Great Day in the Equipment Room

Today has been another GREAT day in the equipment room.

It started off with a webinar with the Heery, the architect firm handling our North End Zone project. These guys are the BEST in the business, and we are very fortunate to be able to work with them! We are getting very close to the final drawings for everything in the project. We are extremely excited about the drawings they have for our new equipment room. STAY TUNED!

Then, we had 3 guys from Stahls' visit our equipment room. I have been a very satisfied and loyal customer of Stahls' for about thirty years. They are in Tucson for the NSGA conference being held at the Ventana Canyon Resort. I was able to visit with them at the hotel on Monday evening, and it was a GREAT night for me, as I got to meet Mr. Ted Stahl. The NSGA honored him this week by inducting them into their Hall of Fame. Monday night I asked if they could come by the equipment room for some expert advice. Man, did we ever get that!!!

We have been using one of their Cad Cutters to make our own heat transfer labels and logos, but we have only been using a very small tip of the iceberg in terms of what all it can do for us. The Cad Cutter is one of the best things we have in our room, and today, they made it even more valuable for us!

We mainly use it for making our own numbers and names for our garments (the machine has paid for itself in less than 2 years, many times over!!!), but we have never mastered the 3 color log for our "A" logo. Today, Jason Murphy, National Sales Manager for Stahls', showed Tom Boesel, our very own Stahls' expert, how to do it. As you will see in pictures below, Tom blew it out of the water (as usual).

We are excited that Stahls', led by Jason Murphy, will be leading a workshop on embellishing at our second annual Equipment Clinic on Saturday, June 18, 2011. This will be a workshop that all equipment managers will not want to miss!

Below are some pictures of Tom putting the "A" logo on a pair of shorts:


Tom gets a little help from Dave Wheatley, CSO/Director of Operations, of Stahls'

Tom handles the pressure of an audience like a champ!
First ever 3 color logo, made from our Cad Cutter, hot off the press:

The finished product:

From Left to Right: Wendell, Dave Wheatley, Jaime Flores, and Jason Murphy:

Just Finished First Scrimmage of Spring

I did not take my camera out to practice this morning, so I have no pictures (sorry), but I just wanted to let everyone know that we had a GREAT scrimmage over in the stadium today. We had some new Pac 12 officials in our locker room before and after the scrimmage. Our new commissioner continues to make GREAT decisions for our conference, and adding some new officials looks as if it is going to pay off as well. It was a good "scrimmage" for us on the equipment staff too. We had a new clock operator, new chain crew, and we still were able to have a good flow to practice. We still have some learning to do on minor details, but hey, that is what practice is for! Two weeks down, and a couple more to go.

DAY 2 of Spring Football Practice

Yesterday was another great day of practice. Our veteran managers are still working out the details to the new managers that are helping us out this spring.

With all the new help, it does seem very different out there, but it is not just the managers. You can definitely see a newer up tempo style of practice!!!!! We have 3 new coaches out there, and you can see also that there is an emphasis on up tempo (which makes it even tougher to break in new people).

All I know, I see many exciting things out there. You can tell there is a new attitude and guys on the team working hard to "turn the corner". It is very obvious to me that the team is not satisfied with just going to a bowl game every year, they want to win championships!

They have worked very hard all winter, and now they are out on the field working hard too!

I didn't get very many good pictures yesterday, but I will try to get better ones this morning at our 9:45am practice.


Robert Lloyd snapping to Matt Scott, who now wears #10:

Back In the Saddle Again

Well, we were back into it on Wednesday, the first day of Spring Football practice! It was a GREAT day of weather and football.

For us as a staff, it couldn't have been much better! We had to break in a bunch of new help, with the graduation of so many seniors. Many would expect to have many big problems, but our student veterans did an OUTSTANDING job of leading the new people.

For Tim and I, we were very pleased. Our coaches were pleased as well. After practice, and even throughout this morning, I visited with each coach individually to make sure all of their needs were met, and to a man, everyone of them were pleased.

Now, for me, it has been different! I seem to be busier than normal with so much going on. Tim and I have interviewed close to 20 people for new positions available and it has seemed non-stop! The great news is that we have so many great applicants. It will be hard to turn down so many good ones.

Below are some pictures of Wednesday's practice. I am headed out now for today's practice.


Some things never change, the managers are still snapping balls to the quarterbacks every single day of practice:

Some of the new managers gathering up ball bags between periods:

David Bodzin, a veteran of one whole semester, hustles after a ball during team:

One of our leaders, Robert Lloyd, runs team portion of practice.

Arizona Basketball Back in Top 10

After a few years absence, the Arizona Wildcat Basketball team is back in the Top 10!

I knew that Sean Miller and his incredible staff would get this accomplished eventually, but I didn't know it would be within 2 years of him landing here, especially with no kind of recruiting the previous year or two.

Not only has he built a great team, but the team is more than 10 deep. Among all of his great attributes, developing players is definitely one of his many strengths.

Then there is recruiting! In his first real full year of recruiting, he has assembled a top 5 recruiting class.

Maybe one of his biggest assets though is his equipment staff. Benny Conger continues to do great things for not only Men's Hoop, but Baseball too. Zac Cook helps Benny so much each day with both of the sports since both of them are going strong at the same time.

For instance, this past Saturday, Zac had everything under control in McKale for the basketball game against the Huskies, while Benny was in the dugout helping baseball get a weekend sweep over North Dakota State.

All in all, it was a GREAT weekend of Wildcat Athletics. Women's Basketball went on the road and got a sweep as well.

Fun times in the Old Pueblo. Tiger Woods and friends are in town for the World Match Play too.

Nice Article On Our New Basketball Locker Room

Hopefully the links work below on the articles on our new basketball locker room. The team has been in it for a few weeks now, and they LOVE it.

www.azstarnet.com/sports/

Yes, the Team Did Make it to the Alamodome...Sorta

First of all, I would like to apologize for not posting for almost a month. I have heard from MANY of you about my lack of posting on this blog. There are many reasons that I have been absent from posting, but none of the reasons are very good ones.

The team did make it to the Alamodome, and we did play the game. It was not the outcome that I had hoped for, or for that matter, NONE of us really expected. The end of our season was very frustrating and quite difficult for many of us in the program.

Those of us inside the program know and understand that our program is in the best shape it has been in a LONG time!!!! I have just completed my 13th season, so I have seen and have been directly involved with our football program for a long time. I can tell all of you this, our program is SOLID!!!!!! Mike Stoops is without a doubt one of the best things that has happened to University of Arizona, and he continues to have this program going in the right direction. All of us inside the program are equally as frustrated as our loyal fans, but we have confidence in what is going on, I just sometimes wished our loyal fans knew what we know and had the same confidence.

I love this team, I love this program, I love this school, and I LOVE Tucson!!!!! When we lose, I hurt like everyone else. Even though the past month has been difficult, the most disappointment has been having to listen to so many people who criticize and question Coach Stoops. NO, he is NOT perfect, but he is without a doubt the BEST person to lead our program!!!!!

I will continue to focus on all the good he has done (academics, character, winning, etc) for this program and continue to work hard for him, his coaches and his players!!!! I already feel better just getting this off of my chest!

I look forward moving on past all of this and to start posting things about our equipment operation. I apologize for sounding off about this, but I have to tell you that I needed to do it in order to move on.

Thanks for all of you that have reached out to me and shared with me how much you enjoy the blog. It really inspires me to become better.

Bear Down