeat as captain (Watson was the captain of the U.S. Team in 1993, the last time the United States won the Ryder Cup on foreign soil). He also follows a series of pretty blasé choices -- Davis Love, Corey Pavin, Paul Azinger, Tom Lehman, Hal Sutton, Curtis Strange. All these men were excellent golfers and strong competitors and perfectly fine choices if you are trying to honor someone's career or if you want to make it comfortable for the players. Oh, those guys LOVED playing for Lehman and Love. They also lost both times.
And this is the point: If you want the Ryder Cup to be a bunch of friends playing a few rounds of golf for fun, sure, have at it. But if you are trying to WIN, yeah, you go get Tom Watson. True, captains don't win or lose Ryder Cups. True, Watson does not know these guys nearly as well as a younger player like Love, who is still active on the tour. True, Watson is not warm and fuzzy like Love -- he has never been shy about his issues with Tiger Woods, for instance.
But Watson will captain to win. Plain and simple. This is the man who in 1993 told his team during the Ryder Cup: "Remember, everything they invented, we perfected." This is the man who said that while he believes that Woods played golf better than anyone who ever lived, he would have LOVED to be young in Woods' era so he could try and crush him -- that's what it's all about for Watson. This is the man who hit the ball into the rough on 17 at Pebble Beach, told his caddy Bruce, "I'm going to make it," then made it to beat Nicklaus at the U.S. Open. There might not be much Watson can do to lead his team to victory. But you know Watson will do absolutely everything.
One last quick Watson story, one I've written before. Watson and I both sponsored teams in the Kansas City RBI program -- Reviving Baseball in the Inner City -- because we both love baseball and both want more kids to have the chance to play. It's a pretty loose thing, obviously. It isn't like they send you a stats packet after each game. They never really even tell you if your team won or lost. Such things don't matter. Unless you're Tom Watson.
"Hey, my team is playing your team tomorrow night and ..." I told him.
"We're going kick your ..." he said instantaneously.
He didn't smile. He didn't smirk. He didn't blink. He just glared at me, his eyes flaring. I remember thinking at that moment that, deep down, he was joking, but he showed no sign of it. And he never showed any sign of it. Not too long ago, I was interviewing Watson at an event, and I told that story, and looked for a smile from him. I got none. He glared at me again.
"I wasn't joking," he said. 'We did kick your …"
Monday, December 10, 2012
The Curious Journey of Gus Malzahn
Auburn University hired Gus Malzahn to replace Gene Chizik. It has been a whole two years since the Tigers won the National Championship and haven't beaten Alabama since, so Chizik gotta go, right? Well, his replacement is a man called Gus Malzahn and for those of you who wonder how it came to be, here is the story.
Malzahn was one of the first high school coaches to develop the no huddle, shot gun, throw it all over the lot, spread offences. He did it in the state of Arkansas, parlaying success as head coach at Shiloh Christian to directing powerhouse Springdale in 2001.
In 2005, Malzahn's Springdale team easily captured the 5-A championship, outscoring opponents 664-118. About this same time Huston Nutt, University of Arkansas Head Coach's seat was beginning to get hot. Seems the folks in Fayetteville felt to compete with LSU and Alabama in the SEC West, the Razorbacks needed to upgrade their offense.
Another piece to the puzzle is the Springdale roster included a bevy of Bluechippers including Player of the Year QB Mitch Mustain. In a nothing surprises me anymore moment, Arkansas hired the never coached in college before Malzahn and Mustain and the other bluechips happened to make their way to pig heaven.
In 2006, Arkansas won the SEC West, but it was the ground game, not the spread that was responsible. Losses to LSU, Florida (in SEC Championship) and Wisconsin in Cap One Bowl resulted in tension over the offensive philosophy and led to Malzahn leaving for Tulsa. Ironically (not), Mustain transferred to USC.
In 2007, Tulsa led the nation in total yards per game and became the first team in NCAA history to have a 5,000 yard passer. In 2008, Tulsa finished with the second highest scoring offense in the history of major college football.
In 2008, first year coach Gene Chizik named Malzahn offensive coordinator at Auburn. The Tigers offense steadily showed improvement and in 2010, with Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton at QB, the Tigers led the SEC in scoring offense and total offense on their way to an undefeated 13-0 record. Auburn won the 2011 BCS championship. In December of 2011 Malzahn left Auburn to become head coach at Arkansas State. He went 9-3 in what would be his only season, because in December of 2012 he was named to replace Chizik at Auburn.
Malzahn was one of the first high school coaches to develop the no huddle, shot gun, throw it all over the lot, spread offences. He did it in the state of Arkansas, parlaying success as head coach at Shiloh Christian to directing powerhouse Springdale in 2001.
In 2005, Malzahn's Springdale team easily captured the 5-A championship, outscoring opponents 664-118. About this same time Huston Nutt, University of Arkansas Head Coach's seat was beginning to get hot. Seems the folks in Fayetteville felt to compete with LSU and Alabama in the SEC West, the Razorbacks needed to upgrade their offense.
