Game Three, Billboard Slogan of the Week: "Whatever It Takes"

BY TIM SCANDURRO

A couple of weeks before the season at a Fear The Wave event, I sat across from Tulane safety and Destrehan product Kevin Adams.  I asked him a few personnel questions.  Which of our wide receivers is the toughest cover?  That was an easy one—Omari Hayes.  What about running backs?  That answer was Maurice Turner.  Toughest tight end to cover?  That answer was a little more surprising—freshman Cam Roberts, who is injured and out for the year.

Then I asked him about Darian Mensah and Duke.  I had to whisper the question for fear that a coach might overhear me, since it’s a sin against the football gods to look ahead past the next opponent on the schedule.

But I couldn’t help myself.  That game was one I knew every player and coach, along with most fans, had circled.  Something changed in Kevin’s eyes when I mentioned Duke.  There was a flash of fire in his reply.

“We can’t let him win,” he said.  “We can NOT let him win.  Whatever it takes.”

Courtesy of one of our playmaking safeties, “Whatever It Takes” is this week’s Game Three Billboard Slogan of the Week.

I really don’t think anything else needs to be said about this game here coming up.  But I can’t help myself. To paraphrase Ron White, I have the right to remain silent.  I just don’t have the ability.  So here we go.

I really liked Mensah the player, more than most.  He has some limitations but I get why Duke wanted him, and why he got the big bag.  He was a great competitor and leader here, in my opinion.  That’s where the admiration ends though.

Whether it was him or his agent or his family, he didn’t go out the right way.   In hindsight and based on published reports, we clearly had no real chance given the Duke offer and the corresponding ante given to others who wanted to talk to him.  Those others, we now know, were afforded the decency of being told up front what the price of poker was.  People will respect candor and honesty, even if they’re disappointed. 

We didn’t get the same courtesy.   There’s no need to ghost people, to mislead people, to burn bridges, to waste people’s time and energy and impact your former team’s plans because you aren’t capable of being forthcoming and direct.  Put simply:  Don’t disrespect your coaches, your teammates and FTW. 

Spare me the lecture about how coaches do it, and how people in the marketplace do it, and how everyone has a right to improve their lot in life.  I get all that.  Still doesn’t make it right, or decent, or in this case necessary.  Especially with the program and staff that afforded you this opportunity. 

Honor and candor and respect may be virtues of a bygone age.  It’s probably perfectly acceptable in today’s culture for Mensah’s 20-something agent to have had a good time dunking on us—which he did, publicly-- when all of this went down. Maybe kicking sand in our faces was his way of saying we needed to “know our place” in the pecking order.

Maybe.  But this one is still personal, and Darian or “his people” made it so.  I happen to think this game is a pretty heavy lift for us, but I’m looking forward to it.  Because there are few things in life sweeter than having the opportunity to be the deliverer of the age old message that what goes around, comes around.  This is, to use vernacular familiar to Darian and his agent, a FAFO moment.  Those moments don’t always come around, and when they do they don’t always come around this soon, but here we are.

Let’s not call it vengeance or Karma; that sounds mean-spirited and petty.  Let’s call it a life lesson that will help make Darian and his people better people.  We here at FTW are interested, after all, in helping all of our athletes (present and former) become better human beings than they were before we met them.

Here's hoping we can deliver that gift to our former quarterback and his team. 

Whatever it takes.