Posted: 6/30/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Wesley Fane Participants of the Ron Zook Women's Football Clinic practice an offensive line blocking drill on the field at Memorial Stadium on Saturday. Camp attendees received a behind-the-scenes look at the Illini football program and the lives of coaches and players.

Ron Zook's pacing is nothing new.

Step, step. Hand to his mouth, then back down to his side. His hands in his pockets and out again.

Never mind that it's a Saturday in late June. Zook still has an intent, consistent gait.

NCAA restrictions limit the time that the coach can spend with the players, making any sort of meeting highly improbable, but that's more or less irrelevant, with a complete ensemble of players nowhere to be found.

Zook is pacing in front of a crowd of all female football fans, eager to pick his and his coaching staff's brains on all things football.

The day-long Women's Clinic is something that Zook started while coaching at Florida and has carried on in Champaign as a way for women to learn about the game and see the work that goes on behind closed doors.



"It's something that (defensive coordinator) Dan Disch and some of the other coaches put together while in Florida," Zook's wife Denise said. "It was really popular down there, and they decided to bring it with them. So many people don't get to see what the coaches are doing during the week, what they do on Monday, what they do on Sunday.

"It makes it so much more personal for the women. This is their team, as a fan, as a former student, or whatever they have. But something like this is their chance to see the team much more personally."

Fruit of a summer's labor

Denise and four other coaches' wives held a panel for the women at hand - "the Illini version of 'The View,'" Disch joked. The panel served as one of the activities for camp attendees during their five-hour session at Irwin Indoor Football Complex and Memorial Stadium.

Continued...

Page 1 of 3 next >

Article Tools

The Daily Illini encourages on-topic discussion through article commenting on its articles and blogs. It is our policy not to delete any comments based upon political or ideological point of view. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are abusive, off-topic or use excessive foul language.

The posting of copyrighted material, including any and all content for which you are not the author, is illegal under Federal intellectual property laws. Such activity will not be tolerated. Comments containing copyrighted material will be removed, and continued violation of copyright law is grounds for being banned completely from commenting on DailyIllini.com.

If you feel any post meets these conditions or merits review, please e-mail our editors at meonline@dailyillini.com.