Larry Jewell

That's not one up on me, because you're already on ours. Okay, hang on just a minute. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, we're in good shape. Okay. We appreciate this opportunity, coach, of meeting with you and your people from Northeastern Oklahoma. And we're assembled at the administration building at Dixie College. Several people here I'd like to introduce to you and then have you, in turn, maybe introduce the group that's there with you today. And as we talk, detail about our coming 4th annual Sunbrook Dixie Rotary Bowl. And I'm pleased to mention to you that assembled Here today is Mr. Tony Allen, representing the Sunbrook Development Corporation as one of our major sponsors of this bowl. And Tony has one of his associates here with him today. But we appreciate Tony being present. I have with me also members of our executive committee, and I'll not mention all their names at this point, but I do appreciate, gentlemen, your being here with me today in this exciting occasion. We would like to recognize the presence of Vice President Max Rose and Dr. Carl Brooks, both representing Dixie College in official capacity in the absence of President Douglas Alder, who is not only away from campus, but out of the country on an assignment at this time. Along with these two vice presidents, we have Doug Allred, our athletic director, and coach, Greg Croshaw of the Dixie Rebels. And that, of course, they have others from the campus people here with them today. But we appreciate their presence and all that means in the coming together of these two schools for this bowl event. Event. I've mentioned that we have with us members of the Press, Mr. Doug Fox of the Spectrum and Mike McGarry of Radio KDXU, along with Mark Peterson of our campus public relations and sports media program. So we appreciate all of these folks being here with us today. Are there any that I've left out that we need to recognize at this point? Guys, gals from our campus, our newspaper editor. Welcome to you. The Dixie sun is representative here, too, also, so we appreciate that. And they'll want to. Glenn Burr represents KSGI Radio. Okay, thank you. I don't know how much of that you heard. And will you be available to ask questions to our group? And also the press will ask you some questions as we go along. So let me turn it to you for a moment and tell us who you've got on that end, please. Okay, James. I appreciate all those people being there. And we have our athletic director, Dennis R. With us. We have our sports information director, Monty Franks with us. We have the sports editor from the Miami Daily Newspaper here, Jim Ellis, And I just. I'd entertain any questions that you might have. Thank you. Let me first perhaps let Coach Allred, athletic director, Coach Greg Croshaw, maybe we naturally want to learn a little bit about your program and you in turn, with Dixie College. I don't know what you know about them at this point. In anticipation of coming together, the press will want to make some releases regarding what you're representing coming into our bowl, and you ask any questions you'd like to of us also as we take care of bowl details. So I'll tell you what, James. Would it be appropriate for our athletic directors to visit with one another in the beginning here? I think that would be swell. I think probably should do that. Dennis Arp is our athletic director. And your athletic director's name was Doug Allred. Doug Allred. Doug, would you have any questions of Dennis here? Well, I don't think so, Coach. I think I would like to just extend our welcome to you people to come out to beautiful St. George and Dixie College. And we realize certainly that we're getting a hold of a real power and a tradition back there, and we're really looking forward to having you out here. And we're proud of our football program and our facilities and our community and. And the tremendous effort that the Rotarians put on each year. And I would suspect that you people feel like that this was a real show. We're really excited to have you come out and extend a welcome to you. Well, Doug, this is Dennis Arp. We are really excited about the invitation and looking forward to the trip out. And as we look at the polls, we recognize that you all aren't too bad yourself, and we're looking forward to a real outstanding football game. Okay, how about our coaches talking a little bit? Okay. I might express my appreciation Also, along with Mr. Arp, for being honored and invited to your bowl game. It's. We've looked at your bowl game the last two or three years kind of with. With, you know, a lot of interest. You have a nice bowl, nice setup out there. Your ball club seems to always be ranked up in the top in. In the rankings, play very well. Last ball club, I think we played from out in that area. We didn't fare too well. You know, we played them down in Tulsa, played Snow, Utah, and they just. They kicked us around pretty good. And so we're coming out there with a little bit of doubt in our minds, but we're going to enjoy the trip, and we're going to enjoy coming out and playing in your bowl game. We appreciate the Rotary and what they're doing in this endeavor. Well, Coach, I appreciate it. It's a two way street. We notice, of course, you people in the polls every year and the tremendous program that you have down there and know that year in and year out you're right there at the top and have a very quality program. I'm excited for the fact that I think that it's going to give our fans a chance to see some good football that comes out of a different area that we've never had a chance to play or see. And it ought to be a heck of a football game without knowing what you do or what we do. You know, we'll have to get together and get that squared away. But I'm sure that they're both going to be football teams that play extremely hard and have a lot of bowl experience and it ought to be a great show for everybody involved and we're excited to welcome you out. I think the Rotary has done a great job on the matchup this year and it ought to be, I think, as fine a bowl game as we've participated in and we're really looking forward to it. Coach, I appreciate that and I don't think there's any doubt that it will be a great ball game, two great programs with great tradition and it'll be exciting for the fans. And I think that's the main thing and the most important thing and making it interesting for them. Coach. That was Coach Greg Croshaw. And let me just quickly add that as we talked earlier, I'm sure the two of you will want to visit personally on the phone and talk about swapping your films and some different things that you're going to want to do that way. And from a bold committee standpoint, certainly we'd like you to have all the freedom that you'd like and in corresponding with them of your needs from an operational standpoint, from the bowl standpoint, we certainly want to make sure that we touch all the bases and get you out here in the proper order and have your facilities set up adequately. And we'll be on the phone later on in more detail of that. We'll be sending out to you also a printed itinerary, if you will, of the kinds of things that we'll be anticipating your involvement with and have you respond to. But we might talk just a minute more as we lead into an opportunity for the press to ask some questions as we look at the polls. You know, as I talked with Wayne Baker today of njcaa, you're ranked now number six, is that correct? That's correct. Dixie College, number seven. So this should be a good matchup. I think both of you, if your win loss records about the identical position there right now, both of you with a game to go this coming soon Saturday. And as already been mentioned, you've been a strong, powerhouse organization back there over the last many years, being involved in a strong league, a strong conference there, but also in a lot of experience with bowl postseason activity. So as I said at the beginning, we're very pleased to have you come and be part of this of our fourth annual Sunbrush Dixie Rotary Bowl. Can you share a little bit with us about what your program is doing, that is with your, the game coming up and what you're looking at for that in anticipation of then coming on to Dixie? Well, Jim, we're playing this weekend, of course, as you mentioned a minute ago, we've won loss. We've been beaten by the number one ranked team in the country, Navarro, Texas. We don't play in a league. We're really an independent. We play an independent schedule. We play for three or four Texas teams, three or four Kansas teams, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Iowa Central. Now Iowa Central, we're playing this week here at our place Saturday afternoon. Iowa Central looks like a decent ball club. I think their record now may be 6 and 2, something like. I think it's 6 and 2, 6 and 3. They're not a ranked football team, but they look to be a decent football football team for us where our plans are to go ahead and play that ball game, get it out of the way, begin preparation for your ball game. We plan on coming out there, leaving here the 30th, I believe, which is the last day of November 30th on Thursday and staying Thursday and Friday and Saturday with you and playing the ball game Saturday afternoon and probably trying to fly out and come on back home after the ballgame Saturday evening. Other than that, I could field some questions if you have any. Okay, let's open it for the press. Gentlemen, how would you like to proceed? Who dropped first? Doug, ask your question. Let's see if we can hear you. I was just noticing at the beginning of the year there was a little listing that came out. Right. Let me interrupt a second. Can you hear him? No, I can't. Why don't you come over closer, you guys, and sit right here, closer to the mic and the speaker. First question will come from Doug Fox of the Data Spectrum. Okay. Hi, coach. How you doing, Doug? Real good at the Beginning of the year, you probably are aware of it. There was a listing that came out that ranked the junior college programs by what they'd done in the 80s. And in that listing, you were, of course, number one and Dixie College was number six. And with the two teams, how they're ranked this year, sixth and seven. And looking over some of the other bowl matchups, I don't think there is another bowl that could boast quite a matchup as this as teams for the 80s, per se. And I was wondering if you thought this is