Henne Reaction to Freep Allegations

Submitted by MGoAero on

Positive response from Henne regarding the allegations made by the Freep and the amount of time devoted to football by athletes in general:

http://www.annarbor.com/sports/chad-henne-players-complaining-about-mic…

“Twenty hours is a very, very small portion of what you do, especially if you’re a quarterback at a high-profile school,” Henne, now with the Miami Dolphins, said in a phone interview Sunday. “Twenty hours isn’t enough for you....."

jg2112

August 30th, 2009 at 5:20 PM ^

and THIS is what should be on Sportscenter tonight:

“I really think whoever’s saying it really doesn’t want to be there,” Henne said. “If they’re saying that then they’re not really worried about the team, they’re not worried about what they’re going to do during their season and they’re kind of just giving themselves up. That’s just negative talk right there. So whoever it is just really doesn’t care about the team, I would say.

“If they’re complaining about that, then they don’t want to be the best they can be and that’s their own fault.”

kmd

August 30th, 2009 at 5:38 PM ^

I'm not going to give much weight to the opinion about time commitment from somebody that was looking to make a professional career out of playing football. Obviously football was the number one priority for Henne, but you can't force every player to have football take precedence over every other aspect of their life year-round. You could make the exact same argument if the football team had daily 6am workouts on top of regular practice and a 11pm curfew all during the school year.

BlueVoix

August 30th, 2009 at 5:58 PM ^

Hate to answer with a simplified point, but, uh, these guys are here to get an education by playing football. While education should absolutely be a priority, the reason they are at the University is directly related to the time commitment they put forth towards football. Football should (and does) take precedence over most things for the vast, vast majority of these guys.

kmd

August 30th, 2009 at 8:32 PM ^

But the NCAA places very clear limits on how much precedence schools can require players to give their sport over other activities in the interest of student welfare, and those limits are apparently being exceeded. It doesn't matter if most of the guys are willing to put in that time commitment, because apparently some guys are not, and by NCAA regulations they cannot be held to that standard.

BlueVoix

August 30th, 2009 at 9:01 PM ^

Which, as has been said before, is clearly an outdated and incorrect standard. If just about every program is breaking this, there is clearly a reason why. Perhaps this means the NCAA needs to reconsider their standards or, more likely, the Freep needs to tune their logic detectors.

b-diddy

August 30th, 2009 at 5:43 PM ^

He's right.

I've been in a similar situation to this (not in sports but in life) where someone broke the chain of command and anonymously aired dirty laundry to someone they shouldn't have.

It happened twice. One instance the guy was gone within months, the other the kid was already gone. Neither left due to retribution.

I think we can speculate pretty confidently on a few of them, and the next couple of kids to quit the team will likely fill out the six.

Anyone think that rumored meeting from weeks back has something to do with this?

El Trotsky

August 30th, 2009 at 5:25 PM ^

Yeah I laugh pretty hard when people get up in arms about the non-mandatory stuff essentially being mandatory. Football is a field where the elite go on to millions of dollars and fame and everyone else, even if just slightly below that level, get basically nothing. It shouldn't be a huge surprise that people will be willing to work insane hours with those kind of incentives.

kmd

August 30th, 2009 at 5:46 PM ^

But probably more than half the team at Michigan realizes they have no chance at ever making the pros, and are still being forced to work as if they were professionals. Even if it is the feeder for the NFL, it's still college football, not the minor leagues.

The Original Seth

August 30th, 2009 at 5:25 PM ^

This is good stuff. For the last year, Henne's been tepid to distant on the current state of the program (understandably so; he's got his own stuff to deal with) but this is a good, neutral statement that clarifies one position a player might have on the matter.

tomhagan

August 30th, 2009 at 5:41 PM ^

Chad Henne gets it. That is why he is in the NFL, and the guys complaining most likely will not be.

People who stand holier-than-thou seem to think that there is a separation between success as a college athlete vs. success as a college student...

However in reality, there is little difference: Both require many hours, hard work and focus....as well as a passionate desire to succeed.

I worked 2 jobs all year long, including summers...to pay for my college, and still kept a 3.5 GPA. I put in at least 40-50 hours outside the classroom to get to work, work etc....and I still did OK.

Im sure most of you have similar experiences.

Bottom line: Those who succeed, are those that want to succeed and are not afraid of putting in the extra hours and hard work.

Good on ya' Henne...

kmd

August 30th, 2009 at 5:59 PM ^

Why does it have to be every player's goal to make the NFL, and why should the level of commitment to do such be mandatory? Is there any other sport where everybody is forced to do additional training at the same level as the most elite players looking to move on to the next level in order to just be in good standing with the team? It's like if you said the only way you could compete on the swimming team is if you kept pace with Michael Phelps' workout schedule. Utterly ridiculous in any other sport, but accepted here because football is so popular.

colin

August 30th, 2009 at 6:13 PM ^

but they signed up for an elite program where being better than everyone else is the goal. there's probably not much marginal advantage to be had in working hard, but there's plenty of marginal disadvantage in not working hard enough. despite that reality, it makes sense to couch it in terms that work better for motivation.

