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JUNE 2005

NO MORE 2005 CLINICS 2005 Clinics (UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 28, 2005 - "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright.   *********** Sorry, I had to remove the Ten Commandments for fear of offending anyone. Maybe if I just call them the Ten Suggestions...   *********** Our local paper, the Vancouver Columbian, honored kids from area high schools who had won regional honors in more than one sport. I found it interesting that of the 12 boys mentioned, 11 had played football. (The 12th doubled in cross country and track although, considering that he ran the 3200 in track, you might argue that they were almost the same sport.)   Three of the football players won honors in three sports.   The most common combination was football and wrestling - five of the kids were all-league in football and wrestling.   Three of the football players doubled-up with track in the Spring. One, Mat Webb, who is headed to Oregon as an offensive linemen, placed in state in the shot put and discus. Another, Taylor Rank, Washington state player of the year in football, earned district honors in the sprints. He is headed to South Carolina.   The significant thing here is the relative absence of baseball and basketball players as multi-sport stars.   Typical of the way baseball and basketball coaches try to keep "their" players on the plantation - concentrating on just the one sport year-round - only one of the 11 kids played the so-called Big Three (football, basketball and baseball); only two others were baseball players who somehow found the time to play football, and only one was a basketball player who dared to risk his future NBA career by playing football.   *********** Which reminds me of the jerk doing color on one of the College World Series games who commented, after being told that an Oregon State pitcher was also a defensive back on the football team, that he was crazy to be playing football - "He's just one tackle away from ending his baseball career."   *********** Regarding your comments on Patrick Henry and the "Supreme" Court's decision to permit developers disguised as local governments to seize private property; Amen, Amen and Amen.   At least in Georgia, we have gotten it right.   http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=65141   I urge everybody who lives in a state that does not similarly protect it's citizen's property to work on their state legislature to take steps to do so. We must draw a line in the sand and hold that line at all costs.   Tim Taylor, Cumming, Georgia, 5&6 Year Old Midway Packers (Nice to hear that at least one state anticipated what just happened. Of course, straightening out this one issue doesn't address the main problem, which is a too-liberal Supreme Court, drunk with a power that the founding fathers never intended for it to have. HW)   *********** hi i was hoping you could help me out a little bit with my position i am a junior at a highschool in ------- . I was the starting middle backer for my team 2 weeks ago and lately it has changed drastically. I asked my coach y and he said the other kids are doing better lately. Please give me tips on what i can do to be back on top i hope i can be soooo bad. We run a 3-4 defense and i am the weak side MLB thank you so much..any types would be greatly appreciated.      sincerely, kevin   Dear Kevin, I really can't be giving much advice to players on how to move up on the depth chart, because I don't know enough about you, or your coaches, or what they're looking for.   I do think you did the right thing by talking to your coach, but I think you should go to him again and ask him what you need to do to get that spot back. And then do what he suggests. It is important to show him that you are not a grumbler - that you are coachable and willing to do what he wants.   The secret to getting what we want in life is finding out what other people want, and doing that. The problem is that a lot of people never find out what other people want, which is why you should talk with your coach.   Believe me, like any coach, he would be very pleased to see you improve to the point where you can earn a starting position.   Fortunately, you still have a lot of time until real football starts. (And practice on that "SHIFT" key.)   *********** "Lawmakers See Improvements in Guantanamo Tour" read one headline. "Visitors See Progress at Guantanamo" read another. The story was about congressmen who went to Guantanamo to "see for themselves" whether the tales of torture and degradation of the "detainees" (prisoners) that libs have been claiming were actually true. What they found was that the prisoners, people who were sworn to kill us, were in fact well-clothed and well-fed. They were even allowed to play - ugh - soccer.   The closest thing they could find to "torture" was a female interrogator who for hours on end read a Harry Potter book to a prisoner (who turned his back to her and held his hands over his ears).   Said (Democratic) Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher of California, "The Guantanamo we saw today is not the Guantanamo we heard about a few years ago."   Yeah, right. Things have changed. Instead of admitting that they were wrong all along - that these scumbag "detainees" have an easier life than our fighting men in Iraq - the congressional "investigators" saved face by saying that they saw "improvements" - that there's been "progress" from "the Guantanamo we heard about."   *********** We are facing more and more teams that are diving right at the ankles of our lineman and laying there in a pile.  It hurt us a few games where teams had superior linebackers scraping over the pile and our lineman had some trouble getting around that mess on super power. Most of the time we beat them off the ball and made the play work, but how are you dealing with it? Thanks coach!   If your linemen are deep enough and your playside linemen are good enough at their down blocking, this shouldn't be that big of a problem. You also should be running outside, because a submarining lineman can be cut off low - not to mention the fact that none of those submarining linemen are able to get involved in pursuit. When you run a sweep, you are essentially isolating on three or at most four perimeter people.   The defensive linemen have all basically given themselves up for the sake of stuffing your inside. The opponents are trading a defensive lineman for an offensive lineman. I'll take that trade any day. *********** The movie industry is going through hard times. Not that this is necessarily sad news for those of us who find much of its product repulsive - I mean, it isn't all that hard to see Hollywood's example of moral degeneracy as one of the reasons why Islamic radicals seek to wipe us all out. Nor would it bother me all that much to see those Hollywood fools who finance left-wing causes go broke, reduced to begging for small change at the entrance to freeway on-ramps (Holding signs reading "Will Blame America for Food. God Bless.")   Besides the fact that Hollywood moons the more than 50 per cent of American voters who are not left wing; that Hollywood openly admits that its target audience is the 12-to-25 crowd; and despite the fact that Hollywood often seems unable to come up with an original idea for a story - The Wall Street Journal has another idea why Hollywood's revenues had been down for 17 straight weeks - "the worst thing that ever happened to movies happened when audiences began treating theaters like their living rooms. Their chatter destroyed the essential thrill of sitting in the dark sampling the Zeitgeist with hundreds of other people."   The solution, wrote the Journal, is simple: "You want us back? Bring back the usher."   But not, said the Journal, "clueless, giggling teenagers." Instead, it said, what's needed is real ushers. "Scary ones" - "the meaner the better, too, with full power to evict talkers and other noisemakers."   I remember the type. Those guys didn't take any crap off anybody, and they had the kind of power today's police can only dream of.   Just one problem, though. In a nation that won't let its police shoot dangerous criminals on sight, and calls it "torture" when we try to interrogate animals dedicated to destroying us, I can only imagine the trial lawyers licking their lips at the prospect of suing "scary" ushers who dare to eject blabbermouths from a movie theater.   *********** Coach Wyatt, What is your opinion on doing the Pancake drill without pads or helmets?  I am planning my team camps for the last week of July and would like your opinion.  I have three camps;  3rd - 6th graders, 7th & 8th graders and my high schoolers.   I would be really careful about any high-impact drills without protective equipment, although I suppose you might be able to start the "blocker" in the "fit" position, right up against the shield, and on signal drive the "defender" backward until they're both pancaked on top of the bag. That might be fun, without much risk, but you'd want to check it out carefully first!   *********** Although the Democrats' leaders had absolutely NOTHING to say about Illinois Senator Dick (Head) Durbin's likening of Guantanamo to Hitler's concentration camps and Stalin's Gulags (Siberian prison camps), they were aghast at what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove had to say about the contrasting reactions of liberals and conservatives to 9-11.   In fact, all the stories I read in Mainstream Newspapers devoted much more space to Democratic attacks on Rove and his speech than on what he said. "An insulting remark," said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Divisive and damaging political rhetoric," said Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, who certainly knows "divisive and damaging political rhetoric" when he sees it.   So what did Karl Rove say, exactly?   Read these excerpts from his speech to the New York State Conservative Party last week, and decide for yourself whether the shoe fits...   Conservatives believe in lower taxes; liberals believe in higher taxes. We want few regulations; they want more. Conservatives measure the effectiveness of government programs by results; liberals measure the effectiveness of government programs by inputs. We believe in curbing the size of government; they believe in expanding the size of government. Conservatives believe in making America a less litigious society; liberals believe in making America a more litigious society. We believe in accountability and parental choice in education; they don't. Conservatives believe in advancing what Pope John Paul II called a "culture of life"; liberals believe there is an absolute unlimited right to abortion.   But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.   In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban.   In the wake of 9/11, the liberals believed it was time to submit a petition. I'm not joking. Submitting a petition was precisely what Moveon.org, then known as 9/11peace.org did. You may have seen it in The New York Times or The Washington Post, the San Francisco Examiner or the L.A. Times. (Funny, I didn't see it in the Amarillo Globe News.)   It was a petition that "implored the powers that be" to "use moderation and restraint in responding to the terrorist attacks against the United States. I don't know about you but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the ground, the side of the Pentagon destroyed and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.   Moveon.org and Michael Moore and Howard Dean may dominate the Democratic Party and liberalism &emdash; but their moderation and restraint is not what America felt needed to be done, and moderation and restraint was not what was called for. It was a time to summon our national will and to brandish steel.   Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation involved in a noble cause of self-defense. Liberals are concerned with what our enemies will think of us and whether every government approves of our actions.   Has there ever been a more revealing moment than this year. when the Democratic senator, Democrat Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans have done to prisoners in our control in Guantanamo with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot &emdash; three of the most brutal and malevolent figures of the 20th century?   Let me put in this in really simple terms. Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Sen. Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.     *********** Coach Wyatt, I need some advice about video systems. I am a PC user and have movie maker. The problem is the video I make misses parts of the play or it is "jumpy". Because of this I have considered just getting the Landro System. I mean when I try to make cut-ups I have all kinds of problems. I could use any help you may be able to give.   This is not to say anything at all negative about the Landro system, but at $5,000 it is fairly expensive.   I do know that for considerably less than $5,000, you could buy a decent Mac Powerbook AND TD Video AND plenty of memory.   And despite what manufacturers of complete systems will try to tell you, Macs are very easy to work with, and you can download a free trial version of TD Video (if you have a Mac) and see for yourself how simple it is to use.   And you can take your system with you wherever you want to go.   *********** The US Track and Field Championships were held this past weekend in Carson, California. Who knew?   As a kid growing up, as a high schooler, and even as a college student, I remember following track rather closely. I could tell you who held the world record in most major events, and I could tell you who the best performers were at any particular time.   Now, I couldn't tell you who holds the world record in the 100 - or, for that matter, whether it's 100 yards, 100 meters, or 100 deciliters.   The indoor track season, especially in New York, was once a major part of every winter's sports schedule. Now, try to find a major indoor meet.   Track is still pretty big in Europe - at least in the summer - but in the US it's all but dead as a sport that attracts any kind of interest.   I have a few ideas why that is.   Elimination of barriers. The 7-foot high jump, the 27-foot broad jump (sorry - "long jump"), the 15-foot pole vault, 60-foot shot put, the 9-flat hundred (that would be yards) and the 4-minute mile stood for years as challenges to the world's best athletes - the supreme tests of man against his supposed limits. Any time someone came close, the tremendous buzz that it generated assured a big crowd the next time he performed. And when someone broke a barrier, he was hailed as a World Champion. But once those barriers were gone, and boredom set in (Another 16-foot pole vault? So what else is new?) what replaced them?   Equipment-aided performance. From bamboo poles, to steel, to fiberglass, the effect of technology on the pole vault is the greatest example. But don't forget the porta-pit, which enabled high jumpers to change to a style that required them to fall from seven feet and land on their backs. And then there are the more subtle effects of improved shoes, spandex uniforms and all-weather tracks.   The boredom of track meets. A track meet is worse than a day at the races. I understand that they need the time between horse races to allow people to get their bets down, but can anybody explain why spectators have to wait 20 minutes between running events at a track meet?   Professionalism. The athletes are glorified hucksters for the latest in shoes and apparel. Track often seems less a competition among athletes and more a case of Nike vs Adidas (sorry- adidas, without the capital "A").   Glasnost. The real interest in the modern (post World War II) Olympics was largely owing to the fact that Olympic competition became a reflection of the Cold War. The Russians and East Germans used sports as a means of trumpeting the supposed superiority of their political systems, and since the Olympics were the only time we ever competed against each other, they turned into a clash of competing systems - the Free World against the Forces of Evil. The Olympic games became an us-against-them medals race. For better or worse, the rivalry sure did generate interest in the Olympics. Now, though, the Soviet system is dead (we hope), and international track meets take place not just every four years, but every week; and the Olympics are just another stop on the summer professional track circuit. (Ironically, it would appear in retrospect that the Communists had it right, since we have adopted the Soviet model of government-subsidized training facilities for elite athletes.)   Cheating. Is it real, or is it...? Track athletes have defiled their sport in their relentless search for new ways to chemically enhance performances and stay ahead of the drug testers.   Same old/same old. The fact that people can now make a lucrative living as professional track performers keeps the same old faces around for years, and prevents new faces from entering the spotlight.   The metric system. I think that track blew it for American fans when it blithely swept away the mile and the 100-yard dash, and with them all the records and memories of milers and sprinters past, replacing them with metric distances. I mean, I knew my track, and I knew what a good mile was, but I'll be damned if I can tell you what a good 1,500 meters is. Nor, being an American with a built-in aversion to the metric system (which we all know is a sinister European plot to one day bring the US under one world government), do I have much interest in learning.   *********** Coach, I'm running a 3-day youth football clinic this week and last night did what I always do just before my clinics..... watch your Practice Without Pads videotape...great stuff.   And yes, I was thinking the same thing myself....Annika Sorenstam is looking a little less feminine these days. Man, her arms are huge compared with a few years ago...must be Bowflex....   Rick Davis, Duxbury Youth Football, Duxbury, Massachusetts   One more thing.....we still have a handful of guys in the youth program who think we should run the same offense that the high school does. I've introduced myself to the new HS coach and lo and behold he ran some double wing at the last HS that he was a head coach at, he was also an assistant at Everett HS, a DW team and perennial Super Bowl participant in Mass. So, the next time the youth coaches chirp in about running the HS's offense, I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when I tell them that the HS coach runs some DW, and that I'd be happy to have all the teams in our program run the DW as well. I could even do a small clinic for them if they'd like. :)   *********** "I shouldn't have lost this match. I hate to waste time, and I worked pretty hard the last week or so. But I guess you got to work more than a week, you know?" Serena Williams, after being upset at Wimbledon. *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW)  *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners

