Stoops fighting player entitlement a lot tougher than Urban Meyer
Published: 4/10/2012 7:10 AM
Last Modified: 4/11/2012 11:44 AM
Bob Stoops. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World
Let's revisit some of Stoops' bolder-faced quotes from that hour.
"I'm not gonna have a bunch of guys every year that are going to come in with their idea of what things oughta be. They can do that at another place…
"Everything you do with kids today is harder than it was in 2000. Getting them to go to class is harder. Getting them to not fail drug tests is harder. Getting them to not be on time is harder.
"They've been allowed to do whatever they wanna do, a lot of them, and they either get it or they don't. Our standards on how we do things aren't going to change. And I'm not gonna have every year Johnny, who thinks he oughta do it this way… You could do that. And that's what they were doing before we got here.
"They were setting their own schedules and coming in when they want to and working out to the level they want to, and they were losing all the time. We were at K-State beating 'em for a good number of years…
"Who has children here? You waver with them, what happens? They run all over you. And you have two or three. Try 105 and see what happens. That comes from a bunch people that have never have run a football team. I wonder what their children are doing when they're letting them set whatever curfew they want or whatever they want to do…
"Everything with kids today is harder. With my own children, it's harder. And every year it gets harder."
A cranky coach trying to come to grips with a disappointing season? No sir. It wasn't that simple.
Maybe we wouldn't have been asking Stoops about malcontents and transfers had OU not just had a disappointing season. Maybe that gave us an excuse to broach the topic of player entitlement.
Still, there was general principle in what Stoops was saying that morning. He was addressing a problem that had the potential to undercut any major college program, a problem you had the sense was going to get much worse before it got any better.
Take Stoops' words and apply them to Matt Hayes' Sporting News piece "From champs to chomped: How Urban Meyer broke Florida football." Apply them to Percy Harvin, the star who helped the Gators beat OU in the 2008 BCS championship.
According to Hayes' sources, Harvin:
*** Was held out of the '08 season opener for what was deemed an injury, when he had actually failed drug tests;
*** Refused to run stadium steps before the '07 season, prompting the Gators to start playing basketball for conditioning instead; and
*** Grabbed receivers coach Billy Gonzales by the neck and threw him to the ground during an '08 altercation, and was never punished.
This, in a broader sense, was what Stoops was talking about last New Year's Eve. This is why he came across so defiantly. Not because the Sooners lost three games and wound up in the Insight Bowl.
Rather, because even when all seems right with the best of college football's programs, there is plenty going wrong beneath the surface. The '08 Gators seemed to have everything going for them: a coach at the top of his profession, Tim Tebow at quarterback and superior athletes everywhere else.
Turns out, they also had a star and others (Hayes references multiple player issues) running amok, and Meyer doing little about it.
Coaches in all sports at all schools fight an increasing number of entitlement issues every year. Meyer responded the way he did, and the Gators, beset by all sorts of internal problems, went 8-5 his final season in 2010. They slipped to 7-6 under Will Muschamp last year.
Stoops is taking another tack. He clearly believes his program will much better off for it.
I would say the odds are more in his favor than they were in Meyer's.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
