I’ve been checking out The Cost of Winning on HBO Max. The documentary tells the story of a catholic school in Baltimore that was kicked out of their league because, well, they got too good. They started recruiting players (like everyone else but better at it) and they built a serious team on the coaches dime. He went out and got some real ones and taught them how to be men and how to get out of their conditions. He gave them a shot and was chided for doing so because he was the wrong skin color. He was a white guy, so he was buying slave players. The racism inherent in that criticism came from all sides. It underscores a lot of the problems in sports.
I was part of starting a solid football program. I brought kids up from the age of 6–many of whom are top ranked players now. That happened because they played together and grew together and struggled and had something to fight for. That isn’t the case with a lot of these clubs out here. That honestly was the case when we went to the Argos and stopped being the case soon thereafter. I don’t know why. I suspect it is because we brought in people who had been together and wanted to act like they were taking over what we were building vs. building together.
That’s what I am about. I’m about coaching kids on technique and coaching kids on heart and belief. You gotta know how to play and you gotta feel how to act. Football–sports in general is about respect. When you forget how to give it you lose the opportunity to get it. You need to get punched in the mouth. You need to fall down in order to learn how to take a punch and in order to learn how to get back up. Most teams go down after getting down in a game and that is about preparedness. That is the role of a coach–in every sport.