Post by rainman on Oct 5, 2007 5:50:53 GMT -5
Yankee comment fired up South Florida
By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
— We looked!
Then we saw him step in
on the mat!
We looked!
And we saw him!
The Cat in the Hat!
From “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss
Do not look for West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez to return to Tampa any time soon —pardon the expression — hat in hand to offer apologies to his counterpart at South Florida, Jim Leavitt.
Rodriguez has nothing for which to apologize.
True, rather than tap dance around a question about the difficulty of playing before a sea of green in Raymond James Stadium that was expected for last Friday night’s showdown, Rodriguez did his own version of the Mexican hat dance and offered a straight-forward response that seemed to be totally harmless on the surface.
“I’ve talked to our team about this. I told them, ‘You’re highly ranked and when you go to play a game somewhere people are going to sell out the stadium.’ It’s like the Yankees. Every time they go somewhere they get a big crowd. Every time we go somewhere, we’re selling out stadiums or helping them sell out,” he said.
While this may have been seen as bulletin-board fodder in some circles, it was quite tame in this era of trash talking and end zone celebrations. True, if you read between the lines you would notice that Rodriguez seemed to be intimating his team was the star of not only this show, but any show, and that could irritate some football types.
It all certainly would have been forgotten had not some of the Mountaineers decided to turn it into a film clip for the 6 o’clock news, being seen departing the team bus to enter Raymond James Stadium wearing … yes, Yankees caps.
Perhaps these players would have been better served had they not acted out the role, sort of kept it under their hats, so to speak, but darn it, kids will be kids and these kids certainly caught the attention of one Wallace “Wally” Burnham, a career defensive coordinator of the Bulls and the architect of the defense that has shown two years in a row — it would be a sin to say two years “running” — that the Mountaineers powerful offense can be turned off.
Indeed, in the post-game thrill of victory, Burnham made note of the hat incident:
“You can tell West Virginia they can take those Yankee caps and stick them … you know what I’m saying.”
The assumption is he didn’t mean “stick them back on their heads” or “stick them in a closet.”
That the symbolic meaning of the Yankees caps filtered down from the coaches and to the players could not be denied when Matt Grothe, the quarterback who made the most critical of plays all night long, put forth a rather telling historical fact.
“Last time I checked,” Grothe said, “the Yankees haven’t won a World Series in a while.”
Rodriguez, who would have rather been elsewhere throwing his hat in the air during some kind of victory celebration, was informed of such statements during the post-game press conference and didn’t exactly feel comfortable with them.
That he was standing less than two blocks from Legends Field, spring training home of the New York Yankees as he spoke, was not missed on anyone.
“Yeah, we had some,” Rodriguez said when asked if his players did, indeed, enter the stadium wearing the famous interlocking NY that appears on the Yankees’ caps. “Not all of them, but we had a few guys that had them on. Big deal. It’s a fact: Every time we go somewhere, we help sell the place out. That’s not a slam at the other team. It shows how far we’ve come.”
Rest assure, however, that this week Rodriguez will not be making any comments about — oh, say the uniform No. 44, which is legendary at Syracuse having been worn by the likes of Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little and Larry Csonka.
By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
— We looked!
Then we saw him step in
on the mat!
We looked!
And we saw him!
The Cat in the Hat!
From “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss
Do not look for West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez to return to Tampa any time soon —pardon the expression — hat in hand to offer apologies to his counterpart at South Florida, Jim Leavitt.
Rodriguez has nothing for which to apologize.
True, rather than tap dance around a question about the difficulty of playing before a sea of green in Raymond James Stadium that was expected for last Friday night’s showdown, Rodriguez did his own version of the Mexican hat dance and offered a straight-forward response that seemed to be totally harmless on the surface.
“I’ve talked to our team about this. I told them, ‘You’re highly ranked and when you go to play a game somewhere people are going to sell out the stadium.’ It’s like the Yankees. Every time they go somewhere they get a big crowd. Every time we go somewhere, we’re selling out stadiums or helping them sell out,” he said.
While this may have been seen as bulletin-board fodder in some circles, it was quite tame in this era of trash talking and end zone celebrations. True, if you read between the lines you would notice that Rodriguez seemed to be intimating his team was the star of not only this show, but any show, and that could irritate some football types.
It all certainly would have been forgotten had not some of the Mountaineers decided to turn it into a film clip for the 6 o’clock news, being seen departing the team bus to enter Raymond James Stadium wearing … yes, Yankees caps.
Perhaps these players would have been better served had they not acted out the role, sort of kept it under their hats, so to speak, but darn it, kids will be kids and these kids certainly caught the attention of one Wallace “Wally” Burnham, a career defensive coordinator of the Bulls and the architect of the defense that has shown two years in a row — it would be a sin to say two years “running” — that the Mountaineers powerful offense can be turned off.
Indeed, in the post-game thrill of victory, Burnham made note of the hat incident:
“You can tell West Virginia they can take those Yankee caps and stick them … you know what I’m saying.”
The assumption is he didn’t mean “stick them back on their heads” or “stick them in a closet.”
That the symbolic meaning of the Yankees caps filtered down from the coaches and to the players could not be denied when Matt Grothe, the quarterback who made the most critical of plays all night long, put forth a rather telling historical fact.
“Last time I checked,” Grothe said, “the Yankees haven’t won a World Series in a while.”
Rodriguez, who would have rather been elsewhere throwing his hat in the air during some kind of victory celebration, was informed of such statements during the post-game press conference and didn’t exactly feel comfortable with them.
That he was standing less than two blocks from Legends Field, spring training home of the New York Yankees as he spoke, was not missed on anyone.
“Yeah, we had some,” Rodriguez said when asked if his players did, indeed, enter the stadium wearing the famous interlocking NY that appears on the Yankees’ caps. “Not all of them, but we had a few guys that had them on. Big deal. It’s a fact: Every time we go somewhere, we help sell the place out. That’s not a slam at the other team. It shows how far we’ve come.”
Rest assure, however, that this week Rodriguez will not be making any comments about — oh, say the uniform No. 44, which is legendary at Syracuse having been worn by the likes of Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little and Larry Csonka.
