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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Johnson trusts his old offense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Jack McCain, a cadet at the Naval Academy, had a political suggestion for his father, who happens to have his eyes on the White House, “Get Paul Johnson for your running mate,” he told Senator McCain.
Bully idea, lad. There’s just one hangup. Paul Johnson is already taken. He has signed on at Georgia Tech. When Dan Radakovich needed a new football coach, he wasted little time. He went through the required routine, contacted one of those search firms, and a week after the Army-Navy game the search firm called Paul Johnson. The deed was done. No lollygagging. (That’s an old term from Johnson’s boyhood world that means “foot-dragging,” or “dawdling around.”)
Paul Johnson had, in no mean sense of the term, overshot his life’s goal. He had grown up in this little western North Carolina town, Newland. “One red light, a drug store, a hardware store, Claude Hughes’ general store and Sweetsie’s Diner,” he said. “It’s gone a little resorty now, with skiing and golf all around. But the population is still about the same.”
Paul played football at Avery County High, where the coach was Elmer Aldridge. Every small-town boy has a hero, and Elmer was Paul’s hero. His ambition after college was to come home to Newland and be the next Elmer Aldridge. (“From the time I was in high school, that was what I wanted to do.”) In fact, after graduating from Western Carolina he did come home and was Elmer’s assistant for a couple of years. To show you how much Elmer meant to him, when the old coach passed away, Paul flew home for the funeral. It was no short hop. He had reached Hawaii by that time, and his story was just beginning.
After Hawaii, he did his first tour at Navy as an assistant. Then Georgia Southern called him back, this time as head coach, and two national championships followed. Then back to Navy, this time as head coach, and that looked like no bargain. Navy football looked like a tornado scene. The Middies had won only one game in two seasons, and had only two winning seasons in 20 years. What devious search committee could have possibly wished such a job on any human being?
His first Navy team stumbled out of the gate, but he never had another losing season, and in 2004 he was the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year, named for the man in whose shadow he now performs, in the stadium bearing his name. A mountain boy following another mountain boy. The two grew up in towns about 50 miles apart.
So, here he comes. Paul Johnson and his trusty old offense. “A combination of the old wishbone, the run-and-shoot and some of our own ingredients,” he said.
You heard and read of all the trepidation that comes with it. That the pass is an obsolete weapon. Some Georgia Tech players have abandoned ship, including the dropback quarterback, Taylor Bennett. He gets his degree in May, but he’s still shopping around for a place where the ball goes airborne. Johnson accepts it philosophically. He understands.
“I laugh at all that. It’s what I’ve been doing for 20 years, from Hawaii to Georgia Southern to the Academy. I’ve won a few national titles with it,” he said. “People who don’t like it don’t understand it.”
Back in “olden” days, national titles were won at Texas and Oklahoma and other big-time schools with a similar offense. Darrell Royal and Bud Wilkinson were devoted apostles. Whatever one may fear, that will be the new offense at Bobby Dodd Stadium, so get used to it, and get ready to like it.
A little bit of Hawaii followed Johnson from the islands to Annapolis. (“I’ve known the sands of Honolulu, the waters of Annapolis and the gnats of Statesboro.”) His last quarterback was a Hawaiian whose name I don’t dare attempt to spell. His successor at Navy is an American Samoan, former assistant Ken Niumatalolo, but the break from the islands is complete. His “island” now is downtown Atlanta, and he is still unloading furniture and unpacking, and will be for quite a spell.
He is a realist. He never played the game in college. “It wasn’t difficult to give it up. I could see I wasn’t going anywhere, so I changed my direction.”
Tech’s call came at the opportune time. He had beaten Army six times, he had beaten Notre Dame after a long drought and had taken the Middies to five bowls in a row. Time to go. “I had done all I could do.”
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
James relieved shoulder’s treatable
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — For most pitchers, being diagnosed with a bum rotator cuff would come as the worst news possible. For Chuck James, it arrived as a tonic.
James started 30 games last season to indifferent returns. He wound up 11-10 with an ERA of 4.24, and on a team crying for a No. 3 starter those numbers weren’t good enough. He wasn’t nearly the pitcher he’d been as a rookie in 2006, and try as he might — and he tried hard — he couldn’t figure out why.
“It wasn’t a question of velocity,” James said Tuesday. “It was more the way the ball came out of my hand. Nothing was ever easy. I had to battle through every pitch every inning every time out.”
Knowing his team needed him to do better, James worked harder. His regular side sessions usually numbered 20 to 25 pitches, but by the end of last season he was throwing 75 pitches in the bullpen between starts. “I thought it was a mechanical thing,” he said, and if it was he was determined to fix it.