Another piece to the puzzle is the Springdale roster included a bevy of Bluechippers including Player of the Year QB Mitch Mustain. In a nothing surprises me anymore moment, Arkansas hired the never coached in college before Malzahn and Mustain and the other bluechips happened to make their way to pig heaven.
In 2006, Arkansas won the SEC West, but it was the ground game, not the spread that was responsible. Losses to LSU, Florida (in SEC Championship) and Wisconsin in Cap One Bowl resulted in tension over the offensive philosophy and led to Malzahn leaving for Tulsa. Ironically (not), Mustain transferred to USC.
In 2007, Tulsa led the nation in total yards per game and became the first team in NCAA history to have a 5,000 yard passer. In 2008, Tulsa finished with the second highest scoring offense in the history of major college football.
In 2008, first year coach Gene Chizik named Malzahn offensive coordinator at Auburn. The Tigers offense steadily showed improvement and in 2010, with Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton at QB, the Tigers led the SEC in scoring offense and total offense on their way to an undefeated 13-0 record. Auburn won the 2011 BCS championship. In December of 2011 Malzahn left Auburn to become head coach at Arkansas State. He went 9-3 in what would be his only season, because in December of 2012 he was named to replace Chizik at Auburn.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Dooley Story Not a New One
Derek Dooley was fired today by Tennessee.
Dooley was 15-21 in three years with the Vols, 0-15 against top 25 teams and 4-19 in the SEC. So I guess Tennessee AD Dave Hart was justified in asking for Dooley's resignation, right? Here's a stat for you, Dooley was 17-20 in his three seasons at Louisiana Tech before coming to Knoxville. What did they expect? I think it's important to remember how Tennessee got in this spot in the first place.
Remember Philip Fulmer (152-52 in 17 years) who won a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in 1998. He won 10 games in '07, but slipped to 5-7 and was forced out in '08. It didn't help that the hot property Lane Kiffen was available. Remember Kiffen had been fired by crazy Al Davis for cause. When Lane jumped for USC one season later, the jilted Vols looked to Dooley to lend stability.
In hindsight, rather than having their heads turned by the notion of Kiffen, the more prudent move may have been to let Fulmer leave on his own terms. Or let him promote his OC David Cutcliff. Instead Cutcliff went 73-44 at Ole Miss. and is currently 58-21 at Duke (bowl eligible this year) a program he took over in 2008.
This is not a new phenoneon. I remember Rich Rodrigez, on the balcony of the Reilly Center, green blazer drapped over his arm, ready to accept the Head Coaching position at Tulane when Tommy Bowden left for Clemson. Only the Greenies flipped the script and tapped Chris Scelfo instead. By the way the Wave has a history of this (see Lindy Infante).
So Rich Rod heads to Morgantown, goes to 6 bowls in 7 years, wins 11 games three years in a row and wins 87 games in seven years. Scelfo went 37-57 and was gone after '06. Tulane still has not recovered. But the story doesn't end with Rodriguez planting his roots and leaving a legacy with the Mountaineers. Instead it was off to Michigan, bigger program, bigger stage.
How did that work out?
Dooley was 15-21 in three years with the Vols, 0-15 against top 25 teams and 4-19 in the SEC. So I guess Tennessee AD Dave Hart was justified in asking for Dooley's resignation, right? Here's a stat for you, Dooley was 17-20 in his three seasons at Louisiana Tech before coming to Knoxville. What did they expect? I think it's important to remember how Tennessee got in this spot in the first place.
Remember Philip Fulmer (152-52 in 17 years) who won a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in 1998. He won 10 games in '07, but slipped to 5-7 and was forced out in '08. It didn't help that the hot property Lane Kiffen was available. Remember Kiffen had been fired by crazy Al Davis for cause. When Lane jumped for USC one season later, the jilted Vols looked to Dooley to lend stability.
In hindsight, rather than having their heads turned by the notion of Kiffen, the more prudent move may have been to let Fulmer leave on his own terms. Or let him promote his OC David Cutcliff. Instead Cutcliff went 73-44 at Ole Miss. and is currently 58-21 at Duke (bowl eligible this year) a program he took over in 2008.
This is not a new phenoneon. I remember Rich Rodrigez, on the balcony of the Reilly Center, green blazer drapped over his arm, ready to accept the Head Coaching position at Tulane when Tommy Bowden left for Clemson. Only the Greenies flipped the script and tapped Chris Scelfo instead. By the way the Wave has a history of this (see Lindy Infante).
So Rich Rod heads to Morgantown, goes to 6 bowls in 7 years, wins 11 games three years in a row and wins 87 games in seven years. Scelfo went 37-57 and was gone after '06. Tulane still has not recovered. But the story doesn't end with Rodriguez planting his roots and leaving a legacy with the Mountaineers. Instead it was off to Michigan, bigger program, bigger stage.
How did that work out?
Monday, October 15, 2012
Call him "Coach"
This is a copy of an article I read on SB Nation by William Browning
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Before the boy passed 10 his parents left the
Mississippi Delta for the pine woods farther south, where his mother found a
teaching job in the county. They were a young family, renting near the school,
when his father left.
