unCommon Ground

Despite coaching in the many diverse areas that America has to offer, high school coaches still share several common bonds
by: Richard Scott
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At this moment, it’s probably rainy in Juneau, Alaska, sunny and hot in Key West, Fla., hot and humid in El Paso, Texas, and dry and windy in Howells, Neb. In The Bronx, it’s doing whatever New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner says it’s doing.

OK, just kidding. But we’re not kidding about this: in these five culturally, socially and economically diverse areas, some things remain profoundly and abundantly common.

All across the United States, high school football is important to the growth and development of young men. At most of those high schools, from small private and rural schools to large inner city schools and burgeoning suburban schools, football coaches are teaching valuable life lessons to those players.

Some are black. Some are white. Some are Hispanic. Some are Asian. Some are kids who have played since grade school. Some are playing for the very first time. Some will go on to play in the NFL and earn a Super Bowl ring. Some will use football to earn a college degree. Some will be lucky to earn a varsity letter and play a few plays as a senior.

But whether those kids are playing in Southeastern Alaska, the Southern tip of Florida, the Rio Grande River separating the U.S. from Mexico, the plains of rural Nebraska or metropolitan New York City, their coaches share a common bond and face many of the same everyday challenges to build, field and prepare a successful high school football team.

American Football Monthly originally entered this story with the intention of exploring the diversity between high school football programs in these five areas. Instead, these five coaches – Pat Freeman of Key West High School; Reilly Richey of Douglas High School in Juneau; Carmine Colasanto of Herbert H. Lehman High School in The Bronx; Ruben Batista of Austin High School in El Paso, Texas; and Mike Speirs of Howells High School in Howells, Neb. – taught us a valuable lesson about the common struggles and challenges faced by high school football coaches throughout the nation.

“Kids are kids all over the place,” Colasanto says. “It’s a difficult age, with all the violence, drugs, alcohol, gangs, what they see on TV and the movies, negative role models. Some of these kids have a warped sense of how they’re supposed to treat women. But that’s prevalent throughout the United States.”

Regardless of the location or the type of school, coaches battle a variety of obstacles, including many that are unique to our current era. It’s solid proof that coaching high school football is a lot more than Xs and Os, hard work, long hours, film study and Friday night lights.

It’s also raising money, ordering equipment, lining fields, taping ankles, stretching the budget and driving the bus.

It’s mentoring the quarterback who comes from a terrible home situation.

It’s the potential star running back who wants to quit the team because it’s just too much work.

It’s the linebacker who has to quit to take a job to help out his struggling single mom.

It’s the pushy overbearing parents who think their high-maintenance son should be the son.

It’s the offensive tackle who gets mono and missed a month of practice and games.

It’s the safety who gets suspended from the team for breaking rules, or even worse, arrested for drug possession.

It’s the defensive tackle who’s been pushed, pulled and prodded repeatedly, but still flunks and loses his eligibility.

It’s the clique that eventually becomes more like a gang, or part of a gang.

It’s building something solid that allows players to grow as athletes, students and people. It’s working within the obstacles and making the most of the situation, regardless of the circumstances. It’s dealing with the changing culture and keeping your finger on the pulse of today’s kids.

And that’s true whether you’re coaching in Alaska, Florida, New York, Texas or Nebraska.

“I think it’s a matter of treating them with respect and you’ll get respect back and get more out of them,” Colasanto says. “It’s a different age now, and that’s true in coaching, too. You have to adjust to the times. You’ve got to realize kids have other problems that might exist and you’ve got to be a lot more flexible.

“That doesn’t mean you should bend rules or have no discipline or direction on your teams, but you’ve really got to know what makes kids tick and be a good motivator to be a good coach.”

DOUGLAS HIGH, JUNEAU, ALASKA

The Douglas High Crimson Bears might play their football in one of the nation’s most remote and unfamiliar areas, but the program might be one of the nation’s better known programs after an NFL Films’ production called “Football America” documented the many unique aspects of playing football in Juneau.

“I can’t imagine any school facing any more challenges than us,” coach Riley Richey says.

