I have always kept close contact with my California roots, especially all my friends that went to Cal.  One of the people that I spent a lot of time with was a kid from Southern California named Tyrone. He became roommates with my best friend from high school. He signed with Cal while it had its All American running back Russell White. I teased him one day saying, “You’re about to sit for a long while before you get some run.” I told him that he would have gotten to play as a freshman if he had gone to another school. I told him that he better transfer.

He taught me a lesson that I obviously didn’t learn in my college years. He said, “Man, I’m in my spring, I’m just blossoming. Russell’s already in summer and he’s bringing the heat. He’s in his season. I just have to work hard. My season will come.” 

I finally took full understanding of what he meant in 1994. During a year that saw Cal struggle as a result of graduation, early entrance into the NFL and a horrible coaching hire, Tyrone had to make the most of his last year. With the team staring down a record of 3–7 going into the Big Game against Stanford, the season was a disappointment.

After Stanford quarterback Scott Frost (yes the same Scott Frost that transferred back to Nebraska and won a National Championship in Tom Osborne’s last year) threw an interception on the second play of the game, Tyrone took Cal’s first play from scrimmage 45 yards to the end zone. It was his season and though the team was not in a position to bring the heat, Tyrone did. By the end of the game, Tyrone had run for 205 yards, a Big Game record and the Bears won the game, 24-23. 

The word got out yesterday that USC’s second leading rusher and former Texas commit Emmanuel Moody was leaving the Trojans in search of being a featured back. He played as a true freshman on one of the best teams in the country in 2006, was second on the team in rushing and left the program because he wanted to be a feature player.

Former Florida commitment, Texas signee and backup quarterback for the Longhorns, Jevan Sneed, as a freshman, spent one fall on the 40 acres before hopping a train whistling Dixie down to Ole Miss. Yes, his situation was different because he was playing behind an acclaimed freshman at Texas and he seemingly went into a situation where he can be the man in 2008 for the Rebels.

 Brock Berlin (Florida), Brandon Stewart (Tennessee), Kenny Hayter (Texas), Tommy Grady (Oklahoma), and the tons of other players in the last decade or so that transfer usually find the competition is just as stiff at the new school. The position changes still took place. Maybe they weren’t as good as they thought they were. No, the grass was not greener on the other side. Sure you have some success stories (Troy Aikman, Oklahoma to UCLA and Scott Frost, Stanford to Nebraska) but those pale in comparison to the numbers that just become washouts, never to be heard from again.

 The fact of the matter is that transfers rarely, if ever, work out as planned. There was a time at Florida State in the 1990s in which the Seminoles had All American kids red-shirting, paying their dues and seeing the field their junior and senior seasons. It’s no accident that the same period of time mirrored the period of time in which the Seminoles went some 14 years without ever finishing below fourth in the final poll of the season. They also won a couple of national championships. That does that happen if Florida State does not have players willing to wait for their seasons?

 Gone are those days. Now, freshman that have to redshirt or don’t play as soon as they get on campus get antsy and start looking for a transfer, a position change or something that will get them on the field. Coaches have to play kids that are not ready to play to keep them from transferring. We live in a society where delayed gratification is a thing of the past and it has made its way to football.  

Vondrell McGee, Eddie Jones, Chykie Brown, Lamarr Houston, Deon Beasley and a host of other Longhorns with little or no game experience but tons of talent better listen to Tyrone. Your season is coming. Some players have to get through winter just to blossom. There will be a time when you bring the heat. You have to be patient.  

Transfers, like Emmanuel Moody happen all the time. It’s a numbers game and everyone, like Pete Carroll pointed out, doesn’t have the will to compete. 

“This will make the opportunities better for the kids still here,” Carroll said. “Guys come here and know they’ll play. If they lose that feeling, they’re not going to fit. [Moody] didn’t leave here disgruntled – he’s a great kid. He just thought he’d get a chance somewhere where the competition is different. He was at peace with his decision and said he had no regrets.”  

The competition at any school is fierce because the hearts in those players are everywhere. The talent to go with that heart doesn’t always fit and that’s why the walk-ons like Marcus Griffin who becomes an All Big 12 type guys are special.  

“It’s tough here,” Pete Carroll said. “It’s as challenging as it can get. That’s the central theme of our program – competition. This place isn’t for everyone. Guys can have a change of heart.” 

It’s tough everywhere. Instead of having a change of heart, these kids need to get some heart and fight for their season.

What we all want in life is a shot. What we do with that shot, that’s the story we want to tell or hide, depending on what we do with it. 

That’s the way I start off every one of my talks when I speak to high school and college students and athletes around the country. I want to be able to say Happy Birthday to Andre Jones on this day as he turns 18, but I doubt there’s much celebration today. On a day when he should be appreciating his right to vote, the felony with which he is charged may keep him from ever voting. He might have just blown his shot.  

Here is the easy part; there is a huge difference in the mindset and character of a young man that drinks one too many beers and decides, “I have not had too much to drink, I think I can drive to the house” and a young man putting a gun in his waistband or accompanying someone that did and walking into someone’s house and demanding cash, drugs and valuables. 

