BOULDER, Colorado. The University of Colorado announced today that it has hired Dan Hawkins, head coach at Boise State University, to replace Gary Barnett, a two-time Big 12 Coach of the Year whose tenure with the Buffaloes was plagued by controversy.
Hawkins is a student of philosophy, often exhorting his players with quotes from the likes of Lao Tse, Mother Teresa, and A. J. Ayer, the father of logical positivism.
"Coach was a great motivator," said Boise State lineback Karl Hedlund. "One time we were down two touchdowns to Fresno State at half-time, and Hawk walks into the locker room with this book by Wittgenstein and reads one sentence to us--'We should be willing to call anything a thing.' We got the message, and went back out second half and stomped 'em like a bug."
Other Big 12 teams vowed not to be outspent in the arms race for analytical firepower. Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel said he had made an offer to an expert on Immanuel Kant, the 18th century German philosopher, to become his receivers coach. "The housewives of Konigsberg used to set their clocks by the moment when Kant walked by their kitchen windows. I want our wide-outs to run their routes with the same precision."
Nebraska coach Bill Callahan was skeptical of putting too much emphasis on philosophy. "It's great to have somebody to explain the futility of life to your kids when they're puking their guts up during two-a-day practices in August, but you've still got to execute." He said he would ask the Cornhusker Boosters club to fund a non-tenure track professorship in medieval philosophy to help out on special teams, especially punt coverage. "I want somebody who knows Duns Scotus and can keep our average punt return allowed down around five or six yards," Callahan said.
Under Barnett, the Colorado football program was accused of plying high school recruits with drugs, alcohol and sexual favors. Hawkins said he would use the example of Mother Teresa to attract the best schoolboy talent to his program. "We're gonna bring in some nuns for national letter-of-intent day," he said. "Mother Teresa was a saint, but she also knew how to party."
Con Chapman is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and "CannaCorn", a novel about minor league baseball to be published by Joshua Tree Publishing in 2009. He has written a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His articles and humor have appeared in newspapers and magazines including The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and The Atlantic Monthly, among others.
