HATTIESBURG — Will Hall has been working for more than two hours when he ran down the stairs to the ground floor of the Duff Athletic Center and found his post near the entrance to the Southern Mississippi waitroom at 8:30 am. ..
When his player arrives, Hall enthusiastically puts out a high five and a friendly slap on his back. One of the golden eagles struggling to put on a shirt taps his belly and receives several playful chirps. Hall’s mission to greet the first of the three training groups of the day is simple, but important in his view. Please touch everyone.
“Family, love, and culture are the three most commonly used words in America,” says Hall. “Everyone just throws them away.
“If we are a family, if we really want to love each other, we have to touch each other.”
This is a concept that pervades from Miami Heat executive Pat Riley to Train head coach Willie Fritz to the hall. This is derived from the results of a study commissioned by Riley when the star-studded heat team lost to the Dallas Mavericks at the 2011 NBA Finals.
The results show that Mavericks had a habit of making physical contact during the time-out herd. The heat was reaching out to themselves, what Riley ensured changed to the next season when Miami won the first of two consecutive titles.
For Hall, it’s an important part of the relationship-building process he prioritizes at this time of the year. He recently reminded his assistant at a staff meeting to spend extra time showing love to players before the fall camp in early August begins.
Hall believes players do not respond well to difficult conversations and negative feedback from coaches who have not yet built a foundation of trust. It is very important for his staff to spend the summer laying concrete, and the hall provides his assistant with detailed guidelines on building relationships.
“Everything he does has a definition,” said tight-end coach Cayden Cochrane.
The hall works at his desk early in the morning before the players arrive. He is giving a preparatory speech in Jackson that night, checking the list of players in the area and not excluding anyone when talking about their exploits. It’s important to include everyone so that you don’t hurt your emotions unnecessarily.
Hall will also use that time to prepare for a meeting with quarterbacks later that morning to outline a plan for an aggressive playbook installation session at the fall camp.
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The process will be most complicated for Southern Mississippi’s aggressive linemen who have to read the defensive front to understand their mission. As a result, aggressive coordinator and aggressive line coach Sam Greg sets the pace and tells the hall which packages he wants to install each day of the camp.
From there, the hall plays with 12 runs, 12 passes and 4 play action sets daily.
He can get it from Southern Mississippi’s Master Concept Grid, an Excel spreadsheet full of root trees, execution schemes, and blocking packages. But most of the time he extracts information from memory.
“I know that,” he says. “We know what we want to be and who we are. If it’s Paspray, we’re thinking about who we want to be.”
The hall sweats while greeting workout groups arriving every 30 minutes from 8:30. He embarks on a 20-minute walking run and then lifts for 10 minutes.
“It’s training for the old man, just don’t let you get sloppy,” he says.
It was time to meet the quarterback shortly after Hall returned to his office and took a shower to refresh. Here, the hall is within his element, standing next to a projector screen that displays some of the plays that the Golden Eagles have been working on.
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The hole goes around the room and asks each of the seven quarterbacks that exist about the progress of the read in a particular play. There is also Jason Brownley with a star wide out, which occasionally chimes with input from the receiver’s point of view.
When Hall doesn’t get the answer he’s looking for, he digs deeper. He rarely issues a complete fix in an attempt to first understand the quarterback thinking process before pointing out the alternative readings available in play.
At the end of the quarterback meeting, the hall is expecting visitors. The legendary Orleans and New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie Manning are passing by on their way to the Nesova County Fair.
Hall became friends with Manning during his time as Tulane’s aggressive coordinator, and the two now respond regularly to chat and exchange stories.
“He’s probably the most humble superstar you’ve ever met,” Hall said.
It’s about 1 pm. When Hall returns to his office after walking Manning and taking a brief photo. He explains that he tends to have lunch and instead eats light meals, water, and cola zero.
Staff will ask questions as they prepare for the next day’s Southern Mississippi Football annual golf tournament. Hall returns his attention to his computer to install further play.
A 2:00 pm call with another Sunbelt head coach follows before the hall is set to hit the road to Jackson.
He spends his time on the move chatting with new hires and scheduling five calls daily with commits or high-priority prospects.
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It’s a light afternoon for the other coaches on the premises. The hall was designed that way, and the training camp’s all-day grind and season are approaching. There are no daily staff meetings. Assistants are encouraged to spend time with their families.
There is trust between Southern Mississippi’s assistant and the hall, who decided not to manage it in detail. After Cochrane dropped her daughter on the first day of kindergarten, she arrived at the facility later than usual and she only met questions about how it went.
“We have to win some games,” Cochrane said. “Because he is the next level person.”
Contact Southern Mississippi writer David Eckert at deckert@gannett.com or Twitter@davideckert98.