People say it’s the No Fun League, but there’s still a lot of fun going on. It’s just as long as it doesn’t tarnish the game. And most of them don’t mind jubilation or celebration. And the officials know who’s been around, who hasn’t been around, and they’ve got to have that discretion. But then you get a guy off the bench who just makes one play that has no consequence in the game, and he jumps up and down and does somersaults - I agree, take that out of the game. If a guy makes a big run, makes a big play and gets excited, that’s fine. And some of them are just over the top, I admit. ON WHETHER THE NFL HAS GOTTEN LESS FUN: “They’ve got to be careful with how they allow people to enjoy themselves, with celebrations and all of that.
Everybody talks, but they don’t have a clue what it takes, and I tell them it starts right now.” I just tell them I was given an opportunity and I took advantage of it to the best of my ability - and what’s to say that they can’t do it when that opportunity arises, too? But they’ve got to position themselves in a way that they’ll get that chance. And I would like to think (the kids are motivated by my NFL experience), but I don’t harp on the fact that I played and how long I played. Our staff has been very good about that, giving kids an idea of what they can expect in the future, and also about holding them accountable. And they’re looking for something to grab hold of that’s positive. Some of these young men, it’s amazing, they think they know it all, but they don’t. ON THE FULFILLMENT HE GETS FROM COACHING: “There’s always one or two (players) where, seemingly, a light goes on and you can sit down and talk with them and get them on the right track. When your playing days are long gone, they’ll still remember White Shoes, and he was right on the money.” And it wasn’t a big deal to me, but in my second year in Houston, someone told me, ‘Man, you’ve got a name that will last forever. And after one of our good games, a local news reporter named Ed Gebhart gave me the name - ’Blazin’ Billy White Shoes’ - and when I went to college it stuck. But I went to training camp, I had a little success, and so I kept wearing white shoes. He loved football, we played hard-nosed football. I think he wanted to see what would happen because the coach that we had was really a no-nonsense, no-frills guy. ON HIS ‘WHITE SHOES’ NICKNAME: “Back in high school, a friend of mine challenged me to wear white shoes to football camp, and being young and dumb at that time, I took the bait.
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