Watching Will Healy coach the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's wide receivers during practice, two things are obvious: Healy loves what he's doing and knows what he's doing.
"I've been given a lot more responsibility than I had last year," Healy said. "Last year at this point in time I was in a meeting room with [offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield] and I learned a lot from Satt, so now I think he trusts me enough to do it on my own."
Mocs coach Russ Huesman hired Healy in late December 2008 - just days after Healy ended his Richmond playing career by taking the final snap in the FCS national championship game.
Healy, the former Boyd-Buchanan standout, worked primarily with the quarterbacks in his first season as a UTC assistant. But Satterfield was often right there, too, so at times Healy's main role during practice seemed to be as the lead cheerleader.
"I asked him to be a cheerleader because you've got to have energy out there on the field, and as a coordinator I can't call plays and be yelling and screaming," Satterfield said.
During games, Healy signaled in the plays and was in continual contact with Satterfield, who said Healy "was crucial to me last year, doing a lot of things that people didn't see."
After the season, Healy took over coaching the wideouts so Satterfield could focus on the quarterbacks. Healy was happy to coach the position, but there was one issue.
"I obviously had a lot to learn because I've never played the position," he said. "I understand the concepts, but day one when I started I didn't know how they got there. I didn't know how to get off press. A lot of it - the small, detailed parts of the position - I didn't understand."
Healy spent much of his offseason and summer learning everything he could about being a wideout and how to coach the position. He visited with coaches at Kentucky, and he went to Bowling Green to see Mark Carney, the Falcons' receivers coach who had the same job at Richmond when Healy was there.
"He went and studied with those guys for probably three weeks combined, and he studied drill tapes and learned how to teach drills and learned how to teach blocking techniques and route running," Satterfield said. "It's tough to teach the little nuances of the receiver position, but he went out and researched it and has done a phenomenal job."
Nobody smiles during practice more than Healy - it's just his natural expression on the football field. Whether he's leading the wideouts through a drill or jogging from one area of the field to another, the upbeat expression is always there.
"If it wasn't fun, man, it would be some long days," he said. "Not only for me coaching but also for [the players]. You're around each other an awful lot and doing an awful lot with football for it to not be fun and exciting and something you're passionate about and you love.
"It's exactly what I want to be doing. I'm doing it exactly where I want to be doing it and with the guys I want to be doing it with. It's been a big-time blessing for me."