BE INFORMED! HOT WEATHER FOOTBALL TIPS (THERE IS PLENTY MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE WEB IF YOU DO A SEARCH ON "HEAT STROKE") |
BACK ISSUES - OCTOBER 2002
|
*********** Just to clear something up... Norm Snead has long suffered from comparisons with Sonny Jurgenson, the other quarterback in the trade that sent him from the Redskins to the Eagles. The conventional wisdom that the Eagles were snookered is to a large extent a myth. It is simply not fair to say that Jurgenson did more for his team - that he did more for the Redskins than Snead did for the Eagles. Sonny has far better career stats, but you could make a case for the fact that his best year was before the trade. It was 1961, his first season as a starter, three years before the trade. The Eagles were loaded that year - they were the defending NFL champions, and Jurgenson had taken over the starting QB job from Norm Van Brocklin - who'd moved on to coaching the Vikings. Throwing the ball all over the place, he led them to a second-place division finish and a win over the Lions in the mostly-forgotten Runnerup Bowl. He led the NFL in completions, passing yardage, and touchdown passes. But the fact is that while the Redskins put up some impressive passing numbers with Jurgenson at quarterback, they didn't have a winning season until 1969, six years after the trade, when Vince Lombardi arrived on the scene and they went 7-5-2. This despite the fact that Jurgenson had two of the most exciting receivers in the game at that time, both Hall of Famers - Bobby Mitchell, who was there when he arrived, and Charley Taylor, who was a rookie in 1964, Jurgy's first year there. Jurgenson's numbers really took off in 1966-67-68, when his coach was former Browns' great Otto Graham, a quarterback himself who really believed in the passing game, but the Redskins still didn't win. But only with the arrival of George Allen in 1971 - along with a host of very good football players - - did Jurgenson play on a championship Redskins team. And despite all his career stats up to that point, he didn't play that much for Allen. Allen preferred a guy named Bill Kilmer, the classic "he can't do anything but beat you" kind of quarterback. The Redskins played in NFC championship games in 71, 72, 73, 74. In every one of those seasons, Kilmer played far more than Jurgenson. In 1972, they made it to the Super Bowl season, but Jurgenson threw only 59 passes all season, and he didn't play a down in the Super Bowl. By 1975, Jurgenson was gone, and a young guy who'd come down from Canada was starting to get some snaps behind Kilmer. A guy named Joe Theismann. Snead, meanwhile, found no Bobby Mitchell or Charley Taylor waiting for him when he arrived in Philadelphia. In fact, he arrived there as Tommy McDonald, the guy who had been Jurgenson's best receiver - and only deep threat - was on his way to the Cowboys. Nonetheless, Snead played on a winner in Philadelphia before Jurgenson did in Washington. After going 6-8 and 5-9 in Snead's first two seasons, the Eagles managed a 9-5 season in 1966. How any Joe Kuharich-coached team ever did that is a mystery to me, but it had nothing to do with a wide-open offense - of their four top receivers, number one was the tight end (Pete Retzlaff), number two was also their leading rusher (Tim Brown) and number four was their fullback (Earl Gros). Only number three, Fred Hill, could be called a "receiver." The Eagles' receiver corps didn't include anyone who could in any sense of the word be considered a deep threat. Not that Snead was a big favorite in Philly. He handled most of the snaps in 1966, but Kuharich, not one to worry much about his quarterback's confidence, gave more than a third of the snaps to King Hill and Jack Concannon. My point - Sonny was a hell of a passer. He has the numbers to prove it. But he had the receivers, too. I mean, Mitchell, Taylor, Jerry Smith, Pat Richter... In terms of leading a team to victory though, how much did he accomplish? On the other hand, consider poor Norman Snead and the dog-ass teams he played on, first in Washington and then in Philadelphia. I have no doubt that Norm Snead would have quarterbacked George Allen's Redskins to the Super Bowl. Even played in it. Meanwhile, Joe Kuharich, given enough time, would have had no problem screwing up Sonny Jurgenson. Or, for that matter, Johnny Unitas. Correctly identifying Norm Snead - Joe Daniels- Sacramento... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa... Scott Russell - Potomac Falls, Virginia... Mike Framke- Green Bay, Wisconsin... Mike Benton- Colfax, Illinois... Dave Potter- Durham, North Carolina... John Zeller - Sears, Michigan... David Crump- Owensboro, Kentucky ("I haven't thought about him in a long time, but playing for bad teams and taking a beating reminds me of him. You are really making me reach back into my memory bank for this one.")... Steve Fangman- St. Charles, Missouri... Eric Heckman- Rockville, Maryland... Steve Staker - Fredericksburg, Iowa... Kevin McCullough- Culver, Indiana... Adam Wesoloski- Pulaski, Wisconsin... JOhn Muckian- Lynn, Massachusetts... Pete Porcelli- Lansingburgh, New York... Jack Tourtillotte- Boothbay Harbor, Maine... Mike O'Donnell - Pine City, Minnesota... Glade Hall- Seattle ("The only Deacon quarterback to earn All-America honors")... David Maley- Rosalia, Washington... John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... Bert Ford- Los Angeles ("Thats Norm Snead! He spoke at the year end banquet for the youth team I played on. Yes, they used to do that.")... Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois(" This week's subject was easy for me. He's Norm Snead. I remember my days in the Philadelphia area when this guy was blamed for the poor record of the Eagles (pronounced, "Iggles" by the locals). The Sonny Jurgenson trade was equated to the Cub's Lou Brock trade as one of the worst of all time.")...
*********** General Jim Shelton, Honorary Colonel of the 28th Infantry Association - think of it as the Black Lions' alumni - has made it his life's cause to keep alive the memory of the brave men who fought under him in Vietnam. And a major part of his cause has been a relentless campaign to convince those on high that Clark Welch deserves the Medal of Honor. It has not been an easy fight - the Army requires witnesses, and most of the witnesses to Mr. Welch's bravery were killed - but a combat veteran doesn't quit, and the General soldiers on. Many of you have heard me mention Mr. Welch. You might almost think of him as the Black Lion's Black Lion. Men who have known him - combat infantrymen themselves - speak of him with awe. General Shelton's MEDAL OF HONOR RECOMMENDATION appears on another page on this site. Mr. Welch now lives in Florissant, Colorado, up in the Rockies about 30 miles west of Colorado Springs. Last weekend, I was directed to a wonderful article about Clark Welch by Lou Gonzalez, which appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette. Through arrangement with the Gazette, I have permission to post the article for your enjoyment and enlightenment. If you like reading heroic tales, you don't want to miss this: CLARK WELCH - RELUCTANT HERO *********** I always look forward to news from Don Shipley. Don's dad, the late Dick Shipley, played guard on Maryland's 1953 national championship team, and was my coach for two years when I played for the Frederick, Maryland Falcons. (Yes, the same Frederick where they nailed the two "alleged" snipers.) We were pretty damned good if I do say so. We were 21-2 in the two seasons I played for them. I admired Dick and enjoyed playing for him, and when I became a coach myself, I patterned a lot of what I did initially after what I'd seen him do. One of my teammates was a guy named Clarence Thomas, who had been a teammate of Willie Lanier on some very good Morgan State teams. Clarence and I and our wives became good friends. He became a high school coach, then head coach at Bowie State, and eventually became head coach at Morgan State - succeeding his coach, the legendary Earl Banks - before moving west to become coach at Pomona-Pitzer in California. When he began coaching in Finland in the off-season, he put me in touch with some people over there, and in my third year in Finland, we actually got to coach against each other twice on the other side of the globe (we split). Don, knowing of my regard for John Unitas, wrote me this: To commemorate the unveiling of the John Unitas statue at Ravens Stadium this past Sunday, the Baltimore Sun did a special insert (fittingly, Section U) on John Unitas. One of the articles was called "19 Touched by 19," brief profiles of everyday people who had first-hand contact with him. Here's one from an area high school coach named Dave Dolch, which includes a reference to a Clarence Thomas with Morgan State who I assume is the former Falcon: Dolch's last season as the quarterback at Northeast High was 1972, Unitas' final year in Baltimore. A decade later, his coaching career got a boost from Unitas, whom Dolch had met through Jim Hindman, his coach and mentor at Western Maryland College. That year, their paths crossed one more time as Dolch prepared for his newest assignment, as the varsity coach at St. Paul's. "In 1982, John and Morgan State coach Clarence Thomas came to Queen Anne's High on the Eastern Shore and spent an entire day with our football team, a fantastic gesture that the people here still remember," Dolch said. "This summer, I was pulled out of a classroom and handed a phone. The man on the other end said, 'My father said my son needs to play for you.' I had no idea who it was. It was John Unitas Jr. The oldest grandchild, John Constantine Unitas III, is one of the quarterbacks on our JV"
*********** Terrorists may have killed a couple thousand Americans in the World Trade Center bombing, and scarcely a week goes by that a dozen or so innocent Israelis aren't killed by a suicide bomber. Most recently, hundreds of vacationers were killed in Bali. Yet there are still among us substantial numbers of Americans who can't bring themselves to become angry with the terrorists. They can't summon any emotion stronger than grief. Maybe this'll get them mad- The Melbourne (Australia) Age reported that when Abu Bakar Bashir, Indonesian radical Muslim leader was asked if there was anything he wished to say to the families who lost loved ones in the Bali nightclub bombing, he answered, "My message to the families is please convert to Islam as soon as possible." Bastard! It's one thing to kill hundreds of innocent people, but on top of all that, did you have to be insensitive, too? This could send the weenies to the streets, pleading with the President to nuke Islamic nations. This is, after all, America in the Twenty-First Century, where insensitivity is a worse crime than murder. *********** Tony Bavaro died last week of cancer in Danvers, Massachusetts. He was 64. I never knew the man. I heard of his two sons, former NFLers Mark and David, but I didn't know their dad was special until I read the story Lou Orlando sent me, a story by Bill Kipouras that appeared in the Salem News. I thought he was worth telling you about, because Tony Bavaro was the sports parent of your dreams. Tony Bavaro was a good athlete himself, a star end at Holy Cross who was good enough to be drafted by the 49ers, before a knee injury dashed any hopes of a pro football career. So he settled instead for a life as a high school history teacher in Malden, Massachusetts, and as a husband and father of two sons and a daughter. "His whole life was his family and his kids," his college teammate (Holy Cross) and long-time friend, Dick Berardino, now Red Sox player development consultant and spring training coordinator, told Kipouras. "He was proud to have two sons play in college, Mark at Notre Dame and David at Syracuse, then in the NFL. And he was equally proud to have his daughter Robin do so well. But I never ever heard him brag about their accomplishments. Basically, that was him. A very unassuming and humble guy who never drew attention to himself." "He was truly a class act," Kipouras wrote. "He was the ultimate sports parent, as his wife Chris said. He'd go to the football games, sit off to the side, and not make a single criticism. 'That was Tony,' close friend Mickey Ouimette said. 'I knew him almost 40 years and coached the boys in youth football. He'd drop them off at the Highlands School, observe practice and never say a word. He knew more about football than I could have wished, but not once did he ever offer any suggestions.' "Certainly, Tony was instrumental in the type of kids and competitors his football sons became. Ernie Smith, then the Danvers High football coach, said the degree of toughness that Mark and David displayed was derived from Tony, in a good way. Smith could not recall Mr. Bavaro even missing a practice when Mark and David were at Danvers High. 'He was simply a great parent and supported the Danvers High athletic program. Not just football, either. He was a regular at the baseball and hockey games,' Smith said." David Bavaro remembered that his dad "meant everything to us, was always kind, always positive, always encouraging," whether it was playing pepper with his sons in the back yard in baseball season, tossing the football around in the fall, or just being the role model that made him so greatly respected. "He was probably what every kid would want for a dad," David said. "Every time I'd hear bout people talking about how parents should be like or whatever, I'd always think of my dad. He always fitted the mold they were talking about. More importantly, he was also a father figure for kids I knew who didn't have fathers, or had fathers who died early. He was there for everybody." Recalled Mark, former Notre Dame and new York Giants' star tight end, "I'd attribute my success to my father. There were others on the periphery," he told Kipouras, "but he was the main influence for David and me. It all started with my father and was maintained by my father, and it will always be my father. Obviously, he was proud of his kids and what they achieved. But I think he took just as much pride in his grandchildren, having the whole family around. He loved that. His family and friends, that's all he wanted out of life. He was the one and only role model for us." His wife, Chris, told Bill Kipouras, "He'd watch games, and was never someone to try and tell a person what to do. All he did was encourage Mark and David to be team players. He wasn't showy ... and as a father, he was the best. He got some wonderful letters from former students who heard he was sick, kids who had families of their own now. They wrote to tell Tony how grateful they were for the role he had played in their lives. They said they had tried to model themselves as the role model he was. It was very touching. He was very loved, not the least bit pompous. He was the anchor for us all." *********** What is with the Hyundai commercial where the little witch being sold a car keeps hitting the salesman in the chest and saying, "Shut up?" *********** My totally unsolicited take on the BCS- Oklahoma is probably the best. There is still the Big 12 championship to get through, but they're probably good enough to make it through. One flaw - wins over Tulsa, UTEP, South Florida. What do they prove? Miami still cruises through that cake Big East, although Tennessee in Knoxville could be a test, and they play Va Tech at the end. That game is in Miami, though. Georgia has had too many close calls. They'll get theirs one of these days. They've still got Kentucky, Florida, Mississippi and Auburn (although they've also got Vandy and Georgia Tech) and, of course, the SEC championship game. They will lose before it's over. Ohio State still has Penn State, Minnesota, Purdue and Michigan (and Illinois). I predict one loss in there. If they don't lose, they belong in the title game. Notre Dame has to go to Florida State and USC. BC is fairly safe. They don't even have to send their varsity to Navy and Rutgers. If they arrive in the Coliseum unbeaten, it wouldn't be the first time USC messed up a Notre Dame season. Virginia Tech still has Pitt, Virginia and Miami, and maybe West Virginia, which has been coming on, but they've also got Temple and Syracuse. And, of course, they finish at Miami. As always, there will be no Pac-10 team in there. My pick is..... Miami and Oklahoma. Unless Ohio State or Notre Dame make it out unbeaten, in which case I'd throw Miami overboard on strength of schedule (I mean, Florida A & M? UConn?). If both Ohio State and Notre Dame make it, I'd have a three-way Kansas plan playoff (with Oklahoma), loser out. CHECK! Is it too late to throw North Carolina State in there? After watching what they did to Clemson, I have to say that if they win out (they still have Florida State) they could belong. *********** Not saying that the Mountain West Conference sucks this year, but in third place, behind Air Force (6-1 overall) and Colorado State (6-2) is San Diego State - 2-5 overall. *********** Police hate responding to domestic disturbances. School teachers who break up fights are beginning to find out why - no matter what they do, they're going to be wrong, and they're going to wind up the villains. You know how it is at a lot of schools - the "academic" teachers look down their noses at the football coach. Until there's a fight that needs breaking up, that is. Then, they're glad you're around. As all of us learn, though, there is an art to breaking up fights. And it's getting trickier all the time. It was 1980, and it was my first day on the job as a teacher and coach at Hudson's Bay High School, in Vancouver, Washington. "Bay" was a good school, but we had a very rough element, too, and on the very first day, a fight broke out in the gym. I was in the weight room, adjacent to the gym, and when someone said there were two kids fighting, I raced out to break it up. But Bob Parsons, the PE department chairman, was already out in the gym, and when he saw me hurrying, he got one of those, "You're new around here, aren't you?" smiles on his face and said, "What's your hurry? Take your time." Bob's theory, which I came to subscribe to, was that as long as there was no weapon involved and it was only two guys, they'd get tired soon enough if you just let them fight. Oh, you had to make it look as if you were breaking it up. But you did it slo-o-owly. A couple of high school teachers in Montgomery. Alabama, probably wish they'd done it ver-r-r-ry slowly. As a result of their stepping in and breaking up a lunchroom fight, the two teachers were arrested and now face trial on harassment charges brought by the mother of one of the participants. Thomas Goodson, a teacher and assistant football coach at Jefferson Davis High School, and Truman Sullivan, an ROTC instructor, were arrested on Sept. 3 for alleged harassment, four days after they broke up a fight between two students. According to the two teachers, Goodson had to break up the fight three times before one of the participants finally said he didn't want to fight any more. But when the other fighter continued throwing punches, Goodson said he restrained him until the boy's teacher could arrive to escort him from the lunchroom. But the boy broke away from that teacher, Goodson said, and charged at Goodson. That's where Sullivan joined in, taking the boy to the ground and applying a head lock on him to restrain him until the school's "resource officer," a Montgomery policeman, could arrive. Goodson said the student was out of control, and he believes that if he and Sullivan hadn't restrained the boy, the situation could have escalated. At a meeting the next week attended by the two teachers, the school's principal and the boy's mother, Sullivan and Goodson explained what happened and then, according to Sullivan, the mother pointed her finger at them and said she would have them both arrested. Sullivan said the mother then signed a warrant for the teachers' arrest, and the resource officer told Sullivan the two teachers would have to turn themselves in. That evening, Goodson and Sullivan each got $250 in bail money together and drove downtown and turned themselves in at the city jail. There, they were booked, fingerprinted, frisked, photographed and placed in a cell for more than five hours, they said. "We thought we were going to pay our bail and leave," Sullivan said. Authorities say that anyone can sign an arrest warrant for anyone else as long as they have some connection to a specific incident, even if there was not an investigation by a law enforcement agency or a police report. The two teachers are scheduled to be tried in Montgomery Municipal Court on February 7. Their principal and the superintendent of the Montgomery County School Board have expressed their support, and the two men are being defended by a lawyer paid for by the Alabama Education Association. Said the police spokesman, "The question is, `Was it too much force?' and that's where the municipal judge will render a decision." "The parents believe that too much force was used and the school system doesn't." *********** Roger Kelly, of Delta, British Columbia, has to remember where he is when he's coaching football. Roger, a former PR director of the Canadian Football League's B.C. Lions, is now a Vancouver stockbroker, but he is also a football coach. For several years now, he has been successfully running the Double-Wing with his youth team, but this year he has also been helping out at a local high school. Here's his schedule: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he's with his youth team; Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he's with the high school team. It's even tougher than it sounds: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he's coaching Canadian rules (12 men, and all that); Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he's dealing with American-type rules. *********** An Oregon court has ruled that schools can require athletes to undergo drug testing. This was a great disappointment to the people who'd brought a law suit, a couple of parents whose daughter didn't get to play on her high school volleyball team because as a matter of principle, they'd refused to let her be tested. Why do I think that there are thousands of kids in the Washington, D.C.- Maryland - Virginia area, kids who missed practice and games - homecomings, even - because of circumstances beyond their control, who would have a hard time sympathizing with that one high school girl who insisted on challenging the rules? *********** The SCAPEGOAT OF THE WEEK award goes to Troy State offensive coordinator John Shannon, who was fired this week with four games left to play. See, it was his fault that all the Troy State offense could do the past two weeks was score eight points against Mississippi State and seven against Marshall ("15 points combined," is how the school's press release must have read, because that's the way all the newspapers printed it.) Hey, wait a minute - Troy State is upset over a mere fifteen points combined against Mississippi State and Marshall? Am I missing something? What the hell is Troy State doing even playing Mississippi State and Marshall? Troy State's only wins have come against Southern Utah and Austin Peay, both Division I-AA. This week is homecoming. The opponent is a real powerhouse. Florida Atlantic. Troy State will probably score 30 or 40 points, and everybody will go up to coach Larry Blakeney afterwards and pat him on the back and congratulate him on the great offensive turnaround.
*********** Adam Schefter interviewed John Elway recently, in the Denver Post: Adam Schefter: How does John Elway spend his dream day? *********** Coach, I was thinking about you and thought I would write to let you know how things are going. We are currently 5-0 with 3 regular season games left. Our showdown will be the last of those three. We won this week 41-0. My o-line is in Hog Heaven. They realize what a special thing it is they do. Every week we have a different coach or two approach us and tell us we have the best line they've ever seen. We have been installing the Jet series to roll out in the playoffs. My boys picked it up in two days. Jack Gregory is coaching in Grand Prairie (just down the road from me) and we have become friends. He has been a great help. Everything we try has worked so far. We installed 6G and 7G a couple of weeks ago and scored with it this week. The trap has been devastating. Our biggest play has been wedge. My son is the B-back and he had 133 yds on 17 wedges last week. This offense, the guys on the DW board and especially your help has meant more to my boys than you'll ever know. They believe in themselves and believe in the system. I think we are unstoppable at this point. Thanks for making a difference in all our lives. I hope you can come back to Texas this year. Thanks! Jimmy Glasgow, Arlington Optimist 6th Grade Highlanders, Arlington, Texas *********** Maybe they thought that with all the CEO's being trotted off to jail, with all the media focus on Martha Stewart, this one would slip under the radar screen, but Microsoft, which has been accused by its competitors of all sorts of slimy tactics, hit a new low last week. Maybe you've seen some of the ads Apple's been running in its "I've Switched" campaign. Ordinary people from various walks of life tell how they switched from a PC to a MacIntosh, and how much better computing has been since they switched. And they sign off by telling us who they are and what they do for a living. The campaign must have been irking the folks up at Microsoft headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. I can just see them now - THE SETTING: Several bright young people sit around a conference table. They are multicultural, multiethinic and multiracial, not to mention sexually diverse. Starbucks coffee containers and bottles of water sit on the table. They have just finished watching a MacIntosh "I've Switched" commercial. To tell you what the sneaks actually wound up doing, let me quote David Pogue, in the New York Times: "On October 9, the company posted a testimonial on its Web site called 'Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert.' It was a first-person account by a 'freelance writer' about how she had fallen in love with Windows XP, which she compared to a Lexus. 'I was up and running in less than one day, Girl Scout's honor,' burbled the attractive, 20-something brunette in the photo. "There was only one problem: She doesn't exist. "A with-it member of Slashdot.org, the popular hangout for articulate nerds, happened to notice that the woman's picture actually came from GettyImages.com, a stock-photo agency. Ted Bridis, an Associated Press reporter, took it from there. Amazingly, he tracked authorship of the article to Valerie Mallinson, a public-relations woman hired by Microsoft to write the story." Word of the deceit got out fast, and once the marketing geniuses at Microsoft realized that they were being skewered on countless Web sites, they pulled the ad. But it was too late - the damage was done. More and more people - count me as one of them - enlisted in the army of Microsoft haters. Can you believe those phonies? Pogue asks, "What does all of this say about a company's corporate psyche that it feels the need to fabricate evidence of the public's love?"
*********** Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times of what he called a nasty exchange at one of the regular briefings conducted by the Charles Moose, chief of the Montgomery County, Maryland Police Department. A reporter demanded to know why Chief Moose spoke "courteously, even respectfully" to the sniper. When the chief answered that he tried to speak respectfully to everyone - even to the reporter - the reporter replied, "Well, the sniper's a killer, chief." *********** With the news media out here flushed with excitement over the fact that the Beltway Sniper was a local guy, I turned on the TV Thursday to find out the latest. I learned that they'd caught a couple of people, and saw their Caprice being loaded into a van. And then, they switched us back to our regular programming. It was a local chit-chat show, with the two hosts - male and female - sitting in a living room-type set and talking to some ditzy female about a book she'd written - some kind of self-help book for women. I swear I heard her saying, "If you can get in touch with yourself from the inside-out...." (CLICK) *********** PART ONE (THIS APPEARED TUESDAY): Here we go again. My former assistant John Lambert had his problems last Friday night with the same coaches I had problems with three years ago, and for the same reason - they are teaching their kids to attack the fullback's knees. Some of you have seen video of it at my clinics. But John was prepared for it, because he knows the rule is there to protect his kid - has even been beefed up in the last two years - so he reminded the referee of what was going on. The official responded that the Fullback, because he is so close, is in the free blocking zone. Well, duh. Of course he is in the free blocking zone. So what? As so often happens in high school football, the officials didn't know the rule. What the rule says is that both participants in the block below the waist must have been - not just in the free blocking zone - but on the line of scrimmage. (RULE 2, SECTION 17, ARTICLE 2 - "Blocking below the waist is permitted in the free-blocking zone when the following conditions are met: (a.) All players involved in blocking are on the line of scrimmage and in the zone at the snap. (b.) The contact is in the zone Blocking below the waist in any other circumstances is illegal. It's called against offensive players all the time, but it's important to understand that a block is a block whether it's thrown by an offensive player or a defensive player. And "all players involved in blocking" means (1) those doing the blocking and (2) those being blocked. PART TWO: And then the triumphant coach shot off his mouth to his local paper. I was lucky enough to get a copy: "We have a defensive scheme that we've run for several years and that works very well if the kids execute it properly," the coach told the reporter. Grrrr. Yeah, their "defensive scheme" sure works very well - at least, when the referees are ignorant of the rules or decide not to enforce them. The "defensive scheme" consists of attacking the kickout blockers at the knees. But not from the front, either, where the blocker can at least see it coming - they bait the blocker by having a defender appear in front of him, then cut his knees from the side with a blitzing linebacker. It is ugly. I went through this crap with him three years ago, and once the officials finally started to nail his ass and his kids were forced to play by the rules, it was lights out for them. I really thought that would be the end of it. A couple of my players' dads had some fairly serious words with his defensive coordinator afterward. The fullback's dad was one of them. He is a pretty big guy, and, I would imagine, pretty handy. It wouldn't have pleasant if his kid had been hurt by the illegal tactics that they were teaching. And, evidently, still are. To say the least, I am very disappointed in the head coach, who has been a very successful coach in these parts. But his self-congratulatory tone in the newspaper article certainly seems to indicate that he knows exactly what is going on. Those kids are not doing it on their own. It is being taught. There is only one word for that. You know, I have a defensive scheme, too. It "works very well" against passing teams -"if the kids execute it properly": we man-up on all their eligible receivers, and at the snap, we take them to the ground and hold them there... *********** If there are any college coaches reading this and you're thinking about emulating Rick Neuheisel and, uh, doing some "creative recruiting", I think you ought to know that the new president of the NCAA, Miles Brand, is the same Miles Brand who as president of Indiana University had the cojones to stand up to Bobby Knight. *********** More on the Cornhuskers' non-matching jerseys, in the classic 1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma game... " Coach, I love watching that '71 game! Although I do not have the answer to that question, I also noticed how some of the helmet stickers do not match. Some have the classic N others, a NU similar to the... gulp, OU logo. As the game progresses I love seeing Jeff Kinney's jersey shred into pieces of nothing. His shoulder pads are flapping around as he rumbles all over the field. Sigh.. the good ole days... even though I wasn't even around. Sam Knopik, Kansas City (formerly of Omaha, Nebraska) "Dollars to doughnuts NU had tearaway jerseys. Probably didn't make them with stripes because they were a disposable item." Jerry Lovell, Bellevue East HS, Bellevue, Nebraska (That was my guess. I actually had a guy say they were too cheap - a rag-tag outfit. And he was a Nebraska guy. I said, yeah - they were only National Champions those years, drawing 70,000+ per game. Plus national television appearances. Plus bowl appearances every year. HW) *********** "Did I mention we had 3-5 inches of snow locally yesterday? Little early I think. Reminds me of my youth in the U.P. (Michigan's Upper Peninsula, for those of you who are not "Yoopers"- HW) and trick-or-treating with a snowmobile suit under my costume." Adam Wesoloski- Pulaski, Wisconsin *********** "I forgot to tell you, when Len Casanova died a few weeks ago - I remember reading a story - When he was the Head Coach at Santa Clara after WWII he had a team full of ex GI's. They had a powerhouse team that got invited to the Orange Bowl to face the "Bear" and Kentucky, so Santa Clara heads out by train, took em' like six or seven days to get there. At each stop they would practice in the morning and party like " Wild Men" at night. They had a "BLAST" on the cross country trip. Meanwhile the " Bear" ( who was like a 3 TD Favorite) was holding three a days right up to game day almost. His assistants (I believe Paul Dietzel and Charlie McClendon were two of them) were warning him that "he might be over working the boys". FINAL SCORE- SANTA CLARA 21 KENTUCKY 13. I think Bear's assistants might have been right ! - John Muckian Lynn, Massachusetts. *********** Dear coach- thank you for the tapes it has helped my team here in Chicago a lot. We are South Conference champs and getting ready for the playoff. If we do not win another game we have passed the goal I have set for the team, to just make the playoffs, not win a conference. I have one week to get ready for the playoffs. If you have any new ideas about changing some of the offense please send some it to me. Again thank you for the information you sent me - it won me a conference. YOUR FRIEND FOR LIFE, MICHAEL D. GLENN Coach Glenn - Congratulations on a fine season! I'm sure that the offense helped, but I'm sure that it was more than the offense. I'm sure that you did a good job with coaching, too, which includes teaching offense, defense, kicking, blocking, and tackling, putting the players in the right spots, and applying organization, discipline, and motivation. To be frank, I don't think that this is the time to change anything. I think that there is very little chance that you will be able to do anything new nearly as well as the things that have got you to where you are! I am pleased and flattered that you consider me a friend. HW *********** I have much more to share with you about this season. Like for example can you believe that our head coach NEVER and I mean NEVER did he once practice BLOCKING and TACKLING during the regular season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unbelievable. And he wonders why he found himself always yelling and screaming at the kids for not blocking and tackling anyone in the games. I keep telling him we need to be constantly be working on these things. But I guess he thinks he knows it all. NAME WITHHELD You've learned a valuable lesson from this experience. You've learned that there are actually some people who don't coach blocking and tackling - and if you do, when you play them you will kill them. HW *********** If Iowa beats Michigan this week, it will be because of Brad Banks. Over the past several years, nothing has hurt Michigan more than a mobile quarterback. John Zeller, Sears, Michigan *********** Hugh: As an aside to New Mexico running some Single Wing. I forgot to mention that I had gone to the home opener for Northern Illinois against Wake Forest and the Demon Deacons spent most of the first half running a base Wing-T.......weakside belly lead, etc.etc....In the second half they went to a one back set and threw the ball but it was textbook wing-t football most of the first quarter. Northern had a tough time adjusting but ended up winning the game in OT. Bill Lawlor, Hoffman Estates, Illinois *********** Our sideline official in our win Friday told me our motion simulates a snap and he said he was going to call it if we continued to do so...I asked him what rule is it that says that, he said it was the rule on motion...I responded with Rule 7-2-7 states that any player player not on the line of scrimmage may be in motion at the snap so long as it is only 1 man in motion and he is not going towards the opponents goal to which he replied it may not read that way, but i am going to call it that way...needless to say I was not happy and told him he couldn't make up rules and call them, it isn't his job to interpret, it is his job to enforce and if he called that penalty on us once he would have to throw me out of the game. We won 54-0 and were never called for illegal motion, or simulating a snap! Maybe he listened... Brad Knight, Galva-Holstein, Iowa (Tell ya what - this "simulating the snap" business really does leave it up to the official's interpretation, which is scary! HW) *********** Hello, Coach. This is Stephen Whitley, football coach and AD at Pamlico County Middle School in Bayboro, NC. If you remember, I ordered your "Dynamics.." tape and playbook. This was my first year running your double wing. First, let me tell you that in the last two years our football team was 1-13. We had scored three TD's in those two years combined. This year we finished 5-2. Last night we played our last game against the 1st place team who was 6-0. We beat them 32-0. Had we won one of the games we lost, we would have been in 1st place. We are a very small school playing against large schools. I appreciate what you do and thank you for your help. I am not a "true" football coach. I'll be the first to admit that to anyone. For the first time in ten years, though, I can't wait 'til next year! Thanks again, Stephen Whitley, Bayboro, North Carolina (I don't know what you mean by "not a 'true' football coach," but if you care about your kids and you're teaching them to do the right thing and holding them to high standards of conduct and teaching them good work habits and sound fundamentals and inspiring them to play hard for their team and their teammates and sending them away loving the game and wanting more, you are a football coach. I get the impression that you are doing those things.) *********** Coach Wyatt, I wanted to give you an update on the Gorham Middle school team in Gorham Maine. My first season as head coach, we went 2-7 and that next spring you spoke to us and we switched to the Double Wing. The first year with the Double Wing we went 7-3 and made the playoffs, last season we went 11-0 scoring 382 points and allowing 18. This season we are 8-0 so far scoring 281 points and allowing 80. We really understand the portion of the offense we run and it makes it really fun to coach as its a science as far as what plays I call when the other coach changes his defense. Today was a wet muddy day and both our QB's are tiny and have small hands. Fumbling was a problem with them so I put in Wildcat at halftime and moved my A back in beside my B back and put my second A back into the game. We went in at halftime up 8-0 and at the end of the 3rd quarter running Wildcat we were up 28-0. I would recommend this to anyone with big fast backs that the defense is keying on. It also makes fumbling the snap no problem because as you say in the book, a low snap on the ground is easily handled by the left the right backs lined up like short stops. The defense can't see the snap, they can't key the QB's motion and by the time they see the left or right back running 6 or 7 G he is gone. Thanks, Mark Marquis, Head Coach, Gorham Grizzlies 7th and 8th Grade Football Team, Gorham, Maine *********** This is my third year with the double wing. Our division this year is 12-13 year olds. Our first couple games we struggled with new and hurt players and had to make a switch at QB because we kept fumbling our snaps. Our last three games are another story, we won 40-8, 24-0, 34-0. The offense is clicking with enormous confidence which is making the defense play even better. The 40-8 game was even more special because the coach before the game was heard saying, "That offense won't work at this level." After holding at our 1 yard line late in the game, I call 88 power believing that they know we'll go up the middle and it goes 99 yards to put us up 40-8. How many points do you have to score in a game before it gets recognized as an offense that is working? By the way, I haven't heard a word from the other coach since. There may be games that just don't go our way for one reason or another but the fact remains, this system can and will work as long as you give it the chance. Thanks Coach Wyatt for all you do. Ron Young, Wellington, Florida *********** The Governor of Illinois has ordered clemency hearings for 139 men and three women on death row. They have been convicted - by juries - of killing more than 250 people. I can only imagine what the surviving relatives of their victims will go through, as the cases are reopened.
Jim has been kind enough to provide me with early drafts, and I have read most of it with great interest. It provided me with a very interesting look at the inner workings of an Army under combat conditions, and although Jim would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier General before retiring, it is not written in the jargon that military people often seem to use when communicating with each other. In the interest of complete authenticity, the description and the dialogue can get gritty. Here's an excerpt (If you can't deal with the way real people sometimes talk under less than ideal conditions, consider yourself forewarned.) The Division had a standing SOP that each battalion would send out three ambush patrols per night, one from each rifle company. I told the CO, "Sir, I don't think we should do that tonight. The men have had no time to prepare, no rest, and we don't really have any intelligence. Also, I've been told there are old, unmarked French mine fields out around here. I don't think we should do it."
TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT REAL HEROES -
inscribed on the wall of the 1st
Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois
|
BE INFORMED! HOT WEATHER FOOTBALL TIPS (THERE IS PLENTY MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE WEB IF YOU DO A SEARCH ON "HEAT STROKE") |
Joe Foss was a World War II Marine flying ace and a winner of the Medal of Honor (seen around his neck in the photo at far left). He served as Governor of South Dakota for two terms, and as President of the National Rifle Association. He has been active with Campus Crusade for Christ. He was the first Commissioner of the American Football League, (succeeded by Al Davis).
Correctly identifying Joe Foss: Kevin McCullough - Culver, Indiana... Adam Wesoloski- Pulaski, Wisconsin... Scott Russell- Potomac Falls, Virginia... Dave Potter- Durham, North Carolina... Joe Daniels- Sacramento... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa... Mike Framke, Green Bay, Wisconsin ("What a tough S.O.B.!!!")... Steve Fangman- St. Charles, Missouri... David Crump- Owensboro, Kentucky ("a true American hero in any category that one can name.")... Greg Stout- Thompson's Station, Tennessee... John Muckian- Lynn, Massachusetts... Jack Tourtillotte- Boothbay Harbor, Maine... Mike O'Donnell - Pine City, Minnesota... John Zeller, Sears, Michigan... Steve Staker- Fredericksburg, Iowa...
*********** John Lambert, head coach at La Center, Washington, and his wife, Kerry Lynn, are the proud parents of twins. Little Thomas and Mary Lambert joined older sister Jane last Thursday, and Dad celebrated by going out and turning the Double-Wing loose on neighboring Woodland. The 31-8 La Center win was its first over Woodland in 40 years. *********** Australian Rules football player Jason McCartney's condition is critical, with burns to more than 50 per cent of his body. The Kangaroos defender's condition deteriorated overnight, a spokeswoman for a Melbourne hospital said. My son lives in Australia and my daughter-in-law is Australian, and I am enraged by the vicious attack on the Balinese nightclubs which killed, maimed and burned so many innocent people, the greatest number of them Australians. Bali is to Australians as Hawaii or Jamaica or Baja California are to Americans - an exotic, tropical place where you go to get away along with lots of others just like you who have the same idea. It is traditional for sports teams and their closest followers to take end-of-season trips together, and Bali is a favorite destination. The bastards who carried out the bombing aimed it at Australians, and more than likely knew that rugby and Aussie rules players would be visiting. It is fair to say that the bombing is Australia's 9-11. True, it is on a lesser scale, but Australia is a smaller country, and not used to being a target. It has had an unbelievable effect on Australia, whose people consider themselves far removed from the center of world affairs - for better or worse - and could fairly be summarized as easy-going. But now, the peace of a peace-loving people has been shattered. Which leads up to a question. We hear constantly about how important "world opinion" is, and how our popularity is way down among our so-called "allies." France, where tens of thousands of American soldiers are buried after giving their lives to liberate the sorry French from the Nazis, buys oil from Saddam Hussein and so has no interest in helping us; Germany, which after starting World War II and causing all those American deaths was rebuilt and shielded from Russia with American taxpayers' dollars, thinks it is clever to ridicule our President. Canada, our close neighbor to the north, prefers to play neutral, perhaps in hopes that the terrorists living there will leave it alone and move on to the United States. That leaves, basically, the U.K. and Australia. Yes, the Aussies have stuck by us. The attack in Bali was largely motivated by Australia's involvement as a "Crusader" (as Osama bin Laden puts it) in its involvement in East Timor, but there is no question that a secondary reason was Australia's support of the United States, including the sending of a force to Afghanistan. It is all over the Australian newspapers. Still. But here, I peruse the newspapers, and find nothing. I find an article here and there about Indonesia finally waking up to the fact that it may, indeed, harbor terrorists, as we've been insisting, but where is the sense of indignation that a true friend has been violated? Where are the stories in our papers about the enormous effect this had on our friends? I'm told that at last year's Australian Rules Grand Final (their Super Bowl), which took place not long after 9-11, Australians waved American flags and played the Star Spangled Banner, out of respect for the thousands killed in the attack. Out of respect for America's loss. My son told me that upon learning that he was American, total strangers would say, "I'm so sorry." They cared that much. So my question is, why don't we seem to care? Why do we seem to be ignoring one of our true friends in its time of pain? I read that a few Americans were killed in Bali, but otherwise, the victims were "mostly foreigners." Is that all? The people who have stuck by us, at great cost to their own security, are dismissed as "foreigners," and somehow unworthy of our further interest? I wish it were in my power to apologize for our national self-obsession. I would like to say, on behalf of Americans who don't understand Australia's pain because we are at the mercy of what our media choose to feed us, I'm so sorry. *********** Coach, It's a stormy afternoon today (Wednesday), no practice, so I took the older kids to our community center to show them some of last week's game film and go over a few things. After 30 minutes the kids get too antsy so I switched to Dynamics IV. I showed them the power plays and the B back plays. Then I went to the Stack plays. They enjoy running Tight Stack 88 S.P. and I told them we are going to start on Tight Stack 3 trap 2 and Tight Stack 22 wedge. When it was time to go home and parents were popping their heads in I told kids they could leave. Not one player would go and I had to play more of Dynamics IV. When I finally shut the tape off the kids all began applauding. It was amazing. They love the offense and you should know the impact it had. Thanks, Dave Marcotte, Seabrook, New Hampshire *********** I made a huge mistake. I said that De La Salle, of Concord, California, has a 144-game win streak going. That is incorrect. De La Salle has only won 130 straight. At the rate they're going, it'll take them another year to get to 144. I think I'll leave my original sentence the way I wrote it, because I have a feeling that in another 14 games, it'll be correct. De La Salle hasn't lost a game in over 10 years. *********** My friend Jack Reed, who's written a book about clock management, probably didn't get the Oregon State-Arizona State game last Saturday night. It's just as well. He'd have had a brain hemorrhage watching the way the Beavers butchered the job of managing the final seconds. Down 13-9, the Beavers were driving, with under two minutes to play. And then a receiver caught the ball a yard inbounds, and evidently thinking he was Bronko Nagurski, tried running over three defenders instead of ducking out of bounds. He should have been instructed to get out of bounds, but instead was tackled inbounds, and time out had to be called to stop the clock. The Beavs worked their way to the Arizona State 15 with 55 seconds to play, where they called their last time out. On second and goal, Quarterback Derek Anderson threw incomplete, stopping the clock. On third and goal, Anderson, who should have been instructed not to take a sack, tried to escape the rush - by running to his left. Anderson, who is 6-6 and not the most nimble QB you've ever seen and, like most right-handers doesn't throw well when he's running for his life to the left, took a sack, a 19-yard loss all the way back to the 34. With approximately 40 seconds showing, Anderson went over to the sideline where he and coach Dennis Erickson talked. And talked. And talked. "The clock's running," my wife said, as if she were the only person who knew. "Hey," I told her. "Erickson knows what the hell he's doing." I mean, like Erickson - or one of the nine assistant coaches on his staff, plus assorted graduate assistants, trainers, managers, players and sideline hangers-on - couldn't see that the clock was running. But the clock continued to run as they chatted, and as Anderson sauntered out onto the field. And it continued to run as he lined up in shotgun formation. And as Anderson shouted something to his center, the Beavers, like a fighter who takes the count while sitting on the stool in his corner, ran out of time. Erickson didn't help matters any when he talked to the papers afterward. "I don't know if Derek was confused or making a read or what." he said. "We should have been on the ball right away, and there is no excuse for what happened." Now, I do agree with Coach Erickson on the last point. There is no excuse for what happened. But it sure sounded as if he was pinning it on the kid. And doggone if I wasn't down at our hardware store on Sunday and a couple of the guys at the counter ahead of me were talking about the Beavers' loss, and blaming it on the quarterback. Not exactly a shrinking violet, I chipped in with, "That's on the coach all the way. Time management is the responsibility of the coach." They looked at me as if to say, "who the hell are you?" and turned and walked out the door, shaking their heads and saying, "yeah, right." *********** In the war between the America that once was and the America the libs would like it to be, I live behind enemy lines, and occasionally I like to share with you some of what passes for thinking here in the People's Republic of the Northwest. A guy wrote in to the Vancouver, Washington paper telling about a recent "candidates forum" he'd attended, where he put a question to a candidate for the state legislature: "I understand that you are not in favor of choice. In your term as a state legislator, you have voted against a woman's right to choice, voted against allowing the taxpayers to approve gasoline taxes, blah, blah, blah...Why is it that you are so against people being allowed to choose?" The guy said he was shocked at the candidate's response. What the candidate said, in essence, was that the people voted him into office knowing full well where he stood on those issues. (Which, last I heard, was the way it's supposed to work in those places that still have representative government.) *********** Mike Gottfried, the last human being left on earth who thinks that the NFL's overtime system is better than the colleges' (actually, it's the high schools' overtime system, but if we let that get out, the pros would never adopt it), made a lot about how tough the college's system is on the players. I was watching Arkansas and Tennessee go into six overtimes, and the whole time Gottfried harangued us about how kids were going to get hurt and, of course, the teams would be so-o-o-o tired out that they wouldn't be worth a damn next week. Hmmm. Maybe he's right. Let's take a look and see for ourselves. So Tennessee travelled to face Georgia, between the hedges, and took the undefeated Bulldogs to the wire before falling, 18-13. Without their starting quarterback. Arkansas, meanwhile, travelled to Auburn and ended the Tigers' 4-game win streak, 38-17. *********** Kenoy Kennedy, the human dive bomber, was suspended by the NFL for one game for the brutal hit he put on Dolphins' wide receiver Chris Chambers, who was defenseless. Here's one vote for a suspension for Kennedy's coach, Mike Shanahan (who was indignant at the time over the penalty called against Mr. Kennedy) and another for the officiating crew for not immediately ejecting Kennedy from the game. And a third vote for a rule that in some way deals with these guys who are pinning their arms against their bodies and turning themselves into projectiles - great for hurting a receiver who doesn't know it's coming, not worth a damn as a tackle. They are sucker-punching. They are shooting fish in a barrel. *********** John Madden was talking about T.O. and his incessant bitching about not having enough balls thrown his way, and he said something like there being a fine line between being a real competitor and wanting to win, and being selfish. To which I would add, there's a fine line between being able to call the game objectively, and receiving income from a video game that promotes itself by showing an animated Randy Moss - complete with antics and trash-talking. And Coach Madden, you done crossed the line. *********** Surprise! The Portland Trail Blazers, who never used to have to beg people to buy tickets, have adopted a marketing campaign somewhat on the order of "An Army of One." Its theme is something like, "Selling you, one fan at a time," and it involves little episodes in which individual Trail Blazers, in disguise, pay surprise visits to peoples' houses. Once allowed in the door, they strip down to their basketball togs and do various things like jamming the ball through the chandelier, etc. Better lock up your wives and daughters, fellas, because for some reason known only to God and the Trail Blazers, one of the guys who's going to be showing up at somebody's door is Ruben Patterson. Yes, Ruben Patterson, the sex offender. Patterson, who was "moved" out of Seattle by the Super Sonics after essentially copping a plea on a charge of forcing his kids' nanny to "pleasure" him, is required by Oregon law to register as a sex offender. *********** There was an article in the Wall Street Journal not long ago about bank robberies. Seems they're on the increase in America. The FBI, which has plenty on its table without having to chase bank robbers all over hell's half acre, says it's the fault of the banks. The banks agree. Huh? Yup. Banks would prefer that bank robbers come in quietly and take the money with a minimum of fuss and leave quickly, before anyone gets hurt. It's true. They don't want armed security guards, and they don't want shootouts, because a customer's liable to get hurt, and then they'll get sued and it'll really cost them money. So the banks' dirty secret is that they are willing to tolerate a bank heist here, and holdup there. I mean, they won't rob all of our branches every day, will they? Bank robberies are being looked at as just another cost of doing business. Which got me thinking about passing teams. You ever notice how those guys hold? It's not necessarily being taught, although I have heard stories from more than one coach about a**hole opponents who teach their kids illegal tactics and brag about it by saying "it isn't holding if you don't get caught." But where it's not being taught, it's being condoned, and not corrected. I guess the idea is that officials wouldn't dare make a travesty of the game by calling holding on every play, so if we can get away with it, an occasional penalty is the price we pay for giving our quarterback the protection he has to have if we're going to have a passing game. Like bank robberies, it's just another cost of doing business. *********** Because there is the possibility that the Washington, D.C. sniper may be using a white van or truck of some sort, police have been paying special attention to white vans and trucks, pulling them over and checking out the drivers. Now those guys in white vans know what it's like to be young, and male, and Middle-Eastern and Muslim - to have strangers look at them with suspicion; to be pulled over merely because of the way they look... Hey! Wait a minute! That's profiling! What right do they have to single out white vans? Where is the ACLU? Time to bring in Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation. He's the guy responsible for our airport security system. His family was interned during World War II, and he's dedicated to make sure there's no discrimination going on in our search for terrorists in airports. He'll know what to do. Put him in charge and in very short order, he'll have the police pulling over blue Buick Regals and black Honda Gold Wings, as white vans go whizzing by. (All in the interest of fairness and non-discrimination, you understand. That's much more important than our safety or our national security.) *********** If you want to find out how many stupid people there are in this world, try doing something that is totally different from anything they've ever seen before. Especially if it challenges their very core beliefs. The stupidity and rejection we face is not even close to what Galileo, Robert Fulton, Billy Mitchell and God knows how many others have faced. Not to mention the Lord Jesus Christ. *********** I can't believe Terrell Owens copied my practice of carrying a pen in his sock. I do it here at work too. When I send out a disk to get printed I pull out my Sharpie and autograph it. Adam Wesoloski, Pulaski, Wisconsin (Collector's Edition Double-Wing tapes will go on sale November 1, in time for the Christmas rush. Personally autographed by Coach Wyatt, they will sell for just $20 above listed price. Coach Wyatt will also carry a Sharpie in his socks to all clinics, and will personally autograph 8 x 10 glossies of himself - suitable for framing - which will be on sale in the back of the room as you leave. HW) *********** I have heard people say that the NFL, for various reasons, has a new class of fan (if you can use the word class in any way to describe these people). More and more, they are the losers in the Coors Light commercials. They go to the game for the same reason they go to a concert. They don't go to be spectators; they go to be participants - to be part of the show. That requires getting drunk and rowdy, painting themselves and carrying signs (you ever sit behind one?), and hollering vulgarities to the point where they drive old-style fans away. There is so much non-football time that management stimulates them non-stop with loud, piped-in music between plays and "cheerleaders" on the Jumbotron screen. These guys have sunk a lot of money into tickets (basically, they have been gouged) and they are going to get their money's worth. Like most young people, they have Texas-sized senses of entitlement, which confers on them the right to be boorish, even if it means throwing beer bottles or booing Tom Couch. I hate to admit it, but these a**holes probably think Terrell Owens is cool.. *********** Great story on the team from Alabama. Amazing!!!! Mike Foristiere, Boise, Idaho *********** Hey Hugh, Haven't spoken to you in a while. Just thought I would update you on our season. I'm coaching the Midget team this year, 13,14, 15 yr olds. We are 7-0 and have our last regular season game this weekend against another 7-0 team that has not been scored upon yet. Should be a good one. My old team the jr midgets are 6-0-1. Their only tie was a 24-24 game in which neither team could stop the other one. Our Pee Wee team is 5-2 and our Jr pee wee team is 6-1. All the Chariho Cowboys teams are running the DW. I took a job as head Coach of a HS Freshmen team this year also. I stick with the Varsity offense (Wing T). But I did throw in Tight 2 wedge. The team loves it. We were down 28-22 with 2 minutes remaining last week and had a 4th down and 2 from our own 28 yard line, so I called out to run wedge and call a time out. Wouldn't you know it the fullback broke out of the wedge after picking up between 3 and 4 yards and went the distance to tie the game! We did run in the conversion and win the game. Gotta love it. Hope all is well with you Coach, Ken Brierly, Carolina, Rhode Island (Ken's kids two years ago won the New England championship and made it to the National Pop Warner semifinals at Disney World. HW) *********** Coach Joe Daniels, of Sacramento, who I swear is not on my payroll and is not related to me, sent this to the folks at ESPN: Your announcers need to go back and LEARN what a GOOD and PROPER tackle is. Any tackle where a player leads head first and head down is not only bad technique but dangerous and possibly lethal...when your announcers gush how great these tackles are, young viewers get the wrong idea and emulate. If you need to know what a proper tackle is , I suggest the following source www.coachwyatt.com. Buy the video and have ALL of your announcers and reporters watch. There's nothing worse than hearing former players tell that a crappy dangerous tackle is great. *********** Hi Coach, Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. Thanks for the play and the no huddle information. I am at --------- Middle School and am the Middle School Head Football Coach. I am running the high school coach's offense but couldn't resist putting in the wedge before our third game. After the game (our first win of the year and the school's first since 2000) our starting fullback's postgame comment about the wedge was "Coach, two wedge rocks!" NAME WITHHELD *********** Glad you got the Packers/Patriots lateral blunder in. I was stunned that not one person did anything for so long. in HS and college they'll pick up it whenever it's close. NFL Mental Midgets. It was an impressive win for the Pack though because they are decimated by injuries. Plus, the TV talking heads didn't make mention of it, the Packers starting center, Mike Flannigan switched to LT after the starter went down in the first quarter. Adam Wesoloski, Pulaski, Wisconsin
*********** Not to compare the most vicious attack on American soil with something as trivial as sports, but a year after 9-11, New York sports fans are suffering. Their teams have let them down, big time. "I'm not that old, but it's never been as bad as this," a 22-year-old truck driver told the New York Times. "The Mets stink, the Yankees stink, the Knicks stink &emdash; well, the season hasn't started yet, but they're already stinking. And the Jets &emdash; geez, they're terrible. It seems like all of the New York teams have lost their heart." He didn't mention the Giants, an uninspiring 3-3. Or the Rangers and Islanders, both off to bad starts. Oh well - you can always drive over the Jersey and watch the Nets. *********** Coach Wyatt, I had a great time watching the Air Force dismantle BYU. On Saturday, I was indulging myself in college football (something I rarely get to do because not only do we usually play on Saturdays, I'm also scouting future opponents or watching our game tape). But we were rained out on Saturday, so I turned to the TV to get my football fix. By the time the AF/BYU game came on Saturday night (10pm EST), my girlfriend Deirdre had pretty much grown weary of the whole thing. "Another game? Do we have to watch this one, too?" I explained to her why THIS matchup (AF/BYU) was so interesting (passing team vs. rushing team) and how AF's ground game was so great, what a tremendous job Fisher DeBerry has done there, etc. Even though the game wasn't even close, she was transfixed by the way The Force ran all over BYU. She was really into it! She said she'd never seen a college team be able to run the ball continuously and not be stopped. I explained how effective a "contrarian" offense can be, when defenses aren't used to stopping a rarely-seen offense. As I said, she found the game a lot of fun to watch (as did I). How many 52-9 games can you say that about? Dave Potter, Durham, North Carolina (Hey- I like Tyrone Willingham, but I sure would like to show all those spread-it-out-and-open-it-up guys out there that there are other ways to win football games, and and Air Force win over Notre Dame might convince one or two of them. HW) *********** I had a first this weekend. The team that we were playing had their DLine playing a good yard off of the LOS. I called Tight 2 Wedge and Tight RIP 5X like 8 straight times. The parents on the other team starting chanting "Boring, Boring, Boring." On the 8th or 9th play we scored on a 12 yard run. Needless to say the chants stopped. The next time we had the ball we ran Tight RIP 88 SP for a 40 yard gain. Didn't hear much from them the rest of the day. Rich Gray, Colorado Springs, Colorado (Like it's your job to entertain the opposing team's fans. They want entertainment? Let them go home and watch "Friends." HW) *********** My son, Ed, has the great job of hosting a weekly NFL Highlights show - on Australia's SBS network, so he gets to see a fair share of what;s going on over here. (This year, for the first time, he even gets to see one college game every week). He writes, "I think I've been underappreciative of how good Brett Favre really is. After watching him closely this year, I think he's really something special. Competitive, quick release, tough, good arm, good leader. Nothing new really, I just think I was such a fan of Elway's that I never gave Favre his 'props.'" My response: I am beginning to think that Brett Favre in many ways is the reincarnation of John Unitas. They both came into the pros as unheralded, working-class kids, from southern schools that don't always get the respect they deserve. Like Unitas, Favre is tough, he loves to compete, he has the total respect of his teammates, he wins, he's not into stats, he is in control of the team and he's smart enough to call his own plays. Like Unitas, Favre doesn't take himself too seriously. Like Unitas, he seems to be playing because he loves the game, not because he is after money or fame and glory. Like Unitas, he can shake off the bad play and not let it affect him, and he can put winning and losing into perspective. And this is important - after Mike Holmgren left for Seattle and Favre went into a mild slump, some people said that was because Holmgren had made him what he was and Favre was lost without his mentor. But interestingly, it is Holmgren who has suffered most from the breakup. Favre, meanwhile, has reached the point where coaching seems immaterial to him, as it became with Unitas. Like Unitas, he has become a coach on the field, quite an accomplishment in these days when coaches are such control freaks that some quarterbacks are operated like little radio-controlled airplanes. In fact, the more I think about it, the eerier the comparison gets. I think, without realizing it, I have become a major Brett Favre fan. *********** You think you ain't being watched? I came across an interview in Texas Monthly Magazine (thanks to Scott Barnes for putting me onto it) with a quarterback from Lufkin, Texas who is now a frosh at A & M. I guess he was very heavily recruited, and they asked him if he had considered going to Texas. Without hesitation, the kid said, no - not after the way they treated Major Applewhite. *********** My starting C Back fumbled the first 2 times he carried the ball in the 1st quarter. He spent the rest of the half next to me on the sidelines...good kid, just needed to learn that it was not HIS ball, it was the TEAM'S, and he apologized to me and to them...would bet it won't happen again! NAME WITHHELD (This is what I mean by establishing a "zero tolerance for fumbles" policy on your team. If instead you make excuses or accept excuses, you will keep getting fumbles, and you will probably blame your losses on bad breaks.) *********** You guys who've attended my clinics and my references to giving our offense a fancy name will understand the meaning of the following: "Several people have come to me and said, what a difference this O is this year, now that we are spreading it out and running the 'West Coast Multiple Wing.' My Mom used to say, 'Ignorance is bliss'". Frank Simonsen, Cape May, New Jersey *********** Coach Wyatt, I had an interesting conversation with a staff member who has a son at one of our local high schools. She lamented what a poor decision the head coach made in the previous game. With 2:30 minutes remaining the coach decided to go for it on 4th down at the opponents 5 yard line. They needed 1 yard for a first. The score at the time was 14-13. They didn't make a 1st and this person suggested that a field goal would have been the wise choice. I laughed and said if they had made the 1st down and then scored a td we wouldn't be having the conversation. A few days later my own team faced almost the exact situation. The score was 0-0 late in the game and a field goal would have given us the lead. Instead we went for the first down. We made it and scored. No one ever questioned me about why we went for it. Some times the players must take it upon themselves to win games with a defensive stop or play to keep a drive alive. I try never to second guess myself. In the course of a season there are probably some calls you wish you had't made, but that's the way it goes. When you are way ahead no one seems to care. Dan King, Evans Georgia (If it works, you're a genius. If it doesn't you're a fool. I personally think that it's sort of a copout to go for the field goal, because if it misses, the coach can always blame the kicker. Or the holder. Or the snapper. Or the kid who missed his block. HW) *********** I really like Joe Paterno. I've always considered him one of my coaching role models. But I think he's going a bit too far this time. He already got a Big Ten officiating crew fired, and now he's crying about calls in the Michigan game. Funny, in his book he said that things like that were part of the game. John Zeller, Sears, Michigan (I don't know what's gotten into him, but I do know that by all accounts, he's once again the Joe who used to win all the time, instead of the kinder, gentler Joe he'd begun allowing himself to be over the last few years. I don't think it was a good idea to chase the officials after the Iowa game, but I don't like to watch officials screw up a game and then race off the field as if they're leaving the scene of an accident before the police arrive. The blown sideline call against Penn State in the Michigan game makes me agree with coach Paterno and Joe Tiller of Purdue that with everything that's at stake, officials to have to be held more accountable, and that it's time for instant replay. HW) *********** I used to work on the eastern edge of Baltimore, in a neighborhood called Highlandtown ("Hollandtown" in Baltimorese). Between us and downtown lay East Baltimore. East Baltimore 35 years ago was not what you would call a resort. East Baltimore was classic ghetto. It was rough then, and it's rough now. How rough? How about killing a mother and her five kids as they lay asleep, because she had the audacity to try to chase drug dealers away from the street corner in front of her house? They said they'd get her. "They said stuff like if she ever came out on the streets they were going to kill her," a nearby resident said. They'd tried to get her once before. That was a couple of weeks ago, when somebody threw two molotov cocktails through their front window. The woman's husband managed to put that fire out. This time, though, they didn't fail. They set fire to the house and got six people - all but the woman's husband, who is burned critically.
*********** So starved have Detroit fans been for even the faintest glimmer of hope from their Lions that Joey Harrington has really got them juiced. It's not that he has single-handedly turned anything around - it's just that since he became the starter a few weeks ago the fans - and the players themselves - suddenly seem to think that at least they have a chance. How big is this? At the "Roar and More shop" in Ford Field, they sold 650 Harrington Number 3 were during the Lions-Saints game, his first start.. Mike O'Hara, in the Detroit News, wrote about the demands on Harrington's time. Everybody wants a piece of him. But Joey Harrington has his feet on the ground. Knowing the kind of people he comes from, that's the way it's going to stay. A PR assistant in the Lions' front office told O'Hara that the team gets five to 10 calls a day from people asking for Harrington's time, or his endorsement of their product. O'Hara writes, "He can have a spa, a pool table, a big-screen television or other items for free. All he needs is to endorse the product. Harrington has passed on all of them." Says O'Hara, "He doesn't want his personal life to become a walking chain of testimonials for where he eats, sleeps and gets his hair cut. In fact, he picked out a nondescript barbershop. He does not have his picture on the wall. "'I don't want to be the spokesman for everything," Harrington said. "When I walk into the barbershop, I don't want it to be, I cut Joey Harrington's hair.' I want it to be, 'Hey, Joey, good to see you.'" *********** Wouldn't you find it hard to believe that a loser of an ex-coach, who only got his job because no one better applied, who once in the job proved himself to be pathetically incompetent to the point where he was finally run out of town, would now be the biggest and loudest critic of the present coach? So why is anybody listening to Jimmy Carter? *********** You said the reason you went to the SW for a game was to take advantage of a new rule that protects your center on a kicking play, WHAT EXACTLY IS THE RULE? Because I ran a DW formation with the QB 7 yards deep on a 2nd and 4 play this weekend, I was throwing my "one pass a game play" and my center just got creamed, I chewed the ref, but he said I was mistaken, He stated that that rule ONLY APPLIES TO A KICKING DOWN AND A KICKING FORMATION. I told him I thought every down was a kicking down if I wanted to punt!!!! But he said I was wrong and to stop talking about it!!!! Anyhow, how exactly is the rule stated???? Rule 2-14-2 - "A scrimmage kick formation is a formation with at least one player 7 yards or more behind the neutral zone and in position to receive the long snap. No player may be in a position to receive a hand-to-hand snap from between the snapper's legs." Rule 2-30-14 - "In a scrimmage kick formation, the snapper remains a snapper until he has had a reasonable opportunity to regain his balance and protect himself or until he blocks or moves to otherwise participate in the play." Nowhere does it say anything about a "kicking down" or "kicking situation." *********** Hugh, I was reading the paper last night and I saw that an article stated that some newspapers in the country now are announcing same-sex commitments or marriages or something like that. Is the ultra conservative Oregonian doing this? Of course I say this sarcastically. Mike Foristiere, Boise, Idaho The New York Times started doing this a few weeks ago. Actually, many papers all over the US are doing it. Their point is that all they are doing is announcing something that is a fact, not taking a position on it either way.
