Scouting the opponent

Sun Tzu famously said: “Know your enemy and be able to speak his language.” Or words to that effect.

There he goes again … Sun Tzu.

He understood that intimate knowledge of one’s enemy in combat (or opponent on the football field or in the courtroom) is vital for the purposes of creating winning strategy.

Coaches and lawyers are responsible for devising strategy. I have experience as both.

My coaching journey was … unorthodox. Let’s go through it. It’s a bit of a story, so let’s jump down that rabbit hole for a second before returning to this issue of preparation and scouting.

In 1988, I blew out my knee right before my senior season in college. Torn ACL. Reconstructive surgery. It’s hard to convey the massive disappointment I felt. I knew my football playing life was over, and that was difficult to come to terms with.

There are pictures of me at age 2 in our basement at Christmas with my brand-new helmet on my head and in a perfect 3-point stance. It had always been a core piece of my identity and a beloved passion. And now … emptiness.

I was at a quarterback camp with my son many years later when one of the coaches said, “Football will end; sooner than you think and faster than you want it to.” Yep.

In this instance, much to my surprise, it hadn’t ended. It just … changed.

My coaches at Davidson College invited me to become an undergraduate assistant coach, and I happily reported for duty as a defensive back coach. My first coaching gig was a college one.

In the Fall of 1991, I returned home to North Canton, Ohio after a brief stint on active duty in the Army and a two-year job as a legal assistant with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Manhattan. I planned to go to law school in 1992, but I needed to find something to do with my time, so I approached my high school alma mater – North Canton Hoover Vikings – and asked for a coaching job. They graciously offered me a spot, and I coached varsity defensive backs and wide receivers and helped coach the junior varsity team. It was good to be home.

As a bonus, I also drove my dad’s 1968 Mustang convertible to work every day.

I was hopeful of trying to coach in college while going to law school, but alas, Mercer University did not yet have a football team. From 1992-95, I toiled away in law school with nary a football in sight except on my TV on Saturdays and Sundays.

1995 was a big year. I graduated from law school. I passed the bar exam. I got married to the most beautiful woman in the world. We went on a wonderful honeymoon to Hawaii. And I got a job back in the Army on active duty as a JAG attorney. Oh … and I moved twice.

My Army job was not set to begin until later in the Fall, however, so again, I had time on my hands looking for work. I moved from Macon, Georgia to Lake Bluff, Illinois where my wife Mary was serving as an active-duty Air Force officer at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. We left there in July and moved again to Yorktown, Virginia. She had a job as a Section Commander in a squadron of aircraft mechanics at Langley Air Force base, and my first assignment (after the JAG basic course at Army JAG school for several months at the University of Virginia) was at Fort Eustis, Virginia. So I guess I moved four times that year!

Still playing the admittedly uncomfortable role of house husband, I went looking for work until my Army reporting date in October. I got an internship with the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in Newport News, and I talked my way onto the football coaching staff of Tabb High School in Yorktown. I coached the JV team and helped coach varsity DBs and WRs. Tabb High School was home to a couple of NFL players who had played there – Terry Kirby and Chris Slade.

The years passed. We moved from Virginia to Colorado, where Mary was the Chief of Military Equal Opportunity at the Air Force Academy and I was a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney and Trial Counsel as a Captain at Fort Carson, where I prosecuted civilians in federal court who committed crimes on the base and handled larger courts-martial.

But there was no football outside of TV and occasional attendance at an Air Force game. (Beautiful venue in the Rockies). As an aside, one of the games I attended there was against Navy, who featured a running back I had coached on the JV team at Hoover

1999-2000 were big years. Both of our children, Laura and Matthew, were born in Colorado Springs in successive years. After Laura was born, Mary was pregnant again within a few months, and she approached me and said, “Listen, I just got promoted from Captain to Mommy, so I need to separate from the Air Force and stay home with them to raise them. We’re not going to contract out the job of parenting to someone else. But that means you need to go find a job that makes more than an Army Captain because we’re about to lose half our income.”

My response? “Yes Ma’am” (saluting smartly).

So in the midst of several murder court-martial trials back-to-back-to-back, I started looking for a job.

Football and forensics came to the rescue. I got an email from Jeff Blanton, a dear friend and college football teammate of mine who was an FBI agent in Chattanooga. Jeff told me the USAO was hiring two new AUSAs to comprise their gun and violent crime unit. I was extremely blessed to get the job as an AUSA in Chattanooga and started in September of 2000.

