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Monday, September 2, 1991
The Battalion
Page 3
A&M and Slocum
stand test of time
by Scott Wudel
The Battalion
When Richard Copeland
Slocum was in elementary school,
his first grade class visited a local
bread company in Orange, Texas,
on one of its many field trips.
While there, the young Slocum
was given a
wood ruler.
"The Golden
Rule" was print
ed on that ruler.
Across the ruler
were the words
"Do unto others
as you have oth
ers do to you,"
Slocum remem
bers - Words
the coach has
lived by all of his
life. And an idea
he has tried to
instill in his
players and the
entire A&M
football pro
gram.
When
Slocum replaced
former A&M
coach Jackie
Sherrill almost
three years ago,
he redefined the
direction of the
program with
the philosophy
that you can't
have athletic in
tegrity without
academic in
tegrity. With
that in mind, he
sat down and
mapped out the
direction he
wanted the pro
gram to take.
"I wanted to
build a firm, sol
id foundation n eac j football coach R. C. Slocum
that we could teases hj s players how to respect
3dd to, ana en
sure we would
have a stable program - where we
wouldn't be a flash in the pan,"
Slocum said. "There's a tendency
of people to want to run out and
just get all the players - junior col
lege players, transfers, dropouts -
whoever they could drag up to
try to win 'x' number of games.
"I felt like it was important to
try to establish a recruiting pro
gram where we brought in fresh
men and trained and kept them in
the program."
Using that gameplan, Slocum
and his staff have succeeded in re
cruiting one of the best classes of
football talent in the nation for
two consecutive years. More im
portantly, all but one of those
players has been academically eli
gible to set foot on Kyle Field for
the Aggies.
"We wanted to build a pro
gram where academics was at the
forefront of the program," Slocum
explained. "Where you could go
into a home and recruit a young
man and tell his parents that we
have a program where he would
have the opportunity to graduate -
that we would have programs in
place to see that we didn't short
change him from an academic
standpoint."
It may be Slocum's concern for
the other man that has led to his
success on and off the field. But
how did this calm-demeanored
man and his good ol' boy charm
come to learn this lesson of life?
"It's just the right
thing to do,"
Slocum said
modestly. "We're
all a product of
our upbringing.
You're taught to
be honest with
people.
"My reason for
coaching is that I
enjoy being
around young
people," he ex
plained. "And I
would hope that a
player coming out
of our program
would have more
than just say he
played on some
winning teams -
that the lessons he
learned in our
program were the
ones that he could
take from here
and be assets to
him as he tries to
go out in the real
world and earn a
living and deal
with his fellow
man."
Slocums recalls
his junior high
school football
coach and the ef
fect he had on his
career.
"I don't even
know if he was a
good football
MIKE C. MULVEY/The Battalion Coach Or not," he
others with a simple philosophy - "Treat ^ctring^uv that
others as you would like to be treated." care d Ibout his
‘ players.
I've never had
any question
that he cared about me more than
just being a football player."
The lesson he learned from
that experience has influenced his
method of coaching young play
ers. He has spent many hours
teaching the aspects of the Golden
Rule.
See Slocum/ page 12
Who will be the Aggies’ backup quarterback?
By Anthony Andro
The Battalion
Bucky Richardson is the start
ing quarterback for the Texas
A&M football team — Case
closed.
But the backup quarterback sit
uation is not so clear.
Texas A&M head football
coach R.C. Slocum said the num
ber two slot will belong to either
junior Kent Petty or redshirt fresh
man Jeff Granger.
"I feel like we're in pretty good
shape at quarterback," Slocum
said.
Right now, Slocum and A&M
offensive coordinator Bob Toledo
have not made a decision on who
will be the number two signal
caller.
Petty has played in nine games,
for the Aggies in his two years on
the team, completing three of five
passes for 76 yards and a touch
down. He also has studied Tole
do's system for the last two years
while standing on the sideline
waiting for his chance behind
Richardson and Lance Pavlas.
Granger played baseball in the
Pan Am Games this summer and
also missed part of spring football
because he was pitching for the
A&M baseball team.
Although Granger had to di
vide his time between baseball
and football during the spriirg,
Slocum said he is confident in
what Granger was able to learn
about the A&M offense during
that time.
Granger said he is almost
caught up with the other quarter
backs after his baseball stint.
"I feel real comfortable,"
Granger said. "I already know the
offense and I'm just learning the
defense."
Richardson said he is also com
fortable with the backups.
"Pm confident in them,
Richardson said. "They know
what's going on, and the coaches
are also comfortable with them."
Richardson, who missed the
entire 1989 season with a knee in
jury, said good football programs
prepare their backups in case the
starting quarterback gets injured
Granger also likes the battle for
the number two spot with Petty.
"I feel that Petty and 1 are go
ing to have good competition for
the backup job," he said.
The A&M quarterback depth
chart is stacked this season. Listed
behind Richardson, Petty, and
Granger are redshirt freshman
Steve Emerson, and true freshmen
Matt Miller and Tommy Preston.
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