University of North Texas Athletics
Green Gang: "Getting Your Pride Scratched"
8/20/2009 12:00:00 AM | Return to Play
By Steven Bartolotta, August 19, 2009, 7:42 p.m.
Coach Dodge's post practice speeches normally don't take a General Patton undertone to it, but today was a different story. He had a point to get across and "by gosh" he was going to make it.
Anyone who was watching practice today, dark clouds and all, knows it wasn't the best of times for the offense. Both practices today the defense had North Texas running in circles just a bit on the offensive side.
Riley looked human, receivers were dropping balls, assignments were being missed, but worst of all nobody was trying to stop it. And that's what brought Patton out at the end of practice.
Coach Dodge wanted to re-enforce the point of "pride". You have to take pride in what you're doing, what's going on around you, who's coaching up your position, what's going wrong.
All of the above. That wasn't happening today.
Coach Dodge's message brought home a bigger point to me about this team. If it's really different from the previous year's team it will care. They will hear the message, but instead of just listening, they will act upon it.
In year's past, that didn't happen. Nothing did.
After practice ended over the last four years, it was every man for himself getting to the gate to get outta there and to the locker room. In the last four years, I've seen guys run faster to the gate than at anytime during practice.
This group seems different. Instead of just nodding along like other groups have done, they listened, they understood, they realized what had just happened. Different leaders in different units after the team breakdown took a leadership role.
It was just one practice and in fall camp both sides are going to have days like today. But it's what you do to respond after a day like today. Coach Dodge drove home the point about pride and not accepting something like today.
Look, he isn't a fire and brimstone type of coach, but today he took as an opportunity to remind his team of all of progress that has been made and not to let that go by the wayside because some guys don't have enough pride.
The message was delivered loud and clear for all to hear, question is will it be answered. We will find out tomorrow morning.
