[Husker] Young Team

[Steve Stone]

Aaron wrote:

>I feel like you contradicted yourself there. How can recruiting 
>explain 75% of success if it's possible to take walk-ons, who nobody 
>recruited, and turn them into championship-caliber starters? I 
>realize you may have just picked a number there, but I'm curious how 
>you arrived at it.

I can see how Aaron might feel a contradiction, but it's not.

I didn't just pick a number but got it from my dad who was, among 
other things, a football coach and a student of the game. 
Furthermore, every time I heard the subject brought up in the company 
of other coaches they agreed. I've also heard the number as 80% and 
70%, for whatever that's worth.

No coach can build a successful team without players who have talent, 
tenacity, and dedication or, as some would say it, turn a sow's ear 
into a silk purse. Just can't be done. That's why the major schools 
compete fiercely for promising youngsters, even the best of whom 
represent a gamble and not always a good gamble. That's why a 
recruiting class of, say, 24 may dwindle to eight or 10 by the time 
it reaches senior status.

Not all walk-ons are created equal. Most major colleges don't 
encourage walk-ons and treat them from the get-go as inferiors, and 
as a result the quality of the walk-ons they reflects it. Nebraska, 
on the other hand, treats all its players equally, which encourages 
the better in-state athletes to walk on. These kids have deeply 
embedded loyalty to the Husker tradition and frequently they (and 
their parents) are willing to make the financial sacrifice. They 
train and play fanatically, seldom if ever quit, and push the 
scholarship athletes something fierce. As some scholarship guys quit, 
get hurt, get fed up, get homesick, can't play the game at the Big 
XII level, and leave the squad, the walk-ons remain, and many of them 
earn scholarships the hard way: waiting, working, putting in grunt 
time with lower-echelon tasks, and developing over a period of years 
into players. Matt O'Hanlon is a good example of this. Alex Henery, 
on the other hand, is a specialist so gifted that NU had no choice 
but to give him a scholarship - - after two years.

Grit and determination also constitute a form of talent.

Steve Stone