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Syracuse Basketball this, Syracuse Basketball that. But you know what, Scott Shafer is talking so you better be listening.
Head on over to SI.com where Pete Thamel, SU grad and scourge of the Georgetown & Kentucky fan bases, sat down for a quality one-on-one with Shafer. Some of the highlights?
I've always had kind of a bad temper. I was the kid who, when playing checkers with my sister growing up, would throw the board. This year, less visor throwing. What I've found is that I take things less personally when I'm not coaching the position or coaching the defense. But when I was at Western Michigan, we had a skit night. They did a highlight reel of me throwing my hat from summer camp. Then they presented me with a special hat. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's a quick way to release the tension and move on to the next play. I never threw it at Doug [Marrone], though.
And...
Terrel was a huge unknown. We found out he was better when [games were] live than in practice, when it was almost too much of a controlled environment. I joke with him about that. "We didn't start you earlier in the season because we weren't hitting you. You're better when you're getting hit."
Read the whole thing for anecdotes about his push-up contests with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford, a fateful meeting at a Perkins (because all Syracuse coaches need restaurant-themed stories) and reaction to that whole tweeting business. (For the record, I LOVE that his lesson is to use it to teach the players and not to retreat from social media. SU somehow has the most even-keeled head coaches when it comes to social media and one of them doesn't even know what it is!)
