New UMass Assistant Coach Tim Dwyer

Since I did a blog about the return of Matt Dawson (scroll down), it�s only fair to mention Tim Dwyer, the other new graduate assistant coach. Tim comes to us from Northeastern where he played for Coach Brown.

Dwyer won Northeastern�s team dedication award as well as the Iron Man award two years in a row.

The UMass Football Fanzone would like to welcome Tim aboard and wish him well on starting his coaching career.

2005 Footbal Season outlook is out

The UMass Preseason Outlook is out. See it here . It's not very different from my blogs of 07/24 and 07/25.

Technical note on this blog. The longest thread in the support area is how to make blogger point to a previous post. Most bloggers cannot get that feature to work. I�m one of them. I�ve changed the archiving to a weekly period, which is probably more inline with football anyway. But to get to an earlier blog, the only thing I can do at this time is to link to a specific week and then the reader will have to scroll to find what he or she is looking for.

But I digress�

On the Outlook the big subplot is who�s going to be quarterback... The press release leaves the question open. Tim Day was the starter last year. He had good stats, throwing for the 5^th best totals in UMass history. However, the Offense went through a dry period during the middle of the season where we only scored 21 points over three games (Delaware, B.C. and James Madison). Day was effectively a red-shirt freshman. He started two games in 2003 when starter Jeff Krohn suffered a concussion. UMass lost both games.

The Fanzone Blog still believes he�ll start over redshirt freshman Liam Coen. Day had mono in the spring and played only sparingly in the Spring Game . Coen, on the other hand looked really sharp throwing 13-18 for 185 yards. Taylor Humphrey had a stellar prep career at Miramonte High School in CA (check his high school stats in the UMass bio). However, he injured a shoulder in the spring and was ineffective in the Spring Game.

This Blog opines that Day will start under the lights against Richmond. However, if the Offense hits a dry spell like last year, I think Coen will be given his chance quickly.

Unless Humphrey catches fire when practice opens on 08/07/05, I think he�ll have to wait a year to be in the mix.

The only other new tidbit in the Outlook is that RJ. Cobbs (former A10 Rookie-of-the-Year), Steve Costello and UConn transfer Matt Lawrence will be handling the PR and KR duties. UMass lost B.C. transfer Nathanael Hasselbeck, who is not with the team this year. So UMass will have all new punt and kickoff return men.

Atlantic 10 Football Media Day

The Atlantic 10 website has an article stating that the Football Media Day will be broadcast live from the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick RI. UMass All-American Shannon James and Head Coach Don Brown will be interviewed.

The head coach from each team will be interviewed as well as student-athletes. It will be held 9:00 am to 12:00 pm on Aug. 3, 2005.

New Englanders can listen live on WSKO 99.7 FM and 790 AM.

The Hofstra Student station WRHU (88.7 FM) will have a live internet feed here

Matt Dawson returns

Former UMass player and assistant coach Matt Dawson has returned to UMass as assistant defensive line and outside linebackers coach. I-AA.org has the story here .

The UMass press release does a good job of reviewing Dawson's career, so I won't recap most of the information.

His playing career at UMass as a 6-0 210 LB overlapped the period of time when Don Brown was Defensive Coordinator under Whipple. Several other current assistant coachs including Brian Picucci , Sidney Powell and Keith Dudzinski were on the staff at that time.

Dawson is the younger brother of former UMass Defensive End Mike Dawson (1994-1997).

Welcome home Matt.

The Image above is a scan from the UMass 1998 Football Media Guide.

More UMass History from November 12,1983

In a prior blog (scroll down, I still have not been able to figure out how to point to an individual post), I published some images from the UMass-UNH game of November 12, 1983.

These images should be appended to the original post, but I haven't found an efficient way to do that with out re-publishing the entire blog.

The images below are from the official game program at Cowell Stadium. Click on the image to enlarge. All seem to be readable except for the UMass roster. If you can't view it by transferring the image to an image processing program, e-mail me and I'll send you a full-rez jpg. The text is viewable when I open it with Photoshop Elements 2.0

Official Game Program from UMass-UNH 11/12/83 

From the 11/12/83 Official Game Program 

UMass-UNH starters 11/12/83 

UMass roster November 12, 1983 

Building some credit with this MAC card

"Winning cures all ills. It boosts the overall image of the institution." ... Peter J. Liacouras, Chancellor, Temple University

