Joe Tait, Bill Fitch, and BGSU

[rollalongFF0304]

Hi, folks. Spotted this terrific story from Joe Tait and Terry Pluto's new book in an excerpt published this morning in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/blog/ind ... tch_e.html


In the summer of 1967, Fitch was hired to be the men's basketball coach at Bowling Green University. Joe was at Ohio University, teaching broadcasting and also broadcasting the school's football and basketball games. In the Mid-American Conference preseason basketball poll, Bowling Green received one first-place vote. It belonged to Joe.

"Fitch had taken over a bad team, but he knew I was at Ohio -- and right away, he knew who voted for his team," said Joe. "He said, 'It's that crazy guy down in Athens [Ohio].' But I knew Bill was a great coach and that he would surprise the MAC."

Bowling Green did win the 1967-68 MAC title in Fitch's only season at the school.

"When Bill took over at BG, he brought the players together and asked who was the toughest S.O.B. on the team," said Joe. "A player stepped forward-and bang, Bill popped the guy."

Joe laughed as he recalled the story.

"Then Bill asked the players, 'Now who is the toughest S.O.B. on the team?'" said Joe. "Bill was still young, 33, and he was a former Marine. He was the toughest S.O.B. on that team."

[VDub26Falcon]

Today, his coaching career would have been over immediately. Anyone else ready to get the time machine invented so we can go back to a time when the coach was the most respected man on the team?