Mike Price – Page 2 – Kyyote's Den

Looking On the Bright Side

UTEP does have a whole lot of extra money that they wouldn’t have had to spend on a new coach or two. Sean Kugler resigned so his salary would be stopped being paid. I’m sure that UTEP paid Mike Price to fill in, but a substitute teacher doesn’t make nearly as much as the regular teacher. Not only that, but I would expect that Kugler, Price and Floyd are all members of the Texas Retirement System, and as such Price’s pension would be set up to allow him to fill in. It gets complicated because Texas educators pay into TRS INSTEAD of Social Security. Anyway, Floyd’s and most of Kugler’s salaries were not paid even though they were budgeted. So, there should be an extra million, maybe million and a half dollars of salaries and benefits saved and in the bank.

I am getting into the weeds pretty deep here, but K. C. Keeler is a member of the TRS, I believe, and if that is true, the fact that he would be staying within the system may be a factor to consider for all parties concerned. As would be his coaches if he or they decided to come along.

Now, onto a question that I have been asking on the Kyyote’s Den http://kyyotesden.com/den/index.php?board=1.0 message board is did Dr. Natalicio impose standards for grades expected by players above those set by the NCAA? Kugler recruited local players of high quality and great students in the classroom, Unfortunately, it is pretty much believed that the players were just not competitive on the field. Was Kugler a really good guy who was all about educating young men and therefore willing to be non-competitive if necessary to make sure his players got an education? Or was he told to do this by Dr. Natalicio? Did Floyd get the same marching orders and finally get tired and frustrated by it to the point that with all of the other factors he realized that he would never be able to meet her standards and be able to rebuild the program? I am asking for a simple yes or no. Did Dr. Natalicio in her attempt to achieve Tier 1 status demand more from her coaches than other coaches? If she did, to tell the world that is what you have done is one thing, but if she did and didn’t tell the world she has committed what I would consider somewhat of a fraud on the ticket buyers and fans of the Miners. If you tell me that my team that I am paying to watch is fighting with one hand behind its back, for good reasons maybe, I can decide if I am willing to pay for the tickets knowing that. But if you are putting a team on the field with one hand tied behind its back and don’t tell me, you are committing a fraud as far as I am concerned. Sell me a car that is a V8 but you have plugged two spark plug holes up to be eco-friendly I am going to be pissed if you don’t tell me up front. I ask the question because Sean Kugler was an offensive line coach for the Steelers and he couldn’t put together a line that could get a single yard when they needed it. For years! But, the kids were getting good grades. And from local schools. Was Kugler’s recruiting affected by orders from Dr. Natalicio? The same question goes for Tim Floyd. I have noticed that the basketball players are really doing pretty well with their grades. Maybe even better than one might expect. Flaggart, Touchet, Wilms, how many of the basketball players are performing better in the classroom that the , oh let’s say, average school at this level? Is there any connection to Floyd giving up? Did health concerns added to the frustration of trying to win with added restrictions cause him to just throw his hands up and quit? Ask yourself this question. How many times have you ever heard of both the football coach and the basketball coach quitting, just quitting in the middle of the year? To me, the way this all went down smells fishy. The language I am hearing from Senter somehow kind of fits in with my conspiracy theory. I do have a lot of time on my hands, I have to admit. I would just like for someone in the know to tell me that I am wrong. I won’t be holding my breath, though.

Is UTEP Athletics In the Worst Shape In 35 Years?

I recently wrote that UTEP Athletics is in the worst shape I have seen it since I enrolled in 1982. Since I am prone to hyperbole, I figured I would see if I wasn’t just shooting off my mouth. I went to the archives and entered the numbers into a spread sheet so that I could make some graphs. Visuals can be helpful. I actually went back to 1914 for football and 1947 for basketball which is where UTEP began their records in the archives just for a complete view of the historical records for those sports for added context.

Blue =football wins Red=football losses Yellow=basketball wins Green=basketball losses

It is difficult to see individual seasons but it does make it pretty easy to see that the football team has been horrible for most of the years since 1982(blue line indicates wins). If we look carefully at the football wins we can see that this isn’t the first time we have hit rock bottom. The key is looking at the basketball corresponding wins at the same time.

The chart above shows that the beginning of the century looked pretty bleak. Football was just a tad better that the past season and basketball was all the way down to six wins. So, with the season starting out 1 and 6 we can only wait and see. But right now, as of today, if things continue as they have for the rest of the season, this will beat it out for the worst since 1982.