almost a deserving kind of a game to be played on the last year in the 1980s. Oh, yeah, I think so, Doug. I. I think, you know, I am well aware of the rankings throughout the. Throughout the 80s. You know, our program is, as you know, has a lot of tradition, and the success that we've had in the 80s has been great. Of course, by the same token, as you mentioned, Dixie is great also. We've noticed that. I. I don't know that there'll be a better bowl game. I'll be honest with you. As I look at the bowl matchups, I don't. The one in Tulsa, the way the thing matches, going to match up in Tulsa, that's not going to be as good a bowl game as we'll have there at Dixie. The other ones, the Coke Bowl, I don't know who's going to be in that yet, but I think Iowa Central will host the bowl game. And Iowa Central is going to be the. Maybe the second ball club in that league up in Iowa. The other ballgames, I don't see them being as exciting and having the. The prestige that your bowl game is going to have this year. Okay, thanks. Just wondering, also, it seems like Dixie and your team also are both two teams that, were it not for the one loss, could very easily be playing for a national championship this year. I think that's true, Doug. And, you know, I think there's ordinarily about two or three or four ball clubs at the end of the year that could get. Could say that every year. You know, we've been very, very close a number of times to winning the national championship in the 12 years that I've been here. And I know Dixie's the same way. The two programs are great programs. It'll be an exciting contest. Thank you. You bet. Who's next? You have a question for him? Come on up here where he can speak in the mic more directly. Any one of you fellas? Come on. Coach, can you hear me? You bet, Coach. This is Mark McGarry of KDXU Radio here in St. George. My question would just be if you maybe give us a little more information about your team makeups and strengths and weaknesses. Well, yeah, I can talk a little bit about it. I, you know, I. Right now we, we would like to say as long as the coaches are there, you know, we're going to tell you we got a lot of weaknesses. Take those coaches and put them out in the other room. I can really be honest with you. Maybe he says he's laying down. We feel like right now that our ball club is a much improved ball club over the front part of the season. We started the first of the season with young people in the offensive backfield with a lot of youth in the defensive secondary, with a lot of inexperience in the offensive line. Most of our experience returning being in the defensive line and in the linebacker areas. But we've come on and I think become a much better ball club here. Late in the year, early in the season, we were making a lot of mistakes with our young guys, but we're going to be a pro set offense. We're going to be a multiple offensive set type offense. We run some option, we throw the ball. I'm going to say depending on the defense that we play against, we throw the ball anywhere from 20 to, oh, I'd say 15 to 25, 30 times a ball game. Defensively, we try to play an aggressive type of defense with the normal 40 in the secondary. We feel like athlete wise, we've probably got about a similar number of athletes that probably will be able. To it. In past years. We do have a little more youth than what we've been, what we're accustomed to playing with a few more freshmen playing this year than ordinary. Did that answer your question? That did. I appreciate that you lost BY what, just two or three points to Navarro? We lost. We lost 30 to 30 to 40, 14. I believe it was we. That particular night. Of course, Navarro is an awfully good football team, but that particular night we had, I don't know, we had something like seven or eight turnovers. We pitched the ball on the ground, threw the ball out on the ground and or through interceptions and lost the ball seven or eight times in that ball game. And we had 250 yards throwing in the ball game game at several yards rushing. But we just, we turned it over too many times and didn't get in the end zone when we were down and had the opportunities to get in the end zone, you know, so Taking nothing away from Navarro, they're a good ball club. But I think at this particular time of the year that I think your ball club there at Dixie, our ball club, I think we're all capable of playing with anybody at this particular time of the year. Okay. Thanks, coach. You bet. Other questions? How about your people? Anything you'd like to ask on your end of this? I want to let our newspaper person, Jim Ellis, he has a question or two I think that he'd like to field for you. Okay. Yeah. Coach Croshaw, how you doing today? Good, thanks. Just curious, why don't you could you clue me in a little bit on your ball club, what your strengths and weaknesses are and who some of the key players players are? You bet. We're probably very similar to what you people are. I think the key to successful programs is at this level is having a group of sophomores come back every year, whether they played as freshmen or not. They know about your program and what you want to accomplish. We're probably very similar in that we're an I back offense, occasionally some split back. We're more of a run oriented team than pass and especially this year we have run the ball fairly well and haven't thrown it worth a darn until here the last couple of games. But usually we like to be a little more balanced than what we have been this year. But hopefully we're getting that correct and going to be able to throw just a little bit better than we have defensively. We probably run a lot the same thing. We're an even front base and we try to attack and keep the pressure on the opposing team and have some pretty good size and some kids that are going to be recruited pretty extensively I think. And as coach said, it's two programs I think that will really run very similar to each other with talent and with the things they try to do. Some of our top players, our tailback position, we've rushed for probably 16 or 1700 yards out of the tailback spot, but that's been split up between, between two running backs. We've got a young man named Teddy James that's rushed for I believe 800, just over 800 yards. And another tailback named Zed Robinson that's rushed for about 750 or 60. So we're an IBAC, like I said type team. We've got a fullback and a young man named Wilson Kovaca, a freshman, that's about a six 1,250 pounder. That's kind of like a guard lining up in the Backfield really blocks at the point of attack and occasionally gets to carry the ball just enough to keep him happy so he doesn't get after the coach and offensive line. We've got an interesting kid. We've got a young man at tackle that started here every game for two years at 6:10, about 320 pounds, depending if you're just eating lunch or if it's after practice. And he's a quality player that gives us a pretty good anchor on the offensive line. What was his name again? Scott Brumfield. In the secondary, we felt like that was our strength coming into this year. And in our league. The teams in our league throw the ball probably 40, 50 times a game. Now, that's not us. We're kind of a misfit in our league, but so we get a lot of tests in the secondary and we've had some quality kids there. Kaler Dally, a strong safety from here in St. George, was a preseason All American youngster. And a defensive lineman by the name of Dave Walsh out of Golden. Colorado would probably be a couple of our stands out defensive players. And we're the same way. We went into the first half of the season playing good enough to win, but I didn't think we were playing as well as we had in the past, especially on defense. And then for some unknown reason, we've really clicked in here the last four or five ball games and played extremely well defensively and done about the same things offensively we've done all year. And that's run the football and try to control the clock and then play some good solid defense. You've already talked me out of coming. Yeah, I'll bet you won't show up. Coach, I know they got a lot of cattle there in Oklahoma, but you don't have to sell the bull around here, big boy. All right, you got that one. Listen, I don't have anything else to ask. Jim, do you have anything else? Well, I was curious. Where will the game be played and what type of facility is it? Did you hear that? Yeah, I'm a little bit prejudiced. We've got a stadium here on campus called Hanson Stadium. It seats about 6,000. We feel like the places we've been, it's as nice a facility as there is in the country. It's concrete structure, really. Like I say, I think as fine a facility as there is in the country to play football in on a junior college campus. I think athletically you'll be really impressed with. We've got about what a 5,000 seat basketball arena. I think we have as good a physical education facilities as there are in the country. And I it's a beautiful setting and the weather should be outstanding. And it's really, like I say, of all the places I've been, I think you'd find a difficult time finding a better situation. Natural turf. I noticed today they just aerated the field and going to take care of it. We play our next ball game in Phoenix against Phoenix College Saturday, and we're the same as Coach Wolf. We need to take care of that ball game before we start worrying about the bowl game. But the field, the preparation has already begun on that and it's year in and year out. It's an outstanding field to play on and I'm sure that the grounds crew will have it ready to go for the bowl game. Coach, I have just one more question. What type of schedule have you played this year? Well, we play in what's called the Western States Football League, and there are six teams in Arizona. There's Mesa Arizona, which we lost to, I believe in the fourth or fifth week, 2414 or something like that. They're a good, solid club and of course one that's ranked third or fourth. And I think we probably feel a lot like Coach Wolf. We'd like the opportunity to play them again, but you only get one chance and they took advantage of it that particular night. We have, we feel as strong a league as there is in the country when you deal with Glendale, last year's national champion. As Coach Wolf said, Snow College was a national champion a couple years ago. We just played them Saturday here for our homecoming. There's Arizona Western, Eastern