NO MORE 2005 CLINICS 2005 Clinics (UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 24, 2005 - "Some people say it is too bad that, when two teams meet on a field of play, one team has to win and the other team has to lose. I think that is the most most American thing there is about the game of football."  Lynn "Pappy" Waldorf, outstanding coach at the University of California in the 1950s.   *********** Patrick Henry, who argued and fought as hard as any man in the cause of our independence, refused to support the Consitution. "I smell a rat," he said, fearing that after overcoming the tyranny of King George, we were replacing it with a government of our own that was every bit as tyrranical.   Patrick Henry didn't even live to see the Supreme Court exert its so-called "right" of Judicial Review, but even so, for some 200 years the Consitution seemed to work pretty well. Now, though, I am willing to concede that Patrick Henry had a point.   Man, this latest Supreme Court decision is robbery, pure and simple.   Taking a person's property without his or her consent has always been a right of government - when it is in the public interest.   But this case decided Tuesday was not about condemning someone's property to build a railroad, or an airport, or a highway. Or even a school.   It was about the city of New London, Connecticut using the power of government to grab land from one private entitity (an individual) and turn it over to another private entity (a developer).   Now, the door is open for municipalities everywhere to condemn little beachfront shacks occupied by 80-year-old widows, and immediately deed the land to large developers so they can build build oceanfront condos, all in the public interest (since the condos will produce more property tax revenue than the shacks).   It is bad enough that you only "own" your property to the extent that you are able to pay the taxes on it. But now, anybody who wants your property (and has contributed heavily to the party in power) can pressure the local government to take it from you and turn it over to them.   Patrick Henry had a good sense of smell.   *********** Coach, Just finished my second year as principal.  it's really this time of year that I miss coaching the most.  The summer with camps, weights and building a foundation for my team; I like that as much as anytime of the season.   In response to your comments about the Dentyne ad;  dress code issues drive me nuts.  It's all but impossible to enforce on a consistent basis. The men are uncomfortable with saying anything to the female students, the kids always find the loophole and/or push the limits and our female librarian was accused of sexual harassment by a set of parents since "she was obviously staring at their daughter's behind!" when the girl was told that her jeans were inappropriate for school.  But what bothers me more then bare midriffs or the "sag" are the shirts that both  the male and female students wear.  The attitude that is expressed is viewed as "cute" or funny by the student or parent but is actually demeaning and negative.  I am at the point that I am ready to outlaw anything with writing on it other than school name, etc.   On Friday, May 27th Northeastern held our graduation.  It was the Friday before Memorial Day and we were blessed to graduate Bill Clabaugh.  Mr. Clabaugh was a 80 year old WWII veteran.  He quit school during WWII and served on the USS New Jersey.  The state of Indiana has a law that allows veterans to earn their diploma if their education was interrupted by WWII.  It was exciting to see his face as his nephew, Scott Johnson, one of my PE/Health teachers and a former football coach, handed him his diploma.  When our school band played "Anchors Aweigh" and everyone in our gym stood to applaud, the tears were streaming down Mr. Clabaugh's face.  I was honored to be able to honor this man!  His generation will be missed; they did what they were supposed to do and we are all blessed.   I had a friend remind me this week (he's a former football coach and current principal) that "we're still coaching; the only difference is now we have 42 assistant coaches and 592 students."   God bless! Dennis Metzger-current principal and always a Wishbone football coach - Fountain City, Indiana (What a wonderful thing it must have been for that school, that town, and Mr. Clabaugh to award him a richly-deserved and well-earned diploma!   I really sympathize with principals having to deal with the dress issue. I blame it all on the feminization of our society (and our men). I simply can't understand mothers who think it's cool to let their daughters dress like sluts - or fathers who lack the testicles to say, "I am a man, and I know what boys are after, and no daughter of mine is going out of my house looking like a hooker." (For that matter, what man nowadays even has the testicles to utter the words "daughter of mine" or "my house?") HW)   *********** this is my second year of being a head football coach, prior to being the head coach I was an assistant varsity coach for seven seasons. We ran your double wing offense last season, & we plan to continue to use it. I have purchased the playbook & tapes.  We finished the season with a 6-3 record, made the playoffs & lost in the first round.  Going into my second season as the head coach I am having difficulty motivating the players to participate in the off-season program.  I am expecting them to get 24 lifts or work-outs in before the season starts on August 9th, the weight room is open 2x's /day in the morning & in the evening.  I also open it up for any players that are unable to make the scheduled times.  I have been in the weight room approximately 98% of the time it is open, we have an attendance chart posted & I have called players.  I have told the team that if they don't get their 24 work outs in by the start of the season they will not be playing on the varsity.  We are not a large school, about 500 students, with a football population of about 65 players grades 9-12.  Using the current attendance numbers we will not have enough to field a varsity team by the time the season rolls around, if I stick to my 24 lifts rule.  My question for you is how have you handled off season programs? What are some possible tips or ideas you have used? Do you tie off-season participation to playing time? (I guess it is more than one question, sorry) What advice could you give me regarding my current situation?  Thank you for any help you could give me, I really enjoy running your offense.    The problem you describe is not unusual.   We have had our moments, here at Madison High, and although our kids are pretty good now, we still have to work to get some of them there. Some kids just can't make the connection between success and preparing for success.   We don't tell the kids they can't play varsity if they don't make a specified number of workouts. That sets up a situation, I think, in which the coach can't possibly win. But we do tell them they won't get equipment (and therefore won't be able to hit) until they get those (in our case, 20) workouts in. They can wait until the start of formal practices if they wish, but they can only make up at most two workouts a day - in addition to regular practice. We tell them and their parents that it is a safety issue. It's also helpful to make sure there is a little bit of fun involved in your workouts - a game of touch, or an iron man competition, or some such.   I really think that when you get right down to it, attendance at off-season workouts is a function of senior leadership and how good they want to be. It sounds in your case as if there may not be a lot of leadership from the kids, and sounds as if they expect you to do everything for them.   You might consider, rather than issuing an ultimatum, offloading some of the responsibility onto them - getting the seniors together (or the senior lettermen) and expressing your concerns to them, and asking them how good they want to be, and what they are willing to do to be that good. There is one negative that might come out of this, but you might just as well expose it now - you might find out (to your dismay) that they don't consider it to be their responsibility. Ouch.     *********** Writes Craig Smith in the Seattle Times:   Saddest disqualification: Leonard Harris, a junior at Kentridge High School, finished second in the triple jump at the South Puget Sound League meet then was disqualified because he had taken some jumps while wearing a Lance Armstrong "Livestrong" bracelet. Harris had forgotten to take the elastic bracelet off until a judge reminded him of the no-jewelry rule. He was allowed to continue jumping, but a rival coach had seen him jump with the bracelet and brought the matter to the attention of officials, who DQ'd him. Kentridge appealed and lost.   Kentridge coach Ken Paul, who thinks Harris would have done well enough at the district meet the following week to get to state, summed up the situation in three words: "A damn shame."   (I have one or two words for that "rival coach," too, but I can't print them here without using a lot of *'s, !'s, and #@%$#@&'s! HW)   *********** Guess when you haven't played in over a year, it's a little harder to evaluate your coaches...    The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League just fired their coach.   *********** I read the Stanford press release and gritted my teeth...   Former Cardinal football and basketball player Teyo Johnson, currently a tight end with the Oakland Raiders, will take part in the Youth Sports Festival and Seminars hosted by Stanford University on June 25, 2005. Johnson will be one of several former Stanford student-athletes taking part in one of two seminars as well as a panel discussion for children on the role sports played in their lives.   The Youth Sports Festival and Seminars is a community outreach event that offers sports clinics hosted by Stanford coaches and student-athletes, two seminars focusing on sports and society, a "festival" of sports activities in which children are invited to participate and a panel discussion in which some of Stanford's all-time great athletes will discuss how sports impacted their lives.   The event is free and open to the public. Children 8-14 can participate in free sports clinics in baseball, softball, basketball and soccer. Also included is an all-comers swim meet for kids 6-14 and a tennis tournament for kids 10-14.   Johnson will take part in a seminar titled, "Sports and Success in Life." The seminar will focus on the following questions: Does involvement in sports lead automatically to a success in life? And does one have to be successful in sports or is it enough to have participated? What in a sports experience makes for a successful life? Do parents pushing their children to be successful in sports help or hinder? What does a coach need to do to be a positive influence beyond excelling on the playing field?   During his three seasons on the Farm, two as a wide receiver, Johnson caught 79 passes for 1,032 yards and 15 touchdowns, finishing his career tied for 10th all-time in career touchdown receptions. In his final season, as a redshirt sophomore in 2002, he led the team with 41 receptions for 467 yards and eight touchdowns.   I mean, what the f--ck were the geniuses at Stanford thinking?   Here's what I wrote, in September, 1999...   Think it can't happen to you? John Ondriezek has just seen a potential state championship go "poof!" With most of his starters back from a 1998 state semi-final club, Coach Ondriezek, of Mariner High in Everett, Washington had to be excited about 1999. Two of his returning starters, 6-6, 245-pound QB-Receiver Teyo Johnson and 6-4, 255-pound fullback Amon Gordon, were two of the best-looking kids I saw anywhere last year. Coach Ondriezek has incorporated a little of my Double-Wing into his multiple scheme, and you can imagine how tough Amon Gordon could be at fullback. "Maybe once in your career, if you're lucky, you'll get players like them," Coach Ondriezek told USA Today. Trouble is, both Johnson and Gordon left Mariner just before the start of this year's practice - for San Diego. San Diego! Not exactly the next town over.   Coach Ondriezek first heard about the planned move from a college coach - two weeks before the kids told him. Seems that for the past two summers, Johnson and Gordon have played on a "High Five America" all-star team - sponsored by Nike - in San Diego! One of the team's coaches was one Dan Regas, head basketball coach at San Diego's Mira Mesa High School. And that's where the two star athletes are now playing. You draw your own conclusions. But the next time you hear someone talking about a national high school football playoff, remember John Ondriezek at Mariner High, and ask yourself if this is the direction in which you want high school sports to be headed. Oh, by the way - with Johnson catching five passes for 70 yards and Gordon rushing 13 times for 135 yards, Mira Mesa opened with a 37-16 win over Granite Hills; Mariner, ranked 20th in USA Today's top 25 last week, fell to Mountlake Terrace, 13-9.   So Teyo Johnson stiffed his high school coach and teammates, and then, after gaining admission on the strength of his athletic ability to an elite school that rejects 90 per cent of the highly-qualified kids who apply there every year, he walked out on Stanford.   What's he going to tell kids? About the importance of being loyal to your teammates? No, wait - how about the value of a Stanford diploma?   *********** After receiving numerous complaints and threats to cut back on donations, the Detroit Zoo finally came to its sense and decided to rename two baby wolverines.   Evidently a zookeeper who had graduated from Michigan State thought it would be cool to name the zoo's newest representatives of the mascot of the University of Michigan after two (or three) of its most bitter rivals: "Sparty" (for the Michigan State mascot ) and "Bucky" (either for the Wisconsin Badger mascot or - worse yet - the Ohio State Buckeyes).   The names were changed to Tamarack and Tilia, two trees native to Michigan.   *********** You might think that leaving a conference and going independent would cause scheduling nightmares for a major college AD, but Army doesn't seem to have that problem. Whether it's because of Army's great tradition, or because Army is a good draw wherever it plays, or because opponents seem to think they have a decent chance to put another "W" on the schedule, Army AD Kevin Anderson has found plenty of Army's longtime rivals interested in getting back on the schedule.   Yale returns to the Army schedule, visiting West Point in 2010 and 2012. (Somehow, unless Yale has plans that I don't know about, I don't think Yale sees those games as "W's".) Army has also scheduled series with Boston College and Rutgers, and home-and-home games with Rice, Duke, VMI, Wake Forest, The Citadel, Tulsa and Northwestern, most of them schools which still require even football players to go to class.   *********** Don't know if they test female golfers, but I happened to mention to my wife that little Annika Sorenstam sure does seem to have bulked up, and my wife said that was funny, because she noticed in a closeup that Annika's complexion looked a bit blotchy...   ***********  Hi Coach Wyatt, I am now coaching 13-14 year olds. I find that kick offs are only going 25 -30 yards. I am planning on moving everybody up except one, for insurance. Would a wedge return be best? I am looking for a simple but effective return.   I believe that in most cases a simple center-wedge return is best. It is possible to spend a lot of practice time on kickoff returns, and then all an opponent has to do is squib kick it and all that time has been wasted.   In your case, I would have 5 or 6 men on the front line, 5 or 6 men at various depths 10-15 yards back forming a second tier, and 3 deep return men, since a kick wide to one side or another could be difficult for the lone return man to cover.   I also advise against "hiding" big, slow unathletic kids on the front line of the kickoff return team. They aren't going to block anybody, and it is surprising how often their inability to field a ball will hurt you. *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW)  *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners

NO MORE 2005 CLINICS 2005 Clinics (UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 21, 2005 - "It isn't getting to the Pole that counts; it's what you learn on the way." Admiral Richard Byrd, explorer of Antarctica   WEIRD.... It's not often that we have an electrical storm in our part of the Pacific Northwest, but on Sunday we were treated to a real spectacle, as a powerful front moved up the Columbia River on the Oregon side and I stood on our deck and started clicking away with my trusty digital camera. In the photo at right, it's about 7 PM and at this time of year the skies are normally bright, but behind the hills on the other side of the river they are black, while the north side of the hills facing us and the town of Camas below us are still bathed in sunlight. It's now about 7:30, and in the photo below left, as the lead edge of the storm moves upriver (from right to left), the hills are now covered by a fog, tinted rusty red by the setting sun. A huge rainbow has started to form. In the photo at bottom right, I managed to snap off a photo just as a bolt of lightning struck in the sky next to the rainbow. (You can't imagine how many shots I had to take before I finally caught that SOB.)   *********** Hi Coach, Great as always but I gotta tell ya, you really know your beer(s)! All that reading on it at 9:35am has made me, well, a little thirsty. Oh well, you know what they say - "Ah beer, you know it's not just for breakfast anymore!". :-)   Regards, Matt Bastardi, Montgomery, New Jersey   For three years I was a product manager for a then-major brewery in Baltimore, and part of my responsibilities was supervising test markets in several parts of the country, so I really got an overall view of the industry, and I made a presentation to our distributors about the tremendous growth of Bud-Schlitz(remember Schlitz?)-Miller and how they would squash us unless we came up with a magic pill.   We didn't, and they did. That's why I hate them so much. They killed off the Schaefers, the Schmidts, the Narragansetts, the Ballantines, the Piels, the Knickerbockers, the Rheingolds, the Strohs, the Nationals, the Lucky Lagers - I could go on and on.   *********** Coach Wyatt, We won our first 7-on-7 competition of the summer. We won the Choctaw Challenge at Mississippi College on Tuesday. Games consisted of 2- 20 minute halves.   In the afternoon single elimination phase of the tourney we defeated Pearl (24-3), Clinton(52-6), (Pisgah 35-0) and Satsuma, Alabama(28-3-championship game)   Not bad for a RUNNING team!!   Steve Jones, Ocean Springs, Mississippi   *********** I read in the Wall Street Journal recently about devices for preventing kids and pets from being accidentally pinched (or worse) by the power windows of cars. One company said its product causes a window's motor to reverse automatically if the window senses any amount of resistance strong enough to "dent a banana."   Frank McIntosh wouldn't like that, I thought.   Frank was my boss at Madera Wine and Liquors in Maryland, when I briefly tried peddling booze as a way of supporting my family because my real love, coaching football, wasn't paying me anything.   It was hard to miss Frank when he came to town, because one of the perks of his job was that he got to drive a company-owned Cadillac. And not just any Cadillac. If you remember Cadillacs from the early 1970's, before the Arab Oil Embargo drove the price of gas up over 50 cents a gallon, his was almost half a city block long, and it was painted bright yellow with a green top, courtesy of the folks from Cutty Sark Scotch, who were also kind enough to paint their label on each front door.   