High School Football

Something Magical About High School Football

This season both Mandarin and Raines made it to their state high school football championship games. While this weekend’s appearance in Orlando is a crowning achievement for those teams, it also marks a swift and sudden end to many players’ football careers.

“I know how special it is,” Mandarin Head Coach Bobby Ramsey said this week. “I tell my players, for almost all of you, this is the only time you’ll play 11-on-11 tackle football.”

There’s something different, almost magical that happens for high school boys playing football when they’re out there on the field. Just eleven guys, no coaches, no girlfriends, no parents, just those eleven players. The same thing happens for high school girls playing volleyball. There’s something about the rhythm of both games, the stop and go nature of the competition that breeds a closeness that doesn’t happen too often in other sports.

While high school boys become men and go onto other things, oftentimes they’re forever identified by their high school football careers. Especially if their team was successful. I occasionally get back to suburban DC where I went to high school and although I’ve been gone from there more than four decades I still get asked, “Are you the Sam Kouvaris who quarterbacked that ’73 Magruder team?”

Teaching and coaching blocking and tackling might be what the definition of the job of a “high school coach” entails, but that’s only part of the responsibility.

“I think if that’s not a big part of your belief system, you probably shouldn’t be doing it at this level,” Ramsey said about his responsibility as a high school coach.
“I have players from Yulee and First Coast who are friends of mine now. It’s nice when guys go away to college and you can tell what you taught them has helped them.”

“It’s about the relationships,” Deran Wiley, the Raines Head Coach said before the Vikings left for Orlando. “I had a player put his arms around me this week and say ‘Thanks Coach’ and I knew what he meant. It wasn’t about getting him to the State Championship game, it was about who he is.”

Both Wiley and Ramsey are proven, successful teachers of the game, but both admit if that’s the only reason you’re coaching high school football, you’re at the wrong level.

Wiley came to that realization after spending four years at Raines then two at Mandarin as an assistant before returning to the Vikings. He says it’s a staple of his decade-long head-coaching career.

“When I went to Mandarin, guys were calling me from the year before at Raines asking, ‘Hey Coach, what about this and that,” Wiley explained. “That’s when I realized they needed me for more than just football.”

“The personal development of it with the individuals is the thing you take the most satisfaction in,” Ramsey added. “These kids need you to help them. Something going on at home, how to shake somebody’s hand, how to walk into a room, the recruiting process, all of it.”

Jaguars’ players didn’t hesitate to explain what role their high school coaches played in their development, not just as football players, but also as people.

“My coach, Coach Crawford, he taught me a lot,” said Abry Jones who went to Northside High in Warner Robins, Georgia.

“I didn’t want to play football. I was cutting grass and doing yard work for my dad before going to eight grade in Warner-Robins and our neighbor came over and said, ‘You’re son’s kind of big, does he play football?’”
“I wasn’t interested but it was the hottest summer on record at the time in Georgia. My dad said, ‘If you go play football, I’ll never ask you to cut the grass again. So I went.” Little did I know we’d be standing on a field in the heat running and stuff at football practice.”

Jones says without his coach in both middle school and high school, he’s not sure he’d have continued to play and have the success he’s achieved.

“More of a mentor-mentee relationship,” Abry added. “He did everything for me. He’s the only reason I got recruited.”

Malik Jackson was eager to talk about his coach at Birmingham High in Los Angeles.

“A huge impact,” he said. “My high school coach is the one who got me to start drinking water when I get up. Helps with digestion. Taught me all kinds of things. Gave me a ride from practice, really took an interest in me as a person and encouraged me.”

“I’ve bought in more and more into developing self-confidence, self respect, self esteem,” Ramsey said of his growth as an assistant for three years and now eleven a head coach. “’Look big picture down the road,’ I started to think. ‘What can you do to help with that, who these kids become?’ Maybe we can help make a better generation of young men.”

