RIP in Peace Gayle Sayers
- Thread starter JRHawk2003
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Absent his knee injuries, he might have been the best of all time.
He almost went to Iowa, in fact he was recruited. One of the reasons he didn't was because the coach then, Jerry Burns, didn't have time to meet with him on his campus visit. Whoops.
He's high on the list of guys who you'd love to have seen play a full, healthy career. He only played 67-68 games in his career and still got into the Hall. Wonder what his career numbers would have looked like without the injury.
Passing on Sayers might have had something to do with that record.
To be fair Lute, Jerry was undercut by his boss, the former coach, Forest Evashevski from minute one. Evy never should have been AD. He was fired over plotting to replace Nagel with himself in 1971.
Today, a former NFL player said: "If you wanted one halfback
for the whole season, then take Jim Brown or Walter Payton.
If you wanted one halfback for a winning play, then take
Gayle Sayers."
for the whole season, then take Jim Brown or Walter Payton.
If you wanted one halfback for a winning play, then take
Gayle Sayers."
Burns was too busy recruiting Henry Carr(I think it was), an olympic sprinter, who also played some football. He spent all his time with Henry and ignored Gale. It pissed off Sayers. Henry failed to meet admissions standards and wound up at a JC. From there, I believe he went to Arizona State. According to @CloydWebb
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Evy was a great coach but he couldn't get along with the AD when he was coach. So when the AD left, Evy took the job and they wouldn't let him do both, which is what he would have liked. I honestly think that had he just kept coaching, he would be the GOAT.
I think #13 is your answer. I'm not schooled in Iowa lore.
Jerry was better than the AD allowed him to be. Evy “dried up” a lot of the program from outside once he became AD. It’s not like Burns couldn’t coach...or forgot how to coach. He just could procure the talent his boss did as FB coach. Burns went on to have a fine coaching career in the NFL.
Burns was a brilliant press box guy when it came to analyzing everything that was going on down on the field.....the best in the Country some say.....and he had a HUGE hand in Evy's success. When he got canned, he was immediately hired by Vince Lombardi, who knew coaching talent when he saw it, and you don't end up as Head Coach of the Minnesota Vikings by being stupid.
Burns had two big problems at Iowa:
1. Behind the scenes, Evy set him (and Ray Nagel) up to fail, and as posted elsewhere in this thread, he had aspirations of regaining the job and that would have been much easier to do if he came riding in on his white horse to replace a failure.
2. He couldn't maintain discipline. Evy full well knew this. A new culture without Evy discipline sprung up and his players ran all over him, particularly Gary Snook, but there were many, many others as well. Amazingly unbelievable stuff on the field, like 4 consecutive Personal Foul penalties, followed by a fist fight between two of the Iowa players! Eight guys to the NFL off a 1-9 team in 1965 tells you something.
Absent Evy's scheming, Iowa could have had its pick of coaches to take over the program. We were absolutely a Top 10 job, more probably Top 5.
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Anyone who actually saw Gale Sayers in person would say that he is the best running back they ever saw. Impossible to compare backs from different eras, but when he played he was a man among boys more so than anyone before or since.