Here are two more graphs for you. They represent the percent of the season the wins and losses represent. By the way, this also happens to be pretty much the same time period that Dr. Natalicio has been the President at UTEP. The overall picture tells you what you need to know about her commitment to fixing the problem. There is none. She has been pretty consistent. If someone can win some games, well good deal. If they don’t, well that’s the way it goes.

The graph on top shows the percentage of wins and losses, with the season’s games equaling 100% with blue = % wins and orange =% losses. The bottom graph is for football.

Will A New Athletic Director Change Anything At UTEP? Part 2

I left off with the student athletes and for this particular Athletic Director I believe that this has to be a priority and is a key to making the kind of changes needed to halt a downward spiral of the UTEP Athletics program since the break up of the old WAC and formation of the Mountain West Conference. Mike Price and Bob Stull showed that years of losing do not shackle a program to continued losing. The “losing tradition” could be broken in a matter of one or two seasons. They may have done it differently, but they showed it can be done. Maintaining it is another matter. First and foremost it begins with the right head coach, but it has to be more than the personality of a coach that builds consistent winning programs. Here is where I want to see improvement. Again, this is a key as I see it to fixing what is not working.

Finally, the public and the fans. In Part 1 I added it as an afterthought. It seems too fitting to have changed it, as both the fans and the public are pretty much treated as an afterthought by UTEP. And the good people of El Paso feel the same way about UTEP. Neither one treats the other with the respect it deserves, and what is much worse is that if the two joined forces the power harnessed would be enormous. The city of El Paso searches for a way to go from the five sleepy neighborhoods into a vibrant city and some kind of identity other than a gas and motel stop for travelers. Wild West, historical border town or modern-day city. The University of Texas at El Paso should have been THE jewel of El Paso. The “city” of El Paso should have been and should be to this day making UTEP a focal point for outsiders instead of the place where our kids go to take classes. I hate the term “commuter school”. How in the Hell did the school or the people of El Paso stand for that kind of lack of respect for their own kid’s school? How in the Hell has UTEP allowed itself to be reduced to that? Part of it lies in the whole idea of El Paso being “separate” from the rest of Texas and cultural identities. If there is ever to be a permanent change in UTEP Athletics this all has to change! You can’t get a ticket to a Chihuahuas minor league baseball game. When Mike Price was winning, the Sun Bowl was not just filled with fans. It was an enormous generator of money. The city of El Paso should have donated the salaries of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, passed a Hotel and Motel tax to pay the money to get a big time coach. I’m just kidding about that, but what I’m not kidding about is El Paso, the city and the citizens understanding that a highly successful UTEP Athletic Program is nothing but a giant money machine for the city. But, the city leaders, many of the graduates of UTEP treated UTEP like the place they took classes to get a degree instead of what it is, should be, and could be. It is very sad to see my school treated this way, and what makes it so much worse is that it is done by the very people who you would hope would do so much better. Including the general public.

The AD will need to find a way for the student athletes to have more of a real college campus life than a “commuter school” provides, and somehow, someway, he will have to get the people and city of El Paso to gather the strength and pride of unity needed because neither by themselves is strong enough to continue on the path we are on and more importantly, together, united the amount of untapped energy could easily turn UTEP into a powerhouse in the field of athletic competition. There are 3/4 of a million people in El Paso that are starved for something to do. Western Playland ain’t it! From August March, El Paso should be orange and blue. Student Athletes don’t need to be treated as some kind of heroes, but when they step off campus they should be able to feel the energy of support from the people of El Paso.

Well, that is what I think, anyway. Will any of it happen? Will anything be different? Will Senter see it this way? If he does can he do anything about it? UTEP and El Paso are so unique that he may not be prepared for them, or he may be just the person to see that uniqueness as they way forward and then have the ability to pull it off. What gives me hope is listening to him talk about needing the people of The Citadel to take ownership of the 3 hundred and some acres if they wanted others to. It is a start. If he could do that, he could build upon the work of Dr. Natalicio. She wanted all of her kids of El Paso to have a chance at a college degree. She has done a great job of that. Now, and for many years she has been working to elevate the stature of those degrees. But, if the AD could change the culture from “commuter school” on campus and off, into the focal point of the city pride, where amazing things are taking place because of the opportunities provided by UTEP for our children, it would make all of the difference in the world. It will be a monumental task, but for a young, ambitious man it is the kind of challenge that could be the springboard to the top positions in the country. Bo, we have heard that before, haven’t we? And it is true. Great coaches do great things and then get grabbed up. I am going to keep my fingers crossed that Senter is so good that four years from now he is lured away by some cartel school. But, just like a football coach versus a program, I want Senter to establish a program that continues on the path to greatness after he is gone.

