AFM RSS Feed Follow Us on Twitter       
AMERICAN FOOTBALL MONTHLY THE #1 RESOURCE FOR FOOTBALL COACHES
ABOUT |  CONTACT |  ADVERTISE |  HELP  



   User Name    Password 
      Password Help





Article Categories


AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


High School Coaches of the Year

by: Tom Needham
© More from this issue

Click for Printer Friendly Version          

SOUTHEAST

Cecil Flowe
Parkview High School (Lilburn, Ga.) 2001: 15-0, Class AAAAA champs, Record at school: 103-18, 9 years

If Cecil Flowe were not guiding a high school football team to victory after victory, he’d probably make a good CEO. Attention to detail, hard work, planning - all qualities Flowe possesses, but the 45-year-old Parkview High School coach is much more than an X’s and O’s guy who comes into the office early and leaves late. He is the CEO of the Panthers football program. He has to be.

In 1993, Flowe’s friend, Parkview head coach Chuck Mize, was murdered. Flowe and Mize had dreamed of taking the program to a new level. When Mize died, Flowe decided to take charge rather than let an outsider assume control of the program, which was on the verge of joining Georgia’s elite.

Nine years later, there is no doubt that Parkview is on top of the high school football world. The Panthers captured their second straight Class AAAAA Georgia state title and Top-10 finish in the National Prep Poll this season with a second straight 15-0 campaign. They are the first team since Valdosta in 1979-80 to win back-to-back big-school crowns. Under Flowe, the Panthers have won three championships in four title game appearances and have amassed a 103-18 record under his guide.

“When we came here, a lot of people said we were crazy,” Flowe says. “They said the kids won’t work. They’re not hungry. We just put our noses to the grind and got busy. (Mize) wanted to win a championship, and we were able to do that. I know he is smiling.”

The tears of championship joy are born in the tears of hard work at Parkview. Flowe demands a lot of his players. Tough, hard-hitting practices are the norm, even the week prior to the championship game. “You’d better be ready to bang heads every week,” Flowe says. The results speak for themselves.

SOUTHWEST

John Roderique
Webb City High School (Webb City, Mo.) 2001: 14-0, Class 4A state champs, Record at school: 55-7, 5 years

Coach John Roderique and his Webb City High School Cardinals saw a major crimp in their plans when all-state senior running back Chris Taylor was lost for the season with a broken leg during the first round of the playoffs.

“It was gut-check time,” says the 31-year-old coach. “Our guys had never played without him, and it became a personal challenge to our kids to step it up.”

Step it up the Cardinals did. Webb City endured and captured its second straight 4A title with a second straight 14-0 season. Roderique’s Cardinals are riding a 29-game winning streak and have won three state titles in the past five years.

Webb City’s performance in the title game left no doubt. The Cardinals defeated Washington of the St. Louis metro, 45-0. The year before, Webb City won the crown with a 41-0 victory. Roderique’s run-oriented offense is accustomed to putting up big numbers, though. The Cardinals averaged almost 42 points per game in outscoring their opposition 575-118 this year while averaging better than 400 yards of offense.

Webb City, in the southwestern part of the state near Joplin with a population around 9,000, may not be fertile ground for producing blue-chip talent, but that often works to its advantage, according to Roderique.

“Our town is a blue-collar town,” Roderique says. “Maybe the kids grow up with the work ethic from our parents, but I’ve never had a parent tell me that we work the kids too hard. A lot of our kids know they’re not going to go on to be college players or professional players, but they make the most of their high school opportunity.”

MIDWEST

John Herrington
Harrison (Farmington Hills, Mich.) 2001: 14-0, Div. 3 champs, Record at school: 299-58-1, 32 years

In Michigan, coach John Herrington, Harrison High School and winning are all pretty much synonymous. It’s been that way for quite a while, and Herrington’s Hawks continue to set the standard. They capped a 14-0 season with their fifth straight state championship and 12th overall in 2001.

“We were expected to win from day one,” says the 61-year-old coach. “We returned almost all of our top players from the year before. We had the top quarterback and wide receiver in the state and were rated No. 1. We were also ranked in the nation since the preseason and were able to hang in there and uphold that.”

