By Mike Gibson
Anyone who was flooded out on the Schuylkill Expressway yesterday, probably remembered seeing one of the billboards the university rented.
For the school’s 125th anniversary, they are putting 125 facts about the school that most people don’t know but would find interesting.
It’s a marketing plan to get the Temple brand out there, but there are some really interesting facts involved.

Some of the obscure ones include:
• Three of the four members of Sister Sledge (“We are Family”) hold Temple degrees;
• Hall and Oates met while students at Temple;
• The Temple School of Dentistry receieves 4,500 applications for 125 available slots each year;

As it relates to football, though, the uni also notes that Bill Cosby lettered in both football and track and that the school played in the first Sugar Bowl game.
Interesting, but even more relevant to this year’s Owls is the following:
Temple is the 28th largest university in the United States;
Approximately 12,000 students live in and around the Main Campus and 33,000 full-time students overall;
Living Temple alumni number 260,000 in all 50 states, 250,000 of them within driving distance of an Owl game;

It’s time that a university in the top 30 in terms of size in the country has a football team in at least that upper echelon.
Once that happens, and we believe that string of winning seasons starts one month from today, it’s up to the alumni and the students to support them.
It all goes hand-in-hand.

The slogan was seen recently on a player’s wrist at the Ocean City (N.J.) Temple Football Fan Fest.
It’s Time.
With the Temple T.
I like it.The best slogans are short, simple, sweet and succinct and that one best fits this year’s Temple football team.
It’s Time to disabuse people of the outdated notion that Temple=bad football.
It’s Time to disabuse our own fans of taking shots at their own school’s football team.

Owlified has always been a stand-up guy.

Recently, one guy who claims he’s a Temple fan, wants Temple to win and runs a Temple-themed website, made a crack about an independent website’s prediction that Temple will win the MAC East.
The crack was something along the lines about that website’s writer smoking the evil weed if it thought Temple had a chance to win anything.
Yet the New York Times Quad Blog thinks the same thing.
I guess the smoke pipe gets passed around there, the nation’s most respected journalistic institution, too.
Dennis Dodd, probably one of the best college football writers online (CBS Sportsline) also picks Temple to win the MAC East so I guess he’s growing some funny stuff in his back yard, too.
Why is it sooooooo hard for someone who pretends to know something about Temple football to wrap his mind around the thought that maybe this team is ready to win the MAC East?

Were they not only a Hail Mary from doing the same thing last year?
Short answer: Yes. A win at Buffalo would have tied Temple in the MAC East with Buffalo and given the Owls the first tie-breaker (head-to-head). It would have been Temple, not Buffalo, playing Ball State for the title last year yet guys like that have selected amnesia when it comes to TU football.
It’s Time to win and to shut these people up permanently.
It’s Past Time.

Owlified’s Excellent Temple Basketball Blog

So the new logo that adorns this site today prominently features it.
Many thanks go to Dave Gerson, who designed the logo you see at the top of this page.
Gerson, who goes by the name Owlified on Temple message boards, is a junior at Central Bucks East High School in Buckinhgam and he has done more for Temple sports in his 16 years than 99 percent of the kids already enrolled.
Temple’s admissions department should seek out this kid and hand him a full academic ride now.
If you go to the Temple games, you’ve seen him. Dave wears the Travis Sheldon jersey and he’s a stand-up guy.
We need 30,000 students with Dave Gerson’s fervor and love for the Owls.
It’s Time.

Our friends at Over The Pylon, a blog that covers Ball State, came with with some impressive research the other day.
It caused me to raise an eyebrow.
According to their figures, citing a U.S. Department of Education website, Temple is No. 1 in the Mid-American Conference in revenues.
Temple is $3 million ahead of second-place Kent State.
Now that’ll make your head spin.
Not that Temple is No. 1 in revenues _ the Owls, after all, drew 70,000 for a home game two years ago _ but that Kent State is No. 2.
Those Temple fans who made the trip to Kent State last year will swear to you that there were no more than 400 Kent State fans in attendance.
Seriously, though, it’s got to make you wonder what’ll happen once Al Golden is able to put a winning product on the field and that should be soon.
Very soon.

