Legendary Coach Dies

[GreenBat]

Shelby Metcalf passes away

[LongJim]

Gig 'em, Shelby.

I remember watching him with the Ags, and he always put competitive, well-coached teams on the court.

[CMJ]

Found these gems....what a funny guy!

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After a tough nignt in Lubbock when the Tceh fans were throwing coins from the stands at the Aggie basketball players, a reporter asked Shelby about it. Shelby replied, "I told my players to show some class, and not pick up anything less than a quarter."

After recruiting John Reynolds (lettered '64 & '65) by taking him fishing for two days on the Brazos:

"You just can’t get real good players with catfish anymore."

Follow up to the John Reynolds recruiting/fishing trip story above:

One of them, but perhaps Reynolds’ proudest A&M athletic moment came many years later. Possum Walk (Reynold's hometown) is very close to Groveton, and Reynolds eventually became the superintendent of the Groveton Independent School District. It was there where Reynolds helped influence a talented young running back named Rodney Thomas to go to Texas A&M.

Said Metcalf: "Turned out to be a pretty productive fishing trip when you throw Rodney Thomas into the mix, don’t you think?"

Metcalf recruited Darryl McDonald, better known as "D-Mack the Playground King" in the late ’80s out Harlem. Despite Harlem’s rough reputation, Metcalf’s biggest obstacle in recruiting D-Mack was convincing him that College Station was a safe enough place. "He was scared to death of those gun racks in the back of all those pick-up trucks," Metcalf said with a laugh. "I finally convinced him that if he was OK in Harlem, he’d be just fine here."

Shelby had a few players one year who were having trouble academically. So he enrolled them in basket weaving to get their grade points up. Shelby commented, "Problem was, a couple of them were American-Indians, and they set such a high curve that they flunked the others out."

Once asked a referee if he could get a technical foul for what he was thinking. The ref said no, and Shelby replied, "I think you're an SOB."

He once voted the clock operator at Tech to the All SWC Team

One time when asked about the fans-

"One day they're naming a street after ya...the next day they're chasin you down it"

When the Ags won the conference tourament in '87, they were seeded 16th in the NCAA, and drew #1 seeded Duke. When asked how he liked the Aggie's chances aginst Duke in the basketball game, Shelby replied, " I like our chances against them in basketball a lot better than if we had to take them on in the College Bowl(the brainy quiz competion between college teams)."

(Aggles lost to Duke in double overtime)

In order to get the team to fire out of the dressing room for a second half against an opponent who had dominated them in the first, Shelby quipped "last guys out of the locker room have to start!"

The year or the year after the NCAA went from 2 refs to 3 refs doing a basketball game, someone asked Shelby how he liked it.

Shelby said, " 3 blind mice are not any better than 2 blind mice!!"

Aggies had a very slow forward named RC Buford (now an exec with the Spurs). When asked about running out the clock against teams when he had a lead, he said, "Instead of running the 4 corners to stall out the clock, we had RC drive the baseline"

After being fired by John David Crow in 1900, he remarked "Of the two stupidest men I've ever met, one's dead, and the other I can't talk about until August 1, 1994." (Shelby remained on the university payroll until that date).

Shelby once commented about Billy Gillispie (current Aggie coach), that "he works so hard, I don't think he knows where his house is."

Once at The Beaumont A&M Club meeting - "Our family once had a dog with an ingrown tail...we'd have to x-ray him to find out if he was happy."

In a halftime interview, Shelby was commenting on an official during an A&M/Texas game: "Sonny is sure on his game tonight - he's calling 3 seconds in 2 seconds flat".

"You can be peculiar if you can play." He once recited that to a player, then added, "You'd have to be an All-American to break even."

He once referred to one of his players as "a true student-athlete in every sense of the word," then added the postscript: "God, he's lonely around here."

"I'm gonna have to get me a glass bottom car, so when I run over Abe Lemmons I'll be able to see his face."

"Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject." (recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D) .

After John David Crow fired him, the media asked Shelby what happened. Shelby said something along the lines of "I made a comment that I didn't think John David was all that bright. And I thought I was being generous."

After RC Slocum was fired by A&M President and ex-CIA boss Robert Gates, "He's lucky , Gates usually just makes guys disappear..."

[LongJim]

More about Metcalf:

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Some other comments of Metcalf's about other SWC coaches from an old DMN article:

Maybe people should call Shelby Metcalf the Will Rogers of college basketball, because Metcalf says, "I never met a basketball coach I didn't like."

But Metcalf has plenty of colorful stories about some of the men he coached against over the years. At the top is the list is former Texas coach Abe Lemons, who died last year at age 79.

"Abe would always find a way to pick on you," Metcalf said. "He went up to play Arkansas one year when Arkansas was ranked No. 1. The fans would chant, 'We're No. 1.' So Abe had his players get in a circle and chant "We're No. 50. We're No. 50. "

Abe loved to jab at Eddie Sutton. Eddie always dressed in nice suits when he coached at Arkansas. He and Abe almost got in a fight one night when other coaches held them back, but Abe got out the best line when he glared at Eddie and said, 'I'll tear those Sunday school clothes right off you.' "

Metcalf admits he also had some moments when he wasn't too happy with Sutton or the outcome of games at old Barnhill Arena in Fayetteville, Ark.

"Eddie was tough," Metcalf said. "He always tried to get an edge somehow. They had a timekeeper up there that cheated us a couple of times.

"I remember one game we made a shot before the buzzer to win and we were on the bench, jumping up and down celebrating for about seven seconds. But somehow, the clock still had time on it and Arkansas scored to put it in overtime.

"I walked up to [Arkansas athletic director] Frank Broyles and said, 'Frank, that timekeeper jobbed us.' Frank said, 'Oh no. He's been here 25 years.' I said, 'Yeah, and I bet he'll be here another 25, too.' "

Metcalf said his toughest coaching rival was Gerald Myers of Texas Tech.

"We had so many close games," Metcalf said. "Almost every one was a . nail-biter. I think you can total up all the points each team scored when we played each other over the years and the difference would be one point. Maybe less."