The boy felt lost in that new place. To better hide the hurt
he whittled away his footprints through the years, turning his back on
basketball, the drum line, a job bagging groceries and a place on the school
honor roll. When he handed in his football jersey during his junior year there
was nothing else to quit. He did it in spring, a few months after the '96
season. A slow-footed receiver four notches down the depth chart, he thought he
would not be missed. He was surprised when the coach sent a note to his English
teacher asking to see him. Everyone called him, "Coach." He was humorless
and had a dry voice. The boy felt lost
in that new place. To better hide the hurt he whittled away his footprints
through the years, turning his back on basketball, the drum line, a job bagging
groceries and a place on the school honor roll. When he handed in his football
jersey during his junior year there was nothing else to quit. He did it in
spring, a few months after the '96 season. A slow-footed receiver four notches
down the depth chart, he thought he would not be missed. He was surprised when
the coach sent a note to his English teacher asking to see him. Everyone called
him, "Coach." He was humorless and had a dry voice. He growled
through one-sided conversations on the football field but off it he could be
inarticulate.
The boy remembers
walking the hallway toward his office, telling himself not to give in. He sat
face-to-face with Coach, Bear Bryant's picture hanging nearby on the office
wall. Are you sure you want to spend your senior year in the bleachers? Coach
said. Full of teenage arrogance, the boy said he wouldn't be attending any
games. He said he had watched from the sideline for two seasons and had his
fill.
Coach, always slow
to speak, leaned back in his chair and warned him. He warned him that not that
season, but in a decade or so, he would come to regret his decision and that
once made, it could not be undone.
The boy laughed. A
grown man, said the boy, has no business thinking of games he did or did not
play in high school. Coach said all right and the boy left. He never called him
"Coach" again. Not because he walked away from football, but because
that summer the coach married his mother.
And the boy hated him for that.
To this day the
word "legend" precedes his name in the local daily newspaper.He was a
good lineman until he shredded a knee during a kickoff return in practice. He
then set his eyes on coaching.
His name was Alton
Waltman. He coached at North Forrest High School in Eatonville, outside of
Hattiesburg, Miss., for two decades. The mascot was an eagle, the colors were
white and blue and the size of graduating classes rarely broke 100. Anyone who
passed through the school during Coach's time has a memory of him on a Friday
night in a blue polo shirt stretched by his belly, the letters "N"
and "F" stacked over his heart, a white cap on his head and a grimace
across his face. He had one losing season.
Years before he
retired he became an institution. When a field house was built on the school's
campus in 1999, it was named after him even though he was still coaching. To
this day the word "legend" precedes his name in the local daily
newspaper.
In Mississippi it
is dangerous to talk of gridiron legends, where those ghosts are so many. It is
where the names Payton, McNair, Rice and Manning were first stitched across
jerseys backs, where Bull Sullivan, who Sports Illustrated called "the
toughest coach who ever lived," sent the boys into the alligator pond,
where photographs of Ole Miss coach Johnny Vaught sit on mantels beside portraits
of families he was not officially part of. But there are also dozens of men
like Coach, whose stories are told in places like Eatonville, with only a
service station and small school to mark their spots on a map.
He came from
Hurley, a Gulf Coast town near the Alabama line. The rabbit ears on Saturdays
only picked up Crimson Tide games and he became a Bear Bryant fan. He had two
brothers and two sisters.
Their father worked
at Ingalls Shipyard, owned a dairy farm and read the Bible. He took his sons
fishing in the slow waters of the nearby creeks and swamps, but mainly he
worked them around the farm. To avoid those tougher hours, Coach began playing
football at East Central High. He was a good lineman until he shredded a knee
during a kickoff return in practice. He then set his eyes on coaching. After
graduating high school he earned a teaching degree from the University of
Southern Mississippi in 1967. Only one course focused on football's Xs and Os.
His first contract paid him $4,800 to coach junior high sports and teach a
science class and drivers ed. He worked the shipyard during summers.
Over the next few
years he moved around to several schools -- young assistants often do -- but
was always soaking up football: memorizing playbooks, diagramming other
coaches' plays and emulating his idol, Bear Bryant, whose book, "Building
a Championship Football Team," he found and studied. Eventually, he became
head coach at Vancleave High, a school not far from his hometown. He won some
games and sometimes faced Hancock North Central, a team coached by his friend
Irvin Favre, father to Brett. Vancleave's success over seven seasons led North
Forrest High to offer Coach a job in 1980. He wasn't interested in making the
move, but a young assistant on his staff talked him into taking over the losing
program.
The school had gone through five
coaches in four years. School board members half-joked that the kids just
couldn't win. Coach told his new assistants -- a retired Vietnam vet volunteer
and the shop class teacher -- that they were not going to talk about winning or
losing with the players. He didn't want that on their minds. He only wanted
them thinking about surviving practices, which Coach scripted into hell. He
strung three weeks of two-a-days together. He put the lineman through metal
chutes and up against sleds he stood on. At the end of practices he made them
run eight sprints, which he said meant two for each quarter, and when they
finished he would scream, "Overtime!" and make them run two more.
Some left. The ones
that stayed suffered. Coach had a pickup truck the staff used to haul spent
players to the old field house, a cinderblock hut where players lifted weights
and where the coaching staff had offices. They cooled the players off, then
hauled them back to the field.
