I can't believe I am wearing red again. For the past 16 seasons, I have wore nothing but blue, black, white or silver....which just happens to be the colors of my Kentucky Wildcats basketball team. My wardrobe was pretty simple. My daughter Kristin says that if I ever came up missing, she could tell the detectives exactly what I was wearing. Blue Jean Shorts...Blue Sharks Coaching Shirt...Dad Shoes (Nike or Reebok) and a Blue Hat.
Kristin - My Baby
Still WILDCAT Crazy
Well darlin, you better come up with another vision of your old man, because I am going to have a new wardrobe...red, black and white. I regularly wore these colors in my early coaching days, so I will get used to wearing these colors again. I literally have to get new clothes.
My first day was fantastic. I started to get some nerves as I was driving to the field today. I wanted to throw up before I entered the locker room and coaches offices. My self-confidence is shot as you can probably tell. I stood at the door and stared at the handle which (when opened) could possibly dictate my future coaching endeavors. I pulled on the handle and entered. Suddenly, all my doubts disappeared. I was home again. I literally had a tear in my eye as the kids greeted me with: "WELCOME COACH"
The smell of a locker room is intoxicating to me. The aroma of sweaty clothes...slightly soured from sitting in a locker for too long brings back so many memories. I wish someone would make a cologne called "Locker Room"...I would certainly buy it. My daughter says that my truck used to small like this.... To me, my truck smelled just fine. The sounds of kids getting dressed for practice....the music, the chatter, the teasing, the sounds of shoulder pads being buckled, and the crisp sound of a chin strap being snapped is like music to me ears. I personally introduced myself to all the players I could. I looked each one in the eyes and firmly shook their hand. Most of them already knew who I was, so the handshake just made it official. I took a deep breath and headed to the coaches office.
Upon entering the office, I was warmly greeted by all the coaches. Pete Deluke (an old coaching colleague) said: "hey man" Randy Bethel was sitting right in front of me and said: "Hey Coachie" I swear to you, it seems like I had never left the profession. I got a weird feeling like I had lived moment before. I grabbed a pack of the Gatorade Energy chews which were sitting on the table and made myself at home. Just sort of blended in and listened to the idle chatter. I again introduced myself to the coaches I did not know really well, and walked out onto the practice field. My feet were bouncing as I walked out onto the neatly cut lawn of the practice field for the first time as a coach. Wow, I thought....so this is what coaching at a big school is like.
In this blog, I will not go into details of what we are doing here. I won't discuss much X's and 0's, and I probably wont discuss the offense and defense too much in detail. I will just say that I was struck by how deep VBHS is with athletes. We do not have any two way players, and it is very nice to work with all varsity athletes at all positions. I was also impressed with the coaching staff. Each one of these guys know their craft very well, and I have some catching up to do. However, I was still able to work in where I could, and I even ran some scout offense for our varsity defense. I had so much fun today. The best two hours I have had in two years. Just as my friend Dahna said: "you can go back to your happy place" I think I have arrived.
GZ
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