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Giants head coach Joe Judge’s introductory press conference
The New York Giants formally introduced new head coach Joe Judge Thursday afternoon. After an opening statement from John Mara, Judge made his own opening statement then took questions from the media.
John Mara’s Opening Statement: Good afternoon and welcome. We began our search for a new head coach immediately after our season ended. I just wanted to make a few comments about that process. This was the deepest and most talented group of candidates that I’ve ever seen, and as a number of you have made note of, I’ve had quite a bit of experience in recent years in interviewing coaching candidates. We liked all of the coaches that we interviewed, we did not eliminate any of them from consideration. All of them made a great impression and were really interested in this job. We would have been pleased to have had any one of them as our head coach. For me, our search ended on Monday afternoon when we finished our session with Joe Judge. I have to tell you that this was perhaps the best coach interview that I have ever been a part of. When Steve (Tisch) met with him on Tuesday morning, he felt just as strongly as we did. Joe is someone who has certainly been on our radar for the last couple of years. When a coach works under Nick Saban and then finds his way onto Bill Belichick’s staff, that’s something that you take note of. Joe has been a part of three Super Bowls with New England and two National Championships with Nick Saban at Alabama. What came through in the interview was his poise, his confidence, his leadership, his knowledge of the game, what it takes to build a winning program, his ability to relate to players, and then of course, his work ethic. He’s a teacher, he’s a communicator, he’s somebody who demands and commands respect, and he just has a certain presence about him. For all of those reasons, on behalf of the Mara and Tisch families, I am very pleased to introduce Joe Judge as the new Head Coach of the New York Giants.
Joe Judge’s Opening Statement: Thank you. First, I’d like to start by thanking the Mara and the Tisch families, Mr. Gettleman, Kevin Abrams, for this wonderful opportunity. I do not take it lightly the position I’m in and the people, the city, and the region I represent. I’d like to thank my family, my wife, my mother, my children, all of my close friends who have made each step of this process to enable me to be where I am today, which is just another step in the process of where we’re trying to go. I’d like to thank all of my former coaches that I have ever played or worked under for building in me the foundation of fundamentals that has allowed me to teach and instruct at a high level, to again put me in this position. I would like to start with (New England Patriots Head Coach) Coach Belichick, and (Alabama Football Head Coach) Coach Saban, (Former New England Patriots Special Teams) Coach Scotty O’Brien, (Former Mississippi State Special Teams and Linebackers) Coach Amos Jones, (Former Mississippi State Head Coach) Coach Sylvester Croom, (Former Mississippi State Head Coach) Coach Jackie Sherrill and (Former Lansdale Catholic High Football Coach) Coach Jim Algeo. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my own father, who was my first coach and taught me the most important lesson is you hold those you expect the most from at the highest standard. Now, I would also like to thank all of the players who ever played under me. They gave everything, that’s what I expect. I was very demanding, and I’ll continue to be demanding. But, you expect the players to be held to a certain standard and for all of the ones who have ever played under me to this point, I appreciate your work and your sacrifice to allow me to have this opportunity that I have today, and it’s just an opportunity. I have to make the most of it. That starts today.
Now, there is a question out there that I’m sure a lot of people are asking, and that’s number one – who am I? Well, maybe I can explain that a little bit better, but instead of saying, ‘Who am I,’ by telling you what’s relevant in this conversation with being the coach of the New York Giants— what I’m about. What I’m about is an old school physical mentality. We’re going to put a product on the field that the people of this city and region are going to be proud of because this team will represent this area. We will play fast, we will play downhill, we will play aggressive. We will punch you in the nose for 60 minutes, we will play every play like it has a history and a life of its own, with a relentless, competitive attitude. We will play fundamentally sound, we will not beat ourselves. That is our mission right here. I’m about caring for the players in the locker room. Let’s not forget there’s a human element to this game. Let’s not think that in professional sports that paying a pay check to somebody makes it absent of empathy. We need to make sure that we take care of the players in our locker room, that we treat them the right way, that we teach them the correct techniques, and that we put them in the right situations to be successful. We’re going to ask these men to come in and give everything they have every day. We’re going to demand it, and we appreciate everything they give us. It’s our responsibility to take care of them on a daily basis and make sure that when they are done with our game, they are better furthered for the rest of their career as a father, a husband, and a professional in whatever avenue they take.
