TigersCast: Training Camp - DAYS 8, 9 & 10

TigersCast provides complete coverage of the final three days of training camp from Newtown Square, PA.



Contact Jim Allsman at jma158@comcast.net.

Voice-over soundtrack music: "The Final Quest" from The Power And The Glory: The Original Music & Voices Of NFL Films (Released by Tommy Boy, 1998)

TigersCast: Training Camp - DAYS 5, 6 & 7

TigersCast provides complete coverage of days five, six and seven of training camp (including the first scrimmage) from Newtown Square, PA.



Contact Jim Allsman at jma158@comcast.net.

Voice-over soundtrack music: "Round Up" from The Power And The Glory: The Original Music & Voices Of NFL Films (Released by Tommy Boy, 1998)

TigersCast: Training Camp - DAY 4

TigersCast provides complete coverage of day four of training camp from Newtown Square, PA.



Contact Jim Allsman at jma158@comcast.net.

TigersCast: Training Camp - DAY 2 & 3

TigersCast provides complete coverage of the second (Tues) and third (Wed) days of training camp from Newtown Square, PA that includes MN Alumnus and former Tiger football player, Todd Fairlie and a fired-up Coach Gionta.



Contact Jim Allsman at jma158@comcast.net.

TigersCast: Training Camp - DAY # 1

TigersCast provides complete coverage of the first day of training camp from Newtown Square, PA.



Contact Jim Allsman at jma158@comcast.net.

EXCLUSIVE: MN's Bill Maas talks about his football experiences - past and present

HAVERTOWN, PA - A little over six months since my last posting and the first story of the new season is my telephone conversation with Bill Maas - former member of the MN Tigers football team, University of Pitt grad and former Kansas City Chief.

Bill, a color analyst for the NFL on FOX who calls games along side Sam Rosen every Sunday, was elected into the Marple Newtown Athletic Hall of Fame during the spring of 2006. This is an accolade long overdue for the former MN Tiger, Pitt Panther and NFL pro that celebrates his first tenure as a football player.

For a guy that gets paid to speak for a living, it's not hard to imagine that Bill had alot to say. Below are my questions (JA), followed by his answers (BM).

JA: What the one sports moment you vividly remember from Marple Newtown High School?

BM: I would have to say winning the Central League Championship, which consisted of that time beating Ridley.

JA: Are there any experiences from Marple Newtown that you feel as though helped shape your football opinions that you would use in your current profession?

BM: Yeah, when we went away to camp. You know, it was one of the first years I think that Marple Newtown ever went away for camp. We went to a place called I think Camp Dixieline or something like that. It was just a barrack basically, an open barrack with bunk beds and the whole entire football team stayed in this one huge barrack. You can imagine (chuckling) what that was like with a bunch of 16 to 18 year old boys. The coaches stayed outside in an RV, right outside the door. And you know it was lights out (early), and it was up at 5 AM, and there was some crusty old showers, and it was three-a-days in the heat of summer. I think that was one of the biggest things that molded my football career.

JA: Where does the induction into the Marple Newtown Athletic Hall of Fame rank with your many football achievements?

BM: Well, you know, at the start of it all. You know? It kind has worked its way backwards over the years but initially, that’s the start of it all. So, the honor of getting inducted into the Hall of Fame was for me the start to the whole thing. And if you don’t take the first step, you know, you can never get to the top of the flight and that in a far way was the first huge step to what became a great career for myself.

JA: Were there ever times in high school when you thought that becoming a professional football player was a possibility?

BM: No, never ever, never. A matter a fact, it wasn’t until the summer of my junior year going into my senior year that I ever knew that that would be a reality just to go to a college and get a scholarship. And then, I went to the university to get an education and play ball and it was going to be a great experience. Then it was about my junior year (in college) that I found out that I was ranked one of the top defensive linemen in the country. Then there was a reality because I saw the guys I played with get drafted and I’m like “Hey, I got a shot at this.” So, no there was never at any time in high school where I thought that playing professional football was a reality and I never thought about it. It never even crossed my mind because it wasn’t a reality.