Harrison upheld an impressive winning streak in the process, as well. The Hawks will carry a 36-game winning streak into the 2002 season. That, Herrington says, never has been nor will be the focus, though.

“There is no winning streak when the season starts,” says Herrington. “It’s not like we’ve won 36. We’ve won zero. Actually, most of our kids didn’t even know where our winning streak stood. They knew the opponents and who they had to beat.”

The 2001 campaign will be unforgettable for Herrington. In June, he lost his wife to cancer. The man, who so many looked to for guidance, no longer had his biggest supporter. “The first thing was trying to get it together with the personal things I was going through,” he says, “but I have to point out the tremendous support I received here.”

On the field, Herrington’s Hawks were as strong as ever. They were rarely tested and will graduate five Division I prospects. Herrington’s next win, as he enters his 33rd season, will be his 300th career victory.

WEST

Bob Johnson
Mission Viejo HS (Mission Viejo, Calif.) 2001: 14-0, CIF-SS Division II champs, Record at school: 30-8, 3 years

Mission Viejo coach Bob Johnson, father of Buffalo Bills quarterback Rob Johnson, is best known for molding strong-armed young men into disciplined, efficient quarterbacks. But the 56-year-old passing game guru also knows how to examine a roster and figure out what best puts his team in a position to win.

So, in 2001, Johnson opted to run the ball – a lot. Mission Viejo featured tailback Robbie DuBois, and the senior all-CIF selection ran the Diablos all the way to the CIF Southern Section Division II championship, a 14-0 record and a top-25 ranking in the National Prep Poll.

“Here we are, the passing school, and we handed the ball to the tailback quite a bit this year,” Johnson says. “But it worked.”

DuBois finished his career with 80 touchdowns and just less than 7,000 rushing yards. But don’t be fooled by the numbers. Mission Viejo was no one-dimensional team. Quarterback Jordan Palmer, brother of University of Southern California quarterback Carson Palmer, was another all-CIF selection. He threw for 13 touchdowns but only two interceptions. “Very, very efficient,” says Johnson of the latest in his long line of passers.

Johnson, who helps orchestrate the Student Sports Elite 11 Camp for top quarterback prospects in the nation each summer, first gained prominence as coach of El Toro High School in the 1980s. There, he began churning out one talented quarterback after another. Five El Toro quarterbacks in a row earned Division I college scholarships while the school collected three CIF titles.

EAST

Mark Schmidt
Neshaminy High School (Langhorne, Pa.) 2001: 15-0, PIAA Class AAAA state champs, Record at school: 49-24, 7 years

Coach Mark Schmidt’s Neshaminy squad exorcized a lot of demons in the very first game of the season as it rallied to score a touchdown and a one-point win. After watching his team finish 6-4 in 2000 with three tight losses, Schmidt took a step back.

“We reevaluated what we did in practice and what we did in the off-season,” Schmidt, 40, says. “We kept reminding the team of the intensity level needed to become mentally tough.”

It paid off. The Redskins (15-0) learned to thrive in pressure situations, notching seven come-from-behind victories, on their way to a 21-7 upset over national top-10-ranked Woodland Hills (Pittsburgh) in the PIAA Class AAAA championship. Neshaminy entered the championship game as a two-touchdown underdog. “In all honesty, we’ve kind of been the underdog throughout the season, probably in four or five of the games we’ve played this year,” Schmidt says. “We’ve been in the upper tier in our league but never really had broken through in the postseason.”

The victory marked the school’s first state title.

The road to the championship was arduous for Neshaminy and included a 21-19 victory over perennial power Central Bucks West (Doylestown). The Redskins scored a touchdown on the final play of that momentum-building victory. Finding ways to win tight games had eluded Neshaminy in the past, but these Redskins turned the corner.

“Our guys just really battled and never lost composure,” says Schmidt. “We stayed together as a team. The guys realized, together, they could accomplish a lot more.”






NEW BOOK!

AFM Videos Streaming Memberships Now Available Digital Download - 304 Pages of Football Forms for the Winning Coach



















HOME
MAGAZINE
SUBSCRIBE ONLINE COLUMNISTS COACHING VIDEOS


Copyright 2024, AmericanFootballMonthly.com
All Rights Reserved