Now, what this team’s going to look like. I mentioned earlier, I want this team to reflect this area. I want the people that pay their hard-earned money and the neighborhoods of New York, North Jersey, South Jersey, to come to our games and know that the players on the field play with the same attitude they wake up with every morning. That is blue collar, it’s hard work, it’s in your face. We’re not going to back down from anybody. We’re going to come to work every day and grind it out the way they do in their jobs every day, and they can invest their money in our program knowing it’s worthwhile. They put a Giants uniform on, they put a Giants hat or jersey on, that it’s not representing just the 53 on the field, but it’s representing their neighborhoods, their communities and their families with the values they have instilled in their children.
Now, at this moment, my priorities are pretty simple. I have an outsider’s view of this team, I’ve competed against the Giants, I’ve studied this team from the outside looking in, preparing myself for this job and opportunity, but I have to make myself fluent in a language within the building. I have to study the players, I have to evaluate the current coaching staff and give everybody a fair evaluation to make sure we make the right decisions, that I have a clear vision of what the path going forward needs to be, to help these players progress the correct way. Relative to staff, I do not have a staff in place. Yes, I have some names in mind, but we will talk to everybody, we will take our time. My priority is to put the right men around these players that they can come to work every day, they can be coached hard, they can be taught. I want good people. Before anything, if you’re going to work in an organization, you’re a good person. I don’t want any alternative agendas, I’m making that clear right now. There is not going to be a coach in our organization who has nothing but the best interest in the players at hand and isn’t going to come to work every day and put their butt on the line for the guys who are going to work hard for them. I want teachers, not presenters. I don’t want someone who looks fancy in front of the screen that can say it with a lot of different sales lines. I want teachers, I want old school people who can get to our players and give them the mental image of what it’s supposed to look like. I want them to demonstrate on a daily basis the work ethic of what it’s going to take to do it successfully day in and day out. Because over the course of six months of this season, it takes day in and day out to be successful. The margins of error in this league are too small. You cannot get by with some kind of magic scheme or new gimmick or think you’ve reinvented the wheel. The same things win football games that have always won football games. It’s fundamentals. Those fundamentals will start for us in the classroom. They’ll start with being in meetings on time, they’ll start with being on the field on time in the proper dress. They’ll start with knowing your playbook, they’ll start with being out there and stretching the right way and warming your body up the right way that you prevent any kind of soft tissue injuries on the field. Then they’ll carry over to the fundamentals on the field—it’s running, it’s tackling, it’s ball security. It’s a contact sport, you can’t get around that. It’s meant to be a physical game. It’s for tough people. We will practice with a physical attitude. We will practice in pads, we will practice live tackling—not to make a statement that we’re trying to be tough. We’re going to practice live tackling because I believe in doing it safely. You want to make your players safer, you start by instructing them how to do it. We’re going to work on everything we do. Everything we ask them to do at full speed on Sunday at a competitive level we’re going to make sure that we have practiced, corrected, and re-practiced before they have to do it at a live pace. There are not going to be shortcuts with what we have to do. It’s a tough division, it’s a tough division and the city is full of tough people and they expect to see a program, they expect to see a product, that represents them. I’m going to do everything in my power, every day, to make sure the people of this city and this area turn on the TV or sit in the stadium seats and are proud to say that we’re their New York Giants. Now, from this point forward, any questions you may have I’d be happy to answer to the best of my ability.
Q: You said yesterday in the statement that you guys were in conversation about where this team is and where it is headed and how you’re going to get there. My question is— how are you going to get there?
A: Well, exactly what I just said a second ago. We’re going to start by showing up on time, by having a plan, for executing that plan. It’s going to be fundamentals. I’ll tell you this right now, and I’m sure it’s going to come up somewhere along the line—I’m not going to be the offensive coordinator, the defensive coordinator, or the special teams coordinator. I’ll work with all three sides of the ball. But, the primary focus I’m going to have as the head coach is I’m going to make sure we are fundamentally sound, we are situationally aware, and that we play with a relentless effort.
Q: I’m curious about your conversations with Dave Gettleman and your conversation about personnel, your input, his input, and how that relationship is going to work as you coach this team.
