Remember Ben Tate's Dunk?
by xotus on May 14, 2010 11:08 AM CDT
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If you joined in Acid'sTHREAD for the bowl game against NW ... or followed some of the subsequent discussions here, you probably remember Ben Tate's dunk.
You may find Ben Tate's and Coach Chizik's latest take on the incident interesting:
... Chizik told the crowd that he and his staff accomplished three important objectives in their first year on the Plains -- landing a top-five recruiting class, keeping the staff intact for another season, and building trust within the team. He illustrated this last point with a story about leading rusher Ben Tate, who he said was planning to skip his senior year at Auburn until coaches convinced him to return.
"In the bowl game ... he tried to dunk the ball over the goalpost. That was not something Gene Chizik really cared for," Chizik said of Tate. "Ben called me day after signing day and left a message on my phone. He said, 'Coach, I want to tell you congratulations on a great signing class.' And he said, 'Oh yeah, by the way coach, I want to apologize for dunking that ball over the goalpost. I was wrong.'
"That was the benchmark. When I heard that, I said, 'Our guys are all in.' And they are."
For more of Coach Chizik's comments CLICK HERE
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" Recruiting is about (developing) relations and hard work. "... Gene Chizik
Enjoyed the video Xotus. Thanks for posting it.
I wish I could have attended that one. Reports are that they had a full house (600) and had to turn down request for tickets. There’s an excitement right now about Auburn Football and about Auburn athletics in general, that I haven’t seen since the Dye years. War Eagle !
aubtigerman
"The reason you come to Auburn is because of Auburn people.This is a special place, from the coaches all the way to the fans" - Andrew McCain OT
Yeah, when I saw Coach Chizik say that about 'hard work' ...
… I immediately thought of that ol’ scene-stealer, Curly Washburn.
Do you suppose that Coach Chizik has found out Curly’s one thing?
Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
Curly: This. [holds up one finger]
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean sh!t.
Mitch: But what is the “one thing?”
Curly: [smiles] That’s what you have to find out.
That was...
…..a fun/harrowing bowl game! Not your usual Auburn morning game, that’s for sure.
……I was willing to let it go on the Tate personal foul. What really ate me up was the fumble on the next possession. Tate was going to be the goat, perhaps even eclipsing John Vaughn’s 5 missed field goals against LSU. And that’s really not Tate. He’s been a team guy all along.
…..Tate came in at age 17, and played his first year as the 3rd leading rusher on the team, mostly mop-up work. Then, he was thrown into the fire in year 2. We were supposed to be 5 deep at running back in 2007, but thanks to injuries, suspensions and non-qualifiers, it was Tate and Fannin. Then Fannin had the fumble game against South Florida, and Tate was the man. Tate had to try to get it done as a true sophomore, not even 20 years old on a team where the best receiver was a walk-on. AND, 3 true freshmen were starting on the offensive line. Did we ever hear him complain? Then there was the 2008 nightmare offensive season. I say Tate’s paid his dues, and I’ll look the other way on the dunk. It was great to hear that he owned up to his mistake.
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