Tradition a factor? Heck yes...

[Gobbla2001]

In most places atleast...

Kids hear about their uncles, fathers, cousins and family friends playing in big games etc... and tell themselves 'I want some of that...'

So you have these kids coming out trying to honor the success of the guys before them (Which would be a tradition) so they go all out...

A quality coach who knows how to win hears about a job opening at a tradition filled school... I'll be danged if he isn't applying...

It just continues, continues and continues...

I don't know what happened to Breck, but look at all of the others (ex: Brownwood, Ennis, SLC, Gainsville, even Permian still has a tradition though some seem to think it has died, Pilot Point, Celina was good long before 4-in-a-row, Refugio and the list goes on and on)...

Cuero's tradition started in the '70's and by luck has stayed intact...

Cuero went 6-4 in '01 and 5-6 last year... Our HC's contract wasn't renewed and in came the applications...

Among twelve finalists three stick out as quality coaches who know how to win...

Todd York - Led CC to the 2A State Championship last year...

Forget his name but Lufkin's OC (has led an AWESOME 5A offense the last few years)...

Mark Reeve - 134-28-4 record in 5A...

Not trying to toot the Gobbler horn here but those are the types of names you get when your school has tradition and is searching for a HC...

Look at Celina... G.A. Moore jumped ship and headed back to Pilot Point... Celina moves up a class after losing some good talent and they still reek havoc in the '02 season... Was it because of awesome players? Could be... Was it because of the same coach? Of course not... Was it cuz of tradition? Not all of it but I'll bet anything the T-word had a bit to do with it...

I'll close by saying tradition won't win you a state championship, but it sure can help on the way there...

[Chief Woodman]

Cuero went 5-6? In your own words your lucky the "T" from the 70's stayed. Good thing they had tradition and they were given 10 points at the start of each game because of it or they would have been 0-10. The T word relly helped. OOPS! They were not given any points? DOAF!
Thanks for making my point...tradition (what happened in the 60's 70's and 80's) did not help them...it had to be PRESENT talent, hustle and coaching...NO points from the past. In fact it appears that the lack of good coaching was the issue because by your own words...you have tradition...proof in the record is it did not make the team a winner. "T" didn't overcome the lack of skill.

And salary probably had something to do with the coaches applications more than the "T". Wonder how many of the three would be taking a substatial pay cut? Not a one of them I suspect.

<small>[ September 03, 2003, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Chief Woodman ]</small>

[Gobbla2001]

Okay, we're going to try this...

Settle down for a few minutes and try replying again... Your 'I wanna prove that you're wrong' attitude in your reply made your accual reply very hard to understand...

[Chief Woodman]

Your right...I'll say it real S L O W so you can U N D E R S T A N D.

If Cuero went 5-6 last year...the Big "T" did not help...they still lost because they did not at present have what it takes to win. T R A D T I O N did not score any points, it did not help. Bad Coaching undermined the prcious "T". (If that was the problem, might have been lack of talent and the coach was blamed)

If points were awarded because of tradition and 5-6 was still the record....then the talent/coaching really was bed. But point were not awarded. DOAF!

[sinton66]

Chief, Cuero had excellent talent last year. They were running a wing-t with a coach that didn't seem to know all the secrets to it.

Listen to this very carefully. Tradition gets MORE kids to come out for football. That means you have more kids to choose the best 11 from. If you really do have the best 11 on the field and they are scoring points, how can you say tradition didn't score anything since it is a main reason they are there?

When I was in high school, the best athletes in my class weren't playing football BECAUSE the coach was a jerk, and we didn't have any established tradition. If we had some tradition, some would have played in SPITE of the jerk coach.

[Gobbla2001]

We lost our first 4 games to Rice Consolidated, 4A Rockport-Fulton, Sealy and Sinton, then we won 5 of the next 7, getting knocked out of the first round of the playoffs by Rice Consolidated (lost to them twice last season)...

Most teams who would have started off 0-4 would have thrown in the towel... But having the 'tradition' of not giving up, they went 5-2 from there...

I never said tradition wins the games, did I? but if you have tradition and it attracts a GREAT coach who can take your team to a championship, then tradition helped, did it not?

I would said 'DOAF', but I do not know what it means...

[sinton66]

heh, heh, I think it was a take off on Homer Simpson's "Doh!", but Chief screwed it up! :D

[Specklebelly]

Superior talent and coaching win games year in and year out, not a big trophy case and state champ rings in the stands. Tradition is just a spin off of having talent and good coaching in one place for an extended period of time. Those ingredients create tradition and when they disappear, so does the tradition.