BIG TEN Archives - Tom Shanahan Report

Barry Alvarez: “I thought Mel got the most out of his kids this year.”

Post author:Tom Shanahan
Post published:January 7, 2021
Post category:College Sports Football Uncategorized
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By TOM SHANAHAN Barry Alvarez likes to keep up on former players and coaches, especially ones that graduate to head coach. Sometimes they come to him. A 2006 game that was scheduled years in advance happened to feature San Diego State and first-year head coach Chuck Long playing at Wisconsin against first-year Badgers coach Bret Bielema. Long was Iowa’s quarterback when Alvarez was a Hawkeyes assistant under Hayden Fry. Alvarez was Wisconsin’s head coach (1995-2005) with Bielema his…

Wisconsin’s “Maestro” applies refreshing facial scrub to college basketball

Post author:Tom Shanahan
Post published:December 26, 2020
Post category:Basketball College Sports
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By TOM SHANAHAN We’re barely a couple weeks into the Big Ten season, but Michigan State coach Tom Izzo’s sounded as if he was ready to name Wisconsin’s D’Mitrick Travis the Big Ten Player of the Year. Izzo called him “The Maestro” of a senior-laden team, intending to draw a comparison to Leonard Bernstein, not to Bob Cobb, Jerry Seinfeld’s Tuscany foil. Wisconsin’s "Maestro" was lightly recruited out of high school and is six years removed from his…

Letter to Mel Tucker on Michigan State history

Post author:Tom Shanahan
Post published:September 19, 2020
Post category:College Sports Football
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Photo: Duffy Daugherty's Time magazine cover, Oct. 8, 1956. To Coach Mel Tucker: Welcome back to Michigan State. Welcome back to college football, 2020. You've got plenty on your mind now that the Big Ten has re-launched its season, so here s a refresher course on what Duffy Daugherty's Underground Railroad players and the southern Black high school coaches that laid the tracks meant to changing the face of college football. Your two seasons as a graduate assistant…