The Go-To Guy

My Apologies, Fearless Readers –

I’ve been away from the CFC blog world for a little while, but after a fierce tongue-lashing from editor-in-chief down at Varsity Stadium on Saturday, this ever-loving TDSB high school blogger is back in the swing of things!

It’s been almost 4 years since I was a full-time teacher/coach in the same school. Back in the day at Richview CI, everything was sunshine and lollypops, as we won a 2006 Toronto Bowl and with the help of some of my OVFL coaching friends I was able to coordinate a defence that held opponents to 7, 0, and 6 points in the 3 Toronto bowl playdown games.

It was great, especially because my colleagues were ‘veterans’ of the high school football scene and so a lot of the weight was shared between us.

Due to the way my career works, I was bounced to a non-football school for 3 years, where although my gracious admin was kind enough to allow me to coach elsewhere, I was never tied down to a ‘program’ the way I was back in ’06.

But after a few years of mercenary-coaching and not a lot to show for it – except some great relationships with a bunch of great players and coaches – I am back doing the teacher-coach thing at the same school – only this time I dont have the safety net of a couple ‘veteran’ football guys to help me out.

It has been the longest two weeks of my career, even including those LONG OVFL registration weeks in April and May. I am getting a solid 4 hours of sleep a night. But I am where I wanted to be, and ‘they were who we thought they were’, so I have committed anew each morning to out-working everyone in my team’s league, to out-prepare my team for their opponents.

That has ALWAYS been my ‘mantra’ as a coach and administrator – if you outwork EVERYONE, you can overcome any shortfalls you may have, or at least negate the advantages that other, more talented/experienced opponents have!

Downsview SS hasn’t had football since the 1980s, and the administration was not sure what sort of turnout to expect, and neither was I. However, two weeks into the school year we’re sitting at an AVERAGE of almost 50 players each night at practice, and we ran out of the 40 sets of new equipment we purchased in April, long ago. Luckily I was able to borrow some gear from my OVFL team, and we’re sitting at a roster of just over 60 varsity players.

Not bad for a first year program, if I do say so myself. But our work is not finished, CFC’ers!

There are a lot of challenges to overcome.

First – as a Varsity team, we’ve got 13/14 year old grade nines, and 18/19 year old grade 12/13s on the same field. The challenge here is – how do we keep them seperate for safety, but also incorporate all of them into the team so we have ‘experienced’ juniors to replenish the program each year?

Second – CFC members are all probably familiar with the rules of the game. But only about 8 of our players have EVER played ANY football before. A blank slate means we can avoid teaching and then having to fix ‘bad habits’, but it also means we have to teach EVERYTHING from scratch!

Tell me, CFC’ers –

Have you ever witnessed 4 DBs dive on an incomplete pass in a live scrimmage because they thought it was a fumble?

Or, WRs actually form-tackle their DBs to ‘run block’ them?

Funny as it sounds, and ‘adorable’ as kids trying to do the best they can may be, these are things that we must teach, which you may think come as second-nature to those familiar with the game!

Don’t get me wrong – the positives FAR outweigh the negatives here, but I want people to read about these challenges and hopefully get a sense that all football’ers must start somewhere, and even the best athletes must learn the game before they can play it!

So, as we scrimmaged with Western Tech, another Varsity team which has been around fo ra while but which is rebuilding its program, on Friday, I bet you’re curious to know how we did.

Well, our 4 OVFL-experienced players dominated the game, as did their 3 OVFLers. Any time either of our ‘best’ players got their hands on the ball, we saw a big play. I get the feeling this will be the story most of the season.

I am excited to report that some of my ‘rookies’ also made some great plays, and we found out what we knew all along – if you put a natural athlete in a position where instinct overrules knowledge, he will often make plays without knowing it.

We plugged one of our track team’s sprinters in at Free Safety, and wouldn’t you know it – he took a GREAT pursuit angle and made a sideline tackle on an RB toss the very first play he was in there. The second play he broke out of his backpedal on a pass over the head of a slot receiver, picked it off at the highest point and returned it 40 yards.

After two weeks of ‘big talk’ and few ‘big plays’ out of this particular track star – who bounced from RB to WR to CB to FS – I am glad to say that we found a position where he can let his actions do the talking!

That’s my progress report from scrimmage one.

Our first game kicks off September 29. We are trying to find another Varsity team to scrimmage with this week.

I shall report in when/if that occurs, if not, see you on the 30th!

Russ