Quarantine has left a lot of time to think about things. I have had time to reflect on the year and think about the past, present, and future. It has also given me time to read, write, watch shows/movie, and listen to podcasts. Driving home from work one day, I was listening to the Food 360 podcast with Chef Marc Murphy. In this particular episode, Chef Murphy is talking about the culinary industry with friend and fellow Chef Aaron Sanchez. Their conversation took me back to when I was starting out in culinary school and working in different aspects of the food service. The two chefs spent the show reflecting on their past experiences with a fondness not seen in every walk of life. Both looked back on their humble beginnings with pride and nostalgia for the struggle to succeed in their field. It was a great episode and if you like cooking this is a great listen.
This episode got me thinking. There is a similarity to the culinary industry and the football coaching industry. There is a climb to the top, the teachings are strict, and both are creative and competitive. These occupations are hard to succeed in if you are a toe in the water type of person. The most successful people in food and sport are all in passionate people who push the envelope and find ways to separate themselves from the rest. Through my experiences, both entities can be so closely linked.
Started from the Bottom now I’m Here
The coaching profession has no elevator to the top, you must take the stairs. Getting into coaching is relatively easy if you are willing to work for free and do a lot of the jobs the others don’t want to do anymore. You have to be learning on the job and start at low levels. In high school the progression often starts by working with the freshman or JV teams. My first coaching job I became a JV coach and tried to help the young players in their development. I was 20 years old; 2 years removed from high school myself, and wasn’t quite transitioned from a player’s mentality to the coach’s mentality. Coaching the JV team was difficult. At Joel Barlow one random afternoon I was taught two important lessons. The Immaculate high school JV team had a bad game on this day and I boiled over. Screaming and yelling on the bus, I was baffled by the lack of indifference to the defeat. I came into the coaching room as if there was a state of emergency. Quickly I was calmed by Coach Kaplanis and especially Coach Dunleavy. Both reminded me that one, if you yell all the time your voice will fall on deaf ears and two you can’t expect everyone to love football as you I do. You go from being a leader of a program as a player to being a guy who is setting up drills, being a gofer, and doing the grunt work. It can be a very humbling experience but one that was necessary. I learned that doing those things early on earned you a measure of respect not only amongst your peers but more importantly amoungst the players. This experience early on builds a no one is above the team bond that is important when starting your coaching career. The next season I became a varsity defensive line coach, then a coordinator, coached almost every position I could and took on weight room and scouting responsibilities. I was coaching on the field and in the booth. Learning the details of all these different jobs not only was invaluable when I became a head coach but made transitioning back to an assistant a smoother one.
If you pop on the food network you will see numerous celebrity chefs and it looks glamourous. The reality is 99% of those people started as a dishwasher/prep cook in the infancy of their career. Coaching kids at the earliest levels of high school is comparative to being a prep cook. It affords you the opportunity of seeing the product when it first arrives and turning it into that night’s dinner service. I came out of culinary school excited about the prospect of cooking for a living. I quickly was humbled on my first day at the Colorado Brewery. Chefs are an interesting breed. This particular chef wasn’t overly impressed with my resume and put my feet to the fire during my first dinner service. Colorado Brewery was a very good restaurant that prided itself on their craft beer and grill items. My first day chef put me right on the grill and started firing out orders for different steaks and all different temperatures. I froze. It was an empty feeling but I know he was teaching me a lesson. It didn’t make him any less of an asshole but years later I saw the reasoning. A humbling experience but it made me a better cook. After this I worked my way up as a prep cook. Got to work with all the different products each line cook was using. Eventually, I moved my way up to being a line cook and worked each station (except for the grill I was still shell shocked after day 1.)
