Funny incident in San Francisco today

Dionysus

Dionysus

Idoit
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I'm in San Francisco on business for a couple days. I walk from my hotel in the financial district down to the Embarcadero to get on the train to Fisherman's Wharf for some shopping and dinner.

I'm wearing a UT cap with bevo on the front. As I step on to the train I have my two dollars pulled out and reach for the slot to insert the fare. The driver (conductor?) looks to be late 40s to early 50s maybe. He saw me about to put my money in and waved me off, and said "Meter's broken Fred Akers, have a seat."

I laughed and sat down. Fred Akers.

Funny thing is I was at UT in the late 80s and remember the Fire Fred t-shirts. I didn't have one of those but I did have a University of Metcalf t-shirt.
 
Ahh yes, I remember hearing "Goodbye Freddie" sang while sitting in the almost completely vacant student section. It was a great time to be a student - you could go to games, relax and put your feet up.
 
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Basically from the '84 Cotton Bowl up until he finally had a losing record @ 5-6 in '86. Of course there was always animosity toward him, from the day he was hired. Even though I am one of the all time DKR fans and followers, I preferred the Akers hire to the alternative. To this day, I wonder if his career might have ended differently at UT if he had more support and if punt coverage had been better stressed.












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I loved Akers' defenses -- some of the best in the country.

But what bothered me was the arrogance on the recruiting tale. I've heard of incidents such as the one in which the Texas coach who as recruiting a kid (I forget which coach and which kid) left a post-it on the high school coach's office door saying that the kid in question just wasn't very good and that Texas wasn't interested. Everyone who passed by could -- and did -- see the note. It embarrassed the poor kid.

You just don't do that.

It was like the Texas coaching staff expected the kids to come begging for scholarships, when it reality it had become the other way around.
 
I remember Fred not really being a favorite with the coaches, which was a big reason I think that his recruiting really tailed off. There were always rumblings because of his offense - I had forgotten how conservative it was until I watched an ESPN classic replay of the Auburn game in Austin. It was literally run, run, pass... run, run, pass... run, run, pass... I think the QBs that year were throwing like 15 times a game.

I remember watching the '81 Houston game on closed circuit at the Frank Erwin Center and at halftime some guy yelled from across the arena "FRED AKERS SUCKS!!!". Of course we were down 14-0 at the time, came back to tie it.
 
Akers' offensive scheme had little to do with our recruiting struggles in that period. The offense would be 4th-5th on any list.
 
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So was the meter actually broken? or was this guy just a Longhorn/Akers admirer who was cleverly saying "your cash is no good here"?
 
Some drunk old woman started screaming at my buddy during the OU game in '86 for wearing a "Fire Fred" shirt...her husband turned to her after about 30 seconds and said "Oh, would you just go back to sleep?"

Only good thing that happened that day...
 
You do have to give Fred credit for turning Earl loose in his first season as coach. If Earl would have been a 4 year, I-formation tailback, he might still be the leading rusher in college football history.
 
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