Walker's Chance For A Selfless Act

by Bruin77 on Dec 13, 2007 4:39 PM PST

According to both Perelman and Dohn most of the verbal commits in next year's class will be on campus this weekend (Perelman says it will be 19 and Dohn reports 18). If Dewayne Walker wants to prove he is acting in UCLA Football's best interests, he should stand up in front of all the recruits this weekend and state flat out that regardless of the outcome of the search for a head coach, he wants to remain at UCLA. He can say he is a candidate for the job, but there are no guarantees. He should not say anything about what changes he would bring to the program if he were hired. He should only talk about wanting the job in terms of why UCLA is a great place to play (and coach) football. He should also state that his son's commitment to UCLA will stand, no matter who is selected as UCLA's next coach. Of course, he should also be honest and say that his staying (and also the rest of the coaching staff) at UCLA is dependent on the new coach asking him to stay.

This gesture would communicate the same commitment to UCLA that he and the rest of the coaching staff are asking these recruits to make. It would be a classy thing to do and would send the message that despite the unknown outcome of the head coaching search, UCLA is a place he wants to be, and therefore, it is a place these recruits should want to be. It also says that his commitment to UCLA goes beyond one man. It is a commitment to the University that he represents. He and the other coaches sold these players on playing for UCLA, not just playing Karl Dorrell. They were also sold on getting a UCLA education. Those things have not changed.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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Beautifully put.

I hope Walker does that exactly. But I won't be surprised if we hear he does many of the things you suggest he should not. Here's to giving a man the benefit of the doubt.

"Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny" - Boss

by TCbruin32 on Dec 13, 2007 4:48 PM PST reply actions

That sort of statement

would increase Walker's stature a thousand percent in my estimation. It's sort of an anti-Streeter approach, which failed so miserably. It may be perceived as sort of a "Long live Captain Vere" moment, but nobility is a great virtue.

by Fox 71 on Dec 13, 2007 6:26 PM PST reply actions

More like..

"Goodbye, O Rights of Man!"

They hung that guy, didn't they?

by whp68 on Dec 13, 2007 8:02 PM PST reply actions

I didn't actually read the book

but they sure did do that thing to him in the movie.

by Fox 71 on Dec 13, 2007 9:55 PM PST up reply actions

Ah yes,,

..Peter Ustinov (Captain Vere), Robert Ryan (Claggart; also the guy who played the colonel who was Lee Marvin's adversary in the Dirty Dozen), and Terence Stamp (Billy Budd and Zod in Superman II).

I had to read the book for English 2A and got into Melville quite a lot; ended up getting an "A" in the class because my teacher was a Melville freak (who looked exactly like Gregory Peck in Moby Dick). That grade saved my ass from going on probation that semester.

..sorry for the digression; sure hope Nestor doesn't throw me off BN.

by whp68 on Dec 13, 2007 10:14 PM PST reply actions

That's the one

Sheesh - you're a hero, getting an A in a real class to stay off pro. I used PE 136, my first and only A until I figured things out.

I've mentioned this before. My favorite english prof (I lucked out and got a full professor for English 1A and 2A) was destined from birth to teach English: George Bernard Tennyson. He remains maybe the best teacher I ever had - right up there with Mrs. Coburn in the 3rd grade. He may still be at UCLA, and if he is he should be revered.

And re the Dirty Dozen. My favorite line in the show is when Donald Sutherland is inspecting Col. Everett Dasher Breed's troops, and concludes with "Very pretty, Colonel. Very pretty. But can they fight?" That line was used throughout my legal career as we finished some big brief or trial prep thing or some killer exhibit -- "Very pretty. But can it fight?"

by Fox 71 on Dec 14, 2007 6:50 AM PST up reply actions

Who says..

At the risk of totally hijacking this topic (sorry, Nestor, this will be my last transgression), who says I didn't resort to PE classes? I was facing the prospect of probation in yet another semester and took three -- count 'em -- three PE courses to save myself: bodybuilding (weight training), basketball, and volleyball. That yielded 1.5 units of "A" (each course was 1/2 unit) and a level of fitness unequaled in "the history of my life".

My English 2 teacher ("Early American and Puritan Literature") was also an inspirational figure. As I mentioned, he was in love with Melville (an addiction I adapted for the class), and pronounced Moby Dick the best novel and Benito Cereno the best short story ever written:

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a grey mantle. Flights of troubled grey fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled grey vapours among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

Like your teacher -- George Bernard Tennyson -- his name preordained the subject area of his class: Calvin Isreal. I considered him among the best I had as well.

To mercifully end this tangential discourse with a non sequitur, we should definitely adapt your favorite line from the DD as a litmus for any new coaching prospect: "Very pretty, Colonel, but can [he] fight?"

by whp68 on Dec 14, 2007 9:46 AM PST reply actions

PE 136 was THREE units

Three units of A when you're looking up at the probation line was a gift from on high. (I understand the semester after about ten other kids and I took the class, something like 5,000 kids enrolled, then looked at the new syllabus, and the same 5,000 dropped it.)