where have you gone?
Watters spent 11 seasons in the NFL, piling up 10,643 rushing yards and 78 touchdowns with the 49ers,
Eagles and Seahawks.
photo courtesy notre dame sports information
Garden every week. He's pushing his
players to be more disciplined and accountable.
He takes a lot of his cues from the
coaches that had a big impact on his
career in the past, even if he doesn't
recognize where the ideas are coming
from right away.
Recently, he found himself running
his players through the same headclearing meditation session that head
coach Lou Holtz used to lead before
games at Notre Dame. His players
thought it was as ridiculous at first —
as Watters did 25 years ago. Now, he's
starting to see all of the wisdom that
he didn't as a player.
"Coach Holtz used to always say, 'If
you're on time, you're late, so you better be there early.' I started telling them
that, and now they're early; they're
getting there," he said. "They're doing
everything that I ask them to do."
Watters could never have expected
then that he'd be admiring the nuances of his coaches' tactics. Neither
could his teammates.
"Rick was always a bit of a hothead,"
said Reggie Brooks, a former teammate and a high school coach himself
in Niles, Mich. "To see him now in
his maturity, he can actually connect
