How early is too early?  Former Texas A & M and current Kentucky Head Hoop Coach Billy Gillespie has received a commitment from a 6’4” eighth grader named Michael Avery from Lake Sherwood, CA.

Now look, I’ve long thought that something needed to be done about AAU basketball.  The shoe companies essentially own it and the AAU coaches and college coaches sell dreams to kids and families of the NBA when the Michael Beasley’s of the world and his 6 different high schools before he popped up at Kansas State are really rare when you consider that less that 450 players play in the NBA.

You have kids missing school and traveling all over the country.  They can play in this tournament but not in that one and the brand of shoes is the reason why.

I understand why the AAU coaches are into it.  These are guys that have build some abstract power in the community and on the court and also create one heck of a supplemental income.  Hell, if you have a kid that is good enough, you can parlay that into an assistant job at a Division I school; maybe even in the Big 12 south.

I understand why the college coaches do it because regardless of how the NCAA and the school presidents proclaim to be all about educating students-athletes we all know it’s about paying for the expense lines that other sports and Title IX offer up.  They win or their gone, period.

What I don’t get are the parents, who many times forfeit their duty, obligation and responsibility as parents under the cloak of offering their kids opportunities in life when really all they want is a new house and their trying to insure that the meal ticket gets it done.

Michael Avery’s father, Howard said that now that his son is committed to Kentucky, he just has to find a high school.  He currently attends Ascension Lutheran School in Thousand Oaks.  This whole offer from Kentucky came about because he was in Indiana interviewing for a private school that he is considering attending and through the grimy handling and misdealing of youth basketball, introductions, handshakes and eventually an invitation to play came about.  Avery played in front of Gillispie but of course, because of the NCAA, he could never make contact with a prospect at the tournament so through the squeaky clean AAU team, they find out that they should contact Kentucky.

Violah, you got yourself a scholarship.

We get so caught up and trying to decide if we can, we never stop to think about if we should.  We see it in little league, we see it in middle school and of course in high school and college.

Kids get shuffled from here to there, playing on this team and that team, traveling here, there and everywhere being fed, nurtured and essentially managed by some AAU hack or someone else with a financial goal in mind.  I’m constantly sitting here thinking, “Who the hell is raising your kid?”

It affects thousands and thousands of kids every year.  The AAU coaches make money and get kick backs on the shoe deals.  I haven’t heard of any college coaches that are starving.  Finally the players get, well, there’s 450 players in the NBA and there are more and more Lenny Cookes every day.

Scratch a lie, find a thief.

On a hand full of occasions, I have had someone come up and insult me by saying, “You are so lucky to have good kids.” After I promptly tell them that we work damn hard on our kids and for them to say we got divine intervention and were delivered “better” kids than others is ludicrous. I usually am reminded that most people go through life, fat, dumb and happy thinking that most things in life just kind of happen.

It wasn’t luck that enabled Mack Brown and Vince Young to bring Texas a title.

Some people said that Texas was lucky to win the 2006 Rose Bowl because LenDale White ran to the wrong whole and right into the teeth of the Texas defense on a fourth-and-1 that could have put the game away for the Trojans.

Some folks say that Nebraska was lucky to win a share of the national championship in 1997. Lying on his back, wide receiver Shevin Wiggins kicked a ball in the air and freshman Matt Davidson picked it off the ground to get within an extra point of tying Missouri and eventually winning the game to keep the Huskers’ record alive in Tom Osborne’s last year.

People said that Mack Brown only won a national championship at Texas because he was lucky enough to recruit Vince Young.

What exactly is luck and how does it affect sports teams?

There is no doubt that luck plays a part in sports. I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

I have always thought that sports was about being there, being in the moment and being prepared to be there so you can take advantage of any opportunity that might come along.

Bobby Bowden had to hear the talk but being there enough and having a few things go his way won him not one but two national championships. Tom Osborne could never win the big one and then finally won three.