Owls have spent the last few days getting their brand name out.

By Mike Gibson
Al Golden has had to feel like a juggler in the last few days.
From the highly successful Al Golden Football Camp, to the Temple Owls’ recent appearances on Independence Mall for a practice and Ocean City for a fanfest, the responsibilities of the head coach extend well beyond his office or the field below.
He’s got to be part travel secretary, part football coach and it’s a tougher job at Temple than most places because the Owls are battling for both visibility and respectability.
Even though he reached the advanced age of 40 a week or so ago, the coach is constantly keeping up with new technology to keep the Temple football brand name out there. He even joined twitter in the past few days and wouldn’t getting daily Temple football updates on your cell phone in that manner from the Temple football coach be a hoot? Or a tweet?

“The Temple football team is a credit to Philadelphia and deserves to be rewarded with all of their hard work both on and off the field with a special season in 2009. Good luck, Owls, and a final piece of advice to the 260,000 living Temple alumni (along with 33K full-time students and 12K full-time employees): GET OUT AND BUY TICKETS TO SUPPORT THESE GUYS.”
_ My comment on Philly.com

Occasionally, though, something happens to make all of the ancillary things worthwhile.
The Temple football team won the Wanamaker Award for community service to Philadelphia. With the Phillies winning the other top award given at the banquet, the focus was on both Temple football and the world champion Phillies.
Not a bad pairing.
In the story running in the Daily News earlier this week, writer Ed Barkowitz focused on Temple’s football team as much as the Phillies.
This caused me to write the following response on Phillies.com:

The Temple football team is a credit to Philadelphia and deserves to be rewarded with all of their hard work both on and off the field with a special season in 2009. Good luck, Owls, and a final piece of advice to the 260,000 living Temple alumni (along with 33K full-time students and 12K full-time employees): GET OUT AND BUY TICKETS TO SUPPORT THESE GUYS.
Now is the time to put your money where you mouth is if you haven’t already done so. Please donate $5 or $10 here if you want a daily internet voice for Temple football and its players.
Also, If you’ve never bought Temple tickets, buy season tickets now. Even if you’ve been to one or two games in the past, make a commitment to be at every game in this most important season.
It’s as easy as a click away:

Happy Birtday to Al Golden, head football coach, Temple University, who is 40 today.
He was born on July 4, 1969.
What we’d like to give Al is:
1. 40,000 TEMPLE fans (plus 2,500 ‘Nova) fans for a crowd of 42,500 for the HOME opener;
2. A 12-0 regular-season record, which would include wins over rivals Villanova and Penn State;
3. A return trip (for Temple) to the Sugar Bowl as the lone non-BCS representative;
4. A bowl win.

I think Al wouldn’t mind waiting six or so months for those belated presents to be unwrapped.
Heck, that would be a good birthday present for me and my fellow living 259,999 Temple alumni as well.
OK, I won’t get greedy.
I’ll take one of the four gifts above as long as it is No. 2. For the work Al Golden has put in for this university, though, he deserves to unwrap all four.

Spencer Prescott coached under Bruce Arians, Jerry Berndt and Bobby Wallace and was credited with recruiting Heisman Trophy runnerup Paul Palmer.

By Mike Gibson
Donald Hunt is a longtime buddy of mine and we shared many laughs in the press box at Temple games, mostly at the old Vet.
In fact, nobody’s quips made me laugh any harder than Don’s and that’s saying a lot because I’ve heard some pretty funny stuff in press boxes over the years.
This time, though, Don Hunt wrote a serious and poignant story on former Owl assistant coach Spencer Prescott the other day that everyone should take a couple of minutes to read.
Please help this great former Owl, who is waiting for a kidney transplant.

