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BACK ISSUES - DECEMBER, 2003

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS)  December 30, 2003 -  "Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words." St. Francis of Assisi     2003 CLINIC NEWS & SCENES : CHICAGO - ATLANTA TWIN CITIES   click here for info ----->>>>> <<<<<-----click here for info A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS HOPE YOU HAD A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HOPE YOU'LL HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR! THE "LEGACY" QUESTION WILL RETURN AFTER THE NEW YEAR *********** I'm just one person, but the next time somebody says, "Happy Holidays!" to me, I'm all over them. I'm going to say, as nicely as I can, "You know, I personally find that offensive." I'll bet if more of us would try that, we'd start hearing people say "Merry Christmas" once again. (Isn't fear of offending a small minority the reason why so many of these wimps are afraid to say it?) *********** It was tough enough making it through most of Saturday and all of Sunday with nothing but pro football - but then after all that waiting, to finally get a college game on the tube and have to watch Michigan State on offense was a dirty trick. Actually, it was like Chinese water torture. I liked the Spartans, but I must say I don't never object to seeing a pass-only team get its ass handed to it by a running team that can play a little defense. All in all, though, unless you're a Cornhusker - first boring bowl game I've seen. *********** "You can't cheat the game... you can't cheat the fans." Well said, by Brian Billick, after his Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers had finished slugging it out in overtime. Someone had asked him why he left Jamal Lewis in to play the entire game, even though the Ravens had their playoff spot locked up. Can't cheat the game, eh? Can't cheat the fans, eh? Well, what if you're the Denver Broncos? Then can you? Did anybody except staunch Packers fans stay to the end of that abortion of a game between Denver and Green Bay? If you made it to the fourth quarter, you saw Denver give up a 97-yard run, then immediately fumble the following kickoff into the end zone, giving away a pair of Green Bay touchdowns within the space of 10 or 15 seconds. "You can't cheat the game... you can't cheat the fans." Bad enough that the people who buy season ticket packages are forced to pay for exhibition (sorry -"pre-season") games in which - if they're lucky - the big names may play a quarter or two. Now, they're getting jobbed at the end of the season - Denver, its playoff spot already determined, held Jake Plummer and Shannon Sharpe (and who knows who else) out of action Sunday. And put on a performance unworthy of a league that takes great pride in calling itself competitive. "You can't cheat the game... you can't cheat the fans." They wouldn't have dared pull that crap in Denver - the stands would have been empty by game's end. But they didn't mind doing it in Green Bay, whose fans don't mind seeing their Packers win, no matter who the opponent is. But overlooked is the fact that the Broncos' miserable performance could have had a bearing on the playoff chances of some other teams who needed a Green Bay loss. "You can't cheat the game... you can't cheat the fans." So shouldn't the NFL fine Denver for cheating the game and cheating the fans? *********** Several times during the Steelers-Ravens game, the guys at ESPN urged us to vote for this year's MVP. To help us with our decision, they limited our choices to Todd Brady, Priest Holmes, Jamal Lewis, Payton Manning and Steve McNair. I guess that means I'll just have to cast a write-in vote for Ray Lewis. Because if I were putting an NFL team together, he'd be my first choice, hands down. Putting his past problems aside and focusing on the football, there is simply no player in the NFL who has the impact on the game - or on his team and teammates - that Ray Lewis does. In addition to all his incredible talent, he is an old-time football player in the best sense of the word. He plays hard all the time and never takes a play off. And he demands the same of his teammates (they wouldn't dare do less). He is one of the few guys in today's NFL that I believe the old-timers - the Bednariks and Nitschkes and Schmidts and Butkuses and Huffs - would recognize as one of their own. *********** Aaargh. I just had to watch "The Simple Life" to see what the hell all the fuss was about. For those of you who aren't aware, it's a so-called "Reality" show in which a couple of rich young city girls decide to have a little fun by going to the country and living with a farm family and doing farm chores and having some laughs at the expense of the local yokels. I think it's set someplace in Iowa (see, TV people all think Iowa is synonymous with hopelessly square) and although I suppose there are people in New York and Los Angeles who identify with the girls and think what a horrible place it is for them to be stuck in, and how funny all these farm people are, there are probably plenty more like me who think the joke's on the girls, and recognize that when you stick a couple of pampered little princesses who've never had to do an honest hour's work out there among real people who have to work for a living you get a demonstration of why we need spanking more than ever. Used to be, rich girls were well brought up, models of refinement and proper comportment, but jeez- what a couple of spoiled, coarse-behaving little bitches these two are. Suggestion for any aspiring rappers out there - you lookin' for some bitches and ho's to slap around? I've got a couple of 'em on a farm in Iowa that you're welcome to practice on. *********** Was Hawaii coach June Jones nuts or what? Leading Houston, 34-27 and in possession of the ball with under two minutes to play, he could have easily gotten out of there by staying on the ground and running straight ahead. But no... he had to pass. Incomplete. And then when Hawaii missed a field goal, Houston had enough time left to tie it up (it doesn't take a guy that long to go 80 yards) and send it into overtime. *********** That was a nasty fight (or series of fights) that broke out after the Houston-Hawaii game, and although it's possible that no one will ever know what started it, I have my suspicions. Bear in mind, that's all they are. But I looked at the replay on the PVR several times, and here's what I think I saw: The game ended with a Houston receiver going out of bounds on the Hawaii sideline. As the jubilant Hawaii subs raced onto the field to celebrate, I swear I saw at least one of them go by a dejected Houston player and in passing, turn and look him in the face - probably to say something. I'm guessing that it was not "Aloha." I'm guessing that it was an "in your face" taunt. This is conduct typical of so many "winners" nowadays. It doesn't seem enough any more just to win, and let your performance speak for itself. You somehow have to get a little something extra out of it, letting the other guy know that you have not only beaten him, but you have also emasculated him. Something like the Scythians, cruel ancient warriors who would toast their victories by drinking wine from the skulls of their vanquished enemies. With all the celebratory end zone dances of the pro buffoons, with guys displaying anger after scoring touchdowns, with all the idiot fans down on the field after games getting into the faces of opposing players and coaches, we are rapidly losing the ability to win with grace. We are confusing sport with war, and in the process we are becoming no better than Scythians. *********** I heard some TV guys talking about Eagles' running back Brian Westbrook as the greatest thing ever to come out of Villanova - footballwise, anyhow. Somebody jumped on that one and said, oh-ho-ho - forgetting Howie Long, are we? Now, Howie Long may be the greatest ever to come out of Villanova, but before we concede second place to Brian Westbrook, a second-year pro, there's a guy named Mike Siani, a receiver who had a nice nine-year career with the Raiders and Colts, from 1972-1980. He was named to the Sporting News college All-American team in 1971, and was the Raiders' first-round pick in 1972. For his career, he caught 158 passes for 2618 yards (16.6 yards per catch) and 17 TDs. In 1973, he ranked ninth in the NFL in receiving yards, with 742 on 45 catches (16.5 yards per catch). And behind Mike Siani I would put Al Atkinson, who played nine years at linebacker for the Jets, from 1966 through 1974, and started in the Jets' win over the Colts in Super Bowl III. I'm sure there are more, but that's all I'm good for at the moment. Maybe there's a Villanova guy out there who can help. *********** The Cal-Virginia Tech game, between two non-BCS teams neither of which would have made it into a playoff if there's been one, was a great college football game. True, it was decided by a field goal, which I hate, but bear in mind that Virginia Tech's kicker missed three field goals, and Cal's kicker, the one who made the game winner, had missed five in a row until that one. That's sort of the excitement you'd have if they'd adopt my suggested rule change, and make it illegal for any player to kick the ball in any way more than once per game. *********** Quick question... USC has lost only to Cal - in double overtime. So now that Cal has beaten Virginia Tech... does USC get extra BCS points? What about Hawaii over Houston? What about Oregon State over New Mexico? Has anybody on LSU's "stronger" schedule done anything yet? *********** I watched the entire Cal-Virginia Tech game and not once did I hear any mention of the fact that Cal receiver Burl Toler, who made several key catches, was the grandson and namesake of the great Burl Toler. Burl Toler's Legacy - May 13, 2003 *********** A bowl trip to Charlotte may seem a little dull, without trips to the beach or some Disney them park. But that's not the way it turned out for certain Pitt and Virginia players. See, Charlotte's a Nascar town, and players were offered to chance to take a "ride" around Lowe's Motor Speedway - in a race car, at 160+ miles an hour. Not all players went for the idea. "I don't know," said Virginia defensive end Kwakou Robinson. "It seems kind of crazy to me." Pitt's wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald was one of those who gave it a go, but he said that once he got underway, he wasn't sure it was such a great idea, either. "I hit that first turn and I was like - they tell me nobody's ever gotten in an accident here and I know damn sure I don't want to be the first one," he said. But afterward, climbing out of the car's window, he pulled off his crash helmet and, grinning widely, told reporters, "That was great! Heck of a lot more exciting than scoring touchdowns!" *********** The broadcast crew of the Pitt-Virginia game - and Pitt alum Mark May back in the studio - went on and on about Pitt's seeming reluctance to go to Larry Fitzgerald. Can they all be that ignorant? Can it be that not one of them understands that you can take a wide receiver - even the best one in the country - out of the picture? Not so with a great quarterback. Or with a great runner. You can't take them out of it. They are dominant players who will produce no matter what you do. And that is why I argue that if the Heisman is supposed to be awarded to a dominant player, it can't ever go to a wide receiver. *********** Now, I like to watch teams run the ball, and I hate to see them go into shotgun on fourth-and-three. But Pitt (excuu-u-u-use me - "Pittsburgh") had first-and-goal on the Virginia one. Pitt smashed into the line four times, without success. Uh, Coach Harris... wasn't that Larry Fitzgerald out there? *********** One of the activities leading up to the Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte was a band competition between the opposing schools, Pitt(sburgh) and Virginia. Slight problem, though - Virginia had to use a local high school band as a stand-in. That's because Virginia does not have a marching band, and its pep band, not officially sanctioned by the university, is no longer welcome at school events. Not after last year's Continental Tire Bowl, when Virginia played West Virginia. Perhaps you will recall the ruckus that ensued, after the pep band's halftime show portrayed West Virginians as hillbillies. Sheesh. Those spoiled punks were lucky they didn't get dismembered right out there on the field. Later, not wanting to pass up a chance to showboat for a few votes, West Virginia's governor publicly demanded an apology from UVa's president. He got it. *********** Good for Pam Ward. She knew how to pronounce "Schuylkill." Pitt had a defensive lineman, Vince Crochunis, from Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania. I happen to know the town well. It's in the so-called Coal Regions of Northeastern Pennsylvania, in the heart of Schuylkill County, whose county seat is Pottsville. Those of you who have heard the story of the Pottsville Maroons and their vacated NFL title understand that football is important in these parts. Back in the days when I played - and then coached - minor league football, the scourge of our league was a team called the Schuylkill Coal Crackers, which played its home games in area towns such as St. Clair and Minersville. (People from the area used to take a certain amount of pride in being called Coal Crackers. Maybe they still do, although the anthracite coal mines are pretty much played out now, and people in the big cities of the East have long since switched over from hard coal to oil or gas to heat their homes.) In the third game I ever coached, we travelled up to Schuylkill County from Hagerstown, Maryland and got hammered, 66-0. (No mercy rule in the coal regions.) Fortunately, we got better, and got to where we had some epic battles with them. One of their players, a Pottsville kid named Jack Dolbin who'd played his college ball at Wake Forest, went on to have a decent career as a wide receiver with the Denver Broncos. Anyhow - Pam Ward did her homework. She knew how to pronounce Schuylkill. (It's "SKOO-kull" - I think it's a Dutch word.) *********** Got to like Virginia's Al Groh, who signed off his post-game interview with "Happy New Year - God Bless America!" *********** Speaking of passing on fourth-and-short, I just got finished watching the San Francisco 49ers throw incomplete. On fourth-and-one. With a minute to play. Game over. Seahawks win. Good God! The announcers called it a "gutty win" for the Seahawks. I called it a dumbshit loss by the 49ers. What - they don't have pro-calibre running backs on NFL rosters anymore? *********** I sort of like Donovan McNabb, but he sure lost me when he scored against the Redskins and, instead of just doing the class thing, went into an exaggerated dance, one worthy of a wide receiver. On the same day that Otto Graham was being buried. McNabb's celebration was so over the top, so unbecoming an an athlete of his stature, that it occured to me that perhaps he was being paid to do it by the folks at EA sports so they could film it and then incorporate it into Madden 2005. *********** Call me racist - I can deal with it, if this is what people think makes you a racist - but I think large mops of hair hanging out from under a helmet and dangling down the back of a guy's jersey looks repulsive. *********** Some jerk of a former sports information director at Oregon wrote in to the Portland Oregonian today to say that there are too many "meaningless" bowl games. Now, it just happens to be Sunday, a day when there is no bowl game on, not even a meaningless one, and therefore, with only the NFL on there is no football worth watching, so I have time to write this: Buddy, no one is making you watch. Look at all the exciting players and teams that we wouldn't have seen without these so-called "minor" bowls - Miami (O), Houston, Hawaii, Bowling Green, Cal - and tell me we have too many meaningless bowl games. Yeah, and watch all those happy kids after winning one of those meaningless bowl games, and tell me we need a playoff. *********** Is there a better "mascot" in all of sports than Hawaii's island warrior guy? When he stares into the camera and says "Bring it on!" I look at him and think, "Hang loose, bruddah. I got no problem with you." *********** I don't know one musician or musical group from another, but they had this guy on the Cal sideline, a guy named Adam Duritz, who I'm told is a member of a group called Counting Crows. Apparently he had something to say to the Cal team earlier in the season that helped inspire the Bears to hand USC its only loss. So what, exactly, did you tell them? he was asked. He replied, "Told 'em to whip their ass." *********** Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. ESPN might keep this in mind the next time it mikes up an NFL player. The one I listened to on Sunday had obviously managed to slip past elementary, middle and high school teachers, not to mention a college professor or two, without running into a single one with the stones to teach him to speak correctly. I cringed on behalf of English speakers everywhere when I heard him scream at his teammates before the game: "We like a pack o' wolves that ain't ate!" It gets better. This fool, a defensive end, kept running off his mouth, and even after being decked by a blocker his wuffin' continued. It was hilarious - there he was, flat on his back, down for the count, and still hollering, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE ME!" I was reminded of the scene from Monty Python's "The Holy Grail," in which the Black Knight refuses to let King Arthur pass. "None... shall... pass!" he intones. Arthur says that he's not looking for a quarrel, but he must get past. "Then.. you.. shall... die," says the Black Knight. Reluctantly, Arthur engages him in a battle of swords, and although the Black Knight is nowhere near the swordsman King Arthur is, he nevertheless keeps up the false front, jabbering throughout their duel. As Arthur chops his limbs off, one after another, until he is a quadruple amputee, the Black Knight never shuts up: "I've had worse... A mere flesh wound... " ("YOU CAN'T HANDLE ME!") *********** Really impressed by the Harrises, a young married couple from Bowling Green. Josh was the Falcons' quarterback, and a heck of an athlete. Tammi, his wife, is an Ohio State grad and a former Big Ten high jump champ. I just liked the things they said about their faith, and I really liked hearing the things Josh said after the Falcons' win over Bowling Green. All he could talk about was the team and his teammates. *********** Maybe some day someone will tell me why some of these guys look so angry after scoring a touchdown. *********** Hugh, hope you had a good Christmas/ The family and I had a great one and I enjoyed the post game brawl in Hawaii. Anyway got a phone call from a frantic mother of one of my former ball players who plays at the U of Idaho. He was driving his mom from Moscow to Seattle this morning and just outside of Othello, Washington they hit black ice and and rolled into a ditch/ he was ejected from the truck and was hurt pretty bad. He had to be life flighted to Spokane. The good news is he will live/ being 6' 3" and 265 does have it's adavantages. In fact I spoke with him on the phone from his hospital room and he told me he screwed up by not wearing a seat belt/ of course my wife ripped his ass/ he has 2 cracked vertebrae/ numbers 7 and 8 / so the next 2 to 3 days will be touch and go whether he has surgery. He told me if he has surgery his playing days are done. I told him keep the faith and you will be fine. Just do what the doc tells you. It is tough, he is like a son to me and he considers me to be like his father. His dad and mom split at an early age and I just happened to fill in for what he needed in the way of a male role model. I just hope he can return to playing and if not a normal life. He started on the d-line this year as a red shirt freshman. Sh--, I just hope I don't get one of these calls from one of my own sons. Well I got some praying to do. Take care. Mike Foristiere, Boise, Idaho (The young man's name is Andrew Stobart. He is in Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, where he underwent surgery on Monday. His e-mail address is vandalstobart@hotmail.com . Take a minute to write him. Mike says the kid is scared, which is understandable, and it would mean a lot to him and his mom to hear from some of you. HW) *********** Coach Keith Lehne writes, from Grantsburg, Wisconsin... Coach Wyatt, I hope that you had a Merry Christmas. I have a few things I wanted to write you about recently but haven't had time. I was unable to watch all of the St. John's game as I was looking after my two little girls ages 3 and 1. No one told me that being a father meant you would never be able to watch an entire game again. It is certainly worth it and I would give up any highlight for time with my girls but here is my question. I thought that St. John's won the toss and elected to defer, so they kicked off to start the game. I thought they also kicked off to start the second half. St. John's had the wind in the 3rd Quarter. I never heard anyone talk about this and haven't read anything in the St. Paul paper about it but if I have things right isn't this an odd decision by St. John's. I am certainly not questioning Coach Gagliardi but m looking for some insight. My thought was that St. John's knew they could stop them and wanted to go on D to force them to punt into the wind. This would give them great field position and allow them to put the game away in the third quarter. I recall my wife asking me about this, and my answer was that as strong as that wind was, they chose to have it at their back in the third quarter because with a strong wind in your face you can get in a hole and stay there for an entire period, and by the time you change ends, you're out of the game. As well as they were playing on defense, I thought it was a shrewd move. I saw an interview with Coach Haslett in which he said Joe Horn was wrong. Why not bench him for the game if he was wrong and dishonored his team and the game? I know the answer to that question but I was so pissed when I saw that I wanted someone to knock him out of the game. I do have a solution and that is to start fining and suspending not only the players but the coaches. If the coaches refuse to do their own discipline and rely on the league then they are just as guilty as the player. Jim Haslett's timid response was typical of NFL coaches because he is in the same boat as most NFL coaches - essentially he keeps his job at the pleasure of his players. That means you have to be very careful not to piss them off. Look at the outrage that Calahan provoked when he said the Raiders were (gasp!) a stupid team. ("Waah! He said we were stupid!") For that, the ever-loyal Charles Woodson really got on his case. If you piss off a star, sooner or later one of you will have to go, and it's probably going to be the coach - the way owners are these days, they are either afraid that they won't be able to replace the star as easily as they can replace the coach or, worse, they are such hopeless jocksniffers that the players soon learn that they can take their grievances directly to them. That's why it was so refreshing to see the Bucs tell Keyshaun ("Give me the Damn Ball") Johnson to take a hike. But it's only a bandaid on the wound, because Keyshaun will be some other coach's problem next year. This is where Bill Parcells has such an edge - he's at the point where he can pretty much insist on complete control in these matters, so no player dares to give him any sh--.) I read a book about two weeks ago (about De La Salle) and thought it was very good. I didn't know much about the program but I had seen a few stories recently about them. I am guessing you are familiar with it. It is about the De La Salle team in California and its 150 game winning streak. In the book it talks about De La Salle having to play a team that runs the double wing. The author calls it a "dinosaur offense" and describes how it is meant control the ball and eat up the clock with long drives. I thought I would use the dinosaur idea to sell the offense to some of our less than enthusiastic fans. My pitch is something like this- It is a dinosaur of an offense but we're going to run it until I am extinct. That "dinosaur" would have been Ygnacio Valley, coached by Tim Murphy, which, if I am not mistaken, gave DLS one of the toughest games in their long streak. Coach Murphy, incidentally, has since taken the dinosaur south to Clovis East High, in the Fresno area, where this year he went 12-1, winning the CIF Central Section title, the equivalent of a state title in most places. One of Clovis East's conquests this year was Long Beach Poly, noted for producing more NFL players than any other US high schools. Long Beach is notoriously tough to beat at home, but that's exactly what East did. *********** Lansingburgh, New York High's senior running back Kareem Jones was named Offensive Player of the Year by the Albany Times Union. Kareem rushed for 200 yards on seven occasions, with a personal one-game best of 342 yards, and his career total of 6092 yards broke the previous record of 4989 held by Leroy Collins, who played at Louisville. Kareem, 6, 205, will play at Syracuse next season. *********** Now that 56 D-IA teams are involved in bowls, it pretty much seems as if the sponsors of certain "All-Star" games, which don't have access to the players from bowl teams, have been mailing out invitations to small colleges addressed "To Whom it May Concern". But anyhow, they invite these guys, and it's supposed to be a big honor for them to represent their schools, blah, blah, blah. They even wear their schools' helmets, loaned to them for the game. And then, to honor their schools, the first thing those guys do is clutter their helmets with decals from assorted other schools? *********** While many graduates of the United States Naval Academy have defend us and our rights overseas, the ACLU has been fighting for our rights here at home. Or so it would have us believe. The ACLU, which you would think was already plenty busy defending the supposed rights of terrorists, drug dealers, convicted criminals and porn merchants, has managed to fit the US Naval Academy onto its agenda. Since the Academy's founding, a voluntary lunchtime prayer has been a tradition. Aha - not much longer, if the ACLU has anything to say about it. Stay tuned. *********** If there were such an award, I would nominate Paul Smith, head coach at Bullard-Havens Tech High of Bridgeport, Connecticut as my Black Lion High School Coach of the Year - the guy who did the most with the least to provide a football experience for his boys. Bullard-Havens, an inner-city school in a rundown industrial city, has been down for years. This time last year, the school was contemplating shutting down the football program, and without his stepping up to coach, Bullard-Havens might not have had a team this year. It would be nice to say that Coach Smith and his boys made it to the state playoffs, but they did not. They did win one game, and they came close in some others. What they did do was make it to their team banquet. Sort of. I'll let Coach Smith explain. Hi Coach. As Freshman coach the last few years I gave out Tee shirts and things, but our school hasn't had a "sports banquet" for about 8 years. You're a bit familiar with our situation here. We have minimal to no support from our students, faculty and administrators, and our "athletic director" doesn't like to make waves asking for things. The coaches and I had our OWN FOOTBALL BANQUET this Friday. I invited only players, coaches, and one family of 4 former Tech players and their parents who supported our team wholeheartedly this year. It wasn't much - Just pizza and soda, but I wanted to give them some positive feedback soon. I began with "honors athlete" awards - anyone at our school who can make the honor roll during football season, especially with the strong pressure from their peers to "push down rather than pull up", deserves special recognition. I gave a "Scholar Athlete" award to the highest GPA, who incidently was Marcus Reardon, one of our captains, and recipient of the "Black Lion Award". I saved the Black Lion award for last. I spread out the wealth a bit, and gave several MVP awards. Offense, Defense, Off.Line, Def.Line, Special Teams, and a Coach's Award. And finally, I told the team that the ultimate MVP was the "Black Lion Award". I read the certificate to the group and asked them to guess who it went to. I had a special Black Lion trophy made up that looked different than the other "MVP" awards. They all knew it was Marcus Reardon when I said ". . . he might have made All-American again, but his coach asked him to change positions for the team's sake." (Marcus was asked to switch back from fullback to left tackle). I've encouraged him to think about what he wants to say to Holleder's family in a letter. The Family that supported us all year made booklets with clippings and pictures from the season and gave it to all the players. We gave them Tee shirts, a gift certificate, and a coaching cap for the dad. Please sign me up again for the Black Lion award for the 2004 season. (Of course, that's assuming they graciously allow us to have a team next year.) Thank you again, Coach Wyatt. Merry Christmas, God Bless, and have a happy and healthy New Year! Paul Smith, Bullard-Havens Tech, Bridgeport, Connecticut *********** Coach Wyatt, I loved catching the Jonnies as they won this year's Natl Championship D111. I first heard about the school from some Yankee transplants who have become close friends. Tom and his wife have moved back to Minn. but I recalled our first conversation about football. Tom said he played for St Johns in the late 80's. Of course I thought he meant St Johns in NY. Boy I know differently now. Last year our school hired a married couple from Michigan to teach Spanish and PE. Coach "H" is our db coach and calls plays for our B team. He also played for a Div III school and has a Nat'l championship ring too. If Santa could give me any present and put it under my tree this is what I want. An extra point should be kicked by the player who scores the touchdown. Basketball requires the player who is fouled to take foul shots, why not make the guy who scores kick too? Just some food for thought. I'll be looking forward to making your next clinic in Atlanta in the spring. "Merry Chistmas" Dan King Evans, Georgia (Hey - Not all of us Yankees are "Metrosexuals From Montpelier," as I've heard Howard Dean referred to in a parody of "Okie From Muskogee." Some of us actually go outdoors and play football (between outdoor soccer in the summer and indoor soccer in the winter). I'd go along with the rules change on PAT's, although I will continue to push for a rule that says no player may kick - punt or place-kick - more than once a game. HW) *********** "I started reading your news today and I got to the part of the prostitution ring in Redondo Beach and the Soccer mom types and I couldn't stop laughing. Geez maybe it was some type of fundraiser or something." Mike Foristiere- Boise, Idaho  *********** An NFL one-act mini-drama... (SCENE:Buffalo, New York - It's two days before the final game and the Bills' coaches are meeting after practice) HEAD COACH: So why was Ruben Brown late to practice today? OFFENSIVE LINE COACH: Uh, he slept late. HC: Huh?!?! We practice in the afternoon! OLC: That's what his agent said. Said that after the season we've had, Ruben's just been so unhappy, so depressed - so "despondent" - that he just couldn't get himself up out of bed. HC: Well, I'll be darned! The poor guy! Here I was, worrying about getting a team ready, and I never knew one of our players was in such pain! Why didn't he tell us? Well, the last thing we want to do now, with him in that condition, is make him go with the team to New England, because everybody knows the Patriots are going to whip our ass, and that'll just make the poor guy even more despondent. I say we leave him home. But we won't suspend him - that way he can stay home and watch the game on TV, and he'll still get paid. *********** Coach, I was looking at your list of teams in the playoffs and we made it again this year(this make 3 out of 4 since running the DBL Wing). We ended 7-4 and Regional runner-up in Kansas. Have a Merry Christmas. Mike Beam, Rock Creek H.S. (Addition made. HW) *********** Your remark about NFL films and the "mole eye" view reminded me of a scene from an NFL Films game review I saw many years ago. The announcer is telling us that the Washington QB is facing a fierce rush. He can barely get the pass off and only a miraculous effort by the receiver allows the completion. What did we actually see? We saw a hand push the football into the air, the ball S-L-O-W-L-Y spinning, spinning, the crowd in the background. Finally, after an eternity, the ball comes down and we see two hands -Yes! Two Hands! - reaching up to grab the ball. THAT'S IT! Awful! Charlie Wilson, Seminole, Florida *********** Hugh, I just checked with the Northview High School Football team in Dothan Alabama this year and noticed that they were 0-12. Remember we talked last year about the big time college coach from Alabama (Mike Dubose) that went there in the place of a very successful Double Wing Coach??? He went 0-12 and now they have a new coach it seems who is also 0-12. When the Double Wing left Northview, It left behind a very loud sucking noise (as Ross Perot used to say). They were probably bored with the double wing. I wonder how long it will take them to be bored with 0-12. Larry Harrison, Snellville, Georgia (boring double wing coach) (Some people would rather lose than be bored. The guy I feel happy for is Emory Latta, who got the shaft at Northview two years ago. Two subsequent 0-12 seasons after his leaving out to have convinced people that he wasn't too bad a coach after all. Last I heard he was coaching at nearby Daleville, Alabama, where he told me he was both happy and appreciated. For the record, he is the last Northview coach to have won a football game. HW) *********** Coach Wyatt, I wanted to send you Christmas Greetings. I just finished your News page. I loved your Christmas wish list. I REALLY enjoyed the article by Jay Price. Excellent article, and every point was right on. In my little world Keyshaun is the biggest loser, I'll take a butter bar from West Point any day! Bill Murphy, Chicago *********** Call me crazy but Denny Creehan should apply for the Atlanta Falcons O coordinator position. Think about it - they have the perfect personell to run it Duckett at FB, Dunn at TB, Griffith at WB, Crumpler at TE, Price at WR - and let's not forget VICK at QB. Just imagine the effect of misdirection with Vick's running and throwing ability. We all know the great thing about the Wing T is if you stop one aspect of it you compromise the others and all three of atlanta's RBs I listed are good blockers and runners. Arthur Blank,being a relatively new owner with progressive ideas, might consider it if the package can be presented well enough. Gary Burch, Yorktown, Virginia PS: did you see the Bears run some wing t plays against the skins this week, it was out of the I but it was wing T principles. (Frankly, being out of work at Christmas time - the whole Army staff having been let go - I am pulling hard for Denny to get a good job anywhere! HW) *********** Boy, I'd be an option coach, too, if they'd just let my tackles "reach" block by wrestling people to the ground the way TCU's did. They were so expert at it that just you know it's being taught. *********** Coach.  