CVass
Future "Get Back" Coach
Hey Guys,
I wanted to share with you an experience that I had today that I will never forget. Right now, I am doing an intersession class called “The Sports Industry in South Florida†at the University of Miami. Basically, an intersession class is when the school takes fourth months of class and slams into two weeks. Our focus is to study the inner workings of many of the sports organizations with an emphasis on marketing, PR, while examining the companies’ goals and economic impact. Everyday, we take a trip to a different organization, and we will visit over the course of the class: PR Racing, the Miami Heat, Miami-Dade Sports’ Commission, Homestead Raceway, the Florida Panthers, UM’s Athletic Department, and the Florida Marlins; today’s trip was to the Miami Dolphins.
We visited the Dolphins at their practice facility in Davie. Our class was conducted in the main auditorium, where the offense, special teams, and specifically the running back conduct their meetings. We were handed updated biographies, stats sheets, media guides, new paper clips from the past week, press clippings/releases from the past week, the 2005 statistics, official depth charts and rosters from the Pats game, a copy of the latest Dolphin Digest, 2005 season in review, and a comprehensive packet of all the “featured clips†on Dolphin players from the entire year. We were hosted by Michael Pehanich who is a Media Relations Assistant and were visited by others, namely Tony Egues, the Equipment Manager. Mike talked about the organization and other details we needed to know for the class that would not interest you, but did give us some interesting insights that I will share later. There were some interesting things in the auditorium, including the Special Teams player points chart, the Offensive goals checklist, and even an offensive play drawn on the Dry-Erase board. Also, the room and the facility in generated, was decorated with favorite Sabanisms including “Out of yourself and into the team.â€Â
After two hours of talking to us, we got a guided tour of the facility that was draw dropping. As a Fin fan for 18 years (I am 21), this was truly a once in a lifetime experience. First, we were led down the halls with the position-specific meeting rooms to the equipment room. I got to see all the game used jersey hanging up on racks, the bin where all the helmet components are to build them, a rack of old, obsolete apparel, and the giant bins where they have all the accessories (gloves, wristbands, etc.). Next, we were led into the locker room. Tony gave us the tour and told us how stuff gets shipped back to the players. I couldn’t believe we actually got access to the locker room, since when we visited the Heat, it was strictly prohibited – and the Heat are a helluva lot less strict with player access. In fact, that is their selling point! I got to see everyone’s locker in off-season glory. We got shown the weight room from the outside, and the press conference room, which is no joke, the size of a small bedroom. They also took us to the media room, where the newspaper guys work and I got to see the NFL Network Team Cam (complete with Darren Sharper itinerary on top). The last stop was the lobby where we perused the limited memorabilia; limited because they moved most of it to the Dolphins Stadium museum – although I did get to see the two Super Bowl trophies!
There were some informational tidbits given by the guys that you may or may not know:
I wanted to share with you an experience that I had today that I will never forget. Right now, I am doing an intersession class called “The Sports Industry in South Florida†at the University of Miami. Basically, an intersession class is when the school takes fourth months of class and slams into two weeks. Our focus is to study the inner workings of many of the sports organizations with an emphasis on marketing, PR, while examining the companies’ goals and economic impact. Everyday, we take a trip to a different organization, and we will visit over the course of the class: PR Racing, the Miami Heat, Miami-Dade Sports’ Commission, Homestead Raceway, the Florida Panthers, UM’s Athletic Department, and the Florida Marlins; today’s trip was to the Miami Dolphins.
We visited the Dolphins at their practice facility in Davie. Our class was conducted in the main auditorium, where the offense, special teams, and specifically the running back conduct their meetings. We were handed updated biographies, stats sheets, media guides, new paper clips from the past week, press clippings/releases from the past week, the 2005 statistics, official depth charts and rosters from the Pats game, a copy of the latest Dolphin Digest, 2005 season in review, and a comprehensive packet of all the “featured clips†on Dolphin players from the entire year. We were hosted by Michael Pehanich who is a Media Relations Assistant and were visited by others, namely Tony Egues, the Equipment Manager. Mike talked about the organization and other details we needed to know for the class that would not interest you, but did give us some interesting insights that I will share later. There were some interesting things in the auditorium, including the Special Teams player points chart, the Offensive goals checklist, and even an offensive play drawn on the Dry-Erase board. Also, the room and the facility in generated, was decorated with favorite Sabanisms including “Out of yourself and into the team.â€Â
After two hours of talking to us, we got a guided tour of the facility that was draw dropping. As a Fin fan for 18 years (I am 21), this was truly a once in a lifetime experience. First, we were led down the halls with the position-specific meeting rooms to the equipment room. I got to see all the game used jersey hanging up on racks, the bin where all the helmet components are to build them, a rack of old, obsolete apparel, and the giant bins where they have all the accessories (gloves, wristbands, etc.). Next, we were led into the locker room. Tony gave us the tour and told us how stuff gets shipped back to the players. I couldn’t believe we actually got access to the locker room, since when we visited the Heat, it was strictly prohibited – and the Heat are a helluva lot less strict with player access. In fact, that is their selling point! I got to see everyone’s locker in off-season glory. We got shown the weight room from the outside, and the press conference room, which is no joke, the size of a small bedroom. They also took us to the media room, where the newspaper guys work and I got to see the NFL Network Team Cam (complete with Darren Sharper itinerary on top). The last stop was the lobby where we perused the limited memorabilia; limited because they moved most of it to the Dolphins Stadium museum – although I did get to see the two Super Bowl trophies!
There were some informational tidbits given by the guys that you may or may not know:
- The Dolphins are going to build an indoor practice facility – “the bubble.†This is because Saban is very regimented and late afternoon weather patterns in South Florida are unpredictable; plus there was the lightning scare from last week
- Catering for the Davie facility for the year is around $750,000 and the road trips cost the team a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars
- Muschamp basically ran the defense last year
- The reason Saban doesn’t let assistant coaches speak to the media comes from the Parcells lineage which says that assistant coaches are often the most likely to blab because they want to advance their own agenda and they would be likely to fingerpoint (Parcells’ reasoning, not straight from Saban)
- We will not see the orange uniforms for a long time… according to Tony Egues the equipment manager, the topic was brought up to Saban and he said that Saban’s reaction was a reaction that you would get if someone was “passing gas in church.†He is a traditionalist and does not like them
- When walking in, there was a man putting a baby in a pink stroller with his back to us, who I later found out was actually Will Muschamp
- Ricky Williams is the biggest slob in the locker room and has stuff everywhere
- The Dolphins always have a police escort and when the Fins play the Pats, they stay in Providence and RI police have to escort them to the border, and then they also have to coordinate an escort with Mass. State Police for the second half of the trip
- Joe Bailey believes that Dallas, Philly, Houston, and Washington’s organization are lightyears beyond everyone else’s in terms of running the organization and wants to go in the well structured nature of their teams, for the Fins
- Dom Capers has not been contacted yet and Saban is in fact on vacation for the first time in a year
