[superjames1992]

It was my birthday today and boy what a present I got! I got up this morning to go to work as usual at the Aamco Transmissions shop I own in South Charleston, West Virginia. It is open from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Even though, it was my birthday, I still had to work my butt off as usual. It was uneventful, however, as we are having a really slow week with Independence Day this week and all. This is historically a slow week for us, anyways. Usually, the summer in it's entirely is slow as far as business goes compared to winter since there is more snow in the winter among other things.

I got off work today. I left work to go to Husson's Pizza, one of my favorite restaurants in the area. I got off at exit 39, the Teays Valley exit, of Interstate 64 on my way home to get there. I live in Hurricane, West Virginia, at exit 34, so Husson's is only about 5 or so miles from my house. I ordered a turkey and cheese sub as usual with extra Italian dressing and no mayonnaise (I hate that stuff!) and waited about 10 minutes for my food to arrive. I was eating my delicious food when suddenly I got a call on my cell phone.

I answered it and was shocked. I had coached midget league football in Hurricane for the past 4 years and had some really good years there, but the call I got was totally out of the blue. It was an invitation for me to join the Marshall University football team as not a graduate assistant, an assistant coach, but the head coaching position at a division 1 college which has 2 national championships under it's belt, albeit both of them are in division 1-AA. They wanted to meet on July 8th to discuss a contract and I said okay, I'll be there! Of course, there will be no negotiating on my part. Any salary is fine. I don't want to lose out on this opportunity.

I drove the rest of the way home down Teays Valley Road in my 1994 Chevrolet Silverado as joyous as I've ever been. I drove by Hurricane High School along the way. It had always been a dream of mine even just to coach there, but now I'll be coaching division 1 football assuming we can work out a deal! I went across Hurricane Creek and past the Video Madness rental store right near where I live and then turned down Harbor Lane. After passing by a few mobile homes, I arrived at Pendleton Woods, the neighborhood I lived in. I pulled up my steep driveway and parked on the right side as I usually do.

The rest of the night I laid back and dreamed about what it could be like to coach Marshall. I knew longtime coach Bob Pruett had stepped down earlier this month for personal reasons, so I guess they were looking for a coach. I'll have a lot to live up to considering Pruett coached the likes of Byron Leftwich, Chadd Pennington, and Randy Moss, but I am up for the challenge!