YOUTH
Many people would say it's just a game, and in many respects they would be 100% correct. However to me, football is much more than a game. I can attribute most of the important things in my life to the game of football or the direct relationship between football and what is dear to me. From the time I was young I was consumed with sports. I liked all sports, if they were football, basketball, & baseball. I can remember from an early age though that most of my favorite moments playing as a child were revolved around football. When I was 5, an older teen from a different church would bring a football to our revival and throw passes to the young kids. He used to have his dad come watch me dive for catches and tell me how great I was. It made me feel like Jerry Rice until he showed up with a girlfriend one year. Every Sunday afternoon during football season, my dad and I would take on my two older brothers in the backyard even if dad was tired from harvest. I loved those afternoons. It's something I can't wait to do with my kids someday.
INFLUENCE
During middle school, football was of marginal importance since we played together with our rival schools within our own district. We never really had great chemistry on those teams. However, that changed dramatically in high school. I've been extremely blessed to have been around many of the coaches I played under. My high school football coach had a profound effect on me during those four years. I had made a choice to speed home one night that left me with a broken ankle, mashed up face, and no drivers license for a year. During summer weights my parents would drop me off at Coach's house to ride the rest of the way there. An opportune time for him to lecture me or come down on me, but he never did. Of course he told me to be smart, but then he talked with me about how he had many some dumb decisions as a youth as well which shocked me quite honestly. He was such a good Christian man, I wouldn't have ever thought he made any similar mistakes. What got me the most is that he was willing to openly share those things with me. Something that I have no shame in sharing my players and students now. Needless to say, my high school football coach was the reason I wanted to coach one day as well because I wanted to be able share and impact the way he impacted me. If it weren't for football, I would never have had a mentor to guide me in that time of my life.
I had the great pleasure of coaching with him on his staff for three years.
FRIENDSHIP
Football has given me friendships that are still standing to this day. When my classmates and I were sophomores, many of us started on our varsity squad. We went a dismal 2-7 that season. However, we were a close knit group who knew the value of hard work. We weren't a privileged group, just a group of blue collar kids. At that time no football team in our school's 43 year history had ever won a playoff game. Our experience and perseverance led us to the first playoff win in school history. Coming into our senior year we had developed great chemistry and we had become a brotherhood. We had each other's backs. We bickered and argued, but it was a special thing to be a part of when we would band together in times of adversity. We ended that senior year with a one point loss in the state quarter finals. Best season in school history. It was excruciating to walk off the field hand-in-hand with one of my brothers who is still a great friend to this day & was in my wedding last summer. Another one of my best friends who was also a groomsman in my wedding was on that team. After college we became roommates, and at my first head coaching job I had the chance to bring him on our staff. Those were two great years of late night film study, and personnel & philosophical discussions. Football not only helped solidify two friendships that are still strong today, but gave me a chance to compete again alongside one of my best friends.
LOVE
I wasn't kidding when I said that if it weren't for football that I wouldn't have many of the things I cherish today. It probably even sounded like I didn't love my wife, if you already knew I was married. Pitt State football is huge in Southeast Kansas. My wife and I both attended Pitt State at the same time, but in four years we had never met even though she was good friends with my cousin. She was living back with her parents two hours away after graduation. But on September 18th, 2010, God's plan came to fruition. My cousin had invited me over to his house to grill steaks after the Pitt State game....and there was a beautiful girl there that I simply couldn't take my eyes off of who liked red dirt country music. I was hooked! Even though apparently when we first met my wife thought I was a little too confident, just under three years later we tied the knot. Had there never been a Pitt State football game that day, she never would have been in town. So I literally have the Pitt State football game to thank for our small new family.
RELATIONSHIP
There is nothing more that I value in coaching than developing relationships with players. Football gives me the outlet to develop relationships and hopefully somewhere along the way impact a young person like my coach did for me. I think in many respects, I've learned as much from players as they have from me. As coaches we always preach about battling through adversity, but we face the demons of defeat just like the players do. One group of young men hold a special place in my heart because they confirmed many things I believed, but not yet witnessed. The Class of 2013, and the two classes below them, at Southeast High School, my alma mater where I came back to coach, taught me what rising through adversity truly meant. In their first two seasons in high school, while I was still an assistant, they had a combined 4 wins. My first year as a head coach it got worse when we went 1-8 and got beat by an average of almost 50 points per game. I was tired of losing, and so were they. They committed themselves to an idea, to a principle. After an offseason of hard work, they started the next season 6-1 while beating two teams by 28 points who had beaten us by 28 & 50 the year before. That season and those kids confirmed so many things for me and I'm deeply indebted to those young men, they gave me hope in a dire situation. I loved those guys like every other player I have and they loved me, and we weren't afraid to tell each other that. Perhaps the greatest surprise I have ever received came this fall at my first game here in Hesston, when before the game I looked into the stands to see a blob of Columbia Blue. Seven of my former players had driven 3 1/2 hours for my first game as a Swather. That is the power of football. The bonds it forms are unexplainable and uniquely special to me. I've now started to form some great relationships with my players here in Hesston this year and that will always be my #1 goal. I am extremely blessed to be around the great group of young men we have here, and look forward to continue building a brotherhood with the young men in our Swather Football family that will last beyond their playing days.
Football has led me to events, places, and people I would never have had the opportunity to experience without it. So you see, it's not "just a game" to me...
