Coach Mora: Staying Until They Kick Me Out, Calls Kendricks a Sweetheart

So let's recap Day 2 of Pac-12 Media Days.

Let's start with Ryan Kartje of the OC Register who posted this video of Coach Mora to YouTube.

Ryan also has some great nuggets which are not behind the Register paywall. The best one, in my opnion is the last one. Coach Mora was asked how much he checks social media. He answered:

"About every ten minutes. I think it's important, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, that's how our youth communicate now. I always tell our players I'm not looking over you. When I look at your Twitter and your Instagram and I check you on Facebook. I'm not looking over you. I'm looking out for you. I have four kids. My kids are in the sweet spot. I have a daughter that's going to college next year. A son that's going be tie sophomore in college, and a son that's going to be a sophomore in high school. So as a parent, I'm at that age group. I'mchecking my own kids, so I'm going to check the kids whose parents have sent them to me. Like I said, it's an attitude. The players don't go, man, coach is going to look. They know if they post something I think is inappropriate, I'm going to call them and say we need to think about that. Get it down."

Meanwhile, the LA Times' Everett Cook has an article on Coach Mora calling UCLA home and saying that he is staying until they kick him out. In it, he talks about his commitment to our players.

Mora said:

Probably most importantly I'm committed to our players," Mora said. "We go recruit these kids, go into their homes and talk to their parents, and we ask them to commit to us. We see coaches run out on them, and I don't think that's right. We sit in our meeting rooms and talk to our kids about being selfless and sacrifice and putting a team first. Then you see coaches when the first opportunity comes up to take off and better their situation, they run and do it and leave these kids behind with these, to me, empty lessons. And that's not who I want to be.

Mora added:

Let's not kid anybody. I wasn't the most popular hire in the history of college sports, I can promise you that. [Dan Guerrero] showed a real faith in me, and I appreciate that. I'm a little person. I love it there. UCLA, where else are you going to go? Everyone could argue, well, you could go here or here. Well, for me, this is the place I want to be.

Believe us, Coach Mora, we can attest that you weren't a popular hire and, while we like what you have done so far, we just need you to win a few big (read: Oregon, Stanford and Southern Cal) games this year and you will be the toast of Westwood.

Over at the Daily News, Jack Wang has article about the defense's "glue guy" Eric Kendricks and how he is ready to step out of the shadows this season.

Discussing Hendricks, Coach Mora joked, saying:

He’s a sweetheart. That sounds really silly, calling one of my players a sweetheart. Like if my daughter dated him and married him, I’d be fine with that. And he has nice hair.

Something tells me that Pac-12 quarterbacks aren't going to agree with that assessment this season.

To wrap things up this morning, I'm going to leave you with another video. This one is from Pac-12 Networks.

GO BRUINS!