BACK ISSUES - JAN & FEB 1999
February 28 - Coach Ron Hennig has been named head coach at Western Hills High, in Frankfort, Kentucky. Coach Hennig, a double wing vet, was first exposed to the system at my camp/clinic in Mt. Vernon, Indiana in the spring of 1997, and installed it that year at Holy Cross High, in Louisville. Under Coach Hennig, Holy Cross went 9-3 in '97 and 10-3 in '98, defeating perennial state power Harrodsburg along the way. Western Hills, after a 6-4 record in the school's first season of football in 1980, has not posted a winning year since, and has strung together four consecutive 3-7 seasons. Add a step up in class from 2A to 3A in '99, and Coach Hennig and his staff have their work cut out for them. I don't know the staff yet, but I know Ron Hennig. He is excited about the opportunity, and he is up to the job. And two of his Holy Cross assistants, Todd Krebs and Mark Green, will be going with him to Frankfort. (Double wing guys will appreciate this- perhaps based on past experience, and not yet knowing anything about the double wing or the mentality of the guys who run it, one of the holdover members of the Western Hills staff asked Ron, "How quickly will you abandon the running game?" ) Coach Hennig will be a guest speaker at next Saturday's Louisville Clinic. Maybe he'll answer that question for us there.
February 27- I received a "relay call", with the assistance of a special operator, from Coach Clyde Smith, head man at Illinois School for the Deaf, in Jacksonville, IL. Coach Smith ordered materials from me last summer, and ran the double wing for the first time this past fall. Coach Smith was very encouraged by the results - his team finished 6-3 and made the state playoffs; his J-V's finished 5-4. His varsity rushed for 2265 yards in 10 games, a new school record. Coach Smith said, "We love the double wing offense. It is easy for deaf boys to learn to block it." I am looking forward to meeting Coach Smith and his staff at the Chicago clinic.
February 26- This week's Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" leads off with a kid named Nate Wachter, from my old school, Germantown Academy, in Ft. Washington, PA. He's a five-time state wrestling champion, and his 178 career wins (against just 15 losses) are a new Pennsylvania state high school record. Wait a second- I ain't done bragging. We've also got GA grads in the NBA and NHL - alum Alvin Williams starts for the Toronto Raptors, and Mike Richter tends goal for the New York Rangers. Now, there may be high schools elsewhere that have a couple of bigger stars in the NBA, or maybe even a couple in the NHL, but does any other US high school have the three major men's winter sports so well covered? (There probably won't be much of a challenge from the South, where, to say the least, you'd have a hard time finding a high school with a hockey team. And last I heard, there wasn't a whole lot of wrestling going on in a state the size of Texas.)
February 25- BIG NEWS! Watch this space! The possessor of one of the most respected minds in the game of football has agreed to serve as a contributing consultant to my web site. Although I can't disclose his name at this moment, I can tell you that he is widely experienced, highly knowledgeable, articulate and well-written, and at the present time is putting the finishing touches on what promises to be a coach's masterwork. Based on other things he has done, it will be very good. Once finished that project, though, he will begin sharing his coaching wisdom with our readers! What this man has to tell us goes beyond the double wing - or any other system - to offensive football in general. I can't imagine a football coach at any level who can't benefit from what he has to say. He may actually teach you a thing or two about - gasp! - the passing game!. I'LL SEND A FREE "IT TAKES A SET" TEE-SHIRT TO THE FIRST COACH TO GUESS WHO HE IS! (One entry per coach) This one was over within an hour! Winners - within minutes of each other - Glade Hall, Seattle, WA; Tracy Jackson, Aurora, OR; Don Capaldo, Keokuk, IA (But I'm still not saying)
February 24- Back in the late 1960's, I worked part-time for the Frederick (Md.) News-Post, and, travelling around Western Maryland doing the pre-season basketball forecast, I interviewed a successful coach who told me about his "pink panty" drill - the player who shot poorest from the free-throw line at the end of practice had to wear a pair of women's pink panties in the next day's practice. ("Women's pink panties" does seem kind of redundant, actually. I don't think I know any men who wear pink panties!) I happened to remind my wife of this the other day, and we had a good laugh, thinking how that would go over in these days of (1) concern for everybody's "feelings" and (2) gender equity and sexual harassment and fear of the wrath of the feminists. We now realize, in these more enlightened times, that that coach was just an old Neanderthal - an insensitive monster, who only cared about winning and didn't give any thought to how his "drill" made those young men feel - about themselves and about the role of women in our society. It could never happen now, could it? Oh, no? Guess again! Just heard on the radio about a basketball coach in Wisconsin who is in hot water because his players weren't rebounding agressively enough to suit him, so he made them all wear - pink panties!
A positive thinker like this should have been a coach: My dentist, Dr. Tom Erickson, tells me his 89-year old Dad is shopping for a new car.
February 23- Bill Sneddon, an assistant coach and former head coach at Rich Central High in Olympia Fields, Illinois, has been named to the Illinois Coaches' Hall of Fame. Jon McLaughlin, current head man at Rich Central, writes, "Bill was the head man here from 1973-1989. His teams were very tough and he was once rated by one of the city's major newspapers as one of the most underrated coaches in the Chicago area. He was a demanding, tough, hard-nosed coach and wasn't about to change his principles because the kids change. Bill was 99-61-2 as the Head man here. But, needing only one victory to get to 100, he left. He retired once the kids and their practice habits started to change.
"Bill and Larry Rostron (Bill's top assistant coach) both told me that they would have run the double wing themselves if they would have known about it back then. They are both sold on the offense - this coming from two guys who have run "I" football their entire coaching careers.
"I think the most important thing about Bill is the way he cares about people. His former coaches are fiercely dedicated to the man because they know he genuinely cares about them and their families. The letters that they wrote about him reflect this feature.
"Finally, Bill didn't really want the honor of being selected to the Hall of Fame. He felt that it took away from what the kids had accomplished. We were afraid that he would make the Hall of Fame and then decline the honor. When he was informed that he made the Hall of Fame, he didn't tell anyone. I knew he made it, and the other coaches knew he made it, but he didn't tell anyone. He didn't even tell his wife and kids. His wife found out from one of the school board members where she works, saying congratulations on Bill's honor. It hit the fan when she came home from work that night! We all have worked on Bill to accept the honor and he will. I gave Bill a copy of the letters that we wrote for the selection committee and I think that was what changed his mind. Before that, it was touch and go as to whether he would attend the banquet."
