Friday, April 08, 2011

Will Deacs Go Into Battle Without Battle?

To know Jeff Battle is to want what’s best for him. He’s really that good of a guy.

But we humans can be selfish creatures and I, for one, would hate to see Battle leave Wake to accept an assistant’s position at Providence. He’s mulling the offer, which you can read about Here

When I first got wind that Battle might leave for Providence—not exactly the scourge of the Big East—I wondered along with apparently many others if he felt the need to get out of Wake. I was always under the impression that he and new coach Jeff Bzdelik got along pretty well. They certainly take every opportunity to say nice things about each other, but you never know everything.

Once I got him on the phone this morning, Battle said his relationship with Bzdelik had nothing to do with him considering Providence. It wasn’t only what he said, but how he said it that convinced me this was the case. Instead the tug was his special friendship with Ed Cooley, named head coach at Providence on May 22.

Knowing Battle, it will come down to what’s best for his only child, son Jordan. Battle has been a single parent since his wife Joyce died of lung cancer in August, 2008. In fact, if Joyce hadn’t been sick, Battle might be head coach at Wake today. But he took his name out of consideration after Skip Prosser died in July of 2007, and the head job went to the other veteran assistant on the staff Dino Gaudio.

Jordan will be a senior in high school next year. My bet is he will spend that year in Winston-Salem, with his father remaining as an assistant at Wake Forest.

As members of the Peanut Gallery know, I’m not much of one for predictions. But in this case, I hope I’m right.

Monday, April 04, 2011

From Orange Bowl to Chuck E. Cheese?

Jim Grobe stands accused. Andy of the Peanut Gallery, among others, has charged with Grobe throwing his players under a bus, which I take to be a colorful if somewhat graphic way of saying Grobe is blaming the players that play for him for the Deacons’ recent downturn in fortunes.

Personally I don’t see it.

What can’t be denied is that Grobe’s theme of the spring has been dependability. He hasn’t seen enough of it the last two years, which he feels is a big reason the Deacons have gone 5-7 and 3-9. And he has wondered out loud more than once if the problem is just a product of the times in which we live.

“Last season doesn’t cut it,” Grobe said after Saturday’s scrimmage.  “It’s not like we have a season like we had last year, we can’t all get together at Chuck E. Cheese and hand out trophies. At this level, it just doesn’t happen and our guys have to understand it. If you don’t practice, it’s going to be hard for us to be a good football team. We have to have durable and dependable guys.”

Andy’s opinion, which I welcome and respect, would carry more weight if Grobe were calling players out by name for public criticism if not scorn. He’s not. He’s saying that generally the makeup of the team has gotten softer over the past couple of years, and unless the trend is reversed, then he and Andy, the media, the players and all those who care for Wake Forest might as well brace for another disaster like last season.

I would also be more inclined toward Andy’s point of view if I hadn’t heard Grobe say countless times that when the team isn’t playing well, it’s up to him and his coaches to do a better job. Everybody is accountable, players and coaches. Grobe doesn’t dodge responsibility. Never has and, knowing him, never will.

But my own opinion is that the biggest hole in the contention that Grobe is throwing his team under the bus is that it presupposes there are two camps set up against each other, the coaches on one side and the players on the other. But a team is not monolithic, nor, for that matter is a coaching staff. There actually may be assistants on the staff who disapprove, at least privately, of Grobe voicing any criticism of his players—although given the makeup of the staff and the assistants’ relationship with Grobe I doubt would be the case. A much more likely possibility is that there are players on the team showing up every day to practice with bumps and bruises who may not be overjoyed with teammates who are not. But they know they’re all in it together, and come fall they’ll either win or lose together.

And if they lose, the critics will have another charge to level at Grobe.

His team’s too soft.

Friday, April 01, 2011

Hard Words for a Soft Team

Not once in the 10 years since I first met the man have I seen Jim Grobe lose it. Nor, from what I’ve heard from people who have, do I want to.

Like pretty much any coach worth hiring, Grobe can peel the paint off a locker room wall when the situation calls for it.  Some of his halftime “addresses’’ remain legendary. The one that comes immediately to mind was in his first season, with the Deacons trailing 24-0 at North Carolina. Whatever he said, and however he said it, propelled Wake to a stirring 32-31 comeback victory.

