Typical Day
Are you ready for some football? Yardley Punt, head coach of the football team at Shmoop State, sure is.
He wakes up at six in the morning on a Wednesday in August that promises to be hot and humid, and heads to his man cave, where he spends some quality time on the treadmill while watching ESPN. Yardley does what he can to exercise and eat well; given the stresses of his job, he wants to be in the best shape possible so he can avoid expiring of a heart attack on the field.
After a quick shower, Yardley meets up with his wife of twenty years in the kitchen. As the season gets underway and practices and games take over his life, Yardley won't be seeing much of LeeAnn and their three kids, so he tries to take advantage of every spare moment he has to visit with his family. He chats with LeeAnn over coffee while she pulls together a healthy breakfast.
"Time to eat, kids!" she hollers up the stairs when the grub is ready. As the three Punt boys stumble downstairs, still mostly asleep, Yardley digs into his plate of eggs, turkey bacon, toast, and fresh fruit. The boys aren't awake enough to manage interesting breakfast conversation, but at least Yardley gets to see and hug them before he leaves the house for work.
Shmoop State is located in a small college town of 20,000 people. Once school starts in a couple of weeks, the population will swell to about 50,000 people. On game days, there'll easily be 100,000 people in town, and it'd be impossible for Yardley to grab lunch at his favorite barbecue place if he wasn't State's head football coach.
Yardley is in his office at the Goalman Football Complex by eight. The brand-new building is huge, and houses space for Yardley and his staff as well as a weight room, a locker room, and a training room. Football at Shmoop State is king, which is why the team has such expensive, up-to-date quarters. The coaches for other sports are all forced to share space over at the athletic administration building, and not a day goes by that Yardley doesn't feel mildly sorry for them.
Yardley's nine assistant coaches arrive between 8:00AM and 8:15AM. After a few minutes of shootin' the bull, the group strolls to the football practice fields across the street from Goalman and starts setting up for 9:00AM practice. Yardley's blue-and-maroon golf shirt is already sticking between his shoulder blades as his athletes begin to arrive in their workout clothes.
Practice begins promptly at nine, and Yardley is pleased to note that—once again—every single one of his athletes is present. This speaks well for the discipline of his team, and of their respect for themselves, their teammates, their coaches, and the sport of football.
Today's practice session will run for two hours and fifteen minutes. The schedule goes like this:
9:00AM: Special teams works on punt returns
9:10AM: Offense and defense do a walk-through
9:20AM: Warm-up (running, stretching, and bags)
9:35AM: Overviews with each individual athlete
10:00AM: One-on-one practice
10:10AM: Run-throughs of multiple plays
10:20AM: More one-on-one practice
10:30AM: Break (Yardley loves Shmoop State, but does it have to be so hot during the summer?)
10:33AM: More punt returns for special teams
10:43AM: Break (Yardley emphasizes to his team the importance of staying hydrated)
10:46AM: Separate into offensive and defensive lines
10:50AM: Run-throughs of multiple plays
11:05AM: Field goal and field goal block practice
11:10AM: Cool-down (running and stretching).
By the time practice ends at 11:15AM, everyone—including Yardley and his coaches—is covered in sweat. Yardley herds his crew back to Goalman, where the team quickly cleans up and then gathers in the training room for a catered lunch. There isn't a lot of talking as the guys shovel down pulled pork, barbeque beans, and green salad.
At 12:30PM, Yardley and his coaches do some sit-down work with the athletes. They spend the next three hours going over Shmoop State's plays and watching footage recorded during team practices and games from previous years. After a short break, the team hits the weight room.
While his athletes exercise, Yardley heads into his office to do some administrative work. He goes over the plans for the next few practice sessions and outlines what he wants to discuss the next time the team meets in the training room. He calls in a few of his assistant coaches to discuss strategy for Shmoop State's first game two weeks from Saturday. He also gets in touch with the sports reporter at the local newspaper to arrange a one-on-one interview on Friday afternoon.
At 5:00PM, Yardley wanders back to the weight room to dismiss the team for the day. He gives his athletes a short pep talk, telling them he's proud of how they've come together since the August practice sessions started and that he's looking forward to tomorrow's practice. He reminds them to get plenty of sleep and rest, and to stay out of trouble (not that there's a lot of trouble a football player can get into in the small town where Shmoop State is located).
Then, Yardley heads home. He settles in the kitchen with a beer and talks to LeeAnn while she cooks dinner. The Punt boys come in and out, raiding the fridge for snacks, much to their mother's dismay.
Some nights, Yardley invites a player or two from the team over to his house for dinner—this is one of his methods for getting to know his athletes, and of keeping tabs on them and how they're doing in school and in their personal lives. Tonight, however, it's just him, LeeAnn, and the boys.
After dinner, Yardley cleans up the kitchen while LeeAnn runs over the grocery store for some ice cream. The boys scatter: One of them reads in his room while the other two work on a model airplane in the garage. Yardley treasures these quiet evenings; in a couple of weeks, he’ll have to forego the time he spends with his family for rowdy game nights, travel with the team to other states, and press conferences.
Coaching is in Yardley's blood. His grandfather and father were both high school football coaches with competitive teams in Texas. After playing football in high school, Yardley went on to play college ball at a smaller state university in Louisiana, and then worked as a graduate assistant in Colorado.
He spent the next ten years in various coaching positions in Missouri and Ohio, and then worked as an offensive coordinator in Florida. Two years ago, he was given the opportunity to coach at Shmoop State, and he loves the school and the team.
Will Shmoop State ever win the BCS? No. Yardley's team is in the toughest conference in the country, and while Shmoop State is a good football school, it directly competes for recruits with several powerhouse football universities. Still, Yardley has managed to coach Shmoop State to winning seasons over the last two years, and he's looking forward to another exciting autumn.