Father Figure – In his celebrated career, Houston’s Ray Seals became much more than a coach to many of his players.

Twenty-three years ago, Ray Seals decided to change his coaching legacy. It wasn’t going to just be about football anymore.

Seals arrived at Madison High School (TX) in 1988 to find a program full of kids from low-income families. Some came to practice with no clothes; some hadn’t eaten. His players were foul-mouthed and disrespectful. They weren’t college material. “I said right then that when I became head coach, that wasn’t going to happen to my kids,” said Seals.

In June, after 46 years coaching in the Houston Independent school district, the last 23 at Madison High School, Seals hung up his whistle, retiring with 212 wins, 21 playoff appearances and a dozen coach of the year awards, including the inaugural NFL Don Shula Coach of the Year Award. That honor earned him a trip to the Super Bowl.

But those numbers matter little to Seals. The most important stat in his eyes is 212 – the number of players he sent to college on scholarships including 172 from Madison. “That’s what I’m most proud of,” the 70-year-old Seals said in a September interview. “It’s not the wins; everybody has already forgotten all but a few of those games. But, if you are going to leave a legacy, I think you need to leave the legacy through your players’ success in life and not with the wins and losses. I want to be remembered because I cared, not because we won a lot of games.”

Mission accomplished.

The Houston Independent School District has seen a noticeable increase in the number of players who earn athletic scholarships over the past 20 years. According to district athletic director Marmion Dambrino, Seals was a big reason why. His Madison teams were always ahead of the curve, she said.

“Coach Seals clothed, fed and was a father figure to countless kids,” said Dambrino, adding that Seals’ impact was felt district-wide. “He’s much more than a phenomenal football coach; he’s a phenomenal human being.”

Seals’ prowess at landing his players scholarships has a lot to do with his unique, personal and father-like relationship with them. After all, approximately 1 out of 3 players came from homes without a father. For a lot of his players, Seals was “dad.” It was a role Seals accepted throughout his career, but one that he didn’t completely comprehend until 20 years ago when a group of players came to him with concerns about a teammate’s well-being.

“There was a kid who was ready to kill himself over a girl,” Seals said. “So I talked him out of it and took him home with me that night. And, you know, that kid became well adjusted, graduated high school and went to college. That really made me become more attentive to the kids,” he continued. “What they say, the way they act and their demeanor when you speak to them in the morning, it’s important to pay attention to that stuff. I always wanted to ask, ‘can I help? What can I do to help?’”

And help he did.

Seals believes his success at getting players to the next level had a lot more to do with their development off the field than on it. “College coaches knew our guys were going to have their grades and were going to be respectful,” said Seals proudly. “And our players knew that if they had the talent, they were going to end up at a four-year college.”

It unquestionably started with academics, something Seals was relentless about. He encouraged players to take the SAT at the end of their sophomore years, and he instituted multiple programs that added layers of support for his players. For example, he jumpstarted the “Adopt-a-Marlin” program for teachers to pair up with a player, take them under their wing and support them academically and personally. It was a huge success, with teachers often wearing their player’s jersey on game days.

Seals also required every player to bring him their report cards every week. If they didn’t, they didn’t play. That went for everyone, even a talented young quarterback named Vince Young. “In 2000, one week he didn’t bring in his report card so he did not play,” said Seals. “Everybody was looking at me like, ‘what are we going to do?’ I said he isn’t going to play; that’s what we’re going to do.” Young, then a sophomore, stood on the sidelines in uniform and watched the game, because “that’s the only way to make it hurt; to make them watch,” said Seals with a snicker.

Seals also had a policy that forced players to attend tutoring for any class that their grade slipped below a 75. If tutoring caused them to miss practice, they knew they’d also be missing game time. “They busted their tails to abide by those rules,” said Seals. “We did not have a lot of rules, but we had rules that we thought would make the kids better. And that is grades, being on time and being responsible for their actions.”

A strict disciplinarian, Seals made a point to emphasize how important consistency is when it comes to enforcing the rules. “I think a lot of coaches may back off a star player or let them go a little more than others,” said Seals. “I don’t believe in that. When you start letting them get away with something or cheat on something, other players see it. Sooner or later, they’re going to come to you and want you to back off them. I didn’t want that. You’re not doing a kid a favor by backing off your rules or being lenient with them. That’s not how life is a lot of the time.”

Seals’ unwavering discipline cost one player eight games for missing four two-a-day practices. “He still wanted to be part of the team so he still practiced and dressed out, but he just didn’t play,” said Seals. “But in that ninth game, he got to play a little bit. That kid learned, though, that the rules and punishments weren’t going to change.”

But when it came to disciplining for on-the-field mistakes, Seals never let it get personal. “You don’t berate them or tell them that they are sorry or aren’t any good,” he advised. “You can talk about their effort or their form on the tackle, but don’t ever make anything personal with them. These are your kids.”

Seals’ successor, Madison head coach and athletic director Pat Reinecke, said Seals’ brand of consistent discipline taught him how to earn his players’ respect and prepared him to be a head coach. Reinecke recalls in his first year having trouble with one particular player and taking him into Seals’ office. The next time he brought a player into Seals’ office, though, he learned something.

“Coach told me that he could keep handling these problems for me, but only until you make the kids respect you,” recalled Reinecke. “From that point on, I realized that you really have to get on these kids to get through to them. They may not like you, but they’ll respect you. Once they respect you, they’ll do anything you ask of them.”

Over the years at Madison, Seals developed a quality reputation with college recruiters.

“The college coaches know that year in and year out Madison is always going to have talent,” said Reinecke. “And they know that the kids will have the grades and will be able to make it in college.” Seals began developing his reputation with college coaches in the 1970s. As a young assistant looking to learn more about the game, he began attending coaching clinics almost every weekend.