But still no football.

My coaching career didn’t resume until 2005, and it was quite a change from my previous experience. Matthew turned 5, and inexplicably (insert laughter here), he wanted to play football. From age 5 to 11, I coached his teams either as the head coach or an assistant, and boy was that a challenge! Teaching the most basic fundamentals to boys who largely haven’t played and have ants in their pants, short attention spans, and fears of being injured was quite different than coaching high school or college players.

Honestly, it made me a better coach and lawyer as I started to understand the importance of communicating sound process from the ground up. I played Matthew at every position on the field so he would understand the game comprehensively. That process later helped him become an outstanding quarterback. He wanted to play quarterback and was always a natural thrower, but there were at least 2-3 seasons where he didn’t play there. For two of those years, I played Logan Workman at QB, and he would later go on and get drafted as a pitcher by the Tampa Bay Rays in Major League baseball. I’m sure it was the football coaching that did it!

From 2005-11, I was out on the field every Fall with those boys, and I also coached baseball and basketball during those years. In fact, my daughter Laura played on Matthew’s baseball team for two years, and I then coached her basketball team.

Don’t let anyone tell you that boys and girls are the same. Coaching girls was a different and wonderful experience, and it made me more empathetic as a coach later as I learned how to relate to players differently.

Then 2012 arrived. Matthew moved up to play middle school football, which was not an entirely wonderful experience and I wasn’t coaching, but later in the year, I was selected by the Department of Justice for an overseas detail as the resident Legal Advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, (Republic of) Georgia.

Um … wow.

They don’t play football in Georgia! Matthew didn’t play; I didn’t coach.

Something happened between 2012 and 2015. Matthew began to grow. And he looked to keep developing as a quarterback, routinely throwing on the Embassy grounds. Often, I ran routes for him. Then the Marines stationed there began to come out and run routes. Eventually, the U.S. Ambassador himself – Dick Norland – came out and ran some routes for him also. My coaching was personal. One on one with my son. Coaching his technique. Coaching his head. Coaching his heart.

I started filming his throws. I needed to be careful because the Embassy Security team was very concerned about footage getting out in public that might give a glimpse of the interior of the Embassy grounds.

Matthew took his ball everywhere. We threw in Istanbul, Turkey, where a cab driver stopped his car in the middle of the road and jumped out to play catch, backing up traffic. We threw in Rome, Florence and then in Pisa, Italy in the grass next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We threw in Ephesus, Turkey next to the ruins of the Library of Celsus. We threw in Athens, Greece in the shadow of the Parthenon. We threw in Barcelona, Spain. We threw in Jerusalem, Israel while watching some Israelis playing a game of American football at Robert Kraft Field. We threw in Monte Carlo, Monaco where Matthew was afraid to even stand beside an Aston Martin parked next to the Casino Royale. We threw in Nuremburg, Germany in the Winter among the beautiful lights of the Christmas Markets and near the site of the Nuremburg Trials. We threw in Paris and Strasbourg, France not far from the Eiffel Tower and European Court of Human Rights, respectively. We threw in Baku, Azerbaijan in the shadow of the Flaming Towers and Maiden Tower. We threw all over Georgia – from Tbilisi to Batumi to Sighnaghi to Kazbegi and beyond.

All the while, I took video. I learned from a friend and colleague at the USAO in Chattanooga that Chattanooga Christian School had hired well-known college coach Rob Spence to be their head coach. Rob had coached several college players – and QBs specifically – into the NFL at Clemson, Toledo, Syracuse, Rutgers, et al. He was looking to make a difference in the lives of some younger guys for a time. In an email in late 2014, I sent him (Embassy approved) video of Matthew throwing. Within 20 minutes, I had a response. “Please bring him to see me when you get back to the States.”

It was now May of 2015 and time to go home to the United States. Shortly after we returned, I took Matthew to see Coach Spence, who watched him throw to a couple of wide receivers he brought out for about 30 minutes.

Afterward, he pulled me aside to talk to me about Matthew:

“He’s really good. He can spin it. And his mechanics are excellent. If you don’t mind me asking, who coached him?”

Not so humbly, I replied, “Well, um, I did … mostly.”[1]

Rob replied, “What is your background?”

So I told him that I had played cornerback at Davidson College, coached for a year there, and coached at a couple of high schools along the way in addition to the youth coaching I had done for Matthew’s teams when he was growing up.

