I also went on Saturday. Here are my quick opinions.
When I checked in, the folks seemed to know me which surprised me as I am really only in for football games. He said " we know you already have four, but would love for you to check in anyway". Really good first impression ā¦or we are down to so few FSL holders that we can be memorized.
I was with the group that went down to the weight room. Kevin Donnalley did his spiel. He really is an asset to the university and we are luck to have him. He did a great job playing host.
Will came in (yes, Iām calling him Will) and did his usually speech that you hear on the radio. For a while, I worked for a promoter that secured autograph guests for sports cards shows. Some of out guests, usually the one who were on TV or were managers had a certain aura about them . Will Healy was like this. He has a presence that makes you want to look at him and digest everything he says. Heās also got a depreciating attitude and youthful demeanor that is going to slay with recruits, students and younger alums.
Someone thanked him for missing practice time to talked to us and he said something like, āIām the CEO. Iāve got absolute faith in my coaches to get things done in my absenceā. I think the coaching staff is tight and hope that they are also competent.
He also said āNo coach will leave Charlotte to take a lateral moveā, which I though was interesting.
Another interesting tidbit, he said that he did a home visit with Cruz, and that heās never done that with a guy already here on scholly and that Cruz could take the next six months off and show up in September
We then took a tour of the rest of the facility which was impressive, but I agree with Donnalley that the locker and training rooms are bland and need to get the skins on the wall like the weight room does.
As for the scrimmage, being on the field, you couldnāt tell what was going on a lot of the time. I didnāt get much out of the football going on around me, but I was impressed by Smalls #31 and think he will be a good player.
After practice, the guys were called to the middle of the field and Healy praised their effort and talked about keeping the enthusiasm up on the sidelines, āYouāve all played football before, you know what itās like when there is a turnover. One teamās body language changes and that affects play on the field. We need to be up all the timeā.
After the practice, I sought out several of the Greensboro kids that my oldest daughter went to school with and they were all very excited about the program and all of them said they had ābought inā and while no one buried Lambert, they talked about how it wasnāt like this last year.
I had several players on their way off the field thank me for coming.
I also had a nice conversation with Jonathan Francois #50. He approached me to thank me for coming and I told him I followed him on twitter. He told me about his hometown and who else recruiting him. He seemed to be a nice guy, but was probably a bit of an introvert, so coming up to me was probably hard for him, so I think Healyās having the players meet the public is probably good for some of these guys.
I left when the scrimmage was over, so I drove around 170 miles to hang out around 2 hours.
If you are in the area, or have the time to get there, I would definitely try to get there. It will reinvigorate your fandom and give you faith that the football team, while results might not be there this season, is in good hands.
