Pressdog.com

Men, Coaching Football

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 8/29/05)

As I gazed out from my position on the Westridge Elementary playground on August 22 I saw something that struck fear into the very center of my soul.

I saw men, coaching football.

I immediately began to pray for God to prevent these men from making fools of themselves while bankrupting their families.

Allowing fathers to coach youth football is the slipperiest of slopes. It's like going for it on fourth-and-goal from the 8-yard line - risky, ballsy even. Because, unless these men are of very stout moral and spiritual fiber, they will quickly turn into 10-year-old boys with size 42 waists and multiple major credit cards.

You don't have to be a youth football coach's wife to understand the incredible fiscal peril created by that combination. Because here's the deal, Sparky: You just can't have any random coaching equipment when you're coaching football. You cannot have some ancient blocking dummy and some garage-sale practice cones. You can't have old, worn balls (careful) and last year's receiver gloves. Because what kind of message does that send to the team? That second-rate is good enough? That "used" is all their worth? I don't think so.

Enter the credit card. In the hands of men, coaching football, and combined with access to the Internet or sporting goods megastores, a credit card is the most family-budget hostile threat on the planet.

My former neighbor's husband, for example, is coaching football. Next thing she knows she's the proud part owner of an NFL-grade blocking dummy and a carton of new cones. The old ones weren't the right kind of cones, so you can see that the coach was obligated out of a sense of loyalty to his players to get the right kinds of cones. I mean, how can someone learn how to cover in the flat or the intricacies of a center screen with the wrong frigging' kind of practice cones? Well ya can't. Denzel Washington had the right kind of cones when he coached the Titans and, by the ghost of Bear Bryant, you will too.

Or, in the words of my beloved high school football coach, Jim "Flood" Boyd, when confronted with some unacceptable on-field atrocity: "Judas priest. What is THAT?"

My former neighbor says there's been wild talk about taking a mower over to the Westridge playground under the cover of night to mow lines in the grass to greater facilitate the young gridders' learning. I would not be shocked to hear that the coaches are pricing out artificial Field Turf.

Right about here my wife (Mrs. Pressdog) gives me the eye roll, because during my eight years as a youth soccer coach I committed my share of spending indiscretions. All I can say is that I really did NEED that dry-erase soccer field clipboard, OK? And those goalkeeper gloves and jersey? Well, of course I had to buy that stuff. I'm not going to scar the kids by forcing them to take the field with an uncool-looking, naked-handed goalkeeper. As if.

It's even easier for youth football coaches to get out of hand, however. First, there is just more equipment to buy than in other sports. But mostly, the football coaching zeal grows from the fact that most of the coaches are former players. And, as a former grid warrior for the Harris-Lake Park (Iowa) Fighting Wolves, I can understand wanting desperately to have a new generation experience the feeling that comes on you when you administer The Hit.

Let me just say, if I can complete this sentence without starting to froth at the mouth, that hitting another human being hard enough to lift him off his feet and put him squarely on his but or back is almost sexual. In fact, the resulting feeling originates just south of your belly button (if you get my first-and-ten drift) and radiates out until it hits your brain and causes you to howl like the most butt-kicking alpha male of the wolf pack.

Let's ask the right defensive tackle for the Everly Cattlefeeders who I hit so hard he became airborne while blocking for a trap play in October 1981. I swear a second after he hit the ground and our running back (Todd Ahrenstorff!) blew through the resulting hole I turned to the far end zone and howled like a dog at the top of my lungs.

That's the feeling you get when you administer The Hit, and that's the feeling these men are driven to pass on, even if it means spending hundreds of their personal dollars and acting in a very mentally unstable fashion.

My only advice to these men who coach football is passed on from my high school coach, Jim Boyd. What Coach Boyd hated most of all were "stupid mental errors." As an offensive lineman, the very worst thing that could happen would be for Coach Boyd to ask you "who ya blockin' " and you not know. That is a stupid mental error.

If you knew what you were supposed to do, tried to do it and failed (which is a physical error), well, Coach Boyd didn't get frothed up about it. There's always someone bigger or faster or sometimes you just screw up and whiff a guy. It happens. But, not knowing what you're supposed to attempt to do - no excuse. As Coach Boyd said and I now fully believe, all sports are about 85% mental.

I loved every second of the four years I played for Coach Boyd, who is still coaching today for the very fortunate Bulldogs of Le Mars, Iowa. I also loved every second I played in junior high for John Nelson, who I think is about to retire from beloved H-LP. Coach Nelson had the difficult task of taking hormonal, grab-asstic, uncoordinated 7th and 8th graders, teaching them the wishbone offense (a properly executed triple option still makes me leap to my feet and scream "HE COULD BE GONE") and send them on to Coach Boyd. God I loved it. God help me, I did love it so.

So these youth football coaches, like all coaches, have the potential to be huge positive role models for their players. Let's hope they're up to it. Let's hope they are more concerned about mental errors than physical ones. And God love them for giving it a shot. I think they can do it, provided they have the proper equipment, including the latest in digital video tape recording devices to record and analyze all practices and games, of course.

Come on honey, it's for the kids.

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