All right everybody we're back May 7, 2024. Happy to be back. It's been a couple weeks.
Tough show today following a great guest and Rashmal Jones. That was really fun.
I mean I knew he'd be awesome but like he gave us more than I would have bargained for.
Today's guest, gonna follow him up nice I think. And we're getting back to a topic I love was
just high school sports. As much as we talk about all that other junk I think it's just the
purest form if parents could stay out of the way. Absent today to Commissioner Major League
Baseball almost and the Don Father not here but Angry Jays in the studio. Studio engineer
Kevin Ross. Hosting yet again at his studio Lottie Lottie Lottie and myself Crocker and
the tax man are not here but it's time to bring in and introduce our this episode guest and perhaps
it's almost hard to describe what he was or is but maybe the most storied definitely talked
about you might want to throw in controversial at least to the week and meet people out there
that aren't suited for sports but we're bringing in the legendary coach Jack Cochran. Jack thanks
for coming. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Yeah you weren't on our radar but what a former
guest Justice Harrison said you were halfway decent on the sidelines but more importantly to
the young men and get them to where they needed to go when they had no idea where they could go
and I was kidding we you know when when your name came up I'm like of course but you know your
former players at least the only one we know couldn't speak more highly of raved about your
coach. Thank you. Yeah Justice great great kid. We're gonna bore everybody with some background
but real quick grew up in New London probably played three sports as a kid played four. What
was the fourth wrestling. Oh of course a grappler. I can't imagine that. Were you alignment when
you got into football. Tight end. All right so part time lineman. Back then it was a glorified
lineman back then. They weren't throwing the ball much. Third and plus 17. And you know did you
play football in college. Yeah Norwich University. Small division. Is that military. Military
College of Vermont. Yeah. What made you go there besides football. Just fucked up a lot in high
school. That'll do it. They teach it the right way right. Yeah it was you know just growing
pains and it was a good place at the time. Did you play the other military universities in this
in like the Northeast. We played the Coast Guard that was the little Army Navy game. We played
that's cool. Yeah that was fun. That was a very exciting game. Is there a mass maritime. Did you
play that. We played mass maritime. Yeah. And then there's one maybe like closer to Maryland.
What might that be. No. Anyway so what position you play there. Tight end. Okay. They throw the
ball at all. We did. We did. I wear the hands. Lester Hayes or Butterfingers. Dropped one in. Let's
go. Let's go. What number were you. 81. I hate when tight ends were to you know. They changed it.
But even when tight ends were like 37 or so get out of here. Yeah. Remember the guy for the Raiders
that were. Who was the guy for the Raiders. After Casper that was 87. Ray Manchester. No. Oh no.
How could I. Todd Christians. There was a 40 something. Was he a tight end. That's what he was.
Yeah. He was the NBC guy. And announcer to. He did a good job on NBC. Clared million passes to these
bums now. I'm in Charlie. I'm in Charlie Jones was the duo. And here like the downfire. I love
Whitton as a player. Boy was he a terrible terrible announcer. Coach you watch professional
football. Very rarely. I love college football. Okay. I watch it. I got. I built a bar in my
old barn. Yeah. An old farm and it's got eight televisions and I sit there Saturday morning.
And can we do a podcast from there next year. Yeah. It's got every every NFL every college
helmet and the Raptors. It's a. It's a. Penn State will be on. It's a. Before we get into the
coaching stuff. What did you teach. I started out history social studies economics.
Youth in the law and then switched to P and health when I became an athletic director.
Sell out. There you go. Those guys are the best. Trust me. Full of wind pants. Remember the wind
we don't wear wind pants. We wear shorts here around. Coach. What we do. Your first head coaching
job in football had to be something you look forward to. But you're a young man at this time.
Yeah. Too young. Actually I. How old I was. Let's see. Twenty five. Wow. I just finished two years
at University of New Haven. And I applied. God for two jobs. I thought Bloomfield was in New
Jersey to be honest. I drive up car breaks down. I walked the last two miles. It was in July.
And when I finished the interview the athletic director told me I was the only one to interview.
There you go. Yeah. You got the job. Bloomfield was in a rough rough time then. And being young I
mean I just had a lot of energy a lot of time to put in. We were fortunate and had some good luck
and well I run. I've happened. I've had you know the experience of being around Bloomfield
sports just because two of my children play at Bristol Central. And you know you kind of never
know what you're going to get based on the sport. But I can remember. Like I said I follow high
school sports. Waterbury Republicans still one of the greatest sports newspapers out there.
And Sony is our you know Waterbury's neighbor. They got great coverage and it always seemed to be
Bloomfield and Sonya and and Sonya is synonymous with dynasty. Connecticut football. Pop short tell
when you think Connecticut football to me. I don't care about the division either. When you
think you can connect to football. I think you're thinking in Sonya. Well if you've ever been in
their gym you see all the banners. I mean the whole wall is just football. Yeah. And by the way
there's a dozen fields at it. There's one softball field with that's overgrown. The backstop's
overgrown. But coach coach puts Bloomfield on the map kind of quickly. And you know could
just talk about one what it took to build that program and two what it was like you know in
anticipation of those great great and Sonya Bloomfield games. Yeah. Definitely. Like I said I
was very young. Took over program with a long losing streak. They actually were looking to cancel
football. My first year we went two and eight nineteen ninety two. They voted again and as a
compromise they asked us to form a co-op with the grand B to keep the football team going. You
know I looked into the rules. I made sure we were over the number to co-op. So how many kids
do you have like on your team. The first year biggest. We started with eighty seven. Oh you
got that many. We went to week five at all with nineteen. We played a lot of games and we went
to a state championship. We played Seymour in nineteen ninety three with thirteen players
getting off the bus. Wow. Hold on. Sounds like the next. Did parents drive the other players
there. Are you telling me. Honestly we had more coaches and players on the side that year. And
we had to get hurt to freshman had to come in. And if we lost one more we would have to force it
in a state championship in state where was that game. It was at Southern versus Seymour
nineteen ninety three. We hung tight for half an hour. No coach. You went you said it from eighty seven to nineteen. Can I ask you why.
Was it just injuries or kids just couldn't they couldn't commit the way that you had to set discipline.
Exactly. The poor coach before me he was an insurance salesman in Springfield. He used to get to the
school four thirty five o'clock. And you know that's a recipe for disaster. The kids would miss two
three days of practice show up and play and you know I just had sit rules and we we paid our lumps
that first year you know two and eight we lost almost the whole team but it set the stage you
know going forward and we went to eight straight championships after that. So jackpot for Granby
but continue about like building this. Yeah. So and how long did Granby last in a call. We never we never
go up. We got to the number of players it was twenty five is the number you have to get to back then not to
go up. So we ended up staying on our own. And then the second year we went from two and eight to eight and two.
And we got very lucky the last game of the year we had to beat Weaver. We're eight one and they're one in nine.
And we lose at Weaver and we collect the equipment. We're washing the uniforms and at the same time
Middletown was playing Berlin. Berlin was same situation. Eight one Middletown's on nine.
And I just say what the heck I'll call the current because back then you couldn't get scores on the
Internet. And Middletown upset Berlin and it put us in the champ. Yeah. Out. Yeah. It was just one of
the I got to quickly call the kids back and then the irony back the irony years later a certain Berlin
coach would steal all your former New Britain players and put the nah we won't get into that. But hey you
got to win man. So now if you could like shift gears to the insomnia thing I mean to me it seems just
like storybook like yeah so 90 that was 93 we go eight and two we play see more we lose 94 we get it going.
We play in Sonya and we got we got destroyed at West Haven on a Friday night. Next year we make it back
again we go undefeated and they got a team with Coughlin and four or five division one players Stevie. Yeah.
OK that's great. Yeah. And we played a great defensive game. It was zero zero going into the
fourth quarter. They scored mixed missed the extra point. We score on the trick play lined up for the
extra point and Jack Hunt somehow got arrested. So got got the flag on the flag out and we got a
mysterious. But that really turned the table. Then we went we lost legend by the way. We lost the next
year. Let's see was that Darian. And then we won four straight. So coach you said you took over 92. Yeah.
And in 94 you're playing in the state championship 93 93. So how did the enroll like you said you're
struggling to get players. Did they just start. I mean how did you attract them. They just like wow.
Like we started winning. We started trying out. It was it was a very very small school. I said our
biggest enrollment was 500 total. Yeah. You know half of that to 20 240 boys 250. And Bloomfield was
always known for basketball. Yeah. They have a super athlete. They have a hundred kids try out. So I was
always I would always wait at the door when they put the cut list up. Yeah. And I put my arm around
those kids. Hey let's that's tough. But yeah. But that got a lot of life. And then when we we finally got
Northwest Catholic to play us and you know their team had 25 30 Bloomfield players and we played them
Thanksgiving. You know we took it to him pretty good. We got a lot of those players back. All right.
Is it safe to say that those players parents probably remembers at Winton Berry Hills or some other
place like that. Yeah. Yeah. It was a tough but it's funny. I'd never been in a place like Bloomfield
where the athletes we had to run where we had one team that had five future NFL players on at
Bloomfield. Can you name them. Yeah. It was Dwight Threnee. Who's that. Andrew Pinnock. Matt Lawrence.