The Sternness of the Teachings
Growing up in the game as a 10 year old in Pennsylvania playing football for the first time is an eye opener. It’s not like t-ball or youth soccer. I learned that football at that age was spoken in a whole different language. I was getting yelled at for the first time by someone other than my parents. The coaches pushed us hard to succeed and my first year I was the Bux-Mont Saints starting tight end. I can vividly remember being the key block on a perimeter play designed to get our fastest player to the outside. The pit in my stomach as we would leave the huddle could have filled Veteran Stadium. Pressure was being put on us in practice that was supposed to prepare you for the game. In actuality the fear of failing is what propelled you to do your job. All through youth and high school this was much the same in your face philosophy coaches took. They challenged you through either fear or doubt that you could do the job. In high school at Immaculate Steve Kaplanis and Rocky Kelsey were masters of the mental motivation and I was an easy mark. Sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly they would challenge you through doubting your abilities. Going into my sophomore year I can remember spending all offseason weight training but never really running. I wanted to be a varsity starter. Going into spring practice we would run a mile as fitness test. The majority of my time was spent finishing dead last in this endurance test. I can remember Rocky Kelsey giving me several nicknames like tubby or heavy C. This would drive me up the wall, but he knew he got me. The entire summer in 1996 I ran three miles a day and got into great shape. The rest of my football life in high school was one needling after another to get me into those frenzies. Present day coaching has evolved away from this style however; I would still use it on the players who I thought would benefit most from this tactic.
Heading off to my first day of work after graduation I got a small taste of the reality of the culinary industry. The night I graduated from high school I was out enjoying my perceived freedom. I went on a senior camp out and enjoy some beverages. Some may call what I felt the next morning was a hangover but who knows. Unlike most of my classmates, I had work the next morning at Steve’s Deli. Much like that first time you get lit up on the varsity football team I got a rude awaking as I walk into deli. Steve Merkel, the owner of Steve’s Deli My job, hired me on the recommendation of Kevin Dunleavy. Coach Dunleavy thought it would be a fit with both of us having football backgrounds. Needless to say I was struggling from my antics the night before. That day Steve was showing a propensity to drop pots and pan anytime he passed by me as I was doing food prep. He also vocalized to me how high school was over and it was time to get to work. As rough as that day was he taught me a valuable lesson of when you come to work be prepared to work no matter what shape you are in. This was an early lesson on how like football, working in restaurants is going to push you not only physically but mentally.
The day I stepped on campus on Johnson and Wales was a culture shock. Living with 3 roommates in a room for fit for 2 led was an adjustment. Classes were set up 4 days a week, 6 hours a day, and each one lasted nine days. All the classes that were being taught intertwined with each other. The storeroom class provided food to the French cuisine class which was then served by the dining room class to the students in meat cutting. It had the same structure as a football program. You work individually with the defensive line, linebackers, and defensive backs at first and then you slowly start bringing them together. I very much took to this style. The instructors pushed you hard in the kitchen like football coaches do in practice. Chefs barked orders at you to work cleaner, focus on your task, communicate, and work safe. All this sounded very familiar to me. One chef in particular reminded me of an old football coach.
Chef John Aukstolis was about 6’5” over 300 pound with crooked fingers and always had an intimidating look on his face. On our first day of class he stood at the door and for lack of a better term scared the piss out me. Like a left tackle protecting his star Quarterback, Chef Aukstolis stood there protecting the integrity of his kitchen. He was sending students back to their dorms for any violation. Stubble on your face go shave, wrinkle on your jacket go iron, no hairnet go buy one. He was tossing students like Joe Thomas in his prime. My violations was my pants where not hemmed to the proper length. Now, my mother is one of the craftiest people I know, but teaching her 4 boys how to hem pants was not on the curriculum. So I went back to my dorm and jacked up pants up as high as I could, tied them off, and headed back to class. Of course in true Chef or Coach fashion I was then yelled at for being late. He was a hard ass and in the course of 9 days challenged us on every single one of them. He made you stand up and say why you came to culinary school and then with each lofty dream would explain to you the reality of the dream. He held study sessions a couple hours before every class and you wanted to succeed because he was giving you every opportunity to. He would stand over you as you cooked and smack your elbow down if they were up because that was dangerous to the person next to you. Just like a football coach, he put pressure on you so when you got out into the real world there were no surprises. I had Chef Aukstolis for two classes at Johnson and Wales and can say without hesitation he was one of the best teachers I ever had. He knew me better then I knew myself. There were times he would pull me aside and tell me to stop acting like I wasn’t intelligent. He would tell me to be a leader and speak up if I saw someone doing the wrong thing. He was a football coach with a chef’s hat and French knife. Scary thought!
