The Meaning of Mean
To get the right answer, it helps to ask the right question.
I’ve asked the wrong one enough times in my career, most recently this afternoon at today’s practice in the scorching mid-August sun. What I wanted to know was, is Dennis Godfrey, who is locked in a battle with redshirt freshman Steven Chase for the starting position at left tackle, mean enough to be a good football player? Those who know Dennis know how jovial and easy-going he is, always smiling and joking around. Joe Looney, who at left guard plays alongside Godfrey in the offensive line, is that way off the field as well. But on the field, he’s as bad as he needs to be. I haven’t seen that from Godfrey.
Now heading into his redshirt junior year, Godfrey hasn’t made the contribution many expected from a player with his high school credentials and reputation. Injuries have slowed him down, and he has been stuck behind some older, more experienced players. But I wondered if he wasn’t just too nice for his own good. I even asked him today when he was walking out to practice if he was mean enough. He said he was working on it.
It was only later that Coach Jim Grobe set me straight.
“He doesn’t really have to be mean to help us,’’ Grobe said. “He just has to play good and stay healthy. Dennis’ problem doesn’t have anything to do with being mean, it’s just all about staying healthy. And one of his problems has been his weight.
“He looks really good. He’s 10 pounds heavier than we want him to be but he’s moving great and he’s doing everything good right now. And I haven’t checked his weight lately, but I was very disappointed when he came in heavier than we wanted him to be. But watching him practice he’s doing all the things we’re asking him to do. I haven’t had that very often. Usually if I get a kid who comes in too heavy he ends up pulling a hip flexor or spraining an ankle or something silly where he can’t get any work done. But Dennis has so far been great. So I think his deal is durability more than mean.’‘
Because spring football started way before basketball was over, I didn’t get by as many practices as I wanted. I apparently missed a couple of days that Godfrey’s temper reached a boiling point.
“Dennis actually got into a couple of skirmishes this spring,’’ Grobe said. “He was mixing it up a little bit. We don’t want our kids to do that, but in the heat of the moment he got stirred up a little bit. He’s not shy. He’s not afraid to run into you.
“I think part of Dennis’ problem, quite frankly, has been that he didn’t know what the offense was. He didn’t his assignments very well. Now he knows his assignments better. He’s not making many mental mistakes. I think in the past he’s always been so unsure of what he was doing that it kind of paralyzed him. He couldn’t do anything because his mind was locked up. He didn’t play as aggressively as he could because he didn’t know what to do.
“Another guy who I didn’t think had a mean bone in his body was Chris DeGeare, and he played pretty good for us.’‘