Tommie Frazier: It Takes a Team
"I don't start counting my sit-ups until they hurt because those are the only ones that matter" - Muhammad Ali
"The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer" - John Madden
"I'm a man. I'm 40!"- Mike Gundy
I love sports quotes. Really, I love quotes in general. A good quote is an effective, succinct way to help something make crystal-clear sense, or better yet, to invoke an emotion. While that's not necessarily what the above video is about, a lot of great quotes summarize what T-Fraz said.
Plus, lets not pretend that Tommie Frazier isn't a quote machine. He is.
That's just one example of many, by the way... but back to my point.
Teamwork is one of the most spoken-about aspects of not only football and athletics but also life. Personally, I think Tommie sums it up very eloquently in the above video. Tommie was the superstar of his day, but without Lawrence Phillips or Christian Peter or the entire offensive line or Darin Erstad, you might barely remember his name.
If you put Frazier on today's Nebraska team, he wouldn't be enough. It would be hard to convince me that over the past decade the entire team has been pulling the rope in the same direction or that there has been enough accountability from the top down. Definitely don't get me started on the disorganization that has been our Athletic Department. It's been a shitshow for the last decade.
Football should be about the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back. This is ultimately what the "Greatest Quarterback to Ever Play College Ball" was talking about. A great offensive line, a world-beating defense and special teams that are actually special will get you far, but to win championships they all need to be on the same page. It's hard to believe that anybody has been on the same team, let alone same page, with all the leaked audio and video at Nebraska over the last few years. Not to mention, whatever disgruntled person did whatever last week (or fill in the blank to whatever rumor you're hearing - I have no inside knowledge of anything). This is not a vibe of "Team."
Of course every team will have skill players that people talk about, and with NIL we will start to see the Beef Jurgy's of the world more on the main stage. Marketing will always do its thing. I work for a marketing department in my day job - so I get it. However, for every Tommie Frazier there are 100 Matt Turmans. For every Adrian Martinez there are 100 *googles least-known Huskers* Spencer Arceneauxs.
Moving forward, I think it's going to be important to see how many of these lesser-known players become known or at the very least how many names come up that I haven't heard that much about. Without naming any names, I'm slowly becoming convinced we're better off without some star players because it's fewer egos to stroke and bigger egos take bigger strokes. That's not a shot at anyone. It just is what is
Anyways this is my two-cent ramblings for this week. Did I maybe add my own twist to what Tommie said in the video above or even completely rewrite it in my own head to fit whatever narrative I wanted to write about? Of course I did. I need to get 300 words on this page so HuskerMax doesn't fire me. And he will. He loves firing people.
Loves it.
Want more Ryan Tweedy or "Through These Gates"?
Movie: huskersfilm.com
Twitter: @imtweedy
Instagram: @tweedmonster
