WEBVTT

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 January 4th of 2006. And we're at the visitor information center at a su

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at rural and Apache Boulevard. Um, and
I'll let you introduce yourself if

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you could just give me your full name.
I'm Frank Kush, former football

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coach at a SU I'm now in the athletic
department in community relations.

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I'd like to start off by getting a
little background. Um, tell me, when

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were you born? I was born in 1805. No,
I'm just kidding. I

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did, I goof that up. No, I quit
horsing around. I was born in 1929. And so

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I, so I'm 76 years old. If your
mathematics or at all, you didn't tell me

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the date. So January the 20th

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birthday coming up. Right. Exactly.

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Uh, I can remember that. Where were
you born? Win? Pennsylvania, a coal

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mining town in southeast of
Pittsburgh, approximately 80 miles from there.

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In fact, the old Johnstown flood back
in the late 18 hundreds was right

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next door to Wimber. In fact, a lot of
the rivers and streams I should say

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that came through river were part of
that Stony Creek River flood. Tell me

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a little bit about your life growing
up? Well, I'm from a family of 15

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Children. My mom and dad are from
Europe. My mother was from

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Czechoslovakia. My dad was from
Poland. They came over here and my

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dad was a coal miner. We lived in
those coal mining towns in Pennsylvania.

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It's very similar to the mines here in
Arizona, like Globe and Miami. And

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those places, uh, the houses are
green, gray, yellow, green, gray. You

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better not go out drinking because you
won't know what color you found it.

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But anyway, we, we came, I'll use to
be more political. We came from an

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indigent type of family. We didn't
have electricity until I would say till

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I uh went into high school. My dad
died when I was 15. There were 10 of us

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, 10 of us at home. My youngest
brother that graduated ironically from

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Arizona State was born about two weeks
after my dad died. But my mother

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was a, a great individual from the
standpoint of stability and maintaining

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the discipline within the family
because my dad was quite a disciplinarian

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and there's no question about it. And
we all learned to work and every one

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of my brothers and sisters have high
school degrees, even though my dad

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couldn't speak English and he spoke
Polish and my mother could speak

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Slavish, Polish and Hungarian. And the
funny part about it when I said, go

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to my grandmother's place, they speak
all those three different languages

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as a kid. You know, I try to figure
out what's going on. But so anyway, we

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, uh we were very fortunate from the
standpoint of uh disciplined family

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education was very significant to all
of us. And so we were fortunate to

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have a caring dad from the standpoint
of making you responsible

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accountable. And the great thing about
him was that he respected you for

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your age. If you were younger, he
didn't expect that much from you, but he

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taught you what to do and you better
have learned it after the first or

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second time. But as I said, he died
when he was 50 a coal miner from

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miners asthma. And so we struggled but
we made it about the language. What

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language did you grow up? We, we grew
up speaking Polish and English and

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some Slavish when my mother would talk
to her, to her mother. And, and I,

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of course, I went to a Polish Catholic
school for one year to be the first

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holy communion and all that jazz. But
uh the interesting thing about it,

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all that community when I say it's
called Mine 35 as I mentioned previous

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house Green. They're all ethnic
people, poles, slavs, Hungarians. We had a

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Hispanic family also and they were all
coal miners and coal mining has to

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be the second most dangerous
profession. I had an uncle who was killed in

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the coal mines. And I think lobster up
in the north and Port Alaska is the

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most dangerous. But, uh, I, I just saw
a show about West Virginia where

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they had a mine cave in. But again,
uh, the good thing about it, nobody

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told you you were poor. Like we didn't
have electricity, we didn't have

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hot water and having breakfast, lunch
and dinner. It was one of those

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things that you, you just never had.
You ate, what was, what was available

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the first time I had three square
meals when I went to college and I

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thought I was in pig heaven. And
another interesting thing is that we had

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water beds way before anybody ever
dreamed of. There were six of us in one

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bed. So there's only three beds for
the whole mob of us. It was always

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kind of interesting that way, but it
didn't make any difference because

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you knew what you had to do and you
did it properly. Kids today probably

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can't imagine growing up. No. Exactly.
Right. Having 15 kids in the family.

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 That was somewhat of a chore.

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Well, you know, the interesting thing
I started working on a railroad when

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I was 15 and I was making six, five
cents an hour, which wasn't bad at

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that time. And I helped out because my
dad died when I was a, I think, a

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sophomore in high school that summer
when I was working on the railroad

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and he died in June 1940.

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4 and uh, June 14th, ironically, but
the interesting thing about it is

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that, uh, we had a cow, so we always
had milk and, uh, and then my dad

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used to hire us out and he would go
with us and then we'd pick crops for

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the farmers and they'd give us some
land and we'd plant potatoes and

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cabbage. Kapusta is cabbage and bandy
is in Polish. So we got a lot of

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that. But the interesting thing about
it and we had a big barrel down the

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cellar where we had two, it was 50
gallon barrels and they were full of

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cabbage. And that's what we had for
the bulk of the winter in a potato. So

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I bet 80% of our meals were directly
or indirectly affiliated with

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potatoes and cabbage.

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No, we couldn't afford much meat. No,
there wasn't. No. Um, as you were

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growing up was school important. Yes.
Well, you know, the thing that I, I

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thought was fantastic about it, you
don't realize it. We were all required

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to go to school and we had some great
teachers. My first grade teacher,

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Miss, in fact, she liked me. So well,
she asked me to come back for

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another year. I flung first grade and
it really helped me out because I'm

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a little more mature than the kids
coming in. And uh every one of those

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teachers, Miss Watson, the second
grade teacher, Miss Brown, the third

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grade teacher, Miss FJZ, Miss Vespa
and Miss Johnson. Now, let me tell you

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about Miss Johnson. She was the
principal of this elementary school. Now,

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all those teachers are all females
used to drive up and be at this school

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at 935. Well, I dated her niece when I
was in high school and then her

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niece was married and moved out to
Arizona when Miss Johnson was the

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principal of the elementary school. I
thought she was about 6 ft five. And

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, and if you look, you got walking in
the hallway, if you look this way,

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that way she'd grab you by the cheek
and turn you around and everything

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else. Well, the reason I mentioned her
daughter, they, her and her husband

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moved to Arizona and we had dinner
with them and Mary Anne called me. She

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says, Frank, my aunt Ruby is coming to
town. We'd like to have you come

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over dinner. This is the Gospel truth.
I go and see her. She's got to be

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about 5 ft three or so. I thought to
myself, I was scared of that, you

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know. But no, they, they were really
caring people. The teachers were and

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, and I, I'll say this also. They were
really

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concerned about education. I'm talking
about whether it was reading

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spelling, etcetera and they did a
commendable job. I attribute the bulk of

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the success that I had educationally,
etcetera and the disciplines from my

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mom and dad and those elementary
school teachers. They were great. I

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didn't like them but they were great.

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You went to high school? Did you?

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Well, no, I was, you keep your mouth
shut and you learn that in a hurry.

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Then from the elementary school where
we were at mine, 35 there's mines,

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35 36 37. In all those communities I
talked about and then I went to the

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junior high and I set a record for
playing hooky Donner because they

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couldn't keep track of it. We didn't
have phones or there wasn't a truant

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officer. And then we just told my mom
we're going to school and we'd play

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hooky and I think I set a new record
with about three of us from 935

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playing hooky. Then I start playing
football in eighth grade. And the high

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school football coach said to me, he
said, if you do not go to class and

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you don't report down to junior high
because we were there in the morning

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and at the high school in the
afternoon, you're not going to be able to

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come out for football. So I quit
cutting classes and I tell you what the

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funny part about it when you go
cutting classes. So, like in the fall,

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we'd go look up in different farmers
field where we could, you know, get

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corn or get apples, etcetera and
everything else because all of the kids

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were, as I said, from the same type of
background, but as I said, there

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was no truant officer, etcetera and
everything else. And so I straightened

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up my act again because I enjoyed
playing football. So you started playing

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football. It's great. Right.

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You don't seem like a large man today.
Well, you know, the intriguing

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thing about it, it has changed
dramatically, even when I coached at

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Arizona State, we didn't have Big Ice
and today it's, you know, I want to

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get real technical but it's all it is
is upper body movement. When we were

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kids, you had be a great technician
and the high school coaches were great

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as far as teaching techniques, whether
it's blocking tackling, etc, and

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everything else. And that's why
somebody that was a little smaller like

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myself had the opportunity and I was
very fortunate to have three good

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years in high school and I enjoyed the
high school career and then I had

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the opportunity to go to college. Was
that unusual in your family? Not

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only my family, I think I was one of
the few in that whole community. The

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town of Wimber used to be about, I'd
say 15,000. Now it's about three or

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four because all of the industry, the
coal mines are steel mills in that

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general area and the railroad is no
longer there. I mean, they're there

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but they're not functioning and they
don't have any business. Uh Yes, we,

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I was one of the first to go down to
college, there were a couple of

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others but basically from up in that
coal mining area where I was, I was,

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as they said, the lone soldier. What
made you decide to go to college?

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Well, that's a very good question. I
admired one of our teachers who lived

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up the street and anybody where we
lived. I mean, they're all, when I say

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ethnic people and very few of them
ever went to college. I mean, you

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worked in the coal mines, etcetera and
everything else. Mister Shuster was

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his name. I'll never forget him. And I
thought, well, you know, he looks

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like he's dressed and everything else
goes to school with a suit and tie

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and I think he would be a role model
in a way. And so then I had the

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opportunity and I was a relative, I
wasn't a five beta Kappa, but I was a

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respectable high school student and
I've taken the proper courses of

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chemistry and the physics, et cetera
and everything else. And so I got the

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opportunity to go to school. And I, I
tell you, I, I'm, I visited a number

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of schools and I, I wasn't real big
and not really overconfident, although

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I was, uh, I don't mean to be
egotistical but an exceptionally good high

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school football. They made all state
in Pennsylvania. They only picked 11

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at that time. So there were schools
after and they looked at me, he's too

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small you know. But anyway, I went to
Washington and Lee for one semester

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, uh down in Lexington, Virginia,
which is a private institution, all male.

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And I was out of my element
monetarily. And after the one semester I

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transferred to Michigan State and I
was very fortunate to be with a very

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successful program there. So, you went
to college. The first one

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I never got there. We have any other
way to go. Believe me. In fact, the

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interesting thing about it, the coach
was Pappy Lewis. I'll never get that.

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He came and rounded us up. He had six
of us. Now, Lexington, Virginia is

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kind of southeast of where we live and
he came and rounded us up right in

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August. He picked me up where I was at
the Wimber area and went up to

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Sharon, northwestern Pennsylvania,
then over to eastern Pennsylvania and

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you picked up, there are six of us in
the car and he took us down all

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freshmen in Washington. We had a
pretty good football team also. I might

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add, we didn't lose any games. He only
played four, but we didn't lose any

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because he did a great job of
recruiting. And that is the success to any

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college program is the recruiting
aspect of it. They came up to

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Pennsylvania and they had a lot of
youngsters from Pennsylvania. What was

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it that you didn't like about it?
Well, you know, when you're, I'll give

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you a super example, the first class I
went to, I didn't realize you had

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to wear a tie and a coat. I didn't
have a tie and a coat. So I was out of

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my element financially. In fact, I'll
never forget I went to this

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assistant football coach and helped
recruit me, John Jaffre. And I said,

00:13:36.408 --> 00:13:39.816
coach, I've got a problem. The
instructor said to me, you know, in the

00:13:39.849 --> 00:13:45.125
first class I was in the first couple
of days. He, he, he was very polite

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and he says, he says, Mr Kush and he
called you by Mr Kush. He said, I

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don't know if you realize it, but
you've got to wear a tie and a coat to

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class. And I told him, I said, you
know, I'm sorry, I don't have a tie but

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I said, I'll get one, you know. So I
went to see John Jaffre and that's

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the gospel truth. I told him, I said,
Coach, I've got a problem. I says I

00:14:04.519 --> 00:14:09.316
need a coat and I need a tie and he
we, he said, come back and see me

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about an hour. He got me one of his
coats and he gave me a tie and then I

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, and he gave me two white shirts.
Also, I wore those for the whole

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semester, the same child and the same
coat. So nobody knew the difference.

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You know, we weren't trying to impress
anybody. It was, it wasn't

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co-educational. So we're not trying to
impress good looking ladies, like

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you say, and all of the instructors
were male. So, but you just decided

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you weren't comfortable there. Well,
the reason I wasn't comfortable was

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that it wasn't academics. Although
believe me, I was shocked because in

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high school we had a limited number of
tests, but that was my first

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indoctrination in the college, the
academics. I mean, we had tests every

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time we turn around and you had to
take Spanish, you had to take math and

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algebra and science courses, etc, and
everything else. And I hadn't had

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Spanish before. So I had to really one
thing I learned, I learned about

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myself from the standpoint of
studying. And I think that probably carried

00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:16.336
me through many years. I used to read
and then take notes on what I would

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read and then study the notes that I
made. And it helped me and I had a

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friend that was pretty good at Spanish
and he helped me and, and as I said

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, I wasn't a five Beta Ka but I got
through and, but, and the reason I

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left, I was out of my element from the
standpoint of clothes from

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monetarily, etcetera and everything
else. What made you decide to go to

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Michigan? Well, I had an opportunity
previously, they recruited me to go

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to Michigan State Duffy Doherty who
was, uh he was from Western

00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:52.287
Pennsylvania and he was assistant
coach at Michigan State and he came down

00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:56.047
and recruited me and, uh, and I played
in an All Star game and they had a

00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:58.967
pretty good game and they really
wanted me to go to Michigan State. But I

00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:03.167
, I thought I was out of my element
and I was kind of small. I wasn't a

00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:08.037
real big guy. And so, uh, that's all
in and the coach from Washington Lee

00:16:08.070 --> 00:16:11.417
P he just came and rounded us up and
threw us in the car and took us down

00:16:11.450 --> 00:16:16.157
to Washington Lee. So I was there for
one semester at the Washington Lee.

00:16:16.190 --> 00:16:19.297
Then I transferred to Michigan State.
You mentioned a couple of times.

00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:25.907
You were that big. How big were you?
About 175 £180. And I think I was

00:16:25.940 --> 00:16:31.467
about two inches taller than I am.
Now, I got a duck down

00:16:31.500 --> 00:16:36.657
about 5, 10,

00:16:36.690 --> 00:16:44.690
sophomore year in my sophomore, junior
and senior. Right. And excuse me,

00:16:45.399 --> 00:16:51.005
Michigan, it was, it was a lot larger
campus. It was certainly was a

00:16:51.038 --> 00:16:54.316
little bigger than Washington Lee and
it was about the size of Arizona

00:16:54.349 --> 00:16:59.037
State when there was about 10,000
students and it was a typical midwestern

00:16:59.070 --> 00:17:02.895
college atmosphere and I really
enjoyed it. One of my high school

00:17:02.928 --> 00:17:08.516
teammates, John Yaka, who's now a
doctor is, was there a year ahead of me

00:17:08.549 --> 00:17:13.226
? So I, I was somewhat indoctrinated
in the semester of Washington League

00:17:13.259 --> 00:17:15.867
and I was accustomed to being away
from home. Didn't make any difference.

00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:20.706
The best thing happened to me getting
away from home, I had my own bed.

00:17:20.739 --> 00:17:25.295
But the amazing thing about it after
leaving Washington, going to Michigan

00:17:25.328 --> 00:17:29.585
State, I red shirted one year which
you sit out and then I played first

00:17:29.618 --> 00:17:33.847
string for three years for him and we
only lost one game in three years

00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:38.006
and we were national champs. Our
senior year when you were going to

00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:43.226
college was the main focus. No
academics, believe me, it's changed

00:17:43.259 --> 00:17:47.956
dramatically. In my opinion, our
priorities and I acquired this number one

00:17:47.989 --> 00:17:52.335
social responsibility, you better not
get in any trouble. I'm talking

00:17:52.368 --> 00:17:56.367
about abusive behavior, whatever it
may be, the second priority was

00:17:56.400 --> 00:18:01.545
academics. We had the college uh basic
system, you had to pass

00:18:01.578 --> 00:18:06.607
comprehensive exams to get into the
upper division classes or even say

00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:12.467
going into your junior and senior year
II, I was really kind of scared

00:18:12.500 --> 00:18:16.717
about the comprehensive exam. In other
words, you'd have say like you take

00:18:16.750 --> 00:18:20.976
English one quarter, second quarter
and the third quarter, then you'd have

00:18:21.009 --> 00:18:25.397
an exam and if you flunked it, they'd
give you another quarter to try to

00:18:25.430 --> 00:18:31.055
recover. And if you got whatever grade
you got. And I was fortunate I got

00:18:31.088 --> 00:18:36.016
CS or betters in all eight of those
comps. And I developed the interest in

00:18:36.049 --> 00:18:41.097
science and I attribute that to a high
school teacher. We had Mister Coots

00:18:41.130 --> 00:18:45.897
who was our biology and one of our
science teachers. And he was such a

00:18:45.930 --> 00:18:50.107
fantastic teacher. He created that
interest where you acquired as a high

00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:57.246
school student interest in just basic
factors about biology. So I

00:18:57.279 --> 00:19:02.897
developed an inclination for it. And
so I got a degree in biology and also

00:19:02.930 --> 00:19:08.285
in education, but I attribute that to
that high school coach. And as I

00:19:08.318 --> 00:19:13.815
said, the comprehensive system was
kind of scary, but, you know, you were

00:19:13.848 --> 00:19:19.156
prepared each quarter and I got
through without any trouble with them.

00:19:19.189 --> 00:19:21.847
What were your thoughts about what you
were going to do when you got out?

00:19:21.880 --> 00:19:28.186
I had no idea whatsoever. And I, after
I graduated from Michigan State, I

00:19:28.219 --> 00:19:32.176
went into the military for two years.

00:19:32.209 --> 00:19:38.176
Fort Benning, Georgia Infantry School.
I was in ROTC. So I ended up being

00:19:38.209 --> 00:19:42.295
a first lieutenant in the infantry. I
was going to stay in the military

00:19:42.328 --> 00:19:47.565
because I had a distinguished military
graduation from college. But I ran

00:19:47.598 --> 00:19:53.967
into a major who didn't like junior
officers and he discouraged me, didn't

00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:58.627
discourage me purposely, but it was
obvious that you could get one

00:19:58.660 --> 00:20:03.545
individual that was what I would say,
obsessed with himself, etcetera and

00:20:03.578 --> 00:20:08.217
everything else. And one thing I
learned in the military, he was a major.

00:20:08.250 --> 00:20:12.266
But even though I was the first, ended
up being the first lieutenant, you

00:20:12.299 --> 00:20:15.815
keep your mouth shut and say yes, sir.
No, sir. But the intriguing thing

00:20:15.848 --> 00:20:20.085
about him, he was one of those
individuals because of his behavior. He

00:20:20.118 --> 00:20:24.877
really in my opinion, was detrimental.
He'd been passed over from, uh,

00:20:24.910 --> 00:20:29.406
going on to be a colonel and I think
he kind of took it out on the younger

00:20:29.439 --> 00:20:32.526
officers and I happened to be one of
them and I, I could write a book on,

00:20:32.559 --> 00:20:38.295
on Major Rose was his name. I'll never
forget him. But, uh, so, uh, I, um

00:20:38.328 --> 00:20:43.535
, Duffy Doughty call me, Duffy Doherty
called me. He was the head coach,

00:20:43.568 --> 00:20:48.585
not Michigan State. Dandy Vine just
had taken a job at Arizona State and

00:20:48.618 --> 00:20:51.706
Duffy because he recruited me, I had a
great relationship and he said,

00:20:51.739 --> 00:20:54.555
what are you going to do when you get
out of the service? And I said, gee

00:20:54.588 --> 00:20:57.825
, I really don't know yet. I said I
was thinking of staying in the

00:20:57.858 --> 00:21:02.666
military because I had a, uh, the
interesting thing about it. They found

00:21:02.699 --> 00:21:05.607
out I was a football player when I was
in the service and the post

00:21:05.640 --> 00:21:11.476
commander, uh General Fritchie was
kind of an athletic guy. He liked

00:21:11.509 --> 00:21:16.857
athletics and I'll never forget, uh,
Colonel Kronk or Bird K when I say

00:21:16.890 --> 00:21:22.295
Bird Kel, I like God in the infantry.
And, uh, he says, uh, General

00:21:22.328 --> 00:21:25.196
Fritchie wants to talk to you and I'm
a second Lieutenant Fritchie wants

00:21:25.229 --> 00:21:27.936
to talk to me

00:21:27.969 --> 00:21:32.416
when I found out and, and, and I had
that visit with him. And, uh, and he

00:21:32.449 --> 00:21:36.506
said to me, what are you going to do?
He said I see you have Ad MS. And I

00:21:36.539 --> 00:21:40.236
said, yes, sir. He said you're gonna
stay in. I said, yes, I believe I am.

00:21:40.269 --> 00:21:43.097
He said, well, we'd like to have a
coach and play football for us at the

00:21:43.130 --> 00:21:47.726
school brigade. You know, you're not
going to say, maybe let me think

00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:52.506
about you. Yes, sir. You know. And so
that's how I got assigned. And

00:21:52.539 --> 00:21:56.785
believe me, that probably saved my
life because we had a class of all

00:21:56.818 --> 00:22:01.347
infantry, all second lieutenants. And
out of our class, I think the

00:22:01.380 --> 00:22:06.585
previous class went to Korea and I
think they had about eight or 12 2nd

00:22:06.618 --> 00:22:09.736
lieutenants killed there. And out of
our class, we had two or three that

00:22:09.769 --> 00:22:13.335
went there. Fortunately, I was
supposed to play in the All Star game in

00:22:13.368 --> 00:22:16.196
Chicago and they found out I was a
football player and that's how I got

00:22:16.229 --> 00:22:19.236
assigned to Fort Benning. So I was at
Fort Benning for two years. I really

00:22:19.269 --> 00:22:24.256
enjoyed it. The training I got in the
military was fantastic. You know, we

00:22:24.289 --> 00:22:28.545
were all infantry officers and we had
great instructions.

