Football so soon?
Conferences ready for kickoff affairs
LUT WILLIAMS
BCSP Editor
The countdown has begun to the 2001 black college football season.
The four black college conferences announced last week that each will
kickoff their gridiron wars with their annual preseason confabs in about a
month. These are the affairs where coaches from each of the member institutions get
to talk (or lie) about their prospects for the upcoming season.
It's much less kickoff than punt, as each coach usually goes out of his
way to give praise to their colleagues' teams while calling a "fair catch" about
their own chances.
North Carolina A&T head coach
Bill Hayes didn't even mention eventual all-conference running
back Maurice Hicks in his speech last year
at the Mid Eastern Athletic Conference luncheon just outside Washington,
D.C. That omission didn't escape one conference head coach who told this
reporter he knew Hicks would be one of the best backs in the league. Hicks rushed
for 1,489 yards, including 259 and 353 in his last two games.
Maybe Hayes was just being careful, not wanting to tout someone
who had to that point accomplished nothing on the field.
That wasn't the case last year at the Southwestern Athletic
Conference shindig in Birmingham.
There, Alcorn State head coach Johnny Thomas
made it clear that the traditions down in Lorman,
Mississippi did not allow a loser to stay around
very long. One can imagine that was his proclamation that the Braves were about
to return to their winning ways. He then went out and lost all eleven of his
ball games. And guess what? As if to prove his point, he fired most of the
coaching staff, though he's still around.
But every once in a while you get a fair warning.
Then second-year Morehouse head coach
Anthony Jones predicted at last year's Southern Intercollegiate
Athletic luncheon outside Atlanta that his Maroon Tigers were poised to make
some noise in the conference. Nobody believed him. There are believers now after
their 8-3 finish, 5-2 in SIAC play.
Preseason predictions are part of the fare as the coaches pick who they
believe will win their conference title and who are expected to be the best players.
Few relish the favorite's role and say all they can to play it down.
Winston-Salem State head coach Kermit Blount
said everything he could last year at Virginia State
to discourage the notion that his Rams could repeat
as Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
champs. Nobody believed him, either. And they shouldn't have as
his team rolled to back-to-back titles and their second straight
Pioneer Bowl berth.
Who'll be lying, jiving, misrepresenting, telling or deflecting the truth
this year is anybody's guess. Hey, but that's the fun part of the whole thing.
Hope to see you there.
© 2001 Azeez Communications, Inc.
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