Word: oosterbaan
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...made it safer. Massed defenses, designed only to stop a crunching ground attack, swiftly became obsolete as more and more teams included the pass among the weapons in their arsenals. Still, brilliant passers, brilliant receivers-and brilliant passing combinations-were few and far between. There was Friedman-to-Oosterbaan, of course. There were Alabama's Rose Bowl champions of 1935, with Dixie Howell throwing to Don Hutson-who later went on to the Green Bay Packers and set five National Football League pass-receiving records that still stand today...
...record (239.07 m.p.h.), promptly declared his ultimate goals were 300 m.p.h. on water, 400 m.p.h. on land (v. the land record of 394.2 m.p.h. set at Bonneville, Utah, in 1947 by the late John Cobb). ¶ "Coaching football is a rotten life," said Michigan's mild-mannered Bennie Oosterbaan a couple of seasons back. "I'm on top now, and there is a lot of backslapping. But what of seasons to come? Let me lose the opener or a couple of other games next fall, and then watch how I'm blasted." An All-America...
...Build Morale. "You don't put morale on like a coat," Hurry-Up Yost used to say. "You build it day by day." It is another Yost dictum that Oosterbaan follows by keeping players relaxed and happy. (As a sophomore, he himself was once kicked off the squad for "lassitude" by an assistant coach, but Yost got him back.) He never uses sarcasm to goad a player, never loses his temper, almost never makes dressing-room pep speeches...
...only time there is a real flap around Oosterbaan is when he is about to draw one of his elaborate strategy diagrams or prepare to read reports on a rival team's performance and finds that he has misplaced his reading glasses. Then everything stops and his aides go through a standard routine, beginning with a search of his pockets, an investigation of his room and leading up to a recap of all the places he has been that...
...times this season, Oosterbaan's boys have been over-relaxed and careless, but they always rallied in the clinches, beat Army 26-2, won over Michigan State (the only team to beat Notre Dame) and over Missouri, Minnesota and Northwestern before taking Iowa. Chances are that before long Coach Oosterbaan will be wearing Rose-Bowl-colored specs...