【 以下文字转载自 NCAA 讨论区 】
发信人: bison (九尖山下仙, 石象湖边客), 信区: NCAA
标 题: 福特Mustang车的来历
发信站: Unknown Space - 未名空间 (Thu Dec 11 01:59:49 2003) WWW-POST
Tuesday, December 9, 2003
By Ivan Maisel
ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- Over 37 seasons at SMU, North Texas and Iowa, Hayden Fry won 232
games and four conference championships with a combination of folksy Texas
charm, the eye for detail that all winning coaches possess, and a nose for
talent, both on the field and on his sideline.
Fry's staff with the Hawkeyes in the early 1980s included five current
Division I head coaches, including Bill Snyder of Kansas State, Barry Alvarez
of Wisconsin, and Kirk Ferentz, Fry's successor at Iowa.
But as Fry goes into the College Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday night, the
coaching achievement for which he will most be remembered is going into the
Hall of Fame alongside him.
Hayden Fry was beloved at Iowa, SMU and North Texas.
Jerry LeVias, the wide receiver who broke the color line in the Southwest
Conference when Fry brought him to SMU in 1965, is an inductee as a player.
"The best thing I did was giving Jerry LeVias a scholarship," Fry said. "That
opened the door for all of the African-Americans in that part of the world to
have a choice of where they went to school."
LeVias would become an All-American in 1968 under Fry. He grew up in Beaumont,
Texas, in a region that produced an inordinate number of NFL players, among
them Bubba Smith, and the Farr brothers, Mel and Miller.
"We played sandlot games," LeVias said Tuesday, "and I was the smallest. But
the Farrs would always pick me because I was their cousin."
Using speed and guile, LeVias set six SWC records as a receiver, seven if you
include enduring the abuse he took as a black player in a white league. But
LeVias knew what he was getting into when he told Fry he would come play for
him.
"They had just shot the president in Dallas in 1963," LeVias said. "You can
imagine what John Kennedy meant to black people. And to go to the town where
he had been shot?"
Fry said he and his staff looked two years for the right player to break the
color line.
"We knew the kid had to be a fine academic student," Fry said. "He had to have
a minimum of 1,000 on his SAT. He had to be a player. He couldn't be sitting
on the bench. He had to be an exceptional person. Jerry fit the criteria 100
percent. He had a lot of faith in God. That was the only thing that pulled him
through."
"I came from a very religious family," LeVias said. "When things started
happening to me, I would call my grandmother. She would tell me, 'Bless them,
for they know not what they do.'
"I would tell her, 'But they do know.'
"I look back now and it's funny. But I have drawn strength from what I went
through as a young man. It was definitely my faith in God and in people that
got me through."
Fry didn't do it merely out of the goodness of his heart. He had to deal with
Texas and Arkansas in the SWC. Seeing players like Smith go north to Michigan
State "just killed me," Fry said. That changed.
"As long as LeVias was on the field," Fry said, "I always knew we had a chance
to win."
LeVias had the speed and quickness that Fry loved. Early in his career at SMU,
where he became the head coach at age 29 in 1962, Fry took the Mustangs to
play Michigan, where Ford executive Lee Iacocca and his engineers watched the
game.
"After the game they came into the locker room, and told me, 'We've got this
new sports car,'" Fry said. "Compared to Michigan, we were quicker and had
mobility. Iacocca said they were throwing around four names. He told me: 'We
made a decision up in the stands. We're going to call it a Mustang, and I
wanted you to be the first to know. I'm going to ship you the first one and
paint it red and blue.'
"I didn't put but 3,000 miles on it," Fry said, before he got rid of the car.
"Can you imagine what that thing would be worth today?"