00:22:28.578 --> 00:22:34.097
The ca dry were just remarkable and I
was really impressed with it. So I

00:22:34.130 --> 00:22:38.926
was fortunate, I graduated relatively
high in a class because of my

00:22:38.959 --> 00:22:42.996
military experience and everything
else. And then as I said, when Duffy

00:22:43.029 --> 00:22:47.156
Doherty called me, he said, call Dandy
Vine up, he's going to be the new

00:22:47.189 --> 00:22:51.956
head coach at Arizona State College at
that time. And that's how I

00:22:51.989 --> 00:22:55.926
wandered out to the west. Do you want
me to get into that? Let's go back

00:22:55.959 --> 00:23:00.085
and get the years that you were in the
military. I was in Michigan State

00:23:00.118 --> 00:23:06.986
from 1940 to 52. I was at Michigan
State. 5051 to 52 playing football. I

00:23:07.019 --> 00:23:12.976
was a freshman there in 49. I went
into the military in 53 and, uh, I got

00:23:13.009 --> 00:23:15.756
married in 55

00:23:15.789 --> 00:23:20.335
and our first child, Danny would kick
for us at Arizona State. I knew his

00:23:20.368 --> 00:23:23.696
mother pretty well. That's why he
played.

00:23:23.729 --> 00:23:27.467
You want to talk about meeting your
wife? Well, you know, she was, her dad

00:23:27.500 --> 00:23:32.416
was on a faculty at Michigan State and
I met her, he was in the head of

00:23:32.449 --> 00:23:36.607
the engineering school at Michigan
State and I met her and dated her and,

00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:41.397
uh, you know, nothing dramatic. She
didn't think it was dramatic either.

00:23:41.430 --> 00:23:44.565
She was looking for some guy.

00:23:44.598 --> 00:23:49.166
Well, she found one. Yeah. No, they,
those girls managed to find him. I

00:23:49.199 --> 00:23:51.986
found that out.

00:23:52.019 --> 00:23:55.506
And so you were in the military during
the time of the Korean War? Exactly.

00:23:55.539 --> 00:24:03.539
Right. No. Fortunately, and I,
although I was being that student that I

00:24:03.809 --> 00:24:09.502
was, you had your priorities and you,
I signed to go to Korea because if

00:24:09.535 --> 00:24:13.190
you're going to stay in the military,
you got to be in combat if you're

00:24:13.223 --> 00:24:16.722
going to go up and rank etc, and
everything else. And as I said, I think

00:24:16.755 --> 00:24:21.842
because of football and that Colonel c
having me meet General Fritch

00:24:21.875 --> 00:24:25.992
assigning me there. I didn't go to
Korea. I was stationed there at Fort

00:24:26.025 --> 00:24:30.377
Benning for the two years, which
probably could have saved my life. So why

00:24:30.410 --> 00:24:34.666
did you decide not to stay in the
military because of that Major Rose?

00:24:34.699 --> 00:24:42.065
Major rose II, I wanna be diplomatic
and to the camera

00:24:42.098 --> 00:24:45.607
Major Rose was one of those people
that really made it aggravating. I'll

00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:49.746
give you a super example. Like I was
post duty officer, one of the times

00:24:49.779 --> 00:24:53.555
when I was a first lieutenant and I
just walked in and I was taken over

00:24:53.588 --> 00:24:57.897
for him because he was the previous
duty officer the day before. So I'm

00:24:57.930 --> 00:25:02.647
taking and I walk in and I don't know
why I did it when you're under arms

00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:05.456
in the military and you have your hat
on, you keep your hat on. Well, I, I

00:25:05.489 --> 00:25:10.526
took it off for some reason. And boy,
did he climb all over me? Gosh,

00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:14.726
almighty. I mean, when I say climbed
all over me and all I did, I put the

00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:18.467
hat back on, stood there and kept my
mouth shut. And then another incident

00:25:18.500 --> 00:25:23.055
was that uh I uh the latter part of my
career there, I was a school

00:25:23.088 --> 00:25:28.035
brigade, athletic and recreation
officer and we had a golf outing that I

00:25:28.068 --> 00:25:35.026
used to put on. It was all for
officers, major roles demanded. I had the

00:25:35.059 --> 00:25:39.085
Kelloway select holes where you going
to get the special score on. He

00:25:39.118 --> 00:25:43.325
wanted to know the holes prior to
that. So he ended up winning it because

00:25:43.358 --> 00:25:48.746
of his attitude, etcetera and
everything else. But anyway, there he was

00:25:48.779 --> 00:25:51.627
probably an exception more so in the,
because I've met a lot of great

00:25:51.660 --> 00:25:54.357
people in the military.

00:25:54.390 --> 00:25:57.676
So you were looking to leave the
military when you heard about Dan Devine.

00:25:57.709 --> 00:26:02.426
Yeah. And he called me up, Duffy doty
called me up and I uh he's called

00:26:02.459 --> 00:26:06.877
Danny Vine. I called Danny Vine and
Dan just, he was an assistant in

00:26:06.910 --> 00:26:11.266
Michigan State. He came here and uh
accepted the job at Arizona State

00:26:11.299 --> 00:26:17.045
College at that time. And uh my son,
Dan was only about maybe two months

00:26:17.078 --> 00:26:21.825
old. So my wife and Danny went back to
East Lansing where her parents

00:26:21.858 --> 00:26:27.156
lived and stayed there till I got
organized and I drove and I drove and I

00:26:27.189 --> 00:26:35.189
drove it. I'll never get coming
through the, the Salt River Canyon. That's

00:26:36.539 --> 00:26:38.686
the first time I've ever seen anything
like that. I, I really thought it

00:26:38.719 --> 00:26:42.597
was a grand canyon. Say I had no
concept of Salt River Canyon. Then the

00:26:42.630 --> 00:26:48.897
real kicker was when I came in through
my, I came into Globe Arizona,

00:26:48.930 --> 00:26:53.456
Miami, Arizona. And I thought it was,
you know, they're, they're mining

00:26:53.489 --> 00:26:58.065
towns and I thought to myself, God
Almighty, I went to college. I said, am

00:26:58.098 --> 00:27:01.756
I getting into this mining business
again? You know, then I drove through

00:27:01.789 --> 00:27:06.127
Superior and that was it. I, when I
saw Superior, I thought to myself,

00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:11.246
what the heck have I got myself into.
But anyway, and the funny part about

00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:18.295
it, I came into Tempe on a Sunday.
There wasn't anybody around college

00:27:18.328 --> 00:27:22.446
students, they're still sleeping,
they're not studying, they're sleeping.

00:27:22.479 --> 00:27:27.147
And I drove, I drove right through
Tempe and I ended up about 24th street.

00:27:27.180 --> 00:27:30.986
There wasn't much between Tempe and
24th street. And there was a police

00:27:31.019 --> 00:27:34.266
officer sitting there. And I said, by
the way, I says, I'm looking for

00:27:34.299 --> 00:27:37.847
Arizona State College. He said, where
did you come from? I said, well, I

00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:41.535
was route 60. He said, well, you're on
the right road. He said, just go

00:27:41.568 --> 00:27:46.426
back and when you go around the turn
which were damaged, auditorium is now

00:27:46.459 --> 00:27:53.325
, he said, you'll see a dormitory
there and that's the campus. Now the

00:27:53.358 --> 00:28:00.867
Gospel Act. And, and then he said,
also when you go by there, you'll see

00:28:00.900 --> 00:28:05.256
the football stadium.

00:28:05.289 --> 00:28:09.506
I drove back there. I went and I came
down in the May. I was just partly

00:28:09.539 --> 00:28:13.256
in the mesa for that farm. There used
to be a farm down there. I'm trying

00:28:13.289 --> 00:28:16.926
to think it belonged to a su etcetera
and everything else. And I stopped

00:28:16.959 --> 00:28:19.936
and asked them, I said, by the way,
I'm looking for Arizona State College.

00:28:19.969 --> 00:28:23.285
He said, where you come from? He said,
you went right by it. He said,

00:28:23.318 --> 00:28:27.867
when you go in town, he said, don't go
into town. If you go to town,

00:28:27.900 --> 00:28:31.446
you're going too far. He said there's
going to be, he talked about

00:28:31.479 --> 00:28:36.295
Scottsdale Road. He said that he, the
signal light you're going to hit.

00:28:36.328 --> 00:28:40.295
And then the next, there was no signal
light on college at that time, it

00:28:40.328 --> 00:28:44.756
was just, you go through it. So I came
back and he said there's a

00:28:44.789 --> 00:28:48.726
dormitory there on the right side and
right next to it is the football

00:28:48.759 --> 00:28:54.016
field. I drove and that was Hayden
Hall. I, I looked, well, that's a

00:28:54.049 --> 00:28:59.436
dormitory. So I, I turned right and
I'm looking for the football field. I

00:28:59.469 --> 00:29:03.016
get down through the campus. That's
when college went through the campus.

00:29:03.049 --> 00:29:07.936
And it was on a Sunday I mentioned
previously and they were having mass

00:29:07.969 --> 00:29:15.969
at the new, not new center. What's the
church

00:29:16.739 --> 00:29:20.217
come to me momentarily. Anyway,

00:29:20.250 --> 00:29:23.996
just the church there. And I saw the
people coming out and I said, I

00:29:24.029 --> 00:29:27.835
stopped and I could see now I'm going
through the campus and I asked the

00:29:27.868 --> 00:29:30.476
person, I said, where's the, where's
the football field? He said, go back

00:29:30.509 --> 00:29:36.016
and he said it just, it'll be on your
left hand side now, playing at

00:29:36.049 --> 00:29:39.456
Michigan State, playing at Michigan,
playing at Notre Dame. You know, the

00:29:39.489 --> 00:29:44.656
stadium is a little different to say
the least in Goodwin Stadium. So I

00:29:44.689 --> 00:29:50.156
got in, I saw this in, in the back
portion which would be the, the west

00:29:50.189 --> 00:29:54.545
portion of the Goodwin Stadium at that
time was a dormitory and so was the

00:29:54.578 --> 00:29:59.295
east side. And, uh, I stopped and
parked there and I went and walked, I

00:29:59.328 --> 00:30:01.887
went and looked at the stadium. I
couldn't believe it. Our high school

00:30:01.920 --> 00:30:05.387
field was bigger than that thing. And
that's when I said to myself, what

00:30:05.420 --> 00:30:09.127
the heck have I got myself into? And
that was Goodwin Stadium. And so that

00:30:09.160 --> 00:30:13.496
was my first experience in the Student
Union wasn't there. They were just

00:30:13.529 --> 00:30:18.575
building a building and uh all of the
old, old buildings were there. But

00:30:18.608 --> 00:30:21.916
uh in 1955

00:30:21.949 --> 00:30:27.377
was, it was in February, February the
sixth. You didn't come in in the

00:30:27.410 --> 00:30:31.305
middle of the summer. Well, no,
because if I'd have come in in the middle

00:30:31.338 --> 00:30:35.766
of the summer, I'd have probably went
back home because of the heat. But

00:30:35.799 --> 00:30:43.357
no, III I was really impressed. Uh And
as I said, we got organized and I,

00:30:43.390 --> 00:30:49.956
we rented a little house and then my
wife finally came. In fact,

00:30:49.989 --> 00:30:54.236
ironically, Gilbert Katy, who was one
of the vice presidents who I have a

00:30:54.269 --> 00:30:58.117
great deal of admiration for he and
Doctor Gamage and Jimmy Kreisman, who

00:30:58.150 --> 00:31:03.097
Jimmy was head of the Jimmy and I were
in a reserve together Gilbert Katy

00:31:03.130 --> 00:31:08.617
, who was a vice president at the
time. He was a bachelor and I came on

00:31:08.650 --> 00:31:13.016
campus and went over to the office and
in the football office. Clyde Smith

00:31:13.049 --> 00:31:18.815
was the athletic director and Dandy
mine, the coach and Gilbert Katy

00:31:18.848 --> 00:31:23.877
suggested that I live with him. Right
on orange. It wasn't or didn't go

00:31:23.910 --> 00:31:27.545
through at that time. It was right
where that, uh, I think the law

00:31:27.578 --> 00:31:30.555
building is now. He, he had, he called
it the Hula shack. When the wind

00:31:30.588 --> 00:31:35.357
blew, the house would sway back and
forth. So I lived with Gilbert, uh,

00:31:35.390 --> 00:31:39.555
for about, I'd say in that upper
apartment for I, I'd say a good three

00:31:39.588 --> 00:31:43.926
months till my wife finally came out.
And uh the university provided us

00:31:43.959 --> 00:31:49.335
with a uh little dinky home on orange
and we were there, then we moved

00:31:49.368 --> 00:31:54.795
into a, a little apartment down around
a street corner there from the

00:31:54.828 --> 00:32:02.075
campus. But no, my first impression
and then after I got, you know,

00:32:02.108 --> 00:32:05.186
acquired some knowledge about the
institution, I was really impressed with

00:32:05.219 --> 00:32:10.325
it. How much, how much were

00:32:10.358 --> 00:32:14.696
you really want me to tell you? I was
an assistant football coach. I was

00:32:14.729 --> 00:32:20.597
making 4500 bucks. And, uh, and the
amazing thing to me about it was that

00:32:20.630 --> 00:32:24.436
I was making more as a first
lieutenant in the infantry than I was

00:32:24.469 --> 00:32:28.956
coaching here at Arizona State. So,
and they didn't provide cars or

00:32:28.989 --> 00:32:33.676
anything else like it like they do
now. So. Well, you know, it was a shock

00:32:33.709 --> 00:32:37.006
and I was a young kid so it didn't
make a great deal of difference. You,

00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:45.039
you, I've learned to accept your
responsibilities and I really enjoyed it.

00:32:46.150 --> 00:32:48.887
Well, tell us a little about how your
career progressed then. Uh, what

00:32:48.920 --> 00:32:52.986
was that first year? Well, you know, I
was the thing that impressed me

00:32:53.019 --> 00:32:59.045
about the football program here. I'm
talking about 55 56 57. They had some

00:32:59.078 --> 00:33:01.976
great athletes here, Dave Grable. I
can talk about one of the greatest

00:33:02.009 --> 00:33:05.575
athletes ever seen. He died here a
couple of years ago, Gene Mitcham who

00:33:05.608 --> 00:33:09.926
is still alive. He is in pretty bad
shape with cancer. We had a national

00:33:09.959 --> 00:33:14.986
championship team at Michigan State.
We only lost one game in three years.

00:33:15.019 --> 00:33:18.666
But those two guys and John Jenkins
was another one. They were here, they

00:33:18.699 --> 00:33:22.746
were juniors and one was a senior.
They could have played at Michigan

00:33:22.779 --> 00:33:26.877
State. They were that good. I was
really impressed with the football

00:33:26.910 --> 00:33:31.825
talent here, Bobby Mogao and a number
of the athletes were just remarkable

00:33:31.858 --> 00:33:36.506
and we had a great deal of success.
We, you know, we were in a border

00:33:36.539 --> 00:33:40.276
conference at that time and that was
Harden Simmons, West Texas, Texas

00:33:40.309 --> 00:33:45.065
Western then the only northern schools
and New Mexico was in it. And I

00:33:45.098 --> 00:33:50.637
think the only northern school was in
it was BYU, but I was impressed with

00:33:50.670 --> 00:33:57.035
the talent and we only lost one game,
one or two games, ironically lost

00:33:57.068 --> 00:34:03.377
guess who the U of A 7 to 6. And I
used to get so irritated at them and

00:34:03.410 --> 00:34:08.916
I'll get into that shortly. But as I
said, I was impressed with the talent

00:34:08.949 --> 00:34:13.796
, then Dandy Vine, he got the head
coaching job at the University of

00:34:13.829 --> 00:34:19.376
Missouri. And uh Jimmy Creman and
Doctor Gamage called me over and I was

00:34:19.409 --> 00:34:24.316
just a young kid. I think I was 28
years old or 29 and asked me, you know

00:34:24.349 --> 00:34:27.017
, if I would be interested in being a
head coach. I said, well, I've

00:34:27.050 --> 00:34:32.327
committed myself to coach Divine and I
said, uh, let me go talk to him and

00:34:32.360 --> 00:34:36.236
I'll see, you know how he feels about
it. Well, I went to his house and he

00:34:36.269 --> 00:34:42.026
lived right across the street from me
and his, his wife, Mary Jo,

00:34:42.059 --> 00:34:45.575
I went and talked to him. I said, Dan,
I said, Doctor Gamage and Jimmy

00:34:45.608 --> 00:34:51.735
Creman wanted me to talk to you about
releasing me to be the head coach,

00:34:51.768 --> 00:34:54.756
but he got irritated. He said, oh,
you're too young, et cetera. And of

00:34:54.789 --> 00:34:58.896
course he wanted me to go to Missouri,
which is understandable and being a

00:34:58.929 --> 00:35:03.865
stubborn pack that I am. I and I, and,
and, and although his wife

00:35:03.898 --> 00:35:09.425
intervened and she says, Dan, she used
to call me Poncho. She said, how

00:35:09.458 --> 00:35:12.445
could you do that? She said, you got
the job at Michigan State when you're

00:35:12.478 --> 00:35:17.026
just as young as Poncho was. And so
he, he rented and he said, well, go

00:35:17.059 --> 00:35:20.717
ahead and talk to him if you want to.
So that's how I got the job. And,

00:35:20.750 --> 00:35:26.675
and as I said, I'll never get that,
Jimmy Kreisman was remarkable. He did

00:35:26.708 --> 00:35:32.816
a lot for me in many ways because we
were in reserves together. And

00:35:32.849 --> 00:35:37.296
so I became the head coach in 1958

00:35:37.329 --> 00:35:40.796
and we had a lot of success prior to
that in the first year. And of course

00:35:40.829 --> 00:35:44.166
, I've taken over for Dan

00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:49.626
and we had a lot of experienced
players, etc. So they were expecting us to

00:35:49.659 --> 00:35:55.017
be extremely successful and I was a
young kid and we lost a couple of ball

00:35:55.050 --> 00:36:00.307
games and I became the Frank Kush that
I'm supposed to be nasty. Rascal.

00:36:00.340 --> 00:36:04.166
Then we didn't lose a game after that.

00:36:04.199 --> 00:36:07.905
But we, I'll never forget the funny
part about it. We're playing uh

00:36:07.938 --> 00:36:12.827
Detroit University. We had a great kid
by the name of Leon Burton as good

00:36:12.860 --> 00:36:17.756
of a football player as I've ever
seen. And uh yeah, he was, and he had

00:36:17.789 --> 00:36:21.405
been recruited by Dan and he had an
attitude problem. It's not bad, but,

00:36:21.438 --> 00:36:26.195
you know, enough to irritate me, which
is could be very easily. And so we

00:36:26.228 --> 00:36:31.405
go up to Detroit and I benched him. I
didn't play him and uh we won the

00:36:31.438 --> 00:36:37.126
ball game and he shaped his act up. We
didn't lose a game after that. We

00:36:37.159 --> 00:36:41.046
only lost two games a year. So we were
fortunate. The thing that impressed

00:36:41.079 --> 00:36:46.115
me about our program is we had a lot
of good athletes. And to me, college

00:36:46.148 --> 00:36:49.155
football is about recruiting, you have
to recruit, then you got to be

00:36:49.188 --> 00:36:53.155
teachers. And I thought we had coaches
that were exceptionally good

00:36:53.188 --> 00:36:58.126
teachers. So the youngsters are going
to progress and improve and we had a

00:36:58.159 --> 00:37:01.126
great deal of success

00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:05.095
through our career. But what bothered
me also is we did not get any

00:37:05.128 --> 00:37:08.767
recognition. This is in the 50 because
we had some great athletes like

00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:11.767
Gene Mitch and those guys, they went
and played pro ball, but they didn't

00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:17.517
get any recognition. And I think it
was attributed to the,

00:37:17.550 --> 00:37:24.236
we were sandwiched between the PAC 10
at that time, still pack 10, the

00:37:24.269 --> 00:37:28.626
Rocky Mountain schools, Colorado, etc
and everything else. And down in

00:37:28.659 --> 00:37:31.557
this area, down here, we didn't get a
great deal of recognition. Then we

00:37:31.590 --> 00:37:36.095
played night games. Well, we didn't
get any recognition back east because

00:37:36.128 --> 00:37:39.396
we're probably still playing in the
Sunday. Paper probably was out on the

00:37:39.429 --> 00:37:45.767
street back there. So very little
recognition. But as I said, we had a lot

00:37:45.800 --> 00:37:51.425
of great athletes and we made progress
and it started getting me irritated

00:37:51.458 --> 00:37:54.986
because we had some great football
players in the sixties like Joe Zuger

00:37:55.019 --> 00:38:01.267
who went to Canada, we had a lot of
kids winning the pro ball, Canada and

00:38:01.300 --> 00:38:06.086
also Charlie Taylor, give you an
example. Charlie Taylor was a, didn't

00:38:06.119 --> 00:38:11.046
receive any recognition. He, he was
the number one draft choice of the

00:38:11.079 --> 00:38:14.166
Washington Redskins. That's how great.
He was Tony Lark in the same

00:38:14.199 --> 00:38:18.356
backfield was the number one draft
choice for the Baltimore Colts at that

00:38:18.389 --> 00:38:23.327
time. So I felt sorry for a lot of the
great athletes because of my

00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:27.077
previous experience in Michigan State,
seeing the type of athletes we had

00:38:27.110 --> 00:38:30.856
there when we were national champs,
etc, we had the same kind of not as

00:38:30.889 --> 00:38:35.425
many possibly, but we had the same
type of athletes at Arizona State. And

00:38:35.458 --> 00:38:39.686
, and it was a gradual process. We
were in a border conference, those

00:38:39.719 --> 00:38:45.126
institutions that I mentioned
previously. Then in the mid 60 s, we went

00:38:45.159 --> 00:38:48.655
into the W conference which were
basically northern schools in a

00:38:48.688 --> 00:38:52.546
combination of the Southern schools
that I mentioned previously and Utah

00:38:52.579 --> 00:39:00.506
came in Wyoming came in Colorado State
and Brigham Young,

00:39:00.539 --> 00:39:04.307
but the players were picked up for the
Pros. Yeah, but I'm talking about

00:39:04.340 --> 00:39:08.086
recognition for college, all
Americans, etcetera and everything else like

00:39:08.119 --> 00:39:12.175
Gene Mitchum to me was as good of a
football player has ever seen Dave

00:39:12.208 --> 00:39:16.236
Grable, Bobby Mogao. They all went and
played pro ball but they did not

00:39:16.269 --> 00:39:20.436
get any college recognition. And
again, because of the media, et cetera

00:39:20.469 --> 00:39:25.956
and everything else and the contrast,
the, the time when did you move out

00:39:25.989 --> 00:39:31.736
of Goodwin stadium, we moved out of
Goodwin Stadium in 1958. We played our

00:39:31.769 --> 00:39:37.037
first game against University City of
Hawaii there in 1958 and then we

00:39:37.070 --> 00:39:42.175
moved up to Sun Devil stadium which
held 30,000 people at that time. All

00:39:42.208 --> 00:39:48.807
we had was the two sidelines. And I
think it was a great factor. In

00:39:48.840 --> 00:39:52.756
addition to that, I might add the
greatest accomplishment I thought was

00:39:52.789 --> 00:39:59.195
made was us becoming a university in
1958. Also. In fact, I remember those

00:39:59.228 --> 00:40:05.666
rascals from down south, you know, it
was proposition 200 to change the

00:40:05.699 --> 00:40:10.517
name from Arizona State College to
Arizona State University. They were

00:40:10.550 --> 00:40:15.217
adamantly opposed to it. In fact, Dr
Gage, who was our president, Jimmy

00:40:15.250 --> 00:40:20.195
Kreisman, Gilbert Katy and the various
deans we only had, I think three

00:40:20.228 --> 00:40:25.936
deans Overman. I got a mental block on
it. Uh The Lee Thomas, the

00:40:25.969 --> 00:40:33.969
engineering dean and then uh uh who
was the uh uh education dean

00:40:35.418 --> 00:40:39.356
Glenn Overman was the business school.

