Dantonio-Hecklinski incident at MHSFCA clinic today
Dantonio got up and spoke about their season, Cousins, BK Cunningham and MSU. Hecklinski got up and presented how Michigan sets up their recruiting-recruit the state of Michigan first, then the Midwest, and then nationally.
Dantonio then burst in, interrupts Hecklinski and yells, "We're not here to listen to this. Move on!"
Many coaches in the room were stunned and many lost respect for State and Dantonio because of the incident. To Hecklinski's credit, he didn't add to the childish behavior and represented Michigan with class and honor.
Most coaches were stunned but the jealous, anger-filled behavior turned a lot of people off. Other coaches on the panel were visibly bothered by this unprofessional behavior.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:02 PM ^
But Hoke needs to be in shorts not pants!
January 20th, 2012 at 1:39 PM ^
You'd have to put the Dantonio Face on Oddjob. This would be epic. If someone could even create a short video of this they would get posbanged to high heaven.
January 20th, 2012 at 2:13 PM ^
lol the resemblance is striking. But I was thinking more in terms of the similarity in height.
February 2nd, 2012 at 1:43 PM ^
Who the hell fights that Jaws encounter out in the middle of the room? Put a round into the room from the narrow corridor to wake him, back out, then get on your knees and go back in to meet him in the tiny passageway, blasting your laser into his Corey Liuget until you hear the telltale sound of you picking up a second laser.
Sheesh. I thought everyone knew that!
January 20th, 2012 at 11:21 AM ^
Danny "Hope."
January 20th, 2012 at 3:17 PM ^
NO, Brady Hike would wear a tuxedo T-shirt cause he's the only one that could make that shirt look good!
January 20th, 2012 at 12:07 PM ^
He's one lab accident away from being a supervillain.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:07 AM ^
He was supposed to talk about how coaches recruit, and all he talked about was Kirk Cousins? That's what they didn't have time for.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:07 AM ^
My father is a former president of the MHSFCA and has some stories that sound like this. It's also not a coincidence that the all star game, which has been held at MSU for ages (with the exception of a few years at U of M and I believe 1 year at Ford Field), was recently moved to CMU. Dantonio's actions and attitudes are most definitely divisive within the high school coaching community.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:09 AM ^
He's an ass. But how many of the state's top recruits did he get, again? It's not like he had much to lose, to be honest.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:32 PM ^
But that's just it. If he wants to recruit as well as he did a couple of years ago, he'll have to butter the HS coaches up better. This is a bad first step.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:14 AM ^
Presuming this happened, it adds to my suspicion that Dantonio may be suffering from Urban Meyer-itis. An ailment manifest by wondering around the house at 3am muttering and forgetting the names of your children. Seriously though, for most of the season, but especially at the B1G title game and the Outback Bowl, Dantonio looked gray and exhausted. Wound real tight. He's already had one heart attack. And now he is competing with Brady Hoke, Urban Meyer and Brian Kelly on the recruiting trail. A bit different than RichRod, Charlie Weis and personal friend Jim Tressel.
To paraphrase Nick Saban as he hopped on a private jet to Baton Rouge, State will always play second fiddle in Michigan. Sorry Mark.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:28 AM ^
As far as him looking grey, I know what you mean. I was just randomly watching a replay of the 2007 UM/MSU game the other day and Dantonio looked about 15 years younger than he does today. I am not saying this to gloat or to be cruel (although I do like to do that a lot when it's concerning MSU when I can) but it would not be a total surprise to me if he were to retire in the near future. He looks to be in declining health, at least from outward appearances as well as the heart attack. I just hope we can beat him at least once first.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:42 AM ^
Happens to all coaches. Ages you fast. People were saying the same about tressel the past few years as well. Same will happen to Hoke.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:51 AM ^
Take a look at any President when elected, and when leaving office.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:32 PM ^
So for every year you spend as president or coach it ages you two years. Look at pics of presidents when they start and how long it takes them to go grey.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:08 PM ^
...I think it may effect Hoke less. It seems to me that Hoke has the saving grace of not taking himself too seriously. Seems like he can kick back, relax and put his feet up every now and then.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:47 PM ^
It makes me think of the saying "true suffering is the resistance to discomfort." I just kinda get the vibe that Hoke goes with the flow. Not in an apathetic way. Just strikes me as a hard working guy that enjoys hard work. He'll certainly age faster as a coach than otherwise and he will eventually get tired. But, I don't think we'll have to expect any flaccidity in his pointing for quite some time.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:52 AM ^
Once more, right?
January 20th, 2012 at 11:57 AM ^
Ooops. How soon I forget. I guess I would just like some revenge at this point though.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:10 AM ^
Was that a direct quote from Dantonio? Who is your source? Were there legitimate time constraints? I am no fan of Dantonio, but something doesn't add up.
Regardless of how this is spun, and what was really said or not said, there is one part of the account that sounds beyond question: Hecklinski did not engage in a verbal tit for tat, and reflected well on both himself and Michigan.
I can believe that Dantonio and MSU will give a different take on what Dantonio himself said. In the end, however, no matter the supposed justification, it simply doesn't reflect well on him or MSU, and conversely, is good for Michigan. I believe that many small things like this contribute to a strong relationship between a college and high schools, and will actually pay divididends as HS coaches counsel their own players on where to go and what to consider in a college.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:36 PM ^
If they spin this different it doesn't matter if the HS coaches saw it. If they lose respect or conficence in him he won't get there kids.
Mike Davis pissed off all the IN HS coaches years back and look at what it did to IU basketball. Have to be able to recruit in state, and need the coaches to do this.
