Merry Christmas... Happy Birthday to the Ultimate Leader

What are the characteristics of a great leader?

I have spent the last few months writing about great people and football coaches. I have learned a lot from those guys. But, my ultimate role model for coaching never played a down of football and never carried a whistle.

I will acknowledge there are many different models for leadership. For me, the 10th chapter of John’s gospel is the best blueprint for the right leadership model and that ultimate leader is Jesus Christ.

When I was growing up, one of my dad’s books I read frequently was Wes Neal’s The Handbook on Coaching Perfection. The purpose of the book is to explain how Jesus would coach a team and how a Christian should coach a team. It seems hard to believe now, but when my dad was growing up, he asked my grandmother, is it possible to be a football coach and a Christian?

In 2014, there are over two billion Christians in the world. At the time of his crucifixion, Jesus had 11 living disciples. They were terrified.

How did 11 cowards grow into two billion people? They saw the living Christ after the crucifixion. But, it was a lot more than just that he rose from the dead, it was that he did it for them.

In the 10th chapter of John, it says the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. I don’t know about you, but I am compelled to follow leaders that put my best interest and the interest of others ahead of their own. Those leaders motivate me to give my all and to give my very best effort.

Self-centered leaders, and I have been around a bunch of them, usually motivate through fear and intimidation. And that can work, but usually only in the short term and often the end is a crash and burn. I can tell you this, it doesn’t work well with me or the guys I work with.

As a leader, it is great that you put your people first. But, the leader has to be competent and capable. Christianity falls apart if there is no resurrection. It would have meant that Jesus had great intentions, but that is where it would end.

But human leaders are not perfect. How is a human leader able to follow this model? Even a competent and capable leader will make a ton of mistakes.

Surprisingly, the Christ-like leader has a lot of freedom. That freedom comes from phrases like the following:

“I am sorry.”

“I was wrong.”

“Your way is better than my way.”

“You know more about this than I do.”

“I could have handled that better.”

I have had to say those phrases often over the past 22 years as a head coach. If you never say those things as a leader, you have no credibility.

Everyone that follows you know you are not perfect. To pretend otherwise is foolish.

I can follow someone who will admit when they are wrong. If they can’t do that or won’t do it, they are not a good leader and following them would be a poor decision.

In 1 John 4:19, it says, “We love each other because he loved us first.”

It reminds me of Coach Sharpe on that mountain in the summer of 1986. For your team to love each other, he said, “You love them first!”

Can you lead without loving the people you lead? You can. I have seen it done but I don’t believe it’s the best way.

I don’t think it is the route to go for sustained success. I don’t want to lead that way.

Chuck Smith, Larry French, Steele Harmon, Bill Arnsparger, Vince Lombardi, Blanton Collier, even my own dad have been great men, coaches and role models for me. The list is much longer but it wasn’t a guy in black shoes and white shoestrings that had the best blueprint for being a high school football coach.

It was ultimately a carpenter from Nazareth that knew what was best to do when there is a whistle hanging around your neck.

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Getting Tougher.... Playing Hard

Former Harrodsburg HS Legendary Coach, Alvis Johnson, presenting the Titan Captain Awards named in his honor. Coach Johnson is the Patriarch of football in our community. He constantly does things behind the scenes, everyday, helping people that no one sees. Truly a great man and inspiration.

We had a joint MS & HS staff meeting this week that was very productive. Most staffs I talk to want to make their kids tougher and play harder. Here are some thoughts on that subject. If you have other ideas, please email me at david.buchanan@mercer.kyschools.us.

Organizational Purpose: To pursue excellence each day and in every detail to build a championship caliber program and mentally tough young men of the highest character, discipline and determination.

General Responsibilities:

-  Be loyal to the school, program, head coach, administration, players, and other coaches in our program (5-12).

-  Complaints, concerns and criticisms should be handled behind closed doors with the VARSITY or MS HEAD COACH.

-  Assist head coach in off-season as available and as needed.

How to make our kids tougher:

1-      Model toughness for our kids.

2-      Design your drills so that they have a fast tempo and players get as many reps as possible. Make drills demanding. Football is a tough game to play. If it is played properly, it should develop toughness.

3-      Demand, expect, & hold them accountable for running to the ball every snap in Team Defense & Perimeter Defense.

4-      Expect them to be able to line up properly, play fast, & execute our offense. Time the periods & hold them accountable for not running the plays in the set time.

5-      Demand good body language when they are tired.