00:40:39.389 --> 00:40:45.727
Anyway, we went, I went with them on
about 22 trips all through the state

00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:49.997
getting the people to vote. We spoke
at luncheons, dinners, etc doctor

00:40:50.030 --> 00:40:54.686
gaming must have gone on 30 or 40 with
Jimmy Kreisman getting the people

00:40:54.719 --> 00:41:02.517
to vote. Yes, for proposition 200.
Well, those rascals right behind Dr G

00:41:02.550 --> 00:41:07.166
and his staff was Doctor Harville, the
U A president saying no, there

00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:11.376
should only be one university in the
state of Arizona. And you know, I was

00:41:11.409 --> 00:41:14.635
kind of a young kid. I thought these
are supposed to be educated people

00:41:14.668 --> 00:41:18.905
and they're prohibiting others from
becoming, you know, respectable etc,

00:41:18.938 --> 00:41:22.675
but anyway, it passed. But the
interesting thing about it was during

00:41:22.708 --> 00:41:28.385
football season as elections are in
November, they burnt no 200 big block

00:41:28.418 --> 00:41:32.477
letters right in the center of the
football field. And that just

00:41:32.510 --> 00:41:36.836
infuriated us that much more.

00:41:36.869 --> 00:41:41.267
They did it up here on our stadium. It
was our stadium that they did it in.

00:41:41.300 --> 00:41:46.747
Right. And we were in a new stadium
and, uh, they burnt no 200 right in

00:41:46.780 --> 00:41:50.077
the middle of the stadium.

00:41:50.110 --> 00:41:54.276
They're idiots. That's how they
managed to do it.

00:41:54.309 --> 00:41:57.146
Well, that's what they did. You know,
how college kids are they? You know

00:41:57.179 --> 00:42:00.327
, I, I'm sure, I don't know, I don't
think it was their president because

00:42:00.360 --> 00:42:06.256
I don't know if he was able to do that
kind of manual work. He passed away.

00:42:06.289 --> 00:42:10.566
 So I could say that

00:42:10.599 --> 00:42:16.046
it was a big issue, believe me,
because it went on to the ballot and it

00:42:16.079 --> 00:42:21.546
was voted unanimously to make Arizona
State College now. Arizona State

00:42:21.579 --> 00:42:24.856
University, which I thought was great.

00:42:24.889 --> 00:42:29.365
You were the, I was the head coach
that year. Right. Yeah, it must have

00:42:29.398 --> 00:42:33.557
been a big year. A lot of things. Yes,
it was, it was a big year,

00:42:33.590 --> 00:42:37.236
principally in my opinion to the name
change, which I think was the most

00:42:37.269 --> 00:42:40.836
significant thing. And then we won
some football games, which was helpful

00:42:40.869 --> 00:42:45.175
but not, not a name change, of course.
But I think it was, you know,

00:42:45.208 --> 00:42:49.666
that's what you're paid for. You're
paid to win

00:42:49.699 --> 00:42:57.699
and let's stop here for a second here.
The noisy street.

00:42:58.050 --> 00:43:03.497
Yes, please. If you

00:43:03.530 --> 00:43:08.486
do, you want me to continue with this
in my hands? I don't have it in the

00:43:08.519 --> 00:43:13.816
comfortable either way. It doesn't
make a difference to it. You're talking

00:43:13.849 --> 00:43:18.037
, you know, that your first year as
head coach, the name change? What

00:43:18.070 --> 00:43:23.186
about moving into Sun Devil Stadium?
Well, you know. Yes, it was because,

00:43:23.219 --> 00:43:25.945
you know, we didn't have any locker
rooms up at Sun Devil Stadium. We used

00:43:25.978 --> 00:43:31.345
to take called the Blue Beetle. We
used to take the bus up to the stadium

00:43:31.378 --> 00:43:35.425
before the game and after the game, in
fact, one of the first games we

00:43:35.458 --> 00:43:40.436
played up there, we lost up there and
we're coming down and we changed

00:43:40.469 --> 00:43:43.986
clothes, etcetera and old Goodwin
Stadium and to take the showers, etc

00:43:44.019 --> 00:43:48.077
because already showers at Sun Stadium
in the first three or four years.

00:43:48.110 --> 00:43:52.537
But anyway, we lost to Wichita and
never forget this and I'm irritated to

00:43:52.570 --> 00:43:57.845
say the least we didn't play. Well, it
was my fault. So we came down the

00:43:57.878 --> 00:44:01.747
Blue Beetle down right through the
fans, et cetera and everything else

00:44:01.780 --> 00:44:04.876
coming through the campus and our guys
are laughing and I'm getting

00:44:04.909 --> 00:44:08.945
irritated and so we get down to
Goodwin Stadium and they're changing their

00:44:08.978 --> 00:44:12.546
clothes and we have our prayer. Thank
God, nobody got hurt, et cetera. And

00:44:12.579 --> 00:44:15.767
they're giggling everything I said,
ok, get your doggone pads on. I'm

00:44:15.800 --> 00:44:19.276
gonna go find out who wants to play. I
had to put their pads on. We went

00:44:19.309 --> 00:44:24.467
and ran in scrimmage after the game.
And the, the interesting thing about

00:44:24.500 --> 00:44:27.796
it, the Wichita coach was Bill Purcell
who's not the head coach of the

00:44:27.829 --> 00:44:32.046
Dallas Cowboys. And he brings that up.
He said I've never worked, of

00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:35.945
course, they were unloading. Also in
Goodwin Stadium, we use the same

00:44:35.978 --> 00:44:39.977
lockers. He said they're leaving and
we're out there scrimmaging Saturday

00:44:40.010 --> 00:44:44.756
after the ball game. So that's a
memorable moment for Arizona State

00:44:44.789 --> 00:44:51.646
football players. But, uh, I, I was
really, as I said, uh, eventually just

00:44:51.679 --> 00:44:55.727
like anything else, you know, things
progress and improve, et cetera and

00:44:55.760 --> 00:44:59.686
then Sun Devil Stadium became larger
and they had in different segments.

00:44:59.719 --> 00:45:02.695
 99,000

00:45:02.728 --> 00:45:06.566
and then the 70 something 1000. It is
now hard to believe today with all

00:45:06.599 --> 00:45:09.126
the

00:45:09.159 --> 00:45:13.816
new show. No, at that time, no, they
didn't have showers or locker rooms.

00:45:13.849 --> 00:45:21.066
In fact, we used the locker rooms down
at the old Goodwin Stadium

00:45:21.099 --> 00:45:24.206
and the guy that drove the bus was
Andy, I wish I could think of his name.

00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:29.057
He was in the, uh, and uh, he, he, we,
we used to call it the Blue Beetle

00:45:29.090 --> 00:45:33.385
because he used to take us up to Tonna
Ona also. Well, tell me about that

00:45:33.418 --> 00:45:41.086
was something you did, you know, uh,
this is about 1959 or so. I, uh I

00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:47.046
have three boys I only had two at the
time. The youngest guy wasn't born

00:45:47.079 --> 00:45:50.856
yet. And our, all of our, ironically,
all of our coaches had sons when I

00:45:50.889 --> 00:45:54.256
say all, there's only five coaches,
all had sons. So we used to go up to

00:45:54.289 --> 00:46:00.217
Tanaz Ona. They used to use it as a,
uh, uh, Fred Mortenson's grandfather

00:46:00.250 --> 00:46:05.945
, Mr Mortenson used to have Mormon
missions up there, et cetera and

00:46:05.978 --> 00:46:09.217
everything else. And we went up there
and the guy said, it's a great place

00:46:09.250 --> 00:46:12.307
to fish and take kids. We went up
there, we were fishing on tunnel creek

00:46:12.340 --> 00:46:18.135
which just runs right adjacent to the
field and we were up there in my

00:46:18.168 --> 00:46:22.456
high school football team used to go
to a preseason training camp. It used

00:46:22.489 --> 00:46:25.767
to be the old Pittsburgh Steelers camp
camp Hamilton in Pennsylvania. It's

00:46:25.800 --> 00:46:30.816
about seven miles from my home from
the town and I, and I used to love it

00:46:30.849 --> 00:46:34.206
there, you know, you ate well, et
cetera and everything else. And, and I'm

00:46:34.239 --> 00:46:37.405
thinking when we're up there fishing
and horsing around, this would be a

00:46:37.438 --> 00:46:43.856
great place. Camp Hamilton. And so
what, and the interesting thing about

00:46:43.889 --> 00:46:47.796
it was that, uh, they were building
the road between Payson and Coles

00:46:47.829 --> 00:46:52.316
Ranch Tanner, brother, construction
company. And I went and talked to the

00:46:52.349 --> 00:46:56.345
foreman. I said, by the way, I
introduced myself, I said, we have this

00:46:56.378 --> 00:47:00.057
field down here and I want to know if
you could help us to grade it, et

00:47:00.090 --> 00:47:02.655
cetera. You know, you didn't have any
money, et cetera and everything else.

00:47:02.688 --> 00:47:07.776
So he said, well, let's go take a look
at it. So the old road down from

00:47:07.809 --> 00:47:12.717
Coles Ranch down the field was there's
still some buildings there, cetera

00:47:12.750 --> 00:47:16.615
house. And he said, why don't you meet
me here Saturday morning? And he

00:47:16.648 --> 00:47:19.606
got one of these big carry all
machines to just pick up dirt, etcetera and

00:47:19.639 --> 00:47:22.876
everything else. And we had to hold
the wires up, going down to that fence

00:47:22.909 --> 00:47:27.006
down there. Now, I didn't ask
permission from anybody. So that's a typical

00:47:27.039 --> 00:47:31.956
young kid. They graded it. In fact, uh
I don't know if you've ever been to

00:47:31.989 --> 00:47:35.936
Tanaz Ona. It, well, at that time, the
upper end of the field where you

00:47:35.969 --> 00:47:40.006
first come in was only about 30 yards
wide and the, the other end was

00:47:40.039 --> 00:47:45.896
about 40. They pulled that whole hill
down with that big carrier. Then the

00:47:45.929 --> 00:47:51.456
interesting thing about it is that I
had a friend that, uh had Kentucky

00:47:51.489 --> 00:47:55.736
Bluegrass in New Mexico. He gave us
the free grass. I still haven't asked

00:47:55.769 --> 00:48:00.017
the university permission yet. And so
I did all my homework from the

00:48:00.050 --> 00:48:03.256
standpoint of what the weather was
like and how conducive would be up

00:48:03.289 --> 00:48:07.296
there for the players to be in a cool
atmosphere. So I went and after we

00:48:07.329 --> 00:48:11.675
did all of this gutted graded, leveled
off. In fact, we put barbed wire

00:48:11.708 --> 00:48:15.336
fence also to keep the cattle off of
because it was an open area. Cattle

00:48:15.369 --> 00:48:19.026
come in anywhere else. So now I go
talk to Clyde Smith, the athletic

00:48:19.059 --> 00:48:23.606
director. He doesn't know we did this
thing. So II I talked to him and he

00:48:23.639 --> 00:48:28.845
, he was opposed to it dramatically.
Doctor Richardson was the acting

00:48:28.878 --> 00:48:32.626
president at the time. So I went to
talk to Doctor Richard, you know,

00:48:32.659 --> 00:48:36.706
stubbornness, young kid. And, uh, he
said, have you talked to Clyde Smith

00:48:36.739 --> 00:48:40.646
? And I, and I said, yes, he wasn't
opposed to it. And I said, I'd

00:48:40.679 --> 00:48:46.425
appreciate it if you talked to him.
Well, they called, they had a meeting

00:48:46.458 --> 00:48:51.106
and they decided not to do it. That
didn't prohibit this guy. Lynn Laney

00:48:51.139 --> 00:48:56.566
and Od Miller were voter regents in
Phoenix and one of them was a son

00:48:56.599 --> 00:48:59.675
angel. So I went and talked to him and
I had all my homework done. The

00:48:59.708 --> 00:49:05.635
heat and the contrast the players
could recover after everything else. And

00:49:05.668 --> 00:49:08.626
I'll never forget Lynn Laney said to
me, he said, have you talked to the

00:49:08.659 --> 00:49:13.885
NCAA with it? I says, no, but I can.
So I called Walt Barris who was at

00:49:13.918 --> 00:49:19.756
the NCAA and I told him that we had
was university property. We had this

00:49:19.789 --> 00:49:22.236
field up there. We wanted to go up
there and practice and everything else.

00:49:22.269 --> 00:49:26.376
He said, is there any outside
resources from booster groups etc? And I

00:49:26.409 --> 00:49:29.436
said, no, this is strictly, in fact,
the university didn't put any money

00:49:29.469 --> 00:49:35.557
in it was us coaches working at it.
So, anyway, so he sent me a telegram

00:49:35.590 --> 00:49:41.135
authorizing it. I give it to Lynn
Laney. Two days later, I get a Clyde

00:49:41.168 --> 00:49:44.195
Smith. His office is right across
from, like he said to me, he said, you

00:49:44.228 --> 00:49:49.126
know, I don't think that'd be a bad
idea to go to camp on.

00:49:49.159 --> 00:49:53.296
I'll never forget it. And so that's
how we got camped on his own. But I'll

00:49:53.329 --> 00:49:59.827
tell you what, the first year up there
there's got to be 60. It rained and

00:49:59.860 --> 00:50:03.296
it rained and it was like a quagmire
and that filled because we had

00:50:03.329 --> 00:50:07.977
planted fresh grass and the roots
weren't that well established, et cetera.

00:50:08.010 --> 00:50:12.787
And when I say it was just all mud.
And so we had big utility poles there.

00:50:12.820 --> 00:50:16.186
I put spikes in the utility poles to
put ropes. So we had the players

00:50:16.219 --> 00:50:20.126
pull it to level it off and then of
course, it dried as quickly as

00:50:20.159 --> 00:50:23.506
anything else does up there. And so
that was our first experience up in

00:50:23.539 --> 00:50:29.086
camp to and it's a great place. And
then the other worst experience was in

00:50:29.119 --> 00:50:34.635
the seventies when we had that fire up
at Tonto Creek in that area, we had

00:50:34.668 --> 00:50:39.827
to get out of there out of the
backside where the present road is going

00:50:39.860 --> 00:50:44.327
into to Zona. That's how we got out of
there and the buses couldn't get in

00:50:44.360 --> 00:50:49.736
and everything else. But it was a
tragedy in many respects, not for any of

00:50:49.769 --> 00:50:54.046
us, but the people trying to get down
from say, Pa and that down into

00:50:54.079 --> 00:51:00.635
Phoenix, but we had, it's a great
place for preseason training and that

00:51:00.668 --> 00:51:04.327
was all thanks to your inspiration and
it wasn't inspiration. It was

00:51:04.360 --> 00:51:10.706
stubborn, Polish attitude. Get it
done, you know, and that's where, that's

00:51:10.739 --> 00:51:13.445
where I would start as a kid. You
know, you get things done, you have a

00:51:13.478 --> 00:51:18.989
responsibility accountability and get
it done and then ask for permission.

00:51:19.708 --> 00:51:21.708
Ok? Maybe that'd be because changing everything there.

00:51:24.958 --> 00:51:29.566
Um What are some of your other, your
key memories of events of your

00:51:29.599 --> 00:51:36.827
coaching career? Well, you know, the
bowl games, uh you know, we, in 1968

00:51:36.860 --> 00:51:42.066
we had great teams 69 but we were not
permitted to play in any bowl games

00:51:42.099 --> 00:51:46.396
because the border regions had
definitely decided neither of Arizona

00:51:46.429 --> 00:51:52.416
schools are gonna go to any ball game
because some previous problems they

00:51:52.449 --> 00:51:56.577
had. Well, 1968 we're a pretty good
football team and we have some great

00:51:56.610 --> 00:52:03.057
football players and now the U of A is
good. So they get the board. The U

00:52:03.090 --> 00:52:07.526
of A was in my opinion, control the
border regions. I still think they do

00:52:07.559 --> 00:52:11.655
and you guys can't afford to say that,
but I can, it doesn't make any

00:52:11.688 --> 00:52:17.046
difference to me. But anyway, so what
they did decide that they can go to

00:52:17.079 --> 00:52:24.046
ball games. So down at El Paso, the
Sun Bowl, our athletic director, Clyde

00:52:24.079 --> 00:52:29.497
Smith and their athletic, Dick Clawson
talked with the Sun Bowl people and

00:52:29.530 --> 00:52:33.376
they said, ok, the winner of the U of
A and Arizona State game will be

00:52:33.409 --> 00:52:40.227
invited to the ball game. Well, the
week before the game, say like we

00:52:40.260 --> 00:52:45.195
played Saturday and then we're gonna
play them the following Saturday that

00:52:45.228 --> 00:52:52.206
Monday, the Darryl Mudra was the coach
down there. He told his ath

00:52:52.239 --> 00:52:57.456
athletic director, Dick Clawson to
tell the Sun Bowl people take us now or

00:52:57.489 --> 00:53:01.477
not at all. And they kind of pressed
the panic button. The Sun Bowl

00:53:01.510 --> 00:53:06.727
selected them the week prior to the
game and it just infuriated us to say

00:53:06.760 --> 00:53:10.155
the least and we just kicked the pants
off. I called pardon the expression

00:53:10.188 --> 00:53:13.885
, I called the dogs off that we were
beating them badly and I wanted to

00:53:13.918 --> 00:53:17.827
embarrass him that much more by not
running the score up on him. And that

00:53:17.860 --> 00:53:22.717
was the Ultimatum Bowl. And then the
interesting thing about it. A couple

00:53:22.750 --> 00:53:28.046
of years later, we get an invitation
to play in the Peach Bowl down in

00:53:28.079 --> 00:53:32.517
Georgia. We have a good football team.
We have some Spagnola JD Hill. I

00:53:32.550 --> 00:53:38.436
can mention all the players, the
Malones. We were real talented Harris and

00:53:38.469 --> 00:53:42.655
so we get down there and play, we had
to buy our way into the game when I

00:53:42.688 --> 00:53:47.106
say buy our way, we had to buy 15,000
tickets and a lot of the boosters

00:53:47.139 --> 00:53:50.425
went with us and they gave the extra
tickets to military etc and

00:53:50.458 --> 00:53:54.416
everything else. People in that area.
So we went down there, I never

00:53:54.449 --> 00:53:59.845
forget flew tw we had boosters with
us. We beat North Carolina. I think it

00:53:59.878 --> 00:54:05.247
was something like 46 to 28. We were
behind and got our act together and

00:54:05.280 --> 00:54:09.967
finally won the ball game. But on our
way back, Jack Stewart, who was the

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:13.405
owner of Camel back in was on a plane
with us and he was sitting next to

00:54:13.438 --> 00:54:16.905
me. He said, you know, coach, he said
this is ridiculous that we have to

00:54:16.938 --> 00:54:20.997
buy our way into a bowl game. We're
going to start our own bowl game and

00:54:21.030 --> 00:54:25.546
that's how the Fiesta Bowl got started
in 1971. We played in the first

00:54:25.579 --> 00:54:28.686
Fiesta Bowl game against Florida State
and won it. I think something like

00:54:28.719 --> 00:54:36.175
48 to 35 or something like that, 48 to
37. And we had a great football

00:54:36.208 --> 00:54:40.807
team. So did they. And so that's how
the Fiesta Bowl got started in 1971.

00:54:40.840 --> 00:54:45.256
 Jack Stewart.

00:54:45.289 --> 00:54:50.845
Yeah, we did because we had good
football teams. We played in 71 72

00:54:50.878 --> 00:54:53.517
73

00:54:53.550 --> 00:54:59.885
and 74. We didn't play in 75 was a
great one against Nebraska. In fact,

00:54:59.918 --> 00:55:04.646
Nebraska was, this is another one that
irritates me is that Nebraska was

00:55:04.679 --> 00:55:08.767
ranked in the top 10. We were, we were
in about eighth or ninth. They were

00:55:08.800 --> 00:55:13.066
sixth or seventh, et cetera. They beat
Oklahoma

00:55:13.099 --> 00:55:18.077
and they had one loss. They come in
here and we beat them and I thought we

00:55:18.110 --> 00:55:21.646
should have been number one. But what
transpired is that they gave it to

00:55:21.679 --> 00:55:25.537
Oklahoma, but that probably is the
most gratifying game in many respects.

00:55:25.570 --> 00:55:30.706
My son Danny kicked three field goals
and Fred Mortenson, they were both.

00:55:30.739 --> 00:55:35.146
Tempe was a quarterback that came in
for Dennis Brown when he got hurt

00:55:35.179 --> 00:55:39.836
and he scored a touchdown, went for
two points. And so those two guys from

00:55:39.869 --> 00:55:44.756
Tempe High Buffaloes were responsible
for that win. That win was probably

00:55:44.789 --> 00:55:47.936
the most significant win from the
standpoint of national recognition. I

00:55:47.969 --> 00:55:51.635
remember the Chicago Tribune, I still
have the copy. Now they know who the

00:55:51.668 --> 00:55:56.655
Sun Devils are and you know that
that's a good example I'm talking about

00:55:56.688 --> 00:56:02.635
from 55 to this is 75. Now we're
finally being recognized, you know,

00:56:02.668 --> 00:56:06.195
that's just think of all the athletes
who are in that period that didn't

00:56:06.228 --> 00:56:10.256
receive recognition, which I thought
that they deserved. So as I said,

00:56:10.289 --> 00:56:15.195
that 75 Fiesta Bowl game was probably
the most significant game for the

00:56:15.228 --> 00:56:18.595
Sun Devils. From the standpoint of
national recognition, continued

00:56:18.628 --> 00:56:22.836
recognition. We, we got to the top of
the mountain at that game, right?

00:56:22.869 --> 00:56:26.247
When you started the Fiesta Bowl, did
you started it so that you had a

00:56:26.280 --> 00:56:30.356
bowl to play in? But did you think it
was gonna become the, the big bowl

00:56:30.389 --> 00:56:34.477
game. Oh, no, no, you, you have no
imagination be, I mean, I, when I said

00:56:34.510 --> 00:56:38.236
, I don't mean, you know, I mean, I
individually you, you go do what you

00:56:38.269 --> 00:56:42.787
have to do and then we played after we
played Florida State in the first

00:56:42.820 --> 00:56:46.945
one and I think the second game we
played, uh, Pittsburgh and they had a,

00:56:46.978 --> 00:56:50.497
they had a good football team, they
had a great running back, Tony Dorson.

00:56:50.530 --> 00:56:54.046
And then we played Missouri,
ironically, the Missouri head coach was a

00:56:54.079 --> 00:56:58.345
former Arizona State graduate al on
Ario. And he had been there with Dandy

00:56:58.378 --> 00:57:03.175
Vine and we had a great game, Danny
White who was a great quarterback, in

00:57:03.208 --> 00:57:09.356
my opinion. Uh, we did a lot of
audible. He made, we made 770 some yards,

00:57:09.389 --> 00:57:14.967
which is astronomical in any today's
or yesterday's football because he

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:18.296
audible so much and picked them apart
and Danny White and, and we had some

00:57:18.329 --> 00:57:24.336
great athletes and so we won that ball
game and, uh, and III, I think it

00:57:24.369 --> 00:57:29.046
was very significant from the
standpoint of continued recognition.

00:57:29.079 --> 00:57:31.635
I know I've interviewed some other
people that talked about starting the

00:57:31.668 --> 00:57:36.066
Fiesta Bowl. Carl Eller and Stevie
Eller. And, um, yeah, yeah, but Jack

00:57:36.099 --> 00:57:40.967
Stewart was a good, yeah, Carl Eller
was part of that. Uh, let's see,

00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:46.356
there's a, uh, I'm, I'm trying to
think of the other guy. I talked to him

00:57:46.389 --> 00:57:49.267
periodically. Uh, there were quite a
few people who were really loyal and

00:57:49.300 --> 00:57:54.146
the great thing about Phoenix at that
time, in my opinion, the people were

00:57:54.179 --> 00:57:58.836
very tied into Arizona State. It was
the thing to go to the football game

00:57:58.869 --> 00:58:03.796
, Saturday night. Now I'm, I'm talking
about, uh, bus loads. And, uh, in

00:58:03.829 --> 00:58:07.675
addition to that, uh, the country
club, people used to come to the Sun

00:58:07.708 --> 00:58:11.706
Devil football games and go back to
the country club after Jim Myers, I

00:58:11.739 --> 00:58:15.796
was thinking about Jim Myers was on
that original board, but they uh no,

00:58:15.829 --> 00:58:21.517
that game really and a su at that,
that brought the community together.

00:58:21.550 --> 00:58:24.675
And, you know, we didn't have the
competition for many pro sports as they

00:58:24.708 --> 00:58:28.546
do today. And then eventually the Suns
came in, there wasn't that much

00:58:28.579 --> 00:58:32.717
competition, but then of course you
got hockey and baseball and football

00:58:32.750 --> 00:58:37.747
at the pro level. So I think that
really depletes from the standpoint of

00:58:37.780 --> 00:58:42.865
attendance, et cetera. Anything else
because of the revenue factor

00:58:42.898 --> 00:58:47.046
when you talked a little bit about the
competition between the U of A, was

00:58:47.079 --> 00:58:52.405
that a factor too in getting the
Phoenix people involved with? Well, I

00:58:52.438 --> 00:58:56.686
think that's still animosity still
there. In my opinion, the separation,

00:58:56.719 --> 00:59:02.247
anything above the Gila River is
Arizona State and anything below that is

00:59:02.280 --> 00:59:06.706
U of A and I still feel very strongly
that it's the same attitude. I think

00:59:06.739 --> 00:59:11.086
it's a great rivalry. I mean, there's
nothing, you know, I would say

00:59:11.119 --> 00:59:15.267
there's no animosity physically, etc,
I think it's good for the community.

00:59:15.300 --> 00:59:19.727
It's good for the state and they've
had a great program. We've had great

00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:24.166
programs and there's no question in my
mind, it's what collegiate

00:59:24.199 --> 00:59:29.856
athletics is all about at any level.
Are there any particular things about

00:59:29.889 --> 00:59:33.936
that rival that, that come out to your
mind

00:59:33.969 --> 00:59:40.135
losing? You don't wanna lose, Tom.
I'll give you the classic though. My

00:59:40.168 --> 00:59:45.236
first year in 1958 I'm, and I'm a
young kid at that time. The student

00:59:45.269 --> 00:59:49.186
union was relatively small and the
whole campus was small and the faculty

00:59:49.219 --> 00:59:55.217
used to go and have coffee in the
morning periodically all the time. And

00:59:55.250 --> 00:59:58.086
we are said, now we lost the U of A, I
don't know, seven or six or

00:59:58.119 --> 01:00:01.026
something like we lost by one point.
I, I could write a book on how it

01:00:01.059 --> 01:00:04.615
happened. But anyway, we're in a
student union and we're sitting around

01:00:04.648 --> 01:00:08.486
and doctor Gamage comes in and he was
kind of a stoic individual, but by

01:00:08.519 --> 01:00:12.916
the same token, very, very bright and
knowledgeable and everything else.

01:00:12.949 --> 01:00:17.166
And, and he says, coach, he said, he
said, what are you so depressed about

01:00:17.199 --> 01:00:20.385
? I said, doctor, you know, I, it was
my first year as a head coach, I, I

01:00:20.418 --> 01:00:24.675
was really depressed to say the least.
And I said, you know, I, I just

01:00:24.708 --> 01:00:28.126
hate losing to those people, et cetera
and everything else. He said, don't

01:00:28.159 --> 01:00:30.967
be concerned about that. It's going to
be significant to us. I said,

01:00:31.000 --> 01:00:35.517
Doctor Gamage, how could you say that?
He said you and now the Board of

01:00:35.550 --> 01:00:38.776
Regents are going to be happy. We'll
get our appropriations because they

01:00:38.809 --> 01:00:43.695
beat us of football. I couldn't
believe it. I thought to myself. Doctor, I

01:00:43.728 --> 01:00:47.557
said, I can't believe you, we gotta
beat them. He said, relax. He said

01:00:47.590 --> 01:00:51.845
there's more truth than that than you
can imagine. And, and I felt that

01:00:51.878 --> 01:00:56.856
and I still felt it very strongly like
them getting to med school up here.

01:00:56.889 --> 01:00:58.967
 Yeah.

01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:01.997
What about recruiting players? You
talked about your recruiting in Arizona

01:01:02.030 --> 01:01:06.845
? Not only Arizona, the good thing
that we did, we recruited Arizona very

01:01:06.878 --> 01:01:12.365
heavy when we first came here, there
were only 52 high schools, some of

01:01:12.398 --> 01:01:15.831
them played six man football and some
of them played love men football and

01:01:15.864 --> 01:01:20.182
, and football has, uh improved
dramatically in the state of Arizona,

01:01:20.215 --> 01:01:23.392
principally because of the population,
but it's not like California et

01:01:23.425 --> 01:01:26.990
cetera and everything else. We used to
recruit Clyde Smith, who was the

01:01:27.023 --> 01:01:30.570
head coach here previously used to
recruit Pennsylvania. Me being from

01:01:30.603 --> 01:01:35.086
Pennsylvania, he took me back there
and showed me around the different

01:01:35.119 --> 01:01:38.425
high school coaches, both in
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. So we recruited

01:01:38.458 --> 01:01:44.175
, we recruited out of state now and
then we also recruited California. But

01:01:44.208 --> 01:01:48.747
the question mark about California was
Dandy Vine was very knowledgeable

01:01:48.780 --> 01:01:53.327
recruiter and we used to have a staff
meeting and all of the coaches are

01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:58.316
recruiting. There's only four of us
including Dan would be five and we

01:01:58.349 --> 01:02:01.717
have two coaches recruiting in
California, Tommy Fletcher and Bob Carry.

01:02:01.750 --> 01:02:08.747
And, uh, Dan Devine would say Southern
Cal UCLAK, CAL or Stanford after

01:02:08.780 --> 01:02:12.327
him, if they're after him and, you
know, on a scale of 1 to 10, say 89 or

01:02:12.360 --> 01:02:15.425
10, he said you're wasting your time
because he said they're gonna want to

01:02:15.458 --> 01:02:21.066
stay there. So that's why we, we
recruited a lot in Midwest. Eventually I

01:02:21.099 --> 01:02:24.945
got to the point we recruited Florida.
We recruited Alaska and I really

01:02:24.978 --> 01:02:28.577
enjoy it principally because you, you
can convince the players you're

01:02:28.610 --> 01:02:32.227
going to have an opportunity to play.
And we, we, in my opinion, the great

01:02:32.260 --> 01:02:35.736
thing about college coaching, number
one, as I mentioned, you got to be a

01:02:35.769 --> 01:02:40.356
recruiter and then you got to be a
teacher and a disciplinarian. And so I

01:02:40.389 --> 01:02:44.227
think our coaches did a commendable
job from those aspects and we were

01:02:44.260 --> 01:02:47.986
able to take athletes even if we
recruited kids in California. Say Mike

01:02:48.019 --> 01:02:51.977
Haines is a good example, Bruce Hardy
is another good example. Bruce Hardy

01:02:52.010 --> 01:02:56.066
was on the cover of Sports Illustrated
as the high school athlete in the

01:02:56.099 --> 01:03:00.416
country. Well, he was a good
quarterback. We also had a great quarterback

01:03:00.449 --> 01:03:03.747
in Dennis Sprout. So we talked to
Bruce Hardy about being a tight end,

01:03:03.780 --> 01:03:07.336
which he was reluctant to do being a
quarterback and being on the cover of

01:03:07.369 --> 01:03:12.537
sports eventually he did and he was
ended up Miami Dolphins number six

01:03:12.570 --> 01:03:16.316
round draft choice and he still
strokes me about it. He's coaching in

01:03:16.349 --> 01:03:20.506
Miami and Mike Hanes is another good
example. We would take athletes and

01:03:20.539 --> 01:03:24.006
do a good job of coaching. Mike Hanes
was a high school quarterback and a

01:03:24.039 --> 01:03:29.166
receiver. We take him to repent of
zone and we see them see how good he is

01:03:29.199 --> 01:03:32.787
as a freshman, freshman were eligible
that year, Fred Glick was our

01:03:32.820 --> 01:03:37.586
defensive secondary coach and we
debated on where to play him. And we had

01:03:37.619 --> 01:03:41.006
some great receivers in the likes of
John Jeffer and Larry Mucker etc. We

01:03:41.039 --> 01:03:43.876
said, well, let's put him. Fred said,
let's put him at free safety. It's

01:03:43.909 --> 01:03:47.546
not as complicated, he can learn it.
He played first string for us as a

01:03:47.579 --> 01:03:51.756
freshman all because he was an athlete
in good teaching. And then after

01:03:51.789 --> 01:03:55.695
his first year, every time we played
him at corner, which means he's going

01:03:55.728 --> 01:03:59.517
to be one on one with their best
receiver and he just had a great career

01:03:59.550 --> 01:04:02.916
as an all American did punt returns,
went on and played all with an all

01:04:02.949 --> 01:04:07.865
pro player both up in New England and
Oakland Raiders. So that's what we

01:04:07.898 --> 01:04:11.675
did a great job of teaching and, and,
and some people may say coaching,

01:04:11.708 --> 01:04:15.776
but to me, the significant factor the
youngster is going to make progress

01:04:15.809 --> 01:04:19.546
, he's going to improve. He's going to
have an opportunity.

01:04:19.579 --> 01:04:24.267
You had a reputation as a tough coach.
Y how did you get that? That's the

01:04:24.300 --> 01:04:26.537
way I lived.

01:04:26.570 --> 01:04:30.077
I was brought up that way. When you
come from a family of coal mining town

01:04:30.110 --> 01:04:34.345
, you come a family of 15 Children,
you better be tough to survive. You

01:04:34.378 --> 01:04:38.037
know, the interesting thing about it.
My dad, we really tough with the

01:04:38.070 --> 01:04:43.396
boys. I never seen him yell or touch
the girls or my mother. But boy, if

01:04:43.429 --> 01:04:46.767
we goofed up any of the boys goofed
up, not the younger ones, like I was

01:04:46.800 --> 01:04:50.626
young one, but I grew when I was 15, I
was a rebel. But the interesting

01:04:50.659 --> 01:04:55.506
thing about it, I, I my concept of
coaching, I love to see people be

01:04:55.539 --> 01:05:00.967
successful. Even today, it was one of
the most difficult things I had in

01:05:01.000 --> 01:05:04.626
coaching. I thought everybody I
recruited was going to be a great

01:05:04.659 --> 01:05:09.066
superstar, but I found out no, you got
to recognize their limitations if

01:05:09.099 --> 01:05:14.006
you're doing a proper job of coaching
and everything else. So I'd love to

01:05:14.039 --> 01:05:17.365
see people be successful now and I'll
say this about being tough on them.

01:05:17.398 --> 01:05:20.787
The more ability that you had, the
more I expected from you. And I put

01:05:20.820 --> 01:05:26.095
more pressure on you. It was not
necessarily verbal, just making sure you

01:05:26.128 --> 01:05:29.717
do the drills properly, getting on
you, criticizing you just simple steps.

01:05:29.750 --> 01:05:33.166
Like if you're going to pull, you're
going to take a short trap I want

01:05:33.199 --> 01:05:36.717
you to take a right front step. If
you're going to trap off to the side,

01:05:36.750 --> 01:05:40.456
it's right flat. And if you goofed up
the old man's going to get on you.

01:05:40.489 --> 01:05:45.405
No, I, I, the great thing I enjoyed
about it is that I'd love to see

01:05:45.438 --> 01:05:49.546
people be successful. You know, I have
three sons. They are all successful

01:05:49.579 --> 01:05:56.666
and I have two granddaughters and
they're, again, that goes from parents

01:05:56.699 --> 01:06:00.967
to Children etc, and I mentioned
previously, all of my brothers and

01:06:01.000 --> 01:06:05.126
sisters are all successful in their
own. Right. So yes, I was tough and

01:06:05.159 --> 01:06:10.026
I'd love to see people be successful
and if it takes me being somewhat of

01:06:10.059 --> 01:06:14.736
an ogre to get them to do that, I'm
going to do it.

01:06:14.769 --> 01:06:18.967
I heard a story about sometimes that
you would have players locked up in

01:06:19.000 --> 01:06:25.885
the Tippee jail. You know, I, I'll
give you an example. No, I, I, my,

01:06:25.918 --> 01:06:31.727
my first responsibility as a student
athlete when I was playing was social

01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:35.717
responsibilities. You didn't go and
drink, you didn't, you got caught,

01:06:35.750 --> 01:06:40.006
you're going to pay the price for it.
I felt the same way at Arizona State

01:06:40.039 --> 01:06:44.467
because you're going to get kids and
some kids we recruited came from what

01:06:44.500 --> 01:06:48.445
I call dysfunctional families. So
number one, their responsibility don't

01:06:48.478 --> 01:06:52.175
embarrass the program, don't embarrass
the institution, don't embarrass

01:06:52.208 --> 01:06:56.686
your family. I'm talking about social
responsibilities, whatever it may be

01:06:56.719 --> 01:07:01.586
and you, you don't have bad contact
and the next thing was academics. If

01:07:01.619 --> 01:07:04.606
you didn't go to class, the old man's
gonna take you and run you through

01:07:04.639 --> 01:07:09.577
the desert. And I figure they, they're
either gonna hate me more and

01:07:09.610 --> 01:07:12.405
they're gonna say, ok, instead of
their running, I'm gonna go in class. If

01:07:12.438 --> 01:07:16.077
you cut class, I'd get all over you.
Those, that was the first priority.

01:07:16.110 --> 01:07:20.626
Social. Second was academics and then
third was athletics. And I, and I

01:07:20.659 --> 01:07:24.376
still feel very strongly because when
my first experience, when I was a

01:07:24.409 --> 01:07:28.146
student in Michigan State, it was,
there's a lot of veterans come in from

01:07:28.179 --> 01:07:32.316
the Second World War. Some of those
guys would go to class. And I thought

01:07:32.349 --> 01:07:35.155
, what the devil are you in college
for? If you're not going to go to

01:07:35.188 --> 01:07:38.077
class? And that's the way I felt about
our guys. And I still feel very

01:07:38.110 --> 01:07:42.827
strongly about that. And, you know, if
you don't have enough initiative,

01:07:42.860 --> 01:07:45.686
you're going to have that desire to
want to succeed and it's academically

01:07:45.719 --> 01:07:49.497
, socially and athletically.

01:07:49.530 --> 01:07:52.916
And the,

01:07:52.949 --> 01:07:55.956
did you feel like most of those
students were coming to college? Thinking

01:07:55.989 --> 01:08:00.106
they're going to go to the Pros? No,
not, not. Fortunately. I think it's

01:08:00.139 --> 01:08:03.537
changed dramatically like when I was
in college and I said we only lost

01:08:03.570 --> 01:08:06.767
one game in three years for national,
none of us thought about going to

01:08:06.800 --> 01:08:12.526
Pro Bowl because pro athletics were
not that significant in our society

01:08:12.559 --> 01:08:17.187
monetarily at that time in what has
happened, in my opinion, over the

01:08:17.220 --> 01:08:22.967
years, there's so much emphasis on
kids going to college and then going

01:08:23.000 --> 01:08:28.107
into pro in football, less than 2%
will ever. College graduates to play

01:08:28.140 --> 01:08:32.956
football will ever go play pro ball
basketball. It's 1.3%. So the chance

01:08:32.989 --> 01:08:37.884
of them being pro athletes or
baseball, it's even less. It's 1%. So the

01:08:37.917 --> 01:08:41.674
chance of them being pro athletes by
going to college are relatively

01:08:41.707 --> 01:08:45.674
remote because of the numbers, et
cetera and everything else. And I coach

01:08:45.707 --> 01:08:50.246
pro ball. So I have a pretty good both
in Canada and the United States.

01:08:50.279 --> 01:08:53.515
And a lot of times they come in with
the misconception and believe me, the

01:08:53.548 --> 01:08:58.175
quality and quantity of talent in pro
sports is just unbelievable. I mean

01:08:58.208 --> 01:09:02.726
, they're, believe me, they're all
great. And then if you're, you're a

01:09:02.759 --> 01:09:06.305
good high, you're a good college
coach, excuse me, good college football

01:09:06.338 --> 01:09:10.086
player, you go to pro ball, the chance
of you making it are relatively

01:09:10.119 --> 01:09:14.897
remote. And so, and the same thing is
true from high school kids to being

01:09:14.930 --> 01:09:18.515
successful at the college level, but
you know, you retain them et cetera

01:09:18.548 --> 01:09:22.187
and everything else. And that's why in
my opinion, the priorities were

01:09:22.220 --> 01:09:26.956
social responsibilities, academic
responsibilities and then you do the

01:09:26.989 --> 01:09:30.626
teaching and then the kids will
improve. Well, tell me about the story of

01:09:30.659 --> 01:09:37.296
you having some athletes locked up in
the jail. No, what happened was that

01:09:37.329 --> 01:09:40.826
we had on which I could think of the
judge's name. I'm sure he's passed

01:09:40.859 --> 01:09:44.916
away. He used to call me if we had
guys who got in trouble. In fact, we

01:09:44.949 --> 01:09:49.326
had a couple of guys, Pat Apple Hayes
mckee and I'll think of the two

01:09:49.359 --> 01:09:53.967
others. They got Mickey Mouse
problems, drinking, et cetera and everything

01:09:54.000 --> 01:09:56.717
else. And

01:09:56.750 --> 01:10:01.226
I, the judge called me. He says,
Frank, he says, I've got three, there's

01:10:01.259 --> 01:10:04.437
four players. He said I got him in
jail here. This is, say like Friday

01:10:04.470 --> 01:10:11.156
night. And, uh, so I went down and
talk to him, et cetera and everything

01:10:11.189 --> 01:10:13.345
else. And one of them kind of got a
little smart. So I went and talked to

01:10:13.378 --> 01:10:16.036
the judge. I said, let him in here
until Monday morning and I'll come and

01:10:16.069 --> 01:10:18.987
pick him up.

01:10:19.020 --> 01:10:22.156
They were, you know, they were in
street clothes, et cetera. They're all

01:10:22.189 --> 01:10:26.675
four in the same cell. Then we had
some of them that got involved. Uh,

01:10:26.708 --> 01:10:30.937
they were gonna, I don't think they
were gonna steal something. They, they

01:10:30.970 --> 01:10:34.437
gonna take something out of a car that
was parked there. Well, I got a

01:10:34.470 --> 01:10:40.187
call from the judge again and I went
down there and you know how kids are

01:10:40.220 --> 01:10:43.527
? He said I didn't do it. He didn't do
everything else. I said, I'll tell

01:10:43.560 --> 01:10:47.055
you what, I'm walking out of here. I'm
gonna come back, I'm gonna walk to

01:10:47.088 --> 01:10:52.696
that door. I'm gonna go out and come
back and whoever did it, you either

01:10:52.729 --> 01:10:57.357
tell the truth or you're gonna stay in
here. Boo I came back immediately

01:10:57.390 --> 01:11:01.126
to one guy, Pat says I did a coach,
you know, and, and I climbed all over

01:11:01.159 --> 01:11:04.437
and I told the judge, I said, let him
stay in here over the weekend. Now.

01:11:04.470 --> 01:11:08.406
That's, and then the judge was great
from the standpoint of understanding

01:11:08.439 --> 01:11:12.055
youngsters and disciplines. And
believe me, when you resolve that problem

01:11:12.088 --> 01:11:16.397
early, they're going to learn a lesson
in the same way and you set the

01:11:16.430 --> 01:11:20.576
standard for other athletes also. And,
and I, I believe me, I disciplined

01:11:20.609 --> 01:11:24.796
some of them and I'll give you an
example. We went in the sixties. That's

01:11:24.829 --> 01:11:28.656
when marijuana first start come out
and everything else, we go out and

01:11:28.689 --> 01:11:32.737
play Wyoming. I find out that we had
four of our guys that have been

01:11:32.770 --> 01:11:37.546
smoking marijuana. We lose the ball
game because they're not into it. I

01:11:37.579 --> 01:11:42.805
find this out about me about two weeks
later. And so we have a meeting and

01:11:42.838 --> 01:11:46.635
I'm irritated at the assistant coaches
for not letting me know because

01:11:46.668 --> 01:11:51.696
with the bed check that I had anything
else. So our team physician was

01:11:51.729 --> 01:11:55.067
doctor Scott. And I talked, I didn't
know enough about drugs and

01:11:55.100 --> 01:12:00.416
specifically marijuana. And I talked
to doctor Scott and he said, well,

01:12:00.449 --> 01:12:03.107
let's talk to them. We sat down and
talked to him, gave him all four of

01:12:03.140 --> 01:12:06.946
them an opportunity to resolve their
problems before the end of the school

01:12:06.979 --> 01:12:11.006
year. And, uh, two of them didn't, two
of them didn't. I got rid of the

01:12:11.039 --> 01:12:15.805
other two really got rid of themselves
to be honest with you. But no, so

01:12:15.838 --> 01:12:23.476
to me, as a head coach, you have to be
a far away from home to the

01:12:23.509 --> 01:12:27.976
youngsters, in my opinion, and you
have to care for him in, in, in a, in

01:12:28.009 --> 01:12:33.836
an, like my dad cared for us and
carrying meant you do the appropriate

01:12:33.869 --> 01:12:37.305
thing and if you don't do it, you
suffer the consequences for it. And that

01:12:37.338 --> 01:12:42.366
was my concept when I recruited a kid,
I'd tell their parents, I'm going

01:12:42.399 --> 01:12:47.166
to be the father away from home. And
if you don't think your son could

01:12:47.199 --> 01:12:50.187
withstand that type of behavior, then
he doesn't want to come to Arizona

01:12:50.220 --> 01:12:55.437
State and I still feel the same way.

01:12:55.470 --> 01:13:00.487
Yeah. Yeah, we get together again. I
enjoy it. That's one of the great

01:13:00.520 --> 01:13:04.126
factors that I've acquired over the
years. The association. In fact, I

01:13:04.159 --> 01:13:06.996
have one coming in today

01:13:07.029 --> 01:13:12.826
and then I'm just trying to think of
yesterday who Ricardo Marquez from

01:13:12.859 --> 01:13:17.446
Mexico City, who was a grad assistant
for me. He comes up here and we get

01:13:17.479 --> 01:13:23.496
together and he comes up here for
Christmas and this time of the year and

01:13:23.529 --> 01:13:27.805
his wife and they have three Children.
And so, no, I, I love the

01:13:27.838 --> 01:13:33.506
association I had with the former
athletes and coaches. Well, not really.

01:13:33.539 --> 01:13:38.515
That's what you are right. Um, let's
talk a little bit more about a su

01:13:38.548 --> 01:13:43.626
and, um, some of the, the changes from
the time you came here, um, Grady

01:13:43.659 --> 01:13:47.956
damage was present at the time.

01:13:47.989 --> 01:13:54.756
Lady Doctor Gamage. And then, uh, who
was right after Homer dorm? Homer

01:13:54.789 --> 01:13:58.967
Durham was great. In fact, uh, II, I
thought he was a great individual and

01:13:59.000 --> 01:14:03.607
then, uh, after Homer was, uh,

01:14:03.640 --> 01:14:07.576
mhm.

01:14:07.609 --> 01:14:11.226
He lives in my neighborhood.

01:14:11.259 --> 01:14:16.277
LA core right now,

01:14:16.310 --> 01:14:18.515
Harry.

01:14:18.548 --> 01:14:24.737
Yeah. What does that mean? There's an
old Polish Proverb. I'll give it to

01:14:24.770 --> 01:14:28.817
you in English. The less said the best
said

01:14:28.850 --> 01:14:32.265
they've gone since I've been here,
they've gone since the 80 s. They've

01:14:32.298 --> 01:14:38.067
gone through how many presidents for

01:14:38.100 --> 01:14:44.067
at least four or five coaches the same
way and what I've seen

01:14:44.100 --> 01:14:49.446
the turnover is dramatic. You lose a
lot of the tradition, you lose a lot

01:14:49.479 --> 01:14:53.256
of the loyalty, you lose a lot of the
respect for each other. And I, I

01:14:53.289 --> 01:14:56.437
give you a super example.

01:14:56.470 --> 01:15:00.805
The Washington Redskins were playing
here about two years ago. John

01:15:00.838 --> 01:15:05.437
Jefferson is on a staff with the
Washington Redskins in personnel. They

01:15:05.470 --> 01:15:10.666
were coming in say Friday night
because we were playing Saturday and then

01:15:10.699 --> 01:15:15.925
they're going to play Sunday, uh they
were playing the Cardinals

01:15:15.958 --> 01:15:19.765
and so I invited John and I start
taking him around in the press box and

01:15:19.798 --> 01:15:23.906
believe me now, John Jefferson was one
of the great all time football

01:15:23.939 --> 01:15:27.366
players, in my opinion, in the country
and he made a great catch that won

01:15:27.399 --> 01:15:31.687
the U of a game, kept us undefeated as
set of the, I was surprised that a

01:15:31.720 --> 01:15:37.746
number of people were asking who's
John Jefferson? Um, m my, my philosophy

01:15:37.779 --> 01:15:41.746
is, well, we ought to have a book
called Foot or athletics 101 and give it

01:15:41.779 --> 01:15:45.206
to all the students. So then the
people who work here. But no, and, and I

01:15:45.239 --> 01:15:49.925
think, you know, we've lost a lot of
that and again, is it bad? It depends

01:15:49.958 --> 01:15:53.930
on your side of the fence, you know,
uh, and yet on the, I think you lose

01:15:53.963 --> 01:15:58.081
that tradition, you lose that sense of
loyalty, the closeness. And when I

01:15:58.114 --> 01:16:02.171
first came here, I, I think I just
about knew every faculty member, there

01:16:02.204 --> 01:16:06.791
weren't that many and I knew all the
administrators. So you developed a

01:16:06.824 --> 01:16:12.381
relationship of intimate personal
relationship. Where was your office in

01:16:12.414 --> 01:16:18.437
the old gym? In fact, all the offices
were there.

01:16:18.470 --> 01:16:23.987
They were. No, no. In fact, we had one
hall like this and the knowledge

01:16:24.020 --> 01:16:26.765
assistant coaches were there and I was
in this little cubby hole over here

01:16:26.798 --> 01:16:30.147
and Clyde Smith was, he was the
athletic, he was in that other cubby hole.

01:16:30.180 --> 01:16:35.845
It would take about this whole room to
have all of our offices. We're all

01:16:35.878 --> 01:16:40.496
the university president, sort of
equally supportive of the football team.

01:16:40.529 --> 01:16:46.765
Well, I, I was here predominantly with
Homer Dorm and, uh, uh, doctor

01:16:46.798 --> 01:16:51.055
Gamage. Doctor Gamage, definitely,
Doctor Gamage was a pretty sharp

01:16:51.088 --> 01:16:56.976
politician and when I say that he knew
what had to be done academically,

01:16:57.009 --> 01:17:00.487
athletically, et cetera and everything
else. And, and, and they had a very

01:17:00.520 --> 01:17:08.217
difficult time in my opinion,
promoting a sc with the politicians because

01:17:08.250 --> 01:17:11.336
believe me, the U of A had pretty good
control of the border regions and

01:17:11.369 --> 01:17:15.805
everything else. Jimmy Crean was
fantastic. And then, uh I, I thought that

01:17:15.838 --> 01:17:20.166
Homer Dorm was, it was an
exceptionally president that I was associated

01:17:20.199 --> 01:17:25.527
with. So II, I was impressed with him.
You want to talk a little bit about

01:17:25.560 --> 01:17:30.567
the incident when you end up leaving.
The less said the best said about

01:17:30.600 --> 01:17:35.987
that. That's, you know, who, who cares
about it, you know, you're gone.

01:17:36.020 --> 01:17:41.586
Yeah. No, that, you know, those things
happen and, well, some kid accused

01:17:41.619 --> 01:17:47.555
me of uh hitting him and went to trial
and I was exonerated and even

01:17:47.588 --> 01:17:50.897
though then they let me go and they
settled monetarily and then I went to

01:17:50.930 --> 01:17:54.675
Canada Baltimore, Indianapolis Colts
and that's it. I mean, those things

01:17:54.708 --> 01:17:59.866
happen. II, I was here in Arizona at
that time and I, I wasn't a big

01:17:59.899 --> 01:18:06.156
football ban or anything, but it was a
big deal in Arizona. Yeah. Well,

01:18:06.189 --> 01:18:11.956
you know, it's here today and gone
tomorrow. I'll give you a better

01:18:11.989 --> 01:18:16.366
example of what I'm talking about just
recently. I was just honored at the

01:18:16.399 --> 01:18:20.826
Fiesta ball game the other day. We had
a thing and I had to get

01:18:20.859 --> 01:18:24.675
identification prior to going, you
know, to get in. Now, this is the

01:18:24.708 --> 01:18:29.487
gospel truth. This is right in the
Activity Center. I go in there to get

01:18:29.520 --> 01:18:34.546
mother gonna take a picture and
everything else. And I left my uh driver's

01:18:34.579 --> 01:18:37.976
license, which I do if you wanna swipe
it, it's in a car all the time

01:18:38.009 --> 01:18:42.076
anyway. So I leave it and left it in
there. I didn't have any ID. And this

01:18:42.109 --> 01:18:47.226
young girl, I said, I said, do you
work at a su and she said yes. And, uh

01:18:47.259 --> 01:18:50.607
, I said, you know, I'm sorry, I don't
have my ID with me. But I said, I'm

01:18:50.640 --> 01:18:53.635
Frank Kush, the former football coach.
He says, I don't, I don't know who

01:18:53.668 --> 01:19:00.126
you are. So I start chuckling myself.
Don't ever be impressed. In fact,

01:19:00.159 --> 01:19:03.857
there was a guy behind me. Now, this
is the gospel truth. He's been and he

01:19:03.890 --> 01:19:07.086
said, you don't know who he is. He
said there's a picture of him on a wall

01:19:07.119 --> 01:19:10.086
right over there. And there's a statue
of him over there. This poor little

01:19:10.119 --> 01:19:15.296
poor girl. She looking up, you know,
who's this dumb, dumb. So, I, uh, one

01:19:15.329 --> 01:19:19.437
thing don't ever be impressed with
what you've done because there's not

01:19:19.470 --> 01:19:23.095
too many people that know. Well, it
was a shock to the community though

01:19:23.128 --> 01:19:27.107
when the university basically fired
you. Yeah. Well, that's part of it,

01:19:27.140 --> 01:19:31.366
you know, it was, it must have been a
shock to you. Believe me? It was

01:19:31.399 --> 01:19:35.946
more of a shock to my wife and my
Children.

01:19:35.979 --> 01:19:39.906
They were devastated but they
recovered also.

01:19:39.939 --> 01:19:43.397
Did you think when the first
accusations were made that it was gonna be

01:19:43.430 --> 01:19:47.635
that serious? No, because there wasn't
any truth in it. So I wasn't

01:19:47.668 --> 01:19:50.187
concerned about

01:19:50.220 --> 01:19:53.876
it. Well, you said I punched him on
the sidelines. It was after the Woody

01:19:53.909 --> 01:20:01.027
Hayes incident in Ohio State the
following year and they won't get into it

01:20:01.060 --> 01:20:04.746
because people like that create
problems. But no, it was one of those

01:20:04.779 --> 01:20:10.777
things that occurred. And
unfortunately, in my opinion, it devastated a

01:20:10.810 --> 01:20:13.116
lot of families.

01:20:13.149 --> 01:20:17.515
In what way? Well, you know, when

01:20:17.548 --> 01:20:22.437
you're accused of allegations and they
are not true and your family

01:20:22.470 --> 01:20:27.067
believe you and say all the assistant
coaches were going to go all and

01:20:27.100 --> 01:20:32.406
their families are going. So it
disrupts the entire athletic family, but

01:20:32.439 --> 01:20:39.086
that's society. What did you do right
after that? Oh, I'll tell you what I

01:20:39.119 --> 01:20:44.317
, I worked and this is an interesting
one. I, Bob Walker who owned, he's

01:20:44.350 --> 01:20:49.175
an engineer. He hired my son Dan,
that's Dan is a mechanical engineer and

01:20:49.208 --> 01:20:52.385
fires missiles, et cetera and
everything else. He presently works for

01:20:52.418 --> 01:20:56.687
Motorola when Danny was working for
Bob Walker and Bob Walker was a great

01:20:56.720 --> 01:21:01.897
booster of a su basketball team and he
called me up and he says, by the

01:21:01.930 --> 01:21:06.666
way, he says, uh, what are you gonna
do, what are you gonna do now? You

01:21:06.699 --> 01:21:12.206
know, and I said, well, you know,
there's going to be a lawsuit and we

01:21:12.239 --> 01:21:16.116
gonna be in court and everything else.
He said, why don't you come to work

01:21:16.149 --> 01:21:19.036
for me? You know, an engineer. What do
I know about engineering? So anyway

01:21:19.069 --> 01:21:23.156
, it was called Space Data, which is
right here in Tempe. I went and

01:21:23.189 --> 01:21:29.826
worked for him but I would say every
bit of six months and in sales, etc,

01:21:29.859 --> 01:21:34.567
and everything else. And Bill Close
called me. And he, he says, uh, Frank

01:21:34.600 --> 01:21:42.600
, he said, uh, we'd like to talk to
you. Uh, the owner, uh,

01:21:43.220 --> 01:21:49.467
Tom Chauncey and I met with Tom
Chauncey and, uh, and, uh, Bill and they

01:21:49.500 --> 01:21:53.576
said we'd like to have you do
television work for me. He said, for me,

01:21:53.609 --> 01:21:58.987
he's ignorant. And I said, you know, I
said, yes, I've done television,

01:21:59.020 --> 01:22:02.166
but I said that's a different field
altogether completely. And he said, no

01:22:02.199 --> 01:22:08.885
, we'll help you out and everything
else. So it is a gospel truth. They

01:22:08.918 --> 01:22:12.246
offered me the job. So I went to Bob
Walker who had worked for, for six

01:22:12.279 --> 01:22:18.196
months. I said, Bob, I said channel
10, Tom Chauncey and Bill Close have

01:22:18.229 --> 01:22:23.166
offered me this job to do television
work 3 to 5 minutes Monday through

01:22:23.199 --> 01:22:29.256
Friday. And, uh, he said, I think you
ought to take it. It'd be good for

01:22:29.289 --> 01:22:36.147
you. And, and he says, what are they
gonna pay? I'm not $16,000.

01:22:36.180 --> 01:22:41.265
I was making 45,000 at Arizona State.
And Bob Walker when he hired me,

01:22:41.298 --> 01:22:44.946
paid me 50,000. He said, I want you to
take the job. It would be good for

01:22:44.979 --> 01:22:49.076
your family for recognition and
getting back into the community, et cetera

01:22:49.109 --> 01:22:53.675
and everything else. And I said, Bob,
I said, I, I can't do that. I said

01:22:53.708 --> 01:22:58.786
no and monetarily, he said, and then I
said to him, I said, ok, if you

01:22:58.819 --> 01:23:02.796
permit me to come in on Saturdays and
Sundays, I'll work and make up for

01:23:02.829 --> 01:23:06.237
it and everything else. He said, don't
be concerned about that. So he

01:23:06.270 --> 01:23:11.296
hired, he had me there. He told me to
take the TV job, which I did and,

01:23:11.329 --> 01:23:15.095
and I would go work for him on
Saturdays and Sundays, which I didn't have

01:23:15.128 --> 01:23:18.737
to do anything. And then the other
interesting thing about it was that

01:23:18.770 --> 01:23:22.647
when I did the television, you talk
about a fish being out of water. Oh my

01:23:22.680 --> 01:23:26.967
God almighty. And I, Mary Jo West was
really helpful to me. Uh She helped

01:23:27.000 --> 01:23:32.357
me out dramatically and this guy was
there at the time. And so, but the

01:23:32.390 --> 01:23:36.277
fascinating thing about it was that I
got an opportunity, the Canadian

01:23:36.310 --> 01:23:40.107
people came down, Ralph Zaio and one
of our former players, Joe Zuger, who

01:23:40.140 --> 01:23:45.237
is a punter, was assistant general
manager at Hamilton and Ralph Zaio, the

01:23:45.270 --> 01:23:48.857
general manager came down and offered
me the job to go coach Hamilton tcas

01:23:48.890 --> 01:23:54.687
, believe me, I didn't even know where
Hamilton was. I took the job

01:23:54.720 --> 01:23:59.156
because when I say I, I was out of my
element doing the television work.

01:23:59.189 --> 01:24:03.425
And so that's how I ended up in
Canada. And from Canada, I was there for

01:24:03.458 --> 01:24:08.467
one year. We had a great deal of
success with the Baltimore Colts and had

01:24:08.500 --> 01:24:13.326
marginal success there. Then I took
the uh uh and we took the Mayflower

01:24:13.359 --> 01:24:18.756
Midnight and moved to Indianapolis
Colts and then for a minute, what, what

01:24:18.789 --> 01:24:23.385
, why, why were you out of your? Well,
it was so much of a contrast than

01:24:23.418 --> 01:24:26.765
say, like us sitting here and talking,
I'm talking to you the preparation

01:24:26.798 --> 01:24:33.196
. I had to prepare everything, then I
had to learn to type and, and, and,

01:24:33.229 --> 01:24:37.496
and, and, and look good all the time,
you know, with the makeup and I'm

01:24:37.529 --> 01:24:42.595
about as ugly as I am. I said the
makeup didn't help at all. But, but no,

01:24:42.628 --> 01:24:47.796
and I, and I was uneasy because as I
said, I was trying to be too good,

01:24:47.829 --> 01:24:53.357
trying my best instead of being casual
and uh you know, just talking like

01:24:53.390 --> 01:24:56.425
I would here et cetera and maybe I got
a little better bill thought I was

01:24:56.458 --> 01:25:01.666
doing a good job but he was just being
diplomatic. No, you got better. You

01:25:01.699 --> 01:25:07.397
couldn't, you couldn't have gotten any
worse. Well, you're not shy. So, no

01:25:07.430 --> 01:25:12.456
, no, but no, you had to be diplomatic
because and, and, and this is the

01:25:12.489 --> 01:25:16.055
gospel truth. You know how you put the
teleprompter down there. Most

01:25:16.088 --> 01:25:22.226
people for 3 to 5 minutes show, maybe,
maybe 34 yards of paper. I must

01:25:22.259 --> 01:25:25.336
have had 30 yards of it

01:25:25.369 --> 01:25:31.607
all, as I said. And when you talk
about a lot of people talk about reborn

01:25:31.640 --> 01:25:34.706
Christians, you talk about a reborn
coach when they offered me that job in

01:25:34.739 --> 01:25:41.586
Canada. I'm here. Like, where's
Hamilton? You know? Oh my God. Just get

01:25:41.619 --> 01:25:46.036
something that I knew what I was
doing. Or I think, I know, I know when

01:25:46.069 --> 01:25:52.196
you lose, I don't think you are
either. So you went to and I was there for

01:25:52.229 --> 01:25:56.305
a year. We had a great deal of success
and then they offered me the job at

01:25:56.338 --> 01:26:00.317
the Baltimore Colts. I went down there
and we were there for two years,

01:26:00.350 --> 01:26:06.555
then moved to Indianapolis and I was
there for one year. Then I uh took

01:26:06.588 --> 01:26:12.345
the job here in the US FL for the
Arizona outlaws and the, the, the they

01:26:12.378 --> 01:26:17.406
were just starting the US FL and it
was quite a contrast and you had

01:26:17.439 --> 01:26:21.046
control of it in contrast to what I
didn't have in Baltimore and

01:26:21.079 --> 01:26:23.937
Indianapolis.

01:26:23.970 --> 01:26:28.796
And then what happened after that fell
apart? Well, when, when uh when I

01:26:28.829 --> 01:26:35.506
came here to the US FL and then, uh
well, I was Bob Walker, the fellow

01:26:35.539 --> 01:26:39.546
that I was talking about previously
bought turf paradise.