Compete Versus Competitive

Coach Kugler up until the very last assured those who were listening that his players would compete, and they did. But they were still serving as a speed bump for the teams they played. They barely slowed teams down and didn’t move at all when they had the ball. Yet, as Kugler said, they were competing. They were competing pretty hard as best as they were able.

Last Saturday, the same players and coaches went out and were not only competing, for the first time in a very long time, the team was competitive. The speed bump became a road block and the offense that had rusted from lack of use cranked up, and sputtered to life. It was no Lamborghini, it was more Briggs and Stratton, but is showed it was still capable of motion and functionality. Head Coach Mike Price allowed that the whole game was all about the players and coaches, and that he had nothing to do with it. Of course, he was right. Mike Price was just there because the team needed a responsible adult. That is the quintessential Mike Price. He speaks the truth. He is a master at how he speaks the truth and about which truths he speaks. He is masterful in choosing different speech, and truths for different people. He also happens to have shown himself to have a deep understanding of the game and an ability to do more with less over his career. Coach Price was very busy on Monday, at the Media Luncheon. He was doing some of his best coaching. He was coaching up his players, coaches, media, and fans. The kids and players were great players and coaches, the fans were still the best fans, he was just there to hold down the fort and it was nice to see old friends in the media. Every word was the truth. Every word was heart-felt. It is that holding down the fort part that is the key.

If you were one of the fans in the Sun Bowl last Saturday, you know that there was an intangible difference. The players were playing differently. The crowd was different. Even before the game there was an anticipation and perhaps some hope in some of the fan’s minds and hearts. As the first half played out, that was fed by the play and play calling that seemed to be a bit more inspired. As the team left the field to delirious chants of UTEP from the sparse crowd, the crowd sensed a difference. The players may have been motivated by something else, but the fans were responding to the difference they could see, and one of the differences was the old coach with a bit of a hitch in his get along pacing the sidelines and encouraging the players. Who knows how much if any effect Coach Price’s take over of the helm may have had.

Today may give us a better idea, but those who believe that everything was in place and nothing changed and those who believe that Mike Price had an instant impact will still plead their cases. There may be little evidence in this game for either one, as Southern Miss has usually played UTEP tough and are always very physical. So, there will be the physicality that Kugler tried to build and at this point left questioning matched against the physicality of Southern Miss, perhaps the Achilles’ Heel of Mike Price’s offense of the past. So, that will be a twist that throws the arguments into full on debate mode after this game. Perhaps.

So, today’s game should be a fun one for Miners fans. There is finally something to talk about other than how bad things are. I didn’t believe the Miners would be able to do more than compete at the beginning of the season. The first five games the did that. The next game, the didn’t just compete. They were competitive. I don’t know if it was because of Mike Price. Here is the thing. When Mike Price got here, UTEP football was not competitive. They competed. Somewhat. Mike Price made the UTEP Miners instantly competitive. The one thing that he did that was different from other coaches was that even when the team wasn’t winning enough games toward the end, the team was always competitive! Even when the team played the big boys, it was fun, because when we lost, it was us just laying down. It was fun, throwing haymakers and knocking the Hell out of the best of them. We may have lost the fights, but the other guy knew he had been in a fight.

That is what I will be looking for, today. Will they compete or will they be competitive. If they just compete, I will be shocked and disappointed. If they are competitive, I will be even more convinced that Mike Price has brought back that competitiveness that was gone, again.

It is way too early to let this kind of talk get started, but I can’t resist. If Mike Price were to somehow get the Miners Bowl Game eligible, would he not have the rightful claim to the Best UTEP Coach of them all? I know. Bobby Dobbs and the Flyin’ Miners beat Ole Miss. I am talking about coaching. If he did it with Nord’s players and then did it with Kugler’s kids, after the start to this season, it would be quite an accomplishment. This could be the ultimate motivational tool. For Sean, and for Mike, let’s get to a bowl game!

That is how the Kyyote howls when the Miners give me hope. And it doesn’t take much. Come on, Miners. Let’s shock the world!

Go Miners!