Post by Aggie One on Oct 6, 2007 5:47:43 GMT -5
Patience Over Ego - Has its Rewards
by Craig R. Turner
bluedeathvalley.com
If you were wondering why this week’s column is being posted on the predawn hours of a game day, the answer is pretty simple. I have spent the better part of this week in and around a couple of college campuses in Western North Carolina of higher education in the North Carolina University system.
They also happen to be members of the Southern Conference, the unmistaken king of the championship division of college football that we all still refer to and always will as 1-AA. I, like most people from outside the SoCon, would probably say there isn’t much difference between Western Carolina and Appalachian State. Both have excellent facilities, both football and basketball, back dropped in the picturesque surrounding of the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains.
However, there are some very subtle differences between these two rivals. When not conducting business in my off hours on this western junket, I had some time to talk to the friendly local folks from both communities about their favorite sports subject – college football.
Western Carolina sits in the backdoor of the small and quaint folksy community of Sylva. Their once small 9,000 seat stadium has doubled in size since I last visited there during the hey days of the Bill Hayes era in the mid 1990’s when A&T ruled the roost among 1-AA programs in this state.
The Catamounts have methodically built both football and training facilities that are second to no one in the SoCon, recruited their primary locale between Asheville and along the Tennessee/Georgia border like a mother hen protecting her chicks but it hasn’t really translated into equal success on the football field.
Folks told me that they are extremely proud of their Catamounts, that they take on all comers with some heavy scheduling, that they have good fan support despite a string of losing seasons, and can still recruit some occasional blue chip kids and transfers to their campus. They told me that the pieces are in place and all they need is some continuity in their coaching staff (four different coaches in ten years)and the break through will occur if they stay patient.
Head northeast over Grandfather Mountain say about 145 miles or so and you arrive in what is now the growing city of Boone, NC. I remember distinctly my first trip of the then two lane route along 421 into the sleepy hollow surrounded on three sides by massive mountains.
If you haven’t been to Boone recently, it’s a lot like A&T’s campus in this respect, You won’t recognize it anymore. Watauga County is exploding and Boone, although much smaller, is very similar to Greensboro in that it is blowing up with development but still retains its mountain roots. There are now night spots, great restaurants, and an very active social life in what was once was one of the very legally “driest” parts of North Carolina.
At Appalachian State there is no wait and see attitude anymore about their football program. They have arrived. You ride into town from the outskirts from Blowing Rock and the banners and flags remind you that you are entering the home territory of the two-time back to back national champions.
You swing onto their campus and everyone there break into broad smiles with pride when asked the question that everyone passing has got to ask - “How about them Mountaineers going up the Big House and taking care of Michigan?” One senses that it was no accident and that they know they can play with anyone at anytime.
But it wasn’t always like that for App State. I sat down with a big time booster of the Yosef Club, the ASU version of the Aggie Club, and he confided in me that such lofty expectations and the current success wasn’t easily achieved and they had some bumps and bruises before that got to where they are now.
He recalled in 1994 when this beloved Apps come down the mountain to Greensboro and were embarrassed at A&T in a one sided rout, lost their national standing and frankly having most folks in those days wanting coach Jerry Moore’s head on a spit. It got even worse in 1999 when Billy Joe brought his FAMU squad to Boone with their high powered Gulf Coast offense, what everyone now calls the spread option like its something brand new to college football, and passed and ran the Apps silly and right out of their own stadium.
The “Boo Birds” were back and this time they came in numbers, wanting Moore gone and gone badly before the sun even set that afternoon. ASU made some playoff appearances following that year while mixed in with sub par performances as well.
But my now new found confidant who I’ll call Frank as promise of “staying off the record,” told me over dinner at the Daniel Boone Inn that after Moore got a vote of confidence from his athletic director over the objections of nearly everyone, he changed his tactics. He changed a few of his staff here and there but maintained his core group, then changed his recruiting strategy and came up with a sound two-part plan.