Oh played for the Ravens. That's three. I put you on the spot coach. Yeah. Oh Dwight Anderson
played for the Rams. That's four and then five would be and this is class S football. Yeah. Who is
the fifth that's coming to me. It will come. We'll get it. We'll get it. We'll start getting
ahead a couple of times. Circle. We're going to get to that. So yeah we had and there was one
street in Bloomfield. ESPN should do a special on it. Farmstead Circle. It was about 20 houses
and on that street was Dwight Franey. Nikesha Sales. Brook Sales. Dwight Anderson had played for
the Rams. Maury Garrett played at Princeton. It's just incredible. On the same street with 20 houses.
Charles Cameron played at Northeastern. Did both sales go to Northwest though. No. Nikesha
State at Bloomfield. Brooke went to the North. We'll take Nikesha. She actually. Villanova
kids out. She actually worked out with the football team in the weight room. It was great. Where?
At Bloomfield. Is he? Brooksville. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good job. Very good job. Recently I think
within the last year. This was a good job. Yeah. Very good. Coach I want to just backtrack for a
second. You played all these sports growing up and you obviously played football in college. Did
you always know that you wanted to ultimately be a coach or did someone see something in you at a
young age that kind of put you down along that path? Yeah. Can you talk about a little bit about
your influences? Yeah. I mean during high school you know I was always remember drawing plays in
class. I was really intrigued by that part of it you know and same thing in college was always
looking drawing new plays and learning you know about offense and defense and then my senior I
got into law school and you know being at the military academy for four years there was zero
social life so I made that you know that one dumb decision take a year off put it off and my
high old high school coach Jim Bunacore he asked me to coach the line and that was it just fell in
love with it went back to school got my teaching certificate and did two years at New London and
then very fortunate I got a job as a grad assistant at University of New Haven under one of the best
you know offensive minds Mark Whipple you know and it just everything went from there. I forgot
he was at New Haven. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't they win an Astral Enchanted? Yeah. The year I went to
Bloomfield. So we could do this Bloomfield thing for a minute. How close are you with those guys?
Like not just the stars but the old players from Bloomfield you still in contact with them? Yeah
like I went played golf with Dwight last week in Florida you know excited to go out to Canton
Augusta. You're going? Yeah watch them get in trying them. Said about that. Once he's a has been
he doesn't need to get paid for the first stuff can we can we get him here? Where's he live? He
lives in West Palm. Yeah we'll call him. We have a phone hook up. Yeah he's a good guy and he must
been fun to block in high school. Jesus. It was funny. He was actually a soccer player in high
school. And we were so small I would there was kind of a loophole in the rules back in the 90s
where you could switch sports midseason after season as long as you didn't complete the season. So I
would be so small I had identified a top five six seven soccer players and got friendly with them
during the year and the day of their last game I would tell them hey here's the deal not about 10
seconds left in the game I just want you to say you quit. So they would say I quit and then if
you're stinking soccer you're done in October and football you go to December so I used to get
those guys. Oh my god. And those four those guys were NFL players so I got from the soccer team so
I respect the CIE. Wait until 10 seconds ago. Waities coaches now are sniping people off of
teams man. Come on. Can't do that anymore. They switched to rule. Did you know Freeney like right
away like holy I don't ever see anything like it. I got his brother. I can't believe the soccer
like anybody else catch that was the best goalie I've ever seen but think of Bloomfield we're in
the league with Hall. Class then Barry. Soccer schools. So we'd lose 14 or nothing and he'd have
50 saves. So I got him to play football and first year I hadn't met linebacker and he was got
awful just couldn't read the sets of the plays good tight end and the next year we put him down
at the end and it's all sure. That's all sure. But you can see where do you go. But he still has
the combines fastest first 10 yards. I mean that's a history to combine. Yeah. And he's alignment at
265. He's got freaks man. All right. To talk about Bloomfield for a couple of hours. Next stop New
Britain. What makes you leave building something like that just a challenge of better competition.
No it was it was tough. It was I long saw I'll make it quick. I know I got cut for time but
I worked my way of Bloomfield up from first two years. I didn't have a teaching job. I would
substitute two days a week at 40 dollars a day. You know coaching paid. I think it was 1800 and I
finally got two classes. I'm 40 percent and then I worked my way to full time then athletic director
head of physical education. No classes and we really turn around athletics basketball wins
a state championship. We're building the point we bring in golf. We're building and
new principal came in in 2000 and it was all wiped away in two hours. Come on man. Athletic director
had to make a choice stay as coach or athletic director can't do both back to a full load classes.
I had a strength full time strength coach in the building. His position got taken away and it was
tough. It was and it was just funny right when that happened. I got a visit from New Britain
the head of the booster club and I said hey let me lease go interview and hopefully use it as
leverage and it didn't work. So and it was a great challenge at that point in my career. I'm going
from the smallest school in the state that offers football to the biggest. There was 5000 students
at the time and I just saw the potential. They were still down. They were seven wins was a good
season then for New Britain. So how many how many kids come out for football. That's a great great
story. So when I took the job early and I didn't want to dish Bloomfield so I did spring football
at Bloomfield right after school and I ran to New Britain and we did it at night. So I was doing
both. So I was going from 28 kids and New Britain I show up 160 kids. I knew you were going to say
it was a big number. And then day four we put the pads on. I'm not thinking the school only has 40
helmets and 40 shoulder pads. So we got 40 kids on the field playing and I got a hundred plus sitting
on the ground waiting until somebody quits. It was funny they go into shed and whatever size
helmet shoulder pad you can't do that now but they put it on. So we do a big fundraiser we get
you know 100 more shoulder pads, 100 helmets and got it going but it was big big. I wasn't used to
coaching. Did you cut I mean high school. No I never ever would cut. You know I turned up the
heat to make some kids quit. 160 kids. They cut themselves all day long. Yeah yeah that's crazy.
So so then the level of athlete you had there not quite as many NFL players but I would think that
like the average player in New Britain was a little bit more athletic or you know I'll be honest
with you we played Bloomfield my second year in New Britain and Bloomfield had a much who
approached you about scheduling that game. Yeah okay. And they had a much much better team talent
wise. Who won? We beat them. Yeah. But they I mean they had Matt Lawrence they had you had the
running back for the Vikings from Manchur Cori Sheets. Oh all right yeah. Played for Padoo
and it felt that team because they were much more talented. Oh we had just we had Justice Harrison
he was the only one comparable to anybody they had you know we had Key Lays at receiver
but not like Bloomfield had. That's great man. That's our guy yeah. And three state titles at
New Britain. Yeah. Yeah should have been four. Yeah should have been four. We had that season
where the state senator from Meridan I don't know if you remember this Gaffney he passed a bill
that said no one in that part of the CCC had to play us so we had six teams drop us.
I remember that. I do remember that. And we're looking at five games and it was an 11 game year
and now we picked up Zavarian brothers out of Boston number one team in Mass. We picked up Holy
Trinity at a Long Island number one team in Long Island. This is funny you remember the Sniper and
Baltimore was shooting the gas stations so they canceled high school football in Baltimore
so we picked up four games. They had to come to Britain so we were the only ones watching the news
at six o'clock hoping they didn't catch them. That's a soft schedule coach by the way.
