Rookie
head coach describes nightmarish season in his online football diary
By Carl
Little, THG Sports
October 24, 2004
Rusty Cecil has been
involved in football for 34 years as a player and coach, but 2004 was the first
time he lead a team onto the field as a head coach.
After 20 years as head
coach of the mighty Floyd Central Highlanders, Ron Weigleb hung up his whistle
last winter, opening the door for Cecil to take over the reigns of one of the
most respected programs in southern Indiana. Cecil had been an assistant under
Weigleb for the last 20 years.
As a tool to give insight
into what the life of a new high school head football coach is like, soon after
being hired Cecil decided to create an on-line diary of his experiences. “I
always try to be on the cutting edge of technology and love working with
computers and the Internet, so I thought the journal was a great idea. The
average fan doesn’t have a clue about all that being a head coach entails,” said
Cecil as we enjoyed tea from his wife’s Oriental tea service. “Hopefully they
will now.”
Cecil created his diary
using Blogger.com, a free service where users can easily post text and pictures
on the web. “Blogger is very easy to use, and being a coach, I don’t have a lot
of time to mess with html.” Cecil began the site in June and updated it
periodically until the season began, when he posted his thoughts on each game.
Cecil apologizes to fans
who were hoping the Highlanders would have a winning season. “I wish we would
have won more games, but that is the way the cookie crumbles when you are young
and inexperienced.”
Cecil plans on continuing
his online diary next June when summer conditioning for the football team
begins.
