Flag Football Secrets Revealed

I had a great fall helping coach my son’s flag football team through the local Y.M.C.A. I asked the head coach if I could be the offensive coordinator; since I have years of experience playing football video gamesJ. I went online and found some ideas for plays for our 5-on-5 league. Using the “paint brush” app on my computer, I drew up a few plays. Now for the first time, I will reveal the playbook that made our team a winning success. Use with caution! Explosive plays contained here! User discretion is advised.

The Road Back

As most everyone in our area knows, my beloved Golden Eagle Football team had a perfect winless season in 2012. That’s right 0-12. At one point in the season I wanted to blog, Facebook, or tweet, and make some derogatory comments about “The Fall”, but really I couldn’t find adequate words to describe what it was like going from 12-2 in 2011 to 0-12. However sights and sounds from a cold wet week in Hattiesburg are already showing the changes in attitudes that have come with our new coaching staff. Watching this video challenges me.

 

Watching this caused me to ask questions about the level of my spiritual hunger. Do I desire God enough that when it’s raining on the inside of me, when I’m dreary and don’t feel like it, that I will rise up go out to Jesus. Will I open up the Word and turn up the music and allow God again to remind me that “I am not my own.” We have a choice here. We can either let our emotions determine our Spiritual life, or we can make a determination to push through the resistance of the things that keep us from growing. It make take extreme measures, but let’s get moving. I’m ready to get on the road, back to the top. -TD

GOD and Football: Book Review +

Earlier this summer my wife and I took a quick trip to Fairhope, Alabama. While perusing through a local store I ran across this book by Chad Gibbs. I was hesitant to buy it, after all I only have about 25 other books on my “to be read shelf.” However, I was persuaded to buy it after two complete strangers observed me looking at it, and spoke up to say, “That’s a good book.” Do you know what, they were right!

 

Throughout the book Chad openly struggles with his god-like obsession with SEC football. As a Christian he wants to be defined by his faith in Jesus, but often finds his self-worth coming from his Auburn Tigers. . The book documents Chad’s 2009 adventure in which he visited every SEC town for a football game on Saturday and a local Church service on Sunday. I cried when I read this book. Not because it’s sad, but because Chad is my kind of funny. I really appreciated his humor toward each SEC School and each Christian denomination he visited. I’ve posted some of my favorite excerpts below:

• I was born again, again, and my second honeymoon with God lasted all of about four weeks.
  
• Then came the 2008 season. Auburn’s Book of Job.
  
• Why do I spend all my money to go watch something that only makes me angry? And why do I waste so much of the precious time I’ve been given eating, sleeping, and drinking a game played by college kids I’ve never met? And as a Christian I have to ask, why do I worship something that I know will let me down when I could be worship a God that I know never will?
  
• Being a lifelong Vanderbilt fan helps you to accept the cross.
  
• (After a several hour rain delay at Auburn) “The players just ran out of the tunnel and we started the game. Very minimalist. Like letting Primitive Baptist run your pregame.
  
• Thursday night football in a word is, unnatural…. It’s like Billy Graham at Hooters.
  
• (At South Carolina) BBQ chicken was on the menu, which seemed a little cannibalistic for USC fans.
  
• Michael’s cable did not pick up the Auburn game, which was apparently on ESPN-AL Jazeera.
  
• Plus Many More
  

I highly recommend this book as the college football season approaches.

Southern Miss To The Bottom? (“Not So Fast”)

I’ll be honest I didn’t know what to think at first. We went from a fiery middle age “Sound the Attack”, coach, to a little older, greyer, mild-mannered, unassuming coach in Ellis Johnson. Then we go out and gathered a new coaching staff: A defensive coordinator who was a part of a team that only won 3 games in 2011, a high school coach for our offensive coordinator and Bobby Boucher as our new water boy. So I’m thinking, do I really want to renew my season tickets or watch this season from a safe distance? But then I remembered a few numbers that persuaded me to come back in 2012.

#1 Tacy Lampley – Scatt back Tracy Lampley is back for his senior year! This kid’s heart is bigger than his body. Simply put he is a “baller”. His quickness and speed are “video-game-like” and with #1 on the field we will score, maybe not as much as previous years, but we will score. “Lamp” will be fun to watch.

#8 Jamie Collins – This young man is a “BEAST” on defense. His decisions to come back for his senior year helped me make the same decision to come back. With combination of size and speed this guy will help lead, what I believe statically, will be one of the stingiest D’s in the country. Following in the footsteps of Adalius Thomas, Rod Davis, and Micheal Boley: Jamie Collins is going to be a great one.

With all this said; I’m still an Eagle Fan at heart and I have made the decision not to simply be a Fedora Fan, but a Southern Miss fan. SMTTT! Can’t wait for the season kickoff!

Vote 4, Only 4

Polls open on the http://www.seniorbowl.com website at 10:00am Friday and close at Midnight Sunday.

I couldn’t get the video to embed, but you can visit it here.

This quartet from the Hattiesburg area is one of the three finalists trying out to sing the National Anthem before the Senior Bowl to be played in Mobil, AL on January 24th. On a personal twist; one of the guys is Sawyer McLeod. Sawyer sang in our wedding over 12 years ago when he was only 5 years old!

N.O. Bowl – NO Boring Game!

