Junction, Texas Style Team Preparation

[smumustang1980]

What happened to the good old days of team preparation as in the legend of Junction, Texas where players learned how to tackle?

[SMU 86]

That is not the NFL style. I think we will be fine in time for conference play.

[couch 'em]

What happened to the good old days of team preparation as in the legend of Junction, Texas where players learned how to tackle?

If a coach tried to recreate Junction he would likely be arrested, or at least banned from coaching.

[smumustang1980]

What happened to the good old days of team preparation as in the legend of Junction, Texas where players learned how to tackle?

If a coach tried to recreate Junction he would likely be arrested, or at least banned from coaching.

You are right, but I think you get the point. What a change in culture.

[PonySnob]

What happened to the good old days of team preparation as in the legend of Junction, Texas where players learned how to tackle?

If a coach tried to recreate Junction he would likely be arrested, or at least banned from coaching.

You are right, but I think you get the point. What a change in culture.

What's wrong with the "everybody gets a trophy" mentality today?

[couch 'em]

It is more the brutal withholding of water all day. With kids used to air conditiinjng today there is a good chance someone would die with that treatment.

[Rayburn]

I prefer the old school approach, my high school and college coaches were knucks-down knock-their-dicks-in-the-dirt types. However, not everyone handles Junction-style shakedown cruises as well as Bear Bryant. His disciples, Charley Bradshaw and Gene Stallings, tried the tactic at Kentucky and Texas A&M in the 1960s and essentially failed. Stallings managed to win a SWC title in 1967, but his own Junction had failed to produce much in the way of wins.

[smumustang1980]

It is more the brutal withholding of water all day. With kids used to air conditiinjng today there is a good chance someone would die with that treatment.

I agree.

[1983 Cotton Bowl]

Yep, times change. That sort of treatment of players would never be tolerated today.

[No Quarter]

I followed the newspaper reports from Bryant's Junction Camp his first year at ATM and thought him a wild man, crazy. I agree with the comments about the harshness of that experience and IIRC ATM went home with fewer than thirty varsity players. Charlie Krueger and Jack Pardee as well as Stallings were among the survivors. That was in the one-platoon era. It was also in the day of more or less unlimited recruiting and scholarships and I think ATM brought in a really big freshman class.

I'd say Stallings did as well as a coach as any of the Junction boys even if he was involved in the violations that led to probation at Alabama. Bradshaw of course was not an Aggie, but rather a former Bryant assistant and really not in the same class as Stallings or Pardee as a coach.

[orguy]

Pardee was very very mediocre as a head coach in both the NFL and college.

[Stallion]

former SMU Head Coach Dave Smith was a Junction Boy but for less than the required 10 days

[ghost]

that was back in the days where you had a bunch of white kids and no weight training so even the biggest lineman might not be over 200 lbs and the running backs were 160 1lbs. those guys these days are trained assasins on defense with monster olines and speedsters in year round training. The best high school teams now would beat the best college teams from before I would say maybe 1950?