Thursday, September 9, 1999 - The Michigan Daily -- 19B
* Former Nebraska
B Frazier returns
as Baylor coach
Galloway holds
out; leaves
Seahawks in lurch
WACO, Texas (AP) - Tommie
Frazier always knew he would
>ecome a football coach. But first,
he had to pass a test.
By choice, the former Nebraska
Cornhuskers' star quarterback spent
the past two years avoiding the game
he once dominated.
He worked in the Nebraska gover-
nor's public information office for
s six months.
Then he landed a marketing job
,with a Lincoln, Neb., telephone com-
pany.
Frazier wouldn't even consider
coaching until he could prove to
himself that he no longer wanted to
play.
"I wanted to be able to sit down,
enjoy a game on TV, and not feel the
urge to play," he said. "I wanted to
get that desire out of my system
first."
Now, nearly four years after lead-
ing Nebraska in back-to-back perfect
seasons, Frazier says he has done
exactly that.
He starts this season as Baylor's
running backs coach.
Although he still looks fit enough
to suit up, Frazier said he never even
thinks about playing, and he said
he's a better coach because of it.
w."There's a lot of 30-year-old
coaches out there who still want to
play, and that takes away from their
poaching," Frazier said. "I think if
you're going to coach, your whole
ocus should be on helping the
ids."
Though he was widely recognized
as one of the best college football
players ever, NFL teams passed on
Frazier because of questions about
his passing ability and concern over
his history of blood clots.
Clots in his leg plagued him dur-
ing the Cornhuskers' 1994 champi-
onship run and similar problems
caused him to end his Canadian
Football League career after one sea-
son.
Frazier is at Baylor because of
new Bears coach Kevin Steele, who
as a Nebraska assistant recruited
Frazier out of high school in
Bradenton, Fla.
"There's nothing he thinks he can't
do, and the players react to him
because they've seen him do it,"
Steele said. "He's mature, intelli-
gent, competitive, and a winner in
every sense of the word."
Frazier originally was hired by
Baylor as a graduate assistant and
was ready to add to his communica-
tions degree by enrolling in summer
courses.
But when a full-time coaching job
came open during spring drills,
Steele offered a promotion.
"When I called him into my office
and told him the news, he gave me
that same smile he gave me when we
recruited him, and that same smile
he gave when he told doctors he was
going to play in the (1995) Fiesta
Bowl," Steele said. "He said, 'Coach,
I'm going to get it done.'
"I've learned that when Tommie
says that, it's not just a statement.
You can put it in the bank."
KIRKLAND, Wash. (AP) - Mike
Holmgren has some words of advice
for holdout Seattle Seahawks receiver
Joey Galloway:
You're stuck in Seattle, so live with
it.
"We're not going to trade him," the
first-year Seahawks coach-general
manager told his weekly news confer-
ence on Wednesday. "I want him here. I
want him to be a part of this and he
knows that"
Galloway, the team's leading receiver
in each of the last three seasons, missed
all of the Seahawks' training camp and
their four exhibition games. The
Seahawks open their season on Sunday
at the Kingdome against Detroit.
Galloway has one season left on a
five-year contract for $1.6 million. He
signed the pact after Seattle made him
the eighth overall pick in the 1995 NFL
draft.
Even if Galloway sat out this season,
he would remain the property of the
Seahawks.
Galloway has turned down a seven-
year contract offer for $35 million,
including a $7 million signing bonus.
He is seeking a five-year deal worth
about $25 million with a $10 million
signing bonus.
Other teams are seeking to acquire
Galloway in a trade, Holmgren told
reporters.
"I've been approached in casual con-
versations by about 15 (teams)," he
said. "I've told them all the same thing:
I am not trading him. He's here. I want
him here"
Holmgren doesn't sound like he's
ready to give an inch, or a dollar, in the
stalemate.
Negotiations broke off -two weeks
ago.
"I would hope he'd walk in the door
and say, 'OK, I'm ready to play;"
Holmgren said.
With Galloway missing and Michael
Pritchard out with a knee injury, Sean
Dawkins and Charles Jordan will be
Seattle's starting receivers for the
Lions' game. Derrick Mayes will be the
third receiver. All are new this season.
Quarterback Jon Kitna will be starting
his seventh NFL game.
Dawkins and Jordan signed with the
Seahawks as free agents and Mayes
was acquired by Seattle in a trade with
Green Bay.
"We're thin there in this first game
certainly," Holmgren said of his receiv-
ing corps.
Galloway and Pritchard led the team
in receptions and receiving yardage last
season.
Galloway caught 65 passes for 1,047
yards and 10 touchdowns while
Pritchard made 58 receptions for 742
yards and three TDs.
Pritchard is expected back for
Seattle's second game Sept. 19 in
Chicago.
Galloway, who is at his home in
Columbus, Ohio, told KIRO Radio
Tuesday night, "I would love to be there
right now playing, but at the same time
I can't accept playing for something
hat's way below market value."
Holmgren also announced that for-
mer Pro Bowl offensive tackle Howard
Ballard, who retired lasi Sunday after
playing I1 seasons in the NFL, will
remain with the team as an assistant
coach this season. He will help offen-
sive line coach Tom Lovat.
