AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > October > 20
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Consistency lacking at Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
At noon Saturday, the immediate future winked rather invitingly. Georgia Tech had five games to play — four at home, the fifth at Duke. Once past Army, the Jackets would have 11 days to prep for Virginia Tech. A season that not so long ago looked really bad was actually looking pretty good.
By 1 p.m. Saturday, we were reminded that, where Tech is concerned, nothing ever looks good for long. Tashard Choice was carted to the locker room after hurting his right knee. There was no further word on how badly Choice is hurt, but knee injuries tend not to be fixed by tape and Tylenol.
And here Tech was yet again, back on its perennial precipice. True, the Jackets gathered themselves and beat Army by 24 points, but Army isn’t to be confused with Virginia Tech or Georgia or even North Carolina. What worked Saturday after Choice’s departure might not work at all if he’s indisposed. Rule of thumb: When you’re basically a one-man gang, it’s never cheery to see that one man on a gurney.
“I’m assuming it’s going to be OK,” said quarterback Taylor Bennett, but that seemed quite an assumption. And then: “It’d be good if we do [get Choice back], but if we don’t, I think we’ll be all right.”
Six Jackets rushed for more than 20 yards against Army. (Choice was one — he had 24 yards.) Backup tailbacks Rashaun Grant, Jonathan Dwyer and Jamaal Evans ran to great effect, but Bennett had it wrong when he said, “The running backs behind [Choice] are just as good.”
They aren’t. Choice leads the ACC in rushing for a reason: He’s special. He’s the best back Tech has had since Robert Lavette, whose last season as an undergrad was 1984. Choice is fast and tough and inspirational, and we’ve already seen how the Jackets sagged — three losses in four games — after he tweaked his hamstring against Boston College. He was himself again against Miami, and we noted the results (204 yards on 37 carries in a must-win game).
A week ago, Tech looked to have discovered how truly reliant it was on Choice. That bit of self-knowledge seems positively ominous now. Bennett’s passing didn’t scare any opponent even with the threat of a big-time back behind him. Will the same Bennett make the throws that will undo Virginia Tech if Choice isn’t available? Or will the Jackets’ best hope be to punt and play defense?
This is Chan Gailey’s sixth season here, and he’s still looking for his first smooth ride. From losing leading rusher Tony Hollings against BYU in 2002 to the mass flunkouts of 2003 to the tempest-tossed tenure of Reggie Ball, nothing has been easy, and it’s looking more and more like nothing ever will.
If Gailey hasn’t yet had a losing season, neither has he won over enough of his constituency to feel truly secure. Indeed, CBS Sports.com floated the notion Friday that Gailey already knows he’s going to be fired at season’s end. This was vehemently and convincingly denied by Gailey and by AD Dan Radakovich, and the “report” seemed thin on its face. Fired? What if the Jackets finish 9-3 and beat Virginia Tech and Georgia en route?
But that’s the thing about Gailey and Tech. Nothing yet suggests that this coach and this program are capable of sustained excellence. The Jackets move in fits and starts, have for more than five years. Just when you think they’re on the brink of a breakthrough, they step in a pothole. Or their best player wrenches his knee. Or something. Always something.
Permalink | Comments (67) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Army valiant in defeat
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
This would have been a kind of homecoming for Bobby Ross. Here he coached, and here he won a national championship, and here he won bowl games and coaching awards. But it would not have been to his taste, for on this lovely autumn Saturday afternoon, his Army team would have been the entree on Georgia Tech’s Homecoming Day menu.
That’s the way it is with homecoming games. Opponents are scheduled with happiness in mind, and the old grads don’t find happiness in defeat. You get the message when you realize that Georgia Tech hasn’t lost a homecoming game since 1995. Something to be said for “scientific” scheduling. There’s nothing so warm and cozy in the NFL as homecoming day, and that’s where Ross put the cap on his coaching career with a date in the Super Bowl.
“I’d like to have come back with Army,” he’d said, speaking of the Georgia Tech game. He had resigned suddenly last winter, with this epitaph: “I ran out of gas. It was time to step aside.”
He had come out of comfortable retirement, a tax-paying resident of Lexington, Va., to coach the Army team because his wife told him, “You owe it to your country.”
Yeah, but how many dismal Saturdays do you owe your country? How much defeat can one man swallow, a man with a career swathed in championships? Never able to beat Navy, and that’s Army’s Armageddon. Trying to survive on an average of three-win seasons is starvation for the soul. He went on a recruiting trip after the season last year, then came home to face the hard truth: He was 71 years old, he was tired, the fire was burning low. He called Stan Brock for lunch and told him he’d come to the end of his run.
Brock had played for Ross in San Diego for part of his 13 years as a tackle in the NFL, and rejoined him on his staff at West Point. When Ross made it known to Academy officials he was retiring, there was no dawdling. Brock was handed the job, and there was nothing lost in the transition. Not that this was figured into the decision, but Brock had been well-steeled in defeat. He was one of the New Orleans Saints in some of their dreariest days.
