Jack’s Blog

Call it the curse of Lane Kiffin.  After Kiffin fled Knoxville after only one year, bad things began happening for the University of Tennessee football team.  First of all, I don’t believe Kiffin had planned on leaving UT after just one season but Pete Carroll pulled an unexpected departure of his own when the Seattle Seahawks gave him the opportunity to redeem himself as far as coaching in the NFL.

Granted the NCAA was coming down on USC but Carroll had rebuilt the Trojans program into the power they hadn’t been since their heyday.  Did he long for the pro game and a desire to show his first couple NFL stints weren’t the real PC?  Or did he bolt to stay one step ahead of the posse?  Either way, he is a rich man and according to most in the know has done a reasonably good job with Seattle.

No one in Knoxville believes there’s any better job in the college game than the Big Orange.  I can vouch for that having spent seven years on the basketball staff there and witnessing what UT football means to the entire state.  Just as I understand the Trojans faithful who would have been shocked and appalled if a college coach were to turn down SC if he were offered that prestigious position.

Whatever the case, Kiffin left and being a man of not so high moral standards, did so in such a way that the Vols’ program was in quite a disarray.  Even with all the facilities and resources UT has, it will probably take two years before the program is in top 25 shape.  If you don’t believe me, just ask current coach Derek Dooley.  Kiffin’s departure was so untimely that the Vols lost recruits for this season.  Some of those who had committed, including some already enrolled, were allegedly contacted by the new staff at SC, setting the integrity bar incredibly lower than even football coaches would stoop.

The season went on in spite of all their problems.  Losing talent in a conference like the SEC is bad enough, but creating depth problems on top of that is, as DeNiro says in the disappointing movie The Little Fockers (that my wife and I saw last night), “double dose.”  The new UT staff dealt with that rather courageously, although for a while it looked like the Big O might go oh-fer.

Then, the real bad luck began.  An apparent upset win (upset is putting it mildly) against LSU was taken away after the Vols were whistled for too many (as in two many) men on the field and the Bengal Tigers were given another play on which they scored.  The tragedy was that Tennessee outplayed LSU that game and deserved to win.  LSU’s clock management at the end of the contest (not exactly a one-time problem for the Tigers) was the picture perfect definition of SNAFU.

Behind Kingsburg’s own Tyler Bray, a freshman QB right out of the San Joaquin Valley, the Vols started playing better (against admittedly the weak part of their schedule) and strung enough W’s to become bowl eligible.  The bowl gods were smiling down on the crippled UT program by awarding them, not coincidentally, the Music City Bowl in centrally located Nashville.  Volunteer fans are the definition of a school that “travels well” and in a situation where they didn’t have far to travel packed the stadium.

But wouldn’t you know it, the end of regulation was basically a repeat of the LSU contest.  With Tennessee ahead of (equally battered) North Carolina, the last play of the game might not have been FUBAR (to use a different acronym with the same meaning).  Some of UNC’s players thought they were going to attempt a game-tying field goal, while others . . . didn’t.  The result was the Tarheels’ QB spiking the ball with one tick on the clock remaining.  With all the confusion, the referees correctly assessed the penalty on Carolina, but incorrectly marked off five, rather than the fifteen, the penalty deserved.  UNC’s kicker put the ball through the uprights and UNC won in double OT.  Would he have made the longer try?  We’ll never know but the way UT’s season went, there’s only one pertinent quote, and as a Dodger fan in the ’50s I know it all too well:

“Wait ’til next year.”

Often, we look at the world of sports and coaching at the highest of levels, i.e. the jobs with the most “glamor” and highest salaries.  These are also the ones that are, simultaneously, the most coveted and have the greatest pressure.  Win and you’re deified.  The financial sky’s the limit.  Lose and you’re vilified.  You get pink-slipped, many times after only one season.

What we seem to have lost in today’s sports environment are the real reasons most of us got into coaching in the first place - to make a difference in the lives of the players, to fulfill our “competitive jones” and simply “to stay in the game.”

I brought up the subject, as host of his radio show, to Jerry Tarkanian last night.  He agreed that the amount of money has grown beyond the imaginations any of the coaches from his era (or, for that matter, from mine, as Jerry has me by a shade less than two decades). He admitted that, when salaries (and shoe contracts, speaking fees and endorsements) grew exponentially that he wasn’t complaining (I doubt many coaches were, except for those who got what they felt was prematurely fired), but that the fun and camaraderie (Tark often talks about how, after a game, opposing coaches would go out for a beer) were replaced by other, more tangible, rewards.

A loyal reader of this space is Dave Pickford, the boys’ water polo and swim coach at Buchanan High School.  Yesterday, I received an email from Dave in which he made some extremely enlightening comments on some of my recent blogs, in particular, yesterday’s regarding Lane Kiffin’s quick departure from Tennessee and the local boy, Tyler Bray (Kingsburg HS), who was left behind at UT.  Here, printed without his knowledge or permission (he’s a forgiving soul), are a couple selections from that email:

“This latest coaching merry-go-round just makes me cringe when I think of the concept of trust . . . in the coach-athlete relationship. . . It seems to me that the further away one gets from the ‘big money,’ the more legitimate the coach-athlete relationship is.” 

