For Love of Football

Football can be very mysterious at times, it can be tough, and it can be amazing. It can also be all three of those things at the same time. Football can all of these things for the players, as well as the coaches who coach their players. Some days are better than others, but if a coach is worth his weight in gold then that coach or coaches preach "the process".


The process includes teaching them the fundamentals, teaching them to be responsible for their actions, showing them how to lose and win with grace and humility, and finally teaching these young men how to be a man. Last night for a group of young men that process showed up and the result was tremendous and I couldn't have been more proud of these athletes.


The football players I am talking about are group of athletes that comprise Mesa High School's JV football team in Mesa, Arizona. To those of you that do not know, Mesa High School is a high school that has a lot of history behind it. It's been burned to the ground, rebuilt, won many state championships throughout its wonderful past, and best of all, has tradition like no other high school I have been associated with. This tradition makes Mesa High a very special place for the students that attend there. Alumni come to football games all the time. There are third, fourth, and sometimes fifth generation students at the school.


Last night Mesa High JV played their rivals the Mountain View Toros. This is a rivalry that has been pretty one sided for a long stretch of time. It's almost a big brother, little brother type of rivalry in which the Toros look at Mesa as the little brother and Toros look at themselves as the older, wiser bigger brother. The tide may be beginning to turn in terms of that perception.


All week at practice, myself, and the other coaches on staff preached "the process" in terms of paying attention to detail, doing your job on offense and defense, and to look at Mountain View as just another team standing in our way of a victory. The practices leading up to this game were at best average, as anybody who has teenagers at home can attest to, getting a sophomore in high school to focus on anything can be very difficult. I was afraid that we may come out flat and not very aggressive. I have been wrong on many things in my life, this was added to the list last night.


As we were warming up, Mountain View was also warming up. They would break and yell "beat Mesa" loud enough so that our kids could easily hear it. Our athletes heard them just fine. I heard them just fine and it got underneath my skin a lot! I started telling players that this was our night, not their night. That we were the tougher team, the faster team, and that we were going to show them that our team was not to be taken lightly. Time to kickoff...


We kickoff, our players are sprinting down the field to make the tackle, and in the corner of ear, I hear one of my coaches whispering "break down, break down.." the Mountain View gets loose a little bit, however, he has the ball hanging out from his body a little bit and one of our Mesa players comes and smacks the ball loose and we recover the fumble and take over in Toro territory. A few plays later, we are in the endzone and up 7-0.


As the course of the game proceeds, the breaks tend to go our way and we end up leading at the half 20-7. The seven points that Mountain View got were a gift from us because of penalties on us. It kept their drive going and we paid the price for being undisciplined on the defensive side of the ball. In the locker room I press the point that we will take the opening kickoff and run the ball down their throat and put them out of their misery. Guess what? That is exactly what we did. Our quarterback performed very well, the offensive line performed well, and it was a great drive for our team.


The momentum was ours. The players could feel the tide beginning to turn in their favor and they were starting to feed off that surge of confidence and wanting to bury the Toros underneath a ton of points. Mesa got their wish. As their head coach, I was starting to see the other coaches wanting that same surge to continue. We started getting other players in, so that everybody could have that feeling of "yes, Mountain View is ours this year!". They were ours, there was no denying that cold hard fact.


When that final horn sounded, everybody lined up at the 50 yard line and shook hands. Elation on our players faces, dejection on the other side. I didn't care about how Mountain View felt, the only thing I was feeling was a sense of pride for our players. Mesa players were hugging each other, I even had a couple come up and hug me and say coach "We freaking did it!" Yes, you did. A 40-14 thrashing of the Toros. In our final gathering after the game, I told them that the feeling you will have tonight and walking around school tomorrow is something that you should never forget. I told the team, "You will walk around Mesa High tomorrow knowing that you beat Mountain View, how sweet is that?!".  Hopefully these players are walking with pride around the school.


Great job by our young players. Fear the Hop and Carry On....