The numbers in of in itself from all the high schools across the United States of America to a 100-man squad in college – just those numbers alone, translate them and what are your percentages as a high school athlete to get to that level? Then you take all of the colleges in the United States of America or now overseas, and you take all of the Division I, II and III and you take all of those players and then have the chances of getting into the draft or free agent tryout and then from there if do get that lucky it’s like a 0.001 shot - if you go from high school to the pros. And then to play in the pros, and stay in the pros and go on to become an All-Pro – those odds are ridiculous.

A matter of fact, a neighbor of mine, Rick Sutcliffe - Cy Young Award Winning pitcher from the Cubs, he played here in the neighborhood in high school, he played over at Van Horn High School here in Kansas City. I know the guys in the neighborhood that are all friends and grew up with him. I asked the guys I said, “Did you guys know when Rick was in high school that he had a pro arm?” They told me “No way.”

JA: When you were playing professionally, was there ever a point in your career or toward the end where you thought you might want to go into broadcasting?

BM: When I was in Kansas City, my first off-season I interned at a radio station. Then in my second year I had a radio show on Mondays and Fridays. Just pre-game weekend stuff and post game wrap-up. And then the year after that it went to a Thursday night show, which was an hour long, taking phone calls and all that stuff and I had that for the entire time I played. In the off-seasons I would intern down at the local FOX affiliate here in Kansas City where a friend of mine that I got know from Pittsburgh is the sports director. I would go do a report from Lincoln, Nebraska when Missouri was playing Nebraska and things like that. Then I would do packages and pieces and learn how to cut tape and then I got to the desk. When I retired, on Sunday evenings they had the Sports Machine, I would do that on Sunday nights and I’d host one night a week for the sports segment. I cut a bunch of packages out from some of some the pieces I did and sent them out to the networks my first year out and in 1995 FOX hired me.

JA: It’s got to be a great gig.

BM: It’s unbelievable, are you kidding me? You fly to the place, they put you up, you eat good meals, you get to watch a game that you love and talk about it and then you zip out of there. Yeah, it’s a heck of a job.

JA: Is broadcasting football better than playing football?

BM: It’s a better job with great pay. When you play the game Mondays are just hell and the later you got in your career it lasted all the way until Friday. Here’s the thing about the job, when I played football at the end of the day I knew whether you won or loss. You had a result. I mean now at the end of the day when I broadcast, I just get in the plane and go home. You really don’t know whether you won or loss and in all my life, I’ve been playing since I was a kid, you always had a score. You always knew the effort you put in during the week, you had a result, know what I mean? You get conditioned to live by that. But nowadays, you know you go out and you work, you’re in the real world and you do stuff and you don’t know whether you doing good, bad or indifferent. You just keep going.

JA: Who do feel was your toughest coach?

BM: The coach that got the most out of me was Jackie Sherrill. He pushed me to a place I didn’t think I could go and I think that’s what it takes. I think there’s a lot kids that never become what they could have been because they didn’t get challenged or pushed hard enough. I mean Jackie, what he did to me it was just, I look back know and think, “My gosh did the guy hate me?” But now we’re very good friends, we always have been. He always stayed in touch. The whole time I played professional football every year he’d write or call me, stayed in contact with my folks, my mom now since my dad passed away. The guy was amazing. But he pushed me.

