(As an attempt to establish context, I'll start this article out with a bit of hilarity from my own personal experience.

I will then try to tie it into our Longhorn team and coach. Bear with me).

There were nearly 100 kids who showed up on that first day of Pop Warner tryouts. The veterans were in one small group off to the side under the only shade tree in the area, laughing and telling stories to their teammates with their helmets propped up on their heads in the casual way veteran football players do.

The rest of us rookies milled about in the 104 degree scorching sun, trying to act confident, but looking more and more like the lost sheep we actually were. We didn't know what to expect. We didn't have a clue about organized football. Surely this wouldn't be too bad, as the veterans all seemed to be happy to be there. I was wondering why we received no crisp new uniforms. I started dreaming - about wearing the silver, red, white,and black uniforms of The Sunnyvale Rockets during a crisp Fall night under the lights. I was dreaming that I was running down the field with a ball....the crowd was going wild! The foxiest girl in the known universe (Cheryl) was the head cheerleader in my dream. She winked at me as I ran past!

The sweet visions of Cheryl faded into the reality of shrieking sun. Here we were in the blazing hot sun of August, wearing nothing but t-shirts and gym shorts. Where was my dream? Why were we dressed like this? I was about to find out.

Tweeeeeeeeeettttttt!

The shrill sound of a whistle startled me out of my dream. From out of nowhere came a loud guttural voice, " Buckle those damned pots on and take off! Rookie shits better haul ass!!"

So it started. The vets took off on a dead sprint towards the chain link fence on the far end of the field....about 300 yards away. The rookies followed right behind. I could hear the voice behind us cussing up a storm while we ran. By the time we got back, my lungs were screaming. "Do it again!" came the voice, "Tweeeeeeetttttt!" Of we went again. Then again....and again...and again.....and again....

Most of us were staggering. Some of the more pudgy kids were starting to throw up their breakfasts. Some were openly crying. The big gray-haired guy with the whistle had a cigar clamped between his teeth. He had a wild-eye'd look to him. As the assistant coaches frantically lined us up in an equally spaced formation for our first session of what we would soon learn to call "Grassers", the big coach yelled for the cryers to shut-up or leave. Many left.

The coach backpedaled to the front of the huge formation and read us the riot act;

"I am going to run you little creeps straight into the ground. I am going to be your worst nightmare. You will see me in your dreams. You will smell me from six miles away. I will beat into the ground every minute of every day that you wear the uniform of The Mighty Sunnyvale Rockets. I don't care if I only have 11 players left at the end of this. I want 11 men! I will not tolerate crybabies!"

At that he yelled "Burpees", and that torturous whistle once again let out a loud , "Tweeeeeettttt

With that, we began a series of drills that brought me to what my young mind thought was death. We did burpees (where you do a deep knee bend, throw your legs straight out, back into a tucked position and then stand back up), push-ups, sit ups, leg lifts, jumping jacks, ….and between every routine we'd hear the sound of the whistle and the coach's loud voice telling us to head for that fence at the far end of the field. The exercises were repeated over and over because we weren't doing them right. The runs were repeated over and over because we weren't doing them right. While laying on out backs doing leg lifts, the assistant coaches would come over and stick a foot on your stomach and apply his weight to your agony. I had salty pools of sweat stinging my eyes. When I stood up, sheets of sweat would fall in torrents off my face, down my back, off my nose......... my t-shirt was so wet that it felt like I had just walked out of a lake. The voices in my head were screaming at each other,

"Quit!"

"Get Tough!"

"Quit"

"Get Tough!"

I glanced to my left and saw the friend who had gotten me into this mess. He was a three year veteran. He gave me a look through his facemask that I had never seen from him before. Part warning, part dare, part encouragement, and part pity. Something in his look pissed me off. I was going to stay until hell froze over. More kids threw up. More kids began crying. More kids left.

The drills lasted for hours. I stayed.

We had two full weeks of this torturous drilling before we finally received our pads. The camp had been reduced to about 40 kids by that time. More would quit when the hitting started.

The heat had climbed to 107 the day we finally got our pads. For those of you who have never put on football pads, well...... the first thing you notice is how restrictive they are. You literally feel as though you can't run, bend over, or even breathe. The shoulder pads squeeze the jugular veins in the sides of your neck when you get down in a stance.

Reality..............The grasser drills were limited to only an hour once we received our pads, but they were made 5 times more difficult with all the added hardware. The other thing you notice about pads is how hot they are. On a 107 degree day, you feel like you are being squeezed in a giant waffle iron. In those days (early 70's), water was a definite no no during practice. The coaches all said that drinking water would make you sick. The coaches used to hand out salt pills. Sophisticated we weren't.

