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A powerful influence

Before Nature Coast Technical High School quarterback Josh Ortiz sets foot on the football field, he sits down with Ryan Wilson.

By edmund d. fountain
Published October 12, 2006

	[Times photo: Edmund D. Fountain]
	Before Nature Coast Technical High School quarterback Josh Ortiz sets foot on the football field, he sits down with Ryan Wilson. Wilson is one of his coaches, a former football player at East Lake High School and Lenoir-Rhyne College. Ortiz, left, a senior in the culinary arts division at Nature Coast, says his talks with Wilson help prepare him for the game.

ORTIZ: My relationship with coach Wilson, it's pretty cool because in high school coach Wilson was the man. His name was always in the paper.

What me and him talk about before the game, we like to really keep just between me and him, but it's something I look forward to before every game - something that I make sure happens.

We just talk about the game itself, what I'm supposed to do that night. He's really telling me just to use my teammates and be confident and go out there and have a good game, but in other words.

Sometimes, they're a little bit longer conversations; sometimes it's real short. It's just depending on the mood, depending on what kind of game it is.

All of my coaches, we talk about anything and everything. I mean I can talk to Coach about what I ate at lunch, and I can talk to Coach about "Look, I'm having a real problem." All of my coaches are that way. I know have a special relationship with each coach, a little something different with each one. Me and coach Wilson, that's just a different part of our relationship, talking before the games and him helping me get in that right state of mind right before I go out there to play.

The state of mind is just going out there and being a leader. He was a leader of his football team, and he just tells me how to handle it sometimes. Somebody just to have that positive voice there or somebody to bring me back down to earth when I put myself on a pedestal. And he's real good at doing that, at bringing me up when I need it and bringing me down when I need that, too.

Me and him have had plenty of discussions about his career, but he always helps me with mine. He always just tells me to be humble, to be humble. That's the biggest thing he always says, is to be humble and always show love to everybody else.

Believe is an occasional feature about the different things that sustain and challenge us. To share comments or ideas, contact Edmund D. Fountain at efountain@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 12, 2006, 08:46:42]