Dear Joe,As you may or may not know, former Temple football coach Wayne Hardin is up for inclusion into the current class of the college football Hall of Fame.
Coach Hardin's accomplishments in the realm of Philadelphia and national college and even pro football and have made him indeed worthy of induction. He's the last head coach to win a pro football title within the city limits of Philadelphia, doing so for the Philadelphia Bulldogs of the then Continental League in 1966. (When the USFL Stars won it, they did it on the road and as the Baltimore/Philadelphia Stars.)
Coach Hardin is 80 years old now and wants to do a lot of things but none more important to him than filling Lincoln Financial Field for Temple's Aug. 30 regular-season opener with Navy.
Coach Hardin went on WPHT-AM, 1210, a 50,000-watt station heard both here and Annapolis, and "guaranteed" a crowd of 66,000 for the home opener _ a feat that would put Philadelphia on the college football map quicker than any single football victory could.
... when we were kids, we'd call that Indian-giving. That's probably not ... politically correct now, so I'll just call it Caveman-giving...
Coach said there was one caveat, though.
The game needed to be on Thursday, Aug. 30. Anyone who has grown up in Philadelphia, and spent his entire life here, knows the town virtually empties the Friday of the Labor Day weekend with people mostly headed "down the shore" for one last long weekend before a long, cold winter. There is virtually no shot Temple gets what current Al Golden calls an "unprecedented crowd" on any other night but Thursday.
Fortunately, Temple AD Bill Bradshaw worked out the details and announced that Thursday would be the date for the opener.
The date is set on Owlsports.com, the school's official athletic website.
It's even on the Lincoln Financial Field website, which I got to by clicking on a philadelphiaeagles.com link.
Now there are some earthquake-sized rumblings that you want to take back the date for a relatively meaningless preseason Eagles' game. When we were kids, we'd call that Indian-giving. That's probably not politically correct now, so I'll call it Caveman-giving.
The Eagles are basically the only sports organization in this town that can survive by playing on Friday night that weekend. You'll get your crowd whether you play Thursday or Friday.
The Eagles can take the hit.
Temple can't.
Please, as a favor to coach Hardin _ the only coach in the history of college football to take Navy AND Temple to top 20 final regular season rankings _ abide by the agreement which allowed Temple to announce the Thursday night date.
The Eagles would be helping both the fans of Temple and Navy (for example, allowing Navy reserve personnel ample time to get to weekend drills) and gain an enormous amount of public relations good will by keeping the Thursday date for Temple clear, making coach Hardin and coach Golden realize their dreams of an unprecedented Temple crowd.
Thanks for taking time out from your busy schedule to read this letter.
Sincerely,
Mike Gibson
Editor and Publisher
Temple Football Forever
(Longtime season ticket-holder of both Eagles and Owls)
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