I have read a lot of posts from Manual supporters about the "nerds" and smart kids and how they do not make good football players. Excuses are made about this. Can someone from Manual please explain this to me. Notre Dame has very stringent academic requirements and they have been successful.....Doesn't an intelligent player make a better player...reading defenses, understanding formations, techniques...etc??? You do not have to worry about academic casualties with these players. X has a more stringent academic policy than what is required...they also have (I believe) 4 merit finialists on the varsity team....I see more intelligent players as a plus ...not a minus....please explain...there may be something here that I just don't understand....after all I did not go to Manual....on the outside looking in.

I have read a lot of posts from Manual supporters about the "nerds" and smart kids and how they do not make good football players. Excuses are made about this. Can someone from Manual please explain this to me. Notre Dame has very stringent academic requirements and they have been successful.....Doesn't an intelligent player make a better player...reading defenses, understanding formations, techniques...etc??? You do not have to worry about academic casualties with these players. X has a more stringent academic policy than what is required...they also have (I believe) 4 merit finialists on the varsity team....I see more intelligent players as a plus ...not a minus....please explain...there may be something here that I just don't understand....after all I did not go to Manual....on the outside looking in.

Intelligent, plus the other trappings of a successful football player (4.6 40, bench 325, good technique, killer instinct) is good. But the fact of the matter is, more often kids that are, shall we say, more studious, are like that because they aren't so hot at more physical activities. If you aren't going to be good at dodgeball, you might as well master long division.

I have read a lot of posts from Manual supporters about the "nerds" and smart kids and how they do not make good football players. Excuses are made about this. Can someone from Manual please explain this to me. Notre Dame has very stringent academic requirements and they have been successful.....Doesn't an intelligent player make a better player...reading defenses, understanding formations, techniques...etc??? You do not have to worry about academic casualties with these players. X has a more stringent academic policy than what is required...they also have (I believe) 4 merit finialists on the varsity team....I see more intelligent players as a plus ...not a minus....please explain...there may be something here that I just don't understand....after all I did not go to Manual....on the outside looking in.

It is a double edged sword. Besides as a Notre Dame fan until this year I would hardly say that Notre Dame fans wuold say that they have been successful. You are right bright players are an advantage. But there have been many players that have not gotten into Manual that have applied that ended up being pretty good at other schools. Manual's best years were when the magnet program just started and there was a mix of the magnet kids and regular program kids in the school, after 1988 it has been all magnet.

You are right smart kids can make terrific football players but there are some kids that are great players but aren't so gifted test takers and such too that we lose out on. I personally think school is about academics so I prefer the status quo, but let's face some facts there are only so many guys at Manual that are going to go out for football, and the point that everyone is trying to make is that the average school may have a bit larger pool of guys that would be interested in going out for football then the 700 or so guys at Manual do to the fact that people chose Manual based on their interest and many of the more academically focus or YPAS dancer majors aren't normally the guys that go out for football.

I have read a lot of posts from Manual supporters about the "nerds" and smart kids and how they do not make good football players. Excuses are made about this. Can someone from Manual please explain this to me. Notre Dame has very stringent academic requirements and they have been successful.....Doesn't an intelligent player make a better player...reading defenses, understanding formations, techniques...etc??? You do not have to worry about academic casualties with these players. X has a more stringent academic policy than what is required...they also have (I believe) 4 merit finialists on the varsity team....I see more intelligent players as a plus ...not a minus....please explain...there may be something here that I just don't understand....after all I did not go to Manual....on the outside looking in.

 

 

You mentioned Notre Dame, but have you read all the stories about the poor graduation rates for athletes at major colleges? I don't think there were very many Rhodes Scholars drafted in the first round last year. A lot of them probably didn't graduate.

I have to agree 100 % on that fact about some smart kids not being good test takers....It also made me think about another point...... some kids do not have the drive to succeed at a high academic school regardless of their smarts. One of you made a point about these kids being invovled in other after school activities...I find that very valid also....

I made the point about smart kids being a plus because I used to help coach grade school and I had some great athletes that were very talented but had a lot of trouble grasping some our concepts...we had to adapt to their needs which we did...but that did hold up our overall progress. We also had some great athletes that were sharp as tacks and the team progressed at a much faster pace. I do understand and can see your unique obstacle...I wish I could offer a fix-all solution.....and while I'm not that gifted...I certainly know that there is no such thing as a fix-all.....That came with age!! What recruiting efforts are being made within the school for more participation? (I am certainly not trying to start a recruiting dig here)

Notre Dame has also had supporters talking about academic standards and their hinderances, but they have been competing. Manual has also been competing in recent years.

I have read a lot of posts from Manual supporters about the "nerds" and smart kids and how they do not make good football players. Excuses are made about this. Can someone from Manual please explain this to me.