Jim has been kind enough to provide me with early drafts, and I have read most of it with great interest. It provided me with a very interesting look at the inner workings of an Army under combat conditions, and although Jim would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier General before retiring, it is not written in the jargon that military people often seem to use when communicating with each other. In the interest of complete authenticity, the description and the dialogue can get gritty. Here's an excerpt (If you can't deal with the way real people sometimes talk under less than ideal conditions, consider yourself forewarned.) The Division had a standing SOP that each battalion would send out three ambush patrols per night, one from each rifle company. I told the CO, "Sir, I don't think we should do that tonight. The men have had no time to prepare, no rest, and we don't really have any intelligence. Also, I've been told there are old, unmarked French mine fields out around here. I don't think we should do it." *********** Last year, several coaches were able to contact Black Lions vets living near them to present the Black Lion Award at their team's banquet. Some invited them to attend a game, and still others asked them to say a few words to their kids. One coach even invited a Black Lion to talk to his classes about Vietnam. TIME'S RUNNING SHORT... Thanks to the efforts of some great people, the Black Lion Award was established last year. I can't imagine why a coach wouldn't want his kids to be trying to win the Black Lion Award. It's not too late to sign up for this year. E-mail me now. BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME - coachwyatt@aol.com - AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM FOR 2002! Now, thanks to Ed Burke, executive director of the 28th Infantry Association, I have a state-by-state list of Vietnam-era Black Lions., and if you contact me, I will be happy to give you the names of some of these brave men who live near you.
TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT REAL HEROES -
*********** At the Parents' meeting, I explained that I do not give out individual awards (like stars on the helmets and such), but that I do give one award, and explained the Black Lion award. P.P.S. Know of any Black Lions around this area? Jody Hagins, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (Good question - I have requested a listing of the members of the 28th Infantry Association - the Black Lions - by location. If I am successful, I should be able to furnish you names of men to contact to help present your award. HW)
inscribed on the wall of the 1st
Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton, Ilinois
|
World War II Marine Ace; Governor of South
Dakota; President of the National Rifle
Association; Active with Campus Crusade for Christ;
first Commissioner of the American Football League,
(succeeded by Al Davis). OH YES- Did I mention that
that star hanging from the ribbon around his neck
in the photo at the far left is the Medal of
Honor? Now 87, he is one of only 140 or so
living winners of the MOH. TWO COACHES WEIGH IN ON THE SUBJECT OF JOE
THEISMAN, TACKLING EXPERT... Couldn't agree with you more. The worst was the way that a**hole
Theisman defended him. ("That's the way he
tackles," I heard him say.) Yeah, that's the way he tackles. With his
arms at his side. I swear, the NFL is right in there with
the makers of Madden 2003, Madden himself, and
the Coors Brewing Company as evil influences on
our kids and on our game. HW *********** I'm currently watching the
Broncos - Dolphins Sunday night game, and have
to comment on the dirty shot a Broncos' d-back
got away with in the first half. If you weren't watching, a Broncos' d-back
speared (contact with the top of the helmet) one
of the Dolphin's receivers, Chris Chambers, who
had to be helped from the field, and is unlikely
to return tonight. My wife says she heard that
the same guy, #28, had been fined $10,000 last
week, for a similar hit. The great one, Joe Theisman, explained, (I
swear to God he said this) that this situation
causes quite a problem for coaches. He said that
while they want to make sure that they put a
lick on receivers, they don't want to do this
with their shoulders, because they might blow
one out. Where are the lawyers (Johnnie Cochran,
etc.) when they say this stuff? Don't they watch
these games? So I suppose it is better to take a chance on
being paralyzed for life, or as we have
discussed before, be liable for some high school
kid, (that doesn't have a 22" neck, and gifted
genetically, and were instructed by the idiots
on tv as to the proper way to tackle) being
paralyzed, because Tim Brandt, Keith Jackson, or
Joe don't know any better, can't pay this much
attention to small details, or frankly don't
care. I have always thought Joe, and his buddy
Paul, are stupid jackasses, but this really
takes the cake. If these guys are getting paid,
I think I have a future in broadcasting. If
anyone knows someone at ESPN tell them I am
available for an audition at the end of the
current high school season, and will deliver a
better product for a lot less money. Until the NFL stops this policy of small
fines (try to defend these amounts in court),
and starts to suspend these jerks, and their
coaches, for as long as the injured player is
out, the game we love is at great jeopardy, and
I'm not sure that anyone could defend the
current NFL policy. I can't believe anyone
that experiences a serious injury, at lower
levels, doesn't add the NFL to the list of
plaintiffs. Maybe they already do. Tom
Compton, Durant, Iowa (Excellent point - I
really do consider the NFL and its henchmen, the TV
announcers who say what the NFL wants them to say
if they want to keep their jobs, to be Public Enemy
Number One of the rest of us who coach the game of
football. It is absolutely unconscionable for the
NFL to try to buff its image with all those corny
United Way spots, while out on the field they're
setting up younger kids - and their parents and
coaches - for the heartbreak of catastrophic
injury. If an NFL coach stood on the sideline and
smoked, do-gooders would raise hell about the
example he was setting for kids. Yet week after
week, NFL "tacklers" lead with their heads, and the
ignoramuses in the booth continue to say "nice
tackle." And Chris Berman glorifies "Big Sticks."
For all the publicity they give their charitable
acts, all the good acts they do are as nothing
compared to the possibility of a serious injury to
just one young athlete trying to emulate the pros.
HW) *********** I love the big fuss created by the
professional Italian-Americans who told Mayor
Bloomberg of New York that he couldn't bring along
two actors from "The Sopranos" to march with him in
Monday's Columbus Day Parade. The parade is a very big deal in New York, and
evidently the parade sponsors felt that allowing
actors who portray gangsters to march in it would
just confirm what they think the rest of us
Americans think - that all of our fellow Americans
of Italian ancestry are either mobsters or mob
wannabes. I had to laugh, because not so long ago I'd read
an article in the Wall Street Journal about
Italian-Americans being upset about the way they're
being portrayed on TV. But not by the Sopranos. No, it was those phony
Italian doofuses in the Olive Garden commercials
("when you're here, you're family") who wave their
hands a lot when they talk - which is a lot - and
make countless references to "family", and eat a
lot and get all excited about "real Italian" meals
at Olive Garden. Yeah, real Italian. Formula meals devised in
some corporate test kitchen in the Midwest, meals
that at any particular moment in time are being
prepared exactly the same way and served exactly
the same way, in the same weighed-and-measured
portions, at hundreds of Olive Gardens near malls
all over America. The commercials are full of comparisons to
momma's cooking - comparisons that would enrage any
self-respecting Italian mother - but the commercial
that really got the writer gnashing his gnocchi was
the one where some old Italian guy, making his
first visit to America, is taken to dinner at the
Olive Garden. That, the writer said, is something
that no self-respecting Italian-American would
ever do. Like visiting Maine and going to a Red
Lobster. I do not have the fluency in Italian to say what
I can imagine the old gentleman would say, upon
being served one of their "real Italian"
specialties, but my guess is that roughly
translated, it would be something like, "what the
f--k is this?" *********** I heard a Portland radio sports guy
reading the sports to us and telling us that the
Dolphins won Monday night thanks to a last-second
field goal by Olindo Mayor. *********** The Twins are gone. Not the Coors
Light Twins, unfortunately, but the Minnesota
Twins. *********** Randy Moss was interviewed before
the game Sunday, and he cut the interviewer short
by saying, "I gotta warm up with my quarterback."
Did you get that? "My" quarterback? Don't you love
these guys who talk about "'my' offensive
linemen?" Meantime, no need to worry about who's going to
step up when Moss is ready to step aside. Here's
Washington's Reggie Williams, discussing his
game-winning reception against Arizona: "Big time
players make big-time plays." *********** And then there's Terrell Owens.
First he bitched about only having three passes
thrown to him in the first half against the
Seahawks Monday night. Then he caught a touchdown pass, and to show
what a self-occupied ass he is, he bent over in the
end zone, extracted a pen from inside his sock, and
in full view of the crowd, autographed the ball
he'd just caught. (Now, why do I think he won't be
donating the ball to a kid with leukemia?) *********** The Terrell Owens Team Player Award
goes this week to wide receiver Andrae Thurman of
Arizona. With the Wildcats ahead 28-26 in the
fourth quarter and driving, Jason Johnson completed
a pass to Bobby Wade down to the Washington 36.
First down, Wildcats. But wait - what's Thurman
doing over there, celebrating while standing over
Husky defender Derrick Johnson, who was injured on
the play? Uh-oh. The ref saw it. Fifteen yards
against the Wildcats for taunting. They didn't get
the first down and had to punt. The punt went into
the end zone, and on the second play from the 20,
the Huskies' Cody Pickett hooked up with Reggie
Williams on an 80-yard pass play that won it for
Washington. *********** Few things are more devastating to a
football team than a blocked punt or a kickoff
return for a touchdown, which is why I think that
if teams don't work on anything else in the area of
special teams, they simply must be able to get off
a punt and cover a kick. Prime example - A kickoff return led to Iowa's
trouncing of Michigan State. MSU put on a nice
drive to take an early lead on Iowa. And then,
Iowa's Jermelle Lewis returned the kickoff. 94
yards. One play. Game tied. Just like that. And from there, it was all downhill for the
Spartans. *********** I'm not a believer in spooky things,
or anything like that, but... A couple of weeks ago, when I heard the news of
Leon Hart's passing, I thought it would be a good
time to make Jim Martin my "Legacy" person. After
all, he'd played on the other end of the line from
Hart for four years, and despite the considerable
shadow cast by Leon Hart, the last lineman to win
the Heisman Trophy, Jim's play didn't go
unnoticed. So I put him on my site, and it was gratifying
to me, having known Jim briefly back in the
mid-1970's, to see how many guys had heard of him
or had taken the time to find out about him. And so... I picked up last Friday's paper and
read that Jim Martin, 78, "a former pro football
player," had died last Wednesday in Corona,
California. That was all it said. *********** UCLA's Bob Toledo is one of four
current Pac-10 head coaches to have served as
Oregon's offensive coordinator (Arizona State's
Dirk Koetter, Cal's Jeff Tedford, and Oregon's Mike
Bellotti are the others), and he remembered
attending the 1995 Rose Bowl, when Oregon and his
old boss Rich Brooks played Penn State, and
thinking, "they can't maintain this thing." He meant that he didn't see any way that Oregon
could hang in there, year after year, against the
much-better-funded USC's, UCLA's and Washingtons.
Yet, the Ducks have done that and more, setting the
standard of play in the Pac-10 ever since. It's due in large part to the influence of one
man, Nike founder and Oregon alumnus Phil Knight.
Mr. Knight has been, to put it mildly, kind to
Oregon athletics. Looking back at what's happened since the Rose
Bowl, Toledo said, "It's a credit to them, and to
the best owner in college football, Phil
Knight." *********** This is an amazing story. Last Tuesday, I got a call from Barry Gibson, a
high school coach in Ardmore, Alabama. It's his
first year at Ardmore, and he was looking for
something to get his team started. Ardmore is in north Alabama, right on the
Tennessee line, and Coach Gibson stepped into the
state's longest losing streak. Despite the chronic
losing, though, the town's fans continued to pack
the stands on Friday night, which is one of the
main things that attracted Coach Gibson, a native
Mississippian, to Ardmore. He was calling because he thought the
Double-Wing concept might help his kids be
competitive; he gave me a purchase order for some
of my materials, and then we spoke a little over
the phone, going over some of the basics. He said he was going to run the Double-Wing this
Friday night. He had Tuesday and Wednesday to put
it in, and Thursday to walk though it. What the
hell, I thought- nothing to lose. Imagine my shock when I checked an Alabama Web
site for HS scores Friday night and saw ARDMORE 28,
WEST LIMESTONE 7. Impossible, I thought. And then the phone rang on Sunday. It was Coach
Gibson, and basically, here's the scoop: Yes, indeed - Ardmore won. And ended a 33-game
losing streak. Think of that. The last time this
year's seniors last won was back in the middle of
their freshman season. Running just five plays, Ardmore had 400 yards
of total offense, 384 of them on the ground. On
their opening drive of the game, they went 80 yards
for a score. They punted just once. Passing was
effective when it had to be - 1 for 1 for 16 yards
and a key first down on fourth and long. Ahead 14-7 at the half, Ardmore came out and
dominated in the second half, holding the ball for
all but a minute of the third quarter, and limiting
West Limestone to a total of 18 offensive plays for
the entire half. Once, faced with a fourth-and-two
on their own 38, they went for it and made it
(trap). "The community went crazy," Coach Gibson said.
He said fans kept coming up to him, saying "What
was that offense?" and "We love it!" He said that on his Saturday morning radio
call-in show (remember, this is Alabama, where
football is big), one caller wanted to know,
"Coach, are you gonna stay with that offense?" "There's a lot of happy folks here," Coach
Gibson told me. "The state's longest losing streak
is finally over, due to the Double-Wing." WHOA--- not so fast. There's no question that it
made a difference. Maybe a big difference. As Coach
Gibson said, "you gave me a hammer." But I'm here
to tell you that Coach Gibson knew what to do with
the hammer. The offense was a tool, and he knew how
to use it. *********** Who the hell, exactly, is Harry
Belafonte, a calypso singer, to cast aspersions on
Colin Powell, a great American, using analogies
from slavery times to refer to him as the kind of
slave who gets better treatment for himself - who
gets to live in the house - by bowing and scraping
for the master? Where do Harry Belafonte and others like him get
off, saying (quite rightly) on the one hand that
black people can do the job if they're given the
chance, and then, when a black man is appointed to
the Supreme Court - the Supreme Court of the United
States, for God's sake - assail him for not "being
black" because he dares to disagree with them? Isn't it racism of the worst sort to say that
you aren't really black unless you go along with
some stereotyped idea of what a black person should
think and say? Isn't this denying a black person
the fundamental right to think, to believe, to do
what he thinks is best for him and his family? Is a
black man on the Supreme Court supposed to take
orders from Headquarters? I wouldn't want to compare anything to the
hopelessness of slavery, but isn't it a form of
modern-day slavery to limit young black people to
only those life choices, that conduct, approved by
the Harry Belafontes? How tough is it for young
people when they are constantly bombarded by the
likes of Mr. Belafonte with the message that it is
more important to "be black" than to think for
themselves, and to be successful in a useful and
productive way? How damaging is it to young black people to
suggest that if they aspire and strive to be
anything other than a professional athlete or an
entertainer, a community activist or a politician
(Democratic, of course) they are selling out? Don't these people think that just like Colin
Powell, white people and black people alike have to
do what the boss asks them to do? Would it be
appropriate to condemn a white man who does what
his black boss wants for not "acting white?" Consider Tyrone Willingham, head football coach
at Notre Dame. He is in the highest-profile college
coaching job in America, but make no mistake, he
has a boss to please. He will please his boss by
winning games, and winning with honor and dignity.
"Being black" is not part of his job assignment. He
happens to be a black man with a job to do. Maybe
some people once saw it as a white man's job. Maybe
some people still do. No matter. Tyrone Willingham
has the job, and he's not going to keep it by
worrying about whether he's being "black
enough." I think that the vast majority of Americans -
black and white - would laugh at Harry Belafonte if
he were to criticize Tyrone Willingham for doing
anything other than what he does best, coaching
Notre Dame to victory, and showing people
everywhere - black and white - that he can do his
job as well as anybody in his profession. *********** There are only four black head
coaches in Division I-A, and only two of them -
Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame and Bobby Williams
at Michigan State - are in places where they have
the things they need to win. Unfortunately, things
aren't going well this year for Coach Williams and
the Spartans. But while people are looking askance at the lack
of black head coaches in Division I-A, they ought
to pay at least as much attention to the fact that
when a black man does get the job, as often as not
he's sent to the back of the bus (a reference to
the days of the segregated South, when black people
were required by law to sit in the rear of
buses). If you question the analogy, check out the
places willing to hire a black head coach - Temple,
Wake Forest, Ohio University, Oklahoma State.
Stepping stones, possibly, but places where
traditionally it's been hard for anybody to
win. The other two current black head coaches in
Division I-A are at San Jose State and New Mexico
State. It has been hard to win there, too. So if
Fitz Hill fails to win at San Jose State, and Tony
Samuel fails to win at New Mexico State, is that it
for them? Does that mean they can't coach? Does
that mean they couldn't win at places where they'd
have a better shot? Seems to me that the Black Coaches' Association
missed a big chance after the 1994 season when Bill
McCartney resigned at Colorado and the Buffalos
made what I would consider to be a "white guy"
hire. A key member of Coach McCartney's staff was a
guy named Bob Simmons. A black guy. He'd paid his
dues. He'd spent eight years coaching linebackers
at West Virginia, and seven years at Colorado,
coaching outside line backers and then the
defensive line. He had the support of many of the
players. But no-o-o-o-o..... instead, the Buffs
hired a young, good-looking white guy who'd been on
the staff exactly one year - a guy named Rick
Neuheisel. We all know what a wonderful, warm feeling the
Colorado people now have when they think of Rick
Neuheisel and the fact that thanks to him they're
now on NCAA probation. Bob Simmons, meanwhile, settled for next-best,
and took the head coaching job at Oklahoma State.
He did a good job there, nearly winning as many
games as he lost. The Cowboys finished 8-4 in 1997,
his third year there, and he was named Big XII
Conference Coach of the Year. But as everyone else
who's ever coached at OSU has learned, no matter
how much success you have, it is hard to sustain it
when you're facing people with the resources of
Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska - to name just a few.
After six seasons, Coach Simmons was gone. (For those of you who are keeping score at
home... Bob Simmons is now coaching linebackers at
Notre Dame, under Tyrone Willingham.) *********** What ever happened to good
old-fashioned rage? Chief Moose, of Montgomery County, Maryland, has
been on the tube quite a bit during the sniper
crisis. I know him well. Before taking over the
Montgomery County job, he was Chief of Police in
Portland. He still has a little of the accent of
his native Mississippi, but you could tell from
some of the things he said last week that his stay
in pitty-patty Portland had its effect on him. After the shooting of a school kid, he called
the shooter "mean-spirited." Mean-spirited? Are you
kidding me? That's the kind of sociobabble we hear
when someone says "hurtful" (more sociababble)
things about someone else. And then, as if he was dealing with someone who
just needed a little counseling to turn him from a
life as a sniper into a more productive pursuit, he
said - yes, I actually heard a police officer say
this - whoever is doing this "should re-think what
they're doing." "Mean-spirited... re-think what they're doing."
Has all this sensitivity training turned our police
officers into social workers? *********** If there is one thing that high
schools in America are in agreement on, it is
certainly not how to handle training rules
violations. Scott Russell, from Potomac Falls,
Virginia is a native New Jerseyite, and he sent me
an article from his home in Morris County in which,
based on interviews with school administrators,
there are as many different policies as there are
school districts. One district kicks a kid off the team the first
time he's caught using or possessing drugs, alcohol
or tobacco. Another district suspends a kid from
the team for 10 days for the first offense, 25 days
for the second offense, and so forth. The argument goes back and forth between zero
tolerance - getting rid of the kid to show we mean
business - and giving him (or her) the second
chance that at some point since 1787 seems to have
become a constitutional right. And then, of course, there are those who
struggle with whether the point is to punish the
offender or act as if we're dealing with a
hard-core addict and refer him or her to treatment,
much in the same way as we send teenage speeders to
traffic school. (Talk about a joke.) And, of course, it is somehow hoped that the
threat of harsh punishment will deter most kids
from breaking training rules. This whole issue has become as big as it is not
only because parents are bigger jerks than they
used to be, but also because coaches aren't as
tough as they used to be - probably because they've
gone up against too many of the jerk parents and
the spineless administrators who won't stand up to
them. The problem with kicking a kid off the team is
that while sometimes you're grateful for the chance
to get rid of a jerk, in many cases it is better
that the kid remain under a coach's control rather
than to cruise the streets after school. I always maintained that I could handle it
inside the family. I believe that anything that can
be accomplished by kicking a kid off the team - or
referring him to treatment - can also be
accomplished by bringing him in to school at 6 AM
every morning for two or three weeks to run
sprints. I advocate giving the kid the choice of leaving
the team or doing the work. So long as he keeps up,
he can practice and play as usual. The first time
he misses an "appointment" he is off the team.
Simple as that. That, in effect, was his second
offense. One problem, of course, is the phonies who run
the various treatment scams that these kids are
referred to. My proposal would cost them
business. *********** Are you getting tired of ABC's first
games on Saturday going extra-long, so that they
join the game you want to see "in progress?" *********** Had to love Keith Jackson's
throwaway line when talking about Oregon's great
running back, Onterrio Smith, who originally was
recruited by Tennessee: "Started out at
Tennessee... didn't like it there..." Uh, Keith, I'm sure that somebody told you what
happened. As most of us understand it, there was a
marijuana incident of some sort that Tennessee
decided it didn't want any more of. Maybe it was
the mistake of an immature kid, a California street
kid away from home. Whatever - it doesn't seem fair to smirch
Tennessee by stating that it was just a matter of
Onterrio Smith's not liking it there. *********** There has to be some bad blood
between Oregon and UCLA, if only because Oregon's
defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti once served in
the same capacity for UCLA's Bob Toledo, who
publicly berated him after a game in which the
Bruins' defense performed poorly. Aliotti was gone
after that season. So Saturday, you had to wonder about the
thinking behind UCLA's first touchdown. Operating
out of a one-back set, UCLA quarterback Corey Paus
leaned over to the right and cupped his hands to
shout signals over the noise of the crowd... and
while he was doing so, the ball was direct-snapped
to the tailback, who threw for a touchdown. *********** UCLA came across as a bunch of
whiners after the loss to Oregon. And then there was this quote by Phil Snow,
Bruins' defensive coordinator: "They won the war. I don't know if they won the
battle." Now, what the f--k do you suppose that
meant? *********** The Patriots' fans really bailed out
early Sunday. Of course, the weather sucked, but
so, unfortunately, did the Pats. It's easy to
condemn the fans, but they paid well for their
seats and they're free to do as they wish with
them. In fact, as much as they paid for those
seats, they no doubt felt they were entitled to a
better performance than what they got on Sunday,
and many of them showed their displeasure by
walking out. It is a problem that NFL teams will
increasingly face as their ticket prices keep
skyrocketing. *********** The NFL looks especially drab and
colorless after you've watched Georgia in its
bright red play Tennessee in its white-and-bright
orange. *********** Oregon's left guard had two holding
calls against him in the first quarter, and trust
me - he was really holding. With arms extended and
hands attached to the defender's pads, he looked as
if he was driving a car in a video arcade.
Suggestion: make offensive linemen wear those
thumbless boxing gloves. *********** Haloti Ngata (pronounced "NAH-ta")
plays on the defensive line for Oregon. He is a
true freshman. He is 6-5, 330. He comes from Salt
Lake City, where last year he was Utah's Gatorade
Player of the Year, and he wound up at Oregon after
first committing to Nebraska and then backing out,
then choosing Oregon over BYU, the choice of most
of his family, members of the LDS Church. Saturday, against UCLA, was his first
significant action. Whew! This kid can play!
Several times he ran right over the UCLA player
blocking him. At least once, I saw him split a
double-team and surprise the runner with the
hardest tackle he'll ever run into. And, in a game
won by the Ducks by a single point, 31-30, a lot
has been made about the Ducks' 59-yard field goal
on the last play if the first half, and the missed
Bruin field goal attempt at the end, but it is just
as easy to say that the crucial winning edge was
provided when the kid leaped up (we're talking 6-5,
330, remember) and blocked a PAT. *********** Interestingly, when Oregon lined up
for a 59-yard field goal on the last play of the
first half, UCLA not only didn't have anyone back
to return, but the Bruins didn't rush, either. As a
result, a low-trajectory kick that might have
otherwise been blocked made it through, and
ultimately proved the difference in a 31-30 Oregon
win. *********** Pitt, down 7-6 in the fourth
quarter, in a game that could go any way, forgot to
protect the ball. And fumbled on their own 12. And
Notre Dame punched it in. Game Over. *********** UCLA's wide receiver Craig Bragg
caught nine passes for 230 yards against Oregon. On
one unforgettable play, he made a one-handed catch
of a flanker screen with his right hand and went
the distance. He never touched the ball with his
left hand. *********** If you happened to see Keenan
Howry's punt return against UCLA on the highlights,
I hope you saw the Oregon blocker flatten the UCLA
punter. *********** You notice the way The Donald
(Donald Trump) holds the Big and Tasty in the
McDonald's commercial? It looks as if he's never
held a real, honest-to-God hamburger in his
life. *********** I'm sorry, TV guys - I have two TV's
and a remote, and the instant your sideline bimbo -
or bozo - starts interviewing somebody while the
game is going on, I hit the "mute" button. *********** Any clever saying, repeated long
enough, becomes a cliche and deserves to be
trashed. I am referring to "burning" timeouts. It's
not clever any more, guys. Hasn't been for a couple
of years now. *********** If you turned off Texas Tech-Iowa
State at halftime because it was 3-3 and you
wanted to see some offense... final score
was Iowa State 31, Texas Tech 17. *********** A ringing endorsement of our
system... USC came out against Cal in what we would
call "Slot formation," and sent four receivers out.
The color analyst, whose name I didn't catch, said,
"You think this isn't hard to cover?" He
explained how, with everybody in tight like that,
the four receivers could all spray out. *********** If there is a better high school
team in America than DeLaSalle, of Concord,
California, you will have to show me its 144-game
win streak, which DeLaSalle has been willing to
risk against all comers. This year, De La Salle has
already travelled to Hawaii and beaten island power
St. Louis Prep, and this past weekend, beat USA
Today-ranked Long Beach Poly. *********** Enjoy life, you Iowans. Both Iowa
and Iowa State were on TV, both played at home to
packed houses, and both won convincingly. *********** Chance Harridge, Air Force QB from
Bonaire, Georgia (how do they keep getting those
wishbone quarterbacks out of Georgia?) ain't no
hook-slider. This kid can give it to you tricky, or
he can run right over you. For those of you not
lucky enough to see the Air Force-BYU game Saturday
night (10 PM in the East is only 7 PM out here),
the Falcons killed BYU. I know it's hard to
believe of a team that plays Air Force every year,
but the Cougars looked as if they'd never seen a
wishbone attack before. Air Force ran 79 plays and
gained 386 yards. They didn't lose a fumble or an
interception, and had three penalties for 30
yards. I like Tyrone Willingham and I think this year's
Notre Dame story is something special, but I have a
feeling I'll be pulling for the team that proves
you can win the old-fashioned way. By the way, for those of you considering running
the Air Force Wingbone... you will notice, if you
watch closely, that the Falcons make extensive of
the blocking below the waist - even the knees -
that we are prohibited from doing. *********** Ahead of Florida 27-6 late in the
game, LSU lined up for a field goal, and then faked
it, the holder going off right tackle for the
killer touchdown. The LSU coaches probably thought
Steve Spurrier was still coaching Florida. *********** I heard a female sideline reporter
saying that a player "had his bell rung." I'm
sorry, but that's jock talk. Jocks tend to minimize
injury. I don't think that people who haven't
played or coached the game should engage in the
jargon of the jocks. And I think we're way past the
point where we should be so lightly referring to a
head injury. *********** Memo to TV directors: enough,
already, with the close-ups of the punter's face.
You guys ever heard of fake punts? You missed at
least one on Saturday. *********** Score from Washington Class 2A last
Friday - Elma 91, Tenino 0. Halftime: Elma 71,
Tenino 0 *********** Why, you witch... I saw the lovely
Leslie Visser interviewing the Rams' Isaac Bruce.
She asked him, "In any way, has Mike Martz lost
this team?" Now, what a hell of a question to ask a player.
