America 1979

Chapter 68

Due to the large number of college football teams in the United States, and the regular season can only play twelve games each season, the colleges use the method of forming their own leagues to play.

Among the college teams at the Div-1 level, there are eleven division leagues and five independent teams. The top six leagues of the eleven leagues are the "Guaranteed Leagues" that automatically advance to their respective college bowl games.

And the Leland Stanford Jr. that Bill went to on this trip is the Pacific Ten Schools Alliance among the six "Guaranteed Alliances", referred to as Pac-10, and the pronunciation is Parker Ten.

(The change from Parker Ten to Parker Twelve happened in 2011 and will not be mentioned here.)
The earliest history of the Pacific Ten can be traced back to 1915, when a meeting in Portland established the Pacific Coast Conference, or PCC.

In the beginning, PCC had only four schools: University of California, Berkeley, University of Washington, University of Oregon, and Oregon State University.

Then six schools including Washington State University, Leland Stanford Jr., University of Southern California, University of Idaho, University of Montana, and UCLA joined in one after another, and PCC expanded into a ten-school alliance.

Afterwards, despite the difficult twists and turns such as member withdrawal and PCC break-up and reorganization, the main members remained in one alliance. In 1968, the reorganized PCC alliance AAWU was renamed the Pacific Eight University Alliance. Ten years later, the University of Arizona and the Arizona State University joined the Eight-School League, so this small league was renamed the Pacific Ten-School League, or Pac-10, or Parker Ten.

At this time, the members of Parker Ten are: UCLA, Stanford, Southern California, University of Washington, Berkeley, Washington State University, two universities of Oregon, and two universities of Arizona.

Although Parker's ten school teams are all Div-1 strong teams, they still compete. The three strongest teams are UCLA, Stanford, and University of Washington. These three are also the famous top three on the West Coast.

Many Chinese readers often think that Stanford University was mediocre before the rise of Silicon Valley.In fact, this has entered into an absolute misunderstanding of Chinese thinking, that is, achievements in sports are not regarded as achievements.

Xia Guo's education fairness is often manifested in the counterattack of small towns as challengers. The United States also has a similar situation. In terms of sports, players in small towns can also pass through layers of screening and gradually enter professional leagues. Get a good salary and successfully achieve a class jump.

Stanford University is one of the representatives of traditional sports schools. Among the more than 600 professional players in the NFL, the number of Stanford University alumni has remained at the level of 40 all year round. In the 80s, the men's and women's basketball teams were among the top players in the country, and the strength of the men's basketball team subsequently declined. , but the women's basketball team is still a strong team in the country.For the remaining niche sports such as golf, several of Stanford have been ranked first in the country.

The impressive strength of the Stanford University men's football team naturally attracted a lot of money. Even in the 80s, it is conservatively estimated that the annual income of the school team is more than 2000 million US dollars.

Therefore, Bill and Brunwell were directly arranged by the school to enter a big hotel, and the entire five-star hotel was booked out as a dormitory for the summer camp students.

On the first day of the summer camp, ten uniform-style buses brought more than 220 invited outstanding high school players to the "bowl" of the Stanford University campus, which is the football field.

"Students are asked to choose their jerseys and numbers by themselves. After registering their names, we will start item by item."

More than a dozen staff members in red letters on a white background shouted loudly to let the chaotic students begin to accept management.

Red and white are also the iconic colors of the Stanford school team. In the jersey selection process, Bill naturally chose the customary No. 88.

The entire summer camp is actually considered a draft camp for physical testing. The main thing to do is to conduct physical testing. The sports that attract the most attention from the head coach and team managers are naturally the 220-yard sprint, the cone run, [-] five-pound bench press, deadlifts, and squats. and other items.

Among them, the technical position focuses on forty-yard sprints and cone-turning runs, and the forward position requires good performance in bench press, deadlift and squat.

Before the start of the physical test, team manager Jerry Pence briefly delivered a speech welcoming high school students to the summer camp, and gave a general introduction to the history and achievements of the Stanford men's football team, and then quickly entered the official program.

The people who came to the summer camp were naturally the best in their respective regions. At least in the forty-yard sprint on the first morning, Bill felt the pressure deeply.

Among the more than 220 high school students, more than 110 belong to technical positions, that is, quarterbacks, running backs, ends, and defensive linebackers.

Because of the single event and sufficient time, more than 30 coaches chose to measure only one person in a single measurement, that is, to display their sprint ability on the designated forty-yard runway under the gaze of everyone.

The team managers and coaches sat on chairs beside them, watching the performance of the high school students intently.

"Martin Kent from Tennessee, playing quarterback..."

The staff briefed the coaches on the key information such as the name of the test players, the state of birth, and the location of the company.

The quarterbacks first test, the pressure on Bill from the core of these teams is not too great, after all, there are not many double quarterbacks, and the ability to catch passes, change ability and intelligence of those who play this position are more important, so forty The yard sprint scores are generally not high, and most of them stay at about five seconds, but there are also very monstrous players who can run under four seconds five.

Then there are the running backs, the fastest players on the offense.

"[-]. Arthur Bryan's sprint time is [-]."

This is the high school student with the best grades among the running backs, and correspondingly, his body looks the most petite.Visually, he is only 1.8 meters tall and weighs no more than 180 pounds.

After the running back is the cornerback. Since the NFL changed the rules in 78, the full-time cornerback players have also begun to be lighter in size to ensure faster speed.

Among the more than 20 cornerbacks, some even ran a top-level time of [-] seconds.

After that is the tight end TE. There are only a dozen people in this position. Bill Ferrari's [-] is quite low. According to his own statistics, there are only four people slower than him.

But the coaches didn't shake their heads at Bill because of this. In fact, many of them were very interested in Mr. Ferrari's size.

"Your speed is already very fast. If you perform well in terms of strength, I will recommend you to the head coach for a special evaluation on you."

After Bill ran forty yards, Hyman Hawke, the leader of the offensive tactical coach, ran over to chat with Bill.

PS: Ask for a recommendation ticket and ask for a monthly ticket.

(End of this chapter)