When I decided to go to Kragujevac, to coach the Wild Boars I really did not know what to expect. I was hired by my good friend Stan Bedwell who has played and coached the Wild Boars for four different seasons leading them to the EFAF Cup Finals in 2011 who always had great things to say about the Wild Boars. I was excited because we talked about doing it together after we both worked on the Elite Football League of India project and discovered we had allot of the same philosophy on football. I turned down multiple teams for the chance to work with Stan and the Wild Boars, one of them was the Kuwaiti National team who was starting up a football program and wanted to qualify for the World championships in Stockholm Sweden in 2015. To view the full story and photos with everything else Safety-Blitz has to offer got to WWW.SAFETY-BLITZ.NET
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I arrived in Kragujevac on Feb 1st and was there for 2 weeks before the imports Chad and Trey arrived. One of my roommates was a crazy Serb named Bob. This guy was one the craziest people i ever met. Some of the stories he told made us laugh our ass off when we were all hanging out. I`ve get to know the team at our first practice in the gym. We had so many players and so little room we had to split up practice by positions to accommodate all 65+ players we had. I got two really good position coaches on defense. At DB I had Darko who is considered the best DB in Serbia and was named one of the best athletes in KG and even the whole country. He’s so fast, one of the fastest European players I have seen. He was the only DB I ever had who you could put on any receiver including imports and lock most of them down. He also relished the challenge of being put on an island with the other teams best receiver. Darko is around 27 years old so talking to him off the field about life in general was always a pleasure. As you know I love history, and Serbia (former Yugoslavia) is full of it. I know when I was back home and told people where I was going, I always got the same two questions. 1) why would you want to go to that unsafe 3rd world country, and 2) why do you want to go to Russia? I know western media makes it seem that everything bad that happens in the world or the US is because of Eastern Europeans. Movies like Taken and Behind Enemy Lines portrays Eastern Europeans as bad violent criminals who want to take westerners and sell them as sex slaves, steal your identity, or just mug you in the street. My 2nd position coach was Predrag Scekic (we called him Shelly). He is the best linebacker in Serbia. He’s smaller than most linebackers and in practice does not seem like a very fast guy but he’s very smart and his lateral speed is amazing. I even never realized it until about half way through the season when he was running sideline to sideline making tackles. Both of these coaches have all the heart in the world in practice and in the game time. They want to win so bad and both of these guys are complete studs on the field as well as my two defensive captains.
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Once we had permission to practice outside we could have the whole team together. I would have my defense on one side of the field and Stan would have the offense on the other side. We were stuck practicing on a clay field that was completely frozen but at least we were outside 2 weeks before our season opener in Budapest vs the Wolves in our CEFL. All the other Teams in the CEFL have nice turf fields to practice on but it did not stop us from working hard to get better every day. Our favorite place to eat in KG was a a Serbian fast food spot named Do Jaja’s. Which means ‘to the balls’. Like its so good you feel it all the way to the balls. For 2 dollars you would get a nice seasoned piece of chicken grilled and then you get to put whatever you want on it from veggies to cheese and different sauces. I swear we went there everyday 2-3 weeks in a row. Its that good! Other than that we made allot of our own food since it was even cheaper. Cheap is good. The best part about Serbia is that no matter how little money you have you will never be hungry.
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Our first game was in Budapest, Hungary. We took a 7 hour bus ride the day before so we would relax and see some of the city then play the next day. The trip was a blast but did not go according to the plan as not much did this season. The morning after we got up we found that somebody broke into our bus and we had to wait for 4 hours for the police to arrive. They had to wait for a cop who spoke English because Hungarians and Serbs don’t understand each other. We got to the field about an hour before the game started. We did not get much time for warm ups since we had to do a face check and the CEFL refs did not care. They just wanted to get the game over with and get paid. It was also freezing. Our D started out perfect, we gave up a couple plays and then Ivan my other CB knocked away a pass and Djole, my FS who is only 18 and hits like a Mack Truck, intercepted the pass and ran it back about 30 yards. After that we were off and running. We ended up scoring 55 and on easily. We had our back ups in at the start of the 2nd half. On the way home I sat towards the back of the bus like I did on the way there and learned quickly that after this game I will sit up front for the rest of the season. For 5 of the 7 hours guys from the team were drinking, singing, and partying and all standing up so I had players ass in front of my face most of the trip. It was a great trip, great team bonding experience being at the hotel for our first game and a good way to start the season for the Wild Boars.