Brown was the man chasing a championship, having never won even a conference championship. He won a conference championship and the national championship in the same season.

Rick Barnes has gotten his Texas basketball program closer and closer to being there and Ben Howland got his UCLA basketball program to three straight Final Fours. For all of the scuttle about them not winning it all, it’s being there that counts and those two men and their basketball programs will get to the mountain top at some point.

Luck is about being there. Luck is about showing up. I tease my kids all the time that it might be true that it is better to be lucky than be good; but I also tell them that you can’t get lucky if you are not prepared to accept it.

Every champion, in sports or industry, can look back over the course of competition and see places where they were fortunate, opportunistic and sometimes just downright lucky.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, gets lucky. What we all want in life is a shot. What we do with that shot, that’s the story we want to tell.

What do you do with the luck that falls your way?

LenDale White might have run to the wrong hole. The kick by Shevin Wiggins saved the season and chance for Nebraska to win the National Championship in 1997. Mack Brown was lucky to land Vince Young.

But here’s what really happened …

USC got arrogant in its play calling, left its Heisman Trophy winner and one of the country’s best athletes on the sideline and gave Vince Young and the Texas offense the ball.

Nebraska won every game, period, and then went on to beat Peyton Manning and Tennessee like they stole something. They deserved the national championship and in today’s BCS, they would have beaten Michigan and not tied for the championship.

Brown was not lucky to recruit Vince Young any more than Bobby Bowden was lucky to recruit Charlie Ward or Tom Osborne was lucky to recruit Tommy Frasier. Recruiting, regardless of how much people try to marginalize it, is part of the game and the coach with the best talent on his sidelines still wins 80 percent of the games.

Sometimes life and luck is what you make of it. It’s never all you, but make no mistake, it’s never all luck.

Luck and hard work go hand in hand. The harder I work, the luckier I get.

 Southern Methodist University’s football program got the death penalty.

 The University of Alabama paid a high school coach $200,000 for a defensive tackle.

Indiana is in trouble again because of the actions of a, now, former coach that continued to break rules committed at a former job to catch an advantage.

The scandal hovering over Indiana and former coach Kelvin Sampson is yet another black eye for sports in general.

Spygate with the New England Patriots is back in the news again.

Steroids has basically destroyed the credibility of track and field, cycling and if not for the baseball owners being firmly entrenched in the “good old boy” network, baseball would be in worse shape than it is because everyone would know that Bud Selig was knowledgeable and was complicit in the steroid era of baseball.

Even in an entity like the Olympic games, which is, more than any other entity, based on an ideal of fair play, hard work and good competition, it is covered with cheating.

Innuendo and the back channel all over the country suggest, imply and even have witness to the fact that athletic departments, booster groups, professional organizations and all sorts of folks in sports cheat, break rules or at the very least bend the rules beyond the spirit of their intent.

Is this the world we live in?

I always hate to compare eras because they just cannot be compared but for this purpose it might be useful because it does raise or lend credibility to the questions we ask …

Has the almighty dollar brought about the enormous levels of cheating and inauthentic actions when it comes to sports?

I have often mused that in the 1970s when many players in leagues like the National Football Association and the National Basketball Association were paid salaries that forced them to sell insurance or sell cars in the off-season, the value of their athletic performance wasn’t based on money.

With the millions and even billions of dollars that are poured into sports, with the thousands of jobs that are dependant on those sports, with all of the livelihoods and families that exist based off the income received in sports, everything has changed.

With the rise in dollars paid to professional athletes, the incentive to cheat has been raised.

With the pressure placed on coaches because of salaries, the incentives to bend the rules and/or flat out cheat, is there.

With the values of college athletic programs, universities place into question the integrity of their schools to allow athletes that wouldn’t be allowed in any other way to attend the university except for the value they bring to the table as athletes.

If that is not against the rules, it could be considered unethical and at the very least unfair for the regular student population that could not get into the university with the same academic resume.

In so many ways we have been desensitized to cheating in sports. We have been desensitized to a point where we question any performance that is out of the ordinary.

So it ends up being the honest but phenomenal athlete that pays the price for the cheating of everyone. It is the university that does it right but is riddled with rumors of cheating that pays the price for the schools that cheat.

All of these questions and issues bring about the cynicism that we experience and live with every day in sports.

Maybe more than the actual football that I see, maybe that is the reason that I get so excited when I turn a corner and see Friday night lights.

Even understanding the ails of high school sports, it might be the best and purest form of competition.

I have constantly called it the “wussification” of America. It’s almost funny because with all the flaws and inequities in the American experience, one of the overriding principles of the American ideal is competition, fair play and to the victor goes the spoils.  

My six-year-old daughter has done gymnastics, soccer and ballet. My seven-year-old son has done baseball, flag football and soccer. At the conclusion of every one of those seasons, they had a pizza party and they all got a trophy. I always hated it but hey, they are kids right?  When my son played football, they didn’t keep score. Because of conversations we had before he played, he was always worried about the score. As the assistant coach for that team, we always told the kids, “We are not worried about the score, just make plays.” 

I finally gave in and told my son that I would help him keep track of scores as long as he didn’t talk about it with the other kids. 

I’m sure there is some professional out there with more acronyms behind their name than me that will suggest that I am doing the wrong thing. Maybe I’m a bad father. Maybe my kids will end up screwed up. Maybe I am taking my kids’ childhood away. 

I guess I have just never figured out the age when it all matters. I have always operated with the mindset of the following two paragraphs from the Competition chapter in my book, Sports for Life … 

“Competition is a part of life. You will compete for jobs, education, housing, and relationships. It does not matter if ‘Soft Hearts’ tell you that you don’t have to keep score, it’s all about having fun, doesn’t matter the outcome, as long as you try, do not believe them. Sometimes, you have to learn to try harder and try smarter. You will compete in every aspect of your life. You will compete to make athletic teams, band chairs, academic teams, scholarships, spouses, and jobs. 

“Competition is a good thing; one of the best things. Competition has been the catalyst for invention, success and people doing more than ever thought possible. Competition is a spirit, a prevailing attitude and a virtue of Americana that took man to the moon, brought down the price of computers, led man to fly and of course has taken sports to the forefront of society.”

 I guess I’ll figure it out at some point and I’ll either be wrong or right but more than likely a mixture of the two. It is something that is supremely personal and each family does it differently. 

I made a comment about youth sports on my radio show that I thought we are sending children bad messages when right around the corner they will have to compete for grades, jobs, scholarships and many other things. I had a caller call in get after me pretty good saying that I was going to mess up my kids. Me being the jerk that I can be sometimes, I told her that she could raise her kids any way that she wanted because someone had to work for my kids. 

While I didn’t have to be rude I really do think that teaching kids that everyone wins is a bad move. 

My son’s basketball team starts in January and I’m the head coach. I don’t know exactly how I am going to handle this “wussying” thing. I guess I’ll have to keep track in my head and talk to my kid once we get home. 

Excuse me if I have the weird, self-centered, off-center thought that maybe, just maybe not getting an award and seeing someone else win it will encourage them to work harder and work smarter. He battles for the highest marks in his class right now, why not battle at sports. 

Competing is great. Everyone doesn’t need a trophy or an award. If it is about participation then let it be about participation and let’s not give every kid the MVP award. 

Well maybe just skip my kid. Let him earn it. 

I know he will.

Individuals get the headlines but it is teams that win. Make no mistake about it, teams have to be created. 

When I was young, my parents bought me a book by Max Lucado named “On the Anvil.” While the Christian book was about molding and shaping a life much like a blacksmith molds and shapes steel, I have also considered this book when trying to build a team because I think it’s the same process. 

The start, the growth and some of the history that makes America a great place would of course foster these feelings, but Americans have a great love for the “Walter Mittys” of the world. Whether it’s Abraham Lincoln’s comments on the number common folk, Bill’s Gates entrepreneurship or the civil right movement’s desire to “overcome,” we love the story of the underdog.

 It’s why we love, from afar, the story of Major Applewhite. He is a kid that seemingly had little of the tangibles needed to play quarterback at the Division I level but willed himself through study, hard work and heart to great heights and success. 

On a different level, it is the reason that the 2005 season for The University of Texas was so special. Texas had a special team, no doubt. Anybody that was a fan of Texas, covered Texas in the media or spent 60 minutes across the field from Texas understood that this team was tough, talented and could play with anyone. That is not what made this team special though.

 The season for the 2005 Texas team took on a whole different value because it played the University of Southern California for the national championship. It was playing against a team that was being hailed as the best college football team in the history of the sport. USC had thunder and lightning at the running back spot with LenDale White and Reggie Bush. USC had two Heisman Trophy winners in the same backfield in quarterback Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush. 

ESPN apparently had the foresight to offer up USC’s crowning achievement early with a countdown to the Rose Bowl named “History in the making,” a video tribute and commentary. The Longhorns were essentially an afterthought weeks before the game took place. 

For all of the “respect” that Texas got before that Rose Bowl with USC, it could never be seen as more that fleeting.

 Of course Texas collectively and Vince Young individually found success that night for one very simple reason. They refused to believe that they couldn’t beat USC and found a way to win. Even when things looked to be falling apart late in the fourth quarter, they had an amazing belief and they made it happen.

 There is still some thought out there that if those two teams played five times, USC would have won four of them. It’s similar to the story about the miracle on ice involving the 1980 US Hockey team and its victory over the Soviet Union when U.S. Coach Herb Brooks told his team, “If we played them 10 times, they might win nine. But not this game, not tonight! Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world.” 

The 2006 Rose Bowl is by far the best game that I have ever attended and it was for a couple of reason, but mainly because I learned a lesson that day when the eternal optimist that I am even began to underestimate the heart of a champion in that fourth quarter. I learned that you can never really measure the resolve of a team, the desire of a team or predict the success of a team that loves and plays for each other. 

That is why I have always kicked back against the “Mack Brown caught lighting in a bottle and won a championship” group. What that 2005 team had can’t be caught or taught. It is a special collection of talents, attitudes and desire that when coupled with the right leadership leads to special things. 

Being a team is so much more than the pieces that make it up. There is no doubt in my mind that the New York Yankees have had the best collection of talent over the last five years in baseball. Why is it that they have not won the World Series? Simply that, they have been a collection of talent. 

It is the reason that Remember the Titans was made into a movie and is such a great story. It’s the story of a collection of individuals and cultures that over time learn to care about each other, learn to play for each other and consider the welfare of the team more important than the success or the race of the individual. 

I heard a coach tell his team, “Whether you like your role is not is not really relevant. What is important to understand is that we all have a role to play.” 

It is harder to build a team now than ever before. Players don’t really like to talk about roles. With the individuality of awards, the money in sports and amateurs trying to perform at a level to get the money, it’s hard to talk about sacrifice, team and the greater good. The collection of cultures, races and mindsets that are gathered up to put the best talent in a position to win is staggering. 

We saw the team concept at work in 2005 for Texas and just two short years later, something seems to be wrong. It is not too dissimilar from the 2003 season when a transition of leadership was taking place from some older guys to the red-shirts from the 2001 recruiting class and to the recruiting class of 2002.

 You have to hope that Mack Brown’s circling the wagons in this bowl preparation will be good for the program. There are not many better coaches that can go “Tupac” and take on the “Me Against the World” attitude and make it work for his team. Mack Brown has done it time and time again. You just have to hope, if you are a Texas fan that this works.

 Having a collection of talent that underachieves is worse than not having the talent to compete. 