“My Coach, Butch Goncroff taught me a lot about organization and discipline.,” Myles Jack said of his time at Bellevue High in Bellevue, Washington. “The way he ran practice, the way he conducted himself. When I got to college, I was ahead of a lot of guys because of Coach. He set me up to be successful.”

“I don’t know, my coach saw something in me I didn’t see.” Patrick Omameh said of his time at St. Francis DeSales in Columbus, Ohio. (Yes, he went to Michigan) “I was like second string JV and he promoted me to a starter on varsity. I thought it was crazy but he saw something. I’ve always been tall, but he really worked with me and helped me a lot.”

While the stereotype of a football coach remains the hard-nosed, gruff taskmaster, Wiley and Ramsey say the reality now is quite the opposite. Football is a hard game and you have to want to be there, but the two coaches who got their teams to the state championship this year know it’s more than just blocking and tackling, x’s and o’s.

“It’s really gratifying when you see these kids grow up and make something of themselves,” Wiley said.

“We talk about accountability, perseverance and responsibility,” added Ramsey. “You never know what’s going on. Players might be dealing with a lot of negativity in their lives. You have to step up and be available.”

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Rogers At Bolles: “This One Is Special”

Spend any time with Corky Rogers and it’s easy to see why he’s still coaching High School Football: he still loves it. Rogers is taking the Bolles football team to Orlando on Thursday to play Cocoa for the state championship. It would be the 12th in school history and 11th for Rogers at the school.

“This one is special,” Rogers said sitting on the bench at his home field. “I usually work with the receivers and the running backs and they’re all seniors. It’s been great watching them grow.”

At the beginning of the year, Rogers didn’t know how good his team could be. But they’ve gotten more solid on defense, getting them to the state title game.

“I told our boys, South Sumter probably deserves to play for the state championship,” Corky explained, referring to the stop Bolles made on the 1-inch line on the final play of the game to preserve their state semi-final victory. “But we made a play and deserve to play in that game too.”

With the game on Thursday night, the Bulldogs will leave on the same day around noon, stopping in Orlando for a pregame meal at 3 and heading to the stadium. Rogers left for a state title game a day early once in his career when he was still coaching at Lee.

“We were playing Wakulla and we left a day early,” he said with a laugh. “You think you know your players. You’re with them every day for four years. But I found cheerleaders hiding in bathtubs, guys making bed sheet ropes like they were trying to escape from prison, all kinds of things I didn’t want to see again!”

A health scare earlier this year, the result of blood transfusions after being hit by a car in 1988, has left Rogers weaker than he’d like, but he’s determined to be at practice and keep coaching as he always has.

“I’m hardheaded that way I guess,” he noted. “My health hasn’t been good but I’m always at practice. Yesterday I got here right before practice started but I was here.”

He’s not as active as he’d like to be but still pours over game footage preparing for the next opponent. “I get tired so I’ll do my work in my chair,” he explained. “And I can tell you, this Cocoa team wants to win a state title.”

Facing Booker T. Washington out of Miami on a regular basis for the state championship, Bolles knows what to expect. Corky says its Cocoa that Booker T has to beat each year in the semi’s to get to the championship game.

“They’re big across both lines, fast and athletic,” he said. “And they want to play. They only lost one game to Bishop Gorman (in Las Vegas) and you know how good they are.”

Bolles is one of four schools representing North Florida in the state championship round. They’ll play Thursday at 7 in Orlando. University Christian plays at 10 on Friday followed by Ponte Vedra at three. Trinity Christian plays for their fourth straight state title on Saturday at 10. Sports Reporter Brian Jackson will be at all of the games in Orlando and will have updates, highlights, interviews and analysis on News4Jax and News4Jax.com

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

NFL Contributes To HS Player Safety

With the continued advancement of coaching, nutrition and overall data in sports the natural progression is to keep up with those advancements with better player care. That’s the goal of Project 17, a public initiative that is dedicated to place full-time certified athletic trainers at all 17 high schools in Duval Country by 2020.

