North Carolina State University Athletics
Football Preseason Diary, Entry 20
8/28/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 28, 2001
Wow - I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder, because I've gotten a lot of comments about my diary being absent for the last two days. I warned you about Sunday - there was no practice! Yesterday, we had a little rain delay and didn't start practice until almost 9:00. So...I guess I wasn't dedicated enough to stick around!
Since we're in our "season" mode now, I'm not seeing the team twice a day, so there aren't as many opportunities for interesting anecdotes. We're busy setting up interviews for a variety of players. Terrence Holt, and Coaches Galbraith and Green are going to do chats with TheACC.com, and I scheduled a Philip Rivers chat for espn.com for next Wednesday. Philip has so many requests for interviews that we have to schedule one block a week for him to talk to media. If we didn't do that, he wouldn't have time to practice or go to class or play video games! We did manage to fit the espn chat inside his blocked time, but Philip told me that he would make an exception if necessary for espn!
Mondays during the season are always night practices. This gives the coaches a chance to get all of the film graded and the players can get their labs out of the way. The heavy practice days (during the season) are Tuesdays and Wednesdays and then on Thursdays, things ease up so they can "get their legs up under them" - one of my favorite coachspeak phrases. Fridays, the team doesn't usually do anything. A lot of coaches do "walk-throughs" at the stadium on the day before games, but our team usually stays in the green room at Weisiger-Brown.
When we have a game on Thursday, like the next two weeks, the schedule just moves up two days (for instance, Friday will be a day off instead of Sunday, etc.). And our players miss as little class as possible. Even when we travel as far away as Texas, we won't leave until lunchtime or after on Fridays.
Travelling with a football team is real adventure. Just like they are in everything else, this staff has travel organized down to the smallest detail. Each player knows which bus he is supposed to ride to the airport on and knows where to sit on the plane. When we get to our hotel, there's no sitting around lounging (at least not for the players - the media relations director does seem to find time to lounge!). There are meetings scheduled throughout the day before and the day of the game.
Carolyn Stuart, Coach Amato's administrative assistant, has the mammouth task of coordinating team travel for football. Can you imagine the task of ordering meals, securing meeting rooms, scheduling buses, doing a rooming list, etc., etc., for a crowd that large?
This evening, we hosted the second annual Men's Basketball Coaches vs. Media Softball Challenge. Last year, the coaches were victorious. This year, the coaches were winning after the prescribed seven innings, but the media (you know the influence the media has!) coerced the staff into going nine frames. The media ended up winning, 17-15. The media star was Stan, from Nando.com, who went three-for-three with three triples and six RBI. Larry Hunter was the top batter for the coaches, going 4-5. And even though they're like family and I hate to talk bad about them, Lee Fowler and Herb Sendek combined to go just 2-11 from the plate!
But I think everyone had fun and noone got hurt - I think they're all still eating hot wings and playing pool after the strenous two hours in the sun.