BlueVoix

August 30th, 2009 at 6:35 PM ^

There have been many posts about this, but...did you ever play high school sports and attend all those "optional" workouts that were really probably for the best players? I know I did. It is for the welfare of the team as a whole. You don't want 25% of the team showing up for these things because, frankly, they fall behind those that do attend and it demonstrates a real lack of cohesion.

It really isn't "utterly ridiculous" in any other sport. Teams have optional workouts all the time. From the club hockey team to the field hockey team, this kind of stuff happens everywhere and at all levels if the team wants to be successful.

kmd

August 30th, 2009 at 8:15 PM ^

Yes, I did do high school sports, and I usually did do the "optional" workouts. But not everybody did, and sometimes I didn't, because your life doesn't have to be defined by and 100% dedicated to one activity.

I know other teams have optional workouts, but they don't have the coaches saying "if you don't show up, you're benched/we're going to punish you later anyways". Optional practice is fine, but the football team does not seem to be presenting it in a way that is optional by any stretch of the imagination (or more importantly, NCAA rules).

BlueVoix

August 30th, 2009 at 9:07 PM ^

And that is indeed the difference between high school and college. However, when you are on scholarship and therefore indebted to the school (or the AD in this case), you better put in your time in what they want you to do. Your life may not be defined by one activity, but if you're playing D1 football, yeah, your life is probably at least 90% defined by football.

That's not really the point though. The point is you are supposed to support the team, especially when you are getting a top class education for free and when your team is struggling. Both of these things were true this last year. To see young men whining about it being "too hard" and then torching their bridges to the program shows both a distinct lack of foresight and a pretty damning indictment of our generation. Man up.

Optional is very likely not optional. But winning wasn't anywhere near mandatory for this team last year either, so I think a few extra hours that aren't presented to the NCAA is really going to hurt anyone's Stats 350 grade.

kmd

August 31st, 2009 at 1:50 AM ^

The whole point of the NCAA regulations in question is to prevent the school from being able to force a player to spend 90% of their time on football. You seem to repeatedly admit that we're blatantly violating the rules...and yet it's somehow ok because that's just the way things are/should be.

BlueVoix

August 31st, 2009 at 2:10 AM ^

I don't know about blatantly and I really think it's possible we aren't violating the rules. This stuff is all voluntary right? If you want to follow the holy bible of the NCAA and go exactly off of what they are saying, we could very well be fine.

But your larger problem is that we actually might be like every other D1 school out there in requiring our athletes to put a pretty huge commitment in for their sport. Uh, why again? You're in grad school. You had to take the GRE. You had to do extra work in your classes. You absolutely had to do well in your classes. All in all, you had to do things that were voluntary to get where you are. But you did them to better yourself and you very likely had someone on the side mentally pushing you along.

The comparison here isn't precise, but it's there. You wanted to succeed in something academic or something to further your career. Most of these kids want to succeed in football. What is the problem with that?

JT4104

August 30th, 2009 at 6:36 PM ^

Is it fair to accept a athletic scholarship that allows you to get a free education and you dont put the time and effort into the sport that is providing that luxury.

I understand where your coming from with if a guy is never gonna make the league then why should be put in the extra time.

Well, let me ask you why should that player take that athletic scholarship and not give maximum effort like everyone else is?? If kids are willing to be walk ons and make that sacrafice for the team why cant the kid who was recruited to play the game do the same thing?

kmd

August 30th, 2009 at 8:24 PM ^

You have to put reasonable limits on what you're allowed to require. It's a scholarship, not indentured servitude.

If you have an academic scholarship, are you not allowed to skip class? Do you get in trouble if you don't study 5 hours more than what the professor recommends? Do you automatically lose points on exams if you don't show up to optional study sessions? Are you not supposed to waste time doing things like going to sporting events, doing IM sports, joining clubs, etc.? Those are all things that aren't putting 100% maximum effort towards school, but nobody seems to have a problem with that.

BlueGoM

August 31st, 2009 at 2:27 AM ^

"I worked 2 jobs all year long, including summers...to pay for my college, and still kept a 3.5 GPA. I put in at least 40-50 hours outside the classroom to get to work, work etc....and I still did OK."

I don't know what your major was, but props for working that hard and managing that high of a GPA. My grad school (engineering) experience was as follows: wake up, go to class, go to work, study study study get 5-6 hours of sleep and start over. And I was working part time. Going to school full time and working full time seems impossible to me. And my GPA was uh, average....

MaizeNBlue

August 30th, 2009 at 6:29 PM ^

has spoken.

Hey, maybe RR can convince Henne to give them a motivational preseason speech and tell them how hard he had to work to get where he is. Or we could leave that to #20.