Vince Kinder... Harrodsburg HS Football ... and a kick in the "tail"

Vince Kinder, early 70s, Harrodsburg HS
photo from Danville Advocate Messenger

Tonight I was with a group of our coaches at Casa Grande here in Harrodsburg. A gentlemen comes up to me, asks if I am David Buchanan, and introduces himself as Vince Kinder.

Vince was an outstanding player at Harrodsburg HS in the early 70s. I remember my Dad talking about him.

He proceeds to tell me how much he thought of my Dad and then a story I had never heard before.

One night when my Dad was the head football coach at Boyle, Vince made a tackle on the Boyle sideline in  a muddy ball game. According to Vince, my Dad kicked him in the "tail'" and said... "Nice tackle Kinder. Next time don't make it so close to me!"

Vince told me that when he would see my Dad since that ballgame, they would tell that story and laugh about it.

That was a new one for me. But, I can see my Dad doing that. I wouldn't do that now, of course. But, in the early 70's, I can see that happening, and it not being that big of a deal.

Incidents like tonight are one of my favorite things about being back in my hometown. Every time I hear a new story on my Dad, or someone comes up to talk about him, for just a second, it feels like my Dad is standing next to me.  Really can't put into words how wonderful those moments are and I am very thankful for them.

What is your leadership model..... develop or discard? Thank you Curtis Wren

August, 1982 photo by Larry Vaught

The summers of my junior and senior year in high school, I was fortunate to have a job working for Clyde Jackson in his cornfields. Morris Allen Stewart is Clyde's son in law. Morris Allen and my Dad had coached together at Boyle County. Coach Stewart helped me get that job.

When I got back to Mercer County, I told Coach Stewart I wanted Trosper to work in the cornfields like we did. He told me that no one does that anymore!

In the summers of 1981 and 1982, I was a corn roguer for Mr. Jackson. We would walk through cornfields and chop out the bad corn. Toward the end of July, the corn could get pretty high. It was a hot dirty job.

Another job we would do was to detassel corn. Physically, that was a much easier job. We would ride a machine (highboy) above the corn and remove the tassels from the top of the corn.  The faster you could detassel, the faster the machine could move. And, missing a tassel was not good. It meant the entire machine moving backwards.

My problem with both jobs was that I was an uncoordinated, clumsy, unathletic subdivision kid. You might as well have told me to fly a jet airplane. When it came to tobacco, all I could do was load and unload wagons. I would have definitely lost an arm or leg cutting tobacco. The over/under on me to fall out of the top of a barn housing tobacco would have been about 30 minutes.

My foreman working for Mr. Jackson was Curtis Wren. Curtis didn't say a whole lot, but he did a good job of letting us know what needed to be done. Especially at the beginning, I missed a bunch of corn that needed to be chopped out when we would rogue corn.  And, if the entire highboy was backing up for a missed tassel, it was probably my fault.

I know Curtis got really frustrated with me, but he gave me a chance to get better. I found out later from others that even though I started off pretty bad, he knew I was trying and wanted to give me a chance.  He never told me that. I found that out years later.

Looking back on it, I think it is a miracle that I kept that job the first year and then got hired back for a second summer.

Over the years, when I may get frustrated with an assistant coach or player, I think about Curtis.  I start the same way Curtis started with me.... does the guy have good intentions?  Does he want to be here?  Is he doing the best he can?  Can he be successful down the road?

As leaders, we can discard people or develop them. If at all possible, my choice has been and will be to develop them...if they WANT to be there and are there for the right reasons. From a very practical standpoint, no organization has perfect people. In our football program, if we eliminate everyone with significant flaws, the head football coach will be the first guy out the door.  We will always be starting over with new people because everyone we hire will have their flaws or issues. But, most of those same individuals will bring a skill set and passion to the organization to make it grow stronger. For me, if a guy loves kids and loves football, we can work on the rest of it.

I am really glad Curtis hung in there with me. I also am thankful for the head coaches, principals, and superintendents that have hung in there with me and been patient over the years. I wish Trosper could get the same experience and benefits I got from those cornfields. Now, I do NOT want to go back to work in those cornfields again! But, I am thankful for those hot summers and that I had a boss that believed I could do it. I had no idea that I was learning about leadership in those cornfields, but I have applied that lesson often over the years. Thank you Curtis Wren.

Chris Mason: Send me an Open Response... and are you ok?

