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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


High Schools That Went High Tech

by: Jamie DeMoney
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When Rob Scheidt took over the program at Merced (Calif.) H.S. in the spring of 1996, he faced a rebuilding job. The historically strong MHS program, which won a state championship just five years before, had spiraled downward into a two-year playoff draught and was stinging from a 1-9 record the previous season.

Scheidt, who became head varsity coach at Merced while he was still in his mid-20s, saw a couple of problems that needed to be addressed right off the bat. First, the school was suffering the affects of a district split a few years before, which reduced his numbers. Secondly, he wanted the program to run more efficiently and give his coaching staff more time coaching and less time doing busy work. The solution, as he saw it, was to invest in better technology in the film room.

"We wanted to use film to better teach our kids how to play," says Scheidt, now 29. " In 1998 we really started to pursue it. We started talking to people in our district as well as within our school about the possibility."

The possibility that would become reality before the 1999 season was an investment in a digital video-editing system from Avid Sports.

Scheidt was first exposed to digital editing during a visit to Fresno State in the early '90s, where his brother Rick was a graduate assistant. He was immediately impressed with the time-saving elements of such a setup as well as its versatility in searching, sorting and organizing specific down, distance and play situations in producing cut-ups.

"If (Rick) wanted to give me all of the cut-ups of just the passing game, he could do that or just the running game."

Scheidt's interest continued to grow and then was peaked during a 1999 visit to the University of Nebraska, where he studied the digital-editing system in place there.

By the time he returned to Merced, Scheidt was sold on the innovation. Now all he had to do was convince the school's administrators and booster club members to come up with $50,000 over four years to purchase the equipment.

"We had our athletic director, our principal, a representative from our booster club and three or four coaches from our staff come in and see what it was about," Scheidt says. "I just needed people to get in front of it and see what it could do, and they were amazed."

Game tapes are popped into the editing machine and digitized, or copied onto the computer's hard drive, shortly after the final gun each Friday night. Sheidt and his staff are then able to quickly - and without fast-forwarding or rewinding - separate the defensive plays from the offensive plays and have everything ready for review when the team meets the next morning.

"We're no longer fast-forwarding though things; we're no longer rewinding through things. We have our offensive group meet while our defensive group is lifting weights and the roles are switched after about an hour and a half.

"Kids nowadays are so MTV-cultured that if they're not in the game at film time, they're no longer paying attention," says Scheidt. "But we don't have that problem anymore. They are definitely more keen to pay attention as to what's going on Saturday morning, and because of that they have the ability to learn from their mistakes much more easily."

"You Can't Send the Blackboard Home with the Kid."This fall will be Brent Steuerwald's 42nd as a high school football coach. He has coached in six decades and, consequently, has a unique perspective on how teaching the game has changed over time.

Unlike many coaches from his generation, Steuerwald, 64, has never been afraid to try new things. In fact, he has made a living out of effecting change ever since he arrived at Shenendehowa H.S., in Clifton Park, N.Y., in 1967 - a school that didn't even have a football team at the time.

After convincing a Shenendehowa school board that was less than enthusiastic about football into allowing him start and serve as head coach for a team, Steuerwald set about making the program a success. What followed were eight undefeated seasons, three Class A state championships, a cumulative record of 238-59-4 and Steuerwald's being named National Coach of the Year in 1995 by the National High School Coaches Association.

Steuerwald, who also served as athletic director for 31 of his 32 years at the school, clearly had built a time-tested method for winning, but he never stopped looking for an edge.

"I've always tried during the offseason to do a project that I felt would improve our program overall," he says.

Three years ago, that project consisted of becoming educated on and implementing play-diagramming software from Plays-in-Motion.

"I had a young fella on my staff who was conversant in (computers) and I told him I'd like to learn myself," recalls Steuerwald. "I said if this is how kids learn, I'd like to take advantage of it."

After a few months of entering offensive and defensive plays, the team's entire playbook was computerized, allowing Steuerwald the ability to manipulate formations and actions and watch as a simulation of the results appeared before his eyes.

