Click images for desktop size: "Ayumi Hamasaki Marcus" by Kinoute Its been a long day but satisfying.
In the early morning, watching the sun come up and then watching the kids trying to be hard, dreesed in shorts and T-Shirts in the near frozen turf.
They made me smile to myself.
I started them off easy with a reduced warm-up.
I'm a strong disbeliever in static stretches (I didn't used to be). I know ask all my players to stretch on the run. It works and works well. I can point to the fact that in 10 years the squads that I've coached have missed only 1 game in total due to sprains or pulled muscles.
Then I timed the 40's . . . it was disappointing. There's a kid, about 6'7 and a baby fat 325 who looks like a dream player but he turned in a 6.45. He wasn't the worst.
Most disappointing was the 20 yard times. The best one was 2.8 from a WR. That's worse than the time I expect from line men.
Looked at the right way the best thing is the world of improvement these kids will see at the end of the spring camp.
They all ran terribly. Duck toed, improper arm swing, flat footed. Easy things to fix. At the end of camp they'll feel like they're flying across the grass.
They did better in endurance. I asked them to do ten 100 yard dashes in their own time, they just had to finish them all in 6 minutes.
Some of them struggled, but not badly and all of them finished.
While they caught their breath I gave them a short reason for what we were going to do in the next weeks and detailed how this would help them as players. I also explained how it was imperative that they combine these drills with their weight routines.
I explained how I wanted them to come out on to the field and feel like young gods.
They asked me if these were the drills I used in Texas. I answered that I had learned more since Texas but that we were only going to get to the fundamentals this camp. At summer camp we would specialize for person and position.
Then we broke for some base stick drills and simple agility.
They'll be fine.

My puppy spent the time running the field. She bought her rubber football with her and just danced around and scored countless touchdowns. Most of the time she pretended the kids were chasing her and ran, with her football in her mouth, as fast as she could, she'd then circle the goal posts and come running back.
She liked all the activity. I liked watching her trying to boss people.

I felt incredibly fatigued all day. Not tired from getting up so early but bone crushingly fatigued.
I'll get over it.

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