(I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with Coach Sneddon. He is an impressive person. Coach McLaughlin is very fortunate to have a man of his caliber working with his younger kids. As evidence of the job that is being done in the lower programs, Coach McLaughlin added that Rich Central finished 1998 tops in the SICA Green conference in victories at all 3 levels, with 19. Three years ago, Rich Central had only five wins total in all three programs.)
February 21- I just returned from a trip to New Jersey and Philadelphia, where the callers to all-sports radio station WIP were talking football, as usual. Yes, the Sixers are improved, the Flyers have a shot at the Stanley Cup, and the Phillies have reported to spring training, but Philadelphia is a football town. Philadelphians love their sports, but they really love their "Iggles" (in the local dialect), and after years of supporting mediocrity or worse, they do deserve better. Remembering how several years ago new coach Ray Rhodes was stiffed by management when he expressed a desire to sign Mark Brunell, the entire city now seems in a state of deep depression after the Eagles' recent announcement that the quarterback who will lead them to the promised land is - tada! - Doug Pederson, 31 year-old career backup. Not even the thought of drafting Ricky Williams has been enough to console the callers to the sports talk shows . Tell me Philadelphia is not a great sports town. Few people now remember "Ticketgate" - the scandal that surrounded the World Football League's first two home games in Philadelphia, but in early August, 1974 it was the talk of the sports world. I was employed at the time by the Bell, Philadelphia's oddly-named entry in the WFL, and we played our opening game against the Portland Storm in giant, decrepit JFK Stadium. Only trouble was, at that very same time the Phillies were playing the Dodgers at nearby Veterans' Stadium, while at the Spectrum arena, located smack in between JFK and The Vet, a sold-out rock concert was also taking place. We are talking serious traffic, friends. Nevertheless, a crowd of 55,534 showed up to watch us play. Two weeks later, we returned to JFK to play the New York Stars - and drew 64,719! No doubt the news of our crowds was sending chills down the spines of NFL owners, whose veterans were on strike at the time. But there were at least a few among the Philadelphia sports media, a notoriously skeptical bunch, who wondered whether the huge crowds were for real. Had the houses, perhaps, been "papered" - artificially filled with people holding freebie tickets - they wondered? Oh, heavens no, responded our management to such questions. Our GM, Barry Leib, even kept a miniature outdoor billboard on his desk to head off the subject. It read, "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times...65,000 paid." Finally, though, confronted with the DNA results from Monica's blue dress - whoops, wrong lie - confronted with City of Philadelphia admissions tax records, Leib broke down and admitted that a substantial number - a very substantial number , actually - of that grand total of over 120,000 people had gotten in with free tickets. I can still picture him taking the fall for the higher-ups, and coming clean to the reporters. "Okay, okay, I lied," he confessed. "So who did it hurt?" Well, since he asked, I'll tell you who(m). The Phillies, for openers. Their crowd of 33,000 for the Dodgers' game was far smaller than expected, chiefly because of the traffic jam caused by the Bell's artificially-inflated opening-night crowd. Perhaps the Eagles, who at that point had sold only 16,000 tickets to their opening exhibition, just a week away. How about gullible millionaires around the country? I know it's hard to feel sorry for rich people with big egos, but at that very moment, the hustlers who had cobbled the WFL together were out trying to sell wannabe sports magnates on the thrill of owning their own World Football League team. And what better proof of the new league's soundness than the crowds it was drawing - especially in Philadelphia? Finally, though, there was the biggest victim of all - the World Football League itself. It may be hard for youngsters nowadays to imagine a time when a lie, even one "only about football," could hurt you, but from that point on, the WFL's credibility was shot - everything it said or did was suspect. It never did recover. And overlooked in all of the uproar over Ticketgate was the fact that on the kind of beastly hot and humid summer evening that only Philadelphia can deliver, 55,534 people - a pretty accurate count, paid or not - had shown up - had fought their way through the traffic jam of the century to sit on splintery old wooden benches to watch their local team of relative unknowns play a football game against a visiting team of total unknowns. And two weeks later, an even larger crowd would do the same. I ask you - is there any other town in America where, given those same conditions, you could draw crowds half as large, even with every ticket free?
February 20- I'm sorry, I can't remember where I got this, so I can't give proper credit. You married guys will have to decide whether you want to show it to your wives:
VIAGRA'S SUCCESS PROMPTS SPIN-OFFS
With the success of Viagra, the anti-impotence pill for men, an all-female pharmaceutical company is preparing to introduce a number of related drugs:
DIRECTRA - One dose of this drug administered to men before leaving on car trips was observed to cause 72 per cent of them to stop and ask directions when they got lost, compared with 0.2 per cent in a control group.
PROJECTRA - Men given this experimental new drug were found to be far more likely to finish a household repair project before starting on a new one.
COMPLIMENTRA - In clinical trials, 82 per cent of married men administered this drug noticed that their wives had a new hair style; currently, it is being tested to see if its effects extend to noticing new clothing
BUYAGRA - After taking this drug for only two days, married men reported a sudden urge to purchase jewelry and other expensive gifts for their wives.
February 19- The rush to be more like the NFL continues: According to an article in Dave Campbell's Texas Football, Texas high schools will experiment with ear piece radio receivers for quarterbacks during the 1999 season. Apparently, schools will only be able to use the device if their opponents do, too. One of the alleged benefits is enabling a coach "to help a scrambling quarterback out of trouble." ("They're gaining on you Timmy! Run! Quick! Check the Z Turnout and if he's covered hit the X-post cross...Wait- Y is breaking to the corner and he's open and...LOOK OUT !")
