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Post by hchoops on Aug 1, 2017 13:01:25 GMT -5
And who recruits these players that bring the wins ?
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Post by jkh67 on Aug 1, 2017 13:22:49 GMT -5
jkh, what about the PL championship and contending years? Too many people used the " excuse" that all of this happened despite Tom Gilmore and that it was all due to Dom Randolph. Hokum! Sure he has to win. He knows that better than any of us. Give him the tools (which he is now getting - successful Gridiron Club that did not exist until well after some of our more successful PL brethren and now the LAC - with resultant landing higher quality recruits) and let's see how he does. The purpose of the survey I posted on another thread is to gauge how high the bar is for him to be "successful" from the perspective of the Crossports faithful. Ultimately, "success" will be measured and determined by Nate Pine and Fr. Boroughs. Sader 70, all I can say is that your success metrics are quite different from mine. After all the years Gilmore has been in charge, winning only one championship (and that with a once in a blue moon QB) and finishing second or third a couple of times in a weak sister league like the PL says only one thing to me. If it says something else to you, God bless, bro.
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Post by jkh67 on Aug 1, 2017 13:40:29 GMT -5
Hey, fellow crossports HC boosters - that's who we are, correct ? It's aug. 1st and the team will be arriving on campus this week to start serious preparation for another season. Let's get behind coach Gilmore, his staff and players 110 pct ! Put the past in the rearview mirror and support this team unconditionally. I wish the team nothing but great success, as we all do. I'll be rooting for them every step of the way. It's just hard to swallow all the apologias on this thread for a coach whose track record is what it is. One thing's for sure. If you don't aim high, if you come to accept mediocrity, mediocrity is what you will get. The word is that we're finally starting to attract high quality student athletes in reasonable numbers. I look forward to this new blood resurrecting what was once a proud program with a distinguished history (not infrequently described as "storied" by the media). HC's a great place to spend your college years, men. Let's make it happen on the gridiron! Let's start making the Crusaders an FBS force to be reckoned with once again!
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Post by sader1970 on Aug 1, 2017 13:56:32 GMT -5
jkh, probably beating a dead horse here but I am going to make an assumption that you are a '67 grad. If so, the distinguished history you refer to was not while you were a student atop Mt. St. James. Here was the record:
'63: 2-6-1 '64: 5-5-0 '65: 2-7-1 '66: 6-3-1 (my freshman year and the high water mark during my 4 years)
I know, I know, we played D-I football then and Syracuse, Penn State, yada, yada, yada. Those games were the exception and, for the most part, non-competitive. The reason we were D-I was because there was no such thing as D-IA and D-IAA. Most of the games were against the Ivies and Colgate and BU and Buffalo and, yes, the Quantico Raiders.
We hit our stride as a football power in the 30's and 40's and then in the resurgence in 80's at the "lower" level. I am not sure those teams were dubbed "storied" considering the D-IAA status. The 80's are history and the 30's/40's are ancient history.
Revisionist history, IMHO. While I and others may be accused of looking at the future with "purple-colored" glasses, I think too many look at the past with those same tinted glasses.
Amen!!! We are on the same page here.
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Post by ncaam on Aug 1, 2017 14:09:30 GMT -5
What will it take to fire him? 1-10 and a property crime, sex crime and a couple notable dui? Have all his players been saints?
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Post by rgs318 on Aug 1, 2017 15:09:34 GMT -5
sader1970, My 4 years (which you cite) were not that great overall, but the wins over Boston College in 1963 and 1966 were memorable and some of the other wins, such as breaking Dartmouth's long winning streak were also most enjoyable. You don't need purple lenses to appreciate them.
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Post by hcpride on Aug 1, 2017 15:45:52 GMT -5
Not to throw cold water on those accomplishments in an otherwise indifferent HC football era but BC finished '63 at 6-3 and '66 at 4-6.
I guess our terrific success at the D1-AA level '82-'91(featuring a few future NFLers and a Heisman finalist Gordie Lockbaum) might qualify as our 'distinguished' years in football.
(Unless one goes back 70 years or so)
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Post by sarasota on Aug 1, 2017 16:25:46 GMT -5
On this thread is an amazing number of rationalizations as to why WINNING is NOT the top priority. (That's not to say "winning at all costs.") Carmody, when he was hired, had no qualms about saying winning was the priority. Unfortunately, this all makes td128's "Let's Win" ironic. Lombardi and MacArthur would turn over in their graves.
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Post by joe on Aug 1, 2017 17:44:58 GMT -5
Injuries to key personnel in the setting of an underlying lack of size, speed, and depth on both sides of the ball, compounded by a lack of a short yardage/4th quarter running game, and poor 4th quarter clock management has been what has killed us for the last 4 season. Plain and simple. I've watched almost every game start to finish.
