Category Archives: Hall of Fame

05.10.13
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Next up for Hall: Paul Woodrow Palmer

Vinny Testaverde smiles while Paul Palmer and Brian Bosworth applaud at the 1986 Heisman announcement.
Paul Palmer gets introduced by the late,
great Bob Hope on Bob’s All-American Show.

Someone, maybe one of the first math professors in the Stone Age, said it best:
“Numbers don’t lie.”
If so, expect Paul Woodrow Palmer to follow Temple’s Wayne Hardin into the Hall of Fame soon, maybe as soon as next year.
By the numbers, Palmer compares favorably with this year’s two running back inductees, Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne and North Carolina State’s Ted Brown.
Here they are:

Name
Career Rushing Yards/Highest Season
100-yard games
Highest single game-rushing Yards
Paul Palmer
4,895/1,886
21
349
Ted Brown
4,602/1,350
27
251
Ron Dayne
6,397/2,034
29
339

That’s not even counting the most important numbers:
All-purpose.
In just his Heisman Trophy runner-up season of 1986, Palmer posted 2,633 all-purpose yards, ahead of Dayne’s best year (2,422, 1999) and Brown’s best year (1,672).
When it comes to moving the sticks, yards any way you can get them count just as much as a handoff from the line of scrimmage.
Also interesting was the fact that Palmer tossed not one, but two touchdown passes, one in his sophomore year and one in his senior years.
More than the numbers, though, were his durability and versatility.
Palmer could run between the tackles, outside the tackles, was an outstanding receiver and, was 3 for 7 throwing the ball during his senior season _ very good numbers for a non-quarterback.
He was fast, shifty and had great moves in the open field as well.
Bernard Pierce was a great back but, in my view, having seen all of the games both Paul and Bernard played, there was only one thing Pierce did better than Palmer and that was straight-line speed in the open field. Still, Palmer was fast enough with the ball in his hands and never injured (or seemingly never injured).
The fact that Palmer played his entire career against a Top 10 schedule while playing for Temple and finished No. 2 in the Heisman balloting in 1986 adds to his impressive Hall of Fame resume.
I can’t think of anyone on next year’s list as deserving.

05.07.13
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Coach voted into Hall of Fame

There are more good  TU plays called in these 10 minutes than 2 years of Dazball.

For all of my life, I’ve simply known him as Coach.
That’s what I called him when I first met him as a sports writer for The Temple News back in the 1970s and that’s what I called him when I saw him last year.
Now I’ll just call him a Hall of Famer.
This morning news comes from Atlanta that  coach Wayne Hardin has been voted into the Hall of Fame.
Probably the best compliment coach ever gave me was last year.
“Mike, I read your blog and it is first-class,” coach said.
First-class.

Coach was the man behind greatest helmets in Temple history, although I have seen better Temple hats.

(Doc Chodoff also told me the same thing a couple of years ago and I was just as flattered.)
I like that hyphenated word because that’s the way I’ve always described coach Hardin.
He was a first-class coach and, for the years he was Temple’s head coach, the Owls had the best head coach in the country.
Period, end of story.
To me the definition of a great head coach is someone who gets the most out of the talent available to him.
Nobody got more out of his talent than Wayne Hardin.

Wayne Hardin storieson TFF through the years

“We get kidded about our short, fat, kids, but we don’t time them in the 40,” Hardin once said. “They might not be too fast over 40 yards but, from here to there, they are not too bad and that’s all we ask of them.”
Meanwhile, he made a nice living out of outsmarting coaches with better players.
Hardin never beat Penn State, but it wasn’t out of a lack of wits against Joe Paterno.
“Hardin’s outcoaching Joe again,” Allentown Morning Call columnist Joe Kunda said out loud in the Beaver Stadium press box as the Owls took a halftime lead at Penn State.
Everybody laughed.

Ukraine checking in for a 3-minute read of TFF.

Everybody knew Kunda was right.
Think about it.
The highest Temple was ever ranked came in 1979, when the Owls rose to No. 17 in both the AP and UPI polls.
The highest Navy was ever ranked (at least in the modern era) was No. 2 in the nation in 1962.
The head coach in both cases?
Wayne Hardin.
No one has ever been more deserving of the Hall of Fame.
Congrats, coach.

03.08.11
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Hardin belongs in the Hall of Fame

If it were not for Wayne Hardin, I probably would not have been a Temple football fan today.
If it were not for Wayne Hardin, I would not believe winning football was possible at Temple University.
Hardin was around, still is, and for that I am a fan and I am a believer.
The ballots were released yesterday for College Football’s Hall of Fame and there are nine coaches on it.
I don’t see a more deserving coach than coach Hardin.
Consider just these three facts, if you will:
1) Navy rose to No. 2 in the country with Wayne Hardin as head coach;
2) Temple rose to No. 17 in the country (both polls) with Wayne Hardin as a head coach.
3) Neither school has been anywhere near those rankings since.


Two Hall of Fame Coaches


Hardin worked a miracle in Annapolis when it was nearly impossible to get numbers of great players to commit to Navy when the military demanded a five-year commitment.
He beat Army in four of the five years he faced the Cadets.
When Army’s defensive secondary was widely considered the No. 1 backfield in the nation, they were given the nickname “Chinese Bandits.”
For the game that year, Hardin had “Beat Army” written on the sides of the Navy helmets.
In Chinese.
Brilliant stuff.
Navy destroyed Army that day.
If one miracle wasn’t enough, he worked one in Philadelphia the next decade as head coach at Temple University, becoming the winningest coach in its history.
Before Temple played California in the Garden State Bowl, the Cal coaches wanted a film exchange with the Temple coaches. Hardin asked which coaches wanted the film.
He tailored the Temple game plan to what the Cal coaches saw in the film and did the opposite in the bowl game.
Temple led, 21-0, before Cal knew what Hardin was doing.
By then, it was too late.
Temple won, 28-17.
I never knew a man who was right about everything but the closest man who fit that description was Wayne Hardin.
“We’ll work toward getting Wayne Hardin into the College Football Hall of Fame because that’s where he deserves to be,” ex-Temple coach Al Golden said one month before his departure.
I hope Al hasn’t forgotten that promise and can take time out from his busy schedule to beat the drum for coach whenever he gets a chance.
I hope Steve Addazio does whatever he can do as well.
I’ve waited close to 30 years for another Wayne Hardin to arrive at Temple and I hope Steve Addazio is that guy and, while Bruce Arians and Al Golden did nice work, no one has come close to Hardin since.
Frankly, I don’t think anyone ever will.
Today’s coaches could learn a lot from the way Hardin prepared for a game.
Hardin could break down game film and attack a team’s weakness better than any coach I ever saw.
They say you need three certifiable miracles for Sainthood.

Well, Hardin has two documented ones and that’s all you should really need for the College Football Hall of Fame.