DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. — Central Dauphin's football team may have a bye week to start the playoffs, but staying in a championship mindset is easier when you're coached by a world champion.
"Because he looks the way he looks, because he lives the way he lives, it's just one of those things that's self-evident," said Central Dauphin head coach Glen McNamee. "Everybody on this team looks at him and says, 'If he's doing it, why not us.'"
Paul Linn turned heads while playing for the Rams in the late 1990s. After playing for and graduating from Bloomsburg, while also coaching at Bloom High, the Harrisburg native was ready to return home.
"The idea is to get back in and give back to the community," recalled Linn. "The program and the sport gave me so much that I feel a debt has to be repaid, so it comes full circle."
But football is hardly Linn's only passion. In some ways, you could say one sport found him.
"Actually, Coach Rosler and I were in a local establishment about seven years ago, and a guy challenged me to arm wrestle him and he stated that he was some type of state champion and I wound up arm wrestling for $100 or drinks or whatever it was," said Linn with a smile.
He moved on to his first tournament where he won the amateur class and took third in the pro class, despite tearing his labrum. Since then, he's won national and world titles. His schedule takes him far beyond the average distance the school bus travels on a Friday night.
"Right now I'm contracted under a promotion called East vs. West. It's primarily held in Dubai and Turkey, so I'm in Istanbul a bare minimum of four times a year," said Linn.
His Rams players know that their linebackers and strength and conditioning coach is built differently, and now and then he'll be challenged by one of his players.
"I have a table in the weight room but they are under strict instructions to stay off that table. They're not breaking their arms on my watch," Linn said.
And even with as busy as his year is, he's always there when the Rams need him.
"I'm not sure how he does it. I'm not sure why he does it. You think about the time he has with that, plus his own job, he has a son, a wife, I'm not really sure where he finds the time, but you'd never know it. He's here all the time," stated McNamee.
When it comes to arm wrestling, eastern Europe boasts some of the best pullers in the world. While Linn has gained some of their respect, he's also focused on bringing along some of the younger Americans to raise the country's profile in the sport, which sounds like the perfect job for someone whom many already call 'Coach.'
"I don't know if I'm a natural coach, but I've been doing it for so long that it happens organically now. It's gotten to the point where we had no arm wrestling in Central Pennsylvania or Harrisburg before a buddy of mine started Team Lethal Arms and we practice at Angie's on Eisenhower Boulevard, and it's actually grown to where we get 30 to 40 guys."