FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[USTBench]

Well, it's Ole week at St. Thomas. We are all waiting for some of that lively Tommie/Ole banter......

They're the worst 4 year college in Northfield and their music department is overrated IMO.

[OzJohnnie]

In regards to the Coaches War of 2015, I think it's time for this helpful reminder.

[AO]

Well, it's Ole week at St. Thomas. We are all waiting for some of that lively Tommie/Ole banter......

They're the worst 4 year college in Northfield and their music department is overrated IMO.

https://youtu.be/EdXjTyr-BS4?t=8s

[Mr.MIAC]

First of all, we don't "lambast" the team.  The team is off limits.  They're college kids playing for love of the game.  Many of us complimented the team on their dominating performance on the 26th.

1.  We don't like St. Thomas.  That is clearly reciprocated.
2.  We don't like coaches who we think are arrogant pricks. There have been others on this board expressing the same thing and I've had a few off board conversations regarding this.  It's not just we Johnnies who are turned off by GC's style.
3.  John Gagliardi is a living legend.  Indisputable.

I respect you for defending someone you believe in.

And no, I don't believe it is bizarre.  St. Thomas does the same thing.  As any other school does.  We are in the fortunate to be in the position of having the winningest coach of all time, a stadium ranked in the top ten by Sports Illustrated, we do things differently which succeeding generations of journalists find interesting.

Part of the tight knit nature of being a Johnnie is being profoundly proud of our school and having a life long connection to it.  We are pleased when the rest of the world gets a glimpse of some of the things that engender that level of pride.

Those who are not part of it have a hard time understanding it.

This is bulls**t

I'm sure I've said this before but in 2008 my brother's carotid artery ruptured from an aggressive tumor in his neck. After sleeping on the floor at St. Paul Regions for a solid 5 days I decided to go to a UST v. Carleton game. Carleton had a solid team that year and Coach Caruso had his guys finally believing in themselves and it made for an awesome game. I can't remember the details but I'm pretty sure that play action naked boot, where the TE sneaks into the flat ended up being a deciding factor (last second W).

Anyway, for a few hours that PM I could kind of get away from reality. I let Coach Caruso know that I was happy with the trajectory UST was heading and that it was much needed reprieve in a letter I wrote to him a few weeks later. I didn't think much of it, but he called me the morning of UST's final game against Northwestern and left me a 5 minute long message. The guy routinely wrote messages of encouragement on my brother's Caringbridge site, sent me a card signed by the entire coaching staff when my brother passed away, he called me and talked to me for 20 minutes the day of my brother's funeral. He even invited me to stand on the sidelines during their spring game in Canada randomly because he knew I lived in Grand Forks at the time and I was relatively close to Winnipeg. All of this and I never even played a down for him, and my brother wasn't even a Tommie, he went to Carlson at the U of M. And I'm certainly not someone that's going to get a phone call from the SID or AD saying they'll be honoring me at halftime, unless it's for most creative ways of sneaking into a game or getting a snack onto the sideline.

That guy has actually reached out to me personally more than I've probably made myself available to UST Football Alumni functions.

So no, he's not Gags. But he's certainly not an arrogant prick as you intimated, and I will certainly take exception to that.

Caruso is what Jimmy V probably was to Dean Smith in the 1980s, albeit on a much smaller scale. He does things WAY differently, and certainly irks his opposition. But him fist pumping, and hugging  his players and telling them that he loves them publicly, and singing with them to the fan base, does not make him arrogant or obsessed with the limelight. UST desperately needed his passion and energy. UST was stale, and boring, and stuffy and admittedly, not all that fun most of the time. I look around at that campus now and it's something that those kids can be just as proud of as you guys are about SJU. That place has really cultivated a community atmosphere on their campus. About 4 times as many students show up to football games than when I was on the team. Campus wide movie night where all the kids brought a blanket and sat on the football field and watched a movie on the video board looked pretty cool. Instead of traditional tailgating all the alumni gather in the quad pregame and if you're of age you can have a beer in the beer garden. There's just a ton more excitement and a ton more pride associated with being a Tommie. It's not just stuffy kids from Minnetonka commuting home every weekend anymore. People stay on campus, go to football games, come back for Homecoming, etc. And a lot of that has to do with Glenn Caruso.

I don't have a hard time understanding Johnnie lore. I've been to your campus. And I'll concede, it's great. But this whole "We don't like St. Thomas and that is reciprocated" is mostly in your head. We don't dislike SJU. Most of us functioning people get that it's a fun Saturday for everyone from both schools to get together once a year, have a few beers and rib each other, but other than that, we really don't obsess over every tiny thing SJU does.

I totally agree. Caruso is a great guy and he's helped energize the UST campus.  A couple years back, I sent Caruso a note thanking him for revitalizing the football program. He immediately responded with a long, personal message expressing his passion for UST and how fortunate he was to have the opportunity to mentor Tommies. Last time I was on campus, I had the chance to see him operate in person. He was passing through the quad, where a few players were having lunch. He stopped, talked about their day, and it was clear he took a real interest in how things were going for them outside of football. I'm not sure why some Johnnies dislike Caruso.

[OzJohnnie]

Rev I must tip my hat to you. You are a master troll.  Level 3 Jedi trolling powers.  I'm gonna bookmark that last line of your post as inspiration the next time I'm on the WIAC board trying to cause heartburn.

