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Parke Heritage's Rector ready to be under Friday Night Lights

Duty. Honor. Country.

Dan Rector completely understands those words and their meaning.

The Parke Heritage head football coach could also add sacrifice to the list, as he sacrificed the 2024 football season to fulfill his military obligation. As a member of the Indiana National Guard, Rector was deployed to Iraq last year and only returned about three weeks ago and jumped right into prepping for the season.

"When you are called, you go and do your job, but, at the same time, I definitely felt a great sense of responsibility for that. Regardless of the circumstances, the results are what they are when you take the head coach and offensive coordinator out of there, that leaves a big gap there. The rest of the coaching staff did a phenomenal job, and I will be eternally grateful to those guys for stepping in, but it is a lot to handle. I hate that disruption happened for last year's seniors because I think under other circumstances, last year could have ended differently," Rector told The Parke County Post. 

Despite going 1-9 a season ago, Rector said there is one huge positive that came out of the season and that is the resolve his team has shown coming into tonight's season opening contest at Crawfordsville. 

"A positive is the resolve this year's kids have to get back on track. I am a big believer in multisport athletes, and I am really glad a lot of our kids had those rough moments in the fall, and then through basketball, wrestling, baseball or track had some success later in the year. I think that was real positive. Then with our strength and conditioning program, we had a lot of kids reach personal milestones. There were other ways that our coaching staff and school community provided ways for our kids to get better, still experience success and put them in a really good spot so when I came home, they were ready to go," Rector said. 

Despite thousands of miles away, Rector's fingerprints were still on the program during the summer, as he entrusted his coaches to run the offseason. 

"We communicated a lot through this whole process. They ran the summer program exactly how I asked them to so that we were able to hit the ground running when the first day of official practices started. I got off the plane at Indianapolis International Airport on a Thursday, took three days with the family and the next Monday, school started and the official practice of the season. With that being said, with the Remind App, I was able to communicate with kids when I was gone. I was able to communicate with my coaching staff, and this being our fourth year, they know the drills we run. It took a lot of effort, isn't the way you want to do it, but we were able to make some chicken salad," Rector said. 

When he leads his team back onto the field tonight, Rector admits it will be a special moment for him and the Wolves.

"I don't know how to put it into words. Over there on deployment, you are working seven days a week for over 12 hours a day and some of those were bad days and high stress days. Going back to my room at the end of the night, going to Huddle and pulling up some Crawfordsville clips, and doodle a game plan and then texting with the kids, next to talking with my family, those were the two things that kept me forward oriented and not bogged down on the grind of what was happening in Iraq," he said.

During his deployment, Rector was in Iraq during the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the 12 day war, dealt with ISIS in Iraq.

Needless to say, he's enjoying being back home among his comfort zone. 

"It was a grind. To be back here with my family and my football family, I can't put words to it. I told my wife coming home from church, when you look around here, there is so much green here. I hope people don't take that for granted, but when you're in Afghanistan or Iraq, all you see is brown. Brown is everywhere. You don't see green, and the fields and the agricultural community of this area is so different than what you see overseas. Everywhere I went in Iraq for 9 months, I carried a weapon with me. Here, you drive down a country road and wave at everyone because you know them, and if you don't you're one degree of separation away. I don't know how to explain it without someone being there, but it makes you appreciate the little things. To be with my family everyday and do my passion every day with the greatest game ever, I love it," Rector said.