One late afternoon on the practice field in the heart of the football season, we were in the team session of our defensive workout. Position coaches were engaged in trying to keep the practice rolling along smoothly and doing whatever to motivate players to focus on getting better. Well I guess the D line coach needed something to get his defensive front going. After one of the plays ran by the scout team, the D line coach started raving over his right defensive ends technique and execution on that play. He was going on and on about how well he had played that play. He started saying 'You are my Phi Beta Son, yeah you are my Phi Beta!" Of course everyone took notice and was amused at the scene. The defensive end was strutting around soaking up the praise and acknowledging his newfound success. Well practice continued on with business as usual when all of a sudden the D line coach was at it again. This time he was bragging on his defensive tackle that played next to the former recipient of praise. The coach again started announcing, " You are my Phi Beta, yeah you are my Phi Beta too!" Then it happened. The defensive end that was bragged on first turned to the coach and said, "Uh uh coach, I fi, he fo." Some of the folks on that practice field erupted in laughter while others wondered what we were laughing about. I guess at that particular moment not everybody was on the same page. But as for me it was priceless. Just remember that not everyone operates with the same information bank. On that day, that young man did not know what Phi Beta was and did not know how he was being complimented on making a smart play.
And then there was the time the JV split end did just as the coach told him what to do. It was early August and we were having an intersquad scrimmage. Our JV was already underway as our head coach and myself walked out onto the field. As we neared the action, the offense had just aligned to run a play. Our head coach noticed that the split was aligned in the backfield. He said "Jackson, get up on the line!" The kid got it in gear and quickly lined up on the next yard line which was about four yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Our head coach just shook his head in disgust and walked away. I went and corrected the situation laughing all the while. I told the head man later that the kid followed his instructions to the tee! He got a good chuckle out of it. By the way that player did not graduate with honors.
Another similar occurence happened during a game in my first year of coaching. We were trailing at the end of the game and was out of timeouts. Our defensive coordinator in desperation to stop the clock somehow, sent instructions into the defensive huddle to have the noseguard lie on the ground after the play like he was hurt. Well evidently not all of the instructions made to the noseguard. When the offense lined up to run the next play our nose guard was laying spread eagle face down right in front of the ball. Our DC was speechless and stood there in disbelief at what he was seeing. I don't even remember what play was ran or the results of the play. Maybe I was laughing to hard to notice from my perch up in the press box. I have always wondered what was running through the center's mind as he got ready to snap the ball. I bet the umpire was a little distracted too. Oh by the way that noseguard didn't graduate in the top ten percent either.
And you better be careful how to name your plays. One week we were planning to run four verticals out of a two by two formation. We had repped the play several times during the week in practice. I guess when it is game time the ability to process information changes or maybe in this case the young man had taken one too many shots in the helmet. Whatever the case may have been at the time that we called the play we were surprised by what happened. The play was called 90 All Go. 90 was the protection call and we had determined that the "All Go" part of it would be a simple way for all of our receivers to know what to do. Well they did know what to do, however instead of four verticals, we had five. Running right down the middle of the field was our center. When we asked him what he was doing he replied, "Well coach he said All Go.....so I did!" I guess if everyone thought the same way, we would have had ten players running down the field. Again be careful how you name your plays. Oh by the way we completed the pass, but unfortunately it had to come back.
