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Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Mentor’s lessons learned by ex-Decatur star
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Bunn
Sharman White went home Tuesday night, to his roots, to Decatur High. A 1990 graduate and former player for the Bulldogs, being back on “The Square” was a significant occasion.
That he returned as the coach of first-year Miller Grove was major, too, for a couple of reasons:
One, he was leading a promising team after being unceremoniously released as coach of Atlanta’s Carver — a year after leading the Panthers to the 2003-04 state championship game — for an unsubstantiated violation regarding a player not living in Carver’s district.
Two, he was facing his coaching mentor in Decatur’s Carter Wilson.
“Carter is a major part of my family,” White said. “When I play against him, it’s teacher vs. student, like Roy Williams against Dean Smith.
“I went to him a lot when I got into coaching. He wanted me to join his staff, but I really wanted to be a head coach right away. When I got the job at Carver, I leaned on him a lot.”
White leaned heavily on faith when the job he excelled in was ripped from him. So, when the Miller Grove position became his, he was both relieved and excited.
“This is one of the best situations I could ask for,” he said, “because I have a chance to mold a program as I want it. I didn’t have to come in and try to revitalize something already there.”
Chief among White’s ambitions was to institute a work ethic in his young players, many of whom had not played organized basketball. In Miller Grove’s first season last year, White mixed in some varsity opponents in the junior varsity schedule.
“We got wiped out some, but that experience I think has helped the guys this year,” he said.
White also implemented a workout regimen called “559,” as in 5:59 a.m., as in the time they would convene to start conditioning. Conditioning included running cross-country.
“The intention was to have a very well-conditioned team,” White said.
Mission accomplished. The Wolverines play at a sprinter’s pace with one caveat: “It’s disciplined up-tempo,” White said. “There’s a method to the madness.”
Sure seems to be. At 14-7, it is clear White has his program on the proper course. His team is composed of all juniors and ninth-graders. There is talent, size and speed at every position. And yet there is a discipline and commitment to defense that will make Miller Grove under White a force in the not-too-distant future, particularly with left-handed freshman Mfon Udofia, who has a mature game, and junior big man Dante Harvey, a lively talent.
Meanwhile, White’s mentor, Wilson, is grooming a similarly youthful team at Decatur. One of the most respected coaches and administrators in Georgia, Wilson has 10 underclassmen on a squad that tests his patience.
“It’s the same with Sharman. With experience, you can take some things for granted,” he said. “But when you’re young, you find yourself picking the kids up every so often.”
Student has won the past seven encounters against teacher, including Tuesday night’s 68-53 victory at Decatur Recreation Center. Teacher did not take it too hard, though.
“Losing’s rough, but it takes some of the sting off of it when it’s to a friend,” Wilson said.
Permalink | | Categories: High School
For what it’s worth…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: About the only action, as I see it, that will smooth the roiling waters at Georgia Tech is the installation of Bill Curry as athletics director with Todd Stansbury as associate. Stansbury, now at Oregon State, could make the move with the assurance that he will succeed Curry, now 63, down the road. This is one option for President Wayne Clough, once all the necessary job postings have run their course.
• Check through those little grey cells of memory and see if you can’t recall that there wasn’t a time in college football when crowd noise became so untolerable that the quarterback stepped away from the snapper, raise his hand and the referee called time without penalty. And if it happened three times in a row, the home team might be penalized. It wasn’t that long ago. Then came those nauseous “NOISE, NOISE” exhortations on the screen and the towel-waving on the sideline, known as “getting the crowd in it.” … And whatever became of sportsmanship?
• Billy Lothridge hasn’t been forgotten by his old hometown. A street in Gainesville has been named Billy Lothridge Parkway for the star at Gainesville in 1960, and later at Georgia Tech and with the Falcons.
• Cot Campbell has Georgia on his mind. First, he had a horse named Trippi that ran in the Kentucky Derby, now the master of Dogwood Stable has two more Bulldog names in training, Sinkwich and Poschner. And looks as it he may actually have his next Derby prospect on hand, Saint Augustus, son the leading sire of the year, Saint Ballado.
• Puzzles me that these veterans of the Japanese major leagues coming to the U.S. can be considered for “rookie of the year,” such as Ichiro, Teguchi and Matsui. Suppose Andruw or Marcus Giles went to Japan, would they be considered rookie of the year candidates there?
• Jerry Coleman has lived a resourceful career, beginning with the Yankees, then the only major leaguer to see combat service in both WWII and the Korean War, then called out of broadcast booth to manage the Padres. Now, back in the booth, he goes into the Hall of Fame as winner of the Ford Frick Award.
• In case you failed to mark it on your calendar, Aug. 30 was the 100th anniversary of Ty Cobb’s major league break-in.
• Super Bowl wool-gathering: l. Fans spend more than 50 million dollars on food during the four days the game is in town; 2. Super Bowl weekend is the slowest of the year for weddings; and 3. 300 credentials were issued to the press for the first game in Los Angeles, an average of 3,100 per game have been issued since.