The talent is on campus and coming to campus. It is absolutely amazing to me that I can even write this about a team that is 9–3 when schools around the country would give anything to have the sustainable record that Mack Brown and

 Maybe Mack Brown has become a victim to his own success. 

Maybe Mack Brown is like every other coach, CEO and leader in this country. People want more, demand more and expect more and won’t really settle for anything less. 

He earns his money.

I caught touchdowns, first downs, threw blocks that sprung touchdowns and ran off safeties so my tight end and slot receiver could get open. I played special teams, caught the long ball and even got in on a tackle after an interception was thrown. 

I won the 200 meters at the Aggie Relays at Texas A&M in 20.38. I ran on a sprint medley team that won the Texas Relays and ran the fastest time in the world at that time. I anchored a 39.46 second 4X100 meter relay team and had been All American in the 4X100 meter relay, the 400 meters, the 200 meters and the 4X400 meters.  

But … I wanted to be a national champion in track and field. That was something that consumed my thoughts. I had been a big contributor on a team national championship but had been relegated to second place many times in individual and relay events. 

 When the final in the 4X100 Relay was started, we were near the middle of the track. When it came to my leg of the race, the third leg, I went around that turn knowing that we were going to win. When I handed off for the anchor leg in first place, I raised my hands in the air, and realized I had finally been a part of an event national champion. As I jogged down the home-stretch hundred, I looked toward the finish line and saw the team in the lane next to mine raise its hands and start to celebrate. I had another second place finish. 

When it came to the last event of the day and I still had not won an event, I was focused on my leg of the race. I was the anchor for the 4X400 meter relay. It was all on me and that is just the way I wanted it. First leg ran, then second leg ran and then finally the third leg made his run. As I see my teammate come down the homestretch, I was waving him in and getting my mind right to roll. I got the stick about 5-7 meters back and in a virtual tie for second place. The guy in first place was a guy that I had run against before in the open 400 meters and other relay events. I focused on his back and in the middle of the back straight, I pulled up next to him. I still don’t know why I didn’t run past him like I was coached to do. If I had run past him, I could have made him run my race. Instead, I stayed right there with him, on his hip, and ran his race. 

In the pattern of running his race, he started pulling away from me with 40 meters to go. I knew the fate of my race with 20 meters left. I’m welling up with tears while I’m finishing the race. He ended up beating me and my team by the same five meter lead he started the leg with. In the process, I earned myself and my teammates another Silver NCAA trophy for second place. When I crossed the line with tears streaming down my face for some reason I had to express my feelings and let out a loud 1.5 to 2 second yell. 

My then girlfriend, now wife, was the first one to me and she did what she could but I was crushed. While I was jogging and cooling down, one of the young guys on the relay team that would go on to be a star said, “I see how much it meant for you to win just once and I’m mad I couldn’t help you get it.” At the time I was trying to convince myself to stand proud on the second level of that awards stand, again, so I didn’t understand the personal indictment on me within that statement. 

I’ve told that story countless times around the country to young people. I always cut off the part about the cool down. I never really thought about how important it actually was until Monday when we heard about Colt McCoy’s emotional speech to the team after the loss to Oklahoma.

 I’m 36 years old now and I still continue to learn everyday. On Monday, McCoy taught me that my emotion, my tears and my scream came a little too late. 

Part of being a leader is allowing real emotion to guide you and allowing that emotion to build a vision for those around you that people buy into. It’s how Vince Young did it. It’s how Joe Montana did it. It’s how Michael Irvin did it. It’s not about pounding your chest, it’s not about running your mouth and it’s not about trophies. It’s about showing up, making a statement and driving people to do what they never dreamed possible. 

I had spent so much of my life trying to be “The Man” that I never really caught on that we are just men with the hopes and dreams of children. 

McCoy might very well break every passing record on the books at The University of Texas.

Be proud of that. 

Be proud of the emotion he displayed. 

Be proud that he did it now. 

He could have pulled a Sean Adams and let his scream and tears out after a 2009 Alamo Bowl loss to Purdue.