I was a freshman and I came to school and I had size, strength, speed and all that stuff and you’re in a school that going for the National Championship almost every year during the time I was there. He made me do this thing after you stretched every single day before practice they’d start practice off with an offensive lineman and a defensive lineman and it was best of three. Well, my first practice I am there and Mark May they call out and he’s an Outland Trophy candidate that year, and they call out “Bill Maas get out here” and I’m like, “Huh, what are we I doing?” I’m like looking at my chinstrap (chuckling) while I put my helmet on and all of the sudden they shove me out there. It’s an offense (vs.) defense (drill) and whoever wins doesn’t have to run at the end of practice. So it became, you know, a big deal. I mean the first time, I’m like, “What are we doing?” He (Sherrill) said (screaming) “Get down, put your hand down son!” I didn’t know what we were doing. He stands behind me, he gives Mark May a snap count (makes an explosion sound), I go for a ride like I’m on roller skates. The whole team is circled around you and they’re all yelling and pushing you back in there. The second time I’m like, “What in the hell just happened?” I get back up there, they push me back in the middle, I get down, and I go again. The third time I lost it, I went absolutely friggin nuts and kicked his (butt). And Jackie made me do that, listen to this; he made me do that every day for the whole entire season. I mean there were days I didn’t even want to go to practice. I’m thinking, “Oh God, I gotta go through this again?” And then it just became that (eventually) no one could beat me. And you don’t know you have that in you, unless someone takes you there and (Sherrill) did.

(Jackie Sherrill played for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide under Paul “Bear” Bryant from 1962 to 1965.)

(Mark May was drafted in the first round of the 1981 NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins, played until 1990 and won two Super Bowls - XVII and XXII - as a member of the famed "Hogs" offensive line.)

JA: Who do you consider the greatest football player you ever played with?

BM: I played with some good ones but Dan Marino would have to be at the top of that list. Hell, I mean I played with Hugh Green and Rickey Jackson too. In the pros I played with a guy – Art Still, he’s from Camden – who was absolutely friggin phenomenal. Deron Cherry, who’s from Camden as well, he was a six time All-Pro I played with. Brett Favre, he’d be in that list as well.

JA: Who was the toughest offensive lineman you played against?

BM: Hands down, not even close – Dwight Stephenson. He was a center for the Miami Dolphins. He was a four time Offensive Lineman of the Year voted by his peers who played against him. The guy was just incredible. As for a tackle, I would say Jackie Slater. That was about it, those were the two guys that I felt like that I played against that took the game to me. And I always felt otherwise I was taking the game to everybody else (I played against). They kind of stand out in my mind – that those two guys took the game to me.

JA: Who was the hardest running back to bring down?

BM: Man, you know there were some great ones, I mean I played against Eric Dickerson, I played against Marcus Allen, I played against Walter Payton. Bring down? It might be Ickey Woods, you know? Or Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, he was a 280-pound beast when he was running at you. But there were some great ones – it all depends on speed and elusiveness. The greatest of all (running backs) was – and I think everybody who played through my era would say the same thing – Barry Sanders. We’d watch film during the week and it wasn’t embarrassing to look uncoordinated when you played him because he made every great athlete around the NFL look like a terrible athlete. I missed him twice on one play. And I know I don’t stand alone because I watched a lot of film of this guy. The coaches would say, “Just take your shot, don’t worry about looking stupid or missing, take your shot.” And then get back up and go try it again because that’s how good he was, that’s how elusive he was, it was amazing.

JA: Does a personality like T.O. really affect the locker room based upon your experiences?

BM: Yeah, it can. The locker room has a leader. Every locker room has a leader. And it might not be the quarterback, it might not be the greatest athlete on the team but there’s a man in every locker room that runs the locker room. And if the person that runs your locker room gets challenged and gets threatened by someone new coming in, and I think that’s the case – yes. Then you have rifts in the locker room and the stories and the headlines and all the things that are being talked about suddenly become more important than the job at hand. So the answer is yes.

JA: The Marple Newtown Tigers are at a point right now where they need a couple more wins this season to get them over the “hump.” If your Coach Gionta, and your about to start football camp and address the team for the first time, what do you say?

BM: Are you satisfied with just being a contender? Are you satisfied? Are you satisfied making the team? Are you satisfied getting a letter jacket? Are you satisfied? If that’s what you’re here for then great guys, good job because that’s all you’re ever gonna be.

That applies to anything you do in life. If you’re satisfied at what you’re doing, you can never take the next step.

Let’s hope Coach Gionta and his team are reading this.


Contact Jim Allsman at jma158@comcast.net.