Showing posts with label Oklahoma University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oklahoma University. Show all posts

Monday, September 5, 2011

"Never been an athlete whose basic decency has come easier to him"; Gary Shelton on Lee Roy Selmon and the giant shadow he cast on a Florida community

"I appreciated the game, and I wanted to play it with my best effort, but I didn't want it to define my life." -Lee Roy Selmon

A Florida community grieves for someone whose performance was legendary and whose word was golden.

Early on Sunday morning, following a head's up from a friend in New York who works for a TV network, I read this terrific column online and knew that it captured perfectly the man and the sad mood of people I know throughout the U.S. who know and love college football and the NFL, and who know the real deal when they see it. And Lee Roy Selmon was the real deal.

St. Petersburg Times
The measure of Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Lee Roy Selmon's greatness is off the field
By Gary Shelton, Times Sports Columnist
In Print: Saturday, September 3, 2011
The measure of a man is not in the games he plays. Deep down, to the twisted pits of your soul where you feel pain over Lee Roy Selmon, you know that. He was a great football player, a terrific, inspired football player. There is no arguing that. Selmon was perhaps the best to play in Tampa Bay, and perhaps the best to play in Oklahoma, one of the best to play anywhere. He won awards, and he reached halls of fame, and he defined excellence. You can choose that definition of Selmon, if you wish. Or you can remember something greater about a man who has been far more than a football player.

The measure of a man is not in the money he makes. It is not whether he has an expressway named after him, or a restaurant, or if his name is in the Bucs' Ring of Honor. It is not a bust in the Hall of Fame, or a statue that may be built on his college campus, or in the memories of a thousand black and white photographs from his playing days.

In the case of Selmon, the measure of him and his meaning should be measured by the shadow he has cast. By the lives touched. By the grace shown.
Read the rest of the column at


The sad cover story in today's Times, at top, was penned by Rick Stroud.

St. Petersburg Times
Former Tampa Bay Bucs great Lee Roy Selmon dies two days after suffering a stroke
By Rick Stroud, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, September 5, 2011
TAMPA

As stunned as his loved ones, friends and colleagues were about the suddenness of his death, it was the graceful, dignified and exemplary life of Lee Roy Selmon that they remembered most on Sunday.

The first player drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their only member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame died at St. Joseph's Hospital on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 4, 2011) surrounded by family and friends, only two days after suffering a stroke at his Tampa home. Mr. Selmon was 56.




NFL Films video: Top 100 Greatest Players #98 Lee Roy Selmon - HD, HQ

I shudder to think about what this area will be like the day legendary former Dolphins head coach Don Shula passes away.
This area will be convulsed and I have no doubt whatsoever THAT will be the biggest Memorial/funeral in the recorded history of South Florida.
By far...

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Oklahoma's plays in his head, but IU's players on the field: ex-Sooner OC Kevin Wilson begins his coaching reign at Indiana rather ignominiously


IU Athletics video: Indiana University football head coach Kevin Wilson's press conference after the Hoosiers 27-20 loss to Ball State at Indy's Lucas Oil Stadium, his first game as Hoosier head coach. September 3, 2011.

Above, the crimson-colored "Win with Wilson" IU t-shirt I decided NOT to buy a few weeks ago. I decided that I would sit on my enthusiasm just a bit longer and wait and see via ESPN3 how my "Great Expectations" looked against Ball State Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy, five months before the Super Bowl is played there.
After all, you can't judge these things based on watching video and practices via the Big Ten Channel and the official IU Athletics YouTube Channel.
Good thing my intuition is so good!
Shirt is available at http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/

Well, he's got Oklahoma's plays in his head, but IU's players on the field: former Oklahoma OC Kevin Wilson opens the Wilson coaching era at Indiana in rather ignominious fashion, losing to Ball State and looking lackluster in doing so.
But then me being me, the optimist, I remember that things started out VERY BADLY for Joe Gibbs his first year with the Redskins, too, losing his first five games in 1981.

Bob Kravitz of the Indy Star starts his Sunday column on the ballgame in a rather droll way, perhaps to ward off the uncomfortable silence of a losing effort that was closer on the scoreboard than it was on the field.

Wilson era opens with dud

In theory, the Kevin Wilson era at Indiana could have started in a more ignominious fashion.
For example, the team bus could have gotten lost on the way from Bloomington to Lucas Oil Stadium, or the club could have arrived with its red uniforms instead of its road whites.

But this was pretty ignominious.

Embarrassing is another word.

Ball State 27, IU 20.

It wasn't just the result; it was the way it was achieved.
Read the rest of the column at:

Terry Hutchens at the Star's Hoosier Insider blog doesn't bother trying to humor IU fans and gets right to what bothered them -us- the most.
Where do we begin? The new Indiana under Kevin Wilson Saturday night looked a lot like the old Indiana.
Read the rest of the post at:

You don't have to know much about Indiana Hoosier football to know from reading those two sentences above to know that isn't a good thing, and if you do know the subject like I do, it's like a chill going down your back.
That sense of unknown dread out there lurking below the surface...
The history of choking in the clutch... an errant throw right when you are close to pulling off the upset...the dropped pass in the end-zone in the first-half that you never get back...the huge second-half leads that you blow in consecutive weeks on the road against Northwestern and Iowa -last year.

This coming Saturday is the football home opener at Memorial Stadium against UVA, where niece #2 goes to school. They beat William & Mary 40-3 Saturday, so they must be looking forward to coming to Bloomington.


Recap of IU-Ball State game: