Pitchin With Pritch: Big Ten drops big bomb on teams, fans

Last week I was happy that the Huskers were going to get to at least play a reduced schedule of just Big 10 teams. 

That would be much better than none at all but the ink wasn’t even dry on the schedule pages when the bomb came and the Big 10 wasn’t going to play in the fall after all. 

The strange thing is that some conferences are going to play or at least they said there were but Covid-19 has caused a lot of last minute changes in a number of areas. 

So until I see some college team lined-up to kickoff, I think I will not get too excited.  Nebraska Coach Scott Frost took some heat from the press when he said they were ready to play and might play some teams in the Big 12 and then there was talk that Nebraska was looking to move back to the Big 12. That got shut down pretty quickly by the Husker administration. 

A number of people made comments that they wished Nebraska was back in the Big 12 anyway. 

But I think money talks pretty loud and in the long run there is more money in the Big 10 than the Big 12. 

It will be interesting if there is a football season during the spring. I do think that coaches at other colleges, as well as Coach Frost, think  that having a football season in the spring and then again in the fall could cause some problems for the players.

Not enough time for injuries to heal was one thing that was mentioned time and time again. Another was that back-to-back spring and fall football might lead to more injuries because of too much strain on the player’s bodies. I would believe both of those would be valid concerns. 

The strain is also felt on the business people in cities like Lincoln. One of the owners of a business in the Haymarket area stated that 70% of their income came from the seven home games the Huskers have each season.

It is difficult sometimes to be a coach and I am sure there are many high school and college coaches right now wondering if maybe there is a better way to provide for their families than coach. 

There might be, but I know I miss it. 

I also know that sometimes you have a tendency to just remember the good things that happen during your career and forget all the times that were difficult. 

I was going through some material that I have collected through the years and found some things I thought were interesting. 

The first thing I came across was the five traits of a successful coach. These are not my original thoughts but things that successful coaches steal from other coaches!!

1. The coach is committed to the school community.

2. The coach genuinely and deeply cares about the athletes he or she coaches.

3. The coach is educated in the sport they teach and can effectively communicate their ideas to their athletes.

4. The coach is organized and has a practice plan they execute on a daily basis.

5. The coach is committed to values of education, family and maintaining integrity and diversity.

Above all coaches should push their athletes to their limits but support them in every way they can along the way.

Then I found some quotes that young athletes might think about:

“I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. I can’t accept not trying.”—Michael Jordan.

“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”—John Wooden.

“I played as hard as I could. That’s all I wanted to be remembered for.”—Larry Bird

And one of my favorites. . .  “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is Physical.”—Yogi Berra