4/17/2002 - Football
Spring Football Report #13
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Practice Report #13
Navy head football coach Paul Johnson
Q. Are you where you want to be with two practices left?
A. In the spring I don?t think you are ever where you want to be. I think we have made some progress, made some strides, but I don?t think I have ever coached anywhere where we were where we wanted to be in the spring.
Q. Did you see significant progress in terms of the effort today compared to Saturday?
A. I think today it got a little warm and people were dying. We are trying to learn to push through. You have to learn. It is more than wanting too; you have to learn how to do it.
Q. How about from a leadership standpoint, do you see the leadership from the key positions that you would expect or is that still a work in progress?
A. I think it is still a work in progress. Everyone is still figuring out where they want to go half the time. I do think we are making some progress, we just have to keep working and keep getting better.
Q. Are their specific areas that you have seen improvement?
A. I don?t know about specific areas, I am just talking about guys in general. I think the physical effort is down, what we have to do is get the mental part down and get a better understanding of what were trying to accomplish and learning how to push through when things go bad. When something happens bad, we don?t do a very good job of pushing through.
Q. From your experience is that one of the most difficult challenges as a coach, instilling in a team how to respond to adversity, especially a team that hasn?t been accustomed to success?
A. That?s part of things in general, you have to bow your neck when things get tough. Part of it is learning to do that; sometimes maybe you have to have some success doing it before you realize it. As supposed to saying, "oh shoot, here we go again," you say "I?m not going to let this happen," and some guys have to stand up and say ?I?m not going to let this happen."
Q. The players will vote on captains tomorrow, what are some of the things you look for in a captain?
A. In my mind, it?s their captains so they have to elect them; to me I would want somebody who exemplified what I wanted to be. Somebody that worked hard took care of business and was going to represent me in the fashion that I would want to be represented, on and off the field.
Q. Have you seen a good number of candidates?
A. There are some guys, it will be interesting to see how the players view it.
Q. What happens with you and the staff after Saturday?
A. We will have two or three days to meet with everybody, then the staff will be out recruiting.
Q. Do you meet individually with them?
A. I will try and meet with every player.
