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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Leaps and Bounds

UCLA\'s Ken Norris has seen the video coordinator\'s role come a long, long way
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Marshall’s Brad Helton refers to him as “The Godfather of Video Coordinators.” But like most of his colleagues, UCLA’s Ken Norris is a cipher unless you are intimately familiar with his work.

Over the years, Norris has worked with and for a number of football giants – men such as George Allen, Terry Donahue, John Robinson and Norv Turner. Norris has been a big help to the coaches for whom he has worked. But like all good video coordinators, he is too busy doing his work to bask in adulation or reflected glory.

Kentucky running backs coach Ron Caragher learned of the demands put upon Norris when Caragher played and coached at UCLA from 1985-2002.

“When we’d fly back from a road game (the team) would go home, but the Ken Norrises of the world would go into the office and spend most of Saturday night making tapes,” Caragher said.

During football seasons, Norris used to regularly clock 85-90-hour work weeks. These days, he works 80-hour weeks during football season. Technological advances and additional staffers help him do his football job in 60 hours, so he spends another 20 hours on sports such as track and field, swimming and volleyball.

During the football “offseason,” Norris ratchets down to 60-hour work weeks.

UCLA head coach Karl Dorrell on Norris: “He’s the ultimate professional. He takes a great deal of pride in his work, whether it’s a practice or highlight tape-a special favor for someone. He puts 100 percent pride and effort into it.

“He takes his work seriously, but he definitely has a lot of fun. His staff is very energetic and youthful, and they love what they do.

“Most of the time, there’s a coach in charge of video exchanges, but Ken has taken it under his umbrella. That’s never been done before to the best of my knowledge. We still have a coach who is a liaison to Ken, but Ken says coaches should coach, and video coordinators should handle the tapes. He wants to make it as easy for us as possible, and I’m spoiled in a way.”

“I have a hand in providing help with all 22 sports,” Norris says. “Every coach at UCLA has a chance at a national title, and they don’t want to hear that we can’t do something for them. The gymnastics team has won three of the last four national championships.”

Norris currently has seven people working under him: two full-time employees, a full-time intern, and four undergraduates. Norris says Division I-A schools that aim to handle video for more sports than football need at least three full-time employees plus support staff.

THE EARLY DAYS

Norris got his start in the business through a family member. Norris’ grandfather got a job working with the L.A. Rams’ film staff, and Norris soon followed grandpa’s lead.

“In 1976, when I was 13, I started splicing film and processing it for the Rams,” Norris said.

Norris worked for the Rams until 1989, when he took his current position with the Bruins.

While he worked for the Rams, Norris, a self-proclaimed “lab rat,” worked in film-processing labs across L.A.

“The guy who I replaced at UCLA was Stan Troutman,” Norris says of UCLA’s film coordinator for 43 years. “Stan would drop off film at one of the labs I worked at. ... In 1988, he comes and asks me if I want the job.”

The 16mm days in which Norris began his career were rife with adventure. Coaches or assistants would often splice together copies of game films with staples or athletic tape and send the reels to upcoming opponents. The recipients would watch a minute or two of film before having to fix a projector that choked on a pair of staples.

Says Norris: “Coaches are hard on film – they’d look at the same play 20 times, and sometimes the film would just snap. If they weren’t looking, the coaches would end up with a mile of film on the floor-but they’d just slap some (athletic) tape on it and wind it back on the reel.”

It wasn’t just that 16mm films broke so easily. It was time consuming to make cut-ups – breakdowns of specific kinds of plays that make coaching each unit much easier.

“I remember when we wanted to see traps and sweeps, you had to physically cut it off the film,” says Fresno State offensive line coach Mark Weber. “You’d tape film on the walls and put it on the floor and splice it all together. It would take forever.”

In the mid-1980s, the NFL went from film to video. The Rams wanted Norris to learn about the new Sony equipment NFL teams were going to use, so Norris attended classes on video technology.

