TROY, Ala. -- Already, Gerad Parker is sitting in his truck, headlights on and ready to attack another day.
It is 5:54 a.m., and by 5:58 Parker has nudged his brand new, dealer-issue pickup truck into a spot some 30 spaces from the doors of Troy University’s football headquarters.
“We give two spaces to our players of the week,” Parker, the first-year Troy head football coach, says. “I figure I can walk a little farther as hard as those guys are working.”
This move, deliberate in its selflessness, reflexive in the unassuming approach of the new coach from the hills of Eastern Kentucky, comes scarcely 12 hours after Parker and his coaches turn a raucous, dance-filled team meeting into a lively but purposeful bonding experience that is a spring camp staple.
“Meet a brother” is a randomly assigned blind pairing of teammates who must stand in front of their peers and give a brief biographical sketch of the man opposite.
In setting his foundation at Troy, Parker brings with him myriad elements from stops at Kentucky, UT Martin, Purdue, Duke, Penn State, West Virginia and Notre Dame; this, however, is his own creation.
It emanates from a previous stop, when in a post-practice encounter Parker remembers a defensive player approaching him and asking, ‘Hey, Coach, what’s your name?’. That recollection, which still produces a cringe from Parker, also is why every Troy assistant coach individually takes a turn addressing the team after an assigned practice.
“There’s nothing better than investing in the people around you,” Parker intones.
So, in this edition of “Meet a Brother,” the team learns one player has nine siblings. Another player is working to develop his collegiate career after overcoming seizures. A lineman is a former four-time state high school wrestling champion.
There are natives of some 15-plus states on the roster; they hail from as far south as Miami, as far west as the California coast and from metro Chicago and metro D.C., not to mention all the outposts in Alabama and Mississippi that aren’t always easy to find on a map.
Coaches, players and support staff also take time in the meeting to pen cards to teammate Chris Lewis, the Troy wideout then on the cusp of and now home recovering from surgery for bone cancer at Vanderbilt University.
“Surgery went well; God is good,” Parker tells the room. “He’s in recovery, and he’s fighting like hell.”
Hours before hosting roughly 150 players, assistant coaches, spouses, children and various others, Parker travels with Jamaal ‘Smooth’ Smith, a ubiquitous presence in Troy football since his early-2000s playing career, to visit Lewis in Birmingham.
But there’s a walk-through Parker completes, a full practice – No. 10 of the Trojans’ spring camp – and staff meetings as well as film review, not to mention the now-daily three-plus minute cold plunge into Troy’s cold pool – nature’s caffeine for Parker every day, courtesy input from Darl Bauer, the head strength coach with top-end bona fides from his work in similar roles at both Houston and West Virginia.
It all unfolds after Parker teams with personnel aces/co-general managers Caleb Davis and Drew Casa for their weekly “recruiting power hour,” something Parker reveals comes from his time under James Franklin at Penn State.
There are nearly 20 calls from assistant coaches with prospects that end up nabbing some phone time with Parker.
In staff meeting, following those calls the next day, Parker wonders aloud to his coaches and support why that number isn’t closer to the weekly average of 28 to 30 calls.
Troy is getting a verbal commitment, set to receive another and advancing at a strong clip in its 2025 class; Parker doesn’t miss an opportunity to remind recruiting is the lifeline.
Prior to this, the Trojans prepare inside their team room for practice with an immediate emphasis on special teams; Allen Tucker, a Mississippi State grad with FBS experience as a teams coordinator, offers teaching points and implores the group for “6OV” – six seconds of violence.
But practice opens with two minutes of urgency – it’s an end-of-game scenario for both the offense and defense; Sean Reagan, a former Troy assistant now back by way of West Virginia, seeks to dial up his offense with Goose Crowder at the trigger against Dontae Wright, also a former Mountaineers assistant, and his Trojans defense.
“You can tell the depth chart,” says director of leadership Adam Winegarden, a well-esteemed former Alabama prep coach, “but you can’t tell the depth chart by how these guys coach and teach. They invest in everybody.”
Visitors include recruits from Alabama, Florida and Georgia as Davis, Casa and Joe Discher run that component; family members also amble onto Troy’s sprawling practice space, which includes three fields – but soon will see two outdoor fields and an indoor space, with construction on that all-new facility set to initiate in the coming weeks. Assistant coaches Re'Quan Boyette and Gary Banks, a former all-conference Troy wideout, are among the staff to dap up the recruits.
Kandi Parker, first lady of Troy football and a former star prep and college basketball player, arrives on the sidelines, where she is greeted between drills by players and staff alike. So, too, is Jo Reihner – the marathon-adventuring wife of tight ends coach, Kevin Reihner, a former Stanford lineman and ex-Old Dominion offensive coordinator also now at Troy after being at Notre Dame.
Gerad Parker wants his players to not only hear a message of family but to see it firsthand.
A former Troy walk-on offensive lineman now back home, Caleb Carbine sees in Parker’s approach its unique, symmetric fit for the program; he knows from previous time with Parker, including at Notre Dame, Parker’s immutable authenticity.
“I think the biggest thing is just the way that he operates and his outlook on things, the way he is wired as person,” Carbine, his wife Laura Beth and in-laws Troy alums, tells FootballScoop. “He fits the same type person that Is attracted to Troy. It’s a small-college town, he’s from a small town in Kentucky. This is a place that really cares about football and athletics; a place with just a lot of guys that are not easily distracted by anything. There’s not a lot of flash, not a lot of stuff outside of what we’re trying to get done here with football and going to school. He fits the toughness and grittiness of this place.”
Following practice and quick chats, coaches get a 90-minute window midday for lunch, workouts; whatever their schedule entails.
Parker believes it fosters better engagement for afternoon meetings and film review.
A former University of Kentucky wideout, Parker doesn’t miss a play in the offensive film review this day; the next time might be with the defense.
But Parker has thoughts. He sees a couple of concepts in the throw game that Regan, Carbine, Reihner & Co. are implementing and wants to enhance; specifically, Parker already is thinking about potential late- and end-game situations in the coming season, which opens Aug. 31 at home against Nevada and then mandates stiff road tilts in back-to-back weeks at Memphis and Iowa.
He sketches the concepts on the dry-erase wall that lines the offensive staff meeting room.
The day pushes past 4 p.m., 10 hours hence his arrival, and Parker is still recruiting, still teaching; planning with Smooth the trip to see Lewis and ironing out details to attend an evening tee ball game with his family.
Yet Parker, son of Laura and Rick Parker and the guy now 43 but nearly 30 years into coaching, since running those basketball ball-handling clinics as a teenager in tiny Louisa, Kentucky, continues teaching.
“We will take care of the ball, and we will take away the ball,” Parker tells his inaugural team. “We will sustain blocks and we will defeat blocks.
“And, oh, we will play harder than everybody we play.”
Battle ready. The command, the mission. Parker is leading from the front; it’s the only path he knows.
