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The day I ran into Ol Clappy

Taco Bell for Mexican food? :sour:
That derailed me.
So, I have to come back another time and start reading after the first paragraph. Comments suggest it is a good read and I promise to read it, but later.
 
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Dwinstitles said:
He didnt evaluate, he was recruiting high off what Butch created and the buzz then. also the rankings werent as accurate then as they are now, high bust rate.
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I agree on the evaluation aspect. My point was though is that he knew how to go after high rated guys. I guess I should've been more specific.
 
jackedaround said:
I remember it as if it were yesterday.

On a brisk, and by brisk I mean 85 degree no wind, late November 2006 day in South Miami my friend and I decided to go to Taco Bell for "mexican food."

We had bought our food. On the way out I led the way opening up the rickety door with bag in hand. Perhaps it was the weight of the gordita supreme or the spice of the fire sauce but something felt different.

To my suprise coming out of a white Cadillac Escalade with a Maroone tag holder was a frail old white man. Big ears and white UM hat. Immediately I stopped in my tracks. I knew who it was, Ol Clappy. Big floppy ears, eyes sunken with bags as heavy as those held by some penny stock investor. Wrinkled polo shirt and khaki pants. Slouched demeanor. The man simply looked tired.

Now I was wearing a UM shirt of some fashion. As we approached he tried to not make eye contract but I willed him to. Our eyes locked for a second. He knew I knew who he was and he knew who I was even though he did not know me. The look in my eye was sympathy and in his eye was recognition. We uttered no words.

Looking back I wanted to say he got a raw deal or how I appreciated him. But neither were really true at the time. The man was defeated. He was fired for all intents and purposes yet still had to coach a meaningless bowl game. He was alone. He was a millionaire dining at the fine establishment of Taco Bell. One could get lower, but not in his position that day. He was simply low. I knew that no words would change that.

So we parted ways. He went on to win some poor excuse for a bowl game played in Siberia on a field that was blue. As much as the players tried to let him down they did not. On a last second interception the game was sealed and he went out a winner even though at that point he was a loser.

He moved away and did his best to coach UTSA to some minor success raising the program from nothing to something. To a slower pace. To one in which he was appreciated at least for a little while.

Miami went on to have the worst 10 years of football ever. Hiring terrible coaches with ineptitude. Quite frustrating. I still wonder if he reveled in our downturn or was saddened by it. I will never know but then again it does not matter. 12 years later I no longer frequent Taco Bell and Miami is on its way back to relevancy. But somewhere out there is a man with the willingness to clap for a good play.....
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Dope post!!
 
I liked Coker as an OC - basic power football and play action, when that kind of skill talent was available combined with the offensive line we had, that offense was nearly impossible to deal with. I-formation, defense is pretty sure you're gonna run it, yet there's McKinnie putting them on their asses and Portis getting 9 yards.

It started to fall down when we couldn't sustain that level of talent on the OL, and had a QB with a different skill set than the one required to run that offense. He adjusted to Berlin, but 1 year too late as he wasted a national champion-quality defense in 2003.

It's been said here before, but over a longer term, we most likely would have been better off hiring Barry Alvarez. I know hardly anyone wanted that at the time, including me, but with the benefit of hindsight that would have been a better move.
 
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Poor old Clappy, did well enough to stay the F out of the way in Year 1, but then got greedy after that. Yes, will always be down as the Corch who won us the Natty but his inability to evaluate talent and keep most of it local was his undoing. Did a decent job at UTSA when he really tried but alas, was over his head at the U.
 
What failure? Didn't he take that crap of a team Butch built and turned it into the best team ever?
 
Has anyone mentioned Butch Davis the football God yet?

I just came to see if anyone had and I was pleasantly rewarded.
 
jackedaround said:
I remember it as if it were yesterday.

On a brisk, and by brisk I mean 85 degree no wind, late November 2006 day in South Miami my friend and I decided to go to Taco Bell for "mexican food."

We had bought our food. On the way out I led the way opening up the rickety door with bag in hand. Perhaps it was the weight of the gordita supreme or the spice of the fire sauce but something felt different.

To my suprise coming out of a white Cadillac Escalade with a Maroone tag holder was a frail old white man. Big ears and white UM hat. Immediately I stopped in my tracks. I knew who it was, Ol Clappy. Big floppy ears, eyes sunken with bags as heavy as those held by some penny stock investor. Wrinkled polo shirt and khaki pants. Slouched demeanor. The man simply looked tired.