Arizona, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Glendale, and then there's Snow College and Dixie College in Utah and of course Rick's in Idaho, which is another ball club that has tremendous tradition and is right up there. So I think year in and year out, as you look at our league, usually you'll see about three teams ranked in the top 15. So and I think that's the case right now, if I'm not mistaken, I think Rick's is ranked about 9 or 10 or something like that. So like I say, we feel like it's as good a schedule as and conference as there is around. And then we played this year we played BYU's JV and Washington State University's JV program to give us our 10 football games. Sounds like with that type of league, you got to feel real fortunate to have this type of record. Well, I think, yeah, it's interesting Year in and year out. That's what we, we say. It's very difficult league. There's a tremendous amount of travel involved and you people are maybe in the same kind of a situation. This league runs from the Mexican border to dang near the Canadian border. And people come through and look at traveling from Yuma, Arizona to Rexburg, Idaho. And I'm not sure you can get there from one spot to the other. And so there's a lot of travel and some good teams and I think year in and year out, the of course Mesa at this point has to go to Rick's and play this Saturday. And if Rick's is to win, we'd end up with a three way tie for our league championship. And that's usually the way it is year in and year out. It's very difficult to go through undefeated and it's a very competitive league from top to bottom. Thanks a lot. You bet. Jim. Would there be any other questions? I don't have any questions, but I'd like to give Mr. Allen, Tony Allen of Sunbrook, an opportunity if he'd like to ask or say anything and appreciate again greatly his presence here with us and the involvement of his firm in our exciting bowl. Tony. Gentlemen, I don't have any questions. I'd just like to congratulate you on your successful football season. We at Sunbrook, which is a very exciting resort championship golf course development in St. George, want to welcome you, your football team, your athletic department and your fans and parents of your players to St. George, Utah. We hope that you'll take advantage of the opportunity and bring as many of your folks with you as you can. The Rotary bowl here puts on one of the outstanding bowl games in the country. I believe we probably have the best attendance at a bowl game, junior college bowl game of anywhere in the country. And it's a real show for the fans and the players and their supporters. So I hope you put the word out back there in Oklahoma and can bring a good contingent of your support because we want to welcome you to St. George and show you an outstanding time. I appreciate that. And listen, again, I'd like to thank you for your involvement in the bowl game and junior college football and athletic programs and I think it's a great thing that you're doing. Jim. I'd also like to express my old regrets. I guess not regrets, but I'd like to tell the administrators that are there that our president is not in town today or he would be here to represent us. He's down downstate in Oklahoma City and could not. What is his name? Coach? Dr. Bobby Wright. Okay. Our president. And again, he's. He had to be out of town today. And again, Dennis. Dennis Arp, our athletic director, is representing as administrator here today. Well, we'll look forward to a contact between the presidents. They usually have an exciting interchange when the visiting school does come into here. And if he'll be part of your official traveling party, we certainly want to make sure that he and others who would be part of that official capacity be recognized appropriately when they do come. Okay, That'll be fine. I might just add that in conjunction with the game event, as we have talked before, there'll be some 1500 people involved probably in our pre game and halftime shows that's prepared to be part of this activity. So I think that'll help add an awful lot to it as well. You bet. That sounds exciting to me. Could you repeat again for us the name of your newspaper and your radio so we can make sure we make future contacts there and give proper credits for anything that we may want to do there? It's the Miami News Record and our mailing address is. Is post office box 940-Miami, Oklahoma 74355. Is that city a little bit like Miami? I spell just like it. Okay. Funny. Very good. It's spelled right. The radio station is kglc. Kglc. Now, they're concerned and I think they're going to be in contact with you all about a broadcast, whether they can broadcast live or not there. And I'll just let them handle that. Yes, and we can coordinate that with KDXU, who will be handing that in for us here. And we've had an excellent experience in that in the past as well between both media. Okay, great. They'll be in contact with you there and we'll be in contact with the coaching staff probably tomorrow concerning film exchanges. And I'm sure the presidents will be in contact with one another probably tomorrow. Jim, just a second. I was going to say. Doug, I'll be getting in touch. This is Jim Ellis. I'll be in touch with.