Anyhow they caught him and so we didn't play a game the last god six weeks of the season we didn't
play a game. We practiced like it was 40 something days against each other and then we had to play
Greenwich the team with John Sullivan and we just couldn't get it going in the first quarter we're
just so rusty. I never heard of that. I don't remember that at all. That's crazy. You know what
me neither. Yeah I do. How can they go to that level? I mean come on man. So to make these other
schools kids feel better we're going to punish one group of kids. I mean I just don't see. Yeah
and when it led to they redid the whole CCC by size. It used to be by geography. They change every
two years right now anyway so. It used to be Bristol Central Eastern and Southerland and
Britain. Yeah and that was a great news. It all came down the middle and in those schools were beating
to Britain. Yeah Bristol Central had some great things going on. Oh my god yeah. Yeah I mean
New Britain was an up and down program. Every you get a you know Tabbaki Jones kind of guy the
team would you be good. A lot of kids would play then they'd lose it. Coaches would change. Yeah
never stayed. I gotta ask this. So tell us about like your philosophy with as far as team like
do you change it a lot or like when you have like a Justice Harrison are you just predominantly a
run team or do you I mean did you throw it at all. Yeah so and I gotta I gotta ask too I want to
know about the the weightlifting. Yeah so you know my philosophy was always you know I coached two
years in college and I saw we visited you know 20 colleges and I said I'm gonna run the program
like a college football program so we hung our head on conditioning and strength and that getting
the kids to buy into that that took some time but once you get a kid to spend three months in the
weight room and they see themselves in the mirror. Changes life. They're hooked and then the hardest
part was getting the basketball coach on board because those guys hate weightlifting and they
just don't they're not educated you know once I showed them hey this is what Michael Jordan's doing
he's lifting every day you get them on board and the baseball coaches are always very tough but
they had to understand you got to lift all year round you if you take a season off you lose everything
you gained before that. So when did you guys lift? Did you lift like the football team? Yeah we lifted
every day you know if you didn't play a winter sport you're in the weight room play the winter
sport we found a way for you to get your four days in okay you know and then same thing in the
spring and then going back to offense you know you're very lucky if you get a top-notch high school
quarterback that can throw the ball yeah and the only way to do what I feel is you got to do a
winter passing league legitimate one a spring passing league and then a summer passing league I
always felt that quarterback had to play a hundred spring games before he suited up week one yeah
and C defenses and he's got to throw 2,000 passes to be a real quarterback so to have that kid
you know and then I felt you're always gonna have a running back you know always gonna and you can
always make linemen you know and then but if you had that one great running back you got to give
him 20 25 30 touches a game because he's gonna break 304 you know in high school if you play great
great team defense and you tackle and you got a kicker and you can play good special teams you're
gonna be in every game in the fourth quarter so do you like do you run like a 4-3 did you run
up did it depend on you for a challenge? Yeah that's great I answer this question all the time and
people think I'm full of shit and until Belichick came forward I feel I feel good now because
I never believed in a 4-3 or a 5-2 or a split 4 or an eagle you know I thought you just teach the
players how to play techniques so a defensive lineman has to know how to play inside shade
outside shade head up and slant you can run 50 different defenses okay linebackers you can teach
them how to read a guard read a fullback so we would if we if we were playing Glastonbury we
were playing a 5-2 shade cover three roll if we were playing Southington we're playing a three man
front and dropping eights unless because most of their quarterbacks can't get out of their own way
and move you know and we're playing a nickel defense okay so it's it's week to week and when
Belichick came out I said oh man I guess I was doing it right coach I want to stay with that just
for a second we had Donovan Klingon down here a couple months ago and he just talked about how
rigorous their practices were for Hurley especially the day before a game now I'm not comparing
basketball to football obviously it's a different sport but how physical do you guys get in practice
to get ready for these games are you concerned about injuries or it's just like our practices
are going to be harder than the games yeah so we we tackled every day except the day before the game
and there's ways to do it without killing each other so we would tackle sleds we had I always
invested a lot of money in the equipment we had three one-man sleds we had two-man sleds five-man
sleds we have what are called pop-up sleds it's very hard to get hurt hitting a sled and then
when we tackled we always had an A group and a B group so Dwight Freeney never tackled Andrew
Pinnock oh gosh yeah all right you know we yeah and we hope the B the B guys didn't get killed
and then I would invest in I always have 20 hand shields so we let the hand shields take most of
the front but we tackled if you can tackle one thing I learned from a coach Deake Pollard
with Syracuse the defense coordinator he told us to go back and look at our film and chart every
time there's contact between say your linebacker and the running back your D back in the safety
and see if he gained yards or lost yards and if you can hit a defender and stop him at that spot
or move them backwards you're going to save over the course of the year about 3 000 yards
you know you think if you hit a guy and he falls forward that's 3 yards you add those up
back then everybody's running the ball and that made a lot and that's when it really changed
that's interesting my philosophy and uh tackling gotcha that's that's cool yeah I love that kind
of stuff like it makes sense oh my god and nobody tackles you it kills me you can't watch the
NFL anymore no nobody tackles because it's these it's live it's the rules but kids just aren't
tackling you know when you got to tackle to the ground yeah you know you just got to do it um I
hate to like I want to get back to the high school stuff but yeah this really makes me want to
shift gears because it's appropriate right now your son who had a seat you know concussion
issue yeah more than that and kind of stopped his career right yeah um dad amazing coach we got a hit
or we got a tackle yeah um and then is that what did it to him or did it were they freak things or
were they yeah he uh he got a bad concussion in youth football and uh not knowing a lot back then
the one that comes after is the one that causes most of the damage and then he uh came back at a
second one and then pulled him out for that year pulled him out for the next year tried to um I
tried to repeat eighth grade with him I tried to put him at St. Berners and he boycotted it
it was funny he uh so he missed all of the uh fall camp was going to repeat eighth grade
stood up say I'm I'm not doing it came back to new london missed everything we were at week one
and you oh you coached him at new london yeah I didn't know this and then it was funny he worked
at Mike he was fourth he works his way up to third second string guy goes to atlanta for a funeral
third play of the game Jordan Reed breaks his foot and remember that name too in case he's in the
game fourth play of the game Jordan Reed is that what I'm thinking about yeah yeah coach that was
actually one of my questions uh I mean you've coached hundreds of hundreds of kids what's it like
coaching your son I mean that's gotta be I don't know if it's easy or if it's hard I have two daughters
I coach them at lower levels so I don't have that experience it's the it's the best of times and it's
the worst of times because you get to be with your kid all day long uh and you know it's nothing
better than winning a game and especially with your kid playing quarterback and he's 13 years old
so that was a big part of his uh but the tough parts were the the drive home after a bad practice
uh getting in his ass when he screws up on the field and I'll tell you a funny story uh
we lost to ledgers only lost after he took over and I wouldn't I wouldn't throw the ball and
why don't we throw the ball you don't trust me above a button so the next game I I think I do 45
straight passes can't tell him to stop what was the completion percentage it wasn't good but it was
funny yeah it was I'm glad it was just one year we wouldn't have made four you we were to kill each
other one one at all that year we did yeah he was I don't know how he did it I couldn't have done
what he did at that age the pressure you know and he just took it and stride so I guess we've
naturally moved to new london real quick just to backtrack why that change and is it just as simple
as my son's there hometown go yeah biggest was hometown uh next great thing they came and approached
me the superintendent which doesn't happen much you know came to new britain I am great guy yeah
and uh you know my ex-wife wanted to be in new london that's where her family was from you know
I always wanted to coach I had two other chances to go to new london it just didn't work out and
they were they were down so it's a chance to rebuild and new britain was tough it was a tough
place to work you know a tough place to teach and it just uh we were 43 and 3 and new britain and
caught a lot of shit when we lost it was it was a different uh different atmosphere there and uh it
seemed like you like like the challenge of building or rebuilding however you want to look at it
yeah and I'm kind of cool yeah and you don't get a chance to go back to your hometown a lot and
then teach and I thought I was going to retire you know in new london and finish my career there but
biggest thing was my son got to go home and his mom getting to go home and that that was the biggest
part of it and all my friends are from new london they all coach with me it was you know the best
three years I had coaching because it was all my good friends coaching with me so during that time
is that the time of quote unquote the cocker and rule or was that when you're into britain no it
was new london yeah that's what I thought so 90 to nothing let's just quickly talk about that
yeah it happened it happened a lot but I mean when you're when you're like in top physical
conditioning you know and people always thought we ran scores up we we scored probably the most
points in the nation the end of the second quarter we would score because the other teams couldn't
breathe and we ran a fast-paced offense where by mistake I used to go to I used to go to the
national coaches convention every year and by mistake I went to the national strength condition
yeah I just booked the wrong flight it was a week before but it was the best thing I ever did
because I learned everything about strength and condition I didn't know and the biggest thing
I learned was there's about 60 68 seconds between a play in high school you know the way the way they
do the clock just shave it in half and we tried it no we tried to shave it to 18 seconds oh my god
with a hub kelly with a huddle with a huddle and we would you could see at the lactic acid we kick in
they couldn't get in the stance kids couldn't breathe and that's when we scored and we'd practice
that every single day that was my question you you hammered it home every day when the play ended
I had a coach with a whistle on the stopwatch so we had to be back in the huddle in seven seconds I
had to have to play to the quarterback so the wide receivers had some movement to do huh we set the
huddle four yards from the ball and the and the receivers would get in the formation in the huddle
the receivers would break out first and then from there to there and we never had a snap count
in my history a coach and we just snapped the ball on the first sound we never a snap count
and we just went they know it we know it but you would see you know after one quarter
they just couldn't and it wasn't like we were that much better we were in better shape but
they couldn't stand up yeah and then we uh we never took the starters out on defense so that had
a lot to do with we had a lot of turnovers on defense and I just I didn't believe in substitute
and on defense I mean I would spot some a couple kids offensively we'd take the starters out but
what was the rationale with the defensive philosophy just curious I wanted shutouts you know I my