To Bruce's credit, he handled the question
beautifully, with an emphatic "No." And, in view of the Rams' convincing win over
the previously undefeated Raiders, using a
third-string quarterback, the lovely Ms. Visser
looked like a damn fool. A meddling fool at
that. *********** You can say what you will, but I
would call LA a football town... UCLA played Oregon
in the Rose Bowl, in front of 68,882. Across town,
at roughly the same time, USC played Cal in the
Coliseum and drew 63,113. *********** A lot of the NFL uniforms have been
darkened to the point where they look as if they've
just played a game in a downpour. The Patriots, the
Seahawks, the Bills, the Patriots, the Eagles -
those teams and more have been drained of color and
brightness. The Raiders never did have any, but at
least they're true to their silver and black. Now, if there is an uglier college uniform than
Pitt's (sorry - "Pittsburgh's") I have yet to see
it. But it occurs to me that maybe they're using it
as a recruiting tool - "Come to Pitt, kid, and
you'll look like you're playing on an NFL
team." *********** A Double-Wing coach told me about
watching another DW team whose fullback lines up
rather deep. As a result, they don't have much
success running Super Power, but they do have good
kids and they do a good job of coaching them, and
they are winning. Needless to say, people will do things that they
think they should do, and as long as it works, more
power to them. But for every coach like that, who tinkers and
is successful, there is another one who doesn't
know a whole lot about offensive football and
doesn't have the kids, either, but thinks maybe he
can help his cause by maybe moving the fullback
back a little, or opening up the splits some, or
not pulling linemen, etc. And then when he has the results we all could
have predicted, he tells everybody that the
Double-Wing doesn't work. And the people who
whipped his butt go on the Web and explain how they
have had "great success" against the
Double-Wing. *********** There are innumerable fools who go
to college for four years and never get an
education, instead taking something called
"journalism," so that they can work for newspapers
and radio and TV stations, and pose as intelligent
people. One little example: sent to Somerset,
Pennsylvania to cover the shooting of a film about
last summer's miraculous coal mine rescue, one
young reporter asked, in all innocence, "what's
coal used for?" *********** Lemme see if I understand this...
you say it's about equality... that a woman can do
a sideline announcer's job as well as a man... that
those women really know their football. That it's
time we stopped thinking of women as mere sexual
objects. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, then - so why all
the skin showing? *********** Stanford likes to act high and
mighty, and talk about all the national
championships it has won in sport such as water
polo. But even Stanford is going to feel the pain
at some point of crowds of 30,000. That's how many
showed up Saturday to watch the Cardinal play
Washington State. The Cougar players said the crowd
was so dead it was hard to maintain intensity. By
the time Stanford finally scored a touchdown, with
5:50 left, to make it 36-11, I think it is safe to
say that a substantial portion of the original
30,000 were already home soaking in their hot
tubs. *********** Mississippi State's Jackie Sherrill
can't be a happy guy. First he gets reprimanded by
the SEC for publicly criticizing the officiating of
the Bulldogs' loss to South Carolina, and then the
Dog barely get by Troy State, 11-8. *********** Temple has already been disinvited
out of the Big East. Saturday's Big East results: Temple 17,
Syracuse; West Virginia 40, Rutgers 0. Attendance at Temple: 17,220; Attendance at
Rutgers: 12,937 Temple is now 2-4; Rutgers is 1-3, its only win
over winless Army. Did the Big East get its teams mixed up? *********** I watched the QB throw a pass to a
back swinging wide to his left. It was clearly a
backward pass, and the back had trouble handling
it. He was hit and fell to the ground, and even
though there was no whistle, everyone on both teams
gave up. NOT A SINGLE GUY WENT AFTER THE BALL, JUST
ON THE CHANCE THAT IT MIGHT BE A FREE BALL (IT
WAS). Finally, after what seemed like a half a
minute, one guy went after the ball. How could that
happen? I wondered. How could anybody be that
inattentive? And then I realized - these were pros (Green Bay
vs New England). Jim has been kind enough
to provide me with early drafts, and I have read
most of it with great interest. It provided me with
a very interesting look at the inner workings of an
Army under combat conditions, and although Jim
would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier
General before retiring, it is not written in the
jargon that military people often seem to use when
communicating with each other. In the interest of
complete authenticity, the description and the
dialogue can get gritty. Here's an excerpt(If you
can't deal with the way real people sometimes talk
under less than ideal conditions, consider yourself
forewarned.) A few moments later the
battalion communi cations officer, a salty old
captain, dived on top of me. We looked at each
other, and both started laughing -hysterically.
He then went for one of the radios. I laid there
for a moment in the dark of the bottom of the
hole. I looked up and saw a face glowing in the
dark above. It was the face of my brother, Ned.
He had been killed in an automobile accident in
1960, seven years before, when I had been a
lieutenant in Korea. His face was clear to me
there -glowing -and he was smiling. It was only
for an instant. The communication's officer's
voice on his radio broke my trance. I got on the
battalion operations net and called the
companies. I told them, "open fire - open fire.
Don't just sit there - open fire - drop some
rounds down the mortar tubes - do something."
The enemy fire had ceased. It
had only been about five minutes since the
claymores had gone off. But no one -no one
inside our perimeter had fired a round. Here we
were -a whole infantry battalion, locked and
loaded. Nine mortars ready to fire. And we
hadn't fired one round in return fire.
Unbelievable! And now -after I had called on the
radio -still no fire. I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't fire my .45 cal pistol from the
center of the perimeter. I got on the brigade
operations net. I called, "Dagger 3, Dagger 3,
this is Dauntless 3, over." The reply,
"Dauntless 3, this is Dagger 6, can you give us
a sitrep?" It was Colonel Chuck Thebaud, the 2d
Brigade Commander. I had worked for him in a
past assignment and it was good to hear his
voice. I said, "Dagger 6, Dauntless
3. We have been attacked by unknown size enemy
force with claymores and automatic weapons.
Request gunships and flareship." He asked me if we had
casualties and I told him I did not know but I
would call him back. He told me, "take it easy,
help is on the way." I then received a report that
one man had been killed and several others
wounded. I called back to Dagger and asked them
to send a dustoff (aeromedical evacuation
chopper) to our location ASAP. As I looked from my hole I
saw someone about 50 meters away holding up a
large flashlight. I didn't think that was very
smart. I ran over to the light and shouted, "hey
you dumb bastard, shut that light out."
The reply came back, "fuck
you. Who the hell are you?" I replied, "I'm Major
Shelton, Dauntless 3 -who are you?" He said, "I'm Captain Swink,
the battalion surgeon, and I need the light."
I said, "OK" and went back to
the radio. I had never met the battalion
surgeon, Jim Swink. After this battle I was to
learn that he was the same Jim Swink who was an
All American tailback at Texas Christian
University in the early 50's when I was playing
in college at Delaware. His picture had been on
the cover of every football magazine in the
country. He had gone to medical school after TCU
and was serving his time in the Army when he was
sent to RVN. He had gone immediately to treat
the wounded that night and had been hit by small
arms fire in the shoulder. He continued to treat
the wounded although he was wounded, and when I
had called to him he was bleeding from the
wound. He received a Silver Star for his cool
actions that night, working with the wounded
though wounded himself. *********** Last year, several coaches were
able to contact Black Lions vets living near them
to present the Black Lion Award at their team's
banquet. Some invited them to attend a game, and
still others asked them to say a few words to their
kids. One coach even invited a Black Lion to talk
to his classes about Vietnam. BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME - coachwyatt@aol.com -
AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM FOR 2002! ***********Cave Spring Stampede 37-0 over
Cave Spring Crusaders.Highlight of the day
for me was seeing last years Black Lion Award
winner with it on his right shoulder.Also we
ran the wedge for 4 minutes,and 26
seconds.Couple of first downs and almost had
ball the entire 4th quarter. Armando Castro-
Roanoke, Virginia Hello Coach....I hope this finds you well.
I'd like to enroll my team for the 2002 season
and the Black Lion Award. I told my kids last
night the story of Don Holleder and the Black
Lions, and introduced last years award winner
Jeff Ball. He'll be wearing the Black Lion
patch on his jersey this year. John
Urbaniak- Hanover Park, Illinois TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT
REAL HEROES - (IF YOU WERE ENROLLED IN 2001,
YOU MUST RE-ENROLL) BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME -
coachwyatt@aol.com - AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM
FOR 2002! inscribed on the wall
of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton,
Ilinois He was one of the long line of outstanding
Syracuse running backs, and like the Orange's
all-time great Jimmy Brown, he hailed from Long
Island's Nassau County. But in the NFL, the Baltimore Colts' Don Shula
took advantage of his great size and speed to turn
him into an end - a tight end. Shula's first hint
of where Mackey belonged may have been his
performance in the East-West All-Star game, where
he starred in the East's win by catching five
passes, including touchdowns of 69 and 41 yards.
Along with Mike Ditka of the Bears and Ron Kramer
of the Packers, he became the prototype tight
end. He was a great blocker, but it was as a receiver
that he proved to be the perfect complement to the
precise routes of Raymond Berry and the deep threat
of Lenny Moore. His powerful running after he
caught the ball, combined with his great speed, was
a sight to see. Mackey was extremely hard to bring
down, and it was not unusual to see him carrying
one or two defenders downfield on his back. ("The
lucky ones fall off," joked Colts' coach Dick
Bielski at the time.) Selected as a number two draft choice, in his
rookie season with the Colts he caught 35 passes
for 7 touchdowns, and averaged 20.7 yards per
catch. On a team with two other future Hall of Fame
receivers in Berry and Moore, he was voted to the
Pro Bowl. In his 10-year career, Mackey caught 331 passes
for 5236 yards - an average of 15.8 yards per catch
- and 38 touchdowns. In 1966, he caught 50 passes for 829 yards. Nine
of his receptions went for touchdowns, and as an
example of the kind of big-play potential he
represented, six of them were 50 yards or longer -
he had receptions of 89, 83, 79, 64, 57 and 51
yards. On the 79-yarder, he knocked over three
Bears, including Hall of Famer Dick Butkus, on his
way to the end zone. He was named to five Pro Bowls, and in 1969 was
voted the tight end on the NFL's 50th anniversary
team. He was the first president of the NFL Players
Association following the 1968 merger of the NFL
and AFL, and he successfully challenged the
so-called Roselle rule, under which a team signing
a free agent was required to compensate the
player's old team, usually by a draft choice
awarded by Commissioner Pete Roselle. His argument
was that a team's fear of having to give up a high
draft choice had the effect of restricting a
player's right to market his services, and the
courts agreed. John Mackey was inducted into the Pro Football
Hall of Fame in 1992, the second tight end to enter
(Ditka was first). He made the Hall in his last
year of eligibility. The delay in honoring such a
great player was almost certainly a result of his
activities as a union member. Every year, The John Mackey award is given in
his name to the top tight end in Division I
football. Correctly identifying John Mackey - John
Muckian- Lynn, Massachusetts... Al Andrus - Salt
Lake City, Utah ("This is a gimme for me because I
have been a Rams fan since about 1969 and this guy
killed the Rams on several occasions. At about 6'2"
and around 220 lbs. he would be a rather average
running back by today's standards. But, he could
block with the best of them, and run downfield and
beat DB's with ease. Most of the time he was
running over them. In my opinion, he is probably
the best tight end to play the game. His name is
John Mackey, and he helped Johnny Unitas to the
"Hall of Fame".")... Steve Staker- Fredericksburg,
Iowa... Keith Babb- Northbrook, Illinois (Thanks
for an easy one this week. John Mackey was a
devastating force on the football field and I'll
always remember his catch of a deflected pass in
Super Bowl V for a 75 yard TD against 'America's
Team'. Even though Mike Ditka deserves to be in the
Hall of Fame, I always thought John Mackey deserved
to be the first tight end to be inducted. The man
was awesome!")... John Bothe- Oregon, Illinois...
Kevin McCullough- Culver, Indiana... Adam
Wesoloski- Pulaski, Wisconsin... Greg Stout-
Thompson's Station, Tennessee... Mike Foristiere-
Boise, Idaho... Dave Potter- Durham, North Carolina
("As soon as i saw the picture, I knew it was John
Mackey. Wow, what a player.")... Mark Kaczmarek-
Davenport, Iowa ( "As a Cheesehead, I hated those
Colts and especially Mackey who seemed to be able
to rip the Pack to shreds.")... David Crump-
Owensboro, Kentucky- ("To me he was the best tight
end the pro game will ever see! He was faster and
stronger than Ditka or Kramer. I have seen him make
some fantastic plays on many a Sunday
afternoon!")... Mick Yanke- Cokato, Minnesota...
John Reardon- Peru, Illinois... Jack Tourtillotte-
Boothbay Harbor, Maine ("in my humble opinion the
greatest tight end ever.")... Mike Framke- Green
Bay, Wisconsin... Mark Rice- Beaver, Pennsylvania
("At 230 lbs he ran harder than any of these 275
lbers playing the position today.")... Joe Gutilla-
Minneapolis ("He was certainly one of the first
TE's to redefine the position. He was simply a
magnificent athlete. Size, strength, speed, hands,
graceful, and TOUGH. Not to mention a very classy
human being.")... Randy Zak- West Seneca, New York
("It's John Mackey! Finally there is one I
remember---he used to kill the Bills!")... Tom
Hinger- Auburndale, Florida... Dave Livingstone-
Troy, Michigan... David Maley- Rosalia,
Washington... Ron Timson- Umatilla, Florida ("He
was the first tight end I remember who caught and
ran like a wide receiver, but had the physical
prowess to run over defensive backs and
linebackers. He was certainly one of the greatest
and became the prototype TE.")... Dan Dubowski-
Erie, Pennsylvania... Mike O'Donnell- Pine City,
Minnesota... *********** Say a prayer, if it's in you, for
Joe Foss, a great American. Mr. Foss is 87, and
he's gravely ill in a Michigan hospital. A World
War II Marine fighter pilot, Mr. Foss ranked second
in the number of Japanese plane shot down and was
awarded the Medal of Honor. At the age of 42, he
was elected Governor of South Dakota, where he
served for two terms. He served as the first
Commissioner of the American Football League and
later as President of the National Rifle
Association. In the meantime, he hosted "The
American Sportsman," a hunting and fishing show in
TV. A chapter in Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest
Generation" is devoted to him. In these times,when
America needs more Joe Fosses, it is sad to think
that he is gone, there will be no replacement for
him. *********** Coach Wyatt, I would like to sign up
for the Black Lion Award again this year. Also I
would like to tell you about the game we had this
past week. EJ Horton who is our C back rushed for 313 yards
on 14 carries. Our B back Jasmine Alexander (6'1
265) rushed for 160 on 10 carries. Our A back Ondra
Bowser rushed for 126 on 9 carries.
We played everybody and
rushed for a total of 717 yards on 50
carries. This
is 2nd all time for the state of NC.
We missed the record by 30
yards! EJ was named the North Carolina
1A player of the week. The beauty of your offensive
system is the simplicity of the blocking systems.
We can show a ton of different looks while keeping
the blocking schemes the same. Now my kids have a
desire to break the record and our line has gained
a sense of pride in what they do. Thanks again for
all your help. Talk to you soon, Chris Davidson,
Head Football Coach, Columbia High School (I
take a certain amount of pride in what Chris
Davidson's done, because he was right there when I
first introduced this system at another coach's
program. He was tight end coach on Doug Moister's
staff at Abington, Pennsylvania, and the next year
he moved on to take the head coaching job at
Phillipsburg-Osceola High in Central Pennsylvania.
I drove up and gave him a hand for a couple of
days. I have enjoyed telling the story about Chris'
AD taking a look at the Double-Wing and making
Chris promise that if he didn't have 300 yards
rushing after three games, he'd at least take a
look at the I-formation. P-O had 300 yards rushing
after the first game! Since then, Chris has married
and started a family and moved to eastern North
Carolina where, to say the least, he is running the
Double-Wing. HW) *********** If by some chance you still don't
believe that professional athletes are making too
much money, try this... Vin Baker, who recently joined the Celtics, paid
new teammate Kedrick Brown $10,000 to give up
jersey number 42. *********** It took me four years to figure out
why Jim Lambright was fired at the University of
Washington. Lambo didn't meet the unofficial
standards at the UW: He didn't win 9+ games on a
regular basis and was too ethical and moral unlike
his predecessor (Don "The Dawgfather" James) and
successor ("Slick" Rick Neuheisel). It doesn't look
like The Barb will win Pac-10 athletic director of
the year . . . damn! David Maley , Rosalia,
Washington (Although I disagree on Don James - I
have great respect for the man - I do have to agree
on Neuheisel. he cheated at Colorado, and he hit
the ground cheating at Washington. Now that he's
not allowed to recruit, I don't know what's left
for him to do, since he can't coach, either -
anybody still doubt that he was cheating when the
officials caught Washington with 12 men on the
field against Michigan? As for athletic director
Barbara Hedges - her hire as basketball coach
hasn't played a game yet and already an assistant
coach has been caught cheating. Makes a
Washingtonian real proud! HW) *********** "Dear Coach Wyatt, Freshman football
team, Lawrence, KS, Southwest Junior High School.
During our previous seven years, we averaged 16
points per game. I purchased some of your tapes,
attended the Minneapolis clinic, and switched to
the double wing this year. We are 4-0 in 2002 (our
first 4-0 start ever) and are averaging 37 points.
The kids are excited, and I'm enjoying coaching
more than I have in years. I'm already thinking
about next year, when I'll really know what I'm
doing. Your approach is a sound one, and I have
fully committed to your system." Sincerely, Skip
Bennett, Lawrence, Kansas *********** "Coach Wyatt, Thank you for your DW
system. The system and your tapes have been very
helpful. I am a first year head coach of a 9,10,11
year old youth team. We are a very young team with
9 out of my 15 players 9 years old. The DW offense
has us starting the season at 3-0 and outscoring
our opponents 74-13. Everyone involved with the
team loves the DW offense. The players are having
fun and we keep improving every week." Coach Jim
Faust, Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania *********** Coach Wyatt, We had a great victory
yesterday due in part to the Double Wing offense.
Our starting QB was injured in last weeks game and
his replacement is a 95lb 7TH grader. He took his
lumps last week, but we still managed to win the
game. With just a week to prepare (actually 3
practice days) we decided to run power instead of
super power and to run from both over slot and
under slot verses our opponents 4-3. We moved the
ball consistently and finally got the wedge to go
for some good yardage. I find the 2 wedge sets up
the 29 G-O. We did not throw a pass. The most
exciting part of the victory was the play of the
defense. We tackled well, forced and recovered a
couple of fumbles, and intercepted the one pass
that they attempted. Our opponents had won their
fist two games by scores of 32-0 and 48-0! Our
score yesterday Frontier 14, Amherst 8. Their Td
occurred after we gave them good field position on
our 30 yard line. It was 4th down and three to go.
I chose to punt. It was a bad kick and only made it
back to the scrimmage line. Of course if we went
for it and didn't make it I would have felt worse.
they went ahead 8-0 and we had to fight back. We
broke a couple of 88 and 99 powers from the over
slot and under slot formations. It pays to be
patient and just keep at it. We almost always got
some positive yardage and eventually we broke one
for the TD. Late in the 4th quarter our defense
made a couple of nice stops inside our 15 yd line
to give us the ball with less than 2 minutes to
play. We found ourselves in a 3-12 situation after
our C-back fumbled and recovered his own fumble. I
didn't want to think about having to punt that
close to our goal line. I called the same play
again. He got the 12 yards and another 40 on top of
that! With less than a minute to go we ran a wedge,
took a delay of game penalty (to use up more time
rather than snap the ball), and then just took a
knee. What a great feeling. Don Gordon Frontier
Middle School, South Deerfield, Massachusetts *********** "Our season at West Seneca East is
going well. Varsity has been very competitive, lost
a few heart breakers and are now 2-3. We at the JV
level are currently 5-0, and the kids are loving
the double wing. We finally had to coach the
linemen NOT TO GIGGLE when we called 'wedge'!
"Randy Zak, West Seneca, New York *********** Last week, Coach Jason Sopko, in
Forest City, Iowa, was caught in a dilemma. On
Wednesday night, two girls at the high school had
been in a serious accident; one of them was killed.
What do you do? What do you say to your kids? Do
you even play? We exchanged e-mails. My thought was
that it was important for the kids to be involved
in any decision to play or not play, but that a
coach could guide their thinking, pointing out to
them that one of the lessons football teaches is
that when we're knocked down, we have to get up.
Somebody has to be strong. Well, they went ahead
and played, and the short story is that Forest
City, previously winless, won in overtime. Coach
Sopko was nice enough to email me back, telling me
what happened: As far as our team - the
girls who were in the accident were Sophomores.
I let the Sophomore boys have the option to
practice on Thursday and play their game on
Friday. They were supposed to play before the
varsity game, but that was cancelled. The other
school was real good about it. I don't think
there was ever a question that we would play the
varsity game. I talk several times throughout
the year about FB being a place where for 2
hours in the day you can come out on the field
and put everything that happened in the day
behind you. I was able to read the team so as to
not say that and have them think that I was
trivializing what happened, but instead I
related it to other things. We talked about how
you are only given so many opportunities and
never know when it may be your last play, or
even day. We talked about how, after a tough
loss, the sun will come up and time moves on,
and we must move on. There was going to be a
school bus from another town showing up and they
were going to be ready to play a game. We needed
to put something on the back burner and needed
to use the emotion that was already with us and
focus it on every play. During the 2nd quarter, we
lost our starting QB to a shoulder injury. He
was also our kicker. Early in the 4th quarter,
on 4th and 5, our senior WB broke for a 17 yard
gain on G-O, was tackled and severely
hyperextended his knee. He had to be carried
off. We capped that 18 play, 8:30+
drive with a 3 yard TD out of stack with a
back-up WB scoring to Tie the game. ( I
mentioned that our QB was also the kicker. He
came out at halftime without his helmet and
shoulder pads. As that long drive went on, I
knew that we were going to have to go for 2. But
I thought, "why can't he kick????" I asked the
team Doc, who was the kid's dad, if he could
kick, he looked at me funny and said "I guess
so," so the kid ran to the locker room, got his
stuff, kicked the pat to tie with 5+ min left in
the 4th and kicked a field goal to win it for us
in OT.) What a story eh? I told the team
on Monday that there were sooooooo many times we
could have folded and used any number of excuses
and folded in the game, and everyone in the
community would have understood. (wrongly so, from
a coach's point of view) But they dug deeper
(cliche) and found a way to win. I told them that
last week, being a football player with all that
happened, was worth at least 5-10 years of life
experience in overcoming difficult adversities, and
that no one else in our school would ever know
about it. I was very proud of the boys. *********** I received a call a week or so ago
from Mike Lindstrom, a former player from my days
at Hudson's Bay High in Vancouver, Washington. Mike
was a linebacker who could knock your ass off.
Mike's now in his thirties, and with a son of his
own, Brian, he finds himself coaching football, so
I sent him a copy of "Safer and Surer Tackling."
You may remember my mentioning in the tape that
after a couple of years of playing for me, after
doing form tackling drills day after day after day,
I was confident that any of my former players could
teach tackling. Mike watched the tape and wrote
me: "Dear Coach Wyatt, Awesome tape coach, I watched
it with my wife last night and the first thing out
of her mouth was 'I want Brian to watch this
tape!' "It's exciting to watch some of the drills you
taught us, it brought back some great memories. "You are correct in saying that any of your
players can teach tackling because you pounded it
into us everyday. It has become second nature for
me." *********** Don't know whether you heard them
mention on Sunday that Giants' offensive
coordinator Sean Payton had pared down the game
plan. Supposedly, he'd trimmed 50 or 60 plays,
getting them down - I swear they said this - to 140
or 150 plays. Uh, not to say that maybe they still
have too much offense, but with a running game
that's producing only 2.9 yards per attempt, and a
passing game that has twice as many sacks (8) as
touchdowns (4) and nearly twice as many
interceptions (7), it would appear as if they might
be caught up in the old grab-bag game. *********** I watched the Raiders' Charlie
Garner streaking to a touchdown, and the replay
showed Jerry Rice "throwing a block" downfield.
Truthfully, he was just leaning against a defensive
back, who seemed to be leaning against him.
Question: as many restrictions as they place on
defensive backs' hitting receivers, why didn't this
guy knock Rice's block off once he became a
blocker? *********** Charlie Garner broke away for a long
score against Buffalo Sunday, and limped to the
bench afterwards. The report from the sideline guy
was that he'd possibly pulled a hamstring. I heard Randy Cross (he's the guy with the
pretty pompadour) say, "maybe he ran too fast." I
swear I heard him say that. Can't you just see yourself telling some kid to
stop dogging it, and he turns to you and says,
"Coach - I'm trying to save my hamstring." *********** Life is good. Thanks to the
Louisville-Memphis game on Tuesday night, we will
have had football of some sort on the tube every
day, from last Thursday through next Monday, with
the exception of Wednesday. That's 11 out of the
last 12 days. Got to do something about those damn
Wednesdays... *********** I have always considered Mike
Gottfried to be one of the top football analysts in
the business, but at halftime of Tuesday's
Memphis-Louisville game, he was so sure of his
righteousness in his objection to college
football's overtime - he thinks the NFL's overtime
is just fine, even if only one team gets a shot at
scoring - and so obnoxious in his reaction to Bob
Davies' argument in favor, that I saw him in a way
I'd never seen him before. He really acted like a
jerk when someone disagreed with him. *********** Alex Flanagan, ESPN's Tuesday night
Sideline ditz, shared with us her halftime chat
with Louisville coach John L. Smith - "I asked him,
'why has Memphis been so effective on defense?'' He
said, 'Alex, it's not so much that Memphis has been
effective on defense. We just haven't been
executing on offense.' Back to you guys." And to think - for that kind of brilliance, she
gets paid as much for one game as some of you get
for coaching an entire season. (It ticks me off that Andy Rooney thinks he's
the first guy who ever spoke out against the
sideline bimbos. Who needs them? What do they
contribute? Of course, it hurts me to admit that
I'm not as sexist as I like to claim I am - I think
the sideline bozos are a terrible waste, too. Are
you kidding me? Adrian Karsten? Eric Dickerson? Dr.
Jerry Punch? Quote me: the only sideline reporter
worth a damn is Lynn Swann. ) *********** Ever notice how many of ESPN's "Big
Sticks" are cheap shots? At least half of them are
shoulder-and-forearm-shots to the head of
defenseless receivers, involving absolutely no risk
to the player delivering the hit. They're like
shooting fish in a barrel. *********** Give Cleveland's kicker some credit.
He risked his hide against Baltimore Monday night
to recover his own onside kick. *********** I hope they weren't serious. Alex Flanagan, faithful sideline reporter, told
us that the biggest job of Memphis' offensive
coordinator is making sure QB Danny Wimprine goes
to class. She said he calls the kid every morning,
and if he doesn't answer the phone, why, the coach,
a grown man with a college education and a
responsible job, probably a family, too, goes over
and knocks on the door and wakes up the precious
21-year-old. That had to be a joke. No coach in his right
mind would let a story like that get out about his
program. *********** Say this for Memphis - their helmets
are just about the best-looking blue I have ever
seen. *********** William Green of the Browns failed
to make a yard on third and one Sunday, and
Theisman went nuts, calling it a "substitution
error" on the part of the coaches. His argument,
see, was that Green is inexperienced - he's only a
rookie. Yeah, Joe. He's been playing running back
for - what? - seven or eight years or so? I guess
he'd never run straight ahead before coming to the
NFL. *********** A question I get asked with
depressing frequency: What do you do when they shut
down your super power? That is why there are traps, counters,
sweeps and play-action passes. HOW LUCKY FOR US
THAT YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT FOOTBALL! IT
JUST SO HAPPENS THAT THE COACHING STAFF
CAN USE YOUR HELP! BE AT PRACTICE MONDAY
AFTERNOON WITH YOUR OFFENSE AND YOUR
DEFENSE AND A PRACTICE PLAN, AND THE TEAM
WILL BE YOURS FOR TWO HOURS! (REMEMBER TO
BRING ASSISTANTS.) IN THE MEANTIME, PLEASE
GIVE ME YOUR HOME PHONE NUMBER SO I CAN
GIVE IT OUT TO FANS AND
PARENTS *********** Is the lack of a piece of
identification a civil rights issue? Huh? Are black
and Hispanic citizens somehow being deprived of the
opportunity to obtain photo ID? Should anybody be allowed to vote if he won't
answer "yes" to a simple question asking whether
he's a citizen? Huh? Squawks are coming from so-called "civil rights"
groups, upset at a bill in Congress attempting to
put an end to growing election fraud by plugging
some of the damnedest leaks you've ever heard of.
The professional civil rights people complain that
some of the bill's provisions will make it "harder
for people to register and vote." I would respond by saying, "Harder?
Harder than what?" One of the bill's provisions would require that
first-time voters who register by mail produce some
form of identification, like a photo ID card, a
bank statement or a paycheck. Well, duh. You have
to have government-issued photo-ID to get on a
plane. Should voting be easier than flying? Another provision would require all mail-in
registration forms to include the question, "Are
you a citizen of the United States of America?"
with check boxes to answer yes or no. I mean, if
somebody is too dumb to figure that one out, why
would you want them voting? (Listen, that was a
rhetorical question. The answer is, because they'll
vote Democrat.) In addition, the bill says that an application
for voter registration "may not be accepted or
processed by a state" if a person with a driver's
license fails to write the license number on the
form. But even the slightest little test of civic
competency is treated by civil rights groups as if
it's the return of the poll tax. Lloyd J. Leonard, legislative director of the
League of Women Voters of the United States (hey -
how come they have to hire a man to do their
work?), uses terms like "a device for
disenfranchising people," saying that "voter
registration drives will become much more difficult
to pull off" because the sponsors would have to
obtain more information from potential voters. I mean, what would you like us to do, Lloyd -
start handing out ballots on the streets of
Beijing? *********** "The biggest thing to me is that
I'm hurt, I've got a broken hand, so don't kick me
when I'm down," he said. "They always talk about us
being a family, but now they're trying to push me
away from the family." Latrell Sprewell, noted
expert on families. *********** A 36-year-old guy in Milwaukee was
attacked and killed recently by a pack of wild
animals. You, depending on how liberal and "sensitive"
you are, might call the animals "children." True,
they were of the species Homo Sapiens. And at least
one of them was only 10 years old. But
"children?" Yeah, yeah. I know. The guy had it coming. A kid
had hit him with an egg, and he'd punched the kid
in the mouth. So what could the kid do but round up
a gang of his buddies, who picked up anything they
could use as a weapon, chased the guy home and beat
him to death? Quite a change from "back in our day." First of
all, we wouldn't have thrown an egg at a
36-year-old guy without carefully calculating the
odds against his catching us. We had to be very
careful when we screwed around with adults. "Back
then," in the early 50's, a 36-year-old guy was
almost certain to be a World War II vet, and he
wasn't about to take any crap off a punk kid. That
was the chance we knew we were taking if we threw a
snowball at a car. He was almost certain to stop
the car and chase us. That was part of the fun of
it, of course, because we knew that if he ever
caught one of us, he'd slug us. And that would be
that. Tit for tat. Served us right. We had it
coming. Part of the game. That was definitely not a society overly given
to tolerance of bad kids. (Yes, there were such
things as "bad kids" then. Everybody knew it and
accepted it. No excuses. The socio-babble term
"juvenile delinquent" was just creeping into the
vocabulary, but society wasn't yet ready to listen
to theories about what "caused" young men to do bad
things.) The idea of mass retaliation against an
adult by a mob of kids was unthinkable. Yeah, "children." The savagery with which they pursued the man to
his front porch and beat him senseless, the delight
one of them took in holding him in a headlock like
the ones he'd seen on WWE so others could beat and
kick him, and the conscienceless detachment they
showed afterwards, in going about their business -
some of them sittin down to chicken dinner - marks
them as something other than the sort of beings
most of us think of when we use the word
"children." Witnesses watched the kids lie in wait for the
guy. They watched the attack. And they did nothing.
I suspect that was because they were themselves
terrified of the little monsters. And after all that, the "father" of the
10-year-old told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
"Kids are going to be kids." That thought should scare you at least as much
as any domestic terrorism. *********** "This past Friday night I had the
great thrill of watching my kid accomplish every
offensive lineman's dream. Nicholas has played
offensive line his entire HS career and at 5'9",
190 pounds, he obviously has to have some guts to
go up against kids who sometimes outweigh him by 90
- 100 pounds. Anyway, late in the 1st quarter of
Friday's game, Glenbard North (Nick's HS) lined up
in trips left and tried to throw a bubble screen to
their fleet tailback. The tailback dropped the pass
which was ruled a lateral by the officials. As the
ball lay on the ground, Nicholas didn't hear a
whistle so he came hustling over from his right
guard spot, scooped up the ball, broke a tackle and
scampered down the sideline 52 yards for a TD. As
you may imagine, I went nuts. The nice thing is the
high school regularly broadcasts the games on their
local cable outlet, so I got to watch 'the play'
(as it's now known in our home) a number of times
this weekend." Keith Babb, Northbrook, Illinois *********** I have a big grin on my face after
seeing the Bears fake the field goal and break out
into the Lonesome Polecat --- Too bad they didn't
execute and play a better game. The Bears should be
playing as well as Rich Central. Doug Gibson,
Naperville, Illinois *********** Keep reading the papers. If things
break right for me, I may have a good shot at the
Nobel Peace Prize. (You know, the same one that
Bill Clinton thought he had locked up, until Yassir
Arafat let him down.) I have proposed to President Bush a way that
will not only remove Iraq's threat to our security,
but at the same time remove a "root cause" of
terrorism by eliminating a major reason for the
Islamic fundamentalists' hatred of us. I'm still
waiting to hear something, but I don't see how Mr.