Frank was a Canadian who had come to the US originally to play professional hockey, and had managed to make a decent career for himself in sales. The wine and liquor business was not a place for the softhearted, which suited Frank fine, because he was a hard-nosed a guy as I've ever known.   One spring day, he was driving through a rather nasty section of Baltimore with his car window open, enjoying the air. He was stopped at a light when a guy, undoubtedly figuring anyone driving a yellow-and-green Cutty Sark Cadillac was worth carjacking, reached in the window and grabbed him. (This was back in the days before carjackers realized that guns simplified their jobs.)   Frank very calmly hit the "up" button on his power window, pinning the guy's wrist before he could escape. And then he gunned it.   He drove three city blocks like that, dragging the guy alongside his car - he admitted to having to run a few red lights in the process - and then, as casually as he'd pinned the guy, he released him, and drove off, laughing his head off.    *********** My son, Ed, writes from Melbourne, Australia:   I'm sure you heard or read about Douglas Wood, the Australian who was kept hostage in Iraq for 47 days. His first two questions after being freed were "Any chance of a VB?" and "How are the (Geelong) Cats going?" If that isn't a typical Aussie response I don't know what is!   (Translation: That is typical Australian - beer and football. "VB" is Victoria Bitter, also known as "Vic Bitter," probably the most popular of all Australian beers. Foster's, by the way, although billed in the US as "Australian for Beer", is nowhere to be found in Australia. The Geelong Cats are members of the Australian Football League - AFL. Only among the hardest of hard-core American college football fans can one find team loyalties like those of the average AFL fan. HW)   *********** The US Open was won by a guy named Michael Campbell, and when I saw him interviewed on TV, brown-skinned and speaking in an accented English which sounded somewhat Australian, I immediately wondered where he was from.   My son cleared that up when we spoke on the phone Sunday night - said that the guy's a New Zealander, a Maori (remember to pronounce all the vowels - "MAA-o-ri") the Pacific Islanders who are New Zealand's indigenous people. He's a relative unknown in the US because he's been playing mostly on the Asian Tour. Ed said he spoke with Campbell during a tour stop in Australia not long ago and found him to be a great guy and, like all New Zealanders, passionate about rugby and about New Zealand's national team, the All Blacks. And Ed discovered that Tana Umaga is his favorite All Black (mine and Ed's, too).   And then I got to thinking about how golf, the least likely of all sports to be so, may very well be the most democratic of them all. Golf pros come in every color, representing every race and, to use the example of Tiger Woods, combinations of races.   Name the developed country, and I can probably name you a pro, past or present, who came from there. In fact, let any nation's economy go mainstream, and it will soon have a man or woman on the tour.   Interestingly, despite the image of golf as a rich person's sport, few of the top golfers on tour have come from really affluent families. Yes, they do come from solidly middle-class backgrounds, but most significantly - again, using Tiger Woods as an example - they do seem to have come from the much-demeaned Ozzie-and-Harriet type family, in which there was actually a father present when they were young.   Here endeth today's pop-sociology lesson.   DON'T LET THEIR POSES FOOL YOU - Yes, they are posin', but it's only for the cameraman. (Wait a minute - that would be me!) Based on our early summer workouts, these are five guys who are likely to make up our backfield this year at Madison High in Portland, Oregon. From left to right, they are Daniel McCarthy, Damaien Young, Freddie Tolliver, Jim Bray and Chris Lowry. Damaien, last year's B-Back, is our only returning offensive starter.   *********** Formula One racing is a little like soccer. It's BIG almost everyplace else in the world, but in the US, the Land of NASCAR, it isn't squat.   But at least soccer keeps trying to establish itself as a serious sport.   The soccer people have more sense than to pack a stadium full of people who've paid $100 a ticket, run both teams out onto the field, then send seven players from each team into the locker room and play four-against-four.   That's essentially what the Formula One people did to the paying fans at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, when Michelin, which furnishes the tires for 14 of the 20 drivers entered in the US Grand Prix, determined that its tires might be unsafe if driven at high speed (race cars are known to do that) on the course's final turn. Michelin offered to let its drivers use competing tires; the Formula One governing body said no - you can't qualify using one brand of tire, then race using another.   The 20 cars lined up to race, then one by one, they pulled off the track, leaving just six cars to compete.   Fans began to leave. Others threw whatever was handy.   Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George, who had refused to waive the checkered flag at race's end, instructed his staff not to participate in the awards ceremony. Those fans still around booed when winner Michael Schumacher, the Richard Petty of Formula One, stood on the winner's podium.   *********** Conservative radio talk show hosts need to be careful when they get outside their field of expertise.   A youth baseball league in Canal Winchester, Ohio (outside Columbus), kicked a team out of the league because it was beating other teams so badly that they refused to play it.   The team, called the Columbus Stars, wasn't just winning - it was beating teams by scores like 24-0 and 18-0 - and when the league was notified that other teams were threatening to pull out, it refunded the Columbus Stars' money and suggested they play elsewhere.   The talk show guys are having a lot of fun with this one, portraying it as just one more example of your typical feel-good, spare-the-kids-the-pain-of-losing approach to raising tender little darlings in the Twenty-First Century, but I smell a rat.   You and I both know that in baseball, coaching doesn't make that much of a difference. Not a 24-0 difference. Especially at the youth level, it is about talent, and when you see lopsided score after lopsided score, experience tells most of us that something's amiss in the area of player selection. (Notice that I got all the way through this article without once using the words "stacking" or "recruitment.")   *********** Coach - Looking for some Mac advice.  I've had an iBook for 3 years now (40 gig hard drive and a combo drive).  It's been great to me - but I'd like to burn dvd's of my highlights and have the more advanced iMovie.    I'm looking at the powerbook w/ superdrive or the imac desktop. The powerbook Im looking at is similar in price to the imac (Im looking at the 12 in compact one).  Its got 80 gig hard drive - the imac has 200.   Obviously you get more for your money with the imac - but I certainly like portability.  Im either going to get the powerbook and sell my ibook or get the imac and keep the ibook for portable use (don't know how easy it is to transfer data back and forth though?)  From your experience with Macs - what should I do???   Mostly I use the sucker for football video making, playbook making, although I do download my music   Are you sure that the 12" Powerbook has a Super Drive (one that will burn DVDs)? Last I checked, the little one (I have one and it is a slick little computer) didn't come with one.   It isn't tough to transfer files between computers (assuming they're both Macs). If it's just data, it's a simple matter of using a "flash drive," a little thing smaller than a butane cigarette lighter that costs maybe $40 or $50, plugs into any USB hub and then shows up as an icon on your computer's Finder window as a place to drag files to or from. Simply drag things to the flash drive, eject it from your source computer and unplug it (always be careful to take the step of making sure its icon has disappeared from your finder screen before unplugging), then plug it into your destination computer, where it will show up on that computer's finder. Click on its icon to open it and do as you wish with the data.   For larger files (video files) that far exceed the flash drive's capacity, you can set up a network using an ethernet connection between your two computers. It is the fastest connection you can make.   Or - I recommend this - you can buy an external hard drive (180 gigabytes will cost you about $150. I recommend LaCie Drives). You can save and retrieve anything from it, just as if it were your computer's own hard drive, saving valuable hard drive space on your computers. FireWire connections make the file transfers between computer and external hard drive about as fast as possible.   Sooner or later, I think that if you plan to continue with coaching and video editing, you will find yourself at some point needing extra storage anyhow.   *********** Coach, I'm not drafting the number #1 and number #2 players this year:   1. #1 - his dad played OL for a major college   2. #2 - his dad coached one of the local HS teams   Both have expressed interest in helping whoever drafts their son. I think they will try to take over the team.   Am I wrong? I know I've only been doing DW for a year, but I don't think I need that kind of help. I would rather have people who know little about football who I can teach my way.   I think that you have very wisely anticipated what could happen, and I agree with you.   Red flags went up for me right away. I think that at your stage of development as a coach, you might still be a trifle uneasy about standing up to a strong assistant who has ideas of his own.   Very few people like that who offer to "help" really mean "do whatever you say."   Sometimes the best assistant is no assistant at all. HW   *********** Turn about is fair play...   Because some people claim to be offended, the NCAA is pressuring member schools to ditch nicknames such as Indians, Warriors, Braves, Redmen, Savages, etc., trading in years of (perhaps insensitive) tradition for such really clever alternatives as Red or Gold Something-or-others (when all else fails, "Hawks" seems to be very popular) and Fightin' This-or-Thats.   It seems to me only fair that as a small concession, the President of the Cherokee nation consider changing hers.   I mean, Wilma Mankiller?   I'm offended. *********** I wrote Dave Potter coach of the Durham Fighting Eagles, in Durham, North Carolina, to tell him that my daughter, Julia Love, had discovered that one of her son (my grandson) Wyatt's friends, Josh Williams, was Coach Potter's Black Lion, and here's what he wrote back... Y'know, it's the funniest thing...I was at a baseball game a couple of weeks ago and Julia was there. She and I were talking about Josh Williams and she (and Wyatt) were talking about what a great kid Josh is, how hard he plays, etc. and then I remembered that he was our first Black Lion winner. I told her that and we both remarked what a small world it is. When I went to sit in the bleachers, Henry Williams arrived (Josh's dad). I said, "Henry, do you see that lady over there? That's Coach Wyatt's daughter." He said, "Of the Black Lions?!" I said, "Yes, and Coach Wyatt's grandson is over there" (indicating Wyatt). He just smiled and shook his head (and then made the same "small world" comment (lol). Then I went over to David Morken (whose son Michael, was our 2002 Black Lion winner). I had the same conversation with him. He was blown away. Neither Henry nor David could believe that the award their son had been honored with, from a coach who lived across the U.S., had family right here in Durham and that they knew the Love family. Small world, indeed. *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW)  *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners

NO MORE 2005 CLINICS 2005 Clinics (UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 17, 2005 - "I've never been an intellectual, but I have this look..." Woody Allen   NOT THAT I ALLOW MYSELF TO GET CAUGHT UP IN ALL THE MOTHER'S DAY/FATHER'S DAY FOLDEROL, BUT HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO FATHERS EVERYWHERE NEVERTHELESS - MAY FATHERHOOD BRING YOU THE JOY THAT IT'S BROUGHT ME. AND AS COACHES, MAY YOU CONTINUE TO BE THE FATHERS TO YOUNG MEN WHOSE OWN FATHERS ARE NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. *********** At Thursday's workout, we reminded the kids of the time of Friday's workout, and one of the kids asked if we'd be working out on Saturday. "Saturday's Fathers' Day," one of the other kids said. We corrected him and pointed out that actually, Father's Day was Sunday, and I asked, "What - you have to stay in the house all day to observe Fathers' Day?" Another kid, unusually wise to the ways of modern marketing, said exactly what I was thinking - "It's a Hallmark Holiday." *********** Dear Coach Wyatt, It has been a while since I emailed you, but I have not missed an issue of your web news.  Congrats on your entrance into the Black Lions.  As a retired Naval Reserve Commander and veteran of Vietnam I welcome you into the brotherhood of warriors.   You have done a lot for the military community and high school football with the Black Lion award and you deserve the honor.  I, like you, am amazed by the lack of fundamentals by today's athletes. Catching a baseball one handed was and is wrong and I have seen many dropped balls because of this.   I was never coached that way from my youngest days.  All of the coaches I had from Little League on stressed the fundamentals and when I got to High School and played football for Bill Wood that is all he taught.  The beauty of sport to me is in the details.  Details is what separates the coaches as far as I am concerned and the details are in the fundamentals.  The fundamentals  can never be completely mastered and that is what makes sport so intriguing and interesting and that is what has always kept my interest in offensive line play.  On a sad note, as I have written you many times about my high school coach, Bill Wood, he passed away this summer at the age of 81. Yes you have Coach Bill Wood placed exactly in time. He grew up dirt poor in Bakersfield, California where his dad worked as a laborer in the oil fields. Played high school football for the Bakersfield Drillers. He went into the Marines when he graduated from high school as one of those 18 year olds. He served in the Pacific Theater and was training to invade Japan, when the atomic bomb ended the war. When he got out of the Marines in 1945 went to the College of Pacific in Stockton, CA on the GI bill and played football for Larry Simering and with Eddie Lebaron on those great Pacific teams in the late '40s and early '50s. He received his teaching credential from Pacific and coached football from 1952 until 1966 when he had a run in with the high school administration over discipline and they took football away from him. He retired from teaching in 1978 and didn't miss a day of fly fishing in his retirement. Playing for him was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life and later in life when I coached having him as a friend and resource was invaluable. He taught me football but more than that he taught me about being a man.   When I was actively coaching and I would call him for advice on some detail on a defense we were facing or a particular coaching problem I was having, he would always answer the phone the same way, "You're not teaching that pushy, pushy, titty-titty blocking are you?"  And I would always answer him, "No, coach I am still teaching the shoulder blocking technique."  He would then say, "Good.  I'll talk to you."  And then I could ask him my questions and he would spend an hour or two with me on the phone going over how to attack a particular defense or making blocking adjustments against a particular alignment.   He knew it all.   I will truly miss him as next to my father, he was the biggest influence on my life!!!!  He was a great man. Well just wanted to drop you a line to let you know I am still around and  diligently reading your pages.  Looking forward with anticipation on the upcoming high school and college football season. Brad Elliott. The old line coach, Soquel, California (It hurts to lose men like Bill Wood. He served in World War II, and grew up in the Depression, and knew what tough was all about. We are losing those guys at a rate of 1,500 a day, and they can't be replaced. Not with men who wear eye shadow. HW) *********** Kudos to Eric Sondheimer of the Los Angeles Times, who takes a strong stand on ethics and standards of fair play, and has the cojones to report incidents of outrageous conduct and name the names, whether they be coaches, players or parents. His latest examples: (1) a soccer player at Westchester High School who rarely attended school but assumed the identity of another student so he could play on the school's soccer team; (2) two girls who used false ID's so they could play on Jordan High School's frosh-soph team; (3) a baseball coach at Villa Park High who broke state rules by holding an illegal batting practice before a playoff game, then had the gall to report that the opposing coach, himself under suspension, was illegally watching the game from beyond the outfield fence, thereby "earning" Villa Park a forfeit win. *********** Used to be Dentyne Chewing Gum ("It's Keen Chewing Gum!") was touted as something that was good for your teeth. But this is the 21st Century, and a Dentyne ad in this week's Sports Illustrated shows a guy and a girl pressed closely against each other. We see the girl from behind; one of the guy's hands is pulling down the girl's top, while the other is slyly picking her back pocket, pulling out a pack of Dentyne Tango. The very, very clever caption, no doubt written by a 16-year-old boy: "Everyone wants a piece." Nyuk, nyuk. *********** Here's a note about a former double wing fullback at Fitch HS in Groton, CT now making a name for himself on defense. George Hall, a Junior, will be starting for the second consecutive year at middle linebacker for the Purdue Boilermakers. He was second on the team in tackles last year and should compete for All-Big 10(11) honors this season. http://www.collegefootballnews.com/Big_Ten/2005_Previews/Purdue_defense.htm - Alan Goodwin, Warwick, Rhode Island (Alan, a HUGE UConn Huskies fan, wrote me to note that UConn's schedule is ranked 10th toughest in the nation by some "expert" named Dennis Dodd. HW)   *********** I read that Dick Enberg is going to be doing some sort of show to honor Al McGuire, the late coach and broadcaster. As a coach, he managed "somehow" to recruit kids from his native New York to Marquette, where he won a national title - then abruptly retired and never coached again. But he never left the limelight. Millions of people came to know him as the wiseguy partner of Enberg and Billy Packer. I loved the guy. He was never at a loss for an opinion, and he often express his opinions in the jargon of the street and the playground. A weak opponent, scheduled for an easy win, was a "Cupcake." The "aircraft carrier" was the big man, the indispensible part of any great team. And so on.   But a show honoring him? Who's going to play him? Who can play a guy who was one of a kind? (Remember "The Junction Boys," and the limp-ass attempt at re-creating Bear Bryant?)   