Now I was wearing a UM shirt of some fashion. As we approached he tried to not make eye contract but I willed him to. Our eyes locked for a second. He knew I knew who he was and he knew who I was even though he did not know me. The look in my eye was sympathy and in his eye was recognition. We uttered no words.

Looking back I wanted to say he got a raw deal or how I appreciated him. But neither were really true at the time. The man was defeated. He was fired for all intents and purposes yet still had to coach a meaningless bowl game. He was alone. He was a millionaire dining at the fine establishment of Taco Bell. One could get lower, but not in his position that day. He was simply low. I knew that no words would change that.

So we parted ways. He went on to win some poor excuse for a bowl game played in Siberia on a field that was blue. As much as the players tried to let him down they did not. On a last second interception the game was sealed and he went out a winner even though at that point he was a loser.

He moved away and did his best to coach UTSA to some minor success raising the program from nothing to something. To a slower pace. To one in which he was appreciated at least for a little while.

Miami went on to have the worst 10 years of football ever. Hiring terrible coaches with ineptitude. Quite frustrating. I still wonder if he reveled in our downturn or was saddened by it. I will never know but then again it does not matter. 12 years later I no longer frequent Taco Bell and Miami is on its way back to relevancy. But somewhere out there is a man with the willingness to clap for a good play.....
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orange&green84 said:
Problem is, Clappy knew how to recruit. You also have to establish a culture. And that was something he didn't know how to do.
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Clappy went the recruiting magazines way of recruiting , rather than evaluating the home town kids . He lost a grasp of what um was built on.

I remember the year he was after all the five star wr’s everywhere , struck out on them all, while having studs in SFla. Then later on we’re lining up punters at wr. The university of Miami had a punter playing wr.

Chew on that.
 
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Perspective on Coker:

One HORRIBLY biased call from winning TWO NC's back to back as HC ( and two undefeated seasons). Good OC. Good recruiter( ask Ken Dorsey).
Average HC. Not terrible. Would have been MUCH better off w/ him than with Shannon and definitely Golden.

The dumbest thing in sports is the argument that " he won with so and so's players". As a coach you still have to coach, prepare, game plan, etc. Did Jimmy win with Howards players? Did Erickson with win JJ's?

If its so easy why didn't Butch win with Butch's players?

Im not impartial. I met him a few times and liked his overall decent, seemingly honest nature. Yes, he fired coaches after the LSU debacle and maybe should have done what Mike Shula did and gone down with the ship but 90% of coaches do the same thing.

Not the best, but also certainly not deserving IMO of the scorn and ridicule he got.
 
U2Cane said:
Perspective on Coker:

One HORRIBLY biased call from winning TWO NC's back to back as HC ( and two undefeated seasons). Good OC. Good recruiter( ask Ken Dorsey).
Average HC. Not terrible. Would have been MUCH better off w/ him than with Shannon and definitely Golden.

The dumbest thing in sports is the argument that " he won with so and so's players". As a coach you still have to coach, prepare, game plan, etc. Did Jimmy win with Howards players? Did Erickson with win JJ's?

If its so easy why didn't Butch win with Butch's players?

Im not impartial. I met him a few times and liked his overall decent, seemingly honest nature. Yes, he fired coaches after the LSU debacle and maybe should have done what Mike Shula did and gone down with the ship but 90% of coaches do the same thing.

Not the best, but also certainly not deserving IMO of the scorn and ridicule he got.
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Although you're correct in some aspects. Coker's evaluated for what he was left by Butch and what the shape of the program was by the end of his tenure. I'm not a Butch apologist by any means, but he navigated this program during its darkest days and eventually brought this program back to relevance. The 2000 year was a robbery by the BCS, if we played OU we would've beat them by a large margin.

Think about this - if you put Coker in Butch's shoes just after the Ericsson era, do you think he gets the program to where Butch got it?
 
Great writing. I always liked Coker and wish he could have continued our success .
 
He was a really nice guy, great OC and gave it his best....I picked him up at the airport for one of our events and spent the day with him driving him all over. During the day, he spoke so highly of his players like Willis, KD, Antrel and ST....No doubt he loved the Univ of Miami and all of his players; he just did the best he could...and we know the rest of the story
 
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