Rhule revives 'Temple Tough' to honor his nine toughest players

'TEMPLE TOUGH" is a slogan that has been thrown around the football team in recent years. Last season, the 4-7 team's bark was much louder than its bite.

Before the Steve Addazio era, Al Golden and his staff at Temple had a tradition that numbers 1 through 9 were reserved for the "toughest" players on the team. Addazio did not adopt the tradition, and it was lost until Matt Rhule got the head-coaching job for the Owls last offseason.

"It's something that coach Golden and his staff started a few years ago," Rhule said. "One through 9 were the toughest guys on the team, regardless of ability. The first day I got the job, I talked to the older guys about some of the old traditions we had under Al, and if they wanted to bring them back, and they did."

Toughness, in this case, is a bit more than what some would believe is toughness on the gridiron. Rhule is looking for more than the stereotypical tough football player to get a number in the single digits.

"To me, toughness isn't just pounding your head and going and hitting guys," Rhule said. "Toughness is about doing everything right, making your times in gassers at the end when you are tired. My hope is that we will have two or three receivers in this. They run routes, they run full speed even when they are tired. That's toughness to me. Not just being physical, but being mentally tough."

The first player to be given a jersey with only one digit sported it for the first time at practice last week. Levi Brown, a 6-2, 300-pound defensive lineman, dropped one of the nines from his jersey, leaving him with the No. 9 jersey.

"I'm very appreciative," Brown said. "I worked hard throughout my career, and it is finally paying off. I am going into my senior year, and I am excited to wear the number. A couple good players have done it before, and I am very happy to have it. I am going to wear it proudly."

"His body fat went from 23 percent to 18 over the summer," Rhule said. "This was an accumulation of the spring and the summer. So far this camp, I think he has been a leader. He can get coached hard. If he does something wrong, I can jump all over him and he just says, 'Yes, coach.' He's got no agenda, no ego. He is just a team guy, and he is a tough guy. There was not one guy on our team that would deny that he is the first guy that should be in there."

Brown says that his summer workouts are what propelled him to getting the number, and that it means a lot to him that the tradition, and the sanctity of single numbers are back on North Broad Street.

"It was in my mind during the summertime and working out," Brown said. "[Coach Rhule] kind of always told me during the summer, 'If you don't get 1 through 9, scouts come in and are going to ask why.' That's kind of my motivation, because I want to play at the next level. I'm trying to do everything I can to make myself look like I should be.

"I was one of the guys that brought it up to him," the Bethlehem native said. "I told him that the last few years, [the numbers] didn't mean anything. I had an opportunity to wear No. 9 last year, but I changed my mind, because I liked my No. 99, and it didn't really mean anything to wear 1 through 9 last year, the past 2 years. When he [Rhule] brought it back [that] one of the toughest guys on the team were going to wear single digits, that's when it hit home, and it was like, I need to get a single digit."

Brown addressed the team about what it meant to him to be honored with a single number.

"I spoke to them about what it means to be a tough guy on the team, and I addressed some other guys, in my mind, that I think are tough guys," Brown said. "Eventually, that should be one of their guys as a young guy on the team, to wear a single digit. It's something to work for."

Senior defensive end Sean Daniels, who was third on the team last year with sacks, also will get a single digit. He was scheduled to pick a number from 1 through 8 last night.

The remaining seven numbers to be given out to the toughest players on the team will not be given out all at the same time, according to coach Rhule.

"We will probably do it as a guy clearly distinguishes himself, and we feel good about it," Rhule said. "We wanted to wait until after the second scrimmage [which was Saturday], but we felt really good about where he was. Maybe we'll do one or two more now. It just has to be so clear. There's a couple guys that have shown they are one of those guys. We will try to stagger it so that each guy, when he does, gets a chance to get up and address the team."