Their experience, background and style may be different, but Anthony Daniels and Kyle Jordan share one thing in common: on game day, they don’t look like typical football coaches.
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Daniels, who leads the Dubai Stallions into their third straight Desert Bowl against Jordan’s Dubai Barracudas on Friday, is known for his signature look on the sidelines.
Wearing a bucket hat and a CamelBak hydration pack, the recently turned 50-year-old is hard to miss – as long as you’re looking for a hiker and not a football coach.
But there’s a method to Daniels’ quirkiness, one that makes sense considering his unwavering intensity and focus.
“I wear the backpack because I like to have water on the sidelines and I don’t like to leave the sidelines to get water,” Daniels said.
“I can watch the game and not have to turn my back and distract myself from the game. That helps me stay in the game.”
If Daniels stands out, then Jordan blends in. Amongst his team, the Barracudas’ lanky coach looks more like an out-of-uniform player than a ‘leader of men’, his young appearance masking his deceptive age of 41.
Listening to Jordan talk about football, it would also be hard to discern that prior to joining the EAFL, he had no coaching experience whatsoever.
That changed when he arrived in the UAE and got involved as an offensive coordinator for the Falcons, the lone regional men’s football team at the time.
When the EAFL launched in 2012, Jordan headed up the Barracudas and has been with the team since. He grew up playing the sport in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was heavily influenced by his high school coach, John Sabatalo.
“A lot of the principles that he used to teach are things that I still hold on to in this day and age from a football perspective, and also how I approach work and many other things,” said Jordan.
Sabatalo’s philosophies rubbed on to Jordan, but the college game – which he experienced for a season playing wide receiver at Ohio University – has had the biggest effect on his coaching schemes.
“While I hadn’t coached before coming here and I had been away from the Xs and Os, I still paid a lot of attention to football, especially at college level,” Jordan said. “I love the college game because there’s a lot more variety in the offences and defences.”
For Daniels, coaching is more second nature. Before moving to the UAE in 2011 and joining the Stallions, Daniels was a defensive back coach at high school level in Colorado Springs and has collectively coached for 14 years.
Similar to Jordan, Daniels’ football history holds playing days as a strong safety at Wofford College. But it was his time in Colorado Springs next to then-defensive coordinator Carl Fetters which has influenced his coaching most.
“Working with him, I actually realised how much I didn’t know about football, even though I had been playing the game almost 16 years,” Daniels said of Fetters.
Now, Jordan and Daniels are a game away from winning the title. They’ll fittingly be on opposite sidelines, but their goal remains the same.
