Greg Delimitros is doing some gameplanning, so he pulls out a long, laminated calendar. He isn't calling plays for the Eagles; instead, Delimitros has a locker room (actually, multiple locker rooms) to get ready and a team of players to make sure is fitted properly for equipment.
"Let's see," says Delimitros, the team's vice president of equipment operations, in his offense in the vast equipment area attached to the team's NovaCare Complex locker room. "We're trying to stay two weeks ahead. Obviously, we've got our first preseason game to get ready for. We have a practice at the stadium and that's its own little entity. Right now, Liverpool is using our locker room (at Lincoln Financial Field as they prepped for a "friendly" soccer game against Arsenal).
"We're getting ready for the Baltimore game and that travel, so there is a lot of pre-prep that goes into that. Then we come back from that game and turn right around and go to New England for a joint practice and a preseason game. And then on top of that we are planning Brazil. We've got about 35,000 pounds of equipment and we have to have all of that documentation and have everything organized to send ahead of time on a cargo plane."
Truth is, Brazil has been a project since April when a team of Eagles went there for a site visit and mapped out how to approach it.
Delimitros, the winner in 2016 of the Whitey Zimmerman Award as the NFL's Equipment Manager of the Year, has a full-time staff of four in addition to himself and a crew of about 12 additional members just for Training Camp. There are helmets to perform daily upkeep on, shoulder pads to keep perfect, uniforms to adjust and wash, shoes that are position-specific to keep fitted … it doesn't end.
In his 21st season with the Eagles, Training Camp is "go" time for Delimitros and his gang and none of them stop until the season is over – and then some.
"I love it," said Delimitros, who works from about 7 AM to almost 9 PM every day. "The key to success with us is to have communication and to be organized. The players have to trust us and they do. We are here to give the players the facts and to keep it straight with them. They know what to expect from me. The world of football equipment has changed so much in my time here and the players know that. There is always something going on – GPS in the shoulder pads, RFID chips in helmets, shoes that have scanners and collect all the data – so the league can see what the players are doing.
"Guys want to be light and fast and you have to educate them on the best way, the safest way, to do that."
The players want to look good and they want to feel good, and it is the job of Delimitros and his staff to make sure that happens and then, after the game is over, the players want to return to their home away from home – the locker room – and feel like it is the best place to be.
That's why the job is so demanding. And nobody does it better than Delimitros and his staff, who were named in 2019 the New Era NFC Equipment Staff of the Year.
"We have a great group of people who are dedicated and who work hard to be great," he said. "We're all in it together and the bottom line is our job is to do what we can to help this team win football games. That's what it's all about for us."
And in this world, it isn't just the moment in front of the team. It is thinking ahead, being strategic and efficient, and working together. That's what makes it all click so perfectly for an equipment staff that is second to none in the NFL.