By Mike Gibson
Saw a headline the other day that an unbeaten Temple football team was expecting 35,000 fans for its home game against rival Villanova.
That sounded about right until I looked at the date of the story:
Nov. 23, 1934.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Finding something on Temple football history can be challenging at best.
The local papers, the Inquirer and Daily News, have done an historically poor job of covering the team, even in the fat years of the 1970s and 1980s.
You can totally forget the lean years.
The Inquirer’s archives go back only to 1978, so that eliminates a lot of pretty good years for Temple football.
They cover a Division I team 250 miles away from the center of Philadelphia far better than the one just 1 mile north of the newspaper’s headquarters.
In fact, a strong argument can be made that a newspaper 90 miles away has done a far better job covering the team, at least archiving its history, than the newspapers in town.
After finding that Temple vs. Villanova preview in the New York Times, I found 116 stories about the Temple football team in the same newspaper’s archives covering a wide range of years.
That’s right.
One-hundred and sixteen stories, mostly previews and coverage of games, but a surprisingly large number of lengthy profile pieces (with large photos in many of them) covering the team’s personalities and coaches.

Some NYT headlines:

No Pressure On Temple, Coach Says; Crowd of 20,000 Expected _ Story was about Temple football coach Wayne Hardin and his team’s upcoming game against Rutgers. Hardin said that there’s no pressure on Temple to win because there are so many other sports options in town (1979).

MORRISON PLEADS FOR CONFERENCES; Temple Football Coach Says Two Groups in the East Would Boost Interest _ Ray Morrison, then head of the American Football Coaches Association, proposed two conferences: What is now the current Ivy League and all other (then) Division I football powers in the East. He proposed that the winners of the two leagues play for the Eastern title (1945).

Temple Picked to Win Again – Before a 1974 game against a then good Holy Cross team, Crusaders’ coach Ed Doherty said that the Owls had caught and surpassed Penn State as the No. 1 team in the East. In fact, the NYT notes that after Penn State’s 7-6 loss to Navy the week before, the Nittany Lions fell to second-place in the Lambert Trophy balloting to Temple. Oh yeah. Doherty’s fears were well-founded. Temple beat Holy Cross, 56-0, on the day that story was published (Oct. 19, 1974). That Holy Cross team won three games in a row that season, including wins at Villanova, UConn and UMass.
Temple’s Football Stock Booms Under the Coaching of Warner; Stalwart Line and Speedy, Powerful Backfield Quick to Grasp Details of Famous Mentor’s System — Shift Adds to Deception on the Attack _ Pretty much an ode to then Temple coach Pop Warner. It’s amazing to think that Temple had both Pop Warner and Wayne Hardin as head coaches. All Owl fans should be very proud of that heritage.
Spectacular Third-Period Drive Enables Temple to Upset Texas Christian; RALLY BY TEMPLE TOPS TEXANS, 13-11 Owls Gain First Triumph of Season as Bowles, Tomasic Excel in Second Half T.C.U. IS FIRST TO TALLY Thompson Kicks a Field Goal Then Clark Scores at End of 89-Yard Assault – I didn’t know you could write the whole story in a headline until I saw that one.

Temple, Under Hardin, Gains Football Heights; Not a Normal Season Made Reputation at Navy Temple Lifted by Hardin – A preview of the 1979 Garden State Bowl.

Comic Turns Quips Into Tuition; Bill Cosby, Student at Temple, Featured at Gaslight Cafe Philadelphia Negro Aims His Barbs at Race Relations – My guess is that headline would not fly past any copydesk today (1962).