Then I met Bobby Kane.

Bobby had a face that looked like he had been hit by a shovel. He was a sawed off cocky 4 year veteran captain of the team. And my first partner in the hitting drills. I had no clue. Bobby had no mercy. The coaches lined up a series of blocking dummies to form a narrow lane of about 3 yards wide 10 yards long. On one end of the lane was me, laying on my back with my head pointed towards the other end, ball in my arms. One the other end of the lane was Bobby Kane, on his back, head pointed right at me and my soft rookie diaphragm.

"Tweeeeeeeetttttt" the whistle screeched

I struggled to my feet in the clumsy way of a two legged hermit crab with a brand new shell three times too big, and a case of nerves to that made my two crab legs shake like Tina Turner's in an Alfred Hitchcock shower stall. I just managed to get myself upright when, "BBBBOOOOOMMMM!"

My strangely detached head involuntarily stared down at the back of Bobby's #44 jersey. He appeared to have no head. No,......wait.....his head was where my stomach USED to be!!!! Suddenly my stationary detached head snapped back with a violent whipping motion that only stopped when it hit the ground three yards from where I once was. There was an eerie ringing in my ears and a blurry sun-baked afternoon at a Grateful Dead concert wash behind my eyeballs, but the real alarm bells were coming from my lungs. I couldn't breathe in...or out. It was like being locked in suspended animation; like drowning. Suddenly I felt a coach grab me and lift me up by my stomach, yelling at me to, "Relax, Relax, Relax" The world was getting purple spots to it, and then the grass started to turn a deep red.... and …..... "Swooooosh! The air came flooding back into my lungs. I looked up to see both the coach AND Bobby Kane laughing like mad.

The next time up I was ready for Kane. He came running at me, but I had gotten up quickly and now was ready with my helmet leveled to meet his. "Kawaaaaaannnngggggg!"

I staggered backwards and felt myself fall to my knees. I was now seeing a full frontal Grateful Dead light show behind my eyeballs. Jerry Garcia was twanging away on my id. I could see psychedelic Bobby Kanes dancing around and getting congratulated by players, coaches, deadheads, and "Scruffy the harbor seal" too.

For anyone who hasn't played organized football.....the best way to describe a helmet to helmet running crash is; go to your ex-wife. Pay her 20 dollars to take the 1985 version of the Austin phone book and have her swing that thing as hard as she can against the side of your head. For those without the cash, amateur ex-wives will do in a pinch. Now look up. Do the walls dance? Do non existent birds chirp? Does she suddenly look hotter than she ever used to look?

Great! You have the desired effect.

Now have her grab a Louisville slugger and hit you flush in the belly. That's how football feels. It hurts! It takes a lot of discipline to override every single survival oriented brain cell and come back for more.....and more....and more.......

Over the first few months of my football experience I learned the basic things. Survival was obviously first, but after that there began a never ending journey through the fundamentals, and the complexity of teamwork. In every single case, along every single step of the journey, discipline was the absolute must. Discipline was the thing that makes you keep running when you want to quit. It makes you stand up and face down the opponent who has just knocked the wind out of you. It grows from there. I wound up being the youngest guy on the "Big" team. I was 12 years old. Everyone else was 13 years old.

As a defensive end my first year, I had to learn the stance, swim move, spin move, push and pull move, how to crash down, how to force the outside edge, how to keep my eyes up to find the ball, how to maintain gap integrity, how to stunt and when, how to gain and maintain leverage, ….and who were my opponents every week; what was their offensive scheme, strengths, ….. who was blocking me? Was he Strong? Quick? Sneaky? Gambler? Did the offense pull guards at me? Was the quarterback likely to run? What were the personalities of the various backs? What formations did they like to use? For what plays? Did they have a favorite side to use? What about clues to the play in the eyes, feet, hands, body lean............???? Who was undisciplined enough on the other team to give away the play? Do the backs like to juke? Do they like to run straight over you? What about the receivers coming at me with crack-back blocks (they were allowed back then)?

As a middle linebacker and fullback my next two years I had to learn complete defenses and offenses, my own team's and also my opponent's teams. On offense, the discipline that was most concerning was maintaining absolute neutrality in your eyes and in your stance. Every huddle had to be done this way and every run up to the line of scrimmage had to be done this way; totally neutral every time. I had to learn how to look straight ahead, yet find my target from the sides of my vision.

