View From Bennett Avenue

I have a lot more to say about Urban Meyer but will save that for later. After all, his story ebbs and floes.

I wanted to drift back to the NFF press conference from the other day. Once the inductees and then Bill Cosby and Tom Brokaw spoke, the free-for-all to secure interviews before the next phase of the presser begins. It can be crazy. My main concern was Sam Cunningham, but he was surprisingly busy. I would have introduced myself to Marie Tillman, but she was nowhere to be seen. With many of the heavy hitters of college football journalists in attendance, plus a couple of tele-journalists, I tend to spend my time with the forgotten inductees. After all, my emphasis is on the history of the sport and therefore any Hall of Famer is a worthwhile story. And there was poor Mark Herrmann being ignored as any Purdue player from the era between the Bob Griese/Leroy Keyes teams from the late 1960s and Drew Brees would be. After I chided Herrmann for not getting an analyst gig with fellow Boilermakers Griese and Gary Danielson busy as such, we talked about his recruiting (wanting to stay local he chose Purdue over Notre Dame because he could play right away...as a Notre Dame fan I am forced to wonder how good the Irish could have been in 1979 and 1980 when they were rock solid everywhere but at QB) and about his coach Jim Young. Young and Hermann began at Purdue at the same time and together they rebuilt a program that had slipped to mediocrity after the heights of the late 1960s. By year two they were 9-2-1, beginning a string of three years that produced a 28-7-1 record with three final poll rankings and three bowl wins. Herrmann had nothing but praise for Young, who he credits with both his development as a future Hall of Fame quarterback and with instilling ideals in all of the Boilermakers of that era.

After finishing with Herrmann, I waited nearby Cunningham who was being interviewed. But there was a camera crew nearby so I needed to get something accomplished about a book i am proposing that would need a lengthy interview with Sam the Bam. And so, fortunately for me, I was able to spend some time with Charles Young, a classmate of Cunningham's at Southern Cal and a fellow member of the Hall of Fame. Despite being both a Trojan and an Eagle, Young is a great guy and instantly offered his services to introduce me to Cunningam. That had to wait until the current college players, finalists for the Campbell Trophy that honors a healthy mix of athletic achievement, academic success and community service, spoke. Once they finished--and the award went to DE Sam Acho of Texas (see Texas did win something this year)--I was able to talk to both Cunningham and Young for a long time about the book project, which as Cunningham points out, hopes to be accurate about the integration of the SEC. I'll write more about Sam the Bam and this book project in the off-season, after I do a full interview with the talented back.