April 23, 2004
LAS VEGAS - CURRENT UNLV OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR AND FORMER ARIZONA STATE HEAD COACH Bruce Snyder MET WITH THE LAS VEGAS MEDIA REGARDING THE TRAGIC LOSS OF ONE OF HIS FORMER PLAYERS, PAT TILLMAN, IN AFGHANISTAN.
THESE WERE SOME OF HIS COMMENTS:
"What happed today was really a profound loss. Those words can be said easily sometimes but this happened to someone that I admired very much. When I have memories of Pat Tillman, a smile comes to my face because they are all good memories. Great memories. I have three daughters and a wife. They all called me today crying because of the way they felt about Pat. There is such a tremendous sense of loss."
"I'd like the country know that they lost a great man. In 40 years of coaching, you run across all kinds of young people, many of them just terrific. He was the most unique of all of them. The combination of positive things that he had truly made him one of a kind. I have never been around someone that was as intellectual, as courageous, as tough, and had a moral compass that was so dead on. He had such clarity of thought and a great ability to act upon his thinking. I would love to be able to say I had something to do with that. I didn't. He came to Arizona State with a full deck. His parents did a great job. My role really was to manage it as best I could. It didn't take long to figure out I had someone really very special. I feel blessed that I was able to spend some time with them."
ON TILLMAN GIVING UP THE NFL TO JOIN THE MILITARY
"I was not surprised by it after I thought about it a while. Someone could have said he was going to live at the Amazon River for a year and I would have believed it. He and I talked about it for quite some time. The sense I got from him as to why he made the decision was simply that it needed to be done. Rather than just saying that, he went and did it. I have great admiration for someone like that. He never used the word patriotic but that's what it was. In his mind, he didn't give up anything. He already proved he could play in the NFL and thought to himself that he could always be rich later. This guy was good for this country and I figured if I lived long enough I would be voting for him as president."
ON SIGNING HIM TO PLAY AT ARIZONA STATE We didn't beat down his door to recruit him. I got down to my 25th and final scholarship that year. I kept looking at this guy that did not fit the physical profile. He was too short, too slow, didn't weigh enough. But whenever I watched tape, he was always the best football player on the field. Every time. I still wasn't convinced until we brought him in. When I met him, I saw that he had something that the measurements didn't show. After being around him for a weekend, it was clear what kind of person we had on our hands. I'm glad I followed my instincts."
"On the field, Pat was very bright. He was a coach on the field. I know that is a clich? but he really was. He knew everything that was going on and what the other team was doing. Couple that with being a vicious hitter, which shows courage. He made tackles and never got hurt. He got angry at his teammates. If he felt they didn't do what he thought they should do from an effort and focus standpoint, he let them know it. We had a lot of guys bigger than he was but nobody talked back to him because they knew he was right."
"He was just a terrific player, a great guy to coach. Never missed practice. He had real long hair coming out the back of his helmet. One of the things I am fairly proud of is that we resisted saying that if we were going to be a football team, we all have to look alike and talk alike and dress alike. My instinct was realize that he was not like everyone else. He played tremendous team football while always being an individual. He was able to put the two together very well and I think he appreciated me not trying to box him in too much."
"It was a pleasure having coached him for four years. He was a great citizen in the community. He was the best player in his league as a senior and graduated in business with a 3.8 GPA. Just a wonderful person. I told scouts to look at the film. If you like him, draft him, because he will make your team. If you don't like him, don't draft him because he will still make your team because he's too valuable."