01:26:39.579 --> 01:26:44.376
So he asked me and I was, I still,
when the US FL folded, I still had

01:26:44.409 --> 01:26:47.885
three more years of a personal server
contract with an exceptionally great

01:26:47.918 --> 01:26:55.095
salary. And uh and Bob Walker asked me
to help him at Turf Paradise. So I

01:26:55.128 --> 01:26:59.046
went out with Bob Walker, Turf
Paradise and helped him for about a year

01:26:59.079 --> 01:27:03.885
and a half. And then Bob Thomas, who
was the president of Arizona Boys

01:27:03.918 --> 01:27:07.217
Ranch, which is a residential
treatment center for juvenile delinquents

01:27:07.250 --> 01:27:10.876
called me and wanted to talk to me and
asked me if I would get involved

01:27:10.909 --> 01:27:13.937
with them, which I really enjoyed. I
was with the Arizona Boys Ranch for

01:27:13.970 --> 01:27:18.675
about 10 years and they had a tragedy
out there and that created the

01:27:18.708 --> 01:27:22.897
demise for the entire program. But uh
I, I enjoyed the association out

01:27:22.930 --> 01:27:26.506
there. The people were great and the
youngsters at one time, we had a

01:27:26.539 --> 01:27:32.425
budget of about 28 million and we had
over 600 youngsters that uh it's now

01:27:32.458 --> 01:27:37.506
called Canyon State Academy. But I, I
enjoyed the association in

01:27:37.539 --> 01:27:40.817
recruiting or soliciting whatever word
you want to use with the families.

01:27:40.850 --> 01:27:44.746
And, and it was an eye opener in many
ways also because that's where you

01:27:44.779 --> 01:27:49.046
really see the dysfunctional families.
And we had youngsters from all over

01:27:49.079 --> 01:27:54.425
the United States and it was a great
program and I still think it's one of

01:27:54.458 --> 01:27:58.687
those programs that are necessity and
they do the appropriate things from

01:27:58.720 --> 01:28:03.036
the standpoint of developing
youngsters academically and socially and

01:28:03.069 --> 01:28:05.107
responsibilities.

01:28:05.140 --> 01:28:08.937
So, some people thought that was, I
think when I heard that you were at

01:28:08.970 --> 01:28:12.836
Boys Ranch, that was kind of an
unusual career move for you. Well, no, no

01:28:12.869 --> 01:28:16.536
, I tell you what, because it's still
the people business and that's what

01:28:16.569 --> 01:28:19.055
I find. That's what I enjoyed about
it. I'm talking about with the

01:28:19.088 --> 01:28:22.406
families. I'm talking about with the
youngsters. I'm talking about with

01:28:22.439 --> 01:28:26.541
the staff out there. So it really is
very similar. We started a football

01:28:26.574 --> 01:28:31.862
program in 1995 and had a great deal
of success. It really comes down to

01:28:31.895 --> 01:28:34.671
caring about people. And when I say
caring, I'm talking about

01:28:34.704 --> 01:28:38.671
responsibilities, accountabilities and
consequences and that's what it's

01:28:38.704 --> 01:28:43.862
all about out there or even as a
family. And so I enjoyed it. It was a

01:28:43.895 --> 01:28:49.220
great experience and it was, it was
easy for me because all I did was

01:28:49.253 --> 01:28:55.476
transfer my coaching concepts to these
teenage youngsters,

01:28:55.509 --> 01:29:00.226
but they're kids. No, no, not really.
And I think this is one thing that

01:29:00.259 --> 01:29:05.796
we forget in our society. A lot of
times we assume college kids are more

01:29:05.829 --> 01:29:10.796
mature and they're not and they're
teenagers and they're going to be

01:29:10.829 --> 01:29:14.345
unstable from the standpoint of all
those responsibilities I talked about

01:29:14.378 --> 01:29:17.055
and they've got to grow and be
accountable in the same way with those

01:29:17.088 --> 01:29:24.246
youngsters at the academy. The same
philosophy when you left a su in 1979.

01:29:24.279 --> 01:29:30.765
Was it, did you ever think that you
come back. No, no, no one thing about

01:29:30.798 --> 01:29:35.496
me. I'm a realist. What happens when I
walk out of here, I'm going to go

01:29:35.529 --> 01:29:40.666
out that door. I know that. But no, I,
I've never ever tried to project

01:29:40.699 --> 01:29:45.107
the future because you have no control
of it. And, uh, and I, and I feel

01:29:45.140 --> 01:29:49.946
very strongly about that is my
philosophy is enjoy life and be a

01:29:49.979 --> 01:29:55.217
humanitarian. I want to treat you the
way I want to be treated. So that's

01:29:55.250 --> 01:30:00.536
when I walk out here. That's my
philosophy now as a coach. And I feel very

01:30:00.569 --> 01:30:06.296
strongly, that's why we had success
because I aquire that nasty and tough

01:30:06.329 --> 01:30:11.675
as my dad was, I would try to
exemplify the same type of behavior I care

01:30:11.708 --> 01:30:15.796
about you, but I'm going to make you
be successful when it's socially

01:30:15.829 --> 01:30:19.717
academically, etc So again,

01:30:19.750 --> 01:30:25.737
it, it's uh not easy at times because
you've got to be a,

01:30:25.770 --> 01:30:30.406
I won't sit in front of you gals. But
no, you've got to be a rascal every

01:30:30.439 --> 01:30:35.385
now and then. And there's a certain
degree of fear, fear of failure, you

01:30:35.418 --> 01:30:38.987
know, whether it's football, whether
it's academics, whether it's social,

01:30:39.020 --> 01:30:45.055
you in my opinion, have to be fear of
failing. Like when I went to, I went

01:30:45.088 --> 01:30:48.036
to college, the biggest

01:30:48.069 --> 01:30:52.746
factor me in college was fear of
flunking out because I never experienced

01:30:52.779 --> 01:30:57.237
anything like that just like most kids
going in. But I studied hard enough

01:30:57.270 --> 01:31:01.217
and made doggone sure I wasn't going
to flunk out. And what drove me was

01:31:01.250 --> 01:31:04.717
the self motivating because mom and
dad wasn't there, the high school

01:31:04.750 --> 01:31:09.086
coaches weren't there. And I think the
same thing is true, even today,

01:31:09.119 --> 01:31:12.425
just as an adult

01:31:12.458 --> 01:31:16.317
and I acquired this from my parents.
Did you treat others the way you want

01:31:16.350 --> 01:31:22.196
to be treated? Ok.

01:31:22.229 --> 01:31:29.036
C

01:31:29.069 --> 01:31:34.987
pam, I had a couple of questions,
Frank Frank, uh, looking back, looking

01:31:35.020 --> 01:31:41.385
back, uh would you, would you tell us
the uh uh athletes that you coached

01:31:41.418 --> 01:31:45.296
? How do you feel about them? And you
know, what were they like? And what

01:31:45.329 --> 01:31:49.107
are they doing? Well, I, I think all
athletes, especially at the

01:31:49.140 --> 01:31:52.756
collegiate level, I'm talking about in
high school level, you as the head

01:31:52.789 --> 01:31:57.305
coach and coaching staff have control
of their destiny. When I say their

01:31:57.338 --> 01:32:00.717
destiny, I'm talking of being
repetitious against. The first thing is

01:32:00.750 --> 01:32:04.765
social responsibilities, growth and
maturity and learning to be

01:32:04.798 --> 01:32:10.696
responsible and accountable. I think
it's very significant that you have

01:32:10.729 --> 01:32:17.265
that kind of an attitude. And as I
said, make those people grow and

01:32:17.298 --> 01:32:22.805
develop and you as a coach, teacher,
whomever it may be. When I mentioned

01:32:22.838 --> 01:32:25.857
those teachers I had at the elementary
school, that's what they did. They

01:32:25.890 --> 01:32:30.836
cared in a different way. They were,
they weren't as pleasant. But yet I

01:32:30.869 --> 01:32:36.027
think the same thing is true at any
level. But the individuals I'm talking

01:32:36.060 --> 01:32:40.067
about, you know, when you look back,
individual guys. Can you tell us

01:32:40.100 --> 01:32:45.906
stories about, you know, how they
change? Well, what you have to look for

01:32:45.939 --> 01:32:51.116
, you have to recognize, say you bring
a freshman in, ok, you have certain

01:32:51.149 --> 01:32:55.586
expectations of that youngster to be a
freshman in college no longer act

01:32:55.619 --> 01:33:01.246
like a high school kid. Ok? Now he has
the responsibilities and you have,

01:33:01.279 --> 01:33:05.885
I used to evaluate every one of our
players socially and I keep repeating

01:33:05.918 --> 01:33:10.706
these same things socially,
academically and athletically, we graded every

01:33:10.739 --> 01:33:15.805
one of our players. And so again, they
made progress, they improve. Now

01:33:15.838 --> 01:33:21.006
what you permit them to do, you give
them the opportunity to develop on

01:33:21.039 --> 01:33:24.175
their own. Now, if they're not
developing on their own, then it's your

01:33:24.208 --> 01:33:27.647
responsibility to correct them and
pardon the expression, you give them

01:33:27.680 --> 01:33:31.696
more rope, the more responsible they
are. Now we had some youngsters, I

01:33:31.729 --> 01:33:34.416
won't mention their names. You have to
yank that rope and pull it awful

01:33:34.449 --> 01:33:38.286
tight to get them back in line. And
those are the youngsters that you're

01:33:38.319 --> 01:33:41.506
going to have more problems with. You
have the kids like Danny White, they

01:33:41.539 --> 01:33:46.467
just grow and mature. Now was I on,
would I be after Danny White? Yes, but

01:33:46.500 --> 01:33:52.226
he would progress and improve because
he knew by us teaching him etcetera

01:33:52.259 --> 01:33:55.805
, whether it's football, socially,
etcetera, he was going to progress and

01:33:55.838 --> 01:33:59.866
he was going to prove it. I think that
is the key in my opinion to

01:33:59.899 --> 01:34:04.326
coaching and even being a parent
knowing that youngster, what he is or she

01:34:04.359 --> 01:34:09.786
is capable of doing and you be able to
give that person enough of that

01:34:09.819 --> 01:34:14.456
information where they grow and
develop. And now what happens also is you

01:34:14.489 --> 01:34:18.086
cannot give them expectations that
they're not capable of handling. And

01:34:18.119 --> 01:34:22.576
that's where you as a parent or even
as a teacher, in my opinion, are

01:34:22.609 --> 01:34:26.866
going to be extremely successful,
being able to recognize that individual

01:34:26.899 --> 01:34:29.845
difference of everybody in the family
or everybody on the team, they're

01:34:29.878 --> 01:34:33.726
all a lot alike. And that's one of the
most difficult things I had to

01:34:33.759 --> 01:34:37.397
learn. It took me five years of
coaching to find out everybody's not going

01:34:37.430 --> 01:34:43.866
to be a superstar. I had. Then I, to
me, I really prided myself on knowing

01:34:43.899 --> 01:34:47.305
each and every one of those kids.
That's why I see him today. I still

01:34:47.338 --> 01:34:52.296
remember their names. I'd say the bulk
of them because of that philosophy.

01:34:52.329 --> 01:34:56.156
And I think I acquired that basically
from my parents, those elementary

01:34:56.189 --> 01:35:01.175
school teachers that at Michigan State
is they care for you. They want you

01:35:01.208 --> 01:35:05.555
to progress, they want you to improve.
And then as I said, as you improve

01:35:05.588 --> 01:35:09.737
and become more mature, they give you
the responsibility of taking

01:35:09.770 --> 01:35:12.487
additional responsibility.

01:35:12.520 --> 01:35:16.305
Is that answer? Are they some special
ones? I mean some names II, I, well

01:35:16.338 --> 01:35:21.135
, I'm gonna mention I have to mention
the bad ones also.

01:35:21.168 --> 01:35:26.527
Well, you know, you, you take the
kids. Uh, let's talk about somebody like

01:35:26.560 --> 01:35:30.406
a Danny White. He comes from a very
solid family and good youngsters gonna

01:35:30.439 --> 01:35:34.055
make progress going to improve. He
wasn't a great high school quarterback.

01:35:34.088 --> 01:35:37.996
He was a great high school basketball
player and a track guy and a good,

01:35:38.029 --> 01:35:41.996
good football player. Not great. And
we recruited him because he's an

01:35:42.029 --> 01:35:45.706
athlete and he came from a great
family. So he's going to improve. You

01:35:45.739 --> 01:35:49.237
don't have to worry about him with
discipline. Let's go the other side of

01:35:49.270 --> 01:35:52.786
the coin of JD Hill,

01:35:52.819 --> 01:35:56.857
JD Hill, super athlete coming out of
high school has all kind of abilities.

01:35:56.890 --> 01:36:01.635
He's gonna eventually be a number one
pro pro football player. JD Hill

01:36:01.668 --> 01:36:05.866
came from what I would call a
dysfunctional family. He had a child when he

01:36:05.899 --> 01:36:10.897
was still in high school. You know,
when we had, we had, I had to

01:36:10.930 --> 01:36:16.906
discipline him, for example, in his
senior year, he had a great junior and

01:36:16.939 --> 01:36:21.777
sophomore year. He's, he's going to be
a number one draft choice. He got

01:36:21.810 --> 01:36:26.055
involved in some mickey mouse problems

01:36:26.088 --> 01:36:30.265
socially. I booted him off for a year.
I told him, I said, ok, you are

01:36:30.298 --> 01:36:34.777
through as a sun devil. You could go
to Canada at that time, Canada would

01:36:34.810 --> 01:36:38.687
take him, the NFL would not take an
underclassman and I said you have that

01:36:38.720 --> 01:36:44.916
opportunity or if you want to stay
here, I'll get you a job working you. I

01:36:44.949 --> 01:36:49.246
, I'll let you have your tuition and
fees and you're gonna have to work

01:36:49.279 --> 01:36:53.496
for your room and board and you,
you're gonna pay your own way for your

01:36:53.529 --> 01:36:58.737
room and board. And then if you show
that you're responsible and you, I'll

01:36:58.770 --> 01:37:02.305
have you back for next year. Football.
So then he does everything I want

01:37:02.338 --> 01:37:07.706
him to do and next year he's the
number one draft choice for Buffalo Bills.

01:37:07.739 --> 01:37:12.385
That's a good example. Now has he had
problems? Yes, he has. And the

01:37:12.418 --> 01:37:16.156
unfortunate now you, you take other
people say like the Malones are a good

01:37:16.189 --> 01:37:24.189
example for Eli the Malone's both
Benny and art Malone Eloy. You know,

01:37:25.859 --> 01:37:32.897
they have no concept of the contrast
of education in, in Eloy high school

01:37:32.930 --> 01:37:39.116
compared to what is required at the
college level. And art had a difficult

01:37:39.149 --> 01:37:45.319
time because, you know, entrance that
he got in and really bright guy.

01:37:45.369 --> 01:37:47.369
Eventually, I think he had an eight on AC T test, which is, you know, very

01:37:48.958 --> 01:37:51.836
, very low.

01:37:51.869 --> 01:37:57.305
He and he by the time he was a senior
went into graduate, ended up going,

01:37:57.338 --> 01:38:01.647
he had a 28 on the AC T test because
of the background. And now art was

01:38:01.680 --> 01:38:06.277
again, came from a indigent type of
family. So his mom and dad both died

01:38:06.310 --> 01:38:11.206
of diabetes and just ironically, his
29 year old daughter died right the

01:38:11.239 --> 01:38:16.326
day before Christmas of diabetes. But
there's a good example of a family,

01:38:16.359 --> 01:38:22.446
had good responsibilities, came into a
program was a saint. No, but

01:38:22.479 --> 01:38:25.967
neither was many, but they ended up
doing what you wanted them to do. And

01:38:26.000 --> 01:38:30.206
I, as a coach and our assistant
coaches made them responsible. They grew

01:38:30.239 --> 01:38:35.595
academically from, I would say a
marginal student to a great student all

01:38:35.628 --> 01:38:41.217
because of somebody caring for him.
And they had the basic intelligence.

01:38:41.250 --> 01:38:46.366
Others I can mention, Pat Appley said
you discipline them, boot them off

01:38:46.399 --> 01:38:50.135
because they're not abiding by the
rules and regulations. And, and as I

01:38:50.168 --> 01:38:54.326
said, and I'll be repetitious. I used
to tell him, don't do anything to

01:38:54.359 --> 01:38:58.015
embarrass yourself or your family or
the program. And I, and I, and it's

01:38:58.048 --> 01:39:04.147
the way I treat them. Uh And II, I
feel very strongly in the years I spent

01:39:04.180 --> 01:39:09.166
at Arizona Boys Ranch in the same
philosophy

01:39:09.199 --> 01:39:16.527
that looks like juggling with. You
brought up something in my mind during

01:39:16.560 --> 01:39:21.187
your time here. What about race? What,
what was the issue of racial

01:39:21.220 --> 01:39:24.897
problems that we didn't have them?
Because when they got injured, the

01:39:24.930 --> 01:39:27.976
blood came out red.

01:39:28.009 --> 01:39:33.546
No one thing I, I acquired for
somewhere down along I came from a, we had

01:39:33.579 --> 01:39:36.706
and, and I'll tell you what, I came
from a coal mining town. We had one

01:39:36.739 --> 01:39:41.796
black family in the community. The dad
Mr Thomas was a restaurant owner in

01:39:41.829 --> 01:39:47.987
downtown Wimber Jesse, his son was in
our class and I really felt sorry

01:39:48.020 --> 01:39:52.866
for him because socially, you know,
you're in all those ethnic groups and

01:39:52.899 --> 01:39:55.675
there's no white girls are going to
date him, et cetera and everything

01:39:55.708 --> 01:39:59.567
else. And

01:39:59.600 --> 01:40:03.496
I had great admiration for him. Both
he and his brother, his brother was

01:40:03.529 --> 01:40:07.027
probably a freshman when Jesse was a
senior in high school. So I developed

01:40:07.060 --> 01:40:12.086
when I say a relationship but the
prejudice was there with everybody. So

01:40:12.119 --> 01:40:16.046
they used to go to Johnstown, which
was a city relatively close by about

01:40:16.079 --> 01:40:19.277
88,000 were black families. They used
to go there. Well, I'll give you a

01:40:19.310 --> 01:40:24.237
prize example. Unfortunately, Jesse
was in an automobile accident and got

01:40:24.270 --> 01:40:29.135
killed. Now, we had our high school
reunion,

01:40:29.168 --> 01:40:34.336
50th reunion and they had a tribute to
each one of the people that died

01:40:34.369 --> 01:40:40.015
and they had a rose and with a name on
it. And this is a coal mining area

01:40:40.048 --> 01:40:42.666
back in Pennsylvania.

01:40:42.699 --> 01:40:48.826
And, uh, I was, I was a president of
class for three years and I'm

01:40:48.859 --> 01:40:52.635
watching everybody and everything
else. And it's typical what you would

01:40:52.668 --> 01:40:57.336
see in a community like that. They
don't associate with other people,

01:40:57.369 --> 01:41:01.967
whether they're minorities, whomever
it may be. And they had these roses

01:41:02.000 --> 01:41:06.857
up on the ceiling and it was going to
cost $5 to buy the rose and it would

01:41:06.890 --> 01:41:11.286
go into the high school pot for the
next reunion. And I watched, I was

01:41:11.319 --> 01:41:17.406
just curious. Nobody bought that one
of Jesse's. These are kids that knew

01:41:17.439 --> 01:41:22.246
him, that they know him. Like I did
know and so I still have that rose in

01:41:22.279 --> 01:41:25.906
my office. I should have brought it
here and show it to you. And just to

01:41:25.939 --> 01:41:31.467
remind me of people and prejudiced
and, uh, you know, because of the color

01:41:31.500 --> 01:41:36.116
or say what other factor that the
language, whatever it may be. And I

01:41:36.149 --> 01:41:40.706
always felt sorry for those guys. And
so with, with athletes, I treated

01:41:40.739 --> 01:41:47.147
them all alike equally as bad.

01:41:47.180 --> 01:41:51.555
I expected to me race never meant
anything to me. They had

01:41:51.588 --> 01:41:57.897
responsibilities and I hate to talk
about academics and athletics and

01:41:57.930 --> 01:42:02.857
social responsibilities, accountable.
The freshmen, they make a mistake.

01:42:02.890 --> 01:42:06.156
They're freshmen, sophomore, they're
growing, they're more responsible.

01:42:06.189 --> 01:42:09.925
You better be responsible, you're a
junior and senior, you better be

01:42:09.958 --> 01:42:14.126
doggone responsible because I expect
you to grow and expect you to mature.

01:42:14.159 --> 01:42:21.876
And uh I, one thing good about me, I,
if for some reason or other

01:42:21.909 --> 01:42:26.805
race was never an issue with me, I
accepted people as I was because I came

01:42:26.838 --> 01:42:33.076
from an indigent background when I say
monetarily, we didn't have anything.

01:42:33.109 --> 01:42:37.567
And again, so as I said, I was taught
to treat others the way you want to

01:42:37.600 --> 01:42:40.817
be treated. And that's the way I
treated our football players because I

01:42:40.850 --> 01:42:44.345
felt that I coached that way. I played
that way. And that's why I had the

01:42:44.378 --> 01:42:49.996
success myself and that's what I
expected from them. Sports is one place

01:42:50.029 --> 01:42:55.006
that became integrated, I think before
the rest of the society,

01:42:55.039 --> 01:42:58.536
well, you know, to me, I, I personally
think it comes from the family and

01:42:58.569 --> 01:43:03.456
the school system. I still have great
admiration. Now, my dad, let me tell

01:43:03.489 --> 01:43:06.456
you something. When he did died, I was
glad he died. It took me about a

01:43:06.489 --> 01:43:10.456
year and a half to appreciate what he
did for us. And then those teachers

01:43:10.489 --> 01:43:13.666
I told you about that. I remember
every one of their names because they

01:43:13.699 --> 01:43:17.996
have such an impact on you between my
mother and my father, my older

01:43:18.029 --> 01:43:22.015
brothers and then the teachers at the
elementary school, that's why I'm

01:43:22.048 --> 01:43:25.897
sitting here.

01:43:25.930 --> 01:43:29.446
We didn't talk too much about, but
you've touched on, you want to talk a

01:43:29.479 --> 01:43:32.796
little bit more about some of the
support that you got as a football coach

01:43:32.829 --> 01:43:37.696
from organizations like the Sun
Angels. Um, well, you know, the intriguing

01:43:37.729 --> 01:43:42.095
thing about it when we came here with
the Sun Angels, they were kind of a

01:43:42.128 --> 01:43:46.616
close knit organization. They were
involved in the program extensively.