The single biggest challenge is travel. Juneau is located in Southeastern Alaska, bordered by the Pacific Ocean, the Coast Mountains and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Douglas is the only high school in Juneau, and there aren’t many high schools in the general area, so the Crimson Bears must fly – that’s right, fly – an hour-and-25-minute jet ride away to Anchorage to play their closest conference opponents.

The Crimson Bears play mostly Anchorage area schools but occasionally travel to Fairbanks or the Kenai Peninsula.

“We played a game up in Fairbanks once against a school called North Pole, if you can imagine that, and that was the coldest I’ve ever been,” Richey says. “We got off the airplane in our aspen jackets and their coach came to the baggage area to greet us and he was dressed like Nanook of the North, with dead animal skins all over him. I knew we were in trouble then.

“We go out there and tried to play in minus-10 temperatures and the field was solid ice – glaciated ice with a few brown patches – like nothing we’ve ever played on.”

As you might expect, travel costs present a major test for the football program. The school district doesn’t provide any funds, but with an enviable commitment from the players and outstanding community support, the program is able to raise about $140,000 annually.

In fact, the entire travel budget is raised through fundraising efforts, with each football player responsible for about $1,300 of fundraising before they ever get a uniform. The breakdown is $200 in player fees; $600 in program ad sales; $400 in raffle tickets; and $100 of yard work as community service for donations.

Despite those demands, the Crimson Bears still field varsity and junior varsity teams with about 75-80 players each year.

“We do lose a few of them because they don’t want to do the fundraising part, but we try to do enough fun stuff with them year-round to make it worthwhile,” Richey says. “We take them to an out-of-state camp at Western Washington every year and we run our own unity camp, so we have enough of them who like it than we always have enough out for the team.”

The Crimson Bears also conduct their business without locker rooms, so the kids drive or take buses to practice and go home muddy and wet. And when we’re talking about wet, we mean soaked to the bone, since Juneau is located in Tongass Rainforest and most of the practices and games are played in the rain. In fact, the area averages about 100 inches of rain a year, and the fall just happens to be the rainiest season, with 30-35 inches of rain in both September and October.

The playing field used to be a dangerously solid dirt surface that tested the courage of players, but Adair Kennedy Field now features an outstanding artificial playing surface.

Douglas might also be the only high school program with its own weekly television show. During the season, Richey’s wife Kathi produces a show from their living room reviewing the most recent game with highlight clips, previewing the next game and interviewing local guests. The show is then sent to a local station for viewing.

Between the field, the television show and the program’s on-going success, Douglas Football has come a long way since its origins in 1990. When the program made its debut, the new coaches gathered for the first time the night before the first day of practice. They were filled with excitement as they met and made plans for practice.

“We had one line coming in from this direction for warm-ups and one line coming in from that direction and a third line coming in here,” Richey says. “We had it all choreographed out and then we showed up the next day and had eight kids show up for practice.”

Things got worse before they got better.

“The cops came and grabbed two of those kids and slapped handcuffs on them halfway through warm-ups,” Richey says.

Thankfully for Richey and the Crimson Bears, attendance and arrests at practice are no longer a concern. However, even in Juneau, the football program faces its share of social and cultural problems.

“I feel like we face a lot of the same problems that other schools do,” Richey says. “We have to deal with alcohol and drug abuse, but I think most of the schools in the country share that same problem. Most of our problems are not especially unique.”

AUSTIN HIGH SCHOOL, EL PASO, TEXAS

The Austin High that Ruben Batista attended was not the same one that offered him the head coaching position four years ago. Things had slipped so badly that even the athletic director found himself issuing a compassionate warning to prospective candidates.

“When they offered me this job, my A.D. was Jerry Milsaps, a nice man, a man I really respect, and he said, ‘I’m going to be honest with you. It’s the worst job in town,’ “ Batista says. “Some other coaches in town warned me look into real close, too, because they said it wasn’t a very good job. But the more they told me, the more it encouraged me. Plus, I went to school here, too, and I just decided, ‘you know what, I’m going to come back here and try to fix it.’”