I feel like a hypocrite for even penning these thoughts to paper considering I speak all over the country to young people and dedicated my book to talking about being well rounded and being a complete person. But this is a truth that cannot go unspoken or unrecognized.

One of the toughest times of my life was when my father died in 1997. While he had enough virtues to fill Memorial Stadium, like everyone else, he had his flaws. When I spoke at his funeral, I quoted Henry David Thoreau from Walden where he wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” I knew then and it increases now that my father was absolutely desperate to see success in my brother, sister and me. He was desperate to exorcise some demons and he was desperate to be reflective of the commitment he made to his faith and his family.

My father always talked about the fact that necessity might be the mother of invention but that desperation can be a great motivator to success. When I think back through the little bit of success I have been lucky enough to have in life, much of it came due to the fact that I was desperate.

Just something to think about.

I get irritated with the folks at my church sometimes when they talk of mission fields. I always laugh when they say people around the world need help. People need help right here. It may not be as sexy or inspiring to talk to about, but people right around the corner need help.

For the lack of a better term, the Texas Longhorns have become a mission field. They have voluntarily become that because the mission field is actually an income stream sorely needed by the university.

How you ask?

Texas and many other great academic institutions around the country like Michigan, UCLA, Virginia, Cal–Berkeley, USC, Texas A&M, Georgetown, North Carolina and Wisconsin have all decided to make their revenue producing sports their mission fields. They recruit these players to their universities because they understand the business of college sports and what it brings to the university setting.

They invite players to their campus and offer them an all expense paid stay when many times they are not academically, emotionally or socially prepared to deal with the college experience. Many of these players on their own academic merit have no business at his or her respective university, if being in college at all, but it’s about pleasing the ever demanding alumni and raising revenue through winning.

Only one school in the country will not have these issues creep up from time to time and that is Stanford. It has made a conscious decision to “suck” at the revenue producing sports. It can jump up every once in a while and field a competitive football team and maybe more often a basketball team because it doesn’t need the numbers but it won’t be able to do it consistently. Why? The Stanford Cardinal decided long ago that they would not lessen their academic standards to allow athletes into school. Everyone else has chosen to go for the money, the campus experience and the pride tied with football.

So as with any mission field, you get a mixed bag of results in hits and misses.

The hits of course are the things that I love. The kid shows up on campus and may have no business there but during the course of school the bell rings, the stop light turns green and the light comes on. The kid who probably had no business at the university gets his degree. Many times he is the first in a whole family to go to college. He probably marries a girl with a college degree and their kids are going to go to college. In that case, you have changed the course of a family. You have changed a generation and a last name. Even if a kid doesn’t graduate, he is much better off having been on a college campus for four or five years than if he had gone into the work force directly from high school.

If you are going to have the hits, you are going to have some misses. Misses are the kids that find their feet running into mischief and get into trouble. There are different kinds of trouble.

We would all be crazy to lump all of it into one bucket. The decision making process that goes, “I have had a few beers but I think I’m cool driving the short way home,” is totally different from the thought process that says, “Ya’ll ready. I got my gun. Let’s go do this.” One is poor decision making and one is poor character.

So what does a school do once it has decided this road for its athletic department?

Digging into the background even more and tightening the reigns on the recruiting process would be a start. The fear is that coaches that find themselves on the negative end of some press coverage usually make their recruiting standards even stricter and they take themselves out of the running for many of the premier athletes.

For football coaches, reigning in recruiting is only part of the answer because you have to deal with the 120 kids that are on campus right now. There are curfew options and team-wide sanction options.

They could move the players back on campus but that could cause uproar in on-campus housing.

At the end of the day, the coaching staff, the university and its support staff can do only so much to try and catch bad apples before they get in, because they are going to get in. At that point it becomes a management situation.