By Mike Gibson
A few days ago, a friend of mine turned 40.
That's usually the kind of milestone day you immerse yourself in some deep introspection about where you've been and how you got to where you are.
It includes a measure of angst, even grief over the all-too-quick passage of time.
A happy birthday it's not.
Neither is 50. Or 60. Or 70.
The introspection becomes more acute with each passing decade.
You get the idea.
On days such as those, you can only offer consolation.
"Consider the alternative," I said.
Then the day doesn't seem so bad after all.
So, too, it is with Temple football, which is about to turn 108 years of age in a few months. The old boy was on the death bed the last couple of years and even friends considered pulling the plug.
Other friends insisted that this was a life worth saving, especially those of us who remember the 1970s, when the Owls were consistently among the most respected programs in major college football because of what head coach Wayne Hardin was able to accomplish.
Russell Conwell, the school's founder, was noted for his "Acres of Diamonds" speech about finding a treasure in one's own backyard and Hardin's Owls were the embodiment of the founder's philosophy.
Using overlooked players mostly from within a 90-mile radius of Temple, those diamonds in the rough enabled Hardin's Owls to go 80-52-1 from 1970 through 1982.
The high-water mark was 1979, when the 10-2 Owls drew 55,956 of almost entirely their own fans to Giants Stadium for a 28-17 beat-down on California in the Garden State Bowl.
The last 25 years have not been as kind and that's how the old boy found himself on life support in recent years. Kicked out of the Big East, the Owls were facing an uncertain future.
A task force was formed by board of trustees chairman Howard Gittis and since that group included an anti-football president, David Adamany, there was apprehension about his influence on the proceedings.
Instead, the task force carefully and courageously considered the available data and decided to continue to play football at the Division IA level, actively seeking a new conference.
On May 17, the school accepted an invitation to join the Mid-American Conference, a solid football league with the best bowl record of any major conference since 1999. Yesterday, school officials attended the MAC kickoff press conference in Detroit.
At 108, Temple football looks as young and vigorous as it looked in the 1970s.
Maybe even better.
The school has 13 years remaining on a contract to play at Lincoln Financial Field, what many consider the best football stadium in the country. It has a relatively new $7 million on-campus practice facility and a brand new state-of-the-art all-weather $500,000 practice field. There are some coaching issues, but I'm confident those will be resolved by the end of the calendar year.
The sons of those overlooked players who put Temple on the map 30 years ago are out there, many of them overlooked jems right in the Owls' backyard.
What happened before can happen again.
After taking a deep breath at the conclusion of the May 17 press conference, I asked a fellow supporter, a friend who calls himself Sal The Owl, if he was happy.
"Yeah," Sal said. "Consider the alternative."

UMass Legend Jim Reid hired at Bucknell

Former UMass assistant and Head Coach Jim Reid has been hired as defensive line coach at Bucknell. Read the press release here . He was last working as defensive line coach at Syracuse.

Reid is a great guy and is remembered by the UMass faithful with affection. After nineteen total years at UMass, Reid still bleeds Maroon and White. He was slated to appear at the 3rd annual Friends of Football Golf Classic on August 1,2005. Now, he probably will be at Bucknell improving their defense.

Reid had a highly sucessful career at UMass. Among his accomplishments:

• 12 years as an assistant coach
• Head coach from 1986-1991
• Yankee conference champions three of the six years he was head coach
• 1988 Yankee conference Coach-of-the year, New England Coach-of-the-Year (UPS), New England Division I Coach-of-the-year (Gridiron Club of Boston)
  

The above image is a scan from the 1989 UMass Football Media Guide. Reid is posing with 1988 edition of the "Beanpot" the Yankee Conference Championship trophy.

Note that the Fanzone first read about Reid's hiring on Colgate 13's excellent blog The 13 Yard Line

Friends of UMass Football

The UMass Football Fanzone frequently hears other UMass faithful express variations of the following:

�I wish:�

• UMass football would win another National Championship
• Go I-A
• Beat the dog snot out of UConn/Boston College/Delaware

Well, the following are not ways to help.

• Never washing the UMass sweatshirt you wore during the National Championship game in 1998 (washing invokes demons of loss)
• Always driving the same route to the stadium the week following a win.
• Sitting on the visitor�s side and shouting comments at the opposing team designed to be hurtful to their self esteem

The real way to help is to join Friends of UMass Football. This is a group of UMass fans, former players and coaches that have joined together to promote UMass football. Among their accomplishments so far are:

• Raised over $300 K, every dollar of which went to improve UMass Football
• Purchased Pinnacle Video Training System (UMass is the first A10 team to have it)
• Represented a constituency for UMass football in the Byzantine world of campus politics *
• Helped complete the 9000 Sq/ft UMass weight training facility.

Every UMass Football fan should belong to Friends of UMass Football. For 2.7399 cents/day you can make a major impact. Click here for information about joining.

