DALMATIA — The practice field is on top of the hill behind the baseball field now, instead of on top of the bank adjacent to Eagle Stadium.
Other than that, little has changed for Rodney Knock from his first day of preseason camp as a Line Mountain freshman to Monday, when he spent his first day at his alma mater as its head football coach.
"It is different from school to school, but this is a real good group of kids we've got, a really good senior class and the younger kids are good too, they are coachable kids," he said.
"(Preseason camp) is pretty much the same thing. My first practice coming out here (he was a freshman in the 2005 season)," he said during a break in Monday's drills. "For the last 22 years we've had one losing season. We are doing the same stuff we did when I was here (as a player) and it works."
The former Eagle quarterback, who played safety for Lycoming College for two seasons, is also the Eagles' head baseball coach. And he was a member of veteran coach Mike Carson's staff the previous two seasons.
"Today went great," he said.
He added that he is blessed with a knowledgeable veteran staff and there is always someone he can turn to if he needs advice on anything, "so that makes it a lot smoother for me.
"Times have changed socially, with the Internet," he said, adding that he and his teammates did not have Facebook.
"And with that, they have got a lot more stuff to do, but these kids -- it's tough to get kids to come out and do this because they've got a lot more stuff to do that they can do besides come out here and run around, and I'm sure they don't like to do that. But it's a real good group of kids."
One might have expected the rookie coach to be nervous his first day on the job, but the 24-year-old Knock, a Social Studies teacher at the high school, got those jitters out of his system last spring.
"During the spring, I was hired as the football coach and I was already the head baseball coach and I was getting married, so I had a lot going on. My head was spinning," he said.
"But the last two years with Mike, I learned a lot from him and that helped me," he said.