I was just reading your news section and one of your readers needs to be corrected.  St.  Johns didn't say they didn't practice tackling.  They just don't take anyone to the ground in practice.  The announcers even said that during the game.  I coach at Kalamazoo College and we follow the same philosophy there.  All we did was finish #1 in Total Defense,  Scoring Defense and Rushing Defense and #2 in Passing Defense in our league and we were ranked in the top 25 in Rushing Defense in the Nation.  You see,   although you would not like to see anyone hurt,  If it's going to be anyone it should be your opponent.  Not your own team. Coach Mike Hause, Kalamazoo, Michigan (That would be me who needed correction, and that explains everything. I never believe in taking the ball carrier to the ground, either. I think you can get all the tackling practice you need by staying on your feet, and St. Johns - and Kalamazoo - certainly prove that. HW) *********** Steve Jones, of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, down in Brett Favre country, was named South Mississippi Coach of the Year. (Tell that to the knuckleheads who've never even seen the Double-Wing but still insist that it won't work!) In his first year at Ocean Springs, Coach Jones took over a program that had been dormant for years and led it to an 8-4 record and a state playoff berth. He has already promised to speak at one of my clinics this spring. *********** Coach Wyatt: Thank you for the consistently terrific service you provide coaches (and others) in your news section. Just finished reading your latest entry, and I was especially interested in the section on the "mercy rule" that so many states seem to be implementing. We're leaving the GISA, the private school league in Georgia, and entering the Georgia High School Association. The GHSA already has adopted the mercy rule, and the GISA still is discussing what form its mercy rule will take. The GHSA is going to give the losing coach the opportunity to ask for a continuous clock if the lead is 35 points or more in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, it's apparently automatic that the clock will run continuously if a team is down by 35 or more. I despise the rule. So I'm supposed to tell my team, a stadium full of parents, and our entire school that I'm giving up on my team? Don't think so. I'm going to fight until the end. And I'm going to get as much valuable playing time for my second- and third-teamers as possible. Asking a coach to make that decision tells me that the people who are coming up with these rules have never coached a day in their lives. I attribute this mindset to the feminist culture that has pervaded our culture and taken over education. This culture has tried to construct a unisex world for our children, made our little girls want to become little men, made our little boys grow up to think that "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is perfectly suitable entertainment and all of us just should accept them for who they "were born to be." It's the same culture that drugs our active little boys to make them behave more like the little girls, and the same culture that says that soccer and its torque-induced epidemic of knee and ankle injuries is a "safer alternative" than football. Listen, it's OK to lose. As long as you do it with class, dignity, integrity, and a good work ethic. I thank God for the valleys. That's what makes the mountain peaks so utterly spectacular. What has happened to our world? Sigh. God bless you and yours, and may y'all have a very Merry Christmas. Tim Luke, football head coach Eagle's Landing Christian Academy, McDonough, Georgia A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS   "The Beast Was out There," by General James M. Shelton, subtitled "The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam October 1967" is available through the publisher, Cantigny Press, Wheaton, Illinois. to order a copy, go to http://www.rrmtf.org/firstdivision/ and click on "Publications and Products") Or contact me if you'd like to obtain a personally-autographed copy, and I'll give you General Shelton's address. (Great gift!) General Shelton is a former wing-T guard from Delaware who now serves as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions. All profits from the sale of his books go to the Black Lions and the 1st Infantry Division Foundation, , sponsors of the Black Lion Award).   I have my copy. It is well worth the price just for the "playbooks" it contains in the back - "Fundamentals of Infantry" and "Fundamentals of Artillery," as well as a glossary of all those military terms, so that guys like you and me can understand what they're talking about.      --- GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD --- HONOR BRAVE MEN AND RECOGNIZE GREAT KIDS SIGN UP YOUR TEAM OR ORGANIZATION FOR 2003 "NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY FIRST" inscribed on the wall of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois Coaches - Black Lions teams for 2003 are now listed, by state. Please check to make sure your team in on the list. If it is not, it means that your team is no enrolled, and you need to e-mail me to get on the list. HW BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM (FOR MORE INFO ABOUT) THE BLACK LION AWARD

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS)  December 23, 2003 -  MERRY CHRISTMAS! (None of this "Happy Holiday" sh-- for me!)   Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, good will to men." Final stanza of Christmas hymn, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1864, as the Civil War raged  2003 CLINIC NEWS & SCENES : CHICAGO - ATLANTA TWIN CITIES   click here for info ----->>>>> <<<<<-----click here for info A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS   MY ANNUAL CHRISTMAS WISH FOR FOOTBALL COACHES EVERYWHERE (First printed in 2000): May you have.... Parents who recognize that you are the football expert; who stand back and let you coach their kids; who know their kids' limitations and don't expect them to start unless in your opinion they are better than the other kids; who don't sit in the stands and openly criticize their kids' teammates; who don't think it's your job to get their kid an athletic scholarship; who schedule their vacations so their kids won't miss any practices; who know that your rules apply to everybody, and are not designed just to pick on their kid... A community that can recognize a year when even Vince Lombardi himself would have trouble getting your kids to line up straight... Opponents who are fun to play against; who love and respect the game and its rules as much as you do, and refuse to let their kids act like jerks... Students who want to be in your class and want to learn; who laugh at your jokes and turn their work in on time... Freshmen who listen carefully, hear everything you say and understand all instructions the first time... Officials who will address you and your kids respectfully; who know and respect the rulebook; who will have as little effect on the game as possible; who will let you step a yard onto the playing field without snarling at you... Newspaper reporters who understand the game, always quote you accurately, and know when not to quote you at all... A school district that provides you with a budget sufficient to run a competitive program... A superintendent who schedules teachers' workdays so that coaches don't have to miss any practices... An athletic director who has been a coach himelf and knows what you need to be successful and knows that one of those things is not another head coach in the AD's office; who can say "No" to the bigger schools that want you on their schedules; who understands deep down that despite Title IX, all sports are not equal... Assistants who love the game as much as you do, buy completely into your philosophy, put in the time in the off-season, and are eager to learn everything they can about what you are doing. And if they disgreed with you, would tell you and nobody else.. A booster club that puts its money back into the sports that earn it, and doesn't demand a voice in your team's operation... A principal who figures that when there is a teachers' position open, the applicant who is qualified to be an assistant coach deserves extra consideration; who doesn't come in to evaluate you on game day; who makes weight-training classes available to football players first, before opening them up to the general student body; who knows that during the season you are very busy, and heads off parent complaints so that you don't have to waste your time dealing with them; who can tell you in the morning in five minutes what took place in yesterday afternoon's two-hour-long faculty meeting that you missed because you had practice... A faculty that will notify you as soon as a player starts screwing off or causing problems in class, and will trust you to handle it without having to notify the administration... A basketball coach who encourages kids to play football and doesn't discourage them from lifting, or hold "open gym" every night after football practice... A baseball coach who encourages kids to play football and doesn't have them involved in tournaments that are still going on into late August... A wrestling coach who encourages kids to play football and doesn't ask your promising 215-pound sophomore guard to wrestle at 178... A class schedule that gives you and at least your top assistant the same prep period... Doctors that don't automatically tell kids with little aches and pains to stay out of football for two weeks, even when there's nothing wrong with them... Cheerleaders who occasionally turn their backs to the crowd and actually watch the game; who understand the game - and like it... A couple of transfers who play just the positions where you need help... A country that appreciates the good that football - and football coaches - can do for its young men... A chance, like the one I've had, to get to know coaches and friends of football all over the country and find out what great people they are... The wisdom to "Make the Big Time Where You Are" - to stop worrying about the next job and appreciate the one you have -... Children of your own who love, respect and try to bring honor to their family in everything they do... A wife like mine, who understands how much football means to you... Motivated, disciplined, coachable players who love the game of football and love being around other guys who do, too - players like the ones I've been blessed with. A nation at peace - a peace that exists thanks to by a strong and dedicated military that defends us while we sleep. Merry Christmas.   *********** Your heart has to go out to Brett Favre, who lost his dad - who was also his high school football coach - on Sunday night, four days before Christmas.  And then, as if in a replay of the old "Blind Man in the Bleachers" song from nearly 30 years ago, Favre goes out and plays, and on Monday night football, the day after his father's death, has one of the greatest games any quarterback has ever had - 22 of 30 for 399 yards and four TDs.   There is one thing that I don't particularly care for in the aftermath, though, and that is the idea I've heard in some places that his great performance had honored his father. Well, of course it did - but what if he hadn't played well? Would that have dishonored his father? I don't think so. Hey - if he'd thrown three interceptions, he'd still have honored his father by going out and being the kind of son a man could be proud of.   That he did. What a stud. What a man. *********** A couple of questions about the Raiders. (1) Who were those guys back there in the secondary, and had they ever seen a long pass before Monday night? (2) Where has Tee Martin been all this time, and what took them so long to get him into the game? *********** Surprise - Time Magazine finally got it right. Instead of naming Saddam Hussein, as it normally would have done, it named The American Soldier as its Person of the Year. *********** The well-to-do Los Angeles suburb of Redondo Beach has already been rocked by the news that a local couple has been running a call-girl service out of their home. But the real sh-- will hit the fan when the names of the, uh, "escorts" are made public. That's because many of the 30-some prositutes on their call list are local married women, whose husbands have no idea what their wives have been up to. Here's the best, though (no chuckling out there, you guys) - Redondo Beach police sergeant Christopher Davis said (are you ready for this?) some of the, uh, ladies, "remind you of soccer moms." No comment. *********** It's understandable if Michael Irvin comes off as a fool. I mean, he's a former wide receiver, right? But I still had to grit my teeth when he started in on the tired, old "No Fun League" crap. Poor guy - all the money they paid him just to play to catch footballs, and all that coke and all those ho's in motel, and he's complaining athat the NFL doesn't let you have any fun. Then he got onto the subject of what a team is all about - like a wide receiver would know - and how it's supposed to make room for eccentrics and nut cases. See, he said, a team is made up of all sorts of different guys with all sorts of personalities. True enough - but he stopped there. He didn't go on. Evidently, he's into this diversity sh--, because he seems unaware that there is a next step in the equation - that in a successful organization, be it business, military, football, or the United States of America, all these different guys with their different personalities have to give up some of their individuality (not to mention foregoing boastfulness, and taking individual credit, and bringing shame and ridicule - and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties - to their team) in order to become one. In order to form a team. But I must say that Irvin did make me take a different look at guys like Joe Horn and Terrell Owens when he implied that they actually had a duty to the NFL to entertain the fans. See, the game itself isn't enough - long drives are boring (he actually said that) - and when a team finally scores a touchdown, its fans need something to celebrate. That's where the serial celebrators come in. He may be right, at least among the younger audience, whose introduction to football comes to them courtesy of EA Sports. To those kids, in comparison to the outrageous stuff they see on their video games, real football is boring. So Michael Irvin may have a point - instead of hurting the game, guys like Horn and Owens may actually be the saviors of the NFL. Instead of fining them, the NFL should be paying them bonuses for their innovative celebrations, which programmers can then write into Madden 2004. (By the way, you atheists out there - both Joe Horn and Terrell Owens went down Sunday. On the same day. And you still try to tell me there's no God?) *********** When I become king and I issue my edict to eliminate scoring by placekicking, it will put a lot of placekickers out on the street. In John Carney's case, after missing the game-ending PAT Sunday that might have kept the Saints' playoff hopes alive, he might not want that to be Bourbon Street.  *********** Please enroll our school in the Black Lions program. Thank you for all the work you do in the presentation of this award. Several years ago, when visiting Washington DC, I took one etching off the Vietnam Memorial, Don Holleder. I also have an old Sports Illustrated picture showing him leading the Army football team back onto the field. His was a life worth remembrance. What a contrast to the athletes we constantly see seeking to glorify themselves. I have coached numerous young men over the past 30 years that have already or are presently serving in our military. Some of them are the greatest leaders I have ever seen in action. We had a Captain of the Army football team ('94) play for us. What a leader. My oldest son was another outstanding leader. He is an Air Force Acdemy grad, now serving in the Navy as a SEAL platoon leader. This award honors all of these fine people. Sincere thanks, Ron Myers, Soquel HS, Soquel, California *********** Coach Wyatt, Another way to get Sadam to talk might be to sit Saddam down in front of an ESPN Sunday Night Football telecast and have Saddam listen to Joe Theisman as he analyzes the game. Is Joe Theisman not the worst analyst in the game today? Is it me or do you also find your self talking to your TV set telling Joe Theisman to just shut up! Mike Lane, Avon Grove, Pennsylvania (Personally, I think 24 hours of Madden would be enough to get anybody to confess to crimes they didn't even commit. HW) *********** While searching for some football to watch other than that NFL dreck, I stumbled upon the Sunshine Network, and a taped replay of some sort of all-day youth football championships being played in Miami's Orange Bowl. Interesting. Random impressions - I couldn't help being impressed by the speed and athletic ability of the kids, the vast majority of whom appeared to be black.... NFL teams could have learned a lot from these kids - overall, they were well-behaved, with very little impersonation of the antics of NFL players... On the other hand, I have never seen so many shirts hanging out in my life (a pet peeve of mine)...  Even the youngest of teams ran a lot of offensive formations and plays... I didn't see a single team running anything that resembled an offensive system - it was grab-bag all the way... As you might expect, execution was rather sloppy, and offensive success pretty much depended on the skills of the kids... You could almost bet that if a running play was successful, the coach would not come back with it.... There were some excellent runners, but coaches pretty much just paid lip service to the running game - it was obvious that what they really wanted to do was pass, and pass long... And pass they did, even though not one of the passers I saw completed anywhere close to 50 per cent of his passes... *********** The good news is that Mike Price was considered hireable by somebody. The bad news is - the "somebody" is UTEP, which has probably sent more football coaches into life insurance sales than any Division 1 college in the country. But I'm glad that Mike Price is back. As for his disgraceful conduct last spring, I consider three possibilities: (1) What he did was an anomaly, a once-in-a-lifetime occurence completely out of character; (2) He also carried on that way while he was Washington State's coach, but he was discreet enough to be careful what he did and where he did it; (3) He was - still is - as his lawsuit claims, the victim of a vicious smear by Sports Illustrated. In any of those events, in the entire time he was at Washington State, he never did anything that anyone out here is aware of to bring disgrace or ridicule to the University. He served with distinction as head coach at WSU and in all his years there - and you know how it is when you're a high school coach and how you hear rumors - I never heard a bad word about the man. Now, I am not saying that Coach Price is a monk, but on the other hand, I don't automatically accept something as the truth just because I read it in Sports Illustrated. I am old enough to remember the hatchet job that "Saturday Evening Post" did on Wally Butts and Bear Bryant - to make a short story of it, a SatEvePost article alleged that Butts, the AD and former head football coach at Georgia, had phoned Bryant prior to the Alabama-Georgia game and given him some inside info on the Bulldogs - info which Bryant and Bama used to beat Georgia (and, if memory serves me correctly, Butts used to win a bet). Butts and Bryant sued Curtis Publishing, publisher of SatEvePost, and won. And, the financial hit to Curtis essentially put the Saturday Evening Post, a once-proud magazine which had been suffering from declining readership, out of its misery. And if a jury should agree with Coach Price that Sports Illustrated (Time, Inc., actually) maliciously defamed him, may the same fate befall SI - or any other publication that would do such a thing to any American. I'm really sorry for the folks in Alabama. Mike Shula is a Bama guy, and younger and better looking and all that, but I think that Mike Price would have given them something a bit better than a 4-9 season. ************ Hey coach- I just got done talking to the Orange County Register and they voted me Orange County Coach of the Year. I thought you might like to know that. I really appriciate all your help. You put on a great clinic for everyone in attendance when you came to my school a couple of years ago. I am always reviewing your tapes for further clarification. I give credit where credit is due and your book and videos have been a great resource for my continued education on the DW. It's great to see in a passing area that a coach who runs the DW can get the recognition and win an award like that. Thanks again coach. Greg Gibson, Orange High School, Orange, California (Congratulations to Coach Gibson. To be selected Coach of the Year in an area overflowing with good coaches is quite an honor. Orange County, for those who don't know their Southern California, is a large, populous area, with more high schools than many states. And he is right - it is quite an honor for a Double-Wing coach to be so recognized, deep in the heart of spread-it-out country. HW) *********** Good Morning Hugh, Sad news about Otto Graham. He has a connection to the Boothbay Region. His son Dewey was the head coach here at the high schoool at one time and later Dewey helped us with kickers and punters. Otto Graham often played in golf charity events in the Harbor and helped to raise thousands of dollars for good causes here in the Region. Whenever I had the opportunity to talk with him he was always gracious and quick with a story. As I said it was sad news as another NFL great passes into history. Have a Happy Holiday!! Jack Tourtillotte, Boothbay Harbor, Maine (It's hard for anyone who saw him play to think of a class act like Otto Graham and then have to think of the dozens of classless, self-celebratory asses that now infest the NFL. HW) *********** PowerGen is a large company in England that sells electricity. They've formed a division in Italy. They went for the obvious company name and that's what they registered the domain under. http://www.powergenitalia.com (So that's why, after all that money I sent them, I haven't seen any results yet) *********** One of the hardest parts about writing "They Marched Into Sunlight," David Maraniss found, was getting Vietnam vets to talk about what they'd been through, particularly the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Ong Thanh, October 17, 1967 in which Don Holleder was killed. Sixty-one men died, and another 60 were wounded when ambushed by a Viet Cong force 10 times their number. They were members of the crack Black Lions battalion, and among those who died was the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Terry Allen Jr., son of a much-honored World War II general. Among those David interviewed was Clark Welch, a rifle company commander. He said it took him several months just to line up the first interview with Welch, and even at that, it almost didn't work out. "He told me, 'I want you to be good to my boys,' " David recalled. "And I said, 'I'm going to find the truth and write the truth.' He almost got up and left." Finally, said David,"he decided to trust me, and he shared everything with me." That "everthing" included not only his accurate memory of events and his very strong opinions on the failure of American leadership, but also the letters he wrote home to his wife, Lacey, letters which went into great detail about his thoughts and plans. As part of the research for the book, Clark Welch even went to Vietnam with David, where he met the former Viet Cong commander who had led the ambush on that fateful day. Now, Clark Welch, whose incredible heroism earned him General Jim Shelton's recommendation for a Medal of Honor, lies in a hospital in Colorado Springs, recuperating from serious heart surgery. It's Christmas time, and his family is with him, but a note from you would mean a lot to him and Mrs. Welch - welchclark@earthlink.net *********** General Jim Shelton writes, "Never accuse the American Military of not having a sense of humor! Have you heard what the troops are calling the Sikorsky Blackhawk helicopter Hillary Clinton used on her Iraq tour? - 'Broomstick One'" *********** The animal lovers from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - they're the ones who think that humans and cows are co-equal - are frequenting performances of The Nutcracker this holiday season. They know that that's where moms and dads (usually moms) take their little kids to celebrate a Christmas tradition, so they've been going up to the little kids and handing them comic books - "Your Mommy is a Killer" comic books. See, if mommy wears leather or fur (or, I suppose, if she eats roast beef) why, she's as bad as Saddam Hussein, or the Green River Killer. Now, my kids are grown. But I've got young grandkids. And I don't want anybody handing anything to those kids without their parents' seeing it first. Would you want some creep from Planned Parenthood walking up to your daughter and handing her a comic book telling her that masturbation is cool? So listen, a**hole - if I'm out someplace with my grandkids and you come walking up to us - are you listening, a**hole? - and you try to hand anything to one of those kids without showing it to me first, you're going to be one sorryass animal lover. *********** Coach Wyatt: I would love to give out the Black Lion Award next year. Holleder's story is one that I can't wait to share with my team. Thanks, Coach Matt Wilson, Johnson City, Tennessee *********** Just one of the reasons why I like Division III - Every single starter from St. Johns' was from Minnesota - practically every starter from Mt. Union was from Ohio. *********** If you had the time, it would be interesting to go back and look at the tape and count the number of different offensive systems represented by at least one play run by St. Johns. *********** Maybe St. Johns doesn't practice tackling, as it's claimed, but there sure are some high school coaches in Minnesota doing a hell of a job of teaching it, because by the time they get to St. Johns they know how it's done. Those Johnnies did such a great job of tackling down on their own goal line that they forced Mount Union, the defending national champion, a team that outweighed them by 40-some pounds a man across the front line, to throw. The result was a pass into the flat from the three-yard line that was intercepted and run back 99 yards for the clinching score. *********** Just once, before you die, maybe you will get to see a Heisman Trophy winner put on a performance in a big game equal to that of St. Johns' Blake Elliott against Mount Union in the Division III national championship. But I doubt it. *********** St. Johns' performance against Mount Union was inspired. But as a Stanford parent, there was one thing that I found bittersweet - the Johnnies looked like Stanford used to look. And played like Stanford used to play. *********** "Was it just me or did St. Johns run a form of wing-T and win the Division 3 title? Also they played tough nose D/ the other thing that I caught was that the 77 year old Galardi wasn't dynamic enough to keep the microphone on as he was in my opinion very humble in complementing both teams in their efforts. Why is it I enjoy these games more than the the D 1 games??/ Could it be they play for the love of the game??? It was fun to watch!!!" Mike Foristiere, Boise, Idaho (Amen. HW) *********** Coach - Was watching the Jets game tonight on ESPN and Broadway Joe was being interviewed by Suzie Keebler (I think that is her name) right before the half. ESPN was celebrating their 200th NFL Game or something like that. Anyway, Joe was talking kind of slow and somewhat deliberate. My wife in her naivete says "Has Joe had a stroke or something?...he does not look right". I swear this is true, just as I told my wife, "I think he is as drunk as a skunk...", he told little Suzie he "wanted to kiss her", TWICE! He had a few too many cocktails before the game last night. Coach Torres (Hah! Glad you noticed. My son called me - from Australia - to ask if I'd seen it. I had to tell him that I'd missed it. His take was the same as yours. I end to agree. There's an old saying - "Every hero becomes a bore at last." To me, that's Joe. The stuff that seemed so cool when he was 25 years old doesn't age well. HW) *********** Coach, If you read the Sports Illustrated story on the hazing incident at that Long Island high school, I was wondering what you thoughts on the story were. I know you're not crazy about the media, but don't you think something is wrong with people when they're more mad at the media for reporting a story like that and making their town and school look bad then they are at the kids who did the hazing?  