Texas Football also mentions a few of the rumored front-runners for the head job at Dallas Highland Park High, left vacant when Scott Smith left to take an assistant's job at Baylor. Highland Park, famed as the school where Hall of Famers Bobby Layne and Doak Walker were once teammates, is said to offer a compensation package somewhere around $103,000(!) That's high school, guys! It's probably too late for any of you to apply for the job, but I just thought I'd pass this along - A few years ago, when he was head coach at Duncanville, Scott Smith was an early purchaser of "Dynamics of the Double Wing." Not long afterward, he was hired at Highland Park. Can anybody see a connection there? Is it possible that one video could be the reason why he landed a $103,000 job? Naah. But, hey - it didn't hurt.
February 18- I had lunch yesterday in Cape May, New Jersey with Frank Simonsen, a youth coach who ran the double wing last year for the first time and took his Lower Township Raiders to their league's finals. Frank said he is certain they couldn't have done that well running any other offense. He ought to know. As a "career" youth league coach, Frank has been coaching for 25 years, and he has run a number of offenses. In all that time, Frank's teams have missed making the playoffs just four times. In a 20-year career as an oil tanker captain with Texaco, Frank was always able to fit football into his many-days-on-many-days-off schedule. Now retired from Texaco, Frank now works on the "other side", on an oil spill response vessel that accompanies the giant tankers in and out of Delaware Bay, ready to deal with environmental emergencies. Like all his other jobs, this one also provides him time to coach. Frank started coaching when his own son got involved in football, then stayed on out of love of the game. Two of the real joys of all those years of working with youngsters have been watching them go on to play high school football, and still hearing them call him "Coach." Frank provided me with one more example of the imaginative things football coaches come up with when the bottom line is: can the kid understand it? One year he had an outstanding running back - to protect him, we'll call him "Bobby," although that wasn't his name - who wasn't the sharpest kid he'd ever coached. He played tailback in Frank's I formation, but he couldn't grasp "Right" or "Left," much less any kind of numbering system. Frank finally went out and bought several pairs of wrist bands - a different color for every kid on his line - and pared his play-calling down to "Bobby to Red," "Bobby to Yellow," "Bobby to Blue," etc. Good coaches are good teachers, remember, and our payoff only comes when we can get our ideas across to our kids in a way they can understand.
February 17- I received this e-mail from one of the top coaches in our business: Coach Wyatt, I just got the brochure on the additional Double Wing tapes. I am readying the paper work to purchase your updated playbook and "Dynamics IV" tape. It looks like more of us are making a committment to the Double Wing and all of its versatility. I really never thought that after running the I-formation (pro and slot) that I would change to something like the Double Wing. All of the coaches in our league tell me that they just do not have the time or expertise to practice against the offense in 3-4 days preparation time. To me that is the beauty of the offense. That and the versatility of it! I know after trying to simulate our opponents' offenses with our scout team that the Double Wing is nearly impossible to simulate within a week period of time. Advantage to us! Again, keep the offense evolving and hopefully, I will be able to get one of your clinics this year and we can chat with each other. Sincerely, John Stineman NOTE: Coach Stineman, who recently completed his 20th year at Utica (Nebraska) Centennial High, was one of the five finalists for the 1998 NFL High School Football Coach of the Year Award. I don't know how Centennial did in '98, but Coach Stineman's career record going into '98 was 126-69-1. Ron Timson, double-wing coach in Bennington, Nebraska, calls Coach John Stineman, "a real credit to our profession."
Coach Fred Armstrong, who was named Europe's Coach of the Year for his efforts in coaching the Stuttgart Scorpions to the semi-finals of Germany's national championship (running our double-wing), has been hired as head coach of the Stockholm (Sweden) Mean Machine, one of Europe's top clubs.
February 15- I received another highlights video in the mail, this one from Ray Pohlman, head football coach in Perrysburg, Ohio. Coach Pohlman and his staff are in the midst of a massive turnaround, and the double wing plays a major role in their effort. The highlights video was somewhat unique in that, in addition to showing the varsity highlights, it also included outstanding plays from the 9th-graders' and JV's seasons as well. Based on good performances by both of those teams, and the fact Perrysburg returns eight starters on both sides of the ball, Coach Pohlman has good cause to be excited about his '99 Yellow Jackets.
February 12- First, read Coach Bobby Dodd's comment (under "Useful Quotes") about our responsibility to protect the game of football. Then read this, from a column by Steve Duin in yesterday's Portland Oregonian.
Citing abuse by parents and coaches, examples of poor sportsmanship, excessive emphasis on winning, and coaches' running up the score, the Portland Football Officials Association has announced that it will no longer assign officials to Portland youth league games. Noting that with their numbers dwindling, it has become difficult to find men willing to work in frequently hostile conditions, the officials had warned the city's recreation supervisor at a meeting 13 months ago that the league needed to exert more control at its games.
"The kids are wonderful," Doug Schaefer, president of the officials' association told Duin. "There just wasn't the direction for the coaches, the fans on the sidelines or the players."
With the association the only source of football officials in the Portland metropolitan area, and the Portland Public Schools not offering junior high football, the officials' decision could end football for the more than 800 players on 24 teams in the city's youth program.
Portland High School officials, although facing the loss of their feeder program, tended to agree with the refs that the priority of the youth programs has all too often been on winning and gloating, not skills and sportsmanship.
The commissioner of one suburban youth league confirmed that officials felt threatened by unruliness and animosity on the sidelines. "You can't fault the officials for not wanting to be on the field if they think their lives are in danger," he said. "And I've heard that a number of times."
A hard question for everyone involved in youth football: Is it possible that the failure to control some of your people could be furthering the "brutality" stereotype - driving some people away from football and helping feed the soccer craze?
February 11- Among the signess announced last week by Tennessee was "Constantin Ritzmann, 6-4, 240, DE, North Florida Christian (Tallahassee, Florida)". So what? Well, Constantin Ritzmann may have played high school football in Tallahassee, but his home town is Berlin. Not Berlin, New Jersey, home of Wisconsin's Ron Dayne, but the Berlin. Germany. And, playing only one season at North Florida Christian as an exchange student, he most certainly owes much, if not most, of his development to Germany's junior program. Nicknamed "The Germanator," Ritzmann celebrated his signing with Tennessee by being named Most Valuable Player - for the third year in a row - of the Global Junior Championship game, won this year by the European All-Star team over Mexico during Super Bowl week. Ritzmann, incidentally, passed over Florida State to sign with Tennessee. "I guess it came down to the fact that I like challenges, " he said. " I could stay here in Tallahassee and it would be easier, because I already know people here, but Tennessee is a challenge."
