Wednesday, April 16, 2008

UCLA Players Walk Out of Practice

Say this for the UCLA Bruins, they are bound to their traditions.

Interesting story out of UCLA today as the entire team walked out of practice led by the seniors. From what I read this is a Spring tradition at UCLA that predates Neuheisel's tenure as a player. Still with only 15 practices allowed inthe Spring these days it is a huge waste. It will be interesting to see how the "New Rick" handles this one.

With a new offense going in and questions at just about every position on the field, the Bruins ditched out of practice Tuesday in a spring tradition that Coach Rick Neuheisel participated in as a player but at this point would rather not deal with.

After the players ran off, the Bruins coach went over to a group of game officials that were brought in to work the practice and told them, “they quit on us.''

The tradition is to go over the wall at Spaulding Field, but this time the Bruins just ran out through an open gate. In the past few years there have been players to try to scale the brick wall that surrounds the practice facility but lacking the requisite strength, failed. Much simpler this time, and the players made a clean getaway. Neuheisel went into the locker room after them, but said later he just wanted to make sure they were all together on the decision and not to try to talk the team into returning to do some actual work on the practice field.

5 comments:

hairofthedawg said...

not surprising, based on the general flakiness of UCLA's results, but that was a tradition of which I was unaware. I'd be pissed if the Huskies did it and I'd guess there would be a lot of guys on the stairs of HS tomorrow and likely the rest of spring practice had that happened here.

Sorry to hear about the dog...hope you find a new one soon.

Anonymous said...

wow... ibet UCLA finishes ninth this year

John Berkowitz said...

I think it was fine when you had 20-30 days to practice each spring, and that wasn't all that long ago.

15 practices is a ridiculously low number to work with. Teams that are rebuilding, or have a new coach are at a complete disadvantage.

That being said the seniors at UCLA are acting like seniors at any other school with a new head coach, they aren't buying completely in.

If your Neuheisel you have to be disapointed, and you also should have addressed this in advance to prepare for it since it is a UCLA tradition. The way it was handled will likely cost them a practice day.

Anonymous said...

johnb, sorry to hear about your dog. We all grow very attached to pets as part of our family. After 2 dogs, 3 birds and 6 cats, we are down to the last cat and he is very old and moves slower these days. Hopefully your dog will go peacefully without pain.

John Berkowitz said...

Thanks prrbrr...Losing an animal is similar to losing a child in many ways.