* To understand campus politics, it�s hard to beat F. M. Cornford�s 1908 classic Microcosmographia Academica . Read Higher Ed�s review first . Wikipedia has an article with a link to an on-line version. WARNING! If you have been exposed to academic culture, reading Microcosmographia Academica may cause loss of bladder control�

The Fall Two-Deep Depth Chart is out

The UMass preseason two-deep Depth Chart is out. See it here . The UMass Fanzone Blog thinks the two-deep is very close to what will be the starting lineup against Richmond on 09/01/05.

Below is the Special Teams. A * symbol denotes a returning starter. A number after the name () indicates a note.

Pos. No. Player Yr. Height Weight

PK 31 Armando Cuko Fr. 5-11 180 (1)

KO 31 Armando Cuko Fr. 5-11 180

H 10 Tim Day Sr. 6-0 210 *

P 13 Christian Koegel Jr. 6-0 185 (2)

LS 97 Jason Leonard RJr. 6-2 280

KR/PR 2 Steve Costello RSr. 6-0 190 (3)

Notes:

1 Armando Cuko was the subject of a previous blog (scroll down). He is a true freshman and the only kicker on the roster. Hey! The UMass Football Fanzone has achieves�

2 Christian Koegel was the subject of a 07/04/05 blog on this site. He also has his own blog here

3 Costello sat out 2004 with a medical redshirt.

Preseason Depth Chart (Defense)

The UMass preseason two-deep Depth Chart is out. See it here . The UMass Fanzone Blog thinks the two-deep is very close to what will be the starting lineup against Richmond on 09/01/05.

Below is the Defense. A * symbol denotes a returning starter. A number after the name () indicates a note.

Pos. No. Player Yr. Height Weight

• LE 95 Keron Williams Sr. 6-1 254 * (1)
• DT 55 John Hatchell RJr. 6-2 270 (2)
• DT 97 Jason Leonard RJr. 6-2 280 * (3)
• RE 57 Justin Schweighardt Sr. 6-1 265 *(4)
• SLB 35 L.A. Love RSr. 6-0 245 *
• MLB 51 Serge Tikum RSr. 6-0 226 * (5)
• WLB 11 Charles Walker Jr. 6-1 220 *(6)
• CB 26 Tracy Belton Jr. 5-11 175 *
• SS 23 Brandon Smith Jr. 6-1 217 (7)
• FS 6 Shannon James RSR. 5-10 196 *(8)
• CB 2 Steve Costello RSR. 6-0 190 (9)

Notes:

1 Williams was All-A10 last year. With a stronger supporting cast, he could be an All-American in 2005

2 John Hatchell is a transfer from Lehigh. He is the brother of LB Jason Hatchell. John Hatchell set UMass bench press records in 2004. Hopefully he will make a major impact at DT for UMass

3 Leonard started in 2004. Separated his shoulder against JMU. He should regain his starting position in 2005

4 Schweighardt started at DT last year. He transferred from Ball State in 2003

5 Tikum is a Tri-Captain and the subject of a prior blog

6 Walker changed his number. He played as # 56 in 2004

7 Brandon Smith backed up James Ihedigbo RJr. 6-1 202*, who played well for UMass last year, but had several game suspensions.

8 Shannon James is a UMass Tri-Captain and an All-American. See a previous blog on him.

9 Steve Costello is a former starter. He sat out 2004 with a Medical Redshirt.

The Fall Two-Deep Depth Chart is out

The UMass preseason two-deep Depth Chart is out. See it here . The UMass Fanzone Blog thinks the two-deep is very close to what will be the starting lineup against Richmond on 09/01/05.

Below is the Offense. A * symbol denotes a returning starter. A number after the name () indicates a note.

Pos. No. Player Yr. Height Weight

• WR 81 Brandon London Jr. 6-4 210 (1)
• LT 77 Colin Stoetzel RSr. 6-6 290 * (2)
• LG 68 Matt Austin RSo. 6-5 285 (3)
• C 62 Alex Miller RJr. 6-2 300 *
• RG 73 David Thompson RJr. 6-3 310 *
• RT 72 O.J. McBride RSr. 6-3 298 *
• TE 44 Mike Douglas RSr. 6-2 246 *
• TB 5 Steve Baylark Jr. 6-0 225 *
• FB 49 Frank McDonald RJr. 6-0 235 (4)
• QB 10 Tim Day Sr. 6-0 210 *
• WR 3 R.J. Cobbs RSr. 5-11 190 (5)

Notes:

1. London should rotate with J.J. Moore RSo. 6-0 210. The Blog thinks Moore would start on the other side if Cobbs should be injured.

