A Season Comes to a Close
Every high school football season is a culmination of so much: work, sweat, victories and defeats, adversity, relationships forged and memories made. The impact of your effort will last a lifetime!
As we head toward the holidays, high school football coaches all over the country have wrapped up their banquet, washed hundreds of jerseys and may be stowing equipment away for the winter. While I sometimes found this time of year bittersweet, it also provided a truly restful time that gave me a “break” from football and allowed me to rejuvenate and reflect on the season. I hope you enjoy the upcoming holiday season and as you do, realize the importance and impact of what you do!
This Season-Ending Playbook includes:
Thoughts from coaches whose teams had championship seasons
Reminder of the impact of what we do
Game Ball recognizing the success of our subscribers’ teams this Fall
I would also like to announce the 1st Mannion Coaches Roundtable and Clinic on Saturday, January 18th in Silverton at Gallon House Farms (7263 Gallon House Rd). My hope is that this will be an interactive clinic with informal give and take from a variety of speakers. While I will have a finalized schedule soon, speakers include: Mark Gribble (Sherwood HS), Randy Nyquist (Stayton HS), Ryan McCants (Roosevelt HS), Dan Lever (Silverton HS), Shane Hedrick (Cascade) and James Testa (Mountainside HS) with more speakers still being confirmed. The clinic will begin at 8:30 am and end around 4 pm…. the cost is $50 with lunch and a post clinic social included in the price…..payment can be made the morning of the clinic or via Venmo @johnmannion. With so many outstanding coaches in Oregon, I hope to provide a forum to share ideas, interact with each other, and hopefully leave with some new things to consider as the new year begins! Use the link below to register or email me at jmannionfootball@gmail.com with any questions….hope to see you on Jan. 18th!
Link to Sign Up For Roundtable and Clinic
As our distribution list and network continues to grow, I would like to thank the many of you that are paid subscribers and encourage those that are not to consider the $5/month subscription. There is a subscription bar located further down in the edition. I am truly enjoying trying to provide practical ideas for high school coaches on program philosophy as well as insight on football systems and strategy! Thanks to all that read each month, I am excited to continue to provide useful content as we head into 2025!
Reflections From Title Winning Coaches in 2024
I reached out to a handful of coaches to get their thoughts after a championship winning season. Their responses are wide-ranging and highlight that the road to winning a championship can all be a bit different. See their responses to the following question:
Are there a couple of things that helped make the outcome of your season as successful as it was?
NATHAN CHIN - North Medford HS: Medford, OR - Oregon 6A State Championship…. Nathan has been the head coach at North Medford since 2021. Prior to that he coached collegiately for nearly 20 years with 15 of them at Southern Oregon University.
NC: We had a couple of ups and downs as we went through….we started out the season with some tough non-conference games and after 5 weeks were 2-3. We sat the team down and were really transparent about getting the best out of them in our last 4 games. We were able to win the next few before a Week 9 loss to South Medford at which point we had to regroup again as we entered the playoffs. The proudest piece for me was how the kids responded. They took the playoffs as another opportunity to play football…. they just wanted to earn another opportunity to keep playing and they bought into that like no other. We played our best football those last 4 games. I don’t know if there was a secret sauce besides continuing to help them battle through the tough times. We often get stuck on the losses but if you can find ways for your kids to learn from them, find success out of them, they will win a lot more in life! The word that comes to mind with this group is gritty….they were not overly talented but they loved to play football!
LENNY VANDERMADE - St. Ignatius Prep: San Francisco, CA - WCAL & CCS Open Division Champions …..Lenny is a second year head coach at St. Ignatius after many years of playing and coaching at USC. His team had a remarkable run of come-from-behind victories and ended up 1 game short of the CA State championship game.
LV: For us it started in the offseason. We started the second semester on Friday, Jan 6th and we were in the weight room beginning Monday, Jan 9th. The buy-in from the seniors and the rest of the team was great from that point on. The biggest thing we preached was control what you can control and that begins with our off-season weight program. When you get in the weight room there is confidence that comes with it, you get your armor and as you get stronger it is something to fall back on. It doesn’t guarantee success but it puts you in a position to be successful. We also had a lot of come from behind wins this season. There is a book called “It Takes What it Takes” by Trevor Moawad that helped me. Trevor has advised many highly successful collegiate programs and a lot of what he writes is about being objective. We were down by a couple scores to Riordan at half and I told the players we get the ball to start the half and here is how we will score, we will stop them get the ball back and score again and then keep going from there…..that is what we did! I try to stay calm, paint the picture for them, and this team really responded to that. I tell them to stick around, keep playing and give ourselves a chance. Make it as objective as possible by giving them a plan. If you are fortunate to get that first comeback win, then there is a belief that there is no situation you can’t come back from!