Dartmouth College, hidden away in the woods of New Hampshire, miles from a town of any size and snowed-in for much of the winter, has long had a reputation (well-earned, I might add) for partying, most of which took place in the school's fraternity houses. One of the writers of "Animal House" was a Dartmouth grad, and it is widely accepted that Dartmouth's frat-house rowdiness and debauchery inspired the movie. (Things were especially wild in the days before 1972, when Dartmouth went co-ed. A small school with limited drawing power, Dartmouth was forced financially to play most of its big football games away, and annual trips to play Harvard in Boston and Yale in New Haven were convenient excuses for the macho and, shall we say, "socially-deprived" Dartmouth men to invade those cities and have a little fun. A popular Dartmouth song from those days started out, "Dartmouth's in town again- run, girls, run!...Dartmouth's in town again- fun, girls, fun!") Finally, though, it appears that the college's trustees have driven the wooden stake into the heart of the Dartmouth fraternity system, with the announcement that in order to foster "more respectful relations between the sexes," its 25 single-sex fraternities and sororities would no longer be permitted to function. It is hard to imagine how old Dartmouth men will react to this blow to their once-macho image.
February 10- I spoke a few days ago with Mike Lane, a Pennsylvanian who, like more and more of us, teaches at one school but coaches at another. The amazing thing is that the high school in which he teaches (which will go unnamed) has 1,300 kids - and doesn't play football! In Pennsylvania, of all places! Maybe we should take up a collection to buy them uniforms and a ball so their kids can feel like they go to a real high school.
Edward Jones, a stock brokerage firm, has an ad in this month's Scholastic Coach (sorry, I just can't call it Coach and Athletic Director) a copy of which was very thoughtfully faxed to me (in only three tries) by Scott Barnes, a Colorado youth coach. The ad copy says the firm has positions available for "educators," but the guy - the man - pictured looks a little like Chuck Daly. He is clearly a coach, and not the figure-skating coach, either. I hope the copywriter really believes all the things he says about the man in the picture, because it's encouraging to think there are firms like Edward Jones that appreciate us. You should cut it out and put it on your bulletin board. Or the one in the faculty room.
February 8- Steve Ritchie, who retired from the Air Force on Friday, was the Air Force's only ace in the Vietnam War, shooting down five enemy MIG-21s. More recently, as Brigadier General Steve Ritchie, he visited high schools, recruiting. In a recent interview, he told the Wall Street Journal that he found it to be "heartbreaking work." Too many kids, he observed, have "little respect for anything. They don't respect themselves, their colleagues, their schools, their teachers, or their country." General Ritchie blames this overall absence of respect on "a lack of basic training at home." Most of the coaches I speak with agree with the General. It's probably our greatest challenge. What an opportunity for football! Our position, it would seem to me, ought not to be to bemoan the situation, but to use the General's words as another strong argument in support of football, and the "basic training" it provides.
February 7- Here is one coach's response to a certain woman's announced goal (February 6, below) of a blissful state of half-male, half-female teams - presumably including football. It came from Coach Bruce Eien, at Brethren Christian High in LA (You may recall Coach Eien's article on defensing the Double Wing- read it on his web site).
I am totally against girls playing FB (I don't allow it now -take me to court). In 1992 we had 2 girls come out and play JV FB.Both girls were capable and athletic enough to play FB. But here's what happened:
1. scheduling nightmare. Separate lockerrooms for practice, games etc....
2. had to talk to them separately after games because they could not be in boys locker room
3. One girl tore her ACL 1st day of contact
4. the biggest and worst reason: we put the girl on KO return and the team squibs it to her and in the process they jump on her and "feel her up and down, totally molesting her." She gets up screaming and throwing punches. Next time we move her to another part of the KOR team and they do it again. Now my whole team is fighting them because of their actions. Our only recourse was to take her out of the game. Yes, the refs threw flags and warned the team but the ugliness of it still exists. I do not want to go through that again so I will not allow girls to play FB. I let the parents & girls know this and this seems to persuade them not to play.
Bruce Eien
February 6- According to the National Federation (of State High School Associations), in the 1997-98 school year 779 girls played football, 1,262 played baseball and 1,907 wrestled. In USA Today, February 4, Diana Everett, executive director of something called the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports, is quoted as saying, "We won't reach our goal until nobody blinks an eye that half of a team is male and half is female. Right now we're still going against the grain of a society that says it's not appropriate for girls to play these traditionally male sports. That won't change until people regularly teach that any sport is open to all children." What do you think, guys?
February 5 - Glade Hall, a youth coach in Seattle, sent me this one: "One quick note about my 8 year old son's TV viewing habits . He loves the II Wing and watches all your tapes, even when I'm not home ! The other night I hear him yelling for me from the family room to come see this single wing football game . I'm thinking to myself what the heck is he talking about ??? When I walked into the room he's watching an old story on the Disney Channel about a youth football team in the 50's era . You know , like one of those old Spin and Marty type programs . Anyway , they spliced in a real youth football game into the story line . They were running the single wing , real well I might add ! They ran some powers, counters and a few passing plays . Glade ( that's also his name ) wondered if maybe YOU were coaching the team because of the single wing footage on your video , heh heh . My reply was no , you were too young at the time and were probably playing in the game." ----- Actually, I told Glade, Sr. that (1) his son sounds as if he's on his way to becoming a student of the game and (2) Dad wasn't that far off in his answer - I told him I certainly was playing youth football in the early 1950's, starting in 7th grade, and with the exception of one year, I was a single wing tailback clean through 12th grade. That one year was my junior year, when my HS coach, maybe wanting to look more up-to-date, switched to the T-formation. I hope it wasn't because he thought I was The Man - I played QB - because looking back, I think I must have sucked. We had a lot of talent (2 of our guys signed with Wisconsin, and several others went on to smaller schools) but finished only .500. The next year we switched back to the single wing, and, with less talent, went unbeaten.
