Memories

Well I hope everyone had an awesome Veterans Day Weekend! It’s definitely Fall….much cooler at nite now….I’m loving it!

I’m helping at MLK in a ROTC classroom. One of our main topics has been leadership. I have told multiple stories of some of my greatest leaders and captains I had at RHS. I just wanted to mention a few of the guys and I’m sure I’ll miss a few but here goes…..One guy that always comes up is John Hughes….He was a member of the 06’ squad…..He was a throwback. I knew if I had 22 John Hughes, anything was possible. Another guy that comes to mind is BJ Wiley (with his trusted sidekick Emmanuel Tekin)…..He really held his team together. (We had a wild bunch that year!)…Jason Stephens  was also one of those guys. I was thinking back to that first group and how lucky I was to have guys like Pete Jenkins, Brian Billings, Allen McCall, Mark David, Matt Branstetter, Leo Baca ….plus so many more…..God was I blessed! In the next few weeks…..I’m going to go down memory lane with a few more names….=)

One of my most memorable team moms was Corinth Thompson. She served multiple terms because she had 3 sons play for me. Boy was she a God send! She was on top of everything. She set the standard that all other team mom’s followed.  Her whole brood lives in Arizona now. Seth was the first to set the bar for his brothers. Eli was her middle son. He was a captain and received a football scholarship at Cal Berkley. Eli had a speech issue so he always let his actions speak loudest, both on the field and in the classroom. Big Jake, her youngest, was a beast. He did scare the hell out of my son one Halloween but I forgave him. (Jimmy hasn’t)…..=)

One of my coaches Bill Havard had 2 son’s play in the program. Timmy and John were small in stature like their dad, but like their dad, had incredible heart. It was guys like these, that kept our love for coaching alive. We all loved coaching….coachable….loyal guys!

I watched some of the Special Teams play on TV these days…..high school, college and pros…..brutal. For some programs it’s an afterthought. You can definitely tell which teams put a priority on this phase of the game. You figure in a typical HS game you’ll have 40 Off plays, 40 Def plays and 25 Sp teams plays. If 20-25 % of the game will be Sp Teams…… then 20-25% of your practice time should be Sp Teams. That means in a 2 hour practice, 30 Minutes should be Sp Teams. If you’re bad in this phase of the game, you’d better be monsters on Off and Def. BTW….Coach Havard was the best SP Teams coach I ever had or have known. If he had his way….that’s all we would practice. He fought me for more time on every practice plan. And when I took over the Sp Teams….being the HC….and in charge of the practice plan…..We had plenty of time for Sp Teams….=) He taught me well!

I haven’t golfed in over 2 months. I’m hoping to get out soon. With the senior PGA tour starting soon….I need to get ready….Talk Soon….Jim