What were they thinking?

by bcsbusters on Apr 16, 2008 3:14 PM EDT

Apparently UCLA's seniors decided to utilize an age old Bruin tradition by blowing off practice. Honestly, as a coach with nearly 20 years experience and as an athlete who played multiple sports in high school, not to mention college and professional baseball, I have never heard of this at an institution before.

I am simply appalled by this!

I have been a staunch PAC-10 supporter all of my life, but this is one time I hope Tennessee (and the SEC) actually throttles a PAC-10 team. If I was coaching this team, I would send the seniors packing and begin the new era with underclassmen as I find the timing of this unified walkout simply pathetic and I would not be surprised if many programs use this as psychological motivation against the Bruins. I know if I was playing against UCLA, I would flat out refuse to lose to a team that walked out of a practice.

One of the aspects I have tried to instill in my teams is the importance of constantly outworking your opponent each and every day - Win The Day, for every day you waste in life is one you cannot make up for in the end. I think this pretty much defines the UCLA program and for all of us who were wondering how in the world UCLA could look great one week and a total disaster the next...here is our answer. The team cannot even suck it up for 15 spring practices...How in the world will they suck it up in the fourth quarter of a tight football game. UCLA is a four letter word...SOFT!!

Here is the link for the article: http://www.dailynews.com/ucla/ci_8939415

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A further note:

Some interesting comments today from Stewart Mandel's article at SI.com

(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/stewart_mandel/04/16/ucla.spring/index.html

"He's fun, but he's very smart with what he does," said quarterback Patrick Cowan. "I really enjoy coming out to practice."

Neuheisel even makes mundane, end-of-practice announcements seem fun. At the coach's prompting, every person who speaks -- from the strength coach to the managers to a student media assistant -- gets a collective "Whoo!" from the players huddled at midfield.

His lighthearted, almost boyish energy feels similar to that of a certain coach across town.

Yesterday's actions by the seniors and todays comments at SI seem to kind of contradict themselves wouldn't you agree?

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by bcsbusters on Apr 16, 2008 4:11 PM EDT reply actions

Interesting Tradition

I'll be interested to hear how Thursday's practice goes. There's a right way and a wrong way to handle a tradition like that. The right way (assuming you're going to uphold the tradition) would be to do it on a practice day when the coaches can still use the time to work up the rest of the players. The wrong way is to do it on one of the increasingly rare high-impact days when actual refs are on hand to help the team practice (and to hone their own skills).

One side question: that exit that the seniors took (the entrance gate of the wall), does it happen to head out in the direction of USC? If so, there's a ripe opportunity to attempting to defect to a real team for their final year. (And if not, then you can always claim they don't know their directions!)

by David Hooper on Apr 16, 2008 4:13 PM EDT reply actions