Anyhow, in writing about the project, somebody stated - accurately, I thought - that McGuire was the first "character" to do basketball. Dick Vitale has carried on, to some extent, but he seems like a bloated version of McGuire, overexposed to the point that he has become a self-parody. ("Hey - that guy does a great Dick Vitale!" "Idiot. That is Dick Vitale!")   But then, this person went on to say that football's first "character" was John Madden.   Oh, no, said I. You people never heard of Don Meredith ("Dandy Don") and Howard Cosell. Those two guys were characters. Put in the booth with Frank Gifford, himself a handy man with a quip, they formed a broadcast crew that the TV people have tried ever since to match. Not a chance.   People talked afterwards about what Cosell and/or Meredith said - about the game, or about each other. That doesn't happen with John Madden, who can take two minutes to explain that a 300-pound guy is bigger than a 200-pounder because he weighs more. The people in the business kiss his ring, but I have never heard a football fan say, "Did you hear what Madden said last night?"   Madden is not football's Al McGuire. Madden is football's Dick Vitale.   Truthfully, for those who never experienced Al McGuire, I think the closest anyone comes to him - although he does all his work in the studio - is Charles Barkley.   *********** Is there not one person in the entire Senate of the United States with the stones to stand up and denounce that fool Dick ("Head") Durbin of Illinois?   He stood up on the floor of the capital and said our treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay was the sort of thing you'd expect from the Nazis.   I mean, he had no right to insult the Nazis like that. Our treatment of detainees is far worse than anything the Nazis ever did. Yes, they did gas millions of innocent Jews, but not even Hitler at his worst could have conceived of anything as diabolical as tying people up and forcing them to listen to rap.   *********** I pray that when I have gone on to meet my maker, my children and grandchildren - assuming that they are not by then speaking Arabic and bowing toward Mecca five times a day - will not depend for their protection on a "military" like this...   Back in May, two men were married in the chapel at Nova Scotia's Greenwood Airbase, in what appears to be the Canadian military's first gay wedding. *********** It's June, and looking through some of my past issues, I came across the story of Don Liddle, who died in June, 1998 or 1999 in Mount Carmel, Illinois. You probably never heard of him, but he was a major league pitcher who played a role in one of the most memorable plays in baseball history. He also came up with one of the funniest lines in baseball history. In fact, I don't know why it's not as immortal as the play itself. Pitching for the Giants in the 1954 World Series, Liddle served up a ball that the Indians' Vic Wertz crushed, driving it deep to dead center. In any other ball park in the majors it was a home run easily, but this was the Polo Grounds, a football field ill-suited as a baseball field. They put home plate at one end, roughly under the goal posts, so that there were extremely short right- and left-field lines (giving rise to the politically incorrect term "Chinese Home Run" for a pop fly that barely made it over the wall down either line) and a center field wall that not even Tiger Woods could clear. Well, actually, he could. But anyhow, it was deep. But the Giants did have one of the best ever to play the game out in center field, a guy named Willie Mays. At the crack of Wertz's bat, Mays took off, turning his back to the play, and at a dead sprint, managed somehow, more than 400 feet from home plate, to arch his back, look back and locate the speeding white baseball - and make the catch. You've seen the play, I'm sure. Or at least the picture. At some point Willie's hat flies off as he whirls and throws the ball back to the infield. No hot-dogging. No "look at me" garbage. Just an immortal play that established Mays once and for all as one of the best ever to roam centerfield. Wertz's shot was enough to convince Leo Durocher, the Giants' manager, to call for another pitcher. Liddle, who had just given up an enormous shot and been bailed out by one of the greatest catches in baseball history, handed the ball over to the reliever and told him, with a straight face, "I got my man." *********** Interesting how many young people are rejecting the conformity of Appleby's-Ruby Tuesday's-TGI Friday's/Bud-Coors-MIller, in search of things that are "real." An AP story recently dealt with the growing popularity of quirky, non-mainstream beers, with names such as Pabst, Rainier, Rheingold, National Bohemian, Yuengling and Utica Club. Nice story, but of all the beers mentioned, only Yuengling and Utica Club are "real" - still brewed in the same old brewery by several generations of the same family. The rest, with one exception, are phony revivals, and nothing more than retro cans filled with generic lagers made in large, modern breweries many mergers and acquisitions removed from their original makers. (The exception is Leinenkugel, still brewed in a quaint old brewery in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin but owned by Miller, which is in turn owned by SAB - which stood for South African Breweries until some very astute marketer pointed out that it might be difficult for Miller to do business in the US with a parent by that name.) Red Hook masquerades as a small craft brewer but is really owned by Anheuser-Busch, and "Plank Road Brewery" is actually Miller in disguise. I won't even get into Sam Adams, the McMicrobrew made wherever they can find a brewery willing to brew it for a price, other than to give them credit for doing a fabulous job of marketing. Utica Club, brewed in upstate New York by the Matt family in one of America's quaintest breweries, has somehow managed to remain afloat through the tough times in which the big giants squashed smaller regional breweries, and now it appears that current trends may return it to prosperity. The most amazing success story is that of Yuengling's (pronounced YING-ing's), a small brewery located on a hillside in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, whose flagship brand, Yuengling's Lager, has become a favorite of young beer drinkers from New England clear to Florida. Yuengling, which bills itself as "America's Oldest Brewery,", was established in 1829, and has been brewing beer at the same site (although not the same building) since 1831. But so popular has Yuengling Lager become in the big cities of the East and Southeast that its sales long ago exceeded the original brewery's capacity, and to meet the demand, Yuengling's first bought a brewery in Tampa from Stroh's, and not long ago opened a brand-new brewery not far from Pottsville in Port Carbon, Pennsylvania. Another Pennsylvania success story is Rolling Rock, brewed in Latrobe, Pennsylvania - but don't be fooled by its heritage as a small Western Pennsylvania brewer. Rolling Rock is now available nationwide, its marketing muscle provided by a foreign owner, InBev, a global brewing giant whose large stable of brands includes names such as Labatts, Lowenbrau, Becks, Stella Artois and Bass. My fear is that one day, Yuengling's will go the way of Rolling Rock and sell out to somebody like SBA or InBev, and become just another Rolling Rock or Leinenkugel.   I don't begrudge them the success. They have earned it and they deserve it. I can remember back in the 1960's when I was in the beer business and our distributor in Hagerstown, Maryland, Joe O'Neill, also handled Yuengling's. It was what we called a "price" beer - with no advertising behind it, its only attraction was its low price, but Joe couldn't even give it away. Nevertheless, he worked his tail off to get Yuengling's into every liquor store and bar he could. The Yuenglings appreciated what he did for them - so much so that years later, when Joe owned a liquor store and the brand by then was so hot that it was all Yuengling's could do to supply the New York market and as a result nobody else in Maryland could get any, Dick Yuengling saw to it that Joe O'Neill never ran out of Yuengling's. That's the kind of people they are. *********** Coach Wyatt, It doesn't surprise me at all that Joey Harrington would do something like that (buying a new car for his former teacher, Father Tim Murphy). As you know I am a long suffering Lions fan. I really want Joey to turn into a very good pro QB. Not just because that would make the Lions a better team, but because he is a really good person. Greg Stout, Thompson's Station, Tennessee *********** Coach Wyatt, How's it going. On Sunday, I was the head coach of the San Fernando Valley/Los Angeles All- Star football game at Birmingham H.S. It was all the best schools in the valley including some schools from L.A. Pete Smolin who talked at your L.A. clinic helped out also. We won 38-31 in overtime against the East. It is the most points ever scored in this All Star game. We ran (to a lot of people's dislike) the double wing almost the entire game. The MVP of the game was our wingback who scored 3 touchdowns including the game winning touchdown from the 10 yard line on the first play of overtime. I resigned as head coach at Cleveland H.S. in Reseda in April. For the past three seasons I ran and was the only guy who ran DW in the City. I was always told that the double wing wouldn't work in the city. Last year Cleveland had its second best record in school history. The school has been around since 1959. We were 7-3. Next year I'm coa ching at Desert Hot Springs right outside of Palm Springs, the school has won 7 games in 5 years. In the all-Star game everyone said that the run never works in all-star games and at this level you have to spread and throw. We actually did try some spread, but the dw was unstoppable. It just goes to show you that the DW if executed correctly can work at the "big School" level. Coach Smolin and I proved that on Sunday night. The back who won MVP was an All-City 1st teamer from Birmingham H.S., City Champs this year. He was not a believer in it during practices. During the game he kept on asking me, "Coach can we stick with DW". After the game he told me,"Coach, You're right - this offense is good". As a side note we scored the most points on Birmingham H.S. this year ( 31) than anybody else in the city running the double wing!! Thanks for your time. I thought you would get a kick out of this story. I'm also coaching another all-star game in July, and the game officials are barring me from running the double wing. Isn't that funny!! I might have to run anm offense everybody else runs or do a spread version of the double wing and hide it like you do. If you have any advice for what type of a formation I should to to disguise it, please let me know. Thanks a lot, I hope everything is going well. Sincerely, Craig Cieslik, Los Angeles DEMONSTRATED AT THE 2005 PORTLAND CLINIC... CIRCLE DRILL - If you run Super Power, it is almost a given that your backside linemen will not turn upfield and look inside - not without a lot of work. Instead, they will turn their shoulders too much to the side, and when they lead through the hole, they will keep on going to the outside. As a result, they will get in the way of the blockers who are supposed to be there (maybe the runner, too) and they will not provide the protection to the inside, which is why they are pulling in the first place. For the Circle Drill, we have made a portable circle out of three 10-foot lengths of 1/2-inch PVC pipe. At one end of each length of pipe we have added a sleeve of 1" PVC about 12" long, securing it with duct tape. (1) We position two players on opposite sides of the circle; One of them represents a linebacker to the inside of a hole who needs to be walled off; the other is a backside lineman whose responsibility is to pull to playside and turn up and wall off. (2) Note the the lineman is taking an open step with his playside foot; (3) Note that as he runs to the right, his shoulders are square - this is KEY - if he turns his shoulders to the sideline, he will not be able to carry out his assignment; (4) as he leads through the hole, his eyes are to the inside, looking for someone scraping into the hole; (5) When we put the pads on, the defender will hold a shield, and we will block him and apply the "12-Step Program" (drive for 12 steps after contact.)   *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW)  *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners

NO MORE 2005 CLINICS 2005 Clinics (UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 14, 2005 - "If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something" A corollary of Murphy's Law   *********** The photo at left is of me and Glade Hall, a long-time coaching friend who's now a member of the staff at Washington Class 2A State Champion Archbishop Murphy High School, in Everett, Washington.   Without making a long story of it, the plaque we are holding states that I am an honorary Black Lion. What that means to me is hard to explain even to those who understand what the Black Lions are and what the Black Lion Award is all about; it is impossible to explain to those who don't understand either one. Very simply, it means that I, although never having served my country, have nevertheless been awarded honorary membership in a brotherhood of men who have, indeed, served - and in many cases have given it all for - their country.   Coach Hall evidently worked very hard behind the scenes to coordinate the award, which I have learned has been given to only one other civilian, David Maraniss, author of "They Marched Into Sunlight," his epic story of the bloody battle in Vietnam in which the Black Lions fought so valiantly. (David Maraniss is also author of "When Pride Still Mattered," the definitive biography of Vince Lombardi, and is currently working on a biography of baseball great Roberto Clemente.)   At the instigation of Black Lion General James Shelton, I later learned, Coach Hall chose the Portland clinic to spring the award on me, and I must say that I was caught completely unaware. In fact, Coach Mike Foristiere, who was in town from Boise, Idaho for the clinic, wisecracked that it was the first time he'd ever seen me at a loss for words.   Truly, I was totally taken aback, to think that men who have actually served their country and risked their lives for it, would offer me, a non-server, membership in their brotherhood. It is the highest honor I have ever received; I am proud and humbled at the same time, and grateful for the chance I have been given to help bring honor to those men. *********** The last two clinics of the season were really enjoyable. After a layoff of a year, I returned to Buffalo, which, believe it or not, is one of my favorite places. Don't get me wrong - I love the Pacific Northwest. But there is a certain ethnic blandness to the West in general, a certain lack of in-your-face passion in its people, and a lack of age in its institutions. Don't even get me started on restaurants. In the Northwest, Olive Garden is where they go for Italian food; Tony Roma's is where they go for ribs - if you understand what I'm saying. Rare is the eating place out here that's been owned by two generations of the same family. The bars pretty much suck. For the most part, people do not go there to converse with other people at the bar. They go for all the other usual reasons - to brood, to look for a fight, to shoot pool, to pick up someone of one sex or the other (this is the Left Coast, you understand) - but the Eastern concept of the "circle bar" (often a square) made famous in "Cheers," in which you can sit at the bar and talk to the people across the way, or to your right or left, is almost unheard-of. I like old towns, with old restaurants and taverns. I like Philadelphia... Providence... Buffalo. This time, on Genesee Boulevard in Cheektowaga, not far from the airport, I found a place called Danny's (definitely not Denny's). In sum: great tavern atmosphere, with lots of people of all ages sitting at the bar on in nearby booths... good menu, including the traditional Friday night fish-fry found throughout the East and Midwest wherever there are large Catholic populations... one of the few weak points of Eastern places is the dreary fact that Sam Adams and Killian's Red usually pass as the only alternatives to the Bud-Miller's-Coor's Holy Trinity, and Danny's was no surprise in that regard. (Northwest taverns, with their abundance of locally-made microbrews on tap do spoil you that way)... But that's minor quibbling. The help is friendly, the wings (this is, after all, Buffalo, where the now-common way of serving chicken wings was invented, at a place called the Anchor Bar) are terrific, and the Beef on Weck, at least to this outsider, was very good. "Beef on Weck", for those who've never been to Western New York, far from Manhattan, is a culinary delight, which from what I can gather is found only in this part of the country. Beef on Weck is, simply, a sandwich, served in unpretentious restaurants and taverns. Everyone in Buffalo seems to have his or her favorite place to get one. On a previous visit to Buffalo, I was treated to an outstanding Beef on Weck served up at Schwabl's, in West Seneca. (It is always crowded.) To describe Beef on Weck let me defer to http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic29-1-2/buffalo.html Made only in the Buffalo-Rochester area, the kummelweck&emdash;often alternatively spelled kimmelweck&emdash;is basically a Kaiser roll topped with lots of pretzel salt and caraway seeds. Inside, very thinly sliced roast beef is piled high, and the whole thing is served with a dish of "au jus" (I suppose it is too much to expect a German sandwich to make sense of French prepositions), for dipping. Alternatively, the cook sometimes dips the top of the roll into the jus just before serving it. In either case, the beef on weck sandwich must be accompanied by a pot of freshly grated, sinus-clearing horseradish. Oh - and the clinic was good, too - seven coaches made the trip from Brockway, Pennsylvania, where they've made the state playoffs the last two years. *********** This past weekend's Portland clinic, my last of the season, as always, was fun, as always. A couple of coaches from out of town took advantage of our offer to stay with us, so my wife and I enjoyed having them and a few other coaches as our guests for dinner both Friday and Saturday nights. And even though the weather forced us into the gym Saturday afternoon, we had some of our kids from Madison High on hand to demonstrate some of the things we've been working on for the coaches. We've been spending a fair amount of time on the direct-snap version of our Double Wing, as I've mentioned in other clinics, and many of the coaches in attendance took advantage of the opportunity to become acquainted with our unique tumbling snap. To a man, they were amazed at how easy it is to learn and to teach. *********** Having won the first game of their regional final, Oregon State led USC, 8-6 in the eighth inning of the second game. A win would send the Beavers to the College World Series in Omaha for the first time since 1952. The Trojans' leadoff hitter in the eighth, their cleanup man, surprised the Beavers by bunting safely. Then the next hitter flied to right, sending the right fielder to the warning track, where he got under the ball, stuck his glove up - and dropped the ball. The announcers tried to excuse the error by saying that the fielder had slipped on the warning track (which I couldn't see), never mentioning the fact that - for no reason other than to look cool and nonchalant - he had tried to make a one-handed catch. The Trojans went on to score two runs in the eight and tie the game at 8-8, and finally won, 9-8, in ten innings. Are you like me? Does it gall you to watch major leaguers catch all fly balls one-handed? Does it piss you off to see little kids start out learning to field the ball the same way? When they are fortunate enough to have a coach who insists that they use two hands, he might as well be telling a bunch of basketball players to shoot their free throws underhanded, because those kids can see plain as day how major leaguers catch - and it works for them, doesn't it? Don't kids see the same kind of thing every Sunday in the fall, when NFL defensive backs turn themselves into human missiles, worrying far less about making sure tackles than about making the "Big Hits" highlights on SportsCenter? So Oregon State, thanks to an absence of a basic fundamental of baseball, had to play USC in a game three. Fortunately for them - and the right fielder - they broke a 7-7 tie in the 8th inning to go on and win, 10-8, and earn a trip to Omaha. But thanks to a careless lack of fundamental play, the sort of thing modelled all the time by major leaguers, the Beavers almost missed their first trip to Omaha in over 50 years. I don't understand why baseball coaches tolerate this, but I have seen football coaches who are just as bad in failing to take a stand on behalf of sound fundamentals. Just as surely as that dropped fly ball, if you tolerate unsound tackling on the part of any of your players, there will come a point in a big game where he will do what you allowed him to do (because it usually worked) and he will miss a tackle. And you will lose. *********** REMEMBER MY PRINTING THIS LAST WEEK? Coach, Can you help me defend the double wing? I am having a hard time defending this offense when we play our season opener. Thanks for your help. Chris   *********** To the guy that wrote you about stopping DW.Lets stop being nice about it. SCREW YOU! THIS IS A DOUBLE WING SITE, SYSTEM, COACHES WITH A GREAT SENSE OF CAMARADERIE. STOP IT IF YOU CAN, YOU SORRY ASS! BETTER BRING YOUR A-GAME, AND YOU BETTER HAVE WAY BETTER ATHLETES! Wow that made me feel better. Take Care, Armando Castro, Roanoke, Virginia *********** Let me try: 1. A complete offense will challenge every defender to force defense of every square inch of the field. 