No matter who you pull for, problems are going to happen. You have to take the good with the bad because the schools have decided that winning and the football experience for the student body and the alumni are paramount. They have decided that the risk is worth allowing students into school that many times have no business being there. They have hitched their wagon to football, to the pageantry of the experience. As a genuine college football fan I am happy as I can be.

Something has to be done. The mission field is having problems all over the country with crime, drugs and inflated egos brought on by the media and the fans. The product is bringing in cash at an alarming rate so we know that change is not on the horizon. The revenue sports are too important to the vitality of the university.

As long as that is the case, you will have some hits and you will have some misses. Texas has surely had more hits than misses but the Texas staff has missed on a number of kids lately. Here’s to getting back on track. The mission field awaits.

Back when I played football, I lined up at the wide receiver position. I ran the wrong route one time and it prevented the tight end from catching a touchdown pass in a very important drive for my offense going into halftime. After receiving an ample chewing from my quarterback and my receiver coach, it was the tight end that said, “I thought they were in man–to–man too, earlier in the game.” He gave me a few keys to watch for in how the defense was disguising the coverage. We scored on the same play in the second half and we pulled off the upset.

It was that valuable conversation of no more than 30 seconds that helped us score later in the game. He didn’t talk to me because I blew a touchdown catch for him. He came and talked to me because the team needed me to do my part and he was going to help me get there. It was the locker room at halftime that changed the course of that game.

Henry David Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Texas was desperate when it took the field Saturday against TCU. The Horned Frogs were playing a level of defense that had every Longhorn fan hoping that Texas would not turn the ball over because the Texas defense was having relative success but the offense looked woefully inept. When the turnovers did happen the desperation increased. By the time this team got to the locker room at halftime down 10-0, the desperation reached a high level.

When I left the game at halftime to head over the Scholz’s, the mood was somber as I walked out of the stadium. Somebody that knew me said, “You may not want to take phone calls tonight.” As I left the stadium, I had no reason to believe that the Texas Longhorns would be able to do anything to change their current path.

As I sat at Scholz’s watching the second half of the game, I couldn’t help but wonder what took place in the locker room during halftime. For a team that has clearly had some leadership issues over the course of the last five games, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of the locker room. Who was doing the yelling? Who was doing the encouraging? Who was doing the teaching? Who was nurturing the young guys?

Every player needs different things. Some players need an encouraging word. Some players need to be told what to do and to learn some thought processes from the older guys. Some guys need to be called out. Some players need to be taken to the side and simply told, “You’re better than this and this team needs you to reflect that.” Every player has his own motivation.

The locker room is where part of the magic happens.

Something happened in that Longhorn locker room at halftime because a different team emerged to start the second half.

Everyone is going to tell you, and rightfully so, that the Texas Longhorns are not out of the woods yet and there are things you still don’t know about this team. That is right. This team still has questions but might have played the best and most experienced defense it will face in 2007.

Texas was desperate on Saturday night. Texas was desperate to remain at the top of the food chain for football in the state of Texas. Texas was desperate to break the chain of bad football it had played over the course of four games. The Longhorns were desperate to be reflective of their own beliefs.

Desperation is a good thing. Desperation when combined with character brings about the results that everyone saw on Saturday night.

If someone tries to tell you that you can’t take too much stock in what happened on Saturday, feel free to tell them to shut up.

We might not have learned whether this team will beat Oklahoma. We might not have learned whether it can take this act on the road and perform when the crowd is not on its side. We don’t know if they can put 60 minutes of football together like the second half against TCU. While the defense played great, especially in the second half, we don’t know what it can do against a high powered offense.

We did learn that this team has tremendous character and that is one heck of a starting point to answering the other questions.

Jon Wooden always said that sports don’t build character, they reveal it. It was revealed to me against TCU that this team has the desire to win. It was reveled to me that this team has the components to win. More important than those, the Longhorns revealed that they have the character to win. While this team might not blow other teams out like the 2005 team, that character will give them a puncher’s chance in every game it has on the schedule.

After Kansas State, Texas A&M, Iowa and Arkansas State, character was the best thing for you to see coming out of this game.

