Kevin Tillman's essay, After Pat’s Birthday, published in October 2006, is a must-read.Tillman talked about everything, with everyone. According to the speakers, he had read the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and he underlined passages constantly. Garwood recalled how he'd mail articles to friends, highlighting certain parts and writing in the margins: "Let's discuss."
A few minutes ago my 12-year-old son walked into my home office to check on me. I turned to him, and all I could think to say was, "Pat Tillman says hello."
And there I sat in my tall chair, spouting off and thinking: Tillman would despise this. He would deplore that television anchors and journalists and politicians are making a fuss over his death or worse yet, using his death to push their own agendas. With each passing live shot, I felt more out of place, more desirous of running and apologizing to Tillman's memory.
Pat just had that way, with colonels and coaches and Nobel Prize winners, too, of slicing through rank and reputation, of turning every encounter into nothing more or less than two human beings talking. Hell, the guy introduced himself to strangers simply as "Pat," and if they asked what he did before strapping it on for Uncle Sam, he'd say he studied some back at Arizona State and quickly ask about them, never mentioning the summa cum laude or the Pac-10 defensive player of the year award, and certainly not the NFL. And still, something about him made you walk away wanting to learn more, laugh more, run more, give more.
In the year since Tillman died during a firefight in Afghanistan, Tammaro has told a thousand stories that have undoubtedly reached millions of people. He's determined to make sure that people know all about the man Tillman was, about all the dimensions of his life and character that went far beyond the headlines and sound bites centered on the million-dollar football player for the Arizona Cardinals who left it all behind in the wake of September 11th to fight for his country.
This season Tillman has become simply the best player in the country who doesn't have his own (fill in the blank: Heisman, Outland, Lombardi, Butkus) campaign, living proof that there is room at the highest level of the game for a guy without much size or blazing speed but with a brain and cojones. "He epitomizes what college football is all about," says Southern Cal offensive coordinator Hue Jackson, who was an assistant at Arizona State during Tillman's first two seasons.
Right now he has 13 weeks of basic training ahead of him, then three weeks of Airborne School, and then, if he makes it, Ranger School, where only about a third of the candidates are accepted. "It's a long row," said the Fort Benning spokesman, who seemed to suggest it would be all right to call again around Christmas. Until then he'll be working hard trying to become what he wants to become.
Tillman walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million dollar contract with the Cardinals for an $18,000 salary and plentiful opportunities to get his head shot off. That hasn't happened yet, and God willing it won't. But the pay cut kicked in right away.
I think it's fair to say that the consensus option of Sun Devil nation at the time is that Snyder had to go. It was obvious that he had failed to keep the momentum of the 1996 season (and a pretty good 1997 season) going, and it was hard to present a solid case for his retention."As I told people when I took the job, my number-one objective is to go and win the Rose Bowl," Mackovic said. "It has to be. If it isn't, I shouldn't be here. No one should be here. It can't be any less, because we haven't done it. It's like scaling Mount Everest. It's there, and you have to do it."Of course, things never did work out for Dirk in the desert, and six years of mediocrity later (was it really six years?) he was fired, to be replaced by his polar opposite, Dennis Erickson. The best summary of Erickson is Portrait of a winner, written by Jim Meehan of the Spokesman-Review in August, 2006, while Erickson was at Idaho. At the time of writing, the jury is out.
The real battle during ASU home football games pits fans against a high-tech marketing machine that employs a distracting array of audio, video, live stunts and bright signage to hammer commercial messages into a captive audience.
No matter how the game unfolds, no matter the situation on the field, Sun Devil fans face a fusillade of advertisements. The ads divert attention from the field and refocus the "market" on products and corporations being hawked.
The Bill Frieder era was a black mark in our program's history. I would gladly have traded the sweet sixteen appearance for some integrity. I have long argued that one of the most overlooked heroes in recent ASU history is Don Newman. We forget just how bad things were at the start of the 1997-98 history. The Sun Devils were expected to be awful on the court that year, and no one would have been very surprised had some additional scandals arisen off the court. Instead Newman led the team to an 18 win season, and NIT tournament berth, and (far more importantly) restored discipline and respect to the program. John Dougherty's article, The Stopgap Coach, published in March 1998 recaps Newman's season and the decision not to hire him as the permanent Head Coach. Others will disagree, but I said at the time, and I continue to believe that Kevin White should have had the guts to stick with him -- he earned it. I'm glad that things worked out well for him, and he has been an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs for several years now.
We start with a couple of classics. In 1994 New Times writer Paul Rubin followed the baseball team from opening day in January until the last out at the College World Series. Coach Jim Brock died of cancer on June 12, four days after his team's season ended."Jim Brock's place in the pantheon of all-time-great college baseball coaches is secure."The second piece, JIM BROCK LIVED FOR BASEBALL, was published a couple of weeks after he passed.
"The old baseball coach sits motionless in his chair, appearing sadly fragile. He is running on fumes now, his body wracked with liver and colon cancer that will snatch his life in just eight days."Many years later Rubin wrote a fascinating piece on Brock's successor, Pat Murphy.