A: I couldn’t have been more excited walking in here than sitting down with Mr. Gettleman. It’s been tremendous. Listen, from a scout’s view, from a coach’s view, the one thing that I’ve been privileged to do is my role in New England when I first went there was heavy on personnel. Being a special teams coach, you have to know every player on your team inside and out because you have to know who you can use with a limited menu. It’s kind of like when you’re hungry, you go to the fridge, your Dad says figure out a way to make a sandwich. You know it’s in there, but you’ve got to find a way because you’ve got to eat. So, I’ve got to know what everybody does so I can put those ingredients together and get the most out of it. So, what I’ve prepared myself for was leading into every draft I studied every player in the draft as a player and an athlete. I didn’t look at them as a receiver, I didn’t look at them as a tight end, I didn’t look at them as a linebacker. I want to know how they moved— are they stiff in the hips, are they a straight-line speed guy, do they use their hands, what kind of short area quickness do they have, what kind of top end speed do they have, do they turn down contact. So, I’m used to looking at things from a big picture perspective on players in terms of what they bring to the team as a whole. You can turn around and say, ‘How good is this guy as a running back?’ Well, there’s different kinds of running backs. I want to know what kind of athlete this man is and how we can use his toolset to our advantage.
Q: Obviously an outside perspective, what is your first impression of Daniel Jones from his rookie season, and then for his offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach, what are you looking for from a coaching perspective?
A: So, I’m going to answer both of those questions, and I don’t want to be confused in this, I want to make sure I make this clear, again, I have an outsider’s perspective. We have a lot of talent on this roster. It’s been assembled that way for a reason, I don’t want to sit here and try to give you expert analysis without having done my due diligence and homework to sit down and thoroughly investigate each one of these players. They all have ability. I’m excited to work with every player on our roster. Every player on our roster has talent, and every player on our roster will compete for whatever they get. Nothing will be handed out. In terms of the coaches, again, I want to reference back to I’m looking for teachers. I’m sure the next question is going to be something relative to, ‘What I look for in the offensive system?’ Well, I can answer that of all three systems—offense, defense, and special teams. Our philosophy is going to be to put pressure on the opponent to prepare for multiple things. Within that, we have to have personnel versatility and we have to have flexibility schematically to make sure that whoever we play, we can adjust our game plan to maximize our strengths versus their weaknesses. So, while there may be some games that we throw the ball 50 times, there’s going to be other times we may throw it 10 times and run the ball 45 times. So, I don’t have a crystal ball, Miss Cleo can help you better with that, but we’re going to look for the best system to help us week by week.
Q: Clearly, the Giants were very impressed with your work with two great coaches, Saban and Belichick, and that’s looked great for you on the resume. How are you different from them? The big thing everybody wants to know is, you’re not those guys, how are you your own man?
A: Well, I think when you work with anybody, you try to grow as much as you can from them. You’re going to always have the opportunity to learn lessons if you pay attention and are willing to learn something new. I worked for two great coaches, Coach Belichick and Coach Saban, and there wasn’t a day I went to work that I didn’t come home with a full new education and I knew fully every day that there were coaches out there that would pay thousands of dollars to sit in a staff meeting and just hear the wisdom they were saying on a daily basis. I’d like to think I was not foolish enough to squander that. Both have a very unique style about them. Both have a world of knowledge. Both have a lot of the same philosophical views, and a lot of the same values. What I learned from Coach Saban was not an individual lesson. What I learned from Coach Saban is it’s important to address everybody, not only on the what they have to do, but how it should look, what we’re going to do to get there, and why it’s important. And what you find out when you’re coaching players, they’re not robots, and if they understand what the end result is supposed to look like and why it’s important, normally those players are going to take the principles you instilled in them and in the game make a player’s adjustment, and you’re going to learn more from the players than they are as a coach because they’re going to find a better way to do it in the heat of the moment with a certain adjustment. And as a coach, you have to have your eyes open enough to understand they’re making the correct adjustment, you have to find another way to teach in the future to give multiple options. That’s what I learned from Coach Saban, and that applied across the board. That was whether you’re dealing with a person, a player in recruiting, developing a player on the field, or schematics in a game. You better make sure everyone knows the full picture of what you’re looking for. What I learned from Coach Belichick was real simple—be flexible within your personnel. Don’t try to shove round pegs into square holes. Figure out what you have. Let them play to their strengths. Don’t sit in a meeting and tell me what you don’t have in a player. Don’t tell me they can’t do certain things, tell me what they can do and then we’ll figure out as coaches, because that’s our job, how we can use that. That’s our responsibility. Everybody has something they can do. How many castoffs do you see around the league in the NFL on another team that everyone says, ‘Wow, how’d they get that out of them?’ Maybe they just weren’t closing their eyes to what they could do. We have to, as a coaching staff when we get assembled, we have to make sure we’re sitting down, we’re patient with our players, we fully evaluate them, we find out what they can do to be an asset, and that we’re not foolish enough to not use them.