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Post by A Clock Tower Purple on Aug 1, 2017 18:21:16 GMT -5
On this thread is an amazing number of rationalizations as to why WINNING is NOT the top priority. (That's not to say "winning at all costs.") Carmody, when he was hired, had no qualms about saying winning was the priority. Unfortunately, this all makes td128's "Let's Win" ironic. Lombardi and MacArthur would turn over in their graves. Those of us who were at the coaches nite in advance of Carm's first season remember him saying that during the interview process he asked NP if he wanted to win, NP said "yes". Carm said he then asked NP "are all PL schools on a level playing field?" NP said "yes" again. The second "yes" would not be the answer NP could have given a theoretical FB coaching candidate at that time.
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Post by hc87 on Aug 1, 2017 22:49:31 GMT -5
Oh, for Christ's sake....if he wins he wins....if not, let's get another coach....it's not rocket science....the guy has been here longer than anyone not named Dr Eddie Anderson.
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Post by HCFC45 on Aug 2, 2017 7:06:24 GMT -5
Injuries to key personnel in the setting of an underlying lack of size, speed, and depth on both sides of the ball, compounded by a lack of a short yardage/4th quarter running game, and poor 4th quarter clock management has been what has killed us for the last 4 season. Plain and simple. I've watched almost every game start to finish. Joe: Agree with everything you said, especially the clock management part. And, I'll add one more "our very, very bad pass defense or lack thereof"!
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Post by jkh67 on Aug 2, 2017 7:13:35 GMT -5
jkh, probably beating a dead horse here but I am going to make an assumption that you are a '67 grad. If so, the distinguished history you refer to was not while you were a student atop Mt. St. James. Here was the record: '63: 2-6-1 '64: 5-5-0 '65: 2-7-1 '66: 6-3-1 (my freshman year and the high water mark during my 4 years) I know, I know, we played D-I football then and Syracuse, Penn State, yada, yada, yada. Those games were the exception and, for the most part, non-competitive. The reason we were D-I was because there was no such thing as D-IA and D-IAA. Most of the games were against the Ivies and Colgate and BU and Buffalo and, yes, the Quantico Raiders. We hit our stride as a football power in the 30's and 40's and then in the resurgence in 80's at the "lower" level. I am not sure those teams were dubbed "storied" considering the D-IAA status. The 80's are history and the 30's/40's are ancient history. Revisionist history, IMHO. While I and others may be accused of looking at the future with "purple-colored" glasses, I think too many look at the past with those same tinted glasses. Amen!!! We are on the same page here. With the exception of places like Harvard and Yale, I'll gladly match HC's football history with all its ups and downs against that of any of our regular opponents. Fitton Field is legendary in the history of New England football. In my time, the NYT regularly included HC in its preseason assessments of major Eastern football programs, regardless of how well we happened to be doing at any particular time. The HC list of outstanding individual players over the years...yes, going all the way back to the "ancient" 1930s...is a long one. To take but one case, I saw John Provost on Bob Hope's annual All-American TV show one year as one of the two first team All-American safeties. My point is that we need to use every positive we can find to help resurrect a program that has been languishing badly for some time now. Pride in our history, in HC as a football school, should be one of those positives. That's why we still hang the banners from the 1947 NCAA basketball champs and the 1954 NIT roundball victors from the rafters in the Hart Center, no!?! And that's why pictures of our football greats are starting to appear in Fitton. A great move. More, please, Nate.
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Post by joe on Aug 2, 2017 7:15:22 GMT -5
I empathize with Coach because he succeeded quickly when the playing field was level, but frankly I think the administration put their collective head in the sand when FU,LU, and 'gate all started ramping up their programs. It always seemed to me they were unrealistically overconfident that Coach would somehow just "figure it out," and keep contending for PL titles, once again belittling or perhaps blind to the high level of competitiveness to which PL football was aspiring, not too dissimilar to when they thought Coach Vaas could somehow come in and "figure out" a way to continue the Duffner legacy without scholarships. To me this was mindboggling because we actually had a case example for several years (Fordham) playing along side and against us with scholarship players. The difference in play should have been readily apparent even to someone who never before played or even watched a football game. In fact for several years Fordham was not even allowed to win the PL championship because it was so obvious they were stacked. Twenty years of myoptic, ivory tower thinking. New player dads and mom's, and new players too, would have a hard time understanding how frustrating being an HC fan has been - for over 20 years! I give much credit to Coach for bearing it out with patience and class, never making offhanded comments or being anything less than a true solider of HC.
That being said, losing consistently, no matter the handicap, is never a good thing for the culture of a program. It could sometimes sink into a team's collective blood like a cancer, and foil even the best laid plans for winning. Coach is now under fire not only to win, but to "change the culture of the program" yet again, even thought he already changed it once before, and to "get his mojo back" in front of a critical audience who is rapidly growing inpatient, especially the die hard fans and alumni who go through this emotional rollercoaster week in and week out in the Fall.