• Lynn Swann might have taken a hint about his prospects at the polls from his experience with Football Hall of Fame balloting before deciding to run for governor of Pennsylvania. Took him 14 years finally to win to crash the voting line at Canton.
• Suggestion to the Braves: Forget about extending your streak of division championships this year. Go for the wild card. Those teams have had considerable better postseason success than the Braves with all their string of championships.
• The Flames left for Calgary some time ago, but not all of them left town. At last count, says Tim Ecclestone, one who didn’t, nine of them settled here permanently, beginning with their first coach, Boom Boom Geoffrion, then Dan Bouchard, Tom Lysiak, Randy Manery, Bobby Simpson, Willi Plett and Eric Vail. In one way or another, they have been quite active in youth hockey in the community.
• Does it strike you as odd that a school with Tulane’s academic standing should have shut down classes after Katrina but found a way to keep its football team on the field?
• In Chapel Hill, N.C., there’s a hangout named “He’s Not Here.”
• Tom Glavine may be a Met, but his heart is still in Atlanta. His now annual “Spring Training” for the Georgia Transplant Foundation takes place Thursday at Club 755 at Turner Field.
• Aren’t we getting a bit overdosed on Michelle Wie?
Selah.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Other
Whisenhunt engineers Steelers’ offense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Some things just don’t take a civil engineering degree from Georgia Tech to figure out. With Ken Whisenhunt, that just happens to be a bonus.
A team drafts a talented quarterback. The coaching staff spoon-feeds him an offense that plays to his strengths. If he has a strong arm, let him wing it. If he runs, let him run. Pretty basic stuff. Even for journalism majors.
The Falcons’ offense got worse as the season went on last year. That could be attributed at least in part to having the fastest player on the field suddenly acting robotic in the pocket with increasing regularity. Remove the threat of Michael Vick running and you remove - well, the threat.
Ben Roethlisberger is not Michael Vick, so the issues the Pittsburgh Steelers coaching staff has dealt with the past two seasons can’t be compared to those of the Falcons. But this much is certain: No offense has made greater strides over the last two years than the Steelers. No quarterback has developed better over the last two years than Roethlisberger. No offensive coordinator has done a better job than Whisenhunt, the former Georgia Tech and Falcons’ tight end who soon will have “head coach” stamped on his forehead.
Whisenhunt wasn’t alluding to the Falcons and Vick when asked about the keys to Roethlisberger’s development. But he might as well have been.
“You can’t categorize all players the same way,” Whisenhunt said by phone. “The key is to get a feel for what they’re comfortable with and what their strengths are. You have to be careful not to try to squeeze a square peg in a round hole. We’ve been able to improve the run here, and that’s helped us utilize some of Ben’s strengths. We’ll mix in play-action and let him move around. As he’s grown, we’ve dropped more things into the offense. If you have a young guy and you try to give him too much, it’s easy to rattle his confidence.”
Whisenhunt has been an offensive coordinator for only two years, and the Super Bowl in 11 days conceivably could be his last game at that position. Oakland, the last NFL team with a vacancy, reportedly is waiting to talk to a 43-year-old civil engineering major.
“Right now I’m just so excited to be in this game, that’s all I’m focusing on,” he said. “But, sure, everybody wants to get to the top of their profession, and being a head coach is the top of my profession.”
Whisenhunt is an Augusta native and still considers this home. Family and friends are here. He’d probably be a wonderful fit at Georgia Tech, but I think the coach there has a long-term contract.
Whisenhunt is not a new coach - he’s just not an obscure coach anymore. Until being promoted by the Steelers last season, he primarily had been a tight ends or special teams coach. Two years at Vanderbilt, two with Baltimore, one with Cleveland, one with the New York Jets, three with Pittsburgh.
But when the Steelers bumped him up to replace the departed Mike Mularkey, there was an immediate impact. Former Georgia receiver Hines Ward raved about Whisenhunt’s creativity and moving the receiver around in different formations. Pittsburgh jumped from 31st to second in rushing. Roethlisberger went 14-1 as a rookie starter, losing only to New England in the AFC title game.
The Steelers have scored 86 points in three road playoff wins over the AFC’s top three seeded teams. Last week in Denver, they had four touchdowns and one field goal in five red zone possessions. Roethlisberger is 34-for-49 with six touchdowns and one interception in three playoff games.
Whisenhunt has managed this in a Steelers’ offense that lacks a deep receiving threat (Plaxico Burress left in free agency) or a dominant running back.
As a player, Whisenhunt recalled being told by coaches, including the Falcons’ Dan Henning, that he studied the game well and had coaching traits. Now, he’s proving it.
On Monday, he woke up after little sleep and said he “had to pinch myself,” hoping he hadn’t dreamt that Pittsburgh was going to the Super Bowl.
“You work so hard to get here - it’s almost surreal,” he said.
It’s real. And when a quarterback develops this fast, everybody notices.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
