TEXnSEATTLE
1,000+ Posts
DKR never got over not being allowed to pick Campbell as head coach, did he?Bill,
Since I lived it, and was privileged to visit with many recruits, I shall be happy to set it straight.
1) Yes, there were disgruntled players, who blamed Fred for serious short comings of some of his assistants. Like one white starter told me, "I hated that little son of a *****, but winning with him was much more fun than suffering loses with Darrell". Fred was prevented from hiring certain assistants because DKR didn't like them or Fred. One of them is the best coach I've ever known.
2) Bill Little is a close friend, but we started off with me riding him like a rented mule for not getting REAL stories out there, while certain alums and University employees fed ******** to gullible reporters. So much so, that Barry felt sorry for Fred.
3) Yes, Jackie cheated his *** off, but he organized and "unionized" Aggie football. Why wasn't Aggie winning with all that talent? Too many players on too many different pay scales. If I'm the starter, but your mother is getting more money than my mother, I ain't happy. Jackie fixed that.
4) SMU holds the distinction of being the first school to buy a house for a player's mother. He cried when he told me that if he came to Texas, they would take away his mother's new house and fire her from her new job. The kid lasted at SMU less than six weeks, but we saw to it that "momma" got to keep her job and house.
39 Z cars from Warren Bankston on one team. Dickerson's Trans AM was picked up by a "friend" of Ron Meyer, but somewhere between Addicks and Sealy it inherited two suitcases.
There are plenty more stories of cars, insurance annuities, cash, airplane tickets.
Bottom line is, that I was with Fred during those days, I know what was and was not. I'll go toe to toe with any of those fish wrap merchants that peddled the **** pushed by DKR's buddies. I was the one sitting in the den with a blue chip LB when one of those ******** called and warned him that Akers was going to be fired and he wouldn't know who his coach would be. We had the advantage that his girlfriend (future wife) was already enrolled. The kid went elsewhere.
It was a dark time in our school's history, which left many angry and ours the most fractionalized program in the country. Mack Brown did the unimaginable by reuniting the vast majority of those, which I thought would be impossible.
That said, none of Fred's assistants asked us to cosign loans for a girlfriend's car or bet on games
So many ******** running around with those egos out of control.
Thanks, for all this....puts a ton questions to rest.