One is poor decision making and one is poor character. 

This is a slam dunk to me. If Andre Jones was in fact present at the alleged incident, he needs to be kicked off the team. Period! There should not even be any debate about it. It has nothing to do with whether he had a gun or not. To be with Joseph after he had already been arrested once, allowing his feet to run into mischief is enough, even if he didn’t have a gun, as the arrest warrant indicates.  

This is not even worth conversation because the Pro V1 is on the tee and ready be hit. It’s a lay-up. 

Look, there are many reasons for this breakdown in the moral compass of not only athletes, but people in America. There is the breakdown of the family with not enough fathers in the lives of their kids. There is the ever growing need for money and people’s reckless pursuit of it. There exists a system of enabling through marginalized punishments of young people based on cheering, nurturing and motivation as opposed to rehabilitation and accountability. 

There is a crisis in college athletics, especially among blacks in revenue producing sports. The business of sports based on money thrives on allowing athletes in revenue producing sports to enter school when a person with the same testing numbers could not enter school on his or her own academic merit. I actually appreciate the practice because a lot of young people with substandard starts in life end up with a degree from said school and can change their lot in life and many times the lot of a family. This is an increasing important issue and will have to be addressed at some point. As a black man, I’m embarrassed to see the sports page of the Austin American Statesmen today and see the arrest that have taken place within the Texas program since the 2006 Rose Bowl. 

But looking at this from the bigger picture of the program at The University of Texas, one must peel back another layer of that onion and you get to the root of the problem.  

Maybe lost leadership was underestimated. 

In 2005, the National Championship year, there were no questions about who the leader of the Texas Longhorns was. It was the reigning NFL Rookie of the Year, Vince Young. But you have to look deeper than that. There were leaders in age and experience everywhere; David Thomas, Michael Huff, Will Allen, Cedric Griffin, Ahmard Hall, Jonathan Scott, Rod Wright. That is a lot of leadership leaving a team that already feels very good about itself coming off of a victory over the “best team in college football history.” 

Couple that known loss of leadership with the team searching for leadership last year as the quarterback situation was being settled, along with the tackle and tight end spots. Throw in the fact that that the leaders on last year’s team were more quiet leaders like Michael Griffin and Aaron Ross. Then the final cherry on top of the banana split that was totally knocked over yesterday is the fact that last week at Big 12 media days, current Longhorns Colt McCoy and Derek Lokey acknowledged that there has been a disconnect between the older guys and the younger guys in part because the older guys move off campus. They said that they were closing the gaps by holding team meetings and spending time together. 

So this comes down to leadership, self policing and building accountability. 

Mack has to do something. As hard as I have been on Mack and his staff about football stuff over time, you cannot discount his genuine affection and concern for the welfare and success of his kids and the Texas program. 

There has to be a union of sorts by this team. Maybe Mack Brown should call Joe Paterno and get some ideas. Paterno had six players arrested and 15 players at an incident this past spring and went old school on his team. The lacrosse and the rugby club teams at Penn State usually clean 107,000 seat Beaver Stadium in Happy Valley for $5,000 to run their program. Now the Nittany Lion football team will clean the stadium the day after they play in it and the money will still go to the Lacrosse and Rugby teams.

 I would have to say that leaders on that team that are taking care of business in the classroom and on the field might concern themselves more with what their teammates are doing now. That, by itself is what creates chemistry among teams and people. The relationship brings about care, concern and accountability. 

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and seeking different results. Mack’s current discipline policy, if not broken, has a few chinks in the armor and maybe it’s time he raises the level or expectation and accountability. 

Make it happen, Mack!

We all have those moments in our life when we do monumentally stupid things.  

Sometimes those things are things that we don’t even like to do. We do them because everybody was doing them and more truthfully, we do them because we can. My roommate in college, also a full-ticket jock, and I used to frequent this hang out spot. We used to go there most of the time because we heard our favorite words every time we were there.  

Most people don’t understand the pressures that athletes deal with every day. These words are like kryptonite to an athlete.  

These words are, “Your money is no good here.”  

I was a rare drinker and drinking beer was an even a rarer occurrence. But on this night they handed us cups when we walked close to the bar and the manager pointed the bartender to us and told her, “Whatever they want, I got it!” By midnight or so, the number in our group was up to about 20 or so including a few of the local cleat chasers.  

I think it is the most that I ever drank and I did it for no other reason other than the fact that it was free and it let me divorce myself from some of my own insecurities.  

Now why did I tell you this story?  

I told you that story because when I woke up the next morning, I had no idea how I got home that night. I do know that my car was out front though and judging by the parking job, I was sure I drove it. God only knows what kept me from killing myself or someone that late night in West Texas but I took a lot from that night.

