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Nick Burrow Ms. Hinnant Ethnography second draft 3/5/14 There is nothing quite like the atmosphere at seven oclock on a fall Friday night. What happens at seven oclock? Kickoff! A packed stadium, the crowd roaring, the announcers voice echoing through the stadium. Everyone in town came to see the game, came to watch a fight like no other. People that have been a part of the game know what I mean when I use the word fight. Every play is a battle. Every game is a war. The players are the soldiers and the coaches their generals. It is not something that everyone can be a part of. This game is for the tough, the resilient, and the passionate. This is not a game people play for the heck of it. The bonds that are made are very rarely broken. Football is not a game that is played by two teams it is a game that is played between two families. Thats how tight this bond is. Certain relationships in life are unique. Certain ties cannot be cut. Those ties usually include your family. Athletes have two families; their immediate family and their sports team. The relationships that are built between the members in the locker room, on field, and in that weight room will never be forgotten. These members include both players and coaches. Coaches and players go hand in hand. Without one there cannot be the other. The relationships between players are unique in the fact that it can take two people, two complete opposites, from two very different walks of life and turn them into brothers. The relationship between coach and player may be the most unique of them all. On any given summer or fall evening in Cornelius, North Carolina you may be able to hear the echoing shouts that come from the leader of a football team called the Hough Huskies. They are a representative of William A. Hough High School. The people that are a part of this
Commented [B2]: This is a really captivating introduction! I like it a lot! Commented [B1]: Make sure youve got a title!

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society call it The Hough. Whether it is beautiful and sunny, dreary and rainy, day or night practice will never be canceled. Where it is held is the question. If the conditions are good the team will hold practice in their four year old stadium on their turf field or may have to walk right outside of the stadium to their grass practice field. Which field depends on two things the soccer team who practices before or the location and field type of the upcoming game that week. If conditions are poor the team will not let a day go wasted, they will congregate into the basketball gym and practice will go on as planned. Practice is scheduled to run for two hours; whether or not practice is over after those two hours as Coach Collins would say is if we get everything we need to get done. When everything that needs to be done is finished that is when practice will end. Practice is not the only thing a player has to attend every day. A player has weight lifting, which is usually a part of their class schedule, they will also have study hall and film on top of that. While in season a player will arrive at school at seven in the morning and will usually head home closer to seven in the evening. Taxing stuff on a young man but like Coach Collins says its not for everyone. Coach Collins is the head coach of the team, and has been since the school opened. He has help build the program and was a major reason the team has had two winning records and two four A state playoff appearances in its first four years as a program. He is by many standards a great head football coach and a great mentor too his players. This ethnography focuses on the relationship between a coach and his players. Relationships vary in there nature. There are professional relationships, friendships, or maybe a mixture of both of these. What kind of relationships coaches try to have with their players may vary by the setting. A coach may treat his players different depending on where they are, what they are doing, and the time frame in which they are conversing. A coach may deal with his
Commented [B4]: Again, I feel like this information should come a bit earlier than the end of your second page. Commented [B3]: Is this still a part of your introduction? I feel like this is a lot of fluff to lead into your research. Your reader doesnt technically even know your thesis yet. Do you think that in revision you could condense somehow?

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players in a number of settings. In a class room setting, on the field, off the field, in the locker room, and so on. The nature of the meeting and the setting of the meeting may play a big part in deciding the type of relationship a coach has with his player. What kind of relationships is ideal for a coach to have with his players? When Coach Collins was asked this question he replied with I try to keep a role model type relationship with my players. I am not their friend and I am not their father; I am their football coach, I try to be a role model for my players so they can make good decisions in life. The purpose of this ethnography is too dig deeper into the relationship between coaches and players and discover how this relationship is multidimensional. Locker Room Talk The locker room is where I want to start these observations. For a football team the locker room is a very private place. It is like a country club. Only members aloud. It is not just a dressing room. As a football player the time spent in the locker room before games can seem like forever. It is a place where players can lounge and relax. Although the coaches word is above all others, the locker room is mainly run by the players. Why is the locker room important to this observation? The time that the coach spends with his players in this setting is like no other. The Hough Huskies locker room is rather nice. When you walk in the door the first thing that catches the eye is the carpet. Immediately after that the smell will catch your senses. It is a distinct smell. It smells of hard work meaning sweat. After that you may notice the lockers. The locker room has steal lockers that line the wall all the way around. The lockers are big enough that the players can sit comfortably inside. The lineman are naturally the biggest people on the field so their lockers are the biggest. On the walls spread all around the locker room hang three flat screen TVs. On the top of the lockers is where players store their shoulder pads. Under that
Commented [B5]: Nice.

