With rare exception, you will find me at 4:15 p.m. on Thursdays during the high school football season at football practice.
I started doing that in 1994, which was the first year I started doing play-by-play for Tippecanoe Valley football. I asked coach Scott Bibler for permission to observe, to ask questions of the coaches and players, and to take mental notes of the game plan.
I have been fortunate that the coaches I have worked with over the years at both Valley and Warsaw, in football and basketball, have given me almost unfettered access to their programs. I know for a fact that our broadcasts have benefited from that because we have unprecedented tools to help us learn about our own team and our opponents.
Last Thursday I wandered slowly through the southwest gate of Fisher Field to see the Tigers practice, Coach Bart Curtis saw me and said, “you are in for a treat today.”
He was referring to his protocol of having a guest come to speak to the team at the end of Thursday practices.
He never reveals who that guest will be in advance of them arriving at the Tiger Athletic Complex. He may come across as a gruff disciplinarian, but he does have a sense of style and humor.
Practice continues, and he slides back over to me to give me the hint “he used to coach here, and I knew him at New Prairie.” Well, in that moment I was watching the offensive unit work on attacking the scout defense and not trying to solve a riddle, but I assigned part of my brain to go through my warehouse of Tiger Sports History to see if I could identify this person.
Curtis couldn’t take it anymore at about the same time that part of my brain came up with the name Jim Dermody.
When I started at the radio station in 1991, Dermody was the varsity baseball coach and was also on the football staff. He was a huge personality and was a lot of fun to be around. But he moved north and has served as coach, principal and superintendent at a couple of schools in LaPorte County.
That’s where he met Bart Curtis.
Dermody hired Curtis to be his football coach at New Prairie, and he turned a perennial Northern State Conference doormat into a powerhouse. Curtis coached Dermody’s kids, and he considers that a debt that will be a lifetime in repaying.
When Dermody’s phone rang earlier this fall, and his pal was on the other end and in search of a favor, he didn’t need to be asked twice.
Last Thursday, there he was, on the field turf at Fisher Field, waiting for his turn to address the Tiger post-practice huddle.
But he wasn’t by himself.
There were three other guys with him. Three former players. Three guys who knew he would be there and who had been so impacted by “Derm” that they cleared their schedules to spend some time with him again and renew acquaintances. It says a lot about the man.
Dermody told the Tigers of five things he wanted them to think about as they play out this season, as they play out future seasons and as they live the rest of their lives.
I could write a column on each of those points, but I want to focus on just one, which was the first one.
“Be dedicated,” he told them. Find what you like to do and do it with every fiber of your being. Stay with it when times get tough. You won’t regret it.
That is an incredibly important message for young people today. We adults tend to look at today’s youth and see them as under-motivated and easily defeated.
While that is true of many, there is a problem – we adults taught them how to be like that.
We plow over any obstacles that are in their way, we hover over them to make sure they can’t fail, and we show them and tell them that it’s OK to quit.
Being good at anything takes hard work and time. That’s true of sports, it’s true of careers, it’s true of relationships.
If you want to excel at something, you must be dedicated to it.
Jim Dermody started there in his talk to the Tigers.