Hope you've recovered well from the medical procedure and enjoy the holidays. Steve Tobey, Malden, Massachusetts Steve- I did mention this back at the time it occured - I think the kids who did it - and their parents, too - should be horse-whipped. (We're talking about the gruesome incident at an overnight football camp where some older kids on a high school team brutally sodomized three younger kids, first with a broomstick, then a pine cone, then a golf ball. Then they covered it up, and then, when the coverup failed, they and other at the school continued to taunt and harass their victims. Nice kids.) I think to some degree the news media, who climbed all over the story, are catching hell here because they have rightly earned the distrust of the greater American public for other things they've done over the years. Many of their members are slimy beyond description, with no scruples whatsoever. Frankly, I'm glad to see the members of the news media experiencing what coaches and teachers have known for a long time - that today's parents will defend to the death their children, no matter how indefensible their actions might be. It sure sounds from a distance as if the coaches were, at the least, oblivious, but I'm sure that there are lawyers working hard to dig into that one. You would think, though, that they'd have been aware of the kind of atmosphere that prevailed on that squad - a culture of domination of younger players by older players - and given careful thought to whether it was a wise thing to take a bunch like that to an overnight camp. I don't know a thing about the team involved, but it would be interesting to ask some of their opponents how their kids conduct themselves in games. I have my suspicions. You and I have all seen teams in games and at camps whose kids we'd be ashamed to admit were ours, kids acting out in ways that we'd never tolerate. Yet their coaches seem almost to foster their churlish behavior, perhaps in the belief that it is somehow manly. They seem only to care what the score is on Friday night. Let there be no doubt - a coach is responsible first and foremost for the overall culture that prevails on his team. I think Herman Edwards of the Jets summed it up nicely when askled he how he would have handled one of his players who pulled a stunt like Joe Horn's cell-phone call. "Wrong question to ask here," he said, "because that doesn't take place here. I'll leave it at that." *********** Speaking of the team culture... Boise State has been a real launching pad into the big time for its coaches. Houston Nutt went from there to Arkansas, and Dirk Koetter moved on from Boise State to Arizona State. Current Boise State coach Dan Hawkins is considered a very hot commodity in the coaching ranks. He has got himself a real powerhouse going right now, and there's no doubt in my mind that he's passed up many supposedly bigger-time jobs to stay at Boise until something really big comes along. He seems to be the prefect candidate, and yet... and yet... The recent disclosure that six Broncos, including one starter, will be academically ineligible to play in the Fort Worth Bowl against TCU should make potential employers at least ask him a few hard questions... (1) Don't you think the number of ineligible players - six kids - makes it look as if there's a pattern of carelessness on someone's part? (2) How ineligible were they? Was this a case of kids essentially not even being students all fall semester? (3) Are you going to bring people onto our campus who have no business being there? (4) Don't you recognize any responsibility - to monitor kids' grades, and kick them in the ass to get them to go to class? (5) Other than football, what, exactly, are you teaching your players? *********** For three or four hours' work, a sideline reporter at an ESPN game pulls down the equivalent of what a high school football coach earns for a full season's work. So don't you think he/she could at least do a little preparation - a little homework? There was the guy at the Delaware-Colgate game, explaining the reason for the "Michigan wings" on the Delaware helmets. He mumbled and stumbled, and said that the main reason was that "one of the coaches that took over" at Delaware was a former Michigan halfback. That "guy" is Dave Nelson, a true giant of the game. He not only was co-inventor (with Mike Lude and Harold Westerman) of the Delaware Wing-T, but he also served for years as a voice of reason on the NCAA Rules Committee. ("Anatomy of a Game", his book on the history of the rules of our game - and the reasoning behind them - was left unpublished at the time of his death, but it has since been published, and it is a masterpiece, a must for anyone with a serious interest in the history of football.) *********** Oh - and Sean McDonough (the play-by-play guy on the Delaware game) - you could stand to do a little homework, too. It ain't the more pretentious-sounding DEL-a-wear - it's DEL-a-wurr. (And if you want the old guys in flannel shirts and loggers' boots sitting at the bar to turn and say, "you ain't from around here, fella - are you?" you'll say that you like it out here in ARR-i-gahn. Natives say ORE-uh-gun.) *********** Delaware's K.C. Keeler has done a hell of a job. But the guy looks as if he's auditioning to play the part of a hired killer in a movie. It's those dumbass-looking wraparound shades. Now, to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he has some sort of eye problems. But, otherwise - what's he trying to prove wearing those things - at night? *********** "Wesley Clark gave another show of his true colors when he said he would have already captured Bin Laden, thereby dissing the entire military establishment which he claims are his comrades. Slime." Black Lions. Brigadier General Jim Shelton, USA (Retired), Englewood, Florida *********** "FOOTBALL IS NOT JUST A BOY'S GAME" - Ouch. That statement was paid for by the NFL. Thanks. It came from a TV spot introducing the NFL Flag championships. There was a girls' division - good idea, because flag football is a good game, and girls should have a chance to play it. There was also a coed division, but wouldn't you know? None of the teams that made it to this year's finals had a girl. *********** While channel surfing after the D-III championship game, I happened on the Falcons-Bucaneers game. It was somewhere in the third period, and the color guy was going on about Warren Sapp - he's going to be a free agent after this season, he's the one who made this Tampa Bay franchise, he has done so much for this team that he should be rewarded. We even saw a taped interview with Rich McKay, former Bucs' GM. Now that he's in Atlanta and no longer responsible for the Buc's budget, he said, why, sure, Warren Sapp made this Tampa Bay franchise - he has done so much for this team, he should be rewarded, blah, blah, blah. Bear in mind that there was a game going on this whole frigging time. But of course, this is the NFL, where no play is more important than an interview. Hey, the game is just a backdrop to the real show. But it did get me to thinking... this guy Sapp has been well-paid. Very well paid (by his slavemaster) to do what he's been doing, which has been to play a game and act the clown. And now, on top of all the millions he's already been paid - he should be rewarded? *********** I was really taken by the "Outside the Lines" show on ESPN following the Heismans. A segment was devoted to Maurice Clarett. His high school coach was quoted as saying, in effect, that "Maurice didn't deal very well with people who didn't cater to him." In light of that, it is impossible to believe that his conduct at Ohio State came as a total surprise to Jim Tressel and his staff. *********** Coach Wyatt: I heard some distressing news today. The IAHSAA, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that a continuous clock will occur once an opponent is ahead by 35 or more points in the 2nd half of a game. They cite the fact that several other states have adopted this rule, and their wish is cut down on the number of teams being fifty pointed (Iowa's mercy rule). I understand their mode of thinking, but they're going about this in the wrong manner. Maybe this rule will eliminate teams being humiliated by 50 points,(which no coach with any ethical standards wants to happen in the first place), but I feel it will hurt teams in the long run. What about the 2nd & 3rd string players that will have their valuable playing time cut down by the continuous clock? Kids on both sides of the ball have worked hard all week, and deserve to play a "COMPLETE" game. I just don't like it. I've been on both sides of a game ended by the 50 point mercy rule. I didn't feel good about it in either instance, but I can honestly say that in both instances, neither the team that beat us, or our team when we won by 50+, tried to make the score that lopsided. In both cases, the winning teams substituted freely and called "simple" run plays. Circumstances beyond the coach's control contributed to the final point total. Turnovers, missed tackles, etc. can't be "game managed" by the coach. We don't tell our subs to not play hard, and I know that other coaches don't either. Maybe the fact that the IAHSAA sees a need for this new rule is a sad commentary on their perception of the ethical standards of coaches in our state. I think they're wrong and hope that this is a one year experimental rule. Scott Lovell, Alta High School, Alta, Iowa (Sad. On one level, it's just one more way we try to insulate our children from the harshness of real life. On another level, because there is a reluctance on the part of most of us to publicly criticize coaches who repeatedly violate the code of sportsmanship, because we stand by and let them get off scot-free, because we won't stand up to the bullies, what we get as a result is rules like this. One other thing to think about - some coaches and teams may wind up taking pride in seeing how early they can have the "Mercy Rule" imposed. HW) *********** Notice the resemblance in the lives of David Carr and Philip Rivers? Seems a shame to have to expose them and their families to the human trash they find themselves playing with. *********** So Philip Rivers is an Alabama kid, and his dad was a high school coach there. And Alabama and Auburn both passed on him. What does that say about the abillity of those Alabama and Auburn staffs to evaluate talent? Seems to me that certain Alabama and Auburn coaches might still be gainfully employed at those places if they hadn't let Philip Rivers get out of their state. *********** I'm betting that N.C. State's Sean Locklear, left offensive tackle, is a Lumbee Indian. He's from Lumberton, North Carolina, and I've known people named Locklear who came from that same part of North Carolina and were Lumbees. The Lumbee tribe, although the largest east of the Mississippi and the ninth-largest in the United States, is little known outside southeastern North Carolina. Sean Locklear is a hell of a football player - he's an excellent blocker, and he even caught a pass designed especially for him - a lateral thrown to him by QB Philip Rivers. So here's what I'm getting at - is there a better American Indian football player in America this year than Sean Locklear? *********** You had to love the Tangerine Bowl, aka the Paisan Bowl, with Chuck Amato of NC State against Mark Mangino of Kansas. Why do I think I'd like to go out to dinner with those two? *********** I am not a big fan of spread-it-out-and-throw football, because there is a certain sameness to what most people are doing, but I have to admit I enjoy watching NC State. It's partly because of Philip Rivers, whom I like as a person and who, despite his strange passing motion. is about as good a passer as you'll see. But it's also the Wolfpack's scheme. They do a fair amount of running, and a lot of their running plays clearly derive from the Wing-T. And they throw a good bit of play action - and play-action screens - off those running plays. I like the Pack, and I hope they can hold on to Chuck Amato. *********** I came across the following article by Jay Price on the Web page of the Staten Island Advance. It was written just after the Army-Navy game, and it's about the game - sort of - but it's about whole lot more. In view of Boise State's having to declare six players ineligble, it made great reading, and I just had to get permission to reprint it... By JAY PRICE Army lost another football game yesterday, which wouldn't even be news except that it was Navy on the other side of the ball, and Army-Navy is always worth paying attention to for all the reasons we fell in love with sports in the first place; even on the days when they don't play it in the middle of a blizzard. That and the fact that the Black Knights are the only college team to ever go 0-13. Those losers. The funny thing about it is, for such a bunch a pushovers, when they were in high school most of these guys weren't just the best jocks in their neighborhood, the captain of the football and the basketball team. Somehow they found time to be the valedictorian of their class, the lead in the school play, and the kid voted Most Likely to Succeed. They were the geeks who never missed class, even on Senior Cut Day, when everybody else blew off school to go to the beach. And that's just the Cadets in the stands, the ones who stand for the entire game, and sing the alma mater when it's over, win or lose, same as the players, who are crying so hard they can't see. The stiffs. On a good year, Army might have three or four athletes good enough to walk on at Oklahoma or Ohio State, or another of the BCS powerhouses. Then again, the only way most of the made-for-the-NFL studs in Norman or Columbus could get on post at West Point is with a visitor's pass and two forms of ID. Their lives couldn't be more different if they were from different planets. When incoming jocks at State U. are spending their summer on the couch or bulking up for the upcoming season, freshman football players at Army are indoctrinated into the military at something called Beast Barracks, which is pretty much like it sounds. It's not uncommon for a big guy to drop as much as 30 pounds over the course of a summer's training, which is great for long road marches, but not always the best thing for an offensive lineman who's going to be butting heads with the behemoths from Boston College and Southern Mississippi State. Football players have been known to sleep on the floor in the field house; at least that way they can escape the scrutiny of upperclassmen. The rest of the year, they're just like the football players in Tuscaloosa or Tallahassee, except for the marching, the white glove room inspections, the six hours of classes and memorizing the front page of the New York Times before breakfast. There are no "Principles of Golf" classes for jocks at West Point, where everybody takes calculus as a plebe. Then they move on to the serious stuff. Instead of boosters trying to stuff $100 bills into their hand, they get firsties climbing into their grill because their sock drawer was untidy. The Army has this idea that guys who are going got be entrusted with the lives of young Americans ought to pay attention to detail. In that environment, it's no wonder that for football players at the Academies, practice is the easiest part of an 18-hour day; which, this time of year, starts a few hours before sun-up. You'd think that kind of sacrifice and dedication, just to play a sport, would at least win them the admiration of their peers. But at the academies, there's always going to be somebody who looks at sports as one more way to get out of afternoon drill. And those college parties you heard about? Forget it; everybody's in their rooms before Letterman. What a bunch of suckers, huh? None of them is ever going to get rich, at least not for playing football. The truth is most of them will never play again. It's not like they're going to have to worry about finding a job. The good news ... you're gonna love this part ... is they owe Uncle Sam the next five years of their lives. For the seniors, the most exciting day of the year, next to Army-Navy, is Branch Selection Day, when they find out if they're going to be crawling on their bellies in the infantry the next five years, or trying to stuff their football-sized frames into the cockpit of a tank or an Apache helicopter. A year from now, some of them will be in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or some other hellhole we haven't even heard about yet; 23-year-old kids playing father to 19- and 20-year-olds; trying their damnedest to juggle the dual roles of warrior and peacemaker. Fighting -- and dying -- so the Keyshawn Johnsons and Jeremy Shockeys of the world can pound their chests every time they make a first down. Trying to save the world, one block at a time. The best part is most of them are still idealistic enough to think they can do it. Do they sound like a bunch of losers, or what? By permission. Jay Price is a sports columnist for the Staten Island Advance. If you enjoyed the article, write him and tell him so - and tell him where you read it. He can be reached at price@siadvance.com. A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS   "The Beast Was out There," by General James M. Shelton, subtitled "The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam October 1967" is available through the publisher, Cantigny Press, Wheaton, Illinois. to order a copy, go to http://www.rrmtf.org/firstdivision/ and click on "Publications and Products") Or contact me if you'd like to obtain a personally-autographed copy, and I'll give you General Shelton's address. (Great gift!) General Shelton is a former wing-T guard from Delaware who now serves as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions. All profits from the sale of his books go to the Black Lions and the 1st Infantry Division Foundation, , sponsors of the Black Lion Award).   I have my copy. It is well worth the price just for the "playbooks" it contains in the back - "Fundamentals of Infantry" and "Fundamentals of Artillery," as well as a glossary of all those military terms, so that guys like you and me can understand what they're talking about.      --- GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD --- HONOR BRAVE MEN AND RECOGNIZE GREAT KIDS SIGN UP YOUR TEAM OR ORGANIZATION FOR 2003 "NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY FIRST" inscribed on the wall of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois Coaches - Black Lions teams for 2003 are now listed, by state. Please check to make sure your team in on the list. If it is not, it means that your team is no enrolled, and you need to e-mail me to get on the list. HW BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM (FOR MORE INFO ABOUT) THE BLACK LION AWARD

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS)  December 19, 2003 -  "You can't get your finger on the problem if you've got it to the wind." Former Congressman Dick Armey  2003 CLINIC NEWS & SCENES : CHICAGO - ATLANTA TWIN CITIES   click here for info ----->>>>> <<<<<-----click here for info A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He's the guy going down on the 40. Looks like a routine play, right? Not exactly. You're sure to be hearing about this play - and seeing replays of it - at some point over the next few weeks, as New Year's Day - and the play's 50th anniversary - draws near. It was the second quarter of the 1954 Cotton Bowl game, and the ball carrier, Rice's Dicky Moegle (pronounced "MAY-gull") was on his way to his second touchdown, in what would be a fantastic day for him and his teammates. He had already scored a touchdown on a 79-yard run to give Rice a 7-6 lead over Alabama, and in the play shown, with Rice facing a first-and-15 on its own five yard line, he swept right end and broke free up the sideline, with nothing between him and the Bama goal line. Nothing, that is, except "LEWIS", the guy on the ground to the right. It was Alabama's Tommy Lewis. Later, hesaid he was just "too full of 'Bama". What he did was step across his team's sideline and onto the field to make the tackle on a man who was sure to score. With no instant replay, the crowd of 75,000 had no idea what had happened. But the officials knew. The problem was, there was nothing in the rule book to cover it. With no precedent to go by, the referee awarded the Moegle - and Rice - a 95-yard touchdown, still the longest run from scrimmage in Cotton Bowl history. (The next year, the rulesmakers officially gave the referee this power.) Lewis, who ironically had given Alabama an early lead with what would turn out to be the Tide's only score, was not ejected from the game. In fact, he even went to the Rice dressing room at halftime to apologize, and Rice coach Jess Neely graciously accepted his apology. Rice would go on to win, 28-6, and Dicky Moegle would wind up rushing for three touchdowns (79, 95 and 34 yards) and 265 yards in 11 carries - an amazing 24.1 yards per carry, longest average in the history of all bowl games. Moegle had a decent 7-year pro career from 1955 through 1966, mostly with the 49ers. He spent five years in San Francisco and a year in Pittsburgh, and finished his career with the second-year Dallas Cowboys. For most of his career he was a defensive back. In terms of stats, his rookie year was by far his best - he rushed 41 times for 253 yards and five touchdowns, caught four passes for 94 yards (23.5 yards per catch), returned three punt for 36 yards and 10 kickoffs for 249 yards - and intercepted six passes and returned them for a total of 50 yards. Since his playing days, perhaps having tired of having to explain to people that his name was not "MO-gul", he changed its spelling to the more phonetic "Maegle". *********** The real hero of the Dicky Moegle-Tommy Lewis fiasco was probably the referee, Cliff Shaw, an Arkansas businessman in his other life. First of all, he showed quick thinking in awarding the touchdown to Rice. Then, he exercised great diplomacy in calming things down, at a time when there were heated feelings on both sides. Spotting the ball for the point-after, he brought the two teams together and in a courtly manner befitting his southern upbringing, said, "Now fellows, we've had a real fine game up to now. I want all you men to shake hands with each other - captains, you can shake hands first." He waited while, as Texas writer Kern Tips put it, "the two teams reestablished rapport," then said, "Thank you, gentlemen. Now we can continue to have a real fine football game. Correctly identifying Dicky Moegle/Maegle - Joe Daniels- Sacramento... Kevin McCullough- Culver, Indiana ("Having owned a copy of the book "Strange but True Football Stories" since grade school I have read the story of Tommy Lewis tackling Dicky Moegle many times.....the drawing on the front of the book recreates the scene.....what a shock it must have been for both sidelines.")... Adam Wesoloski- Pulaski, Wisconsin... JImmy Glasgow- Arlington, Texas... Joe Gutilla- MInneapolis ("Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Lewis literally rip his warm-up coat off as he was sitting on the bench to make that tackle? Damn good tackle I might add. Head and eyes up, knees bent, shoulders into the ball carrier below the waist, just like they were taught back in the good old days. You've got to wonder what Moegle said to himself as he was getting hit!")... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa... Mike Foristiere- Boise, Idaho ("Can't fault the 'full of Bama' routine - wish all players had that pride in their school.")... Steve Staker- Fredericksburg, Iowa ("This also happened to Bob Hilmer, a running back from Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, many years ago.")... Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois (Today's legacy answer is Dicky Maegle (I'll bet that's the spelling after he changed his name). I found the following article <http://2cuz.com/features/1954cottonbowl.html> and learned a couple of things I didn't know about this famous play. First, the Alabama QB that day was a 3rd stringer, sophomore by the name of Bart Starr. Second, Mr. Lewis - the infamous tackler - was the one who scored the Tide's only TD.")... Alan Goodwin- Warwick, Rhode Island... John Muckian- Lynn, Massachusetts... *********** God rest Otto Graham, one of the greatest to ever lace on a pair of football shoes. As much as anyone, he helped bring pro football into the modern era. A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY -OTTO GRAHAM- 9-28-01 There does seem to be one bit of trivia about him being promoted that just isn't so - that he was the first player to wear a face mask. There are photographs of players wearing face masks, or "nose guards," long before Otto Graham wore his. The true innovation was that Graham's was a single bar made of clear plexiglas. Although about 2-1/2 inches wide, it was the prototype of a long line of much slimmer single-bar protectors which came to be worn by just about all players - high school, college and pro. (I said "just about," because Jesse Richardson and Tommy McDonald or the Eagles refused to wear one.) *********** The coaching world lost Gordon Wood on Wednesday. Coach Wood, who at the time he retired was the winningest coach in high school football history, was a giant in a land of giants. It is hard to describe the reverence in which he was held in Texas. I would have loved to meet him to pat him my respects. But in the manner of three degrees of separation, my son-in-law's grand-dad, Bob Tiffany, lives in Abilene and did know Coach Wood. No doubt he will attend Coach Wood's funeral. Dallas Morning News story on Coach Wood ************ I suspect Nebraska doesn't fully realize the implications of what it has done by firing Frank Solich and, over the last couple of years, cleaning out a lot of the older coaches on the staff. The biggest thing that Nebraska has had to offer, dating clear back to the hiring of Bob Devaney in 1962, was an impressive continuity of program. Players being recruited by Nebraska knew that the men recruiting them were going to be the men coaching them. And those men would be around until graduation (assuming that it took place within a reasonable number of years). That's all gone, now, and not all Nebraskans seem to understand how much this is going to hurt. "The marketplace demands a more open game and more younger coaches," Nebraska booster Dan Cook, a Dallas businessman, told the Dallas Morning News. "The kids have changed a lot." Mr. Cook is, to be polite, full of sh--. What Mr. Cook and assorted honchos in Lincoln don't seem to understand is that it isn't the kids that have changed so much as it is the competition. To be blunt, Nebraska's lost the edge it once enjoyed over lesser programs. Today's blue-chip prospects have a lot more places to go than they used to - places where they can have facilities every bit as nice as Nebraska's, play in front of a lot of people, be on TV several times a season, go to a bowl game every year and be seen by the pros. To use just one such formerly "lesser" school as an example - what, exactly does Nebraska have to offer now that Kansas State doesn't? *********** I was talking with a CFL coach yesterday, and he said that the big problem in the CFL (and the NFL and, increasingly, college football) is that the "basic offense" is one that says "if our quarterback has a great game, we're going to win." Which means that the one that has the great quarterback will win most of the time, and the others, since most of them have decent quarterbacks, will take turns beating each other, depending on whose QB is hot. *********** Good for Miami of Ohio - hell of a team, hell of a QB. I think Ben Roethlisberger is the best QB in America - sorry Eli - and I think the Redhawks, not exams or dislike for Mobile, are the real reason that TCU stayed decided not to play in the GMAC Bowl. Good move, Frogs - although you might not find Boise State to your liking, either. But damn, coach - you're beating Louisville 49-28, and there's a good chance that your QB may decide to pass up his senior year and enter the NFL draft and leave you with some big shoes to fill, and you don't pull him until there's two minutes left??? *********** I can get Saddam to talk... It is just a matter of deciding which proven method to use in breaking him down... Rap. 24/7 - A bone-rattling, full-out assault on the senses. Just the sounds, though - I hesitate to show videos, because he might break up laughing. Non-stop Inservice Training - preferably on diversity. (Teachers will know what I mean) Continous, looping tape of the Collected Speeches of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - the risk here is that, in his perverted, sadistic way, he might just find her attractive. Hmmm. *********** I have been spending time working on a highlight film of the last season. I have had to edit it for my audience too. Hopefully, after showing it at out sports banquet I'll get some requests from parents to buy a copy and we can funnel the money back into our program. Its funny though. Most parents would rather see their little Johnny squirting water on the sideline than see another player make a 50 yard run on a 99 super. I have tried to capture all of or players at some point in the video. Dan King, Evans, Georgia  You are right - they would rather see little Johnny doing something cute - that's partly the modern-day adoration of the American child, and partly the influence of NFL Films, which took the traditional highlights film from the play-by-play to the varied camera shots, including the "mole" (the camera on the ground, shooting up at crotches) and extreme slo-mo. I think people can deal with the play-by-play, but it sure helps - especially if you want to sell it - to get a bunch of unrelated "cutaway" shots in there. *********** If the same judge who turned John Hinkley loose - the guy who put President Reagan in a hospital and James Brady in a wheelchair - has anything to do with it, I have a feeling Saddam Hussein will get community service. *********** "If I were President, we'd have had Osama bin Laden by now." General Wesley "Napoleon" Clark Yeah, right Wes. And if I were coach of Oklahoma, they'd never have lost to Kansas State. (Sound like some of the parents up in your grandstand? Or some of the ex-coaches in your faculty room?) *********** I just heard from a former player who is now Major Chris Chronis, US Army, a helicopter pilot stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. I needled him a little about flying into battle instead of walking, and he felt compelled to respond. He also says he couldn't have made it without me. Well, actually, he didn't quite put it that way: "your training (mental, physical, historical and political) has stuck with me and I assure you that aviator or not - I am not soft! In-fact, many is the time in the last 16+ years that I have told myself that whatever unpleasant task I was performing for Uncle Sam was nothing compared to sprinting 100 yards for every point given up to Mt. View, or rolling through 100 yards of mud and seagull sh-- for blowing a block!!!" Damn. Was I that hard? *********** I am not a member of a black church (in fact, I am not even a black person) but I think that if I were, I would be deeply offended by the Nike commercial introducing LeBron James. It's a spoof on a black church service. The preacher stands under a scoreboard, the gospel choir behind him, when LeBron barges in and starts dishing out assists to the congregation and jammin' in the hoops high up on the walls, all to a gospel beat. *********** Q. Why isn't the run and shoot used in the NFL anymore? NAME WITHHELD A. I just hung up from talking to a veteran coach in the Canadian Football League and we both pretty much touched on this same topic. He said - and I agree - that there is great pressure to do the same thing everybody else does - which right now is the West Coast - because (1) you know you're going to get fired at some point, and (2) if you're going to get fired, you'll have a better chance of getting another job if you're doing the same thing everybody else is doing. Likewise, if you're the head coach, it's going to be easier to fill vacancies on your staff if you're doing the same thing as most of the other teams. I believe it's as simple as that. The same coach quoted Don Matthews, most successful coach in CFL history - "It amazes me how many things are done in football just because they've been done before." That's my answer. HW *********** Good morning Coach,Just this morning my oldest boy, a high school freshman, mentioned to me that he was interested in finding out some information about the USMA. He had seen an article about Army's hiring of Bobby Ross and after watching the Army - Navy game, was attracted to possibly attending an institution with such strong traditions. He is 14 years old, 5 -11 and 170 lbs. An honor roll student this past quarter with a solid A average. Plays football and wrestles. I immediately thought that you might be a good person to ask, how should a parent proceed? My wife and I would be proud to have our son attend West Point, but have no idea how one is considered for an appointment. