From Gold to Friday Night Lights to a New Path

I talked to Dana on the phone last night and realized I was getting behind on my funny stories from football practice. I'll try to recap. I think something happens every day that either cracks me up or makes me proud to be a coach. This week's highlights have included: - A get-to-the-ball-drill + conditioning - where our corner was confused as to the fact that he was participating in the station and not being a stationary volunteer. He waved his arms in the air instead of running to the guy behind him, who was actually the target of Coach L's pointing. The stationary volunteers on the other side did updowns and ran with the defense, so it was all a little chaotic. - In the same drill, coach L asked the kids to do an up-down, pop up and do a somersault and then get to the stationary volunteer he pointed at - with the purpose that sometimes you have to make it happen - someone might be in your way, you might fall, etc., but on defense you have to get there. My RT is built ve...

Last night at practice I arrived early enough to see it from the beginning, and for the most part, I thought we got a lot done. We spent some good time on fundamentals - including some blocking, fit blocking, and competition 1v1 over a board. I thought the boys wanted to compete and they worked hard. We do need to work on moving our feet, especially and specifically those bigger linemen who are used to getting by using the strategy of putting their weight on people. It doesn't always work. I want to write for a few minutes on how I see my role as a coach. I believe as a player that if you can understand your job with your mind, it's easier to translate on the field when you must make a split-second, and violent decision with your body. Football is a simple game, but made more complicated when we don't know what we're doing. Also, as a learner who responds best to writing and seeing something before it is applied, I feel for the boys who do not have a playbook and are st...

Every night I come home and talk about football. This might not be any different than any other day or time, but I feel with coaching, it's always on my mind. I'm worrying about the kid who didn't want to tell me what was so obviously wrong the other day in practice. I'm worrying that I don't know what's going on. I'm learning the rules for each of the OL positions and I finally think I have our base defensive alignment down. I feel bad for the kids because the other coaches think we are behind (of course they are worrying this privately themselves, but in our coaches' meeting every night it's a little public for our little group). What I do think is different is this: I have such a cool opportunity and though there are many outliers and threats to my/our success, it's been a truly kismet arrangement so far. The two centers are both hard workers ( pfft ... we knew that!!!), there is a ton of support that goes into the team, and the county ha...

I always feel a bit guilty when I come to practice late, which is now every day with work. Still, when I arrived yesterday, the coaches were just finishing the form run/stretch period and it was already 4:30. So, I was right on time. I studied Sunday night - thankfully Coach L gave me all the plays we were installing this week, and working on learning them and the playbook for the OL was a bit like being back in school... I love that feeling. I had a good chance to work with the centers during offensive individual, as we're installing the buck sweep and there are three distinct jobs for the line - Tackles always have gap-down-backers; Guards are pull and kick (or wrap); and Centers are fire-on-backer. I worked on steps for a few minutes with regard to the fire - which is a 45 degree step playside, blocking anything that crosses your face. We did some on-blocking and then some reads with one man at defense with a gap and one on offense with his rules (fire-on-backer). I stopped them...