It never ceases to amaze me just how small the world of American football truly is.
As many of you know, I will
soon be working again in EuroBall
In October and November of this year I will again be heading overseas to work in Madrid with the Osos Rivas club seen in red and yellow in the picture above.
As stated in a previous post, it will be the Osos' off-season when I arrive. I have been charged with the dual tasks of coaching the coaches and teaching fundamentals to all of the members of the Osos' roster and the rosters of their feeder clubs as well.
With this as background, let me introduce you to . . .
. . . Coach Sebastian Serrano
Sebastian and I have been Facebook friends for a long time although we have never actually met in person.
While I coached Spain's DII Murcia Cobras in 2015, Sebastian was coaching the Barberà Rookies team near Barcelona. While the Rookies were also a DII club, we did not play them because we were in different conferences.
The Rookies had a great team in 2015 going 10-1 with their only loss coming in the DII National Championship game against the undefeated Reus Imperials.
Because of that great season, the Rookies were promoted to DI for the 2016 campaign.
Besides Spain, Sebastian's coaching career includes successful stops in Germany, Croatia, Florida and soon in Portugal.
What made this, previously unbeknownst to me, a small world was that Sebastian had been both an Assistant Coach (1996-2010) and Head Coach (2011-2013) of your Osos Rivas!
And to make an even smaller world . . .
Sebastian had been an assistant with the Osos in 2001 when they won their only National Championship with SoCal coaches Vince and Chris Pagliaro at the helm.
Without knowing it, I even have a couple of pictures of him stalking the sidelines as the Osos' Head Coach in 2012 when I saw the Osos host the Sueca Ricers.
The 2011 Osos, under Sebastian's
leadership, made it to the DI Finals
He has also been a fixture as an Assistant Coach with the Spanish Mens and Womens National Teams at both the Junior and Senior levels.
Bottom line, Sebastian is an American football junkie in the best sense of the term!
After sitting out the 2016 season, he is back with a vengeance as the new Head Coach of . . .
. . . Team Portugal!
I am confidant that Team Portugal will show marked improvement in all of their international games next season under his tutelage.
Hopefully, I will be able to swing down to Lisbon while I'm in Madrid to finally meet this Euro legend coach face-to-face after all of these years.
Reading Is FUNdamental
Three good ones in the last few weeks starting with two from Visby, Sweden's own Mari Jungstead.
Sick
Depraved
I found both of these books in the Camarillo Library.
By the way, sick and depraved are really good things when reading Nordic Noir books like Juingstead's.
From the Las Vegas Library
of Andrew Contreras
We were visiting Andrew and Jenn over the past weekend to celebrate grandson Kevin's fifth birthday.
This Berry book made it an even dozen of his books that Andrew has given me to read. For the 12th consecutive time, I was thoroughly entertained.
1 comment:
Thank you so much Coach.
Post a Comment