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. NAME WITHHELD That is very exciting. Whether or not he chooses to pursue this further, he sounds like the sort of young man you must be very proud of. Here's how to proceed... Go to http://www.usma.edu----- From there, click on "admissions" on the left side of the page Once there, you will find the info you need. You might want to click on the "Start Young" tab at the top. *********** Fox News tells how my favorite Wishbone quarterback, US Army Colonel Nate Sassaman, led Operation Ivy Blizzard, in which the 4th Infantry Division and Iraqi forces detained at least a dozen people in Samarra, an area that has become a center of anti-U.S. attacks.. "Samarra has been a little bit of a thorn in our side," Colonel Sassaman said, going on to say, in a classic understatement, "It hasn't come along as quickly as other cities in the rebuilding of Iraq. This operation is designed to bring them up to speed." *********** Denny Creehan writes to say, "Thanks for the help. Please pass on to the coaches who have written that I am in the process of moving out of my office at Army and everything I have is now packed away in boxes so it will be a while before I can write them a thank you note." *********** Bowl Report #1 - Memphis looked pretty good in the New Orleans Bowl. The Tigers did have a good season, beating Ole Miss along the way, and they did beat North Texas by two scores. But North Texas could have won, had it not been one of the most self-destructive football teams I have ever seen, Down by a TD early in the fourth quarter, they had two long runs in the same drive called back for holding. And replays showed that they were well-deserved penalties. North Texas' running back Patrick Cobbs, the nation's leading rusher and just a junior - in case you haven't filled out next year's Heisman ballot yet - really looked good. He had over 100 yards even without the 50 or 60 or so taken away from him on that one drive. *********** I watched the Sonics and Suns on ESPN today - jeez, I tell you what, the NBA's got some big problems. Outside of the big guys like Shaq, Kobe, Iverson, Duncan and a few others, it's a league of dumbass plays and poor fundamentals. Seattle had so many chances to win the game and their "main man" Rashard Lewis (one of those high school-to-pros guys) missed two free throws, then bounced the ball off his leg with a chance to win the game. Pathetic. Ed Wyatt, Melbourne, Australia (Not that the NFL isn't headed in the same direction. HW) *********** I sh-- you not. A guy named Derrick Jackson wrote this (and more) on the Op-Ed page of the Boston Globe: With no weapons, no ties, and no truth, the capture of Saddam was merely the most massive and irresponsible police raid in modern times. We broke in without a search warrant. Civilian deaths constituted justifiable homicide. America was again above the law. We have taught the next generation that many wrongs equal a right. In arrogance, we boasted, "We got him!" The shame is that we feel none for how we got him. *********** Coach the Liberals are runnin for the Hills,led by the F'N clown Dean, and they should hide in Disgrace,and stay there !! I honestly thought Dan Rather was going to puke he was so sick to his stomach at the Great News that his buddy Saddam has been captured by the Pride of America and I will give Joe Lieberman a tip of the Hat for being one of the few Democrats not to apologize for his backing the Busch Resolution. A Democrat with Balls and ethics ,will miracles never cease ! Coach I give thumbs up to Army for hiring Bobby Ross, and that is a great sign that his 1st move is to Sh**t can'n those shirts for the old ones,but let's hope he Sh**t cans that chuck and duck offense. Last but not least Martha's Vineyard and Manchester/ Essex are two excellent "smaller" division teams,BUT in my book the "king" of the small divisions will always be Ipswich High School they have been running the Delaware Wing-T for 40 plus years the Legendary Jack Welch who retired a couple of years ago won 200 plus game, they have just over 500 kids in the school and maybe 200 boys and they still compete in the Div 4 Cape Anne Lg with schools that are much larger ( Masconomet,Pentucket,Amesbury Newburyport,etc) They won Class 'D' State Titles in 38,39,41,53,54,68,69, D3 Super Bowl 77 and D4 Super Bowls in 91 and 92, No Doubt the Ipswich Tigers have some of the best tradition in all of Mass Football No matter what size. Nothing against Colgate but I will be Rooting hard For the Delaware Blue Hens they deserve it !! see ya Friday Coach, John Muckian Lynn,Ma *********** Ask Jack Tourtillotte if he can send some of those Mainiacs with common sense down to Massachusetts. These people don't seem to have any - we've had three days of snow and the city has already lost $6 million in the snowplow budget. As far as Pat Tillman goes...wouldn't it be nice if kids in America would see more significance in an Army Ranger's autograph than a football player's. A comparison: Every other day, we're reminded that President Bush has a serious set of stones. Every day during the 90's, we had to be reminded that Bill Clinton had the other organ that comes with them. Can (Delaware coach) KC Keeler finally get his championship? (0-5 in DIII title games, including an upset loss to Frosty.) GO Blue Hens, beat the toothpaste! I also wanted to sound off about the assistant whose fellow coaches laughed in his face about the DW, laughing all the way to the 0-10 bank. If there's one thing I've noticed in my short 4 years in the "real world" (MIT), there are a lot of ignorant people who have no idea how to do something right, and a lot of arrogant/malevolent people who think they know and won't admit they're wrong. Advice I give to myself: don't endow them with any responsiblity that affects your own future. If it has to be done your way, do it your damn self. Like a good engineer, I'm obsessed with efficiency and excellence. I don't have all the answers, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let the ship go down because I can't admit it. Thank god for football coaches. Christopher Anderson, Cambridge, Massachusetts *********** Ray Odierno, the Army general who commanded the operation that resulted in the capture of Saddam, was a star athlete in three sports -- football, baseball and basketball -- at Morris Hills, New Jersey High School. Recruited to play football at West Point, his goal was to play in the Army-Navy football game, but an injury ended his football career and he concentrated instead on baseball. In his final high school baseball game, he pitched a four-hit shutout and hit a triple that drove in two runs as Morris Hills clinched the 1972 league title, but his baseball coach, Lou Culmone, says he never saw any evidence that Odierno would one day wind up in a position of command. "He was a tough kid, but he wasn't a leader," coach Culmone told the Newark Star-Ledger. "He was a good student, but he didn't show any leadership qualities at that age. He was a very quiet, studious, likeable, trainable kid." *********** Did you feel the irony watching Wofford run the Wing-t versus Delaware? Mark Kaczmarek, Davenport, Iowa (Still seems to work, doesn't it? HW) *********** Have to admit, I found myself cheering for Wofford vs. Delaware. The Blue Hens should have let Wofford wear their winged helmets because the new Delaware offense is a far cry from the Wing-T made famous under Tubby Raymond. And you can bet Bobby Ross will get the Army back on its infantry loving feet and use the sky for air support. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Joe Gutilla, Minneapolis *********** Read a nice article about MIchigan's Olivet College, a Wing-T team in Division III --- http://www.d3football.com/features.php?feature=54 *********** I think I'll jam my Mac under the goal post pad, so when I score a TD I can send a few e-mails. Adam Wesoloski, Pulaski, Wisconsin *********** Hi Coach, I've enjoyed your website (and clinics) for a few years now. I'd like to suggest that you consider you add a feature called "A**hole of the Week". I think it would be a popular feature and that you'd have no shortage of nominees each and every week. In the event you decide to go ahead with it, this week I wish to nominate Joe Horn. In football, there's nothing more deplorable than the sort of childish, self-aggrandizement he engaged in Monday night. It was nauseating. Second runner-up goes to his spineless coach, Jim Haslett who didn't send his sorry ass to the locker room immediately. Best wishes for the holiday season. Cordially yours, Scott Harbinson, Ellicott City, Maryland (Excellent idea. I did address Joe Horn, but only slightly. No question that he has got this week's award locked up. Good for the broadcast crew for deploring it the way they did. Usually, they're afraid to speak out for fear of being called racist. Haslett did what any NFL coach does - pretended to do something about it, then got back to business. The NFL is becoming a cross between WWE and the NBA. HW) *********** Coach Wyatt, I forgot to remind you earlier that last year, following Michigan's loss to Notre Dame, a game in which Chris Perry lost a crucial fumble, and then stood in front of the media and answered every question they had until they were done, I touted Chris Perry as a dark horse for the 2003 Heisman Trophy.  I was delighted with the season Chris had, but it kind of galls me when people mention the 26 yards against Oregon.  He absolutely killed himself blocking in the second half of that game, and was knocking the Oregon linebackers and linemen all over the field.  I believe that he was the best FOOTBALL PLAYER of the finalists. John Zeller, McBain, Michigan (You may be right, but you'll never hear me getting into a Heisman argument. I deplore what it has become. They are trying to make it bigger than the season - bigger than football itself. Between the Heisman and the phony "national championship" there are powerful forces trying to recast college football in the image of the NFL. HW) *********** John Torres, from Latham, California, wrote to say that during a recent All-Star game he coached, a friend overheard someone in the stands referring to him as "that old coach".  He went on, "Don't know if it was in a positive or negative connotation but either way we got the "w"."   Maybe they meant it to be derogatory, but I personally wouldn't be insulted. I wouldn't mind being younger, but otherwise, I would be insulted if somebody called me a "young coach." That's what I was once, but I have paid the price for the right to be called an old coach. (This is not the best time in history to be implying that there's something wrong with being an old coach. John Gagliardi, age 77, has got his team in the NCAA D-III Finals. And Dick Vermeil ain't doin' too bad for an old geezer either, is he?) A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS   "The Beast Was out There," by General James M. Shelton, subtitled "The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam October 1967" is available through the publisher, Cantigny Press, Wheaton, Illinois. to order a copy, go to http://www.rrmtf.org/firstdivision/ and click on "Publications and Products") Or contact me if you'd like to obtain a personally-autographed copy, and I'll give you General Shelton's address. (Great gift!) General Shelton is a former wing-T guard from Delaware who now serves as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions. All profits from the sale of his books go to the Black Lions and the 1st Infantry Division Foundation, , sponsors of the Black Lion Award).   I have my copy. It is well worth the price just for the "playbooks" it contains in the back - "Fundamentals of Infantry" and "Fundamentals of Artillery," as well as a glossary of all those military terms, so that guys like you and me can understand what they're talking about.      --- GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD --- HONOR BRAVE MEN AND RECOGNIZE GREAT KIDS SIGN UP YOUR TEAM OR ORGANIZATION FOR 2003 "NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY FIRST" inscribed on the wall of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois Coaches - Black Lions teams for 2003 are now listed, by state. Please check to make sure your team in on the list. If it is not, it means that your team is no enrolled, and you need to e-mail me to get on the list. HW BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM (FOR MORE INFO ABOUT) THE BLACK LION AWARD

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS)  December 16, 2003 -  "When you're in the bottom of a hole, you can't fight back." Major General Ray Odierno  2003 CLINIC NEWS & SCENES : CHICAGO - ATLANTA TWIN CITIES   click here for info ----->>>>> <<<<<-----click here for info A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He's the guy going down on the 40. Looks like a routine play, right? Not exactly. You're sure to be hearing about this play - and seeing replays of it - at some point over the next few weeks, as New Year's Day, and the play's 50th anniversary, draws near. It was the second quarter of the 1954 Cotton Bowl game, and the ball carrier was on his way to his second touchdown, in what would be a fantastic day for him and his Rice teammates. He had already scored a touchdown on a 79-yard run to give Rice a 7-6 lead over Alabama, and in the play shown, with Rice facing a first-and-15 on its own five yard line, he swept right end and broke free up the sideline, with nothing between him and the Bama goal line. Nothing, that is, except "LEWIS", the guy on the ground to the right. It was Alabama's Tommy Lewis. Later, hesaid he was just "too full of 'Bama". What he did was step across his team's sideline and onto the field to make the tackle on a man who was sure to score. With no instant replay, the crowd of 75,000 had no idea what had happened. But the officials knew. The problem was, there was nothing in the rule book to cover it. With no precedent to go by, the referee awarded the runner - and Rice - a 95-yard touchdown, still the longest run from scrimmage in Cotton Bowl history. (The next year, the rulesmakers officially gave the referee this power.) Rice would go on to win, 28-6, and the runner would wind up rushing for three touchdowns (79, 95 and 34 yards) and 265 yards in 11 carries - an amazing 24.1 yards per carry, longest average in the history of all bowl games. He had a decent 7-year pro career from 1955 through 1966, mostly with the 49ers. He spent five years in San Francisco and a year in Pittsburgh, and finished his career with the second-year Dallas Cowboys. For most of his career he was a defensive back. In terms of stats, his rookie year was by far his best - he rushed 41 times for 253 yards and five touchdowns, caught four passes for 94 yards (23.5 yards per catch), returned three punt for 36 yards and 10 kickoffs for 249 yards - and intercepted six passes and returned them for a total of 50 yards. Since his playing days, perhaps having tired of having to explain to people how his name should be pronounced, he changed its spelling. *********** The US Army has been through some tough times lately. The Army football team just finished 0-13, to complete the worst season in American football history, and after a stirring victory in Iraq, the news media have been having a field day with the post-war terrorism, seeming almost to delight in reporting on deaths of our soldiers. But just as Bobby Ross' hiring gives cause for optimism about Army football, the capture of Saddam Hussein, representing as it does a magnificent triumph of training, discipline, hard work and teamwork, should make Americans more confident than ever in the people who serve us. *********** I love the way certain opponents of the President have this thing all twisted around. After our President and our nation suffered insults by nations that don't deserve the sweat from our nuts, after we went ahead with a handful of loyal allies, after we bore the costs and the pain, now that we have shown that we are capable of doing without those cowards, the loyal opposition says that this is a "tremendous opportunity to invite the international community to join us." Actually, I think it is the other way around. I think it is a wonderful opportunity to tell them to get their asses in line to kiss our tochus. Hours are from 9 to 10 daily except Sunday. *********** You wanna bet me we don't already have Osama bin Laden, hidden in a hotel room somewhere, just waiting to trot him out in front of the TV cameras at the next sign that the public is getting weary of the War on Terrorism? *********** Eliminate the National Debt? Simple. Raffle off a chance to take on Saddam in a steel cage. $10,000 a ticket. Pay-per-view, $100. *********** Wonder what happened to all those Saddam "doubles" that he used to use, to draw fire away from himself? *********** I keep hearing all sorts of weenies saying that the capture of Saddam Hussein creates a wonderful opportunity for us to reopen talks with the "international community." I agree. It is a wonderful opportunity to say to them, starting with France, GO SCREW YOURSELVES *********** Coach Wyatt, Did anyone else catch the NCAA soccer semi-finals on TV Saturday? Where did they keep the spectators? I mean after all, this was the NCAA semi-finals, some of the best soccer to be found in the country. It really couldn't be called a crowd, because nobody was crowded! And the finals on Sunday weren't much better! Was Columbus a bad location? Boy, just think if a college bowl game had a turnout like that. There would be calls to abolish it, and rightly so. That brings me to my next subject, the bowls. All of you people who gripe and complain that there are to many bowls, don't watch. Let the market forces reduce the number of bowls back down to a more managable number, as they most surely will. But as for me, it's college football for crying out loud! This is my only chance to see North Texas , and, to quote an add executive from McDonalds, "I'm lovin' it!" John Zeller, McBain, Michigan (Agreed. Never seen a bowl game I didn't like. I would watch any Silicon Valley Classic over any Super Bowl any time. But better lay off watching the soccer - that sport can be habit-forming! HW) *********** Coach -- I just received a note from the Ponderosa AD -- Ponderosa is the 5A high school in Parker, Colorado. You will remember that the AD and I became friends after I coached his son for a few years...and he coached my son Austin in wrestling... Anyway.... He let me know that they won the Colorado 5A State Championship this year -- Ponderosa, under Head Coach Jamie Woodruff, is a die-hard Wing-T team.. (I really don't understand how they took state with such an out-of-date offense! Or why I keep seeing that offense being run successfully ALL OVER the state of Texas on Friday nights.) Anyway, just chalk up another big school State title to one of those teams that just doesn't understand that the game has changed! Scott Barnes, Rockwall, Texas *********** In case you might wonder how well Bobby Ross is being accepted at West Point, I came across this post on an Army football board. (I reprinted it with the permission of the writer.) My dad, a retired one star in the Army, was not a West Pointer. He came up through the ranks and he and I loved Army football above all else in sports and most things outside of sports. We had a tradition of drinking a shot of Bombay Gin after Army beat Navy. My dad died 3 years ago in Dec so he and I haven't had a shot together in 2 years.After Bobby was hired I truly believe that's a victory over Navy so I went to the cemetery tonite and we had what I feel is the first of many shots to come.We are going to soon be in position to extract major payback including the way Navy ran it up on us last year. Payback starts NOW. *********** Or how about this one... Last night I dreamt that Bobby Ross captured Saddam. There was a Press Conference-----and I attended. All the reporters were shouting "Hooray" and "Whoopee" And I was shouting "Run the Damned Wishbone" *********** As a youth coach I've looked at just about every offense out there. I've also seen a lot more different stuff as youth teams try all kind of things. Wishbone, veer, option, I back, single wing, wing T, split T, spread 1 back. We're still the only team around here that runs double wing, HS or youth. We did face a Burlington team that ran a form of a double wing set. We beat them 26-6 as they passed the ball as they fell behind. More and more high school coaches are falling into the copy cat offenses where they need to run what's popular. If they lose, it must not be the offense, it must be the kids, right? They keep their jobs longer. Bellevue runs the wing-T as good as anyone around. Their coach is a former youth coach who's stayed true to his philosophy. The program is now showing how good it can be if you're connected to your youth program, and they are. All of our 8th graders are headed off to freshman ball to new offenses. Many have expressed disappointment at what they'll be doing next year. I can only imagine what this team would look like in four years had we had the chance to stay together. They worked the double wing and loved it. I'm putting together a short video for you so you can see some of these kids. I will miss this years team in many respects. Glade Hall, Seattle *********** Coach, I could not agree more with your take on the Bud commercial. I told my wife the first time I saw it they shouldn't make fun of that job. I fired off an e-mail to customer support at www.budweiser.com. I've been wandering aimless the past couple of weeks. Maybe this will give me a cause to fight for until off-season work-outs start. Jeff Murdock, Ware Shoals, South Carolina *********** Coach, Very cool idea listing the top teams. You had us (Pembroke Hill) listed at 11-1; alas, we were just 10-1. I totally agree with your take on the Beer commercials and TV in general. The other night Emma, my 3-year-old, and I were watching Charlie Brown Christmas only to see one of the many perverted tv commercials advertizing a future episode. I think it showed two women kissing but I'm not sure as I was fumbling around for the remote to change the channel. Can you imagine explaining that one to a 3-year old? She has a hard enough time seeing mom and dad show affection. My take on Herman Edwards and Tony Dungy is that they are two of the good guys in the profession. I haven't made my mind up on Marvin yet. Over the past few years I have considered taking a few small college jobs and while I know the pressure is there to please the fans I think one could get away with taking a chance on the DW if they could win. I used to picture myself recruiting just the kids who played in a DW system in high school and tempt them to play for us and come in already knowing the terminology and system. As a high school coach a guy pitching the DW to my kids could easily get a foot in the door. Have a good one, Sam Knopik, Kansas City   *********** In his travels, my son, Ed, ran across a guy in Melbourne who has a fantastic sneaker collection, and actually publishes a magazine and a Web site devoted to the hobby. The Web site's pretty cool - http://www.sneakerfreaker.com - check out his "Michael Jackson Air Force 1" shoe proposal. *********** Good Morning Hugh, Your News article on Dick Durost and the Maine Human Rights Commission caught my attention. Dick Durost is the MPA (Maine Principals Association) Executive Director and is tough as nails. He comes from Aroostook County (known simply as "the County" in this state). "The County" is in far northernmost Maine and is famous for its potato harvest and ungodly bad weather. It is a tough life and those who come from this area are tough people. Dick is one of those and is a unique individual who always acts to do the right thing no matter the outcome. I serve as chairman of the MPA Eligibility Committee and it was my Committee that denied the young man's initial request for a change of time and date. The vote was 5-0 not to make a change. A telephone poll of the Committee indicates in spite of the recent ruling we would vote to do the same thing again. Not only are we Down East Yankees, we are a stubborn bunch as well. Jack Tourtillotte, Boothbay Harbor, Maine I just loved Dick Durost's comment ("The schedule cannot be juggled to meet the needs of one student"). It just makes too much sense for today's do-gooders with their shut-the-whole-thing-down-because-one-person's-upset mentality. I wouldn't want to be a human-rights type in Maine because their job is basically to ignore common sense, and up there, there's way too damn many Yankees with way too damn much common sense. *********** Coach, I had to fire a guy this week. While it was difficult and caused a lot of self-reflection, especially in the wake of the Nebraska debacle this weekend, I made the right decision. Head coaching is not an easy job and it forces one to wear many hats. I would be interested to find another management job that deals with as many variables we do. High profile, emotional, misunderstood, dealing with large egos, while at the same time trying to be a positive influence for kids. NAME WITHHELD ( I've always said that if coaching was no more than what the public thinks it is, they pay us way too much - anybody would gladly do it for free. But for the tough things we have to do - and Lord knows having to fire an assistant is one of them - we aren't paid nearly enough. HW) *********** Remember Pat Tillman, the Phoenix Cardinals' safety who chucked it all to become an Army Ranger? Well, he made it, and he's now in Iraq. As Paul Beston writes in the American Spectator... Imagine a 26-year old American male, talented enough to play in the National Football League and earn millions of dollars, leaving because he felt he had more important things to do. What could be more important than riches and fame? Why sacrifice when our culture so often portrays sacrifice as the preserve of misfits and losers? For many observers, Tillman's decision had to have an explanation more rational, and less abstract, than mere nobility. Certainly that was the attitude of Tillman's former teammate Simeon Rice, who now plays with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Rice suggested that Tillman might be joining the army because he wasn't a very good football player anyway. While Tillman was not an All-Pro, he did set a Cardinals team record with 224 tackles in 2000. Even if Rice's charge were true, it takes an especially small person to voice such a thought publicly. But then the NFL happens to be densely populated with such men, including Rice's Tampa Bay teammate, the repulsive Warren Sapp. In his inability to understand Tillman's patriotism, Rice no doubt spoke for many of his NFL colleagues. His incomprehension was further in evidence when, prompted by an interviewer, he acknowledged that his former teammate's decision was "admirable." Did Rice belatedly realize that it was patriotism -- one of the oldest virtues -- that had motivated Tillman? Of course not: "Maybe it was the Rambo movies?" he asked. "Maybe it's Sylvester Stallone and Rocky?" Right. If it isn't pure self-interest, then it must be unadulterated fantasy. Such is the mentality of a good portion of professional athletes today, particularly in the NFL, a once-proud league now overrun by exhibitionists whose constant preening is often difficult to distinguish from professional wrestling. *********** Scott Barnes' daughter, Amanda, is a senior in high school and quite a young lady. She is smart, mature, poised, and attractive. She is also ambitious, and with Scott and mom Joanie's blessing, started an online photo business - she attends school events, takes photos, then offers them for sale by posting them on her Web site. She has been doingquite well but, as any coach out there could have told her, she is dealing with parents of darling young children, and so, Scott writes... Hey..did I tell you about that mom who jumped all over Amanda's ass because she hadn't taken "enough" pictures of her daughter &emdash; BY HERSELF?? Seems she only taken pictures of her with the rest of the girls (she's a beloved cheerleader).... The mom was concerned about what it did to her poor daughters self-esteem looking at all the other girls pictures on the Internet, and just a "few" of her own..A few days later, she received an email from some stroke dad who had twins playing soccer..apparently it was the same issue..there were 5 shots of one of the twins and only 2 of the other..now how was that poor little second twin supposed to cope with that?? Scott went on to say that the venture is teaching her some great "real life" lessons - "and one of them is that even if you are "self-employed", you still work for someone &emdash; your customers. And in the service business, the customer is always right." Nevertheless, I offered to set up an e-mail address and serve for free as Amanda's Complaint Department. *********** Good article about the All League sh--. As you know I feel the same way about All Stars. Every year I start the season preaching team, team, team, sacrifice for the team, discipline for the team. Then at the end of the season the parents of the bigger, better players expect me to pick 4 or 5 kids to play in a stupid All Star game. They think that the players that scored the most TDs, caught the most passes (and of course the QB. that threw them) should all the All Stars. How about the kids that made all the practices and worked their asses off at practice to give the starters the work that they needed to learn the plays that let the so-called All Stars run, pass, catch, and score? God forbid I should chose one of them to be an All Star! I tell the parents and players at the beginning of the season that there are no stars on this team, and therefore we can not have any All Stars. I have for years tried to talk the league and coaches into having senior games (for the players that are moving up to the next level, for us that would be the 8th. grade kids), but the coaches still seem to want the All Star games??. I have no problem with the local press or a group coaches picking a first, second, and honorable mention team to honor them after the season, but I'll be dammed if I will pick them. Also if you let the other team members pick them, it becomes a popularity contest instead of an All Star team. Frank Simonsen, Cape May, New Jersey (Coach Simonsen has been coaching successfully in Cape May for a long time, and as a result he has earned the sort of status in his community that makes him more immune to pressure than less experienced coaches. People by now understand that that's the way he operates, and there's no sense challenging him on matters such as this. HW) *********** I don't understand the Portland Oregonian, a nanny of a newspaper that's always looking out its for readers and careful not to offend... The Oregonian won't call the Cleveland Indians or Atlanta Braves or Washington Redskins by name... When 'Sheed (Rasheed Wallace) calls members of the media "motherf--kers", the Oregonian is very careful not to print the word... And when Bonzi Wells reacted to being pulled out of a game by directing a torrent of vulgarity at Maurice Cheeks, the most the Oregonian would say was that he "cussed out" the coach. But in a disgustingly racist interview with Wallace (which NBA Commissioner David Stern would refer to as a "hateful diatribe"), the creep went on and on about how The Man victimizes black men in the NBA. And the Oregonian, instead of sparing its readers, quoted the world's biggest and oldest spoiled brat verbatim, when he said "I ain't no dumbass n---er out there," and (about the NBA) "They just want to draft n---ers who are dumb and dumber, straight out of high school." This time, the oh-so-protective Oregonian printed the "n" word in its entirety. Sorry, call me hypocritical, but I don't believe the word has any place in civil discourse. (Of course, only a fool would use the word "civil" in connection with Rasheed Wallace.) So let me see if I got this straight... Mark Twain uses the word, because it was a part of the everyday speech of 19th century people, and we boycott schools and call for firing of teachers who assign kids to read "Huckleberry Finn." But as long as it's a "brother" - somebody with "street cred" - tossing it around, it's okay. Huh? *********** Here's the best part about "Sheed's rant... He ranted and raved about how this is how he felt, and if people don't like it, that's too bad, blah, blah, blah. "If I feel as though myself or my teammates have been dealt a wrong hand, I'm going to let it be known. I'm not going to sit up here like most of these cats and bite my tongue. Not me." In other words, Ain' nobody gonna shut me up. But then, whaddya know - on Saturday, he "issued" (that means it was written for him) an "apology." (It also means he was directed to do so.) On the same day, mighty Saddam, mother of all trash talkers, who urged his followers to fight to the death, surrendered without even unholstering his pistol. *********** The interesting thing about watching the D-IAA and D-II games is the number of players who have transferred from D-IA schools. One such was Delaware's 6-5, 275 defensive lineman Shawn Johnson. He is a Duke graduate, and made All-ACC in 2002, but he had a year of eligibility remaining, and rather than return to Duke - and another losing season - he transferred to Delaware and is now getting ready to play in a national championship game. (Division IA players must sit out a season if they transfer to another D-IA school, but they can play immediately if they transfer to a D-IAA or D-II program.) *********** Delaware found the solution to students tearing down the goal posts. Around one of the posts, they stationed policemen; around they other, they positioned mounted policemen. Only five of them. The students headed for the posts guarded by the humans. Whether or not they decided to press on and try to pull down the goals posts, I don't know, but they made a good choice. I wouldn't have wanted to mess with those horses. They appeared to be draft horses, with hooves the size of a small pizza. *********** Good as the Delaware program has been over the years, this is their first time in the final game since 1982. *********** Delaware is nicknamed the "Blue Hens", which might not seem like the most terrifying of mascots, but that's just because we've become a kinder, gentler society than we were at the time of the Revolutionary War, when cock fighting was an acceptable spectator sport. Lemme tell you- there is no quit in those fighting birds. The Kent County Blue Hen, from Kent County, Delaware, enjoyed