TEMPLE practices on roof of recreation building – Pretty self-explanatory story about Temple coach Heinie Miller being “happy” with his team’s practices on top of the school’s recreation building. Got to wonder if the punter looked down to the street and yelled, “a little help” when the ball flew off the field. Facilities, who needs facilities (1931)?
TEMPLE SQUAD ON EDGE.; Unbeaten Football Team to Meet Villanova in Homecoming Game. – Talks about the Owls expecting 35,000 for the ‘Nova game.
TEMPLE TO TRAIN AT BATON ROUGE; Accepts Offer of Louisiana State – Squad Will Depart on Thursday Night. – Nice of LSU to allow Owls to practice there prior to the Sugar Bowl. Maybe they’ll do the same for the 2010 game.

The Times had a nice piece on then 24-year-old comic Bill Cosby, reviewing his appearance in a Grenwich Village club called the gaslight. In it, Cosby said his mother wants him to graduate from Temple and “I probably will.” He also noted that New York critics called him “Philadelphia’s Dick Gregory.” He said he might not even pursue this showbiz bug, but at least wants to pay his college bills. Some $365 million later (and that was his top earnings’ year, not what he earned for his career), he’s probably happy that he did.
One story on Warner, by Allison Danzig, marked the first sports story I’ve ever read written by a female sports writer and that was in the early 1930s.
(I’m sure there were some before that, but I haven’t been able to find one.)
One writer, Gordon S. White, Jr., wrote 24 of the stories on Temple football and they were all complimentary, mostly of Hardin and the job he did.
In a story about the Owls’ win in Hawaii, White noted that it was a good sign that Hardin nailed a hole-in-one on the famed Waikoloa course there.
In one of the pieces, White quotes Hardin as comparing his quarterbacks to handicap golfers.
“Steve (Joachim) was a 2 or 3,” Hardin said. “Fortunately, I’ve never had a bad quarterback.”
When you think that Hardin had guys like Frank DiMaggio, Marty Ginestra, Joachim, Brian Broomell and Tim Riordan, you know he’s right.
Al Golden should only have that kind of quarterback luck.
Or was it design?

The New York Times gives Temple Football Forever some love.

By Mike Gibson
Bill O’Reilly isn’t going to like this, but we’re going to be paying some positive attention to the New York Times today because they paid some positive attention to us.
O’Reilly is The Times’ biggest critic, calling that institution the center of the secular progressive universe, whatever that is.
The Times referred a whole new set of readers to us in picking the Owls as the No. 74 team in the country in the recent Quad Countdown.
While they were throwing bouquets in our direction, they also tossed a few at Al Golden’s Owls.
“We’re No. 74” doesn’t sound like all that positive a chant for Cap Poklemba to lead the crowd in this year, unless you take a historical perspective.
Temple was No. 105 in the same countdown two years ago, No. 86 in the same countdown last year.

New York Times Quad Countdown
No. 73: Colorado State
No. 74: Temple
No. 75: Memphis
No. 76: Louisville
No. 77: Florida Atlantic
No. 78: Buffalo
No. 79: Baylor
No. 80: Northern Illinois
No. 81: Virginia

Even more illuminating is a look at who The Times have ranked BEHIND the Owls.
Memphis is ranked No. 75 and Louisville is ranked No. 76.
Louisville beat the Owls, 62-0, in Golden’s first season.
The Times, like us, feels those days are over.
The next step is a winning season and that must be accomplished now.
The Owls are also ranked ahead of Buffalo (No. 78), Baylor (No. 79) and  Northern Illinois (don’t get crazy, tongue firmly implanted in cheek) is No. 80.
Five years ago Virginia was beating the Owls, 44-0, at halftime with a defensive coordinator named Al Golden.
Now Virginia is ranked seven spots behind Temple at No. 81.
So we’re moving on up like the Jeffersons.
At least in the area of perception.
Before we get excited we’ve got to do it on the football field.
We’ve still got to find a quarterback who can turn the scoreboard into an adding machine, but I believe that guy is on the roster now. The cream will rise to the top once the full squad reports on July 5.
There’s a lot of hard work ahead and it won’t be easy, but it’s nice to know some influential folks will be positioned at the end to say “I told you so.”
The New York Times earned at least that much college football street cred with its bold and well-researched opinion.