Monday, November 19, 2007

More on Carr

Video of his last press conference is here.

The press conference showed all of his great qualities. He started by reciting a poem (?):

By your own soul, learn to live
And if men thwart you take no heed.
If men hate you have no care.
Sing your song, dream your dream,
Hope your hope and pray your prayer.

That's, uhhh, Pakenham Beatty, who's obscure enough that he doesn't have a page on Wikipedia.

I'm not an expert on college football coaches, but I doubt that many of them spend much time reading poetry. I also read that he has a dictionary outside his office, and before they come talk to him, his players have to learn a word and discuss it with him. Again, something tells me that's not exactly the norm among his peer coaches.

Maybe he's a bit of an anachronism, but at least he's anachronistic in the right ways. I haven't always been happy with his decisions on the football field, but I can't remember him *ever* embarrassing the university.

It's a lot more fun to remember his successes. I doubt I will ever have as much fun at a footbal game as I had watching #1 Michigan beat #4 Ohio State in 1997. Nor do I ever expect to see a college football team play as well at #4 Michigan played against #1 Penn State (in State College) that same year. That Penn State game was ridiculous. How often is the #1 team in the country down 31-0 at home in the third quarter?

I'm happy for him. Maybe he held on a year too long, but when you win a national championship, run a clean program, and make your players learn new words, I think you're entitled to hang on a year too long.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Drake -- now I know why carr is a great man:

COACH: You were born in 1945 in Hawkins County, TN, before your family moved to Riverview, MI, when you were 10. Talk about your childhood. How did you pass the time as a youth?

CARR: I was a kid that grew up with a ball in my hand. One of my earliest recollections was when I was six or seven and listening to the Yankees games on the radio in the afternoons. It was a delayed broadcast. So I became a great Yankee fan.