Grape Julius
Four-Star Recruit
One vote here for a Kindle edition. I like the thought of having it downloaded and ready to read within 60 seconds of it becoming available on Amazon.
Great new Husker Football Book coming out soon
- Thread starter NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
- Start date
I am N! Sounds like a great read. Maybe required reading for current and future Huskers!?
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
Here's another "No Place Like Nebraska" book snippet about coaches crossing paths and the kids working their way through the recruiting process... from former NU DB Kenny Wilhite who's now coacing college ball somewhere down in Arkansas(?) these days:
Kenny Wilhite: I actually went to a junior college out of high school, and then the recruiting process started all over again. I narrowed it down to two schools: The University of Pacific and the University of Nebraska.
And the reason for the University of Pacific was because John Gruden was one of the assistant coaches on the staff and was the one recruiting me (he actually did great job). When it came down to making my decision I had to ask Gruden, I said, ‘Hey, you’ve been here to Dodge (Kansas) a couple times to see me. If you can get the head man to come down and visit me at Dodge City and then go sit in my living room -in my living room in my neighborhood where I grew up- you’ve got a great chance of getting me to commit to the University of Pacific.’ Ron Brown was recruiting me to the University of Nebraska and I told him the exact same thing.
Well, needless to say, Coach Osborne showed up on a Thursday morning, we went and had lunch (and he signed about 200 autographs in the cafeteria with no complaints), then flew to St. Louis. He called me when he got seated in my Grandmother’s living room and I said, ‘Coach, I’m going to the University of Nebraska!’ (laughs)
Now, once Coach Osborne saw where I grew up, he said he was gonna do whatever he could to make sure I graduated, and that made my decision a lot easier, also. So it was just a matter of whether I could fit in with the guys there and get a good education.
Kenny Wilhite: I actually went to a junior college out of high school, and then the recruiting process started all over again. I narrowed it down to two schools: The University of Pacific and the University of Nebraska.
And the reason for the University of Pacific was because John Gruden was one of the assistant coaches on the staff and was the one recruiting me (he actually did great job). When it came down to making my decision I had to ask Gruden, I said, ‘Hey, you’ve been here to Dodge (Kansas) a couple times to see me. If you can get the head man to come down and visit me at Dodge City and then go sit in my living room -in my living room in my neighborhood where I grew up- you’ve got a great chance of getting me to commit to the University of Pacific.’ Ron Brown was recruiting me to the University of Nebraska and I told him the exact same thing.
Well, needless to say, Coach Osborne showed up on a Thursday morning, we went and had lunch (and he signed about 200 autographs in the cafeteria with no complaints), then flew to St. Louis. He called me when he got seated in my Grandmother’s living room and I said, ‘Coach, I’m going to the University of Nebraska!’ (laughs)
Now, once Coach Osborne saw where I grew up, he said he was gonna do whatever he could to make sure I graduated, and that made my decision a lot easier, also. So it was just a matter of whether I could fit in with the guys there and get a good education.
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
No Place Like Nebraska will primarily be online sale only via Amazon... unless I find some exclusive brick and mortar places at a later time. I put the majority of my efforts into piecing together this awesome chronicle of an unmatched championship era and less into distribution and that kind of thing. LOL I conducted over 200 hours of interviews and am still downright floored by the refreshingly honest, revealing and heartfelt material everyone shared.
