Meet Frank: Sport management

I am a defensive assistant. So during our practices and during the week, I'm helping out with our scout offense. On game days, I'm usually up in the box or scribbling down what plays they're calling, just charting down what we're doing defensively.

I was just really persistent. I was reaching out to staff, sending multiple emails and messaging coaches on Instagram and Twitter expressing my interest. Luckily, I got in touch with two of them and they helped me join the team.

I feel like we have a good team culture. Our coaches care about each player and they all want them to succeed. I feel like the players are really trying to buy into what the coaches are selling to us and overall I feel like everyone here is just really tightly together and want each other to succeed in the best way possible.

I learned a lot more about adjusting defensive coverages based on different things. I also learned a lot more about the defensive side of the ball coming from being all offense in high school.

I wanted to learn defense in college because I feel like learning both sides of the ball is really going to be helpful for me and my coaching career. I just want to be as successful as possible in knowing both sides of the ball.

I became interested in football because my grandfather was a high school coach back home at Loyola Academy in Illinois. And every Sunday it's on our TV and I just started falling in love with the game growing up and it's just something that I'm able to get away from everything for. I just love this game.

In high school I was a three year offensive assistant coach. I started my sophomore year and because of COVID we only had six games. But that season I just started loving what I was doing. I built really good connections with our coaches and during my junior and senior year everything came together. I continued to grow as a coach, started taking on more responsibilities, and it's just something that I continue to love.

I feel like it helped me translate to college football just knowing what to kind of expect like in a week or what practices are going to kind of be like how much time and effort you're going to have to put into like your weekly schedule. Just football, focusing on that aspect of it. outside also that like the coaching point of it.

On just getting to know your players, getting to know the guys that are going to be in the locker room for your season on I feel like just learning how to understand like what players are going through in high school or in football or just like weekly with school and classes and do football and like outside of football, like personal stuff.

I feel like just being able to learn players like how players are, how it is just learning how like players.

I feel like it's probably the people I work with every day. Everyone has been really fun to work with and I've been able to each and every single one of the. And that's the way it should be in every football program. And to me it confirms that I picked a great football program.

I'm look forward to the networking and connections that could build through the program. I know there's a lot of people starting to come to Western for sports management and I feel building connections with people with the same interests could be good for me down the line. 

I chose sports management because I want to have a career in sports somewhere down the line, preferably football.

My ultimate career goal is to be a head coach. I know that's far down the line, but I feel like that's what I want to strive for. Being a head coach and in charge of a program is something that I would really enjoy.

I chose Western because my friend told me about it and my coaches in high school pushed to continue to chasing my dreams of being a football coach.

My advice would be embrace the change. College life is a lot different than being at home or going to high school. It will be hard, but one thing I learned was just embrace the suck. Life's about constant changes. You're going to have to adapt to those changes in life, and it's going to be difficult for some people more than others. You just got to keep your head down sometimes, keep pushing forward and giving your best.