TONY SMITH - St. Paul HS: St. Paul, OR - Oregon 2A State Champions 13-0 record…. Tony has been at St. Paul for nearly 20 years, winning a State Title in 2010.
TS: The unselfishness of this group was a big deal. We have an award for Best Teammate and 13 different guys on our 30 man roster got votes which is a huge reflection this group of kids. We work hard on the unselfishness of the players in our program by telling them “it is never about you but always about us and we”. Sometimes it happens with teams and sometimes it doesn’t but it really did with this group. We were lucky as well, staying healthy throughout the season which is an especially big deal at a small school. In the quarterfinal game we had some kids that were nervous because we had a bunch of underclassmen that had not played in big games. We made a lot of mistakes in that game that we had not been doing all season. The week of the semifinals and finals our message was “just do your job”. You don’t have to do something amazing, just “do your job”. If this is your read, just focus on that. We stressed that in every single huddle and every single drill each day to get it into their heads to just do your job each play. There is no magic to it but this was critical to us winning our last two games to earn the title.
ADAM GUENTHER - Wilsonville HS: Wilsonville, OR Oregon 5A State Champions … Adam has been coaching in the High School ranks for over 25 years and has been the Head Coach at Wilsonville since 2010. They have won the 5A title the past 2 seasons.
AG: I think the success of any season is having the kids buy in to what you are doing. Every year we talk to our team about what it takes to be successful which leads to goals. Coming back from the State Championship last year, I almost felt like they were taking success for granted. I had to remind them not to take this for granted because this does not happen often. We told them that if your goal is to win it again, what are you gonna do is different from everybody else to get you there. Goals are great but unless you have a vision on how to accomplish them, you won’t get there. You need the vision to help you as an individual and as a team. Our starting MLB this season did not start on the Freshmen team, did not start on the Frosh-Soph team, and did not play much on the varsity as a junior. He came to the 6 am workouts in January and told me that “I want to start this year”. When he said this to me, I thought “you have a lot of work to do”. He proceeded to be the only player to not miss a single 6 am workout from Jan - June, not miss a single thing all summer and he took the starting MLB job in August and had a great season. This is an example of the type of commitment that results in championships!
I would like to congratulate Nathan, Lenny, Tony, and Adam on great seasons and thank them for sharing their insight and reflections from their seasons. They provided a lot of wisdom and things to consider with future teams.
My First Coach
I was born and raised in San Rafael, CA which is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. As I began playing organized sports in the late 1970’s, my dad, Jim, was often the coach of my football, basketball, or baseball teams. Beginning in 1981, he began coaching Freshmen football and Frosh-Soph baseball at San Rafael High School, positions he would proudly hold for nearly 25 years. Needless to say, much of what I learned about sports, coaching, and life in general, I learned from my dad. Now at age 83, he recently moved from his home into an assisted living community. This past week, my brothers and I cleaned out his home of many years. During this process, I came across an article that he had clipped out and saved from Coach Magazine many years ago. As best I can tell, it was an edition from the late 1980’s but it was right at the top of the immense amount of coaching material he had saved over the years. The message resonated with him at that time and I believe it is important for you all to hear today, as another football season is now behind us. The author of the article is Mike Berg who at the time the article was published was in his 18th year as Head Coach at Grand Forks Central HS in North Dakota and a two-time winner of North Dakota Coach of the Year. I have printed the article in its entirety.
The Best Two Times of My Life
My high school coach was the man I always wanted to be
We nervously waited outside of the door to his office and watched as they came out one by one. Some grinning from ear to ear. Others in tears that they didn’t want us to see.
We waited fearfully for the invitation to enter that office and, possibly, be devastated by a word.
Would we make the varsity football team? The thought of being cut was unthinkable. High school, even life, would no longer have meaning.
He looked up from his desk as I came into his office, and gave me a big smile. “Well,” he said “we’re gonna keep you, big boy.”
