Coach, great to have you.

Checking in from home revealed the lessons from the 22 season.

I think it was a ten and three finish.

What lessons from the 22 season have you brought forward to 23 with you?

Well, going in the last year, you know what?

We're coming off of a rebuilding year.

I have a rebuilding year.

And, you know, we have high standards and high expectations every year.

So that doesn't really change.

But I really didn't expect to go ten and three and we really could have done a little better when we went back, basically went back to the very basics of what makes a program fundamentally good.

And and it's just hard work and commitment and holding kids accountable and and just really recommitted and, you know, kind of weeded out some things that we had done and and and it just really showed as the season went on that that's really, you know, to me personally, you know, you have your players and at a small school like we have, you know you don't have kids moving in, you don't have a big group of kids to choose from.

So you have what you have and what you get and how you develop those kids and how you mold What you do schematically to what you have is important.

And what's just as important as that is just a total commitment from the players to the coaching staff and everything is very, very important.

The more committed you are, you know, the harder you're going to play for each other, the more you care about it.

And you'll just you'll go to longer lengths in order to do the things that you got to do to win.

And and just going back to that, you know, and, you know, going ten and 13, you look back and like that's something that we've just gotten to really emphasize every year, tells us it's very important.

You're now heading into your fifth season with the Panthers.

You literally just got out of practice.

You're in your truck heading home.

So how does that just check out?

Very important.

How was practice and and how is the team looking?

Coach of practice was very good.

We started at 8:00 and we got out on around 12, you know, 12, 15.

Then we had a short match and that was a very good practice.

It actually rained bonus, which was nice because it cooled everything off a little bit.

Got a really good group coming back, very committed kids, always had a great turnout all summer, very hard working group of kids, maybe one of the hardest groups, the hardest working group kids.

We've had our ninth and 10th grade groups are strong.

We've got some good senior leadership, some good players in the upper class.

And so it's really going good.

I've been very pleased with it.

And and today, you know, the main thing we talked about today is the reason why we do the things we do is develop is to develop them as players and as people.

And and the other thing we talked about was just the culture of the program and things that why we do things the way we do it and why we want to be consistent and doing those things from a daily basis no matter where we are or what we're doing.

It's just the culture of the program.

The overall culture of the program really defines what you are as a as a football team and, you know, wins and losses.

You know, you know, I don't I don't want to be defined as, you know, a eight and three team or a 15, another team or whatever.

I want to be defined as a team that's got a very standard and whose culture is, you know, second to none.

Well, at the old region one, you're now what they refer to is that Region two D2 and you're in there with Charlton Linear Turner and you've got the non region game with Atco and you've got to go find more non region games and you have region games.

When you look at your schedule here in 23, what do you see?

Well, you know, it's it's kind of balanced.

You know, we play Cook County, which is a very good team.

That's a very good challenge.

We play some local, old, local rivalries with Bacon County and Berrien County, Macon County, and then we play Frederick Academy.

That's an odd opponent for us.

We've never really played them before.

So it's a very balanced schedule where you get some teams that, you know, we should have good games with and then there's, you know, like Cook County and Mackey County are teams that are going to really test us.

So, you know, it's a good schedule for us.

You know, some years at a small school like we have, man, you can learn to play in teams.

You don't really have business playing like our schedule.

I think it fits us and I think it's there.

All of our non region games will get us ready for our regional competition Coach since it's off season.

Tell me about some of your top playmakers that have gotten big offers and also a kid that deserves an offer on your team, I guess.

Jeremy Bell He's got several offers from a lot of schools, Power five schools, and I think he actually set his commitment date for Wednesday.

Nice.

And I think he's got it narrowed down to Indiana, Georgia, Southern Charleston, Southern coastal Carolina State.

He's got some big offers.

He's very good player.

He's going to do well wherever he goes.

And he's he's supposed to be committed Wednesday.

And a guy that's on our team that's an upcoming senior who may be one of the hardest working kids I've ever been around.

And and he's an extremely good football player.

He plays on the other line and D-line, his name is Eliza, Tall man.

He's six foot two, 65 to 70, very strong kid, very athletic.

I look for him to have a really big year.

There's a few colleges that have talked to him, but no one's offered him.

But I feel like, you know, before he gets done with school, help pick up some offers and this type of kid, you know, whoever offers him first, that's probably where he's going to go because he's he's a he's a loyal player.

Loyal person.

You grew up there, your dad, coach there.

For those that don't know the legacy, you're a legacy and a lifer.

For someone who's never been to Homer Ville to see what athletics means is a part of the fabric and what the extracurriculars mean as a part of the fabric there at Clinch, how would you break that down?

Well, man, we don't have much hair.

And just for forever.

You know, for the last 50 years, athletics have been such a huge part of this community.

And and it's really like you have a responsibility.

It's like it's the heartbeat of the town.

So you're not just, you know, playing games to try to win a championship.

You know, you're you're playing games to basically set the tone for the whole county.

And it's like when you're when you're not having a good season, it's like the whole county sad.

And so it's so important.

It's so fun to coach here because everybody care so much about it.

I wouldn't want to coach somewhere where nobody really cared if you won or lost or, you know, people didn't care, you know, whether you went on to ten or whatever.

You know, people truly care about this team and about the kids, and they genuinely want us to do good.

And we have a lot of support.

So it's a wonderful place to coach and we ask a lot of coaches that questions, and I don't think I've ever gotten full body chills before on that answer.

So thank you for sharing such a great answer on that.

Coach.

Last question, it's our bonus one.

We're asking this question from Hanna.

Funny coaching moment, funny coaching memory, a game day tradition or a game day superstition Coach, Which one of those would you like to share a story on or I'm going to superstition.

Okay.

All right.

And this is actually kind of cool.

It's almost 100% that I would find a penny on heads on game day.

No way.

You're kidding.

I swear.

Yeah.

Do you keep just almost to the point that I think somebody planted, you know, and found it, but I don't know if that's true, but maybe my wife's.

She might plant one every now and then.

I don't know.

But the.

The superstition is if we win, I can't.

I cannot get a haircut, and I have to wear the same underwear every time I knew about the haircut.

I did not know about the underwear.