MORGANTOWN – The question to Rich Rodriguez at his press conference seemed straightforward enough: “Are players nowadays softer than when you started?â€
That relatively simple query led WVU’s football coach on a four-minute tangent into the family garden of his childhood home in Grant Town.
“I probably would agree with that overall,†Rodriguez began. “A lot of guys have mental toughness, hard edge, whatever you want to call it. Generally – I’m giving an opinion and not going on a political rant or nothing like that – but I think we’re softer as a society. I don’t necessarily blame anybody because everybody wants to make things easier.
"How do we make things easier instead of making things harder, so they learn to go through hard times? That’s what ‘hard edge’ is. 'Hard edge' isn’t a magical word where you’re going to wake up and have it. Not one guy sitting here has not had some adversity or isn’t going to have some adversity in your life. So, hopefully you have the mental toughness to get through that, or have the people around who do. I think that’s part of my responsibility in teaching guys, who hopefully have long, successful lives in front of them. Not all that is going to be strawberries and sunshine and roses and flowers, you know?
“I told them today, my dad was a coal miner. He had one week off a year, I think. He worked all day in a coal mine, came home with stuff all over him and then went out and worked in the garden for four hours. As I got older, I worked in the garden a little bit as a little kid. And then the older I got, the more I worked in the garden, and the bigger the garden got. The older I got, the bigger the garden got.
"I hated pulling weeds. I’d rather do anything but pull weeds. You ever pull weeds in a garden around beans? It’s miserable, absolutely miserable. I’d play every sport. We didn’t even have lacrosse, but I’d lie and say I had to go play lacrosse or something. I played every sport. It wasn’t to get out of pulling weeds, but that was a side benefit, you know what I’m saying?
“The people in this state, have you seen how they work? The coal miners or anybody, it’s not always easy. Our [players] have got it pretty good. Have you been through this [facilities] building? Have you seen how we eat? The services we have? They’ve got it pretty good. They live in a fantasy world. Coaches too, because we’ve got these benefits. We live in a fantasy world.
“We want for nothing. You want food, you want medical help, you want job help, you want financial help? We have cold tubs, hot tubs. We even have an ice cream machine. We just got it yesterday. It might be two days before we have it cranked up, but damn, it’s top-level stuff. An ice cream machine! FREE!!! And we probably even have the sprinkles to put on it. I mean, golly. They’ve got it pretty good, and now they’re getting paid, a lot of them.
“You all think I’m making up stories. If you ever visit my mom, just ask her. 'What did Rich hate to do?' I’ll bet the top of the list, ‘He hated pulling weeds.’ I did, but I had to do it. I don’t even like beans. I like them raw. Ms. Rita (his wife) likes ‘em cooked, but I don’t like beans. Maybe that’s why I don’t like them. Every time I eat a bean, ‘Yuck, damn weeds!’
“How did we get off track there?â€
