Jerheme Urban Interview

Building a team from the ground up takes countless hours of film, coaching, meetings, and dedication. Ask any successful coach, it is not an easy road but it is a road that can lead on to greatness. A quote that perfectly describes this by Tom Hanks is “It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.” (A quote by Tom Hanks) There are many different types of coaches that have been down this road. As far as Coach Steve Mohr, many have described Coach Mohr as an old school, hard-nosed coach. He was the kind of coach that taught his players discipline. He would run you until you puke and then run you a little bit more. He was very prideful in his work, and if he did not like something, he would not hesitate to make you do it all over again. Recently, I interviewed Coach Jerheme Urban, a former player and assistant coach for Coach Mohr, and asked him about the coaching style of Coach Mohr. Coach Urban said “I think pride in product is really big and Coach Mohr was very proud to not only be the head coach at Trinity but there was always a level of expectation as a player with him as our coach." (Urban Interview) The players worked hard for Coach Mohr because the players knew he "had no problem starting a whole practice over if it wasn’t up to his standard. So that mentality of if you’re going to do something, do it right type of thought process. And realizing that the job you have is the most important job you have.” (Urban Interview). That type of, do it right or we will be here all night, mentality is one thing that many think put him and his team over the top. It motivated his players to work to new levels. 

Although Coach Mohr was pretty hard on his players, he loved them like sons. Mohr grew good relationships with a few of his players. I asked Coach Urban what his favorite memory was and he gave me a time when the two had a quite interesting encounter at practice a day during Urban’s senior season. “One day we weren’t practicing to his expectation level and so he called his starting offense who was very adamant about being leaders, especially seniors. Coach Mohr was known for his big hands and he made a fist and he got me pretty good in the stomach, then he went through all the other seniors.” (Urban Interview). Looking back on it, Urban said “ It kinda caught me by surprise but there was nothing malicious about it at all it was just a matter of guys this has to be important in practice as it is in a game if we want to reach the goals you guys put in place.” (Urban Interview) Clearly, building a good relationship with your players was something Coach Mohr wanted to do even if it was through eccentric ways.