What Happened to Innovation?

[El Paso Eagle]

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Emory Bellard's got a bone to pick

Leach aside, ex-coach says game lacks innovators

By RACHEL COHEN / The Dallas Morning News

Emory Bellard admires Mike Leach.

It's hard to imagine two offenses more different than Bellard's triple-option Wishbone and Texas Tech's pass-happy spread formations, but Bellard, the former Texas A&M head coach, sees a fundamental similarity.

Innovation.

"He's doing more today than any offensive coach I've watched," said Bellard, who is credited with developing the Wishbone as a Texas assistant in the late 1960s. "I really believe that. Everything he does is for a purpose. I'm very impressed with him, his line splits, all the things he does to enhance his offense."

The 77-year-old Bellard, who retired in 1993, said he believes too few coaches seek to gain an edge by formulating new schemes. Better personnel, not greater creativity, is their focus, he lamented. "Ninety percent of teams today don't run an offense, they run plays," Bellard said.

Even now, Bellard will be sitting in front of the TV at night, watching a football game, and pull out pen and paper and sketch a few plays.

But Bellard has no regrets about this retirement, his third. He said he was done with coaching after leaving A&M in 1978 and Mississippi State in 1985, yet returned to the game each time.

Soon after he departed from his last coaching job, a successful return to the high school ranks at Spring Westfield in the Houston area, Bellard's wife of 44 years died. He is now remarried and living in Georgetown, north of Austin.

Bellard can look out his window and see the No. 3 green of Berry Creek Country Club. He plays at least a few holes of golf every day.

A state championship-winning Texas high school football coach in the 1950s and '60s, Bellard joined Darrell Royal's staff at UT, where he would install the offense that became known as the Wishbone.

"He came up with the idea and put it in, and we had tremendous success with it," Royal said.

As in 30 consecutive wins and national titles in 1969 and '70.

Bellard proudly recalls how the scheme swept the nation. The Wishbone's popularity has since faded, but Bellard doesn't think its effectiveness has.

"The Wishbone offense, in my opinion, is the soundest offense that's ever been put together," Bellard said. "It would be just as successful today as it has been."

A knock brought him back

Emory Bellard was a former college coach enjoying his retirement 17 years ago in Kingwood, outside Houston, when more than a dozen football players from nearby Westfield High School showed up at his house. Bellard recalled their pitch: "Coach, we won't take a lot of your time, but if you come coach us, we promise you we'll bust our butts." "I laughed," Bellard said. "I'd been down all those roads." But he thought about it for a week, then realized, "Why not do what I want to do? "Bellard hadn't worked in the high school ranks since the mid-1960s and had spent two seasons out of coaching after being fired from Mississippi State in 1985. "I went back strictly because a bunch of kids had the gall to walk through my front yard and want to know if I wouldn't coach them," Bellard said. Westfield had won four games combined the two previous seasons. The program went 41-22-5 in six years under Bellard, reaching the Class 5A Division I quarterfinals his last two seasons. "They'd never been successful before," Bellard said. "I left with a great taste in my mouth. "So what inspired those players to come to his door? The Spring ISD athletic director was a friend, Bellard said, but "he swears he didn't put them up to it." "I'm proud of those kids," Bellard said. "They did just what they said they'd do."

[FirefightnRick]

To understand more of what Coach Bellard is talking about when he talks of "running an offense" instead of "running plays", you should read the other long article on TT's Leach on the Non NT Sports page.

Rick