Recruiting In Denton Today

[Lurker]

Recruiting in Denton today was none other than Mack Brown. Apparently, he touched base with a recruit at Guyer and then went to a middle school where the recruit's younger sibling attends and spoke to the PE classes and sports teams. The topic was the importance of grades and making good choices. My source tells me it was not a "recruiting visit" to the middle school but it was impressive.

[KRAM1]

Getting down to the wire with the recruiting battles these days, so out come the "big guns". I am certain TD is also touching bases with key recruits as we speak. Maybe he's speaking with a middle school class in Austin today. Wouldn't that be a hoot...Brown in Denton and Dodge in Austin on the same day! Me thinks that would be "way cool". OK, maybe it's not happening today, but I would imagine UNT coaches have been in the Austin area recruiting.

I wonder who the "recruit" was that Mack Brown was that interested in getting or saving as the case might be? Do your sources tell you that as well?

[Lurker]

I will see what I can find out. It wasn't mentioned in the original text.

[LongJim]

Taylor Bible.

[Lurker]

Taylor Bible.

That's him.

[Rudy]

Its a shame that big name school coaches are "recruited" to go to middle school to speak about "grades" We all know all they are doing is prerecruiting and furthering big school douchery.

[jtm0097]

I read on the east texas sports forum that he was also in Tyler today.

[LongJim]

To me, this is exactly the kind of thing your head coach SHOULD be doing.

The following was posted on TexAGs today, (since deleted, ironically) and it's a take on MB written from an Ag perspective. But you better believe that this is what it takes to get and keep kids going to your program. Call it douchery all you want. If that's what it takes to get and keep the pipelines flowing for the MG, then douche away. I would be doing back flips if this was TD and his crew:

********************************************

So, Mack Brown and Coach MacWhorter from UT came to school today to see Carrington Byndom (who is signing with them next week).

Coach Outlaw came by before school and asked me if I would be able to take some photos when they got here around 11:30. He said the plane was supposed to get here at 11 but he was not sure how accurate the time would be because they were coming from Cayuga (where they visited Traylon Shead). I thought for a few minutes (okay a nanosecond) and said I supposed I could help him out!

I went down there about 11:15 and the coaches were visiting in John's office. What i overheard was just typical coach talk b.s. and general visiting. Carrington showed up and we took pix of them all together.

Then it got interesting. Mack said he would like to meet some of the teachers who had been influential for CB and thank them for their help! So, we walked around and the teachers would come out in the hall, stop dead in their tracks and look at me with a "what is going on?" expression. Mack would then say (honestly, every single time), "Hi, I'm Mack Brown, head football coach at the University of Texas." OHHHH!!!

Most of the teachers recovered enough to make the appropriate noises as he thanked them and asked what they taught etc. I took pix of each one and we moved along. It was all going along smoothly until we had to track down a Science teacher who was at lunch. We were finishing up with him when one of the lunches finished and kids started coming down the hall to go to class. Holy cow, you would have thought the Beatles were in town.

It seemed like every kid who is headed to UT this fall was in that hall in two seconds. Only one asked for an autograph but they all spoke to him and took pix and told him how much they love the Horns/can't wait to get there etc. One little girl handed me her phone and asked to take one with her phone, too, so she could send it to her dad right then. Her hand was shaking so bad I almost couldn't get the phone from her. Colt has a cousin who goes to our school and she visited with him for a minute about McCoy family stuff.

It took a while but we made it back to the coaches office. They wanted take a photo with the assistant who handles recruiting and John asked if I would take one of Mack and our play-by-play guy who bleeds orange. So, I finished up and left them to the coaching horse mess they all talk. The bell rang for the next class about 15 minutes later and several girls came running into the room, "Mr. [Teacher], Mack Brown is here." i said i know. They asked if they could have cameras and after I said yes they took off. They were back in about 15 minutes all out of breath and excited. Some of the other kids were staring at them in shock and asking what happened. They said, "Look we got picture with Mack Brown!"

One of our returning players came in and said, "I just shook hands with Mack!" I was starting to wonder about them all before I realized that he has been the head coach there pretty much their entire lives - they seem him in an entirely different way than the rest of us do. And he is on television so much that I guess he doesn't seem real to them.

I gotta give him props, though. He can handle that stuff like it is nothing. He asked names and what will you study and how long have been teaching and just whatever. Some would shake his hand and start to walk off and he would say hey come take a picture. If he ever ran for office it would be over in a day.

We had a real nice conversation while were walking around finding the various teachers. He probably never has anyone talk to him about anything but football so I am sure he enjoyed talking about other stuff. He told us a great story about Akina and Obama. I asked Carrington later how many of the other coaches recruiting him had talked about hanging out with the President. He just laughed.

They were leaving here to head to Tyler to see the Dorsey kid. I don't know if they are doing it for every kid, but if today is an indication then he will need a lot of stamina. MacWhorter told me that every kid in school at Cayuga came out to see him (just class A but still). I see MacWhorter every year a time or two when he comes to recruit so we had a nice visit, too.

Trying to imagine Saban or Kiffin or Stoops pulling off a visit like that. Can't see it.

R.C. could do it and Carroll undoubtedly could, but most coaches are just not personable enough to either mean it or fake it convincingly.

Edited January 27, 2010 by LongJim

[Mean Green 93-98]

To me, this is exactly the kind of thing your head coach SHOULD be doing.

The following was posted on TexAGs today, (since deleted, ironically) and it's a take on MB written from an Ag perspective. But you better believe that this is what it takes to get and keep kids going to your program. Call it douchery all you want. If that's what it takes to get and keep the pipelines flowing for the MG, then douche away. I would be doing back flips if this was TD and his crew:

Yep.

[Rudy]

Id love it if we could begin our recruiting in middle schools, but we all know that if a "smaller" school tried it, the regulations hammer would come down hard.