dream season I would retire if I went you know 12 games and not give up a point that was my dreams
and we came close a couple times but never on the offensive end was the play structure really
short to like because that's that could take yeah because that can sometimes for people to spit
out there I played in college and honest to god it was like I was taking Latin yeah in physics
you know 262 green zebra y x so this was my play right sweep right you know I could put a chimpanzee
in the backfield and run right sweep right nobody they still screwed it up like Matt and they never
had to think of a snap count and that's that's huge how many times do high school teams go off
sides get behind the sticks you never make it up how about NFL in college they go up there and these
guys practice that often they're still jumping off I don't want to hear about the noise and I
just did it and weed so what made you call that just from going to the camp I learned the thing
about the conditioning and lactic acid and that's when I came up with the no huddle but in a huddle
it was just a fast pace and it just worked so literally the the quarterback is saying sweep
right right left left I would call the formation so say I said twins right they would line up in
twins right in the huddle okay so they wouldn't have to see lineman do this and run in so everything
was like boom okay and uh sometimes they heard our so it's pretty simple it was very simple you
couldn't but but you can't miss it yeah if you miss it yeah I think we only ran we only ran three
tops was four running plays a game two pass protections hold on total plays or plays total
plays just keep drilling just and you just threw it that much you threw it that no we only we only
ran three or four running play we'd run 87 formations and motions and shifts just a salad
right but it was the same type a blast a counter a sweep and an option and just get greater how many
how many high school teams you see they got 50 plays and the course of a course of a game in high
school if you hit 60 now it's more but back then it was 52 55 plays if you got 20 plays you don't
run half of them in a game yeah you know especially ones working yeah you gotta go back to it yeah and
if you get great why change it if you can get great at a couple of plays so a little bar these
packers right there that's a sweet place yes they know it's coming in guys stop it yeah we love
high school basketball you know I have to make this analogy with what coach did like if you get your
guys to play a certain way and I'm not saying that we've had we've ever had teams that could be
as conditioned and be well oiled like his but especially the number of athletes um but there's
a point when you can't help but be better than the other team if you're better than them already and
they get tired yeah and even in baseball it's almost an embarrassment for parents on both sides when
you stop running on passballs and all that stuff oh so we're not running on passballs do they do
do that in the big leagues no ball goes to the back steps guy goes up a base right so like
you shouldn't be punished for being that much better you don't have to like taunt and all that
all that bull crap but like if you just play and you got your third stringers in there who deserve
to play like the first that's a question for you so your camera and somebody's teams how do you
with the kids um like how do you do that I think I you know because you know high school kids man
they want to yeah they want to yeah they want to think about if you're running a real program you're
working out 360 days a year and now you're telling the kid and we went some seasons where our starters
didn't play in the second half or eight games yeah and that I mean this is their best time in their
life and I can't play them can't play them and it was my son I mean he was the one I say it's uh
the story of edipus rex my son took the blunt of my rule because his four years of high school he
played in the second half maybe he and he's maybe five times yes numbers would have been crazy if
he was playing the whole game right it was my fault it was your fault well you know I work in
playingville schools and uh you know we've had those ups and down football programs and uh I remember
the coach saying that playing against a team and with these rules in effect was worse because they
would run to the one yard line kneel four times and then give you the ball back and then you take
the ball from the one yard line every single time get sacked and safe and safety half the time he did
rather just score and just play and then put again the lower players hopefully come in and you know
like you know your son not playing as well but you know it was more demoralizing to watch the kid
just stop running and it's it's taking me it could have been prevented so easily and I I wrote up
you know so many proposals all the CIC had to do was schedule correctly I mean I never should have
been playing turtle lot and Griswold you know when I first went to the ECC 90 to nothing right Griswold
yeah 90 something but when I first went to ECC in New London I stood up and said let us play in
the large division and we'll take Woodstock spot because they first you let them and they did so we
played Fitch and we played uh NFA and then the next year they dropped they dropped us down and that's
when this and Connecticut's so small now they're doing alliances they're not doing it right but
at least they're trying you could schedule 10 great games in Connecticut and the longest drive
is going to be two hours yeah we just don't do it yeah I teach in Southern Tennessee they're always
going down to Deere and in Greta to pick up that the big time game and smart said yeah I mean they
have to do it um I want to ask you something called obviously your high school resume speaks for
itself I gotta think like a college came calling at some point or did you have any little desire
to leave the high school ranks to go to the college I can't wait I've always wanted to ask you this
question without knowing you yeah like Pasqualoni and this distance and you're probably friends
with a boat that was not good and like how could it have not happened where you're on the big campus
at stores well I had a shot early on when Jimmy Johnson was at Miami there was the defense coordinator
Campo from New London, New London Groton so I had an opportunity then it just didn't work out and then
the second chance I had uh was with um the Colts when Casey was at UConn and it just I would have
missed everyone because it was a scouting job not a coaching job could have led into it but uh
coach I'm not talking NFL I mean that's the ultimate goal for all athletes get to their
professional level um as it turns out maybe it's not the best level these UConn basketball players
aren't exactly thrilled with the way the games played at that level but you know college you
know um how could you have not been at at stores yeah another place a lot of it was just you know
the once once the stuff put the media in the points it was like a fire you know like they
couldn't control it was just yeah but I think they would want that because like at least
you got to live up to it now I mean like yeah look at what they've look at what they've done I don't
want to put your son in a you in a tough spot because you you know your son played there but like
geez like it's almost like we shouldn't even have it like what's the point to to lose money I mean
we gotta have a better product out there than see you gotta look at the root of for UConn to be
successful and when they went to the BCS game that was crazy we were putting out 15 20 division
one players a year out of the state I went to University of Florida spring game there were
five Connecticut players playing in spring game come on man Jordan Reed Aaron Hernandez Graham
Graham Stewart from Middletown Tommy Jordan from Ridgefield and Tyler Murphy from Weathersfield
and I'm sitting there wow they just kept three of these guys but that's how many and they were
still getting Olaf's ski and I mean we could give UConn 10 12 players now we're lucky if we have
three division one players coming that's how far Connecticut football has come down and it's not
coach you coach Morris probably one of the best coaches in the country he's awesome look what he did
you know two years ago with that team and he just doesn't have a base I mean if you can't get 10
kids from Connecticut he needs what 20 a year 25 a year is there anything that can make it happen
money and I am money winning but right now we're the only independent football team left in the
country so we got to go play am I missing about Notre Dame they're they didn't like half and half
I think with Notre Dame they can go out and make their own schedule with this and whatever they do
man I'm sick of it but UConn has to go play no Clemson get their heads bashed in lose 15 kids
and just forget to make a few bucks I think that's what people forget when Ed so was there and they
were really successful they were in the big east yeah first of all they were in a legitimate
conference and he got off that pipeline from Florida however that came about to your point he
wasn't getting the Connecticut kids he was getting those Florida kids on top of a few Connecticut
he found a lot of three-star two-star right and he was great at development at developing athletes
you know where he missed it he refused to use the transfer portal and it killed him coach they did
have really good players for a while and I remember they beat south Florida and Iran we did a bus
trip from the street that night and there was adult there was 40 year old adults running on a
field bro but like Jay remember we brought we went to a game and they had a linebacker who played
for a minute for the Redskins and maybe the Packers so that's him as Fincher yeah remember his name
yeah he was called Albert Fincher yeah Albert he was nasty freaking monster he was and then in the NFL
he's you know third string outside linebacker whatever I mean the talent must be amazing and
you know served away for any could tell us some good stories but like but even justice you know
like you know he's in offensive meetings with Tom Brady yeah and Eli Manning I mean yeah whatever
you could say about justice his career or how it ended up or whatever he's in meetings with those guys
Terrell Owens and that was that close yeah yeah talk about him for a second before you know he
might show up here so yeah yeah yeah he was uh god he was the first first player I uh remember
watching film on him before right when I was going to New Britain I was like wow this is
running back that comes every decade you know and and it was it was tough you know and I would
say it to him if he was here it was a tough go you know he he missed a lot of games his senior year
and a lot of it was just the coach before me just you know he could come and go as you pleased
and do what he wanted sit on his helmet and he did mention that though he did mention that when he
was here yeah what you did for him and how you made him into a man yeah and I never gave up on him
you know I kept him you know in the study halls and it was funny I uh he played defense well no he was
just a running back and when I finally brought him back I said okay I put him with the defense of lineman
as a punishment really and uh not the dns of lineman and he was the best d lineman there
and then I made a deal with him I said I'm gonna play at dn this week you know it'd be every sack
you can return a punt another sack you return and he returned three that game
and then he went back to running back he was telling a story when he was here
and he said he had heard his quad or something and you had told him like listen just get in and squat
and he was like coach I can't do it I can't do it and then you got him in there to squat and he said
like literally the injury went away and he like he swore by he couldn't believe it so he tells everybody
now if the gallery's gold lift weights a lot of those injuries if you get get right at it you know you
can work it out and uh yeah he was he was once in a you know yeah he said he said of his high school
experience said orlowski was a pretty special high school quarterback yeah yeah he was yeah he could
have went you know he saw he was about 15 years in a fell you know justice running on the end
one play one play yeah justice I mean he took us on our back and took us right through the playoffs
and won a championship without him we wouldn't have done it yeah coach do you miss the adrenaline
of game day now that you removed from it for a little while because I know we've all coached at
different levels and there's nothing like game day to preparation and yeah that's the one thing I
missed the most you know just that you know once the first kickoff it's just you're in you're in a
zone you're in a different world and you're just you know letting everything go and you know watching
the kids just compete and be great and that's the thing I miss are you one of those guys too that
