John Gruden and Greg Olsen Didn't Like Fran Brown's Antics

[althea]

I had a conversation with Jay Gruden when he was coaching Washington. When I told him I was a Syracuse fan, he told me about the time his team (Louisville) came to Syracuse and got curb stomped. He said his coach woke the team up at 6:00 am the next morning to run sprints.

 

[SUfanNC]

My high school golf team ran sprints up the hill at our home course because we messed around and ended up losing a match (plus other dumb kid things of course). We were playing golf! Idk if it made us better per-say but it definitely stopped us from screwing around.

Sr year Varsity soccer. We had a very good team that was beating perennial good teams like Lpool and CNS. We had an away game in Auburn and played badly and almost lost. Coach pulled us over on the way home to run hills. I ended up sitting on the bus with a concussion. Same coach made us run sprints at halftime in the rain for having a slow start to the game.

 

[Cusefan95]

When I was in high school, early in the season our starting QB missed the bus to a 1PM Saturday road game and showed up at the field we were playing at about five minutes before kickoff. On Monday our coach told him he had to run 1000 laps around the field - but anyone on the team could join him and their laps would count towards his total. Everyone joined in so it worked out to around 20 laps each.

Our team was a little dysfunctional with a lot of guys who didn’t get along with each other, lots of cliques had formed. That event started to brake down some of the barriers - after losing our first game, we didn’t lose another game that season.

20 years later we were talking with our former head coach at a reunion and complimenting him on what a great strategy it was on his part. He told us it wasn’t a strategy - he was just angry at the QB, realized 1000 laps was absurd after he said it and having the team run was just on on-the fly recovery. He was very happy to take some credit for how well it worked out though.

 

[Dave]

Agree. Embarrassing your very young team on a national stage does not seem very DART

Next we take on the EMBARRASSMENT of high expectations.

 

[dollarbill44]

I talked back to my Mom when I was 5. I had to sit still for an hour with a bar of soap in my mouth.

 

[Yeti]

I talked back to my Mom when I was 5. I had to sit still for an hour with a bar of soap in my mouth.

I had the audacity to (attempt to) push my father once. No comment on how that turned out.

… I’m sorry what were we talking about?

 

[kirbivore]

Fran didn't run them hard enough after that mess of a game

 

[dollarbill44]

I had the audacity to (attempt to) push my father once. No comment on how that turned out.

… I’m sorry what were we talking about?

I think at this point in the thread, we're all just sharing stories of "tough love" from the good old days.

 

[Nicknack]

I'm late to the party in this thread. I don't think anyone is saying not to hold players accountable or coach with tough love - I like it. That said, I don't like the sprints after the game in front of fans. Either way, not a big deal to me and more has been made about this than necessary.

 

[IthacaBarrel]

I mean…I don’t care how you or anyone views the postgame stuff, but Olsen very clearly wasn’t just an average tight end.

syracuse was in the mix with him for a bit, went to ND for a year I think and then transferred to Miami I believe

 

[IthacaBarrel]

I actually think he’s one of the better commentators and it’s not because I’m a Bears fan.

If it weren't for Brady getting pushed to the front, he would be Fox's #1 regardless of how people feel about him, he is highly regarded for his commentary

 

[Bayside44]

So mental note barrel and bayside aren’t Fran brown fans, wow

Huh?

 

[Cuseregular]

Huh?

You “liked” barrels post disparaging brown as pretty much only doing the things he does to seek attention. Intuitively Meaning selfish for himself and not for The greater good of the kids or the program was my read of that post. That’s Surprising

 

[Bayside44]

You “liked” barrels post disparaging brown as pretty much only doing the things he does to seek attention. Intuitively Meaning selfish for himself and not for The greater good of the kids or the program was my read of that post. That’s Surprising

I thought the postgame stuff was schticky. And he does a lot to get attention that's unique- but that's part of the job, esp to break through at Cuse nationally. But hardly a federal offense.

People running down his coaching choices ad nauseam here are harder on Fran.

 

[dasher]

I thought the postgame stuff was schticky. And he does a lot to get attention that's unique- but that's part of the job, esp to break through at Cuse nationally. But hardly a federal offense.

People running down his coaching choices ad nauseam here are harder on Fran.

Nonsense. This is typical of you. I remember you running down Washington and Lincoln when they were elected.

 

[Bayside44]

Nonsense. This is typical of you. I remember you running down Washington and Lincoln when they were elected.

Unlike you I was a young pup in those days.

 

[OttosShoes]

Looks like nobody has commeneted on the 'Ziegler' quote in there:

But I wonder why he felt safe from any media/PC attacks for doing this?

I can guess what he was getting at, but the correct answer is "Fran did not care if he was safe from media attacks." HCFB admitted on national TV when he didn't shower, he's just not someone that will get embarrassed by doing this. Nor should he be.

 

[Dick_in_MI]

Nonsense. This is typical of you. I remember you running down Washington and Lincoln when they were elected.

As for me, I wasn't around when Washington was elected. I do have my Lincoln stories though.

I'm not going to rip Abe. He was the G.O.A.T. Still, he had a weird ego thing going on about his height. I guess it made him feel more authoritative. He always claimed he was 6'4" but let me tell you, I stood next to him a few times when he didn't have his giant hat on and he was no taller than me. I just kept thinking "hey! his head isn't as big as it looks in photos!" Boy, he loved that top hat. I think it really fluffed up his self-esteem.

The night of the Ford Theater/John Wilkes Booth thing, Abe sent a messenger over to tell me he was doing a tailgate-like event before the performance. I had never heard of such a thing before. He said it would be 65 cents. Great, I bought a ticket but had to cancel. The crappy part is that he wouldn't refund my 65 cents. I thought that was petty. Because of that, I wasn't too sad about what happened later that evening but don't tell anyone I said that. I don't want historians bad-mouthing me.