Marshall University Athletics
MCGILL: Year away showed Day that Marshall is home
4/1/2020 9:52:00 PM | Football, Word on the Herd, Ticketing & Promotions
Herd football strength coach's hiring was announced in February
By Chuck McGill
HerdZone.com
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Luke Day is home again.
For the past year, the Marshall football program's strength and conditioning coach lived outside of Huntington, West Virginia, originally with the intent to make Boulder, Colorado, his home for the foreseeable future. He'd been hired as a strength coach at the University of Colorado, a natural ascent for someone young and talented in his profession. He arrived there, but the job did not work out how he'd hoped and he made the eastward trek back across the country to Ohio and pondered his next move.
Then, Doc Holliday called. Marshall's head football coach had a vacancy – Day's old position – and wanted to bring Day back. Marshall's Director of Athletics, Mike Hamrick, called Day, too. Those calls came exactly 365 days after Day had resigned at Marshall and headed west for the Pac-12.
"It's like I went on this weird lap around the country and took my furniture on vacation," Day said.
Vacation, Day said, is probably the wrong word.
"It was more like a year-long trip to the dentist," he joked.
Day didn't encounter what he expected in his new gig. He spent the rest of 2019 plotting his next move, interviewing for jobs and wondering why he gave up a position at Marshall that suited him perfectly.
The native of Hamilton, Ohio, was the strength coach at Marshall for the 2016, 2017 and 2018 seasons, following a season on the Cincinnati Bengals' strength and conditioning staff. He has also worked at UCF, USF and the University of Cincinnati.
Nowhere, though, made him feel like he did during his three seasons at Marshall.
"I think sometimes you get sucked into the college football machine and this is the road or ladder that you're supposed to follow," Day said. "You do this thing and then something 'bigger' or 'louder' or a bigger logo or more money comes knocking, you think that's what you're supposed to do.
"You get there and everybody is patting you on the back and it's nothing but misery. You look back and you realize that the thing that makes this business enjoyable is the people you're with while you're doing it. That's what I realized. My family realized it long before I did."
Day's wife, Trisha, and their two children, Jay and Norah, are back in Huntington together. In fact, they were able to move back into the house they previously lived in, so the family has returned to the same neighborhood, same schools, same teachers and same network of friends.
That has provided Day with a blanket of comfort he didn't know he needed until he left it all behind.
He missed the people at Marshall. He missed Huntington. He missed the folks who make this community special. He missed the staff, the coaches and the players.
"That's what makes Marshall special – there is no other place that treats their own better," Day said. "You are literally a family member and they will take care of you and they will look out for you. They'll tell you the truth, they'll tell you that you're dead wrong, they'll tell you that you're their guy. You cannot buy the type of atmosphere of community and connection anywhere else in this college football landscape than you get here at Marshall.
"I believe it because I've lived it. Sometimes people think about a bigger conference and they think it's impressive and the daily environment of it is just nauseating and it sucks the air right out of the room. But when you're at a place like Marshall, you feel it all over town. It's almost like you didn't realize what you had and you lost it, you basically have come to the conclusion you're never going to get that thing, and then it comes back."
Day called the 15 months since his resignation nothing sort of "bizarre," and now he is home with his family and trying to keep student-athletes healthy and fit while working remotely.
"I wish we were not under these circumstances and do what we normally do, but I have a different reference point as to what's scary and what's uncomfortable and what all of that stuff is," Day said. "You realize now things will work out and trust and rest assured in that. I've lived that for the past year.
"The stars lined up and this is where we are supposed to be."
Yes, Luke Day is home again.
Chuck McGill is the Assistant Athletic Director for Fan/Donor Engagement and Communications at Marshall University and an eight-time winner of the National Sports Media Association West Virginia Sportswriter of the Year award. In addition to HerdZone.com's Word on the Herd, McGill is the editor of Thundering Herd Illustrated, Marshall's official athletics publication. Follow him on Twitter (@chuckmcgill) and Instagram (wordontheherd).