“How many men are on the football field at a time?” he
asked us.
Eleven on a team, we answered. So that makes twentytwo.
“And how many people are touching the football at any
given time?”
One of them.
“Right!” he said. “So we’re going to work on what those
other twenty-one guys are doing.”
Fundamentals. That was a great gift Coach Graham gave
us. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. As a college
professor, I’ve seen this as one lesson so many kids ignore, always to their detriment: You’ve got to get the fundamentals
down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.”