a reputation as a ferocious fighter, and so, too did the company of Revolutionary War soldiers from Kent County, who took great pride in being called the "Blue Hens." *********** Colgate, Delaware's opponent in the D-IAA final, is an unlikely opponent. Colgate plays in the Patriot League which, although it plays good football, is a non-scholarship conference. Colgate also - at least at one time - had Ivy-League aspirations academically. And now, Colgate is in the finals, and such D-IAA powers as Montana, Western Illinois, UMass are not? As Arsenio Hall would say, "Makes you go 'hmmm.'" *********** The 1932 Colgate team became famous as the team that was "unbeaten, untied, unscored on - and uninvited." The 1932 Red Raiders (they are now, in the interests of Political Correctness, merely the Raiders) went 9-0, outscoring opponents 264-0. Penn State fell, 31-0, and Syracuse 16-0. But there was no Rose Bowl invitation forthcoming (there being only one bowl at that time), and thus the nickname. Colgate's coach, Andy Kerr, was a Pop Warner disciple - he was Warner's assistant at Pitt, and when Warner, with a year still to go on his contract at Pitt, agreed to take the Stanford job, he sent Kerr on ahead to coach Stanford while he finished out his contract at Pitt. Kerr then went on to Washington and Jefferson (where, by coincidence, Denny Creehan's brother is now AD), and after four years took the job at Colgate. According to Allison Danzig, in "The History of American Football," "The development of Kerr's double-spin series from the double wingback formation was the backbone of the 1932 team's attack." Wrote Arthur Sampson in 1933 in the Boston Herald, "Colgate runs almost entirely from a double wingback formation with the wingbacks facing diagonally toward the defensive tackles...Colgate teams under Kerr have always seemed to block unusually well, but it is really the perfect timing of the plays which makes this blocking look unusually effective." ***********One of new Army coach Bobby Ross' first announcements was that he would do away with those fruity, tight-fitting jerseys with the stylized "A" on the sleevs, and return to the three arm stripes synonymous with Army football during the Blaik era. Just a small thing, but no place with a tradition like West Point's ought to have junked those jerseys in the first place. *********** Massachusetts Division 6 Super Bowl - Martha's Vineyard 26, Manchester 24. The Super Bowl, after a "final four" is selected by computer in each division, is Massachusetts' equivalent of a state title. "We did it! We won our Super Bowl 26-24 to win the D6 State Title, 12-1 overall. It was one of the most exciting 40 minutes of football that I have been a part of," wrote Vineyard coach Donald Herman. "I am now mustache free as I promised the team that if we won our Super Bowl, I would shave it off." Manchester scored with 30 seconds remaining, but the pass for the two-point conversion was dropped, and Vineyard recovered the onside kick to hang on. "I have no doubt," Coach Herman consluded in his note, "that going to this offense is a major reason for our team's success this year." *********** After hearing of the capture of Saddam... Howard Dean - "I suppose it's a good thing..." Al Gore - "I was the one who told them where Saddam was hiding." My favorite school administrator - "I'd like to sit down and have a good talk with Saddam. I'll bet he understands now that what he did was wrong, and he's sorry. So I'll put him on a contract and send him back to Tikrit. But I'll make sure he knows that this is his last chance to prove himself." Dominique Villepain, France's UN ambassador - "From the very first we have totally supported our good friends in the United States in their efforts to rid the world of the evil Saddam Hussein, and we look forward eagerly to assisting in the profitable rebuilding of Iraq." Hillary Clinton - "This is all a vast right-wing conspiracy. They knew where he was all along. They timed this so-called capture to cover up the fact that Bush's oil buddies from Texas are looting Iraq." Bill Clinton - "Gol-lee. What I wouldn't give to have Bush's guts... Whoa! Would you look at the lungs on that one over by the window?" The U.S. Supreme Court - "There is a period missing at the end of the first sentence of the search warrant. This court cannot tolerate such high-handed abuses of the rights of US citizens, even if they are not US citizens. Therefore, we find by a 5-4 decision that we have no choice but to order Mr. Hussein released and the arresting officers reprimanded." Hugh Wyatt - "Listen, Hussein - As long as I'm going to be your official interrogator. You can make this as easy or as hard on yourself as you like. Now, before I start to tighten those screws, I'm going to ask you again... where did you hide the weapons of mass destruction?" *********** Coach - Won our All Star game last night, North 16 - South 0. We had two TD's called back for penalties too! As Head Coach I ended up installing the double wing and the other kids picked up fast. Scored on 7G and Tight Rip 6 G Pass/Cross, where we throw to the wing who cuts off his pass right in front of the Safety, who bit big time on the tight end. Towards the end of the game we needed two key first downs to hold on to the ball and I asked the kids what they wanted to run, they said WEDGE! This was the first win for the North in 4 years. Now my worry is I will see that wedge play used against us next year. We were successful though because our linemen picked up the system quickly and had help from my starting two guards, who I selected for the All Star Team. I am no fool coach, you know we need those guards. Get this. I would see the linemen talking as they broke the huddle and before they got to the LOS. I asked them what they were talking about and one guard said he was "checking" to make sure the non-Titan linemen knew what to do. Good stuff. A "coach" on the LOS. What more could I ask for? Thanks again and see you this spring at our clinic! John Torres, Lathrop, California (You may see the wedge, but they'll have to tighten up their splits to do it, and we all know, because our detractors are fond of telling us, "you can't run an offense without splits." A wedge without splits - or a wedge when you know it's coming (because that's the only time they tighten up) - is nothing to worry about. Neither is a poorly-coached wedge. HW) *********** Coach Torres added one more thing: "My son Zack was in the stands last night at the All Star game and he said he heard one dad asking another dad , 'What the hell kind of offense are they running?...I can not figure out how it is working so well.'" *********** Hi Coach! It has been a while since I last wrote and though I have been busy, not as busy as you. The last time I had a "simple procedure", everything seemed simple until they asked me if my will was on site! It didn't seem so simple to me then! I'm glad everything is OK and you are back on track. Well, the DW took on a great opponent in our second round of our playoffs. We had beaten them early in the year and we knew we would see the again somewhere down the line. They were a well coached, big, smash mouth type of football team and they had all of our respect. The ran right at us and had a great counter game. Hell, they could of been a great DW team! The weather was lousy (worse for them) and we did what got us to this point, super powers, traps and 5xlead. At one time they stood everybody on defense up, it was like playing against 11 linebackers! It presented a few problems for our down block but we had such a surge at the point of attack that we just took the 5 yards and moved the chains. A 12-0 slugfest put us into the "Super Bowl". It is a 19 team league so we were proud to be there and ready to take care of business. I think you would of loved it. Two rival towns, both 10 and 0 going at it for all the cheese. There was a lot of smack talk coming our way and I was proud that boys responded only with their pads. The game was about two different worlds, They went through league play without giving up a single point and we would bend a little and do what it took to win. They led the league in scoring and threw almost every down. We felt like we would be able score but stopping their passing attack would a task. On the kickoff, we looked like we had never played a down. We fumbled the return and two plays and 50 seconds later we were down 6-0. We receive and again fumble. Four plays later we fell behind 12-0! Later, my son tells me "we were a little nervous". "Thanks for telling me", I said. As if I couldn't tell! Coach, I know you have been in situations like this. We are getting killed and all of a sudden the kids woke up! We make a big hit, pick off a pass, another big hit and we are in business. We have two solid drives and we go into half up 14-12! Now my players are calm and confident like they are seasoned pros instead of 13 years old. We come out and shove the 5X and Super Powers up their tail and score 20 unanswered points for the title! The DW didn't look quite as flashy as their vertical game, however my kids really enjoyed running over them, again and again. The four pick we had on "D" didn' hurt either! Last week we were honored with the position of coaching an "all star" game. We were to play an all star team from a town just north of here called Paso Robles. I wasn't sure about this all star stuff but the two towns thought it was a great idea to get the rivalry started earlier than high school. Go figure! We were fortunate to be able to 15 players form the Raiders and the 8 from the other team had run the DW, although not by the book and it showed. Needless to say it didn't take long to get the offense on track and we ended up putting the hurt on them 44 to 24. Going 11-0 and being able to run the DW in an all star game has been special to our players and on behalf of the players, coaches and parents I want to thank you for your support. Coming from behind in both the Super Bowl and the all star game took some faith. I truly believe that our players knew they could score when they needed to and that confidence was the difference in our ability to win down the stretch. Respectfully, Michael Norlock, Atascadero Raiders, Atascadero, California *********** Good for Jason White. Big surprise, since he was the big favorite before the final game with K-State, and more than 1/3 of the ballots had actually been mailed in before that game was played. Now back to life. I agree with Allen Barra, who writes in Slate that the Heisman definitely does NOT seem to know what it is rewarding - does it go to the best player in America? Then how come he never plays defense, and never plays a position other than running back or quarterback? How come he never comes from a losing team or a low-profile program? (Brett Favre, Walter Payton and Jerry Rice come to mind.) Does he have to display consistent excellence? (What about Chris Perry's 26 yards rushing against Oregon?) Does he save his best games for the biggest games? (Perry did, sure, but what about the fact that Larry Fitzgerald padded his stats against the likes of Ken State, Ball State, Texas A & M, Temple and Rutgers, while giving less-than-Heisman performances against West Virginia and Miami? What about the egg that Jason White laid against Kansas State?) And so on... While I sit and fondly remember the days when Bob Hope hosted the All-Americans, when it was enough to be an "All-American," the best at one's position, we now have fallen victim to that peculiarly American disease that insists that we must pick one! This is what's behind the "demand" that we have a college football playoff. So while we make an enormous deal of the Heisman, as if it's the Medal of Honor, we give short shrift to All-American teams, and those "lesser" awards that honor the best people at their positions - the best tight end, the best quarterback, the best defensive players, and so forth. Mr. Barra's suggestion is that we honor those people, too - by presenting their awards at the same time as the Heisman. Not on Thursday night on ESPN II, but at the same time. Under the same roof. On the same channel. Yeah. Good luck. His other suggestion, which makes the most sense of anything I've heard in a long time - makes so much sense that even the BCS people should like it - is to postpone the voting until after the bowl games. Hell, if a guy plays on a team that's not good enough to get a bowl invite, he's not a Heisman candidate anyway. This might add a little interest to a couple of those "minor" bowls that the BCS has tried to suck the life out of. It would also keep those fool voters from filling out their ballots early. Which brings me to my suggestion. This is 2003 and we have the technology to count the votes - fewer than 1,000 in this case - in an instant. There is no reason for ballots to be cast early, as was the case this year when more than 350 were mailed in before Oklahoma's last game! Hey - if somebody's so brain-dead (or closed-minded) that he votes before knowing everything possible about a player, he ought to lose his right to vote. Screw him. Throw away this year's ballot and take him off your list of voters. *********** Boy, talk about an a**hole - the Saints' Joe Horn hit a new low Sunday, combining two obnoxious activities - playing a well-rehearsed "Look at Me" after scoring a touchdown, and doing so by publicly talking on a cell phone. He was unable to go for Trifects, which would have required him to perform his stunt in a quiet movie theatre, at the table next to me in a crowded restaurant, or in the seat behind me at an airport. *********** Caught the Texas 5A championship on Fox Sports Southwest. Two Houston-area schools hooked up - The Woodlands, which evidently had been ranked #1 most of the season, and Northshore, from Galena Park. I just got finished reading an article about the Woodlands, a school of some 4,000 kids in an area whose median income is around $80,000. The Woodlands has an 18-coach staff. There is a limit to the number of assistants a college coach is permitted, but not a Texas high school coach. And every one of those assistants is on the faculty - only teachers and retired coaches are permitted to coach in Texas high schools. (Kind of ironic that a state that doesn't permit teachers unions and doesn't provide tenure comes up with a rule like that to force administratos to hire coaches. I assume that many a non-coaching Texas teacher is let go in order to make room on the faculty for the defensive coordinator that the new coach is bringing in with him.) Anyhow, although the Woodlands had plenty of coaches, they were lacking two key ingredients - speed and Reid. Speed? Now, you're going to call me racist, and I don't give a sh--. I'm telling you what I saw. You'd have to be a damn fool not to see it. The big ole white boys from The Woodlands, 18 coaches and all, simply couldn't keep up with the black kids from Northshore. And Reid. Sheesh. Bobby Reid, Northshore's QB, is 6-4 and fast. Lord, can the kid run the option. Northshore wound up waxing The Woodlands, 23-7. After the game, Reid was asked about the verbal commitment he made before the season to Oklahoma State. No doubt the OSU coaches were somewhere nearby, and well they should, because after having been the star of the state championship game, the kid seemed to be, uh, "revisiting" his options. Speaking of options - it was interesting to see what a difference it makes out on the corner when your fullback can block low. (Texas and Massachusetts, alone among the states, use NCAA rules, which permit blocking low anywhere on the field.) The Northshore fullback consistently took out the man responsible for the pitch by throwing a cross-body block at his knees. It would be very interesting to see a study showing what happened to knee injuries in NFHS states after they emasculated the running game by outlawing blocking below the waist. I suspect that the main thing that happened was a move away from wishbone options, and fewer small men playing running back. A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS   "The Beast Was out There," by General James M. Shelton, subtitled "The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam October 1967" is available through the publisher, Cantigny Press, Wheaton, Illinois. to order a copy, go to http://www.rrmtf.org/firstdivision/ and click on "Publications and Products") Or contact me if you'd like to obtain a personally-autographed copy, and I'll give you General Shelton's address. (Great gift!) General Shelton is a former wing-T guard from Delaware who now serves as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions. All profits from the sale of his books go to the Black Lions and the 1st Infantry Division Foundation, , sponsors of the Black Lion Award).   I have my copy. It is well worth the price just for the "playbooks" it contains in the back - "Fundamentals of Infantry" and "Fundamentals of Artillery," as well as a glossary of all those military terms, so that guys like you and me can understand what they're talking about.      --- GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD --- HONOR BRAVE MEN AND RECOGNIZE GREAT KIDS SIGN UP YOUR TEAM OR ORGANIZATION FOR 2003 "NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY FIRST" inscribed on the wall of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois Coaches - Black Lions teams for 2003 are now listed, by state. Please check to make sure your team in on the list. If it is not, it means that your team is no enrolled, and you need to e-mail me to get on the list. HW BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM (FOR MORE INFO ABOUT) THE BLACK LION AWARD

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS)  December 12, 2003 -  "If you insist on center stage, you get the tomatoes." Former Texas Congressman Dick Armey  2003 CLINIC NEWS & SCENES : CHICAGO - ATLANTA TWIN CITIES   click here for info ----->>>>> <<<<<-----click here for info A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS THANKS to all the people who wrote me recently. I had a little prostate (non-cancerous) surgery done earlier in the week. The doctor said afterward that it was a "textbook" procedure. Yeah, right. He also described it beforehand as "minor." Trust me - without my going into gory detail - any time they "go inside" and "work on the plumbing," unless you're the plumber, it ain't minor. BCS STUFF--- (OKLAHOMA FANS ARE CAUTIONED TO SKIP THIS SECTION) *********** I am proud to be a member of the American Football Coaches Association. I think all coaches should belong, and I wish they offered a "Youth Coaches" membership. But I am steamed at the AFCA for the sellout that essentially makes this whole BCS travesty possible. See, all season long, there have been two weekly polls ranking college football teams - the AP poll, in which writers cast their vote, and the USA Today-Coaches Poll, based on the votes of some 37 football coaches. Those two polls, along with assorted computer ratings, were a factor in the selection of the two teams chosen to play in the BCS' purported "National Championship" game. But only a factor, because as we all know, computer programmers have determined that Oklahoma, despite being ranked third by the two polls, is actually more worthy of playing for the "National Championship" than USC, which both polls ranked #1. Now, the best that USC can hope for is that it can split the title, beating Michigan and finishing first in the AP poll. Wait a minute, you say - what about that "USA Today-Coaches Poll." Short answer - ain't gonna be one. Long answer - now that the BCS computer geeks have done their damage and over-ruled the two polls to designate which two teams will play in this game, the coaches have walked away from the wreckage. Whatever the outcome of the LSU-Oklahoma and the USC-Michigan games, there will be no further coaches' vote for #1. Thanks to the sellout by the AFCA, the coaches "vote" - the "final Coaches' Poll - has already taken place. Before the bowl games. Actually, it wasn't a "vote" at all - it was an election without electors. It has already been signed, sealed and delivered - sold, if you will - to the BCS, to be turned over to the winner of the "National Championship" game. The AFCA is a proud association that represents all of America's football coaches, and promotes the welfare of all of football, not just of a handful of major-college teams, and it has no business soiling its hands in a conspiracy designed primarily to benefit commercial sponsors and a relatively small number of football-playing teams, at the expense of the football public. *********** Before you read this, you need to know that (1) I don't particularly care for USC and (2) I like LSU. I actually spent a summer there, working for the AD. LSU may in fact be the best team in the nation, and if that's the way the polls had gone, I'd have had no choice but to accept the decision. That's what we always did in the past, and we survived. I do accept the Tigers as being more worthy than Oklahoma, but where its superiority to USC is concerned, I have a few reservations. Since coaches and writers seem to think that USC deserves to rank higher than LSU, the big argument for the computer programmers' ranking LSU higher seems to have something to do with relative strength of scheduling. I maintain that that is a bunch of B-S. (1) What makes it so strong, anyhow? Not non-league games, certainly, because LSU played three weakling DI-A teams and a D-IAA team this year. What makes it strong, then, must be the conference itself - LSU plays in the SEC, which according to common wisdom is very, very tough. But hold on a minute there - in my opinion, this could be one of those "it is because it is" deals - the SEC is considered strong because it's considered strong. It's living off its reputation. LSU is picking up a lot of BCS points for beating other SEC schools, but it is possible (easy, all you SEC guys out there) to make the argument that the vaunted SEC may actually be overrated. The fact is, SEC teams didn't do especially well this year when they went out of league and they played quality opponents - teams from other BCS conferences. Not that they load up their out-of-league schedules with toughies - this year, seven of the SEC schools played only one BCS quality opponent each. No SEC team played more than two of them. Overall, the SEC was only 8-9 against teams from other BCS conferences. (Pac-10: 1-2, Big Ten: 1-0, Big 12: 1-2, ACC: 5-5). (2) Look at the "discretionary" schedule - the non-conference part of the schedule, the part that a school has control over - and you can see that LSU's AD made no effort to put together a strong schedule. In fact, he went out and arranged a few easy wins for the Tigers. Nothing wrong with that - that's what all good AD's used to do. But where's the strength of schedule? Years ago, when USC put BYU, Notre Dame and Auburn on the 2003 schedule, nobody would have thought that the AD was doing this year's coach any favors. God knows, no one at AD could have foreseen that those programs would be down by the time the games were played. LSU, on the other hand, knew good and damn well when it scheduled them that Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Monroe and Western Illinois would be little more than good workouts for a team with national title aspirations. (No sense blaming LSU for scheduling Pac-10 weakling Arizona - no more than we can blame USC for scheduling BYU, Notre Dame and Auburn.) *********** Many thanks to the BCS guys for inadvertently giving us West Coast folks (1) a real Rose Bowl, between the Big Ten champ and the Pac-10 champ, and, better yet, (2) a Rose Bowl that will determine the national champion. I mean, hell, USC was #1 in both polls. For years and years, that was good enough for college football. So if Michigan beats #1, doesn't this give Michigan a claim on the title? WOW! WON'T THE ARGUMENTS BE GREAT? "LSU IS BETTER THAN MICHIGAN!" "OKLAHOMA WOULD BEAT USC!" AND THERE WON'T BE ANY DAMN COMPUTERS TELLING US OTHERWISE, THE WAY THEY PURPORT TO "PROVE" THAT THE 1947 NOTRE DAME TEAM WOULD BEAT THE 1969 TEXAS TEAM. NOW DO YOU GUYS WHO ARGUE FOR A PLAYOFF SEE WHY THE ORIGINAL BOWL SYSTEM, WHICH "DIDN'T PROVE ANYTHING", WAS BETTER? IT' WAS BETTER PRECISELY BECAUSE IT DIDN'T PROVE ANYTHING - IT NEVER CLAIMED TO! *********** My final word on the "National Championship Game"... Amid the rush to slip Oklahoma into the Bogus Bowl, I haven't heard a lot about the manner in which the Sooners lost - an ass-kicking - and the fact that they happened to do so just prior to the "national championship" game. Because the fact is, if Oklahoma should win its matchup with LSU, it will be very difficult to defend the Sooner's claim to the "national title" against that of either USC or Michigan. This took a little research, but bear with me. In the last 50 years, there have been 40 seasons which ended in the selection of one national champion, and 10 which ended with co-champions. Of the 40 individual champions, 29 were unbeaten and untied. (At least before the bowl games, that is - back in the days when the national champion was selected before New Year's Day, both Maryland, national champion in 1953, and Alabama, national champion in 1964, lost bowl games after being named champions.) One lone national champion, Notre Dame in 1966, finished unbeaten but tied. (The tie came in a season-ending 10-10 "Game of the Century" with Michigan State, which despite also finishing the season unbeaten but tied, for some reason didn't share the title with Notre Dame.) Only one national champion, Minnesota in 1960, lost more than one game. The Gophers were voted #1 on the basis of their 8-1 regular-season record, then went out and lost to Washington in the Rose Bowl. Now, as for Oklahoma - In the last 50 years, NO national champion has failed to win its own conference, NO national champion has lost its last game going into the bowls, and NO national champion has been beaten as badly at ANY point in the season as Oklahoma was beaten by 13th-ranked Kansas State. Only two teams came close to losing it all in the final game. Yes, Notre Dame did have that 10-10 tie with Michigan State in the 1966 season finale. But the two teams were undefeated and ranked #1 and #2 going into the game. And, yes, Florida did lose to Florida State, 24-21, in the 11th game of the 1996 season. But FSU was no 13th-ranked team. Both teams were 10-0 going into the game, and Florida came back the next week to defeat Alabama in the SEC title game, then earned the national title by defeating FSU in a rematch in the Sugar Bowl. NO national champion in the last 50 years has been beaten at any point in the season by as many as 28 points. Next closest was 25 points. That was Miami, in 1983. The Hurricanes lost to Florida, 28-3. But that was the opening game of the season, and Miami won 11 games in a row to cinch the title. The year before, 1982, Penn State lost by 21 points to Alabama. In the fifth game of the season. The Lions went on to win seven in a row to finish 11-1. Nice try, BCS, but Oklahoma ain't gonna sell. For the Sooners, a 38-7 loss to Kansas State was simply too much, too late. *********** I lied. That wasn't the last word. It occurs to me that I haven't given Kansas State well-deserved props for coming up big, big, big, in the big one, after years and years of being accused of scheduling their way to winning records, then coming up short in the big ones. I'd also like to re-print some words I wrote back in August... But with the season just two games old, I have a feeling that I've already seen the Heisman Trophy winner. In terms of sheer athletic ability, value to his team, and success at a high level, it's going to be tough to come up with someone more deserving than Ell Roberson of Kansas State. He may be one of the best all-round offensive players I have ever seen. Imagine a single wing tailback, equally adept at running and passing, who can also jump under center and take the T-formation snap and either throw a drop-back pass or run an option - that's Ell Roberson. You have got to see this kid. Damn shame he got hurt and missed a couple of games. I haven't changed my opinion in the slightest. If I were putting a team together, he's the guy I'd start with. He can do it all. ARMY-NAVY, ARMY FOOTBALL, FRANK SOLICH SECTION... *********** Man, you had to admire the way Navy got after Army. They ran that big-ass 5-11, 235-pound fullback, Brad Eckel, right at Army, and when Army's tackles started closing down on him, that quarterback, Craig Candeto, kept and either turned up or pitched. I had to laugh at the announcers, Boomer Esiason (who I thought did a pretty good job) and some guy whose first name was Ian but told us he pronounces it "EYE-in" - they told us a couple of times that Eckel was from "South Philly." Yeah, right. The guy is from Haverford, Pennsylvania, a very, very ritzy Philadelphia suburb, and he played his prep football at Episcopal Academy, a very, very ritzy day school. South Philly is Philadelphia's version of Brooklyn, a very proud city-within-a-city. It is Gino's, and Pat's Cheesesteaks at 9th and Passyunk. It is guys named "Little Nicky" Scarfo, and little old ladies who still wear black to show they are in mourning. It is Mario Lanza and Frankie Avalon and a guy named Fabian. Rocky Balboa came from South Philly - if he was going to be a Philadelphian, he had to. You don't have to be Italian to live in South Philly, but it doesn't hurt any. What I'm saying is, Brad Eckel is a hell of a football player, but he is not South Philly. Now, Candeto? That's different. I know he's from Florida, but man, how'd you like to be that kind of athlete, his age, with that kind of looks? You could walk the streets of South Philly and the mommas would be busting out of the front doors to grab you and drag you inside for a little food ("you look hungry!"). Oh, any by the way - to introduce you to their daughters. *********** It was sad the way the "Frank Solich is going to Army/No, he's not/Yes, he is/No, he's not" thing played out. Sad because I wanted to see the guy get a chance to redeem himself. Sad because I frankly couldn't think of a better place for the guy to do it, and sad because I think he and Army both would have both been better for it if he'd come on board. When Frank S. became available, knowing that the Army people actually want to run the ball, and also knowing that Tom Osborne was on the panel appointed by the Supe to make recommendations for improving Army football, everything seemed to fall into place. The Middletown (NY) Times-Herald-Record had the story all over its back page - ARMY HIRES SOLICH. My guess is that Greenspan, the Army AD, leaked it prematurely. Undoubtedly there was pressure on Solich to commit, so that the Army people could make the bombshell announcement at halftime of the Army-Navy game. My guess also is that Solich backed off, spooked when he learned that the story had been released before anything was final. *********** I was watching an old Army-Navy game on ESPN Classic and it was, indeed, a classic- two wishbone teams going at it. Boy, did those suckers come off the ball and whack each other. Alton Grizzard, who would go on to become a Navy Seal (and be cruelly murdered by a girl's jealous boyfriend), was the Navy QB. In the final minute, trailing by one, the Mids faced a 3rd and 9 and Grizzard kept it and got 7. Navy faced a 4th and 2 and Grizzard got 2. What a stud. A QB who wore a padded collar - what does that tell you about him? *********** There've been a lot of names mentioned as candidates for the Nebaska job, but based on what he said to the Salt Lake Tribune about Nebraska's firing of Frank Solich, I think you can scratch Utah's Urban Meyer off the list. "Can you believe they fired him with nine wins?" he said. "I tell you what: College athletics are screwed up right now." *********** Barry Switzer, asked by the Omaha World-Herald for his thoughts on Frank Solich's firing, was typically blunt. "It's no surprise to me," Switzer said. "You can't say a winning record keeps you. It just doesn't work that way. "It's the performance level on the field and the quality of the opposition you beat. Nebraska fans have high expectations, and Frank wasn't living up to them." Nebraska, it was noted, has had only three wins in the last two seasons over teams with winning records, and a 1-8 mark against ranked opponents. Switzer said the problem is a lack of talent. "It's obvious that the talent hasn't been there the past few years," he said. "The players aren't there. Just watch 'em play." Coaching, no matter where you are, is a brutal profession, he said. "When you're in coaching, it's like a terminal disease. It'll get you sooner or later." "No one ever gets to really 'retire.' Tom (Osborne) was fortunate enough to pick a time up there. But most don't get to." BOBBY ROSS *********** Hi Coach. Well, what do you think about Army? I just heard it is Ross. And George O'Leary is back too? Recycling...Might as well cap it off with Skippy in Lincoln and get it over with. NAME WITHHELD Recycling, huh? I think Bobby Ross is a great hire. He is a man of good character who