Here Come the Eagles!

Matt Coleman: Hey Eagle Nation, welcome to the Flight Plan, the official podcast of ALA Gilbert North Athletics. So I'm your host and athletic director Matt Coleman, and every single one of you is tuning in for the first time today because this is the very first podcast in the history of ALA Gilbert North Athletics. So let me tell you exactly what this podcast is about. The flight plan is your inside look at our student athletes and our coaches, our championships, and the core values that. drive our athletic program. We aren't here to read the box scores. We are here to talk about the grind and the culture and what it truly means to represent this great community. And let me tell you, the wait is over. Summer is finished and we kicked off our first day of school last Wednesday. And what a success it was. You know, walking down the hall, seeing the students back on campus, you could feel the energy. And honestly, we're flying high right now and I can't be more excited To get rolling with our fall sports. So while the campus may have seemed quiet over the last couple of months, honestly, our athletic department and staff has been working in overdrive. We've been busy getting ready for the school year. And I want to share some of the summer projects that we just wrapped up to improve our facilities. So, first of all, if you've ever been in our main gym, you may not have known, ⁓ but our floors were in need of some TLC. And I'm excited to say that we've been able to get both gym floors, both our main gym and auxiliary gym, completely resurfaced this summer. They look incredible and ready and they're and they're obviously ready for action. In the main gym, we've made some strategic adjustments to our visitors' bleachers to give us more room between the team benches and the front rows. And if you've ever walked past the weight room lately, you've noticed the changes. We are upgrading that space. It's now officially labeled our sports performance center. We'll get into that later. And we've leveled up in some of the equipment and the environment to give our student athletes exactly what they need to compete at the highest level. The Sports Performance Center is going to continue to be a focus this year, and we will be putting more attention to that area specifically this school year. So speaking of competing at the highest level, a major initiative for us this year is recognizing the excellence of our athletic program. When people walk into our stadium or our gyms, we want to showcase the student athletes and the coaches and teams that have poured their blood, sweat, and tears into competing. And to do that, we are putting the final touches on some custom aluminum die-cut banners that will go up in the stadium to recognize our state championships and even state runner-ups in both football, palm, as well as boys soccer, track and field, and more. We are also bringing that same energy inside to our gym lobby. So just in a few weeks, we will be unveiling our next level college board. The goal here is to continually showcase our student athletes who have taken their game to the collegiate level. So we've had Eagles go to play at Brigham Young, ASU, Grand Canyon, University of Arizona, Utah State, ⁓ Northern ⁓ Colorado, Idaho State, Southern Virginia, Boise State, Washington State. And the list goes on and on and on. And we want current and future student athletes walking through our gym lobby to look it up at that board, see those names, and know that they can be next. So part of getting to that next level comes down to the people that are leading the charge. So that's why our next episode, our very first guest is going to be our new sports performance coach, Coach Andrew Johnson. We're gonna be sitting down with him and talking about exactly why we changed the name from the weight room. To the Sports Performance Center and dive into the vision Coach Johnson has for what he is doing with ALA Gilbert North Athletics. Trust me, you are not going to want to miss that conversation. So that's gonna do it for the very first episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and giving us a few minutes of your day. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss out our sit-down with Coach Johnson next week. So until then, Eagle Nation. Remember this: the altitude we reach is determined by the attitude that we bring every single day. So keep your standards high, stay humble, and go, Eagles.