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October 20, 2006

Hughes News and Views: A little advice for the Sycamores

By David Hughes

As an Indiana State alumnus, I’d like to welcome all out-of-town alumni visiting Terre Haute for homecoming this weekend.

Enjoy your stay, but please try to leave the Ballyhoo in one piece and don’t litter if you decide to walk along Wabash Avenue to today’s football game against Missouri State at Memorial Stadium.

By now, you’ve probably heard that our team hasn’t done well lately.

OK, I can’t sugarcoat it. We’re mired in the nation’s longest losing streak among NCAA Division I-A and I-AA schools — 24 games.

Yes, 24 losses in a row, dating back to 2004.

As I continue my first season on the ISU football beat, I’ve concluded that second-year coach Lou West is a class act who tries his hardest to win each and every game.

Despite his efforts, our Sycamores are 0 for 18 during his stint.

So I started thinking, what can I do to help West and his hard-working players end “The Streak”?

I’ve never played or coached organized football, so I’m not qualified to offer strategy or personnel tips.

Then it hit me like an unblocked Brian Urlacher. I dug up phone numbers of several ISU football standouts from the past 30 years and called them for advice to the team.

After leaving a bunch of messages, I ended up talking to four — Vencie Glenn (safety), Alvin Reynolds (safety), Craig Shaffer (linebacker) and Jeff Miller (quarterback) — all of whom started for then-coach Dennis Raetz in the 1980s.

Glenn, a 1986 graduate, played 10 seasons in the NFL with the San Diego Chargers, Los Angeles Raiders, New Orleans Saints, Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants. In 1987, he set what was then an NFL record by returning an interception 103 yards for a touchdown against the Denver Broncos.

A vice president for a real-estate development company in San Diego, Glenn finds time to follow the Sycamores. He attended ISU’s season-opening game at Purdue and hoped to make it to Terre Haute today for homecoming.

“I’ve been watching the program suffer,” Glenn said. “When you cut back on [out-of-state] scholarships and the school wants to generate money and your football program is not a priority, then your football program will suffer.

“They let Coach Raetz go out and recruit from out of state. We had guys from Florida and I’m from Maryland. We had guys from all over.”

For the record, the 2006 ISU football media guide broke down the preseason roster geographically — 42 players from Indiana, seven from Illinois, six from Florida, six from Ohio, three from Michigan, three from Texas and one each from nine other states.

Despite Glenn’s frustration, he didn’t point the finger of blame at West.

“I think Coach West is on the right track,” he said. “It’s hard to get guys to believe in a program which hasn’t been successful for a long time.”

Indiana State’s records since the turn of the century have been 1-10 in 2000, 3-8 in 2001, 5-7 in 2002, 3-9 in 2003, 4-7 in 2004 and 0-11 in 2005.

Glenn said the university needs to add out-of-state scholarships for football. “You won’t win if you don’t have the players to compete at a certain level,” he stressed.

Raetz, who still works for ISU as associate director of athletics/internal, said the I-AA limit for football scholarships is 63 (spread over 85 athletes) per school, the same as it was in the early 1980s when the Sycamores often posted winning records.

West said the football program uses its full allotment of scholarships.

“The difference is that in the early ’80s, we could take up to 35-40 out-of-state players on scholarship,” Raetz explained in an e-mail. “Now there is a lower limit on the number of out-of-staters we can take. That number has increased from the ’90s when it sank to as low as 10.”

As for today’s game, Glenn would like ISU to win, although he doesn’t believe one victory will solve any long-term problems.

But you gotta start somewhere, right?

“If you want to tackle a guy, put your arms around him and tackle him,” Glenn advised to the current players. “If you want to catch the ball, put your arms around the ball and hang on to it. Defensively, it’s about a will to want to get to the ball.”

Looking back, Glenn said his most-vivid homecoming memory occurred in 1983 when the previously hot Sycamores lost to Southern Illinois 34-21. That was the same season ISU lost to national powerhouse Florida by a respectable 17-13 score.

“We lost,” he said when asked why he remembers that homecoming game more than others. “That’s when we were rolling. My whole life has been tough when I lost. There’s no celebration when you lose. There’s nothing good about losing, except that you can learn from it.”

Glenn said he wants to see the ISU program win championships someday, but he’s not expecting that to happen soon.

“Don’t blame the kids and don’t blame the coaches,” he added. “It’s a product of the environment.”

Reynolds, a 1982 graduate who served as an assistant coach at ISU from 1983 to 1993 and now works as the defensive-backs coach for the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, doesn’t follow the Sycamores as closely as Glenn. But he does sneak a peek at the college scores rolling across the bottom of television screens on Saturdays, mainly to see how Indiana State fared.

“It’s unfortunate that’s the way it is,” Reynolds said of ISU’s losing streak. “But I’m sure the coaches and players are working hard and things will get better.”

Reynolds won’t be in town today, because he’ll be helping the Jaguars prepare for a Sunday game at Houston, but he promised he’ll be rooting for the Sycamores in spirit.

“I’m sure all those guys want to do well,” he mentioned. “The best thing to do is everybody needs to buckle down and do their job on a consistent basis.”

Reynolds still carries fond homecoming memories of seeing the tents full of alums outside Memorial Stadium before and after the games.

“When I played, I remember those crowds being there,” said Reynolds, who played in 1980 when the Sycamores drew a school-record 18,293 spectators for a 19-6 homecoming triumph over Southern Illinois.

“You feed off the crowds. Even in the NFL, you feed off the crowds. You appreciate that support.”

Shaffer also played in that 1980 game, posting a school-record six tackles-for-loss. He later displayed his talents in parts of four seasons with the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals and four seasons in the Canadian Football League, so he should know a thing or two about defense.

“Defense, that’s what wins games,” said Shaffer, a 1977 Terre Haute Schulte High School graduate who works as a semi-truck driver out of St. Louis. “A great defense can be a great offense.”

When told that ISU’s defense has allowed 523.14 yards per game this season (last in the nation among I-AA schools), Shaffer said that needs to change now.

“When your back’s up against the wall that much, you’ve got nothing to lose,” he said. “You just let it all hang out. The defense has got to stand up. They need to break some facemasks, do something crazy.”

Shaffer also emphasized that losing is not an option today.

“Homecoming, you have to win,” he said in no uncertain terms. “That’s just part of college football. You don’t even think about losing for homecoming.”

Miller, a 1986 graduate and arguably the best quarterback in school history, roots for ISU as well and he proves that by continuing to wear Sycamore T-shirts.

“In the years I was there, we had great people on the team,” reflected Miller, head football coach at Norwell High School football in Ossian. “We had heart and we did our jobs. We probably played as close to our potential as possible.”

In Miller’s junior season, ISU finished 9-3 after losing a 42-41 triple-overtime heartbreaker to Middle Tennessee State in the I-AA playoffs.

Nowadays, Miller puts up with teasing about ISU’s recent records. “I get that every week from [Norwell] assistant coaches,” he admitted.

Despite the mounting losses, he won’t hesitate to voice support for his alma mater.

“All you can do is keep battling,” he said, offering encouragement to West’s struggling team. “Football is probably the ultimate team sport and everybody has to play together.”

Regardless of what happens to ISU football today, the rest of this season or next season, Miller hopes he never sees the day when the sport no longer exists at the university.

“There are things I learned from being around the football program at Indiana State,” he explained. “Those things helped build my character. I took a lot of that with me to the jobs I’ve had since I left Indiana State. That was a big part of my character development.

“Any sport you play at a university complements what you learn in the classroom.”

Tunch Ilkin, another former ISU standout (1975-79) who played 13 seasons as an offensive lineman with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, also returned my message Thursday. Unfortunately, he called when I was out of the office.

But I’m sure he would agree with Glenn, Reynolds, Shaffer and Miller in saying, “Go, Sycamores! End The Streak!”

David Hughes can be reached by phone at 1-800-783-8742, Option 4, or at (812) 231-4224; by e-mail at david.hughes@tribstar.com; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.

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