But what makes Grobe’s wrath so effective is he doesn’t wear it out like some coaches, who fly off the handle so often their players learn to just tune them out.

The Grobe I know can make some pretty caustic, even barbed comments, and yet they’re delivered such a even, almost emphatic manner that you have to really pay attention to what he’s saying to know the point he’s trying to get across. If you’d been standing at the wall yesterday out of earshot of our conversation before the eighth practice of the spring, you might of thought we were talking about the weather, our families or maybe who’s going to win the NCAA Tournament. Instead he was laying into his team pretty good.

I missed Tuesday’s practice while advancing the Chicago White Sox’ visit to BB&T Ballpark. But I saw what he had to say afterward and it was obvious he wasn’t happy.

“The key to offensive football is consistency and if you’ve got guys who are `sometimes’ guys it’s really hard to have any consistency offensively,’’ . Grobe told Steve Shutt, Wake’s assistant director of athletics for media relations. “There’s a reason we’re not playing very well offensively and we’re a little soft right now. We’ve got guys that aren’t practicing every day.’‘

Any notion he had cooled off two days later were dispelled shortly after I turned on my tape recorder yesterday afternoon. In Grobe’s mind, way too many players who should be on the field aren’t.

“It’s discouraging,’’ Grobe said. “We need guys to practice. That’s how you get better. The way you don’t get better is not to practice.

“You want to do your best to try to keep them healthy and treat them like they’re your own son. You don’t want them to be out here if they’re injured. There’s some kind of a break point between being injured and being sore. And I just don’t want kids who are hurt to practice, but it’s just disappointing.’‘

Having played for Hank Norton at Ferrum Junior College and Sonny Randle at Virginia, Grobe remembers a time when a coach wouldn’t even give you water, much less a shoulder to cry on. He recognizes our society has changed, in many ways for the better. But he also wonders sometimes what it takes these days to get a player and a team as tough as they need to be.

It’s especially concerning when he knows that a problem over the past couple of years is the Deacons haven’t been tough enough.

“Back in the day you just never missed anything,’’ Grobe said. “You never missed a thing. Of course coaches got involved in who practiced and who didn’t, and you were always afraid to even tell your coaches you were hurt. And I think anymore, it’s a different world.

“From a winning and losing standpoint, anymore it seems like everybody gets to play. Win or lose everybody gets to play. And you maybe get used to knowing you’re going to get reps because there aren’t enough bodies out there. You can get reps no matter what. Starting doesn’t seem to be as important for some kids as it used to be. Anymore whether you win or lose, everybody’s going to get a Capri Sun and a Twinkie when the game’s over. And at the end of the season everybody’s going to get a trophy. So it’s just a different environment right now.

“Our guys have to understand that if we’re going to be a good football team we need to work to be better, we need to practice to be better. In the NFL I know it’s a little different. I talk to a lot of those guys and a lot of times their practices are scaled back and everything they do is just to have guys healthy on Sunday. But they’ve got proven guys who have been playing for a long, long time. And our guys, in a lot of cases, have not really played a lot of football. So we’re trying to give them enough reps to get them to be good on Saturday, and spring is a great time to do that. We don’t condition. We go every other day. We go Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And then after Saturday you don’t come back until Tuesday.

“If you’re not able to do this right now it’s going to be real hard for you in the fall to come back and practice every day and get ready for Saturdays – and not get ready, but get ready to win. That’s the deal. Getting ready to win is the big deal.’‘

Grobe said one goal of the spring was to give the quarterbacks enough work to get a good bead on their abilities and liabilities. But with a rash of injuries at tight end and running back, the offense hasn’t been good enough to keep the defense off the quarterbacks. At tight end, redshirt freshmen Neil Basford (shoulder) and Jonathan Garcia (knee) are recovering from surgeries, but veterans Andrew Parker and Cameron Ford have also been sidelined with injured hamstrings. Running back Josh Harris, the obvious No. 1 candidate to be the lead back, has also missed practices with a sore hamstring, though he did return yesterday to do what he could.

“It’s a little disappointing in that some of the guys who are missing practices are going to be seniors,’’ Grobe said. “And that’s been our issue the past two years, having really either thin senior classes or seniors who haven’t played their best football.