2. There are many complete offenses. 3A. Some complete offenses are easier to run than others. 3B. "If you have the horses, you can pull the wagon." - Any wagon! 3C. Most high schools do not have Joe Montana at quarterback. 4. Playing a football game is about WINNING a football game - Winning a game is about DEFEATING an opponent. 5. A complete offense meshes the highest probabilities of success running the football with throwing the football. 5B. Running the football has a higher probability of success than throwing the football. 5C. Running the football is enhanced with putting "more of us'uns against fewer of them'uns." 5D. If they put more of them in front of fewer than us, the probability of success in the passing game is enhanced - they now have fewer of them to defend more of us down field. 5E. Defeating an opponent often means getting help from team mates - "If I can't get the job done, I've got a friend who can." Offenses which rely on forcing defenders to "Man up" against overwhelming (and confident) offensive numbers maximize chances of defeating each individual defender. Defensive breakdowns multiply, defeat becomes something other than just a score. The score then takes care of itself. 6. Smash-mouth football is a very successful complete offense. 7. "Let me introduce you to your coaching assignments in the Double Wing offense that we are committing to." Thanx, Charlie Wilson, Seminole, Florida *********** Coach - Reference your question on how to stop the Double Wing, if I may, let me answer this Coach for you, if I may. Dear Coach, For the record I am a 23-year football coach and have been coaching the Double Wing for 8 years now. I have a pretty good grasp of this offense. If you truly want to stop this offense I can think of three things that you can do to: 1. Recruit superior players, both physically and skill wise (Recommended but not entirely realistic) - If you know that the center of your opponent is 6'2 and weighs 220. Get one that is 6' 5'' and weighs 300 lbs! If the A back for the DW teams runs a 4.3 . Get a Linebacker or free safety that runs a 4.2. Do you get the picture here? A superior team from the skill and size perspective can pretty much beat much beat any team as long as the Head Coach does not screw it up. Good luck in your recruitment efforts! 2. Cheat (Not recommended) - Some coaches have taken to cheating against Double Wing teams. They have taught how to hold and grab pulling linemen and take out our knees. Those types of coaches have no place in our honored game of football but they have done it, and most have still lost the game. Do you want to stoop to cheating? Is that what you want to teach your kids? You have to answer that, not me. 3. Learn OUR SYSTEM (Highly Recommended) - We DW coaches do not run an offense, we run a system. We can adjust at a moments notice. We can spread em out. We can run motion slowly or real fast, just like the colleges. We can throw IF we want to, but most don't because the run is working. We can even have our full back go in motion, like the pros! We can run slot, unbalanced and even move into the I-formation if we want to. The lesson to this story is "if you cant beat them, join them". Take a season and run the DW, Coach. You will then know that this is not the atypical offense that can be stopped by making just one or two adjustments. There is no "secret" that Coach Wyatt has hidden in his safe. There is no quick fix to this problem. I invite you to join our little clique. Learn the system the old fashioned way, through Hard Work! John Torres, Castaic, California *********** Tell Chris to stop playing teams that run the double wing...that is the only way to stop it...just forfeit..then you won't get beaten so badly.... Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at the clinic...we fly in at 10pm tonight... Gabe McCown, Piedmont, Oklahoma *********** Don't get me wrong - I like lacrosse. And it is growing. But its growth, at least in our part of the country, is decidedly elitist. And so is its image... Belying the claim that lacrosse is a rough-and-tumble sport, consider the fact that in Oregon, where it is still a club sport, the state powerhouse is Oregon Episcopal School. Oregon Episcopal does not choose to play football. Its nickname is the Aardvarks. Cute. *********** It was 1979, and I was coaching at Central Catholic High in Portland. At the pre-season meeting of the booster club, all the coaches stood up and introduced ourselves, telling a little bit about our background, and our family situation. I remember standing up and saying "my wife and I have a son and three daughters." So it went, until finally, Father Tom Murphy stood up and said, "I'm Father Murphy, and I have 500 sons." Such was the great love that Father Murphy felt for our then all-male student body. And such was the way the young men of Central felt about Father Murphy that after he totalled his car in an accident recently, one of his "sons," a Central grad named Joey Harrington, bought him a new one. *********** "Let's not sell Mr. Kerry short. He is, after all, a United States Senator - which isn't bad for a C student." James Taranto, writing in the Wall Street Journal about the startling revelation this past week that John F. Kerry, passed off during the last campaign as George W, Bush's intellectual superior ("an intellectual who grasps the subtleties of issues," wrote the New York Times in praising him), actually got lower grades at Yale. Nyuk, nyuk. *********** Good Morning Hugh! Greetings from one of your old 1980 Van Port T-Bird players, Jake von Scherrer in Coral Springs, Florida. I just had a great "drop in" visit from General James Shelton who was in town to visit with an old friend, Rudy, who is experiencing some tough health problems. Gen. Shelton was one of our presenters, along with Steve Goodman, 2 years ago at our Football Awards and popped into my office wearing his CSCA Football Hat that we had given him. He was only able to stay about 30 minutes but I was truly thrilled and honored to have him choose to spend some time with me. What a great American, and to think that I, along with our school and our players, might never had known about him or the Black Lions without your inspiration to honor the memory of Don Holleder with the Black Lion Award. Thank you for taking the time to create and continue this tremendous program. I was also touched that you chose to put my nominating letter for our 2004 honoree on your website. On behalf of Steve Hehir and his parents, I want to thank you for that honor as well. Steve has actually decided to not play college football, but instead devote his extra time (he IS going to college to be a teacher) by working for me this coming fall as one of our Varsity Assistant Coaches! He has already gotten his feet wet with Spring Ball and he's currently busy helping me with the Summer Off Season work outs! Steve is truly a great representative of the Black Lions! I'd like to take the time to sign our school up for the 2005 Black Lion Program. Once again, I'd like to say "Thanks" for the impact you've had in my life. Even though we did not spend a lot of time as player and coach, your professionalism, your schemes, your personality and sense of humor made a big impression on me as I was just leaving college and entering coaching, and I want to let you know I appreciate what you've helped me to achieve in my career, not just in coaching, but in so much more. Congratulations yourself on a great 2004 season! Best of luck in 2005! Stay Faithful and Finish Strong BLACK LIONS, SIR! Jake von Scherrer Dr. Jake von Scherrer, AD & HFC, Coral Springs Christian Academy, Coral Springs, Florida (Hard to believe it's been 25 years since Jake played - and I coached - for a semi-pro team out here called the Van-Port (Vancouver-Portland) Thunderbirds. He was fresh out of Pacific University (they still played football) and I was doing double-duty, also coaching a high school team. I'm pleased to see that he is now giving of himself to youngsters, and I'm sure he's doing a great job! HW) *********** The whipping post....is even CHEAPER than the Chinese' (one)"bullet-to-the-brain" method of dispensing punishment. And if the Chinese are "good enough" - to continue trade relations with - to fund a certain cash-strapped couple from Arkansas - to allow to own &/or control many of America's strategic ports then.... You may not be as crazy as you think! - is that possible? or is it confusing....in a "jumbo shrimp" kind of way? Regards, John Rothwell, Fort Worth, Texas *********** I love satire, and I came across the following piece of writing on www.scrappleface.com GOP Senators Shocked: Judge Brown is Black by Scott Ott (2005-06-09) -- Republican Senators, who yesterday confirmed President Bush's appointment of Judge Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, today expressed shock at learning that the California Supreme Court justice is black. The revelation comes in the same week that Democrat party Chairman Dr. Howard Dean released his research showing that Republicans, and especially their leaders, "all look the same" because they're "white Christians". "I'm concerned about how this is going to play with the white base," said an unnamed Republican Senator upon learning of Judge Brown's non-mainstream race. "I feel betrayed by President Bush, who has now managed to sneak a number of non-whites, not to mention women, into high-ranking government positions. The White House tricked us into focusing on the accomplishments of nominees, distracting us from the key genetic and theological markers that Dr. Dean has identified as determining factors of Republicanism." The source claimed that Republican Senators were unaware of the racial and ethnic status of Cabinet members including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierez, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. "Now that we've seen the photos," the anonymous source added, "it seems that not even half of the Bush Cabinet members are white males, and some of those may not even be Christians. The president has secretly assembled a virtual rainbow coalition right under our noses." *********** "This is as important as winning a Super Bowl," said John Elway after his Colorado Crush won the Arena Football League championship. He really said that.   *********** Matt Hayes had this choice gem: "Remember when Steve Spurrier signed the unthinkable $2 million per year contract in the late 1990s? Well, there now are 16 Division I-A coaches who earn at least $2 million per year. The latest: Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione, who received a $300,000 per year bump six months after the Aggies finished 7-5 and lost 38-7 to Tennessee in the Cotton Bowl. . . . "   As an element in an engineering department, I'm starting to get highly offended by these gargantuan salaries. I agree with Mike Lude that coaches salaries make it difficult to tell athletes they shouldn't be paid. But you know how the equation goes - we have to pay the football coach a lot, so he can bring in lots of money so we can spend lots of money on silly sports like synchronized swimming (can you believe that's a varsity sport at Stanford?)   I think it further puts college coaches out of touch with their high school brethren. Think Slick Rick would take a public school stipend?   I guess I can give a mild kudos to (Washington State's) Bill Doba, who 'only' makes $400,000.   The money we spend on coliseums, hippodromes and gladiators is rotting our core, and we may fall over easy when tough times hit.   Christopher Anderson, Palo Alto, California (Another example of a f--ked up society: Karl Malone, a f--king basketball player, just had to sell his home near Salt Lake City. He was asking $6,1 million. I mean, the place is 17,230 square feet, with a basketball court, a tennis court, two swimming pools and 11 bathrooms. Eleven bathrooms. But he had to settle for $2.75 million. I guess the Ole Mailman was what the real estate people call "motivated" - he also has another home in Newport Beach, California on the market for $6.8 million. It does have a view of the ocean, but you just don't get as much for your money in California - this one has only five bedrooms and four baths, and is only 6800 square feet. Wonder how much he'd need to be paid to serve for a couple of months in Iraq. HW) *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW)  *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners

(UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 10, 2005 - "For nearly two generations, since the middle of the Great Depression, we've been hearing that to be President of the United States is almost more of a job than one man can handle. Yet consider some of the men who've held this job, and tell me how true this can be." P. J. O'Rourke   *********** The guys in the white jackets are coming to take me away, but before they do... I am convinced that the solution to many of our society's problems may lie in the return of the whipping post. Okay, I'm crazy. But that doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea. Tie the bastards to the post, and deliver the lashes - "well laid on." A provision for whipping as a punishment was on the books in Delaware until quite recently, although it's hard to determine when it was last used. Yes, there will be those who will say that it is "cruel and unusual punishment." As I understand it, that phrase in the Constitution refers to federal crimes. But even so, might not ten minutes (at the most) under the lash be preferable to imprisoning a kid's father? And there are those who will remember the bloody scene in "Glory," in which Denzel Washington's character gets several lashes, and conjure up an image of lynching, but the historic fact is that the whipping post was used to administer justice to white and black alike. Yes, it could leave lasting marks on some people - but have you seen the way people proudly disfigure themselves with tattoos? And, yes, our fellow members of the United Nations (even Islamic countries, who chop off the hands of thieves) will be appalled. Screw them. Think, instead, of the positives - The whipping pose is inexpensive. Jails everywhere are overcrowded, and prisoners are being turned loose, and assorted criminals routinely go in and out the revolving door of what passes now for "justice." But new prison construction is expensive. Whipping lesser criminals will allow prisons to be used to deal with the really, really bad dudes and assorted incorrigibles. The whipping post dipenses swift justice. Sure, a guy can appeal his sentence, but while his appeal is dragging through the system, his ass will rot in jail. I suspect lots of guys will elect to get it over with. Whipping, unlike incarceration, does not take a man from his family. He takes his punishment and goes free. Maybe he's bitter, maybe not - but he's going to be just as bitter if he serves time in prison, and this way there is always the chance, however slim, that his presence at home could be beneficial to his family. It eliminates the "school for crime" argument that comes up whenever people say we shouldn't be sending younger offenders off to prison, where they'll only learn, the argument goes, from older hoods. Maybe it's a good point. Whip 'em and send 'em home, instead of locking them up with the seasoned cons. No more "alternative sentencing" (non-punishment), either. No more of the snickers that community service and probation inspire among the outlaw class. Probation may be worthwhile in theory, but the reality is that probation is so underfunded that supervision normally ranges from lax to nonexistent. Whipping is dramatic enough to serve as a real deterrent to anyone who might be watching. I suggest public whippings. (In fact, revenue-strapped states and localities might sell the rights to cable TV. Talk about Reality TV!) Victims' rights organizations, now pretty much limited to expressing their rage and indignation in the courtroom, would jump at the idea of allowing victims - or victims' kin - to administer the whippings. And then there's the rest of us. Instead of feeling anger and frustration every time we read of some malefactor who's committed another crime while on probation, we will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that this time the bastard's going to be punished. (Next time, too, if he elects to "reoffend," as they say.) Potential uses for the whipping post are limitless: car thieves, burglars, drug users, wife beaters, serial DUI offenders and people who repeatedly drive without licenses, to name a few. Also pro football players who resist arrest outside a nightclub. And people who try to hold up Wendy's by putting a piece of somebody else's finger in their chili. My First Nominee --- A 22-year-old female high school trainer in Apopka, Florida, who admitted having consensual sex with an 18-year-old member of the school baseball team while on a team trip last March to Valdosta, Georgia. The slut cost two high school baseball coaches and the AD their jobs. My choice for administering the punishment would be another female trainer, because of the shadow this tramp has cast on other women who conduct themselves professionally and are valuable members of sports teams, as trainers, managers, and, yes, assistant coaches.   *********** Coach: Just read your site this week. Yeah Mike Gerber is a good guy. We went to law school together. I couldn't believe he ran for State Rep. I wasn't surprised he won however, because he's got his act together. Funny, small world.   On another note, my nephew, Leigh Torrence, intercepted a couple of passes at "organized team activities" for the Packers. Granted the passes weren't from Favre, but I'm liking his chances of making the team!!   Coach St. Martin Torrence, Philadelphia     *********** Remember how the Mainstream Media pushed the line that George W. Bush was a lightweight, while John F. Kerry was a deep thinker? Haw! Now that there's no possibility that he could win in a recount, Kerry just agreed to release his grades at Yale. Turns out they're no better than Bush's. Did I tell you Kerry was a phony?   The Lightweight (Bush) The Deep Thinker (Kerry) Class at Yale 1968 1966 Four-year cumulative average 77 76 Highest Grade in any course 88 (in 3 different courses) 89 (in one course) Number of "D's" 1 in 4 years 4 - in freshman year alone (Yale's grading system then was based on percentages - roughly, 90 to 100= A, 80 to 89=B, 70 to 79=C, 60 to 69=D; anything below 60= failing.)   As I have done in the past in defending George W. Bush, it is fair to point out - being the bearer myself of an average in the seventies - that grading standards were a lot different then. It was nothing like the nonsense that takes place today at most colleges, in which two-thirds of all students receive A's or B's, and C's are looked at as the next thing to failing. So finally, after all the bulls--t about how smart Kerry was, how "deep", it is highly satisfying to have my suspicions confirmed - to learn that he was nothing special, no better than GW, no better than me.   I can't wait to see his Navy records. He hasn't released them yet. I suspect that he may have figured that releasing his Yale transcripts would get reporters off his case, but not a chance. This just makes us all the more suspicious. *********** We had our fourth practice at Madison High yesterday. We are unbelievably green. But we do have four backs - exactly four - who look halfway decent, and exactly three linemen who have played in a football game, one of whom I'm going to have to switch to TE. And a bunch of willing workers. Real projects. After they get a taste of what football coaches ask of them, some of them may not be able to accept our structured way of doing things. With so many of today's kids, there aren't many other places in their lives that require what football does, so it's natural that they're going to react strangely at first. (I heard my first "I can't" on Tuesday. Haw. He'll be surprised at what he can do, if he stays with it. ) *********** If I charged people to visit my site, I'd be running a contest right now, offering a free subscription for the best response to the following e-mail (I don't even bother replying any more)... Coach, Can you help me defend the double wing? I am having a hard time defending this offense when we play our season opener. Thanks for your help. Chris   I am fresh out of responses. Anybody got any suggestions? *********** Everyone is hounding me to get a fancy set-up that costs thousands of dollars in order to scout my opponents.  They say all I have to do is enter the data from the game and the computer does the rest.  To be quite honest, I am just happy to know how to write this e-mail correctly.  My question to you coach is this.  Do I really need a scouting program?  I've always just watched hours of film to figure out what the other coach was trying to accomplish.  My defensive coordinator swears this scoutware will greatly aid his preparation but do I really need it for the offense?  Anyway, sorry for writing a book here just needed to let off some steam and ask what your thoughts were on the subject. Scoutware of one form or another can be very helpful, but it can also be very expensive. The various products differ significantly in their effectiveness and in their ease of use. I think that TD Video puts out a good product. I have tried it, but for a double-wing coach, it doesn't help me much on offense. I think that it is most useful to the defensive coordinator. Bear in mind that there is such a thing as information overkill - too much information, to the point that it can take a lot of time just to digest it. Even if you do the greatest job in the world of scouting an opponent, you still have to be a teacher - you still have to distill the information into a form that's understandable and useful to your players. In short - If you have the money - as well as the hardware to run the program, and the person to handle the date entry, which can be time-consuming - it might be a good investment. But it is not as essential as some people would make you believe. It is not as if you will be playing uphill, or a man short, if you don't get it. *********** Coach, How are things going? Just a side note to your article (about Oregon's reclassification). Umatilla will now be in a league where our closest game will be 3 hours away in John Day, Oregon at Grant-Union High School. Also in our league will be Nyssa, Vale, Burns. The league we were in before the majority of our games were one hour plus. There was even a proposal that had Lakeveiw in our league. I had a discussion with an OSAA rep. I asked if they had ever looked at a map? Lakeview is down by California and Umatilla is up by Washington - 9 hours minimum. The response was "somebody has to play Lakeview". I have basically thrown up my hands.Ccommon sense has no place in the discussion with the OSAA. Arnold Wardwell, Umatilla, Oregon *********** As you know I work in a small school and I have high expectations.  Our kids are 3 sport guys (nothing wrong with that).  Lately our kids seem a bit complacent - as if we are going to go to states every year based on our past performances.  I sort of thought we would be hungrier than ever after being so close to playing in a state championship game.  Further irritating me is the summer.    We have no spring ball in (our state) , but in the summer we are allowed to run plays on air and work technique etc. - as long as no hitting or pads are involved) - not really sure what the state says - but I asked about this two years ago, so I'm going with the response I got.  Anyways, over the summer we work out M,W,F - JV and Varsity from 6-8 at night).  Younger kids come in Tues/thurs.   We lift for an hour and then work technique and plays for the other hour - on Fridays we have "fun day" doing tire flips, tug o war etc.  It has always been as close to mandatory as possible (we pick our preseason first string based on the summer workouts).   Worked pretty good the first two years (and it showed in our record (8-2 sectional finals loss, 10-2 state semis loss).  Well, now a lot of other coaches want to improve their programs and they are trying to do the same thing.  Baseball has always had summer baseball and to their coach's credit - he has tried to do Tues./Thurs/Sat games for summer league (so that the two big sports at our school can peacefully coexist).  But now the basketball coach (who is a nice guy) tried to get his team in a summer league - and tried for Tu/Thurs - but the other small schools (who don't do much for football) refused and so they are playing Mon,/Wed nights.   I worry that given the choice between hard work for football, or playing senior league baseball and summer basketball - that the kids will take the easy way out and our caliber of play on the football field will suffer.  (Our school) was a good team before I got here, but I truly believe that my increased emphasis on off season training etc. has gotten us an extra win a year (in addition to the double wing getting us an extra 2 wins a year).  What do you think I should do???? You are rare, indeed, in being the sport at your school that dominates the off-season. I am an opponent of any sport monopolizing a kid's time; I do believe that kids should play all the sports they can. This, of course, leads to summer conflicts, and usually it's football that suffers, because kids would prefer to play basketball or play baseball rather than practice football. We are going through something like that ourselves, with summer baseball and basketball underway. You may have to try to work out a compromise with the other coaches. I do think that it should now be part of the role of the AD to help work out a way for the coaches to share the kids out of season. (I don't happen to feel, by the way, that just because they are called "games," summer baseball or basketball games are any more important, in school terms, than a scheduled football workout. They are not, after all, school games.) Maybe you will have to offer to switch your workouts to early morning. There's no way then that they will conflict with summer baseball or basketball. That would certainly show good faith on your part, and in return, the baseball and basketball coaches should agree to release the kids a certain number of times for when you need the whole team together, whether or not they have games. I think you should let the kids know when you do this that you could have played hardball and insisted that they come to all football practices, but you agreed to do this because you want them to be able play other sports. (This way, you appear to be taking the high road.) I think that something like our stipulation at Madison that kids complete X number of workouts from July 1 until the start of formal practices before they get their gear should get the point across to the kids that in return for your concession, there is a price for them to pay, too. *********** A plan to reform California's teacher tenure system qualified Monday to go on the next statewide ballot. According to California law, 373,816 valid signatures must be collected in order to get a measure on the ballot, and in a state in which a recent statewide survey showed 68 per cent of voters support reform of teachers' tenure, backers of the proposal collected more than 600,000 signatures, far more than needed. Under current law, once California public school teachers have completed just two years on the job, they are awarded tenure - essentially, job security for life, regardless of subsequent performance. Under this new proposal, a new teacher must have satisfactory reviews for five consecutive years, rather than the present two, before receiving tenure. The proposal will also grant local principals and school districts more autonomy in evaluating teachers. Which is all well and good, but where are they going to get all the highly-qualified teachers? If there is a problem now with underqualified teachers, I suspect it's that the pressures of fully staffing schools have led to a lowering of hiring standards. *********** We defeated the Alabama All-stars 21 -18 at Ladd Stadium in Mobile Friday night. I coached the receivers in the game. It was a fun, but very busy week. This game is similar to the "Big 33" game between Ohio and Pennsylvania. Things are going great here in Ocean Springs. Things are looking good for next year. We have had some outstanding players move in. QB from Las Vegas, QB from D'Iberville, MS. ;RB from Gautier, MS.; LB from Biloxi, a 6'3" 300 lb lineman from Louisiana. Families are also moving in from Dallas, TX and Virginia, Rb and LB respectively. We return our entire starting line from last year. We are 3 deep with quality players at each RB and QB spot. We have averaged 73 players per workout session this summer at 6:30am in the morning. We had 70 players on Memorial day! Have a great summer! Steve Jones, Ocean Springs, Mississippi (When you develop the kind of reputation Coach Jones has, you begin to attract people. Interesting, isn't it, that they're not being turned away by his offense? HW) *********** Hugh, Just a note to let you know I verbally accepted the head coaching job at Hamilton Township HS in Columbus, Ohio and will be going there on Friday to formally accept the job and meet with the team and the coaches. Hamilton Township is a Division 3 school just south of Columbus and they play in the very competitive Buckeye Conference of the Mid-State League. I've already watched a lot of film from last year and there is definitely enough talent there to make a competitive run at things this year. I can't wait to get started. Leaving Benilde-St. Margaret's will be difficult. I spent seven good years there, made a lot of friends, coached a number of great kids, and enjoyed some wonderful accomplishments. The football program is in great shape, and I am happy to say that the AD has agreed with me to leave it in the very capable hands of two of my assistant coaches who will share the head coaching duties. They will continue to run the DW and the football players couldn't be happier! And as far as I'm concerned that's all that ever really matters. I leave BSM without any regrets, and look forward to my new challenge at Hamilton Township. I will be sure to keep you posted on the progress. Good luck with the Portland clinic this Saturday, and keep a close eye on that Foristiere character so he doesn't get into too much mischief. Take care. Joe Gutilla - Head Football Coach, Hamilton Township High School, Columbus, Ohio (Coach Gutilla built a heck of a program at Benilde-St. Margaret's School, a private Catholic school in Minneapolis. He was host coach of three of my Twin Cities clinics. Wonder what offense he'll run? HW) *********** MAKING THE ROUNDS OF THE INTERNET... When Osama bin Laden died, he was met at the Pearly Gates by George Washington, who slapped him across the face and yelled, "How dare you try to destroy the nation I helped conceive!" Patrick Henry approached, punched him in the nose and shouted, "You wanted to end our liberties but you failed." James Madison followed, kicked him and said, "This is why I allowed our government to provide for the common defense!" Thomas Jefferson was next, beat Osama with a long cane and snarled, "It was evil men like you who inspired me to write the Declaration of Independence." The beatings and thrashings continued as George Mason, James Monroe and 66 other early Americans unleashed their anger on the terrorist leader. As Osama lay bleeding and in pain, an Angel appeared. Bin Laden wept and said, "This is not what you promised me." The Angel replied, "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you in Heaven. What did you think I said?" *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW)  *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners

NEXT CLINIC- PORTLAND - for more info - 2005 Clinics (UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 7, 2005 - "You can't do wrong and feel right. It's impossible." Ezra Taft Benson, former President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints   *********** This Saturday's clinic is in Portland, at Madison High School, 2735 NE 82nd Ave., about 10 minutes south of the Portland Airport, and about a mile west of I-205. We will have a live demonstration on the field in the afternoon. We are going to be very inexperienced this yeat - we lost nine offensive starters from last year's team - and we will be working all this week to try to get the new kids up to speed for Saturday's clinic.   *********** If you'd like to see why there's a BCS, look no further than Oregon, where thanks to the votes of the state's midget schools, the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) appears ready to expand, from four classifications to six. So far as I can tell, the major argument in favor of the additional classes is that more teams - 120 as opposed to 96 - would qualify for the football playoffs. I also suspect that the OSAA, like most associations desperate for funds to support socialism - er, post-season tournaments for sports that don't pay their own way - hopes that corporations, who don't at present seem excited about sponsoring football and basketball championships in classes lower than 4A, might be interested in a second tier of games. Whoopee! More playoff spots! More champions! More trophies! But not so fast - there are plenty of negatives. Unfortunately, since Oregon requires its leagues to be made up of teams from the same classification, adding two new classes will mean breaking up many long-time rivalries, some of which have existed for decades. And while one of its stated purposes is to cut down on travel, the new alignment will create some geographic absurdities of its own. The two largest schools in Eugene, which with its sister city of Springfield has been large enough up to now to have what amounted to a league of its own, will be placed in a southern Oregon conference whose nearest member to them is an hour's drive away. One of the worst things the OSAA proposes to do is to create small leagues within certain classes: class 5A, with schools between 880 and 1500 in enrollment (grades 10-12) will have four leagues with only five members each, meaning that the ADs of schools in those leagues will be spending a lot of time on the phones trying to line up five non-league games to fill out their schedules. Non-league games, especially trhose too far away for the visitors to bring many fans, are generally not money-makers. One very unattractive "solution" is to play each other twice. And a five-team league is every AD's scheduling nightmare, because even in-season, one of its teams has a bye every week. Ever try picking up an out-of-league game in during the season? There are more negatives, but why go on? The major problem, in my mind, was the way this "recommendation" (meaning that it is all but certain to become a decision) was reached. The biggest concern to the outside observer is the way the reclassification came about. It is democracy run amok, in which the poor can outvote the rich. It started when the committee appointed to handle the "problem" gave equal representation to all classes - one vote each for schools with 100 kids, one vote each for schools with 2,000 kids. A majority of the "Yea" votes came from Class IA, schools with enrollments under 115 students, while among the bigger schools, only four of the 82 member schools from the present class 4A voted in favor. They argue, quite rightly, that they essentially fund the OSAA through their football and basketball tournaments, and their fate should not be dictated by the teeny-tiny schools, who have different problems entirely. In a democracy, once the unproductive members of a society outnumber the productive ones, it is only natural that they will vote to take what the productive ones earn. What results is the sort of socialism that big-time colleges envision taking place in an NCAA in which the Oberlins and Swarthmores would outvote the Alabamas and Ohio States. And that is why there is a BCS. *********** Coach, I regret to inform you that I viewed the (49ers) "training" tape and worse still; that I did laugh.... several times. Accordingly, I have added NFL Public Relations Director to the list of jobs for which I am unqualified. Thank you for your help in continuing to reveal fields of endeavor that would find me unsuitable. Scott Harbinson, Reisterstown (MD) Mustangs International Representative