Coaches see big picture

The e-mail sent to several area high school football coaches was vague, but simple.

What are you trying to accomplish? How do you measure success?

The replies should warm the heart of everyone who cares about high school athletics.

Not a single coach listed winning a state championship as a measuring stick of success.

In fact, no coach mentioned conference championships, the playoffs, playoff runs or even winning games as the primary reason they coach high school football.

These coaches are passionate about high school football. They devote their summers, their weekends and many of their nights to their programs.

Hours logged in the summer or in the spring never show up on a pay stub. Neither does the time spent working on fields, painting field houses or doing laundry.

Despite that passion and devotion, though, the coaches agreed that success can't be based on a win-loss record.

"From the football side of things, all you can ask is for the players to do their best and make a great effort," Leesville Road coach David Green said. "But the bigger thing is what kind of lessons are you teaching the guys."

Every high school coach knows teams need to win games. A team that goes 0-10 repeatedly most likely will have a new coach soon.

But when talking about success, the coaches mentioned things that had nothing to do with scores.

Most agreed that one of the things they want to teach is commitment.

Wayne Bragg of Panther Creek said commitment encompasses many things.

"Commitment in your personal life in doing things the right way," he said. "Commitment in your school work [homework, projects, studying for a test, etc.]. Commitment to your team [weight training, practice habits, etc.].

"If we can commit great effort to the task at hand, the results will take care of itself."

To get commitment, Garner coach Nelson Smith talks about focusing on the team.

"We stress to our kids how important it is to work together," Smith said. "Football is the greatest game to prepare them for life because you have to depend on 10 other guys on every play. You always have to count on others to be successful in life."

Millbrook's Clarence Inscore said he asks his players to be committed to the team and to themselves.

"The players have to be committed to the team and be disciplined," he said. "The Team has to come first and foremost for every player. We expect our players to be model students and citizens, and represent Millbrook with pride."

James Jenkins of Word of God sees the football team as an extension of the church-supported school's purpose.

His goal is "to successfully impart integrity, good morals, and Godly character into young people [which] will make them champions on and off the field."

For every winning team, there is a losing team, so if winning and losing are the only criteria for success, half of the teams are failures every game.

Luckily, high school football is about much more than the scoreboard.