As Matt Rhule’s Monday press conference wound down, I had to ask. First off, being a long time boxing fan myself, I was genuinely curious knowing Bud Crawford is a huge Huskers fan, and Head Coach Matt Rhule, it seems, sure is a Bud Crawford fan.
It was nothing in depth on my part. I simply said it seemed those two were tight and he led the team on the field last season – did coach have thoughts on the fight. It sure seemed like he hoped someone would ask him something like that, as I barely got the last couple words out of my mouth as he jumped in.
“Absolutely! It’s a theme that we’re talking about as a team this whole week. That’s one of our themes.”
So not only did he have a thought or two – that Canelo-Crawford fight was at the forefront of team preparations on the motivation and life lessons end of things.
“You know, I had a chance to go to Bud’s send off, and as I told our team, we hope that we hope that we have a great year. We hope that next year is a great year. And hope, when you look at our sidelines, all these Husker fans, you know, they’re like Bud’s (fans).”
“He’s one of the OGS, right? The original ones. He came out there for Colorado, for us, last year – we hadn’t beaten Colorado, so I’m grateful to him and who he is. And he’s made it, yet he still continues to live in his community and pour into Omaha, pour into the kids in the community. So I think he’s a role model.”
Rhule continued and it pretty quickly turned into one of those Matt Rhule answers which becomes something you want to listen to before hiking that long trail or going for that personal best in whatever. Crawford is moving up 15 pounds, 20 of you count the last weight in which fought multiple bouts. That’s a jump which teeters on the edge of insanity – which, if we’re honest, is where the greatest go at times to test themselves.
“But what I love about Bud is, he’s going to go out and fight Saturday night, and he’s a first ballot pro boxing Hall of Famer, right? And he’s certainly not just doing it for the money. And so he’s risking his legacy because he wants to go out, he wants to be the first person to be a three time (weight class) unified champion. No one’s ever done it before (in the 4-belt era).”
“What I love about him is he could just sit back and be like, ‘No, I’m not gonna fight. I’m not gonna fight Canelo.’ He’s going to risk he’s going to risk the chance to step in the ring. He’s going to risk that because he’s such a competitor that he can’t stand the fact – he has a chance to do something that no one else has done.”
I don’t think Bud cares about stringing things out, taking weaker fights to make a run at Floyd Mayweather’s career undefeated record, whose own pursuit of Rocky Marciano’s at the time left fight fans shaking their heads at some the questionable opponents.
“Because I believe two (other ) people have (won two unified weight classes), I believe, but no one’s done three. So he has a chance to eat. He’s going to go up in weight and challenge himself and be the underdog for the first time ever. But he doesn’t care about any of that. He doesn’t care what other people say. He’s a competitor. He’s going to go out there and he expects to win.”
Crawford’s quest for the rarified air of that third unified championship is something he wants his players to drink in every time they step on the field.
“And so you think about a message for our guys. One thing I keep telling them is if the pressure to perform feels like too much right now? Wait, just wait, like the pressure doesn’t go away, and it makes you either fight or flight, and some people would flee.”
“And what I love about Crawford is he just no pun intended. He fights, he accepts the challenge, he moves forward. He puts his city, his state, his legacy on his back, and he goes up and he risks it all in the ring, because he’s the ultimate, ultimate competitor. And so that’s the analogy for our team, for us on this.”
He continued and, in doing so, his blood moon references gave us a preview of what would end up turning into the first time the team has worn all red regular uniforms since they came up just short of upsetting heavy favorite Oklahoma in 1986.
“There was a blood moon last night. You know, those are pretty cool things, kind of a red eclipse. And, when they say the history back in Asia and all across the world – people saw the blood moons, the red moon, the orange moon, whether they thought like the wolf was trying to eat the moon or the dragon was trying to eat the moon, it usually means that there’s a war coming. It usually means there’s some period of war coming. And that’s what I think Saturday night is for Bud, so we’re Team Crawford.”
The moment was almost over and Coach Rhule began picking up some papers to head off and do his post-practice, but first, he had one more thing to say to us, his team and anyone else who wanted listen:
“You know what – Canelo is one of the greatest and we respect him, but we are a Team Crawford out here, so I think it’s just a great message for our team, right?”
“Don’t just sit there and hope that you get accolades. Risk it all. Risk it all to be great.”
Go Big Red.
#Matt #Rhule #Bud #Crawford #Risk #Great
