Untitled - Fast and Furious Football

184 FOOTBALL COACHING STRATEGIES
conduct mu8t always be considercd in light ofth€
effect it ha8 on other membem ol the football
squad. In matters of dress, punctuality, and livinghabih,
the football player leads a much more
di sciplined life and must realiz€ that lor the t€am
to succeed, this is a necessity.
Another area in which the coach can be ofgeat
help to the player is in the player'B selection of
his colege associates.We tell him when he starts
to run amund with some new acquaintance he
should always ask himself, '1Mould this man (or
woman) be welcome at my home for the weekend"
This may sound rather cornball, but we
have found it quite eifective.
We are continually stressing the importance
of Buch things as appearance and associat€s, but
we know that the3e students do not lik€ to be
harped at.In closing,I would lik€ to recite a little
poem thoueh which we like to Btres8 the importanc€
of college associat$. It goes like this;
It was sometime in Nouembe. in a toun I
can't remember,
I uas cdrrying home ajag uith maudlin
pride,
When mr feet began to stutte. and. I fell
doun in the gutter, dnd d pig cclme up
and lay doun by my side.
As I lqt there in the gutter, thinking
thoughts I dared. not utter,
A lodJ possing hJ uo! hpord tn $oJ."Yo,
can tell a man who boozes by the
company he chooses."
And the pE eot up and slowly walhed
-1970 Prcceedinss. Coach Hales was head c@ch dt Ohio State Uniuerci\.
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Putting Together a Winning Program
BO SCHEMBECHLER
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My years in coaching have been unbelievably good
for me, for my family, for my staq and for the
guys who have played for me. I've been very, very
I waB an aBsistant coach for 10 yeals before I
became a head coach. I had the privilege ofcoaching
for three ofthe geateBt football coaches who
ever lived: Do)'t Perr:y at Bowling Green, Ara
Parseghian at Northwestem, and Woody Hayes
at Ohio State.
In 1969 Don Canham, the athletic director at
Michigan, ofTered me the job at Ann A:rbor. I was
excited. I'll never forget when I told the staffwe
were going to Ann Arbor. Most of them had never
lmplementing the Plan
The plan was a simple one. And it was impoftant
to communicate our approach to those involv€d
in the Michigan program. My etaffcame up with
the slogan we would give our players: Those who
stay will be champions.
We went into the season with the idea that we
wanted to simulat€, and to beat, the most effective,
dominant prosram in the leagu€. That pmgram
was nrn by Woody Hayes at Ohio State. We
felt his program waB so dominant that nobody in
the league had been able to keep that team from
running the football- In order for u3 to compete
against that, we felt we must be able to stop the
run, andforustobe able to 6top the run we must
be able to run ourselves, because Lord knows our
defense wa6 going to play against our ofense more
than it would any opponent's.
I believe in defense fiIst. I don't think you can
win championships, I don't think you can be suc
ceBsful, unless you have a great defense. I also
believe very strongly that you must b€ able to
block I mean the one-on-one, basic, fundamental
blocking in football----and thai you must b€ able
to run the ball. I am not opposed to passing. I've
been accused of that on a couple of occasions. I
just don't want to come up on short yadase, and
I don't want to so to the soal line, and I don't
want to get into circumstances where I need to