Bush can pass on an opportunity to achieve world
peace without shedding blood. His popularity would
soar and his re-election would be assured. Here are the bare bones of the plan: Saddam
would turn over his weapons to the United Nations,
in return for our pledge not to attack him. That's essentially the way it is right now, you
say. True. And that's been the problem. There's
nothing in it for Saddam, or at least for the
people in the Islamic "Street," where little
children are being taught that we are the Great
Satan. To do something about that - to ensure a
lasting peace - is going to take some sacrifices on
our part. First, President Bush will formally admit in a
speech to the United Nations General Assembly that
what the Islamic fundamentalists have been saying
is, unfortunately, right - we have become a
Godless society. He will admit that we have
been waging war on other cultures, just as surely
as if we had bombed them, by exporting the
degradation and filth of our movies, TV shows and
music. He will apologize and pledge to do better.
And to show that we are repentant, he will invite
UN inspectors into the United States, and give them
absolute censorship power over all beer
commercials, rap videos, NFL cheerleaders'
costumes, and teenage girls' everyday school
attire. Make the world safer! Clean up American culture,
too! How can it miss? *********** While the wussies in our schools are
doing everything they can to eliminate competition
from our childrens' lives, a**hole adults are doing
all they can to give competition a bad name,
too. In the last three weeks... In Florida, where as everyone knows an election
win is not necessarily a win, two teams with
records of 6-0 and 5-1 are now 2-4, having to
forfeit four games each after learning, four weeks
into their seasons, that each one had a player who
signed up to play for them without informing them
that he'd played for another league team last year.
League rules require a player transferring teams to
get a "release" from his original team. An
administrative slip-up results in teams that won on
the field being given losses; teams that lost on
the field being given wins. (Must be how Floridians
learn that there's no election result that can't be
overturned.) In Maryland, a coach slugs the son of the rival
coach. He is banned from coaching by the league,
but the County Parks and Recs supervisor orders him
reinstated, and accuses the league officials of
assorted misconduct. Meantime, league officials
point out that the banned coach and the County
supervisor are buddies. (Maryland's politics are
only a cut below New Jersey's.) In Oregon, a league commissioner, deciding that
the Double-Wing's shoeshine block is dangerous,
decides to tinker with the rules of the game of
football and outlaw it. Despite all the work and
research by learned people that goes into rules
changes, this one man decides to outlaw blocking
below the waist (or knees, or however he phrased
it). But, uh oh - the Law of Unintended
Consequences again. Evidently it didn't occur to
him that officials might apply the rule to
defenses, too, and a team whose defenders were
required to stand up found itself getting wedged to
death. When they protest the loss, he upholds the
protest and makes the two teams play again on a
Monday, even though that means requiring
13-year-old kids to play two games in the space of
three days. (This is a guy who's worried about the
kids' safety.) In New Jersey, coaches are caught switching
kids' birth certificates. They admit it, but
attempt to justify it by saying that if they hadn't
done it, there wouldn't have been enough kids for a
team. (See, they only did it for the kids.) In Illinois, two youth coaches are charged with
attacking a 19-year-old referee. One coach is
"alleged" to have objected strenuously to a call,
earning an unsportsmanlike conduct foul. When he
threw the penalty flag at the official, he was
ordered off the field, whereupon he "allegedly"
belly-bumped the ref. The second coach joined in,
berating the official and "allegedly" shoving him.
Why a 19-year-old referee? Other league officials
had refused to work these coaches' games. ************ Just once I'd like to see them
interview the mother of a young person arrested for
one atrocity or another and hear her say, "The
little bastard. He's just no good. I could have
told you years ago that something like this was
gonna happen." ************ Malcolm X was a self-educated man.
He used the time he spent in prison as Malcolm
Little, a common criminal, to read everything he
could get his hands on, and ultimately, after
considerable intellectual exploration, years and
years later, he discovered Islam. He tells of the
long journey to his conversion in "The
Autobiography of Malcolm X." But that was then, and this is now - this is the
microwave age. According to news reports, one of the young men
arrested recently as a suspected member of a
terrorist cell became a convert to Islam after
seeing the movie, "Malcolm X." Fast food for the brain. *********** ESPN's "The Season" - a weekly look
at the SEC - is so-o-o-o cool. *********** Remember how I asked you about
coaching in today's society? Well the kid who sort
of sparked that message (and I tried to get rid of,
without support however) struck again. I was told
during our game he continually flipped the bird at
our insignia on his helmet (so the fans could see)
and get this.... HE CLAPPED WHEN THE OTHER TEAM
SCORED -- THAT LITTLE SH-- WAS ROOTING FOR THE
OTHER TEAM!!!!! I wanted to kick his butt right
there. I told the head coach something must be done
(he should never be allowed to play a school sport
again). Can you believe that crap? NAME
WITHHELD That little sh-- is a traitor to your cause.
If he hangs around, he will be a cancer. Do you mean to tell me that none of the other
kids on the team saw that? If other kids know about
it and don't do anything about it, I would say you
have a serious leadership problem. But, of course, this is America in the
twenty-first century, and everybody has a right to
express an opinion, and tolerance and
non-judgmentalism are the cardinal virtues. I, for one, would not be at all judgmental if
one of the kids on the team were to smack that punk
in the mouth. The one thing he could be good for would be
to serve as an example of what happens to people
who act like that, because he has got to
go. This will be a real test of your head coach.
HW *********** After Lansingburgh (NY) High's 60-6
win over Broadalbin-Perth last Friday night,
Gregory G. McNall wrote in The Gloversville (NY)
Leader-Herald Very rarely in this media-hyped age - when
the talented are almost always over-exposed -
does a team fully live up to the hype. Lansingburgh does. The Broadalbin-Perth football team saw
Saturday what Cohoes, Hudson, Schalmont and
Watervliet had already witnessed. The Patriots
played a hard-nosed, spirited game and never
gave up from the opening kickoff to the closing
whistle, but the Knights cruised, 60-6, in a
Capital Conference matchup. Lansingburgh is that good. "It's not really a surprise," said
Broadalbin-Perth coach Rick Snyder. "It was a
delicate thing in practice this week because we
talked to the kids about not quitting - whatever
happened in the game - and running to the
sideline after plays. I was afraid about getting
them psyched out before the game even started,
but they came out, played hard and were never
intimidated. "They [Lansingburgh] are just a great
team. I'm very, very proud of my kids. We got a
great amount of leadership today and showed a
lot of pride." Lansingburgh was led by the three-headed
running monster that has ravaged the rest of
Section II this season. Marcel Youngs ran for
236 yards on just nine carries, while Kareem
Jones added 207 yards on only eight carries and
fullback Shonte Freeman bowled his way to 120
yards on 16 carries. Jones scored on carries of 54, 34 and 55
yards, to go along with a 74-yard kickoff
return, while Youngs had touchdown runs of 41
and 10 yards and Freeman scored from 22 and 15
yards out. *********** Talk about a class act. Don Capaldo,
of Keokuk, Iowa, built a football program in a
basketball town. He is taking this season off
(although he was tempted by an offer to spend the
year back East at a strong Double-Wing program) and
enjoying leisure time that he never knew
existed. But he wanted to retain a little contact with
the program at Keokuk yet not be seen as
interfering with the new coach, and he found a
great solution: thanks to his efforts, the Black
Lion Award is a very big deal in Keokuk, with a
full page in the program explaining the award and
its meaning, and Don has agreed to administer the
Black Lion Award for the team, including locating
and contacting a Black Lion veteran to present the
award at the team's banquet. Jim has been kind enough
to provide me with early drafts, and I have read
most of it with great interest. It provided me with
a very interesting look at the inner workings of an
Army under combat conditions, and although Jim
would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier
General before retiring, it is not written in the
jargon that military people often seem to use when
communicating with each other. In the interest of
complete authenticity, the description and the
dialogue can get gritty. Here's an excerpt(If you
can't deal with the way real people sometimes talk
under less than ideal conditions, consider yourself
forewarned.) A few moments later the
battalion communi cations officer, a salty old
captain, dived on top of me. We looked at each
other, and both started laughing -hysterically.
He then went for one of the radios. I laid there
for a moment in the dark of the bottom of the
hole. I looked up and saw a face glowing in the
dark above. It was the face of my brother, Ned.
He had been killed in an automobile accident in
1960, seven years before, when I had been a
lieutenant in Korea. His face was clear to me
there -glowing -and he was smiling. It was only
for an instant. The communication's officer's
voice on his radio broke my trance. I got on the
battalion operations net and called the
companies. I told them, "open fire - open fire.
Don't just sit there - open fire - drop some
rounds down the mortar tubes - do something."
The enemy fire had ceased. It
had only been about five minutes since the
claymores had gone off. But no one -no one
inside our perimeter had fired a round. Here we
were -a whole infantry battalion, locked and
loaded. Nine mortars ready to fire. And we
hadn't fired one round in return fire.
Unbelievable! And now -after I had called on the
radio -still no fire. I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't fire my .45 cal pistol from the
center of the perimeter. I got on the brigade
operations net. I called, "Dagger 3, Dagger 3,
this is Dauntless 3, over." The reply,
"Dauntless 3, this is Dagger 6, can you give us
a sitrep?" It was Colonel Chuck Thebaud, the 2d
Brigade Commander. I had worked for him in a
past assignment and it was good to hear his
voice. I said, "Dagger 6, Dauntless
3. We have been attacked by unknown size enemy
force with claymores and automatic weapons.
Request gunships and flareship." He asked me if we had
casualties and I told him I did not know but I
would call him back. He told me, "take it easy,
help is on the way." I then received a report that
one man had been killed and several others
wounded. I called back to Dagger and asked them
to send a dustoff (aeromedical evacuation
chopper) to our location ASAP. As I looked from my hole I
saw someone about 50 meters away holding up a
large flashlight. I didn't think that was very
smart. I ran over to the light and shouted, "hey
you dumb bastard, shut that light out."
The reply came back, "fuck
you. Who the hell are you?" I replied, "I'm Major
Shelton, Dauntless 3 -who are you?" He said, "I'm Captain Swink,
the battalion surgeon, and I need the light."
I said, "OK" and went back to
the radio. I had never met the battalion
surgeon, Jim Swink. After this battle I was to
learn that he was the same Jim Swink who was an
All American tailback at Texas Christian
University in the early 50's when I was playing
in college at Delaware. His picture had been on
the cover of every football magazine in the
country. He had gone to medical school after TCU
and was serving his time in the Army when he was
sent to RVN. He had gone immediately to treat
the wounded that night and had been hit by small
arms fire in the shoulder. He continued to treat
the wounded although he was wounded, and when I
had called to him he was bleeding from the
wound. He received a Silver Star for his cool
actions that night, working with the wounded
though wounded himself. *********** Last year, several coaches were able
to contact Black Lions vets living near them to
present the Black Lion Award at their team's
banquet. Some invited them to attend a game, and
still others asked them to say a few words to their
kids. One coach even invited a Black Lion to talk
to his classes about Vietnam. TIME'S RUNNING SHORT...
Thanks to the efforts of some great people, the
Black Lion Award was established last year. I can't
imagine why a coach wouldn't want his kids to be
trying to win the Black Lion Award. It's not too
late to sign up for this year. E-mail me
now. BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME - coachwyatt@aol.com -
AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM FOR 2002! ***********Cave Spring Stampede 37-0 over
Cave Spring Crusaders.Highlight of the day
for me was seeing last years Black Lion Award
winner with it on his right shoulder.Also we
ran the wedge for 4 minutes,and 26
seconds.Couple of first downs and almost had
ball the entire 4th quarter. Armando Castro-
Roanoke, Virginia Hello Coach....I hope this finds you well.
I'd like to enroll my team for the 2002 season
and the Black Lion Award. I told my kids last
night the story of Don Holleder and the Black
Lions, and introduced last years award winner
Jeff Ball. He'll be wearing the Black Lion
patch on his jersey this year. John
Urbaniak- Hanover Park, Illinois TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT
REAL HEROES - *********** At the Parents' meeting, I explained
that I do not give out individual awards (like
stars on the helmets and such), but that I do give
one award, and explained the Black Lion award.
P.P.S. Know of any Black Lions around this area?
Jody Hagins, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (Good
question - I have requested a listing of the
members of the 28th Infantry Association - the
Black Lions - by location. If I am successful, I
should be able to furnish you names of men to
contact to help present your award. HW) (IF YOU WERE ENROLLED IN 2001,
YOU MUST RE-ENROLL) BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME -
coachwyatt@aol.com - AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM
FOR 2002! inscribed on the wall
of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton,
Ilinois He was one of the long line of outstanding
Syracuse running backs, and like the Orange's
all-time great Jimmy Brown, he hailed from Long
Island's Nassau County. But in the NFL, the Baltimore Colts' Don Shula
took advantage of his great size and speed to turn
him into an end - a tight end.. Along with Mike
Ditka of the Bears and Ron Kramer of the Packers,
he became the prototype tight end. He was a great blocker, but it was as a receiver
that he proved to be the perfect complement to the
precise routes of Raymond Berry and the deep threat
of Lenny Moore. His powerful running after he
caught the ball, combined with his great speed, was
a sight to see. He was extremely hard to bring
down, and it was not unusual to see him carrying
one or two defenders downfield on his back. ("The
lucky ones fall off," joked Colts' coach Dick
Bielski at the time.) In his rookie season with the Colts, he caught
35 passes for 7 touchdowns, and averaged 20.7 yards
per catch. On a team with two other future Hall of
Fame receivers in Berry and Moore, he was voted to
the Pro Bowl. In his 10-year career, he caught 331 passes for
5236 yards - an average of 15.8 yards per catch -
and 38 touchdowns. He was named to five Pro Bowls, and in 1969 was
voted the tight end on the NFL's 50th anniversary
team. He was the first president of the NFL Players
Association following the 1968 merger of the NFL
and AFL, and he successfully challenged the
so-called Roselle rule, under which a team signing
a free agent was required to compensate the
player's old team, usually by a draft choice
awarded by Commissioner Pete Roselle. His argument
was that a team's fear of having to give up a high
draft choice had the effect of restricting a
player's right to market his services, and the
courts agreed. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of
Fame in 1992, the second tight end to enter (Ditka
was first). He made the Hall in his last year of
eligibility. The delay in honoring such a great
player was almost certainly a result of his
activities as a union member. Every year, an award is given in his name to the
top tight end in Division I football. *********** Remember this, the next time you
hear the wailing about our precious liberties being
sucked from us, all in the name of national
security, by that evil George Bush and his wicked
henchman John Ashcroft... Marie Josee-Travis, a native Canadian, recalled
in the Wall Street Journal last week that some
thirty years ago, Canada was in danger of being
split it two. Quebecois separatists, intent on
forcing the separation of French-speaking Quebec
from English-speaking Canada, were conducting a
campaign of domestic terrorism. They had killed a
provincial official and kidnapped a British
diplomat. They were blowing up mail boxes, acts of
terrorism designed to kill innocents. They claimed that they were victims - that the
English-speaking majority was treating them like
"the white Negroes of America." The Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau,
wasn't buying. To him, they were terrorists,
period. He was himself a native of Quebec, and he
was a former civil rights lawyer, and he knew that
this was no civil rights issue. These people were
conducting war on his country, and he knew he
needed to take warlike action to fight them. He invoked the War Measures Act, which among
other things meant sending federal troops into
Quebec and giving the police broad powers to search
and to arrest. The press cried about the squashing of
individual liberties, and asked him how far he was
prepared to go in this war of terrorism. His answer: "Watch me." *********** Maybe you read about how the arrest
of the ("alleged") terrorists picked up in Portland
last week all started about 20 minutes' drive to
the east of where I live, in Skamania County,
Washington. Skamania County is wild and sparsely
populated. It was September 13, 2001, and a woman
called the County Sheriff's department to say that
she heard automatic weapons fire coming from a
nearby gravel pit. It's hunting country, and she
was used to hearing shots from time to time, but
she knew that what she was hiring was not hunting
rifles. In a county in which guys are more inclined to
wear camouflage coats and baseball caps, you can
imagine what went through the mind of the deputy
who arrived on the scene, when he saw a group of
men in robes and what he described as "Middle
Eastern head coverings" firing a variety of
non-hunting weapons. He got ID's and wrote a full
report, and later, when he saw the name of one of
them in the paper, realized that he needed to
notify the Federal Task Force. I suggest that they dress exactly as they did
that day, and meet me at about 11 PM this Friday
night at the Spar Tree Inn in Stevenson,
Washington, the county seat of Skamania County. *********** Following the arrest of the young
marksmen, the usual "we are the real victims"
bullsh-- started coming from the local mosque. "We
feel targeted," said one local woman. I wanted to
say to her, A--hole, I sure hope you do. Why
are you still wasting your time playing victim,
instead of condemning these lice who are painting
the target on you? *********** One of the young Islamic-type men
found shooting in a rural Washington gravel pit was
a creep named Ali Khalid Steitye. Steitye, an ex-con, was arrested last October
(not long after 9-11, and not long after the
incident in the gravel pit) on gun and fraud
charges when US ATF agents caught him with a loaded
handgun, an assault rifle with four clips of 30
rounds each, and roughly 1,000 rounds of
ammunition. Good job, Feds. Got your man. A search of his house turned up $20,000 in cash
(don't we all have that kind of money lying
around?), and a calendar with September 11 circled
in red (no doubt he had a dentist's appointment
that day). Oh yes, and they also found evidence
that he was a sympathizer of Hamas, the Palestinian
group that's been responsible for suicide bombings
in Israel. But after all that, a U.S. District judge
(female) gave the guy 2-1/2 years in prison. Not
exactly a long time, considering how patient those
bastards were in their planning of the 9-11
attack. Prosecutors argued that his Hamas connections
should have gotten him a longer sentence, but the
judge explained her reasoning. "Mere political thought," she said, "Cannot be
the basis for sentencing someone. That's not the
country we live in." To which I would say, "Madame Justice, with all
due respect, you are full of sh--. That,
unfortunately, is the county we now live in.
Or maybe you can explain to me why I could silently
punch a guy in the mouth and merely get fined,
while I could punch the same guy in the mouth while
saying 'Faggot!' and get charged with a "hate
crime" - and get 2-1/2 years." *********** "It's a men's club. It's a
congregation of men who enjoy being around each
other. Suppose they let three women in. What would
the difference be? Nothing would change. That leads
me to think: Why do it?" An unidentified member of
Augusta National Golf Club *********** MONDAY NIGHT MELISSA: "Well, Al, he
has a dislocated left ankle. He's out for the
rest of the night." *********** The Big 10 is going to start running
out of officials if they keep firing crews the way
they should. This past week, Purdue's shotgun
quarterback turned to the referee and called a time
out, as the ball was whistling past his ear and far
downfield. The referee seemed not to have noticed
that the ball had already been snapped, and awarded
the time out. *********** Ole Miss beat Florida with defense.
They sure didn't do it with offense. The Rebels'
Eli Manning had completed six of six for 63 yards
to get them to the Gators' three. From there, Ole
Miss took three pops straight ahead, and then one
almost straight ahead, and they weren't much
closer after four downs. *********** This from Craig James: "Did you see
how he hit him high? That's not a tackle! Get him
around the legs!" Now what, exactly, would Craig
James, a guy who is several years out of the game
and last played defense in high school, know about
tackling? *********** I was watching on two sets, side by
side, and within mere minutes of each other, Purdue
and Florida, both passing teams, were called for
having only six men on the line of scrimmage. Ever
notice how far back those tackles line up? *********** Purdue actually showed an unbalanced
I formation in some running situations. *********** It's a good thing for Iowa that they
beat Purdue. It's hard to believe that Iowa fans,
not exactly used to a lot of winning over the last
several years, could already be spoiled by this
year's success, but just one week after the
Hawkeyes' exciting overtime win at Penn State, the
"fans" sitting right behind the Iowa bench were
giving their players bloody hell when they fell
behind Purdue. *********** To give you an idea of how badly
Dartmouth-by-the-Bay (Stanford) sucked against
Notre Dame - Stanford's Player of the Game was an
offensive tackle. *********** It was very moving for me to see the
Stanford kids lined up to hug Tyrone Willingham
after the game Saturday. *********** In keeping with the trend toward
darkening of American football uniforms, UCLA's
powder blue has now disappeared, and the Bruins in
their away uniforms look like Army or Purdue. *********** The mighty Huskies of Washington,
whose major achievement going into Saturday's game
was a near-win against Michigan (pissed away by the
coaching staff) could manage only 42 yards rushing,
and fell to Cal. It was Cal's first win over
Washington since 1976 (Don James' second year at
Washington) and the Huskies' first loss in Seattle
since 1999. *********** Washington State had first-and-goal
from the USC one on two different occasions. The
first time, they came up dry on four downs. The
second time, it took them three downs to score. *********** Your assignment: watch #75,
Oklahoma's right offensive tackle, and tell me the
next time you see him on the line of scrimmage. *********** Is Artie Gigantino trying too hard
to be Lee Corso? *********** Got to love Saturday night
overtimes! Last week it was Auburn-Syracuse; this
past week it was Washington State-USC and
Arkansas-Tennessee! *********** I KNOW HE'S GOT SOME, UH, ISSUES,
BUT... If I were starting a football team, I would
build it around Ray Lewis. He is absolutely the
best all-round player in football, and he really is
an old-fashioned player in the sense that he
demands that his teammates play hard, and he
doesn't take anything less than their best. With
Ray Lewis on my team, I wouldn't worry about
whether my players were motivated. *********** "Coach Wyatt, Last Friday we played
Cameron, also a double wing team. We played a 4-4
and a 6-2 against them and they played a 5 front
against us. We both knew each other well as we play
every year and have both run the double wing the
past 5 years. They beat us 14-0 as we turned the
ball over several times inside the 10 yard line and
had some key mental errors and penalties. What it
really came down to was they were more physical on
the line of scrimmage and executed better. There
was no magic defense on either side. I have heard
of and seen the magic defenses but it always comes
down to talent and execution." Coach Keith Lehne,
Grantsburg High School, Grantsburg, Wisconsin *********** You would have to be a coach - and
not a parent or a casual fan - to understand this.
It's one of the things that young coaches who think
it's so cool to emulate the pros just don't seem to
understand. Galva-Holstein, Iowa, is now 5-0. G-H
Coach Brad Knight admits that for him, the ground
game is the most effective way to go. He said the
father of one of his assistants summed up what most
of us know: "The passing game is great - it's the
catching game you need to work on!" *********** "Coach, Thought I would drop you a
note to tell you how we are doing this year. I am
still coaching 8-9 yr olds in Huntsville, AL in the
Monrovia community. I had nine returners to this
team and 17 new players. We are 7-0, 1700+ yrds
rushing, 36 TDs. I still run two completely
separate offensive platoons, which I change in
total at halftime, and all of my eight backs have
scored a rushing TD except one of my QBs. "There are also two of my buddies that coach in
Huntsville who have ordered your material because
of the success we had last year. Also a guy in CA
that I have been trying to help via e:mail ordered
your Dynamics tape. "Since I understand the system a bit better this
year, I was able to add a few more plays than I had
last year. I now run Tight Rip 58 Black, Tight 2
Red/Blue, Tight Rip 43 tackle trap, Tight 49-C,
Tight Rocket/Lazer 38/29 Reach and we have even
pulled off several conversions with Tight Rip Stop
47-C Shuffle Pass. I agree that Tight Rip/Liz 88/99
power, Tight Rip 47-C, Tight Rip Red-Red, Tight 2
Wedge would be enough for me to win with, but it's
fun seeing the kids execute the new plays. "Since we were known last year for 88-Power,
that's what everyone works to stop (I have read
your statements in regard to this). We have been
killing them on Tight Rip 47-C, Tight 49-C, 2-Wedge
and 3-Trap 2 (and on 88 -Power). "Your system is great and it has really been
easy adding these new plays. Thanks Again," Stuart
Whitener, Monrovia White Panthers, Huntsville,
Alabama *********** The top four scorers in the Albany,
New York area are from Doubl-Wing teams
Lansingburgh and Queensbury: 1 Marcel Youngs
Lansingburgh 110; 2 Shonte Freeman Lansingburgh 94
; 3 Kareem Jones Lansingburgh 88; 4 Will Groff
Queensbury 76 (In passing, Lansingburgh is ranked 54th and
Queensbury is 55th) *********** "Coach, I just wanted give you
update on how our team is doing this season. We
played the # 20 ranked team in USA Today (Gilman
School ) yesterday at Curley. Our kids played
extremely well in a 30 - 20 defeat. Gilman has
three players who are MAJOR COLLEGE prospects with
offers from Notre Dame, Florida State and Stanford.
Gilman has defeated Dematha, Urbana HS (which had a
50 game winning streak in the state of Maryland)
41-6 and several other strong schools by blowouts.
We were down by 10 points with 7 minutes left in
the game. This with a quarterback who is limited
throwing football. We rushed for 278 yards, while
completing only one pass. We are currently 3-2,
averaging around 300 yards per game rushing and
scoring close to 30 points per game. Our JV team is
undefeated at 4-0. They defeated a very strong
Gilman JV team 22-0 on Thursday. Those critics who
say you can't win or compete against the big
schools running the Double Wing should ask our
kids. Gilman school had two defensive ends both
over 6'5'' /250 and a 280 pound defensive tackle.
The have a D-back, Ambrose Wooden who was clocked
at a 4.3 - 40 at the Ohio State Camp. We may have
2- 1-AA prospects, with 9 players going both ways.
The offense started to wear Gilman down in the 4th
quarter. They were confused defensively and
frustrated by the fact that we were moving the
football on the ground. Gilman knew we were limited
throwing the football, but we still managed to keep
them guessing. I'm really proud of players and
coaches and want to thank you for designing a great
offense." Sean Murphy, Head Football Coach,
Archbishop Curley HS, Baltimore, Maryland *********** "Coach, We purchased your tackling
video and are 1/2 way through our 1st season of
using it. It really has improved our tackling! "As I'm sure you know, a coach doesn't need a
tackling video to get his best 2 or 3 kids to
tackle. They do it naturally. What the video does
do is show how to get ALL of the kids to
tackle. "That had always been my problem. In years past,
after one of my studs ran over those guys, they
wanted nothing to do with tackling someone who was
going to hurt them. Now they learn how to do it
correctly. And they enjoy it . Thanks again."
Marlowe Aldrich, Billings, Montana *********** "When I was a senior at Augustana
(IL) College in 1988 we were playing a crucial
conference game at Millikin University, another
team that knows how to run the ball. Several of our
players had long cleats on, including me, and were
ordered to take them off right before kickoff. Our
QB was stretching out at midfield while Carl
Poelker, the Millikin coach, spotted long cleats on
our him While conferencing with the officials. We
barely made it back to the game field by
kickoff. "Needless to say our coach, Bob Reade, was not a
happy man. In our film session on Monday Coach
Reade scolded us and said he would return all the
national championship trophies Augie had won, 4 at
the time, if he felt they were earned with an
illegal edge in equipment or through the use of
steroids. Being a member of the AFCA rules
committee at that time, with Tubby Raymond and
others, he was especially sensitive to the rules
and ethics. "That situation made an impact on me and many of
my teammates and it is very important that all
victories here at Oregon are earned above board and
with honor and sportsmanship. I hope every coach
has had a lesson like that in his career." John
Bothe, Oregon, Illinois (Coach Bob Reade was one
of Illinois' greatest high school coaches at
Geneseo High, and then became one of the greatest
of all college coaches, at Augustana. HW) *********** Rich Gannon is a very good football
player. But he is also a hook-slider. What an
abomination that rule is. Sunday, Gannon sat in the
pocket for three or four seconds and then decided
to run. He is a very dangerous runner. But at the
instant he ran into trouble, he hook-slid. I mean,
he was down on the deck like that. And the
Bills' London Fletcher hit him as he slid. Not
hard. It was more like covering him than hitting
him. But BAM! 15 yards against Fletcher. Personal
Foul. "Hitting the quarterback after he
slides." Can you believe that crap? The old geezers
didn't wear dresses. We all used to hold our
breaths whenever Unitas ran, because we knew what
might happen to him. Wonder what Unitas thought
about hook-sliding? *********** A question I get asked with
depressing frequency: What do you do when they shut
down your super power? That is why there are traps, counters,
sweeps and play-action passes. HOW LUCKY FOR US
THAT YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT FOOTBALL! IT
JUST SO HAPPENS THAT THE COACHING STAFF
CAN USE YOUR HELP! BE AT PRACTICE MONDAY
AFTERNOON WITH YOUR OFFENSE AND YOUR
DEFENSE AND A PRACTICE PLAN, AND THE TEAM
WILL BE YOURS FOR TWO HOURS! (REMEMBER TO
BRING ASSISTANTS.) IN THE MEANTIME, PLEASE
GIVE ME YOUR HOME PHONE NUMBER SO I CAN
GIVE IT OUT TO FANS AND
PARENTS *********** Coach -- I have to admit -- before I
met you and started reading your stuff every week
-- AND -- buying your Safe Tackling tape, I would
have thought "yeah..this Coach is right on" -- but
now, all I thought when I read this article was
"wow..this kid is going to get seriously injured --
AND -- this Coach better have a good lawyer! You've
taught me a lot, Coach -- Thanks. Scott Barnes,
Rockwall, Texas (who sent me the following article,
which I've had to alter to remove names): "That's a football player's helmet," the
coach says. He then pulls out (Player Z's) ugly helmet,
its once-smooth exterior a distant memory, its
purple paint gouged off in big chunks, its white
facemask battered. "Now THAT'S a hitter's helmet." (Z), the (Y) middle linebacker, just sits
there, nodding in a matter-of-fact manner that
camouflages the controlled fury he exhibits on
the football field. "I'm hoping they'll let me keep that helmet,"
he says. He is playing with a pinched nerve in his
back. Once this season, he suffered a stinger
during a collision that left him momentarily
without feeling in his feet. You can't recognize the ignorance in others
until you know something yourself. *********** C-ya... The faculty of Gardner-Webb
University has voted no confidence in the school's
president, M. Christopher White, after he admitted
to circumventing the school's honor code to
maintain the eligibility of a basketball player.