Dave hit the nail squarely on the head with this comment.  As a matter of introduction (and so the reader doesn’t think Dave Pickford is just some whining coach with average skills from a non-revenue sport), let me inform the readers that this past season his team won the water polo championship in the Tri-River Athletic Conference (TRAC), the most competitive league in all of aqua-obsessed Central California.  He was also voted Coach-of-the-Year (not a first for him).  His record and awards as a swim coach parallel the success he’s had in polo.  This guy knows 1) sports and 2) how to coach - the methods of which are identical, independent which sport you choose.

His email continued:     

“Very little politics in swimming; if you are one of the fastest four freestylers, you’re on the relay; if you’re not, you’re not.  On the other hand, you don’t see a lot of coaches bolting for greener pastures (maybe deeper pools, but not greener pastures).  Both my kids are in sports that are easily measurable (and) most people have no clue about, but I like it that way.  I’m not sure I could handle some of the people associated with the more lucrative sports either as a coach or a parent.  Remember that I am one of those spectators who enjoys the hard working success stories rather than a lot of what seems to get (into) the news today.”

That, my friends, is well-said.  Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to get another’s point of view.  And not just some pompous, know-it-all sports talk show host who wakes up daily and begins his search for the latest sports item he (or she) can find something negative to pontificate on, so as to rile up his (or her) listener(s) into some “riveting” dialogue between two people who know very little about what they’re sarcastically bad mouthing.  The true “depth of knowledge” there is questionable.

Sports and coaching has certainly changed - which is inevitable.  Yet, we’d be wise to keep in mind the line:

“There is no progress without change, but not all change is progress.”

Note to readers: A quick trip to the Stanford Pain Clinic today and tomorrow (in an effort to find some “answers”), so the blog will return this weekend.  

 

    

Fans know weird things can happen to their teams.  When they actually do, though, there’s still major shock value.  For youth, e.g. players, the first time something like occurs, especially when it directly affects them, their world can be turned upside-down.

Take, for example, a group of America’s finest football players who recently, after having their senior years adjusted so they could graduate early, enrolled in the University of Tennessee.  In many cases, these youngsters gave up winter and spring sports in which they may have excelled (not even taking events that become lifelong memories like the prom, the senior class trip and graduation parties into account).  No matter how cool a front a kid puts up, i.e. like he’s not really fazed by all the attention and gear (and that’s some pretty sweet swag), you know there’s an little man inside him jumping up and down, excited as all get-out.

One of those youngsters is the San Joaquin Valley’s Tyler Bray, player-of-the-year, billed as UT’s next quarterback savior - and if you think there’s no one the people of Knoxville have to compare him to, let me remind you of a guy who just won his (unprecedented) fourth NFL MVP.  It’s fair to say the bar is rather high for a QB in Big Orange Country.  Ty was an outstanding (6-7) shooting guard/”small” forward for KHS’s basketball team and an accomplished pitcher for the baseball squad. 

Yesterday, the man who recruited him, Lane Kiffin, as well as the guts of his staff, called an emergency meeting.  We can only wonder what went through his mind when the reason for the hastily called meeting was to inform one and all that the head coach was leaving to replace Pete Carroll at USC.  Obviously, this was a quick courtship of Kiffin, since SC seemed to be directing its efforts elsewhere.  Nonetheless, this has to be quite a shock for young Mr. Bray too.  I mean what if the Big Orange brass decide to hire a guy who prefers the “Wildcat?” 

At least he’s not alone.  His family recently moved to Tennessee.  However, all of this hubbub may not be any cause for concern.  In fact, if rumors are true that Duke’s head coach, David Cutcliffe, is being offered the job, Bray will be trading a young, talented and brash mentor for a wise football mind who tutored the Manning brothers, Peyton as QB coach at UT and Eli as the head man at Ole Miss.  

That depends on whether Tennessee can lure Cutcliffe to Knoxville.  While some may question whether SC’s a better job than UT, the opinion’s as close to unanimous as one can be that the Vols program trumps Duke’s - although Duke is certainly the superior academic school.  Then again, if the institution’s graduation rates really mattered in college football, Stanford and Vanderbilt (or maybe even Duke) would play each other for the National Championship every year.

What Bray and the other “new Vols” are experiencing is similar to what SC’s recruits are going through.  Some, allegedly, “uncommitted” to the Trojans when Carroll left.  With Kiffin and what may be the strongest coaching staff ever assembled coming to SC, they might wish they never reversed field, especially if some of them popped off about loyalty, etc., as young kids are prone to do.  They will surely welcomed back - after all, talent wins out in the end - but their first meal on campus may be crow.