“At first I had no idea how to open up a VCR,” Norris said. “And in my first year at UCLA (1989), we had a coach who refused to turn on a VCR-he was stuck on using film. It took me sitting there with him to get him to do it. ... There also was some resistance going from video to computers.”

But Norris was a quick study, and like every successful video coordinator, he has rolled with the punches as the next quantum leap arrived -in the mid-1990s when the NFL and Division I-A schools moved from pure video to computers and digital technology.

A BOON TO COACHES

Today’s technology is all about saving coaches time and helping them gain advantages that can turn the tide in close games.

“We turn three hours of videotape into one hour,” Norris says. “We eliminate the crap-the non-plays-to help coaches be more efficient in picking up tendencies.

“We are an extension of the coaching staff. We are in direct communication with the coaching staff on a daily basis every day of the week. We don’t have much contact with the players until they are seniors-except for Ricky Manning Jr.-he always wanted to watch video.”

Manning’s dedication might help explain his three-interception day vs. the Eagles in last season’s NFC title game. Also, watch for Manning to eventually go into coaching: Norris says you can spot a future coach by how much tape he watches.

Because he doesn’t spend much time with the players, Norris is all about tailoring his work to fulfill the needs and wants of his coaches.

“When Bob Toledo was here, there was more detail and emphasis on offense,” Norris says. “Last year, with Larry Kerr, there was more emphasis on defense.”

Digital video allows teams to quickly tailor cut-ups for each unit. For example, defensive coaches can hop on a networked computer and quickly review an upcoming opponent’s play calling in short-yardage situations. Receivers coaches can call up every drop made by a specific wideout to better teach hand placement and route-running.

Says Caragher: “We can request a group of plays sorted by down and distance or offensive formation. Coaches have more hands-on control in making cut-ups.

“(But) for them to do that, it takes a Ken Norris, a video guy who puts that all together in concert with a graduate assistant.”

It was during Caragher’s time as a G.A. that he got to know Ken Norris.

“G.A.’s track info like down and distance, the formation and the play,” Caragher says. “The video guy matches the film with that info so that these plays can be sorted. ... . There are 40 categories we can sort plays by, and data has to be entered for each category. So, if you want all first-down plays, you can punch that in and ‘boom.’”

Fresno State’s Weber says going digital has made this process almost blindingly fast.

“You can break down an opponent and put any situation together you want – in the red zone – or if your guys are backed up,” Weber says. “You can make training tapes with the players, you can take their one-on-one situations in practice and send them home to study ... show them what they learned, what they need to correct.”

And since today’s players are much more technologically savvy, many have no problem sitting down at a computer to study an upcoming opponent or see how a teammate properly executed a series of plays.

“Let’s say we’re looking at our right guards pulling to their right,” Weber says. “We can put all these plays on tape and show who is the best is and why. We can put a tape together and see opponents do things you couldn’t see before: a linebacker might stand a certain way before he does something. ... Everybody learns differently, but everyone learns a bit faster if they can see a picture of something.”

“Right now,” Caragher says, “coaches around the country are pulling cut-ups from last season to show their team a good example of an iso block or an off-tackle play.”

Video can’t coach, but Norris says it can be invaluable.

“Coaches are always trying to find tendencies,” Norris says. “We videotape practice to see if guys can actually run a play. Can the players do what the coaches ask them to do?

“I hope the coaches are looking at tape going, ‘we have to throw that play out, we can’t run it.’ Video doesn’t lie. We know coaches are watching, but we hope they’re ‘listening’ to what the tape is telling them.

“A quarterback will get sacked, and fans will say, ‘Oh you should have seen that coming,’ but the defense just executed better.

“I just hope that our videotape captures success so our players see success and accomplish what they set out to do.”

Quoting Dorrell: “We can see those little intricacies that players do that tip off a certain play, you couldn’t see as well with 16 mm. ... There are certain blitzes you see – you can get a better idea of what’s coming because of the video capabilities.... Changes in stances ... Say in one play (blitz) you see a defensive lineman shaded outside. In another a linebacker is at 4 yards depth instead of 3 yards. ... You can cut out those two plays, and say they run both these plays 12 times a game-those two plays-you can show your team and say “see, they’re going to run this play. When those blitzes come up, you’ll see the defenders cheating,” and your team can pick the blitzes up.”