"The honor of the university is at stake, and it
needed to be reasserted by the faculty," said
Phillip Williams, assistant vice president for
academic affairs. "There is no justification for
bending the honor code in this way. I'm distressed
for Dr. White and his family, and this is a painful
situation, but these are core values at this
university that simply cannot be compromised." Knowing the price that George O'Leary had to
pay, I would insist that such dishonesty at the
highest level - the level that passes judgment on
George O'Leary and you and me - calls for thirty
lashes. Well laid-on. By George O'Leary. *********** Regarding the teacher's strike in
International Falls. I grew up in Littlefork, MN (
10 miles south of I.F. ) still have a lot of family
up there. It is a very tough union town, there are
still hard feelings over the strike 10 years ago.
Last fall the voters passed an operating levy last
fall for textbook and technology upgrades. This
will probably kill any chance for future
referendums. The players are conducting practice at the local
community college fields. A sheriff's deputy, who
was a volunteer assistant is supervising the
practices. The kids conduct practices without
knowing if they will get to play again. The head
coach and assistant coaches have not crossed the
picket lines. The head coach Stu Nordquist is on
the state's all time wins list, 34 years 233 wins.
Other than having a player pass away, that would be
about the worst thing to deal with as a coach. I
think I would keep working if I was a coach, the
kids made a commitment to you, it would seem like
you are walking out on them. Already, the Broncos lost their big game with
Proctor ( other conference favorite ) their
homecoming game Friday past, the teachers and board
did not settle this Sunday during a mediation
session. No new talks have been scheduled, so this
Friday looks in doubt as well. 10 years ago the strike occurred in the winter,
and the extra curricular activities continued, but
they were picketed, so this time the administration
said no sports. The shitty thing is both sides are
using the kids, as leverage, both sides know how
big football is up there. Take care, Mick Yanke,
Cokato, Minnesota *********** Your boy, Joey Harrington, is making
the Detroit Lions a bunch of happy campers. You
ought to see what the other players say about him
to reporters. Bill Livingstone, Troy, Michigan *********** Talk about a class act. Don Capaldo,
of Keokuk, Iowa, built a football program in a
basketball town. He is taking this season off
(although he was tempted by an offer to spend the
year back East at a strong Double-Wing program) and
enjoying leisure time that he never knew
existed. But he wanted to retain a little contact with
the program at Keokuk yet not be seen as
interfering with the new coach, and he found a
great solution: thanks to his efforts, the Black
Lion Award is a very big deal in Keokuk, with a
full page in the program explaining the award and
its meaning, and Don has agreed to administer the
Black Lion Award for the team, including locating
and contacting a Black Lion veteran to present the
award at the team's banquet. Jim has been kind enough
to provide me with early drafts, and I have read
most of it with great interest. It provided me with
a very interesting look at the inner workings of an
Army under combat conditions, and although Jim
would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier
General before retiring, it is not written in the
jargon that military people often seem to use when
communicating with each other. In the interest of
complete authenticity, the description and the
dialogue can get gritty. Here's an excerpt(If you
can't deal with the way real people sometimes talk
under less than ideal conditions, consider yourself
forewarned.) A few moments later the
battalion communi cations officer, a salty old
captain, dived on top of me. We looked at each
other, and both started laughing -hysterically.
He then went for one of the radios. I laid there
for a moment in the dark of the bottom of the
hole. I looked up and saw a face glowing in the
dark above. It was the face of my brother, Ned.
He had been killed in an automobile accident in
1960, seven years before, when I had been a
lieutenant in Korea. His face was clear to me
there -glowing -and he was smiling. It was only
for an instant. The communication's officer's
voice on his radio broke my trance. I got on the
battalion operations net and called the
companies. I told them, "open fire - open fire.
Don't just sit there - open fire - drop some
rounds down the mortar tubes - do something."
The enemy fire had ceased. It
had only been about five minutes since the
claymores had gone off. But no one -no one
inside our perimeter had fired a round. Here we
were -a whole infantry battalion, locked and
loaded. Nine mortars ready to fire. And we
hadn't fired one round in return fire.
Unbelievable! And now -after I had called on the
radio -still no fire. I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't fire my .45 cal pistol from the
center of the perimeter. I got on the brigade
operations net. I called, "Dagger 3, Dagger 3,
this is Dauntless 3, over." The reply,
"Dauntless 3, this is Dagger 6, can you give us
a sitrep?" It was Colonel Chuck Thebaud, the 2d
Brigade Commander. I had worked for him in a
past assignment and it was good to hear his
voice. I said, "Dagger 6, Dauntless
3. We have been attacked by unknown size enemy
force with claymores and automatic weapons.
Request gunships and flareship." He asked me if we had
casualties and I told him I did not know but I
would call him back. He told me, "take it easy,
help is on the way." I then received a report that
one man had been killed and several others
wounded. I called back to Dagger and asked them
to send a dustoff (aeromedical evacuation
chopper) to our location ASAP. As I looked from my hole I
saw someone about 50 meters away holding up a
large flashlight. I didn't think that was very
smart. I ran over to the light and shouted, "hey
you dumb bastard, shut that light out."
The reply came back, "fuck
you. Who the hell are you?" I replied, "I'm Major
Shelton, Dauntless 3 -who are you?" He said, "I'm Captain Swink,
the battalion surgeon, and I need the light."
I said, "OK" and went back to
the radio. I had never met the battalion
surgeon, Jim Swink. After this battle I was to
learn that he was the same Jim Swink who was an
All American tailback at Texas Christian
University in the early 50's when I was playing
in college at Delaware. His picture had been on
the cover of every football magazine in the
country. He had gone to medical school after TCU
and was serving his time in the Army when he was
sent to RVN. He had gone immediately to treat
the wounded that night and had been hit by small
arms fire in the shoulder. He continued to treat
the wounded although he was wounded, and when I
had called to him he was bleeding from the
wound. He received a Silver Star for his cool
actions that night, working with the wounded
though wounded himself. *********** Last year, several coaches were able
to contact Black Lions vets living near them to
present the Black Lion Award at their team's
banquet. Some invited them to attend a game, and
still others asked them to say a few words to their
kids. One coach even invited a Black Lion to talk
to his classes about Vietnam. TIME'S RUNNING SHORT...
Thanks to the efforts of some great people, the
Black Lion Award was established last year. I can't
imagine why a coach wouldn't want his kids to be
trying to win the Black Lion Award. It's not too
late to sign up for this year. E-mail me
now. BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME - coachwyatt@aol.com -
AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM FOR 2002! ***********Cave Spring Stampede 37-0 over
Cave Spring Crusaders.Highlight of the day
for me was seeing last years Black Lion Award
winner with it on his right shoulder.Also we
ran the wedge for 4 minutes,and 26
seconds.Couple of first downs and almost had
ball the entire 4th quarter. Armando Castro-
Roanoke, Virginia Hello Coach....I hope this finds you well.
I'd like to enroll my team for the 2002 season
and the Black Lion Award. I told my kids last
night the story of Don Holleder and the Black
Lions, and introduced last years award winner
Jeff Ball. He'll be wearing the Black Lion
patch on his jersey this year. John
Urbaniak- Hanover Park, Illinois TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT
REAL HEROES - *********** At the Parents' meeting, I explained
that I do not give out individual awards (like
stars on the helmets and such), but that I do give
one award, and explained the Black Lion award.
P.P.S. Know of any Black Lions around this area?
Jody Hagins, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (Good
question - I have requested a listing of the
members of the 28th Infantry Association - the
Black Lions - by location. If I am successful, I
should be able to furnish you names of men to
contact to help present your award. HW) (IF YOU WERE ENROLLED IN 2001,
YOU MUST RE-ENROLL) BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME -
coachwyatt@aol.com - AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM
FOR 2002! inscribed on the wall
of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton,
Ilinois *********** CORRECTION: Thanks to a question
from a youth coach (whom I won't name on the chance
that his opponents might be peeking), I have found
an error in the playbook. On page 51, the
quarterback's instructions should read, "Reverse
out to 5 (five) o'clock" not 3 o'clock, as it now
reads. Please make the change in your book. I
apologize for the error. Jim Martin went to Cleveland's East Technical
High, famous for producing track greats Jesse Owens
and Harrison Dillard. At 19, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps,
serving in the South Pacific where he won a Bronze
Star for Valor. After college, he wound up at Notre Dame, part
of an amazing class of athletes that would not lose
a game in four years. Only ties with Army (0-0 in
1946) and USC (14-14 in 1948) marred the Irish
record during that time, as they won national
titles in 1946, 1947 and 1949, and finished second
in 1948. There are those who claim that the 1947
was the greatest college team of all time. During their first two years there, Notre Dame
was never once behind in a game! This week's player played on the opposite end of
the line from Hart for four years. He himself was
an All-American, as were no fewer than eight of his
teammates: Hart, George Connor, Ziggy Czarobski,
Bill Fischer, Johnny Lujack, Emil Sitko, George
Strohmeyer and Bobby Williams. Two of those players
- Lujack, in 1947, and Hart, in 1949, won the
Heisman Trophy. As a pro rookie in 1950, he played on the
Cleveland Browns' championship team in their first
year in the NFL; traded to Detroit after one
season, he stayed with the Lions for 11 seasons,
playing on three NFL championship teams. At one time or another during his NFL career,
Martin played six different positions: Center,
Guard, Offensive Tackle, Defensive End, Outside
Linebacker and Middle Linebacker. Actually, by
today's standards, it would be seven, since he also
place-kicked. (He kicked 56 field goals in his
career, and once told me that he learned to be a
place-kicker with his wife holding for him.) He finished out his career in 1963 after brief
stops in Baltimore and Washington, and then, after
14 years in the NFL, went into coaching. After a
season at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, he moved on
to Idaho State, but after a year there was hired by
his old teammate, Joe Schmidt, to coach the
defensive line for the Lions. (One of the players
he coached was the legendary Alex Karras, a very
good football player who gained even more fame as
an an actor - remember Mongo, in "Blazing
Saddles?") He coached with the Lions for seven years, until
Schmidt resigned and the staff was let go, and
after a year in business, was hired by another
former Notre Damer, Dick Coury, to coach the
offensive line for the Portland Storm in the World
Football League. After a rough first year, the
Storm went out of business (along with most other
WFL clubs), and a new ownership group tried
reviving the team for another go as the Portland
Thunder. Dick Coury moved on, but Jim Martin was
retained. That's where our paths crossed. I was assistant
general manager and PR director of the Thunder, and
Jim was our offensive line coach. We were not
exactly a top-heavy organization, so everyone
worked pretty closely and we all got to know each
other pretty well. If I had to characterize Jim in
a few words, I would say he was truly a Man's
Man. The offensive linemen loved him. The amazing
thing was that six of the players who had played
with him on the Storm hung around Portland after
the Storm folded, in hopes of playing for him
again. They were a tight bunch, and he had a
nickname for every one of them. He called Alan Graf
"Walrus," for his drooping mustache. (Graf, a
former USC linemen, was even then getting started
in the movies, playin bit parts. He has since done
okay. You may have seen his name if you stick
around to watch movie credits, because among other
jobs, he was stunt coordinator for "We Were
Soldiers" - if you saw the movie, you realize that
it involved some serious stunt work.) I will never forget the time in 1975 when we
were flying back from an away game. No charters for
us - we flew commercial everywhere we went. The one
concession we made for the bigger guys was that
we'd buy three seats for every two of them. We had
to stop someplace - I think it was Milwaukee, but
it doesn't matter - and a bunch of the guys got off
(there wasn't a lot of thought given to security in
those days, other than being careful not to say the
word "bomb" loud enough for anybody to hear you) to
walk around. When everyone re-boarded, someone mentioned that
J.J. was missing. "J.J." was a little running back
named J.J. Hartstein, who supposedly played at
Arizona State, although I could find no record of
it. (When you've coached minor league football, as
I had, where players customarily, uh, "embellish"
their backgrounds, you tend to do some
checking.) He was quite a character, and it was not
surprising that he would be the one missing. He was
also well-liked, and Jim Martin, evidently feeling
a personal obligation to worry about the lost
sheep, stood up and notified the flight attendants
(they were still called stewardesses then) that
J.J. was not on board, and we couldn't leave
without him. Naturally, they asked him to sit down, but he
refused to do so, saying "We can't leave without
J.J." The flight attendants gave up and headed toward
the front of the plane. Soon enough, someone from the airline a bit more
official boarded the plane and came back to our
section. He walked up to Jim, who stood there in
the aisle, and started to give him the, "Sir, I'm
going to have to ask you to sit down" speech that
I'm sure all airline personnel learn by heart in
training. The guy was normal-sized, maybe 5-11 and 175
pounds or so. Jim Martin was at least 6-3, at least
250, and hard. He was 51 at that time, and I think
we could easily have sneaked him into a game
without anyone noticing. He inched closer to the
guy, close enough so the guy could feel his breath
on his forehead. His face grew red and the veins in
his neck were bulging and he gritted his teeth. I
looked down and noticed that his fists were
clenched. "We're not goin' anywhere without J.J.,"
he snarled. Oh, sh--. I thought. We're going to be spending
the night here. But as the guy turned to get the air marshals or
whatever the hell they called them back in those
days, he bumped into none other than J.J.
Hartstein. "What's going on?" J.J. asked. "Hey - where the hell have you been?" at least a
dozen voices asked at the same time. "Up front. Talking to a girl I met." End of story. The airline guy, spared the
confrontation, shrugged his shoulders and left. J.
J. went back to the girl, Jim Martin sat down, and
we took off. Correctly identifying Jim Martin - Keith
Babb - Northbrook, Illinois - ("The end opposite of
Leon Hart in those glory years of Notre Dame
football was Jungle Jim Martin. Not only was he
co-captain of the 1949 team, he won the George Gipp
award given to Notre Dame's most outstanding
athlete in 1949 - the same year Hart won the
Heisman. While researching Mr. Martin, I found the
following story that I thought you might enjoy.
This could only happen at Notre Dame: "
<http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/reflect/martin.html>
)... Kevin McCullough- Culver, Indiana... Adam
Wesoloski- Pulaski, Wisconsin... Scott Russell-
Potomac Falls, Virginia... Greg Stout- Thompson's
Station, Tennessee... Steve Staker- Fredericksburg,
Iowa... Mark Kaczmarek- Davenport, Iowa... John
Muckian, Lynn, Massachusetts... Michael Morris,
Huntsville, Alabama... Mike O'Donnell- Pine City,
Minnesota... Joe Daniels- Sacramento... *********** Oregon football - football in
general - lost a great human being, with the
passing this week of Len Casanova, long-time coach
of the Ducks. Coach Casanova was 97. Cas was the guy who brought Oregon football into
the modern era, and when he retired after 16
seasons as the Ducks' coach, he never left Eugene.
His former players revered him. I never met anyone
who knew him who didn't love him. Two of his former players - Mel Renfro and Dave
Wilcox - made it to the Pro Football hall of Fame.
Four of his former players - John Robinson, John
McKay, Gunther Cunningham and Jack Patera - became
NFL head coaches. McKay and Robinson made USC a
national power. Another of his players, Bruce
Snyder, went on to coach at Cal and Arizona State.
One of his assistants, George Seifert, won two
Super Bowls with the 49ers. Coach Casanova always said that he believed his
role as his players' coach was to "take care of
them academically and athletically and to be there
for them. I was always interested in their personal
life, how they were getting along, making sure they
didn't get into trouble. I just wanted to be around
them." "He genuinely cared about us as players," Coach
Robinson remembered. "He would get on our butt if
we didn't go to church, and if you didn't go to
school, he would darn near punch you out. That was
the type of man you were dealing with. He was just
a guy you didn't want to screw up with. " "He had so much goodness in him," recalled Joe
Schaffeld, who played under Coach Casanova and
later coached defensive linemen at Oregon for more
than 20 years. "The main fact was that he cared
about you. It didn't matter if you were on the
first or third team, he cared. The more you knew
him, the more you respected him. He'd watch over
you, and five, 10, even 20 years later, if things
were not right, he'd let you know." Oh, he could be firm. "You would rather get in
trouble with your parents or the president of the
University, said Hall-of-Famer Wilcox. "When Cas
called you into his office, it was serious." But his players loved him so much that in 1985,
Schaffeld, Wilcox and other former Ducks raised
$50,000 to pay off the mortgage on their old
coach's house, and send Coach Casanova and his wife
on a trip to Europe. Coach Casanova wasn't a bad fund-raiser himself.
It was said that no one had the heart to say no to
him, so the Oregon athletic department frequently
used him as its "closer." A story is told of the
time Cas and associate AD Hern Yamanaka called on a
wealthy alum, who knew they were coming and met
them at the door with a check for $5,000. The story
goes that Coach Casanova tore up the check, smiled,
and said, "I came here for $10,000." In 1991, the University opened the Casanova
Center, an impressive athletic complex that
overlooks the stadium. When Herb Yamanaka took him
on a tour of the building after its completion, he
turned to his old friend and, Yamanake recalled,
said, "What the hell'd you do this for?" His teams were known for their toughness and
soundness. "People say the game has changed now,"
he said in 2000, "but to me it's still a game of
tackling and blocking." He used to tell his
blockers to hold their fists against their chests
and use their arms as if they were flippers on a
pinball machine. Perhaps the highest point of his career was a
loss. Heavy underdogs to Number-one ranked Ohio
State in the 1958 Rose Bowl, the Ducks took the
Buckeyes to the wire, losing only 10-7. So gallant
was the underdogs Ducks' performance, he recalled
later, that "at the end of the game, I think we
even had Ohio State people cheering for us." Perhaps the greatest tributes to Coach Casanova
came from Rich Brooks and Mike Bellotti, the two
coaches who have built Oregon into a national
power. Brooks had some tough going when he first
arrived at Oregon. "Cas was extremely supportive
and helpful to me in my 18 years at Oregon," he
said, "particularly in the early years, when things
weren't going so well. When people were taking
shots, he was always there with an arm around you,
a pat on the back, and a kind word for you." Said Bellotti, the current Ducks' coach, "I
learned how you care about people in the role of a
football coach from him. Len Casanova is a guy I
have tried to emulate as a coach." *********** With the hurricane bearing down on
Louisiana, area high school games have been called
off. But LSU still plans on playing Saturday night.
Meantime, I wonder about all those partyers who
normally start rolling into the Tiger Stadium
parking lot on Thursday. Will they still show up as
usual? Meantime, I heard on ESPN that Nebraska, badly
in need of good news, got some when it learned that
tailback Thunder Collins would be eligible for this
week's game. (Uh, does anybody else think it's
strange that a guy is just unquestioningly called
"Thunder?" Used to be that you earned a nickname. I
think of an earlier Cornhusker nicknamed Thunder
Thornton. What has this guy Thunder Collins
done?) But actually, the best news that Nebraska got
was that McNeese State, located in Lake Charles,
Louisiana, had managed to beat the hurricane out of
town and will be in Lincoln Saturday to play the
Cornhuskers. *********** A coach wrote me and asked if I was
interested in seeing some Double-Wing-killer
defense that some guy had posted on the Web. I
declined, and here's what I wrote: To be honest with you, I don't spend any time at
all on those posts. Everybody on there has had
"great success" against the Double-Wing thanks to
hs miracle defense. Yeah, and he can also show you
how to grow hair, lose weight and hit a golf ball
straight. In the last ten years or so, I have coached
against some very good coaches who have spent a lot
of time studying what we do, discussing what we do
with other very good coaches and taking their best
shot at us. Some have succeeded at times, some
haven't. Double-Wing teams do lose. It happens. Other Double-Wing coaches I know have had pretty
much the same experience. There really isn't anything new or exciting that
hasn't been tried against us. What it comes down to is what I have said for
years- the team that does the best job of stopping
the Double-Wing is the Double-Wing team itself. The
best way to stop the Double-Wing is by turnovers,
foolish penalties, and dumb-ass calls. They are all
within the power of the Double-Wing coach to
control. No offense in the world innoculates a
coach against having to work hard and work smart to
keep his team from beating itself. Given that you're not going to beat yourself,
the best defense is a sound, well-coached, proven
defense with good people at every position. It
doesn't matter whether it is a 4-4, 4-3, 6-2, 6-3,
6-5, 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 7-1 - if they are well-prepared
and have better people than you have, or your team
is not well prepared and you don't manage the game
well, you are probably going to lose. When that happens, the winning coach may very
well head directly to the Web and boast that he's
had "great success" against the Double-Wing with
his miracle scheme; the losing coach may very well
blame his defeat on the defensive scheme. Moral:
"There are no
miracle coaches, and no coach has any great secrets
or any unsolvable plays that make him successful.
The successful coaches are those who know how to
handle men, who pay great attention to a thorough
teaching of the rudiments of the game, who have a
comparatively few basic plays which they can teach
their teams to execute flawlessly, and who have
good material to work with." Glenn S. "Pop" Warner,
"Football for Coaches and Players"
1927 *********** This was sent to me by a friend in
Canada. He received it from a fellow high school
coach who sent it to all coaches in his league: I thought I had seen it all .. but.. Last
night... Last 35 seconds of the game ....We had
just scored a "self respect" touchdown on what I
assume was their backups on defence to bring the
score to 30 - 20 in their favor, 35 seconds or so left... so most teams would
take the ball and down it .. shake hands and go
home.. right?? Of course, now we have our THIRD string
players in ... (2 girls playing corner..) They come out with their starting offense and
beats one of my girls for a 60 yard touchdown
pass... not a little flare pass but a 30 yard
over-the-top bomb.. On the following kickoff .. I asked the ref
how much time was left.. he said TWELVE
seconds.. they kick off.. we immediately take a
knee to stop the clock.. and proceed to attempt
2 long bombs of our own.. but of course didn't
make it.. Oh and .. you gotta know that the final score
was thirty-EIGHT - 20. They kept their first
string in after their touchdown and ran a 2
point convert and beat the same girl on a pass.
With (by this time) TWELVE seconds left in the
game.. Maybe I'm getting too old for this.. *********** Don't know whether you saw, but I
guess Joe Pa didn't get that letter of reprimand
put in his file. *********** There's an old saying that the lie
travels a thousand miles while the truth is still
lacing up its boots. A couple of weeks ago, the Portland Oregonian
gave space on its op-ed page to a guy named Steven
Simpson, identified only as "a high school teacher"
from Snoqualmie, Washington. Mr. Simpson used the
valuable space to attack football. I haven't the slightest idea what this
individual's credentials were for being given space
normally accorded to national columnists, or why an
unknown high school teacher from 200 miles away
would be given such a platform, but his two main
arguments were that football promotes violence in
those who play it, and that football is overly
dangerous. It's easy to dismiss the former argument,
because whether football promotes violence in the
people who play it is merely a matter of opinion on
which we disagree. I grant that I am unable to
produce facts to refute the charge, but I don't
have to. The burden of proof is on Mr. Simpson, the
one making the claim, and the fact is that no proof
exists to support it. On the latter point, however - that football is
overly dangerous - he did offer his readers with
some "proof." It had shock value, but it was
grossly wrong. Mr. Simpson wrote, "according to the Brain
Injury Association, 20 per cent of all high school
players (I assume he meant high school football
players) sustain brain injuries each season." Now, merely applying the test of reasonableness
to such a figure, it is absurd on its face. If one
player in five were to sustain a brain injury every
season, there would be serious calls for shutting
down our game. Reluctantly, as a former coach who
now coaches other coaches, I might even find myself
joining in the chorus. But it's just not so. I am only one coach, but in 25+ years of
coaching high school football, fewer than five of
my players have exhibited symptoms of even Grade-1
(least severe) concussions. None required
hospitalization. None experienced a recurrence. And
my experience is not unusual. During that time, I
have seen the game grow safer, as equipment has
improved, rules promoting safe play have been
instituted, and coaches have been better trained in
issues of safety. Suspicious, I went to the Brain Injury
Association's site, where I found the statement in
question. It was a flat-out statement of fact,
supported only by a footnoted reference to an
undated article by couple of neurologists, Drs.
Rosenberg and Kelly, entitled "Diagnosis and
Management of Concussion in Sports." An extensive
search came up with articles by the doctors in
question, but the statistics were not theirs; they,
in fact, were citing figures from a study roughly
20 years old. So Mr. Simpson was getting his figures
third-hand - from a site which got its figures from
an article, which apparently got its figures from a
1983 study. The doctors quite rightly used the best
figures available to them at the time; the Brain
Injury Association, however, had no business citing
a secondary source - the doctors' article - to
support its figures. The responsibility of a
researcher is to cite the primary source - in this
case, the same study the doctors relied on. (I must admit I became somewhat suspicious of
the reliability of the Brain Injury Association as
an authority, when I read the helpful hint just
under the "20 per cent" statistic: "A helmet helps
prevent a brain injury from occurring.) There was one place where I knew I could get a
straight answer - the University of North
Carolina's National Center for Catastrophic Sports
Injury Research, the nation's leading clearing
house for information on serious brain and spinal
injuries. Dr. Fred Mueller, its executive director,
is the person most prominently quoted nationally on
issues of football safety. I had corresponded with Dr. Mueller in the past,
and I knew that he of all people would be able to
tell me if there was any truth to Mr. Simpson's
figures. Dr. Mueller went to work immediately, and
here was his response: "Also if you look at my web site
www.unc.edu/depts/nccsi look at the football
report from 1931 to 2001 and it will show you
how the number of brain deaths have been reduced
dramatically from the 1960's." The Five-to-six per cent figure sounds more
reasonable to anyone who has spent time around the
game. One concussion of some degree per season for
every 16-20 players. Two in the course of a season
on an average-size squad of 33-40 players. Not to
minimize those injuries, because every brain injury
must be taken very seriously, but that doesn't
exactly indicate a level of risk comparable to the
one Mr. Simpson almost gloatingly portrayed to the
Oregonian's readers. It is obvious that Mr. Simpson, armed with the
statistic he wanted, didn't see any need to dig any
deeper than the headline on the Brain Injury
Association's page. And the Oregonian was taken in
by Mr. Simpson. And, worst of all, as a result of
the article, so were the Oregonian's readers, who
trust a paper to get it right. I suspect that in the aftermath of the tragic
death of a little 10-year old girl in Illinois,
they were receptive to printing an anti-football
article. There was quite a bit of piling on taking
place. I wrote the Oregonian that in a time of
near-hysteria, the reading public depended on a
newspaper to check its sources, which meant
checking the credentials of Mr. Simpson, and the
reliability of his figures. I wrote that they owed an apology - conspicuous
and prominent - to their readers and to those of us
who find ourselves having to defend our game
against the likes of Mr. Simpson. Their response was to direct me to the Brain
Injury Association's erroneous statistic. They couldn't have been less interested in Dr.
Mueller's figures debunking it. They gave my rebuttal a brief posting on their
online "letters to the editor." Thanks a lot. The truth is still lacing up its
boots. *********** Sometimes you want to throw your
hands up and say, "what's the use?" Oregon law
prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies
from using resources to find or detain people whose
only crime is a violation of immigration law.
("Only crime?") *********** When Stanford basketball player
Kasey Jacobson, who left to join the circus, er,
NBA, started out a sentence by saying, "Me and
Coach Montgomery..." Bud Geracie of the San Jose
Mercury News commented, " he should have stayed in
school." *********** If you doubted that a large number
of teenagers are out of control... Oregon, like many other states, has placed
restrictions on young first-time drivers. Since it
did so, in 2000, the number of accidents involving
16-year-old drivers in which there has been a
fatality or an injury has dropped by one-third. Nevertheless, despite the law, which says that
16- and 17-year-old drivers may not transport
anyone younger than 20 - unless they're immediate
family members - until they've had their licenses
for six months, there are still plenty of kids
willing to defy the law and tempt fate. Last month
one of them, despite having had his license less
than two months, killed himself and a friend, and
injured four other kids. None of the kids was older
than 17. At the heart of the problem are parents who seem
either willing to abet the lawbreaking or helpless
to control their own kids. One parent of a friend
of the dead teenagers said the new law is tough on
parents. "How do you as a parent enforce it?" she asked
the Portland Oregonian. "Do you follow them? That
is not reasonable." Tsk, tsk. What's a mother to do? *********** Coach Wyatt, I just wanted to let
you know that I we won our first game of the season
last night 14-8. It was my first win as a head
coach after being an assistant for 13 years. We
ripped a 50 yarder on 3 trap @ 4 and scored on 47
XX and 99 power. The other team was keying on our A
back and was playing a junk overloaded defense away
from the A back to take away the 88 power play.
This made it easy to run counter plays! Thanks for
the encouragement. I heard their coach keep saying,
" we have to stop that wing T formation." I kept
telling their chain crew that we don't run wing t
its called the double wing! We also were able to
run a little stack I formation that the kids loved!
Dan King, Riverside Middle Eagles, Evans Ga *********** I think the kids might have a case
if they claimed entrapment.... Last Friday, game day, our local newspaper, the
Vancouver Columbian, chose to feature a kid from
one of the area high schools who had a real
quandary last summer - whether to stay at that high
school, Battle Ground High, for his senior year, or
transfer to another area high school, Mountain View
High, whose wide-open passing attack might better
showcase him to the colleges. The kid is a 6-5 tight end, and I gather he is a
decent football player. Transferring, where sports are concerned, is not
all that easy in Washington. The kids' parents - or
at least one of them - must move into the new
school's district, and the kid must live there. It appears that mom and dad may have shopped him
around a little, but after talking with his coaches
and "recruiters," the kid decided to stay at Battle
Ground. (Question: what "recruiter" from any
reputable college, who intended to continue
recruiting in this area, would have recommended
that he transfer?) Meantime, though, guess who Battle Ground was
playing Friday night, the day the story appeared?
You guessed it - Mountain View, the school that
he'd talked about transferring to. (Which, of
course, was what made it such a juicy story for the
Columbian's reporter.) Not only that, but the game was a sort of
game-of-the-week deal, played in Portland's PGE
Park, and the geniuses in Portland, who evidently
don't know a whole lot about high school kids, put
the Mountain View student section right behind the
Battle Ground bench. And the Mountain View kids, being normal kids
and having read the article in the morning paper,
evidently gave it to the kid in question pretty
good, maybe even using some foul language. And who
should be covering the game, down on the Battle
Ground sideline, right in front of the Mountain
View kids, but a reporter from the Columbian. And that is how the Columbian managed to get two
stories for the price of one, first running a story
that riled the Mountain View kids by glorifying a
rival who, it could be argued, dissed their school,
then running a second story, a full-length column
in Wednesday's sports section, ripping the Mountain
View kids for their lack of sportsmanship at the
game. *********** It took quite a performance to
overshadow Centralia, Washington's Chris Hamilton,
who completed 22 of 32 for 438 yards and 4
touchdowns last Friday night. But Jonathan Stewart
did just that. Stewart, a sophomore running back from
Timberline High of Lacey, had rushed for 270 yards
in each of his first two games. Last Friday, against Centralia, he kicked it up
a notch, carrying 31 times for 422 yards and eight
touchdowns. *********** Only in New Jersey... Rutgers, the state university, continues to sag
in the polls. With only one win - over winless Army
- and facing the distinct possibility of going
winless the rest of the way, school officials have
announced that if the Scarlet Knights are more than
14 points behind West Virginia at halftime this
Saturday, they will be replaced. One rumored replacement: the New York Giants'
Super Bowl champions of 1990, last New Jersey
football team to win anything. Members of the 1990 Giants are said to be
interested. *********** If you could eavesdrop on the
prayers of a 64-year-old football coach you would
hear "...and thank you, Lord, for not letting Al
Gore steal the election. Amen." *********** I was going through some old
magazines, and I came across "Colts 1972," The
Baltimore Sun's pre-season look at the Colts.
