Tiger Tales

I always knew I would be a coach. I always loved sports growing up and tried to be a student of the game. I was always playing something. I played six sports in high school.

Baseball was my first love. I played one semester in college.

I was raised in a strict household. My dad was a minister and when I went to college I realized I didn't handle the situation very well. I guess you could say I wasn't mature enough and I ended up taking a year off of school. My father gets smarter every day. Things he told me then are coming true now. I didn't see it then.

My dad knew that discipline came from sports. He grew up playing basketball and baseball. And in a small town, you played sports. That's what you did.

I grew up an Arkansas football fan. I still am. I thought the Texas-Arkansas rivalry was the biggest in football. Now I know that OU-Texas is bigger.

I grew three inches in one year right before college. I was 5-foot-7, 125 pounds in high school. But when I went back to college I was 5-10, 160.

I worked selling advertising at a newspaper. I was good at it. I could sell a drowning man a bucket of water.

A friend in Norman, told me the job was open here. I called some people and tried to find out about it and my interest was peaked. I researched the job and the position and read up about Norman High. I talked to my wife and we went after it. This is my first head coaching job since 2004.

I think the Norman job is one of the top five jobs in Oklahoma high school football. No. 1, the tradition is here. It's football Mecca here. OU is around the corner. This is football heaven. When you say Norman, you think of football tradition.

I'm a player's coach. I'm in tune with the kids and their needs, academically and athletically. There's a lot of respect there between the coach and student-athlete. The majority of our kids won't go on in football, but I'm trying to get them ready for life.

I plan on being here for a long time. I want this to be my last stop. Moving is stressful. I can't stand it. I hate it. Honestly, I want my son to grow up in a good educational system. Norman was a big draw for me.

I don't think coach Butch Peters did anything wrong. He had his way of doing things. Every coach has his niche. Right or wrong. I'm not coming in here to re-invent the wheel. There's already tradition here. I don't have to rebuild. I'm trying to achieve excellence and work with young people. I'm just trying not to screw things up.

To me, Norman-Norman North is as big as Jenks-Union. It's played at Owen Field. It's huge.

Norman High has had the upper hand but Norman North has turned the corner. I love the challenge to try and compete with them.

What I play for is week four and on. Norman-Norman North is a great game, but it's roughly a preseason game. I'm not trying to downplay, but it's for bragging rights.

You have to stay in tune. You have to visit other coaches, colleges and things like that. You have to work to keep the upper hand. Now, we have the opportunity through internet and film and visiting with others to stay in tune to the latest things that go on in the game.

You have to be open-minded. You have to let your coaches coach. I don't micro-manage. I got a great staff here. All of the coaches returned. As a staff they are great educators and they are Norman residents and family people and good people.

I play in a rock band. We're called Overedukated. We have our own website on MySpace. We're all teachers. We play all over. I'm the drummer. I just started playing about 19 months ago.

In 2006, I had a hip replacement and shoulder surgery and they told me I couldn't run or ski. I had to have a stress reliever. That's why I got the drums.

We just play fun cover songs like Skynard, Bob Marley, Johnny Cash. We play all sorts of stuff. It's been really fun. I have some rhythm. I'm not a musician. I just run around with them.