Letter - Want To Be 1 in 11,000?

We all chase the same dream. Whether it lies in conference championships, state championships, national titles – we prepare endlessly for the honor of hoisting that trophy in glory. We’re living in denial if we don’t understand that the percentages are against us. There are terrific coaches that spend their entire life in this business and don’t ever get that opportunity. Ever wonder why they never get there? Sure, luck has its place but most of the time it can come down to one game, one first down, one turnover. Poof – your dream goes up in smoke after a bad call. Oh yeah, it’s the coaching creed not to blame the refs.

Luckily, I was able to catch up with Schutt Sports’ Coach of the Year Award winners this year at the AFCA convention last January. According to Todd Bell, director of media relations at the AFCA, 6,400 out of 11,000 AFCA members flocked to Nashville, Tennessee last month to hone their craft or maybe just to shake a few hands. It’s the Woodstock of football coaching gatherings and amidst the beer drinking and networking, there were a few gems dropped at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel lobby. Though it may have been difficult for me to balance the role of reporter/coach – I found myself drawing X’s and O’s on cocktail napkins at the hotel bar. I was able to pick enough brain of this year’s Schutt Sports Coach of The Year winners to find that their current success is contingent in three areas: stimulating competition in practice, staying the course despite adversity and adapting their scheme to their personnel.

Getting players to compete in practice is something that we’re all after and it will be a topic we will explore in the coming months at AFM. George Smith of St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, packs everything into his practice in an hour and a half. As he puts it, kids lose all focus after that so why bang your head against the wall? Apparently it works. Smith and his Raiders have won two straight state championships. Mike London, the head coach at Richmond echoes the same sentiment. London will stop practice at any moment by blowing the whistle and working what he calls his ‘sudden change drill’ where he’ll pair up offensive and defensive lineman, running backs and linebackers and receivers and defensive backs to work one-on-one drills. The loser will have extra conditioning. It’s that principle that propelled the Spiders to their first ever national championship this year.

Todd Mooney at D-III LaGrange College started a program that didn’t even have a football on campus and turned them into conference champions and a playoff team after starting 0-20 in his first two years. Tom Westerberg led Allen High School in Texas to its first ever state championship after losing in the finals the year before. His team adopted the “never again” philosophy and stormed through the playoffs in 2008 finishing a perfect 15-0. Then there is our FBS Coach of the Year Brian Kelly of Cincinnati – perennially known for his no-huddle spread, throw-it-around-the-park philosophy – turned more to rushing the ball because of injuries that plagued his two quarterbacks. The Bearcats rushed for 117 yards per game this year en route to a Big East Title.

As one of my former mentors would say, “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” It’s just our job to try and figure out what knife to use. Hopefully, you’ll get some of your next ideas from the winners’ words in this issue.

Yours in football,
Mike Kuchar
Senior Writer
American Football Monthly
MikeKuchar@AmericanFootballMonthly.com