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
A snippet by Jared Tomich from my upcoming book No Place Like Nebraska:
"The camaraderie of the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the 90’s was interesting, as you know. It was a very, very interesting paradigm. One of my best memories is when I was a Prop 48 (and couldn't play that year): I would try to come and watch practice. And I didn’t know it, but Coach McBride and his style of motivating? He was telling Connealy and Christian Peter and those guys… he would say, “Hey, you know what? When this kid comes in next year he’s gonna be taking your job.” You know how coach was. So every time I’d come to practice and I’d sit and watch from the bleachers -because that’s all I could do- within the first five minutes I’d hear the footsteps… tap, tap, tap, tap… of their shoes on the steps. I’d look down and they’d be chasing me. Peter and those guys would chase me out of the stadium! They loved it. They absolutely loved it! They would scare the sh#t out of me and chase me right out of the stadium. And these guys were monsters. You know how they were. (laughs) Yeah, they would chase me out of the stadium every time. If I wanted to watch I had to crawl up and hide to watch practice. And then it wasn’t even worth it. Luckily they were all slow, so I didn’t have to worry about them catching me. (laughing)
"The camaraderie of the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the 90’s was interesting, as you know. It was a very, very interesting paradigm. One of my best memories is when I was a Prop 48 (and couldn't play that year): I would try to come and watch practice. And I didn’t know it, but Coach McBride and his style of motivating? He was telling Connealy and Christian Peter and those guys… he would say, “Hey, you know what? When this kid comes in next year he’s gonna be taking your job.” You know how coach was. So every time I’d come to practice and I’d sit and watch from the bleachers -because that’s all I could do- within the first five minutes I’d hear the footsteps… tap, tap, tap, tap… of their shoes on the steps. I’d look down and they’d be chasing me. Peter and those guys would chase me out of the stadium! They loved it. They absolutely loved it! They would scare the sh#t out of me and chase me right out of the stadium. And these guys were monsters. You know how they were. (laughs) Yeah, they would chase me out of the stadium every time. If I wanted to watch I had to crawl up and hide to watch practice. And then it wasn’t even worth it. Luckily they were all slow, so I didn’t have to worry about them catching me. (laughing)
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
Here's a little tidbit from Zach Weigert:
"The best practice we ever had was when Christian Peter got knocked over the head with his own helmet down in ‘The Pit.’ That was a pretty memorable one.
That one, and when Joel Wilks got into a fight with a guy. The guy was hanging onto his back and Wilks is trying to run around and slam the guy... against a wall to get him off his back. That was pretty funny.
The overall funny one was my sophomore or junior year. We had this rule that if you’d gotten into a fight during practice you had to go into the locker room. That was Coach Osborne’s rule, “Hey, if you get into a fight, you’re out of here.” Of course, he makes the rule and the first week there’s like twenty fights with guys trying to get out of practice. (laughing)"
"The best practice we ever had was when Christian Peter got knocked over the head with his own helmet down in ‘The Pit.’ That was a pretty memorable one.
That one, and when Joel Wilks got into a fight with a guy. The guy was hanging onto his back and Wilks is trying to run around and slam the guy... against a wall to get him off his back. That was pretty funny.
The overall funny one was my sophomore or junior year. We had this rule that if you’d gotten into a fight during practice you had to go into the locker room. That was Coach Osborne’s rule, “Hey, if you get into a fight, you’re out of here.” Of course, he makes the rule and the first week there’s like twenty fights with guys trying to get out of practice. (laughing)"
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
Thanks Stumpy1. I'm getting married this weekend so I'll try to post a few more little book snippets for everyone to enjoy before I'm incommunicado for a few days. GBR!!
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
Another quick No Place Like Nebraska snippet from Jared Tomich before I actually get back to work...
"Coach McBride was a very, very tough coach. But from day one you knew he cared about you as much as he possibly could, as much as his own family. And that was the great thing about playing for him, he had that uncanny ability to make you want to perform for him. When I would do something good on the field -and I’ve said this when I speak to kids- the greatest feeling in sports, in my opinion, isn’t when you do something -it’s not the action of a good play- but it’s when you come to the sideline and your coach is jumping on you and the players are jumping on you so much that your neck hurts. That’s the greatest moment in sports."
"Coach McBride was a very, very tough coach. But from day one you knew he cared about you as much as he possibly could, as much as his own family. And that was the great thing about playing for him, he had that uncanny ability to make you want to perform for him. When I would do something good on the field -and I’ve said this when I speak to kids- the greatest feeling in sports, in my opinion, isn’t when you do something -it’s not the action of a good play- but it’s when you come to the sideline and your coach is jumping on you and the players are jumping on you so much that your neck hurts. That’s the greatest moment in sports."