For a half, the cadets were well into this game at Bobby Dodd Stadium, “and that’s how we have to play,” Brock said. “We have to play our best at all times, and I felt like we did it for 30 minutes.”
But that was it. What happened in the second half was that difference in speed took over. Seems the military schools, and especially Army, attract the big and strong and the defiant, but speed isn’t one of West Point’s virtues. There was suspense on the Georgia Tech side after Tashard Choice was retired and wheeled away to the locker room, but not to fret. Rashaun Grant came on like a whirlwind, and his 119 yards filled in well for the ACC’s leading running back.
“He’s quicker” [maybe quicker than Choice] “he’s got a little burst … and he’s got good cutback moves,” Chan Gailey said.
So the Yellow Jackets turned it into a homecoming picnic in the second half. Taylor Bennett settled down to some extent, but he was still wild and often overshot his targets.
Now, as one who grew up digesting Army teams by radio, and adapting to heroes before they became known as “Black Knights,” it is painful to see our future generals go down in defeat. No more Davises or Blanchards or Dawkinses or Carpenters, no All-Americans, no Heisman Awardees. The tracks left by the late Red Blaik have been washed away with time. It’s probable that we have seen the last of the great teams that came thundering out of the Hudson Valley, spreading fear among those teams that dared schedule them. So sad that it even put out the fire in Bobby Ross’ belly.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Forgive Wren if he’s not worried
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
He was 21 years old and a rising prospect. One night, driving home from a doubleheader, he became ill. Nausea, headaches, stiff neck. He lost 27 pounds over the next three weeks. Doctors thought he had meningitis. Two years later he learned that he had a tumor in the third ventricle of his brain.
He was 23 years old and still hoping for a baseball career. Surgery saved his life but left him with double vision. He wore an eye patch during rehab but coached rookies, often switching the patch from one eye to the other, as if some confused pirate. Eventually the double vision subsided. He tried to play again, but the reactions were gone and so, strangely, was the fun.
Frank Wren was 39 years old. Now he wore a suit. He had coached and scouted and sold program ads and negotiated contracts. He had done fine work for the Montreal Expos and Florida Marlins — a rising prospect again. The Baltimore Orioles hired him as general manager.
Now he was in a car on the way to the news conference, and team officials are telling him what to say when he is asked about owner Peter Angelos. Misery followed. He was fired one year into a three-year contract.
Now 49, Frank Wren has been asked to replace John Schuerholz as Braves general manager.
Funny. That challenge suddenly doesn’t seem too intimidating.
“It’s all given me great perspective,” Wren said the other day, sitting in his Turner Field office. “The Lord blessed me, just by getting me through the tumor. It changed my perspective on life. I feel blessed every day. The way I look at it, if not for the tumor ending my playing career, I might never have left being on the field and I wouldn’t be the general manager of the Braves today.”
This is like his second first chance at the top job. Baltimore almost doesn’t count. Angelos, a trial lawyer by day and windbag owner by night, made his life miserable in 1999. He interfered in trades, signings and day-to-day life. Wren tried to rebuild the organization, but Angelos ranted on. Even the firing turned into a clown act, with the Orioles putting out a bizarrely detailed news release that distorted an incident from during the season when the team charter left without Cal Ripken Jr., claiming it was because of Wren’s “unreasonable, authoritarian manner.”
There are a lot of ways to describe Wren’s manner. Unreasonable, authoritarian — not so much. He is easygoing and far less formal than Schuerholz. But the Orioles’ situation wore on him.
“It was difficult from day one,” he said. “But by the end of the year we were able to make some trades for players who are part of their foundation. Their two best players [Brian Roberts and pitcher Erik Bedard] are players we acquired. It was a learning experience.”
A short one. His tenure here will be longer. He ran the Braves’ organizational meetings a few weeks back — and that was two days before Schuerholz told him of his promotion. He just returned this past week from executive meetings.
“A plan is in place,” he said of fixing the Braves. And now he calmly awaits the frenzy of winter.
“This feels seamless, because for the last eight years with John, I always had a voice. I always felt like I was a partner.”
If not for the tumor, he would’ve kept playing and speculates he could’ve had a career as a utility player. He should’ve known early that wasn’t his path. While in the Montreal organization, he spent a week teaching signs, and the ropes, to a top prospect named Terry Francona. Yes, that one.
The Expos asked him to help coach rookies, then to run a farm team. He didn’t think he would want a front-office job, but it turned out he liked dealing with people. Unreasonable, authoritarian — right.
The Braves are coming off two non-playoff seasons. But Wren said the pressure wouldn’t be any greater if they were still winning divisions.
“I thought about that a lot in eight years: What would I want if I take over?” he said. “You want to win every year, so I wish we were still winning. But we’re still regarded as one of the top organizations in baseball.”
The Braves need more starting pitching. The bullpen needs to be rebuilt again. Andruw Jones is gone. Bobby Cox could be one and done. So many issues.
But Wren isn’t fazed. He has been waiting for this, for so long, through so much. “It’s all been part of a plan,” he said.
Permalink | Comments (26) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
