Never Again

Charliy Nash
Friday April 13, 2007

In a week where the main topic of conversation around town was the yearlong suspension of Tennessee Titans’ cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones for his off-field adventures, Nashville Kats’ head coach Pat Sperduto made it clear that discipline is important – and lapses will not be tolerated.

“We will have a zero tolerance policy with these guys,” he explained, “They understand it.  The next guy – if there’s a next guy who’s ever ejected, he won’t be a part of this football team the next day.  End of story.”  

Sperduto fined the players ejected from last week’s game – the highest fines in the team’s history – and laid down the law on activities after the whistle.   “Trash talk and banter is out. It’s out. I can’t make it any clearer than that. It’s out. Jabbing, jawing, pushing and shoving, discussions with the officials, it’s out. It’s been made clear to them and they will find out if they want to test it.”  

A Real Ironman

There are elements of the game that do not show up in the statistics.  One of those was the tireless performance of Kats’ lineman Aaron McConnell in Saturday’s game.  After Charlie Morris left the game and James Baron was ejected, AMac played every snap on both sides of the line for the last 13:25 of the game.  “If something happens, step up and keep going,” he said, “It’s what you’ve got to do.”  Despite his obvious fatigue after the game, McConnell could have dug deeper had he needed to, “If we had to hit overtime, yeah, I could go, but I’m pretty dead right now.” 

No Quit

The game was out of reach.  The clock was winding down.  But when Kenny Higgins caught the last pass of the game, nothing was going to keep him from scoring.  Not the potent Chicago Rush defense; not even end-of-game buzzer.  Even though the touchdown meant nothing (except to the fans in the stands who got free tacos) Higgins kept fighting until he broke into the endzone.  

“We came out here to win, so I’m going to give my all every play,” he explained, “It’s a desire to get into the endzone every time the ball gets in my hands.”