As far as loyalty and breaking hearts, consider that Tyler Bray had verbally committed to San Diego State prior to changing his mind.  I remember one coach saying that a kid backing out of a commitment was akin to saying, “I’ll commit to you . . . unless I get a better offer.”  The coach then made the statement, “How would kids like it if schools offered a scholarship and then, withdrew it saying they found a better player?”  How prophetic.

Egos may be bruised, dreams (temporarily) crushed, but ultimately everybody will survive.  The lesson that will be learned is one articulated by the late John Lennon:

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

After reading all the “small town boy makes good” stories in Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine and even Newsweek and Time, plus hearing similar stories on TV, it’s truly an exciting feeling when you find one in your own neighborhood (or at least nearby).  A youngster who many of us in this area have seen develop from the time he was 12 years old - and who everybody (me, in particular) thought at that time, was a big-time basketball prospect - to one of the nation’s top high school quarterbacks is nothing short of astonishing.

Tyler Bray, of Kingsburg, a suburb of Fresno (I’m sure the good people down there will have issues when I refer to their hometown that way, but that’s how those of us who grew up in New Jersey are used to describing smaller towns - like when I call New York City a suburb of NJ), wowed everyone in the football world in the identical way he did the residents of the San Joaquin Valley (there, that’s a better description) these past three years.  To see someone 6′ 6″ in street clothes is impressive.  On the basketball court - it’s not all that out of the ordinary, since that’s the home for pituitary freaks (not hard to guess I’m on the under side of six feet - and not by choice), but to see a six-and-a-half footer in football or baseball garb is something to behold - especially when he’s a QB in football and a pitcher in baseball.

Well, it seems as though the young Mr. Bray went about his business this summer as most (very) good quarterbacks do - attending summer QB camps.  Although Kingsburg is listed as one of the smaller schools population-wise (according to the CIF - California Interscholastic Federation, KHS has a little over 1,000 students), the skill set of a particular individual has absolutely nothing to do with which school he attends.  And one thing that can be said about Tyler Bray’s summer schedule is that he ducked no competition, having participated in twelve (12!) of these showcase events.  Quarterback camps have become “the summer recruiting tool” for colleges in recent years.  Getting a chance to see youngsters up close, look in their eyes and judge them by using their own drills, timing devices and, most importantly, eyes, is invaluable to a football coach. 

It’s been said recruiting’s an inexact science, but football recruiting is so much more difficult - compared to, say, any other sport - because there are always twenty-two guys on the field.  That’s an awful lot of bodies to evaluate (or get in the way) - and even if a coach is looking at just one, those surrounding him - in his uniform and the other -contribute mightily to his performance.  That’s why there will always be more super, big-time football players at smaller colleges, and Pro Bowlers from all Divisions of the NCAA, as well as NAIA representatives in the NFL, than in basketball.         

Back to Ty’s youth for a moment.  As a former coach - and current father - of one of his hoops competitors, I saw Ty up close often.  While it was obvious that Ty was bigger than most of the guys he competed against - having a dad who’s 6′ 9″ tends to have an influence that way (more on that character later in the blog), he was also highly skilled, but in different areas that you’d normally think.  Ty’s strength on the hardwood wasn’t his size, but his shooting (and, from what I’m told, he got that from dad, Jeff, too).  The first thing an opponent needed to take away from Tyler Bray’s basketball game was his outside jumper.  Then, it was time to deal with things like him scoring inside or your guys blocking him out.

In baseball, he was just as dominating on the mound.  Although a description of Ty’s body would be lanky, his father was never regarded as . . . svelte.  Basically, what people (and this is showing my age) were reminded of - after watching Tyler pitch - and then, looking over at his pops, was a future Don Drysdale.  For the record, I’ve never encountered a baseball coach who ever said of his pitching staff, “One problem we have is we have too many guys like Don Drysadale.”

So, here’s a guy who’s a 6′ 6″ (and growing) shooter with ballhandling skills, a look-alike Hall of Fame pitcher who can really bring it and, now, to complicate matters even more, a pro-sized QB who just was rated as somewhere between the second best to no worse than top fifteen in the nation, a small town kid who started the summer in the top 1,000 and was extended an offer to the camp that has only 12 invitees at the end of the summer.

Just so there’s no misunderstanding, I consider Jeff Bray a good man, a good dad and a good friend.  The joking earlier in this post only serves as constant back-and-forth banter between the two of us.  I do have to bestow upon Jeff the best athletic quote by a parent (and since the title of my website is “Mr. Quote,” it’s fairly evident how I feel about capsulizing a thought into a sentence).  When I asked him, following another stellar performance by Ty (I can’t even remember which sport he had just competed in), “Ty has a tough choice.  Which sport is he going to pick?”  Poppa Bray looked (down) at me and simply said:

“You don’t pick the sport.  The sport picks you.”

Good luck, Ty.Â