When we were not pricticing we went to allot of movies which were only 2 dollars, worked out, and walked around to explore the city. One of the things Trey kept commenting on was how much we walk. He could not believe how much time we spent walking around to get to places. Of course he said that back home he would drive even if it would take 5 minutes to walk. It just took us some getting used to, like many things in Europe do but some people just cant adjust. Trey did a good job taking everything for what it was and just enjoyed the experience of being in another country and playing the game he loves while getting paid. One of the most fun things we did was going to the basketball games in town. They had a former NBA 2nd round pick who was a great player. Since we were part of the football team our team president got us court side tickets whenever we went and had the best seats in the house.
Everything was going great as a team and for me until our 3rd game of the season where we played the eventual champions of both leagues Vukovi. We went to Belgrade and got beat 14-41 and management was not happy at all. Stan got hurt pretty bad but our D had 4 goal line stands but still gave up too many points. The next evening I got a call from Stan telling me he is leaving the team and he told China (director of player personnel) and Caki that I should be the Head Coach from now on. My perfect situation as DC and not having to worry about everything was now over! My girl from Poland came that week and I felt bad because since I was assigned as HC that week and we had Ljubljana Silverhawks (the defending CEFL Champions) coming to town I did not have a whole lot of time for her. She is a very good sport when it comes to me and football. She understand that it is the reason I am out here and its my true passion in life. It was so important that we won this game and I had my 19 year old Serb for a QB. We went into the game with the biggest crowd we had all season. It was raining and the whole game was in National TV. Even after having 2 TDs called back we still ended up winning 27-14.It was great for us. After a week of changing coaches and trying to continue as things were normal the guys came out and gave us a big win.
Next week we ended up signing the QB who I would bring back with me wherever I was coaching, Santino Simone. He was a D3 All American and a complete stud. His go to move was a spin move that made everyone miss. In Serbian league he was 3rd in TDs with only 3 games played with 15, and that’s not counting the CEFL where he had 8 or 9. The CEFL website is terrible at getting accurate stats. He would have easily been MVP of the league if he did not get hurt later on in the season. He is a great guy and worked hard in the gym, on the field, and off the field as well. His first game was when Budapest Wolves came to town and he had over 300 yards passing and 200 yards rushing. One of the runs we ran a QB draw and he took it 83 yards breaking many tackles but to get tackled on the 1 yards line right before half. The other great play with his legs was when he made 3 spin moves in a row and then took it 45 yards to the house. Everyone on the team respected and love Santino because he was a great leader and had great work ethic.
We practiced on and on when Vukovi came to town and with Santino we felt we had a great chance of winning. Even being down multiple OL we still felt we had a good chance. At half time we were down by just 9. When the 2nd half started Once again Tony Washington killed us on special teams when our kicker was supposed to kick the ball out of bounds but instead he dropped it on the 15 yard line about 1 foot out of bounds then he picked it up and took it all the way. It took the wind out of our sails. Also in the 3rd on a QB scramble where Santino just went to throw the ball out of bounds, as he threw it, he got hit, landed awkward and broke his collar bone. Trey and I knew right away he was done and it was hard to tell the team what had happened. I tried to go to the hospital after the game because I care allot about my players. I am always one of the first people out on the field when I see a player on the ground in pain. He ended up being brought back to the field and that was when we told everybody what happened. Unfortunately he had to go home after that so he could get the medical care he needed to get better.
After that we were once again in a tight spot because we lost another 2 OL and our Star QB. We still had 2 imports but only Trey was producing like an import should. He was returning, playing defense and a stud on offense. Trey ended up with the 2nd most TDs for a WR in the league behind Tony Washington. Once we lost to Vukovi many people including people in our own organization wrote us off for getting to the finals. I don’t blame some of them I mean we were down to only a few OL and we had our 19 year old QB and a bunch of other injuries. We went in to Novi Sad after that for our last regular season game and to see where the semi finals would be played the following week vs the same team. I made a comment, that some of the people in Novi Sad took way too serious
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Lonnie Hursey
Advocating for football prospects one story at a time.
