So, what is a get back coach?
This is what I know; the get back coach is the one responsible for keeping everyone “back” on the sideline.
Okay, so, why? Well, I’m not totally sure, but in watching football for let’s say 16 years-- which would suggest that I should know more than I do… oh well--the players not on the field and the coaches cannot interfere with the games action. Makes total sense, right?
But what is the rule? So I went to the Internet, to NCAA.org for football rules, which is a bit wordy and complicated. So here it is simply.
On the sideline, there is a line a couple of feet past the out-of-bounds line or the limit line, which everyone on the sideline is supposed to stay behind, either within the coaches box or in the team area. This is to insure that no one interferes with the officials, the chains that mark yardage or the action on the field. If someone crosses this line, the official will warn the sideline, too many warning leads to a penalty.
But you may be asking, “Huh? What’s the difference between the coaches box and team area?”
According to NCAA.org, the coaches box is the area behind the limit line and between the coaching line only coaches are allowed in this area. Behind the coaching line is the team area, which is “limited to squad members in full uniform and a maximum of 60 other individuals directly involved in the game”.
Being a get back coach seems like a simple job, but if it were simple, then there would be no penalties called. There are numerous people on the sidelines to try and control. Because besides the team, which can vary but averages at 125 players, plus the coaches, plus the 60 additional team personal allowed on the field. That’s a lot of people.
Never having been that close to the action, my idea of a get back coach comes from high school and movies. He is the guy on the sidelines that you know must have a role to play, but that you know isn’t the head coach. He is screaming and yelling and often using profanity to keep the players on the sideline, focused on the game, and inline.
An example for me is in Remember the Titans: Coach Boone’s (Denzel Washington) assistant coach, Coach Paul “Doc” Hines (Greg Allen Williams). It is not so much who he is, but what he does. For those of you who have not seen the movie, you totally should, and I say this not just as a sports movie fanatic. It is a good, fun movie. There is a scene during the first part of the movie when the team is still at training camp.
Gerry calls Julius out during practice and a mini shoving match begins, the camera pains to Denzel, he says “ You got it.” Williams responds, “ I got it.” Williams then steps toward the boys and in a commanding tone states, “Y’all didn’t come out here to practice cause champions pay the price. Lookin’ like a bunch of bums out here.” It is short and sweet, but I love it.
It is his actions in that moment that make the get back coach real for me. But in this case it is unlikely that he is the get back coach. As my sister has pointed out to me “JoJo, he’s the defensive coordinator. I think. He’s definitely more than a get back coach”. But also during the dining hall scene you will see multiple coaches eating at the table it is more likely that one of those men is the get back coach. But it is the action to me that says, “Get back!”
My father has informed me that a get back coach doesn’t have to be a conditioning coach. That in high school the get back coach is usually someone like the wrestling coach. He knows football and the boys, and knows how to whip them into shape. But that in college, besides a conditioning coach, it is more likely that the he is a graduate student who is looking to become a coach or who plans to go into some other aspect of sports management.
Does that mean that I would have to go to grad school? We shall see.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
I wanna be a get back coach!
I wanna be a get back coach!
What made me come to this conclusion you may ask? Something you should know is that I am a recent college graduate and I am currently trying to find a job. Not sure what exactly I want to do with my life, I am currently applying for anything that I sound qualified for and that I think could be fun. On several occasions during interviews, I have been asked where I see myself in five years. I hate this question, because I have no idea. So what does this have to do with my new declaration? Everything.
On Sunday August 8th, I went to fan day at the University if Alabama with my sister where I saw a coach yelling at the football players to hustle. We couldn’t hear anyone else’s voices coming from the field, but we could hear him and it cracked me up. I leaned toward my sister and told her, “Now that’s something I could do.” I mean how much fun would it be to get paid to yell at these huge guys without fear of being crushed. You would get to be a part of the action, down with the players, and yet without all of the responsibilities of the head coach.
I asked my sister who she thought the guy was. She told me that she had to assume it was the conditioning coach warming up the players. If you have never seen a practice or even a football game, there are a lot of people on the field besides the football players and the head coach. There’s the defensive, offensive, and the special teams coaches, and those are just the ones I am aware of with my limited knowledge. Then you have the grad assistants who assist with practice and those students learning to be athletic trainers, which look like water boys/girls and stretcher-outers. So you can see how I wouldn’t know for sure who the screaming lunatic-like man on the field could be.
