NCHawker
Well-Known Member
My visit with a college football head coach.
I recently had the occasion to spend about 45 minutes with a college football head coach. I visited my favorite tobacconist, Havana Phil's cigars here in Greensboro one afternoon. I greeted Phil and said hello to some of the regulars. After making my selection and lighting up, I noticed a man sitting at the table in front of the establishment. A friendly guy, who smiled, nodded and introduced himself to me. He asked me what I do for a living, I told him. He said he worked at North Carolina A&T University. I wondered if I knew him because the AD used to live down the street from me and he sorta looked like him, but that was 10+ years ago. In any case we established rapport and I moved on.
A while later I returned to the front table and sat down with Phil and this gentleman. I learned that he was previously at Grambling State and now is the head football coach at North Carolina A&T. Phil said, ‘Now you coached with the Old Ball Coach didn’t you?” He looked out the window, nodded, grinned and took a draw from his cigar. It was far-away matters of fact look with nothing braggadocios about it. He was on Spurier’s staff at Duke and Florida. I would learn later that he knew Norm Parker quite well They worked together at East Carolina.
I sat up. My mind immediately filled with questions. There were about 50 people on the forum who would love to be sitting right here right now. I had to slow myself down because I did not want to interrogate the poor guy. So I started slow. What follows are paraphrased questions and answers. Since its been over 2 weeks, the order and flow of the Q/A isn’t certain.
NCH – So are kids different today than back when you were in school?
Coach – Absolutely, they need to be told exactly what to do. When a coach told me what to do I jumped. Now they want to know why. They don’t have good ball skills, (he holds up his hands like he’s using a game controller) they know how to do this but…. Hell I told my son to go outside. He said to me “and do what?” We used to just go out and run and play ball and just run.
NCH - What kind of offensive do you run?
Coach - It’s an option attack the QB reads and pitches or runs or he passes out of it. (I pictured Maryland). Sometimes he runs wide outside the numbers and throws it. I really like the way Auburn runs it. Here we exchanged some chuckles and amazement at Auburn’s attack and other running/passing QBs.
Coach – I want to move to a power down-hill running style.
NCH – Why? You don’t see too many teams doing that? Alabama…wait they used to – we chuckle..he nods in agreement, yes they used to!.
Coach – You can play defense with your offense. Run the clock, shorten the game.
Right here I wanted to jump in and try to peel back the onion as if I were talking to KF. But I wasn’t. Coach was being perfectly transparent with me. I wasn’t the news media. This is what it is. People were moving around and talking, someone came in and then we came back to the conversation. I asked why again in another way. But he answered the same way, nodding his head in reassurance.
NCH - Does the playbook get smaller when you’re inside your own 20.
Coach – Ya it does, but if they stack the line, and we see 1 on 1 we’re going to take a shot every time. The defense has to choose, they can’t always be right. We’ve got a WR who can just go up and get the ball. We just throw a jump ball and nobody can cover him.
NCH - Can you tell when a team is well coached?
Coach – Yes, you can. They play with confidence and they know what is going on out there.
NCH – I hear a lot of coaches complement the other …coach and team about how well coached they are.
Coach – He smiled and laughed, that’s a bunch of ********. Sometimes it’s a flat out lie. Sometimes you know it’s not true, but sometimes it is. It’s just what you coaches say.
NCH - As a coach goes through his career at what point do they get an agent?
Coach – When you need a job I guess. Some of the agents do everything for the coach and others are just there at signing time.
NCH – How do you find staff when you have turnover?
Coach – through the people you know. You just talk to people.
NCH – What makes a good coach?
Coach – Good players…………… (smile) ………… Good Players
Coach – I’m convinced after being in this business for over 30 years most games are not won. Most games are lost. It comes down to just a few mistakes - a few plays.
NCH - What about those games that are an anomaly – you just walk into a buzz saw?
Coach – There was a game once where after two series, I look at the coach and said, it’s gonna be a long day. They were so much faster than we were. We didn’t have a chance. Sometimes you lose because sometimes they’re better. But the next year we beat the p is out of them.
NCH – Do you ever come across assistants that are just too intense and crazy and that ….
Coach – interrupts…..smiles and says “ya me”. I was really intense. I used to be crazy
NCH – How do you know how to motivate each guy .
Coach – Yes you have a lot of different kinds of kids. You don’t always know what that kid is carrying. One kid you can ride, another kid you need to go easy and just talk to him. It’s hard to know.
NCH – How do you keep a team up for 12 straight games?
Coach – You don’t. I think you can really get a team up for about 2 or 3 times a season. I like to keep it steady all year long not too high and not too low.
NCH – A lot of fans criticize coaches saying that was bad play calling.
Coach – Rolled his eyes, and said, ya. Bunch of idiots. One time we were going into the locker room at half time, a guy comes up to me and tells me that I need to give it to a certain player around the outside. I stopped, pulled out my note pad and said, write down that play – tell me how we should run that play, draw it up. He smiled and said the man’s wife just busted out laughing.
On Norm Parker. Norm was a really great guy. I took his son (name) fishing one time. When we caught a fish and pulled it up he went crazy!! It was funny. He went on to tell the story about how he met his 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] wife. He told me that his first wife was in a tragic car accident, seriously injured and later passed away. Norm married her sister.
I look forward to seeing him again, he’s a regular.
