Oh, That Darn Gauntlet Drill

Remember the old, my-way-or-the-highway power coaches once had over players, who obeyed as if the commands had come from God.

OK, maybe it never really happened that way except in Disney movies starring Kurt Russell. Still, the little spat between Notre Dame tailback Darius Walker and running backs coach Mike Haywood Wednesday provided some entertainment for sports writers numbed by watching guys stretch.

On Tuesday Walker had tweaked his right calf doing the gauntlet drill. That’s a machine with pads running backs run through to simulate running through tacklers. It’s not Walker’s favorite drill or machine.

You figure Haywood knows this. In fact, you could tell he wasn't happy when Walker took himself out of Tuesday's drill. So when Walker wanted to skip the drill on Wednesday, saying the trainer told him not to do it, the two got into a rather intense conversation about it before Haywood told Walker, in so many words, to shut up and do it.

For more on this, check out Eric Hansen’s story in the South Bend Tribune.