TODAY’S PROBLEMS

But for all the help the current technology provides, all is not perfect. There are a series of problems that coaches and video coordinators must tackle.

“There’s just so much more information at our fingertips today,” Weber says. “We as coaches have to be discerning about making sure we don’t give too much to our players. We can have information overload, and that’s why we work so many hours-it can go on forever now with the technology.”

The challenges facing coordinators appear more daunting.

Head Coach Dorrell has his thoughts on going from 16mm to today’s technological advances: “When we were in 16 mm, the clarity of picture wasn’t that good, you couldn’t see jersey numbers half the time. Now the picture quality is unbelievable – the viewing stations-plasma TVs give you an almost lifelike picture. You can pick up so many things that you couldn’t pick up 20 years ago. ... You can coach things a little bit better because you have a better laboratory, a better classroom to coach in.

“A big problem for us is to know when to jump into the newest technology,” Norris says. “If you can’t jump in and commit to at least five years, you can be stuck. We’re in the tweener zone right now between VHS tape, DVD and hard discs. Some high schoolers are sending us DVDs, and we need that format to evaluate those kids.

“My software, which I bought five years ago, is obsolete. We’ll pick the best new system for UCLA, but I want to make sure the learning curve is not too great for the coaches and for myself. And if you outfit your entire department, you could be spending $250,000-$500,000, so you’ve got to make sure you get a bang for your buck.”

And the costs don’t disappear after equipment is purchased.

“Repairs are a more expensive problem now,” Norris says. “Coaches will slam a tape into a VCR and break the machine. Film was expensive to process, but we end up spending more now because of repairs and tape breakage.”

There can be additional costs because today’s technology is portable. Last October, a laptop used by the Syracuse coaching staff was stolen from a graduate assistant’s car. The computer was valued at $24,000 – $3,000 for the laptop, $21,000 for the digital video coordination software on board.

THE COORDINATOR’S LIFE

Coordinators aren’t just thinking about technology 24-7. A coordinator is a member of the coaches’ support staff. He knows a lot about football, but his opinion isn’t usually sought out, let alone given weight. Norris stopped playing the sport after high school, but he has picked up a lot over the years.

“I know a lot of football, but I don’t want to know a lot,” he says. “When you’re in a down-and-distance situation when you’re taping a game, you know the plays, and 90 percent of the time you’re right. I’ll say ‘It looks like the right time for a draw,’ and undoubtedly I’m right.

“Occasionally, (former Bruins coach) Bob Toledo would ask my opinion in a meeting,” Norris says. “One year, I noticed our offensive line was just incredible. Toledo’s a passing-type coach, but I told him ‘With those hogs, we should be running the ball down their throats.’ I don’t think he wanted to hear that.”

Video coordinators eat and breathe game cut-ups, but they work on myriad non-coaching projects.

“Ken often does highlight tapes-such as awards tapes we’d do each Monday (at UCLA),” Caragher says. “The offensive player of the game would get the ‘Rambo’ award, and the defensive player of the game would get the ‘War Daddy.’ ... Ken would get a guy to announce it like the NFL Films announcer and mix in music from ‘Gladiator.’ I thought that was his favorite part of the job.”

And there are times when a coach might ask Norris to compile a reel of bad calls made by officials.

In the end, the cliché is true-the only consistent thing about the job is its ever-changing nature.

“We’ve gone from film splicers to video editors to network administrators,” Norris says. “What’s next? Maybe we plant chips into players’ brains.”

Fresno State’s Weber sees one distinct possibility: “I can see (video coordination technology) going to the next step where it could be interactive and almost like a video game.”

But Norris has seen so much in his 27 years in the business, that he doesn’t appear too concerned about the future paths he will tread in his profession: “I’ll leave that to the vendors,” he says. “They’ll tell us where we go next.”






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