What I learned in 2007 and the AFCA recap

Hey everyone! After a short break from blogging I'm back and ready to let the whole "world" know whats on my small brain...well that is from an intellect standpoint, my head is actually quite large.

2007 brought a lot of change in my life. From a personal standpoint I've learned never to count God out. Even though I was loving my time at Pacific I really had a strong desire to get back in the mix with football. Well, most people would have said it was the wrong time of year to find a job, but Ben Pollard called and brought me to Mississippi State. Within two weeks I moved from the progressive area of Northern California (or Nor Cal as the locals call it) to the slow pace of the great state of Mississippi. Two days after showing up my beloved Bull Dawgs got beat 42-0 by LSU. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow this is going to be a long season." But after the game Coach Croom made an incredible statement. He said that by the end of the season we WOULD be a winning team. At that very moment I knew I was working for the right man. Coach Croom inspired a bunch of guys who had never experienced victory to overcome incredible odds to not only have a winning season, but to beat Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky and Ole Miss. We then went on to win the Liberty Bowl by showing the determination of a champion and winning a close game in the 4th quarter. Wow...what a season.

On the S&C page, 2007 taught me to step back...and I mean way back when I'm putting together a training program. Evaluation is the key...a good coach sets aside the methods that they'd like to try and instead presses forward with incredible patience knowing that gradual improvement is the key to long term success. Currently, I'm working on developing an evaluation system similiar to Gray Cooks FMS screen (Functional Movements Screen) to evaluate my athletes. I'm going to go to Gray's new SFMS seminar to learn his new systematic way of evaluating dysfunction. Something I've come to realize is that not all athletes are ready to start "training" when you get them. Some need some serious PT work before you start using specific types of training methods. Ok...before anyone becomes the guy on Office Space and starts "jumping to conclusions" I'm not implementing a training program that involves standing on dyna discs while we count the alphabet backwards...but I do want to implement corrective exercises that can remove dysfunction and prevent injury.

Have you ever wondered what its like to go to the AFCA (American Football Coaches Association) annual meeting? Well, I'm going to give you a quick glimpse into this "elite" fraternity of men that call themselves "football coaches". Every year football coaches from high school to collegiate ranks decend upon some city in America in order to network and "learn" about football. Ok, here's the real gig. Its an excuse for a bunch of guys to go hang out with their buddies, talk a little shop and drink a bunch of beer. I'm not a drinker so I don't get involved in the late night stuff, but I do enjoy seeing my buddies. The goal of any AFCA attender is to see as many of their "friends" as possible, with the hope that their friend can hook them up with a new job. Some guys really don't even need to change jobs, but they just feel as if they need to. Its a weird phenomenon. This is usually how it goes down. The two ways you network is you either go to the hotel lobby where all the D-I coaches are or you hang out in the exhibit hall. Everyone has a name tag that they have to wear, so what you do is you walk around looking at name tags. If the name tag states that xx coach is from D-II school of no-where state university then you ignore them as if they have the plague. If the badge says that they are from a D-I school, then you start acting real phony and pretend to be their friend. Sounds like high school huh...believe me I've been on both ends of the spectrum. When I was a GA at Arkansas I had tons of AFCA "friends". When I was the head S&C coach at Fort Valley State I had 1 friend...I felt like the guy in the tuba section who sat in the stands during the high school football game, hoping that Sally the batton twirler would walk his way.

Here is the moral of this story. Treat people with integrity and talk to someone with your eyes. There is nothing like talking to someone who is always looking over your shoulder for Bob Stoops. You never know, you just might be talking to the next Bob Stoops.

God bless and train hard in 2008!