Graddean
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GoMeanGreen.com
Posts posted by Graddean
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At the time, Donny Anderson was considered TT's most important recruit of all time. It was considered a major coup they were able to keep him in West Texas.
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I don' t think we are "blowing up" the kid. The coaches did this. I don' t remember anyone plugging for him until Mac brought him up. I look at it as depth. Heaven forbid it happens again, but we have had a year when we went four deep at QB.
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I am with Drexel on this issue. I have mant students who had to hold down jobs to go to school. This money then had to go to pay for books, tuition, and fees, not to mention housing and food. I had a single mother holding down two part time jobs to go to school and support her children. I have had fathers coming off a factory shift at 7:00 to be in class at 8:00.
I have a lot of respect for those student athletes who take care of their academic while playing, but I think their benefits (for those on a full ride) is equal to or greater than the opportunities provided to other students.
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No wonder Horned Toads are an endangered species.
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What in Manziel's behavior would lead one to believe he would not do this? Of course, we know wealthy people never stretch the rules to get more. If Mav or RV had evidence other schools were breaking rules,would we have them sit on their hands?
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Congrats Lt Jackson. Best of luck in an under appreciated career.
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Anyone else remember Dr. Reddin in Biology? He was a great teacher, but you never could tell where he was looking. His glasses were about like coke bottles.
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Because one person out of over 400 thought another camp was better, this camp was poorly run. Maybe Crochet should take a course in stat and learn about the concept of significant differences.
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I think he still has problems. Notice how much he blinks in the video.
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We were NAIA Division 1 before going NCAA D2. Same thing happened to us. It got down to where there were only 35 teams. Making the top 25 kind of lost its luster. The Southern Miss coach is absolutely right. What happens to the bottom feeders in the power5? The best thing for everyone in college football is to increase competition not decrease it. It is all about greed that is one reason I hate the SEC. They are the poster boy. The Bible had a caution about these things. The love of money is the root of all evils.
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The ULM/Arkansas game revealed the problems within the Ark. Program. About all anyone could do last year was to brag they beat an SEC team, but bless them for doing it.
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We win 9. We take the seven with ove/under equal to ours, and take two of the other five. Most likely wins are Rice and Fruit Jar Tech.
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Interesting, that for so much perceived ill feeling, Benford was with him in New York. Could it be their relationship was not as fractured as some thought.
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LaxI hate to be "that guy" but I have a simple question that will more than likely involve a lot of people voting me down. Has any one of you actually had to coach collegiately in any sport? What about played a sport in college within the last 10 years or so? Things have changed radically, both within the NCAA, the coaching enviroment and socially that have put a major twist on how a coach can "coach". Coaching men's lacrosse at the college level was one of the hardest things I have ever done and most of those difficulties were driven by the players and not by the an abject lack of talent on a roster. If you combine the two, things get even worse. Throw in a healthy dose of restrictions of when, what, where, and, how you can interact, practice, or discipline a player and it makes coaching a much harder job than it really could be and a job I will probably not every pursue again.
It is not anywhere as easy or simple to "motivate" a player as people imply. It is not like it was in many people's high school days where the coach could demand that you play or you sit or I run you to death or punish you just because I am the all powerful coach and my word is law and I answer to no one. There are pretty lengthy restrictions on what a coach can or can't get away with and beyond that there is little that a coach can do long term to force someone to give 100% effort all the time. Think about your motivations or actions or mindset as a Freshman in college. How did you reacted to authority figures, how you were so sure that they just don't "get it" or that they "just don't care" about what you want. How do you coach and more importantly motivate those guys all the time? It is a true art form, and the real secret is that much of that motivation comes from within.
There are certain tasks or fostered environments or punishments or psychological games that a coach can use on a player, but when it all comes down to it, it is the player that provides the motivation. The coach can help strengthen the resolve, can help temper that motivation into excellence, help find something to be the fire to drive you forward, but the coach can't be your sole source of motivation. A coach can only pick you when you are down, can only try and help the player to understand that they need to dig deep within and find it within themselves a source of personal motivation. Some individuals use pride, some use hate, some have a lofty goal, or even an undeniable will to be the absolute best, but none use their coach as their sole source of motivation. Having a coach "force" you to be motivated is unsustainable and eventually the message is lost. To state it as anything other than "the long term motivation comes from within and is the responsibility of the player" is a massive disservice to all athletes. The will and drive to win or improve or to just work hard comes from within and it is something as an individual you have to address everyday. If you have to have a coach constantly push you, constantly monitor you, constantly makes sure that you are giving your all, then when people recognize that is in fact the case they are well within their right to question your drive or motivation. That is life. That fact is true in any discipline, any business, and to think that it does not apply to athletics is asinine. If you mentor at work has to constantly ride you to provide your best work, is it a bad thing when other departments question your motivation if you desire to transfer to their department?
A big part of this is that some players have more talent than others. Welcome to the real world. Some have unworldly gifts that make any game easy to grasp and provide such an athletic advantage that they can do much more than their teammates with much less effort. The problem with those types of gifts is that after a while it is easy for a player to develop apathy. Motivation can be hard to sustain because there is nothing to set your sights on in the near term that requires you to put in greater effort. With no unscalable mountain in the foreground and the titanic dreams of being an all-time great as a professional seeming so far away, it is fairly evident the TM sometimes lost his focus and sometimes did not put forth the effort he should. There is no real point in denying it and there is also no real need to justify why it did or did not happen.
