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.

To see Cecil’s diary, click here. 

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.  

http://coachrusty.blogspot.com

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