Coaching for Pizza: Another Opportunity for a EuroBall 2016 Experience

Friday, April 1, 2016

Another Opportunity for a EuroBall 2016 Experience

If you follow this blog on a somewhat regular basis, you know that last Fall I had agreed to coach an American football team in Gdańsk, Poland during this year's Spring and Summer.

Unfortunately for all concerned, the team, in only its second season of existence, was forced to cease operations due to financial hardships about a month before I was scheduled to embark on my seventh EuroBall adventure.

So I was now in a disappointed mindset that I would not get the chance to travel to Europe this year.

Then, on March 24th, I received an e-mail from Tai M. Brown who works for the American Football Coaches Association. He had been contacted by Thomas Andersson, a highly respected coach in the Stockholm, Sweden area asking for the AFCA's help in finding an AFCA 35-Year Member who might be willing to help him teach the fundamentals of the game to his Wäsby Warriors during the months of May and June only. The Warriors play nine-man football and have three youth teams in their program (U15, U13 and U11).

This e-mail was sent out only to AFCA 35-Year Members as I said, because Thomas was searching for an old-school coach to spend about two-months helping his young players get grounded in the basics of the game.

Well, I have been a member of the AFCA for the past 41 years, am really old, my social calendar for May and June was clear and I do indeed believe in teaching the principles needed to become good at blocking and tackling.

Thus armed, I shot Thomas an e-mail expressing my interest in the position that he offered.

We went back and forth with a few e-mails as he checked out my background, and I his, through the people with the Hassleholm Hurricanes in the south of Sweden (Skåne) where I had coached in 2010.

As I said, he received high praise from the Hurricanes that I trust and I guess that he was satisfied with what they told him about my coaching style. French GM par excellence Julien Urgenti also wrote Thomas a flattering letter that I am sure helped my cause as well.

So today, March 31st, a scant week after Tai M. Brown's initial e-mail arrived outlining Thomas Andersson's needs, I was offered the job.

After 2.5 milli-seconds of thought, I said a resounding YES!

Sweden here we come again!

We just loved the scenic beauty, history, culture and hearty cuisine when we coached here in 2010. The Swedes we met then remain friends to this day and all of our memories of Sweden are good except for the Mid-Sommer celebration.

Mid-Sommer is, for some unknown reason, a bit of a blur in our collective memory banks.

Damn Akvavit.

Same country as the 2010 season

But we will be in a vastly different location. On this map Hässlehom, where we were previously based for about six months, was located about an hour's train ride northeast of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Hassleholm's population is listed at 18,500 amazingly good, warm hearted people.

Stockholm's population is listed at 2,200,000 in its greater metropolitan area. We will not be living in Stockholm itself but we won't be far away. I'm guessing that we'll find a lot of good people there as well.