Key to a winning season: The Symbolic Gesture [Archive]

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Jacie

6/19/2011, 07:44 PM

Brown, Longhorns looking to hit the reset button after 5-7 nightmare

Article Bullet Points

A year after playing in title game, Texas suffered first losing season since 1997 (Actually, this was the plan all along so they could get rid of those worthless assistants)

Texas hired two new coordinators: Bryan Harsin (offense) & Manny Diaz (defense) (The final pieces of the puzzle are in place)

Mack Brown says every starting job is open; he doesn't intend to set a depth chart (This only refers to the players . . . Mack is still listed at the top of the coaches depth chart)

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/06/17/texas.longhorns/index.html?sct=cf_t11_a0

AUSTIN, Texas -- When the Texas football team reconvened Jan. 17 after a longer-than-usual winter break, coach Mack Brown ordered his assistants to introduce themselves to the team. Whether it was a coach's first year or third year or 13th year, each introduction followed the same script.

My name is , and it's my first day at Texas.

By the end of the meeting, all the players, from the early enrollees to the rising seniors, had proclaimed Jan. 17 to be their first day at Texas. As symbolic gestures go, Brown's reintroduction to his team achieved the desired effect. "I thought we all needed to start over -- including me," Brown said. "I thought after 13 years, if I can't reinvent myself and this place and reset our goals ... then that's not fair to Texas."

[I]There are another dozen or more paragraphs in the whole article but who can read that much drivel about sa*et?

Partial Qualifier

6/19/2011, 07:48 PM

How ****ing gay is that??

mightysooner

6/19/2011, 08:19 PM

I wonder if there was any roll playing.

TheLadiesMike

6/19/2011, 08:32 PM

It must suck to be a senior and have the accomplishments of 08 and 09 erased for a gimmicky feel-good effort to ignore the catastrophe that was last year.

WildBlueSooner

6/19/2011, 08:53 PM

Geez...UTerus gets dumber and dumber with each passing day! Makes me so proud to have Bob and Co.

sooneron

6/19/2011, 08:58 PM

Do you think they did that exercise whereby someone stands on a table and falls backwards into the arms of his teammates? Thus, establishing trust...? :D

Quik Sand

6/19/2011, 09:09 PM

Oh my damn....that is some weak ****

Zing

6/19/2011, 09:10 PM

Some people learn from their mistakes and emerge stronger for it. Mack Brown just chooses to ignore them.

badger

6/19/2011, 09:11 PM

This sounds as stupid as the Bunsen burner thing Mike Sherman did for the football players --- they were reportedly joking about having steel balls after that :rolleyes:

Symbolism aside, perhaps it's not a good thing to forget that you just had the first losing season at Texas since 1997. Maybe you shouldn't pretend it never happened. Oh wait, I like them losing. Welcome to your first day at Texas, coaches! :rolleyes:

PS: If you don't remember the marshmallow story...

"(laughing) Well, I have a fairly dry sense of humor. Most of the things I say to those guys they just look at me, and I go like this (motions hand over his head) and the coaches will know what I'm talking about. But the Bunsen burner - there were a couple of times I used the Bunsen burner. I was a little pyromaniac when I was a kid. So I think I have a tendency to gravitate towards those type of things. That one in particular was something that -- I read a lot and I always try to generate new ideas and get some (things across). You know, these kids in this day and age, and not just in college but in the NFL, you have to each week give them new motivation, new reasons to win, even in the context of a long season. In the National Football League you're talking about potentially 24 ballgames. So sometimes they lose sight of why we're doing this and why we have to win this ballgame? You try to connect them with little hooks, and it's the same thing here in college. But that particular example - we've had a couple of Bunsen burner deals. That one was something I believe I picked up from a coach at Vanderbilt, a baseball coach. You talk about three different types of people -- marshmallows, jelly beans and rocks. And what are you? You take a marshmallow, and when the heat gets turned up and adversity's in your face and the pressure's real high -- are you a marshmallow? Then we put the marshmallow over the Bunsen burner and the thing ignites and almost simultaneously combusts. (Then you ask) Okay, who's a marshmallow? If a kid doesn't have a great practice or doesn't demonstrate the integrity of practice I want, maybe he finds a marshmallow in his locker (laughter). Then there's another one where there's a jelly bean, and you hold the jelly bean in there, and eventually that succumbs to the intense heat. It doesn't burn up right away but over time it just crumbles. It just melts. It gives in to it. And then the rock, when you put that under, it's actually purified. All the impurities are burned out of it and it actually ends up being stronger in many ways because the impurities are now burned off. So the question remains and you ask them are you a marshmallow, a jelly bean or a rock. Through the course of the season I said (to them) I hope - and I think I had a steel ball at the time more than a rock -- but I said I hope that we're rocks, and not marshmallows and jelly beans. So that was the Mr. Science lesson for the day."

