Coach Mark Stoops talks to the media after a recent spring practice session. (Gary Moyers photo)
By LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: What, if anything, has surprised you about the UK fan base and do you consider Kentucky a football state?
Stoops: “Yeah, it has, to be honest with you. I knew we had great support here. I didn’t know it would be to this extent so I’ve been very pleased — could not be more happy with the fanbase. I thank them, again to you and your segment that you’re writing, because they’ve been overwhelming at times. It does nothing but help. It helps with motivation of myself, the staff and the players. It helps motivate us each and every day to do better for them, because they deserve a great product. It helps in recruiting and it helps with the overall atmosphere of the whole campus, so I think it’s been a very neat experience and we greatly appreciate it.”
Question: Do you worry fan expectations could be too high this season, or is that what you prefer?
Stoops: “I really try not to — I stay away from that question. I dance around that question with a 10-foot pole because it’s not my style to downplay expectations.”
Question: Are high expectations a good thing?
Stoops: “I’m all for it. I’m going out to win each and every game. People say, ‘Well you’re crazy.’ Well I’m not into just turning over and forfeiting a game so we’re going to go out and we’re going to prepare to win each and every game. With that being said, you can’t ever get ahead of yourself. As a fan, you can. As a coach or as a player, you really can’t. Once we get into season, it’s every seven days. We look at that as one-week seasons. Win or lose, you put that last one behind you and you get onto the next one. Everything’s a process with us. I just stay away from it. I don’t know if there’s a right answer for that. I’m going out to expect to win and compete to win every game, and I think the fans feel the same way.”
Question: Does it amuse you that some UK fans are already worrying you will be so successful that you won’t be here long?
Stoops: “On what it says about what he and his staff have done that fans are worrying he will be so successful he’ll leave soon…
I’m certainly just settling in and starting to feel more and more comfortable each and every day here. I’m certainly not planning on going anywhere. I hope we have that issue that comes up because that’s a good thing. That means there’s a lot of people in this university helping us be successful, starting with our administration, to our players, to our coaches and so on. There’s a lot of people that are helping us do the right thing right now and putting us in a position to be successful. Our coaches are working extremely hard. I’m very happy with where we’re at right now, and there’s just so much more to go, just each and every day, each and every segment of that program that we talked about earlier, that we’ve really got to tap that each and every day to get better and move forward. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
6 Comments
Click on the photo above to view the video of Neal Brown.
8 CommentsBy LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: What makes you and defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot such a good combo?
Stoops: “For our system to be successful — as successful as we were at Florida State — we had to be great up front. D.J. has a background. He’s been with me at several different stops, so his roots of what his core of defensive thought process and defensive system goes all the way back with me all the way to Wyoming. He’s been with me at Wyoming, Houston, Miami, and then we reconnected at Florida State. He had several jobs in between and I also, where I was – I guess I was just at Arizona during that time. So he understands me very well. He understands the core of our system and then he’s very bright so he can bring in new ideas. We always constantly are trying to grow, so D.J. was a great fit for here, especially with his knowledge of the front and my knowledge of the back end.
Question: Are you and D.J. good friends off the field?
Stoops: “We are. We are good friends off the field. Our families are friends. Spending all that time together.”
Neal Brown photo by Gary Moyers.
By LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: Why were you so patient with Neal Brown as he was contemplating his future?
Stoops: “It was nothing he could control. One situation rolled into the next. I was all-in with him at that point in time, so I tried to be very supportive of him and help him get through that because I’ve been through it as an assistant coach. Just because I’d been head coach for, what, a week, or a couple weeks at that time, so I understood what he was going through. Just wanted to give him a great opportunity here.”
Question: Any surprises about Neal Brown since you have got to know him better?
Stoops: “I don’t know if surprises, but I’ve been very pleased. I love the way he – he’s got a, and I don’t mean this in any kind of derogatory way towards offensive coaches, but sometimes offensive coaches get this stereotype of being finesse, of doing it this way or that way, but he has a toughness about him that I really appreciate. I think he is very – he has great leadership skills and he has a toughness about him, extremely organized, so I’ve been very pleased.”
2 Comments
UK football coach Mark Stoops sent out this family card during the holidays.
By LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: What role does your wife play in your life because we all know the hours/demands you have on you?
Stoops: “She’s just very supportive. I joked at one of the press conferences or whatever, I pick the job, she picks the houses. She runs the household. She’s just very supportive as far as the role, as far as coaching and where we go and decisions we make with opportunities and things like that. She does a great job of managing the house, taking care of my boys, and she also gets involved – when I was a position coach, we loved to have the players over to our house. This last stop, Florida State, all those guys become very close to her and she gets to know them very well and gets very close to them. She gets involved as much as she can in a supportive role.”
Question: Will she be quiet or yelling at the games?
Stoops: “No, she’ll be more reserved but there will be those outbursts of course at times that I don’t think anybody can control. She’ll be a little bit more on the reserved part of it. At least that’s the way she’s been. You never know though. There’s pressure of the head coach. Maybe she’ll bust.”
3 CommentsBy LARRY VAUGHT
His football coach is not really sure what is his best sport or even what he does best on the football field. All Caldwell County football coach Davis Barnes knows is that sophomore Elijah Sindelar is special whether it’s football or baseball.
“I really don’t know what his best sport is,” said Barnes of the 6-4, 210-pound Sindelar. “This year he did not play basketball, but he’s good there, too. He’s just a gifted athlete. He excels in all three sports. In baseball, he pitches and plays either third base or first base.”
On the football field, Sindelar — who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.7 seconds — plays quarterback. He threw for 2,961 yards and 32 scores by completing 203 of 327 passes last year and ran for 447 yards and seven scores on 65 carries. In the Class AA state title game loss to Newport Central Catholic, he was 21 of 29 passing for 258 yards and two scores and rushed 14 times for 54 yards and a touchdown.
“He improved so much as a sophomore just by being able to see the field better and understanding coverages,” Barnes said. “He developed a knack for picking up and reading defenses. He ran the ball a little bit more this past year, but his pocket awareness was better. He had a good year as a freshman, but just having a year in this offense helped him tremendously.”
He’s been getting what Barnes calls “quite a bit of attention” from college recruiters, including those at Kentucky and Louisville. Murray and Austin Peay have expressed serious interest, too. Of course, he might get even more attention in baseball. Several pro baseball scouts says there is no reason to doubt his draft potential
“I think he’s going to get a lot of looks in football. He had a really good state championship game and a lot of coaches saw him play in that game,” Barnes said. “I think next year, he’ll get quite a few offers. I have really not talked to him about the baseball part. I have sat down with his parents and talked about the football part. They just want what is best for Elijah. They are very open about his future. I think his junior year in baseball will be big.”
Some think his junior football season could be just as big. As good as Patrick Towles of Highlands and Drew Barker of Conner have been in recent years, some veteran high school football analysts believe Sindelar could be the top quarterback the state has produced in 20 years or more.
“There are a lot of good quarterbacks who throw the ball around,” Barnes said. “A lot of people are talking about him. He does throw a nice deep ball with good touch. He’s special, but we’ll see how special.”
Barnes also says he is a “great kid” with a perfect 4.0 grade-point average.
“He’s a student leader with a great and supportive family,” Barnes said. “He’s a young man who knows right from wrong and does things the right way. He’s very coachable, but still has that certain attitude the great athletes have. He can do things on the field you can’t coach. I have a weightlifting class at 6:30 (a.m.), and he’s in that class. He gets his lifting in each morning and that helps him tremendously. But that’s the kind of kid he is.”
Barnes isn’t sure of Sindelar’s summer plans because he plays on a traveling baseball team. He thinks he might opt to attend several one-day junior camps.
“I know probably UK will be one and Louisville probably will be one of them. After that, I don’t know. But he has a lot of options,” Barnes said.
Click on the photo of Neal Brown to watch the video.
2 Comments
By LARRY VAUGHT
With all the buzz over Kentucky football, is there any chance Mark Stoops is getting a bit anxious for the opening game and wishes it was time to play now?