Hall of fame coach John Thompson said, “You don’t play for the people in the stands. You do your thing and let the people enjoy watching you play.” 

I have and will always look at things from the athlete’s perspective. I was an athlete, many of my friends were athletes and I will always look at it that way. There is no other way of thinking about it for me. I have no desire to be a college coach. I’ve had that opportunity and turned it down. I have no desire to be in athletic administration. I’ve done that and left it. I am a player. Even in my old decrepit and bad knee state, I’m a player. I always take the players’ side even before I take a coaching side of things. I have one way of thinking about things and just about got going on my thoughts before I decided to pick up my phone and give you some other perspective. 

I started making phone calls Sunday afternoon. I called two former Texas football players (both played in the NFL). I called one former ACC player and one former Big 10 player (both of whom played in the NFL). I called two former Big 12 players that currently play in the NFL. I called one current Conference USA player, one current Pac 10 player and one current Big 12 player. I finally called a friend of mine who is a college assistant coach.

 I then afforded them anonymity. I did that not because I’m trying to protect them but because I wanted them to keep it real with me and give me their real thoughts. I even had a couple of them take a look at the internet so I could get their thoughts on that. 

I got a mixed bag or thoughts but they were definitely real with me. “I read one guy on your site that said Texas will go 7–5 now after a close win. That’s exactly the reason why he could never be a player and he’s on the net,” said a current player. “You have one game where you don’t play your best and you punk out on the season. Even if you play bad you don’t give up the whole (expletive) season. No athlete could ever think like that because you never become a player by ever thinking that way. Man I smile at fans but I never really pay attention to them or their opinions.”

 When I got about five minutes to talk to my coaching friend, he laughed about the Texas score and said, “Sometimes it just happens that way.” When I commented that Texas needs to play some of the younger guys because they have more natural talent he broke it down for me saying, “You media people kill me. You played a little football so that probably makes you worse. Look, this is real Sean. You might be tied into the program and have all kinds of sources because you write and do radio but you don’t know what’s going on inside the complex. Some kid may be ultra talented but might be too dumb to learn the system. Another guy might be talented but is a total me guy and nobody believes in him. Then you still might have another guy who can make big plays but is always out of position because that’s the way he played in high school. Every kid comes into college with a different level of football IQ.”

 We know that coaches read the internet and the newspapers even when they say they don’t. We also know that players read the internet and read the newspapers. When I talked to a current Division I player that I have known since he was a freshman in high school, he said, “I read the internet because it’s funny. Of course I want to read it if it’s good. The only thing I hate is when people get personal. But when it is about football, of course I don’t listen. If they knew that much they would be coaching or playing. The real is, unless you’re in that locker room with me and bleeding and sweating with me, I don’t give a damn what you think. Sean, you my boy! I play with your kids and hug your wife but when it comes to my team, I really don’t care what you write. As a player, that’s how I have to be.” 

Fans are great. Supporters are great. College football is the best game on earth. Nobody can keep the cliff-jumpers from creating their stories and calling it reality. Maybe some fans just have to be on suicide watch. It’s that kind of passion that makes college football at Texas what it is. Fact is, every goal that Texas set for the 2007 season is still in front of the team, still attainable and still within reach.

 This close game against Arkansas State could be the best thing to happen for the Longhorns. It’s amazing how many times I heard that from former players.

 A current NFL player said, “After reading your board, honestly that’s the reason fans are fans. Football is what I do. Fans do real estate, finance, deliveries, cook, fly planes or whatever is their profession. This is what I do 90 hours a week. It’s their hobby and they have hobbyist knowledge of it.”

Maybe true, maybe not. As I told him, work a hobby long enough and it is possible to develop a talent or to become an expert. And some things are easy to see even for an amateur that only dabbles in said hobby. I responded by saying, “Some hobby’s build an expertise. You don’t have to be an apple to recognize one when you see it.”