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AFM Magazine


RE-STARTING A COACHING CAREER

by: Lew Johnston
Head Coach Nansemond Suffolk academy (VA)
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I had the good fortune of leading one of the most successful public school programs in the state of Virginia for 22 years. At Western Branch High School in Chesapeake, winning became synonymous with Bruins football. From 1997 to the 2006 season when I retired, our winning percentage was over .800. We won numerous District titles and had three undefeated regular seasons. It wasn’t accomplished with a lot of FBS prospects, either. We would get an occasional “big-time” recruit but it was mostly kids who played hard, believed in our system and did the things in the off-season that we asked them to do to get better.


I retired after the 2006 season and thought that was it as far as coaching was concerned. I retired from our school system three years later. My wife boldly told me, “You need to find something to do or you will go crazy! You’re driving me crazy already.” What happened next I simply call a “God-incident.” A local private academy in our area was looking for a new head football coach. I have never coached, let alone had any contact with, a private school athletic team. I went out to explore what they had to offer and fell in love with the place. What took place over the next 12 months can be a primer for any new head coach.


My first order of business was to meet with the players then find a staff. The first team meeting went well. I laid out my philosophy of coaching and promised them that we would work hard and have fun at the same time. What I left them with was a challenge to get in the weight room between January and August. We needed to get bigger, stronger and more aggressive. The response was less than overwhelming. These kids play multiple sports so many of them were involved in spring sports. By the time we really got a weight program going, it was June. We averaged about 12 players a night and 3 nights a week. We finally dropped it to two nights a week since less and less were showing up as the summer progressed.


Finding a staff proved interesting. I inherited a number of guys from the previous staff. They knew nothing about the Wing-T offense. One coach impressed me. He was enthusiastic and had a passion for coaching. This was the one guy whom I was looking for. After meeting a couple of times, I asked him to be my defensive coordinator. He took the challenge and ran with it. Every head coach needs a “right hand man.”


Once the pre-season practice started, I could see that there was a lot of work to do. My biggest mistake was throwing too much at them too soon. I knew that these were smart kids. Our school is a private college prep academy. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t smart. What I’d forgotten is that “classroom smart” doesn’t necessarily carry over to “football smart.” I simply overwhelmed them and our execution was poor. But, it was an enthusiastic group and they were willing to work hard. We pushed them in practice and they responded. One thing that stood out was that everyone had a great attitude.  There were no prima donnas and it was a close knit group. 


Our two pre-season scrimmages went fairly well. Our second scrimmage was against a public school team from the eastern shore of Virginia. After a long bus ride across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, they weren’t quite ready for a scrimmage in 90 degree heat and humidity. But we beat them pretty soundly and it, unfortunately, gave us a false sense of confidence. The next week we were the team traveling. We went down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to open our season. 


What our players discovered is that our opponents had been lifting weights since December and the seniors had been lifting since eighth grade. They simply wore us down. By the fourth quarter, we were physically whipped. I made a point after the game to remind them that my first challenge to them had been to get in the weight room. The following Monday the attitude in our in-season lifting changed. For the first time I saw guys really going after the weights. Everything is a life lesson. If you’re going to be a great coach, you have to be a great teacher. I tell my assistants this, ‘When you are in your classroom and you’re handing back a test and a student did poorly on it, do you berate him in front of the other students? Do you call him names because he failed your test? Of course not.” Getting whipped by that Nags Head team was the lesson our players needed to have. My comments after the game were directed at how we can be as strong and tough as them if we get in the weight room. We lost that game 31-16 after leading 16-0 in the third quarter.


The next week we faced a team that eventually went undefeated and won the state private school championship. We got manhandled again. They had three linemen who signed FBS scholarships. It became evident that we were not clicking on all cylinders. Our defense was containing people but our offense was faltering. The third game we played the defending state champs and lost to them on a long pass with seven seconds left in the game. Our athletes were not as well-coached as theirs. I had to make some changes on our staff as far as position assignments. That was my fault because I had not “coached the coaches” well enough. We were now 0 and 3 and still had to play another state contender the next week. 


It was that weekend that I decided to go “back to basics.” I jettisoned about 60% of our offense and about 25% of or defense. We were going to be very good at a few things. Practice started going better because things started making sense to our players. That Friday night we rushed for 411 yards. We still lost but I think that the “tipping point” of our season was right after that game. In the locker room I could tell that the players were disappointed but the light bulb had come on. I heard comments like, “Hey, this offense really does work! Did you see the way we down blocked those guys. Bobby ran wild all night!” There was a sense of we can do this in the air.


Monday, the players came back to practice just as focused and enthusiastic as they’d been in August. We again kept things to a minimum and just kept working on execution and fundamentals. What happened over the next six weeks was a true turn-around. We won those last six games by an average of 28 points. We dominated teams on both sides of the ball. We barely missed out on getting the last berth in the state playoffs. Our banquet a week later was a celebration of how far we came in such a short time. The kids were excited and the parents were supportive. We’d treated their sons with respect and taught them how to win and lose with grace. I once again challenged them to start lifting.


We held workouts after school and about 90% of the players were there from the first week in January. It stayed that way until spring sports started and a lot of them left to play lacrosse or baseball. When our summer workouts began, we averaged 23 players in attendance every night. We doubled our numbers in one year. This continued until practice started. I did not change anything. We offered the opportunity to “get better in the off-season” and the players responded. When practice started in August, we were ready to go. One thing we did do was reward those players who attended 90% of the summer workouts with a Saints football T-shirt. The guys were already asking if there will be shirts to be earned again this summer?


This past fall’s season culminated with a berth in the state championship game. We got there with basically with a team of underclassmen. The kids played with confidence because they knew our system. We continued to focus on execution on offense and playing smart, aggressive defense. We lost three games by a total of eight points. The state championship game did not go as planned. Our kids were too wired and the opponent simply had too many bigger players. What that trip to the championship game taught us is that championships are won in January through July and not in August through November. That has been our rallying cry this winter. I had to talk players into playing their spring sport. They wanted to stay in the weight room. Playing that spring sport is important to me. It helps our athletic program and it affords our football players an opportunity to compete. 


It’s a process. To re-start a career and build a program the way you want to see it developed takes time. I didn’t want to come in and make wholesale changes but I recognized that changes had to be made. I needed to select those areas that I had to focus on and improve them. We had tough, intelligent kids to work with. What they lacked was physical strength. That was my point of emphasis. The important thing was to establish implementing my philosophy which can be summed up in the catch phrase, “Proper  Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.” Show the players you work with that you want to help them achieve their goals and they will work hard for you. It’s a matter of developing mutual respect.







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