Madison Wisconsin

Yep those Thanksgiving practices were the best…..Back in the days of the BIG 5 conference you knew you had accomplished something if you had a morning practice on Thanksgiving! We’d met early on Turkey Day for practice. We would invite all the families and have donuts and coffee available. We’d practice in our Game uniforms (More of a walk thru) and then we’d have picture day with all the families. The coaches would have a “Funny” hat competition, I never won that like I did Movie Trivia, but I should have! Coach Havard would always be in the hunt to win because he’d go into his wife Claudia’s kindergarten closet of costumes and steal something outrageous. Coach Olmedo would always wear his Old St Paul football helmet….the problem with that….was he wore it all the time….so everybody was use to seeing it….=) I still say my Viking horns were the best! =)

In the off season, I really believed that we had to stay sharp as a coaching staff and learn as much as we could, about the art of coaching. Whether it was new techniques, schemes, motivation or organization, we as a staff needed to always be the cutting edge. Many FB Staffs would attend off season coaching clinics. The problem with those is you only get a few hours (if you were lucky) of very general coaching ideas. The clinics became more of a social setting. I became a firm believer at that point, we had to go as a staff to different colleges and see first hand, what was happening in our profession. So that’s exactly what we did….We traveled, as a staff, all across the country to see it up close and personal, the direction of coaching. My Booster group would fund raise for these trips because they felt the same way I did. It wasn’t cheap. The boosters would pay airfare, hotel and food. The principal would give us some school business days as well. And off we’d go….

I also felt it was important that we as a staff bonded together. It wasn’t all just work. We played hard too. In fact, on these trips is where the Movie trivia contests started and I began my undefeated Championship run as the all-time winner of Movie Trivia. “Knock, Knock”…=)… We visited with some incredible staffs over the years. Some of places we visited…..

Penn St, Univ of Delaware, SDSU, Univ of Nevada Reno, Carnegie Mellon Univ, Allegheny Univ, Univ of Pittsburgh, Air Force Academy, Univ of Colorado, Michigan (twice- once with  HC Lloyd Carr and once with HC Rich Rodriguez), Colorado State Univ, UCLA, Wisconsin (with Dave Aranda as DC), USC and Fresno State.

When we went to Madison Wisconsin to visit Dave Aranda at Wisconsin, we had an incredible trip. We flew into Chicago and rented cars and made the road trek to Madison. We were there for 4 nights I believe. There were probably 8 of us on the trip. One night we had dinner at a Steak House near the hotel. As we all sat down, one of the coaches told our waiter on the side, that Coach Stangel was completely deaf in his left ear and partially deaf in his other because of a war wound. So as we began ordering…. the waiter got to Bob…..and he adjusted himself so he could yell into Bobs right ear….Bob thought the guy was trying to be stupid or disrespectful ….I haven’t laughed that hard since….We were all crying….

When we were at the Univ of Michigan, we went out one night with Brady Hoke. (actually we went out every night with Brady Hoke) Brady would later become the HC at Michigan and SDSU. But on this night we went to a bowling alley for dinner. Yes a bowling alley…..but the food was outrageous. Here is the story….as we were eating…who should show up for some pizza and beer…..my all time hero of coaching… Bo Schembechler…..I was floored….I asked Brady if I could go introduce myself….he said…. Sure…if your able. I did. I don’t remember exactly what I said…..but whatever it was….Bo laughed a lot. I’m not sure if it was I was funny or funny looking…..but he did laugh.

My last story was when we were at Colorado State Univ. Sonny Lubick was the HC. We were in a meeting room watching film on the wide Zone play when Sonny walked in to visit with us. I had a young coach at the time Brandon Ford, who coached running backs. After talking with Sonny for awhile, Sonny asked “Do you have any other questions for me?”…..Coach Ford with his youthful giddiness….chimed right in….

“Yes coach I do…..What is the best defense?”…..That’s like asking Einstein…”What’s the best Math problem?”…..Sonny just looked at Brandon……Smiled….as you would a small child….and left….=) I didn’t laugh at the time…..but looking back….I die…..=)

I’ve got so many funny incidents on these trips to share…..stay tuned….Talk soon…..Jim