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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 1986)
Thursday, Movember 6, 1986/The Battalion/Page 11 'ed As*, ' Year. / ^ le McWilliams remembers Royal s influential mentor and coach j WAfd id m id i'll;■ HOUSTON (AP) — When Texas . ‘jvRech football coach David McWil- ® ‘“Warns came into town to speak before the Touchdown Club of Houston, le warmed when he was asked about , lie influence Darrell Royal had on ciiar- him. SCVCeB McWilliams was a 6-foot, 195- Bound starting center and tri-cap- pOSl'Kin on Royal’s University of Texas ^^leam that won the national lhampionship and later became an Issistant coach under Royal. I “The first thing was the fact of laving discipline. You have to be a lisciplined individual in order to be luccessful. He (Royal) stressed aca- lemics, and that was important to lie,” said McWilliams, who earned lll-SWC academic honors. I “From a coaching standpoint, I earned from Coach Royal that you tke the personnel you’ve got and fien you do whatever you think it ikes to win. He was able to do it by unning the ball. We (Texas) were ble to control the ball and run it,” IcWilliams said. “I talked to him before I went to Lubbock (Tech), and 1 said it looks like we are more of a personnel-wise, Ihrowing-type team. He (Royal) said. “/ just got a feeling where I never wanted to give up because I had so much pride and believed in him. When you get pride in someone, it’s hard to make them quit. ” — Texas Tech Coach Da vid Mc Williams ‘Look, you take that personnel and y6u do whatever it takes.’” What kind of motivator was Royal? “Just the way he treated me, the fairness, and the things that he ex pected of me — and I knew he ex pected of me — I wanted to play for him,” McWilliams said. “I wasn’t going out and playing for David McWilliams. I wanted to play — and I wanted to win — for Darrell Royal because 1 was so proud of the things he had done for me. I didn’t want to let him down. I mean, really, it was just a feeling of pride. He treated us as first-class people, and then he demanded and ex pected us to be first-class players. “I just got a feeling where I never wanted to give up because I had so much pride and believed in him. When you get pride in someone, it’s hard to make them quit.” McWilliams was a sophomore in 1961 when Royal’s Longhorns put together a 10-1 record. In 1962, Texas finished 9-1-1, and in McWil liams’ senior year, the No. 1 ’Horns went 1 1-0. An athlete has his own memories of each game. In one of the Long horns’ greatest victories, their Jan. 1, 1963 Cotton Bowl 28-6 win over No. 2 Navy and Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach, McWilliams recalls: “In that game, I have to be personal. “My mother died four days before that game. She had never been sick a day in her life. She had a stroke that morning, and Coach Royal got me up there in time before she died but she never regained consciousness. “It was really an emotional type game for me, more so than the game itself. All I can remember was want ing to play well because of her.” Akers deserves compassion during UT’s troubled times UT Coach Fred Akers hasn’t had much to smile about this year. His Longhorns are in trouble and his job is on the line. By Ken Sury Sports Editor I feel sorry for Fred Akers. Really. Here’s a man who’s getting dumped on by most of the free world, with the exception of Univer sity of Texas Athletic Direc- Viewpoint tor D e L o s s mmmmmmmmm—mmmmm Dodds, Akers’ family, and mascot Bevo, which is too stupid to know anything. Akers is experiencing one of the toughest seasons a head football coach can face. His Longhorns, long known as a national powerhouse, are 2-2 in Southwest Conference play and 3-4 overall. Alumni and fans have called for his firing ever since Texas A&M hammered Texas 42-10 for last year’s SWC championship. To make matters worse, UT lost to former assistant coach David Mc Williams’ Texas Tech squad 23-21 last week. That defeat only made fans and alumni cry “Fire Fred” even louder. It’s really sad when someone who has led a team to a bowl game every year since 1977 and owns an 81-25 record with the school can’t get any respect from the school’s alumni, fans or students. That shows how fickle fans who are used to supporting a winning team can be. It also proves some thing A&M Coach Jackie Sherrill said before the season began: Suc cess in the SWC is going to the Cot ton Bowl, anything else is second- rate. However, being the best in the SWC is not an easy feat. There sim ply are too many evenly matched teams in the conference. Look how close A&M’s wins this year have been with its toughest opponents: 31-30 over Baylor and 39-35 over SMU. That’s tough competition. Today, it’s more difficult to build a powerhouse in the SWC through recruiting. There are only so many star athletes to pick from, and with nine conference schools (don’t for get Oklahoma and Louisiana schools) bidding for the best Texas has to offer, the blue-chip talent gets evened out across the conference. Blame A&M for part of Texas’ re cruiting woes this year. Since most recruits want to go to a winning pro gram, which A&M showed it has by winning the Cotton Bowl, the Aggies grabbed blue-chip athletes who may have gone to Texas. But that’s part of recruiting, and Akers knows that. Too bad UT alumni couldn’t be as enlightened. Every coach should be entitled to one bad year. Injuries, bad breaks, and other problems out of the coach’s control can be just enough to keep a top-caliber team from win ning the games it’s supposed to. The most disturbing aspect of this anti-Fred hype is the dirt Aggies are kicking on Akers. Every time I see a car with a “Keep Fred” bumper sticker on it, I think how much UT fans must have laughed at A&M when Sherrill’s teams were struggling just to be a .500 team. “Some million-dollar coach,” they sneered. Now that A&M is a national power, are our memories too short to recall when our alumni and stu dents grumbled about Sherrill’s lack of success? And what if A&M falls slightly next year? Will we grumble again? Let’s hope not. That Akers will be out as UT head coach by the end of this year is pretty much a foregone conclusion. The only thing that might save his neck is a win over the Aggies. But even that! may not be enough. So wherever you go Fred, best of luck. SMILE gels :w wail xwin Denrl ikesfc ig’ 1. einl : fee it tm| ,d o ktffj | and! alsufj :f. 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