Long Hours, Nights, and Weekends
Coaching football is not a 9-5 job at any level. I have always been a night owl and never really had a job with traditional hours. I was either at work, at practice, or watching film helping to prepare scouting reports. I always found it ironic how regimented and consistent coaches are with practice and game plans but when it comes to sleep it’s all over the place. When I would work night shift in security and was the head football coach at Abbott Tech my schedule generally went as followed. Monday through Thursday I was an essentially a stay at home dad and a football coach. Anthony my son would accompany me to practice on most days. The rule after a while was if you were injured you baby sat on the field until my Mrs. Coach Mascolo would pick him up. I would be there from 2:30-7:30 go home eat, watch film, prepare scouting reports, and work on the next days practice plan. Friday, I would have our tune up practice for the Saturday game and then go work a night shift from 7:30pm – 7:30am, Saturday mornings I would go home take a couple hour nap and get to the school by 10:30. Game time was around noon and the games would end around 2:30. I would hang out with Michelle and Anthony for a couple of hours, eat together, and I would go back to work a 12 hour shift. I didn’t do it every week; at times I would take a night off. Friday night games I would go into work after the game. Sleep was at a minimum especially because I didn’t work in the school building. It is in the nature of coaching to leave no stone unturned and go through countless hours of repetition to get to the ultimate goal of winning on the weekend.
Restaurant workers are also no stranger to chaotic hours. Working at several different establishments that served all the meals you sleep patterns can vary. Year 2 at Johnson and Wales each student takes an internship during one trimester in the culinary program. I chose to live on campus and take an internship at Foxwoods resort and casino. The program was set up that for 3 months, were you would work through every restaurant and area in the culinary field. This also meant working all hours and shifts as well. It took about an hour to get there from Providence and the ride was challenging to say the least. One particular week I was supposed to be at work at 2:30 am. I would leave by at least 1:00 am to give myself enough time. The section of the food service I was working in was sauces. This department works with giant kettles of all of your base sauces to be distributed to the various restaurants in the casino. One night during the middle of this rotation I was running late and like a true college slob I would throw my dirty chef coats in the back of my car. Speeding down I-95 after midnight was not my smartest choice. This is when I saw flashing lights behind me. I was pulled over. I could only imagine what the State Troopers thought was when he saw my sleep deprived face and to top it off he questioned me about the red stains on those coats in my back seat. It appeared I might have been a candidate for one of those falsely accused murder mystery podcasts but I ended up getting a 250 dollar ticket and being late for work.
You never get use to the hours but you learn how to manage them. In both lines of work you learn how to be more efficient and not waste a single minute doing what is necessary to be successful.
The Industries
are
Fluid
The saying goes in coaching we are all hired to be fired. At the high school level it can be more stable but unless you’re in the building the hours and money aspect can wear on you as in you are expected to put in full time work for very little money. In college and the pros the average stay for a coaches is about 3.5 year in the NFL it’s 4.5. This is what you do; you move around and try to find the right fit in an unpredictable business. The Culinary industries fluidity can be quite the same. The statistics are 60% of restaurants close within the first year and 80% close with 5 years. The Food service industry has about 9.5 million workers. That high number of employees mixed with restaurants turnover rates makes for a lot of moving around to different places and honing your craft all over the country.
I take pride that I had the opportunity to coach in different setting in my 18 years of coaching. I spent significant years in public (New Fairfield, New Milford, and Masuk), private catholic (Immaculate), and technical high schools (Abbott Tech). Every stop I learned new ways to coach young people and developed relationships with people from so many different walks of life. Coaching and the culinary industry share that same diversity. I worked in Deli’s, Breweries, fine dining, catering, and am currently trying to create my own path by making sauces with my wife. In the kitchen, you work with so many different cultures and styles. 7 different establishments in 7 years and I have moved on because of new opportunity or businesses closing. In all these stops you find out what you like, what you don’t like, and mostly develop your own style in the end.
Creativity
& Flow
Both industries are arts. In Coaching your creativity doesn’t just come out in how you draw up a defense or an offense. Your creativity comes in way you teach. How to get a group of people to work together for one common goal. There is no cookie cutter way to get this done. You have to read the personality of your team and deploy your teaching methods accordingly.
The kitchen is no different from the gridiron. Creativity in the kitchen is paramount. It’s not only the culinary creations that congers up the creativity but matching those creativity to your clientele as well as your vision. A great steak house in the middle of a town of vegans may not be the best business plan.
