1st few weeks…

            Michael moved up to Brinkley on Saturday, March 26 with his truck, clothes, and a mattress, while I stayed here to finish out my school year. Needless to say, I can’t wait until June 3 so that I can move up there full time. I hate being apart from him, but we decided that we wouldn’t go longer than 2 weeks without seeing each other so it makes it a little more manageable. Gracie and my night light are keeping me sane at night all by myself. And, he has it much worse off that I do. He was originally planning on staying at his parent’s house, but after commuting an hour each way to the school, he decided to move into an empty trailer of his uncles in Clarendon. Only about a 10 minute commute. Clarendon is Brinkley’s big rival, so Michael is keeping under wraps about living there for the moment. Poor guy only has a mattress lying on the floor with no TV or Internet, so he pretty much works every minute of the day. He says he hasn’t stopped moving and the whole town is just amazed at this new young coach coming it with all this energy.

            First on Michael’s agenda was to clean out the field house. If you don’t know, Michael is a bit of an organizational freak. So walking into this old field house, with absolutely no organization, just frustrated him. Thankfully his parents live fairly close so they came up to help him clean (thanks guys) and take inventory of what he already had and what he still needed. I didn’t get to see the field house before, but the after sure looks good. He’s done a great job organizing, cleaning, and ordering all kinds of stuff for this new and improved program.

            The first day Michael was there, he met with the team, talked about his expectations, etc and then said “get changed and meet me in the weight room”. He said all the kids just stared at him until one finally said, “Coach, we don’t have anything to change in to.” Michael found out that they have been working out in their school uniforms instead of workout clothes. First thing Michael bought… workout clothes. Just with that little purchase, he was their hero.

            If you can imagine, Michael’s environment has changed dramatically. He’s coming from Hebron High School with 3 freshman teams, 2 JV teams and 60+ kids on the Varsity squad, to having 25 high school kids trying out for 1 team. Not to mention that HHS had about 15 coaches on the sideline every game to Michael’s coaching staff consisting of 3 other guys. Regardless, Michael is loving being the boss. Especially that he’s the youngest guy on staff and gets to tell other people what to do. Not to mention that there is a rumor that the new football coach is HOT and all the girls want to know how old Coach Sain is to see if they have a chance.

The adventures begin…

            By now, everyone pretty much knows that Michael received the head coaching position for the Brinkley Tigers, in Brinkley Arkansas – population 3,900. When we announced this new position everyone requested that I start a blog to keep them updated on the new adventures that lie ahead of us. I wasn’t sure if everyone was just saying it, or really interested, regardless, here it is.

            Not everyone has heard the drama filled story of his hire, so I thought that this would be a good place to start on the blog. Over Christmas break we were visiting his family in Barton and went ahead and scheduled an interview in Brinkley. We showed up at the Superintendents house at about 5 that day, and talked with Dr. Best for about an hour. He is also new to the district and a huge reason Michael ended up taking the job. He is trying to bring the football program back and is willing to invest a lot of money in order to get this program back on its feet. After talking to him he said that one of their board members who used to be a coach wanted to meet us as well and talk more football. So, off we go to Mr Rick Hampton’s Duck Club. You heard me, he owns a duck club in Brinkley that’s actually pretty well known. So, if you know me, I’m not a hunter, and thankfully Michael isn’t either. Well, it’s dark, and misting and here we are walking up to the club to meet Rick. He and a few other guys who just finished hunting were outside as we pulled up. We meet, shake hands and the first thing Rick asked is if we’d ever seen a bobcat. Well, no we haven’t, so Rick reaches in the back of his truck and asks if anyone has a flashlight. Me, Miss Naïve, says, I do, and I use my flashlight app on my phone as Rick throws this trash bag on the ground, reaches in and pulls out this little bobcat they just shot. Here I am shining my flashlight on this poor bobcat, and I guess Rick noticed that I was a little uncomfortable, so he flipped the bobcat over so that the gun shot wound wasn’t staring me in the face. Yep, were in Arkansas my friends. Well we go in and sit as they talk football for about 2 hours, and I sit there and listen as though I know what’s going on. Rick is a former Arkansas Tech graduate as well, so he loved that Michael and I are fellow alumni. After that Dr. Best took us back to the school to see the facilities and the weight room they were fixing up, and 4 hours later we’re finally closing up on the longest interview ever. As we were leaving, Dr. Best told us that Michael is definitely one of the top picks and we would hear from them in about 2 weeks.

            Well two long weeks later, we don’t receive a phone call. 3 weeks later we don’t receive a phone call, so Michael finally calls and finds out that Dr. Best was in the hospital. Once he recovered Dr. Best calls and schedules Michael’s final interview here in Dallas. Coincidentally, the day Dr. Best is to arrive we had the ice storm where just about everything was shut down, so it was cancelled. Once the ice melted Dr Best scheduled to come the next week. Well, once again, the day he is to arrive, we have yet another ice storm that prolonged his trip again. The next week he finally arrives and meets with Michael at Hebron. They were very impressed with Michael and everything at Hebron for that matter. Dr. Best told Michael that he was the #1 pick and that a board meeting was scheduled next Thursday evening in which they will announce the new coach and said “its going to be you Michael.” Well, Thursday rolls around and we don’t hear anything. Michael started feeling as though he might not have gotten the job. At 10pm that night I told Michael that he needed to call so that we could at least go to bed. Michael decided to text Dr. Best instead, “Any news?” in which he received a quick reply stating that the board meeting was cancelled because their school was hit by a tornado. At this point we are starting to think that God doesn’t want us to take the job. This decision has been prolonged to an illness, 2 ice storms and now a tornado. What else could happen? Well, one week later, we received a phone call announcing that it was a unanimous decision and Michael was the head coach. So, after a long grueling process, we are moving to Arkansas.
             News is definitely out in Brinkley that there is a new coach. While I was there we decided to try a little local cuisine at Los Arcos, 1 of 2 Mexican restaurants, and as we were walking to our table you could hear whispers across the restaurant saying, “that’s the new coach and his wife”. We just smiled and said hello to everyone as we passed by and remembered that we are being watched constantly.  I’ve figured that I can no longer wake up and run the grocery store, because I will run into just about the whole town and need to look presentable. Should be exciting.