shouldn't even be mentioned in the same paragraph as Rick Neuheisel. He went to VMI, he coached at the Citadel, he has one son who went to the Naval Academy and anothEr who went to the Air Force Aacademy. He took a Maryland program that was dead on its ass and kick-started it (remember Boomer?). He did the same with Georgia Tech, taking the Yellowjackets to a national title. He got the Chargers to the Super Bowl. Yes, he failed to turn Detroit around Vince Lombardi would have failed to turn Detroit around. As for George O'Leary - He served his sentence. He paid a severe price, having to walk away in disgrace from the job of a lifetime. But he sucked it up and has spent the last two years honorably employed. Welcome back. Recycles? Retreads? If you're talking age, you're talking to the wrong guy. I am TWICE the coach I was when I was 50, and when I was 50 I was twice the coach I was when I was 40. And so on, all the way back to when I started, and knew everything. Young guys are essential to have on a college staff because they have the energy needed to spend all that time on the road recruiting. Bobby Ross doesn't have to go out on the road. That's what he's going to hire assistants for. *********** I wrote Jim Hooper, a Denver youth coach (he coached my grandson) and West Point grad, and told him I thought Bobby Ross was a great hire. I'll let him sum up what seems to be the prevailing feeling among West Pointers... Amen. This counts as a home run. From his press conference: "We need to see what the players can do and fit our schemes to fit their strengths. "I believe in a balanced attack. But we will see what type of players we have and implement our system around them." You know that perspective on the problem makes me happy. The engineering approach to life does that to you. But it's not just system, but also the man, and the character. A-double-plus there. And I think we can not understate how much his own background (VMI; coached at Citadel; two sons are service academy grads) will help him get through the culture shock stuff and start turning the wrenches. Bobby Ross is not going to have any shock at all. He is our kind of people right from jump street. That is going to pay off in multiple ways. He'll understand and be able to adapt to the environment, find a way to make it work. And a recruiting pitch about why going to West Point is the best deal is going to be a far different and better thing coming from him than from any of his predecessors going back to Coach Blaik. The clouds have parted, the sun is shining . . . now for the Academy, and the Long Gray Line, to do its part, shut up, and let the man work. Bobby Ross is a great football coach; I hope this turns out to be a great capstone to his great career (and am hopeful that it will). *********** People in Atlanta think Army made a great pick, too. Since two former Tech coaches - George O'Leary and Bobby Ross - both took new jobs this week, the Atlanta Journal Constitution asked readers in an online poll who had the best coach - Georgia Tech (Chan Gailey), Central Florida (former Tech coach George O'Leary) or Army (former Tech coach Bobby Ross). The results? Ross got 53% of the vote, Gailey 31%, and O'Leary 16% MISCELLANEOUS... *********** You think, after the way the Demos hammered President Bush for serving in the Air National Guard, the Republicans aren't just licking their chops, waiting for Howard Dean to explain his Vietnam service? How he got an orthopedist to state that because of "lower back pain" he was unable to serve in the military - and then, lower back pain and all, he spent the next year skiing in Aspen? *********** Coach Wyatt, I was just informed that the athletic directors of our conference voted yesterday to restrict media access to our all-conference selections until after the state series has ended. Previously that information had been released during the first week of the playoffs. The feeling was (our A.D. was the only one who objected) that players on teams in the playoffs would bicker with each other over who got all-conference and who didn't. That's players bickering with their own teammates, not players from other schools! Apparently this has been a problem with some schools. I'm glad our team has a great attitude about all-conference selections and celebrates them as a team award as well as an individual award. As I told you a few weeks ago, we won our conference (8-1 record) and only received one all-conference selection. I'm sure now that I would rather have it that way than to have three or four selected and have the whole team fighting over it. I don't think our kids would act that way, though. Sincerely, Todd Hollis, Head Football Coach, Elmwood-Brimfield Coop, Elmwood, Illinois I can't stand all that all-league crap anyhow, and there are many coaches like me. I hate sitting around and listening to coaches brag about their kids. Hell, we all love our kids. I know damn well that in many cases kids are being nominated for political reasons. In some cases, just to pacify a pushy parent. I always used to get a good laugh at the coaches who would nominate eight or nine kids for all-league honors - but they hadn't won a league game. I wanted to say, "Coached the hell out of those kids, didn't you?" In this day and age of "me-me-me" I can see the jealousy harming a playoff team's chances. Not so much among the players, either - but among the a**hole parents up in the stands. If it were up to me, we wouldn't even have all league. Or at best, we'd release the names in the spring, some time around graduation. ************ A coach wrote me to say that he'd heard that another coach in his conference is going to be putting in the Double-Wing. But he didn't sound worried. "That's OK." he wrote. "I know how to stop it!" I had to laugh. I wrote back, "Hell, Coach - We ALL know how to stop it. Ain't a damn one of us hasn't stopped his own double wing dead in its tracks at least a couple times!" Sure enough, that's what he meant - turnovers, penalties and dumbass calls will stop the Double-Wing every time. *********** Is it possible to run a tackle eligible play from unbalanced with a split end.  Send A back in Rip motion, fake 88 power, boot and throw.  Do you think it could work? There is no such thing as a tackle eligible in college or high school. In order to be eligible, a lineman must be the end man on the line and he must not be wearing a number between 50 and 79. The way you could legally do what you propose is to line up in "Tackle Over," which would leave an end - with an eligible number - on the shortside. I don't know why the pros don't change the rule to conform, and I can't for the life of me understand why they never cover the guy, who everyone has to be told is eligible. ************* (Report from the Army-Navy game) Hugh, Our gang of three finally arrived in Philly late Friday night, braving Logan, O'Hare, and the New Jersey Turnpike, respectively. After Cadet firstie (senior) Kevin Jaybush and I told our high school buddy Ian that it would be extremely cold, he brought only a wool coat. He had to hit the Men's Wearhouse to buy a hat, gloves and a scarf ("the red color goes with my complexion"), leading to taunts that he was a 'metrosexual'. Ian spent most of the rest of the day bitching about the cold. Kevin got tired of it after awhile and said "Ian, you look like Tom Hanks in the film 'Philadelphia'" (He won an Oscar portraying a gay lawyer.) I'd guess you've been to a few Army-Navy games, but that spectacle was absolutely awesome. I was blown away by the sight of 8000 future officers marching into the stadium. (Army marches much better than Navy. The Mids were soft with their angles, the Army crisp.) The same couldn't be said for the teams. As I'm sure you saw, Navy marched down the field, Army matched it, had a chance to take over the game and turned it over on consecutive possesions inside the 30. Just before the interception, Cadet Jaybush said "this is where we always blow it, I can feel it coming." (Are you sure he didnt say that just before the opening kickoff?HW) I told a couple of my friends that I felt Army's football coaching (not the team, the way the team was prepared) was a disgrace to the entire armed forces. Then, in a parody of your item about the right to defecate in public, I said: "If George Patton had known he was fighting for freedom so his football team could go 0-13, he would have said to hell with the African campaign and spent the rest of 1943 carousing through Morocco looking for belly dancers and spiced rum." Philly has Iggle mania. Everyone and their daughter had either a green jersey or an embossed winter hat. Army gets ready to make the big coaching announcement...that a guy who's been unemployed for all of five days turned them down? I'm not going to go on about how the BCS gave birth to Rosemary's Baby on Sunday, but the Miami-FSU rematch shows that the BCS bowls, Lilliputian-style, will cannibalize each other rather than cooperate for decent matchups. I thought the whole point was to coordinate the Bowls, not just let them pick in order before the rest of the games. (These commissioners didn't read Julius Caesar's tale of betrayal.) I think the whole "scandal" looks like a blockbuster pair of football games. Bring 'em on! Maximal publicity and viewership for both games! I will also say that I love Pete Carroll's style. First, I love his positive enthusiasm (something I naturally have and plan to use in coaching). Second, his humility on Sunday was something to behold - "we're the #1 team in the country, we love the opportunity to play for the writer's championship and if we're fortunate enough to beat a great team like Michigan, we plan to still be the #1 team." (one ESPN writer wrote "if Michigan was in the same situation, Lloyd Carr would be calling for a Congressional investigation.") Christopher Anderson, Cambridge, Massachusetts POLITICAL CORRECTNESS--- *********** "Eli Manning joins his brother Peyton as the first siblings to win the Maxwell Award." That's what Chris Fowler actually said. What is this "siblings" sh--? "Sibling" is a word for social workers, like "nurture." Ever heard a man use the word "nurture?" Damn it! They are brothers! THE OUTMODED WING-T *********** Bellevue, Washington, a Wing-T team, won its third straight state Class 3A title last Saturday, beating O'Dea Catholic of Seattle. Bellevue's record over the last three years is 38-2. *********** The Tacoma News-Tribune, in recognizing the fact that two of the state's ten finalists in its five 11-man playoffs were wing-T teams, wrote a nice article about the offense. Even quoted Mike Lude at some length. And then, because I suppose people think :fair and balanced coverage" means you always have to provide the opposition with equal time, the writer quoted a prominent Tacoma-area coach who likes to spread it out. Here was his condemnation of the Wing-T - "If you're a receiver in the Wing-T, it's not much fun." Well, now - ain't that a damn shame? And if you're an offensive lineman in a pro passing game, that's not much fun, either. I've always liked offensive linemen a whole lot better than receivers, myself. Wide receivers are selfish. Offensive linemen are team players. Ever noticed how many a**holes in the NFL are wide receivers? *********** In one of your upcoming newsletters could you post an invitation to those coaches who will be in attendence at the AFCA convention in Orlando to possibly get together for our own DW "Buzz Session"? There may or may not be anyone else going but if they were I thought we could talk shop together. Sam Knopik, Kansas City (If you're going to be there, start out by looking up Coach Knopik. HW) *********** Have you noticed the shapes ("figures" might be a more appropriate word) on the football players used in video games? Do their waists and bums look a little too trim? Their shoulders a little too wide? Their shirts a little too tight? You don't suppose, do you, that they could be a product of some gay game designer's fantasy? *********** Yesterday they introduced the new coach at the Uof I and when asked what offense he said "1 back and we will spread it out and throw." It is like a broken record. It would have been great if he would have said the Single wing with the spinning fullback! Mike Foristiere, Boise, Idaho *********** Coach You can use my name for any letter you sign out. We are a wing-t team. I know Denny has applied for the Central CT State job (CCSU). You might want to mention that 3 of the top 4 teams in the class LL (largest class in CT) were all wing-T teams. The teams are Greenwich, Danbury, and West Haven. Christopher Cuomo, West Haven HS, West Haven, Connecticut *********** I have emailed you a few letters over time and I love the offense, I am an aspiring High School coach in (-----) , I am a senior in college @ age 29, I also play college football at the Div 2 University that I attend, well scout team anyway, but hell I am an optimist, which is why I emailed ya!  I have a story to tell you!!!  I have been doing student observations in a large school that finished the football season 0-10 this year and 2-18 in the previous 2 seasons. During my time observing classes and teachers I also spent a lot of time in the Football coaches offices viewing film and talking crap! Well, I mentioned that the Doublewing was a great equalizer for weak teams and that I had some material over the offense. The coaches asked for me to bring in the tapes. So I showed them Dynamics 1. and within about 20 minutes they were ready to TURN OFF THE F--KING FILM and they said "that crap" would never work in pee wee ball much less (our large classification). Well, now, being a complete sell out of the offense I told them they wouldn't recognize good football if it bit them in the ass. The coaches then told me that I will learn when I get some real world experience, that you have to throw the ball and "run" ZONE plays to win in High School these days. Holy sh-- I said. "Have the kids and the game changed that much since the 20's or 30's? I thought you still had 4 downs to gain ten yards and that there were end zones, in which a touchdown could be scored, at both ends of the field." That comment was not met with grandeur! But they said listen, you come here this spring and bring your stuff and we'll put in the offense and show you how bad it will fail here. Then they told me you cannot win here, there is not town support, no school support and the kids just don't have any talent. Also to note, the school will be looking for a new coach next year, this one is fired!! But on asking the other coaches on the staff if any of them expected to get the promotion to HC they all to the man said they did not want it, that you cannot win here.  I left the school after my observation time was up and I told my wife about what had transpired over the previous few days and she said, "whew crappy coaches huh!!!!!!"   "Yep, exactly," I responded. So here is the reason I really wrote to ya! I really love the school system, the town is just about 20 miles from my house and the Junior High Principal is my old High School line coach. He has made it clear to me that he would like it if I came back to his school to do my student teaching and that he would like for me to help him out with the junior high coaching duties next year. He believes there will be positions for hire and he would like for me to "stick around."  So I ask of you, what would you do if you were young and starting out. Would you go to the school and hope that you get hired and eventually get a chance to install the offense or would you skin the hell out and go else where? I have expressed to my wife that I would love to be the HC in the school there because the town has no football tradition and I believe I could build one there. But the chance to even coach there may never come my way even if I am an assistant for several years so Hum what would you do? Thanks and sorry for the long mail    NAME WITHHELD PS Please keep my name and key points of this offline as I may be looking for a job at the school and several of the coaches are older guys who are not leaving the school until they retire, although they do not want the HC position, and they are happy as assistant's to who ever shows up. Other than that feel free to fryem That school is 0-10 and I predict that it will continue to lose so long as its staff is made up of such ignorant, negative losers. I like the way that they kick back and just expect that they will have jobs no matter who the next coach is, which sounds like another reason why they will continue to lose - any new coach coming in to any job needs to have the right to clean house. That is the first thing you have to ask for when you start to get serious about the job. Not saying that is always needs to be done, but if you step into a situation where you are expected to retain assistants, it is not likely that those guys will ever be totally loyal to you, because their jobs don't depend on your success. Working at the junior high with a man you know and trust could be a great way to start. But as for that high school - I don't think that at your stage of the game that's a good place for you. There's not much you can do to overcome the negativity, and there's certainly very little that you can learn from people who are that closed-minded. The best way to grow in coaching is to hook up with somebody you can learn from. The best way to know when you've found one of those guys is - he doesn't act like he knows all the answers. *********** A COMMON SENSE SIGHTING!!! (In which we scour the United States for traces of the rare common sense that once ran our lives, back before "fairness" and "political correctness" and "diversity" took the wheel and began doing the driving,) Good Morning Hugh, The state's Human Rights Commission under intense pressure from the Maine Principals Association and its Executive Director, Dick Durost, voted 4-0 to overturn a commie investigator's ruling that tournament games should be rescheduled to meet the religious needs of one 18 year old player. The Commission based its ruling on the fact that basketball is not a required sport for graduation but was a voluntary activity and choices had to be made. The other compelling argument was that hundreds of players would be hurt to satisfy the needs of one. Hugh, remember my comments about Dick Durst - he is a fighter and one of the truly good guys - tough as they come for a potato farmer. There is still some common sense and justice in the world! Jack Tourtillotte, Boothbay Harbor, Maine *********** Coach Wyatt, Here are our results from this weekend in Key West. Allstars up to 150 lbs. Friday, Wellington Blue 26 Key West 0... Saturday, Wellington Blue 26 Wellington Red 7... Sunday, Wellington Blue 35 Acerage 0 Once again total domination by the double wing at the next level. Boy do I love to set up spead thunder all seams with spread 2 wedge. Thanks, Coach Ron Young, Wellington Semipro Blue Allstars, Wellington, Florida *********** Hugh, I was thinking about something you said in your news last week about the Bud commercials poking fun. I laughed at the cologne one but it did bother me about the shopping cart collecter/ I have a class of very low students/ we used to call them special Ed/ now they are modified students/ or 504's. For some that is their job at the local Walmart and they are proud of it. They bust their asses and make 7 dollars an hour. I really don't know how anyone can make fun of it. Like at schools - without the secretaries and custodians that school doesn't function. I would never make fun of that kind of work either. Just some thoughts. Mike Foristiere, Boise, Idaho *********** While we're on commercials... I just love the one where the young couple is having a snowball fight, and as she's bending over to make another snowball, he's making a nose on the snowman - with a key to her new Lexus! Or dad and junior are playing with the Lionel trains, and the train stops and a hopper car dumps assorted miniature rubble onto the living room carpet - including a key to a new Lexus! And the young woman, wrapping Christmas (sorry- Holiday) presents, sees a suspicious red ribbon and, traces it through the house to the garage, where sits, just for her - a new Lexus! Boy - they sure live differently from me, because first of all, we never had that kind of money. But second of all, if we did, there's no way in hell I could have squirrelled that much away - enough money to buy my wife a new Lexus, or at least make the down payment on one - without her knowing about it. *********** Hi coach: This is Mike Pacillo of the CHARIHO Cowboys organization in Rhode Island. I was just wondering if you are planning another clinic in Providence in 2004. I do have something i would like to share with you. 2 years ago, the Mitey Mite team installed the double wing offense in order to conform with the rest of our organization. That first year, we had a record of 1-7. This year, we went 6-1-1. It just goes to show you the system does work. Thanks for your help - Mike Pacillo, Carolina, Rhode Island PS - If you are doing the clinic again in Providence, let me know if you will be doing the informal "beer night" on Friday. (I don't have a schedule yet, but of all the clinics I do, Providence is one that I would never miss doing. And, yes, it has become something of an informal tradition for the coaches who arrive early to go out to dinner someplace Friday night. We usually have a pretty good-sized crew, but we have always managed to find a good place to get together. Hope you can make it! HW) *********** Coach Wyatt: I still follow Katy, Texas HS football via the Katy Times web site even though my nephews graduated in 2002.  Anyway, I call up the site today (http://katytimes.com/) and there's an announcement scrolling across the top that Katy (a suburb of Houston of more than 100,000 people) has postponed the annual holiday parade scheduled for today because of Katy HS's playoff football game.  It must be nice to live in a town where the priorities are in order. Regards, Keith Babb, Northbrook, Illinois (Reminds me of the time General MacArthur sent Coach Blaik a telegram saying "We have stopped the war to celebrate your success." (A win over Navy.) A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS   "The Beast Was out There," by General James M. Shelton, subtitled "The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam October 1967" is available through the publisher, Cantigny Press, Wheaton, Illinois. to order a copy, go to http://www.rrmtf.org/firstdivision/ and click on "Publications and Products") Or contact me if you'd like to obtain a personally-autographed copy, and I'll give you General Shelton's address. (Great gift!) General Shelton is a former wing-T guard from Delaware who now serves as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions. All profits from the sale of his books go to the Black Lions and the 1st Infantry Division Foundation, , sponsors of the Black Lion Award).   I have my copy. It is well worth the price just for the "playbooks" it contains in the back - "Fundamentals of Infantry" and "Fundamentals of Artillery," as well as a glossary of all those military terms, so that guys like you and me can understand what they're talking about.      --- GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD --- HONOR BRAVE MEN AND RECOGNIZE GREAT KIDS SIGN UP YOUR TEAM OR ORGANIZATION FOR 2003 "NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY FIRST" inscribed on the wall of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois Coaches - Black Lions teams for 2003 are now listed, by state. Please check to make sure your team in on the list. If it is not, it means that your team is no enrolled, and you need to e-mail me to get on the list. HW BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM (FOR MORE INFO ABOUT) THE BLACK LION AWARD

DECEMBER 10? 11? 12? - to those of you wondering where I've been ... I've been in the hospital undergoing a "relatively minor" (that's what they called it) procedure and the recovery has taken longer than anticipated. I'm home now and feeling better, facing a huge stack of e-mails, and I hope to have a new page up by Friday at the latest. HW

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS)  December 5, 2003 -  "Sam Cunningham did more to integrate Alabama in 60 minutes than Martin Luther King had accomplished in 20 years." Jerry Claiborne (Sam Cunningham, USC running back, so impressed Bear Bryant that the Bear determined that if he was going to be competitive nationally, he was going to have to be able to recruit black athletes.)  2003 CLINIC NEWS & SCENES : CHICAGO - ATLANTA TWIN CITIES   click here for info ----->>>>> <<<<<-----click here for info A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Before there was Peyton Manning... before there was Tee Martin or Casey Clausen... there was a kid from Huntsville Alabama named Condredge Holloway, who became so well-known, so beloved in Tennessee Big Orange Country that a C & W ballad was written about him. He almost didn't go to Tennessee. In fact, he almost didn't even play college football at all. In 1971, right out of high school, he was drafted number one by the Montreal Expos. "I really enjoyed playing baseball and after high school that's what I wanted to do," he said later. "My mom wanted me to get a college education, so I played football instead. Hindsight is 20-20, but I had a great time playing football." Under Tennessee coach Bill Battle, Condredge Holloway became the first black player to quarterback an SEC team, and he took the Vols to a bowl game all three years of his varsity eligibility. With him at the controls, Tennessee was 25-9-2. They called him the Artful Dodger. Only 5-11 and 180, he was dynamite in run-or-pass situations, throwing for over 3,000 yards in his career, and running for nearly 1,000. In his senior year, he successfully made the transition from a rollout to a veer quarterback. At the time he left Tennessee, he was the school's all-time leader in total offense, and even though he played 30 years ago, he still ranks among Tennessee's top 10 passers. He was All-SEC his senior year, and received some Heisman votes, but that was it for him as a football player in the states. Clearly not in any NFL team's plans as a quarterback - probably owing more to his size than to his color - when he was drafted 12th by the New England Patriots he chose instead to sign with Ottawa of the CFL, where he could play quarterback. Could he ever play quarterback! In 13 years in Canada, he led two different teams to Grey Cup championships. First, sharing duties with ex-Notre Damer Tom Clements, he helped lead the Ottawa Rough Riders to the title. And then, following a trade that took him to Toronto and gave him the starting position all to himself, he hooked up with run-and-shoot guru Mouse Davis. The large Canadian field and Davis' offensive system were made to order for an athlete of Holloway's calibre, and even though Davis moved on after one year, his influence on his quarterback remained - in his six years with the Argos, Holloway threw for 16,619 yards and 98 touchdowns, and led the Argos to the Grey Cup in 1982. He ended his career with one final season in British Columbia, then returned to Tennessee to get his degree. He is currently an Assistant Athletic Director at Tennessee. Condredge Holloway is a member of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, and in 1999 was inducted into the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame. Correctly identifying Condredge Holloway- Adam Wesoloski- Pulaski, Wisconsin... Joe Gutilla- Minneapolis... John Bothe- Oregon, Illinois... Kevin McCullough- Culver, Indiana... Bill Nelson- West Burlington, Iowa... Joe Daniels- Sacramento... Mike Foristiere- Boise, Idaho... Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa... Greg Stout- Thompson's Station, Tennessee ("A class act all the way.")... Jeff Hansen - Fort Myers, Florida ("A fine QB in an era that saw Alabama rule the SEC with only one loss during the 72-74 seasons. Probably doesn't get the recognition he deserves for being the first of in a line of great Tennessee quarterbacks who have played in the last thirty years.")... John Muckian- Lynn Massachusetts... Mike O'Donnell- Pine City, Minnesota... Brad Knight- Holstein, Iowa... Scott Russell- Potomac Falls, Virginia... Michael Morris- Huntsville, Alabama ("My business manager played with him in high school in the early seventies, starting at quarterback the year following Holloway's graduation. He has nothing but good things to say about him. Condredge Holloway left a trail of friends and admirers when he went to Tennessee. I've seen him on the sideline at Tennessee games, so he continues to be involved with the school and the area that gave him his start.")... John Zeller- McBain, Michigan... Steve Smith- Middlesboro, Kentucky ( "How could any self-respecting Tennessee boy NOT get this week's Legacy player, Condredge Holloway? He was a bit before my time, but I've seen many highlight reels with him included.")