Naturally, there was an article about John (yes,
John - nobody in Baltimore called him Johnny)
Unitas, by long-time Sun sports writer Cameron
Snyder. Snyder talked about what a straight arrow Unitas
was - "He doesn't smoke, doesn't overeat, doesn't
keep late hours and drinks nothing stronger than
beer." But this one cracked me up. At a time when young
men were letting their hair grow past their
shoulders, Unitas remained hard-core, "He frowns on
long hair," Snyder wrote. In the locker room after a Colts' game, he once
told Robert Kennedy's young son, "Get your hair cut
or you'll look like the rest of the Kennedys." *********** Barbara Streisand stood up in from
of a gaggle of Democrats recently and extracted
millions of dollars in donations from them by
singing for them and reciting Shakespeare. Well, it
wasn't actually Shakespeare. More like Fakespeare.
See, she's a busy person, and she couldn't be
bothered with actually reading the works of the
Bard, so she (or more likely a speechwriter)
located a "Shakespeare" passage someplace on the
Web, and - since she also couldn't be bothered with
checking it for its authenticity - went ahead and
ran with it. Here's what she said... for patriotism is indeed a double-edged
sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as
it narrows the mind… 'And when the drums of war have reached a
fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and
the mind has closed, the leader will have no
need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and
blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of
their rights unto the leader, and gladly
so. 'How do I know? 'For this is what I have done. 'And I am Caesar." Imagine - that was written over 400 years
ago… It's amazing how history without
consciousness is destined to repeat itself." Yeah, Barbara - imagine. Shakespeare sure could
see right through this George W. Bush guy, couldn't
he? Except that the passage, so very convenient and
timely, is - like you - a total phony. So how come the media let you get away with this
but they crucify George O'Leary? *********** The administrators got Bobby
Valentine. Just two years after he'd taken the Mets to
their second consecutive playoff appearance - their
first such back-to-back finish in team history - he
finished out of the running and thereby gave the
administrators the reason they needed to get rid of
him. Believe me, most coaches - and baseball managers
- don't get fired for losing. They get fired
because they did or said something that pissed
somebody off, and losing gives that somebody the
excuse to fire them. This year, the Mets finished last in the
National League East, their first below- .500
finish in six seasons, and despite owner Fred
Wilpon's repeated insistence that Valentine would
be retained for the final year of his contract,
Wilpon waited just two days after the end of the
season to fire his manager. A major reason was Valentine's desire for more
input in team decisions., and when he finally spoke
up, Wilpon responded to his request by saying that
he could not operate that way. Valentine said he
then told Wilpon, "Maybe you should." Uh, oh.
Valentine admitted that the comment was not
appreciated. Well, duh. Everybody knows you can't
talk that way to rich, powerful bastards who are
used to being surrounded by lickspittles. All that owner needed was for Valentine to lose,
and the Mets, a bunch of unmotivated dopers,
cooperated, going into a total swoon in August. "In the end, I'd like to think that probably my
undoing was I had to be me," Valentine told the New
York Times. "When I was in those meetings for the
last seven years, I nodded. I finally decided not
to nod anymore. It wasn't a good thing because of
what happened. But I feel good about it." Valentine said he called his son, a student at
SMU, to tell him about his firing before he could
read it in the paper. He said his son, who knew
what he'd been going through this season, told him,
"Congratulations." "Is that the perfect word or what?" Valentine
said. "Congratulations." Any coach who's ever been let go after a season
of hell knows what his son meant. *********** Seattle's WNBA team, the Storm,
tried a "your money back if not completely
satisfied with your WNBA experience" promotion last
season. After the Storm defeated Indiana 63-51, a couple
asked for their money back. They said they thought
Seattle should have won by more. ***********After 25 years as a head baseball
coach at three different Oregon high schools, Dave
Gasser of Lake Oswego's Lakeridge High is hanging
'em up. He is only 50, but he says it is time. When
a guy who has won three state titles in the state's
highest classification talks about the problems of
coaching today, people need to listen. "I am a dinosaur," he told Brian Meehan of the
Portland Oregonian. "I can't even recognize the
landscape of youth sports now. And I don't endorse
the model. Year-round specialization, picking elite
teams at an earlier and earlier age. I don't
understand how that is good for young boys and
girls. "There are empty baseball fields all over the
city of Portland, and it saddens me. I'll get back
into baseball someday, but only if I can find a
place where I can help kids have a good time. "The problem is now, I don't know where that
place is." HOW LUCKY FOR US
THAT YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT FOOTBALL! IT
JUST SO HAPPENS THAT THE COACHING STAFF
CAN USE YOUR HELP! BE AT PRACTICE MONDAY
AFTERNOON WITH YOUR OFFENSE AND YOUR
DEFENSE AND A PRACTICE PLAN, AND THE TEAM
WILL BE YOURS FOR TWO HOURS! (REMEMBER TO
BRING ASSISTANTS.) IN THE MEANTIME, PLEASE
GIVE ME YOUR HOME PHONE NUMBER SO I CAN
GIVE IT OUT TO FANS AND
PARENTS *********** Coach Wyatt, I dunno what prompted
the idiots on Sunday night's ESPN broadcast of the
Vikings/Seahawks game to turn the show into a Randy
Moss lovefest but I can't EVER recall such
brown-nosing by the media towards some goof punk
athlete. They were sucking up to Mr. Moss as if
Randy was taping the game to see what was being
said about him. Amazing. And let's not even get
into the quality of the game's commentating...
About the only thing as bad as that trio in the
booth is the Seahawks uniforms. Yeech! --Dave
Potter, Durham, North Carolina BTW--Shaun Alexander
was outstanding, though. I couldn't believe that
Holmgren wouldn't let Shaun carry it on 4th down,
inside the 10, with less than 3 minutes left so
that the 'hawks could "ice" the game with a field
goal. Double yeech! *********** Air Force entered Saturday 3-0 and
ranked last in passing in 1A. They left Saturday
4-0 ranked 25th in the polls and still dead last in
passing. Someone needs to tell Coach DeBerry that
unless he starts passing he won't be very
successful. Kirk said so, so it must be the truth.
While I'm on the soapbox, someone should have told
Bear he could have won more championships had he
installed the west coast attack. Also, Switzer and
Osborne could have been coaching legends if they
just opened it up more.... Nebraska's lack of speed
this year seems to lend itself to the fact that the
bluechip players are leaning towards the wide open
schools for that chance to get their name in the
marquee lights. I hope that the lure of fame and
fortune has not overshadowed character, principles,
and championship football, but the me, me, me
attitude of some of today's athletes has me
wondering. More observations later. Thanks for a
great website, Coach Jeff Baggett Cleveland,
Tennessee *********** Coach, My son and I read your report
about the team losing its game by allowing a
kickoff return with almost no time left.(Snatching
a loss from the hands of victory). We would like to
report a different story line. Facing an opponent
with a running back MUCH faster than any player on
our team we began the game with a successful onside
kick. (20 yard bloop kick to the side lines and
race to the ball.) We scored and traded touchdowns
for the rest of the half. The score was 13 to 13
and they ran out of time with the ball on our ten
yard line. We scored on the opening drive of the
second half and then kicked the first of three
consecutive successful onside kicks. They had the
ball for under one minute in the second half.
Natick (110 lb) 31, Framingham 13. Natick is now 3
and 1. John Riley Assistant Coach, Natick,
Massachusetts *********** I received a nice letter from a
young woman who introduced herself as the
girlfriend of another youth coach I happened to
know, telling me that she is now helping to coach a
youth team. She said in one sense it is an
advantage to her not to know that much football
because she is completely open-minded, unburdened
by any misconceptions. She mentioned that she
intends to be a "sponge" where football knowledge
is concerned. You guys probably think I'm probably
opposed to her coaching, but, HA! You're wrong.
Here's what I wrote: As you may or may not know, I am a sexist by
some people's definitions. I could care less. I
do not think that girls should play football
with boys. But - I am all in favor of girls
playing football against each other, and I am
not opposed to women coaching boys. I do not think that it is necessary to have
played the game - or to be male - to be a good
coach. I believe that my wife would be an
outstanding coach. She knows her football and
she is a good teacher. And she would not be a
yeas man - I know she would give it to me
straight if she saw me doing something that she
didn't think was smart. The daughter of a good coaching friend in
California - one of the greatest coaches I've
ever known - has been a defensive coordinator of
a youth team in Orange County. How could his
daughter not be a good coach? So welcome to the club. Be patient with those
kids, and don't try to fool them, but be alert
for the slightest sign that they are improving
so you can point it out to them and build their
confidence. And, as you already seem to know, be a
sponge. *********** There are fewer and fewer
opportunities for men to walk-on at colleges and
universities, as more and more men's teams are
required to impose strict roster limits in order to
comply with the Clinton-administration
interpretation of Title IX as mandating equal male
and female athletic participation. While on the one
hand coaches of women's teams often have to wander
their campuses in search of more players, many
men's teams have had to give up the traditional
practice of filling out rosters with "walk-ons" -
unrecruited athletes who may or may not ever get to
play in games. It's either reduce the number of men, or find
some way of enticing women to play something. So an article in the Wall Street Journal this
week told of the latest stunt devised by college
administrators to try to please the fools from the
federal government who insist that the ratio of
male and female athletes at a college must be
roughly comparable to that of the student body as a
whole: more and more colleges are giving out
athletic scholarships - to females, of course - for
bowling. *********** Coach I have an extensive football
program collection,that includes Notre Dame
programs from the 40's mostly vs. Army at Yankee
Stadium. For each Irish player they give his photo,
home town, high school and his nationality. For
example, with Leon Hart I believe they had him down
as part German, part Czech or some Slavic origin.
Anyway if a school did that today the ACLU and the
rest of those Liberal A**holes would go crazy, but
like my father tells me that was common back then
and no one had a problem with it. And besides most
of the kids playing today don't know what the hell
they are anyway. Coach, another reason not to watch
Pro Football: Suzy Kolber. That broad drives me up
the wall. Her and her overly gushing style makes me
VOMIT !!! - John Muckian, Lynn, Massachusetts Jim has been kind enough
to provide me with early drafts, and I have read
most of it with great interest. It provided me with
a very interesting look at the inner workings of an
Army under combat conditions, and although Jim
would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier
General before retiring, it is not written in the
jargon that military people often seem to use when
communicating with each other. In the interest of
complete authenticity, the description and the
dialogue can get gritty. Here's an excerpt(If you
can't deal with the way real people sometimes talk
under less than ideal conditions, consider yourself
forewarned.) A few moments later the
battalion communi cations officer, a salty old
captain, dived on top of me. We looked at each
other, and both started laughing -hysterically.
He then went for one of the radios. I laid there
for a moment in the dark of the bottom of the
hole. I looked up and saw a face glowing in the
dark above. It was the face of my brother, Ned.
He had been killed in an automobile accident in
1960, seven years before, when I had been a
lieutenant in Korea. His face was clear to me
there -glowing -and he was smiling. It was only
for an instant. The communication's officer's
voice on his radio broke my trance. I got on the
battalion operations net and called the
companies. I told them, "open fire - open fire.
Don't just sit there - open fire - drop some
rounds down the mortar tubes - do something."
The enemy fire had ceased. It
had only been about five minutes since the
claymores had gone off. But no one -no one
inside our perimeter had fired a round. Here we
were -a whole infantry battalion, locked and
loaded. Nine mortars ready to fire. And we
hadn't fired one round in return fire.
Unbelievable! And now -after I had called on the
radio -still no fire. I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't fire my .45 cal pistol from the
center of the perimeter. I got on the brigade
operations net. I called, "Dagger 3, Dagger 3,
this is Dauntless 3, over." The reply,
"Dauntless 3, this is Dagger 6, can you give us
a sitrep?" It was Colonel Chuck Thebaud, the 2d
Brigade Commander. I had worked for him in a
past assignment and it was good to hear his
voice. I said, "Dagger 6, Dauntless
3. We have been attacked by unknown size enemy
force with claymores and automatic weapons.
Request gunships and flareship." He asked me if we had
casualties and I told him I did not know but I
would call him back. He told me, "take it easy,
help is on the way." I then received a report that
one man had been killed and several others
wounded. I called back to Dagger and asked them
to send a dustoff (aeromedical evacuation
chopper) to our location ASAP. As I looked from my hole I
saw someone about 50 meters away holding up a
large flashlight. I didn't think that was very
smart. I ran over to the light and shouted, "hey
you dumb bastard, shut that light out."
The reply came back, "fuck
you. Who the hell are you?" I replied, "I'm Major
Shelton, Dauntless 3 -who are you?" He said, "I'm Captain Swink,
the battalion surgeon, and I need the light."
I said, "OK" and went back to
the radio. I had never met the battalion
surgeon, Jim Swink. After this battle I was to
learn that he was the same Jim Swink who was an
All American tailback at Texas Christian
University in the early 50's when I was playing
in college at Delaware. His picture had been on
the cover of every football magazine in the
country. He had gone to medical school after TCU
and was serving his time in the Army when he was
sent to RVN. He had gone immediately to treat
the wounded that night and had been hit by small
arms fire in the shoulder. He continued to treat
the wounded although he was wounded, and when I
had called to him he was bleeding from the
wound. He received a Silver Star for his cool
actions that night, working with the wounded
though wounded himself. *********** Last year, several coaches were able
to contact Black Lions vets living near them to
present the Black Lion Award at their team's
banquet. Some invited them to attend a game, and
still others asked them to say a few words to their
kids. One coach even invited a Black Lion to talk
to his classes about Vietnam. TIME'S RUNNING SHORT...
Thanks to the efforts of some great people, the
Black Lion Award was established last year. I can't
imagine why a coach wouldn't want his kids to be
trying to win the Black Lion Award. It's not too
late to sign up for this year. E-mail me
now. BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME - coachwyatt@aol.com -
AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM FOR 2002! ***********Cave Spring Stampede 37-0 over
Cave Spring Crusaders.Highlight of the day
for me was seeing last years Black Lion Award
winner with it on his right shoulder.Also we
ran the wedge for 4 minutes,and 26
seconds.Couple of first downs and almost had
ball the entire 4th quarter. Armando Castro-
Roanoke, Virginia Hello Coach....I hope this finds you well.
I'd like to enroll my team for the 2002 season
and the Black Lion Award. I told my kids last
night the story of Don Holleder and the Black
Lions, and introduced last years award winner
Jeff Ball. He'll be wearing the Black Lion
patch on his jersey this year. John
Urbaniak- Hanover Park, Illinois TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT
REAL HEROES - *********** At the Parents' meeting, I explained
that I do not give out individual awards (like
stars on the helmets and such), but that I do give
one award, and explained the Black Lion award.
P.P.S. Know of any Black Lions around this area?
Jody Hagins, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (Good
question - I have requested a listing of the
members of the 28th Infantry Association - the
Black Lions - by location. If I am successful, I
should be able to furnish you names of men to
contact to help present your award. HW) (IF YOU WERE ENROLLED IN 2001,
YOU MUST RE-ENROLL) BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME -
coachwyatt@aol.com - AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM
FOR 2002! inscribed on the wall
of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton,
Ilinois *********** CORRECTION: Thanks to a question
from a youth coach (whom I won't name on the chance
that his opponents might be peeking), I have found
an error in the playbook. On page 51, the
quarterback's instructions should read, "Reverse
out to 5 (five) o'clock" not 3 o'clock, as it now
reads. Please make the change in your book. I
apologize for the error. He went to Cleveland's East Technical High,
famous for producing track greats Jesse Owens and
Harrison Dillard. At 19, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps,
serving in the South Pacific where he won a Bronze
Star for Valor. After college, he wound up at Notre Dame, part
of an amazing class of athletes that would not lose
a game in four years. Only ties with Army (0-0 in
1946) and USC (14-14 in 1948) marred the Irish
record during that time, as they won national
titles in 1946, 1947 and 1949, and finished second
in 1948. There are those who claim that the 1947
was the greatest college team of all time. During their first two years there, Notre Dame
was never once behind in a game! This week's player played on the opposite end of
the line from Hart for four years. He himself was
an All-American, as were no fewer than eight of his
teammates: Hart, George Connor, Ziggy Czarobski,
Bill Fischer, Johnny Lujack, Emil Sitko, George
Strohmeyer and Bobby Williams. Two of those players
- Lujack, in 1947, and Hart, in 1949, won the
Heisman Trophy. As a pro rookie in 1950, he played on the
Cleveland Browns' championship team in their first
year in the NFL; traded to Detroit after one
season, he stayed with the Lions for 11 seasons,
playing on three NFL championship teams. At one time or another during his NFL career, he
played six different positions: Center, Guard,
Offensive Tackle, Defensive End, Outside Linebacker
and Middle Linebacker. Actually, by today's
standards, it would be seven, since he also
place-kicked. *********** Excuse me while I go fwow up. I just
got finished watching the Denver Broncos, down 11
to the Ravens at the two-minute marker, face a
third-and-one at the Baltimore 27. So what do they
do? Why, they do what any NFL team does on
third-and-one: they throw. Ooops. Incomplete. So
now, facing fourth-and-one - they try a 44-yard
field goal. And miss! Did you catch that? They would rather try a
f--king field goal than get a yard! Imagine! Fourth and one to win the game and they
don't have the guts to go for it! And of course, Madden and Michaels, the shills
in the booth, explained the logic behind the
decision: "they're going to have to get a field
goal at some point anyhow." Uh, yeah, fellas. And they're also going to have
to get a touchdown at some point. And with
under two minutes to play, they ain't gonna get too
many more chances to get down that close. *********** Gosh, does this mean we can't trust
ESPN to give us our sports straight? Randy Moss
refused to answer questions at a news conference,
then submitted later to a much-hyped "exclusive
interview" on ESPN, as Andrea Kramer lobbed
softballs at him, a la Barbara Walters. You don't
suppose ESPN paid for his silence at the news
conference, to save his "story" for the interview,
do you? They wouldn't do that, would they? They
have too much integrity, don't they? Or do they? Consider the way ESPN tried to
whitewash Mr. Moss on Sunday night.... *********** Did any of you catch the way Suzy-Q
Kolber led off her interview with Vikings' coach
Mike Tice (on the subject of Randy Moss' recent
misconduct) Sunday night? "Mike, most people don't
know both sides of the story..." Are you sh---ing me? "Both sides of the story?"
What two sides? It f--king happened, and everybody
knows what happened. Anybody who's ever taught in public schools and
has to deal with today's parents has been through
the "two sides to every story" crap that's been
foisted on us by the anti-authoritarian,
non-judgmental crew. You know how it goes - you
call home to tell what the little darling did in
class today, and Mom says, "That's not what
he says." Or you tell the principal what a kid did, and he
(or she) says, "Let's hear his side of
it." My wife - a woman of stones, by the way - has
been teaching long enough to know not to buy that
nonsense. When she calls home about a problem and a
mother (it rarely seems to be a father, by the way)
starts in with the "that's not what he
says," line, she cuts it off right there by saying,
"There aren't two sides to this. I'm
telling you what happened." *********** Hi Coach, I just had to stay up late
last night to watch the Seahawks beat the Vikings.
The Vikings sure looked like a team that was not
focused on football. Gee, I wonder why? And how
about some of the statements made by the crack TV
commentators. In response to the crowd booing Randy
Moss, one of the announcers actually said, "I don't
believe you should boo a guy unless you know all
the circumstances." Come on, what else is there to
know? Randy was told he couldn't turn where he
wanted to so he got pi**ed off and tried to run the
poor lady over. Not that it would matter but, he
still has yet to apologize to her. They are also
referring to Randy's attempt to run someone over as
a "traffic incident". I'll tell you what, if I was
the owner of the Vikings, I'd be asking for a
rebate on my $75 million after Moss dropped 4
passes in a row. Granted, some of those catches
were tough but, for $75 million and an $18 million
signing bonus........... Donnie Hayes, Farmington
Hills, Michigan *********** As a lifelong Vikings fan, it's hard
for me to rip on my own team, but Randy Moss just
makes me sick. Did you notice the comment last
night where one of the announcers said, "Moss is
one of the few receivers in the league that doesn't
look the ball into his hands?" Then they showed him catching a ball, and not
looking it in. It's no wonder he drops so many
catchable passes. He is a selfish person who can't
be coached and the league would be better off
without him. Maybe he should go join the NBA. He
would fit right in with those guys. Mike Benton,
Colfax, Illinois *********** "Coach -- don't know about you, but
I think our law enforcement agencies need to quit
wasting time on low level criminals like the
anthrax perp --- they need to find the guy who's
been plaguing this country for several years now --
I'm talking about the guy who keeps running around
the country "setting up" our heroes by planting
drugs in their cars and homes -- Randy Moss is the
most recent victim ("it's not MY weed") -- but the
list of victims is endless -- it's time this
country applies the resources needed to put a stop
to these setups of innocent victims like Mr. Moss!!
" Scott Barnes, Rockwall, Texas *********** To Ole Red McCombs: Hail's far, Red,
you don't need no Randy Moss to get your butt beat,
45-17. Cut his ass loose and save you enough money
to build that stadium that those Minnesota
taxpayers won't build you. *********** I asked Coach Greg Stout, in
Tennessee, how he'd have liked being the high
school basketball coach in West Virginia who had
both Randy Moss and Jayson (White Shadow) Williams
on the same team. He replied: Either the HS coach of Moss and Williams is a
saint or added to the problem, I don't know the
facts. You know Moss had to have issues when he got
kicked out of FSU. I admire coaches that make the tough decisions
to bench players for discipline reasons. It makes a
lasting impression on the kids that are basically
good but just messed up. It is too bad that even at
the youth and MS level there are some that are
already incorrigible. How do these kids get so bad
and hateful so young? I know parenting is a major
factor, but some of these kids are hardcore. Just
venting. ALONG THOSE SAME LINES... from Coach
Scott Barnes, again - "Coach -- I know you've read
all the game stuff already about the Florida State
loss (to Louisville), but one story I read from the
AP had a final statement that I REALLY liked -- and
might be the key to why these guys in Louisville
might have been able to pull off such an upset! "Leading Louisville receiver Dontay Spillman did
not play. He was suspended for disciplinary reasons
by Smith." I don't know anything about Coach Smith or the
Louisville team, but it looks to me like the guy
has stones! Going into a huge game, he keeps his
top receiver out of the game because of
disciplinary reasons -- didn't compromise for the
game! I love it. (I've never seen a study on it, but I suspect
that teams often play better when a star is
held out for disciplinary reasons. HW) *********** Now aren't you glad you don't have
to coach people like this? Wrote Jean-Jacques Taylor, in The Dallas Morning
News, "Larry Allen didn't like playing left guard
in offensive coordinator Bruce Coslet's offense. So
the Cowboys made wholesale changes in their
offensive line Thursday to accommodate the
seven-time Pro Bowl player." Allen has moved from from left guard to right
tackle, Solomon Page from right tackle to right
guard, and Kelvin Garmon from right guard to left
guard. *********** The great Tom Landry used to stand
on the sidelines in a suit. White shirt. Tie.
Hat. Last night, Ravens' offensive coordinator Matt
Cavanaugh didn't even bother to shave. *********** Madden used Madden 2003 last night
to show us how the Ravens' radical new "3-4"
defense is designed to keep blockers off Middle
Linebacker Ray Lewis. Sure looked like a 5-3 to me. *********** From my son-in-law, Rob Tiffany, in
Houston: Due to the popularity of the television Survivor
shows, Texas is planning to do its own show,
entitled Survivor - Texas Style. Each will be driving a pink Volvo with a
bumper sticker that reads: "I'm gay and I'm a vegetarian." "I voted for Al Gore." "George Strait Sucks!" "Hillary in 2004!" "I'm here to confiscate your guns!" The first one to make it back to Dallas alive
wins. (Scott Barnes suggests, as a tie-breaker, "Real
football is played with a round ball.") *********** The Broncos of International Falls
(Minnesota) High have outscored opponents 112-13
this year, yet they are 3-2 on the season. How can that be, you ask? Well, a week ago last Friday, the 100 union
teachers of International Falls went out on strike,
and the football players, who had worked hard all
week, were deprived of the chance to play the game
scheduled that night. And forced to forfeit. Ditto this past Friday night. The last teachers' strike in International Falls
was in 1992. Then, the school board allowed some
teams to compete out of town, but things grew ugly
when picket signs appeared, and strikers took
photographs of athletes.This time around, the
school board ruled that no activities would be
held. Tom Kalar, teacher and president of the local
teachers' union, said he sympathizes with the
athletes. "But I guess we'd like them to look at it this
way: if they have, and many of them do, a part-time
or a summer job, we're sure they would be upset if
all of a sudden they were asked to take a cut in
pay," he said. "And under the school district's
proposal, because of inadequate insurance coverage,
that's exactly what's happening to many of our
members." Said Jay Boyle, a senior lineman and team
captain, "Teachers are saying we'll be able to make
up school days we miss, but we can't make up these
games. Every time we don't play it's a forfeit. We
train all year for football and we're losing our
senior season." And they always say they're in it for the
kids. *********** A high school coach who has had some
pressure to open it up has stuck to the
Double-Wing, and writes, "We threw 15 times and
completed 6 but would have completed 12 were it not
for 3 drops and 3 flat out lousy throws on wide
open receivers - BIG TIME wide open because the
corners were playing 2 by 2 off our wings ... this
by the kids who complained bitterly to the HC after
our first scrimmage when all we did was run 88SP. 2
of the drops were "gator" armed - i.e. no guts -
with no one within 10 yards." (I love irony - I
think it's hysterical that you might have been 12
for 15 passing, except for miscues - from the same
kids who thought you should have been passing more.
HW) *********** The Vikings' Michael Bennett was
carrying the football loosey-goosey, away from his
body. Paul Maguire, to his credit, pointed that out
and said Bennett was going to have to do a better
job of protecting the football. But genius Joe Theisman, ever ready with an
excuse, said, "he's still young and learning." Yeah. Young and learning. He's in his second
year in the NFL; he played - what? - two or three
years of college at Wisconsin; probably played
three years of high school ball, maybe a freshman
or JV year, and perhaps middle school and youth
football before that. Are you telling me that nobody has
coached him? Nobody in all that time
insisted that he carry the football
responsibly? Hmmm. Why is it that you and I can do it and pro
coaches can't? *********** Are those gloves Michael Ricks is
wearing? Or mittens? He has dropped two TD passes in the last two
weeks. When you play for Detroit, you'd better
catch every damn thing you can. Is this a regular
thing with him? *********** Wow. Some roll. They wrapped up the
tape replay of the Washington-Idaho game with a
graphic headed by "Huskies on a Roll!", followed by
the list of the Huskies' three straight victims:
San Jose State, Wyoming and Idaho. *********** Is this what we get when we expand
the college season to 12 games? We are at least
four games into the season, and yet this past
weekend we were still getting games like this:
Washington-Idaho... Georgia-New Mexico State...
UCLA- San Diego State (we got that stinker on
TV)... Oklahoma-South Florida (likewise)... N.C.
State-UMass... Texas A & M-Louisiana Tech...
Maryland-Wofford... MIssouri-Troy State... Arizona
State-Stanford (What's that? You say Stanford is
not a D-IAA team? Wow. Coulda fooled me.)... The strangest one to me was Virginia
Tech-Western Michigan. The Hokies actually
travelled to Kalamazoo to play the game. *********** Very clever of Syracuse's Paul
Pasqualoni to leave R. J. Anderson in at QB and let
Auburn get overconfident. To tell the truth, for a while there I thought
maybe he was trying to lose. Why else would he have
waited until there were only seven minutes left in
the game to put in Troy Nunes? Anderson left having completed 5 of 18,
including two very costly interceptions. All Nunes did was complete 7 of 8 for 70 yards
and a TD, driving the Orangemen to a tying score
with 0:23 remaining. *********** Auburn's Carnell Williams is
something special. He carried 37 times for 187
yards against Syracuse, and scored the winning TD
in the third overtime by kicking it into another
gear when two Syracuse defenders clearly had the
drop on him. *********** How'd you like to have one of your
former players on the sideline at one of your games
and have him thrown out of the stadium for riding
the officials? That's what happened to Joe Paterno, when he
made the mistake of letting Lavar Arrington down on
the field. What a jerk. Aw, c'mon, Wyatt. The guy was just being
emotional. Yeah, right. Emotional. I plead
"self-centered." Permit me to introduce into evidence the
following pre-game interview with Mr. Arrington,
asked to compare his current Coach, Steve Spurrier,
with his college coach, Joe Pa. Steve lets you "express your individuality," he
said. Lets you "express yourself," see. "Joe's more... I hate to say it...
team-oriented." Can you believe that? He actually said that.
"I hate to say it." That egotistical, pampered
ass thinks it's a condemnation of a coach to call
him "team-oriented." I wouldn't be ashamed to have that carved on my
headstone. *********** I was talking over the weekend with
Mike Lindstrom, a former player who's got kids of
his own and is coaching one of them on his youth
football team. He told me about his younger
brother, Shawn, who's now 24 years old and a New
York City firefighter. He knew from the time he was
in high school that that's what he wanted to do,
and started taking the right courses and worked as
an EMT. Four years ago, he and a buddy moved to Staten
Island, new York, and he got a job working on an
ambulance until he could qualify as new York City
resident. He graduated from firefighter's school in the
first class to graduate after 9-11. *********** Oh,ye of little faith... the crowd
of 108,000 in State College had begun to trickle
out when Penn State began the last-minute comeback
that sent the game with Iowa into overtime. *********** Iowa's coach Kirk Ferentz isn't
too Pittsburgh... After beating Penn State,
he told the interviewer, "I'd like to say hello to
my parents and my high school coach in
Pittsburgh... they couln't (that's the way a lot of
Pittsburghers say it) make it." *********** Any of you watch Joe "Flash" Paterno
chasing after those officials after the game? (Any
of you ever been tempted to do that?) Wonder if Coach Paterno was called into the
principal's office Monday morning and told that the
next time he does that they'll put a letter of
reprimand in his file. *********** Thank you, oh thank you, ESPN2, for
giving us that very exciting UCLA-San Diego State
game. And TNN - I know you're new to college football
- but, um, most college fans aren't really
interested in watching Oklahoma against South
Florida. *********** Arizona State-Stanford
observations: *********** Yeah, but wait till next year... Oregon State tight end Jermaine Jackson, one of
many Los Angeles-area athletes on the Beavers'
roster, explained why he decided to go north: "At least once a year, I can go home and beat
UCLA or USC." *********** When the news was announced that
Rutgers had taken an early - a very early - 7-0
lead over Tennessee, one of the announcers on one
of the games I was watching said, "Time to take a
picture of the scoreboard." *********** Joe Tiller's wife was interviewed in
the stands at the Purdue-Minnesota game. She was
asked why she was sitting down in the stands, and
not up in one of the luxury boxes, where surely, as
the head coach's wife, there was a spot for
her. She sounded like the wife of every coach's
dreams: Because, she said, "there's some fools down here
that like to boo." The wife of a coaching friend of mine can say
"amen" to that. She was at a game recently and had
had enough of one woman who was making disparaging
remarks about her husband. She turned to the woman
and said something to the effect that she didn't
appreciate what the woman was saying, and the woman
responded by saying, "I've been watching football
for 15 years, and I know more football than your
husband." Now, this lady is classy, and she undoubtedly
handled it well, but she was bothered by the
incident. Another guy's wife was confronted in town by
some ***hole who told her that he husband's team
"looked like sh--." Mr. Fashion Designer was
referring to the fact that the opponents all had
better-looking socks than her husband's kids. I sure hope the guy's wife gave it to him good.