“You talk about being different, I was the only black person in there a lot of the times,” he said. “Three thousand people, and I was the only one. But I would go and you know that’s how people began recognizing me and I started making friends.”

Seals encourages all football coaches to attend as many coaching clinics as possible. Staying on top of how the game evolves was key to his long-term success, Seals said. He and his staff regularly visited local colleges like the University of Texas, Texas A&M, Rice, Baylor and Houston. He wanted to learn and monitor what other programs were doing, not necessarily because he wanted to run a certain style of offense, but more because he wanted to understand it.

“That’s how I stayed up on the game,” he said. “I remember when U of H was putting in the new run-and-shoot. I went over there one day to watch it, not because I wanted to run it. I didn’t have time to do that kind of stuff, but I wanted to understand it so if I face a team that runs it, I will know how to stop it. It’s just like running the option. A lot of teams can’t stop it because they don’t understand it.”

Vince Young was one of a number of players Seals coached that made it to the NFL. Young, now in his fifth NFL season and first with the Philadelphia Eagles, chuckles when he remembers how Seals benched him for not bringing in his report card. “It was a learning process,” Young told AFM after a September practice. “He was one of those coaches that always stayed on you, and that’s pretty much what got me to the point where I am today.”

Seals said Young was so much better than everyone else on the field when he showed up at Madison that he had to figure out ways to keep his young superstar quarterback in check. “He was faster, quicker, and he could just do things but he wasn’t doing them the right ways,” said Seals of Young. “He wasn’t doing them the right way or the team way. Lots of times we had to set him up and let a few kids knock him on his butt, you know. And by his sophomore year he began to understand that it’s not all about him, it’s about the team.”

Young took the lessons to heart and blossomed into what Seals called an incredible teammate. During the game he was benched, Young encouraged his teammates. During practices, he would take responsibility if a receiver dropped a pass. “By his junior year, anytime he was approached by a TV crew or newspaper, he’d always bring his teammates with him,” said Seals. “That’s what I really admired about him. He let those guys know that it wasn’t all just about him; it’s about us.”

Young credits Seals with his confidence to extend plays with his legs, but says the biggest thing he learned in high school was to listen. “Coach really helped me understand how important it was to listen and pay attention to details,” said Young. “But most of all, I learned about respect from Coach.”

The Houston Independent School District holds an annual player showcase after the season, inviting FCS and Division II schools to come check out some of its athletes that maybe didn’t land a college scholarship. FBS teams are not allowed. The prospects run through drills and show off fundamentals in an attempt to catch a recruiter’s eye. It works.

“We have had over 150 kids go to college in the past 3-4 years with that,” said Seals. “Kids that were overlooked by the big schools, we brought the small schools in to look at them. You have to get on the phone, you have to talk, and you have to call people. There is always somebody in those smaller schools that needs an offensive lineman who might not get a chance at a larger school. Send them a tape and most of the time you get them in there. “

Seals isn’t completely sold on retirement. You can hear it in his voice when he says things like, “I don’t think it (retiring) is a celebration.” But you can also hear his pride in what he accomplished. When he talks about his career, he doesn’t mention big victories or coaching milestones. Instead, he tells stories, success stories of kids who benefited from his program and were able to escape difficult situations.

Former Houston Cougar standout Loyce Means is the perfect example. Means arrived at Madison as an honor student, but dropped out of school after his freshman year. He came from a family riddled by drug abuse. It would have been easy for Means to go that route, said Seals. “I remember sitting in my office with Loyce, and he looked at me and said, ‘Coach, I’m going to make something out of myself. I’m not going to let this happen to me.’

“He cried like a baby, but he made it.” Means graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in business and is now playing professionally with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the CFL.

Another Seals’ success story, another mission accomplished from a coach whose legacy isn’t about football. 

On the Field with Ray Seals

Ray Seals knew exactly what offense he wanted to run when he became a head coach more than 40 years ago. “I used to go over to the U of H, and watch them run that Houston veer,” Seals said. “So I knew I wanted to run the split-back veer.”

It was a good choice. His offenses featured dynamic dual-threat quarterbacks like Vince Young and quick running backs. The Marlins consistently put up big points, despite being undersized on the offensive line.

“You didn’t have to have big guys who can bull people out of the hole, because you double-team so much at the point of the attack,” explained Seals. “The thing about the option is that a lot of people who didn’t run it, didn’t understand it and didn’t know how to stop it.”

Of course, Seals modified his offense through the years, mixing in the option from a one-back set, I-formation and even no backs. He implemented a lot of motion and went with a double-wing set at times. He kept the same veer-based blocking scheme, but things like the aiming point for the backs changed and the quarterback’s steps changed.

He also amped up his passing game in mid- to late 90s. “You’ve really got to keep up with the passing game these days or defenses just stack up on you,” he said. “So we started mixing in more of a passing game about 15 years ago. We probably threw it 15 or 20 times per game. If we threw 25 times a game, you knew we were playing catch-up. “We really had the whole package,” Seals added, “but it all boils back down to the split-back veer.”

Defensively, Seals stuck with a 4-3 base set for the majority of his career. He played a lot of man coverage behind his front, but implemented more zone later in his career when facing spread teams with three- and four-receiver sets. “We used both man and zone,” Seal said, “but if you didn’t make us get out of man-to-man, we didn’t.”

Seals preferred a conservative defensive approach, with limited stunting and blitzing. He emphasized to his players to use their techniques and read their keys. “If you do those two things, you really have a chance of playing some pretty solid defense.”