just watches non-stop film when you well when when you were doing it or yeah we had Mike here and
he's like he was big into the film yeah I was a little you know over the top too much with it but
you know what I like I said I coached in college so we would watch film if we played on the Saturday
we'd start Saturday night Sunday was you know five in the morning till four in the morning and we slept
on where we could find and then you know same thing on Monday the hardest part about high school
is I was trying to do this in high school and work well by myself so I didn't have another coach to
say you watch the defense I had to do both the offense the defense the special team so I was
serious yeah so I was doing special teams on Thursday in help class to catch up
because it was always but that's what our P you know as a P guy that's what we do
watching film on special teams on Thursday we're on couple minutes yeah hey Joe we got a guest here
Justice Harrison in the house look good reunited with his high school coach yeah got his shades on
inside looking nice fresh out of the gym I know it looked like it but I wasn't somebody
um well I was gonna talk about something just grab one of those there but um
you'll like that huh Justice come on over here hey we were just telling the story about you
getting the quad injury and so your coach making you squat it out oh yeah she works
ace bandaging squat right here we go yeah
oh you guys were telling that story about the uh the quad injury yeah tell us tell tell them again
he remembered it coach remembered it yeah just it was it was crazy because first of all it was
a little softer in high school right yeah so um we love you saying that luckily coach
he you know and by that time of the year I had no choice but to trust him what they were telling me
so I get the quad right before at the end of the west haven game we won it was a big game
but I couldn't walk well I thought I couldn't walk you know much softer at this time yeah yeah
and uh I'll never forget Golden Girls you're gonna get in that fucking squat rack I said what
I can't even bend my leg you're getting that squat rack and you're gonna run after I said all right
coach squat boom squat go outside run and there were just striders it was after a game you know the
program was set we would we would do conditioning during the week every Tuesday and we would work
out on Sunday after the game and uh lo and behold it worked out fine but fast forward three four
years later same thing happened to me at the hula bowl in Hawaii nobody's there I just remember
what coach had me do now this is in front of scouts and everything so I gotta perform right
I was gonna I was like that I slept with my ace manager on my leg I woke up the next morning
I go to the local gym in the facility in the hotel and I squat and I get on a trail and I run
stretch it out practice we had practice that night and I was able to go but because of that
it helped me throw yeah that's great that's a great story I built that west haven game we uh
they scored late and we're down I want to say four or five minute and a half to go and then we're on
our side of the 50 we take a sack on first down and this is Neil Johnson was a great quarterback
played at northeastern but he was seeing four receivers he got banged up pretty good that gave
so he almost throws a pick on second another incomplete on third now it's fourth and 18 I'm
like we're not gonna fucking catch a pass and I said justice sprint draw and he and they dropped
eight and he took it what 70 yards untouched against the prehouse to win the game and everyone's
like no no no no it's whatever we call it it's like remember it's like yeah but here's the funny
part about that Neil comes into the huddle and we're looking like and he goes sprint draw we're
like no what and it's like yeah we all said it at once we all said it at once like yeah this is a
good call and man I and they like to say that that's the the greatest run for um you know
of my career yeah it was it was it was like the the run that you know we had third and 17 fourth
we call it 17 I call yeah and then you call it a draw because they might have drunk tested yeah
I got to give it to him right sprint draw hey no they say that in the playoffs in the playoffs in the
playoffs don't think of plays think of players right yeah we lost to Bristol Central that year
so we need a miracle we need Southington to beat Bristol Central and it happens uh Washington missed
a field goal from the one yard line and then we needed two more things to happen we had to beat
Glaston very something so we sneak in the night we shouldn't be in the playoffs we sneak in and we
ended up number one in the state we beat Greenwich and West Haven back to back I don't know is this
man I tell people I've had some obviously some good college and some short time in the league
some experience of awesome good football players great coaches but my high school experience is
the one that I'm I hold most near dear to my heart more important than having my name called to the
national football league the stuff that I went through in high school which I thought would have
broken me because of the experiences when I had to leave the team and he brought me back
yeah he just covered that right before he walked in he's like it wasn't always easy it was it was
and this is the thing that people don't understand that about sports and leadership and having the
right people around you uh Dan Lewinson my junior year I decided I thought I was making the right
decision to walk away from the team because of some stuff that happened I call myself not going to
the game Dan Lewinson says are you an idiot takes me in the car drives me to supper field in Maloney
at the time and I go sit out the first half of that game and then the second half at 15 carries
216 yards three touchdowns I send that tape out to the colleges right Cochran comes he says no one's
bigger than the program I have been baby the last three years not in any good kind of shape we shouldn't
have lost the game I shouldn't have lost the game as a junior but I was in such terrible shape and
not knowing what I didn't know and then Cochran comes I'm getting like 12 to 15 carries a game
and I'm completely fresh because we conditioned like it mattered like he would condition us on a
Tuesday like it was for the championship and this is the difference and people don't understand like
I think he's the greatest coach in high school history here in Connecticut I don't think he's
even close right but I think I can you could put him up to some other coaches in the collegiate
level which I always want to ask them why he never with the college we just like it didn't give us a
good answer ask him again it's profound to me because I've been around a bunch of coaches yeah
and I got to say this man is one of the best I've ever been around the biggest is I had a son
Casey who you know I spent every day of my life with picked him up every day from
getting to care to after school was that every practice every game when you're divorced you can't
move away you know it's just one of those things because she's she's not coming with you yeah yeah
you know and you got a son you got to be there you just have to be there you know that was that was
the biggest part of it and that right there to me that answer as a father today it makes perfect
sense I've had a bunch of opportunities through football but I've dedicated a better part of
the decade just to make sure I'm home every day like when you get out of here I'm going to go home
I don't play catch with my boys in the yard having Casey on a bus as a young kid after all our games
and it is see him grow but become a player he became it all made sense right so you don't always have
you don't you don't realize that when you're 16 17 yeah yeah it's a it's a similar story of coach
early his you know he stayed around because his boys he wanted to coach them in high school
into college and then he had offers and and then it got too late basically you know he kind of
stayed where he was at he was so I think he could probably go somewhere else if he chose right now
uh the stock is pretty high but I like the analogy well yeah man it's just a bunch of
unbelievable an unbelievable time um I'm like I said my leather jacket is still downstairs my high
school state championship I can't find and probably gonna replica it's like I said it's one of my
greatest joys uh hopefully at some point I'll get into the high school hall of fame I should I
think I should have been in already for the bright school which they're they're voting on that um I'll
be able to do that with my sons um my son just finished up at Southern the high school he's gonna
hold probably he's gonna have 12 track records he let his state receivers all state receiver
you know I'm saying and it's not my biological son but no one can tell us that right because
what it took for me to raise him is a lot of this stuff that I got from my football background right
all the things that like just thinking that you're injured in here really so it must have
a it must not a culture shock when he showed up for you oh absolutely absolutely but here's the
thing it's funny because it donned on me that to be honest and I don't know if he'll agree I feel
like the team that we want to stay championship wasn't even our best team in the last three years I
was a part of but it just goes to show you that coaching matters right we had on my sophomore
year team we had a kid named a guy named Chris Bellamy as a junior goes on to play Yukon John
Balar goes and play South Carolina uh Phil Parley piano I thought was the better lineman of the five
we had uh Marcus Mitchell on that team Eric Pierce goes out to play Tennessee uh Willie Cruz goes to
yell um uh Leroy Knight goes to Holy Cross it's true we had a bunch of guys I don't mean everywhere
but we go we go nine and one we lose he actually commented on that game when we go nine and one
didn't they made the wrong call I mean we go nine and one down in Southernton we lose one game in
Southernton by one point and instead of going running it to tie the game that would have sent
us to the playoffs the coaches decide to go unbelievable he decides to throw a quick slant
we have myself Chris Bellamy and a guy named Steve White Socky Steve White Socky goes on
to play at UMass we're all in the same backfield wow just give it to one of us and it's only you know
man that ball gets tipped out a lot of scrimmage and and here we are at nine and one we don't make
the playoffs circle two years later Jack comes in we end up getting a second birth at this
opportunity to play for the state championship with when we lost to Bristol Central which I had a
concussion by the way I don't know that's the only reason we lose that game my coach protect the
players no no no I know I played him on defense like an idiot yeah it's and I think I was telling
him that story like I came into the locker room that morning the Thursday morning before the game
and I you were on the desk sleeping and I startled him he woke up and he just was looking at the
paperwork that of notes of whatever and he just started banging on the desk he knew it was going
to be a tough matchup you know but we had to lose in that game but it's just funny because
everything comes full circle to bucky jones and s.t. championship team in 1992 lose to bristles
central they go on to win a state title 10 years later we have that opportunity and for whatever
reason we lose the southern 10 i mean bristles central it was close now we go up to southern 10
and we dismantle them we had we had a guy named Brandon johnson that was on that team for three
years he never saw the field when i was out credit to the coaching staff coxswain's coaching staff
this kid comes in and not only is he good he's more than serviceable so much so that it was
shattered it didn't eat me but this is what he does he everybody's involved you're accountable yeah
so he's lost to perform but he wasn't just performing he was excelling and he i never
technically beat southern 10 last time i was a freshman was the most embarrassing loss i wasn't
part of 65 nothing down in front page newspaper with an ice pack on his head i'm from ohio where
football is big losing to me was never like a accepted thing and i felt like at the time they
accepted losing so as a sophomore we go over to we lose them we lose by one point my junior year
they come to us we lose to them um by a couple a couple points maybe four points or whatever my senior
year i'm suspended away from the team but we beat them and i mean we beat them handily and i wasn't
a part of that bro it almost i want to say one of the moments and i just couldn't imagine but we
go on i get to come back in i should have i should be the all-time leading single season leading rush
rathnubraha but because of like a guidance never been pushed hard being allowed to just