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
A look at the old coaching staff from '93 Linebacker Troy Branch:
"There was a huge trap game for us -we went out to UCLA- and that was a trap game. They had sprung a trap on us and we had no idea what they were doing. Normally what would happen: when we would start the game I always felt like we were the best prepared team. We would watch so much film during the week that it was hard for them to throw much at you that you didn’t know was coming. That’s how prepared you were, and that’s the advent of the coaching staff being there so long and being so good and all that other good stuff. Typically, the way the game went was that by the second, third, fourth drive in the first half -wherever that took you- coaches would start getting dialed in. They would start going, “This is what we’re getting, this is what we’re seeing, this is how we’re going to adjust.” Sometimes it was like, “Hey, remember what we practiced all week? We’re throwing that out. This is what we’re doing.” (laughs) And so the coaches would start getting dialed in, and by halftime they would be able to go in and go over the adjustments they had made during the first half and put in any hard adjustments that needed to be done during halftime, and then you’d be dialed in and you just knew what was going to happen.
Well, with UCLA we were still adjusting midway through the third quarter -I mean, we had no idea what the hell was going on- that’s why the game was so close. And so it was that kind of game. And actually, Trev Alberts played his a$$ off that game. That’s when you realized, ‘There may be something to this Alberts kid.’ (laughs)"
"There was a huge trap game for us -we went out to UCLA- and that was a trap game. They had sprung a trap on us and we had no idea what they were doing. Normally what would happen: when we would start the game I always felt like we were the best prepared team. We would watch so much film during the week that it was hard for them to throw much at you that you didn’t know was coming. That’s how prepared you were, and that’s the advent of the coaching staff being there so long and being so good and all that other good stuff. Typically, the way the game went was that by the second, third, fourth drive in the first half -wherever that took you- coaches would start getting dialed in. They would start going, “This is what we’re getting, this is what we’re seeing, this is how we’re going to adjust.” Sometimes it was like, “Hey, remember what we practiced all week? We’re throwing that out. This is what we’re doing.” (laughs) And so the coaches would start getting dialed in, and by halftime they would be able to go in and go over the adjustments they had made during the first half and put in any hard adjustments that needed to be done during halftime, and then you’d be dialed in and you just knew what was going to happen.
Well, with UCLA we were still adjusting midway through the third quarter -I mean, we had no idea what the hell was going on- that’s why the game was so close. And so it was that kind of game. And actually, Trev Alberts played his a$$ off that game. That’s when you realized, ‘There may be something to this Alberts kid.’ (laughs)"
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
Wondering what could have been with DB Michael Booker:
"The only reason Nebraska didn’t blow all those teams out, 80 to 20 and things like that every game, was because Coach Darlington, Coach McBride, T.O. and all the other coaches collectively got together and took us off the field. You didn’t see us playing well into the fourth quarter, so they didn’t really know how good we were because we never played four quarters of ball.
If you happen to watch the films on us, by the end of the third quarter we were gone. That’s when we could have been padding our stats. I had three interceptions to where I probably should have had eight. But because of the trickle-down effect Coach Osborne respected the other teams, so we didn’t get to pour it on."
"The only reason Nebraska didn’t blow all those teams out, 80 to 20 and things like that every game, was because Coach Darlington, Coach McBride, T.O. and all the other coaches collectively got together and took us off the field. You didn’t see us playing well into the fourth quarter, so they didn’t really know how good we were because we never played four quarters of ball.
If you happen to watch the films on us, by the end of the third quarter we were gone. That’s when we could have been padding our stats. I had three interceptions to where I probably should have had eight. But because of the trickle-down effect Coach Osborne respected the other teams, so we didn’t get to pour it on."
NoPlaceLikeNebraskaPKoch
Four-Star Recruit
QB Matt "The Turmanator" Turman on Tom Osborne's film-study w/ the signal-callers:
"Every meeting. It was kind of intimidating. Coach Osborne kind of grills you. When you watch film he’s not just gonna sit back, he’s pointing things out and he’s grilling you with questions and “What coverage is this…” and “Where are we long…,” and “Who’s the hot read…” and “What front is that…”, and “Do we audible?” It’s just over and over again. There was no real time to rest. Practice was physically demanding, but the film room was mentally demanding…"
"Every meeting. It was kind of intimidating. Coach Osborne kind of grills you. When you watch film he’s not just gonna sit back, he’s pointing things out and he’s grilling you with questions and “What coverage is this…” and “Where are we long…,” and “Who’s the hot read…” and “What front is that…”, and “Do we audible?” It’s just over and over again. There was no real time to rest. Practice was physically demanding, but the film room was mentally demanding…"