What needs to happen this year is simple - we need to show that we've eliminated or narrowed the gap between us and the top 3 in the PL. There is unfortunately no excuse this year if this is not the case. We simply cannot get manhandled like we were against FU last year, as an example. I'm not expected us to win each of these games, but we darn sure better win one, and be around in the fourth quarter in the other two. No one is rooting for this team and these coaches more than me, but sadly D1 scholarship football is a business, and an expense one at that, and the product is simple - W's. This is not club football, not D3, not a cotillion, not Green Peace, not a seminary, not a "let's graduate the world's greatest guy" or "the world's nicest coaches" competition. All the PL and IL schools are comprised of excellent men, and are graduating solid citizens, not just HC - this has been implicit for decades in these leagues simple as a function of high admission/academic standards. Let's move on from that perpetual storyline and excuse, and the excuse of injuries. All teams have injuries, and that's the reason why you need depth. If no one got hurt, you'd only need 23 players on a team. It's the other 40-50 that win games, both on the game field, and the practice field.
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Post by 86sader on Aug 2, 2017 7:43:09 GMT -5
Dharry -
Here is an outline of the camp schedule. As you know, this may change as the days go by:
6:50A - breakfast 8 - 9:10 - D lift / O walk through 9:20 - 10:30 - O lift / D walk through 11:30 - lunch 1:30P - position meeting - D 3 - 5:15 - practice 5:45 - dinner 7:00 - position meeting - O 8:30 - team meeting 9:00 - team time/meal 10:15 - lights out
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Post by jkh67 on Aug 2, 2017 21:02:12 GMT -5
I empathize with Coach because he succeeded quickly when the playing field was level, but frankly I think the administration put their collective head in the sand when FU,LU, and 'gate all started ramping up their programs. It always seemed to me they were unrealistically overconfident that Coach would somehow just "figure it out," and keep contending for PL titles, once again belittling or perhaps blind to the high level of competitiveness to which PL football was aspiring, not too dissimilar to when they thought Coach Vaas could somehow come in and "figure out" a way to continue the Duffner legacy without scholarships. To me this was mindboggling because we actually had a case example for several years (Fordham) playing along side and against us with scholarship players. The difference in play should have been readily apparent even to someone who never before played or even watched a football game. In fact for several years Fordham was not even allowed to win the PL championship because it was so obvious they were stacked. Twenty years of myoptic, ivory tower thinking. New player dads and mom's, and new players too, would have a hard time understanding how frustrating being an HC fan has been - for over 20 years! I give much credit to Coach for bearing it out with patience and class, never making offhanded comments or being anything less than a true solider of HC. That being said, losing consistently, no matter the handicap, is never a good thing for the culture of a program. It could sometimes sink into a team's collective blood like a cancer, and foil even the best laid plans for winning. Coach is now under fire not only to win, but to "change the culture of the program" yet again, even thought he already changed it once before, and to "get his mojo back" in front of a critical audience who is rapidly growing inpatient, especially the die hard fans and alumni who go through this emotional rollercoaster week in and week out in the Fall. What needs to happen this year is simple - we need to show that we've eliminated or narrowed the gap between us and the top 3 in the PL. There is unfortunately no excuse this year if this is not the case. We simply cannot get manhandled like we were against FU last year, as an example. I'm not expected us to win each of these games, but we darn sure better win one, and be around in the fourth quarter in the other two. No one is rooting for this team and these coaches more than me, but sadly D1 scholarship football is a business, and an expense one at that, and the product is simple - W's. This is not club football, not D3, not a cotillion, not Green Peace, not a seminary, not a "let's graduate the world's greatest guy" or "the world's nicest coaches" competition. All the PL and IL schools are comprised of excellent men, and are graduating solid citizens, not just HC - this has been implicit for decades in these leagues simple as a function of high admission/academic standards. Let's move on from that perpetual storyline and excuse, and the excuse of injuries. All teams have injuries, and that's the reason why you need depth. If no one got hurt, you'd only need 23 players on a team. It's the other 40-50 that win games, both on the game field, and the practice field. Excellent piece and thank you for it. Let's get back to winning, God damn it!
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Post by alumnusdad on Aug 20, 2017 17:54:13 GMT -5
"... if my memory serves me right HC and Her reputation stands for way more than Ws & Ls ." [/quote]
Indeed, your memory has not failed. However, even undefeated, TG must go -- character counts.
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Post by rgs318 on Aug 20, 2017 18:04:07 GMT -5
Last year's injuries are a fact, not simply an excuse. It does get tiresome to hear people try to make injuries into something they are not.
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