I got back home around 1:30 this morning. My Dad and I went to the New Orleans Bowl last night and had a great time. No one is under the impression that the N.O. Bowl is a top tier bowl, but out of all the bowls coming up this year; you won’t see a more exciting game. And from the team and fan reaction after the game, you would have thought we had won the Sugar Bowl! It was a wacky game.

• A fumble returned for a touchdown
  
• One Broken Leg
• A Flea Flicker for TD
• Reverse Pass for a TD called back on a bad call from the ref.
• Coming from behind by 10 points in the 4^th to tie.
• Overtime field goal block to win the game by the Eagles. (See Photo: Credit AP)

Congratulations Coach Fedora on your first/winning season in Hattiesburg. I don’t regret buying season tickets and joining the Eagle Club because of the product that you put on the field. I know that success awaits you, I just hope you stay around Hattiesburg long enough to enjoy the journey and see this team move up on the national scale. Southern Miss, To the Top!

Southern Miss Football 2008

My thoughts about the Eagles (currently 2-2) under new Head Coach Larry Fedora:

• I love coach Fedora’s energy and passion!
• While inconsistent at times, the offense can put points on the board.
• We are loaded at the skilled positions on the offensive side of the ball.
• I was surprised we beat Ark. State and surprised (disappointed) we lost to Marshall at home.
• Defensively we can’t stop anyone. I don’t know if it’s the scheme or lack of a D-line, but the Defensive coordinator needs to make some adjustments yesterday.
• #5 is pretty special as a freshman. He’ll be playing on Sundays in the next 2-3 years.
• We love our seats that I blogged about here. It has rained at both home games so far and we have been high dry.
• Austin Davis is a young man who seems to “have it head on straight.” Good talent and excellent leadership and character. I think his comment from last week’s game sums where we are, “We’re going to be a good football team. Maybe not today, but it is coming.”

Gridiron GOLD

I just finished reading Gridiron Gold which I enjoyed immensely. The book gives insight in to the history of High School football in the state of Mississippi. Mississippi has arguably produced some of the greatest football players/coaches of all time. Here is a short list of some stories/insight I enjoyed from the book.

• How High School football played a huge role in integration
• Stories surrounding the University of South Panola. (They currently hold the longest winning streak in the nation)
• Walter Payton running backwards 50 yards for a touchdown.
• Tons of great quotes for coaches. Including some from my old coach on page 81 and 91.
• The role faith and ministry plays in the life of a team
• Several Funny stories:
  • School that only had 2 pair of track shoes
  • Kids that fumbled because he was holding his concession stand money.
  • The kid that asked his coach, during a dramatic part of the game, if he could ride home with his dad.
  • A coach going into the opposing teams locker to give them a pep talk.

I’ll end with the pre-game prayer (p. 33) from the legendary coach from East Marion, Les Peters. I’ll never forget hearing Coach Peters pray at an FCA breakfast I attended back in 1990. When he finished I thought to myself, this man knows God personally. Besides his ability to talk with God he also has been known to say some of the most comical things about his football team that a coach can say. So here it is-

Lord, if it’s thy will, make us agile, hostile and mobile. Put that gleam in our eyes, zip in our feet and that determination in our hearts. Let’s go Eagles.

Friday Night Lights-I Still Miss It

Favre may not have retired, but I did on a November Friday night in 1991. For all of those who have played the game and loved the game, it changes your life. I wasn’t that good; I made up for my lack of size with a lack of speed, but I truly loved it. {Pictured Above: 1992 Columbia Wildcat Seniors}

It’s been 17 years and every August, when I hear about the local High School teams starting two-a-days, it takes me back. The coaches, the players, and the games: great memories. {Sorry to be so nostalgic.} A few years ago I heard the song, “Never Gonna Feel Like This Again” by Kenny Chesney that sums it all it. I like to queue it up on my MP3 Player and listen to it from time to time. Here are the lyrics below:

Friday night butterflies
Like clockwork they’d arive
Little chill in an October sky
Nervous till the kickoff came

Kickoff: 40 Days and Counting

Monday I went out to “The Rock” with a friend to see if we could get our seats together for the upcoming football season. As I posted here, back in May, I purchased season tickets and joined the Eagle Club for the first time ever. We ended up walking around the seating area in the lower-level of the new South End-Zone. This photo was taken very close to the spot I had requested when I joined the Eagle Club. While in the stadium we received a phone call confirming that these were in fact our seats! It has me fired up about the upcoming season. With these new facilities and arrangements there is a lot to look forward to:

• No climbing up flights of stairs dragging kids. It’s only about 15 steps to our seats.
• Bathrooms and Concessions are close by (Did I mention no steps up or down to get to them).
• I’ll be staring directly at the largest TV screen in Mississippi.
• We’re sitting under the overhang which will keep us dry and cool-er.
• We’re the farthest away from the “loud cannon”- as requested by my daughters. This means I don’t have to hold my fingers in their ears after every score.
• A parking pass for the first time ever. This means we don’t have to arrive hours before the game unless we want to.
• Tailgating on pride field. They’re probably moving the Jr. Eagle Fun land over there this year and since we are parking there it will be perfect for the kids.
• Finally I can’t wait to see this guy’s offense take the field and #25 to run all over the place.

GO EAGLES! Can’t wait!