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soldinger speaks on state of program

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“I think they’ve got good athletes,” he said. “I think it’s a little bit of what’s going on in the high school community now. My wife teaches part-time at Southridge right now. [Three-time state champion coach] Billy Rolle just got the job down there – now you’ve got kids transferring in from all over the place. We never had that. I wanted community kids. I never wanted kids from other communities coming in. That’s kind of par for the course now. They don’t like what’s going on at their school, they’ll find another situation. I’m big on loyalty. I’m big on the character things. I can see that in the work ethic, character. To turn it around … these kids were like infants raised in that system. So if kids don’t go well for them, they ***** and moan. Stop *****ing and moaning.”

I ***** about this all the time. I think people think it's mostly because I'm from Texas, but it's really not. I hate the attitude this kind of environment breeds. Mercenary regional all-star teams aren't high school football, and it just makes easier targets for the pimps of the world. It also fosters the easy-way-out mentality where you just go to the winner instead of trying to build one which transitions nicely into their signing day decisions. Al Golden's our program's biggest problem by miles and miles, but this is a really tough issue for UM football too, IMO - at least until we're a top dog again.
 
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“I don’t see that coming out of those guys. So you’ve got to talk about that. You’ve got to – heck, we brought in a sports psychologist [under Butch Davis]. He helped immensely. He helped coaches, players, everybody. What’s wrong with that? I know for me, my ego ain’t that big. I see certain things and if you can help me, help me. If a kid can talk to me, tell me, man. Talk to me.

I can almost bet that's a shot at Folden
 
datcaneguy said:
“I don’t see that coming out of those guys. So you’ve got to talk about that. You’ve got to – heck, we brought in a sports psychologist [under Butch Davis]. He helped immensely. He helped coaches, players, everybody. What’s wrong with that? I know for me, my ego ain’t that big. I see certain things and if you can help me, help me. If a kid can talk to me, tell me, man. Talk to me.

I can almost bet that's a shot at Folden
Click to expand...

Translation: Al Golden and Staff Sucks. They pull mediocrity out of kids.
 
I would love to have this guy back on the staff. Golden should fire himself as ST coach and bring him in.
 
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was just talking to [UM Sports Hall of Fame offensive lineman] RichieMercier’s mother and dad and they were saying, ‘You guys loved the kids. It was very obvious.’ We went through some hard times, with winning and losing, but we believed in each other. We always believed in each other.”
Click to expand...
One problem is the same can't be said about golden.

Everything trickles down from the top. Fundamental problems such as mentioned in the article are clearly coach related. Butch instilled the culture soldinger is talking about. Make golden HC of those late 90s/00s teams and that mindset and team camaraderie does not exist.
 
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TheSwagger1 said:


I ***** about this all the time. I think people think it's mostly because I'm from Texas, but it's really not. I hate the attitude this kind of environment breeds. Mercenary regional all-star teams aren't high school football, and it just makes easier targets for the pimps of the world. It also fosters the easy-way-out mentality where you just go to the winner instead of trying to build one which transitions nicely into their signing day decisions. Al Golden's our program's biggest problem by miles and miles, but this is a really tough issue for UM football too, IMO - at least until we're a top dog again.
Click to expand...


What Soldinger was talking about is nothing new, kids jumping from HS to HS has been going on since I was in HS (Central) in the early 90s. Now I don't know what the school zones are like now, but once you got to 95th St. & below, the school zones were pretty liberal, it was pretty much a free-for-all. Kids either want to play for a winner...or where they'll get exposure...or both.
 
Primadonna's. Stay at your school, even if they were 2-8 last year. Losing builds character. There is no easy way out to be a winner. Just because you transfer from Edison to BTW and win a state championship doesn't me you're a winner. It means that the school and team your chose to transfer to is a winner. Your just along for the ride.
 
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datcaneguy said:
“I don’t see that coming out of those guys. So you’ve got to talk about that. You’ve got to – heck, we brought in a sports psychologist [under Butch Davis]. He helped immensely. He helped coaches, players, everybody. What’s wrong with that? I know for me, my ego ain’t that big. I see certain things and if you can help me, help me. If a kid can talk to me, tell me, man. Talk to me.

I can almost bet that's a shot at Folden
Click to expand...


Doubt it:

“Somebody asked me what do you think’s happening over there? I don’t think anybody can, because you’re not in the inside. All you hear is hearsay. I happen to like Al Golden. I think he’s a sharp young guy. I think he’s very organized. But if I were to say something to him – just because the years I’ve been around, I’ve been around since ’68, a long, long time – I would tell any of those guys it’s not about the Xs and Os, it’s not about all the organizational things. It’s about people. How to get people to become the best they can become and play the hardest they can play. That’s what it’s about.
 
He doesn't like Al Golden. This is just a good speaker method of patronizing a subject first before smashing that subject down to earth with his true failings.

Patronizing his "sharp & fine organization" (even though it's "not about" to solve UM issues), while zoning in on his Yankee shortcomings of being out of touch with his So. FL players and their surroundings. After all, hugging out an injured disabled balla can only take one but so far in the "care" category with peoples.
 
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