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.