Gaylon McCollough
The Gulf Coast Athletic Club opened its October 11, 2021 meeting at Woodside Restaurant in Gulf Shores. President George Autrey welcomed the assembled crowd at 7:02pm.
George commented about the crazy weekend and the equally crazy week, so crazy that our Speaker, Cole Cubelic was stuck in Atlanta this afternoon. He tried to get here, but ended up going to Monroe, LA where he wanted to do a Zoom meeting which didn’t happen since his flight was late getting on the ground. We’ll have him back at some point.
Woodside Restaurant has been very accommodating and until Craft Farms is ready, we’ll stay here.
Our excellent GSHS Athletic Director, Coach Kevin Tubbs gave us a Dolphins Football update. Finally, we get three Home area Games in a row and this week is Homecoming. Other sports are hopping. Girls Volleyball is 31-16 and ranked #10 in the State. Lots of other sports have started. In all, there are 49 separate teams in Middle and High School in Gulf Shores!! GO, DOLPHINS!!
Dr. Gaylon McCollough began the introductions of our first set of Scholar/Athletes by saying this is his highlight of any meeting. Our Female Scholar/Athlete is Caroline Hudson. She is now a 3 sport athlete - Cheerleader, Soccer, & Cross Country. She has a 4.1, a member of the National Honor Society, and is President of the Student Government Association. She’d like to go into Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama, where she’d like to try out as a UA Cheerleader. She’s also in our Homecoming Court.
Our Male Scholar/Athlete is Charlie Hollis, #86 at Tight End on the Football Team and a Champion Wrestler with a 48-2 record last year! He has a 4.2 GPA and is a National Honor Society member who serves as a Gulf Shores High School Ambassador. He’s been offered a Football scholarship to Birmingham Southern and represented GSHS at Boys State. He thanked God first and foremost.
Dr. McCollough reminded the Club, when he told these outstanding Students, that we award two scholarships at year’s end to the Club’s choice of the most deserving nominated Female and Male Scholar/Athletes and these nominees are now in the running.
Our Pigskin Prognosticator Challenge is now into its seventh week with Bulldog Billy still leading the pack. Our Fearless Leader pointed out that his accuracy is better than Bulldog Billy as he has picked more losers than Billy has picked winners. Spin it, George!! Your Editor is close behind – or ahead.
Team Reports News Flash – Chairman Dec McClelland has surfaced after globetrotting throughout the world. Obviously, he must have spent his time well as he seemed to have some new jokes. 7 SEC teams are in the Top 25, 4 from the Big 10, and others from elsewhere. Presenting the Alabama report, Fred Dickinson said he couldn’t remember Alabama ever getting a Crying Towel although it might happen tonight (Alert!). They still are the top ranked one-loss team. Tom Grabowski with Penn State lamented that a school the size of Penn State should have at least one good backup Quarterback after their Star got hurt. It seems they did last year, but those two QBs transferred to Mississippi State and Kentucky, whose fans both thanked Tom.
Kentucky, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, LSU, and Auburn all reported in – some good, some are like Coach O – don’t know the end of that story yet. Auburn did say they played a good first 5 minutes Saturday.
Crying Towel – As expected, the Tide received the CT for its last second loss to Texas A&M and former Saban Assistant, Jimbo Fisher. Enough said. More on that later as well.
As our Speaker was still literally up in the air, our Champion, Dr. Gaylon McCollough, rose to say a few words – of course, when Doc speaks, everyone listens as any man, who had Coach Paul W. Bryant as his Mentor, has pearls of wisdom, and Doc had some excellent thoughts.
The week after a big loss, the Coach is never on more display. In 1961, Alabama won the National Championship. In ’62, they were 8-0 going up against Georgia Tech. They lost to Tech 7-6 on a failed Two Point Conversion. After each game, the players always knelt in the Locker Room and said the Lord’s Prayer. After this game, Coach Bryant came in and personally led the prayer, saying “Let these young men forgive me for losing this game. If I had stayed home, they would have won”. Doc said he’s pretty sure that’s what Coach Saban said as they use similar techniques.
Doc noted that A&M scouted the Tide well as Bama normally runs on first down 70+% of the time, passes on second, etc. They never changed that pattern in the game, never ran their famous Slant-in Pass, dropped lots of passes, plus the players clearly weren’t ready – Saban said ‘reading their press clippings’. He said the noise factor only affects changing the play at the line – nobody can hear it.
On predicting football, a great story ended with Coach Bryant saying “I have no clue what these 18-22 year old kids will do on Saturday”. On playing so many in a game, Doc said playing so many works because if you practice hard all week and then don’t get to play, next week’s practice won’t be quite as hard. Give them hope and attitudes will be better – empty the bench.
In talking with former Southern Miss Coach (and former GCAC member) Jeff Bower, a former member of the CFP Selection Committee, there may be an increase in the CFP to 8 teams, but healthy players will be an issue with added games.
More $$$$$$.
Upcoming programs:
10/25Chris Childers: ESPN radio/Sirius XM Channel 84 host of Chris Childers & Rick Neuheisel.
11/8Phillip Rivers: Former NFL All Star QB, future Hall of Famer, and now Coach at St. Michael’s.
11/22Bo Bounds: ESPN radio host of The Out of Bounds Show.
The meeting adjourned at 8:14pm.