01:43:46.649 --> 01:43:51.126
Then when Clyde Smith had taken over,
he was the former coach he had taken

01:43:51.159 --> 01:43:56.406
over. Then the association with the
Sun Angels was no longer as a close

01:43:56.439 --> 01:44:00.055
knit to the coaches, which was a great
idea. In my opinion, that way, the

01:44:00.088 --> 01:44:02.595
Sun Angels don't get involved with the
players, which I thought was a

01:44:02.628 --> 01:44:07.357
great in all the years that I coached.
I don't think we ever had any

01:44:07.390 --> 01:44:10.416
association with the boosters in the
players because that's where you

01:44:10.449 --> 01:44:15.135
create problems from the standpoint
of, I'm talking about factors that are

01:44:15.168 --> 01:44:18.666
illegal at the collegiate level, etc.
But the Sun Angels are a great

01:44:18.699 --> 01:44:22.885
organization and I've seen them change
dramatically from the standpoint of

01:44:22.918 --> 01:44:28.976
their responsibilities and they do a
remarkable job of support for the

01:44:29.009 --> 01:44:34.756
various programs in athletics, which I
think is great and it's a necessity.

01:44:34.789 --> 01:44:39.555
Well, and you talked a little bit
about how big Sun Devil football was

01:44:39.588 --> 01:44:44.527
here in the community. Can you talk a
little bit more when you came here?

01:44:44.560 --> 01:44:48.506
There wasn't much else, I guess. No,
we were the only act in town so to

01:44:48.539 --> 01:44:53.046
speak and we didn't have the pro
sports and, and another great thing about

01:44:53.079 --> 01:44:56.456
it is the community was focused. It's
like a high school program. The

01:44:56.489 --> 01:45:01.246
community is focused around Arizona
State College and then Arizona State

01:45:01.279 --> 01:45:05.196
University. I'm talking about the
country clubs. I'm talking about the,

01:45:05.229 --> 01:45:08.147
the boosters, et cetera and everything
else, which was great for the

01:45:08.180 --> 01:45:12.666
community. And it was the thing to be
at the Arizona State football games.

01:45:12.699 --> 01:45:16.607
And uh then that gradually diminished
from the standpoint when you get

01:45:16.640 --> 01:45:20.406
the, you got the pro sports in here

01:45:20.439 --> 01:45:25.866
originally in the early days. You were
the Yeah. Yeah, we definitely were.

01:45:25.899 --> 01:45:29.866
Yeah, I mean, no, there's no question
about it because, you know, it was

01:45:29.899 --> 01:45:33.126
the only act in town that people
wanted to go, excuse me, people wanted to

01:45:33.159 --> 01:45:37.706
go and see. So and we had the
following, we had the tradition we won,

01:45:37.739 --> 01:45:42.576
which is very significant. And so I
think it's, uh it's very important to

01:45:42.609 --> 01:45:46.826
have that in the community. You take
some of the institutions, like, why

01:45:46.859 --> 01:45:51.175
is Michigan? Why is Penn State?
They're the only, they're the only thing

01:45:51.208 --> 01:45:55.116
in town. And I think the U of A has a
certain degree of that down there

01:45:55.149 --> 01:46:00.067
because they don't have the
competition from the other activities

01:46:00.100 --> 01:46:05.196
you talked about coming into town and
you couldn't even find Tempe. And at

01:46:05.229 --> 01:46:09.726
the college talk about how the
community has changed. Well, what I have

01:46:09.759 --> 01:46:16.086
seen, uh it has grown dramatically.
Uh, number one, say the institution

01:46:16.119 --> 01:46:20.166
aspect of it, the growth of it, the
physical aspects of it, the academic,

01:46:20.199 --> 01:46:23.726
uh, to me from the four colleges that
they had when I first came here,

01:46:23.759 --> 01:46:27.397
that all of the institute colleges
within the university now. And I think

01:46:27.430 --> 01:46:32.567
it's been great for the community. But
when you have the size, like we had

01:46:32.600 --> 01:46:37.175
4000, 500 students, now, I think we're
the largest in the country. So

01:46:37.208 --> 01:46:40.746
again, you get away from that
personal, intimate relationship and the

01:46:40.779 --> 01:46:44.996
associations you have not only with
the students but with the faculty. So

01:46:45.029 --> 01:46:49.006
I think those are certainly factors
that I think make the difference in an

01:46:49.039 --> 01:46:53.166
institution. Is it the way to go?
Evidently it is for some people. Me. No

01:46:53.199 --> 01:46:55.446
,

01:46:55.479 --> 01:47:00.456
you are back here though. Yeah, I'm
back on

01:47:00.489 --> 01:47:03.376
my terms,

01:47:03.409 --> 01:47:08.015
I, I'm in community relations and I
get involved extensively and then, uh

01:47:08.048 --> 01:47:12.916
, I, I think that I, I, I'm interested
just like there are some people

01:47:12.949 --> 01:47:16.726
from Canada, I came and showed them
around, they had their son with them

01:47:16.759 --> 01:47:20.527
and he said he was, uh, uh, gonna be a
high school quarterback. So I sat

01:47:20.560 --> 01:47:24.126
down with him, gave him drills that I
had had the dad, his dad was a can,

01:47:24.159 --> 01:47:28.366
I didn't know him. I mean, that's the
association that I love with. I, I

01:47:28.399 --> 01:47:32.336
think the college atmosphere is
fantastic, in my opinion. I, I love the

01:47:32.369 --> 01:47:35.805
type of people that are, that are
involved in it, whether they're faculty

01:47:35.838 --> 01:47:39.046
, whether they're students or whether
they're visitors. So this little guy

01:47:39.079 --> 01:47:43.246
, I'm teaching him all the quarterback
drills and I gave his dad a copy of

01:47:43.279 --> 01:47:48.506
the drills. And so any time, say like
this afternoon, I have one of my

01:47:48.539 --> 01:47:51.976
former graduate assistants and his
family is coming in. So I enjoy that

01:47:52.009 --> 01:47:56.305
aspect of it. So it's really community
relations, things that I enjoy

01:47:56.338 --> 01:48:00.416
because I love the college atmosphere.

01:48:00.449 --> 01:48:05.425
Oh, yeah, I have an office. I come to
work every day and I know the good

01:48:05.458 --> 01:48:08.756
thing about it is I have
responsibilities

01:48:08.789 --> 01:48:12.515
and I know what I have to do. I get it
done. I don't have to be concerned

01:48:12.548 --> 01:48:17.015
about, am I satisfying this person or
am I satisfying that individual or I

01:48:17.048 --> 01:48:20.437
don't have to worry about winning
football games and everything else. So,

01:48:20.470 --> 01:48:25.527
it's enjoyable. It's the people
business, but you could just be retired

01:48:25.560 --> 01:48:32.836
and taking it easy. I don't think my
wife will permit that.

01:48:32.869 --> 01:48:38.397
Well, I know I ran down, uh, this
little biography of you, um, from the

01:48:38.430 --> 01:48:42.416
Frank Kush Youth Foundation I found.
Tell me what the Frank Kush Youth

01:48:42.449 --> 01:48:46.107
Foundation. Well, that's, you know, I,
I'm trying to figure that one out

01:48:46.140 --> 01:48:52.496
also. Uh, uh, it, it, uh, Andy Drezo
who heads it up and all we do is have

01:48:52.529 --> 01:48:57.226
a running program in here in the city
of Tempe. And, uh, with the revenue

01:48:57.259 --> 01:49:02.076
, I'm not involved in that segment of
it on a monetary basis. But, uh,

01:49:02.109 --> 01:49:07.976
they just use my name and, uh, they
gifted uh, youngsters in, uh, in

01:49:08.009 --> 01:49:14.206
various high school and junior high
programs.

01:49:14.239 --> 01:49:19.126
No, I think I'm going to have to
because the thing is really wrong. In

01:49:19.159 --> 01:49:24.836
fact, there may be some monetary
responsibilities that I better be

01:49:24.869 --> 01:49:27.687
concerned about.

01:49:27.720 --> 01:49:30.446
Uh, well, they have a nice biography
of you there and it mentioned some of

01:49:30.479 --> 01:49:36.437
the honors that you've received. Um,
let's see, it says on there that

01:49:36.470 --> 01:49:40.206
you're a charter member of the NFFCHF

01:49:40.239 --> 01:49:43.555
Valley of the Sun chapter. What's
that? That's the national football Hall

01:49:43.588 --> 01:49:49.237
of Fame. I was inducted into the
college Hall of Fame in 1995 and I've

01:49:49.270 --> 01:49:54.546
been an active member of that since
the sixties. I really enjoy it because

01:49:54.579 --> 01:50:01.607
we evaluate high school athletes, they
have to have a certain academic GPA

01:50:01.640 --> 01:50:05.196
and they're awarded scholarships and
everything else. I love to see people

01:50:05.229 --> 01:50:09.626
have an opportunity to become educated
and that's what that's all about.

01:50:09.659 --> 01:50:13.595
The National Football Hall of Fame. We
have, I think 100 and 40 some

01:50:13.628 --> 01:50:17.726
chapters. And I'm trying to, we're
trying to start a chapter up in Alaska

01:50:17.759 --> 01:50:21.635
and the so called Native Americans
here in town. But uh no, I, I think

01:50:21.668 --> 01:50:26.397
it's great because for example, the
National Football Hall of Fame, in

01:50:26.430 --> 01:50:31.357
conjunction with the NFL has developed
with the Get Smart Program. We have

01:50:31.390 --> 01:50:35.857
three high schools in the state of
Arizona where we provide an instructor

01:50:35.890 --> 01:50:39.586
in getting youngsters. And right now,
it's basically in the Hispanic

01:50:39.619 --> 01:50:43.876
neighborhoods, getting youngsters to
be aware of what an education means

01:50:43.909 --> 01:50:47.696
to improve their academic status at
the high school level. So they can go

01:50:47.729 --> 01:50:51.916
on to college and they're principally
involved with the high school

01:50:51.949 --> 01:50:56.376
football teams. And in fact, my
suggestion which we're going to do this

01:50:56.409 --> 01:51:02.086
year with our chapter is have the same
opportunities for cheerleaders. You

01:51:02.119 --> 01:51:04.765
know, I think it's very important that
all of our youngsters have an

01:51:04.798 --> 01:51:11.286
opportunity to become educated when I
say beyond the high school level. A

01:51:11.319 --> 01:51:18.116
right. Right. Exactly. Right.

01:51:18.149 --> 01:51:23.175
And you, you mentioned, you know, you
were in the Hall of Fame, the Polish

01:51:23.208 --> 01:51:26.076
Hall of Fame, the college Hall of
Fame. I got inducted into the Polish

01:51:26.109 --> 01:51:29.656
Hall, Michigan State.

01:51:29.689 --> 01:51:34.326
Well, it's all Polacks, the second
generation Polish youngsters and

01:51:34.359 --> 01:51:38.687
there's some great ones, Stan Musial
Kaminsky and all those guys. I was

01:51:38.720 --> 01:51:44.095
inducted about five years ago. It's
back at Hamtramck Michigan and I got

01:51:44.128 --> 01:51:47.937
to get a kick out of it because they
say who are Pollacks in the United

01:51:47.970 --> 01:51:54.675
States, second generation Polish
people. And so, no, the gratification I

01:51:54.708 --> 01:51:59.446
get out of that is the association
just like the other night that they had

01:51:59.479 --> 01:52:03.967
the all of the members from the
present Hall of Fame that were just

01:52:04.000 --> 01:52:07.397
inducted, they were on a football
field for the Fiesta ball game. And so I

01:52:07.430 --> 01:52:11.967
got to see those guys and, you know,
and then some of the other old timers

01:52:12.000 --> 01:52:17.067
like myself. So it's always enjoyable
because most of those people that

01:52:17.100 --> 01:52:21.206
have been inducted are really worthy
of it from the standpoint of they've

01:52:21.239 --> 01:52:26.607
had academic success and they've had
athletic success,

01:52:26.640 --> 01:52:30.156
college Hall of Fame, right? We have
the same thing for the high school

01:52:30.189 --> 01:52:32.826
here in the State of Arizona.

01:52:32.859 --> 01:52:38.366
What about when they named the field
for you? Well, you know, to me that's

01:52:38.399 --> 01:52:42.036
a tribute to the players and the
coaches we had, you know, it's not Frank

01:52:42.069 --> 01:52:45.857
Kush Field, it could be anybody, Danny
White's field or anybody else. But

01:52:45.890 --> 01:52:50.956
I think it's to me the gratification
that I got out of having those

01:52:50.989 --> 01:52:57.595
players, they made that possible. I
mean, without those youngsters

01:52:57.628 --> 01:53:01.956
again, as the various coaches we had
here as assistant coaches. That's all

01:53:01.989 --> 01:53:08.456
part of it. It's just not Frank Kush,
believe me.

01:53:08.489 --> 01:53:13.135
Wh which one of those students, which
one of those players do you put up

01:53:13.168 --> 01:53:16.885
there at the top of? Well, we had so
many, the good thing about our, our

01:53:16.918 --> 01:53:22.425
program over the years I could go back
in the fifties. I mentioned the

01:53:22.458 --> 01:53:25.166
Mogas, the Gene Mitchum

01:53:25.199 --> 01:53:31.286
John Jenkins. And so you go in the
sixties, the Joe Zuger, John mcfall, we

01:53:31.319 --> 01:53:34.166
had a lot of great college athletes.
See, I think that's the key to a

01:53:34.199 --> 01:53:36.996
college athlete. I'm not talking about
kids are going to be pros. We had

01:53:37.029 --> 01:53:40.286
eventually guys are in pro etcetera
and everything else. There's so many

01:53:40.319 --> 01:53:46.116
of them and when I say great, the
greatness means they had success, they

01:53:46.149 --> 01:53:51.817
got their degree and their responsible
citizens in our society. That to me

01:53:51.850 --> 01:53:56.726
is a successful portion of it. We had
them just horrendous every year,

01:53:56.759 --> 01:54:01.857
which I think is a gratification of
coaching at the collegiate level. But

01:54:01.890 --> 01:54:05.425
when you left here in 1979 did you
ever think that you would come back and

01:54:05.458 --> 01:54:09.786
have the field thing?

01:54:09.819 --> 01:54:15.967
No, that's to me it's, it's a tribute
as I said to, to the family and to

01:54:16.000 --> 01:54:22.626
the players we had, I think a a to
you.

01:54:22.659 --> 01:54:26.135
Well, I tell you the funny part about
that statue, my youngest

01:54:26.168 --> 01:54:31.187
granddaughter when she was uh she,
let's see about 18 now. So she was

01:54:31.220 --> 01:54:35.456
about 10 or 12. And she said, grandpa,
I thought they only made statues of

01:54:35.489 --> 01:54:40.805
dead people. Jordy

01:54:40.838 --> 01:54:48.156
II, I told her, I said your, your
grandpa is still alive. Ok.

01:54:48.189 --> 01:54:52.946
They should have waited a few years.
No, no, I, if I, if I, if I die, I

01:54:52.979 --> 01:54:56.607
wanna die healthy. Well, it's nice to
be honored when you're alive, I

01:54:56.640 --> 01:54:59.616
think. Yeah. Well,

01:54:59.649 --> 01:55:04.237
oh, I've got a couple of general
questions. I think June gave you these of

01:55:04.270 --> 01:55:09.937
, um, of, of all your accomplishments
at, um, a SU, what's the one that

01:55:09.970 --> 01:55:17.970
you're most proud of? Well, you know,
III, I break it down into

01:55:18.779 --> 01:55:23.487
athletically and academically. I got
my master's degree. I was proud of

01:55:23.520 --> 01:55:29.156
that. And then athletically, the
success we've had in my family. I have

01:55:29.189 --> 01:55:33.357
three boys. They're all a su

01:55:33.390 --> 01:55:41.095
grads and, uh, and my wife, you know,
she was a student in Michigan State

01:55:41.128 --> 01:55:45.256
and she's done a commendable job and
we've had a great family relationship

01:55:45.289 --> 01:55:49.857
here. I've had opportunities to take
pro jobs for a ton of money. I'm

01:55:49.890 --> 01:55:53.656
talking about when a million and a
half was a heck of a lot of money and I

01:55:53.689 --> 01:55:58.036
declined to because I enjoyed the
college atmosphere. I, I'm talking about

01:55:58.069 --> 01:56:01.987
the growth, the development for our
youngsters. In fact, I had a chance to

01:56:02.020 --> 01:56:06.756
take the New York Giants job years
ago. And the reason I didn't take it is

01:56:06.789 --> 01:56:11.126
that, uh, I, our family would have had
to live out in the boondocks

01:56:11.159 --> 01:56:16.786
somewhere and they had to commute by
car and all that to school and, and I

01:56:16.819 --> 01:56:20.876
, I love Tempe. Tempe is a great
community. It's a great college

01:56:20.909 --> 01:56:25.777
atmosphere and I, you, you meet a lot
of what I call people that have the

01:56:25.810 --> 01:56:31.027
same common interests about success
and all those factors that make it a

01:56:31.060 --> 01:56:35.696
great community. Well, people like,
you probably are part of that. I think

01:56:35.729 --> 01:56:39.826
a lot of people in your situation
after 1979 would have just left and

01:56:39.859 --> 01:56:46.937
never looked back. Well, you know, but
the thing about it when I, I left

01:56:46.970 --> 01:56:51.946
and went my, my typical female, she
stayed here while I was in the winter

01:56:51.979 --> 01:56:54.607
up in Canada and Baltimore. She'd come
up and see me in the spring and

01:56:54.640 --> 01:56:56.706
summertime

01:56:56.739 --> 01:57:00.726
and I kid her about that. But no, and
she was great as a mother. She did a

01:57:00.759 --> 01:57:04.717
commendable job by taking care of. In
fact, we only had one youngster at

01:57:04.750 --> 01:57:11.456
that time in uh school. But uh this
really is home to me. You know, you

01:57:11.489 --> 01:57:15.425
gotta realize that I came here when I
was a young kid when I was 26 years

01:57:15.458 --> 01:57:22.925
old. And uh and I've been here for 25
years. So I'm in my fifties. So I've

01:57:22.958 --> 01:57:26.296
developed some great relationships in
the community at Arizona State

01:57:26.329 --> 01:57:31.616
University, like you said, you had
opportunities to go. Yes. Right. And I

01:57:31.649 --> 01:57:37.217
, I think it's your values and how you
perceive your family relations,

01:57:37.250 --> 01:57:41.777
your family responsibilities and the
association you've had with people in

01:57:41.810 --> 01:57:46.175
the community and which we have, you
know, I'm talking about our Children.

01:57:46.208 --> 01:57:49.027
 They all went

01:57:49.060 --> 01:57:53.987
here and they're Tempe high graduates.
And so that's all part of it as far

01:57:54.020 --> 01:57:59.496
as I'm concerned. Now, some people may
be more money orientated. I'm not.

01:57:59.529 --> 01:58:02.687
Yeah. When you talked about what you
made as a coach, when you left, did

01:58:02.720 --> 01:58:10.720
you say from the university? I was
making 45,000.

01:58:11.759 --> 01:58:17.476
I don't begrudge him. No, that's part
of our society.

01:58:17.509 --> 01:58:20.635
It would be

01:58:20.668 --> 01:58:27.916
the thing that I feel badly about. I
think athletics at a collegiate level

01:58:27.949 --> 01:58:32.866
to me are way beyond what they should
be. In contrast, why are they here?

01:58:32.899 --> 01:58:38.265
They're here to get an education for
academic purposes. And I think the

01:58:38.298 --> 01:58:43.857
youngsters and also the pressure that
coaches put on them, they have the

01:58:43.890 --> 01:58:48.416
concept that they're going to be pro
athletes and there are so few of them.

01:58:48.449 --> 01:58:53.456
It's all about winning today and
money. And it's unfortunate because

01:58:53.489 --> 01:58:59.536
that's the nature of the game as it
is. Like when I was in college, there

01:58:59.569 --> 01:59:04.246
were only four bowl games and now
there's

01:59:04.279 --> 01:59:10.305
26 bowl games, there's, let's see, 28
bowl games. And so that means

01:59:10.338 --> 01:59:15.536
there's 56 teams playing in bowl games
before. It was an honor to play in

01:59:15.569 --> 01:59:19.055
a bowl game. You better have a pretty
good record. Now, anybody goes to a

01:59:19.088 --> 01:59:23.925
bowl game And again, what is it all
about? It's the monetary aspects of it.

01:59:23.958 --> 01:59:29.548
When you think of, we played the first
Fiesta Bowl game, we got 150,000.

01:59:30.838 --> 01:59:32.838
Those teams that played there the other day get approximately 15 million

01:59:35.000 --> 01:59:38.925
apiece.

01:59:38.958 --> 01:59:46.958
It's a different world.

01:59:47.449 --> 01:59:51.196
Well, I'm certainly disappointed even
though the Fiesta Bowl has been

01:59:51.229 --> 01:59:57.187
dragged to me personally, I get
involved with them and I feel that the

01:59:57.220 --> 02:00:03.515
city of Tempe, in addition to Arizona
State University, to me, there's a

02:00:03.548 --> 02:00:10.036
lot indebted to them for creating the
Fiesta Bowl and the people of Tempe

02:00:10.069 --> 02:00:13.876
when I say the people of Tempe, the
business people in Arizona State

02:00:13.909 --> 02:00:19.976
University. And to me right now, it's
the monetary aspects of it and

02:00:20.009 --> 02:00:24.536
there's no sense of loyalty or
tradition. So I think it's a loss, but I

02:00:24.569 --> 02:00:31.116
think we'll overcome it with the um
the

02:00:31.149 --> 02:00:35.675
inside ball game night. And because of
the community, people, like I'm

02:00:35.708 --> 02:00:40.265
involved extensively with the Tempe
Diablos, we go to the two teams that

02:00:40.298 --> 02:00:44.506
are going to participate in a festival
like I just was back in South Bend

02:00:44.539 --> 02:00:49.717
and also at Columbus. And next year,
I'm sure that Tempe Diablo Group is

02:00:49.750 --> 02:00:55.876
going to get detached to the inside
bowl and they'll be on A S US campus.

02:00:55.909 --> 02:01:00.196
And I think eventually the inside bowl
because of the location and the

02:01:00.229 --> 02:01:06.126
college atmosphere will be equally as
good.