Rob cocked his head and said, “I just lost my defensive backs coach a couple days ago. This seems like a divine serendipity. Would you be interested in coaching the DBs for us at CCS?”

I looked at him and said, “Well, Rob, I’d love to, but I actually have a job as a federal prosecutor. It’s pretty demanding. Unpredictable. Time-consuming. I’m not sure I could fairly commit to coaching.”

He responded, “I really want you to coach. I’ll change the practice schedule around as much as I can to accommodate your schedule, and if there are days you can’t make it, I’m ok with that.”

I said, “Well, I guess you have yourself a DB coach then!”

I also want to say this about coaching generally before I move on. I have spent 30 years with the primary professional task of prosecuting cases that sent well over 1,000 people (mainly young men) to prison – some for very long periods of time. It is an honorable job. It is a worthy job. It is meaningful and impactful. I make no apologies. My colleagues and I did it right and impartially. It keeps people, the community, and the nation safe. It is a Romans 13 job. It is a mission field. I have enjoyed it and am always grateful for the blessing of having done it.

However.

It can wear on you to see the potential of so many young people wasted because of bad judgment, bad decisions, and bad circumstances. We are all of course personally responsible for our choices, but the path to wisdom and sound living is far more arduous for some than it is for others. I have extensive experience in recognizing the kinds of societal and personal factors that can lead one down the wrong path.

I loved coaching because it felt like maybe I was contributing on the “front end” – before bad choices were made. If I could help just one young person think about things differently, feel valued, and make smarter choices, then it felt like I was “evening out” the score from having to do the cleanup job at the end when it was too late and the bad choices had already been made.

That first year at CCS was probably my favorite season of coaching. To be back out on a football field after so long with freshly cut grass in the Fall, alongside other Christian men who valued coaching young people, and having a group of players who were good players and people – it doesn’t get better than that. Coaching high school is fun because the players are old enough to be able to introduce more sophisticated techniques and strategies to them, but they are also young enough that they are moldable and more willing to listen. They are looking to you for guidance on and off the field. It is pure and meaningful.

I recall our preseason retreat out of town with the team, and the players and coaches sitting around a fire outside talking about their lives and challenges and failures and fears. It was extraordinary. High school boys cried unashamedly. The upbringing some of them had experienced was jaw droppingly bad. Adult male coaches cried unashamedly. It was raw and real and impactful. That team came together brilliantly. The support they gave one another – it was something I wish everyone could have seen.

My coaching career would continue for two more years after that – well, now, maybe 3 -- but I’ll get into that elsewhere because here is a great place to talk about preparation and scouting the opponent in the context of that team.

2015: Chattanooga Christian School vs. Dekalb County:

CCS was not known for having good football. It is a relatively small private Christian school nestled in the valley beneath the imposing figure of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga. Railroad tracks run behind the stadium, which is a very nice intimate location behind the school in the shadow of the mountain. So the facilities had improved, but the team was still kind of mired in mediocrity. Rob, his defensive coordinator Mark Mariakis, and the rest of the coaching staff had started to change things, however.

That 2015 season went well, and we found ourselves in a rare playoff appearance facing a team with a great passing offense. I had an excellent group of DBs. I felt like we could match up well with them and neutralize what they did best. I watched a lot of game tape of our opponent’s passing attack. It was lethal, and they had an excellent QB and WRs. But I noticed that everyone played them afraid. Soft. Lots of zone coverage and fearful to match up man to man with them. And absolutely nobody tried to press the WRs at the line and be physical with them. We usually played a mixture of man and zone, and I had been teaching press technique to my DBs all season. With the right strategy, we were ready for the challenge.

I begged our defensive coordinator Mark Mariakis to turn my DBs loose and play aggressive press man coverage – pressuring the receivers’ releases and blitzing the QB to make them uncomfortable facing something the film said they hadn’t seen. Mark was an excellent coach and saw it too. He agreed. It worked to perfection. The WRs were frustrated and unable to get clean releases off the line which messed up the timing of their routes and throws. The QB was pressured and threw interceptions and rushed incompletions and took sacks. We won our first playoff game in a very long time. The opposing coach was quoted in the newspaper as saying, “their staff developed a great plan to shut us down.”

Not gonna lie … I was pretty proud of that! Scouting the opponent paid off in spades.

2004: United States v. JMT:

At approximately 10:00 a.m. on November 4, 2003, a man approached a teller working at the Chattanooga Area Schools Credit Union in Chattanooga and ordered her to, “Give me all your money, and don’t move.” 

