MarkInAustin

When I watched him win the State Champ game in HS I wrote then that he reminded me of Frank Gifford - RB, QB, WR, DB - and starring all over the field. Most of you never saw Gifford. He was not the very best at anything but he was really good at everything, and made the Pro Bowl at each position he played except backup QB, IIRC. I have watched J-Whitt ever since that game and when healthy he has never disappointed.

If they both want it then it doesn't have to be thought of as a tragedy. We wish them the best.

He will not be handicapped for weighing less than 300# in the MWC.

Did they change the FCS rosters as well? Also, the Sevice Academies are technically all walkons, correct? What was the reason for doing this? Was it a push from the SEC and B1G? This should mean more Title XX scholarships for women, as well - right?

I get the Rose Bowl, but I don't really get Memorial Coliseum. It must have been super improved when it was renovated. Of course, unlike every other football stadium in America, the ones in California seem to be never full. My daughter went to hoops games on campus at UCLA but she never once went to the Rose Bowl and she did not know anyone outside the band members who did. People will brave ungodly heat and humidity in the south and blizzards in the midwest and northeast, but given usually excellent weather UCLA averages a half empty stadium.

There were no NBA level talents on either of our last two teams and the implication that the previous coach "developed" anyone at Texas is unwarranted. NBA level talent is a luxury that is not as important as developing team cohesion over time. Veteran teams, like 2022-3 Texas, will become the norm for the post season as NBA level talent ever more turns pro out of high school.

By all accounts, Gundy is a smart coach with no filter on his mouth and not much sense of society beyond the gridiron. His first instinct was to rally around his ball player. But he could have done so without defending the act of drunk driving. Like Jordan, above, it has been many decades since I have driven impaired, and I and those around me were fortunate that there were no negative consequences. My son has been in recovery and sober for 37 years now, but he caused two collisions before that. In one, he wrecked his mother's daily driver, in another he wrecked both her next daily driver and the Cadillac he hit head on on South Congress. A former son-in-law has never attempted sobriety and has had close scrapes with death and destruction, including a long hospital stretch after he turned over his boss's truck. Frankly, I have been too close to these situations to write off drunk driving as a normalized or even marginally acceptable behavior. Accepting, as I do, human frailty, I can only ask this: If you have ever driven impaired, I implore you to never do so again.

John Harvey story reminds me of the last [old] Anderson HS athlete, Billy Brooks. By 1968 I was Travis County's Juvenile Court Prosecutor. I and the male probation officers would go to Doris Miller Auditorium on Thursday nights to play pick up basketball with Julius Gordon's probationers. Gordon had played ball at Prairie View and back in the day he supervised the black probationers. He would have a group of them come to Doris Miller on Thursday nights and mainly sit in the bleachers where we would take turns helping them with their homework or listening to their problems. Like everyone else, we and Gordon's kids would rotate into games. I never played against Billy Brooks, but I played on the same five with him in a game to eleven [does that count?]. He was not a probationer, but he was the best young three sport athlete in Austin, and the local star at Doris Miller. He moved from [old] Anderson to the now defunct Johnston HS, where he finished up. Brooks, at 15, was then about 6-1 and a chiseled 185# or so. As an OU All American and NFL All Pro wide receiver he was fully grown and bigger, and while a couple of us wanted him to go to Texas and told him so, he was pretty sure he wouldn't. Six years later he beat Texas for OU on a long end around run. He won a Natty for OU [maybe two?]. I wished we could have convinced him to come to Texas. DKR was about to take his first black player in 1968, but Brooks knew that he could go anywhere if he left home, and not have to be a pioneer. Still, by the time Brooks beat us with that end around Texas had some damned good black ball players on the roster [Campbell, Leaks, Clayborn...]. He was a likable and smart kid at 15 and I watched his career blossom with interest.

In the Summer of 1960 I was an almost 17 YO recent HS grad in NJ, destined to go off to Rice on academic scholarship in the fall. I was then 6-2, 172#, and the best guys I ever played against were not in baseball in HS but at night in pick up basketball at the gym in Demarest School. You may never have heard of these guys but they were all pro athletes at some point, a couple were stars. Gary Cuozzo, later Fran Tarkenton's backup QB at Minnesota; Willie Naulls then of the Knicks who would only do shoot arounds; Wally Lamb, later a Giants LB [practice squad, not starter, Jersey guy who went to Purdue]; Dick Lynch, starting CB for the Giants [scored the TD for ND that broke OU's 47 game win streak], and Sherman White, former All American wing barred from the NBA by a college gambling scandal. I never had to directly guard any of them except Lamb. Once, I had White blow by me in the air [on a switch] for a dunk. I was up as high as I could get, figure my hand just a bit above the rim; White tucked his legs as he flew by and I swear his red shoelaces went by my nose. But my worst experience repeated. Lynch would slide over and just take the ball away from me. Every time. I had to get rid of the ball before he got to me. Dick told me that his reaction time had been tested as twice as fast as that of a normal human, and that it allowed him to play corner against guys who were a half-step faster. He could break on a pass as fast as the WR and his hands were faster than anyone's. On the basketball court you just could not see his hands coming. I think he led the league in interceptions while I was in college.