Q: A lot of fans look at this hire and they regarded you as a non-prominent name. There were a lot of prominent names that a lot of fans out there wanted, maybe more so than you, so what do you think of the notion, what do you say to the notion that you’re not the preferred choice for a lot of fans?
A: To be completely honest with you, I’m not really concerned about whoever interviewed for this job. All I’m concerned about is the opportunity I have in front of me and what I have to do going forward. And I’m going to tell my players the same thing, it doesn’t matter how you got there, it doesn’t matter how high-profile you may be or may not be, it’s what you do on a daily basis. If you’re in a position, earn it. Earn it every day. And I appreciate the opportunity, I’m working every day to earn it. And our players have to do the same thing. The best players will play. I don’t care where you got drafted, I don’t care if you’re an undrafted free agent, I don’t care if you’re old, young, traded, whatever you got there for. Everybody will have an opportunity every day to compete for a job on our roster. Every day. If you want to be on the field, be the best player. Outwork the guy in front of you. Prove your value to us, show you can handle the job, and we’re going to put you on the field and give you an opportunity.
Q: Could a culture—and I completely concede it’s an overused work, but I don’t know another better word to use in this example—when you look at taking over the New York Giants, what culture do you want to have in the locker room, and how will you go about making sure that is there?
A: The only culture we’re going to have in that building, period, is a winning culture. And what that means is everybody comes to work every day, regardless of how they feel, and puts the team first, period. Whatever you have going on outside the building, you’re sick, a little bit of pain, you have discomfort, you’re upset, you’re mad, put all that aside. You come in, you put the team first. We’re going to ask our players at times to do things that necessarily may not be what they have in mind for themselves. But if it’s best for the team, they have to be willing to go forward with it, because that’s what a winning culture is.
Q: You’ve mentioned teaching a lot—I know you have a background in teaching. Could you just elaborate on how you plan to teach, and what you look for in teachers alike?
A: Well, I would say teaching is just to inspire learning. And I think what we have to do is, we have to identify how our players learn. Everybody learns different. Everyone learns different. We have to make sure that when we teach we hit the full spectrum of students in the classroom, the full spectrum of our players. We can’t just teach in an old school or a certain way. We have to find whatever’s helpful for these guys to take the information and apply it on the field. Now, whether that may be old school lectures for some guys, or that’s more visual evidence through tape for other guys, or maybe that’s on their feet through walk-thrus for some others, we’re going to as much as what’s necessary to make sure we’re checking the box on every guy. And as a coaching staff, I expect our coaches to know who’s up to speed on what. Don’t tell me you taught the whole room and one guy screwed it up. I want to know what you did to hit that guy. You figure out what he’s a little behind on and you make up the difference. Figure it out, that’s your job. So, to me a teacher is, we talk about no child left behind, but I’m going to tell you right now, if you’re in our locker room, you’re going to get coached. We’re not leaving anyone behind in here. So, I want people that are going to treat the player as a person, find out what makes them tick, what inspires their learning, and make sure we accomplish it every day.
Q: We know about the endorsement that Coach Belichick gave ownership here about you. I’m curious, yes, it’s sort of two-fold, but one, what advice he had for you if you consulted with him and how that went? And I would like to kind of flip side, of all the things on your resume, you haven’t actually been a head coach if I’m correct?
A: You’re absolutely correct in that. I’ve been a kindergarten PE teacher, I have not been a head coach (laughter).
Q: So, just how you sort of sold them with that asterisk on the resume that you were ready to be a head coach.