One thing a lot of these yokels do is underestimate
the toughness of a coach's wife, and her devotion
to her husband. What makes these ***holes think
that they can say anything they want to a coach's
wife? Don't they realize that these women are in it
as deep as their men are? Feel free to print this card and cut it out so
your wife can hand it to the next person who gives
her any crap: *********** Hello Coach, Just thought I would
let you know the kids are really starting to
understand and execute the offense. I am so proud
of these kids. This is my fourth year coaching at
East, the second year as head coach.. My team last
year went 0-8. Most of the games were over by half
time. None of the kids I have on this team have won
more than one or two games in a season. We are four
and two now and have locked up the third seed for
the upcoming play offs. The kids are really
starting to believe in themselves and play with
confidence and heart. We have only lost one fumble
this season and it was on a bad qb center exchange.
We work on the ball handling drills you recommended
almost every practice. I really raise heck with the
kids when we put the ball on the ground in
practice. Boy, do expectations pay off. You can
almost bet that you will get a couple of turn overs
every game you play at this age group except when
you play us. Thanks!! Ted Quinton, Grand Junction,
Colorado *********** Coach, I always love reading your
news and insightful thoughts. Nice story on Leon
Hart. His son and grandson are part of the Troy
Cowboys so this was obviously a tough week. If Joey
H wanted to be the guv of Michigan, he would win in
a landslide right now. Detroit is hockeytown, but
everyone who lives in SE Michigan know it's all
about football here. Nowhere else (that I can think
of) can, in one weekend have 110,000 people in Ann
Arbor, 80,000 in East Lansing, and another 70,000
at Ford Field for the Lions, and the Lions have
stunk since Hart played. It's about a fifty mile
radius, coach. Anyway, Joey was sweet yesterday.
The real deal and for his age, very heady. Dave
Livingstone, Troy, MIchigan *********** Creative scheduling will get you
some wins, but it will only take you so far... USC
went into its game against Oregon State Saturday
2-1. But the Trojans had played Auburn, Colorado
and Kansas State. The Beavers, 4-0, went into the
game nationally-ranked and with high hopes of
beating USC in Los Angeles for the first time in a
couple of generations. But they'd played Eastern
Kentucky, Temple, UNLV and a below-par Fresno
State. The result of the two different scheduling
strategies became quickly apparent, as USC
delivered the absolute worst ass-kicking you can
administer and still beat a team only 22-0. Looking
like the Trojans of John McKay and John Robinson,
they beat the Beavers to a pulp. There aren't many people in America who can
coach the passing game any better than OSU's Dennis
Erickson, but when the day was over, the Beavers
had more yards in penalties (116) than they did
passing (80). *********** If you have any feel for history,
you've got to like the fact that Kentucky has a
pretty decent wide receiver named Aaron Boone. *********** Dan Fouts to former teammate John
Jefferson during the Arizona State-Stanford game:
"When they freed up the arms of the big fat guys,
it helped pitch and catch, didn't it?" *********** It was a great day for the state of
Iowa Saturday, with Iowa's win over Penn State and
Iowa State's win over Nebraska. The Iowa State students showed admirable
restraint, standing around the perimeter of the
field, just waiting for the game to end so they
could go out and celebrate ("It's like New Year's
Eve, waiting for the ball to drop," said one of the
announcers). When they finally did pour onto the
field, it was a glorious scene, all red and
gold. My wife watched and said, "Do you think the Iowa
people are happy for them, or are they like
Duke-Carolina?" ***********Speaking of Iowa State-Nebraska... It
can't be a lot of fun in Lincoln right now, but at
least the Huskers do get a chance to find a QB
against McNeese State this week (now, how'd they
find a D-IAA team with an open date this deep in
the season?). And the schedule isn't a killer until
three of the last four weeks, when they catch
Texas, Kansas State and Colorado. And at least,
they get Texas and Colorado in Lincoln. *********** There was a huge drunken riot in the
streets of Eugene, Oregon this past weekend. It had
nothing to do with the resident anarchists, who
export trouble all over the Northwest. Oh, no -
this was just drunken young males -
Coors-lightists, if you will. Monkey see, monkey do. Trust me - we will all live to regret that
"barbarians, boobs and beer" advertising campaign
that Coors Light has been running during pro
football games. *********** We are doing the DW at the 8 to 12
yr old levels at our Pop Warner organization.
During the course of your offensive workout, what
percentage of time would you spend in Team, Group,
Individual work? At least at first, I would spend all
my time in team work. There are numerous reasons, including the
most important - I can't be in more than one place
at a time, and I know what I want. Chances are,
with a youth team, there may be only one of you who
knows exactly what he wants, As we get better - the assistants, that is -
I will begin to break briefly into two groups -
linemen and backs & ends. This is the time to
work on linemen's stances and first steps, etc.,
and on backs' and ends' timing and ball-handling
and fumble prevention. This is also when I install
passes. But I will not get out of "team time" until I
have confidence that assistants know what they are
teaching and why they are teaching it and how to
teach it. If they don't, there is no chance I will
do away with team time just to keep assistants
happy. My obligation is to the kids. I will not let
them be poorly coached. Naturally, you're a better coach if you have
good assistants. But if you don't, remember that it
is a lot easier to keep that team together right
from the start than it is to break into groups and
then discover that some of the kids are either not
being taught or, worse yet, are being taught the
wrong thing. What results is that when you come
together as a team, the kids who know what they're
doing are going to be held back by the ones who
don't. And now you have the hassle that no coach
needs - that of worrying about pissing off an
assistant by taking the kids back from him. I have gone an entire season and never once
broken into groups. What a great point - keep them in team for the
benefit of your inexperienced assistants! Very
important in our youth league since I'm one of the
very few football people in this town. Important
not only so they can learn but also they teach kids
the wrong thing when you're not around! Bad habits
are tough to break! Just so I have it right - you could be in Team
the entire practice just moving kids in and out of
positions running play(s)? That is exactly right. Ideally, I would have coaches in charge of
certain positions - making substitutions, making
small corrections, etc. - which is how I can
observe that they are learning, too. With linemen,
for example, I would start out by having them check
stance and alignment; with backs I would want them
to concentrate on ball handling and
ball-carrying. I would oversee the whole deal - did we get
off on the count, was the backfield action correct,
did we make the handoff correctly, did we block
correctly at the point of attack, did the back run
where he was supposed to run, etc. A good use of assistants in that situation is
rather than hold the whole team up while making a
correction, to instead substitute for the kid, and
then have an assistant take him off to the side and
give him a little one-on-one teaching. *********** I am a Head Coach in ---, Canada and
I see that you have run some clinics up here in the
past. I was wondering if you have any information
or even playbooks for sale for 12 man Canadian
football. I am looking for something different to
run on offense and I would like to research the
Double wing some more. Thank you for your valuable
time. While I don't have anything specifically on
Canadian Rules football, several teams in Canada
are running my system successfully. The principle employed by all of them
involves running the system exactly as it is run in
11-man, and then using the 12th man to advantage.
The three basic ways the 12th man has been employed
are (1) as a wide receiver, forcing defenses to
cover with two, or one-and-a-half men, or else
taking their chances with man-for-man coverage; (2)
as an I-back, giving the running game the added
threat of everything an I-formation tailback can do
plus the ability to send him in motion; (3) as an
extra offensive lineman, giving you the ability to
run normal double-wing plays to one-side and
unbalanced plays to the other. *********** Well, duh... The sheriff of Grant County, Washington, way the
hell and gone out in the desert in the middle of
the state and far from any of the state's
population centers, says that hip-hop concerts
result in more crimes than other types of
concerts. *********** In 2001 the average corporate CEO's
total compensation package was $11 million,
approximately 500 times what the average hourly
wage earner made. I keep reading about corporations defending the
outrageous sums of money being paid to their top
executives. The defense usually takes one of three
forms: (1) we have to pay that much to attract top
people; (2) we have to pay that much to retain our
top people; (3) you get what you pay for. In rebuttal, I submit this for your
consideration: The Commandant of the Marine Corps runs a
highly-professional, highly-proficient organization
that employs some 170,000 people and does what it
is expected to do. He is responsible for a budget
of $13+ billion annually. He has been with the same
organization for more than 20 years. He has worked
his way up through the ranks and he knows what it
is like to be the lowest of the low, because he
once was one himself. He is paid $163,177 a year -
about 13 times the pay of the lowest private in
boot camp. I rest my case. *********** Ken Goe, of the Portland Oregonian,
does an excellent weekly Pac-10 Football page. Ken
is a really good football writer (you may remember
that a few years ago his son, Justin, then a JV
player at a local high school, made a miraculous
recovery from a life-threatening injury ) whom I
got to know when I was doing color analysis of
Portland State games and he was the Oregonian's man
on the beat. For a liberal-leaning paper that
editorially is anti-football (or anything else
masculine) and goes overboard to promote soccer and
women's sports, it is amazing that they'd turn Ken
loose to do this weekly roundup. He is making the
most of the opportunity. A week ago, he wrote about some of the things
Jeff Tedford has done to try to turn around the
program at Cal. Tedford was Mike Bellotti's
offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at
Oregon, where he got a lot of credit for helping
develop Joey Harrington. And Cal, as you all know,
was on life support. A story he told Ken is something every coach
should pay attention to. He told Ken about the first thing he did upon
taking over at Cal. Meeting individually with every
player, "I asked each player to name three leaders
on the team, and nobody could do it. I was shocked.
Even the seniors knew there was a problem. Part of
it was the seniors didn't feel eligible to be
leaders because they hadn't had any success. "So part of the solution was educating them that
it isn't necessary to have won games. Leadership is
all the things that happen in meetings, in the
weight room, in the classroom, and how they conduct
themselves." Ah, but here's the part that I think a lot of
coaches seem not to understand. I hear them say,
over and over, "I hope we can find some senior
leadership," and many of them are smart enough not
to let nature take its course - they work hard at
actually developing leaders. But that's only part of it. Most coaches ignore
the other end of the chain - the guys whom you want
to be followers. In addition to developing leaders,
you have to make it possible for them to exercize
that leadership - you have to convince the rest of
the guys that it is in their interest to
submit. "The whole team had to buy into it," Tedford
said. "Part of it is accepting leadership. I wanted
to create an atmosphere where we would all get
along." (By the way, Ken writes, "Justin is doing
great. He is helping coach at Putnam -- he's the
guy that keeps the playcards for the scout team and
makes sure everybody is lined up correctly." He
added, "I have been meaning to tell you how
wonderful it was that you put stuff about Justin on
your website after his injury. We heard from
football coaches and teams across the country, and
still do hear from some of them." My thanks to
those of you who took your time to write to
encourage Justin, and to commiserate with Ken, a
dad who was hurting.) *********** Former Senate majority leader Trent
Lott of Mississippi has compared the job of getting
senators to work together to loading bullfrogs in a
wheelbarrow. Nobody was better at the job than
Lyndon Johnson. Johnson Senate majority leader before he became
President, was definitely what you would call a
"My-way-or-the-highway" majority leader, the sort
you didn't want to cross. He would have used a
pitchfork to load the frogs, if that's what it
took. He knew every senator's weakness, and wasn't
above using it to his advantage. It's said that the
6-3 Johnson once grabbed Rhode Island Senator
Francis Pastore, a much shorter man, by the coat
lapels and lifted him up onto his tiptoes in order
to make himself better understood. Robert Caro, in his latest volume (his fourth)
of his biography of Mr. Johnson, tells of the time
the Senate was about to vote on a key bill, and
Johnson desperately needed Minnesota Senator Hubert
Humphrey's vote. Trouble was, Mr. Humphrey was in
an airplane, stuck in an air-traffic holding
pattern and unable to land in Washington. Mr. Johnson, Caro writes, shouted to a clerk,
"Get National Airport!", meaning the control
tower. Put through to the tower, Johnson shouted, "Damn
it! I've got a senator up there. He's two hours
overdue, and I want him down quick!" He was told that there were a lot of planes
stacked over National Airport. At that, writes Caro, Johnson's voice grew quiet
and threatening. "Well," he said, "You better be goddamned sure
none of those planes comes in before his comes
in." Within an hour, Senator Humphrey had landed and
been sped to the Capitol in a police car, where his
vote gave Senator Johnson the victory he
needed. *********** In biology, they call it symbiosis:
Nike shoes account for roughly half of Footlocker's
sales; Footlocker accounts for roughly a quarter of
Nike's domestic sales. *********** #1) Four starters on a high school
football team decided a while ago to have a little
"fun" by going around town at 2 am and destroying
mailboxes with a baseball bat. If you were HC of
these kids, what would your reaction be in terms of
discipline, etc.? Coach- you will be caught between the "this
is why we shouldn't have football in our town"types
and those who say "what they do outside of football
has nothing to do with football." My concern is
that so long as there are people who will use an
incident like this to attack football itself, then
it has everything to do with
football. Especially since football is new there, this
is one of those moments when you have an
opportunity to determine the future course of the
football program. Either you deal with the first
incident firmly and decisively - and conspicuously,
so everybody knows that you did - or you will spend
the rest of your career there dealing with
out-of-control kids. I think the coach has to bring those kids in
- fast - and give them a choice - repair and
apologize plus punitive running every morning (or
some such), or you don't play. Screw the parents.
Where were they when their kids were out driving
around at 2 in the morning bashing
mailboxes? *********** For years,
Jim Shelton, one of my Black Lions friends, has
been at work on a book on his experiences in
Vietnam, with special emphasis on the bloody
Battle of Ong Thanh, in which so many Black
Lions died, Don Holleder along with them. It is
finished nd it can be purchased. Titled, "The
Beast Was out There," by James M. Shelton,
its subtitle is "The 28th Infantry Black
Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam
October 1967" and it is published by Cantigny
Press, Wheaton, Illinois. (630-668-5185;
Email: fdmuseum@tribune.com) Jim has been kind enough
to provide me with early drafts, and I have read
most of it with great interest. It provided me with
a very interesting look at the inner workings of an
Army under combat conditions, and although Jim
would eventually rise to the rank of Brigadier
General before retiring, it is not written in the
jargon that military people often seem to use when
communicating with each other. In the interest of
complete authenticity, the description and the
dialogue can get gritty. Here's an excerpt(If you
can't deal with the way real people sometimes talk
under less than ideal conditions, consider yourself
forewarned.) A few moments later the
battalion communi cations officer, a salty old
captain, dived on top of me. We looked at each
other, and both started laughing -hysterically.
He then went for one of the radios. I laid there
for a moment in the dark of the bottom of the
hole. I looked up and saw a face glowing in the
dark above. It was the face of my brother, Ned.
He had been killed in an automobile accident in
1960, seven years before, when I had been a
lieutenant in Korea. His face was clear to me
there -glowing -and he was smiling. It was only
for an instant. The communication's officer's
voice on his radio broke my trance. I got on the
battalion operations net and called the
companies. I told them, "open fire - open fire.
Don't just sit there - open fire - drop some
rounds down the mortar tubes - do something."
The enemy fire had ceased. It
had only been about five minutes since the
claymores had gone off. But no one -no one
inside our perimeter had fired a round. Here we
were -a whole infantry battalion, locked and
loaded. Nine mortars ready to fire. And we
hadn't fired one round in return fire.
Unbelievable! And now -after I had called on the
radio -still no fire. I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't fire my .45 cal pistol from the
center of the perimeter. I got on the brigade
operations net. I called, "Dagger 3, Dagger 3,
this is Dauntless 3, over." The reply,
"Dauntless 3, this is Dagger 6, can you give us
a sitrep?" It was Colonel Chuck Thebaud, the 2d
Brigade Commander. I had worked for him in a
past assignment and it was good to hear his
voice. I said, "Dagger 6, Dauntless
3. We have been attacked by unknown size enemy
force with claymores and automatic weapons.
Request gunships and flareship." He asked me if we had
casualties and I told him I did not know but I
would call him back. He told me, "take it easy,
help is on the way." I then received a report that
one man had been killed and several others
wounded. I called back to Dagger and asked them
to send a dustoff (aeromedical evacuation
chopper) to our location ASAP. As I looked from my hole I
saw someone about 50 meters away holding up a
large flashlight. I didn't think that was very
smart. I ran over to the light and shouted, "hey
you dumb bastard, shut that light out."
The reply came back, "fuck
you. Who the hell are you?" I replied, "I'm Major
Shelton, Dauntless 3 -who are you?" He said, "I'm Captain Swink,
the battalion surgeon, and I need the light."
I said, "OK" and went back to
the radio. I had never met the battalion
surgeon, Jim Swink. After this battle I was to
learn that he was the same Jim Swink who was an
All American tailback at Texas Christian
University in the early 50's when I was playing
in college at Delaware. His picture had been on
the cover of every football magazine in the
country. He had gone to medical school after TCU
and was serving his time in the Army when he was
sent to RVN. He had gone immediately to treat
the wounded that night and had been hit by small
arms fire in the shoulder. He continued to treat
the wounded although he was wounded, and when I
had called to him he was bleeding from the
wound. He received a Silver Star for his cool
actions that night, working with the wounded
though wounded himself. *********** Last year, several coaches were able
to contact Black Lions vets living near them to
present the Black Lion Award at their team's
banquet. Some invited them to attend a game, and
still others asked them to say a few words to their
kids. One coach even invited a Black Lion to talk
to his classes about Vietnam. TIME'S RUNNING SHORT...
Thanks to the efforts of some great people, the
Black Lion Award was established last year. I can't
imagine why a coach wouldn't want his kids to be
trying to win the Black Lion Award. It's not too
late to sign up for this year. E-mail me
now. BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME - coachwyatt@aol.com -
AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM FOR 2002! ***********Cave Spring Stampede 37-0 over
Cave Spring Crusaders.Highlight of the day
for me was seeing last years Black Lion Award
winner with it on his right shoulder.Also we
ran the wedge for 4 minutes,and 26
seconds.Couple of first downs and almost had
ball the entire 4th quarter. Armando Castro-
Roanoke, Virginia Hello Coach....I hope this finds you well.
I'd like to enroll my team for the 2002 season
and the Black Lion Award. I told my kids last
night the story of Don Holleder and the Black
Lions, and introduced last years award winner
Jeff Ball. He'll be wearing the Black Lion
patch on his jersey this year. John
Urbaniak- Hanover Park, Illinois TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT
REAL HEROES - *********** At the Parents' meeting, I explained
that I do not give out individual awards (like
stars on the helmets and such), but that I do give
one award, and explained the Black Lion award.
P.P.S. Know of any Black Lions around this area?
Jody Hagins, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (Good
question - I have requested a listing of the
members of the 28th Infantry Association - the
Black Lions - by location. If I am successful, I
should be able to furnish you names of men to
contact to help present your award. HW) (IF YOU WERE ENROLLED IN 2001,
YOU MUST RE-ENROLL) BE SURE TO E-MAIL ME -
coachwyatt@aol.com - AND ENROLL YOUR TEAM
FOR 2002! inscribed on the wall
of the 1st Division Museum, at Cantigny, Wheaton,
Ilinois BONUS
- As a bonus
to coaches who've supported me in the past - in
other words, if you've attended one of my
clinics or purchased any materials from me -
e-mail
me for
the address of the pages on which I have described
our no-huddle
system.
If all you do is use it in practice, you will save
a lot of practice time just by not
huddling! ADDED
BONUS -
(Consider it
a free upgrade!) This is for Double-Wing coaches
only. If - but only if - you have bought
Dynamics of the Double Wing - video or playbook -
or attended one of my clinics over the last three
years, you are eligible to view and print or
download a new,
not-in-the-playbook
play,
in the same
format as the playbook, that was included in the
booklets I handed out at this past spring's
clinics. It combines both power and misdirection.
It has been field-tested and is easy to incorporate
into your present system. e-mail
me for
the address of its page
October
15 - "Virtuous motives, trammeled
by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed
and resolute wickedness. A sincere love of peace
is no excuse for muddling hundreds of millions
of humble folk into total war. The cheers of the
weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to
count. Doom marches on." Winston Churchill,
in his first speech as Prime Minister, 1940
A
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY:*********** Hugh- I am furious
right now! I am watching the Miami -
Denver game and this a**hole Kennedy who
plays for Denver just hit a receiver in the head
with his helmet. This guy was fined $10
grand a week ago for a similar offense.
The Miami receiver is out for the game.
Why the hell is Kennedy still in the
game?!!! If I was Kennedy's coach he would
be, but the rules should allow the officials to
throw this bastard out! It was
deliberate! I love hard hitting physical
play as you know, but this is just bullsh**! Al
Andrus - Salt Lake City, Utah PS I have lost
respect for Shanahan! He acted like "why the
penalty?"
I then got up and
headed for the TOC bunker and as I got about 10
feet away another burst of tracers sprayed
around me. I dived for the bunker entrance, and
the adrenalin must have been really working. My
head squarely matched up with the 10 inch
diameter log over the entrance to the bunker.
Fortunately, my helmet hit the log, not my head,
but I thought I had been blown up. I saw stars
and collapsed in the hole.
Now, thanks to Ed Burke, executive
director of the 28th Infantry Association, I
have a state-by-state list of Vietnam-era Black
Lions., and if you contact me, I will be happy
to give you the names of some of these brave men
who live near you.
The
Hanover Park Hurricanes, of Hanover Park, Illinois,
are once again a Black Lions team! Last year's
Black Lion
Award winner,
Jeff Ball, is shown at left with his coach, John
Urbaniak. Jeff holds the trophy he won for being
named MVP of last weekend's Hurricane Bowl. Note
the Black Lions
regimental
patch that he
proudly wears on his jersey!
"NO
MISSION TOO DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT -
DUTY FIRST"
October
11 - "Those who lived have to
represent those who didn't make it." Joe
Foss
A
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: John Mackey remains the most
exciting tight end I have ever seen play.Coach Wyatt - About
last week and the death in our school. It
happened on a Wednesday night. Thursday was a
long day in the HS and MS. I teach in the middle
school, which is connected. I had many, many FB
players come down just to talk and get out of
the HS for awhile. They kind of let the kids go
to classes, but weren't worried if they stayed
in the halls or library, talking and grieving
with one another. MS day went on as usual, but
some knew the girls and it was hard for some of
the 8th grade girls and boys. Everyone who
needed to could talk to pastors, etc.
Stock answer: Assuming a relative
equality in personnel, there has never been a
play that couldn't be stopped.
Lansingburgh IS that good.
I then got up and
headed for the TOC bunker and as I got about 10
feet away another burst of tracers sprayed
around me. I dived for the bunker entrance, and
the adrenalin must have been really working. My
head squarely matched up with the 10 inch
diameter log over the entrance to the bunker.
Fortunately, my helmet hit the log, not my head,
but I thought I had been blown up. I saw stars
and collapsed in the hole.
Now, thanks to Ed Burke, executive
director of the 28th Infantry Association, I
have a state-by-state list of Vietnam-era Black
Lions., and if you contact me, I will be happy
to give you the names of some of these brave men
who live near you.
The
Hanover Park Hurricanes, of Hanover Park, Illinois,
are once again a Black Lions team! Last year's
Black Lion
Award winner,
Jeff Ball, is shown at left with his coach, John
Urbaniak. Jeff holds the trophy he won for being
named MVP of last weekend's Hurricane Bowl. Note
the Black Lions
regimental
patch that he
proudly wears on his jersey!
"NO MISSION TOO
DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY
FIRST"
October
7 - "There is no substitute for
having to pay the price in order to determine
how much something is worth." Thomas
SowellA
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: He remains the most exciting
tight end I have ever seen play.Stock answer: Assuming a relative
equality in personnel, there has never been a
play that couldn't be stopped.
(Coach X) shows a visitor to the
(School Y) fieldhouse a football helmet,
complete with the dings and pockmarks of a
half-season of play.
I then got up and
headed for the TOC bunker and as I got about 10
feet away another burst of tracers sprayed
around me. I dived for the bunker entrance, and
the adrenalin must have been really working. My
head squarely matched up with the 10 inch
diameter log over the entrance to the bunker.
Fortunately, my helmet hit the log, not my head,
but I thought I had been blown up. I saw stars
and collapsed in the hole.
Now, thanks to Ed Burke, executive
director of the 28th Infantry Association, I
have a state-by-state list of Vietnam-era Black
Lions., and if you contact me, I will be happy
to give you the names of some of these brave men
who live near you.
The
Hanover Park Hurricanes, of Hanover Park, Illinois,
are once again a Black Lions team! Last year's
Black Lion
Award winner,
Jeff Ball, is shown at left with his coach, John
Urbaniak. Jeff holds the trophy he won for being
named MVP of last weekend's Hurricane Bowl. Note
the Black Lions
regimental
patch that he
proudly wears on his jersey!
"NO MISSION TOO
DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY
FIRST"
October
4 - "Nothing is more fatal than a
dodge. Wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and
losses will be forgiven or forgotten . . . but
anything like a trick will always rankle."
Winston Churchill, 1906
A
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: For four years at Notre Dame,
they played at opposite ends of the line; in the
photos shown here, they are at opposite ends of the
same row of the 1952 Detroit Lions' team photo.
That's Leon Hart, who passed away last week, on the
left; he looks as if he's wearing shoulder pads,
but he's not. He was that big. The player on the
right is a big man, too - he only looks a trifle
smaller in comparison to his 6-4, 260-pound
teammate. He's Jim Martin.My friends...File this in your "take it
for what its worth" box
"I just talked to Kevin Guskiewicz, one
of the top football concussion researchers in
the country and he told me that the concussion
rate in high school football across the country
is at 5 and 1/2 to 6%. The actual percentage is
5.6%. It is nowhere near the 20% you mentioned.
"So, in the words William Shakespeare,
'Beware the leader who bangs the
drums of war in order to whip the citizenry
into a patriotic fervor,
It's nice to meet you.
I then got up and
headed for the TOC bunker and as I got about 10
feet away another burst of tracers sprayed
around me. I dived for the bunker entrance, and
the adrenalin must have been really working. My
head squarely matched up with the 10 inch
diameter log over the entrance to the bunker.
Fortunately, my helmet hit the log, not my head,
but I thought I had been blown up. I saw stars
and collapsed in the hole.
Now, thanks to Ed Burke, executive
director of the 28th Infantry Association, I
have a state-by-state list of Vietnam-era Black
Lions., and if you contact me, I will be happy
to give you the names of some of these brave men
who live near you.
The
Hanover Park Hurricanes, of Hanover Park, Illinois,
are once again a Black Lions team! Last year's
Black Lion
Award winner,
Jeff Ball, is shown at left with his coach, John
Urbaniak. Jeff holds the trophy he won for being
named MVP of last weekend's Hurricane Bowl. Note
the Black Lions
regimental
patch that he
proudly wears on his jersey!
"NO MISSION TOO
DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY
FIRST"
October
1 - "We shall pay any price...
bear any burden... meet any hardship... support
any friend... oppose any foe... to assure the
survival and success of liberty." President
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, older (and braver)
brother of Teddy Kennedy, Senator from
ChappaquiddickA
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: For four years at Notre Dame,
they played at opposite ends of the line; in the
photos shown here, they are at opposite ends of the
same row of the 1952 Detroit Lions' team photo.
That's Leon Hart, who passed away last week, on the
left; he looks as if he's wearing shoulder pads,
but he's not. He was that big. The player on the
right is a big man, too - he only looks a trifle
smaller in comparison to his 6-4, 260-pound
teammate.The contestants will start in Dallas,
travel to Waco, Austin, San Antonio, over to
Houston and down to Brownsville. They will then
proceed up to Del Rio, on to El Paso, then to
Midland, Odessa, Lubbock and Amarillo. From
there, they'll proceed to Abilene, Fort Worth
and finally back to Dallas!
Haw!
I laughed, and pointed to the bumper sticker on the
wall of my office, the one shown here. I bought it
when I was in the Quad Cities several years
ago.
I then got up and
headed for the TOC bunker and as I got about 10
feet away another burst of tracers sprayed
around me. I dived for the bunker entrance, and
the adrenalin must have been really working. My
head squarely matched up with the 10 inch
diameter log over the entrance to the bunker.
Fortunately, my helmet hit the log, not my head,
but I thought I had been blown up. I saw stars
and collapsed in the hole.
Now, thanks to Ed Burke, executive
director of the 28th Infantry Association, I
have a state-by-state list of Vietnam-era Black
Lions., and if you contact me, I will be happy
to give you the names of some of these brave men
who live near you.
The
Hanover Park Hurricanes, of Hanover Park, Illinois,
are once again a Black Lions team! Last year's
Black Lion
Award winner,
Jeff Ball, is shown at left with his coach, John
Urbaniak. Jeff holds the trophy he won for being
named MVP of last weekend's Hurricane Bowl. Note
the Black Lions
regimental
patch that he
proudly wears on his jersey!
"NO MISSION TOO
DIFFICULT - NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT - DUTY
FIRST"
A
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: This is from a 1964
Baltimore Colts' program. At the time,
he was considered to be one of the
greatest linemen ever to play the game.
He may still be.
A
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: Norm Snead played quarterback in the
NFL for 16 years, with five different teams. He had the
misfortune of playing for some less-than-outstanding
coaches on some unbelievably poor clubs. In his entire
16-year career, he played on only three winning teams.
***********
A week or so ago, my headline quote came from the
great Joe Foss- "Those who lived have to
represent those who didn't make it." This is
what drives men like Jim Shelton and Tom Hinger to
make sure that so long as they draw breath, the
memory of the men they served with - the Black
Lions who didn't make it - will never fade. My
admiration for those men and their devotion to
their fallen mates is what drives me to assist them
with the Black Lions program.
