D3football.com Podcast 407 Extra: David Blake, Bethany (W.Va.) [5:02-10:05]

hey, I got some information for you. So I backed my boys and ops and I said, hey, I had some choice words, but, you know, talking smack a little bit as you do in the Navy and I said, hey, boys, put me on the schedule I'm back and, uh, in fact, it was not and then it was, okay, what's the move? And so I, um, you know, I was trying to figure out what was next and end up going, uh, you know, unsolicited, uh, self, self plug into the Jag off the one day. I walked in there and knocked it, knocked on the door because I was crying crocodile tears, you know, that I just got dropped from flying that, you know, the problem was going to just get pushed to all the Navy and walk in the Jag office there and I said, hey, you guys taken anybody and she says, what's your background? And I told her and she said, that's fine. Yeah. You got to, you know, apply and get boarded because I'm not an attorney, but I already have my degree going into it and so I thought I was going to do like, like criminal justice, right? Yeah. I have a criminal justice degree. Yep. And so I thought I was going to do, you know, paralegal type stuff and, you know, that because that's what the legal man really is and, uh, end up going to the Naval Justice School of Newport, Rhode Island, you know, I was there, I started doing some grad school stuff at Harvard, studying environmental sciences, sustainability. And then it was, okay, what's the move now? And I want to, you know, watch my one buddy coach, he was coaching at a Milford Academy and their plan actually, like, mass maritime or one of those maritime schools, D3JV teams. Okay. And I want to go watch him play and I was kind of hooked on it. And so when it came to the end of our, our, our school, we got, we got to pick our orders. And, um, you know, I, I picked Millington, Tennessee and there was all these more so desirable, you know, Navy bases available and everyone's, you know, the instructors and why are you picking Millington? I said, well, there's football in the South and I get down there. And, um, once again, I thought I was going to do like paralegal type work and I had a really cool jag that I was working for. And he said, you want to be my recorder for ad set boards and recorder. And I thought that was like note tag or like recording will he's like, well, no, record is more like you're the prosecutor and you're going to go against a civilian defense attorney and you're going to litigate on behalf of the Navy and present why this member should be retained or separated than what their characterization of service should be. You know, so when you're talking about NCIS, I've done a lot of joint work and investigative type stuff with NCIS, state, local federal law enforcement. And I was working case loads, um, you know, everything from fraud waste to abuse, false official statements, fraternization, sexual assault, DUI, drug cases, you name it, all types of, you know, if there's something that could be done, you know, you know, those were the steps of case I was working on. It was pretty much everything that wasn't worthy of a court marshal. But my wife could really see the change, you know, that I wasn't having that same juice that I was flying. Sure. That it was now like, okay, what's, what are we going to do? And you know, I still three years worth of a legal man contract left to go in the Navy and I was, you know, what, how to get involved in my wife's like, oh, you should go, you know, a lot of guys are playing ultimate frisbee on base. There's pick up basketball leagues and I'm like, no, it's just like, babe, you should go coach. And so I started milling around and I went off base and I was going to, you know, I interviewed at Millington High School. I was going to be like a volunteer DB's coach kind of thing. And that's why I saw on TV, University, Alabama's high school coach is clinic. They're talking about on ESPN and all the, you know, big-time speakers, Bill Pauling was there, Tony Dungee, all the other NFL coaches, of course, Sabin and the Alabama staff. So I took leave and I went down there and hung out, you know, for the high school coaches clinic for the two days of it. And I noticed that all these coaches would just swarm, you know, all those, just like the FCA convention now, you know, someone comes off the stage or big-time coach, everybody goes swarms them. Yeah. But the guy that introduced them, nobody was talking to him so I'm like, he seems pretty important. And I was just saving all the guys. Let me go introduce myself to him. And it was a guy by the name of Justin Dickin and he used to be the old DFO at University of Alabama. And that guy, he doesn't know it, but that guy completely changed my life because he, because I asked him, I said, what's your job? And he says, I'm the DFO. So at that point, I didn't even know what a DFO was. This is back 2016. And I said to him, I said, you know, what's a DFO? And he said, well, I schedule the hotels, I, you know, book the meals. I, I assemble the speakers, all things the DFO does. And I said, well, so that's what my D line coach did at West Liberty. He's like, you know, I made it. And so, so he told me, I said, well, how does somebody get noticed by a division one team? How someone get their foot in the door and coaching? And he says, what's your background? I told him everything. I just told you, you know, group on a dairy farm, milk and cows in Western Pennsylvania, you know, want to West Liberty, play college football. You know, I'm planning the Navy, it was done fly and now I'm in the JAG course, you know, doing grad school, Harvard. He's like, if you done all that, he's like, you could come out with our summer camps. You know, here at Bam, I said, well, I'm still active duty in Navy. And he says, well, where are you at? I said, right outside of Memphis, he goes, well, here's my resume template. Obviously take my information off of it. And he goes, go on the website and he goes send it to everybody at Ole Miss, Memphis and Rhodes College. The next morning, I sent all these out about 10 p.m., just one on the website and just