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Five year ago at this time, Mickey Dollens was a Bartlesville High Bruin senior football player emerging from a dismal 1-9 season and would soon be headed to a Southern Methodist University grid program which would finish 1-11 both his freshman and sophomore years.

My how things have changed!

When he arrived at SMU, prior to the 2008 season, “he brought the Aloha spirit,” said Dollens. “Under our previous coach, it had been pretty stressful ... Coach Jones’ philosophy is pretty much Aloha. Everything we do is fun. We practice hard, but we don’t kill each other. He treats us like men, everyone.”

In fact, the day before the Hawaii Bowl (which was played Christmas Eve 2009), Dollens and his teammates went surfing with one of the assistant coaches who had worked with Jones in Hawaii.

“We had a great camaraderie,” said Dollens. “We got to Hawaii four days before the game and it was like going on vacation with my teammates ... When it came time to play we were loose and ready to go. It seemed like they (Nevada players) were tensed up.”

This past season, Dollens played on the punt team, “as one of the three main shields on the punt team,” he said, adding “I should be pushing for more playing time this spring.”

Dollens said Gansz — who Dollens referred to as “one of our beloved coaches” — had inspired the Mustangs to achieve at a high level.

“Before he died, he had talked about making it back to a bowl game,” he said.

After the Mustangs won the Hawaii Bowl, they remembered Gansz “and what we had talked about five months earlier,” Dollens said. “It was special ... It was really an awesome experience putting it on Nevada.”

smusic 00 wrote:Just look what happens when you introduce a little positive encouragement ..

MiracleOnMockingbird wrote:He's actually a reserve defensive end, not a reverse defensive end.