do whatever coxswain had to lay his foot down and he made us a better team for it right and we
ended up in the state championship so i want to say thank you coach because without you man i don't
think i fact i know like if you just turn on the tape for my junior year you have the best player
in the field but i'm out of shape that's what he said he said he came in here so he was watching
film it's like holy cow like you get one of these guys every 10 years but i'm in shape you could
just see it it was it was ugly like and it was and i was tired after carry five and with him
i was like can i get more but the game would be 60 to nothing didn't get to play a lot of second
ass so it was a that was awesome man that that's a that's an incredible thing for us because we're
getting to know coach we go back with you a little bit now since you've been around bristol
i hope young kids and they won't listen to this because just like our couple hundred friends but
like that's crazy man just suck it up and listen to the guy and hopefully he's the right guy and
you were lucky enough to have a right guy and we know a lot of coaches that we love and we've
seen some other ones and um you know once you get a good one these districts should uh not chase them
away that's that's that's all i'm saying so do you have any aspirations of going back coaching
yeah some day i like to so he said 2019 was how old are you coach me 58 just yeah i mean you look
way young enough to keep doing it thank you yeah i mean you want to go back to high school
kind of gets tough it'd be tough to coach in this day just what about the killing thing like what was
that all about honestly that was a teaching job that became an assistant coaching job that are you
the type of guy that can put it aside not the ego but just the fact that you know better are you the
type of guy that can be an assistant after what you've accomplished as a head in the right right
situation yeah maybe like state like florida something like that yeah he got to get out of
here man i got two younger sons that that are going to be i'm pretty sure they're going to be
very good football players when it's time and we're not going to live here we just can't we're at
we're at an all-time low now in connecticut high school football would probably what if we move justice
to that street in bloomfield we just wait it's it's tough right now we're just barely above road
island you know we're at the we're at the rock bottom and we're not producing players we're just
to see with the ciac and the restrictions we just it's impossible coach okay man it just doesn't
make any sense they say they want to keep these kids safe but in fact it's the reverse you got kids
coming out that are not doing anything for predominantly the whole year if they're not playing
another sport and then they're going out there with equipment and not lifting and the coach can't do
this and it doesn't make any sense and it trickles down even the youth football where you can't condition
these kids and then they get hurt or they're they become turned off to the sport because their first
interaction was they got the football at an august after not doing nothing yeah so how do you teach a
kid that's out of shape about an x's and o it doesn't make any sense so i'm my wife and i've already
decided when my two younger sons get to high school or before they get to high school we're
going to move because we have to and not just for football for all those sports the ciac our color
commentate for the state of connecticut they're doing it for a decade and i see that i see the games
the football is not good here the players are not what you and it ain't just about the the size and
the speed of it is to that these they're not prepared they're not prepared they got these they got a
thousand conferences everybody is a champion now so what is the i don't mean to cut it what what is
the rule now when could they start practicing i mean obviously you could lift the year round but one
is the official start date dude the biggest thing is we the ciac took away spring football on that
yeah that was the time the biggest it was bigger than camp it was bigger than the championship
you know 10 days to teach the game without stress without you know worrying about a game planning
you get those kids that just finished five six months in the weight room and now
they're still scared they're still fear and they never put equipment on you get them through 10 days
of spring football real gradual in the state the way they did it i mean it was during covid day
every year they try to get rid of spring football it would be 15 days then 10 and then
you can only wear pads a certain number and then they came up with a ridiculous scam where you can
do spring football or get five extra days which they're just trying to get rid of spring football
and then during covid they had a vote there was three coaches on the committee and the vote was
eight to seven to keep it and then that night brocket from ansonia delvecchia from saint joes
and farazi from shane got kicked off the coaches committee two days later they vote again it was
all ad's and principles and they can't spring football and it hasn't been the same sense
yet yet the basketball tournament still catered to the football playoffs or at least the Thanksgiving
game right well they added there's a start before think the monday of thanksgiving yeah well they
want to move they want to get rid of the Thanksgiving games now that's the next thing and that would
be how how quick i mean i don't know where the where the only region left in the country that has
bring that does thanksgiving rivalry games you got massachusetts canada kill no i think it's
we're the only thing we have that nor the state has is Thanksgiving get out if you're in florida
you're like wow that's cool they're playing Thanksgiving that's the one thing we got left
and it's it's the ad's don't want to work that day that's all that's all because they're lazy they're
all lazy they're not ad's i don't you guys aren't an ad now but now they're coaches who couldn't
coach either they're not they become ad's and they because they couldn't coach yeah oh there's a guy
ad's going to see iac sorry to address drosses no my uh old head coach is lin cordell right
now lillian's in the hall of fame he's coached some good players right but if i'm an adult now
i have children of my own i've coached i've played linnie's a nice guy he should have never
he we should have a huge wall of state championships like the amount of talent that came through
there when i was there it is it is ridiculous like if you just looked at the names we had a guy on a
team named eric ackison remember him eric ackison his name is they called him big daddy eric ackison
this kid had arbor and comes in and stands completely out of shape completely out of shape
he never played disability like knowing what i know now is just like how how does somebody sit back
for so long and let a program that was so dominant go down his way is gone now like it's not personal
right just i'm seeing what i see and i'm making an evaluation of it like it's not it's not fair
to the kids and it ain't the kids fault either like if if somebody doesn't want to put that work in
can't have them you know just can't have them and i don't care what the sport is and football is
obviously other sports we coached times 10 at least right but if you don't want to put the time in
if the kid says i want an extra bucket of ground balls at shore because i've been you know struggle
a little bit like you have to hit him like that's that you signed up for it and then the coaches
nowadays they talk about how it comes out to 25 cents an hour and all this stuff and about that
these stipends aren't big enough anyway right so like what do you do it for for the players and so
the program can be built because you have the players and like you were lucky man very lucky
i was and very lucky because i where would you have ended up if you played your senior year
at new Britain without without coach oh i got it this is crazy it is like the craziest thing
i'm in high school for four years and never once did my guidance counselor say justice this is what
you need this guy comes in the spring of my senior year says bring your bring your transcript
okay coach i've had multiple coaches come in to see me i'm already the top player in the state
in my senior year going into my senior year jack comes in and one one day tells me son you're not
eligible for college well what do you mean you're missing a math where's my guidance counselor
right here i am yeah where's where's your ground i'm the top player in in school the largest boy
in school in the state and granted i'm a father now it's not it wasn't on him it should have been on
my family but my brother didn't know who was my guardian at the time and he and i had issues
he was just a couple years older than me he didn't know what he didn't know but my guidance counselor
the guy that's looking at a paperwork of god has put in a the schedule together never says
oh this kid is missing a math or he's he's not eligible for college i took two math my senior
you know jack said it's to me i almost laughed he says you're gonna need
he says you're gonna need all a's i said coach what do you mean i've never gotten all a's
but it's just funny because because with the forays you only needed an 880 and the sat
and like like that he knew it where's cordel people i don't know cordel's everybody's friend
he was a nice guy i think that he used to have owned a a place at the beach and i would go up
there and eat but it's what i'm looking at is the the little boy that was there that didn't know
any better yeah and the coach that really if if winning he didn't have to do that right because
we were gonna win with me on the field and him preparing me we're gonna win but hey you're in
eligible if you don't take this class these classes and so i take the classes and i end up getting
a and it took a lot of work right i had a lot of help from a lot of people but without that
conversation it's yes they championship just as where you sign it nowhere i'm ineligible
do you see what i'm saying junior college analysis disgusting it's disgusting bdrb wanted tunksis
i have a comment about high school football in connecticut so
question i have is is early sports play by kids in specialization baseball soccer lacrosse hockey
taking kids because you can't start playing football relatively till about you know middle
school a little before that um year round you can't do it all year round anyways but these kids are
playing football i mean they're playing basketball baseball soccer so you know that kid who was a
soccer player who came to play football for you parents who already put ten thousand dollars or
more into their training is not letting him go play football quit the last game of the year yeah
football is one of the few sports if you're not a quarterback yeah and i mean if you're a quarterback
you need to have a certain skill set but honestly most quarterbacks get screwed up in youth football
and they get mechanic issues you can never fix because it just takes too many but you can make a
football player if they're an athlete and they they got a little they're a little cuckoo in the
head because you got to be to play football know that they hit people at those speeds but you can
make football players you know and like i said a lot of my best players came off the soccer team
you know and basketball panic panic at the basket panic freany was a great baseball player
that was his sport but those are kids willing to come off those sports now mike mccloud who's got
the ivy league record still running back after justice he was on the soccer team in the britain
you know and and this is what i tried and this is a conversation around a football in new britain
who's the best running back of all time now mike mccloud is in that conversation because of jack we
got mike now no mike no it is funny because i know i'm a better running back than mike but
the numbers suggest that he's just as good right but without jack he doesn't even get a sniff
like no joke like the kid was a 500 pound squad out of high school right he was only 190 pounds
we uh yell wasn't gonna see yell yell can only take one kid at the lowest band and that's got to
be a quarterback sometimes they're running back and yell was going to use that spot on a quarterback
so mike was out and uh i talked to coach and to come into the game we're playing manchester so i waited
right before kickoff and i said mike you see the yell coach i said he's not gonna take you he got
one shot to prove and i think mike had 450 yeah it's one of those dream uh and then they gave mike
the spot i mean the kid was like they did a piece on us this guy that was but this is who he was
though like one time i think i told the story last time we were here um when they got in the
yell though huh right right before the game not didn't even didn't even say anything to us he dated
