Vanderbilt Football

Latest News Update About Vanderbilt Football: The news media assembled for the Southeastern Conference media days were thrown a changeup Thursday morning in the form of Vanderbilt's new football coach, Robbie Caldwell. He replaced Bobby Johnson, who abruptly stepped down on July 14.

Caldwell was homespun and without the polish that comes with the big-name coaches of the SEC. Some reporters could not help themselves after Caldwell was done with his ballroom interview. They clapped.

Some quotations from the news conference:

On the difficult job he has:

"All I know how to do is work. I've been a worker all my life. I grew up in it. My wife said, 'You can't talk about anything but football.' I can. I can talk about pouring concrete, farming, being a pipefitter, all those things, working on a turkey farm. But nobody wants to hear that. Those are the things that I did prior to getting into football. That's the God's truth."

On being a head coach the last few days:

"Here I am, I go from lining the field to I'm head coach in the SEC. I'm telling you, what a thrill. It's a dream. I can still walk in places and nobody knows me. Last night I was opening the door for people and they gave me a tip. I thought, hey, that's great. How can you get it any better than that?"

On whether he will continue Bobby Johnson's no profanity policy in practices:

"I'm no angel, that's for certain. We certainly do try to live by that. But, you know, it's just a sign of limited vocabulary sometimes. I know y'all can't tell it, but I do have an education. My high school coach I love dearly. But if I had a nickel for every you-know-what he called me, I'd be wealthy, be able to retire a little earlier."

What it was like growing up in Pageland, S.C., and was he the first head coach from that town:

"Well, that's a great question. On the college level, I guess. You had to like watermelon, No. 1, because it was the watermelon capital of the word, we proclaimed anyway. You had to like hunting and fishing. Frog gigging. I was scared to death of girls, so that didn't interest me. And I played ball. We played all sports to get out of work. That was the policy.

"If you played a sport, you didn't have to work during a practice time. That's why I played basketball. I was probably the worst there's ever been, but I played it so I wouldn't have to go pour concrete."

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