“What the hell’s going on out here?”
- Thread starter cover2
- Start date
- Jun 9, 2014
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Founding Member
I didn't care for Machen when he came aboard. He was annoyingly meddlesome in my view. He had no business making football decisions and no business doing to Spurrier what he did. I've flipped in my thinking. Having a detached president is about the worst thing that can happen to the football program. We need a guy who's a genuine fan and who genuinely cares.
- Nov 29, 2015
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Was it still run my the funeral home like it was in the 50’s. Good business model, get paid either way.
- Sep 15, 2014
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Since65
Senior Member
- Oct 5, 2014
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I am not particularly bothered by those with a negative view of the current state of Gator football. I just grow weary of the constant repetition of the same exact thing. Every post, every time. Clearly some are not convinced Napier is the right hire. We get it...he looks like the guy from Slingblade, he coached in the Sunbelt, he's from Georgia, he got fired at Clemson, yada, yada, yada. It doesn't seem like it's necessary to repeat those thoughts with every single post on every single thread. Some new material would be appreciated. Same with the mom jokes. Even the best comics occasionally have to come up with new lines.
My life experience has been different from some of the other older posters. I spent 40+ years as a narrow minded, self-righteous, overbearing jerk. In the last handful of years some things have happened that convinced me that there are many things I don't know for sure. That all that absolutism might have been harmful as opposed to helpful. I find myself far more open minded about different people and different ideas than I used to be. I am also far less angry than I used to be. Clearly there are different roads to becoming more peaceful.
Whether the tenor of the board changes or not I'll still keeping checking in to make sure I don't miss information I had not found somewhere else.
My life experience has been different from some of the other older posters. I spent 40+ years as a narrow minded, self-righteous, overbearing jerk. In the last handful of years some things have happened that convinced me that there are many things I don't know for sure. That all that absolutism might have been harmful as opposed to helpful. I find myself far more open minded about different people and different ideas than I used to be. I am also far less angry than I used to be. Clearly there are different roads to becoming more peaceful.
Whether the tenor of the board changes or not I'll still keeping checking in to make sure I don't miss information I had not found somewhere else.
- Dec 31, 2018
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Sadly he passed in December of 2019. (And his coaching career did not end on a good note - he was fired after being accused of abusing players.)
- Nov 5, 2019
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- Jun 12, 2014
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Founding Member
It can be rough when you’ve got a President that is overly involved, but it’s still better than one who doesn’t give a shti. That part is some of the rot referenced earlier that needs to be cut out. Seems like most of the “don’t-give-a-shttiers” hire somebody they feel will not rock the boat and be non-threatening to them. It’s easy to get guys like that with the salaries and payouts nowadays. I’ve felt like Stricklin is that kind of guy and it’s maybe easy to see Billy in that mold. The difference I think is in what he’s asked for and got (staff upgrades, facilities support) never came up quite as much that I recall in a quite a while, or maybe it’s because of the frequent changes. Billy’s also made more noise than we’ve heard in several years in recruiting and fixing the program’s image with regional high schools. Long overdue. Now, figuring out the portal will also be of great importance.
Where Billy lacks polish, overall game planning and management, offensive and defensive strategy (which should get better as the roster is fleshed out) is maybe a leap of faith on Stricklin’s part. Looks like he’s likely thrown all his chips in on the rebuild and Billy’s plan going forward. That’s like dining on a nickel steak. You’ve got to chew a while before you can swallow it. Going by record, I imagine he almost choked to death this season. But some of the intangibles are starting to show and it will remain to be seen if the fan base can have the patience needed with the timeline Billy’s plan looks to require.
I believe that your best programs start with having the best athletes and coaching them up to play as winners and give them the opportunity to become solid citizens (require them to do right and get an education if not a degree). This happens by having a HC and staff they trust and will fight for along with reasonable creature comforts ($, nice living quarters, a campus full of coeds, etc.). We seem to have that going, but it could be better, by all accounts, especially where this new beast known as the NIL is concerned. Winning will be a huge part of the sustainability and that makes this coming year and the next very important, though I don’t know that the majority can hold still for that long. Should make for grand theater if not great football. Today’s game is built on speed and relatively speaking there doesn’t seem to be much room for patience.
- Dec 31, 2018
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Not exactly. I was in HS in the area (I grew up In Alexandria) at the time and it was a bit of a story. He never coached again BTW.
- Jul 27, 2018
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Alleged is the key word here. They do award the Herman Boone trophy to the winning team in the US Army All American Bowl for HS Seniors so the respect for him probably outweighs some unproven allegations. BTW when I played HS football 68 thru 70 in Florida every coach I played for could have been accused of abusing players. I suspect it's more an indictment of the mentality of the times rather than any direct reflection of Herman Boone the football coach.
- Dec 31, 2018
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The trophy is named for him because of the movie. Plain and simple. The Herman Boone who was in the national public eye after that movie is not the guy I remember hearing about when I was in HS. (And while I love that movie, it is a highly fictionalized version of what happened that year both on the field and at T.C.) I've heard more than one person say he became the Denzel Washington version of Herman Boone.
I know plenty of guys who played for him and he was not exactly beloved by any of them. I also never heard any of them say the allegations weren't true. (And remember, this was before things got PC.) His last season the players mutinied and before the season three coaches quit because of his methods. He also never again repeated the success of that first season.
- Nov 5, 2019
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Did you play for Herman Boone? If not, then all your doing is repeating allegations. As I said all of the coaches I played for during that exact time span could have been accused of abusive behavior as it was the style of the day. Also, I loved the movie and felt it was a reality based representation of exactly what we dealt with in the 68/69 seasons as the black HS was shuttered and integration was forced on all of us. We learned how to become a team and some of my friends lost their starting positions to better athletes. BTW it was a joke when I asked if he was available.
- Jul 20, 2014
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I played from 69-72 in Fla and you are right. My coach played FB for UF in 59 and then for Graves. He tried to kill us with hitting so much and long practices in Aug. No water. And then we integrated in 71 and learned that our AA brethren were just as tough and badazzz as we thought we were........They came from a coach named Jesse Heard that worked their assses off too.........ahh those good old days.......
- Nov 5, 2019
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One of the kids who came over from Rochelle was a star WO and an all world small forward. We knew him as Archie Denson, still in the LHS record books for scoring in basketball. At our 50th reunion I asked Autrey why we called him Archie in HS. He laughed and said they mistakenly spelled his name as Archie on the transfer of schools. His parents, not wanting to hear any racial grievance in this trying time for their families told him to let it alone. Imagine a star athlete going a full year being called Archie, not Autrey, just to get along in a strange new world. I was at a loss for words when he told me this story, yet I should not have been surprised as we were in the deep south.
- Nov 3, 2017
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