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lies a cubby where players will store their helmet. The rest of the players affects are stored in either a private cubby that comes with the option to hold a lock. In this cubby players may store more personal items such as their cell phones. Or a under in the bottom cubby that is covered and doubles as a seat for players to sit. This is a place where players may store their cleats, pants and other necessary pads. On a select few lockers there are plaques that include past players name, number and college they went on to attend. There are few times that the locker room is silent. It is not a place for meditation. The locker room is like a family inside their house. Before and after games or practices the locker room is constantly bumping. Music is a major part of players pre game regiments. There are only two reasons that the locker room would be quiet. The first reason is after a loss. Nobody is in any mood to bump music or joke around with teammates after a loss. No player wants to be the person causing a ruckus after a loss either. Between the reaming that you would receive from both your teammates and your coaches is just about the worst thing imaginable. The second reason the locker room is quiet is when coach is addressing the team. Although the locker room is a place for players mainly; the times that coaches are involved in the locker room are very important to the relationship between coaches and players. Before the game players all have their pre-game retrials. No matter what happens before the game the last thing that happens before the teams take the field is the team comes together. They all gather up, circling up around Coach Collins. Collins will address the team with pre game comments. He will try to fire up his team one last time before they take the field. To many people this is a coach being a coach. To the players this is like a general addressing his soldiers before a battle. He is the highest authority on the team. He is who the players look to for direction and inspiration. He is the leader of the team.
Commented [B7]: Can you elaborate here? Since this is the first time you really address an observation between the players and the coach I feel like this portion of your research should be more detailed. Commented [B6]: While I love the amount of detail youre giving me here, as the reader I feel a bit impatient. I want you to start giving me some information pertaining to your research question.

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Preparation Its not what you see its what you dont see. The preparation of the team. The fans see players scoring touchdowns, fighting for first downs, making big hits, or forcing turnovers, its what they show up to see. The struggles they dont see is what makes a team. These struggles include practice, weightlifting, and film. These struggles is what builds a team. These struggles is where coaches can evaluate their players. These struggles are where players prove to their coaches that they deserve to set foot on the turf on Friday nights. This is where a coach realizes that his player is trustworthy, hardworking, and dedicated. The relationship between coaches and players drastically change in this stage. The Hough weight room is located in the back of the gym. It is a small room but has all the essentials needed for the team to get that work in. The weight room includes eight racks. These racks provide a variation of lifts that players can do including both upper body and lower body. The weight room walls are white and the racks are black and silver. These colors are also the school colors. On each bench lies the school logo. This is not a relaxing environment. There is only one objective when players step in that room and that objective is to work! Along with being the head football coach; Collins is also the strength coach. He doesnt take kindly to slacking off either. In the weight room the two things you dont want to hear go hand in hand. First you hear a screeching whistle blowing followed by Coach Collins telling everyone to head down to the track with a remark such as well get it fixed. While the players work out Collins will give them instructions on what lifts to preform, such as, bench press, squats, pull ups, or curls. The lifts change every day. You can see the discipline the players have during their time in the weight room by the way they stay on task even when Collins is not supervising them. While players lift Collins will periodically call out

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players to let them know if they are doing a good job or if they need to pick it up. Slacking off in the weight room is something that is not tolerated. You will also see Collins helping his players lifting them up with words of encouragement and teaching them more effective ways of completing their task. In this setting a different part of the relationship has started to form. This relationship carries over into other parts of the preparation. Film is an important part of the preparation process. During film the team splits up into two units. Offense in one room, defense in the other. For all of those that have attended high school we all know what it is like to be in a jail cell. Film took place in a in these jail cells or class rooms as they are referred to by the public. If you havent had the distinct pleasure of attending high school allow me to paint you a visual picture. The film room at Hough consisted of four white walls, one door, a computer, a projector, a projector screen, and rows on rows of desk. The lights remain off unless the coach decides to take the lesson to the white board then they come on for a brief moment until the lesson is over and he moves on to the next mistake. This process is repeated again and again. Film is like being in the jail cell with one of the guards screaming at you for a good half of the time. Film is broken down into two parts. Team film, which is reviewing the film from the last weeks game and scout, which is film of the opponent for the upcoming week. During film coaches tend to give players a good job for the positives. When it comes to the negatives coaches tend to say a little more than got to do better next time. Coaches tend to raise their voice a couple of notches and really like to emphasize on how bad of a job you did. It may sound cruel and to players it may feel that way but coaches do this so a player will be more conscious the next time so they wont make the same mistakes twice. After a coach tells you what a piss poor job you did he will then take the time in the class room and out on the field to
Commented [B9]: Do you need to include all of this information? Commented [B8]: Dont leaving me hanging! How is this relationship different than the one in the locker room? I dont sense a difference yet.

