Page 12 THE BATTALION
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1980
John T. Groce
Groce did more
than criticize
By BECKY SWANSON
Battalion Stall
John T. Groce could have stayed
in the stands and complained about
the performance of the Aggie football
team, but that’s not his style.
Instead, the fifth-year senior made
up his mind he wasn’t going to be one
of the sideline quarterbacks grumb
ling that “I could do better” — and
he went out for the team.
“You can stand on that sideline
and think you understand football by
watching it every Saturday, but until
you experience it you don’t under
stand anything,” Groce said.
The 6-foot-I-inch, 158-pound for
mer regiment chaplain in the Corps
of Cadets has been practicing with
the Aggie team since its loss to Rice
on Oct. 25.
Groce said he decided to try out
for the team after standing through
“the Houston midnight supper
game,” the “Baylor monsoon” and
the Aggies’ loss to Rice, though his
previous football experience con
sisted of only a short stint on his
junior high school team.
“It was a conscious decision of
‘Well, am I going to sit on the side
lines and complain, and say I’m an
Aggie and I’m a 12th Man-er, or am I
going to decide that I can do a little
bit more for my team and my
school?’” he said.
After thinking it over, Groce said,
he made up his mind to see Head
Coach Tom Wilson the following
Monday.
“John wanted to be a part of the
football team — he wanted to be out
there,” Wilson said Thursday. “It
was obvious that he’s not a great
athlete — he’s not a good football
player — but his attitude was so
strong when he came in here, that
‘Coach, I just want to be around the
players and do what I can,’ and that
impressed me to the point that I said,
Yes, John, you’re welcome to come
out and do what you can.’
“John struck me as the kind of guy
that just — well, I think he really
believes in the 12th Man tradition ...
and I felt like if somebody felt that
strongly about it, then he ought to be
able to come out. ”
Wilson said Groce is being put in
positions at practice where he would
have little chance of getting hurt and
will not suit out for any of the remain
ing games, but will be on the sideline
with the team Saturday.
Wilson said Groce “typifies the
attitude” of the team’s more than 40
walk-ons who just want to help the
football program.
‘New 12th Man ’story
difficult, but rewarding
By BECKY SWANSON
Battalion Stall
Writing a story about John T.
Groce, the 5th-year senior who went
out for the football team to show his
concern and support for the Aggies
was difficult at best.
First, I’m not a sports writer. I
never dreamed of going to a football
workout to take pictures, interview
ing the head football coach of a major
university or getting closer to the
football players than the second deck
of Kyle field.
I felt totally lost and out of my
element.
Politics, student organizations,
civic clubs, University administra
tion — even disasters — are all with
in the realm of a city editor, but even
thinking about writing anything re
lated to sports scared me because of
my ignorance of the subject.
But I wanted to do the story any
way because it touched something
inside me — I guess it was the ess
ence of “the reincarnation of E. King
Gill,” who came out of the stands in
the 1921 AMC-Centre College game
and stood on the sidelines in case his
team needed him. It’s romantic.
Romantic, yes, but I soon found
out that it isn’t all that out of the
ordinary. I started out with the mis
taken notion that this kind of thing
rarely happens, but was corrected by
Coach Tom Wilson when I spoke
with him Thursday.
I had gotten a hint that I might be a
little off track at practice Wednesday
when I went to shoot pictures of John
working out with the team.
First, few of the trainers or
coaches seemed to know who John
was when I asked where I could find
him.
Comment
“He’s just another walk-on,” one
of them told me.
Talking to John for even a few mi
nutes, however, convinced me that
he isn’t “just another” anything. And
over the course of almost two hours
of talking Wednesday night, I was
convinced that John is, indeed, a un
ique human being.
I don’t mean to down-play the
other walk-ons or players — perhaps
they deserve more praise because
they have gone through spring train
ing and grueling two-a-days for little
more than the appreciation of their
teammates — I watched them give it
their best at practice.
John, a philosophy and political
science major, believes in experi
ences, and that people shouldn’t
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make judgements about things they
have never experienced. He said he
couldn’t criticize the team until he
had put himself in the same position.
John has a strong belief in God (as
a chaplain in the Corps, he was
known as “Father John“), a strong
belief in himself and a strong belief in
the 12th Man.
“I belive in what the 12th Man
stands for,” John told me. “And what
it stands for is supporting your team
through thick and thin, and giving
whatever it takes for them to win.
And when I say ‘win, ’ it doesn’t mean
by points, it means by giving 110
percent — by giving the best of your
ability.”
John didn’t go out for the football
team to get publicity. He did his best
to keep it a secret for a while, but
word finally got out when he switch
ed to morning class sections so he
could go to evening practice.
MSC Town Hall
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