The Knute Rockne of little league football

There’s an irony that comes with being busy: when you’re busy, all you want is to have more time to yourself, and when you’ve got too much time to yourself, all you want is something to keep you busy. Well, I graduated college almost two years ago and since then I’ve been making up for four years of non-stop busyness by wasting away the last two years.

But watching movies and playing video games is only fun for so long, especially when you don’t have any roommates to enjoy those things with. So a month ago I volunteered to help coach a little league football team. I figured that I love football, and I’m sick of how much free time I have, so why not give my free time to football?

I’m working with the 14-15 year olds. Practice started two weeks ago. When I showed up to the first practice, I was the only coach there. The team mom was there getting the guys names and numbers and said, “Well, looks like you’re in charge.” I wasn’t expecting this at all. I imagined just walking into a structured system and helping out where they could fit me in. I’ve never coached before, so I just did the first thing that came to mind: I sent them to run laps while I tried to put together an impromptu practice schedule.

By the time they were done running the head coach finally showed up. He seemed about as organized as he was punctual and to cover up for his lack of preparation, he’d yell at the kids. Sounds bad, right? Well at least he’d talk to THEM. He didn’t even acknowledge me. I walked up and introduced myself and he told me his name then walked away. I speed up to keep pace with him and asked, “So coach, what can I do to help you?” All he said in return was, “Nothing right now.”

I wanted to just tell him I’d go home then and that he could call me if he ever got the team organized enough to use some assistants, but I thought better than to burn a bridge, even if he was lighting fires from his end. Instead I just stood back and let him do his thing… which was nothing. Pretty soon a former coach showed up and was both nice to me and demanding of the players. He said he couldn’t coach and that the lazy guy would be the head coach.

Well, I’ll make this story short by saying that when the league and the parents of the players found out that this loser was the head coach, they sent someone else to take over, and Coach Chad Cook has been in charge of this team ever since and I’ve LOVED working with him.

“Winds whisper of high hopes; victory is in the skies.

A season awaits with glory in her eyes.

One joins with many on summer’s green field.

Time to strive, to dare, for all not to yield.”

We’ve now had two weeks of practice two hours a day, six days a week. It’s been hot. It’s been hard. It’s been hectic. The prick has since disappeared (which was probably inevitable anyway) and with him gone, we’ve finally been able to push these kids and get them conditioned and disciplined to the point that they actually look and play like a team.

“The palms of you hands will thicken,

The skin of your cheeks will tan.

You’ll grow ragged and weary,

But you must do the best you can.

Do you fear the force of the wind,

The slash of the rain?

Go face them and fight them.

Be savage again.”

Since I don’t really have any experience coaching, I have to fake it pretty often. I do a pretty good job of looking like I know what I’m doing and of acting tough, but one of those first few days of practice was very cold and very wet. I was just wearing shorts and a tank top. If you’ve seen me in cold weather, you know that I don’t handle it very well. Within a few minutes my teeth start to chatter and my body starts to shake. It wasn’t freezing that day… had I been playing it would have felt nice, but I was coaching, which mostly just consists of standing and shouting. The rain drenched me, and then the winds froze me and my body started to shake uncontrollably. Of coarse, I didn’t want the team to see that, so I just tried to keep moving to the point that they couldn’t see my shivers. I felt like Micheal J. Fox, how he over exaggerates his movements to mask his Parkinson’s disease.

“Each new [Saturday] met a brand new challenge,

rich with new opportunities. A time for achievement,

a time for purpose, a time for glory.”

We’ve been practicing for two weeks now and just had our first (practice) game last Saturday. Cook coordinates the offense and I have the defense. We’ve spent so much time in practice focusing on the offense that neither the team nor I was all that familiar with the defensive plays, but we ran through a few of them just before game time and of our 12 plays, we had about 9 of them down pretty well.

When I say “plays” I really mean different blitz packages. We do everything out of a 5-2 base and all our different plays are just different ways to send different men toward the quarterback. By the time the defense took the field we were already half way through the first quarter. I had organized the plays into ones I could call for long, medium, and short yardage situations.

“‘Blitz’ is definded as a sudden savage attack. It is indeed all this. The theory is simple: send more bodies at the quarterback than his blockers can absorb. The effect is sure. The premise is simple. It’s a basic, primal confrontation, man to man. No excuses are offered, none accepted. From the right outside, from the left outside, from up the middle they come all with blood in there eyes, all with one idea: get the quarterback, ‘Get the man.’”

I wanted to keep things simple at first then work the tricker blitzes as the game went along. So the first play I called was just a base with no blitzes and I had the backs in zone pass coverage. Well, they ran it and our line stoped them for a one yard loss. So, with second and eleven I called another long yardage play but sent a line backer on a blitz. Well, he didn’t make the stop but his blitz scared the running back right into the arms of one of the line men. Now it was third and twelve. I called another long yardage play and sent in a double blitz. We stopped them right on the line of scrimmage. After the three and out they were forced to punt.

I’m by no means a Knute Rockne of little league football (I just used that title as an homage to the fantasy football post I wrote a year ago), but I really do enjoy the freedom to call plays that will put my players in a position to make the play. The opponents ran a lot of plays off tackle, so what do I do? I call a play sending the defensive tackles out on containment assignments and free up the out-side linebackers to blitz that ‘c’ gap. The play worked perfectly and the linebacker felt like a 14-year-old Dick Butkus. And it’s fun to get on a player’s case if you see him playing out of position, because you know that putting him in position will give him a better chance to make the tackle, and in turn, make his day.

My defense played perfectly, but I kind of felt bad for them. Some guys only play defense, and the defense was only on the field for three plays the entire first quarter. As the game went on, the time of possession continued to weigh heavily in our favor, so we had to rotate guys in on offense to get them some more playing time. But every time the defense took the field, the result was always a punt, fumble or interception. The opponents only ever crossed midfield once, and that all happened on one single play where a lucky receiver of theirs broke three of our tackles. But I was glad to see that all our defenders got a chance to be playmakers.

“All these years my goal’s been to come out here and

be nice and relaxed, but jeez, I’m a nervous wreck.”

I’ve wanted to try my hand at coaching for a while now and Saturday’s game was a great way to inaugurate my career. The 35-0 final score made it look like we had it all under control the entire time, and I’ll say that’s true for the players’ part, but I have to admit that I was a nervous wreck when that first defensive series began. After seeing my boys perform so well, I realized something: coaching isn’t necessarily about making perfect calls every play, it’s about preparing the players in practice so that they’re conditioned, disciplined, and focused during the game. Other than that, my only job is to call a play and let their athletic ability do the rest.

That first day of practice I was ready to quit, but I’m glad I endured an awkward evening, because now I’m a part of a team that works together and is fun to spend my evenings with. Who knows what our record will be at the end of the season… maybe that team from Murray that we played on Saturday was just a bunch of first-time players, but for this first-time coach, I can tell that it’s going to be the kind of thing that keeps me so busy, that by the time this season is over, I won’t be relieved to have free time to myself again, I’ll be sad to let it go. I’m having a lot of fun with these kids.