The Lions' Pride

Coach Chambers is "hoping for good news this week" regarding recruiting

Sorry for the bad photos and heads in the way

Thanks for the pics Z.

Busy at work today, but I'll get a summary write-up posted tomorrow.

Coach O'Brien addressing the crowd of 400+ at the Harrisburg event.

Promised some notes from the DC event so here they are. Sorry for the length, there really isn’t anything new here, so feel free to skim or skip.

I know all the events were a little different in format. For DC, there was a cocktail hour from 7-8 with the presentations starting at 8. Expensive drinks, and free hor-dourves. Before going into the main room, they had tables set up with some stickers and other small freebies for the NLC, DC Alumni Assoc, etc. I arrived into the main room about 7:15. I saw Coach Chambers mingling for just a few minutes before he left to go back stage. BoB stayed in the same spot with a line to meet/greet get pictures etc the whole time. He was there until about 7:55, when the handlers pulled him away.

The format of the event was the coaches each talked in general about their temas, and then there was an open QA session from the audience. There were (from a quick count) 312 seats, and only a small handful unoccupied, that were probably sold to the people standing in the back. The coaches were (in order) Women’s golf coach Denise St. Pierre, Chambers, track coach Beth Alford-Sullivan, and BoB.
All of the presentations were relatively short, with BoB’s being the longest. The each spoke about their teams, and were all-well spoken, none used notes, and only BoB had a powerpoint. BoB was cracking some jokes throughout, including that all coaches brought salads to a coach’s lunch, and he brought a cheesesteak. Nothing earth shattering was learned, but here are a few points from the meeting:
• I was surprised that there was very little sales push for tickets/donations
• No questions about the scandal. Only BoB approached the subject
• Felt bad for the other coaches because out of all the questions (I’m guessing 15-20 questions were asked until it was cut-off at about 9:30) one was for Chambers, one for Alford-Sullivan, one for all the coaches, and the rest for BoB. I’m sure they expected it, but would have been nice for the other coaches to have participated more.
• St. Pierre said that BoB really meant what he said about “one athletic department” and shared that he was the organizer for the lunch at the golf offices for all the coaches to attend
• Alford-Sullivan leads both the men’s and women’s track teams. I wish I heard more about what it was like being a woman coaching men, but maybe the fact that it wasn’t really discussed much shows how far things have come.
• Chambers really is non-stop energy. You can just tell when he talks. As noted, he was expecting good recruiting news this week. I though he meant Jeter, but seems like he may have been referring to Jack. He thought he would have the news on Wed, so that’s probably it.
• Most interesting thing to me was after the presentations, people hung around and Chambers was talking with a few folks and his expectations seemed to have been more, realistic than most of ours. Next steps seemed to be get to 500 in the conference, have some wins with a better OOC schedule and get to the NIT. I’m sure the goals are aimed much higher.
• BoB pointed out that Fitz is the only one who can have contact with the kids 365 days a year, and hence how important he is to the program.
• Said we had world-class football facilities and his biggest change was the weight rooms and training facilities. Academic facilities for the players were the best he has seen. Credited Paterno for the facilities and the hard working kids on the team.
• As I posted above, wants kids who will graduate and work hard, but knows to compete, and to win he’s not going to have 100 “angels” on his team. Will be an interesting line to walk, on how much leeway do you give kids, but maintain the quality and class desired and still win. My guess he’s going to move the needle a tiny bit more towards winning that we’ve seen the last few years.
• They will play situational football and said they have three speeds they will play at: Normal, 2 minute/no huddle, and warp speed. Not as far as he would have hoped, but coming along.
• Told the players everything is done for the good of the team.
• Since the incident with Brady and BoB happened in DC, he said he wasn’t going to tell anyone what was said, and we should read lips if we want to know.
• BoB Showed a surprising confident/cocky for a brief moment side when he said not to worry about about the quarterbacks “I know a little about coaching quarterbacks”.
• His biggest concern about the deep is the secondary depth. Likes the players there, but not as deep as he would like or it will be.
• Said as a first year head coach he’s going to do every interview he can
• BoB said not a single recruit or parent has asked him about the situation (I think they’ve been coached to not use the word scandal) He repeated several times that it was time to move forward, and the program would continue to do work for child abuse charities.
• Bob pulled a JoePa. Said Chambers has been trying to get him to tweet. He didn’t know what to tweet, except about the 5 turkey sandwiches he’s had on the bus, and that he isn’t yet up on twitter or “spacebook”.

All in all, a good event. Whoever put this together should work with the BOT – they could use the positive PR. Happy to answer any questions.

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing with the board.

Seems like the Cleveland event is the same format as the DC event I went to (they are not all the same). In that event the first hour was hors d'oeuvres and cash bar with the coaches mingling/signing/picturing, etc. Actual presentations started promptly one hour after the start time.

After a couple days off, who's attending some of the caravan events this week?

I will be attending the breakfast event in Altoona on Monday. Really looking forward to it.

If depth in secondary is his biggest concern im relieved a bit....
hope the qbs (Mcgloin?), oline, and a d end or 2 (barnes) can step up this yr

Agreed.