Moving forward.
If Temple University head football coach Al Golden said it once yesterday, he said it 20 times.
It probably should be the team slogan, Golden says it so much these days.
Temple University's football program moved forward with a successful media day/fan fest at Lincoln Financial Field that drew a lot of people on Wednesday.
A lot of people.
Media Day isn't quite practice.
Not a game, not practice, but an impressive crowd nonetheless.
According to Golden, 2,000 Temple football followers came out to see the Owls.
To borrow a rant from Allen Iverson, we're talking about Fan Fest.
Not practice.
Not a game.
Fan Fest.
Perhaps even more important than the estimated 2,000 there, Golden got a good 12 minutes on Comcast during the Fan Fest and made it into the living rooms of about 100,000 more Philadelphia area fans on Daily News Live Wednesday.
Some highlights of the interview follow below.
Michael Barkann, the host of the show, started by saying this: "By 2013, the Temple University football program will be on top of the world and Al Golden is going to tell us that right now. Al, what is the message you want to convey?"
Golden: Mike, as you can see behind me, there's about 2,000 people here. It's a new Temple Era and we're thrilled with the start here.
Barkann: What does this season look like to you?
Golden: I'm not Nostradomas either, Mike, I'm just trying to win one game right now. People don't want to hear the cliche but we're getting ready to do something real special right now at Temple and we have so much support and, if you look beihnd me right now, it's real exciting.
Mike Kern: When you are starting from where you are starting, what's the biggest thing you had to do?
Golden: The first thing was to instill some discipline and team pride and unity. We sat down with each kid and the top thing they wanted us to do was to achieve was team unity and we had to get the academic issues behind us and I'm thrilled what the kids are doing academically. Now you can start to win and now you can develop of progam.
Kern: What are your goals in terms of wins and losses?
Golden: Mike, as I said to you uin the past before, I haven't really tried to quantify it . I've really just been focused on us. I can't tell the strength coach, who gets in there at 5 a.m. or the offensive and defensive coordinators who get in at 5:30 a.m. that we're just trying to win a couple of games. We're going to try to win every game. That's what these kids deserve and that's what Temple University and Philadelphia deserve.
Barkann: Sports Illustrated had a rather unflattering opinion of your team. In light of things like that, how do you sell the team to recruits?
Golden: We're still selling it. There's so much going on, our facilities are excellent. We have a tremendsous schedule coming out. There's a lot to sell. There's $450 million worth of infrastructure and that's a $512 million stadium that I'm looking at. We have a lot to sell.
Barkann: On Saturday, Oct. 21, 3 p.m. start, we've got your game at Northern Illinois and on Wednesday, Sept. 13, The Al Golden Show premiers. What does that do for your program?
Golden: Anytime on TV, either here or on an informercial or for a 3 1/2 program on Comcast like our Northern Illinois' game, that's a 3-hour infomercial on your program. Moving forward, we're really excited. One thing a lot of people don't know about is that the MAC is going to be boardcast to a lot of affiliates, something like 16 to 21 million people beginning in 2007 and we're excited to be a part of that.
Kern: You have a first game scheduled in a week. Talk about that.
Golden: Mike, I'm so focused on the process and the product will take care ot iitself. People have asked me, 'Is this what you want?/ Well, we're just beginning. The goal isn't to be a head coach, the goal is to be a successful head coach and I wouldn't have taken this job if I didn't believe in my heart that we weren't going to be successful. I know that's going to be the case and this is evidence behind me, the tip of the iceberg, of what we can achieve in Philadelphia.
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