Football 101

Five years ago I was a guest of the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA basketball team. After the game I was also allowed to sit in on the post game press conference headed by the former coach, Kevin McHale. After five years I recall only one aspect of the experience. The sportswriter asking questions was from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He was in his thirties, about 5'9" and weighed too much. He had a scraggly beard and more scraggly hair on top of his head. He was wearing blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. If he ever played in sports contest he'd have thrown up on himself and quit after the first minute. I'll get back to this guy later.
If you follow college sports yesterday's results were unique. The game of the day featured Auburn University versus the University of Alabama. The game ended on one play I'd never before witnessed. With one second to play Alabama's field goal kicker attempted one from 56 yard to win the contest. His kick came up woefully short. The Auburn kick return artist caught it nine yards deep in the end zone and ran it back for a touchdown. Game over.
The Alabama kicker had attempted four field goals in the game; three he missed and one was blocked. In this morning's news, tweets were posted about this twenty year old kicker and how his life is now being threatened by Alabama die-hard fans. My guess is they lost their shirts at the betting window.
I have a history with sports. My participation started when I was nine years old and culminated in 1968 after playing basketball and baseball in college. After that was a twenty year career coaching basketball and football. There were good years and not so good years. There were good parents and not so good parents along with other good and not so good coaches and administrators. All in all it was a worthwhile experience. One of my best friends, a high level executive with a major company, always told me he give up everything if he could have my job. He thought I went out on a Friday night and coached. That's the way most civilians think. The coaching rundown for football is thus. A two week camp in the summer that runs five hours daily. Two weeks prior to the beginning of the school year 'two a day' practices begin. We'd have one three hour session in the morning and another two hour session in the afternoon. When the school year begins the kids had two and a half hour practices during the week. Friday was game night; that was the evening when your reward for all the practice happened.
On Saturday morning after the game the kids would come in for stretching exercises and the coaches would determine what the injury situation was and take appropriate action. Saturday afternoon we had off. It was our vacation.
Sunday was not a day of rest. The coaches gathered around noon and started looking game films from the previous game. After this we watched game films of our next opponent and prepared our game plan. If we were fortunate we'd be home at nine that evening. How many of you knew this about coaching in high school? And you thought it was all raspberries and ice cream.
Last August a sportswriter from Sports Illustrated, Stewart Mandel, wrote an article about the five worst coaches in college football. Kirk Ferentz, a fifteen year guy for the University of Iowa made the list. Ferentz happens to be the all-time leader in wins at Iowa. He makes $4 million dollars a year. One thing he doesn't do is allow players who violate team rules to hang around. In the last five years he's booted from the squad a number of top flight players who have been arrested for assault, drunkeness and poor grades. Iowa has the highest number of football graduates in the Big Ten Conference. Last year Iowa was 4-8. This year they turned that number around.
My take on fans, sportswriters included, is a justified insult. There might be exceptions but I have not met, in my sports playing and coaching experience, one sportswriter or uber critical fan who has ever put on a jock strap. I have never met a sports critic who has given their all on the field of athletic battle. I have rarely, if ever, met a sportswriter or amateur complainer who knew what the hell they were talking about.
I would make a slight wager that the SI writer, Stewart Mandel doesn't either.