On some recent trips back to Texas, I talked to two high school coaches. Both have won state titles; both are “Texas guys” (as opposed to A&M guys); one has a player at Texas now. Neither coach had ever met Charlie Strong, nor talked to him on the phone, nor exchanged emails with him. One coach told me he’d been in the same room with Strong at a local coaches’ meeting, but Strong left after giving a speech without sticking around to shake hands. The other coach told me that when Texas recruited one of his players, Strong’s assistants funneled their communications through the recruit rather than the coach. This was the case even when the Texas assistants came to watch the recruit at high school practice — entering the high school coach’s domain, as it were.
At some point in our talk, the second coach pointed across his office. There, behind glass, was a Mack Brown autographed football.
A similar story, published last year on ESPN Insider, depicted Strong as awkward and aloof. Neither coach I talked to subscribed to that idea. They both liked Strong and his staff very much and wanted them to win. But they were struck by how much of the burden they were trying to shoulder themselves. The message coming out of Bellmont Hall was, We’ve got this.