He instilled the
idea of "team" -- each person was a cog in the wheel and it took
everyone to make it roll.The first season wasn't pretty but the team won five
games and surprised Eatonville. It did not surprise Coach, who felt he could have
won more. He did the same thing to the team the following year, building around
the nucleus of players who survived the first season. Again, the team won five
games but the following season they won eight games and kept winning. His
reputation grew.
Coach was like most
men and women who choose to coach -- eccentric, set in his ways, self-assured
-- nothing grand to his approach. He was heavy on inspirational quotes and
believed hard work could be a person's saving grace. He walked the sidelines
urging boys with last names like Keene, Lott, Gaddis, Stewart, Hill and
Harrelson to be better than they were and to trust one another. He instilled
the idea of "team" -- each person was a cog in the wheel and it took
everyone to make it roll. Rules were laid down to be followed.
A decade in, his
wife left and he ended up living alone in a single-wide trailer on North
Forrest's campus. His front door was 20 yards from the field house. Football,
always huge in his life, became one of the only things in his life. He would go
home and eat alone and at dusk walk back to the field house, maybe wash
jerseys, maybe cut the field's grass, maybe watch game film in the dark.
A shy man, he came
across awkward in social situations. Physically, he was unremarkable. If a
teacher at North Forrest interested teenage girls, it was not Coach, a stocky,
bow-legged middle-aged man with pasty skin and a comb over. Behind his back at
practices, players mocked the wide-brimmed straw hat he wore to protect himself
from the sun. The standard-issue, cotton coaching shorts that stopped four
inches above his kneecaps did him no favors either.
On the field beneath the lights, he
was intense. He cursed under his breath. He held a laminated piece of paper in
his hands listing formations and hypothetical situations. He rotated wide
receivers in and out with plays. He leaned in close to helmets, close to
players' ears, his hand gripping the inside edge of a shoulder pad hard,
barking out the call like a wartime declaration.
This was his life.
He was dedicated. He put together a career record of 227-77. The community
revered him, not just for his wins, but also for his losses. No defeat was
simple. With every re-telling each became more mythic.
The community
revered him, not just for his wins, but also for his losses. There was the
playoff game against undefeated Stone County that North Forrest lost in
overtime when the kicker missed an extra-point and the playoff game against
rival Bassfield, the year Coach believed his team had state championship talent.
Late in the game, on the road with a little lead, he called for a
"Set-Pass Double-Pass," a trick play he had saved all season and had
his team practice again and again: the quarterback threw the ball to a wide
receiver, who then threw it down the field. But the receiver who threw the ball
missed his man, open in the endzone, and Bassfield came from behind to win.
Then there was the
game against Raleigh that could have sent North Forrest to the championship
game. North Forrest lost 28-27 because the kicker missed three extra-points and
a 30-yard field goal at the end of regulation. Coach never won a state
championship.
It was around that time, during the boy's eighth grade
year, that the news began being whispered between students: his mother and
Coach were an item. Someone saw them at a barbecue restaurant, someone saw them
riding in Coach's Toyota. The boy questioned his mother. She denied it. With
each denial, the boy grew to dislike Coach. He spent time alone in his room
brooding about the ridiculous, pudgy man with no personality who lived in a
trailer beside the field house.
The following summer the boy saw
signs that the rumors were true -- his mother called Coach to kill a snake in
their front yard -- but he learned it for certain when he discovered that the
video tapes the coaching staff was using were the same tapes his parents had
taken of him as a boy. No teenager should have to sit in a football film room
with his teammates watching game footage on VHS while images of his
eight-year-old self playing with his pet goose flash in scratchy splices across
the screen.
A bitter chip
landed on his shoulder. He became defiant and made his mother's life difficult.
Finally, exhausted, she sent him across the county to live with his father.
That's when he quit
football, trying to become invisible.He had worshipped his father. Now his
father had a new wife, a new home, a new job. It was a life he didn't recognize.
Instead of finding himself again under his father's roof, the boy became
untethered from his family, a fractured unit that argued about divvying up his
holiday time.
That's when he quit
football, trying to become invisible. Then his mother became engaged to Coach
and people's eyes, when looking at him, saw a Coach's son. He didn't want that.
At a house party one weekend a cheerleader called him "Little
Waltman" in a crowded room. Without saying a word, he walked out.
He made a decision:
he would not call the man "Coach," like everyone in Eatonville did.
He would call him "Alton." He despised the man and in every way felt
unlike the football coach who was now his stepfather. He had never pointed a
gun at a deer. He was discovering Kerouac. He read stories about Ginsberg
touring with Dylan. He toyed with being a vegetarian and listened to obscure
music. His Mercury had a "Free Tibet" sticker on the back glass.
The wedding was on a Saturday afternoon inside Trinity
Episcopal Church in Hattiesburg. The boy, now a young man, gave his mother
away to "Alton" at her request. He walked the aisle, her arm in his,
smiling in a tuxedo. Inside, he seethed.
