(12-01-2018 12:16 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote: (11-30-2018 10:31 PM)I45owl Wrote: (11-30-2018 12:04 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote: (11-29-2018 10:57 PM)RiceOL83 Wrote: (11-29-2018 10:50 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote: I wonder why he's not trying the baseball route instead?
Someone asked about Myers a few posts back in high school. I'm pretty sure he was a WR for Dickinson. At least he was in the playoff game I saw him play.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he hit the diamond this spring.
I would. Bragga seems to be a stickler regarding sticking with the team and it's workouts all year. From what I've heard, Andrew Dunlap was interested in doing the same thing he did last year-- working during Fall semester and re-enrolling in the Spring, and it doesn't appear he's going to be welcomed back at Reckling in January. And gawd knows, we need all the offense we can find. Also, the pitching staff is pretty deep this year, much more so than last year (especially with the injuries we had to Moss, Ackers and Esquivel), and Tyner saw very little action last year.
My perception is that coach Graham was much more open to dual-sport players early in his career at Rice. It seems to me that they were few and far between the past 10-15 years (without having any data to reference). Does that match your perception?
I think Wayne has always been amenable and open to dual-sport players. It's been the football coach who has, at times, had issues with the arrangement. Wayne gave Tyner a chance last year even after he fulfilled his football commitments through Spring practice. Previously, there was Fuda, who became fulltime baseball after injuries shortened his football career, and Lewis, who never really panned out in either sport. A bit earlier, for our championship campaign, we had track star Jorgenson playing for us.
I think Wayne was always open. I think it was the football side that was not open. Sounds like Bragga is not open either.
I think that's unfortunate. Maybe that's because I came to Rice at the end of the Neely era, and we had a number of two-sport athletes then--Hugo Hollas, Doug Nicholson, Frankie Mandola, Greg Williams, and Dale Bernauer come quickly to mind, but there were others. Fred Duckett told me that Jess used to release football players to run track, in exchange for Brunson and Augie agreeing to spend time working with football players to improve their speed. That would seem like a reasonable trade, particularly since we could surely use any improvement in speed on all sides of the football.
It seems to me that we have at so many restrictions and disadvantages in recruiting that any advantage we can find would be useful. Particularly with limited numbers, it would seem logical that any way to add numbers in two sports at once would be beneficial. Anybody who is a good enough athlete to play two sports well is at least in some way a better athlete than somebody who can't. I think coaches are by nature control freaks, and they overvalue the utility of having a player in THEIR specific off-season program.
My thought is that we should position ourselves as champions of the multi-sport athlete. I know that there are 4/5-star recruits that could play two or more sports, and would if given the opportunity--you can see them listed by the scouting services. The P5 schools say pick one because their coaches are control freaks, and the athletes do because they have no choice. I truly believe that we could swipe one or two a year away from the big boys if we not only agreed to let them play both sports, but actively encouraged it. Coaches tell us over and over that recruiting is 2/3, 3/4, whatever, of the game. My experience coaching is that I became a much better coach overnight when we had an all-American show up. I don't believe there is any substitute for talent, and any edge we can get talent-wise could more than offset having somebody in your off-season program.
You tell me, would you rather have Bo Jackson and let him play both football and baseball, or some football-only 2/3-star who would participate in football year round? OK, I freely admit that's an extreme, once-in-a-lifetime (if that often) case, and I have doubts whether we could have even gotten Bo admitted into Rice. But it's not an impossible one.