[sfury]

Johnnie-Tommie week has spilled outside the ring and now the combatants are fighting in the stands! Look out, folks! That's Faunch and USTBench delivering haymakers to each other, one after the other. Faunch is doing it while chewing on a printout of the picture the Tommies took on the 50-yard-line while Bench -- his body covered in grotesque scars left over from the barbs received during the Roney era -- is decking him with a right hand that sports a bracelet reading WWGD. And...what's this, from the locker room we've got Retired Old Rat sprinting out to lend a hand and he's absolutely clobbering Bench from behind with a steel chair, a loaf of Johnnie Bread and a special-edition DVD of the 2003 SJU championship season. Now Reverend and Double O have joined the festivities and they're each carrying large placards that indicate how many girls go to St. John's: Zero. And they're now hitting RoR over the head with the cardboard weapon, and that fascinating fact that may or may not speak to SJU students' orientations.

AO continues to watch the festivities from the announcer's table and is now offering odds on the outcome of the fight.

Pat Coleman watches the brawl via Skype and simply wants to let fans of both teams know he hates both schools and is out to get them.

Duffman contemplates joining the fight, but instead sits back with an imported beer, and loses himself in the memory of the Trinity playoff game in 2002. He weeps.

Touchdown Tommy briefly stops by the broadcasting table to announce that he always liked St. Thomas more anyway and thinks they're going to win the brawl.

Oz Johnnie watches from halfway around the world and compares Bench's fighting technique to a kangaroo and a rugby player no one's ever heard of who died in 1953.

56321 logs in to watch the fight and complains about Faunch's offensive calls and a disturbing lack of intensity on defense. "Someone needs to lose their job," he adds.

Dusty says the entire situation is developing.

Robert Zimmerman says You that build all the bombs, You that hide behind walls/You that hide behind desks/I just want you to know/I can see through your masks and everyone else says, thanks, Bob, but it's 2015 now and, by the way, we couldn't understand you anyway.

105 would like to remind you that on his way to the airport he got his shoes shined by a very nice gentleman who graduated from St. Thomas in 1998. Good kid, seems happy with the gig.

Art76 has just written 2,000 words about a fight coming up next week between Augsburg and St. Olaf.

wildcat11 says the Johnnies could win the fight if they put Blake Elliott in the pistol and just let him do his thing.

And here's Chicago Tommie, he's just driven 12 hours and is yelling at Bench and the other combatants, "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!" Only he includes 15 ellipses and 25 exclamation points.

This could go on for awhile.

[Mr.MIAC]

Rev I must tip my hat to you. You are a master troll.  Level 3 Jedi trolling powers.  I'm gonna bookmark that last line of your post as inspiration the next time I'm on the WIAC board trying to cause heartburn.

I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not. I feel no animosity toward SJU. Just the other day I was having brunch with a few friends from Georgetown, Notre Dame, and Boston College. We all agreed that SJU is a quaint little place.

[OzJohnnie]

To sfury:



You should get a job in the writing business.

[SJUrube]

Saw old friend of the board OAS last night at the Fehrety Live taping to kick off Ryder Cup 2016. I gave him a quick shake of the hand w/ a "hello oas."

Not sure he knew which poster I was. Developing. Cc: Dusty & SFury

[USTBench]

Well done Sfury. Well done. +k

[faunch]

Hopefully these will be my final comments and opinions on the game this past Saturday:

-Great crowd (except for a few intoxicated individuals).
-The Tommies kicked the Johnnies butts...plain and simple.
-The Tommies looked like they had more energy, very possibly due to the way in which they are coached.
-The ESPN circus may have been a bit more of a distraction to SJU than UST.
-In my opinion the Johnnies appeared to have been out coached. 
-Taking a team picture on the logo of the losing / home team, after both teams had cleared the field of play and changed out of their uniforms, in my opinion was disrespectful and cast a negative light on the victors.  Instead of basking in their own glory they chose to take a final shot at the team they had defeated. 

Lastly...I met Bob Bell on Saturday morning at the SJU bookstore and bought a copy of his book, Un Moving Forward.  It's a pretty easy and good read and full of inspiration.  For those of you that don't know Bob became a quadriplegic from an incident of roughhousing that broke his neck during his freshman year at SJU.  He is now an assistant professor of Accounting and Finance at SJU.

His inscription to me:  "Keep Perspective!"
I think that's valuable message for all of us. 
Good Day!!!

[sfury]

Saw Bob at an SJU alumni gathering in NYC last spring -- yes, I do sometimes play the role of good alum and come out of my hermithood -- and won a copy of his book by answering a trivia question. I did not know his story. Incredible tale. And his book's a fun read, especially some of his dating woes.

[faunch]

Saw Bob at an SJU alumni gathering in NYC last spring -- yes, I do sometimes play the role of good alum and come out of my hermithood -- and won a copy of his book by answering a trivia question. I did not know his story. Incredible tale. And his book's a fun read, especially some of his dating woes.

A couple of video segments with Bob that are worth watching and link to his website:

http://www.bobbellbooks.com/press/

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/bob-bell-un-moving-four-ward-third-metric/554b699b78c90abf2400102f

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/defying-the-odds--a-quadriplegic-s-story-312899139684

[art76]

sfury -  great post  +k

[sjusection105]

I snotted coffee out of my nose, thanks alot sfury  +k