Bill Little explains, in deafening gravitas, how the offseason works. To open, he pulls a strange little rabbit out of his hat:
(blah blah blah, Texas hired Abe Lemons and moved B-ball into the Erwin center, yada yada yada)
A young transfer student who would go on to become a successful sports journalist had high hopes and dreams about playing college basketball, so he assembled his resume, gathered his courage, and headed to Lemons’ office, hoping to become one of those rare "walk-ons" who could make the team.
He began his organized spiel by telling Lemons of his background, and then presented his case, complete with statistics and newspaper clippings. When he finally stopped talking, he looked up to see the steel eyes of Lemons, peering at him over the cigar on which he was chewing.
Then, in the awkward moment of silence, Lemons said these words: "Just show me that you can play."
And when his chance came, he couldn’t.
I'm not laughing because Bill didn't make the team. Hell, who would have expected different? I wouldn't be surprised if Barnes turned down almost anyone on the football team, much less some nerd running the Daily Texan and printing up lies about when games start (bitter bitter bitter...). What cracks me up is that Bill walks in with his resume and a bunch of small town newspaper articles about how he scored X number of points against Pine Tree Forest Lake River High. What did he expect Abe to say?
"Well, Billiam, normally I'll hold a workout for a player in this sort of situation and I select players based on the results, but I simply can not let someone with these credentials pass by! Welcome aboard, son!"
The rest of the article is about Mack challenging the team with his half dozen or so, wait I mean "Eight, but I only remember six because I didn't pay attention at the meeting and don't have the energy to ride the elevator to Mack's office and bug him about it," principles that are the basis of the Texas standard. I'll give you a quick translation of the six that Bill was quick enough to jot down before Mack changed the powerpoint slide/who am I kidding, overhead transparency, after the break...
Update [2008-4-7 14:55:00 by Horn Brain]: OK, UTeed points out in the comments that Bill was working for UT before Abe was hired. Apologies to Bill. Now comes the scavenger hunt. Find out who this resume-bringing b-ball wannabe was. Chip Brown? I think they've already shot down Kirk Bohls in the comments. I'll give the commenter who figures this out a trophy/award of some kind.
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Ability - Thou shalt have game - "Be better at football than Bill Little is at basketball, for God's sake."
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Be Mentally Tough, Confident, and Competent - Thou shalt combine former rules 2, 3 and 4 into one rule for simplicity - "Don't play like we have the last two years against A&M, omgwhyyyy!?!?"
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Be Passionate About Football - Thou shalt not repeat what Muschamp says directly, but rather paraphrase it - "Knock some Motherf***ers out, Motherf***ers!"
- Care About Your Team - Thou shalt not whine about it when Greg Davis forgets what a boss thou art at certain things - Call this the Jermichael Finley Clause.
The last two kind of go together:
- Do Your School Work & Stay Out of Trouble - Thou shalt not get caught with a gun and an amount of weed that gets reported in "pounds" - These actually aren't that thinly veiled...
According to Bill, there are two more that we aren't good enough to hear. Either that, or they're something along the lines of "We will fake a punt/field goal every time we need less than two yards for the first," and "Colt, don't throw so many interceptions this year." Those are reasonably kept from us.
Enjoy your Monday, guys.
--Horn Brain--