2. Stoetzel is one of the Tri-Captains and the subject of a previous blog.

3. The Fanzone Blog actually thinks Brent Caldwell Sr. 6-3 290, a transfer from Syracuse will start. Caldwell played very well in the spring game. He is the lone projected starter out of the six I-A players who transferred to UMass.

4. McDonald is a transfer from Northeastern who sat out last year. He is one of the two I-AA transfers who will start.

5. Cobbs is a former A10-Rookie-of-the-Year who has been moved from CB to WR. The Fanzone Blog thinks Dominique Stewart Sr. 6-0 180 will get a lot of time here.

UMass adds UConn transfer

UMass has added Matt Lawrence TB 6-1 195 a junior transfer from UConn. The official UMass notice is here .

This will help replace TB Bryan Smith, who was an academic casualty.

As for Lawrence, he was all state in CT and was MVP of the state championship game. Should give UMass some depth and competition at TB

Image link

All Temple football fans are going to Heaven

By MIKE GIBSON

I'M A TEMPLE football fan - and I'm going straight to heaven when I die. All Temple football fans will.
I say that because we are doing our time in hell right now.
"Temple football fan?" St. Peter will ask. "Go right ahead. You've suffered enough."
Suffered through a dozen straight losing seasons, where many of us had just been beaten down too much and just gave up.
Not me.
Hope is all I have.
Hope . . . and suffering.
Suffering from being a fan of a school that's the only one in history to be booted out of a major conference.
Suffering through the agony of not knowing until Aug. 13 where - or if - we would have a home field for a season that started on the road later that month.
Suffering, too, when newspaper estimates noted up to 10,000 fans turned away because of Temple's poor ticket service at the first game at Lincoln Financial Field. (Lord knows, we need as many fans as we can get.)
But that suffering pales in comparison to what we go through watching what transpires on the field.
Take the last two games, for instance . . .
Please.
In the 106-year history of Temple football, there have been only two overtime games - the last two.
Two excruciatingly painful overtime losses, the first to a city neighbor, Villanova, that plays its ball in Division IAA, a full classification lower than Temple's. Temple blew a chance to win in overtime when it had two consecutive false starts and then lost in double overtime.
If that weren't bad enough, we Temple fans had to deal with that sour taste in our mouths waiting two full weeks for the next game.
That game, on Saturday at unbeaten 13-point favorite Cincinnati, finally came. So, Temple's kicker missed field goals from 37 and 24 yards. Temple, with a 24-10 fourth quarter, threw a bomb on 2nd and 2. Incomplete, of course. The Owls also threw three passes when they had a first-and-goal on the Cincinnati 2.
INCOMPLETE, of course. Lost in three overtimes.
No one fully understands the searing, deep-in-the-stomach, pain that causes - other than a long-suffering Temple fan.
I should know. I'm the football fan a certain weekend sports talk-show host is referring to when he says, "My friend, Mike, the Temple football fan, says . . ."
My "friend" the talk-show host uses the word "the" for a reason. It's his friendly dig at Temple fans, calling me the only one.
But I'm not.
More than 30,000 came out for the first Temple game at the Linc. And, judging from the cheering, more than three-quarters were pulling for the Owls.
Many of us remember the halcyon days in the '70s of Wayne Hardin - the coach who went 80-52-3. And many of us have been waiting for a similar savior to come along to return us to the Promised Land. But while we remember, most others have forgotten.
Our suffering goes beyond the field to vague areas like perception, outdated stereotypes and beliefs.
With each loss and the thousands of ways we seem to find a way to lose, the suffering becomes more intense.
So excuse us when we bypass you in that long line at the Pearly Gates.
This story first appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, Sept. 25, 2003.

2005 UMass Captains

The UMass team Tri-Captains have already been chosen.

One captain is Buchanan Award candidate Shannon James. Scroll down for an earlier blog on him.

A new Captain for 2005 is Colin Stoetzel who is a SR OT 6-6 290. Stoetzel has been a mainstay of the UMass offensive line since he was a redshirt freshman. His official UMass bio is here . Among his accomplishments are:

• Played in all 36 games of his career
• Started all games as a sophmore and junior
• Allowed only one sack in 2004
  
• Had team high 55 knockdowns

Repeating as UMass Captian is SR LB Serge Tikum 6-0 226. His official UMass bio is here . Tikum has had an excellent career at UMass.

• Started at LB in 2003 and 2004
• Team Captain in 2004 as a Junior
• Team high 82 tackles, 66 solo and 5 TFL in 2004
• Team leader on defense.

The two images below are UMass photos. I could not find a good color image of Tikum. The image shown is a scan from the 2003 UMass press guide. The image was unattributed.