he dated denzel's daughter too no oh this guy's got what hit the just because he's just
from man's mom's Vernon wow jack comes to locker does say anything to anybody we're waiting for
his words he don't say he don't say anything he just looks at us grabs one of the guys by the helmet
boom blood screaming down his face and runs out of locker room we all look around ah it run out
after that i like that yell story that's fantastic it's a true story yeah mike if you didn't get
hurt that you would have got trapped in coach speaking of producing players i want to give you
the opportunity to talk about what you're producing these days um brought some nice refreshments here
tonight um can you talk a little bit about your business venture because um you know i think i
told you this i saw chris done an nba network years ago and who's he go to visit you at your
restaurant um uh guys in the nba and you've gone from the restaurant business to producing some
other goodies for people yeah honestly it's i tried and retired in a few times it's just
something comes up and get dragged back into it but i was at jordan reed's birthday party and uh
virginia and i ended up making it a short vacation and he took me in the mario and he owned uh
uh two dispensaries and he was partnering with a friend that had four and they were buying a
gross site and i worked my way somehow into the deal to do the delivery and transportation for them
and so i went back to kennecate i took me about four months i wrote all the applications for the
delivery and transport and right as we were submitting those two broke up fell through came
back a month later kennecate legalized cannabis and just by miracle i qualified for a license
based on the street i grew up on into london so i end up getting a license for delivery and it's just
something i thought that you know would take three years we did in six months and we're
recovering most of the state now and 20 drivers and nine stores and now i'm looking to get the hell
out of it what's like enjoy life again security like with something like that is it you know it's
quite a like an armored car well we're we're b to c so we don't transport from the gross site to the
store that's the big two drivers uh brink's truck type thing yeah we just you could order right now
from juleev we'd pick it up bring it here to the house and we'd be we'd be in and out in two minutes
normal car it's just lockbox and the gps and it's it's been safe for over 40 000 deliveries since
july and get out we haven't had an issue man you ever have to go to justice's house hey are you
are you coming in as part of this theater no oh yeah we're doing uh our biggest accident to
britain has the highest uh of course cannabis use rate in the country per capita which is
sorry country in the country you can you can google it right now you're in the country you need more
drivers we could use one more yeah because we're gonna start we're actually we're gonna start
delivering for fine federal when they open in bristil on uh june 15th so wow that's well i was
totally against the use of cannabis as a as a young man and uh since my older years and maybe the
head head stuff i don't i haven't slept well so i'm in lannick city last year uh with some
teammates from ruckers and uh one of my guys said hey you should you should try this gummy it'll
help you sleep and i'm like nah man i don't do that he said trust me it'll help you sleep i slept
like a baby that's what that's gonna do so i need i need some of this to take home for my wife your
wife's gonna like that tonight too i love smart man it'd be another another boy another running back
we're done we're done we're having kids but if i can guarantee a boy if i could have got it have
another i would have uh you people know you do a bunch of stuff in your life and i've had some
great experiences uh i'll never forget um he had um uh andrew pennott come talk to me i was the
knucklehead from the beginning then i had an opportunity uh to when i was an indian to play
with the white freany and those connections you know help you along the way um but being a dad is
is easily the best thing you'll ever do and and to hear him say he sacrificed you know some other
potential opportunities because he wanted to be with his son it means everything to me it means
everything and uh again i thank coach because a lot of stuff man he didn't have to do and he did it
like the memories like i'm gonna get with a former uh a bunch of teammates of mine on them
from high school right uh next week we're gonna we're gonna his daughter's gonna graduate from
college or whatever and he tells us in the group chat yeah my daughter's graduating but we're gonna
get together like but it doesn't happen without those things from high school you know and i have
the group chats with the guys in the league and and guys that play in college or whatever
but my high school guys we all got kids now and it's it's the best hey i say this to kids all the
time like if you're still calling your high school coach coach he did something right and
you're in here saying coach coach to this coach to that yeah he called them jack and cochran so i'm
nice i call coach for fake sake definitely coach uh thank you i would like it's funny because a
couple years back they had an issue at new brine high school where they were looking for another
coach do you know we were like trying to get a petition signed to get this guy back and my son
that went to suvington because we quote unquote moved there um ag program you know if he would if
jack would end up in new britain my son would have been playing for him because that's how what i what i
know is already been done and if you can coach me who was a complete knucklehead like i coached
aside the average suspended me had me come back to the team and well he wanted me to ask the seniors
other seniors there you know what should i should should i be to come back to the team and tell them
why so i go into the weight room and i'm talking to the guys hey guys i've been here for four years
been on varsity i think i want to see this thing through um my apologies for how i acted i want to
come back to the team they're like no they're like no we don't we don't need you brandon johnson
a kid that couldn't get on the field with the other coaching staff they're looking like we just
be suvington we haven't been so this is we've been here we don't need justice and i'm like what
y'all don't need me y'all just got diversity but coach me you know me that whole it was it was
bananas man like the stories we still talk about i'm still in contact with neil he owes me a touchdown
because jack calls a he calls a there was a dive we only have three run plays by the way
she said that he covered it three three think about that three freaking run pays i had like i don't
even have me yards out of here but neil calls a quarterback sneak for a touchdown in this day
championship game but that's how neil was neil wasn't the most talented that's right but he's an
unbelievable leader right he just he just that's who he was very unathletic can't do much but he'll
lead you through a good walk full right northeastern but just he was he was a backup safety year
before didn't even crazy y'all don't even y'all have no y'all have no idea how bad it was prior to
uh jack getting there coach getting there it was it's laughable to know that we were that good
and then it went my senior year we weren't very good there was a receiver alfred chiles and he
played the best receiver ever coached almost made the Steelers that's a that's a bowl say that again
coach he was like by the best receiver ever coached and he was a second string corner
the year before and then he had the best hands i've ever seen i mean these are kids that could
not get on the field he's almost made the Steelers yeah yeah he's still got all the records it was a
touchdown kutzel the other kutzel all the records there coach this has been crazy man what a good
night just popping in um quick we're gonna ask you just a couple questions to wrap it up i know
you got a drive ahead of you uh little word association game we touch on some of these guys
but when when i say i'm talking canadian football i know we're we're beating it up but when i say
tobaki jones what do you think of doesn't have to be one word just what you're thinking well first
one word uh freak and it was my first high school coaching he was the first my first high school
coaching game was against tobaki 1992 in bloomfield he comes in on my calling this bigger than all
the linemen and uh we played him tough that was a but he was how about bristles timmy washington
tough just nails uh we hit him 300 times that night and we couldn't we couldn't put him down
um just tough victor rosa uh big play you got a chance i think so combine
you always have a chance if he can catch the ball and block on third down and they'll give him a
shot and sonia tradition you know just tradition that's we we modeled you know after them you know
that year in and year out chris done oh god let's see uh perseverance chris came from
to be if you know the story he came from hell and made his way to you know he's gonna have
maybe 15 year in an NBA career that's awesome pinnig uh work ethic i mean he
he he he he rolledy poley heavy ended up being the best runner but he held the rushing record
for years and was the size of a linemen justice eristan uh winner you know he was he was different
when the game started you know hey i'm just trying to think four games he rushed for over
over 1200 yards.
One playoff game in the state.
He'll tell you about it too.
That's great though.
I didn't know how to practice until you got there.
He actually taught me how to practice.
Jay, what do you got?
I, little thing we call, who would you rather?
Yeah.
We're gonna run through NFL guys, so you gotta pick.
Sure.
Got it.
Peyton Manning, Dan Moreno.
Peyton Manning by far.
I like it.
Quick, Darrell Green, Darrell Rivas.
Rivas all day.
All right, Calvin Johnson, Randy Moss.
Can't go against Moss.
No.
Can't do it.
All right, so we're gonna go old school here.
Lester Hayes, Charles Woodson.
Lester Hayes, who was he, 6'4".
Put the stick on?
Put that stick on my hand when he was, and he hit.
All right, I saw up.
Dan Moreno, Aaron Rodgers.
I hate Aaron Rodgers, Dan Moreno.
Me too.
Was there a reason you hate Aaron Rodgers?
He blames everybody but himself.
I like it, all right.
Derek Thomas, the great, great Derek Thomas,
Julius Peppers.
Thomas Peppers was soft.
I was gonna say Thomas.
Ooh, Peppers was soft.
I was gonna say Thomas.
Soft.
Thomas and LT are a legit question.
Thomas is tough.
Yeah, Peppers was always hurt.
All right.
He said it, I believe him.
He said he's soft.
All right.
All right, Eric Dickerson, the ladenian, Tomlinson.
That's a tough one.
SMU, I gotta say Tomlinson.
Yeah.
Because of the catching, the receiving, or just?
I got to see him play a lot
when Andrew was with the Chargers
and he was just a different, different dude.
All right, all right.
John Riggins, Derek Henry.
Riggins all day.
Really?
All day.
Um, this one will bother me if you don't pick my guy.
Here, Reggie White, Aaron Donald.
Reggie White, by far.
My boy.
You're an Eagle fan.
Watch some film and watch what he did
the tackles with a forearm.
And he spent half his time in church.
Good.
Yeah.
You know?
It's like justice.
Yeah.
Jack Lambert, Ray Lewis.
This is more personal.
I'm a huge Steelers fan growing up in Jack Lambert
who was my guy, but nothing compares to Ray Lewis.
He's the best linebacker in the history of the world.
Never.
All right.
Nobody would be better than him.
All right, Mike Singletary, Fred Warner.
Michael Singletary all day.
All right.
We've had this discussion here.
Coach is now Andy Reed, Bill Belichick.
You can't, you can't compare him like that.
Belichick, best defense of coach ever.
Reed, probably the best offensive coach ever.
Who would you take?
Put him in, in today's game, you gotta go with offense,
but, but Belichick, I mean, he's one who beat,
he beat the Bills that year as coordinator of giants.
Yeah.
And they shouldn't have been on the field.
Nobody, nobody stopped the Bills that year.
They were averaging what, 40 some points a game?
In Iran's Greater Shilling Turf.
So we got three, three.
Who you taking on that one?
Just so with it, for the record.
As a head, you gotta go with Belichick.
Okay, thank you.
Doesn't compare.
That's all we wanted to hear.
All right, so.
We'll see.
Three, three college guys.
Tim Tebow, Tommy Frazier.
Frazier, by far.
Thank you.
I watched Jordan Reed as a freshman
in one of those fighting drills at Florida.
Yeah.
As a freshman, picked Tebow up and slammed him on his head.
Wow.
Tebow's a big boy now.
Yeah, he's soft.
So this wasn't, this wasn't Tommy,
this wasn't, this wasn't Tommy Frazier.
But obviously you remember the Miami Hurricane,
Nebraska game where Osborne went for two?
Yeah.
So you were, I always wondered this.
They were known for the option.
Why didn't they run the option for the two-pointer?
