AFM Home | The Staff Report | August 2003

By John Gagliardi
Head Coach, St. John’s (Minn.)
2002 Schutt Sports Division III Coach of the Year

My childhood hero was a guy by the name of Jack Dempsey. Now, Dempsey was my kind of guy and the one of the best professional boxers in the history of the sport. One time a reporter asked him, “What does it take to be the heavyweight champion of the world?”

Dempsey said, “It takes two things.”

The first thing he said, “You have to get off the floor when there is no way that you can.” That sums up football and everything in life because sometimes you are going to get knocked down – Dempsey once came back after getting knocked out of the ring. You’ve got to get off the floor when bad things happen to you. I think the great thing about sports is that it teaches people to bounce back. What defeats non-sports people is there inability to take bad news. An athlete by nature is very competitive. Even a great quarterback can have a bad game, but still bounce back.

The second thing Dempsey said, “You’ve got to be at your best at 8 p.m. on Friday Night at Madison Square Garden.” That was when and where the big heavyweight fights took place, so we change that to fit our situation in that our football team has to be their best at 1 p.m. every Saturday in the fall.

These are just two of the things that I believe makes a good football program. Coaching is the ability to pick the right guy to do the right job, but it is also about communication, willingness to teach and the flexibility to know when to change.