During his senior year he left his
father's house during a loud, petty argument. His mother and "Alton"
let him into their home. Their yellow house in the country with pecan trees and
azaleas in the yard was their first purchase as a married couple. By then the
young man's efforts to become invisible had brought in anorexia and his
six-foot, one-inch frame weighed a frail 140 pounds and the hair on his head
thinned out.
He graduated high
school and bounced around, not ready. He kept quitting colleges and jobs. He
saw his former football teammates at the rare social functions he attended,
heard their stories of flourishing careers and new relationships and felt
envious. With each of his own failures, he went back to his mother and Alton's
home angrier than the last time he left. Alton, who retired from coaching,
tried to reach the young man by inviting him on fishing trips, trying to
discuss football games with him, even gently siding with him in the numb
moments that came after the young man had screaming matches with his mother.
The young man
searched for five years and couldn't find anything, blaming everyone but himself.
The young man's animosity only deepened. He held the tiniest things against
Alton. He was talking about Faulkner once when Alton jokingly questioned the
Nobel Prize winner's sexual preference -- the young man didn't speak to him for
a week. During a conversation with his brother-in-law, Alton referred to the
young man as a hippie -- the young man overheard him and made an uncomfortable
scene, denying it and accusing Alton of being out of touch. Watching a game
show one evening, Alton said if he was ever a contestant on the show and needed
help with an opera question, he would call the young man for advice -- he took
the comment as an insult, and sulked for a month.
The young man searched for five years
and couldn't find anything, blaming everyone but himself. While his more
successful peers were buying homes in Eatonville and starting families, his
mother had to cosign on his apartment lease and his father kept his health
insured. Alton suggested he marry and move into a double-wide trailer of his
own.
When he was 22 the young man felt he
had one more chance to salvage the wreckage of his own life. He moved alone to
Mississippi's opposite end and enrolled in college a last time. The struggle
broke him a little but scraping toward a degree, he got his footing and stood
on his own for the first time since his father had left.
In introspective moments he found
himself seeing Alton differently. He recognized that each time he walked away
Alton, again and again, had let him back into the new life he had begun with
the young man's mother, a life the couple had earned, when the young man had
earned nothing. He had always mocked Alton's profession, belittling coaching
high school football as a way to spend a life. But now, alone at 24, the young
man realized that Alton at the same age was married and two years into the
career that would define him. He suddenly admired the man for pinning himself
to a place and a profession and, through hard work, succeeding.
The young man found something that
stirred his heart and set out to make a career of it. When he came home, he
stood on the back porch with Alton and they grilled meals side by side. They
sometimes rode to high school football games together. Instead of icy silence, there
was quiet talk between friends. By the time the young man left Mississippi to
work in Wyoming, Alton drove two days across the country with his stepson to
help move him in. The next year they vacationed together at Yellowstone
National Park. Alton brought fly-fishing rods, taught the young man to cast,
and they stood side-by-side casting while their wives watched.
Coach was like most
men and women who choose to coach -- eccentric, set in his ways, self-assured
-- nothing grand to his approach. He was heavy on inspirational quotes and
believed hard work could be a person's saving grace. He walked the sidelines
urging boys with last names like Keene, Lott, Gaddis, Stewart, Hill and
Harrelson to be better than they were and to trust one another. He instilled
the idea of "team" -- each person was a cog in the wheel and it took
everyone to make it roll. Rules were laid down to be followed.
A decade in, his
wife left and he ended up living alone in a single-wide trailer on North
Forrest's campus. His front door was 20 yards from the field house. Football,
always huge in his life, became one of the only things in his life. He would go
home and eat alone and at dusk walk back to the field house, maybe wash
jerseys, maybe cut the field's grass, maybe watch game film in the dark.
A shy man, he came
across awkward in social situations. Physically, he was unremarkable. If a
teacher at North Forrest interested teenage girls, it was not Coach, a stocky,
bow-legged middle-aged man with pasty skin and a comb over. Behind his back at
practices, players mocked the wide-brimmed straw hat he wore to protect himself
from the sun. The standard-issue, cotton coaching shorts that stopped four
inches above his kneecaps did him no favors either.
On the field beneath the lights, he
was intense. He cursed under his breath. He held a laminated piece of paper in
his hands listing formations and hypothetical situations. He rotated wide
receivers in and out with plays. He leaned in close to helmets, close to
players' ears, his hand gripping the inside edge of a shoulder pad hard,
barking out the call like a wartime declaration.
This was his life.
He was dedicated. He put together a career record of 227-77. The community
revered him, not just for his wins, but also for his losses. No defeat was
simple. With every re-telling each became more mythic.
The community
revered him, not just for his wins, but also for his losses. There was the
playoff game against undefeated Stone County that North Forrest lost in
overtime when the kicker missed an extra-point and the playoff game against
rival Bassfield, the year Coach believed his team had state championship talent.
Late in the game, on the road with a little lead, he called for a
"Set-Pass Double-Pass," a trick play he had saved all season and had
his team practice again and again: the quarterback threw the ball to a wide
receiver, who then threw it down the field. But the receiver who threw the ball
missed his man, open in the endzone, and Bassfield came from behind to win.
