Such red-faced moments have all but been eliminated the last season and a half, coinciding with Kirtz' development as a player other teams now must stop. He's happy with that personally, but more gratified with the Bears' new reputation. But from the standpoint of us playing hard and just believe in ourselves, it's been a satisfying year. My freshman year, if you'd have said we'd have 12 wins this year, I'd say we were having a real bad season. But everybody respects us around the league now.
Nobody thinks that anymore.
They come from different backgrounds and are different players, but Kirtz and McCray both are prototype Bears in what Slonaker hopes to build as a program. Mercer has progressed clearly each year since they arrived, thus they'll leave things better than they found them. So forgive the tough Jersey guy if the eyes mist up a little bit when Kirtz and McCray are announced one last time at home. I mean, all I know since I've been at Mercer is McCray and Kirtz. They're synonymous with what we do and what we want to do.