Mondays after a loss are tough. Probably the hardest one of all was November 25, 2002. The previous Friday we had lost to Russell in the state quarterfinals, 11-8.Earlier in the season, Russell had defeated us for the district championship 12-7. Our 2002 Royals only lost those two games and had defeated 3A Finalist Rockcastle County in the Bob Allen Pigskin Bowl. We had been ranked #1 for the first time in school history. The 2002 Royals were very good and we were devastated that our season was over.

That morning in class I received an email from my good friend Chris Mason. Chris was a football coach and history teacher at Boyle County HS.  Chris's email said he needed some good open response questions and could I send him one. I wasn't sure what to think, but I found one and send it. A few minutes later, another email. Chris says, "that was a good one, can you send me another one?"  I dig up one more and send it to him.

About 5  minutes later, my classroom phone rings.... it is CHRIS MASON. He says, "Are you OK?" I say, "No, I am not. We got beat 11-8 Friday night. What do you think??"  He says, "Well, I just wanted to check on you and make sure you were all right."

As it turned out, the open response emails were just his way of checking on me. He knew I would not handle that loss well.

Tonight, Chris Mason and his 7 state title rings get inducted into the Boyle County Rebel Hall of Fame. He had a GREAT career coaching at Boyle and now does a super job as the Principal of Bullitt East HS. All of that is great, and I am certainly very proud of him. But, most of all, I am thankful for a great friend that has been keeping an eye on me for a long time.

Congratulations Chris!

Growth & Improvement... 2019

Post workout, 1/23/19. Mercer County Titans with Xenith rep, Ron Tanner, former National Champion at Ohio State

I hate fear. Fortunately, "fear" is not usually a big issue for me. But, as I get older, I do fear letting the game of football pass me up. I fear that my, or our, schemes, approaches, and fundamentals will become irrelevant or obsolete.

We are not even to the end of January. But three things I've done this month to address that issue have given me some peace of mind.

1- scout a very good offense for a long time friend who also happens to be an outstanding football coach.

2- meet with an outstanding college defensive coordinator (another outstanding person, coached against him when he played in HS, and his grandfather was a coaching legend in this state) and ask him to show me what he hates defending, what gives him the most problems.

3-writing an article for X & O Labs, including video clips and diagrams.

In all three scenarios, I was forced to think through why we do what we do and how well we execute. All three people involved were very bright, asked good questions, and presented good ideas that will make me better.

So, without going into all the details, what were my conclusions.... has the game passed me or us by?

I don't think so. In fact, some of our older ideas may provide a competitive advantage going forward. Our older schemes and the way we do things are becoming "different." I think that is a good thing.

But, the reality check that I most definitely needed and in some ways made me feel like a young coach again..... there is so much I DON'T know. There are other ways to get the job done.  People think differently and approach problem solving in different ways. For example, saying "one safety high" to me, and everything that goes with it, can mean something very different to another coach. As long as I realize that I must continue to learn and adapt, hopefully I can do a good job for our kids and program.

Some times fear can lead to positive results. This has been one of those times.

Perfection Workouts... a different approach, building our program

We had our first Perfection Workout for 2019 and the way we have adjusted our approach should be productive and make us a better team.

Instead of trying to work on "everything" and working from the base, we worked backwards. Last week as a staff we met and basically asked these two questions:

1- what are problems we need to fix?
2- what will we need to be good at in 2019 to win championships?

To answer question #2, we obviously had to spend quite a bit of time watching video of our 2019 opponents. We try to get the bulk of that done before we go home for Christmas. It's a bunch of work, but it really helps us in planning what needs to be emphasized going forward.  Our base offense and defense stay the same, but depending on our personnel and our opponents, we use certain plays and schemes more than others.

The answers to the two questions above determined our work today on both sides of the ball. We will do the exact same workout for Perfection Workout #2 next Wednesday. My hope is that at some point, one of our assistants will approach me and say, "We have that down and we are bored. We are ready to move on to something else."

We are returning much of our team from last season and are entering year 5 of our program.  That experience showed today. Normally day 1 goes well for us in Perfection workouts, spring, summer workouts, etc. But, as practice becomes more complex in the following days, we begin to struggle. Today we started more complex, but our kids seemed to handle it better.

Also, our guys are understanding better our expectations in regards to effort, attitude and leadership. We are a work in progress. We are going in the right direction and getting a little better each day.  And, the adjustment we made to our workouts was definitely a positive that will help us become the best team we can be!