6-      One on one isolation in the middle of Team Periods, Inside Drill, etc. Use sparingly to maximize effectiveness.

7-      WIN Drill & 3^rd Down Drill

8-      Coach them to be better football players. The better they become as football players, the more confidence they will have, the more success they will have on the field, and the tougher they will be.

How to make our kids play hard:

1-      Make sure the kids know you care about them. In general, kids play hard for a coach that cares about them.

DWS……#1 love hard & #2 coaches hard. #2 is not effective without the first.

2-      The kids will know you care about them by spending TIME with them OUTSIDE of football and talking about things important to them OTHER than football. (same as your kids @ home)

A.     Pick a different player to walk back from practice each day. Have a conversation.

B.     Talk to them at school, and as much as possible, stuff outside of football.

C.     Be creative. Many coaches miss this piece then wonder….”Why I am I not effective?” or worse, blame the kids.

3-      Sometimes you still need to coach effort. Use the same ideas for making guys tougher.

Football coaches historically take for granted their drill work, think it is the best it can be, etc. Constantly evaluate & tweak your drill work. Make it as demanding and precise as you can.  PREPARE for practice.  Think through what you will do. Don’t wing it or take it for granted.

Stay the course. We are on the right track. Invest little to no time and energy into those that are against us, that don’t believe in what we are doing.  That is a waste of our time.

Focus on helping our kids and program get better, ONE day at a time. Work to become a better coach, ONE day at a time. The rest is noise. Ignore it.

Titan Football..... Turf.... an Indoor, Full Scale, Practice facility

By adding this "turf" to the top, we will now be able to have a full scale football practice in the complex. The bulk of the project was paid for with football sponsorship money. Since ALL athletes will benefit and be able to use this area, Coach Smith used a small portion of bowl money to help us with the project. Thank you Coach Smith! 

The way this will work....this new top area will be split between two position groups. RBs & LBs on one end, OL & DL on the other end. WRs & DBs will be down on the main turf. When we go to team periods, we will go down to the main turf.

This is a great day for Titan Football and ALL Titan athletes!

Exit Interviews- getting to know your kids and seeing your program from their perspective

I got started with Exit Interviews today. It gives our kids a chance to say what is on their mind and also a chance for me to talk one on one with every single member of the team. Obviously that is tough to do inseason on a consistent basis.

Overall the feedback has been positive. Probably the most positive piece so far is that several have said that the way I can help them get better is give them access to the complex for individual workouts. That makes me believe our investment in the top level, additional turf area will help our kids reach their goals. I also like the idea that they want to work on their own to improve. Most of the GREAT players I have coached over the years were guys that went way above and beyond working on their own. One Christmas Eve, Chris Lofton showed up at the house wanting the key to the weightroom. I didn't have it because Dustin Grutza had beat him to it!

This desire to work on their own is hopefully a sign that our culture is moving more in the direction we want it to be.

The exit interviews give me a good insight into what our kids like and don't like about our program. And, when the same things keep coming up that are negative, we do make adjustments. I am always thankful for the opportunity to make corrections before we begin losing kids.

If any other coaches would send me their exit interviews, I am always trying to tweak what we do.  I like what we do, but we can always find ways to do it better.  If you have some good exit interview questions, please send them to me at david.buchanan@mercer.kyschools.us.

Year 26.... plenty of Bad & Ugly, but much more Good, especially at the End.

Year 26 as a head coach was unlike any other. I am use to our teams playing their best football in November. But, this season was different because our September and October were so rough.

I love our kids, but practice for most of the preseason and regular season was a struggle. We fell into a cycle. They loafed. I yelled. We ran. Not good at all. To make it worse, we were hit with some rough injuries, losing 4 starters that played alot on both sides of the ball in September in one ballgame. Even the ones that were still playing were hampered by injuries. And, we were hit with a bunch of illness as well. It was brutal. The 2017 regular season was not fun. Fortunately, November was much more enjoyable.

When we walked off the field after losing on 10/13, we were at a low point and facing our open week.  We were not tough and we were not playing well.

I credit our staff for doing a great  job of planning our practices during the open week. Our assistants were precise in pinpointing the skills that needed improvement and then designing the drill work to make us better.  Instead of taking out our frustrations on the kids, our coaches simply coached to make them better and continued to hold them accountable. But, it was a POSITIVE week. It was not run our kids into the ground, who were already struggling, and were facing a very good Boyle County team in week 10 who would eventually be the state champions in 3A.

