UTC head football coach Tom Arth watches players during spring football practice at Scrappy Moore Field on Saturday, March 25, 2017, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
UTC head football coach Tom Arth directs players during spring football practice at Scrappy Moore Field on Saturday, March 25, 2017, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
At a recent University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football practice, coaches starting calling for a manager to snap the ball to quarterbacks at the start of a drill. Nobody immediately responded.
Suddenly somebody yelled, "I got it!" and sprinted over to the ball and snapped it to Alejandro Bennifield.
That person was head coach Tom Arth.
It's his first season not having a title other than head coach, and at times during the early days of practice he didn't know what to do with himself. When the team was breaking off into position drills, Arth usually stood, unsure of where he belonged, because at that moment he didn't have a place he had to be.
But as the week went on, Arth - who spent three seasons as a quarterbacks coach and a year coaching wide receivers at John Carroll University, in addition to his head coaching responsibilities - became a little more comfortable with less responsibility.
"What I realized this week is I don't have to," Arth said. "I was struggling initially because I didn't have my own group and I was trying to go around and do too much in one day, and you really kind of do nothing. I've really tried to focus in on a couple of different areas after watching tape, some places where I feel like I need to spend more time, really kind of focus on that. I'm able to jump in more during individual periods, group periods and try to coach more."
He's now present in defensive meetings - something he didn't do in the past as much, according to defensive backs coach Jonathan Cooley, who both played for and coached with Arth at John Carroll. During practices, he now has a more watchful eye on everything that's going on, spending time interacting with current team members as well as 2017 signees Cole Copeland and Bryce Nunnelly, who have been at recent practices.
"He's a little bit more uncomfortable not coaching a position, because he coached quarterbacks, called the offense. He was basically the offensive coordinator," Cooley said. "He was really active, and he's grown a lot into becoming a leader of the overall program. He knows what's going on with the defense, he understands how we're playing different things on defense and he knows everything going on with the offense, so it's a neat growth seeing the difference in him now from being just offense, offense to taking on everything as a whole."
Arth has still been seen hopping in, working with receivers on route concepts or tossing passes, but he's turned the offense over to Justin Rascati and the receivers over to Ryan Aplin and has learned to sit back and oversee.
Well, he's trying to.
"This is why we all do this is because we love teaching," Arth said. "We love being around the guys, love building relations and being out there. Having an opportunity to interact with players and coach them up is what it's all about.
"I'm going to keep doing what I do, but I think I'm learning every day, getting better every day."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.