I thought I would share this article I read today on one of my favorite Sooner sites, The Fooball Braniacs. The guy who wrote it is sharp as a can be and was out of the country on business when the word of Montgomery leaving broke. I thought his comments were interesting and it speaks to the loss this was for OU and what I feel was a great gain for the Pack...
Jerry Montgomery Leaves
Some of our long-time readers may recall me writing a while back that in grad school, I roomed with a teammate (and fellow defensive linemen) of Jerry Montgomery’s. My old roommate got me really excited when Jerry was hired, and my buddy eventually helped connect us. I had no idea Jerry was leaving, so it caught me by surprise just as it did most of you, I’m sure.
There really isn’t any way to spin this. Losing Jerry is quite a blow. He was becoming, or perhaps had become, the heart of the defense. At the very least, he was certainly the heart of OU’s defensive recruiting. As many of you probably know by now, he was also very instrumental in bringing in Kerry Cooks to coach the secondary. Personally, I don’t suspect Cooks would have come otherwise. Which only leads to more questions regarding Montgomery’s decision to leave when he did, but that’s probably a conversation for another time.
I continue to believe one of Montgomery’s greatest traits was that anyone could earn a spot at any time, and he knew how to communicate with the players. The two things that annoy me to no end are 1) not breeding true competition and 2) berating players.
Everyone thought when Mathew Romar had won the back up role to Jordan Phillips last year that Jordan Wade must have done something wrong. Honestly, at the time, I thought the same thing. So I asked Montgomery about it. And he told me, “no, Romar just earned it.” That is how you motivate players. You give them real incentives. I guarantee you, had Montgomery been here, Romar wouldn’t be allowed to rest on what he had done last season, and I’d be willing to bet that Wade would fight to win the spot back.
The other thing Jerry brought was a great coaching style. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. All the shouting, and the yelling, and the berating is a tired act that while may, at one time, have had a place in the game, but in my opinion can no longer be the foundation of a coach’s style. A friend of mine who was at practice last fall camp told me that while some of the other coaches were yelling, Montgomery would simply (and calmly) show someone what they did wrong. And if he got really upset at a repeated error, he’d look at the person and sternly tell them to step off the field and then bring them back on a couple plays later.
I’m sure by now you’ve all gone through the many stages of grieving, so I won’t go on and on.
