Try detecting any grease under fingernails affixed to keyboards or microphones. It isn’t easy.
But there are stripes media earn covering motorsports, which usually aren’t attained riding the mainstream. Those who supposedly aren’t versed in the round-ground are called stick-and-ball guys.
Jerry Punch was probably on that list once. ESPN’s good doctor grew up in football as a walk-on quarterback for Lou Holtz at North Carolina State, and was a pretty fair pitcher whose fastball silenced sticks as a youth.
Long recognized as an accomplished sideline reporter, Punch is now situated entirely in the NASCAR pits. This weekend he is assigned to the Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Punch still delves into football, but as a coach — for his 12-year-old son’s junior high team in Knoxville, Tenn.
Nonetheless, he sees similarities between the track and the gridiron when most — especially in this age of specialization — prefer to differentiate between the two.
“NASCAR is every bit the team sport as college football,” Punch contends. “You may not have 11 players on the field, but everyone has to do their job, including a head coach.
“Joe Gibbs is a great example as an owner. He puts everything in position to do their jobs. He’s a great delegator and then he makes the hard decisions when he has to. He drafts the right people — Denny Hamlin, as an example — and then develops them.”
Punch probably isn’t going to get there. Not working at the junior high level.
But he’s having a blast since he was first brought on last year as offensive coordinator to teach kids the spread offense. Punch managed, in part, by borrowing inspirational and instructional material he learned while covering the likes of Tom Osborne, Spike Dykes and Bobby Bowden.
The results are impressive. His son, Logan, plays H-back on a 6-0 team. Not only is the playbook sophisticated enough to incorporate the spread, it contains roughly 90 plays condensed into abbreviations that fit on a wristband.
Some tactics, mostly motivational, were learned while playing for Holtz.
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