Motion Picture and Television Division- Eastern Region, IATSE *********** As the screw turns... In case you wanted a good reason why the coaches' vote for the top 25 needs to be made public, consider Steve Spurrier, who admitted at last week's SEC meetings that he has made it a practice of including Duke in his preseason top 25 coaches poll ballot. Nice. I guess it's his way of trying to make things right after taking them to a share of the ACC title back in 1988 - then hitting the recruiting trail so hard, after taking the Florida job, that he left the Blue Devils sadly unprepared for their bowl date with Texas A & M. The shame of it is that for all the good the AFCA does in promoting coaching ethics, its position in not policing its members' votes is absurd. There is already plenty of reason to believe that Texas and/or the Big 12 manipulated votes last year in order to get the Longhorns into a BCS game. Spurrier's unashamed admission that he wastes a vote on the undeserving Duke Blue Devils, just because it makes him feel good, leads one to believe that other coaches could very well be screwing over their rivals by leaving them off their ballots. *********** I read an article in USA Today about a table tennis player named Biljana Golic. Not that table tennis interests me that much. Maybe it was because I saw her photo next to the article. (She is a serious looker.) So, dirty old man that I am, I read on to find out more about her. I read that she is Serbian, and she has been attending Texas Wesleyan on a table tennis scholarship. That's right - a table tennis scholarship. Your reaction is probably the same as mine when I frist read it. What's next - pool? shuffleboard? darts? horseshoes? So- apparently Title IX means we have to go so far in creating this thing called "Gender Equity" that we have to create scholarships in bogus sports that few colleges even play. But does it also mean then after we create these opportunties, ostensibly for the purpose of righting wrongs committed against American women, do we have to bring foreigners over here to fill the spots? I mean, if there aren't any Americans available, isn't it reasonable to assume there isn't sufficient interest in the sport? *********** Call it the residual effect. Several years ago, when I worked for the National Brewing Company of Baltimore, we owned and sponsored the Orioles. But one of the things that always irked us marketing people was the fact that for all the money we spent on our ownership/sponsorship, surveys of local beer drinkers continually came back to us showing that a significant percentage of them thought that Gunther Beer sponsored the Orioles. Not only had Gunther not sponsored the Orioles for several years - Gunther hadn't even been in business for several years. In the same way, it must irk the hell out of professional leagues, professional athletes and their agents to learn that of the top ten sports figure in terms of public appreciation, only three of them - Tiger Woods, Brett Favre and Jerry Rice - are still actively competing. Topping the so-called Sports QScores, based on 2,000 surveys completed by a random sampling of 12- to 64-year-olds, was Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods was tied for second with Joe Montana and Nolan Ryan. Next came Brett Favre and John Madden, followed by a four-way tie for seventh among Jerry Rice, David Robinson, Wayne Gretzky and Cal Ripken, Jr. The highest-ranked baseball player was Roger Clemens, who pulled ahead of three players whose ratings took hits in the last year: Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, and Alex Rodriguez. After Favre and Rice - who can barely be said to be still active - Peyton Manning and Michael Vick were the only NFL players in sight. (What? No Terrell Owens? And where was Randy Moss?) The NBA? Tom Duncan ranked highest, followed by LeBron James. Among hockey players, only Steve Yzerman showed up in the top 25. (Of course, many of the respondents probably think that the Stanley Cup playoffs are taking place right now.) How's this for a shock? NASCAR has been making a lot of noise about the way it's reaching out to a whole new group of fans, going into parts of the country it's never been seen in before, but despite all the glitz and all the glamour of the New NASCAR, the leading driver in the survey was a good ole southern boy who hasn't raced in years - Richard Petty, of Randleman, North Carolina. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Jeff Gordon trailed King Richard. Mia Hamm ranked highest of all female athletes, nearly breaking into the Top Ten. She was followed by tennis' Williams sisters, and by Anna Kournokova, who has never won a professional tournament, yet - much to the chagrin those who want womens' sports to be taken seriously - continues to appear (in photos) on sports pages. The implication of all this for advertisers, of course, is that they get more bang for their buck by using athletes who became so well-known during their player days that they are still well-known to the buying public, many of whom undoubtedly think that Michael Jordan and Joe Montana are still active. And, best of all, now that their playing days (on and off the field) are behind them, retired athletes are relatively "safe" - there are not likely to be any unpleasant surprises awaiting the sponsors. *********** Joe Paterno is seldom without an opinion, and he doesn't leave people guessing where he stands on issues. So it is with the subject of the 12th game, recenrly approved by the NCAA. "I am absolutely against it," he said. "It's not fair for the kids." Yeah, Joe. But they stopped worrying about the kids a long time ago. So Penn State, has lined up Temple for its 12th game - and seventh home game- for 2006, when the new rule takes effect. (Worrying about the Kids? Actually, I haven't heard of anyone asking the ticket holders if they were interested in paying for another home game - pay up, or surrender your season tickets - against a stiff of an opponent.) Coach Paterno issed a thinly-veiled call for the college powers-that-be to be honest and admit that they are all but cutting open the football goose to get to the golden eggs, so they can continue to support bogus women's sports, as required (or so we are told) by Title IX. "We are playing a 12th game for strictly one reason, " he said - "to create revenue so we can support the other programs. That's fine, but let's say it." *********** June 6th, 1944. America and our Allies. D-Day. In that nothing worth having is free...June 6th, 1944 is a hell of a reminder of that... ...but so is Yesterday...and Today...and Tomorrow in the killing zones of Iraq. See, nothing worth having is free. Nothing. This is despite what roughly half of America seems to believe. Not quite breaking news. Of course, I speak here as a proud atavistic moron---as a Neanderthal---with a vicarious blood-lust and an insatiable desire to suck up as much Middle Eastern oil as I can before I explode like a bloated tic. From time to time---for reasons both poignant and fateful---the role and calling of America in the world requires that we open up a can of Uncle Sam's Kick-Ass...which, please note, differs from a can of Uncle Sam's Kiss-Ass. Each has a place in the scheme of things...but here and now in Iraq is neither the time nor the place to unscrew our can of Kiss-Ass...despite what roughly 25% of America seems to believe. To Avoid...just Delete. Jud Blakely, Mobile, Alabama *********** Charles Krauthammer, writing in the Washington Post... The most inflammatory allegations have been not about people but about mishandling the Quran. What do we know here? The Pentagon reports -- all these breathless "scoops" come from the U.S. government's own investigations of itself -- that of 13 allegations of Quran abuse, five were substantiated, of which two were most likely accidental. Let's understand what mishandling means. Under the rules later instituted by the Pentagon at Guantanamo, proper handling of the Quran means using two hands and wearing gloves when touching it. Holding the book with one hand or without gloves would be considered mishandling. On the scale of human crimes, where, say, 10 is the killing of 2,752 innocent people in one day and 0 is jaywalking, this ranks as perhaps a 0.01. Moreover, what were the Qurans doing there in the first place? The very possibility of mishandling Qurans arose because the U.S. gave them to each prisoner. Who else would give a prisoner precisely the religious text which that prisoner and those affiliated with him invoke to justify the slaughter of innocents? To put this so-called "Quran Abuse" in perspective - every year, Saudi Arabia routinely confiscates thousands of Bibles at its airports and shreds them. *********** I was listening to Rush Limbaugh recently when he related a story about a high school baseball coach in Florida who, disgusted by what he saw as his players' lack of, shall we say, "testicles,"dropped his drawers and exposed himself to them. Sheesh. What a sicko. Now, I don't know what happened to the coach, but Rush joked that unless there was a girl on the baseball team, "It's not as if they saw anything they hadn't seen before - I mean, they take showers afterwards..." Oh, ho, ho, Mr. Limbaugh. You do know a lot about American politics, but you sure have a lot to learn about young American men today. Actually, speaking from long-time experience as a coach, and as a PE (weight training) teacher, it has been my observation, travelling the US for the last 10 years or so, that kids for the most part don't shower. Not publicly. Not if it involvs taking their clothes off, as is generally recommended before and during showering, in front of other young men. Used to be, showering was required in PE class (which itself was once required of all students). Some older schools were even constructed, I am told, so that there was no way that kids could escape the locker room area without showering, and I heard the older PE teachers (of which I am now one, myself) tell of having to check off each kid, every day, to make sure he showered. (Don't know if the girls had to.) We even ended PE classes ten minutes early to give kids time to shower and get to their next class on time. When we went to computerized report cards, we had a long list of pre-fab comments we could check off, and one of them, for the PE teachers, was "does not shower on a regular basis." I got a rise out of fellow teachers Tom and Sheila Boyle when I included that comment after their daughters' history grades. (The girls, Mary Jane and Bethanne, were lovely young women and good sports. And I'm quite sure that they showered on a regular basis.) There was a brief time on the West Coast in the late 1970s, after the fall of Saigon, when we encountered Vietnamese kids in our schools for the first time. Those kids didn't have enough problems as it was, adjusting to life in the New World - suddenly, they ran into PE instructors who insisted that they shower. I gather that modesty is (or at least was) a strong part of the Vietnamese values, because those kids just flat-out refused to strip. Now, 20 years later, at a time when vulgarity abounds in American speech and American pop culture, where no comedian can make it without a repertoire of "dick jokes," our young men have gone into hiding. Modesty was not a matter of consideration for us, growing up. We learned to swim at the Y - bareass. We swam at camp - bareass. We showered after PE and after any athletic contest. Why, every freshman at Yale had to submit to "posture pictures", taken while we stood, naked as Ivy-League jaybirds, for camera shots from several angles. The purpose, we were told, was to determine which of us required special exercizes designed to correct our posture, but those of us in the know were told beforehand the correct way to stand in order to beat the system. A few years ago, I read that there was some small scandal at Yale about what happened to all those "posture pictures" taken over the years. (My guess is that someone sold them to a gay Web site.) Certainly, modesty had no place in the military. Not having served, I nevertheless heard the stories of "short arms inspections," and General Jim Shelton's book, "The Beast was Out There," relates how, in jungle encampments in Vietnam, nothing was sacred. Men had to defecate? They'd dig "catholes" and do their business in full view of everybody else. Now? I'd venture to say that the vast majority of young American men will do anything to avoid being seen naked by other men. What has happened is nothing less than a revolution in our atttitude toward the human body. The male body. It first came to my attention when I was back in Pennsylvania, working with a football team, and I heard one of the coaches say, "Nobody (meaning no kid) showers anymore." I thought about that for a minute and realized that with some exceptions, I'd been noticing the same thing. It hasn't been unusual for me to see a kid dress and undress - with a towel wrapped around his waist. I have seen kids, forced by their coach to shower before getting on a bus for a long ride home, do so - while wearing undershorts. One of the fastest-growing areas of cosmetics and toiletries is men's "body spray." Not deodorant, mind you - that's for guys who shower. This is to cover the fact that guys haven't showered. (Note to girls: you may think that guy sitting next to you in class smells sexy, but do you realize that it means he worked up a sweat in PE class, and then didn't shower?) (PE, by the way, even in these no-shower times, still lets out 10 minutes early, in deference to the one or two kids who might still shower, but otherwise, the early ending of class has created a constant struggle between PE teachers and administrators to keep the PE kids in the PE area - and out of the halls - until the bell rings.) So what's brought this about? Undoubtedly the $200 billion highway bill soon to be sent to President Bush contains several millions in research grants to be spent in some powerful politican's state to research the matter, but for a lot less money, I have a few theories... When even formerly reputable publications and TV networks push the idea of "male enhancement".... When we're flooded with spam offering drmataic increases in size... When even girls joke about "size mattering,"... What's a young man, one not endowed like a Shetland pony, to think? And then there is the gay issue. Despite the growing openness and - in some quarters - acceptability of homosexuality, the possibility of stripping naked and being "sized up" as a sex object by another male is still highly repugnant to the vast majority of American men. So rather than take the chance, the easiest thing is to pass on the showers at school, and wait to shower at home. *********** The photo is from a 1954 Army football program. Vince Lombardi, the backfield coach, is the fellow on the left. Everybody knows him. Paul Amen is the fellow on the right, and few people know him. Paul Amen died Saturday in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was 89. And since you've probably never heard of him, I thought I should take advantage of this great opportunity to let you know a little bit about a man who played a major role in one of the great football dynasties of our time, and coached alongside some of the true legends of our game. He was a native of Lincoln, born to German-Russian immigrant parents, and he attended the University of Nebraska, where he was a three-year letterman in football, basketball and baseball. In 1938, he played on the US Olympic baseball team in the Berlin Olympics made famous by the heroics of track great Jesse Owens. In those days before corporate sponsorship of our Olympic efforts, the people of Lincoln raised money to help send him. In 1939, he joined the staff of his former coach, Biff Jones at Nebraska, and stayed there through the 1941 season, when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. In 1942, having attained the rank of Major, he was assigned to teach English at West Point, where Biff Jones, an Army officer himself, was then serving as athletic director, and Jones prevailed on him to coach the Army baseball team. In 1944 he joined the staff of Army football coach Earl "Red" Blaik, and coached the Plebe (freshman) team for three years, until in 1947 he was elevated to the varsity staff as end coach. He was with Coach Blaik through the great years - top-ten rankings in 1948, 1949 and 1950 - and through the devastation caused when most of the team's veteran players were expelled from the academy for "cribbing". And he was there through the rebuilding, until Army once again attained national ranking, with a fourth-place finish in 1954. He coached football and baseball at West Point through the 1955 season - yes, that would have made him Don Holleder's position coach his junior year, the year he was named All-America - when he left to become head coach at Wake Forest. During his stay at Army, he worked with some legends of the game. No fewer than 20 of Coach Blaik's assistants went on to become head coaches themselves - Coach Amen himself... George Blackburn... Chief Boston... Eddie Crowder... Paul Dietzel... Bobby Dobbs... Sid Gillman... Jack Green... Andy Gustafson... Dale Hall... Tom Harp... Herman Hickman... Stu Holcombe... Frank Lauterbur... Vince Lombardi... Johnny Sauer... Dick Voris... Murray Warmath... Bob Woodruff... Bill Yeoman - and Paul Amen worked with 17 of them. For three years in the mid-50s, he and Vince Lombardi worked together on Coach Blaik's tiny five-man varsity staff. Few people have great success at Wake Forest and Coach Amen was no exception, going 11-26-3 in four years there. He went 6-4 his last year there, then left to enter the banking business first in North Carolina and then in his native Lincoln, where he went on to become President of the National Bank of Commerce. In 1979 he was appointed state banking director. He was fired from that job in 1983, after the failure of a Lincoln savings and loan, but according to his daughter, Karen, subsequent investigations by the FBI, the Nebraska State Patrol, the Lincoln Police Department and banking regulators failed to connect him with any wrongdoing. Even after he left coaching, he left his mark on the game. Gil Brandt, legendary Dallas Cowboys personnel director, wrote for the Pro Football Hall of Fame to tell about the role Coach Amen played in identifying a North Carolina high school player who would go on to be an NFL Hall of Famer... I first heard of Carl Eller in fall of 1960 from Paul Amen, who lived in Winston-Salem, N.C., and had been the head football coach at Wake Forest but left coaching to become a banker. Amen did some part-time scouting for the Cowboys and was a very astute guy, willing to watch some Friday and Saturday games and such for us. So one day, Amen spoke to his friend and former co-worker Murray Warmath, who coached with Amen at Army. Warmath was in Minnesota at the time and was looking for great players for his team. Amen knew of Eller and knew he was all but going to Ohio State ... unless he could go to another school and play with his buddy, Jay B. Sharp. Amen told Warmath this, Warmath offered a chance to play to both players, and that's how Eller became a Gopher. Eller just told me the other day that Amen was very, very influential in getting him to go to Minnesota. We knew all of this, and that's how we discovered Eller. "Daddy was 89 and you're never really ready to let go," his daughter, Karen, told the Lincoln Journal Star. "But really and truly, he'd had Alzheimer's for five years. And he led a fabulous life. "My father's life was his. But it was also a tribute to what the state of Nebraska provided the first immigrants and what the state of Nebraska provided in education, in resources, in caring and in community support."   *********** I love Charles Barkley because he's very smart and observant, because says exactly what's on his mind and because he's the only person in the world who can get away with doing that and get paid to do it. He should be our Ambassador to the United Nations.   *********** Seen at the Portland airport, on the back of a tee-shirt (worn by a guy way too large and tough for most Bush haters): "I SUPPORT IRAQI PRISONER ABUSE" *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW)  *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners

