four inches thick, might as well have been written in a foreign language. It had all these formations and all these words and numbers that I just didn't understand. I thought I was back in one of those dreaded algebra classes.
After returning to Dayton I met my dad-who was in the area while scouting for the Tampa Bay Bucs at the time-on a couple of occasions just to go over the playbook. Even though different teams and coaches use different terminology, it made sense to him. He would recognize a play and then try to explain it to me by converting it to his terminology. "They call this a two hole; we call it a four hole," he told me. "They call this a three technique; we call it a B-gap player."
My dad did his very best to try and explain that "three technique" and "five technique" were references to where a defensive lineman positioned himself in relation to the offensive lineman. The number indicated the alignment to which the defender was shaded. For instance, the outside shoulder of the offensive guard was a "three technique," while the outside shoulder of the offensive tackle was a "five technique."
I still didn't know what the hell he was talking about. And that made me wonder, at least for a moment or two, whether I really was cut out to be a coach. I started to feel overwhelmed.
There were four, five, six days when I said to myself, Maybe I'm in way, way, way over my head.
Finally I decided I would give coaching a try. I decided that what I didn't know-which was a lot-I was going to learn. I decided that if I worked hard enough at it, if I put in the time and the energy, I could start figuring this stuff out. I decided that I would go after it-that I would burst into this world I knew nothing about with a work ethic that had never been seen. There really wasn't anything for me to lose, because I knew, no matter how well I did in those two years at Tennessee, I wasn't going to begin year three with a full-time spot on the coaching staff or as the offensive coordinator at Florida or the running backs coach at Notre Dame. I was going to have to climb my way up from the bottom.
Being twenty-three and single, I was willing to invest at least the next seven years of my life in finding out if, in fact, coaching was the right career for me. Then I would stop, take a deep breath and see where I had gone and what I had done. In the meantime I wasn't going to let marriage or anything else get in the way of this pursuit. I was all go, go, go, go.
Walt knew that it would take a little time for me to catch on, so he made sure that the assignments he gave me at the beginning were the kind that I could handle. Maybe it was charting plays or running the scout team secondary-introductory duties that I was able to execute while gaining confidence. I also was responsible for coaching the young quarterbacks, and the red-shirt freshmen, and for being sort of the offensive coordinator for the jayvee team that Tennessee had at that time. Walt arranged for me to live with the players in the dorm, which would allow me to be kind of his eyes and ears in there and help reinforce some of the points he wanted to get across to the quarterbacks.
Like the rest of the GAs, I served other purposes beyond helping out with day-to-day football stuff. I'd cut Walt's grass, babysit his two kids, drop his wife off at the airport, pick up his mother-in-law when she flew in for a visit, get his car washed and filled with gas, bring him dinner, get him a cup of coffee. They were assignments I could handle. Doing those chores didn't bother me, though, because I was certain that being around Walt and the rest of those coaches would lead to something good. As my dad pointed out, Johnny Majors always surrounded himself with talented coaches. Look at that staff. Besides having Walt as the offensive coordinator, he had as his secondary coach Ron Zook, who in 2002 became the head coach at Florida. His offensive line coach was Phil Fullmer, who became Tennessee's
After returning to Dayton I met my dad-who was in the area while scouting for the Tampa Bay Bucs at the time-on a couple of occasions just to go over the playbook. Even though different teams and coaches use different terminology, it made sense to him. He would recognize a play and then try to explain it to me by converting it to his terminology. "They call this a two hole; we call it a four hole," he told me. "They call this a three technique; we call it a B-gap player."
My dad did his very best to try and explain that "three technique" and "five technique" were references to where a defensive lineman positioned himself in relation to the offensive lineman. The number indicated the alignment to which the defender was shaded. For instance, the outside shoulder of the offensive guard was a "three technique," while the outside shoulder of the offensive tackle was a "five technique."
I still didn't know what the hell he was talking about. And that made me wonder, at least for a moment or two, whether I really was cut out to be a coach. I started to feel overwhelmed.
There were four, five, six days when I said to myself, Maybe I'm in way, way, way over my head.
Finally I decided I would give coaching a try. I decided that what I didn't know-which was a lot-I was going to learn. I decided that if I worked hard enough at it, if I put in the time and the energy, I could start figuring this stuff out. I decided that I would go after it-that I would burst into this world I knew nothing about with a work ethic that had never been seen. There really wasn't anything for me to lose, because I knew, no matter how well I did in those two years at Tennessee, I wasn't going to begin year three with a full-time spot on the coaching staff or as the offensive coordinator at Florida or the running backs coach at Notre Dame. I was going to have to climb my way up from the bottom.
Being twenty-three and single, I was willing to invest at least the next seven years of my life in finding out if, in fact, coaching was the right career for me. Then I would stop, take a deep breath and see where I had gone and what I had done. In the meantime I wasn't going to let marriage or anything else get in the way of this pursuit. I was all go, go, go, go.
Walt knew that it would take a little time for me to catch on, so he made sure that the assignments he gave me at the beginning were the kind that I could handle. Maybe it was charting plays or running the scout team secondary-introductory duties that I was able to execute while gaining confidence. I also was responsible for coaching the young quarterbacks, and the red-shirt freshmen, and for being sort of the offensive coordinator for the jayvee team that Tennessee had at that time. Walt arranged for me to live with the players in the dorm, which would allow me to be kind of his eyes and ears in there and help reinforce some of the points he wanted to get across to the quarterbacks.
Like the rest of the GAs, I served other purposes beyond helping out with day-to-day football stuff. I'd cut Walt's grass, babysit his two kids, drop his wife off at the airport, pick up his mother-in-law when she flew in for a visit, get his car washed and filled with gas, bring him dinner, get him a cup of coffee. They were assignments I could handle. Doing those chores didn't bother me, though, because I was certain that being around Walt and the rest of those coaches would lead to something good. As my dad pointed out, Johnny Majors always surrounded himself with talented coaches. Look at that staff. Besides having Walt as the offensive coordinator, he had as his secondary coach Ron Zook, who in 2002 became the head coach at Florida. His offensive line coach was Phil Fullmer, who became Tennessee's
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