He told me Moore backed off a lot of the big high schools and studied the smaller schools both in and out of state for their best athletes, many who had been overlooked because they were from 2-A and 1-A schools or from programs that made no playoff noise and or Saturday morning headlines in the newspapers. He deduced there were far more talented athletes available that could play and play well on the 1-AA level if his coaching staff put in the hours to research them an locate them on their radar.
Once they found them, sealing the deal was pretty easy once the recruit took his visit, and was offered a full scholarship coming from a nondescript high school program. It wasn’t a overnight process by any means. In football you can only recruit so many players at one time and then those recruits have to mature physically and mentally.
Part two of the rebuilding process was opening the door to transfers from the Division 1 level. It wasn’t an open door event but a selective one concentrating primarily on linemen and defensive help that could step in and fill the gaps as his young players became juniors and seniors.
Not calling it a quick fix to save his job, he spun it to the masses as an opportunity to add depth and give his team “maturity through experience.” Those classes became an fairly even mix for the next three years.
It took ASU those recruiting classes and those freshmen that long for things to really develop. It started to show when the Apps went to the national semi-finals for the first time in 2004 before losing a heartbreaker at Montana.
But by then they had discovered the formula and the Mountaineers haven’t looked back since. Neither has the Yosef Club in their giving, topping the million dollar mark for the first time ever following the 2006 season and first national title, more than doubling their intake from the year before.
Not saying that now at 0-22, that the Aggies can or should do the same thing but A&T is at that same crossroad that both Western and App State faced in 1994 when both got thumped badly by the Blue and Gold.
It will be important that which ever road A&T takes now that this administration keep one thing in mind. Continuity has its rewards. It a slow process, there are no immediate rewards, no miraculous overnight results and you’ll lose a lot of sleep and hair.
The crumbling of the foundation of what is now occurring with the football program began some five years prior before anyone even heard of Lee Fobbs at A&T. It may take that long to resurrect it. The question will be if A&T is committed to long term or short term solutions.
You might want to take drive up highway 421 if you have doubts.
PREDICTION
Morgan State 31
N.C. A&T 20
by Craig R. Turner
bluedeathvalley.com
If you were wondering why this week’s column is being posted on the predawn hours of a game day, the answer is pretty simple. I have spent the better part of this week in and around a couple of college campuses in Western North Carolina of higher education in the North Carolina University system.
They also happen to be members of the Southern Conference, the unmistaken king of the championship division of college football that we all still refer to and always will as 1-AA. I, like most people from outside the SoCon, would probably say there isn’t much difference between Western Carolina and Appalachian State. Both have excellent facilities, both football and basketball, back dropped in the picturesque surrounding of the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains.
However, there are some very subtle differences between these two rivals. When not conducting business in my off hours on this western junket, I had some time to talk to the friendly local folks from both communities about their favorite sports subject – college football.
Western Carolina sits in the backdoor of the small and quaint folksy community of Sylva. Their once small 9,000 seat stadium has doubled in size since I last visited there during the hey days of the Bill Hayes era in the mid 1990’s when A&T ruled the roost among 1-AA programs in this state.
The Catamounts have methodically built both football and training facilities that are second to no one in the SoCon, recruited their primary locale between Asheville and along the Tennessee/Georgia border like a mother hen protecting her chicks but it hasn’t really translated into equal success on the football field.
Folks told me that they are extremely proud of their Catamounts, that they take on all comers with some heavy scheduling, that they have good fan support despite a string of losing seasons, and can still recruit some occasional blue chip kids and transfers to their campus. They told me that the pieces are in place and all they need is some continuity in their coaching staff (four different coaches in ten years)and the break through will occur if they stay patient.
Head northeast over Grandfather Mountain say about 145 miles or so and you arrive in what is now the growing city of Boone, NC. I remember distinctly my first trip of the then two lane route along 421 into the sleepy hollow surrounded on three sides by massive mountains.
If you haven’t been to Boone recently, it’s a lot like A&T’s campus in this respect, You won’t recognize it anymore. Watauga County is exploding and Boone, although much smaller, is very similar to Greensboro in that it is blowing up with development but still retains its mountain roots. There are now night spots, great restaurants, and an very active social life in what was once was one of the very legally “driest” parts of North Carolina.