Then there was the
game against Raleigh that could have sent North Forrest to the championship
game. North Forrest lost 28-27 because the kicker missed three extra-points and
a 30-yard field goal at the end of regulation. Coach never won a state
championship.
It was around that time, during the boy's eighth grade
year, that the news began being whispered between students: his mother and
Coach were an item. Someone saw them at a barbecue restaurant, someone saw them
riding in Coach's Toyota. The boy questioned his mother. She denied it. With
each denial, the boy grew to dislike Coach. He spent time alone in his room
brooding about the ridiculous, pudgy man with no personality who lived in a
trailer beside the field house.
The following summer the boy saw
signs that the rumors were true -- his mother called Coach to kill a snake in
their front yard -- but he learned it for certain when he discovered that the
video tapes the coaching staff was using were the same tapes his parents had
taken of him as a boy. No teenager should have to sit in a football film room
with his teammates watching game footage on VHS while images of his
eight-year-old self playing with his pet goose flash in scratchy splices across
the screen.
A bitter chip
landed on his shoulder. He became defiant and made his mother's life difficult.
Finally, exhausted, she sent him across the county to live with his father.
That's when he quit
football, trying to become invisible.He had worshipped his father. Now his
father had a new wife, a new home, a new job. It was a life he didn't recognize.
Instead of finding himself again under his father's roof, the boy became
untethered from his family, a fractured unit that argued about divvying up his
holiday time.
That's when he quit
football, trying to become invisible. Then his mother became engaged to Coach
and people's eyes, when looking at him, saw a Coach's son. He didn't want that.
At a house party one weekend a cheerleader called him "Little
Waltman" in a crowded room. Without saying a word, he walked out.
He made a decision:
he would not call the man "Coach," like everyone in Eatonville did.
He would call him "Alton." He despised the man and in every way felt
unlike the football coach who was now his stepfather. He had never pointed a
gun at a deer. He was discovering Kerouac. He read stories about Ginsberg
touring with Dylan. He toyed with being a vegetarian and listened to obscure
music. His Mercury had a "Free Tibet" sticker on the back glass.
The wedding was on a Saturday afternoon inside Trinity
Episcopal Church in Hattiesburg. The boy, now a young man, gave his mother
away to "Alton" at her request. He walked the aisle, her arm in his,
smiling in a tuxedo. Inside, he seethed.
During his senior year he left his
father's house during a loud, petty argument. His mother and "Alton"
let him into their home. Their yellow house in the country with pecan trees and
azaleas in the yard was their first purchase as a married couple. By then the
young man's efforts to become invisible had brought in anorexia and his
six-foot, one-inch frame weighed a frail 140 pounds and the hair on his head
thinned out.
He graduated high
school and bounced around, not ready. He kept quitting colleges and jobs. He
saw his former football teammates at the rare social functions he attended,
heard their stories of flourishing careers and new relationships and felt
envious. With each of his own failures, he went back to his mother and Alton's
home angrier than the last time he left. Alton, who retired from coaching,
tried to reach the young man by inviting him on fishing trips, trying to
discuss football games with him, even gently siding with him in the numb
moments that came after the young man had screaming matches with his mother.
The young man
searched for five years and couldn't find anything, blaming everyone but himself.
The young man's animosity only deepened. He held the tiniest things against
Alton. He was talking about Faulkner once when Alton jokingly questioned the
Nobel Prize winner's sexual preference -- the young man didn't speak to him for
a week. During a conversation with his brother-in-law, Alton referred to the
young man as a hippie -- the young man overheard him and made an uncomfortable
scene, denying it and accusing Alton of being out of touch. Watching a game
show one evening, Alton said if he was ever a contestant on the show and needed
help with an opera question, he would call the young man for advice -- he took
the comment as an insult, and sulked for a month.
The young man searched for five years
and couldn't find anything, blaming everyone but himself. While his more
successful peers were buying homes in Eatonville and starting families, his
mother had to cosign on his apartment lease and his father kept his health
insured. Alton suggested he marry and move into a double-wide trailer of his
own.
When he was 22 the young man felt he
had one more chance to salvage the wreckage of his own life. He moved alone to
Mississippi's opposite end and enrolled in college a last time. The struggle
broke him a little but scraping toward a degree, he got his footing and stood
on his own for the first time since his father had left.
In introspective moments he found
himself seeing Alton differently. He recognized that each time he walked away
Alton, again and again, had let him back into the new life he had begun with
the young man's mother, a life the couple had earned, when the young man had
earned nothing. He had always mocked Alton's profession, belittling coaching
high school football as a way to spend a life. But now, alone at 24, the young
man realized that Alton at the same age was married and two years into the
career that would define him. He suddenly admired the man for pinning himself
to a place and a profession and, through hard work, succeeding.
"You were right,
Coach, you were always right."
The young man found something that
stirred his heart and set out to make a career of it. When he came home, he
stood on the back porch with Alton and they grilled meals side by side. They
sometimes rode to high school football games together. Instead of icy silence, there
was quiet talk between friends. By the time the young man left Mississippi to
work in Wyoming, Alton drove two days across the country with his stepson to
help move him in. The next year they vacationed together at Yellowstone
National Park. Alton brought fly-fishing rods, taught the young man to cast,
and they stood side-by-side casting while their wives watched.