Hopefully, James, Stoetzel and Tikum will lead UMass into the playoffs in '05!

2005 UMass Captain Colin Stoetzel lead the way-----UMass Photo by Karen Winger 

UMass 2005 Captian Serge Tikum----UMass photo 

Shannon James---- Buchanan Candidate

Senior UMass Safety Shannon James is a candidate for the Buchanan Award given to the best defensive player in I-AA. James has had a stellar career at UMass. Read his official UMass bio here . His official NCAA stats are here .

He has been listed as top safety in I-AA by the Sports Network. The Sports Network also picked him as a First Team All-American .

nfldraftscout.com lists him as the four highest pick in both I-A and I-AA.

Some of his stats and honors:

• Seven first team All-American selections in 2004
• A-10 Defensive Player-of-the-Year
• Led nation and I-AA in interceptions and interceptions per game
• Leads all active Division I players in career interceptions (16)
• 75 tackles (63 solo) in 2004
• Named tri-captain of the UMass team in 2005

Hopefully, James will close out his UMass career with an A10 Championship and a deep run into the playoffs.

The two images below are from the UMass photo gallery.

Shannon James closes for the tackle---UMass photo (photographer not listed) 

Shanno James runs back an interception against UNH------UMass image byKaren Winger 

Temple football: Oh, the pain

By Mike Gibson
Back in the 1960's, a character named Dr. Smith on the TV show "Lost in Space" had a stock line:
"Oh, the pain. The pain."
I've thought of Dr. Smith often this fall _ usually at halftime of Temple football games, walking out of whatever stadium the Owls are playing, because there is only so much pain I can take.

Judging from the stream of fellow fans wearing Temple garb following me out the door, I have plenty of company.
The score halftime score of a recent Saturday's monstrosity against Bowling Green at the Linc was 42-9.
The halftime score of the opener against Virginia was 30-0.
At Maryland, it was 28-0.
Bad guys in the lead every time.
Before I can even get comfortable in my seat, the game is over.
Football is a relatively simple game. Fundamentals are paramount. You block. You tackle. You harass the other guy's quarterback. You keep the other guys off your quarterback.

At Temple, the game recently has been made out to seem like a class taught in one of those advanced mathematics courses on Liacouras Walk.

The current coach, Bobby Wallace, came to Philadelphia from North Alabama, a place where he won three Division II national titles by using a triple option offense.

Not long into his tenure on North Broad Street, he scraps the triple option for a much more complex spread offense.
Simply put, the idea is to spread the field with receivers, creating matchup problems with the defensive backs.
It seems to work everywhere but Temple.
Temple can't protect its quarterback in that offense. The "bad" guys are in so frequently on Temple quarterbacks that they can't even make the simple decisions necessary to advance the football.

On the other side of the field, the Bowling Green quarterback sits there is the same offense and surveys the Temple defense with all the urgency of a bird watcher on Hawk Mountain.

All the time in the world.
The Owls have hit rock bottom. Consider:
Temple has lost, 45-17, to a Toledo team that gave up 63 points to both Kansas and Minnesota. Bowling Green put up 70 on the Owls, a week after losing, 32-14, to that noted power Northern Illinois.

The losses to Maryland, 45-22, and Virginia, 44-14, fall into the expected category.
Certainly, the coaching staff shares the largest part of the burden here. Maybe all of it.
If Temple had never won in football, maybe an argument can be made that winning in this sport is impossible there.
That argument just cannot be made because Temple has won and won impressively in the past. Temple is sitting on a gold mine if it can win at the Linc.
As recently as 1990, the Owls went 7-4 and defeated Virginia Tech, 31-28, and won at Wisconsin, 23-18. (The same program that beat Penn State last week.)

Between 1970 and 1982, under a mastermind named Wayne Hardin, the Owls won 80 games, lost 52 and tied three.
In 1979, Hardin's team went 10-2, losing only to Penn State (22-7) and Pitt (10-9) and finished 17th in both major polls.

All of this was accomplished with virtually no facilities, no great stadium, no conference affiliation. The practice field was a rock-strewn one on land now occupied by the brand new Student Pavilion.

Hardin proved winning can be done at Temple even under extreme adversity.
Now Temple plays its home games in arguably the most spectacular football stadium in the world, has a $7 million practice facility built in 2001 exclusively for football with a new $500,000 state-of-the-art turf practice field installed in August. The alumni and friends of football have paid for the facility and the turf.

So far, all that has bought them is a whole lot of pain.
Right now, there is a university-charged task force studying both what can and should be done with athletics at Temple, specifically football. The findings come out in January.

If they are not into pain, hiring a coach as capable as Hardin was seems like the most logical recommendation they can make.