“No. There’s a lot of work to be done between now and then. We’re not ready. Western would whoop us right now,” Stoops said of the Aug. 31 opener in Nashville against Western Kentucky.
But don’t worry. He says the Cats will be ready Aug. 31.
“We’re not there yet, but we plan on being there. We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then and our players are embracing that process,” the coach said. “They’re enjoying it. They’re looking forward to getting involved in the summer program. They’re excited about that. And then we’ll be in the fall. We’ll be ready.
14 Comments
Click on the photo of Neal Brown to view the video.
By LARRY VAUGHT
While she was training in Colorado for the Jennie Carol’s Memorial Mother’s Day 5K Run, Allison Tamme would often think about Jennie Tarter and her unexpected death in 2008 that led to friends starting this event in downtown Danville to honor her memory by raising money for BackPack Kids.
“Training in Colorado is a whole different animal. The altitude and hills are no joke out there,” she said. “I would be tired and my ankle or knee would be hurting, but then I would think how she would love to be out running with her sons. That gave me perspective. I was out running for 30 minutes because I knew I wanted to be able to run this race that supports such a good cause and honors a great memory. There was no doubt I would do it.”
Tamme, 28, also has another motivation — she’s a cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer recently and underwent successful surgery (she had a check-up in Lexington Monday). But the “C” word scared her just like it would any of us.
“I had always worked out but it was because I had not done something in a while or I felt like I should run or I had a gained a pound or something like that,” she said.
Then she found out four things can help prevent cancer — environment, genetics, diet and exercise. She knew then she could control 50 percent — diet and exercise — to aid her recovery.
“I started running as soon as I was allowed after surgery,” she said. “I started training for this run. I wanted to do it with my family.”
That included her husband, Jacob, a tight end with the Denver Broncos who had never run a 5K and “dreaded it like the plague,” according to his wife.
“He was complaining that would be my Mother’s Day present. He was all worried and when we finished he was not even out of breath,” she said. “The most he had ever run in his life was a mile maybe. But he was talking the whole time and kept asking me if I wanted him to push (their son) Luke (in the stroller). I had to finally tell him to stop talking because I couldn’t run and talk. But he was a good sport about it. I was a happy mother.”
Jacob’s father, Theo — he ran the Derby Festival mini marathon a few years ago — also ran. Jacob Tamme pushed Luke the first 30 yards or so before Allison took over and finished the race with the stroller as she planned.
“I had planned to do this along,” Allison Tamme said Monday. “Jacob had work stuff, but he got it worked out to come home for Mother’s Day before he flew back today. It was really important to me that we did this all together.”
She said the prayers so many had said for her in recent months had been a “huge deal” and she still couldn’t put into words even now what it meant to have so many praying for her recovery.
“It is so important to know that other people are praying for you daily,” she said. “When you are at your lowest and hear you have cancer, nothing brings you down faster than that. Being a Christian, when you have hard times, you pray. But there were points when I did not even pray for myself. I didn’t know what to pray for. To know others were lifting up prayers for me was awesome. It still brings tears to my eyes when someone still tells me they prayed for me. It means the world to me.”
She was overwhelmed by the support after her husband put a message on Twitter the night before her surgery.
“People all over the country, and even foreign countries, were sending me messages of support. It was unbelievable,” she said.
She said her experience Saturday was “awesome” and she knows the work it takes to put on such a big event.
“I just ran three miles. I am thankful to those who organized this for putting on such a great event to honor her (Tarter) and raise money for a great cause. I know the work it takes to do something like this,” she said.
That’s because she is co-founder of Swings For Soldiers, an annual golf scramble, with her husband that raises money to build a new home for a disabled military veteran. The event will be July 15 at Keene Run Golf Club in Lexington.
“We went last year to actually see the house being built that our money was being used for and once we saw that, there’s no way we can’t do this again,” Allison Tamme said. “We will hopefully keep doing this every year to help the veterans. It’s a lot of work, but just like the race, there are some things you just do because you know that’s what you should do.”
Blue Zoom Radio Show
Polls
Loading ...Choose Your Favorite!
Recent Comments