February 4- Life in a College Football Hotbed: My eye was caught first by the large article running across the top of today's sports page - a nice, warm feature about a Trail Blazers' assistant coach, who "labors in obscurity". Exciting. Next, my attention was grabbed by an article - plus an extra-large, full-color picture - about a University of Oregon female basketball player, who's been working on a selfishness problem. Wow. Finally I saw it - a little something about national letter of intent day. It's not always easy living in an area whose sports media are held hostage by an NBA team. Other than articles on the local colleges - Oregon, Oregon State, Portland State - I found only a small-type list of PAC-10 members and their signees. Oh, yes - and a little something about Rick Neuheisel. Less than a month on the job, and the ex-boy wonder already has our Washington Huskies in trouble with the NCAA. Anyone have Don James' phone number?
February 3- It just won't stop: According to USA Today, Cincinnati's Oak HIll High School is doing away with valedictorians, because its administrators say that the traditional recognition "places too much emphasis on perfection." A few weeks ago, a top athletic official in the Boston Public School system confessed to years of reporting phony hockey scores, trimming the actual margins of runaway games before phoning them to local newspapers in order, he said, to protect the feelings of the losing teams.
Along that same line of thinking, I intend to propose legislation requiring that football coaches, notorious for "emphasizing perfection," shall be limited to no more than three repetitions of any one play at any one practice; that no reward or praise shall be used as positive reinforcement of good performance, nor any reproof, reprimand, punishment or extra work be used as negative reinforcement of poor performance; that the loser of any football game shall be awarded a silver medal for "finishing second", and the term "loser" be eliminated in favor of "second-place finisher," "runner-up," or "silver medalist"; that all games shall begin with the scoreboard already set at 7-7, eliminating the possibility of either team's striving for the perfection of a shutout, and sparing possible embarrassment to the other team; that a touchdown shall be awarded any time a team, in the opinion of the referee, is "close enough"; that every player shall be named "all-league"; that all state-supported colleges shall be required to offer grants-in-aid to every all-league player; that "close enough" shall be the accepted standard of perfection in lifting weights, in high jumping and pole vaulting, in serving on the tennis and volleball court, in shooting free throws, in pinning an opponent, in pitching a baseball. Funds will be requested for a study on the effects on "losers" (whoops) of letting a competitor "win" by merely getting "close enough."
January 29- Ever sat in the back -way in the back - of one of those self-esteem-building teachers' workshops, drawing plays on a notepad and thinking, "this is a bunch of garbage?" If so, take heart. The momentum may be swinging your way. An article with great bearing on the education - and coaching - of American youngsters appeared in this past Monday's Los Angeles Times. Here is an excerpted and abridged version of the article, written by RICHARD LEE COLVIN, Times Education Writer, and entitled "Losing Faith in Self-Esteem Movement." IF YOU WORK WITH KIDS, YOU SHOULD READ IT - AND IF YOU'RE A TEACHER, YOU MIGHT PASS IT ALONG TO ANY FELLOW TEACHERS WHO MAY NOT BE AS ENLIGHTENED AS YOU ARE.
At Bessemer School in Pueblo, Colo., teachers were stunned a year ago when only 12% of their fourth-graders were reading at grade level. So out went the three hours they spent weekly on counseling and self-esteem classes. In came more attention to the basics. Up went test scores. Last fall, 64% of the students passed. And self-esteem soared.
For decades educators have embraced the idea that it worked the other way around. Unless the classroom was cozy and thick with "warm fuzzies," they preached, students wouldn't even try. That led to a variety of policies and "I Love Me" lessons aimed at protecting children's feelings.
It also led to grade inflation, an emphasis on group work rather than individual effort, the elimination of valedictorians and even the dearth of spelling bees, critics say. (Also, I might add, not keeping score in athletic contests, and "everybody gets equal playing time" policies.)
Encouraging students to love themselves is not paying off in the classroom, educators and researchers say. The time is better spent, they say, on teaching the basics.
Having high self-esteem certainly feels good, psychologists say, but it doesn't necessarily pay off in greater academic achievement, less drug abuse, less crime or much of anything else. Or, if it does pay off, 10,000 or more research studies have yet to find proof.
During the 1970s and '80s, educators became increasingly aware that many of their students were dealing with stressful circumstances outside of school--poverty, racism, single-parent families and struggling as latchkey children.
So educators tried to make schools as welcoming and supportive as possible to motivate students to try harder in school.
In a report published in 1989, the California "self-esteem" task force declared self-esteem to be a "vaccine" that would prevent all sorts of social ills, including academic failure. And, like other vaccines, it was the role of government to be sure that kids were inoculated.
In his book, "The Myth of Self-Esteem," John P, Hewitt, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts, writes that the self-esteem movement fits in with our culture's growing emphasis on feelings and on everyone's right to happiness. Everything from country and western songs to advice columns in farming magazines tout its value. And besides, singing songs in praise of oneself and playing games can be entertaining too.
Time to call off the vaccinations, experts now are saying. "There may have been a time when we should have given more attention to children's self-esteem, but the pendulum has swung way too far in the opposite direction," said Janine Bempechat of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, author of "Against the Odds," a book about how to raise student achievement among "at-risk" youths.
Psychologists such as Roy F. Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, are declaring the self-esteem movement a fraud. "It's time for people who have been claiming that improved self-esteem will improve performance to put up or shut up," said Baumeister, who has been studying self-esteem for two decades.
"The false belief in self-esteem as a force for social good can be not just potentially but actually harmful," wrote Carnegie Mellon University psychology professor Robyn M. Dawes in the Harvard Mental Health Letter in October.
Researchers have found that the self-esteem of even highly successful people varies not only daily but hourly. Moreover, the opinion one has of oneself is not necessarily realistic.
Students in Asia, for example, excelled on the recently completed Third International Math and Science Study. But Asian students surveyed as part of that comparison showed that their opinion of their own skills was relatively low. American students, by contrast, think highly of their skills - but perform poorly.
"We do a real disservice to our kids if we get them thinking they're doing OK if they're only doing OK in their own little world," says Harry O'Neill, an education professor at USC.
Sandra Graham, a UCLA education professor, said false praise can actually undermine students' confidence. Rather than making them feel good, they get the message that their teacher doesn't expect very much.
In many classrooms, Graham said, "it's just scripted that if the low achiever does anything, you praise them."
