Читать книгу Sid Gillman - Josh Katzowitz - Страница 14

five MIAMI (OHIO)

Miami University should be a fantastic football school. The campus looks like the college you’ve dreamed of attending, and on Saturday mornings, it should be littered with gas grills and RV campers that feature school flags flapping in the wind. Yager Stadium is small by big-time collegiate standards, but fill it with enough people, and the pastoral setting would be one satisfying place to watch a game.

Especially on a day like October 23, 2010, a day that was screaming for somebody to please care about football. Oftentimes in October and November, southwest Ohio resembles the northeast at its worst during its long winter slumber. Cold and gloom underneath skies that are cloudy and gray. But on that day, the sun was shining, and it was just as cold and crisp as you’d want it to be. Cold enough to wrap yourself in a blanket as you watch Miami play, and crisp enough to make you thank the heavens for cool fall days.

It was football weather, and the campus should have been well-stocked with pretty co-eds, hungover frat boys, and nostalgic alumni on their way to the big game. Miami will never be Ohio State, with its six-figure crowds and undying fan support from all over the region. But it should have been better, especially on a day like this when the past reintroduces itself to the present, when the heroes of the mid-20th century get set in bronze and placed permanently in front of the program they helped build.

It’s a campus that makes you believe Rockwell—but not Rockne—completed his undergrad work here. But the fact is, the alumni don’t turn out and the frat boys stay in bed and the pretty co-eds find other ways to spend their time. Football is an afterthought, and for those who remember the past—who watched when Miami football really mattered—it’s a shame.

It didn’t used to be this way. Not when men like Sid Gillman, Woody Hayes, and Ara Parseghian coached the team. Not when men like John Pont, Carmen Cozza, and Paul Dietzel played college football. Not when Miami football had tradition.

On that chilled October day, three of Miami’s most beloved were honored. Bronze statues in their likeness were placed on the south side of the stadium and were about to be unveiled for all those who remembered the best times of Miami football. The first one was Dietzel who, as head coach, led LSU to the 1958 national title. The next one was Weeb Ewbank, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who coached the Jets and quarterback Joe Namath to Super Bowl III glory. The final one was for Carmen Cozza, who won 10 Ivy League titles in his more than 30 seasons as head coach at Yale and is a College Football Hall of Fame member. All played at Miami. All excelled at Miami. All made Miami proud.

As Miami alum Terence Moore wrote that day, “The statues are bigger than life. Then again, so were the men they depict.” And the statues are fantastic, detailed and lifelike, and Lucy Ewbank—at that time, the 104-year-old widow of Weeb—giggled when she saw her husband and exclaimed, “You can even see the dimples on Weeb’s face.” Dietzel, Ewbank, and Cozza were only the first step as Miami honored its history. The school also had planned at a later date to unveil sculptures of Parseghian, Pont, Red Blaik, and Bo Schembechler. All excelled at Miami. All made Miami proud.

But what about Sid Gillman? While all seven honorees—current and future—had wonderful coaching careers, none could claim as much impact on the game as Gillman. Sure, they won championships that Gillman never won. Some of them made more money than Gillman. Some—maybe all—are more beloved than Gillman. But none were the innovative coach that Gillman proved himself to be. None of the seven were geniuses in the way that Gillman was. None atom-bombed bridges like Gillman either, which is why he won’t be receiving a bronze statue in front of Yager Stadium anytime soon.

“You can have him,” Lucy Ewbank said, casting a temporary cloud over that fine day. “He owed everybody in Oxford when he left.”

Perhaps, but at least Gillman made fans care about Miami football. At least, when Gillman was coaching, he made fans look at the present and wonder excitedly about the future instead of today, where some of the season’s biggest highlights involve unveiling bronze statues of the stars from yesterday.

Stuart Holcomb, a 1931 Ohio State captain, was hired by Miami on March 10, 1942, after spending a year at Washington & Jefferson as its football and track coach. A few hours later, Holcomb had hired Gillman. The decision to move from Denison to Miami was not a difficult one for him. For one, he was getting a raise to $3,000 a year, and since he had already volunteered to take some time off from his Denison job to help the Redskins during spring practice, he was familiar with his new squad. Despite the fact that former Miami coach Frank Wilton’s teams had won just three times in their previous 26 attempts, Gillman saw his new job as an opportunity to move up in the world of college football. As it does today in comparison to Denison, Miami meant better players to coach, more interest from alumni and local fans, and better exposure for a coach looking to expand his horizons.

The problem, though, was the timing. The Redskins were not playing with a full slate of collegiate players. Really, nobody was. World War II had grabbed many of the nation’s best young athletes, and as a result, some universities temporarily had to shut down their football programs. Not Miami, though. Even if the quality of play would suffer by using 17-year-olds who weren’t old enough for the military or those players whose physical maladies didn’t allow them entry into the service, Redskins football would continue.