SATURDAY'S CLINIC- BUFFALO - for more info - 2005 Clinics MEMORIAL DAY SPECIAL (UPDATED WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT - BUT USUALLY ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS) June 3, 2005 - "No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only." Thomas Jefferson *********** Having recently observed the 30th anniversary of my arrival in the Pacific Northwest (to go to work with the Portland Thunder of the World Football League), I reflected on the changes I've seen in my stay here. Thanks to environmental activists, I've seen what was then the mainstay of our economy, the forest products industry, totally tank. Emboldened by the success of those activists, I've seen our sleepy corner of the country turn into a hotbed of anarchists and protestors. I've seen the microbrewery phenomenon get its start here before sweeping the nation, and I've seen Starbucks get under way here as well. I've seen pro football come to Seattle (if you count the Seattle Seahawks, that is) and I've seen a major league baseball team arrive to replace the departed Seattle Pilots. I've seen a domed stadium rise to accomodate those teams, then suffer implosion when greedy owners decided they wanted still more. I've seen the University of Washington football program go from being the dregs to being a national power back to being the dregs again. I've seen Boeing, the pride of Seattle and the nation's leading exporter, begin not only to export jobs but - the unthinkable - to export itself, to Chicago. And I've seen a business that didn't even exist in 1975 grow into perhaps the best-known company in the world. In the process, it made its founder, a Seattle native and Harvard dropout, the nation's wealthiest person. And it made millionaires out of thousands of others who got on board his train when to do so took some vision. The company is Microsoft; its founder, Bill Gates. I was given a tour of Microsoft's suburban Seattle "campus" last weekend, courtesy of my son-in-law, Rob Tiffany, a Microsoft employee. (No, they didn't make me check my Mac at the gate.) It's in leafy Redmond, Washington, some 12 miles from downtown Seattle, and it really is a campus. Microsoft employs 30,000-some people in the Seattle area, which means either cramming them into a skyscraper, or into lots of buildings. And since Mr. Gates prefers not to go the high-rise route, that means lots of buildings. God knows how many there are - Rob works in Building 116 - but the place is huge. And while you do you get some of the sensation of being on a college campus, the impression I get is of the World's Largest and Best-Kept-Up Business Park. The landscaping is impressive, and there are fields everywhere for employees' recreational use. Unfortunately, the fields seem to be mainly for employees wishing to play the Beautiful Game (notice the goal in the left background of the photo). I try not to let it bother me, knowing full well that down at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, they're not likely to be playing tackle football themselves. *********** We've had a few workouts at Madison High in Portland, and we sure do have our work cut our for us. On offense, we return exactly TWO starters. But we aren't totally without talent, so it'll be interesting to see what we wind up doing with the kids we have. Incidentally, next week's Portland clinic will be at Madison High School, and in the PM session, we'll have some kids out on the field to demo for us. Because we are so raw and green, you will see a fair amount of teaching. *********** George Soros, the leftist wack-job whose millions launched moveon.org and now provide life support for liberal Radio America, is said to be among those attempting to buy the Washington Nationals (that's baseball). I wonder if he realizes that for all his money, in baseball there are some places you just can't put a lefty. Shortstop comes immediately to mind. *********** I enjoyed your Memorial Day articles. I was never in the service, although it goes without saying I respect those who serve and have served. AFter 9/11 I called all the branches of the military and asked if there was any way I could join or even contribute my legal skills in some way. The answer was no. Frankly, it was rather depressing. At age 40 I was just too damn old! The only thing that alleviated that pain was that my law partner, my sister, who also called to volunteer time and expertise was too damn old at age 36! Anyhow, my most prized possession is my great-great grandfather's sword from the Civil War. He was a Captain in the 36th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. Someone once asked me what it was worth, and suggested that I get it appraised. I told them I would never bother with that since it simply does not have that kind of value to me. It will go to my boy. That sword represents family heritage and pride of country. Adam W. Watters, Tucson, Arizona *********** My former student Joey Snowden is no longer West Point Cadet Joseph Snowden. He's now a graduate - 2nd Lieutenant Joseph Snowden, US Army, West Point Class of 9-11. The "Class of 9-11", officially the Class of 2005, earned the nickname because arrived they at West Point just weeks before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and they have spent their cadet years "in the shadow of war," as Superintendent General William Lennox put it. By an amazing coincidence, exactly 911 cadets were graduated last week and commissioned as second lieutenants. While others at civilian colleges will enter graduate studies, or take on lucrative jobs, or wander in search of themselves, these graduates have a pretty good idea of what lies ahead for them. Roughly 70 per cent of them are expected to be serving in combat in either Iraq or Afghanistan within the next 12 months. The percentages are much higher for those who have chosen Infantry as their branch of service. Lieutenant Joseph Snowden chose Infantry. God bless him and his classmates. ********* On our visit to West Point in April, Cadet Snowden took us (my wife and our son, Ed) to the "Firstie's Club". Joey had downplayed it as just a place where First Classmen could go have a beer, but it was that and a whole lot more. There must have been 300 people in there that night, young college kids just enjoying each other's company, drinking beer, watching TV, socializing. They were dressed casually. I didn't see a uniform anywhere. Other than the fact that there was no obnoxious behavior and they were all clean-cut, it could have been at any college in the US. A lot of the stereotypes of stiff-necked cadets sleeping in starched pajamas would be shattered if anybody could have seen those young men and women acting like, well, young men and women. *********** Coach I was wondering if you could forward some advice. I presently have 2 players who have developed huge egos since (our successful season last year). They have now become problems in the classrooms I have talked to them till I am blue in the face. They have another year of playing. I believe in discipline and rules and also TEAM. Coach Wooden stated the rules are the rules but some times you have to do what's best for the team. Great clinic in Providence. Glad you enjoyed the clinic. Whenever I'm faced with something like this, I think of the philosophy of a long-time successful high school coach named John Neff, of Waukegan, Illinois. It was passed along to me by my friend Jon McLaughlin, who served as his defensive coordinator: No player is more important than the team... No coach is more important than the staff... No game is more important than the season... No season is more important than the program. It puts things, I think, in proper perspective, and very often, when you let this be your guide, the answer to a problem is self-evident. It also helps if your kids understand that this is where you are coming from in dealing with problems. It may not change those two kids, but on the other hand, if they are allowed to continue unchanged and unpunished, you may ultimately have no program because you will have others copying them. And they, if they are good enough to have a football future, are in the process of cutting down on their chances of having any place to go by branding themselves as knuckleheads. *********** Without commenting on the "training tape" that got the 49ers' PR Director fired, I suggest you judge for yourself - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/01/MNdisclaimer01.DTL *********** First I get this... You are invited to join National Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. Expand your PI Practice, get new personal injury clients, and be part of a growing association. All this for as low as $188 per year. And then I get this... Winning STATE-SOCCER transforms doubtful players into confident competitors. If this is someone's idea of a cruel joke... STOP!!! ENOUGH!!! AARGH!!! *********** Boy - talk about blowing up a stereotype. You know, the one about Hispanics being single-minded in their love of soccer? Forget it. Actually, American Hispanics are great fans of most sports, according to a sports marketer named Anthony Eros, writing in a column in the May 23-29 Sports Business Journal. Writes Eros, nearly 25 per cent of all Hispanics attended at least one Major League Baseball game last year - pretty impressive, given the number of people in the US who live far from any baseball team. Hispanic males 18-49 are 25 per cent more likely than the general population to play basketball and - get this - `35 per cent more likely to attend an NBA game. NASCAR? 11 per cent of its fan base - roughly 8 million people - is Hispanic. And get this - Pro football is hugely popular among Hispanics, watched by 64 per cent of them, which is higher than for blacks, at 58 per cent, and whites at 52 per cent. What Mr. Eros didn't tell us, unfortunately, is just who is being considered a "Hispanic." What his figures might be showing us, I suspect, is that while those people surveyed might have Hispanic surnames, and while they might for survey purposes identify themselves as Hispanic (Mr. Eros' firm, Latino Sports Marketing does, after all, depend on convincing marketers that there are a lot of Hispanics out there), in reality they are as American as anybody else. *********** Hugh, Please pass on my sincerest congrats to Coach Timson of Umatilla, Florida. Geez, I hope the "educational elitists" weren't insulted that a mere football coach was deemed influential. Heheheheh Regards, Matt Bastardi, Montgomery, New Jersey *********** I got an unsolicited e-mail from one Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber, who represents an area in Montgomery County, not far from where my wife grew up. I don't know the guy, and I don't know what his party affiliation is, but I greatly admire what he's trying to do: I participated in a Little League opening day ceremony with another soldier who had served in Iraq. Again, his bravery and selflessness humbled me. This soldier, U.S. Marine Corps. Reserve Staff Sgt. Joe Renner of Conshohocken, thanked me for supporting the little leaguers and in the same breath, said he was headed back to Iraq. His care for others, modesty and selflessness struck me and made me realize that I was doing nothing to say "thank you" to those in service. With the guidance of a constituent, Beverly Hahn of Whitpain, I am organizing a collection of new or used CDs and DVDs to be sent to our troops serving overseas to let them know people back home are appreciative and care. We chose CDs and DVDs because Staff Sgt. Renner explained to us that many soldiers have CD and DVD players and like the escape the music and videos provide. You know, I'll bet there are guys over there who would even enjoy looking at your highlights DVDs. (Most of them that I've seen are quite well done.) Send them to 20 E. 11th Ave., Conshohocken, PA 19428 ---- Rep. Gerber's office phone number is 610-832-1679 (I wrote for permission to post this on my site, and I heard back from Rep. Gerber's office. Turns out I do know the guy. This is sort of freaky - a couple of years back I got a call from a Mike Gerber, a youth coach in Pennsylvania, who purchased some of my materials. One thing led to another, and it turned our that we'd gone to the same school - Germantown Academy - although many years apart. We probed further, as usually happens in cases like this, and it turned out that his close friend and classmate, Mike Turner, was the present coach at GA, and Mike was the son of a former longtime GA coach - and a classmate and teammate of mine - Jack Turner. Mike played football at GA and at Penn, and like so many of you, despite having a real life, he was hooked on coaching youth football. Completely off the wall came his e-mail, and it turns out that that Mike Gerber, the youth football coach, and this Mike Gerber, the state representative, are one and the same! Also turns out, by the way, he's a Democrat. What do I give a sh--? He's a football coach, isn't he? And he's a damn good man to be doing something like this. HW) *********** Bainbridge Island, Washington is smack-dab in the middle of Puget Sound. It's a beautiful place. And it's about as Yuppie as you can get. Its residents commute to downtown Seattle by ferry, then return at night to their families - and, I shouldn't have to tell you, their kids' soccer games. Some 1400 little pantywaists on Bainbridge Island play the Beautiful Game, so many that the island's 12 fields simply aren't enough, so the Bainbridge Island Youth Soccer Club announced plans recently to install articifial turf fields in one of the island's parks. Also lights. Uh-oh. Not so fast. The soccer types, normally used to steamrolling over any opposition, are running into resistance from - get ready for this - astronomers. Members of the Battle Point Astronomical Association say that when they built their observatory in the park in 1997, they had an agreement with the local park and rec district that there would never be any lights. "The suggestion that we be allowed to observe some nights and not others is totally unacceptable," said a spokesman for the astronomers' group. Could astronomers be considered a form of environmentalists? In Washington, environmentalists are very powerful. I mean, is it possible that the soccer people have finally run into an opponent they can't steamroll? *********** Just got your Madison Highlights and Installing The System tapes over the weekend. I'm only up to week 4 but I did notice a few things.   1. Your wings seem to be square to the line of the scrimmage instead of 45 degrees. Is that how you want it run or was it a matter of effectiveness just with this one team? Coach- For a couple of years, now, my wings have been squared up. There is nothing wrong with the 45-degree stance. I have found that some kids can't maintain 45 degrees, and often turn in too far so that they are facing the other sideline. This complicates things when we want to releases them into a pass pattern on reach block. 2. I didn't notice the 47C play. I did see the XX (with the "B" leading through the 7 hole as opposed to filling the 4) but is there a reason why no 47C? There are a number of very effective ways to run a counter, using "C" blocking, and 47-C is one of them. It is a great play. My preferred way - at this time - is the Lead Criss-Cross, which you see. 3. I think in week 3 at one point I thought you were only pulling the O guard on the 88 S.P. especially inside their 20. Why would I make that adjustment? Was it a quick DT or LB shooting in? You make that adjustment (Super-O) when you go unbalanced, which means you don't have a backside TE to cut off the backside chase. You are very observant. If you are new to the Double Wing and go right to our most up-to-date rendition of it, it is understandable that you will have questions. These are all things that have been covered over the past few years in subsequent tapes and clinics and on my TIPS. *********** Hello, I came across your website in my search for what I thought would be an easy answer. I want to use my pc laptop as a simple monitor for my dv camera for on the court analysis for my tennis students. No need to capture an encode, I do that later at home and burn a dvd for them. I just don't want to be limited by the small screen on the camera and want to use the laptop as you would a tv monitor. The process of capture etc.. slows down the time for them to watch themselves and wastes valuable time. Any help or tips would be appreciated. Thanks,  Charlie Swift Dear Charlie, Here is a simple setup that is useful in helping any individual, whether it be in football, baseball, basketball, track, tennis, golf, swimming and diving or what have you: With a Mac system, rigging up a video analysis system is a simple matter of opening iMovie on your computer, connecting your camera to your computer via FireWire, then turning your camera on and setting it to "Camera" rather than "VTR", and aiming it at your subject. Once you have flipped the little switch on the iMovie screen, the image that your camera is aimed at will be displayed on your iMovie screen. The size of the image will depend on the size of your laptop - it could be as large as 10" diagonal on a 17" laptop, which is plenty big enough for on-the-spot analysis. Using iMovie you can also, if you wish, record what you're aimed at right onto your hard drive, merely by pressing the "import" button on the iMovie screen. That way, you could quickly review and analyze using your computer. You can, of course, save whatever you import, but because of memory considerations (5 minutes of video= 1 gigabyte of hard drive memory), you might want to "trash" it when you're done analyzing it. One word of caution - you probably should actually have a tape in your camera and press "record," in order to keep the camera running, because if you don't, and you just leave the camera on RECORD PAUSE, it will automatically shut down after a couple of minutes. It's not a bad idea to have tape in there, anyhow, because you can always switch the camera to "VTR" and use that to play back what you've recorded. (That will also appear on the iMovie screen.) Final tip - if you don't have access to AC power, be sure to have plenty of battery power. And be sure to shade the laptop, because those LCD screens aren't very good in bright daylight. *********** BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND... Osama shows that he will stop at nothing in his plot to weaken America... BECOME A BLACK LION TEAM GIVE THE BLACK LION AWARD TO ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS! Army's Will Sullivan wore his Black Lion patch (awarded to all winners) in the Army-Navy game (FOR MORE INFO) The Black Lion certificate is awarded to all winners