AP PHOTO
Nebraska's Eric Crouch has a lot to live up to as a Nebraska quarterback. One of
his predecessors, Tommie Frazier, won national titles in 1994 and 1995.
.Small QB Hamilton underdog for Heisman
Washington Post
oe Hamilton doesn't have a com-
puer. So the little quarterback has no
neod for the mouse pad bearing his
henic portrait above the words,
"Hanilton for Heisman." Nor does
he vatch a CD-Rom suggesting he
migit be the first Georgia Tech play-
er t win the award named for the
first Georgia Tech coach, John
Heisnan, a hard man famous for
man, things, among them the night
he vent to the Tech chapel and
annoinced, "Gentleman, we are des-
titute of people. If you weigh 150
pounts or more, please come out for
foothill."
Yet Hamilton has the Heisman
kroply on his mind. "In my room,
by myself, I think about it. But I
don't ay anything to my teammates
becaue it can be a distraction, defi-
nitely,
T joke around about it. But you
don't want to portray to your team-
mates that you're really thinking
aboutit. We all have to do our jobs,
offen,, defense, special teams. The
Heisnan, it's definitely a team
thing.'
Wods fail: For a true sense of the
Hamilon persona, it's necessary to
read lis quotes again. Read' them
aloud, in a chirpy voice, and read
them 4o quickly the words allrunto-
gethedikethis. The magic of Joe
H.nilton is that he skitters around a
football field almost as quickly as
wards leap from his lips.
Can he win the Heisman9
Doibtful. He did decent work in
three quarters of Georgia Tech's 49-
# 14 fictory at Navy: 12 of 17 passes
for 139 yards and two touchdowns,
I l tarries for 39 yards and another
touchdown.
Tlat won't lose the Heisman. But
you win it in games such as
Satuday's, when Georgia Tech and
its litle big man go against the big,
big nen of Florida State.
"W'll be looking at Florida State
film, studying them, putting in our
game:,lan all week," Hamilton says.
*"We kiow what we have to do. We'll
show ip. Definitely, we'll show up."
Fastasterfastest, those words leap
from Joe Hamilton's lips so quickly a
sportsvriter taking notes sprains his
right wist. Doctors list him as ques-
tionable for next week's interviews.
Before he injury, though, the sports-
writer nakes several notes, including
these fom a conversation with
Tech's rTensive coordinator, Ralph
*Friedgen..
COR 1E AND WRITE
tOI THE DAILY!
W;'R; fLOOKING
"Joe's better than ever at reading
defenses, looking off defenders,
making decisions quickly. And he's
confident in what he's doing. He's
like Boomer that way (meaning
Boomer Esiason, Friedgen's quarter-
back in the early '80s at Maryland).
At a bowl one year, Boomer told the
press, 'Ben Bennett can't carry my
jock.' I asked him, Why say that
about the other team's quarterback?'
Boomer said, 'Coach, the game
needs some ink; they're not selling
any tickets.' Joe'll challenge you,
too."
We stood in Navy-Marine Corps
Memorial Stadium, one of the beau-
tiful places in college football. It's
small, maybe 30,000 seats. People
bring blankets and sit on an end
zone's grassy incline. Get high
enough in the ballpark, you can see
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge standing
tall outside Annapolis.
Before kickoff, the brigade of
Midshipmen marches onto the field,
5,000 strong, every man and woman
in dress whites, stirring no matter
how many times you've seen them,
standing tall as we read on the stadi-
um walls a listing of battles: PEARL
HARBOR ... MIDWAY ... IWO
JIMA ... NORMANDY ... INCHON
MEKONG DELTA ... "Tough
schedule," the with Beano Cook
once said. "And all on the road."
The stadium's one elevator came
scavenged from a battleship, the USS
Enterprise. It carries six people,
maybe seven if they haven't eaten
recently. It carries them ever so slow-
ly.
"When Tech played here in 1977,"
says Tom Bates, a Navy assistant
A.D., "President Carter came over
because he attended both Tech and
the academy. He's in that elevator
going upstairs and it's taking its
usual 47 seconds to go one level, and
the Secret Service up top is going
crazy, 'Where is he? Where IS HE?'
By this day's end, David Ryno,
Navy's nose guard, might have asked
the same thing about Joe Hamilton.
Harassed by Navy's blitzing defens-
es, the little man -he's 5-10, 190 -
dumped off quick passes or sprinted
away from trouble. He did the good
work that wins games you should
win but none of the sensational work
that wins games you should lose.
Hamilton called it an OK day,
maybe a 7 on a scale of 10, though
pointing out, kindly, that Navy foot-
ball, a wonderful thing, is not Florida
State football, an NFL thing. "You
can beat Florida State, but you gotta
really beat 'em. They won't help you
beat 'em; you gotta do it yourself."
Hamilton's resume suggests he can
do that. Four times last season, he
created fourth-quarter touchdown
drives to win games seemingly lost.
"We didn't play today at the level
we can play," says Jon Carman,
Tech's 335-pound right tackle. "And
what Joe did is nowhere near all he
can do."
As to what more Joe Hamilton
must do against Florida State,
Friedgen smiles and says, "A lot"'
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