Quik Sand

6/19/2011, 09:14 PM

Clearly they will be a 10 win team now.

soonerloyal

6/19/2011, 10:49 PM

Garrett Gilbert: I can’t do it!
Harsin: Yes, you can! Trust your brothers! Jump into the trust quilt!
Team: Jump! Jump! Trust us! We love you!
DJ Monroe: We’ll catch you!
Mack Brown: Wonderful.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a14/KevAndLori/PeterHearMeRoar.jpg

agoo758

6/19/2011, 10:52 PM

47straight

6/19/2011, 11:36 PM

Just as long as they don't start lifting weights or watching film, we're okay.

WE ARE dirtburglars

6/19/2011, 11:41 PM

Just as long as they don't start lifting weights or watching film, we're okay.

LMAO, +1000000

SoonerofAlabama

6/19/2011, 11:43 PM

Just as long as they don't start lifting weights or watching film, we're okay.

Good one. Hilarious.

goingoneight

6/20/2011, 12:20 AM

Sounds like an AA meeting.

vtsooner21

6/20/2011, 06:05 AM

OK, now in the huddle, they will all join hands and give a lovely rendition of Cumbaya

badger

6/20/2011, 07:51 AM

Looks like you and I are just going to forever disagree about Sherman's coaching ability.:cool:

Oh, and I really don't like Mack.

Coaching ability aside, a BUNSEN BURNER and STEEL BALLS are your sh!tting me, Shermanator...

Gandalf_The_Grey

6/20/2011, 09:03 AM

Wouldn't it be a violation to give a player free marshmallows...I think the NCAA should drop the hammer....

toast

6/20/2011, 09:07 AM

"Losing is a disease..."

OhU1

6/20/2011, 10:21 AM

A Glengary Glenross style "coffee's for closers" speech would have been more appropriate for that team full of softies.

The bad news is you're fired. The good news is you have one week to get your jobs back - you hear me you f'ing faggots!!? :mack:

The Maestro

6/20/2011, 10:38 AM

I think Mack just thinks too much and coaches too little.

MrJimBeam

6/20/2011, 11:10 AM

This is kinda Aggy.....

College Station or Stillwater

Mississippi Sooner

6/20/2011, 11:24 AM

Clapping! They need more clapping!

badger

6/20/2011, 12:14 PM

I think Mack just thinks too much and coaches too little.

When he stopped coaching, Vince scrambled for a lot of wins. Maybe...

I think Texas just :mack: too much and wins too little.

:P of course, that would be assuming I didn't enjoy watching them lose to everyone, especially us :P

goingoneight

6/20/2011, 06:36 PM

What was neat about the 2000-2004 run is that they were good for our strength of schedule, being a ten win team or better each year... but just bent over and took it every year in the Cotton Bowl. Seeing them at 5-7 is funny, but it's just not the same.

agoo758

6/20/2011, 06:38 PM

Coaching ability aside, a BUNSEN BURNER and STEEL BALLS are your sh!tting me, Shermanator...

You'd rather Ray Rhodes or Forrest Gregg?;)

badger

6/20/2011, 09:48 PM

You'd rather Ray Rhodes or Forrest Gregg?;)

:mad: none of the above :mad:

(however the fact that I know who both are shows that I am not one of those fairweather fans that checks who won the last super bowl, hehe)

agoo758

6/21/2011, 12:58 AM

:mad: none of the above :mad:

(however the fact that I know who both are shows that I am not one of those fairweather fans that checks who won the last super bowl, hehe)

Well, considering that you are no bandwagoner, I am sure you remember those glorious Bart Starr years.....

as a coach.:D

Gandalf_The_Grey

6/21/2011, 01:15 AM

This 11 win talent level team I believe can clap their way to 7 wins this year!!