Wow

I was fortunate enough to see him play in college when I was in HS. My dad was a friend of Joe Lapchick, then the St. John's coach. He got us tix for the WVa game in Madison Square Garden. St. John's had a prospective All American wing named Tony Jackson, who was eaten alive by West. After the game, Lapchick told us that two college seniors, West and Oscar Robertson, were going to change the game at guard the way Russ, Wilt, and Pettit had changed it up front. Great athletes were indeed taking over hoops. W.Va had a 6-10 Center named Lloyd Sharrar, but West jumped center. West averaged 13 rebounds a game. West was an octopus on D. In fact, he was 6-3 barefoot; 6-4.5 by modern NBA measurement in shoes. He had 40" sleeves and could jump over the moon. There is a clip on YouTube of him more than a foot over the rim in an NBA game at the age of 35. Aside from pure athleticism what West and Oscar brought to guard play was distance shooting. They averaged around 50% from the floor in the NBA when no guards had ever shot 44% previously. Had there been a three point shot then West would have been the first Steph Curry. Again, you can find a clip of him shooting a 40' shot over Walt Frazier as a buzzer beater, in perfect form. Magic Johnson tells a story about West hitting 25 straight shots from the top of the circle while giving a talk to the assembled Lakers - when West was the Laker GM. I would have played him next to Michael on my imaginary all time team because he was an insane defender as well as a fine lead passer and a very high percentage shooter. The only knock on him? As a first year NBA player he only drove right. But then, after that, he easily went either way. Apparently worked his whole off season on it. He had a rep as the best executive and talent evaluator and as a great guy, as well. I will be 81 in August, and losing West, for me, is like one more reminder of my own mortality. So, again, RIP, Logo.

Mickey Herskowitz on the "Colt 45s" name change to the "Astros": So what we will call them, for short? That was an era when Texas sports writers were simply the best, In Houston, DFW, and SA. And before Craig? There was Kern Tips.

2 words: Casey Thompson.

cWhat are the host and guest Conferences for the Rose?

So...Utah or AZ could win the B12 and have to play, say, K. St. or Okie Lite in a possible rematch of the B12 champ game. I can see why Alamo Bowl was not thrilled.

DKR.

Not Appalachian - Charles Wright is back in Austin. But you have forgotten Purdue!

Shedrick shot pretty well from both the arc and the perimeter. He could be the stretch 4 on offense if Toppin is in with him. But as I think you suggest, Toppin should be seen as 15 min at Center, with other minutes on occasion. Toppin should eliminate the need to play Onyema for any substantial time.

Those vertical numbers would have been ordinary in 1961. Not bad, but about 2" low for expectations on a 6-9 PF who wasn't a Wide Body. I thought current training had evolved.

Going back more years, Odessa Permian, Midland Lee, Amarillo Tascosa... at some point, west Texas lost its MOJO.

Disappointed.

Do we even think Codie will have recovered in time to play before January? Also, has the Rutgers Center who was a shot blocking machine in the B1G made his new home yet?

Clifford Omoruyi? He had an astonishing number of blocked shots in B1G games.

Gerry, you list Onyema as a "PF". I have never seen him play facing the bucket or outside the paint. He is the reason Texas needs another BIG. Shedrick cannot play 40 min/p/g and Onyema provides nothing against a decent team but fouls given. I am not usually one to take a harsh tone, but I just haven't seen anything from Onyema. Get Cam Williams to play after January if the design is to have someone pound away and foul opponents inside.

In baseball there was a coaching fix for us as 11 year olds judging fly balls: Always take three steps BACK on any ball in the air, then judge it. If one did not have Willie Mays' instincts it still protected against misjudging a long ball. I did not play football. Is there some analogous coaching fix for DBs that doesn't rely on the DB's speed, change of direction, and instincts? Or is constant practice the only real way to develop proper response? What would a different set of DB coaches do? Asking, because I simply don't know.