January 20th, 2012 at 6:20 PM ^
I think your right in the long run but those HS coaches who like state are gonna support Dantonio in what he did and those who think he's an ass are gonna think it was totally inappropriate.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:34 AM ^
I am stunned by this, I know the guy is 100% asshole, but it's like he's 4 fucking years old.
Hecklinski should have just shown a graph, one Milkshake on AA, and one milkshake on EL, with a maize and blue pipeline drinking Dantonio's milkshake (I wish I had MS paint skills).
January 20th, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^
In other news, water is wet and MSU is full of criminals.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^
Where did you get this information from?
January 20th, 2012 at 12:44 PM ^
Wow. Sorry for doubting you, OP. I guess I didn't believe a Big Ten head coach would behave like a five year old child.
Jesus Christ, Dantonio.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:15 AM ^
But it's clear from the MHSFCA site that the two (Dantonio, Hecklinski) were on the same panel this morning:
http://www.mhsfca.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/2012_clinic_schedule_rev2.pdf
Maybe some enterprising soul can reach out to a camp participant? I'd imagine it was a pretty popular and well-attended session for HS coaches.
Regardless of whether this particularly incident is true or not, it's become pretty clear from all other actions to date (feuding with Hart, swipes at Michigan during unrelated press conferences, the incident in the Bacon book) Dantonio is one disturbed cat.
Dave
p.s. Good to see that they started out the morning with an "everyone attends" session on concussions.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:20 AM ^
Maybe Dantonio was cheesed that he was sharing the stage with a lowly assistant coach instead of Hoke?
http://www.mlive.com/sports/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/01/brady_hoke_mark_dantonio_among.html
I imagine someone who's -really- paranoid could have seen this as "MSU head coach is only worth as much as a Michigan assistant."
Dave
January 20th, 2012 at 12:38 PM ^
I think Hoke was supposed to be there, but was out of town because he was a finalist for a coaching award. So Coach H took his place. That couldn't have sat will with Dantonio.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:16 AM ^
He benefited from the poor transition of Carr to RichRod, get's an upper hand with in-state recruiting and brings Michigan State football to a higher level. Now Hoke steps in and his staff is dominating recruiting and he sees his window of success quickly closing and Michigan assuming it's regular place of dominance. This is keeping him up at night, no sleep, a ton of stress as he sees his progress slipping away and Michigan's Sugar Bowl win is rubbing him like 120 grit toilet paper . No wonder he's lashing out.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^
isn't he wrong? if it was a discussion about how schools recruit and Heck was talking about how UM recruits, wasn't everyone there precisely to "listen to this?"
from your report, it does not say that it was a season wrap-up and senior review, so really, they weren't there to listen to what Mark D had to say
January 20th, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^
I'll reserve final judgement until we get some kind of other confirmation other than" internet messege board." If it is true, I can't say I would be surprised.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^
I got curious and looked this bad boy up. Interesting schedule lineup at the clinic. Yesterday, Borges spoke about "Blending a Conventional and Spread Offense." Ron English is speaking right now about "Building a Program One Step at a Time." Barwis is there too and will talk about fuzzy bunnies and chipmunks. (Or strength training. Something like that.)
January 20th, 2012 at 11:26 AM ^
I'd be very interested in finding out how Step 1 became "Get rid of the bubble screeen at all costs". But I think we're going to see it next year.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:01 PM ^
It's the same step as "running the pistol" or "running Mike Leach's offense" or "running the wishbone." They're all filed under the chapter entitled "Things Internet nerds demand coaches run without regard to practice time or personnel considerations."
January 20th, 2012 at 12:08 PM ^
Except that the bubble screen is a single play, and those are entire systems.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:18 PM ^
And the fact that the bubble screen fits our personnel better than, really, anything else.
January 20th, 2012 at 12:42 PM ^
Look - everybody just needs to get off Al'sback on the bubble screen. It's a little known fact that when Al was a small boy his family was held captive by a gang of bubble screens and the trauma of that horrible event scarred poor Al for life. He has been able to put most of the incident behind him but he still cant quite shake the image of the bubble screens breaking into his home in the middle of the night.
Shudder.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^
I want to believe this but I cant believe Sparty's leader would be so foolish, conversely he doesn't seem like the type to joke around in this scenario either, if this really happened it will come out as we all know coaches who would've been there and will love to give their account of the incident.
Go Blue!
January 20th, 2012 at 11:19 AM ^
So let me get this straight: Dantonio interrupted Hecklinski for talking about how Michigan recruits, at a session about how colleges recruit, and said that no one was there to listen to that? Yeah, nice face of the university you got there, State.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:27 AM ^
is how Dantonio got up there and talked about his season and his players - sorry Coach D but that wasn't the subject....
January 20th, 2012 at 11:35 AM ^
is the exact reason why people on here are questioning this. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense...
However, I doubt this will ever be substantiated any further than "eye-witness reports" and general hearsay, so the legend grows...
Fine by me really, I hate Dantonio and his permanent "piss-face" and was thinking about making shirts with his face on them that just say "Pisstonio". But anyway, I was waiting for more juicy recruit information and this was a nice substitute on a Friday morning.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:40 AM ^
We won't use it, but I'm sure Urban will negative recruit State if this legend does indeed grow and spread.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:41 AM ^
Actually there are a few regular posters and sources there. The event is a big multi-day affair, and yes there are plenty of media covering it. If indeed it went down like this, it will be out soon enough.
January 20th, 2012 at 11:55 AM ^
Brian was thinking of going to, or is this one just for coaches and he was thinking of going to a different one with Mattison later in the year?
January 20th, 2012 at 12:07 PM ^
If he was going he didn't say anything to me.