Merry Christmas
NCH
I recently had the occasion to spend about 45 minutes with a college football head coach. I visited my favorite tobacconist, Havana Phil's cigars here in Greensboro one afternoon. I greeted Phil and said hello to some of the regulars. After making my selection and lighting up, I noticed a man sitting at the table in front of the establishment. A friendly guy, who smiled, nodded and introduced himself to me. He asked me what I do for a living, I told him. He said he worked at North Carolina A&T University. I wondered if I knew him because the AD used to live down the street from me and he sorta looked like him, but that was 10+ years ago. In any case we established rapport and I moved on.
A while later I returned to the front table and sat down with Phil and this gentleman. I learned that he was previously at Grambling State and now is the head football coach at North Carolina A&T. Phil said, ‘Now you coached with the Old Ball Coach didn’t you?” He looked out the window, nodded, grinned and took a draw from his cigar. It was far-away matters of fact look with nothing braggadocios about it. He was on Spurier’s staff at Duke and Florida. I would learn later that he knew Norm Parker quite well They worked together at East Carolina.
I sat up. My mind immediately filled with questions. There were about 50 people on the forum who would love to be sitting right here right now. I had to slow myself down because I did not want to interrogate the poor guy. So I started slow. What follows are paraphrased questions and answers. Since its been over 2 weeks, the order and flow of the Q/A isn’t certain.
NCH – So are kids different today than back when you were in school?
Coach – Absolutely, they need to be told exactly what to do. When a coach told me what to do I jumped. Now they want to know why. They don’t have good ball skills, (he holds up his hands like he’s using a game controller) they know how to do this but…. Hell I told my son to go outside. He said to me “and do what?” We used to just go out and run and play ball and just run.
NCH - What kind of offensive do you run?
Coach - It’s an option attack the QB reads and pitches or runs or he passes out of it. (I pictured Maryland). Sometimes he runs wide outside the numbers and throws it. I really like the way Auburn runs it. Here we exchanged some chuckles and amazement at Auburn’s attack and other running/passing QBs.
Coach – I want to move to a power down-hill running style.
NCH – Why? You don’t see too many teams doing that? Alabama…wait they used to – we chuckle..he nods in agreement, yes they used to!.
Coach – You can play defense with your offense. Run the clock, shorten the game.
Right here I wanted to jump in and try to peel back the onion as if I were talking to KF. But I wasn’t. Coach was being perfectly transparent with me. I wasn’t the news media. This is what it is. People were moving around and talking, someone came in and then we came back to the conversation. I asked why again in another way. But he answered the same way, nodding his head in reassurance.
NCH - Does the playbook get smaller when you’re inside your own 20.
Coach – Ya it does, but if they stack the line, and we see 1 on 1 we’re going to take a shot every time. The defense has to choose, they can’t always be right. We’ve got a WR who can just go up and get the ball. We just throw a jump ball and nobody can cover him.
NCH - Can you tell when a team is well coached?
Coach – Yes, you can. They play with confidence and they know what is going on out there.
NCH – I hear a lot of coaches complement the other …coach and team about how well coached they are.
Coach – He smiled and laughed, that’s a bunch of ********. Sometimes it’s a flat out lie. Sometimes you know it’s not true, but sometimes it is. It’s just what you coaches say.
NCH - As a coach goes through his career at what point do they get an agent?
Coach – When you need a job I guess. Some of the agents do everything for the coach and others are just there at signing time.
NCH – How do you find staff when you have turnover?
Coach – through the people you know. You just talk to people.
NCH – What makes a good coach?
Coach – Good players…………… (smile) ………… Good Players
Coach – I’m convinced after being in this business for over 30 years most games are not won. Most games are lost. It comes down to just a few mistakes - a few plays.
NCH - What about those games that are an anomaly – you just walk into a buzz saw?
Coach – There was a game once where after two series, I look at the coach and said, it’s gonna be a long day. They were so much faster than we were. We didn’t have a chance. Sometimes you lose because sometimes they’re better. But the next year we beat the p is out of them.
NCH – Do you ever come across assistants that are just too intense and crazy and that ….
Coach – interrupts…..smiles and says “ya me”. I was really intense. I used to be crazy
NCH – How do you know how to motivate each guy .
Coach – Yes you have a lot of different kinds of kids. You don’t always know what that kid is carrying. One kid you can ride, another kid you need to go easy and just talk to him. It’s hard to know.
NCH – How do you keep a team up for 12 straight games?
Coach – You don’t. I think you can really get a team up for about 2 or 3 times a season. I like to keep it steady all year long not too high and not too low.
NCH – A lot of fans criticize coaches saying that was bad play calling.
Coach – Rolled his eyes, and said, ya. Bunch of idiots. One time we were going into the locker room at half time, a guy comes up to me and tells me that I need to give it to a certain player around the outside. I stopped, pulled out my note pad and said, write down that play – tell me how we should run that play, draw it up. He smiled and said the man’s wife just busted out laughing.
On Norm Parker. Norm was a really great guy. I took his son (name) fishing one time. When we caught a fish and pulled it up he went crazy!! It was funny. He went on to tell the story about how he met his 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] wife. He told me that his first wife was in a tragic car accident, seriously injured and later passed away. Norm married her sister.
I look forward to seeing him again, he’s a regular.
Merry Christmas
NCH
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