The Pecan Park Eagle

Major Applewhite
New UH Cougar Football Head Coach
December 9. 2016

Maybe UH has their coach this time. Maybe n0t. Well-spoken words, said at just the right time, in the right way, and expressed to the right people, altogether – they  have the power to spread out over great abysses in life like the proverbial bridge over troubled waters. If you are among the audience of those who may be counting on those words, it’s only when you decide to trust by trying t0 cross over such a barrier with them – that you find out the absolute truth – and, hopefully, without the Wyle E. Coyote result. – Are they real – or are they not?

Here are some quotes by sportswriters Brian T. Smith and Joseph Duarte in companion articles for today’s Saturday, December 10, 2016 Houston Chronicle coverage of UH’s hiring of Major Applewhite as their new head football coach:

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The Importance of Coaching Recognition and Pay. “My time has passed. I don’t need to be in the spotlight. I’m here to develop young men and make them better. I’m here for them. They’re not here for me, or to make me money.”

~ By Joseph Duarte of the Houston Chronicle, 12/10/2016, quoting something Major Applewhite said to UH AD Hunter Yurachek during the immediate past two-week interview process that has now  selected “The Major” to be Tom Herman’s successor as the new UH head football coach.

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College Football as Amateur Athletics. “Amateur athletics? Gimme a break? This is entertainment dollars. The only difference is these kids don’t get paid the way they should.”

~ By Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle, 12/10/2016, quoting Major Applewhite for his column today with comments that the “The Major” then “passionately delivered” to him personally shortly after UH’s triumphant win over Florida State in last Season’s Peach Bowl. All the quotes by Smith that follow here also are referenced to that same space of Peach Bowl after glow.

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A Head Coach’s Responsibility to His Players. “This business (of coaching responsibility)  is not one to be jerked around with, with people with agendas and egos …. and guys that are running out of town in the middle of the night to go take another job and leave you high and dry.”

~ By Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle, 12/10/2016.

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On the Failure of College Football to Take Care of Its Student Athletes. “We (College Football) have completely lost out frickin’ mind in these 18-to-22-year-old kids. And we’re not taking care of them the way that we say that we are – we’re just not.”

~ By Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle, 12/10/2016.

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Welcome to Cougar Nation as our new UH head football coach, Major Applewhite. Your words are a breath of fresh air to these now tired Cougar alumni ears. Now let’s see the walk that goes with those words and there will be plenty of us out here who will be happy to cross the next bridge with you. Our student athletes don’t need another near time lesson in the nature of true betrayal of trust. True betrayal isn’t the easy stuff of liars who get found out. Those people anger us too, but they rarely are a surprise when the truth comes out.

The true betrayals come from confidence people (i.e., sociopaths) who successfully get us to treat their words like first-line family. They never literally lie, but they do an excellent job of making us believe an overall picture that is fueled only by the helium of their personal ambitions for their own benefit for however long they need to sell that bill of goods. Then, when the time is right for them, they escape alone in the hot air balloon, explaining all the while, that they are sorry to be leaving us on such short notice, but they had to leave us for a better, richer family elsewhere.

GO COOGS!

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 Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas