College Football Hall of Fame Conference Call Highlights

Paul M. Banks recaps the highlights from speeches by T. Boone Pickens, John Glenn, Lou Holtz and more

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame held its Annual Awards Press Conference this morning, featuring comments from the 15 inductees of the 2008 Hall of Fame Class and NFF Gold Medal recipient Senator John Glenn and Distinguished American Recipient T. Boone Pickens.

ESPN Commentator Lou Holtz (former coach at Notre Dame, South Carolina, Minnesota)

“..Even though I’m so old today I don’t buy green bananas”

“It’s a game that’s a microcosm of life…A game that’s a metaphor for life”

“And my A.D. was asked about me would you still like him if he was losing? Absolutely! And I’d miss him too.”

“When I heard I was going into the Hall of Fame, I wondered if I was going in as a player or a head coach,” I knew I wasn’t going to be the first third-teamer ever elected to the Hall of Fame. I think about my family and teammates and coaches – the people who are with you when you get knocked down and then try to get back up; the ones who you eat with and sleep with…You can fool the media, you can fool the A.D. you can fool the fans, but you can’t fool the players. You just do everything you can to make them successful, and I just hope I had an impact on the lives of some of the people I coached.”

T. Boone Pickens

Pickens has been a major financial contributor to his alma mater, the Stillwater campus of Oklahoma State University (OSU). Through his contributions, Pickens has spearheaded an effort to create an athletic village just north of the existing campus. In order to do so, hundreds of homes were purchased by the OSU administration using Pickens’ contributions. Pickens’ gift remains the largest donation to a university’s athletic program in collegiate history. His total contributions to OSU come to over $400 million dollars. Over $265 million, or 66%, of his donations have been towards athletics. Pickens also has made substantial academic gifts to Oklahoma State University, particularly to the School of Geology, which is named for him.

“I am kind of an odd ball sitting up here with all these athletes. I played high school basketball in Texas,” said T. Boone Pickens. “And I had one scholarship offer from Texas A&M. Actually, I played in the state high school basketball championship against San Antonio Jefferson HS and a young fellow named Kyle Rote (an 1964 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame from SMU). After I got cut from the basketball team at A&M (I weighed 135 pounds as a freshman), I was fortunate to transfer to Oklahoma State (then Oklahoma A&M) and get a great education. I have emphasized to OSU administrators to run a clean program, or they will be missing the support of a key supporter. Oklahoma State is very fortunate to have a key administrator like (AD) Mike Holder and a great football coach like Mike Gundy. Going forward we know we have a different program that we had four years ago.”

I hope that same honesty and square dealing is present in Boone’s Farm of wind energy that’s in the works. But if Carl Pope, director of the Sierra Club supports the Pickens Plan, than it’s probably full of pretty good ideas.

To my knowledge, Mike Gundy was not present at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City this morning to tell the media “T. BOONE IS A MAN! HE’S 80!”

Former Democratic Senator John Glenn

The first American to orbit the Earth, third American in space also served in congress for nearly 30 years and later founded the Ohio St. Institute of public affairs and OSU school of public policy.

“I really did not star in football, but I gained a lot from it.”

“The T-formation wasn’t even invented when I played at Muskingum. We ran the single wing and the double wing, ran off tackle, up the middle, and sweeps. Those were about the only plays we had, and we didn’t think of passing the ball. I am honored to be here with this distinguished group… When I played center, I always lined up with my head down and got hit in the back of the head on every play. It taught me a lot about perseverance and hitting a moving target with the ball on the single wing snap.”

A quintessential Ohioan, Glenn evoked Woody Hayes “there are three things that can happen while passing, and two of them are bad.”

And later Sir Winston Churchill

“Churchill once said referring to battles as being ‘won on the playing fields of Eaton’ lessons learned there are carried over into the military and other fields in life”

Florida State’s Ron Simmons.

“This is a tremendous privilege and honor. I was recruited hard by all the Georgia schools and grew up in South Georgia, and they all told me I was going to an all-girls’ school without much tradition at Florida State. We proved a lot of people wrong, and it was a fantastic experience playing for coach Bobby Bowden….Well, that all-girls school looks pretty good right now.”

Pat Fitzgerald

“To be representing Northwestern as a player as well as being head coach is an honor. The relationships with people and the opportunity to play football on teams that went 15-1 in the Big Ten Conference over two years was something special. We played some outstanding teams and couldn’t have done it without a concerted effort.”

“Unlike most of the men here, I lasted 3 games in the preseason in the NFL, but I’m grateful for what football has given me, brought to my life, the people, the relationships, the opportunities all goes back to the game of football.”

Archie Manning

“This game has been played by 6 presidents, 7 U.S. Generals, 7 Admirals and 32 corporate CEOS”

The 2008 Hall of Fame inductees include Troy Aikman, UCLA, 1987-88; Billy Cannon, LSU, 1957-59; Jim Dombrowski, Virginia, 1982-85; Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern, 1993-96; Wilber Marshall, Florida, 1980- 83; Rueben Mayes, Washington State, 1982-85; Randall McDaniel, Arizona State, 1984-87; Don McPherson, Syracuse, 1984-87; Jay Novacek, Wyoming, 1982-84; Dave Parks, Texas Tech, 1961-63; Ron Simmons, Florida State, 1977-80; Thurman Thomas, Oklahoma State, 1984-87; Arnold Tucker, Army, 1944-46; and coaches John Cooper, 192-84-6 (.691), Tulsa (1977- 84), Arizona State (1985-87), Ohio State (1988-2000); and Lou Holtz, 249-132-7 (.651), William & Mary (1969-71), NC State (1972-75), Arkansas (1977-83), Minnesota (1984-85), Notre Dame (1986-96), South Carolina (1999-2004).

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