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.’‘