With the weekend arrest of Sergio Kindle on a DWI charge, it got me thinking about the pitfalls, challenges and temptations heaped on athletes. Sure every person has his or her own struggles to manage, but for the athlete, it is on a different scale because the same people that judge you are the people that put you on the pedestal.  Do everyday pressures affect athletes’ decisions? While having a full understanding of the need for these young men to make good choices, it would be remiss on our part if we didn’t recognize the complexity of the situation. It is almost baffling to most people that are not athletes.  

The questions rise to the top every time an athlete gets in trouble. How can these athletes with so much on the table in front of them make these types of decisions? Don’t they understand that most people would give anything to be in their situation and would never mess it up?  

Well, the short answer to that is that the non-athlete feels that way about them because they were never able to do it. That same love and adoration heaped on these athletes is what makes them think they are special as opposed to being blessed.  

When athletes believe that they are special, they look at things as a birthright. When an athlete looks at things as a blessing, there’s an appreciation of the fact that to whom much is given, much is expected.  

I will never forget what Vince Young said after the 2005 Rose Bowl that won Texas the National Championship – “I was thinking about the man upstairs. He could have chosen anybody to be in this moment but he chose to bless me to be a leader for this team and for my teammates.”That is a perspective that is refreshing and far too rare in not just athletes, but anybody who experiences a measure of success. The adoration heaped on athletes at every level many times starts as early as middle school, so you would think that insecurity would be the last thing on their mind. Many athletes exist and even thrive in an environment where their insecurities live themselves out for everyone to read or see. You let the love, adoration and thoughts that other people feel for you define how you feel about yourself.  That is one of the reasons that athletes with strong men in their lives probably do better in sports and in life. The nurturing of a mother is so great that it can’t be measured, but it is not always good when it comes to athletics. These strong men – fathers, uncles, grandfathers, whoever – can be very corrective and grounding and that allows the athlete to be more realistic in his thinking and understand the ramifications of choices. The very nature of playing the game of football in college is part of that insecurity. It’s not a pure insecurity, but it is a life of questions and those questions being answered in public spaces like newspapers, message boards and in front of 90,000 people on a Saturday afternoon.  Every player that finds himself on scholarship at The University of Texas was all-something in high school. He probably found himself on the finalist list for homecoming king. He probably was voted most likely to succeed or some other useless superlative. Often times he defines himself first through his sport.  

Parents think they do their kids favors by nurturing this behavior when they define their kids as athletes before anything else. I was speaking in Atlanta this past spring to a group of about 200 high school juniors and their families. I spoke about making good choices, the NCAA recruiting process, attitude, avoiding pitfalls and using sports as a way to get an education to make a life for themselves.

After I spoke in Atlanta, a lady that looked to be in her 50s came up to me. She was holding the arm of a young man that she told me was a tight end. She also informed me that he was getting letters from Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern and Troy University. She introduced me to his mother and his two sisters who were both carrying babies. She thanked me for what I said and then asked me a question that I will never forget.  

She asked, “How long he got to go to college before he can go to the NFL?” I did my best to give her a swift kick in the groin with some reality while still being encouraging to the young man. Instead of this family cheering for this young man to possibly get a free education and to make a life for himself and maybe change the course of a whole family, he is looked at to be a savior of the family and a way out of “the hood.”  

Instead of building a network of support for him, this 17-year old is supposed to set mama and grand mama up in a house. If this young man is not talented enough to play in the NFL, not able to play in a system that shows his talent or not able to avoid injury, an education is not enough for his family.  

If this young man goes to college and gets an education, a degree, and then gets a $75,000 per year on his job, then he is seen as a failure and will feel like one too. That is too much pressure to heap on to any one kid. Then people wonder why these young men, especially young men from urban depressed areas, find things that help them escape and sometimes lose focus on football. In many cases, football supplies all the pressure in this young man’s life.  

The kid gets on campus as a freshman, finds himself at a position full of other All-Americans and in a matter of months he goes from head of the class to picking up the rear. This kid who has defined himself and been defined his whole life by a game now finds that game to be his biggest form of insecurity and it supplies him with the most questions.  

So what does he do?  

He goes out and finds security in something else.  

That something else might be drinking, smoking, women, whatever. He finds security in anything that he can control and is not determined by someone else or in public space, when really he was wrong to define himself as special over a game in the first place. Athletes that define themselves by their sports will always have this problem because fame and money are fleeting and are not enough. It is something that I have deemed my personal battle and was one of the reasons that I wrote the book, Sports for life.  

You would think that the problems of the off-season with Aaron Ross, Terrell Brown, Robert Joseph and Henry Melton would have hit this team like a rock, but Sergio Kindle still found his feet running into mischief. I get tired of kids making stupid decisions too, but since I’m 36 and still make them, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.  

I wish, ‘Joe Fan’ could live the real life of a college athlete one day and understand the pressures from school and home that come along with it. Judgment would not be so swift and understanding and teaching would become paramount. At some point, these young men need to know what a great gift they have been given and that the gift of football does not stop between the chalk.  

We all need to appreciate what these young men do because they do it many times in spite of what we have created in them as fans and as media. That is what makes the “good guys” of sports so special and so rare. They were able to fight through us.