That’s all a 140-pounder with a butch haircut needed to hear. After a sophomore season on the junior “B” team and a junior season on the “B” team, I was now a varsity football player for the Pasadena High School Bulldogs.
I would be there with the others on the sidelines, in the red and white uniform that so many others had worn. I knew I would never actually get into a game. But it didn’t matter. I was on the team…and until a Friday night last fall, nothing had ever matched that moment when I learned that I had made the Pasadena High School varsity team.
I have now been a high school football coach for 25 years. For a quarter of a century I have lived a dream, and I am as excited about my career today as I was as a rookie coach in a small Montana town in 1972.
Over the years, we have had some good teams, some average teams, and a few not-so-good teams. Honors have come our way, personal recognition and awards have been humbly received and much appreciated. But no award, no recognition could compare to that Friday night last fall…
With three minutes left in the season’s opening game, we have a 28-8 lead and are trying to run out the clock. Our offensive coordinator had come down from the press box with a note:
It reads: “Very impressive, Mike. Do you have time to say hello after the game? South end of the stands. Tom Hamilton.”
Time suddenly stands still. Tears fill my eyes. I never look into the stands during a game, but tonight I have to. I turn my head a little and look. No luck. Too many people to pick him out in the crowd.
But I know. My coach is here. Tom Hamilton, the man who had been everything I had ever wanted to be, who had been my hero. He is in the stands watching my team play.
Unbeknownst to me, he has traveled all the way from Southern CA to North Dakota to watch a team coached by someone who, as a player, had never been good enough to get in the game.
What has brought him here tonight? It’s simple: He is my coach and I am one of his players.
Whatever comes my way in the seasons ahead, I know that nothing will come close to those two very special occasions in my lifetime-once on that day in his office so many years ago and again on that Friday night last autumn.
Thank you, Coach Hamilton, for the two best times of my life.
Written by Mike Berg, published in Coach Magazine
While things have changed in the world of high school football since this article was written, I believe that at its core, what we do as coaches remains the same. The investment of time we take in forming true relationships with our players will always be there long after the season ends. As another season now fades into memory, thank you for all the work this season, it is truly worth it.
Game Ball
With the 2024 season just wrapping up, I wanted to highlight and acknowledge the success that so many of our subscribers have had this fall. It is an honor to have so many great coaches and programs as readers of the monthly Playbook and it was great to see so many of you have such successful seasons. Below are some of the accomplishments of our subscribers!
Oregon 6A - Open Division
Champion – West Linn HS with HC Jon Eagle
Runner-up - Lake Oswego HS with HC Steve Coury
Quarterfinalist - Sherwood HS with HC Mark Gribble
Playoff Berth – Tualatin HS with HC Dom Ferraro
Oregon 6A – State Champion
Champion – North Medford HS with HC Nathan Chin
Semifinalist - Jesuit HS with HC Ken Potter
Newberg HS with HC Jeremy Johnson
Playoff Berth - Sunset HS with HC Damien Merrick
Lincoln HS with HC Cody Schnaufer
Roosevelt HS with HC Ryan McCants
Oregon 5A
Champion – Wilsonville HS with HC Adam Guenther
Runner-up – Mountain View HS with HC Brian Crum
Semifinalists – Silverton HS with HC Dan Lever and assistants Mike Fessler, Eric Anderson, Matt Craig, Don Von Weller and Pat Scott
Quarterfinalists - Summit HS with HC Corban Hyatt
Dallas HS with HC Andy Jackson
Lebanon HS with HC Troy Walker
Playoff Berth - LaSalle HS with HC Dustin Janz
Hood River HS with HC Caleb Sperry
Oregon 4A
Semi-finalists - Scappoose HS with HC Sean McNabb & HC Joe Nowlin
Cascade HS with HC Shane Hedrick
Quarterfinalist - Stayton HS with HC Randy Nyquist
Playoff Berth - Estacada HS with HC Andy Mott
La Grande HS with HC Dalton Sheets
Oregon 2A
Champion - St. Paul HS with HC Tony Smith
Semifinalist - Heppner HS with HC Greg Grant
Oregon 1A ( 8 man )
Quarterfinalist - Dufur HS with HC Jack Henderson
WCAL and CCS (California)
Open Division Champions - St. Ignatius Prep HS (San Francisco, CA) with HC Lenny Vandermade
