Have you ever wondered what a coach does on a weekend after a big district road win, and in preparation for a game with a Top 10 team the following week.  I tried my best to keep track of some times over the weekend to create a timeline to give you and idea of a typical head coaches’ weekend.

Friday night and early Saturday morning

• 9:52-Finished talking to our team following our 34-33 district win at Taylor County
• 10:12-Left Taylor County HS to go back to GCHS (I ride our varsity bus to games, but ride home in the school suburban with 3 assistant coaches)
• 10:15-Stopped at Campbellsville Hardee’s to order something my doctor would not like considering my high cholesterol
• 10:33-Finally, received our food at Hardee’s drive-through; this is when I called my wife to inform her of the score
• 11:49-Called Advocate-Messenger to leave quotes concerning our game (I had an asst. call earlier with some game info, but found out later, per Larry Vaught, this was not done very well)
• 12:06 am-Arrive back at GCHS field house; begin duplicating game film vs. Taylor County
• 12:58 am-Finished copy sequence for master copy (DVD) of film vs. Taylor County;  walk to main building to make 7 DVD copies of game using school DVD copier for our coaching staff
• 1:22 am-Watch game film with staff and discussed problems and what we may need to do to correct them (this is not an every week item for our staff, but just worked out that way since we did not tackle very well for the 2nd week in a row)
• 2:33 am-Left field house to go home
• 2:47 am-Arrived at home; began watching game film
• 4:10 am (approximate)-Fell asleep on couch

Saturday after Sunrise until early Sunday morning

• 8:30 am-wake-up, shower, and leave for GCHS field house
• 8:55 am-arrive at GCHS field house; asst. coach Kevin Crutchfield had traded film with Frankfort and began copy process from VHS to DVD format. We watched some of the film while it was copying and began process of thinking about how to play Frankfort
• 9:25 am-Left field house to go to Lancaster Dairy Queen for radio show with Mike Carter
• 10:05 am-Radio show begins
• 11:00 am-radio show ends (luckily, my mother-in-law brought my 1 year old son Solomon to Dairy Queen so I got to see him for about 10 minutes)
• 11:10 am-left Dairy Queen to go to GC Jaycees Ball Park
• 11:15 am-arrive at Jaycees ball park to see the 4th quarter of the 1st game at our brand new youth football field (much work was done by GCYO board members to get this  field ready;  great job)
• 12:00 noon-left the field following the first half of our 8-9 year old team’s game to go back to field house
• 12:10 pm-began breaking down Frankfort’s offense into our Landro system with asst. coach Brian Hodge for development of defensive game plan
• 1:40 pm-made DVD copies of Frankfort’s films for our assistant coaches
• 2:00 pm-left field house to go back to Youth field
• 2:10-watched the end of the 4th quarter of our 10-12 year old team’s game
• 2:30-Left Ball Park to go back home
• 2:45-begin watching film of Frankfort for development of offensive/special teams game plan
• 4:40-see UofL’s debacle vs. Syracuse on ESPN News
• 4:50-5:20-played with Solomon for about a half an hour
• 5:40-Left to go eat at Outback Steakhouse in Lexington with my wife, Hilary
• 7:00-go see the movie, The Brave One (pretty good overall, good acting by Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard)
• 10:30 pm-arrive home; continue watching film of Frankfort for game plan preparation
• 2:20 am-went to sleep

Sunday after sunrise

• 8:45 am-wake-up
• 9:30 am-leave for New Hope Baptist Church
• 10:00-11:30 am-Church Service (continued a look at Thessalonians—focused on scripture dealing with Christ-like forgiveness and loving God for who his is rather than only  loving what he can do for us)
• 12:30- eat lunch; continue watching film and finalize game plan for staff meeting
• 1:35-Leave for staff meeting
• 2:00-4:00- staff meeting to discuss game plan and practice week for Frankfort game (this was one of our shorter staff meetings since we watched film as a staff following  Friday’s game)
• 4:00-fix the countdown to kickoff clock in GCHS cafeteria for Frankfort week
• 4:15-Go home to watch Solomon (while Hilary gets nails done) and watch our film vs. Taylor for grading purposes
• 6:05-Check up on NFL scores of the day (I can’t really get into the NFL until playoff time comes)
• 6:15-Finalize information for Monday’s team meeting/film session
• 7:00-eat some supper (pizza rolls—only the best when I cook)
• 7:30-play with Solomon and try to relax and watch some TV
• 9:45-rock Solomon to sleep
• 11:30-Go to sleep

As you can see, the weekend can be a pretty hectic time for a football coach.  Luckily, I have a wonderful wife who allows me the time to do what I need to in order to give our players the best chance to be successful.  As you can see, there is not much time fit in here to enjoy a big district win.  To me, that is probably the worst thing about coaching.  The losses tend to hurt a whole lot more than the wins feel good.  As you can also see, we were very concerned about the things we didn’t do well after the win.  That is why, for coaches, there tends to be less enjoyment of wins.  Win or lose, you have to turn right around and begin preparing for your next opponent.  Our next opponent is an ultra-athletic Frankfort team, who is one of the top teams in Class A.  No time for celebration here……..