... Joe Ferris- Florence, Wisconsin... Alan Goodwin- Warwick, Rhode Island... Mike Studer- Kittitas, Washington... Steve Staker, Fredericksburg, Iowa... John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... (If you can identify the football personality, e-mail your answer to coachwyatt@aol.com - to receive credit, you must be sure to include your name and where you're writing from. Those answering correctly will be listed on Friday's NEWS.) NOTE: It is apparent that Denny Creehan is no longer in the running for the head coaching job at Army. Not only is Army not going to be a Wing-T team, it is not even certain that Army will be a running team. Thanks to the help of those who wrote in his behalf, Denny has been given consideration, and Denny asked me to thank those who have supported him. He said that when he has time he intends to thank everyone who has written on his behalf. Time for Plan B. There are several other positions for which he has applied, and I believe that we would all like to see him get one of them and implement the Wing-T. But unlike at Army, where many people understand the need to run the ball, it is not necessarily the best approach to try pushing the virtues of the Wing-T at another college, whose AD may be scared off at the thought of a grind-it-out offense. (Not that the Wing-T is a grind-it-out offense - it is as wide-open as it needs to be - but through personal experience, Denny feels that it's best to soft-pedal the Wing-T.) So I plan to write to the places where Denny has applied, and the thrust of my letter will be that Denny has the support of a large number of high school coaches from all corners of the US, coaches who would definitely be interested in advising kids to play for him. It won't be very effective without proof of support, and that is where you come in. You don't have to write anything - just let me know ASAP if we can use your name as a signatory on the letter. I'd like to shoot for a minimum of 100 high school coaches' names. (Your signature matters. If there is not a strong show of support, there's no sense in writing a letter.) *********** Coach Wyatt: Oh my God! I've been waiting for this legacy question forever. Needless to say, Condredge Holloway was (and is) my hero. He was one year ahead of me at the University of Tennessee. He was a freshman the last year freshmen were not eligible to play for the "varsity". In one memorable freshman game, he cemented his legend and unleashed the expectations that he largely fulfilled during his last 3 years on campus. The Tennessee freshmen played the Notre Dame freshman in a game that was attended by nearly 50,000 people. (Neyland Stadium had only a 72,000 seat capacity at the time.) As I recall, Tennessee won that day 31 - 13. The play of the game was a pass play where Holloway was being chased by defenders. He turned and headed up field where he was confronted by a d-back who tried to tackle him. Holloway leapt in the air and the defender hit one of his feet. Holloway turned a complete flip, landing on his feet and proceeded to the end zone. I know folks who still talk about that play! I saw every one of Holloway's home games and quite a few of his away games. He was a magnificent athlete. I also saw him play in numerous intra-mural basketball games. Man! could that guy shoot the rock. Condredge Holloway is a class act. A couple of my fraternity brothers played on the football team. As such, we had a number of football players at our social events. Whenever discussions turned to what kind of person Mr. Holloway was, everyone was glowing in their praise. My final football story: Holloway's senior year, Tennessee vs. Clemson. We had to win this game because my sister went to Clemson and I had some friends there. I didn't want to hear their trash talking during the off season. Anyway, UT was trailing late in the game. They drove for a TD that put them within one point of a tie and less than a minute left. Since there was no overtime in those days, UT went for 2 points. They put the ball on the left hash and everyone in the stadium knew that the play would be a roll out to the right with an option to pass or run. Clemson knew this too. As the play developed, it was clear that UT had no chance to either run or pass into the end zone. Holloway proceeded to give ground, roll back to his left and throwing off his back foot from about the 20 yard line found a receiver in the back of the end zone. That won the game. I'll never forget that play. I'll go back to reading the 'News' now. I was so excited, I had to fire this off first. Regards, Keith Babb, Northbrook, Illinois *********** I could only imagine how tough it must have been in the SEC, with some of those old attitudes.....Also the last UT QB to lead them to a national championship was not Peyton Manning but Tee Martin, another African-American. UT is to be commended for some pretty forward thinking and putting winning and fair play before race and bigotry! Joseph Daniels, Sacramento (I might add that Condredge Holloway, like Jackie Robinson in major league baseball, was the perfect man to become the first black quarterback of a major southern team - a great athlete, certainly, but also a man of great character and dignity. To the folks at Tennessee, he must be a treasure. HW) *********** So Frank Solich couldn't keep up with the Devaneys and the Osbornes, huh? Take a look at this, Cornhuskers- FIRST SIX YEARS AT NEBRASKA... OVERALL RECORD RECORD VS. OKLAHOMA Bob Devaney 53-12 2-4 Tom Osborne 55-16 1-5 Frank Solich (only got six years) 55-19 1-1 *********** So the Nebraska AD, Slickster Pederson, fired Frank Solich because he wasn't ready to surrender the Big 12 to the Oklahomas and the Texases? Actually, over the last six seasons, there's not that much difference among the three (and for what it's worth, the Texas people are pissed, too, because they bin havin' their own problems with Oklahoma.) DURING SOLICH'S NEBRASKA TEXAS OKLAHOMA 6 YEARS 55-19 56-17 60-15 *********** Observations from the MAC championship... (1) After watching TCU lose to Southern Miss and then struggle against winless SMU, I really do believe TCU's story about having to back out of the GMAC Bowl in Mobile - and a meeting with the MAC champion - because of a conflict with exams. But I also believe that someone at TCU purposely rescheduled those exams just to create that conflict, so that they wouldn't have to go to Mobile and get their asses whupped by Miami. At least this way, with them staying home to play in the Fort Worth Bowl, when Boise State beats their asses they can just walk home. (2) Miami QB Ben Roethlisberger gets my Heisman vote. *********** You can talk all you like about retiring famous players' numbers, but you'll have to go some to beat Syracuse University, whose Zip code is 13244, honoring all the famous Orangemen - Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, among others - who wore #44. *********** There's no hope... All along, I've been a supporter of President Bush and our efforts to bring civilization to the people of Iraq. But I lost all hope when I read the other day that Nike, Major League Soccer and FedEx were joining forces to send a special present to the children of Iraq - 60,000 soccer balls. *********** Congratulations to Lansingburgh, New York High and coach Pete Porcelli - 9-2, state quarter-finalists, ranked 5th in the final state Class B poll. *********** I was really moved, watching all those volunteers combing the frozen North Dakota countryside, searching for Dru Sjodin, the missing college girl. People from as far away as Canada had dropped what they were doing to come to the assistance of law enforcement professionals in the hope that they might find her. I was also moved to suggest that, as long as they have their hands on the guy they suspect had something to do with it, they save all those volunteers a lot of looking, and use the thumbscrews on the bastard. *********** I was listening to Beano Cook Thursday, He knows more things about more things about college football than any man alive, and he mentioned that this Army-Navy game will mark the 40th anniversary of instant replay - said it was put to use specially for the 1963 Army-Navy game because the CBS people were afraid that they would be fooled by the clever ball-handling of Navy's quarterback - a guy named Roger Staubach. The very first play to be replayed involved not Staubach, but Army QB Rollie Stichweh. Cook said that, unbelievably, no one saved the tape. H said he worked at CBS for a while, and he blamed the loss of the tape on cost-cutting by the "bean counters" (accountants) at CBS He concluded, "We have too many bean counters... too many politicians... too many lawyers... too many computers." *********** Coach, I just wanted to let you know I used your playbook and a couple of your tapes and had great success this season. My team went 13-0 for the season. I also used it for my All Star Team with great success. I had 2 backs over 1000 yards. Defensively, we held our opponents to 35 points for the entire season. We scored 392 and allowed 35. I think a lot of our success can be attributed to the safer surer tackling video. Thanks for the great products. I will be ordering the fine line video as well as the troubleshooting video. I am also looking at the practicing without pads video as well. Again thanks and continued success to you. Troy Daugherty, Rexburg, Idaho *********** I was watching the Duke-Michigan State basketball game and the camera showed us Mike Krzyzewski's brother, Bill, sitting in the stands. Since Duke doesn't play that many games in the Midwest, he'd driven over from Chicago to watch his little brother. Now get this- this is cool. Mike and his wife, Mickie, have donated a million dollars in Bill Krzyzewski's name to establish a full scholarship at Duke for one of the basketball captains. The gift was made to the Duke Basketball Legacy Fund. Since its creation in 2000 by former Duke All-America Grant Hill, the Fund has grown to 24 partners, each of whom has contributed a minimum of $1 million to the Duke basketball program. Bill Krzyzewski retired this past fall as a captain in the Chicago Fire Department. In 38 years, he never missed a day of work. "I have always looked up to my brother as a great leader of men and women," said Coach K. "What he has done as a captain in the Chicago Fire Department is truly inspirational. I would hope that every Duke basketball captain in the future that holds this scholarship would try to uphold those same standards of dedication and honor." *********** Last year it was Oregon, ordered to rejuggle its state basketball schedule to accommodate a school whose religion prohibits playing on Friday nights. And get this - it's a private school. Uh, seems to me you have a right to practice your religion, but you don't have a right to have an entire tournament rescheduled to suit you. (But then, I guess that's why I'm not a judge, right?) Now, along comes Maine, where a state human rights commission has ruled that its athletic controlling body, the Maine Principals' Association, discriminated against a high school student - one frigging kid - when it refused to reschedule a tournament game so that kid - one frigging kid - could play. The game, a quarterfinal, got underway about 4:40 PM on a Friday, and since the kid's religion - something called the Church of God Restored - said no sports after sundown Friday, he wasn't able to play after the first quarter. (His team lost by 20 points.) Tough, said Maine Principals' Association executive director Dick Durost. "The schedule cannot be juggled to meet the needs of one student." Hah. Shows how much he knows. The state human rights commission says it not only can be juggled - it will. Forget the fact that they'll be having to play games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. School nights. Maybe even during school days. Among other problems, nobody will show up. That's bound to hurt the bottom line. But hang the cost. This is America, the "Nation of One", where one frigging atheist can pull God out of the Pledge, and one non-smoker can make a state ban smoking in all its restaurants. *********** A few weeks ago I mentioned the turnaround that had taken place at Frank W. Cox High School in Virginia Beach, a school with a terrific academic reputation and, until now, a not-so-great football tradition. In its first year of running the Double-Wing, Cox won six of its last seven games - its last five in a row - to finish the season 7-3, the first seven-win season in the school's 40-year history. Predicted pre-season to finish 38th in its 42-team region, Cox ended the season ranked seventh, and ranked third in rushing. (We are talking about a region that has produced Bruce Smith, Allen Iverson, and Michael Vick.) Four players (including Andre Boone) were named to the All-District team, and Coach Steve Allosso was named district Coach of the Year. Prospects for next season are encouraging - the entire backfield returns, including sophomore running back Andre Boone, whose 1398 yards rushing led the district), and up front only the center and two guards graduate. The JV team was unbeaten. By the end of the season, even the toughest skeptics have been convinced. Wrote one of the toughest... "We winked and laughed at Steve Allosso" he wrote, when he... left a good job in business to become a high school coach... hired a women to be an assistant football coach (I've written about Nancy Fowlkes, a perennial state champion field hockey coach).. decided to run an offense that looks like a rugby scrum. "Now," he concluded, "the laugh's on us!" *********** So Oakland's Bill Callahan goes in front of the media and says "We've got to be the dumbest team in America." So then loyal follower Charles Woodson, who has been openly campaigning for weeks to have Callahan fired, takes umbrage, saying that he can't believe one man would be calling another man dumb. Now, I heard Callahan speak, Charles, and I'll be damned if I heard him call another man dumb, but if that's the way you understood it, maybe the shoe fits... *********** Hugh, I haven't researched the legacy for this week but I will guess who you are talking about that has a little baggage and has coached at two major colleges and doesn't have an expensive contract to buy out. Duh! That would be none other than Mike Price! (Only if you consider Weber State to be a Major college. Or are you countin' Bama? - HW) I didn't just fall off the truck you know!! That is an obvious one, but no one yet has mentioned Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin, himself a Nebraska grad. I personally hope that the Huskers get to play Iowa in a bowl game so once and for all I can have some peace and quiet at family gatherings when the Hawks whup thar ass! I've a lot of relatives in cow country over there in NE. Don Capaldo, Keokuk, Iowa *********** Hi Hugh, Well, we did it again..........our SOC Patriots Jr. Pee Wee team finished 13-0 and a second superbowl championship. It was a very exciting fight to the finish. We were in the tougher league beating Inglewood, Compton and La Mirada in the playoffs and for the second straight year we faced the Mission Viejo Cowboys in the Superbowl. This time we beat them even worse shutting them out 22-0. That makes us 26-0 since I installed your version of the DW offense. Thanks again for all your help! Al Bellanca, Laguna Niguel, California PS. The head coach of the Clinic team (10-11 year olds) was an assistant on our team last year. This year he took our (your) DW and finished with one loss. Unfortunately, it was in the playoffs to the team that ultimately won. He is also hopeful that you will hold a clinic for our coaches and players sometime this summer. *********** At first I chuckled at the Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" spoofs, like the one in which the crooner satirically sings the praises of "Mister Too-Much-Cologne-Wearer." But then Budweiser took a poke at the guy at the super market who rounds up the shopping carts, and I sat up straight and said, "Whoa! What gives a f--king beer company the right to make fun of a guy who's holding down an honest job? What the hell kind of way is that to sell beer?" That's a far cry from the old days of "Miller Time," or "This Bud's For You," when beer companies actually saluted people who worked hard, whatever their job. (I have heard that those people have been know to drink a beer or two.) So who's the next target? Janitors? Factory workers? Bus drivers? Cops? You wonder why businesses find that only immigrants will do entry-level work? That's because those jobs are beneath Americans. Fast food? Elitists sneeringly dismiss that as "flipping burgers." Ecch. And kids, who in general are pretty quick on the pickup, rather quickly decide that they'd rather die than be seen working in fast food.. They're not qualified to do anything else, or course, but still they'd rather do without than work at a job that's looked down on. Well, not really. Because we all know that in today's world, they will not do without. Instead, they'll do the manly thing. They'll go deal drugs. And pimp. And steal. Yeah - Real Men of Genius. *********** Sylvester Croom has been hired as head coach at Mississippi State. Good for him and good for Mississippi State. I wish him well. He has his work cut out for him. Over the years, Mississippi State has not been an easy place to win at. Good coaches like Emory Bellard and Jackie Sherrill have come in and seen the bad times as well as the good. So now that he's on the job, let's hope that he becomes more and more Coach Crume and less and less Black Coach Croom or African-American Coach Croom. I rather doubt that Coach Croom is wrapped up in the racial thing himself, because he's got an awful lot of things on his mind right now just being the head football coach at Mississippi State, a school that has finished at the bottom of the SEC West for the last three years. He has enough to do without the added burden of being asked to blaze a trail for others. "I am the first African-American coach in the SEC., but there is only one color that matters here and that color is maroon," he told a cheering crowd at the press conference where he was introduced. And just to show that it's not totally a black-white thing, Michael Reed, a restaurant manager in Starkville, home of Mississippi State, told the New York Times, "I would have rather seen them get a Terry Bowden or make a try for Steve Spurrier, rather than hire a guy with no head coaching experience. As far as being the best guy for the job, no, they didn't get the best guy for the job. I wanted a guy who would take us to the next level." Michael Reed is black. This is the South, after all, where winning in football is more important than race. Far more important. *********** Meantime, I really think it's been a while since I heard anyone make a big deal of the fact that Herman Edwards, or Marvin Lewis, or Tony Dungy were black men. I think that's good, because they're football men. Isn't that the way it should be? *********** Coach, I assume that you've answered this question before, but after hearing all of the stories of the success of the double wing at the youth and HS level, how come it is unknown at the college and pro level? Is it because it is more easily defended by better athletes at higher levels or because the enormous college and pro linemen can't block it. Or is it simply that those coaches are such craven conformists that nobody will risk trying it? Thanks, Scott Harbinson, Ellicott City, Maryland That is part of the answer. A coach who is known for running something unconventional had better win big, because if he gets fired no one else will take a chance on him. Most coaches, unfortunately, are coaching at two places - the one they're at and the one they're auditioning for, which is, naturally, a bigger and better job than the one they have. And to get a bigger and better job, you have to do what the guys in the bigger and better jobs are doing. That is the major reason why colleges look like pros - if you ever want to be considered for a pro job, you have to run a pro offense. Why do the pros run a pro offense? (1) Fans want to see passing - even more than they want to see winning (2) They can get the guys to run it (although you wouldn't think so, to see some of the NFL "offenses" (3) Since everybody essentially does the same thing, players become relatively interchangeable, which is necessary in these days of free agency and rapid roster turnover (it may also help explain why pro offenses are not nearly as effective as you have a right to expect, and depend a lot more on individual talent than on team execution. (4) Then there is "loss insurance." They all know, deep down in their hearts, that the potential exists for them to get beaten. Look at the NFL, where more than half the teams have losing records. Now, if your team is losing, and not providing the excitement and thrills of passes flying through the air, you will have fans getting up and leaving at halftime. Although the NFL spends millions trying to convince you otherwise, it is not in the football business. It is, first and foremost, in the entertainment business. So essentially, it works from the top down - college fans now expect to be entertained as much as they expect to win, which means they expect to see their school running what the pros run. In other words, don't expect to see a major college team committed to running the ball. Other than Rice, where Ken Hatfield hold out, and the service academies. Seems like only the service academies - Army excluded for the moment - care more about whether they win than how they win. Actually, the Army people realize they have been bamboozled by being suckered into running the spread offense like everyone else, because what they want is the exact opposite - they want to win, of course, but they also want to beat you up.  *********** Army-Navy is Saturday, and Bill Lyon, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, writes... No Division I team has ever lost 13 times in one season. Army goes into this game 0-12. You might think by now that they would be numb, and couldn't feel the losing. You would be wrong. You might think that all that losing makes them losers. You would be grievously wrong. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh-and-12. How must that feel? "I cry after every game," he admits. "I don't wish that feeling on anyone." But you keep on, don't you? You go to practice every day anyway, don't you? You pour yourself into it. Because you are certain that this is the week when the losing will stop. This will be the game when it all turns around. "Yes sir. If you don't feel that way," he says, "then you have no chance." Name: Kent, Ryan Evan. Senior, West Point. Hometown: Woodbury, N.J. Cocaptain, Brave Old Army Team. Outside linebacker now, field artillery soon. He sits before you straight as a bayonet. In high school, he was an option quarterback and won two state championships. At the Point, they asked him to move to defense. He did and became a tackling machine. In the last two seasons, he and his teammates have played 24 games, and they have lost 23 of them. They soldier on anyway, not an ounce of give-up in them. The losing, they find, bonds them rather than dividing them. "We're a very tight group," he says. "0-and-12 is no fun. But we have each other. We're members of a very special brotherhood." A LIST OF SOME TOP DOUBLE-WING HS TEAMS   "The Beast Was out There," by General James M. Shelton, subtitled "The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam October 1967" is available through the publisher, Cantigny Press, Wheaton, Illinois. to order a copy, go to http://www.rrmtf.org/firstdivision/ and click on "Publications and Products") Or contact me if you'd like to obtain a personally-autographed copy, and I'll give you General Shelton's address. (Great gift!) General Shelton is a former wing-T guard from Delaware who now serves as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions. All profits from the sale of his books go to the Black Lions and the 1st Infantry Division Foundation, , sponsors of the Black Lion Award).   I have my copy. It is well worth the price just for the "playbooks" it contains in the back - "Fundamentals of Infantry" and "Fundamentals of Artillery," as well as a glossary of all those military terms, so that guys like you and me can understand what they're talking about.      --- GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD --- HONOR BRAVE MEN AND RECOGNIZE GREAT KIDS SIGN UP YOUR TEAM OR ORGANIZATION FOR 2003 "NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY FIRST" inscribed on the wall of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois Coaches - Black Lions teams for 2003 are now listed, by state. Please check to make sure your team in on the list. If it is not, it means that your team is no enrolled, and you need to e-mail me to get on the list. HW BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM (FOR MORE INFO ABOUT) THE BLACK LION AWARD

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS)  December 2, 2003 -  "No young man believes he shall ever die." William Hazlitt   click here for info ----->>>>> <<<<<-----click here for info   A LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Before there was Peyton Manning... before there was Tee Martin or Casey Clausen... there was a kid from Huntsville Alabama who became so well-known, so beloved in Tennessee Big Orange Country that a C & W ballad was written about him. He almost didn't go to Tennessee at all. He almost didn't even play college football. In 1971, right out of high school, he was drafted number one by the Montreal Expos. "I really enjoyed playing baseball and after high school that's what I wanted to do," he said later. "My mom wanted me to get a college education, so I played football instead. Hindsight is 20-20, but I had a great time playing football." Under Tennessee coach Bill Battle, he became the first black player to quarterback an SEC team, and with him at the controls, Tennessee was 25-9-2, and he took the Vols to a bowl game all three years of his varsity eligibility. He showed he was something special in his very first game as a sophomore, against Georgia tech, when he threw an interception, then chased the defender practically the length of the field to keep him from scoring. They called him the Artful Dodger. Only 5-11 and 180, he was dynamite in run-or-pass situations, throwing for over 3,000 yards in his career, and running for nearly 1,000. In his senior year, he successfully made the transition from a rollout to a veer quarterback, and by the time he left Tennessee, he was the school's all-time leader in total offense, and even though he played 30 years ago, he still ranks among Tennessee's top 10 passers. He was All-SEC his senior year, and received some Heisman votes, but that was it for him in the states. He wanted to play quarterback, but he had two strikes against him - he was small, and he was black. Clearly not in any NFL team's plans as a quarterback - probably owing more to his size than to his color - he was drafted 12th by the New England Patriots, so he chose instead to sign with Ottawa of the CFL, where he could play quarterback. Could he play quarterback! In 13 years in Canada, he led two different teams to Grey Cup championships. First, sharing duties with ex-Notre Damer Tom Clements, he helped lead the Ottawa Rough Riders to the title. And then, following a trade that took him to Toronto and gave him the starting position all to himself, he hooked up with run-and-shoot guru Mouse Davis. The large Canadian field and Davis' offensive system were made to order for an athlete of his calibre, and even though Davis moved on after one year, his influence on his quarterback remained - in his six years with the Argos he threw for 16,619 yards and 98 touchdowns, and led the Argos to the Grey Cup in 1982. He ended his career with one final season on British Columbia, then returned to Tennessee to get his degree. He is currently an Assistant Athletic Director at Tennessee. He is a member of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, and in 1999 was inducted into the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame. (If you can identify the football personality above, e-mail your answer to coachwyatt@aol.com - to receive credit, you must be sure to include your name and where you're writing from. Those answering correctly will be listed on Friday's NEWS.) NOTE: It is apparent that Denny Creehan is no longer in the running for the head coaching job at Army. Not only is Army not going to be a Wing-T team, it is not even certain that Army will be a running team. Thanks to the help of those who wrote in his behalf, Denny has been given consideration, and Denny asked me to thank those who have supported him. He said that when he has time he intends to thank everyone who has written on his behalf. Time for Plan B. There are several other positions for which he has applied, and I believe that we would all like to see him get one of them and implement the Wing-T. But unlike at Army, where many people understand the need to run the ball, it is not necessarily the best approach to try pushing the virtues of the Wing-T at another college, whose AD may be scared off at the thought of a grind-it-out offense. (Not that the Wing-T is a grind-it-out offense - it is as wide-open as it needs to be - but through personal experience, Denny feels that it's best to soft-pedal the Wing-T.) So I plan to write to the places where Denny has applied, and the thrust of my letter will be that Denny has the support of a large number of high school coaches from all corners of the US, coaches who would definitely be interested in advising kids to play for him. It won't be very effective without proof of support, and that is where you come in. You don't have to write anything - just let me know ASAP if we can use your name as a signatory on the letter. I'd like to shoot for a minimum of 100 high school coaches' names. (Your signature matters. If there is not a strong show of support, there's no sense in writing a letter.) *********** "not only the SIDEWAYS ballcap during the national anthem, but my step-son runs in the kitchen during the Macy's parade and says; 'there's a transvestite on! in a Santa suit!' "Used to be the parades were fun to watch... I remember marching down 5th Ave. a few times when I went to school at an upstate military school, a grade school (which was patterned after the Point of course!) but now everytime you glance at it, there's a bunch of gratuitous cleavage, or saccharine "set-pieces".... tell you what, it pisses me off big time that the hedonism is everywhere - can't even watch a friggin Thanksgiving parade with your family! "deep breath...ok, I'm a little better now. Thanks coach," John Rothwell, Fort Worth, Texas (Watching TV with your kids nowadays has to be like taking them for a walk through a minefield. So, since watching TV with kids is so risky, what do most damn-fool parents do? Why, give the kids their own TV in their room! HW) *********** Greetings: I am writing from Fort McMurray, Alberta about 275 miles north of Edmonton, Alberta. I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta where Johnny Bright lived and taught. He taught at the same school my father taught at-Bonnie Doon Composite High School. I had the privilege of having him as a Physical Education teacher and as a Sociology teacher. I have seen Johnny Bright and a high school basketball player, play a full five players in basketball and win! What an incredible man! Yours sincerely, Gary Marcellus *********** I read an article in the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, about four-day Student Conference for United States Affairs, attended by students from more than 100 colleges around the country. It was held at West Point. Few of the outsiders had had any exposure to the military, and fewer still to the rigors of Cadet life, and one Harvard guy came away duly impressed by the high physical, academic and moral standards Cadets are held to. "They put us all to shame," said Francisco Aguilar, a junior. "Harvard kids think they're so great, but they wouldn't last a day at West Point." *********** Coach, I am pleased to inform you that the Millersville Wolverines are the 105lb Anne Arundel County Champions. The first team to win the championship running the Double-Wing and yes that included High School. As you know, we have been to the championship game the past two seasons. Last weekend we beat the defending championship in the Conference Championship,(I sent you the particulars in a previous email). You were 100% correct on how difficult it is to prepare your team to play for the Championship after a huge emotional win a week prior. The boys were extremely loose and supremely confident at the start of the game. Without going into a long drawn out play by play we eventually beat South River 14-0. We used a very nice ground game and kept the ball the majority of the game. Had a few penalties along the way as well as a couple of fumbles. Our A-Back finished the game with 21 carries for 135 yards, 1 td, 2 xp's. We were unable to get the production that I wanted from the B-back position, but their play was very instrumental in our success. South River has played us four times for the past two years, and we also scrimmage them at the beginning of the season - so it was no secret to them what we are capable of doing. They always play us very tough! One other side note that I must tell you. As you know Archbishop Curley HIgh has made a huge impression on our players. Coach Mike Dison had visited our practice during the year and told the kids that If they made it to the Championship, he would be there to support them! Well, I didn't even think about calling him after we won our Conference Championship game, but Coach Dison called me the night before the game and asked me for directions, and said he would be there. Coach Dison showed up along with Coach Lombardi (Curley HS) and stood and watched the game on our sideline. Now I know how that felt for me to have a High School coach come out and support a youth program that is not a feeder to their school. (When the local private schools have no interest in our program.) One can only imagine how the players must have felt to see the Curley Coaches on their sideline. In addition, any of the parents that may be considering private school as an alternative cannot help but take notice of what these coaches have done for our team this season. Some quick offensive seasonal stats: A-Back 110 carries 1283 yards 26 Td's (2 Receiving)... B-Back(s) 102 carries 495 yards 11 Td's... C-Back(s) 87 carries 622 yards 10 Td's (3 Receiving)... QB 14-10-221 5 TD passes Total Offense 2684yard (11 Games - 8 Regular, 2 playoff games, 1 championship game) Coach again - thank you for you continued support - look forward to the spring clinic. I will be sending you a copy of the game(s) in a few weeks! Jason Clarke, 105lb Head Coach, Millersville Wolverines, Millersville, Maryland (This is quite an accomplishment. Anne Arundel County, southwest of Baltimore, has a population of more than half a million people, and an extensive youth sports organization. HW) *********** Did you hear Steve Pederson, that pompous, blow-dried ass of an AD at Nebraska, standing up and saying that firing Frank Solich "wasn't about wins and losses?" Hear him say he just didn't like the direction the program was headed in the next five years? That he wasn't willing to "gravitate toward mediocrity?" That he wasn't willing to "surrender the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas?" Amazing. He fires a guy not because he lost. He fires him because he thinks he's going to lose. Whew. Whoever he hires is going to earn his money before he ever plays a game. Just working for a guy like that is hazardous duty. *********** What an interesting juxtaposition (placing right next to each other) in our local newspaper. The story on top told about Stanford's 57-7 humiliation by Notre Dame. It was so bad that ABC risked angering Notre Dame fans (few Stanford fans were still hanging on) by pulling the plug on its broadcast sometime in the second half and suddenly switching us viewers to Pitt-Miami (also a dog of a game). The story below it told of Nebraska's firing of Frank Solich. Amazing. Buddy Teevens at Stanford fields one of the worst Division One teams I've ever seen (I admit I haven't seen Buffalo or SMU this year, but I've seen Army and Arizona) and he gets to keep his job. Frank Solich goes 9-3 and he's out of work. *********** Actually, it's not as strange as it seems that Buddy Teevens at Stanford gets to keep his job while Frank Solich goes 9-3 and gets the axe. Teevens doesn't stay around because of the excitement over Stanford's 4 -7 record, which did establish a new career high for him for wins in a season. (Last year's 2-9 should have been no surprise to those who know he averaged two wins a season in five years at Tulane) No, he hangs around because he was the Stanford AD's personal hire. Frank Solich, on the other hand, gets the axe because he wasn't the Nebraska AD's personal hire. That AD, Steve Pederson, came to Nebraska a few years ago, from Pitt. (He's the creep who changed the Pitt