Turned out it wasn’t mechanical. The day after the season ended, he had an MRI exam. The film detected a tear in his rotator cuff. “It stinks to hear something like that,” he said. “But I was almost relieved.”
He’d known something was wrong, and now he had confirmation. And his doctors informed him that, in James’ words, “it was rehab-able” without surgery. He did some sort of rehab work five days a week over the offseason, and today he’s scheduled to throw off the mound for the first time. “I feel 100 percent,” he said. Then he smiled. “I’m saying 100 percent now, but I haven’t thrown off the mound yet.”
This is a huge spring for the wee lefty from Mableton. The Braves have augmented their skimpy rotation to the extent that general manager Frank Wren believes they’ll send three starters of major-league caliber to the minors before camp breaks, and James could be among that luckless number. “That’s the spot that’s open,” said James, speaking of the No. 5 slot. “There are a lot of young guys fighting for it.”
This isn’t to dismiss James, who’s 26 and who’s a fighter himself. Bobby Cox loves to tell the story about how Chuckie (as everyone calls him) was bitten by the same snake twice.
“It happened when I was in college,” Chuckie said, telling the tale yet again. “We were up at Lake Helen, and I thought I stepped on a pine cone. So I looked down to see what it was, and it bit me again. So I said, ‘I think I’m going to go inside.’ “
“It” was a copperhead, which is by definition a poisonous snake. Not until James’ leg swelled did he and a friend think to seek medical attention, but they couldn’t find a hospital. They wound up outside an emergency-care center, where a diagnosis was made by streetlight. Said James: “The guy told me if I wasn’t dead, I wasn’t going to die.”
The same James also suffered two broken wrists that same year when he tried to dive off a roof into a swimming pool and undershot. “There was water in the pool,” James has long insisted, not that any of his teammates are buying it.
This spring, there’s no guarantee Calamity James will be an Atlanta Brave come Opening Day. Assuming Mike Hampton is healthy — never the soundest assumption — the fifth starter figures to be James or Jair Jurrjens, the young import the Braves like very much.
“I’m not going to put pressure on myself,” James said. “If it happens [being sent to Richmond], it happens. Rehab was definitely a tough thing — I’m just thankful the offseason is over.”
Not that the winter was a total bummer. James’ number was retired by Pebblebrook High, his alma mater. (For the record, he wore both No. 3 and No. 6 as a Falcon, and he said: “They gave me the No. 3 [jersey], but they retired the No. 6.”)
As a Brave he wears a combination of the two, and he’s hoping No. 36 won’t be decommissioned anytime soon.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Lindsay Lohan posed nude for New York magazine. I found this out because there’s a link on the cover of AJC.com. If you’re interested in updates on world peace, feel free to click the Nation/World link. You’ll find minimal traffic.
9: Spoke to Evander Holyfield the other day. In short, he’s not close to a deal for another fight yet — and, yes, there is going to be another fight. And about those Internet rumors that have circulated for weeks about a Holyfield-Mike Tyson III (cover your eyes) …
8: “There’s been talk of a possible big fight between Tyson and I,” Holyfield said. “But it’s not signed yet or anything like that. It would depend a lot on money. It’s not like I said I want it. It’s not like he’s saying he wants it. Somebody’s just kicking the idea around.” To the curb, please. To the curb.
7: The Falcons will flip a coin this week to determine whether they pick third, fourth or fifth in the NFL draft. It will be a big change for the organization, which normally doesn’t flip a coin until draft day.
6: Question: If Marian Hossa wants to play for a Stanley Cup contender and he won’t re-sign with the Thrashers before the trade deadline because he’s not sure about their direction, what makes anybody think he’ll re-sign here in the summer?
5: Slightly closer to sports than Lindsay Lohan: I read this story about a Tampa church suggesting married couples have, like, relations for 30 straight days. I printed it out and handed it to my wife. She got a good laugh over it. Still waiting for day one.
4: I’m sorry, Dogamanics. But this whole “furor” over Vince Dooley being honored by having only almost ALL of the athletic facilities named after him, but not Sanford Stadium, is beyond ridiculous. Let it go already. I get the feeling Michael Adams could say he really likes trees and half the population of Athens would rebel and scream that he was disrespecting silk plants.
3: This doesn’t necessarily take the luster off the Hawks’ trade for Mike Bibby, but I’m guessing the marketing department would’ve preferred coming out of the All-Star break with a home game instead of five straight games in the west.
2: Anybody else notice that spring training has opened, one of the greatest hitters (Barry Bonds) and pitchers (Roger Clemens) to ever play still don’t have jobs - but neither has officially retired?
- Any player mentioned in the Mitchell Report should take a lesson from Andy Pettitte. Hold a press conference. Come clean. Move on. Watch how quickly people forgive.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
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