Self-esteem, furthermore, depends on an individual's values. Students who don't see value in academic achievement may think highly of themselves even if their grades are terrible.
With the spread of those and other concerns about the value of programs pushing self-esteem, some experts now say it's time for a return to traditional notions of child-rearing.
Janine Bempechat, the Harvard author, urges parents to "let children" suffer through tough assignments to teach them the value of good old-fashioned hard work. (Or, maybe, get them out for football.) Kids, she writes, need "the ability to delay gratification, to be persistent . . . and to maintain interest even as they dislike the work that they are doing."
More and more schools are developing programs aimed at "character" rather than self-esteem. The new programs often take a tougher line. "We believe that guilt and shame are good things," said Michael Josephson, who heads the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics, which sponsors a widely used Character Counts program.
Although all people need a minimum level of self-esteem to get out of bed in the morning, Josephson said, too much leads to what he calls "self-esteemia--the toxic effect of worrying more about feeling good than doing good."
Robert J. Stevens, a professor of educational psychology at Penn State, sums up what every football coach knows. "There's nothing that boosts self-concept more than being able to do something--it doesn't matter if it's reading or doing something on the monkey bars your brother can't do."
January 27- Maybe this belongs on the "COACHING TIPS" page, but I got this great e-mail from Frank Simonsen, a youth coach who runs the double wing in Cape May, New Jersey - "Saw the note in Coaching Tips about the 8th grade team that was hopelessly out gunned, and as you said, we have all been there. I have some advice that has helped us pull out a few upsets over the last 25 years. As you have pointed out, the Offense, is very easy to maintain ; therefore, spend extra time on Defense: put in some new twists that may help confuse them, hope the breaks come your way, give some great pep talks, and pray they are not running the double wing. Frank"
January 25- Between 1980 and 1990 the homicide arrest rate for juveniles increased 87% --- at the same time, it declined for adults over 25.
Since 1970, the divorce rate has doubled and the out-of-wedlock birth rate has tripled. Today, according to Census Bureau statistics, one-third of all births, and 44% of first births, are to unwed mothers.
A recent Wall Street Journal article by Maggie Gallagher, entitled "Fatherless Boys Grow Into Dangerous Men," describes the connection drawn between the two sets of data in a recent study by Cynthia Harper, a demographer in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco and Sara McLanahan, a family scholar at Princeton University.
Tracking 6403 boys between 14 and 22 from 1979 until they were into their 30's, the study controlled for such variables as the mother's educational level, race, family income, and number of siblings, and for such neighborhood factors as proportion of female-headed families, unemployment rates, and median income.
This is what the researchers found:
Boys raised outside an intact marriage are more than twice as likely to end up in jail at some point.
A child born to an unwed mother is 2-1/2 times as likely to end up in prison; a boy whose parents split up during his teenage years is about 1-1/2 times as likely. Every year spent without a father in the home increases the chances of future incarceration by about 5%.
Shockingly, remarriage actually made things worse: boys living in step-parent families, whether with their remarried mother or father, were almost 3 times as likely to be imprisoned as boys from intact families. The problem seems to be competition with the new spouse for the original parent's attention.
Interestingly, the very small number of boys living with just their single fathers were no more likely to commit crimes than boys in intact families. The reason, author Gallagher suggests, may be that such men who single-handedly raise their kids are unusually devoted fathers.
Clearly, society is paying a severe price for neglecting the importance of a father in a boy's upbringing. "When boys identify with fathers who are loving and available," Gallagher writes, "the likelihood lessens that they will define their masculinity in terms of rebellion and antisocial aggression. Fathers teach their sons lessons, directly and indirectly, about what it means to be a man."
I don't think I'm the only one who sees in this American tragedy the need for the structure and discipline of football, and the increasing importance of football coaches to the welfare of our young men, and to the future of our society.
I'd sure like to see that same study focused just on the young men from that group who had played football. I have an idea what the results would be, and I'd like to show them to those people who say that money spent on football is money wasted.
January 21- Paul Maier, head coach of the Mount Vernon (Indiana) Wildcats, and his wife, Jackie, are the proud parents of Cameron Paul Maier, born January 20. He will be a B-Back.
Paul also sent along a great contribution to one of my "tips" about how to keep in contact with your kids in the off-season: " I teach in the junior high so I rarely see any players during the day. What I do to keep in touch among other things is to send out postcards. We had our high school print shop print up a bunch of Mt. Vernon Football postcards. I started sending them originally to players in the Junior High and High School as a congratulatory note for good games, practices, etc. I have continued sending them during the off season to our players about their grades(good and bad), their weight class testing results, to keep in touch with certain kids that might drop through the cracks during the off season, and basically as a recruiting tool within our own school system. I think it has worked well--our numbers have gone from 38 when I took over to around 80 now. No other coach has shown enough interest in them to send a note in January about a good score they got on that algebra test. I think that the parents really like it too, it shows them that we are not just interested in their sons from August to November. I had one comment from a Junior high mother who said "getting a congratulatory card from the HEAD COACH" meant so much to her son that it really "hooked him on football". It also, in a subtle way, lets the kids know that I know what they are doing!"
Answer to the Super Bowl trivia question: Both quarterbacks - Chris Chandler and John Elway - were born in Washington. (Ahem!) Chris Chandler was born in Everett, north of Seattle, and played his high school ball there. John Elway was born in Port Angeles, on the other side of Puget Sound, where his dad, Jack, was a high school coach. Jack Elway, for those who don't know, is a career coach. He was head man at Cal State-Northridge, San Jose State and Stanford before heading overseas to coach in the WLAF. Incidentally, Dennis Erickson is also the son of a Washington high school coach, and he also played his high school ball in Everett.
