Troy University Athletics
A New Found Respect For Journalists
8/16/2008 5:00:00 AM | Football
Friday, August 15
I guess that some of you noticed that I have not had a posting in the past few days. Well, the school year has recently started, so my mind has been concentrating on other things. Plus, I'm not used to writing on a daily basis.
Doing this blog has given me a newfound appreciation to writers who somehow crank out entertaining columns on a daily basis. Those people are truly gifted. My hat's off to them. But, nonetheless, I will do my best to contribute postings as often as I can.
The past few days have been very ordinary. Yesterday (Wednesday) was a short practice in shells to get the players ready for the scrimmage on Thursday. It was in the afternoon to get the players adjusted to the regular season routine. Both sides had their bright spots and looked promising.
Today, we arrived in the equipment room at 4:30 p.m. to begin setting up for the scrimmage. We did the usual pregame routine of bringing out the CoachComm system, setting out the pylons and other field equipment, and other duties. Again, it was another good dry run for game days.
Tonight's scrimmage was a short one, lasting just over an hour. All we did was go two quarters straight without interruption - meaning no timeouts or intermissions. Fortunately, I wasn't caught off guard this time when there was no break at the end of the quarter. There has never been a short practice/scrimmage that I didn't like.
Afterwards, we began doing laundry. This is one of the more important, and time consuming, tasks that a manager has to do. It is our responsibility to properly clean any garment that a player uses and to make sure that it is dried and put back into the correct issue bin.
We begin doing post-practice laundry as soon as the players begin returning from practice. We have several laundry carts outside of the equipment room for players to put their garments in: one for light practice jerseys, one for dark practice jerseys, one for practice loops (what they use to hold their practice clothes in to get washed), and another for towels. The loops always get washed first since they are the most important part of the player's practice wardrobe.
When the loops are through getting washed, they are put in the dryers as the practice jerseys are in the washers. While there is some down time in this early part, we usually get something to eat, perform tasks that we are to do nightly around the fieldhouse, or just relax.
After the first load of laundry is finished drying, we then put them in their designated issue bins/lockers. We continue doing this until we are through washing and drying all of the garments (usually, it is the towels that are done last).
Friday was a day off for everybody, giving everybody a chance to rest up before the final scrimmage Saturday. I'll be back later to talk about it. I think that's enough reading (or, in my case, writing) for now.
That's all for today.
Until later,
Jeff