02:01:06.159 --> 02:01:10.036
They are a bunch of businessmen that
are involved in the community they do

02:01:10.069 --> 02:01:14.036
a commendable job as far as supporting
various programs at the high school

02:01:14.069 --> 02:01:19.696
level, they give money to, they select
high school teachers and junior

02:01:19.729 --> 02:01:23.265
high teachers. They give them a pretty
good chunk of money and they are

02:01:23.298 --> 02:01:29.305
great community people. They're precip
involved with the Fiesta Bowl also

02:01:29.338 --> 02:01:35.397
with the city of Tempe Youth programs.
They've done a remarkable job and I

02:01:35.430 --> 02:01:40.765
get involved with them quite
extensively and we go back to the two teams

02:01:40.798 --> 02:01:44.456
that are going to participate in a
bowl game and the community programs.

02:01:44.489 --> 02:01:51.147
In fact, they're giving out awards
Monday in two youngsters that have

02:01:51.180 --> 02:01:56.055
honored themselves academically at the
high school level. So it sounds

02:01:56.088 --> 02:01:58.786
like you're still involved with young
people quite a bit. Yes, I enjoy

02:01:58.819 --> 02:02:04.086
them because they do what I want them
to do.

02:02:04.119 --> 02:02:08.996
I always ask everybody here is, what
advice do you give to young people

02:02:09.029 --> 02:02:14.437
when they're trying to? Well, II, I
think number one, they've got to go to

02:02:14.470 --> 02:02:19.706
an institution that has the type of
program, what they want to be involved

02:02:19.739 --> 02:02:23.817
in. And then also I think it's
significant if they can get away from home

02:02:23.850 --> 02:02:28.616
, you know, really, I think some of
the greatest experiences I've had

02:02:28.649 --> 02:02:31.897
living in the dormitories, living in
the fraternity home and meeting other

02:02:31.930 --> 02:02:37.845
people. And III I, that to me is so
significant that is, is an equal part

02:02:37.878 --> 02:02:41.256
of education, is learning to live with
other. I have a granddaughter who's

02:02:41.289 --> 02:02:45.706
going to Kansas State. She's petrified
with the cold weather, although she

02:02:45.739 --> 02:02:49.635
snow skis, et cetera and everything
else and she's homesick. So I think

02:02:49.668 --> 02:02:53.515
this is all part of it. And I think
that if I were telling a youngster,

02:02:53.548 --> 02:02:56.937
I'd say the best thing you can do is
go to an institution where they have

02:02:56.970 --> 02:03:02.226
what you want academically and
socially and be away from home, learn to

02:03:02.259 --> 02:03:07.696
live and learn to grow, good, good
advice. Um Any advice that you have for

02:03:07.729 --> 02:03:15.277
, as u as it continues to grow, you
got to win.

02:03:15.310 --> 02:03:19.175
Are you talking just in sports or? I
think they're winning in the other

02:03:19.208 --> 02:03:24.166
field with, with Doctor Crow. There's
no problem there

02:03:24.199 --> 02:03:31.336
when you left with Russell Nelson. No.
Uh uh

02:03:31.369 --> 02:03:36.385
John Schwa, Schwa was there. Yeah.

02:03:36.418 --> 02:03:41.226
Yeah, I, I kind of flew the coop.

02:03:41.259 --> 02:03:44.446
Are there any things that we didn't
cover that you wanna cover or did you

02:03:44.479 --> 02:03:51.826
, David might have a talk about the
building of the stadium? Um,

02:03:51.859 --> 02:03:55.876
the Cardinals coming?

02:03:55.909 --> 02:04:01.726
Well, they're gone. So we might know
you say anything about them.

02:04:01.759 --> 02:04:07.647
Was there a court case that went to
the Supreme court? Well, yeah, let's

02:04:07.680 --> 02:04:11.786
forget about that crap.

02:04:11.819 --> 02:04:16.166
I want your side. No, no, no. What
difference does it make? Who cares? I

02:04:16.199 --> 02:04:21.296
don't care. You didn't you? Yeah.
Yeah, it's all over, you know, that's

02:04:21.329 --> 02:04:27.425
all garbage in my opinion. What was
the most miraculous event that

02:04:27.458 --> 02:04:31.116
occurred in? Mhm.

02:04:31.149 --> 02:04:37.015
I would say when my son, Danny was our
field goal kicker against Fiesta

02:04:37.048 --> 02:04:41.476
Bowl and we were, I thought we should
have been national champs. He kicked

02:04:41.509 --> 02:04:46.385
three field goals and the other kid
I'd mentioned this earlier, Fred

02:04:46.418 --> 02:04:50.206
Mortenson was a substitute
quarterback, you know, he went on a mission. He

02:04:50.239 --> 02:04:56.265
come in. Dennis Brown got hurt, we
scored a touchdown and we went for two

02:04:56.298 --> 02:05:01.717
and Fred threw the pass to Larry
Mucker and tied the score at 1414. Then

02:05:01.750 --> 02:05:05.515
Danny kicked the winning field goal
and that's to me because of my

02:05:05.548 --> 02:05:10.706
association with Mortenson, as well as
my son in the team. It was very

02:05:10.739 --> 02:05:14.666
significant and that really, that game
probably put us over the hill from

02:05:14.699 --> 02:05:18.656
the standpoint of continued
recognition nationally. That must have put a

02:05:18.689 --> 02:05:23.345
lot of pressure on your son and he's
trained to do it. No, the great thing

02:05:23.378 --> 02:05:29.866
about the relationship. I treated him
just like anybody else and he, he

02:05:29.899 --> 02:05:35.987
was, he's a bright kid. And so he knew
his responsibility he was and I

02:05:36.020 --> 02:05:39.826
wasn't biased. The only time I, one of
the times I think I was a little

02:05:39.859 --> 02:05:43.496
biased and I shouldn't have shown it.
We were playing Utah somebody and

02:05:43.529 --> 02:05:48.286
they roughed the kicker and he got
hurt bad. And like a father, I thought

02:05:48.319 --> 02:05:52.015
he was hurt more serious than he was.
And I, I should have never gone out

02:05:52.048 --> 02:05:54.805
there. But I went to check on him and
see how he was doing. That was the

02:05:54.838 --> 02:05:59.385
father instinct. And then I said, you
dumb bozo, you shouldn't be out. The

02:05:59.418 --> 02:06:01.406
other players are going to say, what
the hell is he doing out there? He

02:06:01.439 --> 02:06:04.357
doesn't look at us that way.

02:06:04.390 --> 02:06:09.116
Was it hard to? No? No, because he, he
was a very, he's a very bright kid.

02:06:09.149 --> 02:06:15.015
He knows what he has to do. And I
trained him in kicking and

02:06:15.048 --> 02:06:23.048
he, and Dan is one of those young men
that he knows his place, whether it

02:06:23.579 --> 02:06:27.567
with Motorola, whether it's orbital
sciences, firing missiles or whatever

02:06:27.600 --> 02:06:32.476
it's doing. He, he, he, he knows what
he has to do.

02:06:32.509 --> 02:06:37.946
Right. One thing we haven't asked you
about where disappointments, you

02:06:37.979 --> 02:06:44.539
know, where you had an athlete come
to, you become a great athlete here.

02:06:45.569 --> 02:06:47.569
Well, one of the most distressing ones ever had was a kid by the name of

02:06:50.208 --> 02:06:53.496
Bobby Davenport.

02:06:53.529 --> 02:06:57.967
He was a black kid. I recruited him
out of Western, right outside of

02:06:58.000 --> 02:07:02.777
Pittsburgh. Now, believe me, he, his
mom, his sister with an illegitimate

02:07:02.810 --> 02:07:09.226
child lived in this old abandoned
farmhouse. They had no electricity. This

02:07:09.259 --> 02:07:14.696
hasn't been that long ago. They had no
electricity and his mother and I

02:07:14.729 --> 02:07:20.107
don't know how to say this and said
diplomatically they sat and I was

02:07:20.140 --> 02:07:24.135
talking to him, etcetera

02:07:24.168 --> 02:07:27.666
and they weren't,

02:07:27.699 --> 02:07:31.595
oh, I got a very good looking people

02:07:31.628 --> 02:07:35.107
and I thought to myself they don't
have anything. They had no electricity

02:07:35.140 --> 02:07:41.055
, nothing. And I said to myself, I'm
going to get this kid out here. I got

02:07:41.088 --> 02:07:45.286
to know him personally. We were gonna
go, we were gonna go eat and I could

02:07:45.319 --> 02:07:50.996
see the mom wouldn't go and neither
was the daughter. And so I went out

02:07:51.029 --> 02:07:55.656
and got some Kentucky fried chicken,
brought it back and I tell you, and I

02:07:55.689 --> 02:08:00.476
thought I had it bad. This was 10
times as worse. But anyway, the

02:08:00.509 --> 02:08:05.826
interesting thing about it is that
he's at Penn Hills High School. He took

02:08:05.859 --> 02:08:11.576
the AC T exam. He scored, yeah, I'd
say a 19, which isn't bad. He scored a

02:08:11.609 --> 02:08:14.946
19 on the AC T test.

02:08:14.979 --> 02:08:19.696
Our registrar at that time was L
Thomas.

02:08:19.729 --> 02:08:25.036
And, uh, they got his Bobby's
transcript and the AC T scores and they

02:08:25.069 --> 02:08:30.737
question whether the signature was the
same on the AC T as on the

02:08:30.770 --> 02:08:38.770
transcript, the kid's signature. And
so, uh, Clyde Smith and Al Thomas got

02:08:39.859 --> 02:08:45.166
together and they wanted to talk to me
and they wanted, they were

02:08:45.199 --> 02:08:51.206
questioning his transcript and I said,
well, let me talk to the young man

02:08:51.239 --> 02:08:54.675
because I, I really got to know him
because you know, I'll give you an

02:08:54.708 --> 02:09:00.696
example when I was at his house. And I
said to myself, I'm gonna get this

02:09:00.729 --> 02:09:03.976
kid out of here come hell or high
water. You put him in a junior college

02:09:04.009 --> 02:09:10.237
or at Arizona State anyway, because I,
you, you talk about not having a

02:09:10.270 --> 02:09:14.726
chance and he, he, he was eventually
gonna be a good football player. So

02:09:14.759 --> 02:09:19.916
anyway, so Al Thomas, uh, they're not
gonna admit him because of that

02:09:19.949 --> 02:09:24.416
transcript. I, and I said to him, I
says, well, let me talk to Bobby

02:09:24.449 --> 02:09:28.885
Davenport. I talked to Bobby Davenport

02:09:28.918 --> 02:09:32.805
and I said, Bob, I said, there's a
question on your transcript and your AC

02:09:32.838 --> 02:09:38.166
T scores, the signature seem to be
different. He says, coach, he said, uh

02:09:38.199 --> 02:09:43.647
, I know I signed my transcript and I
know I took the AC T test and he

02:09:43.680 --> 02:09:48.626
says, uh, what, what's the problem? He
and I said, well, they think that

02:09:48.659 --> 02:09:51.055
somebody else took it for you. He
said, I'll tell you what, I'll take it

02:09:51.088 --> 02:09:55.737
again. Now, this honest to God truth.
He and I go and see Clyde Smith and

02:09:55.770 --> 02:10:01.175
I, we go meet with Al Thomas and I
says, I talked to Bobby Davenport and I

02:10:01.208 --> 02:10:05.166
said, he'll be glad to take the test
again if you want him to take it. Al

02:10:05.199 --> 02:10:10.956
was elated to take the test. He takes
the test, he gets a 23 on it. You

02:10:10.989 --> 02:10:14.567
know, not either one of those two
people ever apologized to him. I think

02:10:14.600 --> 02:10:19.487
this is gonna get better and it's
gonna get worse. Great kid. One of our

02:10:19.520 --> 02:10:23.897
assistant coaches, Chuck mcbride and
you develop a relationship with

02:10:23.930 --> 02:10:28.265
players. This kid was like a son to me
because as I said, I'm, I'm going

02:10:28.298 --> 02:10:32.126
to get him out of that environment
come hell or high water whether I put

02:10:32.159 --> 02:10:35.656
him up in the junior college or
whatever I do in him. So, Chuck mcbride

02:10:35.689 --> 02:10:40.967
was our defensive coach and Bobby was
a competitor. As I said, you, you,

02:10:41.000 --> 02:10:44.897
you know kids and you know that
they're giving their best. Well, he was

02:10:44.930 --> 02:10:49.345
down in a three point stance and on
defense and mcbride kicked him in the

02:10:49.378 --> 02:10:55.406
back end and hit his privates and a
poor kid rolled over. He's almost, and

02:10:55.439 --> 02:10:59.086
I went up to mcbride and I said, you
ever do that again? Your goddamn ass

02:10:59.119 --> 02:11:03.345
is fired. And I said, I said, I want
you to apologize to him now or get

02:11:03.378 --> 02:11:07.317
the hell out of here. So he went and
apologized to him, et cetera. So

02:11:07.350 --> 02:11:12.217
Bobby Davenport did a great job for
us. He wanted, he wanted to play pro

02:11:12.250 --> 02:11:19.265
ball, make some money. Well, let me go
back to his junior year. He worked

02:11:19.298 --> 02:11:21.956
here in the summertime.

02:11:21.989 --> 02:11:28.326
We had a part time job their year. He
brought his mother out his sister,

02:11:28.359 --> 02:11:33.536
he lived in South Phoenix and had a
home for them and they were, they were

02:11:33.569 --> 02:11:38.687
ecstatic about it and you know,
they're not educated people. So anyway, so

02:11:38.720 --> 02:11:43.366
Bobby Davenport and he says, coach, he
said, how about getting me a try

02:11:43.399 --> 02:11:47.817
out in the NFL? And so I talked to
people, they didn't think that he was

02:11:47.850 --> 02:11:53.366
big enough. So I talked to some
friends up in Canada, they took him up

02:11:53.399 --> 02:11:58.027
there and he went up there and he was
doing great. Then he got to the

02:11:58.060 --> 02:12:02.357
point he called me. He says, I think
I'm going to make the team. But he

02:12:02.390 --> 02:12:08.277
says, my mother and sister are having
trouble. He says I want to come back

02:12:08.310 --> 02:12:12.967
and he said, I have my, he had his
degree and everything. I was a pretty

02:12:13.000 --> 02:12:19.116
sharp kid. He said, I want to come
back and, uh, and he says, uh, do you

02:12:19.149 --> 02:12:24.425
think you could line me up with a job?
So this is like I would say in July

02:12:24.458 --> 02:12:28.256
because Canadian League is up there in
July. So he comes back, I get him a

02:12:28.289 --> 02:12:34.786
job at Agua Frio as in a guidance
counseling. He's a pretty sharp kid,

02:12:34.819 --> 02:12:41.305
guidance counseling and assistant
football coach. Well, his brother visits

02:12:41.338 --> 02:12:49.338
him, uh his brother and they're gonna
go to California.

02:12:49.628 --> 02:12:54.425
He's driving a car, his brother is
driving a car and he falls asleep and

02:12:54.458 --> 02:12:59.916
runs over and the car flips over and
takes Bobby's head just like this

02:12:59.949 --> 02:13:05.765
kills him out, right? And uh they had
services for him. He, he was now

02:13:05.798 --> 02:13:10.237
teaching at Alba Fria High school.
They had services for him. I've never

02:13:10.270 --> 02:13:14.467
been to services. You talk about
people, white, black crying because of

02:13:14.500 --> 02:13:19.446
him. He was just a super kid that I'll
never forget. As long as I live as

02:13:19.479 --> 02:13:23.147
you know, in a great tribute, they
have a trophy for him, etcetera in a

02:13:23.180 --> 02:13:28.996
high school. When you talk about
somebody that, uh, you know, you could be

02:13:29.029 --> 02:13:32.906
poor but there's people that are worse
off than you are and I've never

02:13:32.939 --> 02:13:38.506
seen a worse situation as a family and
the mother was a decent person, you

02:13:38.539 --> 02:13:44.345
know. And, uh, and then that family,
Penn Hills. Right. Really? What it is

02:13:44.378 --> 02:13:48.416
? Penn Hills is a plush neighborhood.
But this was the garbage dump for

02:13:48.449 --> 02:13:54.706
the city of Pittsburgh where they
live. It was pitiful. That's probably

02:13:54.739 --> 02:14:00.906
the most memorable youngster that I
had been involved with. And there were

02:14:00.939 --> 02:14:03.786
many not

02:14:03.819 --> 02:14:11.336
type of a tragedy but yet with people
that you help out,

02:14:11.369 --> 02:14:16.857
you have to. And as I said, when
you're involved because you care for them

02:14:16.890 --> 02:14:22.076
and you know them, that's when you
could be, you know, when they're not

02:14:22.109 --> 02:14:26.015
doing what you want them to do to be
successful. And that's when I was

02:14:26.048 --> 02:14:28.717
there. So be it, everybody accused me
of. Does it make any difference to

02:14:28.750 --> 02:14:32.756
me?

02:14:32.789 --> 02:14:37.305
No, no, no, no, no, I don't enjoy it.
Believe me. I just love to see

02:14:37.338 --> 02:14:42.437
people be successful. And if I could
do anything about it, whether it's a

02:14:42.470 --> 02:14:47.055
Bobby Davenport or Danny Kush or David
Kush, or then that's my

02:14:47.088 --> 02:14:49.196
responsibility.

02:14:49.229 --> 02:14:54.826
See what a lot of people don't
understand if you're really a caring coach

02:14:54.859 --> 02:14:59.857
, they're almost like all your
Children, you want them to be successful

02:14:59.890 --> 02:15:03.116
and some of them are jerks bozos.

02:15:03.149 --> 02:15:07.336
And then the ones you feel sorry for

02:15:07.369 --> 02:15:11.937
are the ones that don't grow and don't
mature and some of them drop out

02:15:11.970 --> 02:15:18.296
for a multitude of reasons. The sounds
like you're still very involved in.

02:15:18.329 --> 02:15:24.116
Well, I know my limitations called
aging.

02:15:24.149 --> 02:15:28.786
Well, are there any areas that we
didn't talk about? A lot of notes there

02:15:28.819 --> 02:15:32.786
? Well, no, I, you know, I, those were
the questions that you guys did.

02:15:32.819 --> 02:15:38.135
She sent me and I have, no, no, just
the family. Yeah. You guys now, just

02:15:38.168 --> 02:15:44.345
the family. As I said, we have been
married, I think 50 some years, 52

02:15:44.378 --> 02:15:50.237
years. I have three boys. The oldest
one is an engineer. The next one is

02:15:50.270 --> 02:15:55.156
an anesthesiologist. The youngest one
is an interior design guy and I have

02:15:55.189 --> 02:16:01.626
two granddaughters. They're both
college kids. So we've been fortunate

02:16:01.659 --> 02:16:06.095
variety of careers and none of them
went into sports. No, no, no. Danny.

02:16:06.128 --> 02:16:12.175
Danny was our kicker then. David. No,
no, no, no. They were fortunate

02:16:12.208 --> 02:16:14.956
that they got their brains from their
mother. And that's why one's an

02:16:14.989 --> 02:16:18.946
engineer and the other one's a doctor.

02:16:18.979 --> 02:16:24.175
Some of your family came out here.
Yeah, I brought out, I brought, uh,

02:16:24.208 --> 02:16:27.876
three of my brothers out here to go to
college. One of them played for us

02:16:27.909 --> 02:16:35.909
, Joe. He played for us and Stan and
Tony and, yeah, they, uh, they came

02:16:36.290 --> 02:16:40.935
out and got degrees from Arizona
State.

02:16:40.968 --> 02:16:45.134
Do you still have family in those
small towns? Pennsylvania. My oldest

02:16:45.167 --> 02:16:50.455
sister passed away here about a year
ago from cancer.

02:16:50.488 --> 02:16:56.444
The older brother, I have three older
brothers still alive. One's 88. The

02:16:56.477 --> 02:17:04.116
other one's about, I would say 82. The
other one is about 79

02:17:04.149 --> 02:17:09.875
older brothers. And then there's me
and then, uh, we had out of the five

02:17:09.908 --> 02:17:14.845
girls, four of them have passed away
and one girl still alive and eight

02:17:14.878 --> 02:17:18.946
boys,

02:17:18.979 --> 02:17:23.635
large family. Yeah, I think that was
their means of entertainment. They

02:17:23.668 --> 02:17:25.967
tell me

02:17:26.000 --> 02:17:30.747
the poor TV, we didn't have a radio
either. We didn't have TV, or radio.

02:17:30.780 --> 02:17:36.486
So they have to do something. Yeah.

02:17:36.519 --> 02:17:40.577
You know, uh any closing thoughts that
you want to pass on to? No, it's

02:17:40.610 --> 02:17:44.926
fine. Whatever. Hope you doctored up
to improve it. Well, this is kind of

02:17:44.959 --> 02:17:50.786
for posterity. So, um what, what do
you see for the future of a su Well, I

02:17:50.819 --> 02:17:57.605
, you know, I'm, I'm overwhelmed with
the growth, the physical growth of

02:17:57.638 --> 02:18:05.638
it. And uh also uh from the standpoint
of how they have grown academically

02:18:05.870 --> 02:18:08.587
,

02:18:08.620 --> 02:18:15.217
also the diversity of the programs. Uh
also, uh it's become so large, it's

02:18:15.250 --> 02:18:20.025
become very impersonal in my opinion.
And so I would say, but I think

02:18:20.058 --> 02:18:25.144
that's just normal for any institution
that has grown as dramatically as

02:18:25.177 --> 02:18:30.116
it has over the years. And so

02:18:30.149 --> 02:18:33.706
it's, to me it's a great community. I
think it's great for the state of

02:18:33.739 --> 02:18:39.134
Arizona. Arizona has grown a lot since
you came here too. Yeah. But you

02:18:39.167 --> 02:18:42.476
still have the boom docks.

02:18:42.509 --> 02:18:46.407
Yeah. No question about that. Now

02:18:46.440 --> 02:18:52.046
I go to, I go up to camp to. Yeah.
Yeah, I still, I snow ski so we get up

02:18:52.079 --> 02:18:55.935
that area. Yeah.

02:18:55.968 --> 02:19:01.780
Ok. Well, I think that pretty much
covers. Ok. Thank you. My pleas.