Chapters 8-17

Chapter Summary:

After the first few practices Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant started to weed out the quitters and the lazy from the dedicated players. For the few that had enough guts to confront the coach about quitting the team was rewarded a free bus ticket back the campus. For the rest of the quitters that were to scared or did not have the courage to tell coach left in the middle of the night and had to pay their own way back to where ever they want to go. Sports reporters came along and watched a little of every SWC practice so they are able to get their preseason rankings and find who would be the top players of the conference. When these sports reporters landed in junction they realized that Texas A&M had the least amount of players and noticed that more and more were quitting during the practice. Towards the end of the fifth practice Billy Schroeder had fainted because of a heat stroke and Coach came over and kicked him to see if he could still practice but Billy just laid there. He was immediately rushed to the hospital and was covered in ice to try and save his life, which did but if he was any later, Billy would have died of a heat stroke. After that incendent happened, Paul made the rest of the team finish practice and when they got back to their barracks it made Bryant think of his childhood and how no one like him cause he was a country boy and everyone else was a city slicker. He realized that he has been a little to hard on the boys and wanted to let up some but still demanded the respect that he has been getting. He decided that his practices would not be any easier but would give them more freedom after practices like letting them go to the river or go to church after the morning practice. After the ten days in Junction of hard and unbearable practices, it was finally time to return home. When the team left the campus they had to take two buses and double up on the bus to fit, but the ride home was completely different. Coach came back to A&M with one bus and that bus that was barely half full. Once they got back to A&M it was time to start the regular season. They opened their season by getting whipped by Texas Tech 41-9. Paul kind of knew that this was coming becasue he noticed his players have been burnt out from the days in Junction but did not think it would have been this bad. So for a punishment Coach made the players come to practice in thier dirty, bloody and sweaty game uniforms and practice in them all day. The Aggies had to have some fun outside of football and to entertain themselves they decided to either go the the strip club or hang out in their dorms. Weasel Watson had a different idea of fun, his idea was to plant some dynomite he stole from his previous job as a joke to scare some the seniors that have been messing with him. after that incendent, in the middle of the night Coach made the all the players get up and go to the lobby for a team meeting. At this meeting Paul gave each team member a seed of mustard to show that no matter what happens this season that if they are thinking about quitting to remember this seed and know that this seed would never stop growing. After the season was over, the NCAA investagated A&M and found out that they have been giving money to recurits which broke the rules and gave the chance to any player that is on a scholarship to be let go or stay with A&M.

Summary of Group Discussion:

During our lit circle meeting we talked about some of the following things...

• coaches being too harsh or too soft
• Whether we would stay at the Junction
• How Coach Bryant felt after Billy almost died from heat stroke
• If his tactics would work in winning a game
• An all Boys college- What they do for entertainment
• Bryants attitudes towards his team- At the beginning of the book he could care less if he hurt them, then during these chapters he started caring more about them
• Making the team practice in un-washed jerseys the day after an unsucsessful game
• How the boys felt finally leaving the Junction and how it changed them
• Bryant had never loss this many games
  

......Thinking Question......

When the boys got back from the Junction, Bryant asked what he could do to better the team and show them some respect. Not swearing was a key point. Bryant tried, but knew he couldn't suceed in not cursing but he said he would do so. Have you ever set limits for yourself, knowing that you couldn't keep loyal to it?