Five high schools, Jackson, Raines, Baldwin, Englewood and Ribault benefitted from the program last year and two more, Parker and Westside will have trainers thanks to Project 17 in the 2016-2017 school year.

“Certified athletic trainers are no longer a luxury; they are a necessity, especially in youth sports,” says Robert Sefcik, executive director of the JSMP. “Heat stroke, cardiac arrest, concussion and complications of sickle cell trait are real dangers in sports. Many sports injuries are preventable, so that is JSMP’s primary goal; however, when injuries do occur, being able to recognize and immediately respond to them is critical. That’s what certified athletic trainers do.”

Certified athletic trainers are licensed health care providers who collaborate with physicians and act as a first line of defense for high school student-athletes. Without certified athletic trainers, injuries may be overlooked or treated inadequately. Project 17 aims to reduce the incidence of sports-related injuries and endorse best practice standards and appropriate care for injuries as they occur.

Last year the Jaguars foundation donated $50,000 to the project and the NFL matched that this year. League Commissioner Roger Goodell was in town to receive the inaugural Leadership in Sports Health, Safety and Research Award on behalf of the league.

At a question and answer session, Goodell revealed he had a concussion playing baseball in high school and his twin daughters rely on their school’s athletic trainers to help get them through the season.

Goodell said of the Project 17 initiative, “It is exciting to see the collaborative approach the Jacksonville community is taking to enhance safety in high school sports by adding comprehensive athletic training programs with the support of the Jaguars and the NFL. Through Project 17, the Jacksonville Sports Medicine Program has crafted a proactive, evidence-based approach to getting student-athletes the medical supervision they need and deserve, which can serve as a model for other communities in the U.S.”

Jacksonville Sports News, Sam Kouvaris - SamSportsline.com

Tebow’s Choice

More than anything I was glad that decision day finally came for Tim Tebow of Nease High School. Both he and his parents looked frazzled at the announcement in St. John’s County on Tuesday. Tebow picked Florida and the auditorium erupted with applause.

I couldn’t help but think what the reaction would have been if he had said “Southern Cal.” Would there have been groans and catcalls? Probably not but the reaction in Florida for a Florida kid to go to Florida was very positive.

There were about a half-dozen people there with Alabama hats on, and apparently Mike Shula made a big impression on Tebow and his father and that’s how the Crimson Tide stayed in the hunt for so long. And Pete Carroll was equally impressive according to Tebow’s father Bob.

“It was a tough decision, but it was his decision,” Bob told me after the announcement was made. “I finally told him in the parking lot, ‘It’s your decision and you’re going to have to make it.”

It must have been tough, especially on a kid like Tebow who never really has had to say “no” to anybody. “I didn’t have a wrong choice,” Tim said after some of the commotion settled down. “They were all great men with great programs, I just decided on Florida because that’s where I was most comfortable. They’re going to do some great things there.”

Nease football coach Craig Howard thought it would be Gators all along, noting that Tebow’s room has been adorned with Orange and Blue since he was a kid. “He’s the most competitive player I’ve ever been around,” Howard said from the stage at Nease. “You can see his arm and his legs, but you can’t see his heart. That’s what separates him.”

Is all of the hoopla wrong for a high school senior announcing where he’s going to attend college? Probably. But it’s the way things are done. I like to call it the “ESPNification” of sports. Kids Tebow’s age have never known a world without fulltime sports cable television, so it seems normal to him and his peers. ESPN has raised the level of exposure so to compete everybody has to go along.

I can tell you whether ESPN was there or not, if Tim was making an announcement during our news at Channel 4, we’d have been there live. He was Mr. Football in the state of Florida and led his team to the state championship. Those credentials are enough to warrant big coverage.

I hope he makes it, he’s nice, grounded and doesn’t seem too affected by all of the attention. At least his Dad got it right when he said, “I told him you’ve got to go prove yourself again to your teammates, your coaches. It’s a joyous day, but it’s only a beginning.”

Amen to that.