Alton still lives with his wife in
that yellow house with pecan trees in the yard outside of Hattiesburg. At
nearby Oak Grove High, Brett Favre, whose father Alton coached against on the
Gulf Coast for so many years, is an assistant. The Oak Grove coach who hired
Brett, Nevil Barr, is Alton's former assistant, still coaching 32 seasons after
talking Alton into taking the North Forrest job. Alton is approaching 70, more
than a decade removed from the sideline. He has mainly left the game behind.
North Forrest has had five coaches since he left.
The young man recently passed 30 and
has a life near the Atlantic Ocean. He feels pride in having been one of the
boys Alton coached, if only for two seasons. Sometimes in fall, watching a
football game, he remembers the end of his playing days. He sees himself at 16
sitting in Alton's office laughing at that warning about quitting. He shudders
at the memory and his pride is leveled by regret.
When that happens he wants to call
Alton and say he is sorry, and call him "Coach" again, and clear his
throat, and say, "You were right, Coach, you were always right."
But he's never made the call.
Instead, he wrote this story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Browning is a reporter in
Florida who has written about everything from the culinary offerings of Itta
Bena, Miss., to tracking down and finding a freed quadruple murderer riding a
tractor in an otherwise empty Wyoming field. He can be reached via Twitter
@wtbrowning.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Ryder Cup Karma
You reep what you sew. What goes around, comes around.
It's easy now to say I saw it coming, especially on Monday morning. But there was something just not right as the American team built their lead Friday and Saturday at Medinah. It was almost as if they were making putts just so they could lead a chorus of cheers, not to lead the Ryder Cup. George Willis, in this mornings New York Post, said "they played to the crowd instead of playing golf." If I didn't see it coming, I sure have seen it before. How many times have we all seen a football or basketball team jump out to a big lead and start playing to the crowd, only to have the lead vanish in the fourth quarter.
I guess I'm not speaking of everyone. But players like Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley and Bubba Watson were definitely playing to the crowd. Take Bubba Watson, the cheering routine on Friday on number one tee was kinda cool, but on Sunday he should have been all business. Instead he fell to Luke Donald 2&1. Simpson was handled by Poulter and McIlroy took care of Bradley without a warmup.
Jeez, who won matches Sunday? Johnson & Johnson and Duffner. Which three players appeared the least caught up in the cheering? Johnson & Johnson and Duffner.
I think there is a reason you don't celebrate too soon. A reason no one mentions the no hitter till its over. The Americans made everything Friday and Saturday. The Euros made nothing. Anyone who has ever played golf knows you never own it. You get hot, you ride it, knowing it may end at anytime. Look, Mickelson hit a great chip on 17, then Justin Rose knocked his long putt in. Bad luck for Phil. But Furyk and Stricker made a mess of 17 and 18. Karma? I just think Team USA could have, should have, been a little more humble in the early rounds. Respect the game and your opponent. By the way, whose caddie was waving the flag around on the green? Real classy.
It's easy now to say I saw it coming, especially on Monday morning. But there was something just not right as the American team built their lead Friday and Saturday at Medinah. It was almost as if they were making putts just so they could lead a chorus of cheers, not to lead the Ryder Cup. George Willis, in this mornings New York Post, said "they played to the crowd instead of playing golf." If I didn't see it coming, I sure have seen it before. How many times have we all seen a football or basketball team jump out to a big lead and start playing to the crowd, only to have the lead vanish in the fourth quarter.
I guess I'm not speaking of everyone. But players like Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley and Bubba Watson were definitely playing to the crowd. Take Bubba Watson, the cheering routine on Friday on number one tee was kinda cool, but on Sunday he should have been all business. Instead he fell to Luke Donald 2&1. Simpson was handled by Poulter and McIlroy took care of Bradley without a warmup.
Jeez, who won matches Sunday? Johnson & Johnson and Duffner. Which three players appeared the least caught up in the cheering? Johnson & Johnson and Duffner.
I think there is a reason you don't celebrate too soon. A reason no one mentions the no hitter till its over. The Americans made everything Friday and Saturday. The Euros made nothing. Anyone who has ever played golf knows you never own it. You get hot, you ride it, knowing it may end at anytime. Look, Mickelson hit a great chip on 17, then Justin Rose knocked his long putt in. Bad luck for Phil. But Furyk and Stricker made a mess of 17 and 18. Karma? I just think Team USA could have, should have, been a little more humble in the early rounds. Respect the game and your opponent. By the way, whose caddie was waving the flag around on the green? Real classy.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Kiffen Does Not Disappoint
I was quite interested to see the demeaner, body language, attitude and hear the choice of words Southern Cal Coach Lane Kiffen would use when facing the press following the Stanford-USC game. Kiffen did not disappoint.
A lot had been made of the 2012 Trojans, their high (overrated) preseason ranking and Heisman Trophy front runner. Matt Barkley himself led the mantra of "unfinished business" when speaking of the upcoming season. Those looking (hoping) for a challenger to end SEC dominance of the national championship crystal were hanging their hopes on USC. Following the total dominance the Cardinal displayed Saturday night Coach Kiffen began the press conference by stating he would not "point fingers" and then proceeded to call out both offensive and defensive line and his quarterback. So much for not pointing fingers.