This story first appeared in the Philadelphia Metro, a daily newspaper, in Oct., 2004.

Baylark runs through the line----UMass image by karen Winger 

Sports Network picks Baylark as Pre-Season All-American

The Sports Network has chosen UMass RB Steve Baylark Sr. 6-0 225 as a second team All-American for 2005. Read the original article .

Baylark has had an excellent career at UMass. Some of his accomplishments so far:

• 2,522 career yard (5th in UMass history)
• Led A10 in rushing in 2004 (1,138)
• 2004 Atlantic 10 first Team
• New England Sports Writers All-Star Team
• Gold Helmet Award in New England (10/25)
• MVP of New Hampshire game (Bill Knight Trophy)

His official UMass bio is here . His official NCAA stats are here .

Operating behind a veteran offensive line, Baylark should continue his run through the A10. The offensive line only looses one starter in 2005. The UMass offense really picked it up in the last five games of 2004. Baylark ran for over 100 yards in four of those games. Here's hoping he has another great year in 2005

The two images above and below are from the UMass picture gallery. Photographer Karen Winger.

Steve Baylark------UMass photo by Karen Winger 

Former Temple QB's great story in Sports Illustrated

By Joe Monninger
When I first saw Temple University's 1986 schedule printed on a glossy magazine page, it brought back memories. Above the list of games was a motto, something to the effect that Temple Is For Real! Of course I understood what the ''for real'' meant. Temple was going big time. Over the past few years the Owls have played an increasingly difficult schedule, one that has included Georgia, West Virginia, Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College, and Florida State. More than once Temple has given top- notch teams a rough time. Though I didn't see the games, friends told me that Temple had even outplayed Penn State several times over the past few seasons. Last year, when Penn State was pushing toward what looked like a national championship, the Owls almost beat them early in the season.
Temple did beat Pitt 13-12 on Sept. 22, 1984, for an important victory -- important partly because Temple recruits in some of the same regions as Pitt and Penn State. The game also marked a new age for Owls football. Temple had at last defeated a major eastern rival, and all of its plans to go big time were finally about to come to fruition.
The ''for real'' slogan made me smile because I was a player for Temple at the very beginning of the surge. The move couldn't have come at a more difficult time. It was the fall of 1972, and football was held in dubious esteem by my dorm mates, my girlfriend and my teachers. I once had to sit in a class and listen to a history professor lecture about the imperialistic overtones of football, which he likened to the Vietnam War. Football was considered too brutal, too violent, too obvious. There were more serious issues at hand. My girlfriend, for example, marched in Washington to protest the war. And she waved peace signs at police cars as they cruised past Temple's Philadelphia campus.
In contrast, the Owls practiced on Geasey Field, in the heart of a tough neighborhood. On my very first day of practice a kid rode by on his bike and, screaming epithets, grabbed a player's chin strap, snapping it off as he sped by. I was more stunned than anything else. Later the same week I learned that students were protesting the presence of football at Temple. They demanded, without success, that football go the way of ROTC: off the campus. It was another expression of American imperialism -- the catchword that semester -- and some students even drew up a statement that claimed football was invented only after the frontiers of the West had been settled. Football, they said, satisfied our national need to conquer new lands.
In the face of this antagonism, head coach Wayne Hardin mounted a campaign to improve Temple's football image. Hardin was a man of some prominence. He had been the coach at Navy when Roger Staubach led the Middies to the Cotton Bowl and had the rare distinction of coaching two Heisman Trophy winners -- Staubach and Joe Bellino. The coach was a smal, blond man with invisible eyebrows and pale white skin. He smoked cigars continually, and they often flaked and floated ash over his cherry-red Owls blazer. His whiteness, his transparency, produced a color almost too elegant for a football coach. He reminded me of a tired bed of barbecue coals.
I was a sophomore on the varsity when I first became aware of the meaning of the ''big time'' campaign. Temple was a school that had spent the last 10 years scrapping with Rhode Island and Xavier, but suddenly, with the arrival of Hardin in 1970, that period was history. ''We're going to Japan to play an exhibition game that will be televised worldwide,'' he told the team. ''We've got Penn State on the schedule, and Pitt is just about signed . . . maybe even Notre Dame. We're going big time.''
We went big time in our locker room first. Our equipment became more extravagant; our training facilities, whirlpools and weight room suddenly had a new, impressive look. Coach Hardin had our uniform redesigned -- I have never seen another uniform quite like it -- adding odd stripes on the shoulder pads and checked stripes up the outside seam of the pants. Without the pads, the Owls looked as though they were distinctively dressed for a round of golf.
Those of us who made the traveling squad were also issued red blazers, just like the coach's, which sported the cursive legend TEMPLE OWLS over the pocket. Since only a football team would have 50 or 60 men dressed in red, I always felt the TEMPLE OWLS over the pocket was redundant. But Coach Hardin and his assistants liked our look and were fond of saying, ''If you look like a team, you'll play like a team.''
We did play like a team that season, but other teams played like bigger, better, more brutal teams. I was a second-string quarterback, so the weight of the losses did not fall as heavily on me as they might have, but it still bothered me to know that not only were we imperialists, we were bad football players as well.
I'm not sure when it happened, but I believe it was near the middle of the season when Coach Hardin introduced his masterstroke of propaganda. Too dignified to do it himself, he called us all to the center of the practice field and motioned for one of the assistants to explain the new drill.
What followed was a demonstration of the Hoot Cheer. The assistant coach, a tall, thin man who coached the defensive linemen, moved in front of the squad and ''balanced up.'' He was in the position a center linebacker might take just before the snap, when suddenly he screamed, ''Hoot!'' and brought his hands up in front of his face. His fingers were shaped in O.K. signs, and they looked like a pair of goggles which he pulled away as soon as he balanced up again.
