500 Coaches At GT???

So for $40, you can head to the ATL and watch a Paul Johnson practice and hear PJ & staff share the secrets of their coaching philosophy. Here's the flyer. So how many coaches would you guess might show up? Maybe 50? 100? Sounds about right to me. But NNNOOOOO. Try close to 500 high school / college coaches. We are talking some serious turnout if you ask me.


What do you get for your $40?
FRIDAY
- Watch practice Friday
- Pizza / drinks
- 45 minutes of offensive presentations (Bohannon, Monken, Sewak)
- 45 minutes of defensive presentations (Wommack, Smith, Jean-Mary)
- 75 minutes of break-out sessions with one of the coaches of your choice

SATURDAY
- Q&A first thing in the morning
- Watch practice / scrimmage
- Cringe at all the turnovers
- Post scrimmage Q&A with staff


THE CULT OF PAUL
What you have here is your basic cult following. PJ has developed a following possibly like no other at the high school level. Many coaches are willing to come from far and wide to learn from the guy that they consider the zen-master of the triple option.

Heck, college coaches all know that he does his thing better than anyone. Here's a quote from Jim Grobe:

"That’s why they run it so well. Paul knows this offense better than anybody who has ever run it. There’s not anything you can throw at him he hasn’t seen. And they coach it as well as it’s ever been coached. That’s the key."

There are such a long list of quotables about Paul Johnson that I'm working on a collection of them for your treat. Just this week there was this from Ty Willingham:

"This man has run his system for so long he knows every heartbeat," said Willingham, who faced Johnson's Navy teams three times while coaching Notre Dame. "He knows where every shoelace goes through every eyelet. He knows all of that. So, therefore, when you move here, guess what he does? He's already moved there."

I could go on and on and on. Bottom-line is that he has a following like no other. What's interesting is that there is a LARGE group of coaches at the high school level that will be following PJ very closely and rooting for him to be very successful. There are a number of reasons. Part of it is the man and part of it is the system. When PJ's system is successful, it actually opens up more opportunities for guys that might not get a chance to play at the DI level. That's a good thing for coaches at the high school level. So they're not just there to learn tips for their teams.

GAILEY CLINICS?
For those "in the know", can you tell us what type of clinics Chan Gailey put on, and what kind of attendance we had? Frankly, I don't even remember this as something Coach Gailey did, but I'm sure he did. However, I cannot imagine it had this kind of turnout. 500 coaches? Wow.