On defense, I had to learn each team's giveaway signals; whose eyes darted, how the body language of the linemen changed on each situation and each different play. I had to learn how to capture the entire offensive line, and backs in my vision at once and decipher the whole picture before, and just after the snap. I learned to "feel" where the play was going from the first steps of the linemen, the shoulders, the head swivels, the dip in the quarterback's hips......... all of that information had to be processed in an instant. Two steps and it was too late.

Once the play was "felt", then the split second choice had to be made on running plays whether to shoot the gap behind the blocker, or to take on the blocker and use a technique to slip off that block and attack the back with the ball. The first technique involves making an absolute dead on instantaneous read, and have enough quickness to dart through a line blocking scheme before it gels.

Malik is a monster at this sort of stuff. He is so quick on his reads and with his legs that he often runs through the hole where the lineman used to be while the lineman is busy trying to find Malik where he was supposed to be. It's like blocking ghosts for the poor lineman. I was also quite good at this sort of thing from my middle linebacker position, but it takes a lot of scouting report intake and a lot of confidence and quickness and skill to pull it off consistently. The risk is that you wind up behind the play, get tangled up, lose a step, and wind up watching from behind as the running back gobbles up big yards.

The frontal method is more safe - providing that your block shedding skills are sufficient – but a good power back behind a bad assed line can make your life a never ending series of 4 yard disappointments. A good middle linebacker will mix and match his techniques to keep the offense guessing. A good defensive coordinator will have most of this schemed into a sum-of-the-parts game plan. To do this, the coordinator needs 11 guys with extreme discipline.

My next two years I was playing offensive guard. Talk about discipline! It's like having a street fight on the deck of a tossing ship, where your every move is choreographed like a ballet. I point to Vahe's fantastic pulling technique on Tyrone's running touchdown in the Oklahoma game (the one where Ty fumbles the ball). Vahe pulls to his left. The defensive edge man crashes down while our Longhorn blocker rides him inside. Vahe crosses the center, then suddenly finds this defensive player crashing down off his right shoulder. Understanding that this defensive player poses a threat and might disrupt the play, Vahe hesitates just long enough to give him a quick shoulder, which helps our man to regain advantage,.....having sealed the inside, and satisfied that this immediate threat has passed, Vahe then continues on his planned route around the edge, where he finds Tyrone about to lock horns with an Oklahoma safety. Vahe then pivots through the hole and hits the safety at the exact time that Tyrone hits him. The result is a touchdown for Tyrone and our Horns. Had Tyrone let Vahe lead him, the safety would have wound up on Vahe's highlight film as a Red River Raspberry pancake.

That was an absolute joy to watch. Vahe was playing like an All-Pro guard on that play. That is some very sophisticated thinking and technique done on the fly in real split second time. Patrick Vahe is special. Does anyone remember Vahe's quote when he confirmed he was going to Texas? "If you want to become a man, then go to Texas!" Connor Williams is special too. I've seen a lot of this sort of football and personality from these two already this year. They are both getting better by the game. Think of how great they'll be in three years?

OK....so …....

We know (or should know) that discipline is THE fundamental element in everything that is football. From willing the body to go where it has never gone before, to something as basic as hand and foot placement, to something as complex as a series of six second choreographed street fights on a tossing ship...... It's All Discipline!

Now I ask Longhorn fans; Why would anyone feel that Charlie Strong is running off good football players because of his demands for "Core Values" and discipline? Wouldn't the great-players-in-the-making already have known and accepted the challenge long ago? Isn't it up to our coach to use his well known evaluation skills to uncover these positive traits? Isn't it obvious to Longhorn fans that there is no uncovering of anything unless we let Charlie use the tools to dig, to melt impurities, to boil down, to compress?

How is Strong supposed to find the players who push back if he isn't allowed to first push them?

Do we want to find out who jumps the highest? Then raise the bar.

Do we want to find out who is strongest? Then add the weight to the bar.

Do we want to find out who has discipline and drive? Then tighten the mental and physical screws on these kids. The ones who respond during recruiting are the same ones who will respond during the games. The problem we had with the last few years of the previous regime; the lethargy and sloth......was that nobody was demanding anything from our players. From instant "sign on the line in plenty of time" recruiting to the smoothie bar in the weight room; everything was planned out like a geriatric package vacation to the Lawrence Welk museum and Fun Park in Las Vegas......North Dakota! It was all just a make believe bubble. I'm sure I saw Bobby and Cissy as Longhorn cheerleaders!

Charlie Strong knows what he is doing. Let him push the recruits all he wants.

Let's see who pushes back.