We started the first off staff meetings the very next morning – which was fine. We included all the coaches and the complete administrative staff. A total of thirteen of us in a room that probably should have held ten. But, we dragged in some extra chairs and I sat halfway in the hallway.
From the management side we had Mukka Erdonmez (President and primary owner), Toni Zöeller (Communications), Zeki Öxtürk (Head of Operations), Ferhat Kahraman (Head of Administration). Our sporting organization was Matt Hammer and JC Williams (Athletic Directors), Norm Chow (Head Coach), Otis Smith (Defensive Coordinator), Mike Wilson (Wide Receivers), Bob Palcic (Offensive line), Darius Willis (Running Backs), Bert Hill (Defensive Line) and myself.
This group would look way different a few months later!
As the Guard’s primary owner Mukka headed up the meeting … he allowed Norm to start off with an intro and also his vision of the team. A good idea in my eyes since he was going to control the day to day operations of our team.
Mukka was a top dog at XL Insurance (a giant worldwide group) he had a bigtime title – Head of International Casualty Europe, Africa and Latin America. He had a a PHD in International Management from University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. (This is one of the best business schools in the world). I’ve been assured by many people that he is for real!
When Mukka took over the meeting it was apparent that he was used to directing people. Now leadership obviously can go in many directions. Mukka liked making lists and assigning people tasks with timelines.
He also liked to show everyone who was in charge. After a few preliminaries about trust, building a team and having fun together. He then commenced to start chewing some ass.
Taking all of us from the states by surprise — he started in
on JC and Matt. He was very aggressive and wanted to know why Matt hadn’t signed more guys … why a list of guys he gave to Matt wasn’t graded and in some spread sheet.
JC got the same barrage with both barrels. Why do we have so many spread sheets with different information … why are they impossible to read? Wow.
Well…so much for trust, friendship and the like. Maybe this was his management style.
I happened to be glancing at Norm and Otis as this was going on. I could see them lower their heads and take down a few notes – sensing what they were thinking.
Now, all of us had been ripped pretty good during our coaching careers at various times. But, that was done by professionals to us also as professionals where the stakes were way higher than the European League of Football.
Norm tried to calm the seas and intercede by telling Mukka that he and I had set up a scouting system and were building an evaluated and graded database by position. We brought Darius into the conversation who really knew the Swiss players.
The temperature in the room cooled considerably and we did work through a computerized list we were able to show on a big screen TV. It became apparent we did have a lot of work to do on several guys. But in reality, we already had four A-tag players signed and several E-tag guys lined up as well.
Those players were key. We then had some meetings set up with the best Swiss players during the combine. Mukka wanted to know the schedule for meetings and needed another list .. this time showing when these guys were showing up.
He lost it again when there really wasn’t a schedule for visiting with players. Again, he started to get on Matt and JC. But luckily, I was able to just say … it wasn’t going to be a problem. Each of the coaches would be available all day during the combine and we only needed to concentrate on a handful at each position. Plus, we would circulate when we weren’t doing a one-on-one meeting.
I assured him that we learned flexibility at the NFL combine because there were times in the early years before it became extremely organized that we had to adjust on the run. It would get done … no sense in trying to control something we couldn’t.
We broke for lunch and most of the US coaches went outside to get some air and also to huddle about this shit show we just took part in.
Pretty much it was apparent that there wouldn’t be any BS taken from Mukka. And yes …Bert said he might just throw him out the window if he there was any cannon fire at him.
Otis and I talked a little apart and he asked if this was normal … I told him – not in my wildest dreams did I expect our owner to lose his mind in the first 20 minutes we were together.
After lunch we got back to it. Concentrating on the combine location, the logistics involved and the equipment required. I know I was hoping this would be a shorter meeting.
But, once Mukka put his crosshairs on Matt again I got the feeling that this might turn into another heated session. The problem was we didn’t have the players T-shirts for the combine.
Where they were was a question.
As an aside here – you have to understand this. To print a bunch of t-shirts in Switzerland is expensive. It’s much cheaper to have them made in Germany or Turkey. But, then you have to get them through customs … another problem. Something simple in the US is not that easy in Switzerland.
I guess Matt had ordered them weeks ago, but no one knew where they were. Phone calls were going unanswered. When they were picked up – the company couldn’t tell Matt where the truck was. Mukka was getting fired up again.
We didn’t need another shit show like the morning … Norm and Otis cut everything off by saying we could live without t-shirts as long as we had accurate results and tabulation on a spread sheet. JC jumped in and said that was under control.
The next thing on Mukka’s “list” was volunteers to run the combine. Apparently, we had enough and even if Mukka was still asking for who was running what drill and who was recording the information we assured him that if we had the right number of coaches we could make it work.
The man was obsessed with the details … which I could appreciate. But, I was just happy to get things started and get out of this meeting.
But, that wasn’t going to happen quite that easily. Next, we had to line up the equipment we needed for the workout phase of the combine. So, this fell to Zeki. (Zeki is a fantastic guy – love him.)
Zeki, started with Bert (well, he was sitting next to him). Bert needed five step-over bags, four hand shields and a big pass rush dummy if one was available. Leave it to Bert to be ready.
Next was Bob – well despite the fact that he asked for basically the same thing as Bert it took him another fifteen minutes to design what he wanted to do – which we didn’t need. We only cared about the equipment – it was up to each of us to set up our drills.
Darius asked for five step-over bags, six cones and 4 hand shields.
Poor Zeki had never done this before it was apparent to me … I asked him “OK Zek what do you have so far?” He told that we needed 20 step over bags, about 12 hand shields, six cones.
Gently I said …whoa there Zeki!!!
I did tell him that all we needed was 10 step over bags and six hand shields with 30 cones.
He looked at me astounded and said but everyone needs 5 and that adds up to a lot more. Mukka agreed that we needed many more..
I just tried to assure them we would be OK with that number because only one position group- was going at a time.
Therefore, just have a few extra of each and we would be fine. Then – they got it.
The biggest pointer I gave them was this – make sure we have footballs. That was the most important thing.
Man – we were going to have a task coaching these guys up.
Another meeting tomorrow morning!