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instruct the player on how to do his job the right way. As you can see all three of these struggles that players go through are interconnected and build off each other. Practice may be the most important part of the preparation process. Practice takes place after school Monday through Thursday and Saturday mornings. Weather permitting practice will be held on either the stadium on the turf field or outside the stadium on the grass field. The location of practice depends on two things, the type of field the team will be playing on in the upcoming week and the game fields occupancy at the time. If the weather conditions are poor then the team will take practice into the gym. Practice outside consists of full pads, shoulder pads, helmets, and pants. Practice in the gym consist of shells shoulder pads, helmets, and shorts. No matter where practice is held, there is work to be done. Practice starts out with the team stretching. They line up in ten separate lines with the captains and team leaders in the front of the line. After stretching the players go to their position coaches for individual work. This time is set aside each day so players can work on their craft. After individual period the team splits up to run drills between different positions such as one on ones or seven on seven. The team ends practice the same each day by running through that weeks opponents plays. This is where the majority of the coachs comments and instructions will be heard. After every play you will hear the coaches scream bingo which means to stop get back and run the play from the top. The coaches will take time and talk to their players in this time and instruct them on what they should be doing. This is the longest portion of practice; rightfully so, because coaches want to make sure their players understand their jobs on the field. The significance of these three phases of preparation to the relationship between coach and his players is that all three build off one another. In the locker room the relationship took a leadership type role. The preparation phases show a different side of this relationship. Coaches
Commented [B10]: Im not seeing a multi-dimensional portrait of a coach yet, and I think thats an issue. All these descriptions sound very similar.

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are teachers and players are students of the game. In the three phases of preparation the coaches are always trying to help their players get better. They are there to teach these players the game of football. This is the relationship that is most commonly seen and interpreted by the outside members, but as seen in this ethnography the relationship between coaches and players is multidimensional. Game Day Some days are just better than others. Game day is better than every other day of the week. It is the day of the week that both coaches and players cant wait to arrive. It is the day where all of that hard work pays off. The day of the week where thousands of people will come together to watch two teams battle it out. This is the only day where the only thing that matters is what happens on the field. When the clock strikes seven the only thing that matters is getting the W. At two fifteen on a Friday afternoon all the civilians get to go home. Civilians was a term Collins would use to describe everyone that wasnt apart of the football family. The players were to report to the locker room where they would wait until they boarded the bus and go to where ever team dinner was hosted for the weeks game. Team dinner was usually hosted by one of the local restaurants in the surrounding area. After team dinner the players would arrive back at the school for pre-game walk through. Pre-game walk through consisted of last minute instruction for players from their coaches. For the remainder of the time the players had to them selfs to prepare for war however they saw fit. Collins would say to his players in a time of peace is when you prepare for war. Collins would always tell his players you can lead the horse to the water but you cant make the horse drink from it. This meaning coaches can put players in the right positions but
Commented [B11]: I dont think I understand the conclusions youre drawing here. Why are you spending so much time describing drills and setting and so little on the actual relationships between the players and the coach?

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they cant make the plays for them. On a Friday night with the game on the line all the coach can do is call the play. Collins would say big time players make big time plays in big time games. All the coach can do is call the play its the players job to make the play. On Friday nights a different side of the relationship between coaches and players comes about. All a coach can do is watch and hope that his players make the necessary plays to win. A coach on this night may be one the biggest fan of them all. All of the work that goes into the week on display for forty eight minutes. All the coach can do is just sit and watch his players. This is the relationship that is rarely seen. On a Friday night the biggest fan is not sitting in the stands; he is standing there on the side line watching his players make big time plays in big time games. Some relationships are not simply defined. Some relationships take different forms depending on the situation that relationship is put in. some relationships are multi-dimensional in there nature. The relationship between a coach and his players is one that constantly evolves. A coach will always be a mentor to a player even one thats playing days are long gone. The relationship does not seize to exist just because the coach is no longer your coach. The relationship simply takes another dimension. Some bonds are too strong to break. A football player will always have respect for their coach, even after he has hung up his cleats. A coach is not just a coach to a player. A coach can be a friend, a mentor, a leader, a fan, a teacher, etc. The relationship may start on the field but it does not end there. One day a player may even need to call up his old coach to come write a research paper on the relationships between coaches and players. Luckily once again that coach was there to help.
Commented [B14]: I would have liked to see more of these explored throughout your ethnography. Commented [B13]: Make sure youre proofreading before submission. Ive spotted several grammatical and spelling errors throughout. Commented [B12]: Good. Now I see some multidimensionality. The coach is a coach and a fan. Still, I think I need more than this.

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Nick, I think there are some very strong components to this draft. The writing, for the most part, is clear and concise whilst also being compelling and interesting. This is difficult to accomplish as a writer, and overall I think youve done a nice job with it. I also like how you work through your transitions and observe the coach/players in multiple atmospheres so that you can get a better feel for their shifting relationship with another. This was a smart move on your part. Finally, I like that youve constructed most of your argument around your observations and not your interview. Its very easy for an ethnography to become interview heavy so Im impressed with the amount of observations you were able to incorporate. All that being said, I do think theres some room for improvement. My primary concern right now is that I dont think youre fully-fleshing out your argument. You spend a great deal of time introducing the piece, describing different settings, and explaining drills. While this information is interesting I dont think its always necessary, especially when you spend hardly any time addressing the interactions between player and coach. Because these interactions are what will prove your thesis, they should be the bulk of this text. At this point they arent, and because of that I have a really hard time believing that this relationship is, in fact, multi-dimensional. In revision, work to show all the different facets of this relationship (you mention teacher and mentor at the end, but I dont see anything that lends itself to that description throughout). Use the questions and comments Ive made in the margins to help you out.

Works Cited Collins, Bobby. Personal Interview. 17, February. 2014.