New Texas A&M football coach Mike Sherman was an assistant coach in the A&M program under R.C. Slocum, the folksy former head coach who was somewhat unceremoniously dumped when the A&M reached to hire Dennis Franchione five years ago. As one Aggie friend put it to me earlier in the week: “So, we endured Coach Fran for five years just to turnaround and hire one of R.C.’s former assistants? Why didn’t we just do that in the first place?”
At any rate, Slocum had been exiled from the Aggie football program during the Franchione regime. Incredibly, Sherman’s press conference earlier this week in which he accepted the A&M job was the first time that Slocum — who still works for A&M in its alumni relations department — had been in the new A&M Bright Football Complex. He apparently had never been invited before!
Nevertheless, Slocum is experiencing a rebirth in the A&M football program with the hiring of his former assistant Sherman. And one of the fringe benefits of that new level of involvement is the reappearance of the weekly segment that used to run on John Granato and Lance Zierlein’s local morning radio show during Slocum’s tenure at A&M, “Coach Slocum on a Mobile.”
“Coach Slocum on a Mobile” is comprised of an impersonator doing an incredibly precise imitation of Coach Slocum’s folksy East Texas twang as he provides often hilarious answers to questions tossed to him by Granato and Zierlein. Yesterday morning, Granato and Zierlein’s new KGOW 1560 AM morning drivetime show carried its first segment of “Coach Slocum on a Mobile,” which included the following gems:
On A&M’s new offense under Coach Sherman:

“Well, we’re bringing back the ‘Gulf Coast Offense’ with QB Randy McCown.”

On A&M’s 38-30 win over Texas this past weekend:

“Did you see (former A&M RB) Jamaar Toombs run over (former UT DB) Michael Griffin this past Friday? It was great!”

On the insecurity of big-time college coaching positions:

“You know, I’ve always said if you can go 7-5 and have the opportunity to go to Shreveport, maybe Houston, for a bowl game, you ought to keep your job.”

The old “Coach Slocum on a Mobile” segments during Coach Slocum’s head coaching days at A&M were classics, which included such pearls of wisdom as “1/2 of the teams in America lose every week and so I don’t think there’s any shame in losing,” that the tight end position in the Gulf Coast Offense is a “supertackle,” that “Baylor is the Notre Dame of the South,” and — channeling former UT coach Darrell Royal’s observation about passing — “Three things can happen when you throw the ball, and two of ’em ain’t good.”
If you want a taste of pure Texas football culture, then tune in to a few segments of “Coach Slocum on a Mobile.” You won’t be disappointed.