“I’ve just got to keep pushing our guys to realize that that senior year is like a vapor. It’s gone so fast you can’t even believe it. And here in four or five years, they’re all going to be looking back and they’re going to be thinking about their senior year. That’s the one you always remember.’‘

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

On Recruiting, I’m Willing to Wait

Much of the criticism leveled at Jeff Bzdelik this season was completely understandable. His team did lose to Stetson, Presbyterian, Winthrop and UNC Wilmington, get routed twice by both Georgia Tech and N.C. State and end up 8-24 overall and 1-15 in ACC play. And he didn’t really connect with the fanbase and give it any tangible reasons to rally around him.

But there was so much vitriol thrown his way that I, for one, thought was beyond the pale. He was ripped, for instance, for what he drives, how he dresses and for his age. Let a coach win enough games and he can get away with driving a lime green Gremlin and wearing hog-washers at age 65. Given what Bzdelik went through this season, I really considered the peripheral stuff just piling on. But that’s what you might expect from a 58-year-old slave to fashion such as myself who drives a 1996 Nissan Sentra.

Another charge I considered unfair—or at the very least premature—was that he can’t recruit the kind of players Wake Forest needs to compete in the ACC. My question for that is how in the wide, wide world of sports would anybody know? None of the players he has recruited has arrived yet, much less taken the floor.

Those dead set against him use the rankings determined by recruiting experts as further proof that he’s overmatched at his job. He has yet to land a four or five-star recruit, so obviously he’s either aiming too low or he’s not got the chops to pull in the big fish. As I’ve written before, I don’t totally discount recruiting rankings, at least not in basketball. But on the other hand, I don’t worship at the altar of Dave Telep and Bob Gibbons the way it seems others do.

My own take on recruiting is that all sports have the naturals, the players so obviously talented and skillful that it’s almost impossible to miss their promise and potential. Anybody could see last season that Jared Sullinger and Harrison Barnes and Kyrie Irving were freaks, in the good sense of the term. They weren’t just special, they were extra special, the kind of player who can make an immediate impact on any college program. The same can be said for most of the top-flight talent available, though there are obvious exceptions (see: Ty Walker).

But dig just below the upper crust and the crystal ball starts to cloud up in a hurry. Study past lists of Top 150 recruits and what becomes apparent is how hard it is to distinguish between the player ranked No. 43, for instance, and the player ranked No. 86—or No. 62 from No. 118. Jeff Teague and James Johnson were both in the 50-65 range in 2007 and both were drafted in the first round after their sophomore seasons. And both contributed immediately at Wake.

The usual pattern though is the vast majority of incoming freshmen are not going to make a huge splash. They’re going to need time to put on muscle, to learn how to play defense, to understand what it takes to be good in college basketball. Who they are becomes the issue, not what they can do on the basketball court at the present time. And if they prove to have the right mental toughness, desire and discipline to go with their ability then by their sophomore or junior year they might be a player any team in the country would like to have. And if they turn out to be more into themselves than into playing a team game well, then they’re going to wash out no matter how highly they were touted or where they ended up.

And it really pains me to see a fanbase tear down a recruit who chose to go to their school simply because he’s not ranked highly enough coming out of high school. What’s wrong with giving him, and the man who recruited him, a chance?

What the NCAA Tournament proves year after year is that if you get the right people, give them time to develop and coach them up the right way, then you can be Butler—regardless of how many stars were by their names coming out of high school. Get the wrong people, and don’t bring them along and you can be fired.

I was happy to see Chase Fischer, the 6-4 sharp-shooting guard from Ripley, West Va., named to the Parade All-America first team. I’m not really sure how much credence to put on the accomplishment, but in the very least it should take a least a little of the unfounded—or again, at least premature—criticism off Bzdelik.

It’s too bad more people aren’t patient enough to wait to see what a player can do before they determine whether he’s the right player for the program and the coach who recruited him is the right man for the job. The way I see it, there’s always time for criticism after we’ve seen if the player can, or cannot, play.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Hodges Better Than Enchiladas

For years now I’ve called high school coaches whose players had just committed to Wake, and known pretty much what they were going to say before they said it.

That was until I called Bill Hodges.

I’d gotten wind that Andre Washington, a 6-11 center from Roanoke Catholic High School, had cast his lot with the Deacons. So I called Hodges, his coach, for verification and to find out what I could about the impending addition to the Deacons’ roster.

I’d also picked up that this was the same Bill Hodges that had been the Associated Press National Coach of the Year in 1979, the year he directed Larry Bird and upstart Indiana State to the final game of the NCAA championship. I was anxious to get the story written, because it was approaching 7 and I really wanted to watch the Sweet 16 basketball games. But alas, when he didn’t answer, I had to leave a message.

In the meantime, I did a little research to find out what had happened to Hodges between Indiana State and Roanoke Catholic three decades later. I came across a fascinating story written by Mike Waters of the Syracuse Post-Standard. Long and Winding Road My favorite quote was Hodges’ reason for why he left Indiana State.

“I left because of illness,’’ Hodges said. “The president got sick of me.’‘

So I’m sitting in the living room downing enchiladas, rice, beans and an adult beverage or two, watching North Carolina lay it on Marquette, when the phone rings. I knew who it was before I answered.

And it was.

So what, I asked Coach Hodges, can you tell me about Andre Washington.

“He can’t play,’’ Hodges said.

Not sure I heard right, I said `He can play?’‘

“He can’t play in the ACC,’’ Hodges said.

For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless. That was for the two or three beats it took Hodges to say, “No I was just kidding.’‘

We both laughed, with me telling him I thought I had gotten a real story.

For the next 10 or 15 minutes, we talked. Or I should say he talked and I listened. From the “interview’’ came the piece we ran in this morning’s Journal. Deacons Land Big Man I know it’s stupid to compare a raw high school junior to the great Larry Bird, but I was referring only to Washington’s hands, and not his complete game. Besides, Hodges brought Bird up, not me.

Anyway, Hodges proceeds to tell me some things about Washington you might want to hear.

He can pass and shoot, but Hodges is really impressed with his shot-blocking skills.

“He is long, long,’’ Hodges said. “He’s the best shot-blocker I’ve ever coached, and that means college and high school. He’s just got a knack for timing a guy’s jump. He very, very seldom ever goes off the floor and gets a foul trying to block a shot. That’s a real special gift that he has.’‘

Hodges last measured him before school, when Washington was 6-10. By now, Hodges said, he may be 7-0.

“I mean he’s got an 86-inch wingspan,’’ Hodges said. “That’s a fact, not a guess.’‘

Washington comes from a really strong family. His father, George Washington, is a former player at Livingstone College who is now the director of technology services in the Franklin County Public School system.

Washington is too light for the ACC now, but he’s got another year to get bigger. And he showed some mettle while playing against Isaac Butts, the 6-10, 285-pound center who was sidelined at Appalachian State this past year while recovering from an knee injury.

“He comes over and spends time with me,’’ Hodges said of Butts. “And Andre’s played against him, and he doesn’t back down from a big guy.

“(Washington) just has to get stronger. He will.’‘

Hodges made a promise, and elicited one from me as well.

“Andre, he’s a sharp kid,’’ Hodges said. “I think I’ve helped him a good deal. And we’ve got a whole another summer and a whole another year to go. Hopefully we can have him ready to play (for Wake).’‘

As for what he wanted from me? 

“There’s one thing I want you to include in this article,’’ Hodges said. “If it wasn’t for Pete Davis, I wouldn’t have been in as much of favor as Wake Forest. He’s driven Wake Forest down my throat for years.

“Petey Davis is my buddy from Dobson, N.C. who is a huge Wake fan and has been for years and years. He’s a retired elementary school teacher. I met him when I was up here recruiting when I was at Indiana State. We’ve been buddies ever since.’‘

It’s a promise I had to keep. I didn’t want to let down my new best friend.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Recruiting a Drummer

Looks like Nate, my son, is going to spend at least the bulk of his summer in Dallas, where he’s currently pursuing a Masters degree in musical performance at SMU, That means I’m going to need a drummer for my band, Country Dan Collins and the Human Shields.

So my ears perked up at yesterday’s football practice when I was told that Alphonso Smith, the former All-America cornerback at Wake who is now with the Detroit Lions, has a drum set and loves to play. Smith has been hanging around Wake’s practices this spring, which is always fun considering how much great energy he spreads around.