The program Batista inherited didn’t have a junior varsity program, and many freshman advanced directly to the varsity, where they were thrown into the fire immediately to get beat up, beat down and discouraged. Plus, Austin played in Class 5A at the time and still drew only 45 players in Batista’s first season.

“We were the whipping boy of the district,” Batista says.

Batista got the job on July 24 and scheduled workouts the next week. When he arrived at school to open the weight room, only 14 people signed in for the entire week, and seven of those were cheerleaders.

“That first season was a discouraging situation,” Batista says. “It was pretty embarrassing. For me, it was humiliating. “

The following year Batista hired new coaches, started a new summer program with lifting, running and seven-on-seven drills. The Panthers barely missed the playoffs by two points that season, and since then Austin has established itself as a competitive program in the El Paso area.

“Little by little, it’s picked up. It’s come around,” Batista says. “We’re not where we need to be, but we’ve done some positive things.”

In the process, Austin also dropped down to Class 4A because of a diminishing population. Many students come from military families at nearby Fort Bills, and cutbacks in the programs at Bliss means Austin will have to do without an influx of military families for awhile.

“We had 31 on our varsity last year, and that’s not bad. I’d rather have 45-50, because we had a lot of players going both ways,” Batista says. “The numbers are definitely a hurdle we have to overcome.”

Travel isn’t an issue since Austin plays most of its games against area teams, but the Panthers often play schools with twice as much money in the athletic budget because the public schools in the El Paso district have to share resources. That makes it a constant challenge to stretch the budget.

“We make do with what we have,” Batista says. “Our equipment is great. I’m as real bargain hunter and I’m always looking where I can get the best deal, in town or out of town. I’m always trying to get the most I can out of our money.”

Austin, founded in 1930, is mostly comprised of students from lower to lower-middle class families, with more and more students coming from single-parent families. Batista is well aware that many of his players come from tough home situations, and obstacles such as gangs, drugs and alcohol are just part of the challenge.

That’s why Batista and his coaches work to build team unity through counseling, group activities, team dinners and movies, “anything to create a family atmosphere.

“We’ve been able to weed out a lot of our problems in our program,” Batista adds. “We’ve got little party fraternities we’re trying to weed out and stay on top of now. We’ve been counseling these kids in groups and one-on-one. Hopefully we’re getting the message across that you don’t need to be part of that to be successful.”

Having been at four different high schools in 20 years, Batista has learned that those problems are all too common.

“Kids are pretty much the same everywhere you go, and most of the problems have been the same,” Batista says. “Very few things are unique to a particular school. Some of the temptations might be different from town to town, or area to area, but kids are kids.”

HOWELLS HIGH SCHOOL, HOWELLS, NEB.

When Mike Speirs took over the eight-man football program at Howells seven years ago, he inherited a losing program with a core of talented players. To be fair to the previous coaching staff, the Bobcats had struggled to succeed in a tough conference that made a habit of producing state championships at the highest level of Nebraska’s eight-man football. As a result, the coaches often had a hard time getting enough kids out for football.

The coaches also had to deal with kids who often had to miss practice and school time to help their families in the agriculture industry.

“We’d have 25 kids going out for football, but there were kids in the hallways who would have had an impact on the team but they were choosing not go out,” Speirs says. “Just getting them interested in the program and seeing we were going to be able to do some good things was big for us.”

A move to district play helped, but through hard work, energy and enthusiasm, Spiers was able to build a winning program at Howells. In fact, the Bobcats have won three consecutive state titles and this fall he anticipates 56 of the school’s 62 boys will play football.

Money isn’t always easy to come by, so fund raisers, such as selling playoff and championship T-shirts bring in funds, and the players themselves have been known to contribute their own money to buy items such as new radios for the weight room and the locker room.

“I’m blessed with a great administration and great athletic director who have allowed me to put a lot of money into the program - we have nice new uniforms that kids helped design; and we changed helmet colors from orange to black, something the kids have always wanted to do — and that’s helped the kids develop a lot of pride,” Speirs says. “We also have a great booster club that helps us out. We come up with money however we can.”