Kids are kids and what he went through last year hopefully was a learning experience for him that he can use the rest of his life. Lets not forget that we are talking about young adults that are still finding themselves in life, much less are completely sure in their views and personal identities. Hopefully this now provides Tony with a constant "thing" to keep his motivation up and always going. Internal motivation is built in layers. Many have used the "jilted lover as a 2nd rounder" view as motivation to prove themselves that all 30 teams made a mistake. Some have used the fact that they are finally not the best player on the bus or the most gifted in the arena. Some have used their kids, spouses or even a personal relationship fostered with their coach or player or an influential mentor. Many have just refused to motivate themselves and ave seen their prodigious talents wasted. It is all up to TM and I have faith that he will do well.
People confuse the fact that many players used their love or respect or admiration for the previous staff as part of their individual motivation. That is radically different than to say that the former staff motivated the players and this one did not. Those things the players used with JJ, those relationships, are hard to build and take time and are generally started early on in their recruitment process. With JJ's departure and with many players wanting a familiar face in Forrest, Benford was not necessarily going to instantly provide those feelings that the players used as motivation with JJ. That is completely different than to state that this staff did not try to motivate them. They tried, and it looks like sometimes it failed to reach the players. I am not sure that the players ever trusted Benford last year and therefore some lacked one of the former cornerstones they used for their individual motivation. The question really falls to, did the new staff not push the right buttons or did the players just did not want to listen? Both are correctable and only one requires a new coach.
Something else to be mentioned is that most of the motivation that is not pided from within the individual is generally provided by and driven from the culture of the team. The coach can generally manipulate the culture of the team much easier than you can manipulate the players' individual desires or motivations. The tight-knit group that comes from being teammates and being around each other all the time, the cohesion it provides, is a much greater motivator than any coach. The great teams monitor their own, and police their actions among themselves to try and keep everyone on task and use each other and their common bond as motivation. I would like to think that the culture of the team did not radically change from JJ to Benford. The roster for the most part had many of the key faces. So what happened to the internal level of motivation provided by the teammates?
I hate your response. I am now having trouble blaming my math professor for that "C" in analytical geometry. It also caused me to think about the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is not as effective and is not sustainable. Intrinsic motivation is superior and and sustainable. As Lax says, different people develop intrinsic motivation different ways and some never develop it. In fact, if I remember my psychology correctly, extrinsic motivation has detrimental effects upon intrinsic motivation.
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I hope TM makes a big success in the NBA whatever the reason he slid in the draft. He is one of ours.
I also hope for success for Benford next year. He is our head coach, and as long as he is, we hope he succeeds.
I would like to tap the brakes on TM being the greatest bb player to hit our campus. The most heralded yes, but that doesn't mean the best. Does anyone else remember John Savage. Savage came from Detroit, TX and played on a dirt court. He came when freshmen could not play varsity. In his three years he made All Missouri Valley and Honorable Mention All American. He is 9th in career scoring, 8th in scoring average, 7th in rebounding, and 5th in field goals. Remember, this was before the shot clock and the three point shot. He accomplished this while playing in the best basketball conference in the country at the time, the Missouri Valley Conference or as frequently called "The Valley of Death." He played against two NCAA championship teams and the runner up team the third year. He was also drafted in the fifth round by the LAL. This was a time when there were only 9 draft picks per round.
Also Joe Hamilton, not only had a great career here, but also did quite well in the old ABA.
These guys may not have been heralded recruits, but they did perform. By the way, Savage played on teams that were sub 500.
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Sports history is full of great assistants who were not successful as head coaches. Way back, the asst. coach at UNC was promoted to HC. Four years later, the students hanged him in effigy. Poor ole Dean Smith. This is not to say Benford will be successful, but success is slower coming for some of us.
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A two qb system worked for the 1957 SWC champion Rice Owls. I understand different times, but Frank Ryan and King Hill shared duties with Rice.. Both were talented. I can work. As someone said, " Every other position it is called depth, but at qb it is controversy.
I agree, but we aren't counting on him to do a whole lot for us in the passing game. Not saying he can't, just saying I wouldn't expect a lot of catches for Loving. Coop Jones and Marcus Smith are the more likely receiving threats at tight end. Should be a fun position to watch.
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Before the doom and gloom, let's wait and see who takes his place. I don't know who else is out there, but we should wait and see b efore we circle the wagons over someone not making it to campus.
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Remember, from about 1954-1964, college football was one platoon. There was one substitution allowed after each play and two on a change of possession. NTSC was playing one platoon football when I first attended. John David Crow was fullback and linebacker for the Aggies when he played. Most rubbing backs also played DB. I don't know what Abner Haynes did, but these guys were really tough.
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They played Joe at linebacker because of his speed. One of my high school students from McKinney played in that game for TT. He said on a play wide, the tight end blindsided Joe, hit him in the chest, and bounced off with Joe making the tackle.
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TM must shoulder the responsibility. If he were to be a lottery pick, is he going to a winning team. What level of effort is he going to put out. Responsibility is being judged on the quality of your own work. TM admits the scouts are questioning him not his coaches. Maybe, if he goes all out, the other players give max effort, and some of those L' s become W's.
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Arkansas State was ranked number one at the end of the 1970 in the College Division making them the national champs. They went 11-0 that year and won the Pecan Bowl which was a regional College Division Bowl game. This was the third consecutive appearance in the Pecan Bowl. I realize this was not the equal of what is now D1, but just to point out AState does have some history.<br /><br />But Plumm is right about the Joe Greene era teams. Our starters were as good as anyone's. Our problem was depth. He is also right about us getting hosed Little Rock in 1968.
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Russellville has two units at the nuclear power plant. ATU is right off I-40 at exit 81. UNT Lifer. When did your father play at Tech?<br />
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I look forward to watching him regularly. He still will be wearing green with gold instead of white.
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in Mean Green Football
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Plumm. Thanks for the memory.