Because they outthink it.
They rolled out and he threw a pass behind the guy
and it got deflected.
They outthink themselves.
If you remember, I remember watching this on fourth and seven.
They did the justice, they said fourth and seven,
the season, the champions, they ran the option
and they got a first down on it.
And they went down and scored and then they went for two
and they threw a pass.
That play has to be decided on Wednesday.
Not the day of the game, you can't.
Yeah, emotion can't be a part of it.
You're quoting the emotion, you gotta practice that play
and this is what we're running.
All right, I like it.
So speaking of Nebraska, Mike Rozier,
Eddie George in college.
Oh, Eddie George.
Yeah.
All right.
Rozier had the best line in the country, you know.
He did.
Doug DeBose ran after him.
All right, well there's one guy I love the college too.
Percy Harvin, Desmond Howard.
Percy.
Harvin could fly.
Harvin I got to see on those Florida teams.
Yeah.
He was four, two, four, three, but he was soft.
Always had migraines and headaches.
I gotta go the other way.
Oh.
He never played.
He missed five games a year.
Yeah, he did.
He played in the NFL quite a well too.
So did Britain.
The last one, the last one, and it's a movie.
Remember the Titans, which I think is overrated.
Well, these guys love it.
Or the program.
The program.
Come on, man.
Just a hit in the wall.
Running the beers, man.
Remember the Titans is a better actual movie,
but they hit in the program.
But the program, if y'all remember that scene
when he's in the room, I want to try to replay it
and do like a meme, like a reel.
He's like, hit everybody.
That's like the best scene.
That's something in the library.
Yeah, he's like, ask him and go through the film.
In my mind, I'm like, this is for real.
Coach, a real football coach.
Did you hate Rudy?
It was, yeah, it was just.
Terrible.
It was like a movie.
Isn't it?
Thank you.
I love it.
Good story, good story, but.
Last thing here, we're going to let you go.
Thank you so much for coming.
This was cool, man.
We like getting high school coaches in here,
but to get the best is cool.
Are you in the Connecticut Football Hall of Fame?
Is there such a thing?
No, I'm in nothing.
You're not in the Coach Association?
No Hall of Fame.
Okay, so you're going to be in one at some point.
We're going to make sure of it.
What hat you wearing in there?
Or visor or whatever.
You don't wear visor, do you?
No.
Thank you.
You didn't strike me as a grudin' good.
He still got his hair, he of course didn't wear the hat.
Yeah, honestly, I would.
What pullover?
I would do what the mothers do with two kids.
I would create a new London,
New Britain, Bloomfield hat, all in one.
Can't do it, we're not going to accept it.
Honestly then, I would have to say Bloomfield.
That's where it all started.
That's where I started, I was here nine years, you know.
That's like Boggs going in as a double ray and a Yankee
and a red sock.
What's he got to go in as?
Red sock and he didn't.
That's terrible.
All right, so we're getting you a Bloomfield hat
for your statue.
I don't know how famous it's gonna be,
but we're gonna make sure you're in one.
Coach's association without a doubt.
That's a question.
I can't agree with you.
How many players in the NFL?
How many total players in the NFL just on the way out?
Seven.
And you had five on that Bloomfield team?
Five Bloomfield, Justice Six and...
Reed.
Or were they calling the Reed brothers?
The two Reed brothers, so it was eight, I'm sorry, it was eight.
Four.
Not too shabby.
I'll tell you what though,
Connecticut's got to step up though, I mean, come on man.
It's interesting to hear what Coach had to say about that.
Making you lift after you get hurt, I mean, come on.
We gotta get more players in the NFL.
Connecticut, come on, Connecticut.
It's preventative, it worked, trust me.
Justice, Texas or Florida,
would be the highest paid person in that town.
Yeah, without a doubt, McBank.
That's true.
Open up a dispensary of your own.
Long time ago, I had an interview in Dallas,
long time ago.
Dallas what, Parmian?
It was a new one.
Every depot, front and the back?
It was a magnet school opening in 97, I think it was.
$3 million stadium.
If you were gonna come back under the ideal circumstances,
you're definitely gonna coach,
would you go with the magnet school or like a city school?
What would be the type, not necessarily the school,
what would be the type of school?
It'd be same thing, city school all day.
Any reason, just a amount of kids or?
Yes, well, you make the most difference.
You get kids who's normally the first person
to go to college in their family,
need the most out, not academically.
The way the Connecticut, as you guys know,
we got the richest town in the country, Greenwich.
Yep.
And Steve Young.
10 miles away, we got the poorest one in the country.
The poorest one.
And that's the way football, as always been in Connecticut.
The Darien's and the New Canaan's,
they take private jets and they go play in California
and you gotta fight for every inch you get
at the city schools because there's no money, no budget,
no camps, no, it's everything you do, you do on your own
and it just takes that much more work.
But it's where you get the most gratification to
where you can, like in just as a situation,
multiply that by 500, that's how many kids
get through their senior year and aren't qualified
academically because when I went to New London,
they didn't have a Prop 48 form,
they didn't know what the clearinghouse was.
Yeah.
And think about that, how many kids?
That's pretty bad actually.
And if your chance of going to a junior college
and lasting two years and going to college is very low,
it's a miserable experience for kids at any age
to go to a junior college.
And that's why we spend so much time with study halls
and tracking students.
Just like, y'all ain't gonna,
y'all can never understand unless you walk,
like see it in progress.
Like we tried, when he left,
Tobukki Jones was the coach for a short time
and we tried to implement some of those things.
And then it's just like funny remembering how he did it
versus what they were trying to mimic and it was awful.
So it's like, as much as guys think they can mimic,
and we've seen a lot of guys come through
that think they can mimic what you've done.
And it's just like, it's funny now.
Like, I like to think that I can do it.
So like, coach here in practice,
how was he, was he a screamer?
Was he a, you know, one of those?
Oh yeah, he gonna yell at you.
But this is the thing too, like, you gotta know,
it was different, man.
I wish there was a video camera,
maybe probably with the guys in trouble,
but like it mattered, practice mattered.
When I was at, when Corbett was there for three years,
so like I'd be like walking on the field,
like guys were like coming late when coach got there.
Oh, we were two hands all the way down to the practice field.
Everything was structured.
Practices were like, when I literally got to the game
and it was easy, like, you got it.
I wish I could get the film for you guys.
Yeah, we had to walk like a mile and a half under a tunnel
and through the woods and that was the hardest part I felt,
was just getting them to the field.
And then at night, I had to walk back
and one time I ended up in Kensington.
So, and that was the tough part.
And then we, band was number one when I was at Nibir
and it wasn't football.
So we couldn't use the game field.
I mean, we had to go to, we were in another town,
our practice field, we were in Kensington.
And that's just the way, yeah.
Did you practice at Willowbrook?
No, never.
Like I said, where'd you practice?
In Kensington called.
Hungerford.
Hungerford and it was a park in Berlin.
I'm trying to picture the school
and then they still practice their school.
You know the tunnel behind the stadium, baseball stadium?
Yeah.
There's a tunnel that, what's that highway called?
It's a 72 extension or something.
Yeah, we had to go under this tunnel and it flooded.
So you had to run up this thing.
And I mean, the problem was, I learned the problems
the year before, they used to leave practice
and go to McDonald's and come back
and the coaches didn't even know.
Or they'd lose half the kids in woods, you know.
And.
It's just funny you hear this.
Why wouldn't they practice at the park, at the stadium?
It just was used for, it was such a,
I mean, it was better than a college stadium.
It's beautiful still.
They took care of it, you couldn't walk on it.
It was only used for games and the band, the band.
Oh yeah, we got to get them out there for the trombone.
But like, I heard that like,
Cass and CIC are taking a hard look at venues
for state championships again.
And like, if they mess with Mohegan,
that's kind of silly because they make money off it.
But they only really make money from basketball
and football probably be a close second.
Like.
They do it, they do it all wrong.
I mean, you can't make two years in a row,
they made kids get up at five in the morning
to play a state game at 930 in the morning,
which is a football game at 930.
Cause they're too cheap to book the stadium for two days.
It was always Friday, night, Saturday.
Now they just, same as Mohegan,
you had a team play a state championship
at eight in the morning in basketball.
You know, because they're too cheap to book
the Mohegan for two days.
It's just, it's asinine.
Even get there.
My point was that stadium, beautiful.
Why don't you just play them there?
Pay the city of New Britain a thousand bucks for the day
and call it, I mean.
No, it was good.
Cause when you got on that field, it was something special.
I get that the venue, but like.
And it was like turf, but it was grass.
It was grass.
I was just gonna say you couldn't.
That's grass.
Now it's not.
No, it's not.
At the wrench or where are we now?
No, we're in B-Rap.
Veterans.
Nobody, I didn't play a single football game on turf.
Didn't have, didn't exist.
No.
Not in this area.
We thought you did with the CTE, with the ham.
No, no.
Studio engineer Kevin Ross, Lottie, Justice.
Thanks for stopping.
Angry J wasn't angry tonight.
He loves when the intense coaches are in the house.
Cause that's what he is.
Jack, coach, coach Cochran.
This was fun.
Yeah.
A lot of fun.
Thank you for having me.
We want you to come back anytime.
We need it.
The state needs it.
We're coming to see you.
We want to check on you.
Oh, that's also true.
Yeah.
We'll see you.
Everybody that'll wrap it up on May 7th.
Jack Cochran in the house, boys.
Well done.
Thank you.
Cool.
Foreign