Tony Franklin Haters

Probably has something to do with the cost and secrecy.

In one of Pat Ruel's lectures (I think it is his OZ tape from FCPGA) he talks about the power of secrecy. Tell one kid a secret and everyone wants to know it and others will be *upset* if they don't know it. ah, psychology

The problem I had when "The System" first became popular around us is that a coach in your region already running his offense could call him and have you blackballed from attending his clinics. Personally, I think he is a nut because on every one of his documents it says something about "trust noone, guard this with your life, dont show to anyone" when in fact you can research enough to find out about it, just as ttowntiger mentioned. Hatcher didnt charge me or any other coach anything extra for listening to him talk about the mesh and the shallow, the screens, the runs, etc. at a clinic. My registration fee was paid just like everyone elses. There are many schools that run something similar that didnt pay the $3000 and won state championships. Yes, its a proven system, but so is the wing t, west coast, run and shoot, and the list goes on.

I think it all boils down to if you want it but cant afford it, you get jealous about it. In which case you act like its such a bad thing because you cant have it.

I think most of the discontent stems from the fact that he didn't solely develop this idea or system, but he is the only one to promote and market it, WHILE "demanding" secrecy. He accumulated public information, and is promoting it as "secret" info.

Now, I can't say you can fault him for making the $$$$, and you are probably paying for a level of expertise and support. If you value that, it is probably a bargain.

Exactly! That would be like me or some other coach taking Mouse Davis or June Jones' run and shoot and marketing as my own idea and making a killing off of it. Now if he simply would give others credit for creating the offense and simply advertised his program as something to help install the offense, I wouldn't have a problem with it. If people want to spend $2500-$3000, that's their business. But Franklin seems to make it out like he is the only Air Raid "guru" out there and he is the only one who knows how to install and run the offense. He shouldn't market the offense as his own creation when it's not. I would call that a form of plagarism. From what I've seen, he also added a few little twists to the offense so he can market it as "his" offense.

Well said coachd5085 - and by the way - he gives all the credit that is due to Mumme, Leach and Hatcher.

What I think is funny is that we all spend money to go to a clinic and hear guys tell us what they do and how they do it. We'll all readily admit that football coaches borrow from each other on EVERYTHING.

So I think it's funny that a guy can say "shh don't tell anybody" and people listen to it. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to keep it quiet necessarily.

But give the guy credit for good marketing. I would absolutely love to get paid to go around the country and teach the defense that I learned from so many places (including some guys on this board).

For me, though, I don't want it all packaged up in a box. I want to go to a clinic, want to figure it out how it works best. I want the challenge of putting together a package.