In ’86 we were playing Arkansas in G. Rollie White. As usual, during lulls in the action, the student body would entertain themselves by throwing things around the bleachers behind the team benches. On this night, someone brought a frisbee. Everyone was into it, when someone threw it way to the top of the stands. It came floating down just above everyone’s outreached hands – gaining speed the whole way. It smacked Nolan Richardson square in the back of the head!

Someone told Shelby what had happened. Shelby walked over to the scorer’s table and picked up the microphone. It became dead silent. Shelby asked the fans to refrain from throwing anything on the court, but to “YELL LIKE HELL!”

The crowd erupted into whoops and yells. Richardson wasn’t very impressed with Shelby’s admonishment.

Ags won by 14.

I don't know if i have the quote right, but i think i remember Metcalf once commenting about BCG saying:
"(BCG) works so hard, i don't think he knows where he lives."

I also liked the quote Metcalf did make about the player with 4 F's and 1D.

[This message has been edited by AggieTFA06 (edited 2/8/2007 11:28p).]

Coach, this ones for you..

Metcalf recounted a wild tale that involved he and Barry Davis, who played for the Aggies from 1975-76. The two went hunting, and by request of the owner of the property Metcalf was to shoot the guy's old white mule, who had served the family well but whose time had come. So Metcalf played a joke on Davis and told him that the property owner was an angry fan — and to get revenge Metcalf was going to shoot his mule.

"But before I could tell him it was a joke," Metcalf said, smiling, "Barry had shot two of the guy's calves."

Once at The Beaumont A&M Club meeting - "Our family once had a dog with an ingrown tail...we'd have to x-ray him to find out if he was happy"

Just saw one that made me laugh.

Shelby was commenting on an official: "Sonny is sure on his game tonight - he's calling 3 seconds in 2 seconds flat".

One of my favorites was a quote in one of the Houston papers after we played UH in the Olajuwon days there. Olajuwon was on some ridiculous pace for blocked shots (seems like it was in double digits per game, but surely that can't be right). The Ags just shot from outside all night long (and lost), and after the game the reporters wanted to know why we didn't challenge them more inside. His reply (edited for the newspaper) was "Because if we had, we would have been [spitting] leather for a month."

Shelby was a gentleman, a friend, and a riot to be around.

I worked with him in an office when I was a graduate student. He set me up with his niece once, and we dated for a while. I would spend as much time in the guy's office I could, because every other line was about 10 times better than what you hear on late night television today. Seriously, the guy's quick wit was genius.






He was hilarious on a daily basis.

He was the kind of spirit that seems so rare today--he made everyone's day better just by showing up.

He loved to make everyone smile, and had a grace that is tragic for the Aggie family to have lost.

He was never mean or cruel, and he could smile in the face of what made everybody else cringe.

He made friends and conversation readily, and even the most resistant sourpuss' would be sucked in by his contagious good spirit.

And he didn't let people stay strangers for long.







One of the coolest memories I had was him inviting me to come with him to some property outside of Bryan that he was thinking of buying. He wanted my advice, and that day I rode ~ 45 minutes each way having a one on one conversation, loving the wit and wisdom of Shelby Metcalf.






I love the guy. I am glad he was my friend.





I will miss him.





Cheers to you, Shelby, wherever you are reading this.

You now have the best seat in the house for Aggie Basketball, and a seat in our hearts forever.







Here.

I got to know Shelby pretty well over the years and I remember two stories that I will never forget. When we were going to play UCLA when Wooden was their coach and I asked Shelby how did it feel to be a 20 underdog to UCLA and he said, “You know what an underdog is?” and I said, “No, what is an underdog, Shelby” and he said, “That’s dog that has all of the puppies and non of the fun.” The second funny thing that I remember was when we were playing U of H in Houston. We were getting fouled really badly and the refs weren’t calling the fouls. Shelby called a time out and asked the ref to come over and talk. Shelby stood by one of his players with his arm around him who had blood running down his face and looked at the ref and asked him just one question, “Look at my player, do you see anything suspicious?” The ref broke out in laughter and so did I.

I was in a class with Shelby when he was working on his Ph.D. It was a riot when he gave a presentation. I remember the following story but you really need to imagine Shelby’s slow country talk to get the full effect. He said he went to speak at the Rusk Mental facility. He started speaking and was going great guns when one of the inmates yelled, “Crazy, Crazy, Crazies thing I ever heard”. Well that knocked him off of his stride and it took awhile to get back to going good. Then the inmate interrupted again.
“Crazy, Crazy, Crazies thing I ever heard”. Again Shelby tried to get going again and, of course, again the inmate shouted, “Crazy, Crazy, Crazies thing I ever heard”.

Shelby motioned one of the guards to go out in the hall and Shelby asked him if he could control the inmate. The guard said, ‘We could Mr. Metcalf, but he has been here for seven years and this is the first time he has ever made any sense.’

Related to me by a friend who knew Shelby.

During the recruitment of an unnamed player years ago, Shelby had worked extremely hard in trying to convince the young man to come to A&M but the boy wouldn't sign. He finally to him to dinner one night and was trying to talk to him about coming to A&M when a booster came by the table and began talking to him. Shelby said he had drunk about a gallon of tea so he excused himself to go to the bathroom. When he got back the booster was gone and the player was ready to be a Texas Aggie. Of course Shelby's response to all of this was "One of the two of us must have been real persuasive"

Shelby was a great man and my roomate during my sophomore year worked with the basketball team on a daily basis. He told me so many Shelby stories and quotes that were so funny that I would laugh until it hurt.

Apparently after one particularly poor game Shelby tells the team afterwards that they were stealing from him. He goes on to say it several more times and then he says "You guys are stealing a scholarship from me because you all told me that you could play basketball." and then he walked out of the dressing room.