January 18- With all due respect to the Vikings and their fans, the Atlanta win had all sorts of interesting angles for me: Dan Reeves, a coach to whom the Lord gave at least a few more weeks of life so he could see his work through to completion; a defensive coordinator (Rich Brooks) who wasn't good enough in the eyes of the geniuses who run the St. Louis Rams, but whose defense held the highest-scoring offense in the history of the NFL to seven points in the last 42 minutes of play; another castoff head coach, assistant Art Shell, who put together a line that protected a QB whose number one backup was the elderly Steve DeBerg; Eugene Robinson, a Colgate guy and one of the classiest individuals in the league, making a giant defensive play on a pass to Randy Moss; an old single-wing play, with QB Chris Chandler set out wide, and Tim Dwight at "tailback," going for big yardage (the Vikings had done something similar the week before); Denmark's Morten Andersen, perhaps the most famous European ever to play in the NFL, calmly kicking the game-winning field goal; a pro team actually acting in their post-game celebration as if they care about their team, and sounding like it in their post-game interviews; and Chris Chandler, finally establishing himself as a top-notch pro quarterback. He is tops in my book. Back in the spring of 1988, I had a Finnish football player named Eikka Leisimo visiting me, and I took him to watch the Washington Huskies' spring game. Afterward, I showed him the weight room, where we happened on Chris Chandler, in the middle of a workout. Chris very graciously took time out to show us around the Huskies' training facility and answer all of Eikka's questions. It was a highlight of Eikka's visit to the U.S. Trivia question: besides both being former PAC-10 stars, the two Super Bowl quarterbacks, John Elway and Chris Chandler, have something else in common in their pre-NFL backgrounds. What is it? (Answer to come)
January 16- Jimmy Johnson has quit, and then reconsidered and returned to, his job as coach of the Miami Dolphins. But this time, he says, it will be a different Jimmy Johnson at the controls - evidently, the recent tragic death of his mother and the illness of his father have had a jolting effect on him, and have caused him to take another look at his priorities. Coaches everywhere could benefit from Coach Johnson's observations about many of the members of our profession: "They work at football 15 or 16 hours a day," Coach Johnson told Gordon Forbes, of USA Today. "They go to church one hour a week. And they spend a few hours with their families. That tells me where their attention is."
January 14- I received a great note from Jim Shelton - General Jim Shelton, USA Ret., that is. General Shelton served in Vietnam with Major Don Holleder, and was one of those who identified the body of Major Holleder shortly after he was fatally wounded in a Viet Cong ambush in 1967. He told me of the annual pilgrimage he and other surviving Black Lions (including Tom Hinger, who has been kind enough to share his remembrances of Don Holleder with me) make to West Point as near as possible to the October 17 anniversary of that battle, as part of their dedication to the memory of Don and other comrades who "didn't make it back." He also told me of paying a visit years ago to Don Holleder's high school, Aquinas Institute in Rochester, NY, and noticing a large painting of Major Holleder, in uniform, hanging on the wall of the school auditorium. Jim said he asked one of the students if he knew who ithe man in the painting was, and the student answered, "We don't know - we just call it 'The General'". At his own school! General Shelton assured me that he told the young man the story of the man who may well be Aquinas' most distinguished graduate.
General Shelton remembers Don Holleder as "an indomitable man - courageous and bull-headed...I couldn't believe that he could be dead - how a guy as powerful and full of life could be so lifeless. It was a very sad day - unforgettable."
Let's hope that since General Shelton's visit to Aquinas Institute, someone there has taken it on himself to see to it that the memory of Don Holleder - a great football player and a fallen hero - is kept alive as an inspiration to its students.
Before his military career, General Shelton was Jim Shelton, a pretty good football player at Delaware who my research shows was mentioned on at least one 1955 pre-season All-America team as a guard-linebacker (two-way football, remember). Jim had to be some kind of player to be representing Delaware, a smaller school, in such select company. NFL Hall of Famer Sam Huff of West Virginia was one of the other guards mentioned. And the selectors also seemed to think that a running back at Syracuse named Jim Brown would be worth looking at. Jim Shelton remembers playing against Don Holleder in a pre-season scrimmage against Army, and describes him as "a load to bring down."
Jim, incidentally, sounds knowledgeable enough about the wing-T to do a heck of a job coaching somebody's offensive line. In one game, against Rutgers, he played 60 minutes, playing linebacker on defense, and guard, tackle and center on offense. A former high school single wing center, he was Delaware's deep snapper for three years. And how about this: Jim writes that he once demonstrated the proper wing-T guard pulling technique for Forest Evashevski. Those of us old enough to remember know that name. As coach at Iowa, Forest Evashevski brought Delaware Coach Dave Nelson's wing-t ("winged-T" they called it then) to the nation's attention by winning the 1957 Rose Bowl in spectacular fashion with it, then writing a book on it ("Scoring Power With the Winged-T"), and subsequently co-authoring at least one book with Coach Nelson. Forest Evashevski and Dave Nelson were teammates at Michigan; Evashevski was the answer to a once-famous trivia question - what famous coach was the blocking back for Tom Harmon (Heisman Trophy Winner at Michigan and one of the great single wing tailbacks of all time)?
Jim - General Shelton - had some important words for all of us in the leadership business: "Football had more to do with my success as an infantry officer than any other thing. A thinking quarterback or linebacker can always get a job as an Army officer, Same problems, judgments and considerations."
January 13 - MORE FROM THE LEFT COAST - IF THIS ISN'T A PROBLEM WHERE YOU LIVE - IT PROBABLY WILL BE - The state of Oregon is considering legislation that would prohibit schools from "infringing in any manner" on a coach's right to work with students in the "further development of the athletic or professional interests of the student." What school would want to interfere with a coach who wants to work with his kids? Who could object to a law that like that?
Well, if you care about your school's sports, maybe you - once I tell you that the law was inspired by a high school volleyball coach who was required to choose between coaching his kids on the school's team, or coaching the same kids on a year-round USVBA team. And by a high school soccer coach who also doubled as a coach of one of those year-round "elite" teams that we all know so well. When the school told him he had to choose, he refused to do so, and took the school and the state governing body to court.
At the present time, the governing body, the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA), permits coaches of school teams to do anything they like in their spare time - just so long as they are not coaching more than two of their high school team members on the same day. Other states have similar restrictions on out-of-season coaching. (Washington is much stricter: I may not so much as have a catch with one of my kids until the end of the school year - and then only until three weeks remain before the start of fall practice.)
In Oregon - and elsewhere, I'm sure - parents and kids, convinced that their path to riches and glory lies with year-round concentration on one sport, have been pressuring state legislators, and this proposed law is the result.
