Arriving at Bowling Green the players were ready to compete and anxious to get going.  There was a delay in starting the camp as the staff was kind of waiting around for it to get darker and adhere strongly to the "under the lights" promotion they gave to the camp.  During that time me and another staff member walked around and toured the indoor facility and athletic center seen above.  They have done a great job of updating the coaching offices and displaying the successes of the program.  There is a large area where they treat recruits and talk about the program.  I have an established relationship with the wide receivers coach from working with him in the recruitment of one of my wide receivers I coached for four years of high school so it was nice to see him and talk with him.  Athletes began by getting measured and doing a few tests in the weight room connected to the field and at that time my mentor and I went to meet up with the head coach, Dave Clawson.  This was a great opportunity to meet and discuss some of our guys and get a feel for where they are recruiting wise for the 2014 class. 

Our kids performed well and the long drive home was spent discussing the schedules we have upcoming for our other kids.  On the dockett is a trip to Michigan State on June 16th for a 7v7, Sound Mind Sound Body Camp in Michigan put on by Adidas where Ohio State Head Coach Urban Meyer and staff, along with University of Michigan's staff and numerous other coaches will be in attendance.  I wil not be attending either of those events due to my responsibilities in summer school teaching, but I will be in contact with players and staff members throughout to get a recap of the events.

As you can see from the above photo, we won the Toledo 7v7 Tournament.  This was quite an experience.  Going into the tournament we were without three of our defensive starters, two of which have more than 10 offers from major Division I Programs.  I also called plays for this tournament so it was exciting to get back in control of an offense.  We usually charter a bus for trips, but since this was only a few hours away we carpooled to this event.  The same day we also had some guys who wanted to attend Bowling Green's one day camp that evening so with Bowling Green being relatively close, some of our guys played in the 7v7 then we all traveled down to Bowling Green after and some kids participated in that event as well.  Our top wide receiver did not participate in the 7v7 because he wanted to save his legs for the Bowling Green camp since he would be participating in that and he was getting serious attention from Bowling Green for a scholarship offer.

This trip to Toledo was an eye opener to the power of the AWP brand.  As I walk into the indoor facility Toledo coaches come up to me, greet me, introduce themselves and exchange information.  Comparing this to my experience last year at Bowling Green's 7v7 with my high school squad, we didn't talk to coaches until we reached the championship and it was about one player on our team (who is now playing at Bowling Green) and it was a very formal discussion.  With this experience, I found myself talking to the coaches on a more personal level and having a great opportunity to meet and network with coaches.  From the beginning the coaches said we were the favorite to win the event because we had won it last year and we had about 5 players that Toledo was interested in recruiting heavily. The tournament had a period of pool play where each team gets 3 games and then a single elimination tournament. 

Pool play began and we won our first two games big, then we were in for a surprise...The offensive and defensive coordinator gave us a bye in pool play so they could work directly with our entire team, which was a really cool experience for the kids and a great opportunity to get one on one work with the coaches and help in that recruiting process.  We spent about 30 mintues and the Toledo coaches put our kids through individual work and taught them some of the things they do at Toledo to determine if the player would be a fit.  The session went well and the coaches were seriously interested in two of our players and one other was "really skilled" but coaches felt he was a little too small to play at Toledo, but perhaps somewhere else in the MAC would be a good fit for him.  So although that is bad news, it is good to know an objective evaluation of our guys and it helps in planning out the rest of what we refer to as "Money Month" which is a whirlwind of one-day camps throughout the month of June that often result in great players getting scholarship offers when they play well on campus.

From my perspective calling plays on offense and controlling substitutes I had a lot of work to do in saving player's legs that were attending the Bowling Green camp later that day and we expected to play 7 games and win the championship so that management was on my mind a lot throughout the day.  We rolled through the single elimination tournament and throughout the very hot day we had to manage the bodies and recovery of each athlete to ensure their top performance in competition.  When we made the championship a lot was on my shoulders in terms of winning the championship, but also making sure players who are attending BG will be fresh.  We had a slight scare as the game went back and forth for about 20 minutes, but we pulled away and won by two scores.  We then had to eat some fruit, hydrate, and get the players on the road and find a cool restaurant to rest before heading to Bowling Green.  We chose Chick-Fil-A and the kids were able to recover nicely in a cool environment.  The most interesting part of the trip, non-football related, was our experience at Chick-Fil-A.  As you may or may not know, Chick-Fil-A has tremendous customer service and their manners and etiquitte is second to none.  A coach commented on how amazing the service was and we spoke with some of the employees who have completely bought in to the culture at Chick-Fil-A and the way to service people.  We had employees refill our drinks, take our trash away, bring out samples of shakes for all 25 of us and it was really nice, but the biggest thing was it was a reinforcement that customer service is vital for an organization in creating a competitive advantage and retaining customers, but how does that apply to us?  Our organization has to find things that set us apart from the competition. In our industry knowledge is very important, but so is having the ability to transfer knowledge to a large spectrum of clients and the attitude, tone and demeanor of our trainers and staff is vital to get clients to return and to bring about new clients.  Now off to Bowling Green.