Travel hasn’t been a big issue for Howells since the state went to district competition three years. While Speirs was accustomed to traveling long distances to play as a high school athlete in the remote panhandle of western Nebraska, the Bobcats rarely have to travel more than 1 1/2 hours for games, until the playoffs start.

Eight-man and six-man football might be looked down upon in some areas, but eight-man football garners genuine respect in a state where several eight-man players have gone on to play for the Nebraska Cornhuskers and other Division I-A football programs.

“In the past few years we’ve had quite a few schools that were playing 11-man football come into eight-man and virtually every coach I’ve talked, the common theme has been that they didn’t realize how difficult eight-man was,” Speirs says.

One thing Spiers has learned through his discussions with 11-man coaches is that coaches face many of the same challenges, regardless of whether they are playing with 11, eight or six on a side.

“When it comes down to it, coaching football is still about blocking and tackling,” Speirs says. “Whether you’re coaching eight or 11, you still have to focus on the same fundamentals. Off the field, you’ve still got a lot of the same challenge other coaches face to run a successful football program.

“Kids are kids no matter where you’re at. They still have a lot of the same outside influences, other things to occupy their time.”

KEY WEST HIGH SCHOOL, KEY WEST, FLA.

Pat Freeman has been the head coach and athletic director at Key West High for most of the past 30 years, and who can blame him? The weather, the ocean, the beaches, the seafood ... who would want to leave?

But the job isn’t as easy as it might seem from the outside.

“On a day like today, when the seas are less than two feet, it’s nice and hot out and the kids like to dive and do other water-type things, so they’ll be tempted to skip school and go out on the boat,” Freeman says. “You have to stay on them, just like anywhere.”

Key West High is a Class 3A school in a state with six athletic classes. Not counting the teeming surge of tourists and short-termers, the area features a diverse population. In terms of socio-economic demographics, Key West High draws “from the lowest to the highest,” Freeman says. “All races. Our school is probably 40 percent Hispanic, 20 percent black and the rest are Anglos.

“Key West is not just a party area,” Freeman adds. “We’ve got the common ground kids who are just like anyone else. We do have a lot of tourists we deal with, but most of our kids have been here through family generations, with grandmothers and grandfathers living here.”

Most of those kids play two and three sports, and the football program usually draws about 40-45 players for the varsity, and about 50 for the junior varsity.

The beauty of Key West’s location also presents the football program with one of its biggest challenges. The only “local” games are 45 minutes away in Marathon and 90 minutes away at Coral Shores in Tavernier. However, those are smaller class schools, and the Conchs must play their district games in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, where they travel more than four hours to play their district opponents.

The Conchs used to occasionally travel by planes and boats, but now all the travel is done by school bus, usually driven by a coach. The county pays for bus travel within the county, but not out of the county, so the athletic department has to pay for the food and travel out of the school. Money is raised through ticket sales and various fund raisers.

Since the Conchs have also been known to play as far north as Ocala, Okeechobee, Orlando, Deland and Clearwater in order to find quality games, that makes for some long bus rides and some wild experiences.

“One night in Okeechobee we lost by one point and got back on the bus and someone had thrown a rattlesnake on the bus,” Freeman said. “Fortunately it was dead, but when one of our kids reached down and picked this thing up the bus cleared pretty quick.”

HERBERT H. LEHMAN HIGH, THE BRONX, N.Y.

Carmine Colasanto is a veteran of nearly 30 seasons at Lehman High. During that time, he’s won his share of games and New York Public School Athletic League championship, but he’s a lot more proud about what the football program has done to build into the lives of young men in his area.

“We’ve been fortunate here at Lehman because we’ve been able to field a team,” Colasanto says. “We get about 120 kids come out to play football in the spring and then we’ll get an additional 100-120 for junior varsity. Why? Maybe it’s because I’ve been around for a long time, I don’t know.”

