Jake Marlow: All I Ever Wanted

[Wayne23]

Today (Fri., June 3) I met with my assistant, Reggie Branch. His negativity has continued and I decided that I needed to address this NOW.
When I got to SIUE I let it be known to everyone that when my door is open (most of the time), please come in. When it is closed, stay out. Email, text or try again later. Don’t call, I won’t answer. For this meeting my door was closed.

Reggie noted it when I closed the door and his expression changed. He didn’t say anything though. We sat at the round table and I told him what was on my mind. I’d thought it all through and knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. It came out just the way I wanted it to, stated clearly, but not with a particularly negative tone, and not accusatory or judgmental. I finished by telling him I needed to see him using a more positive approach, especially with the kids when they got to campus. He thought it over for a while. I let the silence lay there and did not interrupt his thought process.

Finally he said, “You know, Coach, you may be right. I think I’ve been carrying over the negativity from my last job without realizing it. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention and I’m going to work on it. Please let me know how I’m doing from time to time.”

Wow! That was the best response I could have hoped for. Let’s see what happens but I actually feel pretty optimistic, it felt real.

The staff has been discussing recruiting. This can be expected to be a real challenge for us. We’re in the lowest conference. We won’t get any blue chippers, and it makes no sense for us to go after any, even those in state.
I’m thinking we should “Watch” as many recruits as is humanly possible, get info from that, and add those to the list who look like they can help us, who seem like they might be possible to land, and eliminate the rest. Perhaps we should add ten recruits each week since that’s as many as we can "Watch."

Then the next week we decide who’s on the list, who isn’t, and we call, decide whether to invite for a visit, decide whether to scout, decide whether to visit them, and all the rest of it. This approach will take most of the season. I’m sure there will be a danger of losing recruits, but really, most people we land will come here because schools they wanted did not want them, and that tends to happen late. Anyway, that’s the plan.

[Wayne23]

Jake is on hiatus until 1.2 drops. If Buddy Boy reaches that point he will be as
well. Since it looks like the game is pretty stable I'm not sure that there will be a long series of 1.x... AND... since I always do full install there's no point in starting UNTIL 1.2 drops. I'm guessing that will be this weekend, but it's a, pure guess.