''Good lord, are they serious?'' a friend of mine asked, and we both looked at one another, astonished. The same look was being exchanged throughout the squad. No one had ever seen anything quite like this on a football field.
The Hoot Cheer was explained, and we were told to spread out as we did for agility drills. I stood in the back of the end zone for my first Hoot Drill. The same assistant coach stood in front of the group, called for us to balance up, then yelled, ''Hoot!'' and brought his fingers up in a pair of goggles. The entire squad followed, though only the most zealous could bring themselves to shout.
''Louder,'' some of the assistants called, and we were told to balance up once more.
We practiced for the next five or 10 minutes. We did an entire series of reaction drills, and each time we responded, we yelled, ''Hoot!'' On calls for rapid reactions we yelled, ''Hoot, hooot, hoot- hoot-hoot!'' The drill climaxed with the team running en masse, hooting at the top of its lungs. We were finally told to hoot it into the showers. We ran through the streets of this rough Philly neighborhood screaming, ''Hoot, hoot, hoot!'' at passersby. I realized even then that there was nothing particularly menacing about hoots. They did not carry with them the aggressiveness one would have liked in a rallying cry. The truth was, hooting was slightly fey.
I wasn't sure, at the end of that practice, whether the Hoot Cheer had been a onetime thing or not. In the showers a few of us speculated about what the finger goggles were supposed to be. Were they Owl eyes? Were they some sort of horns, perhaps for the Horned Owl (Temple's mascot was a generic owl, but maybe we were getting specific)? We also wondered if this would lead to a national fad, with the Penn State Lions roaring in their huddles, the Texas Longhorns lowing through their agility drills.
Unreasonably, the Hoot Cheer gained momentum. Coach Hardin persuaded the school's cheerleaders, men and women, to lead the crowds in Hoot Cheers. Until this point, Temple cheerleaders had been rather cool, dancing to jazz or moving around to a little rhythm, but now they were championing Owl Power. Their voices, amplified by megaphones, shouted, ''Hoot, hoot, hoot!'' while their fingers waved O.K. signs high in the air. More often than not it was difficult to get the crowd to join the cheer. It was almost impossible to hoot in a dignified manner, particularly for couples. Even if one partner in the couple felt the urge, he or she had to be prudent and wait to see if the other was ready to charge in. Enormous embarrassment was a possibility. The strangeness of hooting, the odd shape the mouth was forced to make, coupled with the necessary widening of the eyes, was too much to ask of any crowd.
The Hoot Cheer remained part of our drills, but we did not unveil it in public until our September game against Boston College in Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Mass., and our entire preparation for the game was focused on going big time. If we beat BC, we were told, people would sit up and take notice. Unhappily, BC was itself making a run for the big time, and it had taken on some similarity to the Irish of Notre Dame. The Eagles' uniforms were white and maroon, and their helmets and pants were classic gold, which made their thigh pads look enormous. Indeed, people were already calling them the Irish of the East, and they looked the part as they took the field.
We came out hooting. As we funneled out of the locker room and past the student bleachers, the assistant coaches hovered near us and began shouting, ''Hoot, hoot, hoot!'' in a rhythmic chant. The Temple mascot, a person dressed as a large brown owl with a white T across his chest, began swooping around in front of us as we pooled together near the goalposts. Finally our captain turned to the team, raised his hoot goggles and began leading us in even louder hoots.
We broke then and jammed through the goalposts, passing through two columns of cheerleaders who were hooting back at our hoots. We spread into our positions around the end zone to take calisthenics, but it was too late. Even before we began our jumping jacks, I heard the BC student section ridiculing us, their hands raised and waving. ''Hoot, hoot, hoot!'' they screamed, laughing so hard they had trouble continuing the cheer.
Boston College killed us 49-27 that night. Had they sent an emissary to our bench at halftime, our team would have voted to give up. BC was bigger, stronger, fiercer. They rarely did anything fancy, instead relying on sweep left, sweep right, dive, off-tackle. The view from the Temple bench was trrifying. Owls came off the field with injuries, real or imagined, and it was not uncommon to see linebackers literally carried downfield on the shoulders of BC's pulling guards. It was a shameful, excruciating game.
To my surprise I was sent in during the second half for one play when the first- string quarterback broke a strap on his shoulder pads. I was extremely cold, my arm long since cooled from warmups, and I barely felt the ball when it was snapped. I dropped back, almost fell, then saw the intended receiver far down the field, completely covered. Above all, I wanted to avoid an interception, so I threw the ball as hard as I could and watched it spiral 10 rows up into the stands. A BC defensive lineman laughed.
The game ended as most one-sided games end. The Eagles kept substituting, putting in weaker and weaker players. As we left the field, hundreds of BC students hung over the rails and shouted, ''Hoot, hoot, hoot!'' Two or three of the more rabid members of our squad screamed hoots back, but the Temple hoots had the plaintive quality of a desperate taunt from a weakling who has been chased off the playground.
We continued hooting the rest of the year, but the spirit of the thing was lost. We finished one game over .500 that season, feasting on weak teams and getting beat by better programs. Campus politics moved from football to new topics, and antiwar rallies became less frequent as the weather grew colder. I tore something in my right knee during winter drills and never played again. Hardin left Temple and retired, successfully turning the Owls into a legitimate Eastern football juggernaut that was admired and respected both in Philadelphia and beyond. I think of him now and then when I see Woodsy the Owl on television, dancing with his wings out and singing, ''Give a hoot, don't pollute.'' I wonder if the coach remembers us. Reprinted with permission from Sports Illustrated

