For avid sports fans, especially those who exist who support Eastern programs, there is a chance to catch a glimpse of what a coach’s life entails.

During a time when many coaches are looked at less like human beings and more like winning or losing machines, classes at Eastern involving different sports allow students to see just what a coach’s life entails.

Fans at Eastern, where some teams haven’t found as much success as some would like, forget just how much goes into coaching and how difficult it is to build a winner.

For those fans who think they know it all, maybe they should go through one semester of football coaching. It’s not a bad opportunity, considering the longtime Eastern football coach Bob Spoo coaches, I mean teaches, the course.

Spoo not only discusses the various aspects of coaching, but he also brings in the rest of his staff to the classroom.

What could be a better opportunity for students who think they may go into coaching once they graduate? Also, what could be a better opportunity to shut up one of your friends who thinks he or she knows it all about coaching the sport of football?

The course teaches the basics, but, still, any student who is willing, can pick the brain of a football coach who has been involved in the college game since the 1950’s when he played for Purdue.

Spoo breaks down the course into each section of the game and allows his specific coaches, such as current offensive line coach and offensive coordinator Mark Hudson, to teach the offensive line portion of the course.

Each coach shows tape for the class and breaks down different aspects that make the position they are responsible for difficult to teach. These simple fundamentals and various aspects of the game are what many people overlook, but coaches understand that they should never be glanced over.

Different plays are drawn up and coaches show how each play is dictated. For example, how important leverage can be in one situation is shown, and how a player can be beat if he doesn’t hold contain is shown in another situation. Various things like this are shown for what they really are by people who really know.

Most fans of the game have heard these terms and aspects before, but when the play is occurring on the field, it is a coach that notices what is happening in the middle of the play, and it is a fan who usually criticizes after a play is complete.

The responsibility on each player and the importance of each play stressed from player to coach often goes overlooked when the play may be routine, but, as many of the coaches explain in the class, the less spectacular plays are the ones that truly make up the game, and the spectacular plays are just icing on the cake.

The countless hours spent in front of the team on the practice field or in front of a television, watching game tape, are some of the things that the casual fan may not understand about the coaching profession.

Spend a few classroom hours with coaches like Spoo and most sports fans will truly realize the passion one has to have for the game that coaches like that have to have in them to coach for so long.