colors to dingy, and told years and years of Pitt alumni that their school was now "Pittsburgh." Well, lah-de-dah.) Used to be in the old days a coach would insist that he be hired as AD, too. That way, in effect, he'd be reporting directly to the president or to the board of trustees. Earl Blaik insisted as a condition of taking the Army job that he report directly to the Superintendent. Many people don't understand that the reason Indiana's AD couldn't deal with Bobby Knight was that Knight didn't report to him. Knight reported directly to the president. You don't see much of that any more. Realistically, the two jobs - football coach and AD - have grown way too big for one man to handle. So almost unnoticed by sports reporters has been the trend toward colleges putting their athletic departments in the hands of career ADs - professional administrator-type guys who never spent a whole lot of time as coaches themselves. Take Steve Pederson. Please. Bill Clinton was a career politician, and Steve Pederson is a career AD. Since he started in the Sports Information department at Nebraska back in 1980, he has been an office guy. A desk jockey, as they say in the Army about those types. He spent years as a recruiting coordinator at various places, but he never blew a whistle out in the sunshine - he never had the responsibility of having to put a team on the field. You can spot Peterson and others of his ilk because they are well-groomed - very well-groomed - they wear nice suits, and they have beautiful teeth. They smile a lot, they are good in front of an audience (but very careful what they say), and they shake a lot of hands. They come across as nice guys. They are the nice guys Woody Hayes was talking about when he said, "I... don't... like... nice... guys. Tip - if you are working for one of these guys, and he didn't hire you - look out. He is likely to be hoping you'll fail. At the very least, he is not going to bust his butt to help you succeed. Why should he? How does that help him? What credit does he get if you succeed? His goal is to hire his own guy. That's when he'll finally enjoy winning! See, he's never known the thrill of standing down on the sideline, so he's going to get his thrills vicariously - through hiring a guy whose glory will reflect on him. And that's when he'll get some of the credit he deserves! People will seek him out, as if he were the coach - they'll come up to him at alumni functions and say, "Great hire!" *********** Trev Alberts, a Cornhusker himself, made a couple of excellent points, first when he said that Nebraska is going to have to make a knock-your-socks-off hire, then when he said that after having given it much thought, he couldn't come up anybody who would fall into that category. I believe he said that "somebody out of the WAC" (or some such place) just wouldn't do at Nebraska. Finally, his biggest observation of all was that Nebraska can't afford to get into a deal where people are turning them down. But I think when people realize what Nebraska did to one of their own, Frank Solich, and they get a good whiff of that AD Nebraska's got, the guy they're going to have to work for, it's going to take a hell of a lot to attract a good man there. Talk about out of practice - Nebraska hasn't gone outside to hire a coach since 1962. That time they hired Bob Devaney away from Wyoming. One of Devaney's graduate assistants his first year, Tom Osborne, would go on to become a full-time member of Devaney's staff, and later his successor. Devaney's first fullback was a guy named Frank Solich, who succeeded Osborne. Between them, Devaney and Osborne built a dynasty that left Nebraskans sour and unhappy after Solich produced a 9-3 season. Now they've got to go out on the open market, and it's going to cost them. The obvious move for Nebraska AD Steve Pederson to make is to hire the guy he put in place at Pitt (sorry- Pittsburgh), Walt Harris. He's done a great job at Pitt, but not that great. Not Nebraska great. And certainly not up to the standards of a place that fires a guy after he goes 9-3. And remember - there are no Temples or Rutgerses in the Big 12. So - please don't laugh - I have just the guy for the Cornhuskers. He is young and bright and he can recruit. He is a proven winner at two major colleges. And he's available, too - no messy contract buyout. Yes, he's got a little baggage - but doesn't Nebraska? (Bet you can't guess who I'm thinking of.) *********** The next time your AD says your job is safe but you'll have to let some some of your assistants go, consider this - it didn't help Jackie Sherrill, and it didn't help Frank Solich. To keep their jobs, they let long-time friends go. Now, they don't have the jobs or the friends. *********** Even if Buddy Teevens weren't doing such a pathetic job at Stanford, as a Stanford dad I'd be pissed at him just for what he did to those uniforms, putting mourning bands on the uniforms - black stripes on the helmets, jerseys and pants - and dressing his team in all red (perhaps the better to hide the bleeding). What pisses me off is that this guy came into a place with great tradition, including colors - the Stanford nickname is the Cardinal, for God's sake - and in the absence of winning, he decided to give them another color - black. I'm looking at a book, "Stanford Sports," put out in 1982. It's got color photos of Stanford teams going well back into the early 1970's, and the look is always the same - are you listening, Teevens? - (1) Helmets - white, with ONE RED STRIPE (no black) and a red block "S" on each side; (2) Jerseys, red, with no stripes, or, on occasion, one WHITE stripe on each sleeve; (3) Pants, WHITE (are you still listening?) with ONE RED STRIPE. Until Teevens came along, that was Stanford. That was THE LOOK. That was John Elway and Darrin Nelson, and Stanford greats before and since. Until Teevens came along. Consistently good programs (Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Florida State, Tennessee for example) have a LOOK, and never change. Rarely so much as a single stripe. Losing programs desperate for a change monkey with their look. Losers like to darken their colors, and add black to their color scheme, because some dumbass psychologist claimed that his research showed it's supposed to make players more ferocious. Anybody see a single Stanford player look ferocious against Notre Dame? *********** So idiotic has this BCS crap become that now the Syracuse-Notre Dame game this Saturday - a game between two 5-6 teams - is being hyped as having "national significance." See, a Notre Dame win will help USC (enhancing the BCS point value of USC's win over Notre Dame - five weeks ago) while a Notre Dame loss will hurt USC, and consequently help LSU. Be still, my beating heart. *********** ABC, which is probably stuffed full of itself because it's been doing college football much longer than its sister company, ESPN, just doesn't seem willing to lower itself to do the things ESPN does. Unlike ESPN, ABC doesn't show us the players' hometowns. Unlike ESPN, ABC is very stingy about showing the little score "bug" up in the corner. And when they do show us the score, there is still no clock showing. *********** It was a quiet Sunday for a change. Maybe that's because between them, Terrell Owens and Keyshaun Johnson caught only three passes for 23 yards. *********** I somehow doubt that this would have happened in the South Bronx... A small group of shoppers stood at the checkout counter in a Safeway store in Beaverton, Oregon late Saturday night, waiting for the cashier to show up. When it became obvious that something was wrong, they contacted police, who contacted the Safeway manager, who told them the store was supposed to be closed - the workers had gone home and neglected to close up. So until the police arrived, the shoppers guarded the store. *********** Does Solich's departure mean that we are but a Fisher DeBerry retirement away from the end of true power football in Division I-A? (Actually, as I write this I notice that Rice rushed 89 times for 672 yards against La. Tech. Good God.) Christopher Anderson (Glad to see that Ken Hatfield at Rice still has the touch. He's actually the grand-daddy of the wishbone being run at Air Force and NAVY! Surely you haven't forgotten Navy! I like Army, as everybody knows, but I respect Navy and what Paul Johnson's done, and I suspect that this Saturday's Army-Navy game is going to be the ass-kicking that Army deserves for (1) hiring Todd Berry in the first place and then (2) after finally firing him in mid-season, leaving his system in place. HW) *********** I actually heard some talking head on an NFL game praising Lawrence Taylor for going on "60 Minutes" and "being willing to share" his lurid stories, so he could help others. Right. The guy screwed and snorted himself into dissolution, and we're supposed to think he's performing community service. Only one problem - his appearance on "60 Minutes" was perfectly timed to coincide with the release of his book (which I'm sure he was able to "write" without any help). Wow. What an example of what happens when a guy with enormous appetites - and no morals - has the money to indulge them. Did you see the guy? If he wants to help others, he should take some of the proceeds of his book and send a poster to every high school, middle school and youth team in America. It would show just his face, and it would read, 'THIS IS WHAT YOU WIND UP LOOKING LIKE WHEN YOU THINK SUCCESS IN LIFE MEANS DRUGS, BOOZE AND BROADS." *********** Now, this sounds like a real coach... "It takes absolutely no talent to play hard and know what to do. Those are two phases of the game that we will get better at immediately." Mike Stoops, newly-named head coach at Arizona *********** Hey Boyz II Men - I guess nobody down in Dallas had the guts to tell you, so here goes - next time, take those f--king hats off when you sing our national anthem. Coach, We noticed here, well put. Speaking of the actual game, did you get to see any of the Dolphins offense? Now this is coming from a life long Dolphins fan, but the last few years it has been nice to see some very familiar formations and play action (for the NFL game). Goodness, we actually have a TE and WB at times and pulling linemen, and son of a gun, it works! Regards, Lee Griesemer, Chuluota, Florida *********** John Lambert's La Center Wildcats fell two points - and 34 yards - short Saturday, falling in the Washington state 2A semifinals to Meridian, 28-26. The smaller Wildcats shocked heavily favored Meridian by jumping out in front - the first time all season that Meridian had been behind - and taking a 20-7 halftime lead. But Meridian wouldn't die, and took advantage of a couple of La Center miscues to score a pair of quick touchdowns and jump back in front, 21-20. When Meridian scored again with just under five minutes left, it could have been all over for the Wildcats, but they put together a seven-play, 65-yard drive to pull within two, 28-26, with 1:31 remaining. The two-point conversion try failed, but there was still hope when La Center recovered an onside kick. They drove to the Meridian 34, where time ran out on them. Lots of firsts, for a place which not so long ago was as sorry as it gets - sixth straight winning season, third straight playoff appearance, first playoff win (three of them, actually), first time in the state semi-finals, first 10-win season. I am, needless to say, very happy for John and very proud of him. It has never been a case of John calling me and asking "What should I do?" He is his own man, and he has done this on his own. Although I'm sure he was down, he was kind enough to write me after the game... Hi Coach, Our game last night reminded me of the game against Port Townsend 2 years ago...it was pretty crazy. Live and learn...the kids played hard. I hope you feel a little bit of satisfaction in our accomplishments at La Center. I tell people that you really laid the foundation of our success. A good analogy would be fixing up an old, beat-up car. You did a lot of work in the engine and drive line...but not as many people see that now that I have finished off the exterior. I have always appreciated your advice and friendship. Your attention to detail has strongly influenced me. I know you are humble, but I would like you to put what I said in your "News You Can Use." *********** I have to admit that the superiority of the bowl system over a playoff has become obvious the last several weeks and I don't know why I never thought about it before, but if we had a playoff, we'd have had a lot of lackadaisical teams by now, some of them out of the running and going through the motions, and others, with playoff spots locked up, resting their starters. *********** How'd they do that? The Southern University band came out on the field at halftime and immediately spelled out the halftime score!!! There we were, watching the Southern band and the Grambling band, two of the most entertaining bands in the country, bands who worked their asses off to perform intricate formations while they play, and the TV guys couldn't just sit back and let us enjoy the show, just like the folks in the stands. Oh, no - the idiots who directed the broadcast just HAD to keep switching cameras, as if they were producing a music video, teasing us with a high wide shot of the band for three or four seconds, then switching down to the field to give us a rapid-fire series of closeups. Like we've never seen a trumpet up close. *********** Talk about your Californias and Floridas and Texases - they're all great exporters of football talent - but in terms of producing good players and keeping them home, you've got to give Ohio its props. I'm not just talking about the fact that Ohio State's roster is mostly made up of Ohio kids. I just got finished watching Bowling Green-Toledo, with mostly Ohio kids playing on both teams. The winner, Bowling Green, will play for the Mid-America title on Thursday night against Miami, with mostly Ohio kids on its roster. There's the rest of the Mid-America lineup, too, with Ohio U, Kent State and Akron. There's Cincinnati in Conference USA, and in Division I-AA there's Youngstown State. And then there's Division III - with the 10-team Ohio Athletic Conference and its perennial champ, Mount Union, which seems about ready to claim the national title in perpetuity. *********** Hi Coach, Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. Full of God's blessings.I'll tell you, the quality of football we are getting from the NFL stinks. Indy Colts, 8 downs inside the 10 yard line and could not put it in the end zone - it is pitiful.The bad thing about that is that it is trickling down to the college and high school ranks. If one says anything about it they tell you "You do not know football." Amazing. Anyway hope you are doing well.Just a couple of words to wish you the best.Blessings,Coach Armando Castro, Roanoke, Virginia *********** Just another note for your DW success stories. Last night Clovis East high School won the central coast section championship by defeating Clovis West 19-5. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that East is a new school in the area and this is only their 3rd year of varsity football. Dick Leonard, Fresno, California (California is so large, with so many high schools, that it has no state championships. Instead, schools play for championships of their sections. But believe me, a sectional championship in California is the equivalent of a state championship in most states! Congratulations to Coach Tim Murphy. HW) *********** Auburn beat Alabama, after much speculation about Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville's job being on the line. Much was made about the fact that the president of the university had left him hanging, with no assurance that he would be retained, and when Coach Tuberville was asked about it in a post-game interview, he said, in effect, "I don't care - all I know is we just beat Alabama!" But, as it turns out, there was a reason the president was being close-mouthed. The slimey f--ker was out screwing around on his coach, secretly talking to Bobby Petrino, head coach of Louisville. He hadn't bothered to ask Louisville's permission to do so, which is the usual practice when you talk to a man who's under contract to his current employer. Why should he have to? He's the President of Auburn! And then there's coach Petrino himself. If the president of Auburn is a slimey f--ker, he's downright respectable next to a scummy bastard like Petrino, who'll go after another guy's job. He's the son of a coach himself. You'd think he'd know better. At first, young Mr. Lack o' Morals lied about having any contact with Auburn. Lied to the media and, Neuheisel-style, lied to his AD's face. Even after the Auburn president confessed to the secret meeting, he stuck with his story. Finally, confronted with the blue dress - actually, it was the Louisville Courier-Journal's confirmation of the fact that a private plane belonging to an Auburn trustee with a history of heavy involvement in the football program had landed in the Louisville area - he fessed up, but only to the extent of acknowledging that the Auburn people had asked him for his advice. Yeah, right, scumbag - the athletic director and the president of the university and two members of the school's board of trustees had nothing better to do than fly all the way to Louisville to ask if you knew anybody who might be interested in their job. (A job that still belonged to another guy.) Imagine a guy this low - a year ago, Tuberville hired him as his offensive coordinator. Gave the guy a big job! Without the exposure he got there, he probably wouldn't be the head coach at Louisville now! And now, on the eve of this year's Auburn-Alabama game, there was Tuberville back in Auburn, getting ready to play Bama, and there was Petrino, talking to the Auburn higher-ups - about taking Tuberville's job! How sneaky. How slimey. How treacherous. While he was at it, why didn't he ask Mrs. Tuberville to slip away with him to Mexico for the weekend? Forget the fact that the Auburn people were plenty sleazy - they can't help it. There's got to be something in the water down there. Hell, for years Auburn football has been on a steady cycle of lose-cheat-win-get caught and go on probation-lose-cheat-win-get caught and go on probation, etc. Hard to believe, but it is entirely possible that Coach Tuberville may be breaking that cycle now, since he appears to be running a clean program and winning, too - but he hasn't been winning enough to suit some of the folks, and undoubtedly there are some powerful Auburn types just itchin' to crank up the ole cheatin' machinery again. So, shoot, don't blame the folks at Auburn - that's pretty much business as usual for them. The blame is totally Petrino's. It was on him to act morally and ethically, and he failed the test. All he had to do was say, "I'm sorry - I've got a team to get ready, and you've already got a coach." Both true. But he is a young man on the move, and the truth was not in him. I heard Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino defending him (now there's a good character reference) - he said it was Petrino's "inexperience." Not so fast, guys- Petrino is 42 years old. He's a grown man, so you can't blame it on his youth. His father is a football coach. And Petrino himself has coached at eight different places - from NAIA to the NFL - besides Louisville. So you can't blame it on his lack of coaching experience. He's been around football enough to know good and damned well that in the football coaching profession, going after another man's job is taboo. I kinda felt for the athletic director at Louisville, who had to go on ESPN at halftime of the Louisville-Cincinnati game Friday and do some 'splainin'. He roundly condemned the Auburn people - as well he should. Said something needed to be done about it. True enough. But he appeared unwilling to admit that his coach had been out screwing around. Asked if he trusts his coach, he answered, Why, of course. Sure he does. Wouldn't you? Meantime, Petrino told the world he's staying at Louisville. Right. Enjoy the ride, Cardinals. *********** More than you ever thought you'd know about hotel key-cards (or card-keys)... Hi Coach. I e-mailed my brother-in-law the story and asked for his thoughts. He is a Network Security guy. This is all a bunch of poppycock. The cards are not writeable, only readable. The cards are assigned a number(hardcodedinto the strip or other identifier), which is then assigned to a user (guest), and re-assigned to subsequent guests. They are then controlled through an access control mechanism that has various endpoints (card readers on the doors). at check in, the card is programmed to successfully access various points (your room, the lobby) for "x" period of time. You sign for the card. The serial # (physically different from the hard coded info, but could be logically the same) on the card is entered into the hotel registrar (a database) along with your personal info. That's where the problem is - the database and the controls around it." Adam Wesoloski, Pulaski, Wisconsin (Makes sense to me. All the same, I think I'll continue to take my cards with me when I check out. HW) *********** Saturday was bad uniform day. Bowling Green came out in Nehi orange from head-to-toe (probably borrowed the uniforms from Syracuse). Wake Forest looked like undertakers, in all Black. Hawaii looked horrible in all - whatever. Stanford wrapped up the day by looking as ugly as it played, in all red (sorry- "Cardinal"). Sheesh. Doesn't anybody understand that all-solid is just plain bad fashion? (Yes, I realize that a lot of my readers dress their teams like that. But somebody has to say so, so I will - it still looks like hell.) But now there's help for the fashion-impaired. If you're willing to go cold turkey and agree to wear contrasting jerseys and pants, I will arrange for some very nice fellows in your town to stop by and give you a uniform makeover. And as a bonus, you'll get to appear on my TV new show, "Queer Eye for the Football Guy" *********** If you have the directv set up put it on channel 636 or what ever the Detroit Fox Sports affiliate is I have been watching the Michigan State Football Championships. .....Great to watch kids that actually , tackle, block and play as a TEAM. no taunting, or end zone dancing , no look at me a made the play I was supposed make. The two of the the best teams in each of the 8 divisions playing some good hard nosed football.....much better than the No Fun League *********** If you have the directv set up put it on channel 636 or what ever the Detroit Fox Sports affiliate is I have been watching the Michigan State Football Championships. .....Great to watch kids that actually , tackle, block and play as a TEAM. No taunting, or end zone dancing , no look at me I made the play I was supposed make. Just two of the the best teams in each of the 8 divisions playing some good hard nosed football.....much better than the No Fun League. Joe Daniels- Sacramento *********** Former Packers' great Tony Canadeo, the "Gray Ghost," died last week in his adopted home of Green Bay. He was 84. Read more about him - November 2, 2001 *********** The James Madison Warhawks of Vienna, Virginia won their first Virginia AAA Northern Region Division 5 championship in seven years and advanced to the state semifinals Saturday. Good luck to coach Gordon Leib and his staff and players. *********** Much was made earlier in the season about Rick Neuheisel's gig as a volunteer QB coach at Seattle's Rainier Beach High, but he's not even the best volunteer QB coach in the city of Seattle. That would have to be Ballard High's Jack Thompson, the famed Throwin' Samoan from Washington State. Ballard has made it to the state finals Saturday night against Pasco. (Keep an eye on Pasco's Leon Jackson. He is 6-2, 205 and two-time defending state 100 meters champ. He has rushed for 1809 yards and 32 touchdowns. He rushed for 222 yards or 24 carries Saturday as Pasco handed our local power Evergreen of Vancouver its first loss. He is a junior.) *********** For some time now, Sports Illustrated has been celebrating its 50th anniversary (can you believe - I read the first issue?) by featuring a different state every week. (50 years, 50 states - get it?) A few weeks ago, Washington was the featured state, and Drew Bledsoe, the pride of Walla Walla, was asked why the state has produced so many good quarterbacks. He's the son of a coach, and his dad has been heavily involved for some time in running camps devoted to development of the passing game, so can be excused for going a little overboard in his answer. He said it was because the high school coaching in Washington is so sophisticated - you don't see a lot of Wing-T teams. Now, out here, we're proud of Drew Bledsoe. Class act, as far as I'm concerned. But maybe he's been in Boston and Buffalo too long. Or maybe it's because he lives in Montana now. Otherwise, he'd know that Bellevue, a classic Delaware Wing-T team, is heading into Friday night's state Class 3-A final with a chance to do something that no other team has ever done: win three consecutive state titles. If you have a dish, you might want to tune into Fox Sports Northwest at 7 PM Pacific. Bellevue really does a slick job of running the Wing-T, and here's the best - the Bellevue head coach is a former youth coach. Now, how sophisticated is that? *********** Tyrone Willingham can add to his Class Act File (which already includes "campaigning for the ND job instead of getting your team ready for the Seattle bowl") with a fake punt call. With 4 minutes remaining. Up 57-7. What a jerk. WHo does he think he is, Rick Neuheisel? (Colorado cotton bowl). The fight after FSU-UF game was mildly humorous to watch. (If you missed it, FSU players went to showboat on the 'F' and were met by angry Gators. Helmets flew and became clubs.) I was asking the TV, "when did the visiting team get the right to dance on the host's midfield logo?" Thank you Rick Neuheisel. I had little sympathy for any UW players getting hit with bottles last year when they had the audacity to not get their asses into the Pullman locker ASAP after pulling a cheap upset. As for the Huskies' extended Bar Mitzvah party after the 2002 Oregon game, I considered it exceedingly unsportsmanlike for Rick to let his kids pull that one, "they deserved a celebration" be damned. Can't anyone just win and be done with it anymore? I am extremely excited about Stoops at Arizona. Hayden Fry's head-coach-breeding legacy continues. There were wild rumors in Ann Arbor last weekend that Jim Harbaugh, now an assistant with Oakland, will soon be the coach in my birth city of Ypsilanti, at Eastern Michigan. Why would anybody with a secure job in the pros take a head coaching job at Eastern Michigan? On the other hand, how secure is an assistant's job at Oakland these days? And I have that excited tensile feeling you get when you think history is about to be made, as Sylvester Croom ponders his opportunity at Mississippi State. (On the other hand, as you've said, it could be said that MSU is being sent to the back of the bus.) I liked the way the MSU AD handled the question - first he said he wouldn't comment on any applicant. Then he said that Mississippi State would hire the best man possible - minority or not. That way, as far as I'm concerned, if he doesn't hire Sylvester Croom, he's covered; and if he does hire Sylvester Croom, it will not be because he was pressured to do so. (After watching Hawaii - and the officials - hand it to the Tide... Wonder how Sylvester Croom would have done at Bama?) Christopher Anderson, Cambridge, Massachusetts *********** Coach Wyatt, Hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I did not hear Boyz to Men sing the anthem, but CBS gets my kudos for booking Toby Keith for its halftime show. It went over pretty big in Texas Stadium as well. Imagine that. The halftime show for the Lions game was unwatchable. I used the time to scrape up some leftovers from my 86 year old Grandma's excellent feast. Take care, Mick Yanke, Cokato, Minnesota (I also found the Lions' show to be another gross attempt to marry hip-hop and football. I did like the line in the Cowboys' halftime about giving our enemies "a boot in the ass," but somehow I thought the message was a bit watered down by the sight of the Dallas Cowboys' "cheerleaders" shimmying in the background. HW) *********** Hugh, I was going to email you some bs question about football that I had... But then I read on ESPN.com that John Hessler woke up. Happy Thanksgiving. Christopher Anderson, Cambridge, Massachusetts - writing from Madison, Wisconsin (It is true - http://www.johnhessler.com - HW) *********** Anybody else see Cincinnati score a TD against Louisville with what appeared to be Tight Liz 5 base? And then go - unsuccessfully - for the 2-point PAT with Tight Liz 99 Brown-O? *********** This week's Sportsmanship Award goes to the Grambling coach who raced down to the end zone to grab a kid who was walking off the field and made him go back and shake hands. *********** Our youth program has had a difficult time connecting with our high school staff. I'm afraid they don't take the long view that these kids are their future. It has been difficult trying to gain info from these more experienced coaches.One day in conversation with the head freshmen coach, I mentioned the success we have had at all levels with the wedge play. His response was that they (the high school staff) were not interested in running any kind of "youth" offense. Maybe going 1-9 this year may help them see the light, but I think they are just circling the wagons. NAME WITHHELD Coach- You might be surprised to learn how little real experience some of these guys have. They don't know, and don't know that they don't know. And - especially when they are losing - they are not about to admit that it might be because they know less than a mere youth coach. Trust in what you know and what works for you and forget about them. They are still looking for something but they will never admit that you might have what they are looking for. *********** I mentioned that in reading an article about General Wesley Clark, it became obvious that he is not a popular man among his fellow officers, one of whom said, "in the Army, the second-worst thing you can do is to be part of something that shames the Army, and the worst is to glorify yourself." That sounded like the sort of thing NFL teams ought to be saying to their players, except that the concept of shame is an alien one in our pop culture. Wanting to know if there was anything to that statement, I went right to my Official Military Adviser, General Jim Shelton. I know I can count on Jim for the unvarnished truth, because he is a no bullsh-- guy, and here's what he wrote: "Hugh: When I raised my hand and swore an oath 'to support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegience to the same.And to obey the orders of the President of the United States and the officers appointed over me, so help me God' This was my highest calling. There was no oath to the Army. Therefore, in my mind, the worst thing is to not live up to that oath. The second worst thing is to glorify yourself. The third is to bring shame on the Army. Wesley Clark has glorified himself and has brought shame upon the Army by loving himself more than his comrades." *********** I can't remember when there were so many coaching jobs open. Is this the pro syndrome - when all else fails, change the coach - working its way down to the college level?   "The Beast Was out There," by General James M. Shelton, subtitled "The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam October 1967" is available through the publisher, Cantigny Press, Wheaton, Illinois. to order a copy, go to http://www.rrmtf.org/firstdivision/ and click on "Publications and Products") Or contact me if you'd like to obtain a personally-autographed copy, and I'll give you General Shelton's address. (Great gift!) General Shelton is a former wing-T guard from Delaware who now serves as Honorary Colonel of the Black Lions. All profits from the sale of his books go to the Black Lions and the 1st Infantry Division Foundation, , sponsors of the Black Lion Award).   I have my copy. It is well worth the price just for the "playbooks" it contains in the back - "Fundamentals of Infantry" and "Fundamentals of Artillery," as well as a glossary of all those military terms, so that guys like you and me can understand what they're talking about.        --- GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD --- HONOR BRAVE MEN AND RECOGNIZE GREAT KIDS SIGN UP YOUR TEAM OR ORGANIZATION FOR 2003 "NO MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY FIRST" inscribed on the wall of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois Coaches - Black Lions teams for 2003 are now listed, by state. Please check to make sure your team in on the list. If it is not, it means that your team is no enrolled, and you need to e-mail me to get on the list. HW BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM (FOR MORE INFO ABOUT) THE BLACK LION AWARD