At Appalachian State there is no wait and see attitude anymore about their football program. They have arrived. You ride into town from the outskirts from Blowing Rock and the banners and flags remind you that you are entering the home territory of the two-time back to back national champions.
You swing onto their campus and everyone there break into broad smiles with pride when asked the question that everyone passing has got to ask - “How about them Mountaineers going up the Big House and taking care of Michigan?” One senses that it was no accident and that they know they can play with anyone at anytime.
But it wasn’t always like that for App State. I sat down with a big time booster of the Yosef Club, the ASU version of the Aggie Club, and he confided in me that such lofty expectations and the current success wasn’t easily achieved and they had some bumps and bruises before that got to where they are now.
He recalled in 1994 when this beloved Apps come down the mountain to Greensboro and were embarrassed at A&T in a one sided rout, lost their national standing and frankly having most folks in those days wanting coach Jerry Moore’s head on a spit. It got even worse in 1999 when Billy Joe brought his FAMU squad to Boone with their high powered Gulf Coast offense, what everyone now calls the spread option like its something brand new to college football, and passed and ran the Apps silly and right out of their own stadium.
The “Boo Birds” were back and this time they came in numbers, wanting Moore gone and gone badly before the sun even set that afternoon. ASU made some playoff appearances following that year while mixed in with sub par performances as well.
But my now new found confidant who I’ll call Frank as promise of “staying off the record,” told me over dinner at the Daniel Boone Inn that after Moore got a vote of confidence from his athletic director over the objections of nearly everyone, he changed his tactics. He changed a few of his staff here and there but maintained his core group, then changed his recruiting strategy and came up with a sound two-part plan.
He told me Moore backed off a lot of the big high schools and studied the smaller schools both in and out of state for their best athletes, many who had been overlooked because they were from 2-A and 1-A schools or from programs that made no playoff noise and or Saturday morning headlines in the newspapers. He deduced there were far more talented athletes available that could play and play well on the 1-AA level if his coaching staff put in the hours to research them an locate them on their radar.
Once they found them, sealing the deal was pretty easy once the recruit took his visit, and was offered a full scholarship coming from a nondescript high school program. It wasn’t a overnight process by any means. In football you can only recruit so many players at one time and then those recruits have to mature physically and mentally.
Part two of the rebuilding process was opening the door to transfers from the Division 1 level. It wasn’t an open door event but a selective one concentrating primarily on linemen and defensive help that could step in and fill the gaps as his young players became juniors and seniors.
Not calling it a quick fix to save his job, he spun it to the masses as an opportunity to add depth and give his team “maturity through experience.” Those classes became an fairly even mix for the next three years.
It took ASU those recruiting classes and those freshmen that long for things to really develop. It started to show when the Apps went to the national semi-finals for the first time in 2004 before losing a heartbreaker at Montana.
But by then they had discovered the formula and the Mountaineers haven’t looked back since. Neither has the Yosef Club in their giving, topping the million dollar mark for the first time ever following the 2006 season and first national title, more than doubling their intake from the year before.
Not saying that now at 0-22, that the Aggies can or should do the same thing but A&T is at that same crossroad that both Western and App State faced in 1994 when both got thumped badly by the Blue and Gold.
It will be important that which ever road A&T takes now that this administration keep one thing in mind. Continuity has its rewards. It a slow process, there are no immediate rewards, no miraculous overnight results and you’ll lose a lot of sleep and hair.
The crumbling of the foundation of what is now occurring with the football program began some five years prior before anyone even heard of Lee Fobbs at A&T. It may take that long to resurrect it. The question will be if A&T is committed to long term or short term solutions.
You might want to take drive up highway 421 if you have doubts.
PREDICTION
Morgan State 31
N.C. A&T 20
the basketball program was killed after corbett was shown the door & these brillent genusis couldn't wait until they did the same thing to football!!! 