UMass listed as #14 in preseason Sports Network Article

The Sports Network has an article by Matt Dougherty listing his preseason rankings for entire I-AA division. Read the article here . Note that this is not the Sports Network "official" preseason rankings. The article is a good read covering all 98 scholarship teams and it also ranks the non-scholarship "Mid-Majors"

The A10 does well in his article with five teams in the top 20.

• #3 James Madison
• #6 New Hampshire
• #11 William & Mary (not on this year's UMass schedule)
  
• #13 Delaware
  
• #14 UMass
• #17 Hofstra

The rest of the A10 is listed this way:

• #27 Villanova (not on this year's UMass schedule)
• #35 Maine
• #39 Richmond
• #49 Northeastern
• #62 Rhode Island
• #70 Towson (not on this year's UMass Schedule)

The non-conference portion of UMass' schedule is listed this way:

• #44 Colgate

In the Mid-Major section:

• #9 Albany

UMass' lone I-A opponent Army is not covered by the article, but Athlon Sports lists them as #101 out of 119 I-AA teams.

UMass QB Jerry Whelchel elected to UMass Hall-of-Fame

It was recently announced that former UMass QB Jerry Whelchel (1962-1965) was elected to the UMass Athletic Hall of Fame.

Whelchel certainly deserved to be included among the greatest players in UMass history.

Among his achievements were:

• 22-5-1 as a starting QB
• Led UMass to the 1964 Tangerine Bowl
• 1964 winner of the Bolger Lowe Award as top New England football player
• 1964 pass efficiency rating of 165.4 is the highest in UMass history
• His career 139.9 pass efficiency ranks him first in UMass history
• 14-1 as starter in Yankee Conference play
• Also was the team's kicker and went 30-45 in extra points and 2 for 2 in field goal attempts.

A post on the UMass Hoops board stated that Whelchel passed away several years ago. Several internet searches produced no information about his passing.

The image below is from the UMass athletic website. The official UMass press release is here

UMass Football legend Jerry Whelchel 

UMass Punter Christian Koegel

Check out UMass Punter Christian Koegel's Blog . He's in the middle of having a great career at UMass. Christian's official UMass bio is here. His official NCAA stats are here .

• Christian's 40.1 career punting average is second only to David Sanger (1999-2002)
• He has 5099 in career punting yards in only two years
• He's A10 Academic All Conference!

I've added a link to his site. Hopefully he'll keep it going and add some more insights into college football. How do punters make the ball spiral when they kick it anyway?

His image is the next post below.

UMass Punter Christian Koegel