The Bronx itself is a diverse borough of New York, with a wide range of socioeconomic conditions, family homes, businesses and, of course, the legendary shadow of Yankee Stadium. It’s an area rich in cultural variety, and despite its reputation as a rough and tumble section of metropolitan New York, Lehman is relatively fortunate. Colasanto estimates that 44 percent of Lehman’s students fall at or below poverty level, but most kids are middle to lower-middle class. The student body is multiracial, with a growing Hispanic population.

“My community is more stable than other communities in New York City, but we still have a lot of kids moving in and out of the district, parents moving and a large volume of kids you might be practicing with in the spring who might not be with you in the fall,” Colasanto says. “You can lose 25 to 30 from freshman to senior.”

Colasanto has seen a lot of positives and negatives in his time at Lehman, and understands the challenges about as well as any coach can. One thing that frustrates him is the lack of developmental football programs at the junior high level. School districts in many states have developmental programs that start in junior high or middle school, with the junior high coaches running the same basic offensive and defensive systems to prepare players for junior varsity football when they reach high school. That doesn’t exist at Lehman and other PSAL schools.

PSAL schools also operate without athletic trainers. Instead, the coaches serve as the trainers and must be certified in first aid and CPR. Many PSAL coaches take extra courses, for which they are not reimbursed, so they can do a better job taking care of their players.

“At practices, the coaches do everything,” Colasanto says. “We do the taping, we evaluate the injuries, we call the parents or bring them to hospital if necessary. That’s a big problem, to be honest with you, doing all that stuff instead of putting your energies into coaching.”

That’s even more challenging because PSAL schools have only two full-time coaches, the head coach and one paid assistant. That means the head coach must find funds to pay other coaches, and those funds usually come through parents organizations.

“You’re talking about a sport with a high level of injury, and yet there’s only one paid football coach for the JV in New York City,” Colasanto says. “And a lot of these kids need extra coaching because they’ve never played football before.”

Lehman also plays without a home field. The school does own a multi-purpose practice field covered in artificial turf and used for physical education classes, baseball games, football practices and other activities, but the Lions play all their games away.

“We have a home field, but it’s not our school field,” Colasanto says. “We play at different schools. Every time we have a home game we have to bus the kids. That’s a big obstacle to overcome, because if we had our own home field I think I’d be able to make Friday night games a big community event and that would help us raise tons of money.”

Fortunately for the Lions, the parents group also raises money through a variety of fund raisers and the school does all it can to help financially.

“If you don’t have the administration and the parents behind you, it’s almost impossible to run a good program in New York City,” says Colasanto, who also serves the school as an assistant principal. “I happen to be one of the few fortunate ones in New York City. There are other schools with a lot bigger problems than I have, because they don’t have the funds they need.”

What Colasanto does have in abundance is dedicated, loyal kids who make his job worthwhile.

“Like any other place, we’re dealing with kids who might have to have a job because we’ve got a lot of single-parent families,” Colasanto says. “We may lose some of those kids, but the kids we do have are probably some of the most loyal kids in the United States. When you get a good football player from New York City, they’ll run through the wall for you. That’s the type of kids we have.”

Some of those kids are street-tough kids who face daily temptations from drugs, alcohol, crime and gangs, but as coaches throughout the U.S. know, those problems aren’t unique to The Bronx.

Whether you’re in Key West, El Paso, Howells, Juneau, The Bronx, or even Southern California, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma or Oregon, the challenge is often the same for high school football coaches trying to build, field and prepare a successful high school football team.

“There are always outside influences in New York City,” Colasanto says. “But the more you read about other communities, the more you see we’re not all that different. Like what happened at Columbine a few years ago. That was a suburban area. A lot of these kinds of things have happened in smaller areas, or areas where there wasn’t much poverty. These areas have their own with violence, drugs, alcohol and gangs.

“It seems like every area has problems like this. You can’t come to New York City and say there’s more drugs or alcohol or whatever. You can go to wealthy areas in Westchester County (N.Y.), probably one of the wealthiest areas in the county, and they’ve got problems, too. I think we all face a lot of the same things.”

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