This is partly a "If you went there, you understand" answer but I might help explain it a little. The atmosphere at Manual is looser and more liberal than probably any other high school in the city, more so than UofL and we all know what universities are like. Academics like the kind that roam the Manual halls tend to have a bit of disdain for athletics. I say this with the understanding that Manual has changed what appears a significant amount in the last 8 years or so. But being a jock wasn't the cool thing at Manual. I don't think that aspect or atmosphere is present in any of the other schools being considered.

This is partly a "If you went there, you understand" answer but I might help explain it a little. The atmosphere at Manual is looser and more liberal than probably any other high school in the city, more so than UofL and we all know what universities are like. Academics like the kind that roam the Manual halls tend to have a bit of disdain for athletics. I say this with the understanding that Manual has changed what appears a significant amount in the last 8 years or so. But being a jock wasn't the cool thing at Manual. I don't think that aspect or atmosphere is present in any of the other schools being considered.

:thumb: :thumb:

 

It got a lot better by my senior year, some kids started taking a lot of pride in the Old Rivalry. Still, I would say the change was really palpable the year your younger brother graduated.

Academics like the kind that roam the Manual halls tend to have a bit of disdain for athletics. I say this with the understanding that Manual has changed what appears a significant amount in the last 8 years or so. But being a jock wasn't the cool thing at Manual. I don't think that aspect or atmosphere is present in any of the other schools being considered.

 

And you wonder why you can't get the Barrel back! :laugh: :flame:

And you wonder why you can't get the Barrel back! :laugh: :flame:

Hey, I got it back (single handed, Wolverine style, if you hear tell the story I have written down for my kids to read one day :lol:)

I have to agree 100 % on that fact about some smart kids not being good test takers....It also made me think about another point...... some kids do not have the drive to succeed at a high academic school regardless of their smarts. One of you made a point about these kids being invovled in other after school activities...I find that very valid also....

I made the point about smart kids being a plus because I used to help coach grade school and I had some great athletes that were very talented but had a lot of trouble grasping some our concepts...we had to adapt to their needs which we did...but that did hold up our overall progress. We also had some great athletes that were sharp as tacks and the team progressed at a much faster pace. I do understand and can see your unique obstacle...I wish I could offer a fix-all solution.....and while I'm not that gifted...I certainly know that there is no such thing as a fix-all.....That came with age!! What recruiting efforts are being made within the school for more participation? (I am certainly not trying to start a recruiting dig here)

Honestly I don’t know what they do now. I remember how I was asked to come out. I was in the lunch room and some kid slipped in front of me and I caught him by his backpack before he hit the ground and coach Jacobs saw me a freshman that was 6'0 and 220 holding my lunch tray in one hand and a kid with the other and he asked me why I had not gone out for football. Then I showed my extreme ignorance of the sport when I said to him that I couldn’t throw a football much less catch one. (later I would get better, not much but better none the less) And he laughed and said if I ever touched the ball then something would have had to have gone horribly wrong and that I would play line. I was so proud that for once in my life my size was seen as a positive instead of a negitive, and that I was the only kid out of my group of Math, Science Tech buddies at my lunch table to be singled out and asked that I showed up for weights for winter conditioning. Basically that is how I got on the Manual football team.

 

Mostly the way people get on the team is that once they get into Manual if they already play ball they ask about it and are told to come out, mostly at orientation. Also many players have had older brothers and/or cousins that already have been on the team and just show up at practice. Then there is an announcement or two at orientation, and then the old reliable method of getting kids on the teams to point out guys that might be good and asking them to come out and the old scan the lunchroom/halls/PE class method. If there is anything new I don't know about it.

That's a good story Ram95...Reminds me of a coach that helped me with a grade school team...This coach played College ball as a lineman and had a lot of experience..The first day of practice he told me that he wanted to take all the "fat kids" to the side and talk to them....He shared with those kids about how he was the little fat kid and how he was teased...he then quickly informed them that the football field is the fatman's world and nothing can happen on the field without the fatman making it happen....he made them forget about their size and how they were teased...he gave them strength,,,and those boys would eat a bucket of nails if that coach wanted them too....I had to paraphrase his speech...if you were there and saw the awesome reaction of these kids you would understand the power and strength that he gave them...it was not perceived as an insult by any of them

I have read a lot of posts from Manual supporters about the "nerds" and smart kids and how they do not make good football players. Excuses are made about this. Can someone from Manual please explain this to me. Notre Dame has very stringent academic requirements and they have been successful.....Doesn't an intelligent player make a better player...reading defenses, understanding formations, techniques...etc??? You do not have to worry about academic casualties with these players. X has a more stringent academic policy than what is required...they also have (I believe) 4 merit finialists on the varsity team....I see more intelligent players as a plus ...not a minus....please explain...there may be something here that I just don't understand....after all I did not go to Manual....on the outside looking in.

 

Sorry, I'm late in this thread, so if somebody has mentioned him already, sorry. David Stopher. This man goes to like, Princeton, or Stanford or something, and had excelled at just about everything he ever went for, including football. It's like he could calculate the exact aerodynamic postion to lay the hardest hit. :lol: