When Travis Trickett calls offensive plays inside Florida Atlantic's breathtaking football stadium, he'll be able to see the ocean. In the mountains, though, is where it all started.
Trickett graduated from Morgantown High School in 2003, passed on the opportunity to continue his football playing career at the Division III level and enrolled at West Virginia University. At the same time, former Gilbert High School all-state football player Garin Justice was a rising sophomore on WVU's football team, and the mammoth offensive lineman played for Trickett's father.
This is where their journey started on country roads, which 13 years later led them to Boca Raton, Florida.
Trickett, 31, is Florida Atlantic's new offensive coordinator. Justice, 33, is the Conference USA program's new offensive line coach.
"We're jacked up about this," Trickett said this week while on the recruiting trail.
Why wouldn't they be?
There are parallels and dovetails in their college football stories.
Trickett and Justice each graduated from a Mountain State high school and then attended WVU. They spent time together as graduate assistants at Florida State, where Travis' father, Rick, is the offensive line coach for West Virginia native Jimbo Fisher.
Trickett and Justice are each married to West Virginia natives and WVU grads. They were in each other's weddings. They each have one young child.
"This is what we always talked about," Trickett said. "I always said if I was a coordinator, he would be my line coach."
And Trickett has no doubt that FAU, 3-9 last season under second-year coach Charlie Partridge, now has one of the best line coaches in the business.
Justice arrived at Concord in 2009 after two seasons as a graduate assistant at Florida State. Concord, following an 0-11 season, went 8-3 and 6-5 in Justice's first two seasons on the staff. He then took over as head coach and started the program on a march toward 2014's 13-1 season. He was the Mountain East Conference's coach of the year.
While Justice resurrected a Division II program, Trickett was calling plays at Football Championship Subdivision member Samford, Bobby Bowden's alma mater. Trickett arrived there in 2011 and coached tight ends and slot receivers, but quickly outgrew that role. At 27 years old, Trickett became an offensive coordinator at a Division I program.
That is a rapid ascent for anyone, but also consider that Trickett didn't play a down of college football.
"Travis is an impressive guy," Justice said. "You always hear the comment that it takes 10 years to be an expert in anything. Well, Travis had an advantage over guys like myself because he's been training to be a coach since he was 3. Yes, he's only 31 years old, but his college football experience goes back farther than post-graduate. He's lived that life. He's went away from his father and he's been conscientious about not using his family name.
"He has created his own path."
Trickett had a plan from the beginning. He quit playing football so he could start training to be a coach as a freshman at WVU. For the first two years he worked on the defensive side of the ball with Bill Kirelawich. Trickett had ambitions of running an offense, so he thought he better first learn all about the defense he wanted to attack.
He then moved to the offensive side of the ball for coach Rich Rodriguez, and worked with quarterbacks coach Bill Stewart.
Across eight years as a student assistant and graduate assistant, Trickett learned from the coaches at WVU, Nick Saban at Alabama, and Bowden and Fisher at Florida State. Trickett could have parlayed those connections into a job with a major program, but he chose to start at Samford.
"Sometimes you see legacy guys get in coaching and land bigger jobs off the bat," Justice said. "Travis wanted to work his way up. He wanted to go somewhere and make his own name, build his own reputation."
This is where Trickett and Justice relate. They love to prove themselves.
Trickett told a story about when his father was named the offensive line coach at WVU and looked at the list of verbal commitments from the Don Nehlen era. Rick Trickett watched film of Justice, doubted the Mingo County native's ability to play major-college football and headed to Gilbert to encourage the lineman to look elsewhere.
Justice didn't buckle. He wanted to head to Morgantown and prove the assistant coach wrong. Rick Trickett said he'd honor the scholarship offer.
"Next thing you know he played, was a three-year starter, team captain and all-American," Travis Trickett said. "He is a guy who had to be fundamentally perfect to be successful, which is why I know he'll be a successful coach."
That's why it didn't even take a month between Trickett's hiring at FAU in December for Justice to land there this month.
"He played for my dad so I know he's going to get the job done," Trickett said. "He's the closest thing to Rick Trickett out there without having Rick Trickett.
"He just has my mentality."
Justice's decision to join his longtime friend at FAU wasn't easy. He had an affinity for the program and people at Concord. He relished running his own program.
"I knew that I wanted to coach at the highest level," Justice said, "and I knew this was an opportunity for me to do that. The fact that Travis is here, and he is a good friend of mine and someone I trust, that was very important to me because I know that as a head coach you attach yourself to your own wagon.
"But if you are going to be an assistant, you have to attach yourself to someone you trust."
Trickett and Justice certainly trust each other. They know where they started and where they've been.
From Beechurst to the beach, they're together again.