A: So, I’ll start with the first one, the question about Belichick and his advice. I’ll be honest with you, the only advice I really sought from him as far as this opportunity, he told me just be yourself. And that’s all I know how to be. I think one of the things people ask me a lot is, ‘You worked for Coach Saban, Coach Belichick, what makes you different?’ Look, I’m myself. I’m going to be myself every time. If I’m anything else, everyone’s going to see straight through it. And if you lie to the team, you’re going to lose the team immediately. So, I’m going to always be myself. And that’s a little bit different than other people and that’s fine. I’m not trying to emulate anyone I’ve ever worked for, I’m trying to take what I’ve learned from them and what matches with my own belief structure and do it with my own personality. The second part of the question, as far as being a head coach, you can’t fabricate that experience. And as a young head coach, I’m going to lean on Dave Gettleman, I’m going to lean on the assistants I hire, I’m going to lean on having the right people in the building to fill in some of the blanks that I may have. I’m about transparency and honesty, so I need men in my building who are going to walk in my office and tell me the truth, and we can be on the same page. Now, we may have some disagreements at times, but we’re going to walk out on that field with those players and all have the same vision, same voice, and be on the same page. Relative to how to handle a team, I can tell you that with the experience I’ve had, I feel prepared as being a head coach. From a personnel standpoint, I talked earlier, I have to evaluate everyone from the draft, I have to know who the players in the locker room are. Not just as an athlete in that regard, but personally, because a special teams coach, it’s not just point and click and say go do it. There’s a lot of recruiting that happens at certain times, and you have to find out how every player ticks. And everyone responds differently at different times. And you’ve got your core guys that show up to work and they know they pay their light bill and they’re going to do it every day. But there comes a time where you have to go ahead and go to the starting quarterback and say, ‘Hey buddy, I need you to be the holder this week because we have an issue with an injury.’ You may have to go to a guy that’s a starting linebacker and say, ‘I need you to start on punt team for me this week. You haven’t done it since training camp, but we need you.’ Or you have to go to a guy in the middle of a game and tell him he now has to cover a kick on kickoff. The thing is you have to get to those people early on and develop a relationship with them, a relationship with the entire team to have them trust you to know that you have their best interest at hand and the team’s best interest at hand. So, when you come to them and you ask them to form a task, they trust you that what you’re asking them to do is going to benefit them individually, and as a team collectively. Along with that, look, I’ve had the experience and it’s been beneficial—I get to stand in front of the room every day and coach every player. Every player. When we’re at 90, it’s all 90. When we’re at 53, it’s 53, plus the 10 on practice squad. So, in different adages, I’ve been able to address the team every day. And again, you can’t address the team all in one message. You have to make sure you’re hitting everybody in the room. So, you gain the experience of what the pulse of the team is and what makes them tick. You’re not always addressing them after wins. A lot of times you’ve got to walk in after a tough loss. A lot of times you’ve got to walk in after a tough loss where maybe your unit didn’t play as well as it should have, and you have to grab the attention of those players and not only tell them how we have to correct what was wrong, but why they have to trust you going forward. So, there’s been a lot of experience through the years of having to do that on a daily basis. Special teams, one thing you’ve got to manage is time. Another thing is people. As a head coach, those are the two main things you have to manage, time and people. So, I’ve had experience preparing me for that. I don’t have all the answers. I’m not preparing to sit here and tell you a lie like I have all the answers. But I am telling you I’ll find out the ones I don’t know and make sure by the time we get to the players, they’re the right ones.
Q: This was obviously a goal of yours to become a head coach. Was there anything specific that you did to prepare for this? How much did you talk about being a head coach with Bill to learn how to become a head coach in the process?
A: I think Bill understood my desire to become a head coach because of my involvement overall in a complete team. I never talked about becoming a head coach or walked around and advertised that as a specific goal. To be completely honest with you, I didn’t have a goal this year, specifically right now, of being a head coach right now. This opportunity is very unique. When I received the call from the Giants that they would like to interview me, that was very exciting. There’s 32 teams in this league, that’s not a lot. The reality is there are very few that have a chance at winning, the reality of that is there are very few of those that have a chance at winning that have tradition and history behind them. I don’t take this lightly, there’s not 32 great programs in this league. The truth is the Giants are one of (them) at the top, that’s what makes this job intriguing.
Q: In this interview, was there a moment when it clicked that your vision and the Giants ownership and front office’s vision aligned? What was it like the morning when you found at you were getting the job. Where were you, how did you feel at that moment?
A: I’ll go backwards on that. When I received the phone call and Mr. Mara offered me the job, it was very exciting, it was very humbling. I was actually sitting in my office in Gillette Stadium at the time, I had returned the night before from the interview and basically went in the next day to resume work like I would normally do and make sure I was prepared for what was coming up next. It was very humbling, I think when you get past the initial wave of excitement, and then you realize the task at hand you have, you realize that it’s time to go to work. There’s people depending on you and that’s a humbling feeling. You have to show up every day and do your absolute best because everyone is depending on you to do your absolute best, anything less won’t be acceptable. Without going into too many details about the interview, I would say when we spoke about discipline on the team, that’s something very important to me. I think you need to have the fundamental foundation of discipline on your team, that you hold players accountable. It’s important to have good people in your locker room. It’s a family business for our ownership and it’s a family business for myself. My children have all been born in this business. Knowing that your passion is football, that your desire to win is what you truly love and that benefits your family and you’re representing something bigger than yourself. That moment right there is when it really clicked that this is where I belong and where I want to be.
