Big Sky Conference

Pitre enjoys stint in Kansas City Chiefs training camp

on

The conditions surrounding Michael Pitre’s last visit to the Kansas City Chiefs training camp were far different from last week, when Montana State’s fourth-year running backs coach worked on Andy Reid’s staff as a coaching intern.

“I was with Kansas City” as a prospective fullback during training camp in 2008 before missing the cut and eventually retiring before his NFL career got off the ground from the effects of a lingering, devastating knee injury. He called the experience of returning to the Chiefs and working with his former UCLA running backs coach Eric Bienemy, who was also the coach when he was a graduate assistant at Colorado, “a little surreal.”

Pitre spent a week as part of the NFL’s Minority Coach Intern program, which brings primarily college coaches into training camps to work and learn. “Andy Reid told us, ‘You’re here to coach,’” Pitre said. “And we coached.” He worked with Chiefs running backs, particularly fullbacks, which exposed him not only to Bienemy’s coaching but to a mix of respected veterans and high-ceiling rookies.

MSU running backs coach Michael Pitre

MSU running backs coach Michael Pitre

“(Chiefs fullback) Richard Sherman is considered one of the best fullbacks in the NFL,” Pitre said. “It was fun to jump in and work with him on pad level, hand positioning, technical things like that. (Rookie) Kareem Hunt is a really good player, and seems like a really good person. (Charcandrick) West, (Spencer) Ware, it was a good group. The three veterans ran the room, the culture has really been set in that organization because that staff has been there for five years now.”

Bobcat head coach Jeff Choate said he’s worked with a participant in the intern program for most of his time as a college football assistant coach. “It’s awesome in terms of the professional growth for coaches,” he said, “but they always bring something back to us. It might be a drill or something like that, but a lot of it is program structure. That’s so important with Andy Reid. His messaging is consistent, he has a high level of discipline, and those are important things.”

Pitre saw those characteristics in action. “Coach Reid’s standards are very high,” he said. “Even for us as interns, you don’t wear your hat backwards, you have your shirt tucked in. All the players are wearing the same thing, red tops, black (shorts), white socks and white shoes, all team issued. (Reid) says sloppiness is contagious, and it’s very regimented.”

Upon the opening of MSU’s August preseason training camp on Thursday, Pitre returns to a find a group of running backs similar to that he worked with in St. Joseph, Missouri, where the Chiefs train. Veterans Nick LaSane and Noah James anchor a group that also features transfers Edward Vander and Jake Roper and a host of talented first- and second-year players. “We’re a young group,” he said, “we don’t have a lot of experience. But we’ll work hard. It’s up to me to create the callouses, to toughen them up.”

His recent experience, Pitre said, will expedite that process. “I told (the current Bobcat running backs) that this is the best news and the worst news for them,” Pitre said Wednesday. “The good news is that I’m a better coach. The bad news for them is that I have a better understanding of what needs to be done, the high standard we need to hold to if we’re going to be successful and if they want to be professionals, and we’re not going to deviate from that.”

Pitre knows one thing for certain – a second taste of the NFL is likely to add a bounce to his step as he walks to his first Bobcat practice for the 2017 season. “It’s definitely added a little motivation.”

Press release courtesy of Bill Lamberty – Montana State Sports Information. Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved. 

About Press Release

Recommended for you