It’s that time of year again! On Wednesday I attended the very first practice at Kentridge High School (my old school) where I’m volunteer coaching the lineman on the varsity team. I’m stoked to start up coaching again this year. I’ve been more involved this season as I attended spring training and now I’m attending the summer practice getting us ready for Kentlake HS on September 5th. This should be a good year for us, I expect us to make it back to the playoffs, but I believe our competition is better than last year so it will be a tough road to get there.

One thing that I’ve noticed as I’ve come back to football after finishing my career over 6 years ago is that things have changed. The kids have changed, they don’t seem to have as much drive and passion as when I was playing. They don’t seem to have as much intensity either. A good example of how things have changed is the fact that after practice on Wednesday a Sophomore reached into his pocket (we are only in helmets and jerseys so the kids wear shorts) and pulled out a cell phone and started talking to someone! Now this happened after the last drills of the day but before the quick “take a knee” team meeting where the coaches talk for a few minutes about how the practice went. I couldn’t believe it, I was dumbfounded. The next day I spoke to Coach Dacus (he was my line coach when I played 11 years ago). I asked Coach D about the cell phone incident that I saw yesterday. He mentioned that they addressed it in the morning practice and then he said “in my 22 years of coaching I’ve never seen anything like that!” There is nothing more I can say to that then just to say “wow”.