The teller described the suspect as a slim, unkempt black male, six feet in height, with distinctive eyes and hair, who mumbled and spoke “as if he had cotton in his mouth.”  The teller opened her money drawer and placed $487 into a blue sack provided by the suspect. The suspect took the money and fled.

Surveillance equipment in the credit union filmed the robbery and recorded a black and white image of the suspect’s face and the horizontally striped shirt he was wearing.  The FBI responded to the robbery and reviewed the surveillance footage.  Agent Matt Hennessee recognized the suspect in the video and identified him as JMT, whom Hennessee previously had contact with on ten separate occasions.

The bank teller was shown a photo line-up and identified JMT as the robber.  (She also later identified him in the courtroom during the trial). 

On November 6, 2003, Special Agent Jim Melia interviewed JMT at the FBI field office in Chattanooga.  Thomas waived his Miranda rights and denied any involvement in the credit union robbery.  When shown a black and white photograph of the suspect taken from the credit union’s surveillance video, Thomas responded that the suspect, “looked just like (him), but that it wasn’t him.”   

Although the photograph was in black and white, JMT hilariously stated that he had a shirt like the one in the photograph, but that his was blue and maroon, not green like the one in the picture.  During the course of the investigation, agents previously had learned that the robber’s shirt had green stripes.             

In response to Melia’s questions about his whereabouts in the hours leading up the credit union robbery, JMT gave six different alibis.  The FBI investigated all of the alibis but were unable to corroborate any of them.  

Agent Melia visited JMT at the jail and told him that none of his alibis checked out.  JMT responded that he had been at his mother’s house with a woman named PB at the time of the robbery.  He intimated that he had telephoned PB, written to her, and had sent her a copy of the surveillance photograph.  Agent Melia informed JMT that PB had already been interviewed and had denied being with him the morning in question, to which he replied, “I’ll whip her a**”   Then he said he had been with his brother JT at the time of the robbery instead, but he hadn’t wanted to say so because his brother was on active duty in the Air Force and he didn’t want to get him involved.

This presented a bit of a problem. The brother, a well-respected Air Force non-commissioned officer stationed in South Carolina, was providing an alibi and claiming he was in Chattanooga with the defendant when the robbery happened. I knew he had to be either lying or horribly mistaken. I contacted the base, and using my Army JAG background, I knew I could get a copy of his leave forms. I had used contacts in the Army JAG Corps to connect with the Air Force JAG office where JT was stationed, and they provided me with the form from his command. Indeed, he had been on leave at the time of the robbery, but not in Tennessee. He was in Arizona. So he was lying.

At trial, JT testified on behalf of JMT. He took the stand at trial in his Air Force uniform and swore that he was in Chattanooga with his brother at the time of the robbery. He grinned smugly at the jury. He said he was on military leave in Chattanooga on the day of the robbery. JT claimed that he was at his mother’s house and that JMT was at also home in his bedroom with PB. 

I stood up to cross examine him and asked him to confirm that he was on leave in Tennessee. He did. He also admitted that even after hearing of his brother’s arrest, he did not contact authorities to provide him with an alibi.  Then I put a copy of his leave form on the overhead and asked him to identify it by his signature and content -- the one I had obtained from my “scouting efforts,” which listed JT’s specified leave address as Arizona.  He looked surprised that I had it but he did confirm. Then I asked him to read the part about his leave location in Arizona. All he could do was grin, lean back, and shake his head in defeat. He knew he had been exposed.

In rebuttal, we presented the testimony of MM, the guest relations director at a local hospital.  He testified that he was familiar with JMT and that at around 8:30 a.m. on the morning of the robbery, he saw him at the hospital asking for money.  MM recalled that JMT was wearing a dirty, bluish-green golf shirt with horizontal stripes.  The jury took less than 30 minutes to find the defendant guilty.

The cross-examination strategy wasn’t successful because I’m a great orator; it worked because I was prepared with a strategy, born from scouting efforts, to neutralize the opponent’s best play.

As a prosecutor and a football coach, it is important to identify the opponent’s strength and undermine it – even turn it into a weakness. In football, that comes with film study. As a prosecutor, it comes by identifying the defendant’s best witnesses and evidence and ensuring that I interview them all or find contradictory information.

[1] Here is where I should give a shout out to Darrin Slack and the National Football Academy. I started taking Matthew to their camps when they were just the National Quarterback Academy, and he received outstanding training there.