Winter offseason Workout Competition Update

Voice of Reason · February 5, 2012

Through 3 weeks of competition there is a trend that should surprise everyone. From my understanding, the high point for the week gets 10 bonus points. That would be McNaulty, Summerfield and Osborn. But here is the nice surprise. 6 of the top 12 are starting D-Line and O-Linemen (Boutwell, ABBE and McCoy and Y'Barboe, Fortenberry and Feeley) The red shirt freshman O-lineman Micah Thompson is 15th. Need to get Lemon, Johnson, Bellazin and Obi up there too

bstnsportsfan3 · February 5, 2012

how do you find out these stats?

The Fake Lonnie Finch · February 5, 2012

Anyone else happy about the work this coaching staff is doing with Abbe? The kid has really turned the corner with this group.

When I was in the 7th grade, there was this fat kid. The football coaches wanted him to play football, but he didn't want to. In P.E., he'd cry and stuff if he were hit too hard with a ball or fell or something. I was pretty pathetic. He was a really nice kid, just very insecure.

Anyway, one of the coaches who taught our Bible and Math classes (I was at Dallas Christian at the time...current Mizzou QB James Franklin's dad, Willie, taught bible to the high schoolers back then) got ahold of this kid and kind of began mentoring him.

By the beginning of the 8th grade, this coach had won the confidence of the kid enough that the kid decided to give football a try. And, to the surprise of everyone who'd seen this kid cry and shy away from contact of almost any kind the year before, he became a force on the offensive line.

Now, I know our man Abbe wasn't exactly crying and stuff like the kid I knew those many years ago. But, something similar must have happened because he played pretty good last year and is doing well in off-season workouts now.

Sometimes, all it takes is a coach finding the right buttons to push in a kid to get him to believe in himself. I think that has happened here.

Good for Richard Abbe, good for the Mean Green!

SilverEagle · February 5, 2012

Anyone else happy about the work this coaching staff is doing with Abbe? The kid has really turned the corner with this group.

When I was in the 7th grade, there was this fat kid. The football coaches wanted him to play football, but he didn't want to. In P.E., he'd cry and stuff if he were hit too hard with a ball or fell or something. I was pretty pathetic. He was a really nice kid, just very insecure.

Anyway, one of the coaches who taught our Bible and Math classes (I was at Dallas Christian at the time...current Mizzou QB James Franklin's dad, Willie, taught bible to the high schoolers back then) got ahold of this kid and kind of began mentoring him.

By the beginning of the 8th grade, this coach had won the confidence of the kid enough that the kid decided to give football a try. And, to the surprise of everyone who'd seen this kid cry and shy away from contact of almost any kind the year before, he became a force on the offensive line.

Now, I know our man Abbe wasn't exactly crying and stuff like the kid I knew those many years ago. But, something similar must have happened because he played pretty good last year and is doing well in off-season workouts now.

Sometimes, all it takes is a coach finding the right buttons to push in a kid to get him to believe in himself. I think that has happened here.

Good for Richard Abbe, good for the Mean Green!

Well, since one of the first things that Mr. Abbe did after arriving at NT in fall practice of 2010 was to pick a fight with Kelvin Drake, I don't think that shyness was ever a concern about him. Considering his size and temperament, he probably got away with a lack of conditioning whilst in HS.

Obviously the new coaching staff has convinced him that just being "mean and ornery" is not enough in D-1 football. And fortunately for us, he has taken that to heart. Now, if Mr. Abbe could just transfer some of his "orneriness" to Mr. Cantley we would have a great situation this fall.

BTW Mr. Finch, that was a great story about your Jr High/High school coach. I'm always envious when I read those stories. Most of our HS coaches tended to be fairly Draconian and borderline (verbally) sadistic.

Edited February 5, 2012 by SilverEagle

Voice of Reason · February 5, 2012

There is a Facebook page with all their daily performance ratings/weekly stats and team competition scores,

North Texas Football Performance

Forgot about Cantly - He needs to be up there too.

Edited February 5, 2012 by Voice of Reason

The Fake Lonnie Finch · February 6, 2012

BTW Mr. Finch, that was a great story about your Jr High/High school coach. I'm always envious when I read those stories. Most of our HS coaches tended to be fairly Draconian and borderline (verbally) sadistic.

Well, remember, this was Dallas Christian, so things were a little different. Although the coaches couldn't really be sadistic to you, they all did carry paddles because it was private school and your parents had agreed to let them "bust" you if you got out of line.

There was one coach who had been a nose guard in college. His name was Coach Savage. Anyway, he was a big dude and he carried the paddle with him everywhere he went. Everyone he busted cried.

If any of the other coaches busted a kid, sometimes the kid came back in the classroom just looking mad and embarrassed. So, if you were going to screw around, you just knew not to do it in Coach Savage's History class. (Also, in Mrs. Atkins' English class. Her classroom was across the hall from Coach Savage. So, if you screwed around in her class, she'd go across the hall and fetch him.)

Some coaches left their paddles in the desk. But, Coach Savage was ready to bust you anytime, anywhere, for any small infraction. So, there wasn't so much a fear of being yelled at back then at DC. But, there was always that fear of being busted in the back of your mind when you were thinking of pulling some shenanigan or smarting off in class.

Now, that being said, when my older sister went to college, my parents didn't have the money to keep sending me to DC. So, beginning in 9th grade, I went back to public school at Liberty Junior High, a not so great school in Garland but in the Richardson Independent School District.

At Liberty, things were the other way around. I remember coaches threatening to break their clipboards over our faces, coaches calling out kids who they thought were either too skinny or too fat and ridiculing them in front of pretty much everyone, and coaches who pushed kids around and dog cussed them.

My junior high experience, then, was complete: a couple of years of fear of physical pain, followed by a year of fear of public humiliation. Ah...school in the early 80s. Every kid should be so lucky to experience it.

Edited February 6, 2012 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

LongJim · February 6, 2012

When I was in the 7th grade, there was this fat kid...In P.E., he'd cry and stuff if he were hit too hard with a ball or fell or something. I was pretty pathetic. He was a really nice kid, just very insecure.

"There was this fat kid", huh? Riiight.

The Fake Lonnie Finch · February 7, 2012

Lord, what a typo. If only it had been me. I weighed maybe 130, and with a pocket full of rocks at that, when I got out of high school.

I was one of the skinny ones Coach Reid picked on at Liberty. In 9th grade, we weighed in and I came in at a whopping 96 pounds. Coach Reid looked at me, and said, "96 pounds, son? Are you serious?"

But, I could run fast, and tirelessly, and the coaches liked that...no matter how ridiculously skinny I was at that age.