Working Our Way into the New Year

As we pushed our way into the latter part of November thru December of 2022 and into January of 2023 the Helvetic Guards roster was nicely coming together.  But unfortunately, we were losing a few coaches from our staff.  But, at the same time we had some logical answers.

Norm had contact with a friend of his … Dave Campo.  Yup, that Dave Campo – formerly the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.  Longtime college and NFL coach.  A very good coach and also a solid guy.

So, Dave and I connected on a call.  He was looking for something to do and Europe sounded like an interesting opportunity.  I explained the situation with the Helvetic Guards and the ownership structure.  So, we agreed to talk about the situation in a few days.

In the meantime, I had a call with a friend – Greg Brown.  I’d known Greg since the 80’s.  He was with the Tampa Bay Bucs when I started in Detroit.  He is a very accomplished coach – mostly working with the defensive backs.  But, he was also a coordinator.

Greg told me he was intrigued because he had thought about going overseas for a little while.  I told him about the job and he had a definite interest.  I also told him about Dave Campo in respect to honesty.  So, he told me about his interest in remaining in coaching in college.

Well, we now had two possibilities for defensive coordinator … plus Bob Palcic had been calling about Jim Ward.  Bob had worked with Jim for a short period in Hungary.  He felt that Jim would be a great fit.

I trust Bob and I did a lot of work seeing what Jim has done as a coach.  Jim has been in Europe for a number of years as a head coach and defensive coordinator.  His resume is really good.  I’m thinking we should move in on him.

However, as per instruction by Mukka Erdönmez (out team owner) we need a defensive coach with NFL experience.  One thing about Mukka … he wants the attention and likes to be in the public eye.

So, unfortunately Jim would have to wait in the background because the first two guys in line for the job were going to be Dave Campo and Greg Brown.  As I said they were both more than capable to be the lead dog for our defense.  In fact, they are superstars on defense.

But, as all of this is going on I was trying to prod our management group into understanding there were a lot of other things that needed to be attended to.  Given Mukka loved his lists … I had one for him.

It was a long list of things that needed to be done to get the franchise ready to roll.  Many things that should have at least been discussed … but hadn’t been.  Mostly because no one in our administration had ever done anything of this scope.

I have to say that Norm told me to dial everything back a little.  He didn’t want this to turn into a acrimonious (college word for my friend Betsy) for our group.  We would have enough problems going forward.  Trust me he would be right!

 Some of my biggest concerns were down to my first several points I had made to my friends JC Williams and Matt Hammer many months ago in June of 2022.

The hardest things to get done were going to be extended visas, work permits and apartments for the coaches.  Here it was more than six months later and we still had no progress made in these area.

As I have said before … what would Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine ask …”What me worry?”

Who cares if we don’t have a city for the team to work out of…no practice field…no stadium and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

The short list of things we need.

• The six US coaches and four American players need extended visas and work permits. (This is difficult to accomplish in Switzerland.
• This same group needs housing. (Apartments are at a premium and expensive in Switzerland)
• Where will this housing be located?
• What about travel from housing to practice and games? Cars, Bus and train pass?
• Where are we going to be located …is it Zurich or is it Luzern. Or will it be elsewhere?  When will it be finalized?
• We still don’t have a practice area.

This field has to be lighted.  Need lights!  We practice at night!

We need goal posts … these are soccer fields throughout Switzerland.

Who will line the field?  (Pro hash marks.)

• Do we have equipment to line the practice field or stadium? (which we don’t have yet.)
• What about practice equipment … dummies, pads, cones, step over dummies.
• We don’t have a stadium.

We need a football scoreboard … soccer scoreboards are way different.

We need a 40 second clock as well.

Goal Posts … these are soccer stadiums.

So no practice area…no stadium – do we even have a team?

• What are the locker rooms like in the stadium. (These are soccer stadiums so the lockers are a lot smaller because of the size of the rosters.
• What about video equipment?
• Do we have cameras? People to take the practice and game day videos.
• Who will upload the video to the computer.
• MEDICAL STAFF … we need to develop and create this group of people.
• We will need to find a bus company. (Finances top get this done.)