Mr. Moxie
August 06, 2006 11:43 PM | General
August 7, 2006
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Download Coach Rodriguez's Sunday comments at MSN's new MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – When Dan Mozes and Jay Henry were freshmen it took Mozes only a few minutes of playing Madden Football with Henry to realize that he was a dealing with someone who was a little smarter than your average bear (that’s a reference to Yogi Bear for those of you younger than 30). As it turns out Jay Henry is a whole lot smarter than your average bear.
“He would recall all these mind-boggling things about the game,” Mozes said. “He’s like ‘it’s third and eight and you’re going to pass.’ I’m trying to hit the A and B buttons and here he is diagnosing the plays and putting all these dedicated thoughts into what’s going on.
“But that’s what makes him a great player also.”
Some players use their exceptional speed, size and athletic ability to become outstanding football players. Then there are players like West Virginia University linebacker Jay Henry that resort to other means. The old timers call it moxie.
If that’s what it is then Jay Henry has got moxie coming out the ying-yang.
Most college students are happy to bring home a few As on their report card at the end of the term. Jay has never come home without one -- ever. Think about this for a moment: Jay Henry has had all As since he began receiving letter grades back in the fourth grade.
If you figure on four report cards a year (adding summer school in college) that’s 52 straight all-A report cards. That makes him the Joe DiMaggio of grade-getters. Henry does admit to bringing home a few minuses in the conduct box every once in a while when he was little.
“I talked too much in school,” he shrugged.
It’s difficult not to talk a lot in class when you know just as much as your seventh grade math teacher.
As for his straight-A streak, Henry says he has had two close calls in college. One was a corporate finance class and the other was an African-American studies course. You can give Henry a pass on African-American studies considering he grew up in Jenks, Okla.
Now corporate finance ... come on Jay, buckle down and get serious about this college thing.
Notre Dame-educated Joe Theisman of NFL and ESPN fame refers to people of Jay Henry’s high intelligence as being smart like “Norman Einstein” -- relatively speaking of course.
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| West Virginia linebacker Jay Henry is to grade-getting what Joe DiMaggio was to hitting baseballs.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Mozes swears that Henry can recall in verbatim things people said two and even three years ago. He's Jerry Lucas without the phone books. Defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel jokes that he always has to keep on his toes during team meetings with his linebackers, occasionally glancing in Henry’s direction to make sure they’re on the same page.
“Yeah, but at the same time the coaches know so much more than the players do,” Henry says. “That’s their job. I’ve got questions every day that they can answer.”
Humility is always refreshing but never to be unexpected from smart people.
You see, the thing about smart people is that the truly smart ones are intelligent enough to know their limitations. Knowing he’s not a speed burner by any stretch of the imagination, Jay Henry makes no bones about the fact that a large percentage of his game comes from the neck up.
“For me (intelligence) is a higher percentage than other players because I know that’s what I have to use to get onto the field because I’m not the most athletic guy out there,” he says.
West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez played with perhaps the brightest player to ever put on a Mountaineer uniform in quarterback Oliver Luck. Even though the two play entirely different positions, Rodriguez sees a lot of similarities between the two.
“They have a similar mentality,” Rodriguez said. “Not only was (Oliver) a great student and a great leader of the team, but he was also respected for his toughness. I remember he sprained an ankle and it was all black and blue and everybody thought he’d be out two or three weeks and he played the next week. He was a tough, tough guy and Jay is a tough guy, too.
“Sometimes people get the notion that straight-A students are not that tough but that’s not the case with Jay.”
Intelligence is probably the most underrated aspect of football. Height, weight, speed and athleticism are the things people usually refer to when measuring ability. A player’s intelligence comes way down on the list -- if at all.
Today there is no such thing as a dumb football player.
“The day of completely dumb player is over,” Rodriguez said. “Maybe there were dumb players when I was playing. If the average fan would really research and see just how much these guys have got to learn as far as offense and defense and schemes and adjustments … you have to have some semblance of intelligence to do that. It isn’t just line up, see the ball and go get the ball. There’s a lot more involved to it.”
Rodriguez says technology has dramatically changed the way the game is played.
“If you look back and watch the old games on ESPN Classic from 30 years ago and see Ohio State and Michigan or Oklahoma and Nebraska, you see one formation and one defense with wide outs in a three-point stance and there’s not a lot of shifting and motion and all that,” said Rodriguez.
“That’s not to say the coaches and the players weren’t smart then but the game has advanced so much and the biggest reason is technology. It’s so much easier now to teach with the way film is,” Rodriguez said. “After we eat, we’ll go watch today’s practice all cut up in a bright room. Back then you had to tape it, go send it off and do the 16-millimeter film thing.”
Video tape is Jay Henry’s Excalibur. He doesn’t just watch it. He consumes it. Henry says he learned how to study his opponents by observing how another pretty fair linebacker named Grant Wiley used to prepare for games.
“Just seeing the way he watched film and how much it meant to him you could tell he was passionate about the game and that was his big thing,” Henry said. “That’s something everybody needs.”
Rodriguez says Henry is smart enough to line up the entire defense in any set the defensive coaches call out. Henry admits that diagnosing plays is almost second nature to him now. Playing on the other side of the ball against Henry every day in practice, Mozes can vouch for that.
“We’d sit and talk and I’d say, ‘Yeah Jay, you watched the play before so you knew what was coming.’ He’d say, ‘No, you guys only run this play a certain percentage of the time.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ I don’t even know their defensive names and here he is calling out all of our plays before we even run them,” Mozes said. “He’s saying, ‘Watch the zone over here’ and the zone is actually going there and you’re like, ‘uh.’”
“Every formation gives you information and it’s a matter of whether or not you can pick up on it and use that information,” Henry explained. “Sometimes you see a guy lined up on somebody’s back or lined up outside but if you don’t know what that means you can’t use it. You’ve got to be able to notice and use it.”
Consequently, intelligence can turn someone that might be a step slow into a player that is two steps faster. That millisecond his brain needs to process things makes Jay Henry as fast as any linebacker in college football.
“Coach Casteel was talking about that the other day: ‘If you run a 4.9 you can get there in 4.6 if you know what you’re doing and you know what to expect out of formations.’ It’s a huge advantage,” Henry said.
Rodriguez says intelligence can be a great equalizer on the football field.
“You’ve got to have something that will give you an edge whether it’s the understanding of the game … intelligence or whatever.”
The old timers ... they call it moxie.