When practice was over and we were in the car, I began to compose a letter to Coach Nick Saban, head coach of the Crimson Tide, and Mal Moore, the athletic director at UA. At the time it was just a joke, something that my sister and I could laugh at. But I began to think what was the worst thing that could happen if I did indeed write to Saban and Moore? The worst thing was that they wouldn't even read it. That in no way could hurt me, but I thought what if they did read it and respond to me. Wouldn’t that be cool? Jokingly my sister said that I could start a blog about that. But I thought that would be the lamest and perhaps shortest blog ever. “Hey, I wrote a letter and then I heard nothing.” Who would read that? So the next idea that we discussed was the road to writing these letters. I could make videos with myself yelling at people while they worked out to show my skills. And yet while it seemed plausible, we were still in joking mode.
For those of you who know football, and even those who don’t, you must have realized by now that I know little about football. And while it is nice to believe, for me at least, that I could just be a get back coach without having any knowledge of the sport, it is not realistic in the least. You have to understand that while I have always been an Alabama fan, I know almost nothing about football, as my sister quickly pointed out to me when she began naming positions and plays, and I had no idea what she was talking about.
The more I thought about it, the more excited I got, so when my parents drove up on Tuesday night, I quickly told my Dad that I wanted to be a get back coach. He laughed, but the next day he informed me that he had told his Sunday school class at lunch. It was at that point that I knew I had myself a goal. With the Sunday school class informed, I felt that I had been locked in. That I had to write this blog, and that it could no longer be just a joke. So here it is, my blog about becoming a get back coach.
In five years I plan to be a get back coach at the University of Alabama or at least further down the path to that goal.
Creating this blog is step one. But there are lot of steps that will follow, and I will try to keep y’all informed each step of the way.
My second step is to learn about football.
What made me come to this conclusion you may ask? Something you should know is that I am a recent college graduate and I am currently trying to find a job. Not sure what exactly I want to do with my life, I am currently applying for anything that I sound qualified for and that I think could be fun. On several occasions during interviews, I have been asked where I see myself in five years. I hate this question, because I have no idea. So what does this have to do with my new declaration? Everything.
On Sunday August 8th, I went to fan day at the University if Alabama with my sister where I saw a coach yelling at the football players to hustle. We couldn’t hear anyone else’s voices coming from the field, but we could hear him and it cracked me up. I leaned toward my sister and told her, “Now that’s something I could do.” I mean how much fun would it be to get paid to yell at these huge guys without fear of being crushed. You would get to be a part of the action, down with the players, and yet without all of the responsibilities of the head coach.
I asked my sister who she thought the guy was. She told me that she had to assume it was the conditioning coach warming up the players. If you have never seen a practice or even a football game, there are a lot of people on the field besides the football players and the head coach. There’s the defensive, offensive, and the special teams coaches, and those are just the ones I am aware of with my limited knowledge. Then you have the grad assistants who assist with practice and those students learning to be athletic trainers, which look like water boys/girls and stretcher-outers. So you can see how I wouldn’t know for sure who the screaming lunatic-like man on the field could be.
When practice was over and we were in the car, I began to compose a letter to Coach Nick Saban, head coach of the Crimson Tide, and Mal Moore, the athletic director at UA. At the time it was just a joke, something that my sister and I could laugh at. But I began to think what was the worst thing that could happen if I did indeed write to Saban and Moore? The worst thing was that they wouldn't even read it. That in no way could hurt me, but I thought what if they did read it and respond to me. Wouldn’t that be cool? Jokingly my sister said that I could start a blog about that. But I thought that would be the lamest and perhaps shortest blog ever. “Hey, I wrote a letter and then I heard nothing.” Who would read that? So the next idea that we discussed was the road to writing these letters. I could make videos with myself yelling at people while they worked out to show my skills. And yet while it seemed plausible, we were still in joking mode.
For those of you who know football, and even those who don’t, you must have realized by now that I know little about football. And while it is nice to believe, for me at least, that I could just be a get back coach without having any knowledge of the sport, it is not realistic in the least. You have to understand that while I have always been an Alabama fan, I know almost nothing about football, as my sister quickly pointed out to me when she began naming positions and plays, and I had no idea what she was talking about.
The more I thought about it, the more excited I got, so when my parents drove up on Tuesday night, I quickly told my Dad that I wanted to be a get back coach. He laughed, but the next day he informed me that he had told his Sunday school class at lunch. It was at that point that I knew I had myself a goal. With the Sunday school class informed, I felt that I had been locked in. That I had to write this blog, and that it could no longer be just a joke. So here it is, my blog about becoming a get back coach.
In five years I plan to be a get back coach at the University of Alabama or at least further down the path to that goal.
Creating this blog is step one. But there are lot of steps that will follow, and I will try to keep y’all informed each step of the way.
My second step is to learn about football.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)