Another positive of the open week was it gave us a chance to work on a formation we had never used before. I have never seen anyone use it. It was very different. We had trips to one side, a center and two linemen on the ball, and two linemen split opposite of trips with a WR. We were in the shotgun with one running back. We were trying to create space for our skilled athletes and help our linemen with pass protection. And, Boyle County is extremely well-coached. The set allowed us to negate some of their coaching and preparation because it was so different. Although we didn't win the game, we were able to make it 7-7 early. We did some good things in a loss that helped our kids going forward. And, that set became a big part of our game plans going into November.   

We struggled stopping the run most of the season. But, beginning with the 2nd half of our 1st round playoff game, we began to play significantly better stopping the run. As an entire team, we began to play some really good football, reaching the state quarterfinals. 

 When the season ended, only 10 points separated us from the 4A State Champion, Franklin-Simpson. They defeated Collins by 4 points, who defeated us by 6 points the week before. On October 13th, Franklin-Simpson & Collins would have both put a running clock on us.... easily. The improvement our kids made in such a short time was incredible and it became one of my best experiences, ever, as a HS football coach.  Our kids and assistant coaches did a phenomenal job keeping the wheels on and making us a very good football team.

Going forward, I have to figure out a better way to navigate the early part of the season. I did a terrible job for our kids. We had no energy/juice in September. I have some ideas and we will work through those as a staff.

I also have to figure out a better way to navigate injuries and illness. Those are part of the game.  It is my job to figure that part out. There were many Friday nights that we looked like we had not practiced. That is because we had so many guys that had missed so many practice reps. It was not their fault they had been sick or hurt and not practiced. But, it was my fault for not coming up with better answers. I do believe if we can navigate the early part of the season better, that will help with the injuries as well.

Another change going forward is that I must be more deliberate in building the right culture. Previously, if you hired good men as assistant coaches and ran your program the right way, culture took care of itself. That is no longer true. We will take some steps as a team, involving our kids, including our incoming freshmen, to build the culture we want. I would not say we have a bad culture. But, there is alot of room for improvement.

A very tangible change / improvement is that we are going to "turf" an area in the top of the complex that will be 8 yards wide and 100 feet long. This area, combined with the turf we already have in the complex, will allow us to have a full scale indoor practice facility. We will have RBs/LBs on one end upstairs, OL/DL on the other end upstairs, and the WRs/DBs down on the main turf. Team offense and defense will be on the main turf.  I am excited about what this addition will mean to our kids and program.  Our offseason drill work will be enhanced and we will be able to have much more productive practices when we must stay indoors.

After we lost in the quarterfinals, the two weeks leading up to the state championship games were brutal. Those days get tougher every year. The only way I could cope with the fact that we were not playing was either spend time with my family or work to make our program better. The Saturday after our Quarterfinal loss (which came down to the last play of the game), Trosper, John Combs & I made the trip to South Bend for the Notre Dame - Navy game. It was our 7th year in a row for that trip and it has become one of the best things we do.  But, when I got up Sunday morning and there was no game plan to prepare, staff meeting, etc. ... it hit me like a ton of bricks that our season was over. I am a horrible loser and I hate it now more than ever. But, I am better at handling it on the inside and not allowing it to take such a terrible toll on my family, especially the greatest wife a football coach could have in Stephanie.

In fact, I asked Stephanie if she was up for 26 more years of coaching football. I would be 78. Her response was , "Sure!"  

I am still learning. One reason I want to keep coaching football is that I have been around the game my entire life and it is by far my best shot at being good at something. The maintenance guys at Mason County told me nothing else was in my brain because all it had in it was football. I have no hobbies.... unless football is both my hobby and my job. 

Coach Floro allowed me to speak at our Middle School banquet today. I suggested Christmas gift ideas for those young men.... Why We Can't Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. & Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Dr. King's book explains that the only way to truly lead and bring about change is to change the way people think and what they have in their heart. Viktor Frankl's book helps us understand that no one can take away our freedom to choose our attitude, our reaction to our circumstances, and most importantly, our freedom to serve others.  If we want to have a great culture and achieve at a high level, we have to THINK differently.

As I spoke today, I got a little wound up, and somewhat loud. Some of Trosper's teammates wondered why I was mad! Some even told him,  "Your dad needs to be a preacher." He explained to those guys, my dad is not mad, but he is excited and that is when he starts getting loud.

 I am thankful that I am already excited about Year 27.  

Thank you Arpan Dixit of the Harrodsburg Herald for the photos!