Ladies' Football Forum 2009

Yesterday 400 women again converged on the IPF for an annual day of football organized especially for us.  Attendees toured the facility, took pictures with coaches and players, and had the opportunity to ask questions of the coaches.  Details after the jump!

The day began at the sinful hour of 7:15 for photos with Coach Nutt.  "No kissing the coach" was the commandment of the hour.  I wasn't there early enough to see if someone had actually tried it, but the old ladies (one 83 year old in particular) snuggled in pretty close.

After breakfast, we ran through the tunnel for the chance to experience the players' gameday entrance, complete with rubbing Chucky's head and the smoke machines.  Yours truly made  her way to the very front and should be in the photos to the far left of HDN! 

Back in the IPF we split into groups and went to the video room, weight room, equipment room, training room, and the locker room.

• • Video Room:  Most of the veterans had heard the schpeiles about how the video is exchanged between teams in and out of conference from Andy Commer before, but let me tell you - a highlight reel is way better when your team actually won a few games in the last season!
  • Weight Room:  Always a favorite of the tour, Coach Decker had a few workouts set up for us to watch.  He also had Jevan, John Jerry, Reid Neely, Kentrell Lockhart, Kendrick Lewis, and the always charming Marshay Green to demonstrate.  John Jerry is benchpressing 500 pounds.  500 pounds!  That's like benchpressing 3 people!  Looking back through the pictures we took with the players, he is also the most photogenic of the bunch (sorry, Marshay)!
  • Equipment Room: It was interesting the first time, and because so many of us had heard their blurb before, they had laid out all of this surplus merchandise the team had ordered from Nike and told the women to have at it.  If you were up for a $20 Ole Miss polo or some $30 sneakers it was sweet.  Especially if you wore size XXXL.  Outside the locker room, Jerrell Powe walked by followed by three pretty girls.  I guess he eventually got the red shell.
  • Training Room: Daverin Geralds and Brandon Bolden were in the training room with Tim Mullins (don't worry!  Daverin has a ligament in his knee that flips over every once in awhile, but no injuries here otherwise!).  They demonstrated the underwater treadmill, and Tim discussed Greg Hardy's injury.
  • Locker Room:  The locker room has had a few aesthetic changes since last year.  A phrase you may have heard - one heartbeat? - is written on the ceiling.  There is also a collage on the wall of Coach Nutt's trip to the Middle East.  The highlight was the lil' Bastid, there to answer any of our questions.  One of the first questions was about the wreck, and because I didn't record the answer, I will share with you what he said:
Greg's foot surgeon, Bob Anderson, has been in Vancouver since the wreck.  Tim    Mullins had emailed the x-rays and CT scans, but Anderson wants to see the CT in person.  Rather than mail it to Canada, where the mail is notoriously slow, Mullins FedExed the scans to Anderson in North Carolina, where he will be on Monday.  Monday we will all know the prognosis.

The wreck was on the way home from the mall in Tupelo where Greg, Dexter, Dexter's girlfriend from Florida, and another friend (a former player - not sure who) had gone to ride the carousel and play in the arcade.  They came back through Pontotoc, and proceeded from a stopsign only to be plowed into by someone who failed to stop at two subsequent stopsigns.  They got out of the car (because it was on fire), and no one was really hurt.  Dexter said he went back to the car to get his phone because he was so shaken up and needed to hear his daughter's voice. 

 Next, a woman asked the question we were all thinking but knew the answer to already: "How long does it take for you to get in and out of those pads?"  (Dexter was in uniform).  At first he did not realize the subtext of what this old lady was asking.  You see, last year, someone had asked the same question of Marshay in the locker room, and, rather than answer, he took off everything but his britches, leaving us all to gather our jaws from the floor. 

So, the old lady was asking him to take his clothes off.  And he did, and you can watch it below.  (Starts around 0:55)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceamesDwuxw






Weirdly enough, one of the ladies in the room apparently tried to steal Dexter's pads and jersey.  Who knows what she was going to do with all those pads, or how she thought he wouldn't notice, but there was an uncomfortable moment at lunch after the goods were apprehended. 

Before that, Dexter sang a song he wrote for his rap group (it's really just Greg Hardy and Dexter).  If you are curious, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdg5GstXglw

 

After that, we came back as a group and listened to HDN dodge questions he didn't want to answer, and then we got to play with the offensive coaches - Austin, Markusen, Nix, Dixerson, and Shibest.  Some lined us up in formation and ran a play (LT right here!) , others showed us how to hold your lineman and not get called on it.  Coach Dixerson taught us what all of his wild sideline hand signals meant.

 During our Q&A with the coaches, Coach Markusen did a standup job of completely avoiding the only real substantive question:  What is the Super Rebel?  He told us about the weather, his favorite bubble gum flavor, and what Houston Nutt sings in the shower (don't ask me how he knows), but we heard not a peep about the mysterious Super Rebel.

The last bit of the day was Q&A with former Rebels Wesley Walls, Cory Peterson, Jesse Mitchell, Tom Luke, and Ronnie Heard. 

 

All said and done, the day was exciting and got us even more pumped up for kickoff seven weeks from today!