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Tom Shanahan

Author's details

Name: Tom Shanahan
Date registered: April 8, 2018
URL: http://shanahanreport.com

Latest posts

  1. Here is the unromantic Alabama Rose Bowl story the media won’t tell you — December 27, 2023
  2. My Michigan State history lesson for UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz — December 11, 2023
  3. Antonio Gates on his fatherly advice for his namesake and Nick Saban’s advice he ignored — September 22, 2023
  4. Another round of realignment brings up folly of adopting legends — September 7, 2023
  5. Air Coryell, the offense that changed football, lands in Canton — August 6, 2023

Most commented posts

  1. Pat Narduzzi rebuilt Pitt with model his old boss used to close in on Duffy — 3 comments
  2. Duke football isn’t one of Kirk Herbstreit’s white flag teams — 2 comments
  3. Brian Kelly says Notre Dame QB competition is closer but better — 2 comments
  4. Ian Book’s play answering questions why Notre Dame recruited him — 1 comment
  5. Don Coryell’s Hall-of-Fame case supported by Pro Bowl record — 1 comment

Author's posts listings

Jul
12
2020

Notre Dame’s shrinking schedule may need ACC boost

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Notre Dame football may soon request the Atlantic Coast Conference throw it another lifeline. The Irish treasure their independence in football, and to preserve it they have been previously forced to survive ramifications of conference expansion and post-season College Football Playoff contraction. Now it faces new threat, the COVID-19 pandemic that threatens to shrink its …

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Jul
10
2020

David Cutcliffe says college football needs uniformity for return

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Four months ago, at the start of the COVID-19 shut down, Duke coach David Cutcliffe cautioned his brethren to think about uniformity. He was concerned about schools and coaches seeking a competitive edge. “That’s when people start trying to take care of themselves,” said Cutcliffe on April 10. “They take off their college football hat …

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Jul
07
2020

Ruffin McNeill back home in North Carolina but with the Wolfpack

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Ruffin McNeill’s 36-year college coaching career includes stops at 10 programs – with return stints at two, Appalachian State and East Carolina – yet taking his first job at N.C. State somehow feels like a homecoming. McNeill, one of the most respected and liked coaches in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately businesses, joined the Wolfpack staff as special …

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Jun
30
2020

We’ve come long way from Jerry LeVias to Bubba Wallace but still long way to go

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Jerry LeVias knows how it feels to see nooses directed at him. The College Football Hall of Famer and six-year NFL veteran spoke from experience on Bubba Wallace’s NASCAR crew finding a noose at his Talladega Speedway garage In 1966, a cluster of Texas football fans held nooses aloft to greet LeVias as the Southern …

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Jun
20
2020

Gary Steele’s career fit for episode of ‘The West Point Story’

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The late Howard Cosell transformed sports broadcasting with an outspoken style defending 1960s black athletes, particularly with his manner of explaining their causes to his audiences. He worked against the tide of the “times.” In 1963, Cosell supported Muhammad Ali’s right to change his name. Others continued to call him his birth name, Cassius Clay. …

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Jun
04
2020

SEC legacy of Auburn’s James Owens’ deserves closer look

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The old adage “History is written by the victors” validates any thoughts to add an epilogue to the James Owens story. Owens, who died in 2016, was Auburn’s first black football player (1970-72). He arrived a year prior to Alabama’s first black player, Wilbur Jackson (1971-73), but try explaining that to those in the state …

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May
25
2020

LeVias and pioneers opened minds with TDs in SEC stadiums

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PART III of a series Jerry LeVias played his signature role as the Southwest Conference’s first black scholarship football player throughout the 1966 season, but two years later he performed with equal valor on a stage in the belly of the beast. The Deep South. The Southeastern Conference. One of the failures of college football …

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May
17
2020

Jerry LeVias’ trailblazing crossed paths with many pioneers

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PART II of a series Jerry LeVias is on the phone, a stationary moment unlike his 1960s trailblazing college football career. In those days, the Southwest Conference’s first black scholarship football player left segregated Beaumont, Tex., a refinery town near Houston, for Southern Methodist University in Dallas. It was a time and place resistant to …

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May
08
2020

Jerry LeVias leaned MLK’s words to finish pioneering SWC career

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PART I of a series Martin Luther King Jr. initially hesitated to accept an invitation to speak at Southern Methodist University in 1966, a time and place where resistance to integration persisted. The Civil Rights icon explained to an SMU student senate leader that the Dallas school had rescinded an invitation a couple years earlier. …

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Apr
16
2020

Duke football relying on technology during shutdown

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The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out more than spring football. How are prognosticators to forecast the 2020 season? Returning starters — most importantly a veteran quarterback — are the conventional methods to predict a college football team’s upcoming season, but this is an unconventional time. If the 2020 season starts on time – unlikely – is …

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Apr
06
2020

Bobby Mitchell’s ground-breaking career another Green Book story

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#StayHealthy and practice social distancing. The “Negro Motorist Green-Book” identified safe spots to stop for food, fuel and a hotel. The segregation-era guide had an obscure shelf in American history until the 2018 movie “Green Book” dusted it off for a place in the library of popular culture. As a biographical comedy-drama set in 1962, …

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Mar
25
2020

Willie Ray Smith influenced football integration beyond his high school teams

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  Willie Ray Smith Sr. coached high school football in southeast Texas for 33 years, living throughout a a period of American history spanning the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights movement and the end of segregation. He emerged from those troubled times with a legacy as much more than a football coach …

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Mar
17
2020

NBA was another example of sports leading way to enlightenment

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What in the world would we do without sports? I’m not referring to replacing our time watching the recently canceled or postponed events that have left the sports world dark. I mean without the leadership of the various sports governing bodies and officials that made the decision to step back, to evaluate and then to …

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Mar
14
2020

J-Rob’s ‘better than Rudy’ story missed time to breath in NCAA

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NOTE: I planned this story for the start of the NCAA Tournament, but it turned out to be my last Duke basketball story of the year. DURHAM – Picture this scene as Duke’s basketball team warms up. The players routinely take shots prior to the national anthem, player introductions and finally the tip-off with that …

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Mar
02
2020

Blue Devils’ chance for rematch avenges loss to NC State

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DURHAM – Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski still says 20 conference games is two too many, but the increase this season from 18 was necessary to accommodate ESPN launching the ACC Network. His players, though, disagree. They are happy with the expansion, especially with what happened 12 days ago. Duke avenged a 22-point loss to N.C. …

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Mar
01
2020

Courtney Hawkins’ commitment and knowledge not alone among high school coaches

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Name a pro athlete that collected NFL paychecks for nine years — providing his family a comfortable life — but upon retirement from his playing days returned to his high school alma mater located in an impoverished urban neighborhood. In other words, identify a star athlete that was coddled in college and overpaid as a …

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