I sat in my living room at about midnight of course and was watching The Chef Table on Netflix. Chef Mashama Bailey was preparing her first menu as a head chef after working many years in the industry. When she submitted her first menu to her mentor Chef Anne Willian, it was met with some trepidation and was all over the place. Her menu didn’t tell a story and didn’t match her style as a chef. Bailey went back to basics of southern cooking with a modern flair. She found her voice through her passion for her roots and training.
https://www.eater.com/2019/3/1/18241805/chefs-table-mashama-bailey-season-6-episode-1
Finding your style as a coach is the same creative process. You learn from so many different people. You learn different scheme, approaches, and philosopies. Too many coaches try and take those teachings and apply them verbatim. Being able to find your voice as a coach is a journey. You have to put your true personality into it. If you’re an aggressive person then that should come across in your style of play. Also if you a conservative reserved person you shouldn’t try to run a heavy dose of down field passing. In my final season at Abbott Tech our staff applied this strategy. I have always been an aggressive physical style coach but I knew what kind of personnel we had. So offensively I meshed spread offense formations with old school conservative run game. Defensively we wanted our players to play fast so we kept the schemes very simple. We ran trick plays because the kids were into them and were excited what would be drawn up week in and week out. It made all the difference that year and all it took was being myself and putting it down on paper.
Team Concepts
More than any other team sport working as a team is imperative in football. You can have 10 guys do what they are supposed to do and 1 mistake can ruin a play. It’s what makes the game so satisfying for a coach. When you can get those 11 guys working together for one common goal the game is like a beautiful symphony that hits every note just right. It’s a feeling you chase all through your career. When that rhythm happens and players can communicate without even speaking, coaches can call plays without hesitation it’s a euphoric feeling. That feeling of trust and respect that your teammate will be in the right place at the right time take repetition after repetition over time to truly sink in. Combined with the physical nature of all this, it is what make football the greatest team sport there is.
In kitchens team work is much underrated. Everybody with focus on the person flipping the food in the pan or the pizza maker throwing the dough in the air but there is so much that goes into those skilled events. You can’t do anything without clean tool from the dishwasher, prep cooks, wait staff, the grill chef, sous chef, and the head chef. They all play an intricate role in getting food from prep to plate, to patrons. I have 2 examples of this that stick out in my mind of great teamwork and not so great team work.
At the Inn at Newtown I was just starting out as a line cook for the first time. Unfortunately for me I did not pay enough attention in high school in Senorita Stevens or Senorita Duncan’s Spanish class to be able to communicate effectively with my coworkers. My coworkers knew this and took full advantage of it. I was the salad and dessert cook on the line this night. There was minimal room on the line and I would ask the guys next to me for help getting something and they would refuse. In trying to learn Spanish I would often be met with resistance when asking them what a word meant. One time I even asked a line cook what the word “como” meant. He answered me with a death stare and said “como means como”. The end of my shift came and I could hear the other line cooks speaking Spanish and laughing. I asked one of them if they had a problem would they like to step outside. We yelled at each other for about a minute and then he said something I actually understood he told me to go “F*#! my mother”. Needless to say it became physical. There were more valuable lessons that night. One, I should have paid more attention in school, two, sauté cooks are susceptible to double leg take downs, and three how important team work was in the kitchen.
The Chef (whose name I can’t remember) that I mentioned earlier that put me through the paces at the Colorado Brewery was eventually replaced by Morgan Vondle, a local Danbury guy and a talented chef. One particular busy night I experienced the positive of team work in the kitchen. I was the pizza chef at the brewery at this time and was getting pretty comfortable with the wood fire oven and handling the dough. The second I came in on this Friday night the place was jammed and that sound of the paper ticket came through with an order for 40 pizzas. As the ticket was printing it was like the theme to Friday the 13th. However, without hesitation Chef Morgan jumped behind the line and began rolling out dough with me. Although he probably thought nothing of it, I always felt that showed a great measure of leadership and example of teamwork that was needed to get the job done. Thinking about it now I shouldn’t have been surprised because before he was a chef, he was a football guy.
Coaching and the culinary arts have much more in common than I ever knew. The work ethic, the comradery, and the sense of gratification you get for a job well done are immeasurable. These attributes are what developed my passion for both and what will sustain it.