Given my first chance, I made my pitch, telling him he needed to sit in with my bassist Hootie and me at our regular Wednesday night gigs at the Garage.

“I might have to do that,’’ Smith said, which is usually another way of saying ``No way on God’s green earth. ‘’ But if he’s serious—as he so rarely is—and actually decides to sit in one night I promise I’ll spread the word as far and wide as possible. He may be no Ginger Baker, but nobody ever accused me of being Eric Clapton. It would be a blast, regardless of what we sounded like.

I couldn’t let him get away without a) telling him how proud I was of what he has done since leaving Wake, and b) giving him a little ribbing.

“I heard there’s another cornerback from Pahokee who is going to make everybody forget Alphonso Smith,’’ I said, referring obviously to redshirt freshman Merrill “Bud” Noel.

“I hope he does,’’ Smith replied. “That would mean we’re winning.’‘

As if anyone could ever forget Alphonso Smith.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

An Hour With Bzdelik: Take 1

MTOW: Now that you’ve had two weeks to sort it out, how would you assess the season?

JB: Interesting.

MTOW: How did you arrive at interesting?

JB: I’ll just leave it at that.

MTOW:  Can you expound on the things you saw that you liked, and things you saw that you didn’t like?

JB: Putting the wins and the losses aside, our goal was to establish a culture. And we made great strides in establishing a culture that needs to be present as a base for future teams to play to their potential – re-establishing academic discipline, re-establishing citizenship, re-establishing a connection with the administration, staff and students. And before you can reach your fullest potential on the court, those things need to be in place.

An Hour With Bzdelik: Take 2

MTOW: You got off to a rough start, which I understand given you’ve got a new club. And you got into tough play, and again I understand it’s an unforgiving league. But you had momentum after Virginia and then you lost it somewhere along the way. Looking back, where did you lose the momentum that you had built to that point?

JB: If you examine the make-up of this team, so often we started off well. We were motivated, we were prepared, excited to play. There were many games in which we were within one or two possessions. We started off against Duke where we’re up 18-13. At Carolina, down eight and we steal the ball. Down four at N.C. State in the second half. Maybe even within four against Duke in the second half. You look at some games, and we started out OK. Even at Boston College, we’re up 27-23. Now here’s what happened. What happens is we’re not mentally tough enough when teams make a run to combat that and withstand. We would lose confidence quickly, coupled with the fact we’re not strong enough or mature enough. How many times did we layups or opportunities to finish and just missed, and then they’d go down and make it. We’d come down at get another opportunity to the rim, miss it. You know how many layups we missed. You saw that. So as time would go on, as the game would continue on, we just weren’t quite strong enough mentally or physically, and the game would slowly get away from us. We’d come within four and all of a sudden they’d go on a 6-0 run and now we’re down 10. We would score, cut it to eight, and they would go on another 4-0 run.  Now we’re down 12 or 14. The next thing you know it happens again and we’re down 18. Now we need to get tougher, mentally and physically. That will happen through maturity. There’s nothing more I can say.

An Hour with Bzdelik: Take 3

MTOW: What about the element of strength. We’ve talked about how you’re going to need more strength in there. How do you get more?

JB: Weight room.

MTOW: How about personnel?

JB: They need to get stronger.

MTOW: I mean the possibility of adding another player to give you that.

JB: I’m trying to recruit. I’ve been gone. I’m getting on a plane again as soon as we’re done. We’ve got players coming in and we want to get the right guys.

MTOW: You do see that as a pressing need, physical maturity, bulk and size?

JB: Hey you know what. This is the hand I was dealt with. I’m in a card game and I can’t, you know.

MTOW: From your experiences in rebuilding, is 8-24 exponentially harder to dig yourself out of than say 13-17 or 14-16?

JB: No. Because I don’t worry about the past.

An Hour With Bzdelik: Take 4

MTOW:  I saw Melvin Tabb recently and he said he was back in the fold. Is he?

JB: If he continues to progress the way we want him to progress throughout the spring.

MTOW: So no final decision has been made?

JB: Melvin needs to progress the way we want him to throughout the spring.

MTOW: Are you confident that he will?

JB: That’s on him, not on me.