And, perhaps, most exciting to Steuerwald was the software's capability to be converted onto videotape for his players to take home to study.

"I can take the pass offense and make a separate tape on that and have my quarterback take it home to study the play-action passing we are putting in next week.

"There's no effective coach in the country who doesn't follow the precept of 'Chalk it, talk it, walk it'," says Steuerwald. "You can sit at a blackboard and try to visualize things, but you can't send the blackboard home with the kid."

Wearing Two Hats

There is nothing unusual about a high school coach serving dual roles - many double up as a teacher or as athletic director. But Don Lindsey, from Lincoln H.S., in Tallahassee, Fla., is blazing a new trail. One that might become more commonplace as the new century begins.

Lindsey serves as defensive coordinator at Lincoln, which won Florida's Class 6A state title in 1999. And he is also the high school's technology coordinator, charged with maintaining a school-wide network of about 500 computers.

"I wanted to be a computer programmer," says Lindsey, "but as I got out of college, things quickly changed."

Lindsey, 32, who played collegiately at Marion Military Institute and then Liberty University, wanted to become a football coach. So after finishing college with a business management degree, he started his coaching career at Hollywood (Fla.) Christian School in 1991 before joining head coach David Wilson's staff at Lincoln the next year.

When he arrived in Tallahassee, Lindsey was eager to show his fellow coaches how useful computers and other technology could be to a football program. So, in addition to revamping the team's video center to include an upgrade to S-VHS tape and adding tape decks to the editing port, the school purchased Power Touch scouting software and wireless headsets from CoachComm.

"Coach Wilson was kind of hesitant at first," Lindsey says of using software for scouting. "His biggest question was: 'Will it help us win? If it doesn't help us win, if it's just a toy, there's no reason to purchase it.'"

The results speak for themselves: a state championship victory in 1999 and an overall record of 39-10 with four straight playoff appearances since 1996.

"It has been a great key to our success," says Wilson, 51, who is now fully sold on the new gadgetry. "It gives us more time to look at tendencies ... Now on Monday and Tuesday, I'm more prepared for putting in the gameplan. It's like we gain an extra day."

Lincoln's success with technology extend beyond gameday; the program's improved video-editing equipment has made it possible to produce more and better quality tapes for colleges looking to recruit its players.

"There is no doubt in mind that we have been more successful in getting kids signed," says Wilson, who has recently sent players to schools such as Florida, Syracuse and Alabama. "It's been a tremendous asset."

Wearing Two Hats

Brian Cross was facing a dilemma. After having been bestowed the honor of coaching the South squad for Ohio's 2000 senior all-star game, he now needed to begin paring down a pool of 114 players to finalize a roster.

Cross, 48, head coach at perennial Division I power Grove City H.S. for the past 13 years, found the task of evaluating the players easier when the videotape he was looking at was clear and easy to view - a reality that carries even greater significance when the tape is being viewed by a college recruiter.

"Kids get scholarships based on films," says Cross. "College coaches study films. It's important that you have a good cameraman who takes good shots and your film is critical and how good the angle is and how easy it is to view."

Grove City's success under Cross has extended beyond getting players college scholarships. The team has won seven conference titles and won 34 consecutive regular season games, at one point. One key to that on-field success has been the program's steadily increasing investment in technology, including scouting software from Digital Scout, which Cross' staff began using in the mid-90s.

"We use it when we're breaking down films on Sundays and also when we're scouting ourselves," he says. "And then during the offseason we use it when we're breaking down our own defense. So we use it pretty much all year long."

Cross says the investment of a few hundred dollars to purchase the Digital Scout has more than paid dividends in the time it saves his 11-man staff and the way it better prepares his team.

"Saving time is a big factor. One of the reasons Digital Scout has been good for us is because everyone can use and it everybody does.

"I wouldn't say that because of the scouting we have won more games, but it has made us better coaches and what it really does it makes us aware of our own tendencies."






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