Few sports are unaffected. I am personally aware of coaches pressuring kids to concentrate on volleyball, soccer, softball, baseball, basketball and, to some extent, wrestling. I suppose in northern states, ice hockey makes the list.
But most of these coaches aren't urging the kids just to play the sport to better themselves - they have to play on that coach's team, in school or out (what's the difference?).
These coaches are good recruiters, and they find a receptive audience. First of all, as the school coach, they have the power to influence impressionable youngsters. They tell the kids that colleges won't look at them unless they concentrate year-round on one sport. But that's not all. The coaches offer travel - to weekend tournaments in exotic places - and nice clothing - often donated by equipment manufacturers. (That's a major scandal in itself.) And, of course, bragging rights. For certain parents, the prestige of having a son or daughter playing on a "select" or elite team team ranks right up there with selection to the Talented and Gifted Program.
Apart from the obvious problem of its impact on other school sports, there are plenty of other abuses resulting from a coach's being involved year-round with an outside team whose roster is essentially the same as his school's team. It puts pressure on competing coaches, whose kids - but more typically their parents - accuse them of not doing enough to further their "careers." One of my former colleagues, an excellent basketball coach, was fired because he had the misfortune to have one of the best basketball players in the country on his team. Her parents, with no grounds for criticism other than that he "wasn't doing enough" for their daughter, managed to wear down the school administration.
And it may be just a coincidence, but isn't it just amazing how many school transfers seem to result from off-season contacts between these coaches and players from other teams?
Paul Mannen, athletic director at Dallas, Oregon High School, disturbed by the especially severe impact one-sport concentration has on smaller schools, is leading the charge in his state against these outside influences, and he is armed with some pretty significant studies. An NCAA study shows that students who participate in two or three high school sports during a school year are more likely to win an athletic scholarship than those who concentrate on a single sport; and a study that Paul has done - confirmed by similar studies elsewhere - shows that multi-sport high school athletes have cumulative GPA's 10-15 per cent higher than those who concentrate on a single sport.
I bristle at the irony of the soccer gang, who bleated and wailed until soccer was made a school sport, now encouraging their kids to play on teams outside the school - teams that always were available to them. Kids routinely skip the schools' games to travel to weekend tournaments with their elite teams.
Maybe, since there seem to be enough soccer, volleyball, etc. coaches willing to spend the better part of the year coaching the same kids they coach on the school teams, we ought to consider "privatizing" their sports. Turn 'em over to the community. Throw in the uniforms free of charge.
January 12, 1999 - Today is a great day if you're a Beaver. An Oregon State Beaver, that is. Less than a week after their coach left them for the San Diego Chargers, a day after the Washington Huskies hired Rick Neuheisel away from Colorado, the Beavers hired -Dennis Erickson. Dennis Erickson, for crying out loud! At Oregon State! I mean, come on - not in anybody's wildest dream does an Oregon State lure a Dennis Erickson. They missed out on Coach Erickson years ago, when he left Idaho to take the Wyoming job. Or maybe when he left Wyoming to take the Washington State job. But from that point, after he left for Miami and won a national championship, they never had a chance. Everybody knew Dennis Erickson was headed for the top. A native Northwesterner (he comes from Everett, Washington, where his dad was a high school coach), he seemed to be perfect for the Seattle Seahawks. But things didn't work out for him there as hoped, and now, the Seahawks will pay him $1 million not to coach them next year - provided he doesn't take another pro job. And after being turned down by other coaches, give OSU Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart credit for contacting Dennis Erickson - who has won a national championship, has been a winner at every college he's ever been at, and is still considered a very attractive pro coaching prospect - and asking him if, er, he might, er, consider coaching at, um, Oregon State. Evidently, Coach Erickson's reply was something like, "actually, I'd kinda like that." Moral: Unless you ask, the answer is always "No."
January 11, 1999 - Mike Riley, head coach at Oregon State, was just named head coach of the Chargers. Mike went to high school in Corvallis, Oregon, home of Oregon State, where his dad, Bud Riley, was an assistant to Dee Andros. Mike went to college at Alabama, where his dad - and most of his family - hailed from (if you listen closely, you can still hear a little trace of Alabama in his speech). I first met him while working at Rich Brooks' U. of Oregon camp, when Mike was an assistant at Linfield College to Ad Rutschman, a small-college coaching legend. From Linfield, Mike moved on to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the CFL as defensive backs' coach, but soon found himself in the head job. No problem. He won a Grey Cup at Winnipeg. After another CFL stop at San Antonio, he went to USC as the offensive coordinator, before moving to Oregon State two years ago. Good man. OSU will be hard-pressed to find his equal.
At the same time, there was an article in the Portland Oregonian about Rich Brooks, former head man at the University of Oregon. I owe a special debt to Rich because his recommendation was once instrumental in getting me a job. Rich is absolutely one of the classiest men I have met, in football or out. Tough, loyal, organized, hard-working, fair, focused, results-oriented - they're all words that I'd use to describe Rich Brooks. Oregon is now one of the top programs in the Pac-10, largely because of Rich Brooks' efforts. For years, he built a solid program at OU while facing the better-endowed schools such as Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA, USC and, in his own corner of the country, Washington. And thanks to his efforts, Oregon now has facilities second to none in the Pac-10. There is no B.S. about Rich. He is his own man, definitely not into bootlicking, which perhaps explains why, after only two years, he was let go by the St. Louis Rams, just as they appeared on the verge of winning. (They haven't really set things on fire since he left, have they?) In the meantime, as defensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons, Rich has been instrumental in Dan Reeves' miracle turnaround, and served as acting head coach during Coach Reeves recent recovery from heart surgery. I have no idea what motivates the thinking of NFL owners, but with all the coaching vacancies in the league right now, I find it amazing that Rich Brooks' name hasn't been mentioned.
January 8, 1999- A Double Wing coach in the South has been testing the job market, and he told me of going through one of those interviews where seven or eight people sit around and ask questions about their particular areas of concern. As part of his presentation, he was asked to explain his offense. He must have done a good job, because as he was leaving the room, he heard a lady who was there representing some academic department say to someone, "I never learned so much about football in all my life."