If you don't think Kiffen is feeling the heat following Saturday's loss and the national implications, how about yesterday's press conference? 28 seconds. That's right, Lane walked out after 28 seconds. I know USC has a no comment on injury rule. Lane even had a reporter banned last week from practice for writing about an injury. (Wait he can't do that can he? An amendment or something about freedom of the press. No he can't do that.The writer was reinstated.) But yesterday started out so well. Lane gave an update, then it happened, an injury question and he was gone. Not "next question" or "no comment", just "I'm outta here."
Like I said, Kiffen does not disappoint.
A lot had been made of the 2012 Trojans, their high (overrated) preseason ranking and Heisman Trophy front runner. Matt Barkley himself led the mantra of "unfinished business" when speaking of the upcoming season. Those looking (hoping) for a challenger to end SEC dominance of the national championship crystal were hanging their hopes on USC. Following the total dominance the Cardinal displayed Saturday night Coach Kiffen began the press conference by stating he would not "point fingers" and then proceeded to call out both offensive and defensive line and his quarterback. So much for not pointing fingers.
If you don't think Kiffen is feeling the heat following Saturday's loss and the national implications, how about yesterday's press conference? 28 seconds. That's right, Lane walked out after 28 seconds. I know USC has a no comment on injury rule. Lane even had a reporter banned last week from practice for writing about an injury. (Wait he can't do that can he? An amendment or something about freedom of the press. No he can't do that.The writer was reinstated.) But yesterday started out so well. Lane gave an update, then it happened, an injury question and he was gone. Not "next question" or "no comment", just "I'm outta here."
Like I said, Kiffen does not disappoint.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Props to Big 10
I never thought I would think in terms of the Big 10 Conference as a leader in the world of college athletics but the recent move of Notre Dame to the ACC got me to thinking. In a Notre Dame perfect world their choice would probably be to compete in the Big 10 in all sports (sans football) and schedule a few games versus traditional opponents Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue, thus keeping in place their network TV deal and bowl agreement with the soon to be defunct BCS. That's why their initial conference move to the Big East was a head scratcher for me. Why would a conference want to have the Irish without their football commitment.
Today they announce their move to the Atlantic Coast Conference with a rotation of football games within the conference, but their not in the conference. I guess the ACC thought a little ND was better than none. How the Golden Domers still command this kind of attention is beyond me. It has been more than 20 years since they have had any impact on the national scene.
Which gets me to the point of the Big 10. My guess is the conference let it be known if you want in ND you must be all in! If that's the case, good for you Big 10.
So regionalism in college conferences is dying. At least every school in the SEC comes from a state that borders on another.
Today they announce their move to the Atlantic Coast Conference with a rotation of football games within the conference, but their not in the conference. I guess the ACC thought a little ND was better than none. How the Golden Domers still command this kind of attention is beyond me. It has been more than 20 years since they have had any impact on the national scene.
Which gets me to the point of the Big 10. My guess is the conference let it be known if you want in ND you must be all in! If that's the case, good for you Big 10.
So regionalism in college conferences is dying. At least every school in the SEC comes from a state that borders on another.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
NFL Season to Begin with Replacement Refs
Normally when they say its not about the money, its about the money. This time may be different. The nine billion dollar a year NFL is not as concerned about $160,000 official salaries going to $180,000 or even the pension issues the refs representatives brought to the table as they may be be about who holds the power. If a players strike did not stop league games from being played a few years ago, a work stoppage by officials had no shot at disrupting this season. The commissioner and owners are proving a point as to who holds the power.
Joson Whitlock on the Loose Cannons radio show yesterday said he saw bad calls all last season so he is not troubled by replacement refs. Another viewpoint is some players or teams will try to take advantage of inexperienced officials (Cheat? see Payton/Vilma). It seems after some checking there are some high school officials slated to call games this weekend. Mike Pereira Fox's NFL rules guy claims its difficult to find 100 qualified refs.
The reality is they only need 13 to 16 qualified rules experts. Put them in the booth with replay monitors and microphones to the field and proceed. They can direct field officials where top spot the ball, overrule bad calls and administer any 10 second runoffs everyone seems so concerned about. Actually, this may speed up the game since it would keep the referee out from under the hood!
Joson Whitlock on the Loose Cannons radio show yesterday said he saw bad calls all last season so he is not troubled by replacement refs. Another viewpoint is some players or teams will try to take advantage of inexperienced officials (Cheat? see Payton/Vilma). It seems after some checking there are some high school officials slated to call games this weekend. Mike Pereira Fox's NFL rules guy claims its difficult to find 100 qualified refs.
The reality is they only need 13 to 16 qualified rules experts. Put them in the booth with replay monitors and microphones to the field and proceed. They can direct field officials where top spot the ball, overrule bad calls and administer any 10 second runoffs everyone seems so concerned about. Actually, this may speed up the game since it would keep the referee out from under the hood!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)