Q: You just mentioned your family. What was their reaction, specifically your wife and kids, when you got the job?
A: Very exciting, they were very excited. I have a 14-year-old who stays as current as he can on everything. So he is already looking to make GM moves, sorry Mr. Gettleman. He was telling me about the roster when I came home and things we can do. I have an 11-year-old who was kind of speechless when we told him at school, we pulled him out of class to let him know, he couldn’t have been more excited. I’ve got a 9-year-old back there, Emma Riley, and she has a gymnastics meet in Manhattan in a few weeks. She’s been talking about that all fall. Now she gets to have her meet but it’s also her new home, that’s a little bit extra special for her. I haven’t really broken the news yet to Ella because she doesn’t know she has to move but she is very excited to be a part of the Giants.
Q: When you talked about taking the job you said you wanted to be old school. Is that the way you were brought up or is that something that you learned from Belichick and Saban? It sounds very much like Parcells and Coughlin.
A: We used to have posters when I was in kindergarten about sharing and telling the truth and being polite and all that stuff. The thing that I really learned from the great coaches later in my career was really that they reinforced everything that I learned early in my career. That it’s really the basics that carry over. There’s some minutia that gets caught up when you get into the flow of things. Everyone thinks there’s some guru out there with a magical scheme, everyone thinks there’s some short cut to being good. Everything I learned from coach Belichick and coach Saban reinforced on a daily basis that it’s the fundamentals. You don’t build the Empire State Building by washing the windows, you build it with the foundation and work it on up. Whatever your goal is at hand, you can put that in the distance and start working day by day to take a step forward.
Q: You hear coaches talk about how this is a timing business and sometimes you take an opportunity and you take it a year too soon or a year too late. Why is the timing right for you now to be standing here as the new head coach of the Giants?
A: The only thing that’s relevant to me on this is the opportunity with the New York Giants. The timing is now and that’s the only time that is relevant to me.
Q: I know you said you haven’t studied all the players yet. Obviously, you know a little bit about the roster and that there hasn’t been a lot of winning around here recently. How quickly do you think you can turn this around? How big of a job is it to get this back on track?
A: To try to get any team to win in this league is a tough job, they are all tough jobs. Every team is good, they are coached well, they have talent. There is a lot of parity in this league, it’s structured and built that way. Every job in this league has a tough job trying to get a win. I’m not into making predictions about wins. I’m a process-built guy, you focus on the process and you worry about the steps in place you have to execute to get to the end result. I’m not going to circle a number on my board and say we have to get to X number of wins to be successful. I’m worried about when these guys walk into the building in mid-April, what we have to do with them to get them working in the right direction to build from the ground up.
Q: A big part of your job will be dealing with reporters and especially answering questions after games. Just to kind of kick start that process, I’m curious in the last game, what went into the decision not to have someone returning that last punt?
A: I’m not going to get into any specific decisions on schematics. I can assure it was discussions we had before the game and we called it according to what we thought gave our team the best opportunity to win. I appreciate the question. At this point, I’m really looking forward to everything we are doing with the New York Giants. That’s a question that’s probably better fit for Foxborough.
Q: You mentioned something about the things you learned in kindergarten that stayed with you. What did you actually learn by teaching kindergarten?
A: When I got done being a GA (Graduate Assistant) at Mississippi State, which when you are a GA, it’s basically volunteering to be tortured and it’s the best experience you can ever have. I washed cars, I got coffee, I built playsets, I did everything I could do and on top of that, I got to coach football and learn. They kind of paid me 700 bucks a month, which didn’t even cover the rent even in Mississippi. What I learned coaching PE for three days in the West Point School District was the patience you have to have with children. I think I had five or six classes a day in a classroom, it wasn’t a gymnasium, it was a classroom. These kids would come in and I realized I had to have an organized plan with these kids that covered the full 60 minutes I had them. If I let any detail in that plan go to waste, it was going to be chaos. I had kids dancing on the window sills, I had kids peeing themselves, I had kids doing everything. I figured out you have to keep them busy. You have to be detailed and prepared on the front end to make sure that regardless of who your audience is or who your classroom is, you have to have something to keep them busy and occupy them mentally and stimulated that they want to participate in what you are trying to accomplish.
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